Take your places. Turn down the lights. We are going to open our magic lantern once more. Ho Presto! Here we are in Victoria.
Picture to yourself a plainly furnished room in a farmhouse on the banks of the Murray River. Besides the ordinary tables, chairs, pictures, and other things you will observe a clock on the mantel-shelf over the fireplace. Now this clock is going to form the pivot upon which our story turns.
The door of this apartment was gently opened, and two children—a boy and a girl—entered. They had just stolen away unknown to the nurse, and had come here to amuse themselves. There was, however, very little in that room to amuse them. Neither hoop nor ball nor doll was here; but there was the clock ticking away like a cricket who had lost its mother. They say that curiosity is much stronger in the female, be it child or adult, than in the male portion of humanity, so the little girl drew a chair to the fireplace, and on the top of it she placed a stool, and then both the children mounted and stood face to face with the clock.
They examined the polished wooden case, and the marble base, the figures and the painted scroll work which adorned its face, then the minute-hand which they could see moving, and listened to the “Tick, tick, tick,” which seemed to come from some voice within it. “Tick-tick,” cried the clock, and still as the little boy looked and listened it went on without stopping, “Tick, tick, tick.”
“What can it be?” said the little girl. “Where can the noise come from, Teddy?”
“Oh!” answered Teddy, “it comes from the wee fellow inside there; can’t you see him moving his arm about, eh, Lily?”
Lily looked and discovered a door. “It comes from here,” she said. “I should like to open it and let the old man out.”
“No, no,” cried Teddy, “we must not. Papa would be angry. Come away back again to nurse.” But Lily poked about with her fingers, unknowingly touched a spring, and the door flew open.
There they saw a wonderful sight. There were wheels moving round and round, and the inside shone like gold, and there was a long piece of steel hanging down like a tail, which moved from side to side, and the timepiece said louder than ever, “Tick, tick, tick.”
Lily put in her finger and touched the golden inside, and still the clock ticked on. Then she touched the pendulum, and though the clock paused for a moment as if to take breath, it went on again fresher than ever, “Tick, tick, tick.”
But at last she happened to poke her finger between the spokes of the little wheel, and the timepiece stopped. Lily thought it would tick again in a minute, but she was disappointed. She touched the pendulum, she touched the wheel, she touched every part; yet all to no purpose. And then the boy, Teddy, tried his hand in vain. The clock wouldn’t say “Tick, tick” any more.
What was to be done?
They were very much frightened. They closed the clock door as quickly as possible, got down from the chair, put the things all tidy, and left the room.
Nothing more occurred till breakfast-time next morning, when the father called out suddenly, “Why, the clock has stopped!” and when he examined it he found the mainspring was broken.
“Somebody has been playing with the clock. Did you touch it, Teddy?”
“No, I never,” answered the boy.
“Was it you, Lily?”
Now, Lily was not in the habit of being untruthful; but she was frightened and replied, “No.”
“One of you must have done it yesterday. Jane saw you coming out of the room,” continued the father.
By dint of questioning, Lily and Teddy at length acknowledged they had been in the room, and then the boy said Lily had touched the timepiece, and then the girl said so had Teddy; but which of them it was that had really broken the spring their father could not discover.
“Very well, my children,” he said. “If you will not tell me who broke the clock, you will be punished some day.” And the father spoke truly.
In that part of the Murray district where Lily and Teddy lived there dwelt a small native race of people called “Moths.” This diminutive tribe lived alone by themselves in a grand shaded valley by the river-bank. They used to be seen very often by the settlers and bushmen riding home late on moonlight nights. Indeed, many travellers had stated they had seen them dancing on the green, making merry, courting, laughing, etc., while others vouched to having spoken to the creatures. Be that as it may, the Moths were there in the valley by the river, and had been there long before Teddy and Lily’s grandfather first took up the splendid selection adjacent.
The wee people had taken an interest in the fortunes of the different families round about for many years, always patronising and favouring good boys and girls, and always punishing the bad ones in some form or other.
Just below the bush paddock where the valley dips down to the water could be seen a circle of emerald green, on which the Moths assembled every night when the moon shone. It was not often crossed by the feet of mortals; but any one passing that way by daylight might observe small round rings here and there, much greener than the grass around. These were Moth circles.
Here the Moths sat in little circles on raised benches made of grass blades, whilst others danced before them in the middle of the ring to music played on flutes made from the backbones of locusts.
On the night after the clock had been broken the Moths met to hold a great council. The whole race assembled on this occasion. There was the King wearing a golden crown of flowers, and the Queen decked with diamonds of dew, and all the Princes and Princesses in robes of mingled green and blue. When the council were assembled the monarch spoke thus:
“People of Mothland, you all know what an interest we take in the family near our valley, and especially in little Lily and Teddy. Now I grieve to tell you these children have been very naughty. Indeed, one of them has told a deliberate falsehood, a sin we hate and abhor beyond all things. The boy is not so guilty as his sister; it was not he, certainly, who spoilt the clock, but still he went up on the chair and looked at it; and he ought to have told this like a brave boy, instead of holding his tongue like a coward. But Lily has told a decided lie, and she must be punished. What shall we do to her?”
“Carry her away from her home, and put Scarlet Mantle in her place,” said the Queen of the Moths.
“It shall be done,” replied the King.
That night when Lily was sleeping soundly in her soft, pleasant bed, the King of the Moths, accompanied by some of the strongest men in his tribe, carried her away into the valley of Mothland, and they substituted Scarlet Mantle in her stead.
Jane, the nurse, took her accustomed peep into the child’s bedroom, ere retiring for the night, and was somewhat astonished to observe that her charge appeared thinner and smaller and sharper than usual.
“I suppose it’s only my fancy,” cried the girl, so, kissing the supposed child, she went her way, and left the Moth snugly coiled in little Lily’s bed.