Читать книгу Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened - John Aikin - Страница 20

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One bleak day in March, Sylvia, returning from a visit to the sheepfold, met with a young kidling deserted by its dam on the naked heath. It was bleating piteously, and was so benumbed with the cold that it could scarcely stand. Sylvia took it up in her arms, and pressed it close to her bosom. She hastened home, and showing her little foundling to her parents, begged she might rear it for her own. They consented; and Sylvia immediately got a basketful of clean straw, and made a bed for him on the hearth. She warmed some milk, and held it to him in a platter The poor creature drank it up eagerly, and then licked her hand for more. Sylvia was delighted. She chafed his tender legs with her warm hands, and soon saw him jump out of his basket and frisk across the room. When full, he lay down again, and took a comfortable nap.

The next day, the kid had a name bestowed upon him. As he gave tokens of being an excellent jumper, it was Capriole. He was introduced to all the rest of the family, and the younger children were allowed to stroke and pat him; but Sylvia would let nobody be intimate with him out herself. The great mastiff was charged not to hurt him, and indeed, he had no intention to do it.

Within a few days, Capriole followed Sylvia all about the house; trotted by her side into the yard; ran races with her in the home-field; fed out of her hand; and was declared pet and favourite. As the spring advanced, Sylvia roamed in the fields, and gathered wild flowers, with which she wove garlands, and hung them round the kid’s neck. He could not be kept, however, from munching his finery when he could reach it with his mouth. He was likewise rather troublesome in thrusting his nose into the meal-tub and flour-box, and following people into the dairy, and sipping the milk that was set for cream. He now and then got a blow for his intrusion; but his mistress always took his part, and indulged him in every liberty.

Capriole’s horns now began to bud, and a little white beard sprouted at the end of his chin. He grew bold enough to put himself into a fighting posture whenever he was offended. He butted down little Colin into the dirt; quarrelled with the geese for their allowance of corn; and held many a stout battle with the old turkey-cock. Everybody said, “Capriole is growing too saucy; he must be sent away, or taught better manners.” But Sylvia still stood his friend, and he repaid her love with many tender caresses.

The farmhouse where Sylvia lived was situated in a sweet valley, by the side of a clear stream bordered with trees. Above the house rose a sloping meadow, and beyond that, was an open common covered with purple heath and yellow furze. Farther on, at some distance, rose a steep hill, the summit of which was a bare craggy rock, scarcely accessible to human feet. Capriole, ranging at his pleasure, often got upon the common, and was pleased with browsing the short grass and wild herbs which grew there. Still, however, when his mistress came to see him, he would run bounding at her call and accompany her back to the farm.

One fine summer’s day, Sylvia, after having finished the business of the morning, wanted to play with her kid; and missing him, she went to the side of the common, and called aloud, “Capriole! Capriole!” expecting to see him come running to her as usual. No Capriole came. She went on and on, still calling her kid with the most endearing accents; but nothing was to be seen of him. Her heart began to flutter. “What can be come of him? Surely somebody must have stolen him; or perhaps the neighbours’ dogs have worried him. Oh, my poor Capriole! my dear Capriole! I shall never see you again!” and Sylvia began to weep.

She still went on, looking wistfully all around, and making the place echo with “Capriole! Capriole! where are you, my Capriole?” till, at length, she came to the foot of the steep hill. She climbed up its sides to get a better view. No kid was to be seen. She sat down and wept and wrung her hands. After a while she fancied she heard a bleating like the well-known voice of her Capriole. She started up, and looked toward the sound, which seemed a great way overhead. At length, she spied, just on the edge of a steep crag, her Capriole peeping over. She stretched out her hands to him, and began to call, but with a timid voice, lest in his impatience to return to her, he should leap down and break his neck. But there was no such danger. Capriole was inhaling the fresh breeze of the mountains, and enjoying with rapture the scenes for which nature designed him. His bleating was the expression of joy, and he bestowed not a thought on his kind mistress, nor paid the least attention to her call. Sylvia ascended as high as she could toward him, and called louder and louder, but all in vain. Capriole leaped from rock to rock, cropped the fine herbage in the clefts, and was quite lost in the pleasure of his new existence.

Poor Sylvia stayed till she was tired, and then returned disconsolate to the farm, to relate her misfortune. She got her brothers to accompany her back to the hill, and took with her a slice of white bread and some milk to tempt the little wanderer home. But he had mounted still higher, and had joined a herd of companions of the same species, with whom he was frisking and sporting. He had neither eyes nor ears for his old friends of the valley. All former habits were broken at once, and he had commenced free commoner of nature. Sylvia came back crying, as much from vexation as sorrow. “The little ungrateful thing,” said she; “so well as I loved him, and so kindly as I treated him, to desert me in this way at last!—But he was always a rover.”

“Take care, then, Sylvia,” said her mother, “how you set your heart upon rovers again!”