"MAKING A LONG ARM, SHE MANAGED TO SEIZE PUSS BY THE SCRUFF OF HER NECK."
Peggy liked her new friend at once; his twinkling blue eyes, his bronzed face, his jovial voice, and rather unconventional dress, seemed to mark him as distinct and different to other people. His arrival seemed to alter the whole atmosphere. Maud's supercilious manner slipped away from her like magic, and she became once more the pleasant Maud of the dancing-class, and her friends, feeling the change, soon left off trying to be poor little imitations of grown-up people, and began at last to enjoy themselves; for true enjoyment does not consist in showing off, but in being our simple, natural selves, if people would only believe it.
'Now then, what are you all doing?' cried Mr. Neville. 'The boys playing cricket by themselves, and the girls mooning about, keeping their frocks nice? Scandalous! Come along, all of you, and we'll get up some mixed sports. I stopped in the town, and filled my pockets with prizes, when I heard you were having a party. I am sure a young lady who can climb a tree looks capable of doing a high jump!'
After that the rest of the afternoon simply flew. Mr. Neville was a capital organizer, and had such a delightful way with children that they all made friends with him in five minutes. He impounded the grown-ups in the sports, and his jolly, hearty good spirits seemed so infectious that almost before they realized what they were doing, elegant ladies were holding up skipping-ropes, and smart young gentlemen flung off their coats, and forgot their high collars in the enthusiasm of the contests. Even Phyllis Norton was shrieking in a potato-race, and only laughed when she fell and soiled her immaculate lace frock.
As for Peggy, she was quite in her element. Long jumps, high jumps, handicaps, sack-races, three-legged races—she was ready to compete in all, and, to her delight, won several prizes, while Bobby, too, gained his share of laurels.
The unfashionable muslin dress, with its long rent, was forgotten, and several people asked who that charming little girl was, with the sweet gray eyes and the pretty hair, who could run so splendidly.
'Vaughan? I remember a Vaughan up at Brazenose in my first year at Oxford. A fine-looking fellow he was, too!' said a heavily-moustached officer, regarding Peggy with a critical eye.
'Her father, no doubt. They're a very old family—quite one of the county, in fact,' said Mrs. Middleton, gushing over her small guest, now she found she was a success.
Maud hugged Peggy when she said good-bye in quite her old affectionate manner, and Muriel remembered to send her love to Lilian, and say she was sorry for her absence, a fact she had scarcely seemed to notice before.
As for Mr. Neville, Peggy confided to Aunt Helen, when she got home, that she liked him the best of any gentleman she had ever seen, next to Father.
'He's been out in India for ten years, Auntie—that's where he knew the Middletons—but he says he lived in England once, and used to come to Gorswen when grandfather was alive. Do you remember him?'
'I think I do,' replied Aunt Helen shortly, with a flush on the cheek that was still so smooth and pretty.
'Then don't you think,' persisted Peggy, 'that he isquitethe nicest man you've ever met?'
'Go to bed, children,' said Aunt Helen. 'Here's Bobby so sleepy he can scarcely keep his eyes open. You shall tell me all about the party to-morrow.'
'A little work, a little play,To keep us going—and so, good-day!'
'A little work, a little play,To keep us going—and so, good-day!'
'A little work, a little play,To keep us going—and so, good-day!'
'Nomore Latin, no more Greek, no more cane to make me squeak!' sang Bobby on the fifteenth of July, springing out of the pony-trap before Pixie had stopped, and taking a flying leap over the pump-trough in the exuberance of his spirits.
'School is over, hooray!' shouted Peggy, banging down her books on the mounting-block, and waltzing into the kitchen, where Aunt Helen and Nancy were busy making jam. 'Don't you hear, Auntie? We've broken up for eight weeks! Isn't it glorious?'
'I hear fast enough; but I'm afraid it will be a doubtful pleasure for Nancy and me if you are all going mad like this. My dear child, don't you think you might choose a less juicy seat than a tray full of raspberries?'
Peggy jumped up in a hurry.
'I really didn't see them,' she said. 'I'll go and help Lilian unharness Pixie. Joe's away in the turnip-field. No home-lessons to-night, hip-hip-hooray!' and she took herself off like a whirlwind.
The holidays were indeed a delightful respite after the weary round of examinations which generallymakes life a burden at the end of the summer term, and the children set to work to enjoy them thoroughly. Bobby had taken to entomology, and panted over the hot pastures, chasing butterflies with unflagging zeal. At dusk he would enlist Peggy's services, and the pair went treacling for moths. A careful mixture of gin and syrup was smeared upon the trees, which were afterwards visited with a lantern, when the unfortunate insects could easily be taken in the midst of their revels, falling sad victims to the sin of intemperance.
