"'LET ME LOOK AT HIM,' SHE SAID."
"Say, chaps, did you hear her? She said she'd 'sneak' the ointment from the stables. I tell 'ee what, she'll be a rare good plucked one that. And her a beak's daughter! Her mother mun ha' been a piece!"
It was half-an-hour before Cissy got back with the pot of boracic dressing and some lint.
"I had to wait till the coachman had gone to his tea," she explained, "and then send the stable boy with a message to the village to get him out of the way."
The youth on the stone heap secretly signalled his delight to the appreciative audience hiding in the broom bushes.
Then Cissy ordered him to get her some warm water, which he brought from one of the kettles swinging on the birchen tripods scattered here and there about the encampment.
Whereupon, taking the fox-terrier firmly on her knee and turning up the skirt of her dress, she washed away all the dirt and matted hair, cleansing the wound thoroughly.
The poor beast only made a faint whining sound at intervals. Then she applied the antiseptic dressing, and bound the lint tightly down with a cincture about the animal. She fitted his neck with a neat collar of her own invention, made out of the wicker covering of a Chianti wine flask which she brought with her from Oaklands.
"There," she said, "that will keep him from biting at it, and you must see that he doesn'tscratch off the bandage. I'll be passing to-morrow and will drop in. Here's the pot of ointment. Put some more on in the morning and some again at night, and he will be all right in a day or two."
"Thank'ee, miss," said the lad, touching his cap with the natural courtesy which is inherent in the best blood of his race. "I don't mean to forget, you be sure."
Cissy waved her hand to him gaily, as she went off towards Windy Standard. Then all at once she stopped.
"By the way, what is your name? Whom shall I ask for if you are not about to-morrow?"
"Billy Blythe," he said, after a moment's pause to consider whether the daughter of a magistrate was to be trusted; "but I'll be here to-morrow right enough!"
"Why did you tell the beak's daughter your name, Bill, you blooming Johnny?" asked a companion. "You'll get thirty days for that sure!"
"Shut up, Fish Lee," said the owner of the dog; "the girl is main right. D'ye think she'd ha' said 'sneaked' if she wasn't. G'way, Bacon-chump!"
Cissy Carter took the road to Windy Standard with a good conscience. She was not troubled about the "sneaking," though she hoped that the coachman would not miss that pot of ointment.
At the foot of the avenue, just where it joined the dusty road to the town of Edam, she met Sir Toady Lion. He had his arms full of valuable sparkling jewellery, or what in the distance looked like it as the sun shone upon some winking yellow metal.
Toady Lion began talking twenty to the dozen as soon as ever he came within Cissy's range.
"Oo!" he cried, "what 'oo fink? Father sented us each a great big half-crown from London—all to spend. And we have spended it."
"Well," said Cissy genially, "and what did you buy?"
"Us all wented down to Edam and boughted—oh! yots of fings."
"Show me what you've bought, Toady Lion! I want to see! How much money had you, did you say?"
Toady Lion sat plump down in the thickest dust of the road, as he always did just wherever he happened to be at the time. If there chanced to be a pool there or a flower-bed—why, so much the worse. But whenever Toady Lion wanted to sit down, he sat down. Here, however, there was only the dry dust of the road and a brown smatter of last year's leaves. The gallant knight was in a meditative mood and inclined to moralise.
"Money," said Toady Lion thoughtfully, "well, dere's the money that you get gived you, and wot Janet sez you muss put in your money-box. That's no good! Money-box locked! Janet keeps money-box. 'Get money when you are big,' she sez—rubbage, I fink—shan't want it then—lots and lots in trowsies' pocket then, gold sixpences and fings."
Toady Lion's eyes were dreamy and glorious, as if the angels were whispering to him, and he saw unspeakable things,
"Then there's miss'nary money in a round boxwif a slit on the top. That's lots better! Sits on mantlepiece in dining-room. Can get it out wif slimmy-jimmy knife when nobody's looking. Hugh John showed me how. Prissy says boys who grab miss'nary's pennies won't not go to heaven, but Hugh John, he says—yes. 'Cause why miss'nary's money is for bad wicked people to make them good. Then if it is wicked to take miss'nary money, the money muss be meaned for us—to do good to me and Hugh John. Hugh John finks so. Me too!"
Toady Lion spoke in short sentences with pauses between, Cissy meantime nodding appreciation.
"Yes, I know," she said meditatively, "a thinbladed kitchen knife is best."
