Chapter Ten.

Chapter Ten.Afloat—and ashore.“Sure, I’m almost dead entirely, with all that hurrying and scurrying!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, when she was at length got safely on board the little steamer and comfortably placed on a cosy seat aft, near the wheel, to which Captain Dresser had gallantly escorted her. “Really, now, I couldn’t have run another yard, if it had been to save me life!”She panted out the words with such a racy admixture of her Irish “brogue,” which always became more “pronounced” with her when she was at all excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing every sympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as he imitated her tone of voice and accent—much to the amusement of Master Bob and Miss Nellie, you may be sure!“Sure, an’ there’s no knowin’ what ye can do, now, till ye thry, ma’am!” said he. “Is there, me darlint?”“None of your nonsense,” she replied laughing; “I won’t have you making fun of my country like that. I’m sure you’re just as much an Irishman as I am!”This slip delighted the Captain.“There, ma’am,” he exclaimed exultingly, “you’ve been and gone and put your foot in it now in all conscience.”“Oh, auntie!” cried Nellie, “anIrishman!”This made Mrs Gilmour see her blunder, and she cheerfully joined in the laugh against herself.Bob, meanwhile, had stationed himself by the engine-room hatchway, and was contemplating with rapt attention the almost human-like movements of the machinery below.How wonderful it all was, he thought—the up and down stroke of the piston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to side guided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of the shaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all working so smoothly, and yet with such resistless force!The whole was a marvel to him, as indeed it is to many of us to whom a marine engine is no novelty.“Well, my young philosopher,” said the Captain, tapping him on the shoulder and making him take off his gaze for a moment from the sight, “do you think you understand the engines by this time, eh?”Bob only needed the hint to speak; and out he came with a whole volley of questions.“What is that thing there?” he asked, “the thing that goes round, I mean.”“The paddle-shaft,” replied the Captain; “it turns the wheels.”“And that other thing that goes up and down?”“The piston-rod,” said the old sailor. “It is this which turns the shaft.”“Then, I want to know how the piston makes the shaft turn round, when it only goes up and down itself?”“The ‘eccentric’ manages to do that, although it was a puzzle for a long time to engineers to solve the problem—not until, I believe, Fulton thought of this plan,” said the Captain; and, he then went on to explain how, in the old beam-engine of Watt, as well as in the earlier contrivances for utilising steam-power, a fly-wheel was the means adopted for changing the perpendicular action of the piston into a circular motion. “Of course, though,” he added, “this fly-wheel was only available in stationary engines for pumping and so on; but, when the principle of the eccentric was discovered later in the day, the previously uneducated young giant, ‘Steam,’ was then broken to harness, so to speak, being thenceforth made serviceable for dragging railway-carriages on our iron roads, and propelling ships without the aid of sails, and against the wind even, if need be!”“But what is steam?” was Bob’s next query. “That’s what I want to know.”This fairly bothered the Captain.“Steam?” he repeated, “steam, eh? humph! steam is, well let me see, steam is—steam!”Bob exploded at this, his merriment being shared by Nellie and Mrs Gilmour, the latter not sorry for the old sailor’s “putting his foot in it” by a very similar blunder to that for which he had laughed at her shortly before; while, as for Dick, the struggles he made to hide the broad grin which would show on his face were quite comical and even painful to witness.The Captain pretended to get into a great rage; although his twinkling eyes and suppressed chuckle testified that it was only pretence all the time, though his passion was well simulated.“I don’t see anything to laugh at, you young rascal,” he said to Bob. “I’m sure I’ve given you quite as good a definition as you would find in any of those ‘catechisms of common things’—catechisms of conundrums, I call them—which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots, without really acquiring any sensible knowledge of the subjects they are supposed to teach! I might tell you, as these works do, that ‘steam was an elastic fluid generated by water when in a boiling state’; but, would you be any the wiser for that piece of information, eh?”“No, Captain,” answered Bob, still giggling, “I don’t understand.”“Or, I might tell you ‘steam: is only a synonym for heat, the cause of all motion’—do you understand that?”Bob still shook his head, trying vainly to keep from laughing.“Of course not,” cried the Captain triumphantly, “nor would I, either, unless I knew something more about it; and to tell you that would take me all the day nearly.”“Oh spare us,” said Mrs Gilmour plaintively. “Pray spare us that!”“I will, ma’am,” he replied. “I assure you I wasn’t going to do it. Some time or other, though, this young shaver shall come along with me when one of the new ships goes out from the dockyard for her steam trials; and then, perhaps, he will be able to have everything explained to him properly, without boring you or bothering me.”“How jolly!” ejaculated Bob. “I should like that.”“You mustn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” growled the other, turning round on him abruptly; “and, if ever I catch you sniggering again when I’m talking I’ll—I’ll—”What the Captain’s terrible threat was must ever remain a mystery; for, just at that moment, Nell, who had been looking over the side of the steamer, watching the creamy foam churned-up by her paddles and rolling with heavy undulations into the long white wake astern marking her progress through the water, suddenly uttered an exclamation.“Look, look, aunt Polly!” she cried excitedly. “Oh, look!”“What, dearie?” inquired Mrs Gilmour, bending towards her, thinking she had dropped her glove or something into the sea. “What is it?”“There, there!” said Nellie, pointing out some dark objects that could be seen tumbling about in the tideway some distance off the starboard quarter. “See those big fishes, auntie! Are they whales?”It was the Captain’s turn to laugh now.“Whales, eh? By Jove, you’ll be the death of me, missy, by Jove, you will, ho-ho-ho!” he chuckled, leaning on his stick for support. “What does Shakespeare say, eh? ‘very like a whale,’ eh? Ho-ho-ho!”Miss Nell did not like this at all, though she did not object to laughing at others.“Well, what are they?” she asked indignantly. “What are they?”“Pigs;” replied the Captain with a grave face, but there was a sly twinkle of his left eye approaching to a wink. “Those are pigs, missy.”“I don’t believe it,” cried the young lady in a pet, putting up her shoulders in high disdain. “You’re only making fun of me!”“Hush, dearie, you mustn’t be rude,” said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly; “but sure, Captain, you shouldn’t make game of the child.”“I assure you, I’m not doing so, ma’am,” he protested, chuckling though still with much enjoyment. “I’ve only told her the simple truth. Theyarepigs, sea-pigs if you like, commonly called porpoises. But, whales, by Jove, that’s a good joke, ho-ho-ho!”This time Nellie laughed too, the old sailor seemed to enjoy her mistake with such gusto; and, harmony being thus restored, they all turned to watch the graceful motions of the animals that had caused the discussion, which, swimming abreast of the vessel, were ever and anon darting across her bows and playing round her, describing the most beautiful curves as they dived under each other, apparently indulging in a game of leap-frog.TheBembridge Bellewas now just about midway between Southsea and Seaview, and close upon the buoy marking the spot where the oldMarie Rose, the first big ship of our embryo navy, sank in the reign of bluff King Hal, in an action she had with a French squadron that attempted entering the Solent with the idea of capturing the Isle of Wight. The ‘mounseers,’ as the Captain explained to Bob, were beaten off in the battle and most of their vessels captured, a result owing largely to the part played by the gallantMarie Rose; though, sad be it to relate, while resisting all the efforts made by the enemy to carry her by the board, being somewhat top-heavy, “she ‘turned the turtle’ at the very moment when her guns were brought to bear a-starboard, to give a final broadside to the French admiral and settle the action, the poor thing then incontinently sinking to the bottom, where her bones yet lie.”“Not far-off either,” continued the Captain, “theRoyal Georgealso foundered in the last century, with over nine hundred hands, there being a lot of shore folk in the ship beside her crew. Her Admiral, Kempenfeldt, was also on board, and—”“Yes,” said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him; “and, sure, there’s a pretty little poem my favourite Cowper wrote about it which I recollect I learnt by heart when I was a little girl, much smaller than you, Nell. The lines began thus— ‘Toll for the brave, the brave that are no more,’—don’t you remember them; I’m sure you must, Captain?”“Can’t say I do, ma’am,” he replied—“poetry isn’t in my line. But, as I was saying, theRoyal Georgeheeled over pretty nearly in the same way as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I remember when I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so many years ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob, being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, to clear the fairway for navigation. I’ve got a ruler and a paper-knife now at home that were carved out of pieces of her timber which I picked up at the time.”“How nice!” observed Mrs Gilmour. “A charming recollection, I call it!”“Well, I don’t know about that,” replied the Captain, who seemed a little bit grumpy, and was fumbling in his pockets without apparently being able to find the object of which he was in search—“my recollection is not so good as I would like it!”On Mrs Gilmour looking at him inquiringly, noticing the tone in which he spoke, the truth came out.“The fact is, ma’am, I’ve lost my snuff-box,” he said apologetically to excuse his snappy answers. “I must have left it in my other coat at home.”He did not give up the quest, however, but continued to dive his hands on the right and left alternately into pocket after pocket; until, suddenly, the cross expression vanished from his face, being succeeded by a beaming smile, followed by his customary good-humoured chuckle.“I’ve found it!” he exclaimed triumphantly, producing the missing box from the usual pocket in which he kept it, where it had lain all the time; and, taking a pinch, the Captain was himself again. “By Jove, I thought my memory was gone!”The porpoises all this while continued their gambols about the steamer, now ahead, now astern, now swimming abreast, one after the other, rolling, diving, and jumping out of the water sometimes in their sport.They seemed to be having a regular holiday of it; and, tired of leap-frog, had taken to “follow my leader” or some other game. At any rate, they did not think much of theBembridge Belle, passing and repassing and going round her at intervals, as if to show their contempt of a speed they could so readily eclipse.“Do you often see them here playing like this?” asked Nellie of the Captain, who was also looking over the side. “Is that the way they always swim?”“No, missy,” said he, with all his old geniality, “not often, though they pay us a visit now and then in summer when so inclined. Their coming now through Spithead is a sign that there’s going to be a change of wind.”“Oh!” cried Nell wonderingly. “How strange!”“Yes, my dear,” went on the old sailor, smiling as he looked down in her puzzled face upturned to his, “I’m not joking, missy, as you think. Those fellows are regular barometers in their way; and, if you note the direction towards which they are seen swimming when they pass a ship at sea, from that very point wind, frequently a gale, may be shortly expected.”“I hope we’re not going to have another storm,” said Nellie, thinking of their late experience. “I don’t like those gales.”“No, no, not so bad as that now, I think,” he replied, chuckling away. “There probably will be only a slight shift of wind from the western quarter, whence it is now blowing, to the eastward, whither the porpoises are now making off for, as you can see for yourself.”So it subsequently turned out.The “sea-pigs,” as the Captain had at first jocularly termed them, bade good-bye to the steamer and its passengers when they had got a little way beyond No Man’s fort, and were approaching shoal water, with an impudent flick of their flukey tails in the air as they went off, shaping a straight course out towards the Nab light-ship, as if bound up Channel.They had all been so occupied watching the porpoises that they had not noticed the rapid progress the steamer had been making towards her first port of call on the other side of the Solent; and so, almost at the same moment that the Captain called Nellie’s attention to the last movements of the queer fish as they vanished in the distance, she shut off her steam and sidled up to Seaview pier.“Who’s for the shore?” cried out the skipper from his post on the paddle-box, as soon as the vessel had made fast, and the “brow,” or gangway, was shoved ashore for the passengers to land, without any unnecessary delay. “Any ladies or gents for Seaview?”The majority of those on board at once quitted the steamer, amongst them being our quintet.As they were stepping on to the pier, however, a slight difficulty arose in connection with one of their number.It was about Rover.“Is that your dog?” asked the collector of tickets of theCaptain, as the retriever darted ahead in a great hurry. “That your dog, sir?”“No,” replied the old sailor, “not exactly—why?”“Because, if he is, he’ll have to have a ticket the same as the rest,” said the man. “Dogs is half-price, like children.”“Oh, I didn’t know,” cried the Captain apologetically, as he put his hand in his pocket and paid Rover’s fare, adding in a low voice to Mrs Gilmour, while they were ascending the steps from the landing-stage to the pier above, “I do believe that rascal thought I meant to cheat him and smuggle the dog through without paying, the fellow looked at me so suspiciously.”“Perhaps he did,” replied she laughing. “You know you are a very suspicious-looking gentleman.”“Humph!” he chuckled. “I think Rover intended to do him, though. He squeezed himself past my legs very artfully!”“He did, the naughty dog,” said Nellie, who, with Bob, had been much amused by the little incident. “He’s always doing it in London at the railway-stations whenever we go by the underground line; and papa says he wants to cheat the company. He comes after us sometimes, and jumps into the railway-carriage where we are, when we think him miles away and safe at home! Did you ever hear of such a thing, aunt Polly?”“No, dearie,” she answered as they all stepped out briskly along the rather shaky suspension bridge connecting the pier with the shore, which oscillated under their feet in a way that made Mrs Gilmour anxious to get off it as quickly as she could to firm ground. “Rover is a clever fellow, sure!”“He’s a very artful dog!” observed the Captain, whereat Rover wagged his tail, as if he understood what he said and appreciated the compliment—“a very artful dog!”Arrived on shore, presently, the children were in ecstasies at all they saw; for, by only crossing the roadway opposite the land end of the shaky bridge, they at once found themselves within the outlying shrubbery and brushwood of Priory Park, which the kindly proprietor freely threw open for years to the public, without post or paling interfering with their enjoyment, until the vandalism and vulgarity of some cockney excursionists, who wrought untold destruction to the property, led to the rescinding of this privilege!Although touching the sea, the waters of which lapped its turf at high tide, when once within the park, it seemed to Bob and Nellie as if they were miles away already in the heart of the country; so that, accustomed as they had been only to town life, it may be imagined how great the change was to them in every way.As for runaway Dick from Guildford, who had been familiarised to rustic scenes from his earliest infancy, he could see no beauty in the various objects that each instant delighted the little Londoners’ eyes and ears; for, like the hero of Wordsworth’s verse, “the primrose by the river’s brim” was but a primrose and nothing more to him!To Bob and Nellie, however, the scene around, with its salient features, disclosed a new world.There were great, nodding, ox-eyed daisies that popped up pertly on either side, staring at them from amidst wastes of wild hyacinths and forget-me-nots that were bluer than Nellie’s witching eyes.Pink and white convolvulus hung in festoons across the bracken-bordered little winding pathways that led here and there through mazes of shrubbery and undergrowth, under the arched wilderness of greenery above.Rippling rivulets trickling down from nowhere and wandering whither their erratic wills directed, their soft, murmuring voices chiming in with the gayer carols of the birds.Amongst these could be distinguished the harmonious notes of some not altogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistle of the blackbird in the hidden covert, the “pretty Dick” of the thrush, and the “chink, chink!” of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled with the sweet but subdued song of the yellow-hammer and sharp staccato accompaniment of the untiring chaffinch; while, all the time, a colony of asthmatic old rooks in the taller trees of the park cawed their part in the concert in a deep bass key at regular intervals, “Caw, caw, caw!”Bob and Nellie were so delighted and unsparing of their admiration of everything they saw and heard, that Dick fell to wondering at the pleasure they took in things which he held of little account.If unappreciative, however, Dick was of some service in telling Nellie the names of the principal wild-flowers; while he rose high in Bob’s estimation by his lore in the matter of birds’ nests, of which the ex-runaway from the country, naturally, could speak as an expert.Touching the feathered tribe generally, he was able to tell them off at a glance, with the habits and characteristics of each, as readily as Bob could repeat the Multiplication Table—more so, indeed, if the strict truth be insisted on, without stretching a point!“That be a throosh,” he would say; and, “t’other, over there’s, a chaffy. He ain’t up to much now; but wait till he be moulted and he’ll coom out foine! I’ve heard tell folks in furrin’ parts vallies ’em greatly, though we in Guildford think nowt of they. I’d rayther a lark mysen, Master Bob.”“Ah!” exclaimed Nellie, who had previously been shocked by Dick’s lack of sentiment, much pleased now at this expression of a better taste—“you do like their singing then!”“Lawks no, miss,” replied the unprincipled boy. “Larks is foine roasted!”Nellie was horrified.“You don’t mean to say, Dick,” she cried, “that—that you actually eat them?”“Aye, miss,” he replied, without an atom of shame, “we doos. They be rare tasty birds!”She gave him up after this, going along by herself in silence.“This is jolly!” exclaimed Bob presently, when, after getting a little way within the park and ascending the rise leading up from the shore to an open plateau above, he saw a sort of fairy dell below, at the foot of a grassy slope, the green surface of which was speckled over with daisies and buttercups. “Come along, Nell!”Down the tempting incline he at once raced, with Nellie and Rover at his heels; and, diving beneath a jungle of blackberry-bushes at the bottom, matted together with ropes of ivy that had fallen from a withered oak, whose dry and sapless gnarled old trunk still stood proudly erect in the midst of the mass of luxuriant vegetation with which it was surrounded, Nellie heard him after a bit call out from the leafy enclosure in which he had quickly found himself—“Oh, I say, I see such a pretty fern!”There was silence then for a moment or so, as if Bob was trying to secure the object that had taken his fancy, the quietude being broken by his giving vent to a prolonged “O-o-oh!”“What’s the matter?” cried Nellie, who had stopped without the briary tangle into which her brother had plunged, noticing that his accents of delight suddenly changed to those of pain. “Are you hurt?”“I’ve scratched my face,” he said ruefully, emerging from the blackberry-brake with streaks of blood across his forehead and his nose looking as if it had been in the wars. “Some beastly thorns did it.”“Oh!” ejaculated Nellie, in sympathy and surprise; “I’m so sorry!”“It is ‘oh,’ and it hurts too!” retorted he, dabbing his face tenderly with his pocket-handkerchief. “However, I shall get that fern I was after, though, in spite of all the prickles and thorns in the world!”So saying, in he dashed again, stooping under the thorny network, and came out ere long with a beautiful specimen of the shuttlecock fern, which elicited as expressive an “Oh” from Nellie as the sight of his scratched face had just previously done—an “Oh” of admiration and delight. But, as with Bob, her joyful exclamation was quickly followed by an expression of woe.As she stepped forward to inspect the fern more closely, she put her foot on a rotten branch of the oak-tree, which had become broken off from its parent stem and lay stretched across the dell, forming a sort of frail bridge over the prickly chasm below up to the higher ground on which she stood.Alas! the decayed wood gave way under her weight, slight as that was, and Nellie, uttering a wild shriek of terror, disappeared from Bob’s astonished gaze.

