Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429», страница 6

'Deeply affected, he inquired of the poor man the names of his creditors, the amount of their respective claims, and the peculiar circumstances which had led to the contraction of each liability. Having ascertained these particulars, and perfectly satisfied himself that the man had not forgotten the precept of the society of which he was a member—"Not to contract debt without at least a reasonable prospect of discharging it"—he asked him whether freedom from these liabilities would restore to him peace of mind. The question was answered by a sort of sickly smile, which seemed to indicate a perfect despair of such a consummation. "Well, come," said the master, "I don't think things are quite so bad, –, as they appear to be to you. See here, my poor fellow, you owe – pounds: it's a very large sum for a man like you, to be sure; and if you had run into debt to anything like this amount through extravagance, or even thoughtlessness, I should have regarded it as an act of dishonesty on your part, and I might have felt it right to discharge you. But you are to be pitied, and not to be blamed. Cold pity alone goes for nothing, so let us see how you can be helped out of your troubles. Now, do you think your creditors, considering all the circumstances, would take one-half, and be satisfied? Here's Dr Edwards—his bill is the heaviest; if we can get him to take one-half"–

"One-half, master!" exclaimed the poor man, "but if they would take half, where's the money to come from? I 'arn't got a shilling in the world but what's coming to me Friday night; and when I take my wages now, I 'arn't any pleasure in looking at the money, because it 'arn't my own; it should go to pay my debts, and I'm obliged to use it to buy victuals. I think in my heart I shall ne'er be happy again."

'Still more sensibly affected by the poor man's manner the longer the interview lasted, my kind-hearted relative begged him not to distress himself any more; he said that a Friend of his had given him a sum that was quite equal to one-half his debts, bade him return to his work, order a horse to be put into harness as he passed through the yard, and brought round in ten minutes; and told him to be sure to make himself as happy as he could till he saw him again. He immediately drove round to every creditor the poor man had, compounded with them for their respective claims, and obtained their receipts in full discharge. On his return, the poor man's stare of bewilderment was indescribable. He watched his master unfold the receipts one by one without uttering a syllable; and when they were put into his hand, he clutched them with a sort of convulsive grasp, but still not a word escaped him. At length he exclaimed: "But, master, where's the money come from?"

"Never do you mind that, –," was the reply; "go home, and tell your wife you are out of debt; you are an independent man. I only hope the creditors have felt something of the satisfaction in forgiving you one-half your debt to them, that we know God feels in forgiving our debts to him for Christ's sake: I have said that much to all of them."

'But the puzzling question had not yet been answered, and again it was put: "But, master, where's the money come from?"

"Well, well, I told you a friend had given it to me for you. You know that Friend as well as I do. There now, you may leave your work for to-day: go home to your wife, and thank that Friend together for making you an independent man. But stay, –, I had almost forgotten one thing. I called to see Mr P– as I drove through Stoke's Croft; I told him the errand that had carried me away from home all day, and he gave me a sovereign for you to begin the world with."

'The poor fellow was too much affected to say anything more. The next morning, however, he appeared again, but after a most complete failure in a valorous attempt he made to express his thanks, he was obliged to leave the counting-house, stammering out that "both he and his wife felt their hearts to be as light as a feather."'

Mr Budgett was, by family connection, a Wesleyan, and at all periods of his life under a strong sense of religion. He had even acted as a lay-preacher. It was his custom to have all the people of his establishment assembled for religious exercises every morning before proceeding to business. He was active as a Sunday-school teacher, and assisted with his purse and his own active exertions in every effort to Christianise the rude people of Kingswood. When he became a highly-prosperous man, he had a good country-house and a handsome establishment; but wealth and its refinements never withdrew him from familiar personal intercourse with his people. Neither did it ever in the least alienate him from his many humble relations. His conduct, indeed, in all these respects was admirable, and well entitled him to be, what he was, the most revered man of his neighbourhood and kindred. At his death, the expression of mourning was widely spread, as if the whole population had felt in his loss the loss of a friend.

The volume which supplies us with these particulars and extracts, is a very interesting one; yet we could wish to see it abridged of some portion of the long episodes, in the style of pulpit discourses, with which the author has thought proper to expand it. If properly condensed, and the details of the life presented given perhaps in somewhat better order, so as to explain more clearly the steps of Mr Budgett's rise as a merchant, the work might become a vade-mecum for the young man of business, exhibiting to him a model of character and conduct such as could not but exercise a good influence over his future career.

