“Never mind,” said Henry; “Mr. Carey’s brother, the Colonel, is coming to stay here the last week in July, and he gives us boys half-a-sovereign each, so that we might buy a stunning pig all ourselves twice over.”
“Always? He never did so but once,” said Sam.
“That was the only time he saw us, though,” said Hal; “and we were quite little boys then. I’ll tell you what, Sam, he’ll give us each a sovereign this time, and then I’ll buy a bow and arrows.”
“Stuff!” said Sam. “I hope he won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I hate it! I hate saying thank you; I shall get out of the way, if I can.”
“Sam has no manners!” said Hal, turning round to Miss Fosbrook. “To think that he had rather go without a sovereign or two than say thank you!”
“I’mtoo much of a gentleman to lay myself out for presents!” retorted Samuel; and the two boys fell on each other, buffeting one another, all in good part on Sam’s side, though there was some temper and annoyance on Henry’s.
When Sam was out of hearing, Hal discoursed very grandly on the sovereign he intended Colonel Carey to give him, and the prodigious things he meant to do with it. A gentleman once gave Osmond Greville two sovereigns; why should not Colonel Carey be equally liberal? And to hear the boy, those two sovereigns would buy everything in the world, from the pig to a double-barrelled gun. David began to grow hurt, and to fear the Toby fund would be lost in this magnificence; but Hal assured him that it would be a help, and they should all have a share in the pig, promising presents to everybody, which Susan and Annie expected with the more certainty that Sam was never present to laugh down these fine projects.
Indeed Miss Fosbrook had laughed at them once or twice, and observed that she thought money earned or spared a better thing than money given; and this caused Hal to cease to try to dazzle her, though he could not give up the pleasure of regaling his sisters in private with the wonders to be done with Colonel Carey’s possible sovereigns.
Thesecond week was prosperous: the treasury made progress; and Christabel began to feel as if her pupils were not beyond her management, as at first she had feared. Collectively they were less uncouth and bearish, not so noisy at their meals, nor so needlessly rude to one another; and the habit of teasing Elizabeth whenever there was nothing else to do was greatly lessened. Indeed Sam did not plague her himself, nor let his brothers do so, unless she tempted him by some very foolish whine or bit of finery; and in such eases a little friendly merriment is a sound cure, very unlike the hateful fault of tormenting for tormenting’s sake.
Nor did Elizabeth give nearly so much cause for their rough laughter, since Miss Fosbrook had given wholesome food to her tastes and likings, partly satisfying the longing for variety, beauty, or interest which had made her discontented and restless. Her head was full ofhersecret, and her pretty plans for her gift. Such lovely drawings she saw in her mind’s eye, such fairies, such delightful ships, kittens, babies in the cradle! But when the pencil was in her hand, the lines went all ways but the right; her fairy was a grimy little object, whose second wing could never be put on; the ships were saucers; the kitten might have been the pig; the baby was an owl in an ivy-bush; and to look at the live baby in the cradle only puzzled her the more. Miss Fosbrook gave her real drawing lessons; but boxes, palings, and tumble-down sheds, done with a broad black pencil, did not seem to help her to what she wished. Yet sometimes her fingers produced what surprised and pleased herself and Christabel; and she never was happier than when safely shut into Miss Fosbrook’s bed-room with her card and her paints. She used to bolt herself in, with a little parade of mystery that made Annie exceedingly curious, though the others generally let it alone as “Betty’s fancy.”
Christabel wanted to learn botany for her own pleasure. She found a book which Susan and Bessie pronounced to be horridly stupid (indeed Annie called it nasty, and was reproved for using such a word), but when the information in it was minced up small, and brought out in a new form, Bessie enjoyed it extremely. The whole party were delighted to gather flowers for Miss Fosbrook—the wetter or the steeper places they grew in the better; but the boys thought it girlish to know the names; and Susan, though liking gardening, did not in the least care for the inside of a flower. Elizabeth, however, was charmed at the loveliness that was pointed out to her; and even Annie, when the boys were not at hand, thought it very entertaining to look at petals, stamens, and pistils, and to see that a daisy is made up of a host of tiny flowers. Both little sisters were having their eyes opened to see some of the wonder and some of the glory of this earth of ours. It made Bessie much less often tired of everything and everybody; though after all there is but one spirit that is certain never to be weary or dissatisfied, and into that she had yet to grow.
Fines were much less frequent: there were no foolish tears; only one lesson of John’s turned back, two of Annie’s, one of Susan’s; some unbrushed hair of Susan’s too—an unlucky mention of the raven by Annie in lesson-time—and some books left about by Sam. Henry’s fines were the serious ones: he had two for incorrect sums, one for elbows on the table, three for talking, one for not putting his things away; and besides, hecould notgo without a pennyworth of string; and the Grevilles would have laughed at him if he had not bought some more marbles.
But what did that signify when Colonel Carey was coming? and a sovereign would buy a pig three times over—at least, if it was quite a little one. Christabel wished the hope of that sovereign had never occurred to him, for he seemed to think it quite set him free from the little self-restraints by which the others were earning the pleasure of making the gift; and though he still talked the most about the pig, he denied himself the least for it.
One evening the boys came in with a great piece of news. Their tutor had read in the paper that Admiral Penrose was appointed to theRamilies, to take command in the Mediterranean. He was a great friend of their father, and, said the boys, was most likely to make him his flag-captain.
“And me a naval cadet!” said Hal. “He said he would, when he was here!”
“One of you, he said,” put in Susan.
“I know it will be me!” said Hal. “He looked at the rigging of my frigate, and said I knew all the ropes quite well; and he told Papa he might be proud of such a son!”
“Oh! oh!” groaned the aggrieved multitude.
“Well—such a family; but he was looking at me; and I know he will give me the appointment; and I shall sail in his ship—you’ll see. And when I get to the Mediterranean, I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I shall kill a shark all my own self!”
“A shark in the Mediterranean!”
“Well, why shouldn’t they get in by the Straits of Magellan? Oh! is that the other place? Well, never mind—I’ll shoot the shark.”
“Stuff, Hal!” said Sam rather gruffly.
Hal went off on another tack. “Well, at least he has set me down by this time; and Papa will have me up to London for my outfit.”
“I hope you will have leave, and come and see us,” said Annie.
“I’ll try; but, you see, I shall be an officer on duty, and I dare say Admiral Penrose will hardly be able to spare me; but I’ll send you all presents out of my pay.”
“You’ll spend all your pay on yourself,” said David.
“Out of my prize-money then.”
“You can’t get prize-money without a war,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh! don’t let there be a war!” cried Susan.
“Yes, but there is!” said Harry in a tremendous tone; and as Miss Fosbrook held up her hands, “at least there was one in the Black Sea; and I know there was a battle in the newspaper—at least, Mr. Carey read about Palermo.”
“I don’t think Garibaldi in Sicily will put much prize-money into your pocket, Hal,” said Miss Fosbrook.
“Oh! but there’s sure to be a war! and I shall get promoted, and be a man before any of you. I shall go about, and see condors, and lions, and elephants, and wear a sword—at least, a dirk—while you are learning Latin and Greek at Uncle John’s!”
“Don’t make such a noise about it!” said Sam crossly.
“I don’t know why you should be the one to go,” said Elizabeth. “Sam is the eldest.”
“Yes; but Sam is such a slow-coach. Papa said I was the only one fit to make a sailor of—at least, he said I was smart, and—Hollo! Sam, I won’t have you kicking my legs!”
“Don’t keep up such a row then!” growled Sam; but Hal was in too full swing to be reached by slight measures. He pushed his chair back, tucked up his feet like a tailor’s, out of reach, and went on: “Then I shall come home in my cocked hat, like Papa’s—at least, my cap—and come and ask for a holiday for you all at Uncle John’s.”
Uncle John was an under-master at one of the great public schools, and the children were all a good deal in awe of him.
“Uncle John won’t give one foryou!” said Sam.
“Come, boys, I can’t have this bickering,” said Miss Fosbrook. “I can’t see you trying which can be most provoking. Stand up. Now, David, say grace. There, Annie, finish that bit of bread out of doors. Go out, and let us have no more of this.”
She spoke now with much less fear of not being minded; and having seen one of the quarrelsome parties safe out of the school-room, she went to fetch from her own room a glove that wanted mending; and on her return found Sam alone there, curled up over his lesson-books on the locker, looking so gloomy, that she was afraid she had made him sulky, for which she would have been very sorry, since she had a respect for him.
“What is the matter?” she asked; and his “Nothing” did not at all assure her that he was in a right mood. She doubted whether to leave him alone; but presently thought he looked more unhappy than ill-tempered, and ventured to speak. “Have you a hard piece to learn? Perhaps I could help you.”
He let her come and look at his book; but, to her surprise, he had before him a very easy problem in Euclid.
“Indeed, if you only gave your mind to this,” she said, “you would soon make it out.”
“Stupid stuff!” exclaimed Sam. “It is all along of that, and the rest of it, that I have got to be a land-lubber!” and he threw the book to the other end of the room.
“Have you no chance?” said Miss Fosbrook, without taking notice of this rudeness, for she saw that the boy could hardly contain himself.
“No! The Admiral did take notice of Hal; and one day when I was slow at a proposition, my father said I was too block-headed to beat navigation into, and that Hal is a smart fellow, worth two of me. I know he is! I know that; only if he would not make such an intolerable crowing—”
“Then you wish it very much?”
“Wish it! Of course I do. Why, my father is a sailor; and I remember theFury, and I saw theCalliope—his ship that he had in the war time. Before I was as big as little George I always thought I should be a sailor. And now if Papa goes out with Admiral Penrose, and Hal too—oh! it will be so horrid home!”
“But can’t you both go?”
“No; my father said he couldn’t ask to have two of us put down, unless perhaps some younger one had a chance by and by. And Hal is the sharpest, and does everything better than I can when he has a mind. My father says, among so many all can’t choose; and if this place is to be mine, Hal may want to be in the navy more than I. Yes, it is all right, and Hal must go. But—but—when my father is gone—” and Sam fairly burst out crying. “I didn’t hardly know how different it is with him away till this month. I was such a little fellow when he went to the Black Sea; but now—never mind, though!” and he stamped his foot on the floor. “Papa said it, and it must be. Don’t tell the others, Miss Fosbrook;” and he resolutely went and picked up his Euclid, and began finding the place.
“You will do your duty like a man, wherever you are, Sam,” said Christabel heartily.
Sam looked as if he had rather that she had not said it, but it was comfortable to him for all that; and though she kept further compliments to herself, she could not but think that there was no fear but that he would be a man, in the best sense of the word, before Hal, when she saw him so manfully put his sore grievance out of his head, and turn to the present business of conquering his lesson. Nor did she hear another word from him about his disappointment.
It made her dislike Henry’s boasts more than ever; and she used to cut them short as fast as she could, till the young chatterer decided that she was “cross,” and reserved all his wonderful “at leasts” for his sisters, and his proofs of manliness for the Grevilles.
The Gibraltar man did not come on Saturday; and Miss Fosbrook had been the saving of several stamps by sending some queer little letters in her own to Mrs. Merrifield, so that on Monday morning the hoard was increased to seven-and-sixpence; although between fines and “couldn’t helps,” Henry’s sixpence had melted down to a halfpenny, which “was not worth while.”
On this day arrived a servant from the Park, bringing a delicate little lilac envelope, stamped with a tiny rose, and directed to Miss Merrifield. There was another rose on the top of the lilac paper; and the writing was in a very neat hand.
My dear Susan,Mamma desires me to say that she hopes you and Bessie and Annie will come to dine early to-morrow, and play with me, and that Miss Fosbury will come with you. She hopes your Mamma is better, and would be glad to have her address in London.I am your affectionateIda Arabella Greville.
My dear Susan,
Mamma desires me to say that she hopes you and Bessie and Annie will come to dine early to-morrow, and play with me, and that Miss Fosbury will come with you. She hopes your Mamma is better, and would be glad to have her address in London.
I am your affectionateIda Arabella Greville.
“Oh! Miss Fosbrook, may we go?” cried the girls with sparkling eyes.
Mrs. Merrifield had written that one or two such invitations might be accepted, but she had rather it did not happen too often, as visits at the Park were unsettling to some of the children. So as this was the first, Christabel gladly consented, rather curious and rather shy on her own account.
Elizabeth begged for the rose, to copy it, and as there were no little ones present to seize it, she was allowed to have it; while Susan groaned and sighed over the misfortune of having to write a “horrible note” just at play-time; and the boys treated it as a sort of insult to the whole family that Ida should have mistaken their governess’s name.
“Tell her you won’t go till she has it right,” said Sam; at which Annie made a vehement outcry of “No, no!” such as made them all laugh at her thinking him in earnest.
Susan’s note began—
My dear Ida,We shuold—
My dear Ida,
We shuold—
But then perceiving that something was the matter with her word, Susan sat and looked at it, till at last, perceiving that heruandohad changed places, she tried putting a top to theu, and made it like ana; while the filling up theomade it become a blot, such as caught Bessie’s eye.
“O Susie, you won’t send such a thing as that up to Ida?”
“No—thatwouldbe a ‘horrible note,’” said her governess; and she ruled the lines again.
“Dear me,” said Susan impatiently; “can’t one send a message up by the man that we’ll all come, without this fuss?”
But Miss Fosbrook said that would be very uncivil; and Susan, groaning, stretched every finger till the lines were finished, and began again, in her scraggy round-hand—getting safely through the “should,” and also through “like to come very much;” but when Miss Fosbrook looked up next, she saw that the rest of the note consisted of—
Mamma is at Grandmamma’s, No. 12,—St., Grovensor Place.I am your affectionateSusanna Merrifield.
Mamma is at Grandmamma’s, No. 12,—St., Grovensor Place.
I am your affectionateSusanna Merrifield.
“My dear, I am very sorry.”
“What! won’t that do?” sighed Susan, beginning to get into despair.
Miss Fosbrook pointed to the word “Grovensor.”
“Oh dear! oh dear! I thought I had got that tiresome word this time. Why can’t it put itsssandnsinto their proper sensible places?” cried poor Susan, to whom it was a terrible enemy. She used to try them in different places all the way round, in hopes that one might at last be right.
“Can’t you remember what I told you, that the first Grosvenor was the grand huntsman?Grosveneurin French; that would show you where to put thes—gros, great.”
But Susan never wished to remember anything French; and Sam observed that “the man deserved to be spelt wrong if he called himself by a French name. Why couldn’t he be content to be Mr. Grandhunter?”
“But as he is not, we must spell his name right, or Mrs. Greville will be shocked,” said Miss Fosbrook.
“Please can’t you scratch it out?” said the disconsolate Susan.
“Ishould not like to send a note with a scratch in it. Besides, yours is hardly civil.”
“No, indeed,” said Elizabeth; “don’t you know how people answer invitations, Susie? I’ll tell you. ‘Miss Susanna, and Miss Elizabeth, and Miss Annie Merrifield will be very happy to do the honour of dining with —’ Sam, why do you laugh at me always?”
“Why, you are telling Ida you will do her honour by dining with her.”
“People always do honour when they dine,” said Elizabeth. “I know they do.”
“They profess to receive the honour, not confer it, Bessie,” said Miss Fosbrook, laughing; “but I don’t think that is the model for Susie’s note. It would be as much too formal as hers was too blunt.”
“Must I do it again?” said Susan. “I had rather not go, if it is to be such a plague.”
“Indeed, I fear you must, Susie. It is quite needful to learn how to write a respectable note; really a more difficult thing than writing a long letter. I am sorry for you; but if you were not so careless in your letters to Mamma this would come more easily to you.”
But this time Miss Fosbrook not only ruled another sheet, but wrote, in fair large-hand on a slate, the words, that Susan might copy them without fresh troubles:
We are much obliged to your Mamma for her kind invitation, and shall have much pleasure in coming with Miss Fosbrook to dine with you and spend the day. I am sorry to say that Mamma was not quite so well when last we heard. Her address is—No. 12,—St., Grosvenor-place.
We are much obliged to your Mamma for her kind invitation, and shall have much pleasure in coming with Miss Fosbrook to dine with you and spend the day. I am sorry to say that Mamma was not quite so well when last we heard. Her address is—No. 12,—St., Grosvenor-place.
Susan thought that here were a very serious number of words, and begged hard for leave to leave out her sorrow. Of course she was sorry, but what was the use of telling Ida so?
Miss Fosbrook thought it looked better, but Susan might do as she pleased.
“I wouldn’t say it, then,” said Sam. “I wouldn’t say it only to look better to Ida.” With which words he and Hal walked off to the garden.
Would it be believed? Susan, in her delight at being near the end, forgot the grand huntsman, and made the unlucky Place “Grovesnor,” and then, in her haste to mend it, put her finger into the wet ink, and smeared not only that word, but all the line above!
It was a shame and a wonder that a girl of her age should be so incapable of producing a creditable note; and Miss Fosbrook was very near scolding her but she had pity on the tearful eyes and weary fingers, and spoke cheerfully: “There, that was almost the thing. One more trial, Susan, and you need never be afraid of Ida’s notes again.”
If Susan could not write notes, at least she was not cross; and it would be well if many who could send off a much better performance with far less difficulty could go to work as patiently as she did, without one pettish word to Miss Fosbrook, though that lady seemed to poor Susie as hard a task mistress as if she could have helped it. This time Miss Fosbrook authorized the leaving out of the spending the day, and suggested that S. would be enough without the whole Susanna, and she mercifully directed the cover to Miss Greville.
“There, my dear, you have worked hard for your pleasure,” she said, as Susan extended each hand to its broadest stretch to uncramp them, and stretched herself backwards as if she wanted to double her head down to her heels. “I shall give you a good mark, Susie, as if it had been a lesson.”
Susan deserved it, for her patient perseverance had been all out of obedience, not in the mere desire of having her note admired. Indeed, good child, at the best it was a very poor affair for a girl of twelve, and Miss Fosbrook was ashamed of it when she looked at Ida’s lady-like little billet.
“But I wonder,” said she to herself, “whether I shall feel as if I would change my dear stupid Susan for Miss Ida?”
Meanwhile Susan flew screaming and leaping out into the garden in a mad tom-boy fashion; but that could well be pardoned, as there were only her sisters to see her; and the pleasure of having persevered and done her best was enough to make her heart and her limbs dance for merriment.
Depend upon it, however wretched and miserable hard application to what we do not like may seem at the moment, it is the only way to make play-times really delicious.
Miss Fosbrooksoon knew what Mrs. Merrifield meant by saying that visits at the Park unsettled the children. Susan indeed, though liking anything that shortened lessons by an hour, and made a change, was not so fond of being on her good behaviour at the Park as to be greatly exalted at the prospect; but Elizabeth and Annie were changed beings. They were constantly breaking out with some new variety of wonder. They wondered whether they should dine in the school-room, or at Mrs. Greville’s luncheon; they wondered if Mr. Greville would speak to them; they wondered whether Fräulein Munsterthal would be cross; they wondered if Ida still played with dolls; and they looked as if they thought themselves wonderful, too, for going out for a day!
Nay, the wonders were at their tongues’ end even when lessons began, and put their farthings in great peril; and when they had nothing else to wonder at, they wondered when it would be twelve o’clock, and took no pains to swallow enormous yawns. Once, over her copy, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Now! yes, this is necessary, Miss Fosbrook! May not we wear our white frocks?”
“They are not ironed,” answered Susan.
“Oh, do let me go and tell Mary! There’s lots of time,” said Bessie, who had lately thought it cruel of the clock to point only to half-past ten, and never bethought herself how Mary would like to be called off from her scrubbing to iron three white frocks.
“Would your Mamma wish it?” asked Christabel.
“Oh dear no,” was Susan’s answer; “we always wear clean ones of our every-day frocks. Our white ones are only for dinner-parties and Christmas-trees.”
Bessie grumbled. “How cross! I hate those nasty old spotty cottons;” and Johnnie returned to the old story—“Little vain pussy-cat.”
Up went Miss Fosbrook’s warning pencil, she shook her head, and held out her hand for two fines. Elizabeth began to gulp and sob.
“Oh, don’t, Betty!” cried Susan. “Stop while you can. You won’t like going up with red eyes. There, I’ll pay your fine; and there’s another for my speaking.”
“No, Susie; that was not foolish speaking, but kind words,” said Miss Fosbrook; “but no more now; go on, Annie.”
But Annie, who was reading a little history of St. Paul, would call Cilicia, Cicilia, and when told to spell it she began to cry too decidedly for Susan’s good-nature to check her tears. And not only did Elizabeth’s copy look as if she had written it with claws instead of fingers, but she was grieving over her spotted cotton instead of really seeking for places in her map. Thus the Moselle obstinately hid itself; and she absolutely shed tears because Miss Fosbrook declared that Frankfortwason the Maine. For the first time she had her grammar turned back upon her hands. How many mistakes Annie made would be really past telling; for these two little girls had their whole minds quite upset by the thought of a day’s pleasure; and as they never tried to restrain themselves, and to “be sober, be vigilant,” they gave way before all the little trials in their paths—were first careless, and then fractious. Perhaps when they were older they would find out that this uplifted sense of excited expectation is the very warning to be heedful.
If Miss Fosbrook had been a strict governess, she would have told them they did not deserve to go at all; or at any rate, that Bessie must repeat her grammar better, and re-write her copy, and that Annie’s unlucky addition sum must be made to prove; but she had seen her little sisters nearly as bad in prospect of a pantomime, so she was merciful, and sent them in good time to brush their hair, put on their spotted cottons, and wash off as much as possible of the red mottling left by those foolish tears.
