Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened. John Aikin
their throats, and seeming every moment ready to fly upon them. Francis every now and then stopped and shook his stick at them, or stooped down to pick up a stone, upon which the curs retreated as fast as they came; but as soon as he turned about, they were after his heels again. This lasted till they came to a farmyard, through which their road lay. A large mastiff was lying down in it at his ease in the sun. Francis was almost afraid to pass him, and kept as close to his tutor as possible. However, the dog took not the least notice of them.
Presently, they came upon a common, where, going near a flock of geese, they were assailed with hissings, and pursued some way by these foolish birds, which, stretching out their long necks, made a very ridiculous figure. Francis only laughed at them, though he was tempted to give the foremost a switch across his neck. A little further was a herd of cows with a bull among them, upon which Francis looked with some degree of apprehension; but they kept quietly grazing, and did not take their heads from the ground as he passed.
“It is a lucky thing,” said Francis to his tutor, “that mastiffs and bulls are not so quarrelsome as curs and geese; but what can be the reason of it?”
“The reason,” replied the tutor, “is, that paltry and contemptible animals, possessing no confidence in their own strength and courage, and knowing themselves liable to injury from most of those that come in their way, think it safer to take the part of bullies, and to make a show of attacking those of whom in reality they are afraid: whereas, animals which are conscious of force sufficient for their own protection, suspecting no evil designs from others, entertain none themselves, but maintain dignified composure.
“Thus you will find it among mankind. Weak, mean, petty characters are suspicious, snarling, and petulant. They raise an outcry against their superiors in talents and reputation, of whom they stand in awe, and put on airs of defiance and insolence through mere cowardice. But the truly great are calm and inoffensive. They fear no injury, and offer none. They even suffer slight attacks to go unnoticed, conscious of their power to right themselves whenever the occasion shall seem to require it.”
THE TRAVELLED ANT.
There was a garden enclosed with high brick walls, and laid out somewhat in the old fashion. Under the walls were wide beds planted with flowers, garden-stuff, and fruit-trees. Next to them was a broad gravel-walk running round the garden; and the middle was laid out in grass-plots, and beds of flowers and shrubs with a fish-pond in the centre.
Near the root of one of the wall fruit-trees, a numerous colony of ants was established, which had extended its subterraneous works over great part of the bed in its neighbourhood. One day, two of the inhabitants, meeting in a gallery under ground, fell into the following conversation:—
“Ha! my friend,” said the first, “is it you? I am glad to see you. Where have you been this long time? All your acquaintance have been in pain about you, lest some accident should have befallen you.”
“Why,” replied the other, “I am, indeed, a sort of stranger, for you must know I am but just returned from a long journey.”
“A journey! whither, pray, and on what account?”
“A tour of mere curiosity. I had long felt dissatisfied with knowing so little about this world of ours; so, at length, I took a resolution to explore it. And I may now boast that I have gone round its utmost extremities, and that no considerable part of it has escaped my researches.”
“Wonderful! What a traveller you have been, and what sights you must have seen!”
“Why, yes—I have seen more than most ants, to be sure; but it has been at the expense of so much toil and danger, that I know not whether it was worth the pains.”
“Would you oblige me with some account of your adventures?”
“Willingly: I set out, then, early one sunshiny morning; and, after crossing our territory and the line of plantation by which it is bordered; I came upon a wide open plain, where, as far as the eye could reach, not a single green thing was to be descried, but the hard soil was everywhere covered with huge stones, which made travelling equally painful to the eye and the feet. As I was toiling onward, I heard a rumbling noise behind me, which became louder and louder. I looked back, and with the utmost horror beheld a prodigious rolling mountain approaching me so fast that it was impossible to get out of the way. I threw myself flat on the ground behind a stone, and lay expecting nothing but present death. The mountain soon passed over me, and I continued (I know not how long) in a state of insensibility. When I recovered, I began to stretch my limbs one by one, and, to my surprise, found myself not in the least injured! but the stone beside me was almost buried in the earth by the crash!”
“What an escape!”
“A wonderful one, indeed. I journeyed on over the desert, and at length came to the end of it, and entered upon a wide green tract consisting chiefly of tall, narrow, pointed leaves, which grew so thick and entangled, that it was with the greatest difficulty I could make my way between them; and I should continually have lost my road, had I not taken care to keep the sun in view before me. When I had got near the middle of this region, I was startled with the sight of a huge four-legged monster, with a yellow speckled skin, which took a flying leap directly over me. Somewhat farther, before I was aware, I ran upon one of those long, round, crawling creatures, without head, tail, or legs, which we sometimes meet with under ground, near our settlement. As soon as he felt me upon him, he drew back into his hole so swiftly, that he was near drawing me in along with him. However, I jumped off, and proceeded on my way.
“With much labour I got, at last, to the end of this perplexed tract, and came to an open space like that in which we live, in the midst of which grew trees so tall that I could not see to their tops. Being hungry, I climbed the first I came to, in expectation of finding some fruit; but after a weary search I returned empty. I tried several others with no better success. There were, indeed, leaves and flowers in plenty, but nothing of which I could make a meal; so that I might have been famished, had I not found some sour harsh berries upon the ground, on which I made a poor repast. While I was doing this, a greater danger than any of the former befell me. One of those two-legged feathered creatures, which we often see to our cost, jumped down from a bough, and picked up in his enormous beak the very berry on which I was standing. Luckily, he did not swallow it immediately, but flew up again with it to the tree; and, in the meantime, I disengaged myself, and fell from a vast height to the ground, but received no hurt.
“I crossed this plantation, and came to another entangled green like the first. After I had laboured through it, I came on a sudden to the side of a vast glittering plain, the nature of which I could not possibly guess at. I walked along a fallen leaf which lay on the side, and coming to the farther edge of it, I was greatly surprised to see another ant coming from below to meet me. I advanced to give him a fraternal embrace; but instead of what I expected, I met a cold yielding matter, in which I should have sunk, had I not speedily turned about, and caught hold of the leaf, by which I drew myself up again. And now I found this great plain to consist of that fluid which sometimes falls from the sky, and causes so much trouble by filling our holes.
“As I stood considering how to proceed on my journey, a gentle breeze arose, which, before I was aware, carried the leaf I was upon away from the solid land into this yielding fluid, which, however, bore it up and me along with it. At first, I was greatly alarmed, and ran round and round my leaf in order to find some way of getting back; but perceiving this to be impracticable, I resigned myself to my fate, and even began to take some pleasure in the easy motion by which I was borne forward. But what new and wonderful forms of living creatures did I see inhabiting this liquid land! Bodies of prodigious bulk, covered with shining scales of various colours, shot by me with vast rapidity, and sported a thousand ways. They had large heads and staring eyes, tremendous wide mouths, but no legs; and they seemed to be carried on by the action of something like small wings planted on various parts of the body, and especially at the end of the tail, which continually waved about. Other smaller creatures, of a great variety of extraordinary forms, were moving through