PET BIRDS OF INDIA

It is said, that when women addict themselves to vice of any kind, they carry it to extravagance, and become far worse than bad men. In like manner, when the natural softness and amiability of the Hindoo character yield to the temptations of luxury and dominion, the individual grows into a tyrant as cruel and odious as any of those depicted in history. This apparent discrepancy has given rise to many speculative mistakes; but, in our opinion, it is as certain that the mass of the Hindoos are gentle and kindly in their nature, as it is that the mass of women are so. It is a curious thing to see the gallant sepoy on a march, attended by his pet lambs, with necklaces of ribbons and white shells, and ears and feet dyed of an orange colour. But even wild creatures are at home with the kindly Hindoo. Fluttering among the peasants threshing corn in a field, are flocks of wild peacocks, gleaning their breakfast; and in the neighbourhood of a village, a traveller can hardly distinguish between the tame and wild ducks, partridges, and peacocks. 'There is a fine date-tree,' says a recent writer, 'overhanging a kind of school, at the end of one of the streets in the town of Jubbulpore, quite covered with the nests of the baya bird; and they are seen every day, and all day, fluttering about in scores, while the noisy children at their play fill the street below, almost within arm's reach of them.'

Almost all the natives of India are fond of rearing pet birds; and the pet is, more frequently than otherwise, a parrot, which is prized for its conversation. The same taste prevailed, we are told, in the fifteenth century, in the city of Paris, where talking-birds were hung out almost at every window. The authority says, that this was attended with rather an awkward result. 'Leading the public life they did, in which they were exposed to every sort of society, the natural morality of the birds was so far lost, that they had become fluent in every term of reproach and indecency; and thunders of applause were elicited among the crowd of passengers by the aptness of their repartees.' In India, the taste is the same, but the habits different; a sketch of which we furnish from our Old Indian. The carpenter, she tells us, while planing the plank, which he holds between his toes, amuses himself by talking to his parrot. The shoemaker, while binding his slippers, or embroidering his rich velvet shoes, for the feet of some sable beauty, pauses every now and then, to listen to the chattering of his pet. The guala, on returning home, after disposing of his butter or buttermilk, first takes up some bamboo twigs, one of which is appropriated to each customer, and marking, by a notch with a knife, the quantity disbursed to each, turns, as a matter of course, to his favourite parrot, and either listens to the recital of his previous lessons, or begins to teach him some fresh invocation to some score of gods and goddesses. These men seldom condescend to teach their favourites anything else; but should a lady be the owner, the parrot's lessons are more varied, and more domestic in their character. He is taught to call his mistress 'mother,' and himself 'Baba mittoo' (sweet child.) He is sometimes instructed to rail at her neighbours, and sometimes to scold the children; and thus she lives in sweet companionship with her bird, feeding him with steeped grain, rice and milk, sugar-cane and Indian corn. Of the two last he is exceedingly fond.

India abounds in a variety of parrots and perroquets, the names of many of which I have forgotten; but the generic name is Tota. The more common are the kudjlah, teeah, and pahari. These learn to speak glibly, being generally taken out of the nest before they are fully fledged. Crutches of various kinds are selected for the poor captive, the most ingenious of which is made of a single joint of bamboo, the two ends being formed into cups—the middle part being cut, and then bent and arched over the fire; the perch being formed of a straight piece of bamboo, which joins the two cups below. A hook fastened to the top of the arch enables the owner to suspend it from the thatched ceiling of his hut; and thus the parrot swings about, listening to his master's pious ejaculations. At dusk, many of these men may be seen parading through the bazaar, with their pets in their hands, the latter loudly vociferating that Brahma is the greatest of gods, or that Krishna and Radha were a loving couple; and so on. I have often been amused at this mode of displaying religious zeal and pious adoration.

Should you penetrate into the more crowded parts of the bazaar, you might happen to see the taste of the bird-fancier displayed after a different, but, I am happy to say, exceptional fashion. A shop may sometimes be found having a square space enclosed with a railing, with a divan in the middle, for the accommodation of the master and his visitors. On this railing a number of birds are perched, many of them little tame bulbuls; these are detained by a ligature, passing over the shoulders of the bird, and tied under the breast, leaving his wings and legs free. The bulbul, though not the bird known by that name in Persia, is a pretty songster; but he is as desperate a fighter as a gamecock. Those, therefore, who delight in cruel sports, bring their little pets to these shops, where no doubt birds of the best mettle are to be found; and on the result of a battle, money and sweetmeats are lost and won, while many a poor little bird falls a sacrifice to its master's depraved taste. The tiny amadavad, with his glowing carmine neck, and distinct little pearly spots, may also occasionally be seen doing battle; he fights desperately, though he also warbles the sweetest of songs.

The affluent Hindoo Baboo or Mohammedan Nawab, among other luxuries, keeps also his aviary. In these may be seen rare and expensive parrots, brought from the Spice Islands. They delight also in diyuls and shamahs. The latter is a smaller bird than our thrush, but larger than a lark; his breast is orange, the rest of his plumage black, and in song he is equal to our black-bird. The diyul also sings sweetly; he is about the same size as the shamah, his plumage black, with a white breast, and white tips to his wings. A well-trained bird of either kind sells for about ten rupees, and twenty will be given for a cuckoo from the Nepaul hills. A Baboo whom I knew had several servants to look after his aviary, one of whom had to go daily in search of white ants and ants' eggs for his insectivorous charge; for the shamah and diyul are both insect-eaters.

Some of the Minas (Gracula), of which there are several kinds in India, articulate as distinctly, and are as imitative, as the parrots. One of these birds was once brought as a present to my little girl. The donor took his leave, assuring us that the bird was a great speaker, and imitated a variety of sounds. This I found to be too true, for I was awakened by him next morning at dawn of day. He had evidently been bred in the neighbourhood of the hospital, and also initiated into the mysteries of the parade. He coughed like a consumptive patient, groaned like one in agony, and moaned as if in the last extremity. Then he would call a 'halt!' and imitate the jingling of the ramrods in the muskets so exactly, that I marvelled how his little throat could go through so many modulations. I was soon obliged to banish him to a distance from the sleeping-apartments, for some of his utterances were anything but suggestive of soothing or pleasurable sensations.

The hill mina, a mountaineer by birth, seldom lives long in confinement in lowland districts. After having endeared himself to his master and his family by his conversational powers and imitative qualities, he is not unfrequently cut off suddenly by a fit, and sometimes expires while feasting on his bread and milk or pea-meal-paste, or perhaps when he has only a few minutes before been calling out loudly his master's name or those of the children. The hill mina is a handsome bird, a size larger than our black-bird; he is of one uniform colour—a glossy black, like the smoothest Genoa velvet, harmonising beautifully with the bright yellow circle of skin round his eyes, his yellow beak and yellow legs.

The grackle or salik, which is a great favourite in the Isle of France, has been correctly enough described in Partington's Cyclopædia. It is a gregarious bird, greatly enlivening the aspect of the grassy meadows at sunset, when his comrades assemble in large flocks, and having picked up their last meal of grubs and grasshoppers, resort for shelter to a neighbouring avenue, where they roost for the night. The grackle is a tame and familiar bird, and will sometimes build its nest close to the habitation of man. I have seen one on the top of a pillar, under the shelter of a veranda; and occasionally an earthen-pot is placed for its accommodation in the fork of a neighbouring tree. Though their brood may be constantly removed, they will return, year after year, to the same nest, expressing, however, their discontent and distress when robbed, by keeping up for some days a loud and querulous chattering.

Those who dwell on the banks of the Ganges may sometimes see, during the rainy season, a large boat floating past, having a raised cabin, like a Bengalee hut, constructed of mat and straw. From the multiplicity of cages inside and outside, it may be gathered that here are fresh supplies for the bird-fancier—captives from the hills of Rajmahal and Moryheer. The constant fluttering among the inmates of the crowded cages, and their mournful and discordant notes, indicate that they are anything but a happy family—that they have been only recently caught, and are not yet habituated to confinement. They are soon, however, disposed of at the different stations or towns at which the boat anchors, and become in due time the solitary and apparently happy pets I have already described.

I need only add, that there is no lack of pretty little bird-cages in the Far East, constructed very tastefully by the neat-handed natives, and sold for two or three annas.