[Illustration: This is Peggy’s own drawing of what happened in the
first Adventure of the Ring. Everyone is very frightened in it. Nurse
has just sat down on seeing the Giant, and has dropped Peggy’s brown
holland frock behind her.
Peggy drew the frock very carefully, spreading it out flat on the floor
to get it exactly right. Mother helped her with the Giant’s knee, and
with the table. All the rest she did herself. She knows Nurse is too
small, but she was too busy getting her surprised enough to remember to
make her bigger. Peggy is behind the Giant wondering what to say. The
little round things near the Giant’s foot are the broken bits of the
cup and saucer, and the black dots are the currants in the cake. The
curls in the Giant’s beard were the most fun to do.]
PEGGY’S GIANT
BY
M. D. HILLYARD
WITH SEVEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
DRAWN BY PEGGY
[Illustration]
A. & C. BLACK, LTD.
4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1
1920
TO
PEGGY
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WHAT PEGGY FOUND 5
II. DISAPPEARING 9
III. A DAISY FIELD 15
IV. THE SLEEPY GIANT 19
V. SWEETS AND FAIRIES 22
VI. FE-FO-FUM! 28
VII. PEGGY DRIVES A CAR 35
VIII. THE MAYOR’S OUTING 39
IX. DOWN! 43
X. PIXIE GAMES 49
XI. THE LAST ADVENTURE 54
XII. THE NICEST WISH OF ALL 60
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY PEGGY
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST ADVENTURE OF THE RING _Frontispiece_
THE SECOND ADVENTURE _Facing page_ 20
WHAT THE DRAGON LOOKED LIKE WHEN NURSE SAID “YOU
WOULDN’T DARE!” ” 32
PEGGY JUST TELLING THE MAYOR THAT THEY’VE STUCK ” 40
PEGGY AND THE GIANT GOING DOWN ” 46
THE GIANT AND PEGGY AMONG THE PIXIES ” 50
RIDING THROUGH THE VILLAGE IN THE SIXTH ADVENTURE ” 60
PEGGY’S GIANT
CHAPTER I
WHAT PEGGY FOUND
“It rattles!” said Peggy, shaking the last cracker, and looking up at
Nurse.
“Well, pull it now, there’s a dear,” said Nurse, “and let me clear up
this litter.”
Peggy had just finished her birthday tea up in the nursery alone with
Nurse, as Mother was away. Of course it hadn’t been nearly so exciting
as her last birthday tea--the only one she could remember--which had
been downstairs with lots of other little girls and boys, who had all
come to see Peggy. They hadn’t talked to her or to each other much,
but had eaten lots of birthday cake, and Peggy had been taken up to
bed before the last of them left, because she had had such a long and
exciting birthday.
This year the only children who could come had suddenly started
whooping-cough, and so there was no party at all. Still it was better
than the usual dull nursery tea, for Mother had left a lot of crackers
with Nurse for Peggy; and Cook had remembered to put six new candles
on the new sponge cake, and they had all been lighted, and were doing
their very best to look brighter than the sunshine pouring in through
the nursery windows.
“Do guess what’s inside first, Nannie,” said Peggy, shaking the cracker
again. “_I_ guess it’s a little tiny cup and saucer for my doll’s
house. Now, _you_ guess.”
“Oh, _I_ don’t know--a whistle,” said Nannie, beginning to clear up
the pieces of brightly-coloured paper that covered the table-cloth and
floor, and that really looked a great deal too pretty to burn. “That’s
generally what it is. But what’s the good of guessing when you’ll know
in a minute? Come along and pull, I’m waiting.”
Peggy shut her eyes, and putting one hand over her ear--she was always
uncomfortably startled by the bang--pulled hard with the other.
The thing inside immediately flew through the air, and rolled away
under the toy cupboard. And Peggy followed as far as she could, lying
flat on the floor and peering under. Then--“O Nannie, it sparkles!” she
cried excitedly. “I do believe it’s a _beautiful_ ring! I can see it
quite plainly. Yes, it _is_. It’s a gold ring with a great big green
stone in it! There, I’ve got it! O Nannie, look how it sparkles!”
“A bit of tin and glass,” said Nurse examining it and dropping it on
the table. “What they want to put such rubbish in for passes _my_
understanding! You can’t play with it, and it’ll only get left about.
Now come and look at the paper blazing,” and she swept all the ends of
the crackers into the fire.
Peggy was terrified that her ring would follow too, and she began in a
great hurry to put it on all her fingers in turn to see which it would
fit.
“It won’t fit any of them except my fum,” she remarked. “But just look
how _well_ it fits my fum!” and she waved her left hand to and fro
proudly.
“You can’t wear a ring at _your_ age,” said Nurse decidedly, “and no
one ever wears them on their thumbs, as you very well know. Oh dear,
your hair ribbon’s coming right off, as usual! Come here whilst I tie
it on again.”
“Just look how it sparkles!” repeated Peggy, stroking the green stone
admiringly. And it certainly did. A bright green light spread from it
all over that part of the nursery, just like the light in a beech wood
in spring, when the sun is shining through the leaves; and it coloured
and played over Nurse’s face and the cupboard and the roses on the
wall-paper. “_Do_ look, Nannie,” cried the child, “now the fireplace is
green!”
“Very pretty,” said Nurse absentmindedly, not looking up as she brushed
Peggy’s curls. “What a tangle your hair’s in, to be sure! Now I think
I’ll take off this clean frock and put on your brown holland so that
you can have a good game with all your toys out at once, as it’s your
birthday.”
“Aren’t you going to play with me, too?” asked Peggy rather wistfully.
“I can’t,” said Nurse. “I’ve some letters to write, and post goes in
half an hour--when it’ll be your bedtime. Grown-ups can’t spend _all_
their time playing with little girls, you know. Here, slip your frock
off and stay by the fire, whilst I fetch in your other,” and she
bustled off into the night-nursery.
“I wish I was grown up,” said Peggy, twirling the ring round and round
her thumb and staring into the fire. “Then I should drink strong tea,
and eat birthday cake downstairs every day if I liked, and wear grand
hats with fevvers in them!”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” said a voice behind her.
Peggy turned round quickly, and then nearly jumped out of her skin with
astonishment.
For behind her, on the other side of the table, stood a Giant!
Peggy knew in a moment that he _was_ a real Giant, because he was the
living image of the one on page 375 of the Blue Fairy Book, but instead
of looking cross like that one does, he had a nice wide smile, and the
kindest round twinkly blue eyes Peggy had ever seen. He was dressed all
in brown, with bright scarlet stockings, his hair was thick and long,
and so was his beard, and the nursery was so much too low for him that
he had to bend nearly double, his great shoulders sending a cloud of
plaster off the ceiling every time he moved. In one huge hand he held a
cup of very black-looking tea, and in the other a bit of birthday cake
with sugar on it and almond paste and little silver beads.
“You _are_ a tall kind!” gasped Peggy, staring up at him. “I--I don’t
think Nannie will be at all pleased!” and she glanced fearfully through
the half-open door into the night-nursery.
“I know, that’s why I spoke,” said the Giant, sitting down on the
floor and stretching himself--one foot went right out of the window
in the process, and the other up the chimney, but he looked much more
comfortable. The cup of tea and the cake he put carefully down by his
side. “You rubbed the ring and wished, you know. How do you like your
dress?”
Peggy looked down at herself and discovered she was wearing a striped
white and yellow silk gown falling in heavy folds to the ground, and
very high-waisted. On her arm was hanging, by its ribbon, a large white
poke-bonnet, wreathed entirely around with a curling yellow feather.
“What _are_ these things?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Why, you wished to be grown up, didn’t you?” said the Giant. “And you
_are_. Or, at least, that’s the best I can do for you. But I’m a bit
out of practice I know,” and he gazed with a rather disheartened air at
the bonnet.
“I don’t know what Nannie will say,” said Peggy uneasily. (She hadn’t
the heart to tell the Giant that he hadn’t made her in the least the
kind of grown-up she wanted to be.) “She _never_ likes me dressing up!”
“Well then, wish about it,” said the Giant. “Say, ‘I wish Nurse to stay
away half an hour.’ Hurry up, she’s coming.”
“I wish Nurse to stay away half an hour,” said Peggy obediently. “But
what’s the good of that?” she added. “Here she is,” and so she was.
She came through the door hurriedly, with the frock in her hand, and
when she saw the Giant she jumped right up high into the air, and then
she sat down on the floor with a flop.
“_Who_ is this, Miss Peggy?” she asked in an awful voice.
“Dear me!” said the Giant, struggling to his feet and knocking over
the Rocking-Horse and three chairs in his hurry. “What _can_ have gone
wrong? The spells don’t work as they used to!” He looked at Nurse
nervously; then--“You must stick to me,” he whispered hoarsely to
Peggy, stepping back on the cup and saucer and grinding them to powder
with his heel.