Fairy Tales & Fantasy: George MacDonald Collection (With Complete Original Illustrations). George MacDonald
But Little Boy Blue was not content,
Calling for followers still as he went,
Blowing his horn, and beating his drum,
And crying aloud, "Come all of you, come!"
He said to the shadows, "Come after me;"
And the shadows began to flicker and flee,
And they flew through the wood all flattering and fluttering,
Over the dead leaves flickering and muttering.
And he said to the wind, "Come, follow; come, follow,
With whistle and pipe, and rustle and hollo."
And the wind wound round at his desire,
As if he had been the gold cock on the spire.
And the cock itself flew down from the church,
And left the farmers all in the lurch.
They run and they fly, they creep and they come,
Everything, everything, all and some.
The very trees they tugged at their roots,
Only their feet were too fast in their boots,
After him leaning and straining and bending,
As on through their boles he kept walking and wending,
Till out of the wood he burst on a lea,
Shouting and calling, "Come after me!"
And then they rose up with a leafy hiss,
And stood as if nothing had been amiss.
Little Boy Blue sat down on a stone,
And the creatures came round him every one.
And he said to the clouds, "I want you there."
And down they sank through the thin blue air.
And he said to the sunset far in the West,
"Come here; I want you; I know best."
And the sunset came and stood up on the wold,
And burned and glowed in purple and gold.
Then Little Boy Blue began to ponder:
"What's to be done with them all, I wonder."
Then Little Boy Blue, he said, quite low,
"What to do with you all I am sure I don't know."
Then the clouds clodded down till dismal it grew;
The snake sneaked close; round Birdie Brown flew;
The brook sat up like a snake on its tail;
And the wind came up with a what-will-you wail;
And all the creatures sat and stared;
The mole opened his very eyes and glared;
And for rats and bats and the world and his wife,
Little Boy Blue was afraid of his life.
Then Birdie Brown began to sing,
And what he sang was the very thing:
"You have brought us all hither, Little Boy Blue,
Pray what do you want us all to do?"
"Go away! go away!" said Little Boy Blue;
"I'm sure I don't want you—get away—do."
"No, no; no, no; no, yes, and no, no,"
Sang Birdie Brown, "it mustn't be so.
"We cannot for nothing come here, and away.
Give us some work, or else we stay."
"Oh dear! and oh dear!" with sob and with sigh,
Said Little Boy Blue, and began to cry.
But before he got far, he thought of a thing;
And up he stood, and spoke like a king.
"Why do you hustle and jostle and bother?
Off with you all! Take me back to my mother."
The sunset stood at the gates of the west.
"Follow me, follow me" came from Birdie Brown's breast.
"I am going that way as fast as I can,"
Said the brook, as it sank and turned and ran.
Back to the woods fled the shadows like ghosts:
"If we stay, we shall all be missed from our posts."
Said the wind with a voice that had changed its cheer,
"I was just going there, when you brought me here."
"That's where I live," said the sack-backed squirrel,
And he turned his sack with a swing and a swirl.
Said the cock of the spire, "His father's churchwarden."
Said the brook running faster, "I run through his garden."
Said the mole, "Two hundred worms—there I caught 'em
Last year, and I'm going again next autumn."
Said they all, "If that's where you want us to steer for,
What in earth or in water did you bring us here for?"
"Never you mind," said Little Boy Blue;
"That's what I tell you. If that you won't do,
"I'll get up at once, and go home without you.
I think I will; I begin to doubt you."
He rose; and up rose the snake on its tail,
And hissed three times, half a hiss, half a wail.
Little Boy Blue he tried to go past him;
But wherever he turned, sat the snake and faced him.
"If you don't get out of my way," he said,
"I tell you, snake, I will break your head."
The snake he neither would go nor come;
So he hit him hard with the stick of his drum.
The snake fell down as if he were dead,
And Little Boy Blue set his foot on his head.
And all the creatures they marched before him,
And marshalled him home with a high cockolorum.
And Birdie Brown sang Twirrrr twitter twirrrr twee—
Apples and cherries, roses and honey;
Little Boy Blue has listened to me—
All so jolly and funny.
CHAPTER XXI.
SAL'S NANNY
DIAMOND managed with many blunders to read this rhyme to his mother.
"Isn't it nice, mother?" he said.
"Yes, it's pretty," she answered.
"I think it means something," returned Diamond.
"I'm sure I don't know what," she said.
"I wonder if it's the same boy—yes, it must be the same—Little Boy