Their spirits rose again as fast as they had sunk; and it was a lively walk through the park to the great house, with a good deal of skipping and jumping at first, and then, near the door, a little awe and gravity.
They were taken through a side-door of the hall to the school-room, where Ida and her governess received them. It was the first time that Christabel had seen her out of her beplumed hat, and she thought her a pleasant, bright-looking little girl, not at all set up or conceited. Her mauve muslin, flounced though it was up to her waist, showed that it had been wise to withstand Bessie’s desire for the white muslins; but Miss Fosbrook had enough to do on her own account with the endeavour to understand the German governess’s foreign accent, without attending to the children more than was necessary.
It was not a very remarkable day, and the pleasures of it seemed hardly enough to justify the little girls’ great excitement. There was first the dinner at the luncheon of the parents, where the children sat up rather formal and subdued, and not quite certain what all the dishes might contain, a little afraid of getting what theycouldnot eat, though desirous of making experiments in this land of wonders. None of them had forgotten, and they thought no one else had, how Bessie had once come to disgrace by bursting out crying over the impossibility of finishing some terrible rice-bordered greenish yellow stuff that burnt her mouth beyond bearing, and which Ida called curry, and said people in the East Indies liked. However, that was when Bessie had been a very little girl; and she still continued adventurous, saying, “Yes, if you please,” to cutlets set round in a wreath, with all their bones sticking up, and covered with a reddish incrustation that Susan and Annie thought so unnatural, that they preferred the boiled chicken that at least they could understand, though it had funny-hooking accompaniments in the sauce. And Hal’s report of some savoury jelly which he had once encountered would have deterred them from the pink transparency in the shape of a shell, if they had not seen Bessie getting on very well with it, Miss Fosbrook happily perceiving and cutting short Annie’s intended inquiry whether it were nice. To her great relief, this was the only want of manners betrayed by her little savages, and she was able to keep her attention tolerably free from them, so as to look at the pictures on the walls, observe the two boys, Hal’s friends, and talk to Mrs. Greville, who made conversation with her very pleasantly.
She was much grieved to perceive, from what that lady said, that Mrs. Merrifield was thought to be much more ill, and in a far more alarming state, than she had at all understood. The girls were too young to enter into the tone of sad sympathy with which Mrs. Greville spoke, and the manner in which a doubt was expressed whether the Captain would be able to sail with Admiral Penrose if he should have the offer; and as soon as she saw that they and their governess were in ignorance, she turned it off; but she had said enough to fill Christabel with anxiety and desire to know more; and as soon as the dinner was over, and the little girls had run off together to visit Ida’s beautiful cockatoo in the conservatory, she turned to Fräulein Munsterthal, and begged to hear whether she knew more than had been said.
Fräulein Munsterthal did not quite know that such a person as Mrs. Merrifield was in existence; but she was very amiable and warm-hearted, and said how sad it was to think of the trouble that hung over “these so careless children,” and was doubly kind to the girls when they came back from their conversation with pretty “Cocky,” who set up his lemon-coloured crest, coughed, sneezed, and said “Cocky want a biscuit!” to admiration, till the boys were seen approaching; when Ida, knowing that some torment would follow, took herself and her visitors back to the protection of the governesses in time to prevent the cockatoo from being made to fly at the girls, and powder them with the white dust under his feathers.
The afternoon was spent in the garden, the little girls betaking themselves to a pretty moss-covered arbour, where there was a grand doll’s feast. Ida had no less than twenty-three dolls, ranging from the magnificent Rosalind, who had real hair that could be brushed, and was as large as little Sally at home, down to poor little china Mildred, whose proper dwelling-place was a bath, and who had with great difficulty been put into petticoats enough to make her fit to be seen out of it. Now nobody at home could have saved the life of a doll for a single day, and Susan and Elizabeth were both thought far above them; but these beautifully arrayed young ladies had always been the admiration of the heart of Bessie as well as of Annie, and they were not too old for extreme satisfaction in handling their elegant ladyships, and still more their beautiful dinner and tea-service of pink and white ware.
Susan, though she could not write a note, or do lessons like Ida, was older in the ways of life, and played rather as she did with the little ones at home than for her own amusement. She would much rather have had the fun of “cats and mice” with her brothers; and but for the honour of the thing, so perhaps would Annie. However, they were all very happy, getting the dolls up in the morning, giving Mildred washing enough for all the twenty-three, making them breakfast, hearing lessons, in which Ida was governess, and made them talk so many languages that Annie was alarmed. Of course one of the young ladies was very naughty, and was treated with extreme severity; then there was dinner, a walk, an illness, and a dinner-party. While all the time the two real governesses sat in the shade outside, and talked in English or German as best they might, the Fräulein understanding Christabel’s English the best, as did Christabel the Fräulein’s German. They began to make friends, and to wish to see more of one another.
There was a walk round the garden, and admiration of the beautiful flowers, and the fountain and pond of gold-fish, till the boys came home, and got hold of the garden-engine for watering, crying out, “Fire! fire!” and squirting out the showers of water very much in the direction of the girls.
Ida became quite crimson red, and got hold of Susan’s hand to drag her away; then, as the foremost drops of another shower touched her, she faced about, and said, “Osmond! don’t, or I’ll tell Mamma.” There was a great rude laugh, as of boys who well knew the threat was never put in execution; and poor Fräulein Munsterthal only shook her head at Miss Fosbrook’s look of amaze, and said in German that “die Knaben” were far toounartigfor her to keep in order. She pitied Miss Fosbrook for having so many in charge as to destroy all peace. And if Sam and Hal had been like these two, Christabel felt that she could have done nothing with them. To her dismay, Osmond and Martin came in to the school-room tea; and she never had thought to feel so thankful for poor dear Susan’s slowness of comprehension, for, from their whispers among themselves, and from their poor tormented sister’s blushes, she was clear that the “fire” was a piece of bad wit on Susan’s red hair. Boys who could so basely insult a guest, and that a girl, she was sure must be bad companions for Sam and Henry. Such little gentlemen as they had been at dinner too, so polite and well-behaved before their father and mother! There could be no doubt that something must be very wrong about them, or they would not change so entirely when out of sight. It is not always true that a child must be deceitful who is less good in the absence of the authorities; because their presence is a help and a restraint, checking the beginning of mischief, and removing temptation; but one who does not fall by weakness, but intentionally alters his conduct the instant the elder is gone, shows that his will has been disobedient all along.
By and by Mr. Greville’s voice was heard calling, “Martin! Osmond!” As they went out to meet him in the passage, Miss Fosbrook clearly overheard, “Here is the spring of the garden-engine spoilt. Do you know anything about it?”
“No.”
“You have not been meddling with it?”
“No.” And they ran downstairs.