But Sir Toady Lion had started out on the track of Right and Wrong, and was intent on running them down with his usual slow persistence.
"And then the miss'nary money is weally-weally our money, 'cause Janetmakesus put it in. Onst Hugh John tried metal buttons off of his old serge trowsies. But Janet she found out. And he got smacked. An' nen, us only takes a penny out when us istony-bloke!"
"Is which? Oh, stone-broke," laughed Cissy Carter, sitting down beside Toady Lion; "who taught you to say that word?"
"Hugh John," said the small boy wistfully; "him and me tony-bloke all-ee-time, all-ee-ways, all-ee-while!"
"Does Prissy have any of—the missionary money?" said Cissy; "I should!"
"No," said Toady Lion sadly; "don't you know? Our Prissy's awful good, juss howwid! She likes goin' to church, an' washing, an' having to wear gloves. Girls is awful funny."
"They are," said Cissy Carter promptly. The funniness of her sex had often troubled her. "But tell me, Toady Lion," she went on, "does Hugh John like going to church, and being washed, and things?"
"Who? Hugh John—him?" said Toady Lion, with slow contempt. "'Course he don't. Why, he's a boy. And once he told Mr. Burnham so—he did."
Mr. Burnham was the clergyman of both families. He had recently come to the place, was a well-set up bachelor, and represented a communion which was not by any means the dominant one in Bordershire.
"Yes, indeedy. It was under the elm. Us was having tea. An' Mist'r Burnham, he was having tea. And father and Prissy. And, oh! such a lot of peoples. And he sez, Mist'r Burnham sez to Hugh John, 'You are good little boy. I saw you in church on Sunday. Do you like to go to church?' He spoke like this-a-way, juss like I'm tellin' oo, down here under his silk waistcoat—kind of growly, but nice."
"Hugh John say that he liked to go to church—'cos father was there listenin', you see. Then Mist'r Burnham ask Hugh Johnwhyhe like to go to church, and of course, he say wight out that it was to look at Sergeant Steel's wed coat. An' nen everybody laugh—I don't know why. But Mist'r Burnham he laughed most."
Cissy also failed to understand why everybody should have laughed. Toady Lion took up the burden of his tale.
"Yes, indeedy, and one SundayIdidn't have to go to church—'cos I'd yet up such a yot of gween gooseb——"
"All right, Toady Lion, I know!" interrupted Cissy quickly.
"Of gween gooseberries," persisted Toady Lion calmly; "so I had got my tummy on in front. It hurted like—well, like when you get sand down 'oo trowsies. Did 'oo ever get sand in 'oo trowsies, Cissy?"
"Hush—of course not!" said Cissy Carter; "girls don't have trowsers—they have——"
But any injudicious revelations on Cissy's part were stopped by Toady Lion, who said, "No, should juss fink not. Girls is too great softs to have trowsies.
"Onst though on the sands at a seaside, when I was 'kye-kying' out loud an' kickin' fings, 'cos I was not naughty but only fractious, dere was a lady wat said 'Be dood, little boy, why can't you be dood?'
"An' nen I says, 'How can I be dood? Could 'oo be dood wif all that sand in 'oo trowsies?'
"An' nen—the lady she wented away quick, so quick—I can't tell why. P'rapsshehad sand in her trowsies! Does 'oo fink so, Cissy?"
"That'll do—I quite understand," said Cissy Carter, somewhat hastily, in dread of Toady Lion's well-known license of speech.
"An' nen 'nother day after we comed home Iwent into the park and clum up a nice tree. An' it was ever so gween and scratchy. 'An it was nice. Nen father he came walking his horse slow up the road, n' I hid. But father he seen me. And he say, 'What you doing there, little boy? You break you neck. Nen I whip you. Come down, you waskal!' He said it big—down here, (Toady Lion illustrated with his hand the place from which he supposed his father's voice to proceed). An' it made me feel all queer an' trimbly, like our guinea pig's nose when father speak like that. An' I says to him, 'Course, father, you never clumb up no trees on Sundays whenyouwas little boy!' An' nen he didn't speak no more down here that trimbly way, but laughed, and pulled me down, and roded me home in front of him, and gived me big hunk of pie—yes, indeedy!"
Toady Lion felt that now he had talked quite enough, and began to arrange his brass cannons on the dust, in a plan of attack which beleaguered Cissy Carter's foot and turned her flank to the left.
"Where did you get all those nice new cannons? You haven't told me yet," she said.