Caterpillars, too, were caught and kept in boxes, till the Rose Parlour became so full of interesting specimens that Aunt Helen, for once, rebelled, and ordered this new branch of the menagerie to be removed to the loft.
'I found one of your beasties inside my hat, and another in my teacup,' she complained. 'So you had better keep them where it does not much matter if they escape.'
Lilian devoted herself to art, and sallied forth with her paint-box, pencils, and sketch-block, in quite a professional manner, looking for subjects. To be sure, the perspective of her cottages was apt to be rather peculiar at times, and the Welsh mountains turned out a more vivid shade of purple, and the fields a far more brilliant green than Nature ever painted them; but it was all good practice, and the admiring Peggy thought that no Royal Academician could have produced such charming masterpieces. There was a little work, too, to make the playtime all the sweeter—fruit to be picked, peas and beans to shell, the garden to weed, and great piles of bread and cheese to be cut and carried out into the fields for the harvesters' 'drinkings.' But, as Bobby said, it was all play-work, and much nicer than lessons, anyhow.
Peggy lay one afternoon at full length on the grass under the lime-tree, deep in the pages of 'Treasure Island.' It was rather a grown-up book, perhaps, for a little girl, but it was all about pirates, and sailors, and hairbreadth escapes, of so wildly exciting a nature, that she read on till she almost wept with disappointment to think she was not a boy to go to sea and meet with such thrilling adventures.
From the Rose Parlour came the strains of the piano, where Lilian was wailing a melancholy little ditty with keen enjoyment. It is mostly when we are very young that we take the greatest delight in the sad songs; those who have felt the real bitterness of sorrow are glad to bury it deeply away, and do not wish it wakened, as sailors' wives love a place best where they cannot hear the sound of the sea.
Lilian had always taken rather a delight in what Nancy called 'the melancholics.' When quite a tiny child she had much preferred the tragedy of Red Riding Hood to the brighter fate of the princesses who lived happily ever afterwards, and, with the tears streaming down her fat little cheeks, would quaver out 'Tell it again!'
Her first efforts in poetry had been in a distinctly pensive strain. When only about nine years old she had composed—
'The Dying Child's Last Words.'Remember me when I am gone,And me thou canst not see;When I lie sleeping in my grave,Dear friends, remember me.'You'll keep my little garden neat,My clothes you'll fold away;My playthings in a drawer you'll putWith which I last did play.'
'The Dying Child's Last Words.
'Remember me when I am gone,And me thou canst not see;When I lie sleeping in my grave,Dear friends, remember me.'You'll keep my little garden neat,My clothes you'll fold away;My playthings in a drawer you'll putWith which I last did play.'
'Remember me when I am gone,And me thou canst not see;When I lie sleeping in my grave,Dear friends, remember me.
'You'll keep my little garden neat,My clothes you'll fold away;My playthings in a drawer you'll putWith which I last did play.'
There ought to have been more verses, but at this point Father had unfortunately got hold of the paper, and persisted in treating the poem in such a comic light that the indignant authoress had never found the heart to finish it, though the fragment was considered very talented by Aunt Helen, and carefully put away in an old work-box, with the first specimens of Peggy's handwriting and one of Bobby's little baby-curls.
Peggy came to the end of her book at last, and life seemed so stale and flat anywhere out of the South Seas that she wandered down the garden for a little diversion. Lilian's fresh young voice proclaiming that her heart 'was breaking, breaking,' came wafted along the terrace, mingled with the sound of the reaping-machine, and the indignant gobble of the old turkey, which Bobby was chasing round the pasture.
'Let him alone, you naughty boy! Whatever mischief will you be in next?' cried Aunt Helen, flying to the rescue of the patriarch of her poultry-yard, and enforcing her remarks by sounding raps on the culprit's curly brown pate. Bobby was the apple of her eye, but she considered wholesome chastisement to be necessary to his moral welfare.
'Oh, Auntie, I've finished my book, and we've nothing much to do this afternoon; don't you think we might take our tea out into the woods?' said Peggy, swinging herself over the garden wall into the pasture.
'You can if you like; only you must get the baskets ready yourselves, and not worry Nancy. You may as well buy a loaf while you are out, too,' said Aunt Helen, rummaging a shilling out of her pocket. 'We're baking again to-day, but the harvesters take so much bread for the "drinkings." Get some tea-cakes, too, if they have any.'
'All right,' cried Peggy, rushing off with enthusiasm to rouse Lilian from the piano and forage in the pantry for a supply of jam and butter.
