The next spring the field produced a great crop of rushes, and when the rushes had grown quite tall a wind passed over them, and the rushes murmured, “King Midas has the ears of an ass. King Midas has the ears of an ass.”
And all summer long, whenever a breeze swept over the field, the rushes murmured, “King Midas has the ears of an ass.”
And when the hair-dresser heard it, he wrung his hands in despair, and said, “Not even the rushes of the field can keep a secret.”
Hold Fast, Tom[28]
The sun was setting over the island of St. Helena on a spring evening in 1673, and in its red glow the vast black cliffs stood out like the walls of a fortress above the great waste of lonely sea that lay around them as far as the eye could reach. Very quiet and very lonesome did it appear, that tiny islet of St. Helena, far away in the heart of the boundless ocean.
But there was one part of the island that was busy and noisy enough, and that was the spot where the low white houses and single church-spire of Jamestown, half buried in clustering leaves, nestled in a deep gully close to the water’s edge, walled in by two mighty precipices nearly a thousand feet in height. All along the line of forts and batteries, perched like birds’ nests among the frowning crags that overhung the sea, there was an unwonted stir and bustle. Cannon were rumbling to and fro, rusty pikes and muskets were being dragged forth and laid in readiness, soldiers in buff jackets and big looped-up hats were clustering along the ramparts, while hoarse words of command, clanking swords, the ceaseless tramp of feet, and the clatter of gun-stocks and pike-staves made every cranny of the surrounding cliffs echo again. What could it all mean?
It meant that the stout-hearted Dutchmen who had taken the island from England a few months before were about to have their courage again put to the proof. Those five ships of war in the offing, coming down before the wind under a full press of sail, had just hoisted the red cross of St. George (not yet changed into the Union Jack), and Englishman and Dutchman alike were eager to try
Whether John or Jan
Be the better man,
as one of their favorite songs worded it.