"Boughted them!" answered Toady Lion promptly, "least I boughted some, and Hugh John boughted some, an' Prissy she boughted some."
"And how do you come to have them all?" asked Cissy, watching the imposing array. As usual it was the Battle of Bannockburn and the English were getting it hot.
"Well," said Toady Lion thoughtfully, "'twasthis way. 'Oo sees Prissy had half-a-crown, an' she boughted a silly book all about a 'Lamplighter' for herself—an' two brass cannons—one for Hugh John an' one for me. And Hugh John he had half-a-crown, an' he boughted three brass cannon, two for himself and one for me."
"And what did you buy with your half-crown?" said Cissy, bending her brows sweetly upon the small gunner.
"Wif my half-a-crown? Oh, I just boughted three brass cannons—dey was all for mine-self!"
"Toady Lion," cried Cissy indignantly, "you are a selfish little pig! I shan't stop with you any more."
"Little pigs is nice," said Toady Lion, unmoved, arranging his cannon all over again on a new plan after the removal of Cissy's foot; "their noses——"
"Don't speak to me about their noses, you selfish little boy! Blow your own nose."
"No use," said Toady Lion philosophically; "won't stay blowed. 'Tis too duicy!"
Cissy set off in disgust towards the house of Windy Standard, leaving Toady Lion calmly playing with his six cannon all alone in the white dust of the king's highway.
LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM.
CISSYfound our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special petition that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head.
"With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!"
"Oh, surely not so bad as that," said Cissy, very properly scandalised.
"She would, indeed," said Hugh John, noddinghis head vehemently; "she's good no end, our Prissy is. And never shirks prayers, nor forgets altogether, nor even says them in bed. I believe she'd get up on a frosty night and say them without a fire—she would, I'm telling you. And she doats on these nasty Smoutchies. She'd just love to have been tortured. She'd have regularly spread herself on forgiving them too, our Priss would."
"I wouldn't have forgived them," cried the piping voice of Toady Lion, suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form was "scrubbery"), with his arms full of the new brass cannons; "I wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their heads."
"Go 'way, little pig!" cried Cissy indignantly.
"Toady Lion isn't a little pig," said Hugh John, with dignity; "he is my brother."
"But he kept all the cannons to himself," remonstrated Cissy.
"'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't grow good all at once," said Hugh John, with more Christian charity than might have been expected of him.
"You've been growing good yourself," said Cissy, thrusting out her upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment; "I'd better go home."
"I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy," cried Hugh John, "but anyway you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig."
"I like being little pig," said Toady Lion impassively; "little piggie goes 'Grunt-grunt!'"
And he illustrated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up through his nostrils in various keys. "Little pigs is nice," he repeated at the end of this performance.
Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to not give in now.
"Good little boy"—she said tauntingly—"it is such a mother's pet! It will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then——!"
Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was doubled. It was drawn back.
"Yes," cried Cissy, "hit a girl! Any boy can beat you. But you can hit a girl! Hit hard, brave soldier!"
Hugh John's hand dropped as if struck by lightning.
"I never did!" he said; "I fought ten of them at once and never even cried when they—when they——"
And the erstwhile dauntless warrior showed unmistakable signs of being perilously near a descent into the vale of tears.
"When they what?" queried Cissy softly, suddenly beginning to be sorry.
"Well, when they tortured me," said Hugh John.
"'HIT HARD, BRAVE SOLDIER.'"
Cissy went up suddenly and kissed him. It was only a peck which reached land at the top corner of his ear; but it made Hugh John crimson hotly, and fend Cissy off with his elbow as if she had been a big boy about to strike.
"There, now," she said, "I've done it. I promised I would, and what's more, I'll say it out loud—'I love you!' There! And if you don't mind and behave, I'll tell people. I will, now then. But all the same, I'm sorry I was a beast to you."
"Well, don't do it again," said Hugh John, somewhat mollified, slightly dropping the point of his defensive elbow. "Anybody might have seen you, and then what would they think?"
"All right," said Cissy soothingly, "I won't any more."
"Say 'Hope-you-may-die!'"
Cissy promptly hoped she might come to an early grave in the event of again betraying, even in private, the exuberance of her young affection.
"Now, Hugh John," said Cissy, when peace had been restored in this manner, and they were wandering amicably across the back meadow where they could not be seen from the house windows, taking alternate sucks at a stick of brown toffee with crumbs stuck firmly on it, the property of Cissy, "I've something to tell you. I've found the allies for you; and we can whop the Smoutchies and take the castle now—any time."