Half an hour later an interesting procession started off from the kitchen door: Lilian first, with the basket of cups and provisions, Peggy with the milk-can, and Bobby armed with the kettle, while Rollo seemed to be everywhere at once, and as pleased as anybody.
'I've got the matches,' said Peggy, 'and a newspaper. You're sure you put in the spoons, Lilian? We forgot them last time.'
The place where the children were going was a delightful spot for a picnic. A rapid stream ran through the woods, dashing down over great boulders, making little cascades and waterfalls as it went, with here and there a deep, clear pool, where the trout lay snugly under the stones; the rocks under the overhanging trees were carpeted with the softest and greenest of moss, and tall ferns grew right down to the water's edge, mingling with trailing ivy and creeping moneywort. A grassy glade under a tall beech seemed intended by Nature for a summer-house, for there was a large flat stone in the middle, which served for a table, and a circle of little stones round, just high enough for seats, so that you might imagine Queen Mab and her fairies dined here on moonlight nights, with the squirrels for guests and the bats and owls for waiters.
The children put down their baskets, and ran about gathering dry sticks to build their fire. There were plenty of dead branches strewn about in the wood, so they soon had a goodly pile of fuel. Bobby filled the kettle at the stream, and planted it firmly on Lilian's elaborate erection of sticks. Peggy struck a match and set the paper alight; up went the smoke,and in a few moments the bonfire was blazing grandly. But unfortunately the picnic party had quite forgotten that burning wood does not make a very substantial foundation, for the whole pile suddenly collapsed, and over went the kettle, spilling all the water, and putting out the fire with a hiss.
'What a nuisance!' exclaimed Lilian. 'We must find something to hang the kettle on, like the gipsies do.'
'Suppose we make a kind of fireplace between two big stones, and then we can put a thick branch across,' suggested Peggy. 'It will be easier to lift the kettle off, too. I don't know how we should have seized it from the middle of that blaze.'
The second attempt proved a much greater success, and in a short time the water was boiling bravely, while a very attractive feast was spread out upon the mossy table.
Lilian had filled the teapot, and the company was just about to sit down and fall to with much relish, when the party was suddenly augmented by an unexpected guest. Down the little path from the glen above solemnly marched a very small girl indeed, so round and fat and chubby that she looked nearly as broad as she was long. She was a pretty child, with soft, dark eyes and pink cheeks, so plump and full that the little nose seemed almost to be lost between them. A pair of stout brown legs showed under the smocked holland pinafore, her white sun-hat hung upon her back, and she clasped a dilapidated doll in her arms.
She strolled up to the astonished children with the dignity of a duchess.
'I saw you lighting the fire,' she announced calmly, 'so I took Isabella, and I've comed to tea.'
'We're very glad to see you, I'm sure,' said Lilian. 'Is Isabella your dolly?'
'No; she's my child. I don't call her a dolly: it hurts her feelings, so please don't say it again!'
'I'm ever so sorry,' apologised Lilian, trying to repress Bobby's giggles. 'Whose little girl are you?'
'I'm Father's girl. Father's painting pictures up there in the wood. I paint pictures, too, sometimes, when Isabella don't want me,' confided the juvenile artist; and to judge from the smears of paint upon her pinafore, she had evidently been pursuing that art with more vigour than discretion.
'Won't you come and sit on my lap?' said Peggy coaxingly, for she loved small children.
The chubby infant looked the slight figure up and down, as if appraising the offered accommodation.
'She hasn't got a lap to sit upon,' she remarked scornfully, settling her stout legs on the grass.
'You haven't told us your name yet,' said Lilian, trying to draw out the interesting visitor.
'My name's Matilda Christabel Wilkins, but they call me Matty for short.'
'Are you sure they don't call you Fatty?' inquired Bobby.
'No; only rude people. Nice people call me Miss Wilkins. I don't like boys. I was four last week, so I'm quite a big girl now. Will the doggie hurt me? I think I will have some of that cake!'
'Hadn't you better begin with bread-and-butter?' said Lilian. 'No, dear, the doggie won't hurt you; it's only his play. Come here, Rollo! I'm afraid I haven't a spare cup; but perhaps you won't mind having some milk in a saucer. Are you staying about here?'
'Yes, at the farmhouse. I help Mary to milk the cows. Mary sings to them. I can sing, too. Would you like to hear me sing now?'
'If it won't trouble you too much,' began Lilian.
'No. I like it!' and Miss Wilkins crossed her short legs, turned up the brown eyes, and broke forth into such a very extraordinary burst of melody that the children were nearly in fits. It had neither time nor tune, but the notes quavered about on the scale like a distant representation of the bagpipes. From the words they supposed it must be meant for a hymn, and it wound on through six or seven verses, till Bobby grew quite hysterical.