The colour flushed into Christabel’s cheeks with horror. She was glad that her little girls were all in Ida’s room, listening to a musical-box, and well out of hearing of such fearfully direct falsehoods, as it seemed to her, not knowing that the boys excused it to their own minds by the notion that it was not thespringof the engine that they had been meddling with, and that so they did not know how the harm had been done—as if it made it any better that they lied to themselves as well as their father! The German saw her dismay, and began to say how unlike her Ida was to her brothers—so truthful, so gentle, and courteous; but poor Christabel could not get over the thought of the ease and readiness with which deceit came to these boys. Could their daily companions, Samuel and Henry, have learnt the same effrontery, and be deceiving her all this time? No, no, she could not, would not think it! Assuredly not of Sam! She was very glad not to see the boys again, and went home with her pupils, rather heavy-hearted, at eight o’clock, just as Ida was to put on her white muslin and pink ribbons, and go down after dinner for half an hour.
There were many kisses at parting, and a whole box of sweets, done up in beautifully coloured and gold and silver paper, presented to the little visitors; but it might be supposed that the girls were tired, for there was a fretful snarling all the way across the park, because Elizabeth insisted that the gifts should be calledbon-bons, and the others would hear of nothing but goodies. Nobody looked at the beautiful evening sky, nor at the round red moon coming up like a lamp behind the trees, nor at the first stars peeping out, nor even at the green light of the glow-worm—all which were more beautiful than anything Ida had shown them, except perhaps the hothouse flowers; and at last two such cross ill-tempered voices sounded from Bessie and Annie, that Christabel turned round and declared that she should not let the sugar-plums be touched for a week if another word were said about them.
She hoped that when the visit was over it would be done with; but no such thing. Though Susan was her own good hearty self, Elizabeth had not recovered either on that day of the next from the effects of the pleasuring. On each she cried over her lessons, and was cross at whatever the boys said to her, made a fuss about keeping the ornamental cases of thebon-bons, and went about round-backed, peevish, and discontented, finding everything flat and ugly after her one peep at the luxuries of the Park. Her farthings melted away fast; but she seemed to think this her misfortune, not her fault. She did not try to talk to Miss Fosbrook, feeling perhaps that she was in a naughty mood, which she would not try to shake off; and she made no attempt to go on with her present for her Mamma, it looked so poor and trumpery after the beautiful things she had seen.
Nor did Christabel like to remind her of it, fearing that the occasion for giving it might never come; but she did feel that it was a mournful thing to see the child, who was in danger of so fearful a sorrow, wasting her grief in pining after foolish fancies, and turning what should have been a refreshing holiday into an occasion of longing after what she thus made into pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Christabel had heard that people who murmur among blessings often have those blessings snatched away, and this made her tremble for poor little discontented Elizabeth.
“There!” exclaimed Susan, “I really have got a letter from Papa himself. What a prize!”
“You’ll have to mind your Grosvenor when you answerhim,” said Sam; “but hollo, what’s the matter?”
For Susan’s eyes had grown large, and her whole face scarlet, and she gave a little cry as she read.
“Your Mamma, my dear?” asked Miss Fosbrook.
“Oh, Mamma—Mamma is so very ill!” and Susan throw the letter down, and broke into a fit of sobbing.
Sam caught it up, and Elizabeth came to read it with him, both standing still and not speaking a word, but staring at the letter with their eyes fixed.
“What is it, my dear?” said Miss Fosbrook, tenderly putting her arm round Susan; but she sobbed too much to make a word distinct, and Bessie held out the letter to her governess, looking white, and too much awed to speak.
Captain Merrifield wrote in short, plain, sad words, that he thought it right that his children should know how matters stood. The doctors’ treatment, for which their mother had been taken to London, had not succeeded, but had occasioned such terrible illness, that unless by the mercy of God she became much better in the course of a day or two, she could not live. If she should be worse, he would either write or telegraph, and Susan and Sam must be ready to set out at once on the receipt of such a message, and come up by the next train to London, where they should be met at the station. He had promised their mother that in case of need he would send for them.
God bless you, my poor children, and have mercy on us all!Your loving father,H.Merrifield.
God bless you, my poor children, and have mercy on us all!
Your loving father,H.Merrifield.
That was all; and Christabel felt, more than even the children did, from how full and heavy a heart those words had been written.
Though she hardly knew how to speak, she tried to comfort Susan by showing her that her father had evidently not given up all hope; but Susan was crying more at the thought of her Mamma’s present illness and pain than with fear of the future; and Sam said sadly, “He would not have written at all unless it had been very bad indeed.”
“Yes,” said Miss Fosbrook; “but I believe, in cases like this, there is often great fear, and then very speedy improvement.”
“Oh dear,” said Bessie, speaking for the first time, “I know it will be. Little girls in story-books always do have their mammas—die!”
“Story-books are all nonsense, so it won’t happen,” said Sam; and really it seemed as if the habit of contradicting Bessie had suggested to him the greatest consolation that had yet occurred.
Just then Henry and the younger ones came in, and learnt the tidings. Henry wept as bitterly as his elder sister, and John and Annie both did the same; but David did not speak one word, as if he hardly took in what was the matter, and, going to the window, took up his lesson-books as usual.
“It is nine o’clock, Hal,” said Sam presently.
“Oh, we can’t go to Mr. Carey to-day,” said Hal.
“Yes, we shall,” returned Sam.
“Oh don’t,” cried Susan. “Suppose a telegraph should come!”
“Well, then you can send for me,” said Sam. “Come, Hal.”
“How can you, Sam?” said Henry crossly; “I know Mr. Carey will give us leave when he knows.”
“I don’t want leave,” said Sam; “I don’t want to kick up a row, as you’ll do if you stay at home.”
“Well then, if the message comes, I shall take Susie to London instead of you. I’m sure they want me most!”
“No, go down to Mr. Carey’s with your brother, if you please, Hal,” said Miss Fosbrook decidedly. “If he should tell you not to stay, I can’t help it; but you will none of you do any good by hanging about without doing your daily duties.”
Hal saw he had no chance, and marched off, muttering about its being very hard. Sam picked up his books, and turned to go, with a grave steady look that was quite manly in its sadness, only stopping to say, “Now, Jackie, you be good!—Please Miss Fosbrook, let him run down after me if the message comes, and I’ll be back before the horse is out.”
Miss Fosbrook promised, and could not help shaking hands with the brave boy, if only to show that she felt with him.
“Then must we all do our lessons?” asked Annie disconsolately, when he was gone.
“Yes, my dear; I think we shall all be the better for not neglecting what we ought to do. But there is one thing that we can do for your dear Mamma; you know what I mean. Suppose you each went away alone for five minutes, and were to come back when I ring the little bell?”
The first to come back was Annie, with the question in a low whisper, “Miss Fosbrook, will God make Mamma better if we are very good?”
Miss Fosbrook kissed her, saying, “My dear little girl, I cannot tell. All I can certainly tell you is, that He hears the prayers of good children, and if it be better for her and for you He will give her back to you.”
Annie did not quite understand, but she entered into what Miss Fosbrook said enough to wish to be good; so she took up her book, and began to learn with all her might.
Elizabeth would have thought it much more like a little girl in a book to have done no lessons, but have sat thinking, and perhaps reading the Bible all day; but on the whole Elizabeth had hardly thoughts enough to last her so long; nor was she deep or serious enough to have done herself much good by keeping the Bible open before her. In fact she did lose her verse in merely reading the chapter for the day! So it was just as well that she had something to do that was not play, and that was a duty, and thus might give the desire to be good something to bear upon.