The eyes of General Napoleon Smith glistened.
"If that's true," he said, "you can kiss me again—no, not now," he added hastily, moving off a little, "but after, when it's all over, youknow. There's a good place behind the barn. You can do it there if you like."
"Willyousay 'I love you, Cissy'?"
But this was more than Hugh John had bargained for. He asked time for consideration.
"It won't be till the Smoutchy boys are beaten and the castle ours for good," pleaded Cissy.
Hugh John felt that it was a great price to pay, but after all he did want dreadfully to beat the Smoutchy boys.
"Well, I'll try," he said, "but you must say, 'Hope-you'll-die and double-die,' if you ever tell!"
Again Cissy took the required oath.
"Well?" said he expectantly, his mind altogether on the campaign.
Cissy told him all about the gipsy encampment and the history of the meeting with Billy Blythe. Hugh John nodded. Of course he knew all about that, but would they join? Were they not rather on the side of the Smoutchies? They looked as if they would be.
"Oh, you can't never tell a bit beforehand," said Cissy eagerly. "They just hate the town boys; and Bill Blythe says that Nipper Donnan's father said, that when the town got the castle they would soon clear the gipsies off your common—for that goes with the castle."
Hugh John nodded again more thoughtfully. There was certainly something in that. He had heard his father say as much to his lawyer when he himself was curled up on the sofa, pretending to read Froissart's "Chronicles," but really listening as hard as ever he could.
"You are a brick," he cried, "you are indeed, Cissy. Come on, let's go at once and see Billy Blythe."
And he took her hand. She held back a moment. They were safe behind the great ivy bush at the back of the stables.
"Couldn't you say it now?" she whispered, with a soft light in her eyes; "I wish you could. Try."
Hugh John's face darkened. He unshipped his elbow from his side to be ready for action.
"Well, I won't ask you till after," she said regretfully. "'Tain't fair, I know; but—" she looked at him again yet more wistfully, still holding him by the hand which had last passed over the mutual joint-stock candy-stick; "don't you think you could do the other—just once?"
"What other?" grumbled Hugh John, sulking. He felt that Cissy was taking an unfair advantage.
"Oh,youknow," said Cissy, "what I did to you a little while ago."
"'Twasn't to be till after," urged our hero, half relenting. Like a woman, Cissy was quick to see her advantage.
"Just a little one to be going on with?" she pleaded.
Hugh John sighed. Girls were incomprehensible. Prissy liked church and being washed. Cissy, of whom he had more hopes, liked kissing.
"Well," he said, "goodness knows why you like it. I'm sure I don't and never shall. But—"
He ran to the corner and looked round into the stable-yard. All was quiet along the Potomac. He walked more sternly to the other corner, andglanced into the orchard. Peace reigned among the apple-trees. He came slowly and dejectedly back. In the inmost corner of the angle of the stable, and behind the thickest of the ivy bush, he straightened himself up and compressed his lips, as he had done when the Smoutchies were tying him up by the thumbs. He felt however that to beat Nipper Donnan he was ready to undergo anything—even this. No sacrifice was too great.
"All right," he said. "Come on, Cissy, and get it over—only don't be too long."
Cissy was thirteen, and tall for her age, but though fully a year younger, Hugh John was tall also, so that when she came joyously forward and put her hands on his shoulders, their eyes were exactly on a level.
"You needn't go shutting your eyes and holding your breath, as if it were medicine. 'Tisn't so very horrid," said Cissy, with her hands still on his shoulder.
"Go on!" said Hugh John in a muffled voice, nerving himself for the coming crisis.
Cissy's lips just touched his, rested a moment, and were gone.
Hugh John let out his breath with a sigh of relief like an explosion; then he stepped back, and promptly wiped off love's gage with the sleeve of his coat.
"Hold on," cried Cissy; "that isn't fair. You know it ain't!"
Hugh John knew it and submitted.
Cissy swept the tumbled hair from about her eyes. She had a very red spot on either cheek;but she had made up her mind, and was going through with it properly now.
"'WASN'T IT SPLENDID?'"
"Oh, I don't mind," she said; "I can easily do it over again—for keeps this time, mind!"
Then she kissed him once, twice, and three times. It was nicer than kissing Janet Sheepshanks, he thought; and as for Prissy—well, that was different too.
A little hammer thumped in his heart, and made it go "jumpetty-jump," as if it were lame, or out of breath, or had one leg shorter than the other. After all Ciss was the nicest girl there was, if she did behave stupidly and tiresomely about this. "Just once?" He would do it after all. It wasn't much to do—to give Cissy such a treat.
