Part 2

After what had happened Martin could never visit the waterside and look at the great birds wading and swimming there without a feeling that was like a sudden coldness in the blood of his veins. The rosy spoonbill he had killed and cried over and the great bird-cloud that had frightened him were never forgotten. He grew tired of shouting to the echoes: he discovered that there were even more wonderful things than the marsh echoes in the world, and that the world was bigger than he had thought it. When spring with its moist verdure and frail, sweet-smelling flowers had gone; when the great plain began to turn to a rusty-brown colour, and the dry hard earth was full of cracks, and the days grew longer and the heat greater, there came an appearance of water that quivered and glittered and danced before his wondering sight, and would lead him miles from home every day in his vain efforts to find out what it was. He could talk of nothing else, and asked endless questions about it, and they told him that this strange thing was nothing but the Mirage, but of course that was not telling him enough, so that he was left to puzzle his little boy-brains over this new mystery, just as they had puzzled before over the mystery of the echoes. Now this Mirage was a glittering whiteness that looked just like water, always shining and dancing before him and all round him, on the dry level plain where there was no water. It was never quiet, but perpetually quivering and running into wavelets that threw up crests and jets of sprays as from a fountain, and showers of brilliant drops that flashed like molten silver in the sunlight before they broke and vanished, only to be renewed again. It appeared every day when the sun was high and the air hot, and it was often called _The False Water_. And false it was, since it always flew before him as he ran, so that although he often seemed to be getting nearer to it he could never quite overtake it. But Martin had a very determined spirit for a small boy, and although this appearance of water mocked his efforts a hundred times every day with its vanishing brightness and beauty, he would not give up the pursuit.

Now one day when there was not a cloud on the great hot whitey-blue sky, nor a breath of air stirring, when it was all silent, for not even a grass-hopper creaked in the dead, yellow, motionless grass, the whole level earth began to shine and sparkle like a lake of silvery water, as Martin had never seen it shine before. He had wandered far away from home--never had he been so far--and still he ran and ran and ran, and still that whiteness quivered and glittered and flew on before him; and ever it looked more temptingly near, urging him to fresh exertions. At length, tired out and overcome with heat, he sat down to rest, and feeling very much hurt at the way he had been deceived and led on, he shed one little tear. There was no mistake about that tear; he felt it running like a small spider down his cheek, and finally he saw it fall. It fell on to a blade of yellow grass and ran down the blade, then stopped so as to gather itself into a little round drop before touching the ground. Just then, out of the roots of the grass beneath it, crept a tiny dusty black beetle and began drinking the drop, waving its little horns up and down like donkey's ears, apparently very much pleased at its good fortune in finding water and having a good drink in such a dry, thirsty place. Probably it took the tear for a drop of rain just fallen out of the sky.

"You _are_ a funny little thing!" exclaimed Martin, feeling now less like crying than laughing.

The wee beetle, satisfied and refreshed, climbed up the grass-blade, and when it reached the tip lifted its dusty black wing-cases just enough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatly folded up beneath them, and flew away.

Martin, following its flight, had his eyes quite dazzled by the intense glitter of the False Water, which now seemed to be only a few yards from him: but the strangest thing was that in it there appeared a form--a bright beautiful form that vanished when he gazed steadily at it. Again he got up and began running harder than ever after the flying mocking Mirage, and every time he stopped he fancied that he could see the figure again, sometimes like a pale blue shadow on the brightness; sometimes shining with its own excessive light, and sometimes only seen in outline, like a figure graved on glass, and always vanishing when looked at steadily. Perhaps that white water-like glitter of the Mirage was like a looking-glass, and he was only chasing his own reflection. I cannot say, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautiful boy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in a fluttering dress of lights and shadows. It also seemed to beckon to him with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with its bright merry glances.

At length when it was past the hour of noon, Martin sat down under a small bush that gave just shade enough to cover him and none to spare. It was only a little spot of shade like an island in a sea of heat and brightness. He was too hot and tired to run more, too tired even to keep his eyes open, and so, propping his back against the stem of the small bush, he closed his tired hot eyes.