But Christabel saw by Susan’s face, and heard in the shaken voice with which she took her turn in the reading, that she could not have given her mind to her tasks, and did not need them to keep her out of mischief. It would have been cruel to have required her to sit down to them just then, and her governess was glad to be able to excuse her on account of the packing-up. All her things and Sam’s must be got ready in case of an immediate start, and she was sent up to the nursery to take care of the little ones, while Nurse and Mary mended, ironed, and packed.
To be sure Nurse Freeman made poor Susan unnecessarily unhappy by being sure that it was all the fault of the London doctors; but she was a kind, tender old woman, and her petting was a great comfort to the poor girl. What did her most good, however, was sitting quite quiet with the little ones while they were asleep, and all alone; it seemed to rest and compose her, and she always loved to be in charge of them. Poor child! she might soon have to be their little mother! She was able to play with them when they awoke, and cheered herself up with their pretty ways, and by finding how quickly Baby was learning to walk. Ah! but would Mamma ever see her walk?
If any of the children thought it unjust that Susan’s lessons should be let off, they were wrong. Parents and teachers must have the power of doing such things without being judged. Sometimes they see that a child is really unable to learn, when the others perceive no difference; and it would be very harsh and cruel to oppress one who is out of order for fear little silly, idle, healthy things should think themselves hardly used.
At any rate, the lessons were capitally done; and when the children met again, they were all so much brighter and more hopeful, that they quite believed that their Mamma was going to get better very fast. Bessie especially was so resolved that thus it should be, that she shut herself into Miss Fosbrook’s room, and drew and painted with all her might, as if preparing for Mamma’s birthday made it certain that it would be kept.
The boys brought word that they would have a holiday the next day, as it was the Feast of St. Barnabas, and after morning service Mr. Carey was going to meet his brother and bring him home.
“I shall be all the more certain to get the sovereign, or two sovereigns,” said Henry to David, the only person whom he could find to listen to him, “if Sam is gone; and everyone will be caring about me.”
“And then you’ll give it to the pig,” said David.
“Oh yes, to be sure. You will grow into a pig yourself if you go on that way, David.”
However, David, partaking the family distrust of Hal’s birds-in-the-bush, and being started on the subject of the hoard, ran up to Sam, who was learning his lessons by way of something to do, and said, “If you go to London, Sam, may I have your sixpence on Monday for the pig?”
“I don’t know that I am going.”
“But if you do—or we sha’n’t get the pig.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t you care if we don’t get the pig?”
“No. Be off with you.”
David next betook himself to his eldest sister, who was trying to write to her father, and finding such a letter harder and sadder work than that to Ida Greville, though no one teased her about writing, blots, or spelling.
“If you go to London, Susie,” said he, in the very same words, “may I have your sixpence on Monday for the pig?”
“Oh, Davie, don’t be tiresome!”
David only said it over again in the same words, and put his hand down on her letter in his earnestness.
“Come away, Davie,” said Miss Fosbrook; “don’t tease your sister.”
“I want her to say I may have her sixpence on Monday for the pig.”
“No, you sha’n’t, then,” said Susan angrily; “you care for the nasty pig more than for poor Mamma or anyone else, and you sha’n’t have it.”
So seldom did Susan say anything cross, that everyone looked up surprised. Miss Fosbrook saw that it was sheer unhappiness that made her speak sharply, and would not take any notice, except by gently taking away the pertinacious David.
He was very much distressed at the refusal; and when Miss Fosbrook told him that his brother and sister could not think of such things when they were in such trouble, he only answered, “But Hannah Higgins won’t get her pig.”
Miss Fosbrook was vexed herself that her friend David should seem possessed with this single idea, as if it shut out all others from his mind. He was consoled fast enough; for Susan, with another great sob, threw down her pen, and coming up to stroke him down with her inky fingers, cried out, “O Davie, Davie, I didn’t mean it; I don’t know why I said it. You shall have my sixpence, or anything! But, oh dear, I wish the message was come, and we were going to dear Mamma, for I can’t write, and I don’t know what to do.”
Then she went back to her place, and tried to write, and sat with her head on her hand, and dawdled and cried and blotted till it grew so near post-time that at last Miss Fosbrook took the longest of her scrawls, and writing three lines at the bottom to say how it was with them all, directed it to Captain Merrifield, thinking that he would like it better than nothing from home, sent it off, and made Susan come out to refresh her hot eyes and burning head in the garden.
Sam presently came and walked on her other side, gravely and in silence, glad to be away from the chatter and disputes of the younger ones. That summons had made them both feel older, and less like children, than ever before; but they did not speak much, only, when they sat down on a garden bench, as Miss Fosbrook held Susan’s hand, she presently found some rough hard young fingers stealing into her own on the other side, and saw Sam’s eyes glistening with unshed tears. She stroked his hand, and they dropped fast: but he was ashamed to cry, and quickly dried them.
“I think,” she said, “that you will be a man, Sam; take care of Susan, and be a comfort to your father.”
“I hope I shall,” said Sam; “but I don’t know how.”
“Nobody can tell how beforehand,” she said. “Only watch to see what he may seem to want to have done for him. Sit quietly by, and don’t get in the way.”
“Were you ever so unhappy, Miss Fosbrook?” asked Susan.
“Yes, once I was, when my father was knocked down by an omnibus, and was very ill.”
“Tell us about it?” said Susan.
She did tell them of her week of sorrow and anxious care of the younger children, and the brightening ray of hope at last. It seemed to freshen both up, and give them hopes, for each drew a long sigh of relief; and then Sam said, “Papa wrote to Mr. Carey. She is to be prayed for in church to-morrow.”
“Oh,” said Susan, with a sound as of dismay, which made Christabel ask in wonder why she was sorry, when, from Susan’s half-uttered words, she found that the little girl fancied that a “happy issue out of all her afflictions” meant death.
“Oh no, my dear,” she said. “What it means is, that the afflictions may end happily in whatever way God may see to be best; it may be in getting well; it may be the other way: at any rate, it is asking that the distress may be over, not saying how.”
“Isn’t there some other prayer in the Prayer-book about it?” said Sam, looking straight before him.
“I will show you where to find it, in the Visitation of the Sick. I dare say it has often been read to her.”
The boy and girl came in with her, and brought their Prayer-books to her room, that she might mark them.
This had been a strange, long, sad day of waiting and watching for the telegram, and the children even fancied it might come in the middle of the night; but Miss Fosbrook thought this unlikely, and looked for the morrow’s post. There was no letter. It was very disappointing, but Miss Fosbrook thought it a good sign, since at least the danger could not be more pressing, and delay always left room for hope.
The children readily believed her; they were too young to go on dwelling long on what was not in sight; and even Susan was cheerful, and able to think about other things after her night’s rest, and the relief of not hearing a worse account.
The children might do as they pleased about going to church on saints’ days, and on this day all the three girls wished to go, as soon as it had been made clear that even if the message should come before the short service would be over, there would be ample time to reach the station before the next train. Miss Fosbrook was glad to prove this, for not only did she wish to have them in church, but she thought the weary watching for the telegram was the worst thing possible for Susan. Sam was also going to church, but Henry hung back, after accompanying them to the end of the kitchen-garden. “I wouldn’t go, Sam; just suppose if the message came without anyone at home, and you had to set out at once!”