“Sure, I’m almost dead entirely, with all that hurrying and scurrying!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, when she was at length got safely on board the little steamer and comfortably placed on a cosy seat aft, near the wheel, to which Captain Dresser had gallantly escorted her. “Really, now, I couldn’t have run another yard, if it had been to save me life!”

She panted out the words with such a racy admixture of her Irish “brogue,” which always became more “pronounced” with her when she was at all excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing every sympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as he imitated her tone of voice and accent—much to the amusement of Master Bob and Miss Nellie, you may be sure!

“Sure, an’ there’s no knowin’ what ye can do, now, till ye thry, ma’am!” said he. “Is there, me darlint?”

“None of your nonsense,” she replied laughing; “I won’t have you making fun of my country like that. I’m sure you’re just as much an Irishman as I am!”

This slip delighted the Captain.

“There, ma’am,” he exclaimed exultingly, “you’ve been and gone and put your foot in it now in all conscience.”

“Oh, auntie!” cried Nellie, “anIrishman!”

This made Mrs Gilmour see her blunder, and she cheerfully joined in the laugh against herself.

Bob, meanwhile, had stationed himself by the engine-room hatchway, and was contemplating with rapt attention the almost human-like movements of the machinery below.

How wonderful it all was, he thought—the up and down stroke of the piston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to side guided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of the shaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all working so smoothly, and yet with such resistless force!

The whole was a marvel to him, as indeed it is to many of us to whom a marine engine is no novelty.

“Well, my young philosopher,” said the Captain, tapping him on the shoulder and making him take off his gaze for a moment from the sight, “do you think you understand the engines by this time, eh?”

Bob only needed the hint to speak; and out he came with a whole volley of questions.

“What is that thing there?” he asked, “the thing that goes round, I mean.”

“The paddle-shaft,” replied the Captain; “it turns the wheels.”

“And that other thing that goes up and down?”

“The piston-rod,” said the old sailor. “It is this which turns the shaft.”

“Then, I want to know how the piston makes the shaft turn round, when it only goes up and down itself?”

“The ‘eccentric’ manages to do that, although it was a puzzle for a long time to engineers to solve the problem—not until, I believe, Fulton thought of this plan,” said the Captain; and, he then went on to explain how, in the old beam-engine of Watt, as well as in the earlier contrivances for utilising steam-power, a fly-wheel was the means adopted for changing the perpendicular action of the piston into a circular motion. “Of course, though,” he added, “this fly-wheel was only available in stationary engines for pumping and so on; but, when the principle of the eccentric was discovered later in the day, the previously uneducated young giant, ‘Steam,’ was then broken to harness, so to speak, being thenceforth made serviceable for dragging railway-carriages on our iron roads, and propelling ships without the aid of sails, and against the wind even, if need be!”

“But what is steam?” was Bob’s next query. “That’s what I want to know.”

This fairly bothered the Captain.

“Steam?” he repeated, “steam, eh? humph! steam is, well let me see, steam is—steam!”

Bob exploded at this, his merriment being shared by Nellie and Mrs Gilmour, the latter not sorry for the old sailor’s “putting his foot in it” by a very similar blunder to that for which he had laughed at her shortly before; while, as for Dick, the struggles he made to hide the broad grin which would show on his face were quite comical and even painful to witness.

The Captain pretended to get into a great rage; although his twinkling eyes and suppressed chuckle testified that it was only pretence all the time, though his passion was well simulated.

“I don’t see anything to laugh at, you young rascal,” he said to Bob. “I’m sure I’ve given you quite as good a definition as you would find in any of those ‘catechisms of common things’—catechisms of conundrums, I call them—which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots, without really acquiring any sensible knowledge of the subjects they are supposed to teach! I might tell you, as these works do, that ‘steam was an elastic fluid generated by water when in a boiling state’; but, would you be any the wiser for that piece of information, eh?”

“No, Captain,” answered Bob, still giggling, “I don’t understand.”

“Or, I might tell you ‘steam: is only a synonym for heat, the cause of all motion’—do you understand that?”

Bob still shook his head, trying vainly to keep from laughing.

“Of course not,” cried the Captain triumphantly, “nor would I, either, unless I knew something more about it; and to tell you that would take me all the day nearly.”

“Oh spare us,” said Mrs Gilmour plaintively. “Pray spare us that!”

“I will, ma’am,” he replied. “I assure you I wasn’t going to do it. Some time or other, though, this young shaver shall come along with me when one of the new ships goes out from the dockyard for her steam trials; and then, perhaps, he will be able to have everything explained to him properly, without boring you or bothering me.”

“How jolly!” ejaculated Bob. “I should like that.”

“You mustn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” growled the other, turning round on him abruptly; “and, if ever I catch you sniggering again when I’m talking I’ll—I’ll—”

What the Captain’s terrible threat was must ever remain a mystery; for, just at that moment, Nell, who had been looking over the side of the steamer, watching the creamy foam churned-up by her paddles and rolling with heavy undulations into the long white wake astern marking her progress through the water, suddenly uttered an exclamation.

“Look, look, aunt Polly!” she cried excitedly. “Oh, look!”

“What, dearie?” inquired Mrs Gilmour, bending towards her, thinking she had dropped her glove or something into the sea. “What is it?”

“There, there!” said Nellie, pointing out some dark objects that could be seen tumbling about in the tideway some distance off the starboard quarter. “See those big fishes, auntie! Are they whales?”

It was the Captain’s turn to laugh now.

“Whales, eh? By Jove, you’ll be the death of me, missy, by Jove, you will, ho-ho-ho!” he chuckled, leaning on his stick for support. “What does Shakespeare say, eh? ‘very like a whale,’ eh? Ho-ho-ho!”

Miss Nell did not like this at all, though she did not object to laughing at others.

“Well, what are they?” she asked indignantly. “What are they?”

“Pigs;” replied the Captain with a grave face, but there was a sly twinkle of his left eye approaching to a wink. “Those are pigs, missy.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried the young lady in a pet, putting up her shoulders in high disdain. “You’re only making fun of me!”

“Hush, dearie, you mustn’t be rude,” said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly; “but sure, Captain, you shouldn’t make game of the child.”

“I assure you, I’m not doing so, ma’am,” he protested, chuckling though still with much enjoyment. “I’ve only told her the simple truth. Theyarepigs, sea-pigs if you like, commonly called porpoises. But, whales, by Jove, that’s a good joke, ho-ho-ho!”

This time Nellie laughed too, the old sailor seemed to enjoy her mistake with such gusto; and, harmony being thus restored, they all turned to watch the graceful motions of the animals that had caused the discussion, which, swimming abreast of the vessel, were ever and anon darting across her bows and playing round her, describing the most beautiful curves as they dived under each other, apparently indulging in a game of leap-frog.

TheBembridge Bellewas now just about midway between Southsea and Seaview, and close upon the buoy marking the spot where the oldMarie Rose, the first big ship of our embryo navy, sank in the reign of bluff King Hal, in an action she had with a French squadron that attempted entering the Solent with the idea of capturing the Isle of Wight. The ‘mounseers,’ as the Captain explained to Bob, were beaten off in the battle and most of their vessels captured, a result owing largely to the part played by the gallantMarie Rose; though, sad be it to relate, while resisting all the efforts made by the enemy to carry her by the board, being somewhat top-heavy, “she ‘turned the turtle’ at the very moment when her guns were brought to bear a-starboard, to give a final broadside to the French admiral and settle the action, the poor thing then incontinently sinking to the bottom, where her bones yet lie.”

“Not far-off either,” continued the Captain, “theRoyal Georgealso foundered in the last century, with over nine hundred hands, there being a lot of shore folk in the ship beside her crew. Her Admiral, Kempenfeldt, was also on board, and—”

“Yes,” said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him; “and, sure, there’s a pretty little poem my favourite Cowper wrote about it which I recollect I learnt by heart when I was a little girl, much smaller than you, Nell. The lines began thus— ‘Toll for the brave, the brave that are no more,’—don’t you remember them; I’m sure you must, Captain?”

“Can’t say I do, ma’am,” he replied—“poetry isn’t in my line. But, as I was saying, theRoyal Georgeheeled over pretty nearly in the same way as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I remember when I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so many years ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob, being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, to clear the fairway for navigation. I’ve got a ruler and a paper-knife now at home that were carved out of pieces of her timber which I picked up at the time.”

“How nice!” observed Mrs Gilmour. “A charming recollection, I call it!”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” replied the Captain, who seemed a little bit grumpy, and was fumbling in his pockets without apparently being able to find the object of which he was in search—“my recollection is not so good as I would like it!”

On Mrs Gilmour looking at him inquiringly, noticing the tone in which he spoke, the truth came out.

“The fact is, ma’am, I’ve lost my snuff-box,” he said apologetically to excuse his snappy answers. “I must have left it in my other coat at home.”

He did not give up the quest, however, but continued to dive his hands on the right and left alternately into pocket after pocket; until, suddenly, the cross expression vanished from his face, being succeeded by a beaming smile, followed by his customary good-humoured chuckle.

“I’ve found it!” he exclaimed triumphantly, producing the missing box from the usual pocket in which he kept it, where it had lain all the time; and, taking a pinch, the Captain was himself again. “By Jove, I thought my memory was gone!”

The porpoises all this while continued their gambols about the steamer, now ahead, now astern, now swimming abreast, one after the other, rolling, diving, and jumping out of the water sometimes in their sport.

They seemed to be having a regular holiday of it; and, tired of leap-frog, had taken to “follow my leader” or some other game. At any rate, they did not think much of theBembridge Belle, passing and repassing and going round her at intervals, as if to show their contempt of a speed they could so readily eclipse.

“Do you often see them here playing like this?” asked Nellie of the Captain, who was also looking over the side. “Is that the way they always swim?”

“No, missy,” said he, with all his old geniality, “not often, though they pay us a visit now and then in summer when so inclined. Their coming now through Spithead is a sign that there’s going to be a change of wind.”

“Oh!” cried Nell wonderingly. “How strange!”

“Yes, my dear,” went on the old sailor, smiling as he looked down in her puzzled face upturned to his, “I’m not joking, missy, as you think. Those fellows are regular barometers in their way; and, if you note the direction towards which they are seen swimming when they pass a ship at sea, from that very point wind, frequently a gale, may be shortly expected.”

“I hope we’re not going to have another storm,” said Nellie, thinking of their late experience. “I don’t like those gales.”

“No, no, not so bad as that now, I think,” he replied, chuckling away. “There probably will be only a slight shift of wind from the western quarter, whence it is now blowing, to the eastward, whither the porpoises are now making off for, as you can see for yourself.”

So it subsequently turned out.

The “sea-pigs,” as the Captain had at first jocularly termed them, bade good-bye to the steamer and its passengers when they had got a little way beyond No Man’s fort, and were approaching shoal water, with an impudent flick of their flukey tails in the air as they went off, shaping a straight course out towards the Nab light-ship, as if bound up Channel.

They had all been so occupied watching the porpoises that they had not noticed the rapid progress the steamer had been making towards her first port of call on the other side of the Solent; and so, almost at the same moment that the Captain called Nellie’s attention to the last movements of the queer fish as they vanished in the distance, she shut off her steam and sidled up to Seaview pier.

“Who’s for the shore?” cried out the skipper from his post on the paddle-box, as soon as the vessel had made fast, and the “brow,” or gangway, was shoved ashore for the passengers to land, without any unnecessary delay. “Any ladies or gents for Seaview?”

The majority of those on board at once quitted the steamer, amongst them being our quintet.

As they were stepping on to the pier, however, a slight difficulty arose in connection with one of their number.

It was about Rover.

“Is that your dog?” asked the collector of tickets of the

Captain, as the retriever darted ahead in a great hurry. “That your dog, sir?”

“No,” replied the old sailor, “not exactly—why?”

“Because, if he is, he’ll have to have a ticket the same as the rest,” said the man. “Dogs is half-price, like children.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” cried the Captain apologetically, as he put his hand in his pocket and paid Rover’s fare, adding in a low voice to Mrs Gilmour, while they were ascending the steps from the landing-stage to the pier above, “I do believe that rascal thought I meant to cheat him and smuggle the dog through without paying, the fellow looked at me so suspiciously.”

“Perhaps he did,” replied she laughing. “You know you are a very suspicious-looking gentleman.”

“Humph!” he chuckled. “I think Rover intended to do him, though. He squeezed himself past my legs very artfully!”

“He did, the naughty dog,” said Nellie, who, with Bob, had been much amused by the little incident. “He’s always doing it in London at the railway-stations whenever we go by the underground line; and papa says he wants to cheat the company. He comes after us sometimes, and jumps into the railway-carriage where we are, when we think him miles away and safe at home! Did you ever hear of such a thing, aunt Polly?”

“No, dearie,” she answered as they all stepped out briskly along the rather shaky suspension bridge connecting the pier with the shore, which oscillated under their feet in a way that made Mrs Gilmour anxious to get off it as quickly as she could to firm ground. “Rover is a clever fellow, sure!”

“He’s a very artful dog!” observed the Captain, whereat Rover wagged his tail, as if he understood what he said and appreciated the compliment—“a very artful dog!”

Arrived on shore, presently, the children were in ecstasies at all they saw; for, by only crossing the roadway opposite the land end of the shaky bridge, they at once found themselves within the outlying shrubbery and brushwood of Priory Park, which the kindly proprietor freely threw open for years to the public, without post or paling interfering with their enjoyment, until the vandalism and vulgarity of some cockney excursionists, who wrought untold destruction to the property, led to the rescinding of this privilege!

Although touching the sea, the waters of which lapped its turf at high tide, when once within the park, it seemed to Bob and Nellie as if they were miles away already in the heart of the country; so that, accustomed as they had been only to town life, it may be imagined how great the change was to them in every way.

As for runaway Dick from Guildford, who had been familiarised to rustic scenes from his earliest infancy, he could see no beauty in the various objects that each instant delighted the little Londoners’ eyes and ears; for, like the hero of Wordsworth’s verse, “the primrose by the river’s brim” was but a primrose and nothing more to him!

To Bob and Nellie, however, the scene around, with its salient features, disclosed a new world.

There were great, nodding, ox-eyed daisies that popped up pertly on either side, staring at them from amidst wastes of wild hyacinths and forget-me-nots that were bluer than Nellie’s witching eyes.

Pink and white convolvulus hung in festoons across the bracken-bordered little winding pathways that led here and there through mazes of shrubbery and undergrowth, under the arched wilderness of greenery above.

Rippling rivulets trickling down from nowhere and wandering whither their erratic wills directed, their soft, murmuring voices chiming in with the gayer carols of the birds.

Amongst these could be distinguished the harmonious notes of some not altogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistle of the blackbird in the hidden covert, the “pretty Dick” of the thrush, and the “chink, chink!” of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled with the sweet but subdued song of the yellow-hammer and sharp staccato accompaniment of the untiring chaffinch; while, all the time, a colony of asthmatic old rooks in the taller trees of the park cawed their part in the concert in a deep bass key at regular intervals, “Caw, caw, caw!”

