It was perfect Easter weather. It was so hot that when you closed your
eyes you thought it was the middle of summer, until you opened them
and saw, high up on the cliffs, the leafless trees. Still, as always
in Draeth, in spite of the heat, the air had that delightful freshness
which results from the mingling of the sea-breezes with the winds
which blow from the Cornish moorlands.
In every hedge myriads of primroses opened wide and startled eyes to
the blue of the sky. Purple violets nestled among the green grass
blades. Timidly the hart's tongue fern unrolled the delicate green of
its mitred leaf. The lords and ladies were in flower, and zealously
guarded their secret within the closed, mysterious spathe. Over all
the blackthorn shed snow-white petals, and the whole air was full of
the intoxicating smell of the gorse.
In and out of the hedges darted the mating birds; chaffinches and
yellow-hammers, thrushes and blackbirds; robins and linnets; and
hedge-sparrows that are not sparrows at all. All together they sang
the song of Love and of Springtime, while, on the house-tops in the
town, the starlings mocked them all. Such faithful mockery, too, that
when you were indoors it was truly bewildering, for you were sure that
blackbirds and thrushes were perching on Mrs. Tregennis's chimney
pots, until the sweet whistle ended with the ridiculous squawk that
always betrays the starling, and lets you know that you have been
befooled.
As the ladies sat at breakfast on Saturday morning a stumble on the
stairs heralded Tommy's approach.
He fumbled with the handle of the door, opened it wide, then
remembered to knock and came in.
After a scarcely perceptible pause of indecision he walked to the
Brown Lady. "A letter," he said, and pushed it very deliberately into
her hand.
"Oh, Tommy," bemoaned the Blue Lady, "have you no letter for me?"
"There was three for ee yesterday mornin', so 'tis the turn of she."
He jerked his thumb at Miss Dorothea who tore open the flap of the
envelope, saying, "That's quite just, Tommy."
But when she had opened out the folded sheet within, she gave an
embarrassed exclamation and flushed deeply. "I'm very sorry, Margaret,
but it's for you. I didn't look at the address, but just opened it."
The Blue Lady took the open sheet and envelope, and, in her turn,
reddened slightly. "I thought perhaps there might be a letter," she
remarked.
"Yes," said the Brown Lady, and silence fell between them.
Totally misunderstanding this, Tommy tried to put matters right.
"'Taint fair," he said in a loud and angry voice. "There was three for
ee yesterday," and he snatched the letter from Miss Margaret as he
spoke.
Unfortunately for Tommy, Mammy passed the open door at this moment.
"Oh, my dear soul," she exclaimed, when the incident had been
explained to her. "I telled ee the letter was for Miss Margaret. Go
right away to wanst."
"It didn't really matter at all," the Blue Lady interrupted. "And, you
see, according to Tommy's idea of justice it was quite wrong for the
letter to be for me."
But Mammy was angry, and holding a tearful and ruffled Tommy firmly by
the hand she led him downstairs.
So the morning began badly. Mammy's lips were tightly closed. Tommy
ate his breakfast in sullen silence, standing instead of sitting to
annoy Mammy, who took no notice of her son's waywardness, and so made
matters worse.
After breakfast Mrs. Tregennis held out a penny to Tommy, who was
wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "See if you can get a bit
of mint to Bridget's, and be quick back."
"I ain't a-goin' to fetch no more errands for ee to-day," Tommy replied
to his mother, raising his clear, blue, innocent eyes, and looking
unflinchingly into hers.
"Oh, very well," said Mammy with a sigh, making a feint of undoing her
apron strings. "Then I must go to wanst myself, busy though I be."
"Why can't ee send Mabel, or Annie, or Ruthie?" objected Tommy in a
determined voice.
"What!" said Mrs. Tregennis, "and let all the neighbours know as Tommy
Tregennis isn't to be trusted to fetch an errand for his Mammy? Never.
I've got 'eaps an' 'eaps of work to do, and 'tis very busy I be, but
I'll go for the mint myself."
Then for the first time Tommy's glance wavered; he held out his hand.
"Give I the money," he said, "I s'pose I must go this wanst. Give I
the money," and away he ran.
On his return he laid the mint on the kitchen table.
"There," he said, "but I tell ee I ain't goin' to fetch no more
errands all day."
"No?" replied Mammy pleasantly, and hummed a little tune as she
stripped off the leaves of the mint before chopping them up for the
sauce.
Tommy waited a while. Then, "May I go and play on the beach now,
Mammy?" he asked.
"Go just where you like, my son," was the reply "and I hope you'll
spend a very happy morning wherever you be."
Tommy left the house with a defiant exterior and a leaden feeling
within. At play on the beach he lost his ball, which was a rather
specially good one, and found, in exchange, two much smaller ones that
would not bounce, and therefore offered little in the way of
compensation.