So he put his arms about her neck underneath her curls, pulled her close up to him, and kissed her. It felt funny, but rather nice. He did not remember doing that to any one since he was a little boy, and his mother used to come and say "Good-night" to him. Then he opened his arms and pushed Cissy away. They walked out through the orchard yards apart, as if they had just been introduced. Cissy's eyes were full of the happiness of love's achievement. As for Hugh John, he was crimson to the neck and felt infinitely degraded in his own estimation.
They came to the orchard wall, where there was a stile which led in the direction of Oaklands. Cissy ran up the rude steps, but paused on the top instead of going over. Hugh John was looking the other way. Somehow, do what he would, his eyes could not be brought to meet hers.
"Are you not coming?" she said coaxingly.
"No," he answered, gruffly enough; "to-morrow will do for Billy."
"Good-night," she said softly. Her voice was almost a whisper.
Hugh John grunted inarticulately.
"Look here!" she said, bending down till her eyes were on a level with his chin. He could not help glancing up once. There was a mischievous smile in them. It had never struck him before that Cissy was very pretty. But somehow now he was glad that she was. Prissy was nice-looking too—but, oh! quiet different. He continued to look at Cissy Carter standing with the stile between them.
"Wasn't it splendid!" she said, still keeping her shining eyes on his.
"Oh, middling," said Hugh John, and turning on his heel he went into the stable without even saying "Good-bye." Cissy watched him with a happy smile on her face. Love was her fetish—her Sambo Soulis—and she had worshipped long in secret. Till now she had let the worm concealment prey upon her cheek. True, it had not as yet affected her appetite nor kept her a moment awake.
But now all was different. Her heart sang, and the strangest thing was that all the landscape, the fields and woods, and everything seemed to be somehow painted in brighter colours. In fact, they looked just as they do when you bend down and look at them through between your legs. You know the way.
AN IMPERIAL BIRTHDAY.
THEnext day was General Napoleon Smith's birthday. Outwardly it looked much like other days. There were not, as there ought to have been, great, golden imperial capital N's all over the sky. Nature indeed was more than usually calm; but, to strike a balance, there was excitement enough and to spare in and about the house of Windy Standard. Very early, when it was not yet properly light, but only sort of misty white along the wet grass and streaky combed-out grey up above in the sky, Prissy waked Sir Toady Lion, who promptly rolled over to the back of his cot, and stuck his funny head right down between the wall and the edge of the wire mattress, so that only his legs and square sturdy back could be seen.
Toady Lion always preferred to sleep in the most curious positions. In winter he usuallyturned right round in bed till his head was far under the bed-clothes, and his fat, twinkly, pink toes reposed peacefully on the pillow. Nothing ever mattered to Toady Lion. He could breathe through his feet just as well as through his mouth, and (as we have seen) much better than through his nose. The attention of professors of physiology is called to this fact, which can be established upon the amplest evidence and the most unimpeachable testimony. In summer he generally rolled out of bed during the first half hour, and slept comfortably all the rest of the night on the floor.
"Get up, Toady Lion," said his sister softly, so as not to waken Hugh John; "it is the birthday."
"Ow don' care!" grumbled Toady Lion, turning over and over three or four times very fast till he had all the bed-clothes wrapped about him like a cocoon; "don' care wat it is. I'se goin' to sleep some more. Don't go 'prog' me like that!"
"Come," said Prissy gently, to tempt him; "we are going to give Hugh John a surprise, and sing a lovely hymn at his door. You can have my ivory Prayer-book——"
"For keeps?" asked Toady Lion, opening his eyes with his first gleam of interest.
"Oh, no, you know that was mother's, and father gave it to me to take care of. But you shall have it to hold in your hand while we are singing."
"Well, then, can I have the picture of the anzel Michael castin' out the baddy-baddy anzels and hittin' the Bad Black Man O-such-a-whack on the head?"
Prissy considered. The print was particularlydear to her heart, and she had spent a happy wet Saturday colouring it. But she did want to make the birthday hymn a success, and Toady Lion had undeniably a fine voice when he liked to use it—which was not often.
"All right," she said, "you can have my 'Michael and the Bad Angels,' but you are not to spoil it."
"Shan't play then," grumbled Toady Lion, who knew well the strength of his position, and was as troublesome as aprima donnawhen she knows her manager cannot do without her—"shan't sing, not unless 'Michael and the Bad Angels' is mine to spoil if I like."
