THE PISKIES CAUGHT
Both Aaron and Loveday were very tired when, for the third time, they
rose at dawn, crept out of the house, and up the cliff; and if it had
not been for the excitement of seeing what their enemies had done to
the vegetable bed during the night, they would probably have left their
pisky work, for one morning at least. But Loveday was very anxious to
see if the bad piskies had done anything further when they found all
the straw had been taken away from them. Aaron was excited, too, but he
was more sleepy, and they were both just the least bit cross as they
clambered up the slippery path.
“I’m jolly glad I am not a real pisky,” he said, “to have to do this
every night. I reckon folks would have to do their work theirselves if
’twas left to me.”
Loveday did not answer. She felt very much the same, but she was not
going to say so.
They did not sit down this time to enjoy the view, but munched their
crusts as they walked. There was neither a lovely sunrise, nor a dense
sea-fog--it was just an ordinary dull, grey morning; and Loveday no
longer felt that for the future she should always rise with the sun,
and try to make every one else do the same. Every now and then her
thoughts _would_ turn to her snug, comfortable little bed, though she
tried hard to fix them on something else, for she felt that if she
thought of it too much she should turn and run back to it, and creep in
and lay her weary body out at full length between the cosy blankets,
and her sleepy head on the pillow, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep--all
the day through, if she could.
Everything was quiet as usual when they reached the gate. By this time
they had found out how to walk over the pebbled path without making
much noise.
“We will try to make that place look very nice to-day,” said Loveday;
“I’ve brought a knife and a pair of scissors with me, and we’ll cut off
all the great big straggly things, and the dead things, and ‘heave ’em
to cliff’ as we did the straw.”
“That’s one of mother’s best knives,” said Aaron anxiously; “you’d best
not use that. You should have brought the ’taty knife, the little dumpy
one she uses for peeling ’taties.”
“Well, I can’t go back now to change it,” said Loveday decidedly. “I
_must_ use this one. One knife isn’t very much, and they are meant to
cut things with; we shan’t hurt it--besides, Bessie has got more like
it.”
“Oh, well, do as you please,” said Aaron crossly; “only there’ll be a
fine row if it’s spoilt. Knives”--with that superior, knowing air of
his which always nettled Loveday--“costs a brave bit of money.”
“Of course I know that,” she snapped irritably. “I didn’t think they
grew. Well, I’ll use the scissors, and you can use your hands; unless
you brought something yourself to cut with.”
But by this time they had reached the walled-in garden, and in their
excitement to see if anything had happened they forgot their crossness.
Along the path they ran till they reached the bed, then stood still and
looked at each other with wide eyes. The bed was covered again with
straw--fresh, new straw--and over it and across it in all directions
was fine cord, stretched to pegs which had been stuck firmly in the
ground.
The two felt quite frightened! Whoever had done it had spared no
trouble in making all secure this time, but had carried out their work
deliberately and beautifully. The children felt perfectly helpless.
“It is just to _spite_ us,” whispered Loveday furiously.
But Aaron did not speak; he was really puzzled and alarmed. Thoughts
were working so fast in his brain, too, that he could not catch one
and put it into words. Loveday grew annoyed and half frightened by his
silence.
“What do you think it is? Who do you think did it? Aaron, speak! Are
you frightened? Do you think it is something that will hurt us?”
But in answer to all her eager questions, Aaron only said at last:
“I dunno; I don’t like the looks on it.”
Loveday was really rather alarmed, but to find Aaron even more so, and
without a word to encourage her, made her very cross again.
“_I_ don’t like the looks of all that cord,” she said, “and I’m going
to cut it all, just to let them see that _I_ am not afraid of them.
_I_ am not a coward.”
Poor Aaron! It was a little hard on him, for he really had begun to
feel a horrible dread that it might not, after all, have been piskies’
mischief that they were undoing, but some real person’s careful work,
and he was just beginning to say so when they heard quick footsteps
coming along the path towards them, and, looking up, saw an elderly,
grey-haired man with a very white and angry face and a pair of eyes
with a look in them which filled Loveday’s little heart with alarm.
“It’s Mr. Winter!” gasped Aaron.
That news did not increase Loveday’s alarm; it rather lessened it,
in fact, for, in the first place, she wanted very much to see this
mysterious person, and, in the second place, she had always a feeling
that sad people were never _very_ angry about anything: they were
too gentle, and had so much else to think about. But Mr. Winter soon
undeceived her.