“We couldn’t,” said Sam; “there’s no train.”
“Oh, but they always put on a special train whenever anyone is ill.”
“Then there would be plenty!”
“At least they did when Mr. Greville’s mother was ill, so they will now; and then you may ride upon the engine, for there won’t be any carriages, you know. I say, Sam, if you go to church, and the telegraph comes, I shall set off.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Sam. “You had much better come to church.”
“No, I sha’n’t. It is like a girl to go to church on a week-day.”
“It is much more like a girl to mind what a couple of asses, like the Grevilles, say,” returned Sam, taking up his cap and running after his sisters and their governess.
“It is quite right,” observed Henry to John and David, who alone remained to listen to him, “that one of us should stay in case the telegraph comes in, and there are any orders to give. I can catch the pony, you know, and ride off to Bonchamp, and if the special train is there, I shall get upon the engine.”
“But it is Sam and Susan who are going.”
“Oh, that’s only because Sam is eldest. I know Mamma would like to have me much better, because I don’t walk hard like Sam; and when I get there, she will be so much better already, and we shall be all right; and Admiral Penrose will be so delighted at my courage in riding on the engine and putting out the explosion, or something, that he will give me my appointment as naval cadet at once, and I shall have a dirk and a uniform, and a chest of my own, and be an officer, and get promoted for firing red-hot shot out of the batteries at Gibraltar.”
“Master Hal!” exclaimed Purday, “don’t throw them little apples about.”
“They are red-hot shot, Purday!”
“I’ll red-hot shot you if you break my cucumber frames, young gentleman! Come, get out with you.”
Probably anxiety made Purday cross as well as everyone else, or else he distrusted Henry’s discretion without Sam, for he hunted the little boys away wherever they went. Now they would break the cucumber frames; now they would meddle with the gooseberries, or trample on the beds; and at last he only relented so far as to let David stay with him on condition of being very good, and holding the little cabbages as he planted them out.
“Master Davie was a solemn one,” Purday said, and they were great friends; but Hal and Johnnie were fairly turned out, as their idle hands were continually finding fresh mischief to do in their sauntering desultory mood.
“I think,” said Hal, “since Purday is so savage, we’ll go and look out at the gate, and then we shall see if the telegraph comes.”
Johnnie had no clear idea what a telegraph was, and was curious to know how it would come, rather expecting it to be a man in a red coat on horseback, blowing a horn—a sight that certainly was not to be missed; so he willingly strolled down after Henry to the gate leading to the lane.
“I can’t see any way at all,” said Henry, looking out into the lane. “I shall get up, and so see over into the bend of the road;” and Hal mounted to the topmost bar of the gate, and sat astride there, John scrambling after him not quite so easily, his legs being less long, and his dress less convenient. Both knew that their Papa strongly objected to their climbing on this iron gate, the newest and handsomest thing about the place; but thought Hal, “Of course no one will care what I do when I am so anxious about poor Mamma!” and thought Johnnie, “What Hal does, of course I may do!”
So there the two young gentlemen sat perched, each with one leg on either side of the new iron gate. It was rather like sitting on the edge of a knife; and John could scarcely reach his toes down to rest them on the bar below, but he held on by the spikes, and it was so new and glorious a position, that it made up for a good deal to be five feet above the road; moreover, Hal said it was just like the mast-head of a man-of-war—atleast, when the waves didn’t dash right overhead, like the picture of the Eddystone Lighthouse.
“Hollo! what, a couple of cherubs aloft!” cried a voice from the road; and looking round, Henry beheld the two Grevilles.
“Yes,” he answered; “it’s very jolly up here.”
“Eh! is it? Riding on a razor, to my mind. Come down, and have a lark,” said Osmond; while Martin, undoing the gate, proceeded to swing it backwards and forwards, to John’s extreme terror; but the more he clung to the spikes, and cried for mercy, the quicker Martin swung it, shouting with laughter at his fright. Henry meanwhile scrambled and tumbled to the ground, and caught the gate and held it fast, while he asked what his friends had been about. One held up a scarlet flask of powder, the other a bag of shot.
“You haven’t got a gun!”
“No, but we know where gardener keeps his; and the governor’s out for the day. Come along, Hal: you shall have your turn.”
“I don’t want to go far from home to-day.”
“Oh, stuff! What was it Mamma heard, Osmond? That your mother was ever so much better, wasn’t it?”
“I thought it was worse,” said Osmond.
“Well, never mind: your hanging about here won’t do her any good, I suppose.”
“No; but—”
“Oh, he’ll catch it from the governess!—I say, how many seams shall you have to sew to-day, Hal?”
“I don’t sew seams: I do as I please.”
“Ha! Is that them coming out of church!”
“Oh, it is! it is!” cried John from his elevation. “Oh, help me down, Hal!”
But Henry did not want Miss Fosbrook to find him partaking in gate-climbing; and either that desire, or the general terror a bad conscience, made him and the Grevilles run helter-skelter the opposite way, leaving poor little John stuck on the top of the gate, quite giddy at the thought of coming down alone, and almost as much afraid of being there caught by Miss Fosbrook coming home from church.
It was a false alarm after all, that the congregation were coming out. John would have been glad if they had; for nothing could be more miserable than sitting up there, his fingers tired of clutching the spikes, his feet strained with reaching down to the bar, his legs chilled with the wind, his head almost giddy when he thought of climbing down. He would have cried, could he have spared a hand to rub his eyes with; he had a great mind to have roared for help, especially when he heard feet upon the road; but these turned out to belong to five little village boys, still smaller than himself, who, when they saw the young gentleman on his perch, all stood still in a row, with their mouths wide open, staring at him. Johnnie scorned to let them think he was not riding there for his own pleasure; so he tried to put a bold face of the matter, and look as much at ease and indifferent as he could, under great bodily fear and discomfort, the injury of his brother’s desertion, the expectation of disgrace, and the reflection that he was being disobedient to his parents in the height of their trouble!
There is nothing in grief that of necessity makes children or grown people good. Sometimes, especially when there is suspense, it fills them with excitement, as well as putting them out of their usual habits; and thus it often happens that there are tremendous explosions of naughtiness just when some one is ill in a house, and the children ought to be most good. But it is certain that unless trouble be taken in the right way, it makes people worse instead of better.
Halhad got into a mood in which he was tired of fears and of waiting for tidings, and was glad to shake off the thought, and be carried along to something new, he and the Grevilles were rather fond of one another’s company, in an idle sort of way. They “put him up to things,” as he said; they made a variety; and he was always glad of listeners to his wonderful stories, which rather diverted the other boys, who, though they sometimes made game of them, were much less apt to pick them to pieces than was Sam.
Poor Captain Merrifield! what had not befallen him, according to his son? He had been stuck on to a rock of loadstone; he had been bitten by mosquitos as big as jackdaws—at least as jack-snipes; he had sat down to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree, and it whisked him over on his face, and turned out to be a rattle-snake—at least, a boa-constrictor! Nay, Henry discoursed on the ponies he had himself tamed, the rabbits he had shot, the trees he had climbed, the nests he had found, the rats he had killed, in terms he durst not use when his brother was by; or if he did, and Sam brought him to book, he always said “it was all fun.” It often seemed as if he did not himself know whether he meant to be believed or otherwise; and as to his intentions for his sailor life, they were, as has been already seen, of the most splendid character! Sometimes he shot the French admiral dead from the mast-head; sometimes he sailed into Plymouth with the whole enemy’s fleet behind him; sometimes he, the youngest midshipman, rescued the whole crew in a wreck where all the other officers were drowned; sometimes he shot a shark through the head, just as it was about to make a meal of Prince Alfred!
