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Updated: May 14, 2025
As he was sitting one evening at the door of his house, bending about his lithe arms in the way he was wont, two itinerant Sticklebacks chanced to pass that way. They paused, and, not seeing the necessity for organs of which they had never known the use, they at once decided on their removal. In vain did the poor Hedgehog oppose them.
A school of sticklebacks came and swam right through the box, and when they trailed their spikes over the strings, the strings sounded again; but they played in a new way, for now they were tuned to another pitch. On a rosy summer evening soon afterwards two children, a boy and a girl, were sitting on the landing-bridge.
He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the old woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far away in the yard, searching for any eggs which the hen might have scandalously hidden for culinary purposes; and Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and minnows which were, when caught, to assist the eggs, when found, in keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and his master.
In it are shoals of dace, and minnow, and gudgeon, and sticklebacks, and plenty of small pike basking in the sun. The largest and bluest forget-me-nots, and water-mints, and big water-docks and burdocks flourish in the water, and the hedge beyond is full of sweet elder in flower, and covered with wild hops.
Dan had fallen out of his perambulator when quite a tiny baby, and had twisted his back in some way, so that he would never be tall and strong like Stephen and Philip, or sturdy and straight like Tom; but he was a very happy little boy all the same, after a strange, quiet fashion of his own, and he liked best of all to be alone with Norah in the woods or by the river, when they would make up all sorts of fancies about queer little elves and fairies who, they said, lived in the trees or bushes, and in the sticklebacks' nests in the river.
Besides which, there were rats there, and stray sticklebacks: and the nicest, smoothest, and roundest pebbles for throwing to be got anywhere; besides, boots and feet soon get dry again in the summer-time; and, after all, a good bit of fun is worth all the wet boots in the world at least, boys of twelve and thirteen think so.
He raised the stones and looked for tadpoles and sticklebacks, but could find none; not a fish was visible in the water, and consequently there was not a sign of a sea-gull or a tern. Then he felt that a curse rested on the mountain, a curse so strong that it kept even the fishes and the birds away. He fell to considering the life he was leading.
"Poor Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good; and the squire's beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and minnows. It will lengthen your life." "The padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if any one could starve in his service." "Um," said Riccabocca.
But what with ducks, and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are "sae sair hadden doun," as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow.
When she was occupied with the cares of a family, and spent her days and nights in deftly fashioning starwort cradles for her eggs, it was irritating that he, whose duty it was to frighten the marauding sticklebacks, should have preferred to rush away into the giddy vortex of newt society.
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