At dinner time Mammy was very cheerful, Daddy was silent and Tommy was
sad.
After dinner he ran off hastily lest more errands should be required
of him, and, for a time, forgot his sorrows in trying to recover by
force his own ball from Jimmy Prynne. Jimmy had found it lying snugly
in the hollow of a rock where Tommy now remembered he had hidden it
for safety. When he had regained possession he removed from the tail
of his Jersey cap the two small balls that had lost their bounce;
these he kicked disgustedly in the direction of Jimmy Prynne, and
turned contemptuously away.
He made up his mind to enjoy to the full the happiness of being
thoroughly naughty. No other children were on the Skiddery Rock, but
Tommy slid down its steeply polished side again and again, and still
nothing tore.
Then he decided that he would get his feet just as wet as it was
possible for feet to be. So he threw his ball out to sea and waded in
after it; and threw it again and waded again; and again, and yet
again, until a wetter pair of boots and stockings than those worn by
Tommy Tregennis it would have been impossible to find. This
distinction achieved, a little voice within became unpleasantly
clamorous; not the warning voice of conscience, but the insistent
voice of fear. Tommy waded out of the water and wished with all his
heart that his feet were dry.
A few moments he spent in deliberation, then turning his back upon the
cold, wet sea he walked slowly in the direction of Granny Tregennis's
house. At each step he took the water squelched unpleasantly inside
his boots, and each squelching step brought him nearer to an angry
mother's justifiable wrath.
"Granny," he whispered, poking his head through the kitchen window.
"Granny."
Although it was such a warm day Granny Tregennis sat in the rocking
chair by the kitchen fire.
"Yes, ma lovely?" she replied. "An' where have ee been all day, ma
handsome? Saturday, too, an' your Granny left all alone."
"Come home along o' me, Granny," pleaded Tommy.
"Why, whatever for should I be comin' home along o' ee?" demanded
Granny Tregennis.
"Come home along o' me," repeated Tommy, "come with me to my Mammy;
_please_, Granny."
"An' why?"
"Somehow I've gotten my feet all wet," and Tommy, who by this time was
inside the quaint, low-ceilinged room, looked ruefully down at the
thick, sodden boots.
"Keziah Kate," called Granny, "take thicky lamb home."
"Taint the same thing," argued Tommy, "'tisn't a bit the same. Aunt
Keziah Kate do allus be a-comin', she be. Come yourself, Granny, come
home along of I."
So persistent was the pleading that for the first time in many weeks
Granny put on bonnet and shawl and emerged from her doorway.
It was very slow progress that the two made along the uneven cobbles.
When they were about half-way home they saw Mrs. Tregennis in the
distance.
"Sh-sh-sh!" warned Tommy, putting a grimy finger across his lips.
But all caution was vain; Mammy looked up, saw them, turned and walked
towards them.
"Why, Granny," she asked, "whatever's brought ee out-o'-doors, and
evenin' time, too?"
Granny and Tommy felt equally guilty. Granny, as the elder, felt
called upon to explain. "Tommy's gotten his feet wet, Ellen. Don't be
hard on 'e."
"So, my son, you'm a naughty boy, be you, and goes to hide behind your
Granny's skirts? Bringin' your Granny out like this, Tommy Tregennis,
because you'm afraid to come home alone. I'd take shame, an' I was
you."
While Granny Tregennis sorrowfully retraced her steps Tommy
accompanied his mother with sinking heart.
Tregennis was sitting by the kitchen fire. "I've gotten my feet wet,
Daddy," volunteered Tommy.
"That you have!" he replied, looking down at the tell-tale boots.
"Take 'em off quickly," ordered Mammy, but Tommy was unequal to the
task of grappling with the wet, knotted laces.
"Take 'em off quickly!" he in his turn urged his Daddy, who felt like
a conspirator as Tommy confidingly raised first one foot, then the
other, that the offending boots might be unlaced and removed.
"Now my stockin's, Daddy," he pleaded in a whisper; but here Mrs.
Tregennis interposed.
"You'm not goin' to have clean stockin's on late Saturday afternoon,
Tommy, so now you know," she asserted decidedly, as she came forward
with a sturdy pair of strap shoes, and lifting Tommy to a chair
proceeded to put them on over the wet stockings.
[Illustration: IT WAS VERY SLOW PROGRESS THAT THE TWO MADE ALONG
THE UNEVEN COBBLES.]
"I can't bear it, Mammy; I won't have they," Tommy cried.
There was no resisting Mammy's strength; the shoes were not only on,
but buttoned.
"I won't have they, Mammy. Lemme go to bed."
"You may go to bed the minute you've had your tea, my son; but first
run an' get me two cabbages to Bridget's."
A downward movement on Tommy's part drew a warning from Mrs.
Tregennis. "Don't ee remove they shoes, my son. Now run off quickly
and get me two cabbages to Bridget's."
As Mrs. