Still they stand upon the hillside, and the low sun glancesOn the little elfin faces all begloomed to ashen grey;Oh, never hand is lifted nor a light foot dancesFor the fiddle-bow is broken and the fiddler far away-Lost and gone and half forgotten down a long dead yesterday.
Once they tarried on the hillside when the world lay sleeping,Oh, the tide was at the turning, and a low moon at the wane !
And a sudden mist came o"er them and a low, soft weeping,And the Grey Woman touched them, and they never laughed againOr danced beneath the moonlight on the hills of Vandiemaine,So they crouch like little children till the blind fear passes That stole their merry music and stilled their dancing feet,And left them there for ever with the thin wild grassesThat whisper them at midnights and moan in noons of heatOf the old things, the kind things, that were so dear andsweet.
Far, far the hills of Faery, and the slow tides turningAnd the great white moons of men are as hollow winds that blew-Oh, the little wistful faces and the wee hearts burningTo pluck the magic moon-grapes and gather honey-dew That only white immortals and the fairies ever knew !
Will they waken once, I wonder, to a wild horn blowing When a little lost wind whimpers and the Cross is leaninglow?
Will they see the lamps of Faery down her green glades glowing?
Will they hear the taut strings throbbing to a newly resined bow,And go dancing, dancing, dancing, spilling laughter as they go?
Marie E. J. Pitt
Author.-Mrs. Marie E. J. Pitt is a living Victorian poetess, born in Gippsland. Authoress of Horses of the Hills and a volume of collected poems, all of them musical and fanciful.
General-What does the poetess feign that the orchids were once? Why were they changed? Who is the Grey Woman? Will they ever return to Fairyland? Do you like the blending of Van Diemen"s Land and Tasmania in the name " Vandemaine "? Does the dance of the measure suggest the dance of the orchids? Why the name "Spider "? What are moon-grapes, honey-dew? Let the Grey Woman tell the story. Let one of the orchids speak.
Lesson 65
CRABS
On the sea-shores of all parts of the world live crabs of many kinds, more or less akin to each other; and some of these are amongst the most interesting and most crafty of creatures.
Perhaps the most popular of all, because it is at once widespread and curious, is the hermit crab.
Nearly all crabs have a fairly complete outfit of scaly armour, which is an excellent defence, though they have to change it from time to time. The hermit crab, however, is not so well protected.
It has a breastplate and head-piece of armour, but its hind part is soft and without defence, and it would be a dainty meal for many more powerful creatures if the crab were not clever enough to provide a defence for it, for crabs cannot seek safety in swift flight.
What, then, does the hermit crab do? It sets out to find more protection than Nature has given it. When it is young and inexperienced, it usually selects an empty shell on the beach, from which the original tenant has departed. Into this shell, after a critical examination from all points of view, it gets backwards, adapting its soft parts to the shapeof the shell.
The claws and front of the creature remain outside the shell, but the other parts, and the tail, adhere tightly to the shell by a sucker arrangement, so that you cannot"Into this shell it gets backwards. "
drag the crab out. Then, wherever the crab goes, it carries off the protective shell as if it were a part of itself.
All goes well for a time; but, of course, the crab grows, so that presently it gets too big for its shell and has to look out for one more suited to its age and size. Then it renews the search, and now our crab, with experience and confidence, will attack another crab inhabiting a shell which looks very desirable, and a fight will often follow to decide whether the present owner of the shell shall retain it or be dragged out and eaten by the victor. A greedy creature is the crab, eating anything he can find that is dead, or anything alive that he can master.
But the hermit crab is a great bully unless he is boldly tackled. Often he is called the soldier crab, probably from his readiness to do battle with his rivals, but perhaps because, like a soldier on the march, he has a way of carrying all his kit with him as he moves from place to place. Though fond of fighting, if he finds he has run up against a stronger resistance than he expected, he will not hesitate to scuttle off and seek safety in flight. If unexpected forms of danger surprise him, he shrinks as far as possible into his shell, squatting motionless as if dead, and closing the entrance into the shell with his tightly-clasped claws.
When looking for a new home, the crab goes about without his protecting shell; but, if danger threatens, he scuttles back to his old fortress. Usually, when he is foraging and not flitting from shell to shell, he takes his artificial protection with him. His method of progress is to hook on to something with his big claws, and then drag the shell with him in a snail-like movement, taking care not to expose any of his soft parts to view.
The romance of the hermit crab is far from being all told yet. Not only does he live in a borrowed and portable house, but he has a friend with him as a lodger. They share the home together, and each contributes something to the comfort of the other. This lodger is not another crab, but a sea anemone, which settles on the shell and remains there aslong as the crab lives inside. The advantage to the anemone"A sea anemone settles on the shell."
is that it is carried about by the crab, and so has far better opportunities of finding food than it would have if it were fixed to a rock; and the advantage to the crab is that the anemone is provided with stinging cells which keep off intruders, so that by sticking on the shell inhabited by the crab it acts as a very useful defence.