_Chapter Four_

_Martin is Found by a Deaf Old Man_

Martin kept his eyes shut for only about a minute, as he thought; but he must have been asleep some time, for when he opened them the False Water had vanished, and the sun, looking very large and crimson, was just about to set. He started up, feeling very thirsty and hungry and bewildered; for he was far, far from home, and lost on the great plain. Presently he spied a man coming towards him on horseback. A very funny-looking old man he proved to be, with a face wrinkled and tanned by sun and wind, until it resembled a piece of ancient shoe-leather left lying for years on some neglected spot of ground. A Brazil nut is not darker nor more wrinkled than was the old man's face. His long matted beard and hair had once been white, but the sun out of doors and the smoke in his smoky hut had given them a yellowish tinge, so that they looked like dry dead grass. He wore big jack-boots, patched all over, and full of cracks and holes; and a great pea-jacket, rusty and ragged, fastened with horn buttons big as saucers. His old brimless hat looked like a dilapidated tea-cosy on his head, and to prevent it from being carried off by the wind it was kept on with an old flannel shirt-sleeve tied under his chin. His saddle, too, like his clothes, was old and full of rents, with wisps of hair and straw-stuffing sticking out in various places, and his feet were thrust into a pair of big stirrups made of pieces of wood and rusty iron tied together with string and wire.

"Boy, what may you being a doing of here?" bawled this old man at the top of his voice: for he was as deaf as a post, and like a good many deaf people thought it necessary to speak very loud to make himself heard.

"Playing," answered Martin innocently. But he could not make the old man hear until he stood up on tip-toe and shouted out his answer as loud as he could.

"Playing," exclaimed the old man. "Well, I never in all my life! When there ain't a house 'cepting my own for leagues and leagues, and he says he's playing! What may you be now?" he shouted again.

"A little boy," screamed Martin.

"I knowed that afore I axed," said the other. Then he slapped his legs and held up his hand with astonishment, and at last began to chuckle. "Will you come home along o' me?" he shouted.

"Will you give me something to eat?" asked Martin in return.

"Haw, haw, haw," guffawed the old fellow. It was a tremendous laugh, so loud and hollow, it astonished and almost frightened Martin to hear it. "Well I never!" he said. "He ain't no fool, neither. Now, old Jacob, just you take your time and think a bit afore you makes your answer to that."

This curious old man, whose name was Jacob, had lived so long by himself that he always thought out loud--louder than other people talk: for, being deaf, he could not hear himself, and never had a suspicion that he could be heard by others.

"He's lost, that's what he is," continued old Jacob aloud to himself. "And what's more, he's been and gone and forgot all about his own home, and all he wants is summat to eat. I'll take him and keep him, that's what I'll do: for he's a stray lamb, and belongs to him that finds him, like any other lamb I finds. I'll make him believe I'm his old dad; for he's little and will believe most anything you tells him. I'll learn him to do things about the house--to boil the kettle, and cook the wittels, and gather the firewood, and mend the clothes, and do the washing, and draw the water, and milk the cow, and dig the potatoes, and mind the sheep and--and--and that's what I'll learn him. Then, Jacob, you can sit down and smoke your pipe, 'cos you'll have some one to do your work for you."

Martin stood quietly listening to all this, not quite understanding the old man's kind intentions. Then old Jacob, promising to give him something to eat, pulled him up on to his horse, and started home at a gallop.

Soon they arrived at a mud hovel, thatched with rushes, the roof sloping down so low that one could almost step on to it; it was surrounded with a ditch, and had a potato patch and a sheep enclosure; for old Jacob was a shepherd, and had a flock of sheep. There were several big dogs, and when Martin got down from the horse, they began jumping round him, barking with delight, as if they knew him, half-smothering him with their rough caresses. Jacob led him into the hut, which looked extremely dirty and neglected, and had only one room. In the corners against walls were piles of sheep-skins that had a strong and rather unpleasant smell: the thatch above was covered with dusty cobwebs, hanging like old rags, and the clay floor was littered with bones, sticks, and other rubbish. The only nice thing to see was a tea-kettle singing and steaming away merrily on the fire in the grate. Old Jacob set about preparing the evening meal; and soon they sat down at a small deal table to a supper of cold mutton and potatoes, and tea which did not taste very nice, as it was sweetened with moist black sugar. Martin was too hungry to turn up his nose at anything, and while he ate and drank the old man chuckled and talked aloud to himself about his good fortune in finding the little boy to do his work for him. After supper he cleared the table, and put two mugs of tea on it, and then got out his clay pipe and tobacco.

"Now, little boy," he cried, "let's have a jolly evening together. Your very good health, little boy," and here he jingled his mug against Martin's, and took a sip of tea.

"Would you like to hear a song, little boy?" he said, after finishing his pipe.

"No," said Martin, who was getting sleepy; but Jacob took no to mean yes, and so he stood up on his legs and sang this song:--

"My name is Jacob, that's my name; And tho' I'm old, the old man's game-- The air it is so good, d'ye see: And on the plain my flock I keep, And sing all day to please my sheep, And never lose them like Bo-Peep, Becos the ways of them are known to me.

"When winter comes and winds do blow, Unto my sheep so good I go-- I'm always good to them, d'ye see-- Ho, sheep, say I, both ram, both ewe, I've sung you songs all summer through, Now lend to me a skin or two, To keep the cold and wet from out o' me."