"But you won't—will you, dear Toady Lion?" pleaded Prissy. "You'll keep it so nice and careful, and then next Saturday, when I have my week's money and you are poor, I'll buy it off you again."
"Shan't promise," said the Obstinate Brat—as Janet, happily inspired, had once called him after being worsted in an argument, "p'rhaps yes, and p'rhaps no."
"Come on then, Toady Lion," whispered Prissy, giving him a hand and deciding to trust to luck for the preservation of her precious print. Toady Lion was often much better than his word, and she knew from experience that by Saturday his financial embarrassments would certainly be such that no reasonable offer was likely to be refused.
Toady Lion rose, and taking his sister's hand they went into her room, carefully shutting thedoor after them. Here Prissy proceeded to equip Toady Lion in one of her own "nighties," very much against that chorister's will.
"You see, pink flannel pyjams are not proper to sing in church in," she whispered: "now—you must hold your hymn-book so, and look up at the roof when you sing—like the 'Child Samuel' on the nursery wall."
"Mine eyes don't goggle like his," said Toady Lion, who felt that Nature had not designed him for the part, and who was sleepy and cross anyway. Birthdays were no good—except his own.
It happened that Janet Sheepshanks was going downstairs early to set the maids to their morning work, and this is what she saw. At the closed door of Hugh John's chamber stood two quaint little figures, clad in lawny white, one tall and slim, the other short and chubby as a painted cherub on a ceiling. They had each white hymn-books reverently placed between their hands. Their eyes were raised heavenwards and their lips were red and parted with excitement.
The stern Scotswoman felt something suddenly strike her heart.
"Eh, sir," she said, telling the tale afterwards, "the lassie Priscilla was sae like her mither, my puir bairn that is noo singing psalms wi' the angels o' God, that I declare, my verra heart stood still, for I thocht that she had come back for yin o' the bairns. And, oh! I couldna pairt wi' ony o' them noo. It wad fairly break my heart. And there the twa young things stood at the door, but when they began to sing, I declare I juist slippit awa'doon to the closet and grat on the tap o' a cask o' paraffeen!"
And this is what Janet Sheepshanks heard them sing. It was not perhaps very appropriate, but it was one of the only two hymns of which Toady Lion knew the words; and I think even Mr. Charles Wesley, who wrote it, would not have objected if he had seen the angelic devotion on Prissy's face or the fraudulent cherub innocence shining from that of Sir Toady Lion.
"Now, mind, your eyes on the crack of the door above," whispered Prissy; "and when I count three under my breath—sing out for your very life."
Toady Lion nodded.
"One—two—three!" counted Prissy.
"Hark! the herald angels sing,Glory to the new-born King,Peace on earth and mercy mild,God and sinners reconciled."
"Hark! the herald angels sing,Glory to the new-born King,Peace on earth and mercy mild,God and sinners reconciled."
"What is 'weconciled'?" asked Toady Lion, who must always ask something on principle.
"Oh, never mind now," whispered Prissy hastily; "keep your eyes on the top crack of the door and open your mouth wide."
"Don't know no more!" said Toady Lion obstinately.
"Oh yes, you do," said Prissy, almost in tears; "go on. SingLa-La, if you don't, and we'll soon be at the chorus, and you know that anyway!"
Then the voice of Prissy escaped, soaring aloft in the early gloom, and if any human music can, reaching the Seventh Sphere itself, where, amidthe harmonies of the universe, the Eternal Ear hearkens for the note of sinful human praise.
The sweet shrill pipe of Toady Lion accompanied her like a heavenly lute of infinite sweetness. It was at this point that Janet made off in the direction of the paraffin barrel.
"Joyful all ye nations rise,Join the triumph of the skies:Universal nature, say,'Christ the Lord is risen to-day!'"
"Joyful all ye nations rise,Join the triumph of the skies:Universal nature, say,'Christ the Lord is risen to-day!'"
The door opened, and the head of Hugh John appeared, his hair all on end and his pyjama jacket open at the neck. He was hitching up the other division of the suit with one hand.
"'Tain't Christmas, what's the horrid row? Shut it!" growled he sleepily. Prissy made him the impatient sign of silence so well understood of children, and which means that the proceedings are not to be interrupted.
"Your birthday, silly!" she said; "chorus now!" And Hugh John himself, who knew the value of discipline, lined up and opened his mouth in the loud rejoicing refrain:—
"Hark! the herald angels sing,Glory to the newborn King!"