“Who are you?” he cried hotly, “and what are you doing in my garden,
you young ragamuffins? What are you doing, I say? Is it you who have
been tampering with my beds day after day, and ruining all my seeds?”
“Please, sir,” began Aaron, stammering and stuttering, and frightened
nearly out of his wits--“please, sir, we didn’t mean no ’arm; we didn’t
know----”
“What didn’t you know? You knew you had no right in here. You will
know it now, at any rate, for you will just wait here until I get a
policeman; then perhaps you will remember another time.”
“A policeman!”
Loveday was filled with horror, and could scarcely believe her ears.
A policeman to be sent for, for her, Miss Loveday Carlyon! Oh, it
couldn’t be true! He couldn’t mean it! It was a mistake. But oh, if
only father were here, or mother, to explain!
They were far away, though, and Mr. Winter was here, talking more and
more angrily, and saying, “Come with me, come with me, and I’ll see
that you are safe till the police come!”
“I must explain to him myself,” thought Loveday. “Aaron isn’t any
good”--which was quite true, for all Aaron’s thoughts were taken up
in trying not to cry. He was much too scared to speak. Loveday went a
little nearer the angry old man.
“Please, Mr. Winter,” she said, but very tremblingly, “we only wanted
to do something kind for you. We weren’t stealing, or doing any harm.
We never touched a flower--we didn’t see one to touch, but we wouldn’t
have if we had.”
Mr. Winter stopped in his angry words as soon as she began to speak.
Expecting, as he had, to hear the speech of one of the village
children, Loveday’s pretty, refined voice gave him a shock of surprise.
He looked at her more keenly, and with some curiosity.
“Kind!” he cried; “what do you mean? You wanted to be kind? Why should
you? And why should you come into my garden to play pranks, and then
call them kindnesses? Why are you up and out wandering about the
country at this hour of the morning? Whose children are you?”
“This is Aaron Lobb; his father and mother live in your cottage under
the cliff; and I am Loveday Carlyon, Dr. Carlyon’s daughter. I’ve come
from Trelint to stay with Bessie for--for my health, and one day Aaron
and I came up here with a message, and your garden looked _so_ untidy,
I wished the piskies would come and make it nice for you. And then we
thought we would pretend to be piskies and get up very, very early, and
make it all nice and tidy----”
“Excuse me,” snapped the old gentleman, “my garden was not untidy.”
“Oh, but please it was, dreadfully--I mean it looked so to me,” urged
Loveday, struggling with her sense of truth and her desire to be
polite. “I mean that outside part in front of the windows where the
blinds are all drawn down. That was what we meant to tidy. I thought if
you saw it looking tidy, and flowers growing, you wouldn’t feel so sad.
It was that untidy part that made us think of it.”
“Yes, sir,” chimed in Aaron nervously; “please, sir, we didn’t never
mean to come in here, but--but the other was so hard, and then we
looked in here, and saw all the straw littered about--it reg’lar’y
covered that bed.”
“I know it did,” said Mr. Winter. “I had had that bed sown with seeds
of a rare and delicate kind, and covered them most carefully with straw
to protect them, and--and you have destroyed them all by uncovering
them.”
“Oh, I _am_ sorry!” cried Loveday, drawing nearer to him. “But why
didn’t you put something there to say so? If we had only known, we
would have put on more stuff to keep them warm.”
“But when you invaded my garden the second time, and saw that the bed
had been covered again with straw, couldn’t you understand that it was
done for a purpose?”
“We thought the piskies had done it,” said Loveday, as though that
excused everything.
“You thought _what_!” cried the gentleman. “You thought the piskies--!
Oh dear, dear! To think that such ignorance should exist in this
twentieth century! It is disgraceful!” Then, turning to the children:
“Come with me while I decide what can be done.”
Loveday followed with less fear than she would have felt a few moments
earlier. For one reason, Mr. Winter did not seem quite so angry as he
had at first; for another, he had not spoken again of policemen; and,
for a third reason, she was rather anxious to see what the house looked
like inside.
But here she was disappointed, for Mr. Winter led them so quickly
through the bare stone hall that they saw very little of the house, and
then he showed them into a small, bare room, with a window high up out
of their reach, and there left them. And as he went they heard him turn
the key on them, at which they looked at each other in horror, while
he walked slowly away to his own sitting-room to think; for what to do
with the pair now he had them was more than he could tell. He wanted to
frighten them, yet he had no thought now of sending for a policeman. In
fact, he would have liked to have sent them both away with a warning,
only he thought it was better that they should be kept a little longer
as a punishment.
