Uncle Joe's Stories

by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne

"Oh!" shrieked the magpie; "I never stole it!—I never stole it!"

"What has become of it?" said the man.

"Oh, I don't know—indeed I don't know! The dish ran away with it!" shrieked the magpie, in great distress of mind, as the man reached out his hand to seize her.

"Tell that to the marines!" replied the man, which was an idle and useless saying, for there were no marines there; and if there had been, it was highly improbable that the magpie would have told them.

He seized the bird by the wing, and in the agitation and confusion of the moment, she resented the affront by giving him a sharp peck on the hand, a compliment which he returned by immediately wringing her neck.

Thus (said Jenny invariably, when she reached this point in her story) you see that treachery and cunning, although they may be successful for a time, in the long run always bring those who practise them into trouble. So the magpie and weasel, who, by their malicious tricks brought disunion among friends, and introduced strife into a once united family, both lost their own lives within a very short time after the success of their wily arts had been accomplished.

It was upon this old legend that the song was founded to which I alluded at the beginning of the story. I confess that I am not quite clear about the first words, "Hey diddle diddle!" Wise men and learned writers have given several interpretations of this interjaculation, or invocation, or exclamation, or whatever you please to call it.

Some think that the word "diddle" (not to be found in any English dictionary of repute) must be a proper name, and that either it belonged to the man who, owning the house in which the dog and cat lived, knew all the circumstances of the story, and being likely to be interested in it, was naturally invoked by the author at the beginning of his song; or that it was, in fact, the name of the author himself, and that the words mean that "I, Diddle, wish to call your attention to the following extraordinary facts." Others, however, equally learned, hold that the word to "diddle" signifies, in slang or common language, to "do"—to "get the better of"—"to cheat," and that so the words intend to convey the moral of the whole story; namely, that those who try to cheat others generally suffer for it in some way or other. Another interpretation is that it is only another form of the word "Idyll," and that this song about the cat and dog is meant as a species of "Idyll" or "Diddle," on one of the most important topics which has ever agitated the animal world. But, whatever be their origin, there the words are, and they are the only words in the song which have caused me the slightest doubt. They are the more curious if the story be true that the song was composed by a very respectable jay, who was fully acquainted with the facts as they occurred.

She could have known nothing about "Diddle," if he was a man; and very likely only put the words in to suit the jingle of the rhyme. There can be no doubt that "the cat and the fiddle," are words in which is intended a satirical allusion to Effie's lessons on the violin with the unfortunate hare; and "the cow jumped over the moon," is an unmistakeable allusion to the cow's leap over the stream in which the image of the moon was reflected at the moment.

When I think of the palpable reference in the next words to the conduct of the little poodle who had accompanied Rover, and remember the unhappy magpie's attempt to avoid her well-deserved fate by attempting to impute her crime to the dish, I can have no difficulty whatever in coming to the conclusion that it is upon Jenny's legend that this remarkable song has been founded.