'Thank you,' said Lilian, stifling her mirth, when the youthful Madame Patti had at length drawn to a close. 'Where did you learn that?'
'I learn it on Sundays, out of a book. Shall I sing it for you over again?' evidently thirsting for an encore.
'Hadn't you better have some tea first?' suggested Peggy hastily. 'See, I've put strawberry jam on your bread-and-butter.'
The attractions of preserve seemed to outweigh the charms of music, for Miss Wilkins ate stolidly for five minutes without volunteering any further remarks.
'You've got freckles on your nose,' she announced at length to Lilian. 'Andshe'storn her dress!' with an eye on Peggy. 'What a lot that boy eats! Nurse says it's very rude to fill your mouth so full!' pointing a severe finger at Bobby, which so convulsed him that he nearly choked.
'Perhaps you would like some cake now,' said Lilian, politely passing the basket to the stranger.
'Thank you. I'll take two pieces, because Isabella would like one. I think I had better be going home now. Good-bye. I'll call again another day;' and the young lady crammed one piece of cake into a diminutive pocket, and, munching the other, strolledaway up the glen, with the luckless Isabella head downwards under her arm.
'I hope she'll be all right; she's such a dot to wander about alone!' said Lilian anxiously, peering through the trees, and much relieved at seeing a tall figure in a brown velvet jacket catch up Miss Wilkins and bear her off upon his shoulder. 'I suppose they're staying at Brown's farm. I know they sometimes let rooms during the summer.'
'She's a queer young customer, at any rate. I feel quite ill with laughing,' said Bobby, swallowing down his fifth cup of tea and flinging his crumbs for the robins.
'Let's clear up, then. Suppose, instead of going straight down by the village, we walk up through the woods to Pengarth, and buy the bread there. We can leave our things here, under the tree, till we come back,' said Peggy, hastily swilling the teacups in the stream and packing them up in the basket.
The others readily agreed, and they set off for a glorious scramble up the steep hillside. The path was so narrow that in places they could scarcely push through the thick, overhanging bushes and the trailing brambles, where the blackberries were already turning red, and showing a fine promise for the autumn. The trees were covered with nuts, which Bobby cracked with persistent hope, and perpetual disappointment when he found them all yet empty of kernels.
They crossed the stream by a bridge roughly made of two pine-trees flung from bank to bank, with a rope for a hand-rail, a somewhat dizzy foothold for anyone who minded the rushing water beneath, but infinitely to be preferred to stones and mortar in the children's opinion.
Up the steep bank they trudged, through fields ofbracken higher than Bobby's head, getting out at last upon a white road that wound along the top of a cliff, with a stream roaring below, till round a sudden turn they came upon Pengarth, a prim little village, nestling in a hollow, and consisting of a short street and a big chapel and school-house.
There was a small general shop in Pengarth, where groceries and boots, apples and red-herrings, seemed all mixed up with yards of print and ribbon, penny ink-bottles, milk-cans, sun-bonnets, gingerbread, pear-drops, and bull's-eyes, presided over by a funny old woman in a black wig and horn spectacles, who seemed to find much enjoyment in gossiping with her customers; for the children had to wait quite a long time, while the chief points of last Sunday's sermon in chapel and the new dress of the minister's wife were freely discussed. At length the stout farmers' wives picked up their baskets and took their departure, and old Mrs. Ellis was able to give her undivided attention to Lilian's modest little voice, which had been striving to make itself heard, in a vain request for bread and tea-cakes for the last ten minutes.
'I say, Lil, couldn't we go straight down the wood here, and cross the stream by the picnic place instead of the pine bridge? It would save nearly a mile,' suggested Bobby, as they turned to go home.
'I suppose we could get over the stepping-stones?' replied Lilian rather doubtfully. 'I don't think there's a proper path through the wood, but we could find our way somehow, and it is certainly much shorter.'
So they plunged down through the thick tangle of trees which clothed the side of the cliff. It was so steep that in places they were obliged to sit down and slide, clutching at the trees as they passed, to save themselves from falling, and bringing down suchshowers of small loose stones and shale that it seemed as if the whole hillside were sliding too, and Lilian was very relieved when they all got safely to the bottom. Now that they were really close to the water the stepping-stones looked much farther apart than they had imagined, and very slippery and slimy, too, with a swift current flowing between.
They all stopped and looked at it for a moment, each secretly wishing that somebody else would offer to go first, but nobody liking to make the plunge; even Rollo stood whimpering and whining on the bank, as if he did not half like the adventure.
