Mew III.
Blinks opens his Eyes. His first thrilling Adventure.
The ninth day dawned, a day to be big with the fate of the young and innocent Blinks, who was on that auspicious morning to open his eyes for the first time, on a world that, heretofore, had been as dark to him as if he had been living in an empty stone bottle with the cork in, or like a frog in a buried teapot, or like a toad in a stone. This day the cork of the bottle—so to speak—was to be drawn, the teapot dug up, the stone to be broken. He had innocently asked his mamma, where the eyes were to come from; and she, in the beautiful imagery, which only Muffie could make use of, told him that a wee angel cattie, with snowy fur and wings all golden, would fly gently down while he slept, and, hovering over him softly insert a little bright eye on each side of his head, and by-and-by he would awake and—see.
Well, the sun rose,—the bats and the owls all went to roost in haunted castles and lonely groves, cocks clapped their wings and crew, hedgehogs fell asleep among the dewy grass, and weary authors went to bed; but Blinks like one of the ten foolish virgins, slumbered and slept. Why slumbereth our hero? Blinks had determined to lie awake the whole of the preceding and eventful night, in order to meet the first glimpse of the early dawn with open eyes, and study the wonders of nature with his newly acquired sense of sight. I say, this is what Blinks had determined to do; it isn’t by any means what he did do, for long before the shadows of night had begun to battle with the light of coming morn, poor weary Blinks’s eyes—only half open—were sealed in sleep, and so he slept far into the day. His fond mother had eaten her matutinal meal and lain down again to watch him; Nero had had his breakfast and a long walk with his master; the starling had been piping and chattering from an early hour; carts and cars and carriages had been rolling and rattling past; trains had shrieked, and puffed, and stopped, and backed, and puffed, and gone on again; and still Blinks was slumbering.
A very prolonged scream from an express train awoke him at last, however; and our young hero sprang to his feet, gave a jerk with his brows, a nod of his head, and behold! his eyes, like the eyes of Adam and Eve, were opened; and, like Tam o’ Shanter,
“Vow! he saw an unco’ sight!”
Strange, too, that at the same moment one of Her Majesty’s ships, that lay in the bay, began to fire a salute of twenty-one guns. [Blinks here bids me say there was nothing strange about it.] No wonder then, that Blinks thought himself lord of the universe and monarch of all he surveyed; no wonder—a pair of real eyes and a salute of twenty-one guns. Ho! ho!
Funny-looking eyes they were too; light grey and glassy, and with scarcely any visible pupils or centre-bits. Blinks stood for a moment, evidently in a very undecided frame of mind, like one who has too much to do and can’t tell where to begin. He appeared to be looking very earnestly, and inquiringly at nothing in particular, and was withal rather shaky about the extremities. It was only for a minute however, for, on turning his head on a pivot, his eyes fell on the well-pleased and admiring face of his mamma, who had paused in the very act of washing her face with a spittle or two, that she might gaze on her youthful prodigy. So intent, indeed, was she, that she did not even lower the fist she had been licking; but sat with it raised in an attitude of such grace and beauty, that, had it been done in the theatre royal, would have brought down the house. Now, although Blinks had had a long and intimate acquaintance, with his mother’s honest face, it must be remembered that he only knew her by the touch or feel; and not having seen her before, how should he, Blinks, be expected to tell who or what she, he, or it was that now gazed on his face?
“Might it not,” thought Blinks, “be some dreadful foe? Good heavens! might it not be a wild mouse?”
The thought was certainly alarming enough, and he determined to, at once, act on the offensive; so, as a commencement of hostilities, he gave a warlike leap backwards, “in order,” as he afterwards remarked, “to make the spring the more dreadful.” This backward leap did to be sure cause him to lose his balance. [Blinks here begs me to substitute the word “equilibrium” for “balance,” as the latter is not soldier-like, and reminds him of shop-keepers and such.] Having found his balance [“Beastly!” says Blinks,—who, as I write, is sitting on and looking over my shoulder,—“beastly English! Can’t you say, ‘regained his centre of gravity,’ you dolt.”] Well, well, Blinks got on his pins again; then was his back erected like unto a Gothic arch, on which the hair did bristle like unto a fretful porcupine, or a cheap ham; his tail was transformed into a miniature bottle-brush, and from his jaws came a sound, intended to be at least awe-inspiring, but which an impudent author might liken to the striking of a lucifer-match. All this was but the work of a second, and only preparatory to a grand spring—a spring which, it is needless to say, would have resulted in the total demolition of all good looks in the face of his worthy parent. But, just then, struck with admiration at the pluck of her son, Muffie burst into a song of praise.
Blinks listened.
He closed his eyes, and listened again.
“That voice!” he cried, “them music!—it is—it is my ma.”
“My chee-ild! my chee-ild!” cried the fond parent; and Blinks, in the twinkling of—of—of a little star, was encircled by the hairy arms of his dear dam with a tit[4] in each hand, and one in his mouth.
Then, and not till then, did pretty Dick say, “Bravo! bravo!”