He certainly was thus an entertaining companion to those who did not pay heed to truth, and liked to hear or laugh at great swelling words; and the Grevilles, on their idle day, were glad to have him with them, and were rather curious to prove how much fact there was in his boast of being a most admirable shot.
Meddling with guns was absolutely forbidden to all the three, except by special permission and with an elder looking on; but the Grevilles were not in the habit of obeying, except when they were forced to do so; and Henry, having once begun to think no one would heed his present doings, was ready to go on rather than be accused of minding his governess.
So the gardener’s gun was taken from the hiding-place, whither it had been conveyed from the tool-house; and the three boys ran off together, their first object being to get out of the Greville grounds, where they could be met by any of the men. They got quite out into the fields, before they ventured to stop that Osmond might load the gun. Each was to take a shot in turn; Osmond tried first, at a poor innocent young thrush, newly come out for his earliest flight. Happily he missed it; Martin claimed the next, and for want of anything better to shoot, took aim at the scare-crow in the middle of Farmer Grice’s beans. He was sure that he had hit it, and showed triumphantly the great holes in its hat; but the other boys were strongly persuaded that they had been there before.
“Well, come away,” said Osmond; “this is a great deal too near old Grice’s farm-yard. If we go popping about here, we shall have him out upon us, for an old tiger as he is!”
“Come along, then,” said Martin.
But Hal had just got the gun, and saw something so black and shiny through the hedge, that he was persuaded that a flock of rooks were feeding in the next field, and he fired!
Such a cackling and screeching as arose! and with it one dying gobble, and a very loud “Hollo! you rascal!”
“My eyes! you’ve been and gone and done it!” cried Osmond.
“Cut! cut!” screamed Martin; and Hal, not exactly knowing what he had done, but sure that it was something dreadful, and hearing voices in pursuit, threw down the gun, and took to his heels; but the others had the start of him, and were over the gap long before he could get to it. And even as he did reach it, a hand was on his throat, almost choking him, and a tremendous voice cried, “You young poacher, you sha’n’t get off that way! I’ll have you up to the Bench, that I will, for shooting the poor old turkey-cock before my very eyes.”
“Oh! don’t, don’t! I didn’t mean it,” cried Hal, turning in the terrible grip; “I thought it was only a rook!”
“A rook, I dare say! And what business had you to think, coming trespassing here on my ground, and breaking the hedges! I’d have you up for that, if for nothing else, you young vagabond!”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! I’m Henry Merrifield!”
“I don’t care if you’re Henry Merry Andrew!” said Farmer Grice, who was a surly man, and had a grudge of long standing against the Captain, for withstanding him at the Board of Guardians. “I’ll have the law out of you, whoever you are.”
“But—but—Mamma is so very ill!” cried Hal, bursting into tears.
“The more shame for you to be rampaging about the country this fashion,” said the farmer, giving him a shake that seemed to make all his bones rattle in his skin. “Serve you right if I flogged you within an inch of your life.”
“Oh, please don’t—I mean please do—anything but have me up to the magistrates! I’ll never do it again, never!” sobbed Henry in his terror.
Mr. Grice had some pity, and also knew that his wife and all the neighbours would be shocked at his prosecuting so young a boy, whose parents were in such distress. So he said, “There, then, I’ll overlook it this time, sir, so as I have the value of the bird.”
“And what is the value—” asked Henry, trembling.
“Value! Why, the breed came from Norfolk; he was three years old; and my missus set great store on him, he was as good as a house-dog, to keep idle children out of the yard; and it was quite a picture to see him posturing about, and setting up his tail! Value! not less than five-and-twenty shillings, sir.”
“But I have not five-and-twenty shillings. I can’t get them,” said Hal, falling back into misery.
“You should have thought of that before you shot poor old Tom Turkey!” quoth Farmer Grice.
“But what in the world shall I ever do?” said Henry.
“That’s for you to settle, sir,” said the farmer, taking up the unlucky gun. “I shall take this, and keep it out of further harm.”
“Oh pray, pray!” cried Henry. “It is not my gun; it is Mr. Greville’s; please let me have it!”
“What! was it those young dogs, the Master Grevilles, that were with you!” growled Mr. Grice. “If I’d known that, I’d not have let you off so easy. Those boys are the plague of the place; I wish it had been one of them as I’d caught, I’d have had some satisfaction out of them!”
Henry entreated again for the gun, explaining that they had not leave to take it; but the farmer was unrelenting. He might go to them, he said, to make up the price of the poor turkey-cock; how they could have got the gun was no affair of his; have it they should not, till the money was brought to him; and if it did not come before night, he should carry the gun up to the Park, and complain to Mr. Greville.
With this answer the unhappy Hal was released, and ran after his friends to tell them of the terms. He found them sitting on a low wall, just within their own grounds, waiting to hear what had become of him. When he had told his story, they both set upon him for betraying them, and declared that they should send him to Coventry ever after, and never do anything with him again; but as it was plain that the gun must be redeemed, if they wished to avoid severe punishment, there was a consultation. Nobody had much money; but Osmond consolingly suspected that the farmer would take less; five-and-twenty shillings was an exorbitant price to set on a turkey-cock’s head, and perhaps half would content him.
The half, however, seemed as impossible as the whole. Osmond had three shillings, Martin two, Hal fourpence! What was to be done? And the boys declared that if it should come to their father’s knowledge, Hal, who had given up their names, should certainly not be shielded by them. In fact, he, who had done the deed, was the only one who ought to pay.
The sound of the servants’ dinner-bell at the Park broke up the consultation; the boys must not be missed at luncheon; and they therefore separated, agreeing to meet at that same place at four o’clock, to hear the result of Hal’s negotiation with the farmer; for neither of the Grevilles would hear of helping him to face the enemy.
Poor Hal plodded home disconsolately. Once he thought of telling Sam, and asking his help; but Sam would be so much shocked at such a scrape at such a time, as possibly to lick him for it before helping him. Indeed Hal did not see much chance of Sam being able to do anything for them; and he had too often boasted over his elder brother to like to abase himself by such a confession—when, too, it would almost be owning how much better it would have been to have followed Sam’s advice and have gone safely to church.
Could he borrow of any one? Had he nothing of his own to sell or exchange? Ah! if it had not been for that stupid hoard of little David’s, he might have had even so much! By-the-bye, some of that collection was his own. He might quite lawfully take that back again. How much could it be? How much did he put in last week? the week before? Oh, never mind; some of it was his at all events; there was no harm in taking that. Most likely he should be able to restore it four-fold when Colonel Carey made his present; or, if not, nobody knew exactly what was in Toby Fillpot; and after all very likely they would forget all about it; people could not think about pigs when Mamma was ill; or, maybe, he should go to join his ship, and hear no more of it. So he came home, and crossed the paddock just as the dinner-bell was ringing, opening the hall-door as the children were running across it to the dining-room.