This song, accompanied with loud raps on the table, was bellowed forth in a dreadfully discordant voice; and very soon all the dogs rushed into the room and began to bark and howl most dismally, which seemed to please the old man greatly, for to him it was a kind of applause. But the noise was too much for Martin; so he stopped up his ears, and only removed his fingers from them when the performance was over. After the song the old man offered to dance, for he had not yet had amusement enough.

"Boy, can you play on this?" he shouted, holding up a frying-pan and a big stick to beat it with.

Of course Martin could play on _that_ instrument: he had often enough played on one like it to startle the echoes on the lake, in other days. And so, when he had been lifted on to the table, he took the frying-pan by the handle, and began vigorously beating on it with the stick. He did not mind the noise now since he was helping to make it. Meanwhile old Jacob began flinging his arms and legs about in all directions, looking like a scarecrow made to tumble about by means of springs and wires. He pounded the clay floor with his ponderous old boots until the room was filled with a cloud of dust; then in his excitement he kicked over chairs, pots, kettle, and whatever came in his way, while he kept on revolving round the table in a kind of crazy fandango. Martin thought it fine fun, and screamed with laughter, and beat his gong louder than ever; then to make matters worse old Jacob at intervals uttered whoops and yells, which the dogs answered with long howls from the door, until the din was something tremendous.

At length they both grew tired, and then after resting and sipping some more cold tea, prepared to go to bed. Some sheep-skins were piled up in a corner for Martin to sleep on, and old Jacob covered him with a horse-rug, and tucked him in very carefully. Then the kind old man withdrew to his own bed on the opposite side of the room.

About midnight Martin was wakened by loud horrible noises in the room, and started up on bed trembling with fear. The sounds came from the old man's nose, and resembled a succession of blasts on a ram's horn, which, on account of its roughness and twisted shape, makes a very bad trumpet. As soon as Martin discovered the cause of the noise he crept out of bed and tried to waken the old snorer by shouting to him, tugging at his arms and legs, and finally pulling his beard. He refused to wake. Then Martin had a bright idea, and groping his way to the bucket of cold water standing beside the fire-place, he managed to raise it up in his arms, and poured it over the sleeper.

The snoring changed to cries of loud choking snorts, then ceased. Martin, well pleased at the success of his experiment, was about to return to his bed when old Jacob struggled up to a sitting posture.

"Hullo, wake up, little boy!" he shouted. "My bed's all full o' water--goodness knows where it comes from."

"I poured it over you to wake you up. Don't you know you were making a noise with your nose?" cried Martin at the top of his voice.

"You--you--you throwed it over me! You--O you most wicked little villain you! You throwed it over me did you!" and here he poured out such a torrent of abusive words that Martin was horrified and cried out, "O what a naughty, wicked, bad old man you are!"

It was too dark for old Jacob to see him, but he knew his way about the room, and taking up the wet rug that served him for covering he groped his way to Martin's bed and began pounding it with the rug, thinking the naughty little boy was there.

"You little rascal you--I hope you like that!--and that!--and that!" he shouted, pounding away. "I'll learn you to throw water over your poor old dad! And such a--a affectionate father as I've been too, giving him sich nice wittles--and--and singing and dancing to him to teach him music. Perhaps you'd like a little more, you takes it so quietly? Well, then, take that!--and that!--and that! Why, how's this--the young warmint ain't here arter all! Well, I'm blowed if that don't beat everythink! What did he go and chuck that water over me for? What a walloping I'll give him in the morning when it's light! and now, boy, you may go and sleep on my bed, 'cos it's wet, d'ye see; and I'll sleep on yourn, 'cos it's dry."

Then he got into Martin's bed, and muttered and grumbled himself to sleep. Martin came out from under the table, and after dressing himself with great secrecy crept to the door to make his escape. It was locked and the key taken away. But he was determined to make his escape somehow, and not wait to be whipped; so, by and by, he drew the little deal table close against the wall, and getting on to it began picking the rushes one by one out of the lower part of the thatch. After working for half-an-hour, like a mouse eating his way out of a soft wooden box, he began to see the light coming through the hole, and in another half hour it was large enough for him to creep through. When he had got out, he slipped down to the ground, where the dogs were lying. They seemed very glad to see him, and began pressing round to lick his face; but he pushed them off, and ran away over the plain as fast as he could. The stars were shining, but it was very dark and silent; only in moist places, where the grass grew tall, he heard the crickets strumming sadly on their little harps.

At length, tired with running, he coiled himself in a large tussock of dry grass and went to sleep, just as if he had been accustomed to sleep out of doors all his life.