'Here goes!' cried gallant Bobby at last, leading the way as though he were charging at the enemy, and with four jumps and a long leap he managed to get over dry-shod, with Rollo at his heels, barking loud and furiously.
Not to be outdone in pluck, Peggy essayed to follow with equal style, but her foot slipped on a particularly green and moss-grown boulder, and in a moment she had plunged, tea-cakes and all, into an impromptu bath. Luckily, it was not deep, and she soon scrambled out, and fished up the paper-bag as well; but she was a very wet and draggled object, and as for the tea-cakes, they were a moist wreck!
'Oh, I know I shall go in, too!' wailed Lilian from the other side. 'I'd better try and save the bread, at any rate,' and she flung the loaf with all the strength she could muster across the stream. It fell well on the opposite bank, and Peggy made a desperate effort to catch it, but it eluded her grasp, and rolling down the bank with a series of aggravating bounds, descended with a splash to seek a watery grave.
'There! It's gone! And it's in such a deep hole, too. We can't possibly get it out. We shall have toleave it for the fishes,' said Peggy, poking vainly into the depths with a long stick. 'Lil, you'll never get over if you stand shivering on the brink like that. Do come along!'
But Lilian popped down on the grass, and pulled off her shoes and stockings as the most speedy way of solving the difficulty, and hustled Miss Peggy home with all possible haste, to be dried; for the water was very cold, and her teeth were chattering in her head, while her dripping garments left such a moist track as she went that Bobby unfeelingly compared her to a watering-cart.
'What am I to do with such terrible children?' said poor Aunt Helen, as the trio recounted their adventures round the supper-table. 'I can scarcely let you out of my sight without you tear your clothes to ribbons or come home half drowned.'
'They're chips of the old block, Helen!' laughed Father. 'We Vaughans have a natural love of adventure: it's in the blood, and bound to come out somehow, so best let it have its fling while they are young, and they'll sober down when they come to years of discretion. Eh, bairns? Don't you agree with me?'
And three hearty young pairs of lungs carried the resolution with a unanimous 'Rather!'
'The mountains that infoldIn their wide sweep the coloured landscape round,Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,That guard the enchanted ground.'
'The mountains that infoldIn their wide sweep the coloured landscape round,Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,That guard the enchanted ground.'
'The mountains that infoldIn their wide sweep the coloured landscape round,Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,That guard the enchanted ground.'
'Father, where are you going?' cried Peggy one morning, sliding down the banisters in her hurry to see why her father was pulling out his great fishing-basket from the cupboard under the stairs.
'Up to Llyn y Gaer, little woman, to look after the sheep. I shall stay all night at the cottage, so you won't see me home again till to-morrow evening.'
'Oh, Father!' cried Peggy, flinging her arms round his neck in her most beguiling manner, 'couldn'tyou take Bobby and me with you this time? We have never been once yet, and you can't think how much we want to go.'
'Why, my dear child, I don't know whether you could manage it. Remember, it is an eight-mile walk, and all uphill, and such a rough place when you get there. I am afraid I should have you both crying for Aunt Helen when bedtime came!'
'Indeed we shouldn't; we're not babies!' insisted Peggy, greatly indignant at such a suggestion. 'We can walk quite as well as grown-up people, and carryour own baskets. Oh, Daddy, dear, do,doplease take us just this once!'
'The hut's hardly fit for a girl,' said Mr. Vaughan doubtfully, beginning to relent to Peggy's coaxings.
'Well, you've called me a tomboy often enough, so let me be a boy for to-day. Oh, Auntie, do be a darling, and persuade Father to say yes!'
Aunt Helen paused on her way from the pantry to the dining-room, with a dish of ham in one hand and a pound of butter in the other.
'I really think they might go,' she said, 'if you don't walk too fast for them, Robert. The weather has been so hot that it must be quite dry up there, so I hardly think they would catch cold in the cottage. But they must promise to behave properly, and not to get into any mischief. I can't spare Lilian to-day, or she might have gone to look after them.'
'Oh, thank you! Of course we'll promise!' cried Peggy, clapping her hands, and flying off in the seventh heaven of joy to inform Bobby of the delightful prospect, nearly upsetting Nancy and the breakfast-tray in her mad career, and causing that worthy girl to wish devoutly that schools had no holidays.
Mr. Vaughan owned some land high up on the mountains, across the border, in Wales. He had a little rough shepherd's hut there, just sufficient to form a shelter at night-time, and every now and then he would make an expedition to look after his sheep, or the tiny shaggy ponies which were turned out loose to wander almost wild upon the moors.
To go with Father upon one of these mountain excursions had been the dream of Peggy and Bobby's lives, so it was with very gay faces that, their fishing-baskets full of provisions slung over their shoulders, and oldRover trotting soberly behind, they started off on their eight-mile tramp up the hillside.