"Hark! the herald angels sing,Glory to the newborn King!"
A slight noise behind made them turn round, and there the children beheld with indignation the whole body of the servants grouped together on the landing, most of them with their handkerchiefs to their eyes; while Jane Housemaid who had none, was sobbing undisguisedly with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and vainly endeavouring to express her opinion that "it wasjust beautiful—they was for all the world like little angels a-praisin' God, and—a-hoo!I can't help it, no more I can't! And their mother never to see them growed up—her bein' in her grave, the blessed lamb!"
"Idon't see nuffin to kye for," said Toady Lion unsympathetically, trying to find pockets in Prissy's night-gown; "it was a nice sing-song!"
At this moment Janet Sheepshanks came on the scene. She had been crying more than anybody, but you would never have guessed it. And now, perhaps ashamed of her own emotion, she pretended great scandal and indignation at the unseemly and irregular spectacle, and drove the servants below to their morning tasks, being specially severe with Jane Housemaid, who, for some occult reason, found it as difficult to stop crying as it had been easy to begin—so that, as Hugh John said, "it was as good as a watering-can, and useful too, for it laid the dust on Jane's carpets ready for sweeping, ever so much better than tea-leaves."
THE BANTAM CHICKENS.
WHENHugh John met Cissy Carter the first time after the incident of the stile, it was in the presence of the young lady's father and mother. Cissy smiled and shook hands with the most serene and chilling dignity; but Hugh John blushed, and wore on his countenance an expression of such deep and ingrained guilt and confusion, that, upon catching sight of him, Mr. Davenant Carter called out, in his jolly stand-before-the-fire-with-his-hands-in-his-pockets' manner, "Hillo, boy! what have you been up to—stealing apples, eh? Come! What is it? Out with it!"
Which, when you think of it, was not exactly fitted to make our hero any more self-possessed. Mr. Davenant Carter always considered children as a rather superior kind of puppy dogs, whichwere specially created to be condescended to and teased, in order to see what they would say and do. They might also be taught tricks—like monkeys and parrots, only not so clever.
"Oh, Davenant," said his wife, "do let the boy alone. Don't you see he is bashful before so many people?"
Now this was the last thing which ordinarily could be laid with justice to the charge of our hero; yet now he only mumbled and avoided everybody's eye, particularly Cissy's. But apparently that young lady had forgotten all about the ivy bush at the back of the stable, for she said quite loud out, so that all the room could hear her, "What a long time it is since we saw you at Oaklands, Hugh John—isn't it?" This sally added still more to Hugh John's confusion, and he could only fall back upon his favourite axiom (which he was to prove the truth of every day of his life as he grew older), that "girls are funny things."
Presently Cissy said, "Have you seen Sammy, mother; I wonder if he has fallen into the mill-dam. He went over there more than an hour ago to sail his new boat." Mild Mrs. Carter started up so violently that she upset all her sewing cotton and spools on the floor, to the delight of her wicked little pug, which instantly began pulling them about, shaking them, growling at them, and pretending they were rats that had been given him to worry.
"Oh, do you think so?—Run Cissy, run Hugh, and find him!" Whereat Cissy and Hugh John removed themselves. As soon as they were outside our hero found his tongue.
"How could you tell such a whopper? Of course he would not fall into the water like a baby!"
"Goos-ee gander," said Cissy briskly; "of course not! I knew that very well. But if I had not said something we should have had to stay there moping among all those Grown-Ups, and doing nothing but talking proper for hours and hours."
"But I thought you liked it, Cissy," said Hugh John, who did not know everything.
"Like it!" echoed Cissy; "I've got todoit. And if they dreamed I didn't like it, they'd think I hadn't proper manners, and make me stop just twice as long. Mother wants me to acquire a good society something-or-other, so that's why I've to stop and make tea, and pretend to like to talk to Mr. Burnham."
"Oh—him," said Hugh John; "he isn't half bad. And he's a ripping good wicket-keep!"
"I dare say," retorted Cissy, "that's all very well for you. He talks to you about cricket and W. G.'s scores—I've heard him. But he speaks to me in that peeky far-away voice from the back of his throat, like he does in the service when he comes to the bit about 'young children'—and what do you think theCreaturesays?"
"I dunno," said Hugh John, with a world-weary air, as if the eccentricities of clergymen in silk waistcoats were among the things that no fellow could possibly find out.
"Well, he said that he hoped the time would soon come when a young lady of so much decisionof character (that's me!) would be able to assist him in his district visiting."