Meanwhile, Bessie, having got up very early to be ready for her husband
on his return from his fishing, went to call Aaron rather earlier
than usual, and was shocked to find his bed empty and himself flown.
Astonished and troubled, she went to Loveday’s room, and, opening the
door gently, peeped in. When she found Loveday’s room empty too, and
the windows wide open, she grew really alarmed. She listened, but
there was no sound but the voice of the sea and the gulls. The silence
frightened her. Where could they be? She ran to the front door, and
looked out over the sands. No; no sign of them there. She searched the
house and called and called, but no answer came. What could she do
next? Find them she must, but where? Her eye fell on the sparkling sea.
“Oh, not out there!” she cried, turning sick with fear.
Far out she saw the boats coming in, but they could not help her or
tell her anything. She turned away, unable to bear the sight; and as
she did so her eye fell on the path up the cliff. A ray of comfort
crept into her heart. Something seemed to tell her that that path would
lead her to them. Of course, there was risk there, too, but not such
risk.
Without waiting to put on hat or shawl, poor Bessie hurried up the
steep path. She forced herself to look over the rugged sides every
now and then, though it made her feel ill to do so, until she came at
last to that spot where the children had thrown the straw over the day
before. But when she came to that she turned away, faint and full of
horror.
“I can’t look,” she groaned. “I can’t! I can’t! I’ll get a fence put
round there if I have to do it myself. The least little slip, and
nothing could save one, whether man, woman, child, or poor dumb animal.”
When she reached the top of the hill she met a new perplexity. Where
could she look now? Which way could she go?--to Mr. Winter’s, or right
on over the downs which stretched away to the very edge of the cliff?
“Well,” she thought, “they wouldn’t go to Mr. Winter’s if they could
help it;” and she turned and walked in the other direction, on and on,
past the Fairy Ring, and all the time she gazed about her, but never a
speck of anything living or moving could she see, and she turned away
in despair. Coming slowly back, she once more reached Mr. Winter’s gate.
“I’ve a good mind to go in and ask Mrs. Tucker if she has caught sight
or sound of them,” she sighed. “It isn’t likely, but when one’s in
despair-- Oh, my Aaron! my Aaron and Miss Loveday! What will the master
and missus say?”
And poor Bessie had begun to cry with fright and misery, when, just as
she had turned in at Mr. Winter’s gate, who should she see coming down
the pebbly path towards her but two dejected little figures, walking
hand in hand.
At the first sight of her they paused, hardly recognising her, and half
afraid--then, with a cry, they rushed into her arms, and for a few
minutes all three wept together.
“What ’ave ’ee been doing--where ’ave ’ee been?” cried Bessie, the
first to check her tears. “Oh, my dear life, the fright you’ve gived
me, Aaron! I ought to lace your jacket for you; it’s what you deserves.
But I haven’t the heart to. Oh, my dear life! the fright I’ve had, and
how glad I am to see ’ee both. I don’t know what I haven’t thought
might have happened to ’ee. But what have you been doing, you naughty,
naughty children, to leave your beds and get out of window like that?
I’ll never be able to trust ’ee any more, and I’ll have bars put to
them windows before I sleep to-night!”
By this time some of their alarm had passed off, but the children
sobbed on, partly from hunger, partly from weariness and shock, but a
great deal from the sense of their naughtiness to poor Bessie, who had
been so good and kind to them; and it was not until they had sobbed
out all their story that they could control themselves and feel at all
comforted.
Bessie did not scold them any more, but she looked very grave.
“Well,” she said, “there is no knowing what Mr. Winter will do, for
he is a funny kind of gentleman, and you were very naughty children;
and what you have to do now is to make up your minds to bear what he
does do. A pretty fine tale I’ve got to write to your ma and pa, Miss
Loveday,” she added, “and a nice bit of news you’ve got for father
when he comes home”--turning to Aaron--“and he been out all night too,
working hard to get you food and clothes!”
Aaron began to weep again, touched to the heart by remorse.
“I’ll write to daddy myself and tell him,” sighed Loveday penitently.
“Perhaps it won’t frighten him so much if he hears it from me first.
I’ll write directly after breakfast, and then I’ll go and post it. May
I, Bessie?”
“Yes, miss, if you’ll promise not to run away again,” said Bessie
severely. “You see, I don’t feel sure now about trusting either of you.
I think I shall have to hobble you both, like they do the goats, or
tether you.”
At which Loveday felt more humbled than ever she had in her life
before.