It was such a lovely summer morning, one of those brilliant, glorious days when the world looks as if it had been newly created, and came to us with a whiff of Paradise about it. Down in the village the cottage gardens were ablaze with flowers, and even old Ephraim had forgotten his rheumatism, and crawled out to bask in the hot sunshine on the low wall, and called out a friendly 'Good-marnin'!' as the children went by. Past the forge, whence the cheery chink, chink of the blacksmith's hammer came mingled with the refrain of a stirring melody from a good bass voice; under the spreading yew-trees of the churchyard, and out through the lych-gate to the old mill, where the great wheel was turning slowly round, its dripping blades gleaming bright in the sunshine; up the steep path through the little hazel-wood, scrambling over the ladder-like stile into the narrow lane that ran ever uphill towards the mountains, which loomed before them, rugged in outline, and shaded in a mist of purple blue. The hedgerows had given place to stone walls now, loosely built without any mortar, and with green ferns and pennywort growing in the crevices, and forget-me-nots in the ditch below. On and up, on and up, with the great blue hills always rising higher before them, till at length even the stone walls vanished, and they were on the bare moorland, with only a slight foot-track for a road.
Quite out of breath with scrambling after Father's long strides, the children begged for mercy, and sat down to rest for a few minutes and eat their lunch by the side of a little quick-running stream.
'It is a good place for a halt,' said Father, 'for it is the boundary between England and Wales. When weare over the border we shall all be Taffies instead of John Bulls.'
The air was sweet and cool up there, delightfully refreshing after the hot climb uphill. Below them the country lay stretched out like a map, the fields looking no larger than the squares of a chess-board, and the village a pretty child's toy by the side of the river which wound, a mere silver thread, along the valley. Far in the distance, among the trees, the outline of the Abbey rose gray against the background of soft beeches; a little dark cloud, the only one in the whole expanse of clear blue sky, hung over it like a warning of distant danger, and Father sighed as he looked, for to him it appeared as if the shadow of ruin were already creeping near, and stretching a threatening hand over the old home.
But Peggy and Bobby were at the very high-tide of happiness. Children live so entirely in the present, that so long as the existing day brings joy, they literally take no thought for the morrow, and catching their infectious spirits, Mr. Vaughan shook off his forebodings, and joined in the delight of the moment as if he were a boy once more. He hunted in the brook for sedges, captured a Red Admiral to grace Bobby's collection, filled his pockets with sweet gale and asphodel for Lilian's dried vases, and made himself such a delightful companion that the children agreed that Father on a holiday was out and out the best playmate they knew.
'Come, we must be getting on!' he said at last, when the last piece of bread-and-butter had vanished, and the remains had been scattered for the fishes. 'Do you see that little farm nestling in the hollow, with the fir-trees behind it? That is our last link with civilization. We shall find no more human habitations untilwe reach our hut by the lake, so we must make the most of our opportunity, and buy some milk as we pass. They will lend us a can, and we can leave it as we return to-morrow.'
The farm proved, on a nearer acquaintance, to be a little one-storey dwelling built of rough stones, with a roof so covered with a mass of green polypody fern as to completely hide the slate underneath. There was no garden, only a low wall on which the milk-cans and most of the family crockery seemed to be taking an airing; but a patch of potatoes and a scanty half-acre of oats lay beyond the little homestead, roughly railed off to keep out the marauding sheep.
Peggy, who always liked to be first and foremost, ran on before the others to ask for the milk, and was greeted by a furious barking from a collie-dog who guarded the doorstep, while a small, shock-headed girl peeped shyly from behind the shelter of his rough back. At the sight of a stranger she fled with a howl, for visitors were almost unknown on these heights, and the child was as wild as a young rabbit. Her cry of alarm brought out a woman, who kicked the dog yelping into the house, and looked at Peggy with as much curiosity as if she were the inhabitant of another world.
'Please can you let us have some milk?' asked Peggy politely.
'Dim Saesneg,' replied the woman, shaking her head, which, being interpreted, means, 'I can't speak English.'
For once Peggy was at a loss, but Father soon came to the rescue, for he had picked up a little Welsh in his expeditions on the mountains, and readily made the woman understand, in her native tongue, what they required.
The little black cow with the long horns looked strange to eyes accustomed to the large red and white cows at the Abbey, but her milk seemed sweet and good, and the woman sang a song in Welsh while she milked it, to a strange, haunting kind of melody that, like most of the Celtic music, had a touch of sadness and pathos about it.