Bob and Nellie were so delighted and unsparing of their admiration of everything they saw and heard, that Dick fell to wondering at the pleasure they took in things which he held of little account.

If unappreciative, however, Dick was of some service in telling Nellie the names of the principal wild-flowers; while he rose high in Bob’s estimation by his lore in the matter of birds’ nests, of which the ex-runaway from the country, naturally, could speak as an expert.

Touching the feathered tribe generally, he was able to tell them off at a glance, with the habits and characteristics of each, as readily as Bob could repeat the Multiplication Table—more so, indeed, if the strict truth be insisted on, without stretching a point!

“That be a throosh,” he would say; and, “t’other, over there’s, a chaffy. He ain’t up to much now; but wait till he be moulted and he’ll coom out foine! I’ve heard tell folks in furrin’ parts vallies ’em greatly, though we in Guildford think nowt of they. I’d rayther a lark mysen, Master Bob.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Nellie, who had previously been shocked by Dick’s lack of sentiment, much pleased now at this expression of a better taste—“you do like their singing then!”

“Lawks no, miss,” replied the unprincipled boy. “Larks is foine roasted!”

Nellie was horrified.

“You don’t mean to say, Dick,” she cried, “that—that you actually eat them?”

“Aye, miss,” he replied, without an atom of shame, “we doos. They be rare tasty birds!”

She gave him up after this, going along by herself in silence.

“This is jolly!” exclaimed Bob presently, when, after getting a little way within the park and ascending the rise leading up from the shore to an open plateau above, he saw a sort of fairy dell below, at the foot of a grassy slope, the green surface of which was speckled over with daisies and buttercups. “Come along, Nell!”

Down the tempting incline he at once raced, with Nellie and Rover at his heels; and, diving beneath a jungle of blackberry-bushes at the bottom, matted together with ropes of ivy that had fallen from a withered oak, whose dry and sapless gnarled old trunk still stood proudly erect in the midst of the mass of luxuriant vegetation with which it was surrounded, Nellie heard him after a bit call out from the leafy enclosure in which he had quickly found himself—“Oh, I say, I see such a pretty fern!”

There was silence then for a moment or so, as if Bob was trying to secure the object that had taken his fancy, the quietude being broken by his giving vent to a prolonged “O-o-oh!”

“What’s the matter?” cried Nellie, who had stopped without the briary tangle into which her brother had plunged, noticing that his accents of delight suddenly changed to those of pain. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ve scratched my face,” he said ruefully, emerging from the blackberry-brake with streaks of blood across his forehead and his nose looking as if it had been in the wars. “Some beastly thorns did it.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Nellie, in sympathy and surprise; “I’m so sorry!”

“It is ‘oh,’ and it hurts too!” retorted he, dabbing his face tenderly with his pocket-handkerchief. “However, I shall get that fern I was after, though, in spite of all the prickles and thorns in the world!”

So saying, in he dashed again, stooping under the thorny network, and came out ere long with a beautiful specimen of the shuttlecock fern, which elicited as expressive an “Oh” from Nellie as the sight of his scratched face had just previously done—an “Oh” of admiration and delight. But, as with Bob, her joyful exclamation was quickly followed by an expression of woe.

As she stepped forward to inspect the fern more closely, she put her foot on a rotten branch of the oak-tree, which had become broken off from its parent stem and lay stretched across the dell, forming a sort of frail bridge over the prickly chasm below up to the higher ground on which she stood.

Alas! the decayed wood gave way under her weight, slight as that was, and Nellie, uttering a wild shriek of terror, disappeared from Bob’s astonished gaze.

Chapter Eleven.In a sad Plight!The Captain, who had remained on the plateau above, in company with Mrs Gilmour and Dick—the latter still in charge of the precious hamper—pricked up his ears at the sound of poor Nellie’s scream and Bob’s expressive cry of alarm.“Hullo!” he sang out in his sailor fashion— “I wonder what’s the row now? By Jove, I thought it wouldn’t be long before those two young persons got into mischief when we left them alone together.”“I hope to goodness they haven’t come to any harm,” said Mrs Gilmour dolefully. “Sure and will you go and say what’s happened?”“Sure an’ I’m just a-going, ma’am,” replied the Captain, keeping up his good-humoured mimicry of her accent so as to reassure her; adding, as he scrambled down the slope cautiously with the aid of his trusty malacca cane— “You needn’t be alarmed, ma’am, ‘at all at all,’ for I don’t believe anything very serious has occurred, as children’s calls for assistance generally mean nothing in the end. They are like, as your countryman said when he shaved his pig, ‘all cry and little wool!’”He chuckled to himself as he went on down the declivity, turning round first, however, to see whether Mrs Gilmour appreciated the allusion to “poor Pat”; while Dick, leaving the hamper behind, followed, in case his assistance might also be needed in the emergency.Arrived at the bottom of the dell the old sailor found it impossible at first to tell what had happened; for, Bob was trying to force his way through the brushwood brake, and Rover barking madly. Nellie was nowhere to be seen, although her voice could be heard proceeding from somewhere near at hand, calling for help still, but in a weaker voice.“Where are you?” shouted the Captain. “Sing out, can’t you!”“Here,” came the reply in the girl’s faint treble; “I’m here!”“Where’s ‘here’?” said he, puzzled. “I can’t see anything of you!”“I’ve tumbled into a pit,” cried Nellie piteously, in muffled tones that sounded as if coming from underground. “Do take me out, please! There’s a lot of wild animals here, and they’re biting my legs—oh!”A series of piercing shrieks followed, showing that the poor child was terribly alarmed, if not seriously hurt; and the Captain saw that no time was to be lost.“Can you reach her, Bob?” he sang out; “or see her, eh?”“No, I can’t get through these prickly bushes, they’re just like a wall!” replied Bob, fighting manfully through to get down to his sister’s relief. “I can’t see her a bit, either!”“Humph!”The Captain thought a moment, rather shirking going amongst the thorns.“Ha, the very thing!” he exclaimed. “Hi, Rover!”The dog, who had been barking and running here and there aimlessly, at once cocked his ears and came up to the Captain, scanning his face with eager attention.“Fetch her out, good dog!” he cried, pointing to the spot where the broken branch of the oak-tree had given way, adding in a louder voice, “Call him, Nellie—call the dog to you, missy.”A cry, “Here, Rover!” came from underneath the tangled mass of brushwood, borne down and partly torn away by Nellie in her fall to the depths below. “Come here, sir!”No sooner did he hear this summons, faint though it was, from his young mistress, than any uncertainty which may have obscured his mind as to what the Captain meant by telling him to “fetch her out,” at once disappeared; and Rover, uttering a short, sharp, expressive bark, to show that he now understood what was expected of him, boldly plunged into the thicket with a bound.“Chuck, chuck, chuck! Whir–r–r–ur,” and a blackbird flew out, dashing in the Captain’s face; while, at the same time, another piercing screech came from Nellie— “Ah–h–ah! Help!”The old sailor was so startled that he jumped back, his hat tumbling off into a bramble-bush.“Zounds!” he exclaimed. “What the dickens is that?”In a moment, however, he recovered himself.“Pooh, what a fool I am!” he said, ashamed of the slight weakness he had displayed, and hoping neither of the boys had noticed it; and then, to show how cool and collected he was, he whistled up the retriever. “Whee-ee-up, Rover, fetch her out, good dog!”Rover did not need this adjuration, not he.Even as the Captain spoke, there was a rustling and tramping in the thicket, accompanied by the snapping of twigs; and, almost at the same instant, the dog dashed out from amidst the brushwood with Nellie holding on to his tail.“Oh my!” ejaculated Dick, rushing to her side; and, with the assistance of Bob, who also emerged from the prickly cavern at the same time, she was got on her feet— “Poor Nell!”She presented a sorry spectacle.Never was such a piteous plight seen!Her face was scratched by the thorns, her clothes torn, and her hat had fallen off like that of the Captain, who had, by the way, in the flurry forgotten to replace his on his head, the venerable article remaining in a sadly battered condition where it had fallen.On being released, however, from her predicament, Nellie treated the matter much more lightly than might have been expected.She was a very courageous little girl now that she knew she was in safety.But she was also, it should be said, blest, too, with great amiability.“Oh, never mind the scratches,” she replied, in answer to the Captain’s inquiries. “I’m not at all hurt, thank you.”“How about those wild animals?” asked the old sailor smiling, “eh, missy?”Nellie coloured up, but could not help laughing at the Captain’s quizzical face, as he took up his hat gingerly and put it on.“I—I made a mistake,” she stammered. “I was frightened!”At that moment, however, very opportunely, Master Rover, who had darted back into the thicket after reclaiming his young mistress, saved her all further explanation as to the unknown beasts that had caused her such alarm by appearing now in full pursuit of an unfortunate rabbit which, putting forth its best speed, escaped him in the very nick of time by diving into a hole on the other side of the knoll, contemptuously kicking up its heels as it did so, almost into his open mouth.The mystery of Nellie’s disappearance was thus satisfactorily solved.She had fallen into an old rabbit-burrow.The harmless little creatures, whom she had imagined to be making desperate assaults on her legs and about to eat her up, too, were probably even more frightened than she was!“Oh—oh, that’s one of those ferocious wild animals, little missy, eh?” chuckled the Captain. “I see, young lady.”“Yes, but they frightened me,” pleaded poor Nell. “They moved about under my feet, jumping up at me, I thought; and it was so dark down there that I didn’t know what they might be. You would have been frightened too, I think, sir!”She added this little retort to her explanation with some considerable spirit, a bit nettled by the Captain’s chaff.“Well, well, my dear, perhaps you are right,” he replied good-humouredly. “I also have a confession to make, missy. Just before Rover cantered up, with you holding on to his tail like Mazeppa lashed to the back of the fiery untamed steed of the desert, a blackbird flew out of your blackberry thicket, brushing past my face, and do you know it startled me so that I jumped back, losing my hat. So, you see, I got a fright too!”“I see’d yer, sir,” said Dick, the Captain looking round as if awaiting comment on his action. “I see’d yer done it!”“And so did I,” cried Bob, the appearance of whose face had not been improved by his struggles with the thorny bushes as he tried to force his way through them to Nellie’s rescue. “I saw you too!”“You young rascals!” exclaimed the Captain, shaking his stick at them. “I thought you were looking at me! I suppose you’ll be going and telling everybody you saw the old sailor in a terrible funk, and that I was going to faint?”“Sure and that’s what I feel like doing!” cried Mrs Gilmour in a very woebegone voice, she having only just succeeded in arriving at the scene of action, scrambling down with some difficulty from the top of the slope, the pathway being blocked at intervals by the struggling creepers which twined and interlaced themselves with the undergrowth, trailing down from the branches of the trees above, and making it puzzling to know which way to go. “I couldn’t crawl a step further. What with scurrying to catch that dreadful steamboat, and then my fright of hearing the children scream, and now having to clamber down this mountain, I’m ready to drop!”“Don’t, ma’am, please,” said the Captain imploringly; “you’ll be sorry for it if you do. The ground is full of rabbit-burrows, and there are a lot of nettles about.”“Good gracious!” she exclaimed, looking round her in the greatest alarm, and drawing in the skirts of her dress. “Whatever made you bring me here then, Captain Dresser?”“Well, ma’am,” began the Captain; but Mrs Gilmour, who at that moment first caught sight of Nellie’s face, interrupted him before he could get in a word further than, “you see—”“Oh, my dearie!” cried she, in a higher key, forgetting at once all her own troubles; and, rushing up to Nell with the utmost solicitude, she hugged her first and then inspected her carefully, “what have you done to your poor dear face?”“Oh, it’s not much, auntie,” said Nellie, just then busy arranging her dress. “I have only got a scratch or two.”“And your clothes too,” continued Mrs Gilmour, her consternation increasing at the sight of the damage done. “Why, your frock is torn to shreds!”“Not so bad as that, auntie,” laughed the girl, but with a look of dismay on her face the while. “It is rather bad though.”“Bad,” repeated her aunt, “sure, it’s scandalous! And, say your brother, now—whatever have you both been about? His poor face is all bleeding, too!”“Now, don’t you make matters worse than they are,” interposed the Captain. “A little water will soon set them both right.”“And where shall we get water here?” she asked. “Tell me that!”His answer came quick enough, the Captain being seldom “taken aback.”“You forget, ma’am, the little rivulet we passed on our way. Dick,” he added, “run and fetch some for us, like a good lad.”Nell had brought with her from home a little tin bucket, which she usually took down to the shore for collecting sea-anemones and other specimens for her aquarium; so, catching hold of this, Dick started off in the direction of the tiny brook they had crossed some little time before, returning anon with the bucket brimming full.Miss Nell and Bob thereupon set to work in high glee at their extempore ablutions; and, when they had subsequently dried their faces in their pocket-handkerchiefs, both presented a much improved appearance.With the exception of a few scratches, they bore little traces of the fray, the blood-stains, which looked at first sight so very dreadful, having vanished on the application of the cold water, as the Captain had prophesied.“There, ma’am,” cried he now exultingly; pointing this out to Mrs Gilmour, “I told you so, didn’t I? ‘all cry and little wool,’ eh, ho, ho, ho!”“That may be,” retorted she; “but, water won’t mend Nellie’s dress.”“Well then, ma’am, I will,” replied the Captain. “You’ll always find a sailor something of a tailor, if he’s worth his salt!”He laughed when he said this, and his imperturbable good-humour banished the last vestige of Mrs Gilmour’s vexation at the children’s plight.“Sure, and you shan’t do anything of the sort,” she said smiling. “I’ll run up Nell’s tatters meesilf!” As she spoke she produced from her pocket—a handy little “housewife,” containing needles and thread, as well as a thimble, which useful articles the good lady seldom stirred out without; and, sitting down on a shawl which the Captain spread over a bit of turf that he assured her was free from nettles, and ten yards at least from the nearest rabbit-burrow, she proceeded to sew away at a brisk rate on the torn frock of Miss Nellie, who sat herself demurely beside her aunt.“Will you be long?” inquired the old sailor, after watching her busy fingers some little time, getting slightly fidgety. “Eh, ma’am?”“I should think it will be quite an hour before I shall be able to make the child decent,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”“Humph!” ejaculated the Captain, as he always did when cogitating some knotty point, “I’ll tell you, ma’am. If it’s agreeable to you, ma’am, the boys and I might go on to Brading and see the remains of that Roman villa I was talking about yesterday. That is, unless you would like us to wait till you’ve done your patchwork there, and all of us go together, eh?”“No, I wouldn’t hear of such a thing,” answered Mrs Gilmour, looking up but not pausing for an instant in her task. “I wouldn’t walk a mile to see Julius Caesar himself, instead of his old villa, or whatever you call it.”The Captain appeared greatly amused at this.“I’m not certain that the place ever belonged to that distinguished gentleman,” he said. “It is supposed, I believe, to have been the residence of a certain Vespasian, who was governor of the Isle of Wight some period after its conquest by the Romans; but how far this is true, ma’am, I can’t vouch for personally, never having as yet, indeed, seen the spot.”“But, I assure you, I’ve no curiosity to go. I feel much too tired, and would rather sit comfortably here. Would you like, Nell, to go with the Captain and Bob?”“No, auntie, I’d prefer stopping with you. I want to get some ferns and lots of things after you’ve mended my dress for me,” replied Alice. “I like flowers better than old ruins.”She said this quite cheerfully, as if she didn’t mind a bit not going with the boys.This surprised the Captain somewhat, for he thought she would not like being left behind, and would have looked at all events a trifle cross.But, seeing how she took the matter, the old sailor’s mind was immensely relieved.“Well then,” he cried smiling, with his eyes blinking and winking away, “the sooner we’re off, why the sooner we’ll be back. Hullo, though, I’ve forgotten the hamper! Run up, Dick, and fetch it down here.”Off scampered the lad, coming back quickly with the hamper, which he placed carefully by Mrs Gilmour’s side.“There ma’am,” said Captain Dresser, “you can look after the luncheon while we’re away. Come along, boys—hi, Rover!”“Oh, please leave him behind,” implored Nellie. “We want him.”“What, who?” asked the Captain. “Dick or the dog?”“Rover,” replied Nellie promptly. “He’ll protect us in your absence in case anything happens.”“What’s that, eh!” quizzed the old sailor. “I suppose you’re thinking again of those ferocious wild animals you encountered awhile ago, eh, missy?”“It’s a shame, auntie, for the Captain to tease me so!” exclaimed Nellie, as the chaffy old gentleman went off chuckling, followed by Master Bob and Dick, the three soon disappearing amidst the greenery. “Never mind, though, I have got you, my good doggie; and I shan’t forget how you came to my help, nor how glad I was to catch hold of your poor tail, you dear Rover, when you dragged me out of that horrid hole!”“Be aisy, me dearie,” remonstrated Mrs Gilmour, as Nell reached over to hug Rover in a sudden caress of affection, and caused by the sudden movement a breakage of the thread, thus interrupting her aunt’s handiwork. “Sure, if you go wriggling about like an eel with that dog, I shall never get your frock mended!”“All right, auntie, I beg your pardon. I’ll be very good now, and promise not to move again till you tell me to.”So saying, Miss Nell resumed her former position, and, making Rover lie down at her feet, remained “as quiet as a mouse,” as her aunt acknowledged, until the latter had completed her task of gathering up the rents in the damaged garment that the envious blackberry-thorns had made.