_Chapter Five_

_The People of the Mirage_

In that remote land where Martin was born, with its bright warm climate and rich soil, no person need go very long hungry--not even a small boy alone and lost on that great grassy plain. For there is a little useful plant in that place, with small leaves like clover leaves and a pretty yellow flower, which bears a wholesome sweet root, about as big as a pigeon's egg and of a pearly white colour. It is so well known to the settlers' children in that desert country that they are always wandering off to the plain to look for it, just as the children in a town are always running off with their halfpence to the sweet-stuff shop. This pretty white root is watery, so that it satisfies both hunger and thirst at the same time. Now when Martin woke next morning, he found a great many of the little three-leaved plants growing close to the spot where he had slept, and they supplied him with a nice sweet breakfast. After he had eaten enough and had amused himself by rolling over and over several times on the grass, he started once more on his travels, going towards the sunrise as fast as he could run. He could run well for a small boy, but he got tired at last and sat down to rest. Then he jumped up and went on again at a trot: this pace he kept up very steadily, only pausing from time to time to watch a flock of small white birds that followed him all the morning out of curiosity. At length he began to feel so hot and tired that he could only walk. Still he kept on; he could see no flowers nor anything pretty in that place--why should he stay in it? He would go on, and on, and on, in spite of the heat, until he came to something. But it grew hotter as the day advanced, and the ground about him more dry and barren and desolate, until at last he came to ground where there was scarcely a blade of grass: it was a great, barren, level plain, covered with a slight crust of salt crystals that glittered in the sun so brightly that it dazzled and pained his eyesight. Here were no sweet watery roots for refreshment, and no berries; nor could Martin find a bush to give him a little shade and protection from the burning noonday sun. He saw one large dark object in the distance, and mistaking it for a bush covered with thick foliage he ran towards it; but suddenly it started up, when he was near, and waving its great grey and white wings like sails, fled across the plain. It was an ostrich!

Now this hot, shadeless plain seemed to be the very home and dwelling-place of the False Water. It sparkled and danced all round him so close that there only appeared to be a small space of dry ground for him to walk on; only he was always exactly in the centre of the dry spot; for as he advanced, the glittering whiteness, that looked so like shiny water, flew mockingly before his steps. But he hoped to get to it at last, as every time he flagged in the chase the mysterious figure of the day before appeared again to lure him still further on. At length, unable to move another step, Martin sat right down on the bare ground: it was like sitting on the floor of a heated oven, but there was no help for it, he was so tired. The air was so thick and heavy that he could hardly breathe, even with his mouth wide open like a little gasping bird; and the sky looked like metal, heated to a white heat, and so low down as to make him fancy that if he were to throw up his hands he would touch it and burn his fingers.

And the Mirage--oh, how it glistened and quivered here where he had sat down, half blinding him with its brightness! Now that he could no longer run after it, nor even walk, it came to him, breaking round and over him in a thousand fantastic shapes, filling the air with a million white flakes that whirled about as if driven by a furious wind, although not a breath was stirring. They looked like whitest snow-flakes, yet stung his cheeks like sparks of fire. Not only did he see and feel, he could even _hear_ it now: his ears were filled with a humming sound, growing louder and louder every minute, like the noise made by a large colony of bumble-bees when a person carelessly treads on their nest, and they are angered and thrown into a great commotion and swarm out to defend their home. Very soon out of this confused murmur louder, clearer sounds began to rise; and these could be distinguished as the notes of numberless musical instruments, and voices of people singing, talking, and laughing. Then, all at once, there appeared running and skipping over the ground towards him a great company of girls--scores and hundreds of them scattered over the plain, exceeding in loveliness all lovely things that he had ever beheld. Their faces were whiter than lilies, and their loose, fluttering hair looked like a mist of pale shining gold; and their skirts, that rustled as they ran, were also shining like the wings of dragon-flies, and were touched with brown reflections and changing, beautiful tints, such as are seen on soap-bubbles. Each of them carried a silver pitcher, and as they ran and skipped along they dipped their fingers in and sprinkled the desert with water. The bright drops they scattered fell all around in a grateful shower, and flew up again from the heated earth in the form of a white mist touched with rainbow colours, filling the air with a refreshing coolness.

At Martin's side there grew a small plant, its grey-green leaves lying wilted on the ground, and one of the girls paused to water it, and as she sprinkled the drops on it she sang:--

"Little weed, little weed, In such need, Must you pain, ask in vain, Die for rain, Never bloom, never seed, Little weed? O, no, no, you shall not die, From the sky With my pitcher down I fly. Drink the rain, grow again, Bloom and seed, Little weed."

Martin held up his hot little hands to catch some of the falling drops; then the girl, raising her pitcher, poured a stream of cool water right into his face, and laughing at what she had done, went away with a hop, skip, and jump after her companions.