'Ask her if she ever comes down to Gorswen, and how they get food up here,' whispered Peggy to Father, anxious to be initiated into the mysteries of life among the moors.
'We don't go down more than once a fortnight or so for flour and groceries,' was the translated reply. 'Then we bring it up on the donkey's back. Oh yes, we walk ourselves all the way. What do we live on mostly? Bread and bacon, oatmeal and potatoes, and a few eggs. It's a healthy life, but terribly cold in winter. No, I've never been inside Gorswen Church. We go to a little chapel up here. A preacher walks over from Llanelly when they can spare one. Lonely? Not a bit! When you have the cows and the pigs and the hens and the children to see to you've no time to feel lonely!'
She looked pleased, however, to have had an opportunity for a chat, and gave them a very hearty good-bye as they took the milk-can and set off again on their long tramp. When the little farm was out of sight, they seemed indeed to have left the world behind them, and to be all alone among the hills. Oh, the boundless delight of those rolling miles of heather, which looked like a crimson sea spreading onward towards the horizon, and the delicious smell of the sweet-gale as they trod it underfoot! Great flocks of plovers flew before them, screaming their 'pee-wit, pee-wit!' and here and there they roused a snipe ora woodcock, while wild little ponies scampered off like the wind, indignant at having their solitude disturbed.
The path ran for fully a mile over a bog, and the children had to follow very closely in Father's footsteps to keep a safe track over the soft, spongy surface, for Joe had told them dark tales of pedlars, travelling from Llanrhos to Gorswen, who had sunk into those treacherous brown pools and been heard of no more.
At last, coming over a little rise, they saw in the distance the gleaming outline of a lake, looking like a patch of silver amongst the heather.
'Look!' cried Mr. Vaughan. 'That is Llyn y Gaer. We shall be there in half an hour.'
This was good news to Peggy and Bobby, who were beginning to think that the fishing-baskets were very heavy on their backs, and that it was the longest eight miles they had ever imagined, so they hurried after Father, who made haste now, to make up for the many halts upon the road, for the afternoon was wearing on, and there was much to be done before night. Close beside the lake, on a flat piece of grass sheltered under a high cliff, stood the shepherd's hut, a small one-roomed shanty of rough stones piled up without either mortar or plaster, and roofed with a few tree-trunks covered with turf and heather. The tiny window was hardly a foot square, and had no glass in it, and a beautiful root of parsley fern grew luxuriantly on the sill, while all the crevices of the walls seemed full of lichens, bound together by the crimson stems of the creeping pellitory.
Father unlocked the weather-beaten door, and the children rushed in with much excitement. They saw a low room with a raftered roof, rough whitewashed walls, and an earthen floor. The whole of one side was occupied by a great fireplace, with a chimney sowide that, looking up, you could see the sky above. Grate there was none, and the fire must burn on the hearth-stone, but a good stack of dry peat and heather stood in the ingle nook, evidently left ready for use. A table, a chair, and two boxes were all the furniture, while a few cups, plates, and knives, together with a frying-pan, a kettle, and a pair of bellows, made up the rest of the modest establishment.
'Isn't it fun?' said Peggy, putting down her heavy basket with a sigh of relief.
'I should just think so!' replied Bobby, roaming round to explore, and wondering whether it would be possible to climb up the wide chimney and peep out through the top.
'To work! To work!' cried Father. 'We have no time to be idle if you want any tea! Bobby, take the kettle, and fill it from the stream outside; and Peggy, you can get some of those peats, and help me to light the fire.'
Father had a newspaper and a box of matches in his pocket, so, with the help of the dry heather, they soon had a glowing red blaze, and swung the kettle on a hook, fastened to the end of a long chain, which hung, in true Welsh fashion, from a great beam fixed across the chimney.
'Now, while the water boils,' said Mr. Vaughan, 'we must go and pull heather for our beds, before the dew begins to fall upon it. Come along, my two subalterns, this is camp life, and you must learn to bivouac like true soldiers.'
'"The heath this night must be my bed,The bracken's curtain for my head,"'
'"The heath this night must be my bed,The bracken's curtain for my head,"'
'"The heath this night must be my bed,The bracken's curtain for my head,"'
sang Peggy, who had been studying the 'Lady of the Lake' at school, and quoted it on all occasions. 'Butwe ought not to have a hut at all. We should just wrap ourselves in our plaids, and lie under the "silent stars."'
'I prefer a roof over my head myself,' said Father dryly. 'But if you are so anxious to taste the romantic you may sleep in the cold outside. I'm afraid I haven't a plaidie to offer you.'