"What's 'decision of character' when he's at home?" asked Hugh John flippantly.
"Oh, nothing—only one of the things parsons say. It doesn't mean anything—not in particular!" replied the widely informed Cissy. "But did you ever hear such rot?"
And for the first time her eyes met his with a quaintly questioning look, which somehow carried in it a reminiscence of the stile and the ivy bush. Cissy's eyes were never quite (Hugh John has admitted as much to me in a moment of confidence)—never quite the same after the incident of the orchard. On this occasion Hugh John instantly averted his own, and looked stolidly at the ground.
"Perhaps Mr. Burnham has heard that you went with medicine and stuff to the gipsy camp," he said after a pause, trying to find an explanation of the apparently indefensible folly of his cricketing hero. Cissy had not thought of this before.
"Well, perhaps he had," she said, "but that was quite different."
"How different?" queried Hugh John.
"Well, that was only dogs and Billy Blythe," said Cissy, somewhat shamefacedly; "that doesn't count, and besides I like it. Doing good has got to be something you don't like—teaching little brats their duty to their godfathers and godmothers, or distributing tracts which only make people stamp and swear and carry on."
"Isn't there something somewhere about helping the fatherless and the widow?" faltered HughJohn. He hated "talking good," but somehow he felt that Cissy was doing herself less than justice.
"Well, I don't suppose that the fox-terrier's pa does much for him," she said gaily; "but come along and I'll 'interjuce' you to your ally Billy Blythe."
So they walked along towards the camp in silence. It was a still, Sunday-like evening, and the bell of Edam town steeple was tolling for the six o'clock stay of work, as it had done every night at the same hour for over five hundred years. The reek of the burgesses' supper-fires was going up in a hundred pillar-like "pews" of tall blue smoke. Homeward bound humble bees bumbled and blundered along, drunk and drowsy with the heady nectar they had taken on board—strayed revellers from the summer-day's Feast of Flowers. Delicate little blue butterflies rose flurriedly from the short grass, flirted with each other a while, and then mounted into a yet bluer sky in airy wheels and irresponsible balancings.
"This is my birthday!" suddenly burst out Hugh John.
Cissy stopped short and caught her breath.
"Oh no—it can't be;" she said, "I thought it was next week, and they aren't nearly ready."
Whereat Cissy Cartar began most incontinently and unexpectedly to cry. Hugh John had never seen her do this before, though he was familiar enough with Prissy's more easy tears.
"Now don't you, Ciss," he said; "I don't want anything—presents and things, I mean. Just let's be jolly."
"Hu-uh-uh!" sobbed Cissy; "and Janet Sheepshanks told me it was next week. I'm sure she did; and I set them so nicely to be ready in time—more than two months ago, and now they aren't ready after all."
"What aren't ready?" said Hugh John.
"The bantam chickens," sobbed Cissy; "and they are lovely as lovely. And peck—you should just see them peck."
"I'd just as soon have them next week, or the next after that—rather indeed. Shut up now, Ciss. Stop crying, I tell you. Do you hear?" He was instinctively adopting that gruff masculine sternness which men consider to be on the whole the most generally effective method of dealing with the incomprehensible tears of their women-kind. "Idon't care if you cry pints, but I'll hit you if you won't stop! So there!"
Cissy stopped like magic, and assumed a distant and haughty expression with her nose in the air, the surprising dignity of which was marred only by the recurring spasmodic sniff necessary to keep back the moisture which was still inclined to leak from the corners of her eyes.
"I would indeed," said Hugh John, like all good men quickly remorseful after severity had achieved its end. "I'd ever so much rather have the nicest presents a week after; for on a regular birthday you get so many things. But by next week, when you've got tired of them all, and don't have anything new—that's the proper time to get a present."
"Oh, youarenice," said Cissy impulsively,coming over to Hugh John and clasping his arm with both her hands. He did not encourage this, for he did not know where it might end, and the open moor was not by any means the ivy-grown corner of the stable. Cissy went on.
"Yes, you are the nicest thing. Only don't tell any body——"
"I won't!" said Hugh John, with deepest conviction.
"And I'll give you the mother too," continued Cissy; "she is a perfect darling, and won a prize at the last Edam show. It was only a second, but everybody said that she ought by rights to have had the first. Yes, and she would have got it too—only that the other old hen was a cousin of the judge's. That wasn't fair, was it?"
"Certainly not!" said Hugh John, with instant emphasis.