The Captain, who had remained on the plateau above, in company with Mrs Gilmour and Dick—the latter still in charge of the precious hamper—pricked up his ears at the sound of poor Nellie’s scream and Bob’s expressive cry of alarm.

“Hullo!” he sang out in his sailor fashion— “I wonder what’s the row now? By Jove, I thought it wouldn’t be long before those two young persons got into mischief when we left them alone together.”

“I hope to goodness they haven’t come to any harm,” said Mrs Gilmour dolefully. “Sure and will you go and say what’s happened?”

“Sure an’ I’m just a-going, ma’am,” replied the Captain, keeping up his good-humoured mimicry of her accent so as to reassure her; adding, as he scrambled down the slope cautiously with the aid of his trusty malacca cane— “You needn’t be alarmed, ma’am, ‘at all at all,’ for I don’t believe anything very serious has occurred, as children’s calls for assistance generally mean nothing in the end. They are like, as your countryman said when he shaved his pig, ‘all cry and little wool!’”

He chuckled to himself as he went on down the declivity, turning round first, however, to see whether Mrs Gilmour appreciated the allusion to “poor Pat”; while Dick, leaving the hamper behind, followed, in case his assistance might also be needed in the emergency.

Arrived at the bottom of the dell the old sailor found it impossible at first to tell what had happened; for, Bob was trying to force his way through the brushwood brake, and Rover barking madly. Nellie was nowhere to be seen, although her voice could be heard proceeding from somewhere near at hand, calling for help still, but in a weaker voice.

“Where are you?” shouted the Captain. “Sing out, can’t you!”

“Here,” came the reply in the girl’s faint treble; “I’m here!”

“Where’s ‘here’?” said he, puzzled. “I can’t see anything of you!”

“I’ve tumbled into a pit,” cried Nellie piteously, in muffled tones that sounded as if coming from underground. “Do take me out, please! There’s a lot of wild animals here, and they’re biting my legs—oh!”

A series of piercing shrieks followed, showing that the poor child was terribly alarmed, if not seriously hurt; and the Captain saw that no time was to be lost.

“Can you reach her, Bob?” he sang out; “or see her, eh?”

“No, I can’t get through these prickly bushes, they’re just like a wall!” replied Bob, fighting manfully through to get down to his sister’s relief. “I can’t see her a bit, either!”

“Humph!”

The Captain thought a moment, rather shirking going amongst the thorns.

“Ha, the very thing!” he exclaimed. “Hi, Rover!”

The dog, who had been barking and running here and there aimlessly, at once cocked his ears and came up to the Captain, scanning his face with eager attention.

“Fetch her out, good dog!” he cried, pointing to the spot where the broken branch of the oak-tree had given way, adding in a louder voice, “Call him, Nellie—call the dog to you, missy.”

A cry, “Here, Rover!” came from underneath the tangled mass of brushwood, borne down and partly torn away by Nellie in her fall to the depths below. “Come here, sir!”

No sooner did he hear this summons, faint though it was, from his young mistress, than any uncertainty which may have obscured his mind as to what the Captain meant by telling him to “fetch her out,” at once disappeared; and Rover, uttering a short, sharp, expressive bark, to show that he now understood what was expected of him, boldly plunged into the thicket with a bound.

“Chuck, chuck, chuck! Whir–r–r–ur,” and a blackbird flew out, dashing in the Captain’s face; while, at the same time, another piercing screech came from Nellie— “Ah–h–ah! Help!”

The old sailor was so startled that he jumped back, his hat tumbling off into a bramble-bush.

“Zounds!” he exclaimed. “What the dickens is that?”

In a moment, however, he recovered himself.

“Pooh, what a fool I am!” he said, ashamed of the slight weakness he had displayed, and hoping neither of the boys had noticed it; and then, to show how cool and collected he was, he whistled up the retriever. “Whee-ee-up, Rover, fetch her out, good dog!”

Rover did not need this adjuration, not he.

Even as the Captain spoke, there was a rustling and tramping in the thicket, accompanied by the snapping of twigs; and, almost at the same instant, the dog dashed out from amidst the brushwood with Nellie holding on to his tail.

“Oh my!” ejaculated Dick, rushing to her side; and, with the assistance of Bob, who also emerged from the prickly cavern at the same time, she was got on her feet— “Poor Nell!”

She presented a sorry spectacle.

Never was such a piteous plight seen!

Her face was scratched by the thorns, her clothes torn, and her hat had fallen off like that of the Captain, who had, by the way, in the flurry forgotten to replace his on his head, the venerable article remaining in a sadly battered condition where it had fallen.

On being released, however, from her predicament, Nellie treated the matter much more lightly than might have been expected.

She was a very courageous little girl now that she knew she was in safety.

But she was also, it should be said, blest, too, with great amiability.

“Oh, never mind the scratches,” she replied, in answer to the Captain’s inquiries. “I’m not at all hurt, thank you.”

“How about those wild animals?” asked the old sailor smiling, “eh, missy?”

Nellie coloured up, but could not help laughing at the Captain’s quizzical face, as he took up his hat gingerly and put it on.