'I'm sure a heather bed will be stunning!' declared Bobby. 'I don't think I shall ever want sheets and nightshirts, and horrid things of that sort, again. I'd like to be a hunter when I grow up, and always live in tents, and caves, and jolly places, like the boys in books.'
'It's just like the Swiss Family Robinson, only ever so much nicer,' said Peggy. 'I wish we lived up here, and then we shouldn't need to go to school, and darn stockings, and do all kinds of things we hate!'
They pulled great armfuls of the delicious purple heather, and laid them on the floor close to the fire, for Father said it was chilly at nights after the sun had gone down, and they would need all the warmth they could get. The kettle was boiling noisily by this time, so the children hastened to set out the cups and plates. There was no table-cloth, but that did not matter in the least, and the absence of teaspoons was regarded as rather an advantage than otherwise. It was so quaint to sit right inside the chimney corner, and smell the delicious blue peat smoke that was curling its way to the turf roof overhead, and to look out through the open doorway at the silver lake, sending gentle ripples over the little sandy beach, and always the purple waste of heather beyond, with the mountains rising up, tier after tier, into the dim distance.
There never were such appetites. Peggy poured out, with a grand air, as if she were officiating at someCourt ceremony. Aunt Helen's hard-boiled eggs and bread-and-butter disappeared like magic, and the little teapot was filled again and again, till there was no more water left in the kettle.
'Bobby, you simply must stop!' said Father. 'Please to remember our supplies have to last us for breakfast and lunch to-morrow. If we eat up everything so fast, we shall be obliged to go hungry before we get home again. Now I am going out to look after the sheep, and I shall leave you to clear away and wash up. If I bring you camping out up here, you must be my orderlies, and do the work. I generally put the cups into the pool outside.'
'All right,' said Peggy and Bobby, rattling the tea-things into the big fishing-basket with a haste calculated to break anything but the stout blue enamel ware which Aunt Helen had thoughtfully provided, and racing outside to the little stream which flowed past the cottage into the lake.
The bank shelved in one place, so as to form a shallow basin, and here the children tilted in their load, sitting down on the heather for a few minutes to wait until the running water had washed them clean.
'Take care they are not washed away into the lake!' shouted Father after them. 'And keep up the fire while I am gone. I shall be in before dark.'
And he went off for a weary tramp over the hills, with old Rover following closely at his heels.
'I wish we could have brought Rollo,' said Bobby. 'I don't believe he would have driven the sheep all the wrong way, in spite of what Father says. David had to tie him up in the stable, so that he shouldn't follow us.'
'I know he'll miss us dreadfully, poor darling!'said Peggy. 'I hope Lilian won't forget to give him his biscuit to-night. I asked Nancy to remember Prickles, and Joe promised to feed the rabbits; and if Jack doesn't get his supper he'll scold so dreadfully outside the kitchen door that someone is sure to hear him. Oh, Bobby! I saw a fish in the pool just then. I have two pins in my jacket, and a long piece of string in my pocket. Don't you think we could make hooks and lines, and catch some to surprise Father when he comes back? There are lots of worms in the bank.'
The tea-things were hastily collected from the stream, and the amateur anglers set to work with much enthusiasm but no success, for the fish absolutely declined to bite, in spite of the tempting bait, and lay sulkily under the stones at the bottom of the pool. It was growing quite dark before Father returned, and I think, though neither of them would have confessed it, the children were both rather relieved to hear his cheery whistle outside the door, for it was just a little eerie sitting by the peat fire in that lonely cottage, without a sound to break the vast silence, and the knowledge that the nearest human habitation lay fully three miles away; and Bobby had already asked Peggy if she believed in ghosts, and whether it was true what Joe had told him that the lights you sometimes see at night hovering over a bog are the souls of children who have never been baptized; and though Peggy had professed to laugh at the supernatural, she did not feel quite so brave as she pretended, and found little cold shivers stealing down her back when the wind rose suddenly, and began to wail round the cottage like a hungry creature waiting to be let in.
'I don't know what you young folks are,' said Mr. Vaughan, 'but I'm dog-tired, and we had better go to bed, for I want to be up with the sun to-morrow.'
The children were disposed to agree with him, so, simply pulling off their boots, they lay down in their clothes on the piles of fragrant heather, while Father threw thick bundles of it over them to serve instead of blankets. Heather makes one of the most delicious beds in the world. It is so soft, and yet so springy, and the purple blossom smells so sweet, that one could scarcely wish to lie easier.
Father and Bobby were asleep in two minutes, but Peggy lay awake for a long time, watching the shadows of the peat fire flicker upon the rough beams of the roof, till at length fire and heather merged into a dreamland kingdom, where she was walking with Rollo upon the clouds, and fishing teacups out of a flowing sea below.