“I—I made a mistake,” she stammered. “I was frightened!”

At that moment, however, very opportunely, Master Rover, who had darted back into the thicket after reclaiming his young mistress, saved her all further explanation as to the unknown beasts that had caused her such alarm by appearing now in full pursuit of an unfortunate rabbit which, putting forth its best speed, escaped him in the very nick of time by diving into a hole on the other side of the knoll, contemptuously kicking up its heels as it did so, almost into his open mouth.

The mystery of Nellie’s disappearance was thus satisfactorily solved.

She had fallen into an old rabbit-burrow.

The harmless little creatures, whom she had imagined to be making desperate assaults on her legs and about to eat her up, too, were probably even more frightened than she was!

“Oh—oh, that’s one of those ferocious wild animals, little missy, eh?” chuckled the Captain. “I see, young lady.”

“Yes, but they frightened me,” pleaded poor Nell. “They moved about under my feet, jumping up at me, I thought; and it was so dark down there that I didn’t know what they might be. You would have been frightened too, I think, sir!”

She added this little retort to her explanation with some considerable spirit, a bit nettled by the Captain’s chaff.

“Well, well, my dear, perhaps you are right,” he replied good-humouredly. “I also have a confession to make, missy. Just before Rover cantered up, with you holding on to his tail like Mazeppa lashed to the back of the fiery untamed steed of the desert, a blackbird flew out of your blackberry thicket, brushing past my face, and do you know it startled me so that I jumped back, losing my hat. So, you see, I got a fright too!”

“I see’d yer, sir,” said Dick, the Captain looking round as if awaiting comment on his action. “I see’d yer done it!”

“And so did I,” cried Bob, the appearance of whose face had not been improved by his struggles with the thorny bushes as he tried to force his way through them to Nellie’s rescue. “I saw you too!”

“You young rascals!” exclaimed the Captain, shaking his stick at them. “I thought you were looking at me! I suppose you’ll be going and telling everybody you saw the old sailor in a terrible funk, and that I was going to faint?”

“Sure and that’s what I feel like doing!” cried Mrs Gilmour in a very woebegone voice, she having only just succeeded in arriving at the scene of action, scrambling down with some difficulty from the top of the slope, the pathway being blocked at intervals by the struggling creepers which twined and interlaced themselves with the undergrowth, trailing down from the branches of the trees above, and making it puzzling to know which way to go. “I couldn’t crawl a step further. What with scurrying to catch that dreadful steamboat, and then my fright of hearing the children scream, and now having to clamber down this mountain, I’m ready to drop!”

“Don’t, ma’am, please,” said the Captain imploringly; “you’ll be sorry for it if you do. The ground is full of rabbit-burrows, and there are a lot of nettles about.”

“Good gracious!” she exclaimed, looking round her in the greatest alarm, and drawing in the skirts of her dress. “Whatever made you bring me here then, Captain Dresser?”

“Well, ma’am,” began the Captain; but Mrs Gilmour, who at that moment first caught sight of Nellie’s face, interrupted him before he could get in a word further than, “you see—”

“Oh, my dearie!” cried she, in a higher key, forgetting at once all her own troubles; and, rushing up to Nell with the utmost solicitude, she hugged her first and then inspected her carefully, “what have you done to your poor dear face?”

“Oh, it’s not much, auntie,” said Nellie, just then busy arranging her dress. “I have only got a scratch or two.”

“And your clothes too,” continued Mrs Gilmour, her consternation increasing at the sight of the damage done. “Why, your frock is torn to shreds!”

“Not so bad as that, auntie,” laughed the girl, but with a look of dismay on her face the while. “It is rather bad though.”

“Bad,” repeated her aunt, “sure, it’s scandalous! And, say your brother, now—whatever have you both been about? His poor face is all bleeding, too!”

“Now, don’t you make matters worse than they are,” interposed the Captain. “A little water will soon set them both right.”

“And where shall we get water here?” she asked. “Tell me that!”

His answer came quick enough, the Captain being seldom “taken aback.”

“You forget, ma’am, the little rivulet we passed on our way. Dick,” he added, “run and fetch some for us, like a good lad.”

Nell had brought with her from home a little tin bucket, which she usually took down to the shore for collecting sea-anemones and other specimens for her aquarium; so, catching hold of this, Dick started off in the direction of the tiny brook they had crossed some little time before, returning anon with the bucket brimming full.

Miss Nell and Bob thereupon set to work in high glee at their extempore ablutions; and, when they had subsequently dried their faces in their pocket-handkerchiefs, both presented a much improved appearance.

With the exception of a few scratches, they bore little traces of the fray, the blood-stains, which looked at first sight so very dreadful, having vanished on the application of the cold water, as the Captain had prophesied.

“There, ma’am,” cried he now exultingly; pointing this out to Mrs Gilmour, “I told you so, didn’t I? ‘all cry and little wool,’ eh, ho, ho, ho!”

“That may be,” retorted she; “but, water won’t mend Nellie’s dress.”

“Well then, ma’am, I will,” replied the Captain. “You’ll always find a sailor something of a tailor, if he’s worth his salt!”

He laughed when he said this, and his imperturbable good-humour banished the last vestige of Mrs Gilmour’s vexation at the children’s plight.

“Sure, and you shan’t do anything of the sort,” she said smiling. “I’ll run up Nell’s tatters meesilf!” As she spoke she produced from her pocket—a handy little “housewife,” containing needles and thread, as well as a thimble, which useful articles the good lady seldom stirred out without; and, sitting down on a shawl which the Captain spread over a bit of turf that he assured her was free from nettles, and ten yards at least from the nearest rabbit-burrow, she proceeded to sew away at a brisk rate on the torn frock of Miss Nellie, who sat herself demurely beside her aunt.

“Will you be long?” inquired the old sailor, after watching her busy fingers some little time, getting slightly fidgety. “Eh, ma’am?”

“I should think it will be quite an hour before I shall be able to make the child decent,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Humph!” ejaculated the Captain, as he always did when cogitating some knotty point, “I’ll tell you, ma’am. If it’s agreeable to you, ma’am, the boys and I might go on to Brading and see the remains of that Roman villa I was talking about yesterday. That is, unless you would like us to wait till you’ve done your patchwork there, and all of us go together, eh?”

“No, I wouldn’t hear of such a thing,” answered Mrs Gilmour, looking up but not pausing for an instant in her task. “I wouldn’t walk a mile to see Julius Caesar himself, instead of his old villa, or whatever you call it.”

The Captain appeared greatly amused at this.

“I’m not certain that the place ever belonged to that distinguished gentleman,” he said. “It is supposed, I believe, to have been the residence of a certain Vespasian, who was governor of the Isle of Wight some period after its conquest by the Romans; but how far this is true, ma’am, I can’t vouch for personally, never having as yet, indeed, seen the spot.”

“But, I assure you, I’ve no curiosity to go. I feel much too tired, and would rather sit comfortably here. Would you like, Nell, to go with the Captain and Bob?”

“No, auntie, I’d prefer stopping with you. I want to get some ferns and lots of things after you’ve mended my dress for me,” replied Alice. “I like flowers better than old ruins.”

She said this quite cheerfully, as if she didn’t mind a bit not going with the boys.

This surprised the Captain somewhat, for he thought she would not like being left behind, and would have looked at all events a trifle cross.

But, seeing how she took the matter, the old sailor’s mind was immensely relieved.

“Well then,” he cried smiling, with his eyes blinking and winking away, “the sooner we’re off, why the sooner we’ll be back. Hullo, though, I’ve forgotten the hamper! Run up, Dick, and fetch it down here.”

Off scampered the lad, coming back quickly with the hamper, which he placed carefully by Mrs Gilmour’s side.

“There ma’am,” said Captain Dresser, “you can look after the luncheon while we’re away. Come along, boys—hi, Rover!”

“Oh, please leave him behind,” implored Nellie. “We want him.”

“What, who?” asked the Captain. “Dick or the dog?”

“Rover,” replied Nellie promptly. “He’ll protect us in your absence in case anything happens.”

“What’s that, eh!” quizzed the old sailor. “I suppose you’re thinking again of those ferocious wild animals you encountered awhile ago, eh, missy?”

“It’s a shame, auntie, for the Captain to tease me so!” exclaimed Nellie, as the chaffy old gentleman went off chuckling, followed by Master Bob and Dick, the three soon disappearing amidst the greenery. “Never mind, though, I have got you, my good doggie; and I shan’t forget how you came to my help, nor how glad I was to catch hold of your poor tail, you dear Rover, when you dragged me out of that horrid hole!”

“Be aisy, me dearie,” remonstrated Mrs Gilmour, as Nell reached over to hug Rover in a sudden caress of affection, and caused by the sudden movement a breakage of the thread, thus interrupting her aunt’s handiwork. “Sure, if you go wriggling about like an eel with that dog, I shall never get your frock mended!”

“All right, auntie, I beg your pardon. I’ll be very good now, and promise not to move again till you tell me to.”

So saying, Miss Nell resumed her former position, and, making Rover lie down at her feet, remained “as quiet as a mouse,” as her aunt acknowledged, until the latter had completed her task of gathering up the rents in the damaged garment that the envious blackberry-thorns had made.

Chapter Twelve.“The Devil’s Bit.”“Now, me dearie,” said Mrs Gilmour, replacing her needle and thimble, with the reel of thread, in her little “housewife,” and putting that carefully back into her pocket, “sure, we’ll have a jollification on our own account as our gentlemen have left us. We’ll show them that we can do without them, sure, when we like.”“How nice, auntie!” cried Miss Nellie, agreeing thoroughly in the sentiment her aunt had expressed, the desertion of the Captain and Bob, in addition to the fact of Dick having been also taken away, having affected the young lady more than she had acknowledged. “What shall we do first to be ‘jolly,’ as Bob says?”“I’ll soon show you, me dearie,” replied Mrs Gilmour. “Sure, you’ll say in a minute, Nell. Come now, me darlint, and help me.”Then ensued a pleasant task, one in which Rover especially evinced the keenest interest, the sagacious retriever watching their every movement with an attention that never faltered.Needless almost to say, the agreeable occupation in question was that of unpacking the hamper containing all the good things which Sarah had packed and Dick had brought from the house for their picnic in the woods.Aye, it was in the woods; and under the woods, too!Encircled by a hedge of green shrubbery and thicket undergrowth, amidst which the wild-flowers of the forest stood out here and there, their brightest tints gleaming with a wealth of colouring which nature’s gems alone display, Mrs Gilmour selected a nice smooth stretch of velvety turf for their table.On this, she proceeded to lay a damask cloth, whose snowy whiteness contrasted vividly with its surroundings; for, a clump of silver birches joined in hand-clasp with a straggling oak overhead, sheltering the grass-plot with their welcome shade from the heat of the noonday sun, while, over all, a lofty spreading elm extended its sturdy branches, like outstretched arms, above its lesser brethren below, as if saying paternally, “Bless you, my children!”Having daintily arranged the contends of the hamper to the best advantage on the open-air banqueting-table, an enormous veal-and-ham pie, their chief dish, in the centre, Mrs Gilmour and Nellie surveyed their handiwork with much complacency.“Sure, and I don’t think a single thing has been forgotten,” observed the former with pardonable pride, after a critical inspection of the various viands. “At most of the picnics I have participated in, either the salt, or the mustard, or something else has been left behind; but, to-day, I believe Sarah has remembered everything!”“Yes, I’m sure she has, auntie dear!” cried Miss Nellie with equal enthusiasm. “Here’s the kettle for us to boil; and the teapot, and teacups, too, all ready for our tea, auntie, after lunch.”“She is a good girl, Sarah, and I will reward her for this,” said Mrs Gilmour, giving a final pat to the table-cloth after smoothing it down and pulling the corners straight. “I’m afraid, though, dearie, we’ll have to wait a precious long time before Captain Dresser and the boys come back; and, laying the table has made me feel quite hungry, I declare.”“So am I, auntie,” laughed Nell. “The sight of all the nice things is too much. Let us go away and pick some wild-flowers till the others come back, eh, auntie?”“But, how can we leave the things here?” questioned the other. “Suppose some stranger, passing by, should take a fancy to our nice luncheon? What a terrible thing it would be to come back and find it gone! Again, too, just think, your friends the rabbits, dearie, might take it into their comical little heads to play at hide-and-seek amongst the dishes, besides nibbling what they liked. How would you like that, eh?”“Oh, auntie, how funny you are!” cried Nell, quite overcome at the idea of the bunnies making a playground of their well-arranged table-cloth. “But you can trust Rover to guard everything safely if we go away.”“Are you sure, dearie?” inquired her aunt. “Quite sure?”“Certain, auntie, dear, nobody would dare to come near the spot while he’s here, for he’d pretty soon bark, and bite, too! And, as for the poor rabbits, one sniff of his would send them all scuttling back into their burrows. Hi, Rover!” Nell called out, after giving this testimony on his behalf. “Lie down there, good dog, and watch!”Rover at once cocked an eye and looked in his young mistress’s face. Next, he took note of her pointed finger, which she waved in a sort of comprehensive curve embracing the table-cloth with its appetising display of eatables; and then, as if he had made a mental list of all left in his charge, he laid down in a couchant position at the head of the table, if such it could be called, with his nose between his paws, along which his eyes were ready to take aim at any intruder, saying, in their fixed basilisk stare, “Now, you just touch anything, if you dare, my friend. I should like to see you attempt it!”“We can safely leave now, auntie,” said Nellie; whereupon she and Mrs Gilmour strayed off through the bracken, hunting here and there for flowers on their way.Almost the first thing to catch their sight, before indeed they had left the little turfy dell where their paraphernalia was spread out with Rover in charge, was the pretty rose-coloured blossom of the “ragged Robin,” rising out of the grass. A little further off was a cluster of the lilac field madder, named after Sherard the eminent botanist, whose herbarium is still preserved at Oxford. This plant is one of a large family, numbering over two thousand varieties, from which the well-known dye, madder, is obtained, though, of late years, aniline colouring matter has somewhat depreciated its commercial value.Mrs Gilmour presently picked up something better than either of these, at least in appearance. This was a little blue flower resembling the violet, with glossy green leaves that were its especial charm.“I declare I’ve found a periwinkle!” she cried—“such a fine one too.”“Oh, let me look, auntie!” said Nell, peeping into her hand. “Dear me, do you call that a periwinkle?”“Yes, dearie. Pretty, isn’t it? It blooms all the year; and I’ve seen it down in Devonshire covering a space of nearly half an acre with its leaves and blossoms. One of the poets, not Cowper my favourite, though one equally fond of the world of nature, describes the flower very nicely. ‘See,’ he says—“‘Where the sky-blue Periwinkle climbsE’en to the cottage eaves, and hides the wallAnd dairy lattice, with a thousand eyes!’”“What pretty lines, auntie, so very like the flower!” cried Nell when Mrs Gilmour finished the quotation. “But, do you know, auntie, I thought when you said you’d found a periwinkle, you meant one to eat, like those periwinkles I’ve got in the aquarium you gave me.”“Did you really, though, dearie?” said her aunt, smiling at her very natural mistake. “It is because you feel hungry, I suppose. You may eat this one if you like!”“No, no, auntie,” laughed Nellie, “I’m not quite so hungry as that! But, oh, auntie, here are some of those lovely big daisies we saw when we first came in the park.”“Those are the daisies that are called the ‘ox-eye’ or moon daisy, my dear,” explained Mrs Gilmour. “You might call them the first cousins—though only, mind you, a sort of poor relation—of the choice marguerite daisy that gardeners cultivate and think so highly of. Here, too, dearie, I see another old friend of mine, whose petals fall just like snow-flakes on the grass.”“It is almost like the honeysuckle,” cried Nellie. “How sweet it smells!”“Like its name, dearie,” replied the other. “It is called the ‘meadow-sweet’; and a delicious perfume can be extracted from it by infusion in boiling water. The roots of the plant are long tubers, which, when ground to powder and dried, may be used as a substitute for flour, should you have any scarcity of that article!”“I’d rather have the real sort of flour, though, auntie.”“So would I, too, dearie,” agreed Mrs Gilmour. “I only told you in case you may be thrown on a desert island some day, when the information might be of use in the event of your being without bread.”“But, supposing there was no meadow-sweet there either, auntie?”“Sure that would be a bad look-out,” said Mrs Gilmour, joining in Nell’s laugh. “I think we’d better wait till you get to the desert island!”Wandering along, they plucked at their will masses of the wild convolvulus, or “great bindweed,” whose white blossoms, while they lasted, added much to the general effect of the bouquet Nellie was making up with her busy fingers from the spoils of coppice and sward.These, in addition to the flowers they had just picked, now comprised many other natives of the wood and hedgerow, such as the purple bugloss, the yellow iris, the star thistle, the common mallow; and, a convolvulus which was brilliantly pink, in contrast to his white brother before-mentioned. Besides these, Nellie had also gathered some sprays of the “toad flax” and “blue succory,” a relative of the “endive” tribe, which produces the chicory-root so much consumed in England, as in France, as a “substitute” for coffee. A splendid sprig of yellow broom and dear little bunch of hare-bells, the “blue Bells of Scotland,” with two or three scarlet poppies, a wreath of the aromatic ground ivy and some fern-leaves for foliage, completed her floral collection.Stopping beneath a group of trees further on, to listen to the song of a thrush, which was so full of melody that they approached him quite close without his noticing them, Nell and her aunt were amused by seeing two rooks quarrelling over a worm which they had both got hold of at the same time, one at either end gripping the unfortunate creature; and gobbling, and tugging, and cawing, at once!One of these rooks had a white head, which he seemed to cock on one side in a strangely familiar way to Nell.“He’s just like the Captain!” she exclaimed, tittering at the fancied resemblance. “Look, auntie, why he actually seems to wink!”“I declare I’ll tell him!” said Mrs Gilmour, enjoying the joke none the less at the fancied resemblance. “Sure he’d be hoighly delighted.”Then, as they wound round back to the dell through the dense shrubbery, they re-crossed the little rivulet which they had twice passed over before.On the banks of this, although it was too small almost to have “banks,” properly speaking, Mrs Gilmour pointed out to Nell the “great water plantain,” with its sprigs of little lilac blossoms and beautiful green leaves, like those of the lily of the valley somewhat. The plant is said to be used in Russia as a cure for hydrophobia, the good lady explained; though she added that she could not vouch personally for its virtues.Not far from this, too, they found another very curious plant, called in some places the “cuckoo pint,” and in others the “wake robin,” or, more commonly, “lords and ladies.” The leaves of this are of a glossy dark-green and the flower very like the leaf; only, more curved and tinted inside, with a hue of pale buff that becomes pinkish at the extremities, the centre pistil being of the same colour. It belongs to the arum family.Following the course of the brook, Nellie, a little way on, spied out a regular bed of the forget-me-not; when Mrs Gilmour told her the old legend connected with the flower.How a knight and a lady were sitting by the side of a river; and, on the lady expressing a desire to have some of the bright blue blossoms “to braid in her bonny brown hair,” the gallant knight at once dashed in the stream to gratify her wishes. He secured a bunch of the flowers; but, on turning to regain the shore, the current overcame him; and, as the old song goes—“Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw,Ere he sunk in the eddying tide;And ‘Lady, I’m gone, thine own love true,Forget-me-not,’ he cried.“The farewell pledge the lady caught;And hence, as legends say,The flower’s a sign to awaken thoughtsOf friends who are far away!”“How nice!” cried Nellie— “How very nice!”“Not for the poor knight, though,” said her aunt. “However, here, dearie, is another plant not quite so romantic, the old brown scabious, or ‘turf-weed.’ It is a great favourite with bees, while its roots are supposed to have valuable medicinal properties, which the country people well know and estimate at their right worth. In some places they call it the ‘Devil’s bit’!”“How funny!” interposed Nellie. “Why do they give it such a strange name?”“Yes, it is rather a strange title; but I read once somewhere that the story about it is, that the Spirit of Evil, envying the good which this herb might do to mankind, bit away part of it and thence came its name, ‘Devil’s bit.’”“Really, auntie,” said Nell. “Does it look as if it had been bitten?”“Yes, the root does,” she replied. “But, come, dearie, we must get back now as fast as we can, or Captain Dresser and the boys will be there before us and eat up all the luncheon!”Without stopping to look at any more flowers or curious plants, they retraced their steps towards the dell, Nellie humming the last line of the song of the forget-me-not, which she was trying to learn by heart— “Of friends who are far away! Of friends who are far away”—when, suddenly, they heard Rover’s bark ringing through the woods, its echoes loud and resonant, like the sound of a deep-toned bell.“Come on, dearie,” called out Mrs Gilmour, who was in advance, quickening her pace as she spoke, “come on quick, dearie! There’s some one making off with our lunch; and, just think how hungry we are!”“Don’t fear, auntie,” said Nell reassuringly behind her; “Rover will not let any one touch it, you may be certain!”Nevertheless, she hurried after Mrs Gilmour; and both arrived together, well-nigh breathless, at the spot where they had left their feast so nicely laid out.

“Now, me dearie,” said Mrs Gilmour, replacing her needle and thimble, with the reel of thread, in her little “housewife,” and putting that carefully back into her pocket, “sure, we’ll have a jollification on our own account as our gentlemen have left us. We’ll show them that we can do without them, sure, when we like.”

“How nice, auntie!” cried Miss Nellie, agreeing thoroughly in the sentiment her aunt had expressed, the desertion of the Captain and Bob, in addition to the fact of Dick having been also taken away, having affected the young lady more than she had acknowledged. “What shall we do first to be ‘jolly,’ as Bob says?”

“I’ll soon show you, me dearie,” replied Mrs Gilmour. “Sure, you’ll say in a minute, Nell. Come now, me darlint, and help me.”

Then ensued a pleasant task, one in which Rover especially evinced the keenest interest, the sagacious retriever watching their every movement with an attention that never faltered.

Needless almost to say, the agreeable occupation in question was that of unpacking the hamper containing all the good things which Sarah had packed and Dick had brought from the house for their picnic in the woods.

Aye, it was in the woods; and under the woods, too!

Encircled by a hedge of green shrubbery and thicket undergrowth, amidst which the wild-flowers of the forest stood out here and there, their brightest tints gleaming with a wealth of colouring which nature’s gems alone display, Mrs Gilmour selected a nice smooth stretch of velvety turf for their table.

On this, she proceeded to lay a damask cloth, whose snowy whiteness contrasted vividly with its surroundings; for, a clump of silver birches joined in hand-clasp with a straggling oak overhead, sheltering the grass-plot with their welcome shade from the heat of the noonday sun, while, over all, a lofty spreading elm extended its sturdy branches, like outstretched arms, above its lesser brethren below, as if saying paternally, “Bless you, my children!”

Having daintily arranged the contends of the hamper to the best advantage on the open-air banqueting-table, an enormous veal-and-ham pie, their chief dish, in the centre, Mrs Gilmour and Nellie surveyed their handiwork with much complacency.

“Sure, and I don’t think a single thing has been forgotten,” observed the former with pardonable pride, after a critical inspection of the various viands. “At most of the picnics I have participated in, either the salt, or the mustard, or something else has been left behind; but, to-day, I believe Sarah has remembered everything!”

“Yes, I’m sure she has, auntie dear!” cried Miss Nellie with equal enthusiasm. “Here’s the kettle for us to boil; and the teapot, and teacups, too, all ready for our tea, auntie, after lunch.”

“She is a good girl, Sarah, and I will reward her for this,” said Mrs Gilmour, giving a final pat to the table-cloth after smoothing it down and pulling the corners straight. “I’m afraid, though, dearie, we’ll have to wait a precious long time before Captain Dresser and the boys come back; and, laying the table has made me feel quite hungry, I declare.”

“So am I, auntie,” laughed Nell. “The sight of all the nice things is too much. Let us go away and pick some wild-flowers till the others come back, eh, auntie?”

“But, how can we leave the things here?” questioned the other. “Suppose some stranger, passing by, should take a fancy to our nice luncheon? What a terrible thing it would be to come back and find it gone! Again, too, just think, your friends the rabbits, dearie, might take it into their comical little heads to play at hide-and-seek amongst the dishes, besides nibbling what they liked. How would you like that, eh?”

“Oh, auntie, how funny you are!” cried Nell, quite overcome at the idea of the bunnies making a playground of their well-arranged table-cloth. “But you can trust Rover to guard everything safely if we go away.”

“Are you sure, dearie?” inquired her aunt. “Quite sure?”

“Certain, auntie, dear, nobody would dare to come near the spot while he’s here, for he’d pretty soon bark, and bite, too! And, as for the poor rabbits, one sniff of his would send them all scuttling back into their burrows. Hi, Rover!” Nell called out, after giving this testimony on his behalf. “Lie down there, good dog, and watch!”

Rover at once cocked an eye and looked in his young mistress’s face. Next, he took note of her pointed finger, which she waved in a sort of comprehensive curve embracing the table-cloth with its appetising display of eatables; and then, as if he had made a mental list of all left in his charge, he laid down in a couchant position at the head of the table, if such it could be called, with his nose between his paws, along which his eyes were ready to take aim at any intruder, saying, in their fixed basilisk stare, “Now, you just touch anything, if you dare, my friend. I should like to see you attempt it!”

“We can safely leave now, auntie,” said Nellie; whereupon she and Mrs Gilmour strayed off through the bracken, hunting here and there for flowers on their way.

Almost the first thing to catch their sight, before indeed they had left the little turfy dell where their paraphernalia was spread out with Rover in charge, was the pretty rose-coloured blossom of the “ragged Robin,” rising out of the grass. A little further off was a cluster of the lilac field madder, named after Sherard the eminent botanist, whose herbarium is still preserved at Oxford. This plant is one of a large family, numbering over two thousand varieties, from which the well-known dye, madder, is obtained, though, of late years, aniline colouring matter has somewhat depreciated its commercial value.

Mrs Gilmour presently picked up something better than either of these, at least in appearance. This was a little blue flower resembling the violet, with glossy green leaves that were its especial charm.

“I declare I’ve found a periwinkle!” she cried—“such a fine one too.”

“Oh, let me look, auntie!” said Nell, peeping into her hand. “Dear me, do you call that a periwinkle?”

“Yes, dearie. Pretty, isn’t it? It blooms all the year; and I’ve seen it down in Devonshire covering a space of nearly half an acre with its leaves and blossoms. One of the poets, not Cowper my favourite, though one equally fond of the world of nature, describes the flower very nicely. ‘See,’ he says—

“‘Where the sky-blue Periwinkle climbsE’en to the cottage eaves, and hides the wallAnd dairy lattice, with a thousand eyes!’”

“‘Where the sky-blue Periwinkle climbsE’en to the cottage eaves, and hides the wallAnd dairy lattice, with a thousand eyes!’”

“What pretty lines, auntie, so very like the flower!” cried Nell when Mrs Gilmour finished the quotation. “But, do you know, auntie, I thought when you said you’d found a periwinkle, you meant one to eat, like those periwinkles I’ve got in the aquarium you gave me.”

“Did you really, though, dearie?” said her aunt, smiling at her very natural mistake. “It is because you feel hungry, I suppose. You may eat this one if you like!”

“No, no, auntie,” laughed Nellie, “I’m not quite so hungry as that! But, oh, auntie, here are some of those lovely big daisies we saw when we first came in the park.”

“Those are the daisies that are called the ‘ox-eye’ or moon daisy, my dear,” explained Mrs Gilmour. “You might call them the first cousins—though only, mind you, a sort of poor relation—of the choice marguerite daisy that gardeners cultivate and think so highly of. Here, too, dearie, I see another old friend of mine, whose petals fall just like snow-flakes on the grass.”

“It is almost like the honeysuckle,” cried Nellie. “How sweet it smells!”

“Like its name, dearie,” replied the other. “It is called the ‘meadow-sweet’; and a delicious perfume can be extracted from it by infusion in boiling water. The roots of the plant are long tubers, which, when ground to powder and dried, may be used as a substitute for flour, should you have any scarcity of that article!”

“I’d rather have the real sort of flour, though, auntie.”

“So would I, too, dearie,” agreed Mrs Gilmour. “I only told you in case you may be thrown on a desert island some day, when the information might be of use in the event of your being without bread.”

“But, supposing there was no meadow-sweet there either, auntie?”

“Sure that would be a bad look-out,” said Mrs Gilmour, joining in Nell’s laugh. “I think we’d better wait till you get to the desert island!”

Wandering along, they plucked at their will masses of the wild convolvulus, or “great bindweed,” whose white blossoms, while they lasted, added much to the general effect of the bouquet Nellie was making up with her busy fingers from the spoils of coppice and sward.

These, in addition to the flowers they had just picked, now comprised many other natives of the wood and hedgerow, such as the purple bugloss, the yellow iris, the star thistle, the common mallow; and, a convolvulus which was brilliantly pink, in contrast to his white brother before-mentioned. Besides these, Nellie had also gathered some sprays of the “toad flax” and “blue succory,” a relative of the “endive” tribe, which produces the chicory-root so much consumed in England, as in France, as a “substitute” for coffee. A splendid sprig of yellow broom and dear little bunch of hare-bells, the “blue Bells of Scotland,” with two or three scarlet poppies, a wreath of the aromatic ground ivy and some fern-leaves for foliage, completed her floral collection.

Stopping beneath a group of trees further on, to listen to the song of a thrush, which was so full of melody that they approached him quite close without his noticing them, Nell and her aunt were amused by seeing two rooks quarrelling over a worm which they had both got hold of at the same time, one at either end gripping the unfortunate creature; and gobbling, and tugging, and cawing, at once!

One of these rooks had a white head, which he seemed to cock on one side in a strangely familiar way to Nell.

“He’s just like the Captain!” she exclaimed, tittering at the fancied resemblance. “Look, auntie, why he actually seems to wink!”

“I declare I’ll tell him!” said Mrs Gilmour, enjoying the joke none the less at the fancied resemblance. “Sure he’d be hoighly delighted.”

Then, as they wound round back to the dell through the dense shrubbery, they re-crossed the little rivulet which they had twice passed over before.

On the banks of this, although it was too small almost to have “banks,” properly speaking, Mrs Gilmour pointed out to Nell the “great water plantain,” with its sprigs of little lilac blossoms and beautiful green leaves, like those of the lily of the valley somewhat. The plant is said to be used in Russia as a cure for hydrophobia, the good lady explained; though she added that she could not vouch personally for its virtues.

Not far from this, too, they found another very curious plant, called in some places the “cuckoo pint,” and in others the “wake robin,” or, more commonly, “lords and ladies.” The leaves of this are of a glossy dark-green and the flower very like the leaf; only, more curved and tinted inside, with a hue of pale buff that becomes pinkish at the extremities, the centre pistil being of the same colour. It belongs to the arum family.

Following the course of the brook, Nellie, a little way on, spied out a regular bed of the forget-me-not; when Mrs Gilmour told her the old legend connected with the flower.

How a knight and a lady were sitting by the side of a river; and, on the lady expressing a desire to have some of the bright blue blossoms “to braid in her bonny brown hair,” the gallant knight at once dashed in the stream to gratify her wishes. He secured a bunch of the flowers; but, on turning to regain the shore, the current overcame him; and, as the old song goes—

“Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw,Ere he sunk in the eddying tide;And ‘Lady, I’m gone, thine own love true,Forget-me-not,’ he cried.“The farewell pledge the lady caught;And hence, as legends say,The flower’s a sign to awaken thoughtsOf friends who are far away!”

“Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw,Ere he sunk in the eddying tide;And ‘Lady, I’m gone, thine own love true,Forget-me-not,’ he cried.“The farewell pledge the lady caught;And hence, as legends say,The flower’s a sign to awaken thoughtsOf friends who are far away!”

“How nice!” cried Nellie— “How very nice!”

“Not for the poor knight, though,” said her aunt. “However, here, dearie, is another plant not quite so romantic, the old brown scabious, or ‘turf-weed.’ It is a great favourite with bees, while its roots are supposed to have valuable medicinal properties, which the country people well know and estimate at their right worth. In some places they call it the ‘Devil’s bit’!”

“How funny!” interposed Nellie. “Why do they give it such a strange name?”

“Yes, it is rather a strange title; but I read once somewhere that the story about it is, that the Spirit of Evil, envying the good which this herb might do to mankind, bit away part of it and thence came its name, ‘Devil’s bit.’”

“Really, auntie,” said Nell. “Does it look as if it had been bitten?”

“Yes, the root does,” she replied. “But, come, dearie, we must get back now as fast as we can, or Captain Dresser and the boys will be there before us and eat up all the luncheon!”

Without stopping to look at any more flowers or curious plants, they retraced their steps towards the dell, Nellie humming the last line of the song of the forget-me-not, which she was trying to learn by heart— “Of friends who are far away! Of friends who are far away”—when, suddenly, they heard Rover’s bark ringing through the woods, its echoes loud and resonant, like the sound of a deep-toned bell.

“Come on, dearie,” called out Mrs Gilmour, who was in advance, quickening her pace as she spoke, “come on quick, dearie! There’s some one making off with our lunch; and, just think how hungry we are!”

“Don’t fear, auntie,” said Nell reassuringly behind her; “Rover will not let any one touch it, you may be certain!”

Nevertheless, she hurried after Mrs Gilmour; and both arrived together, well-nigh breathless, at the spot where they had left their feast so nicely laid out.

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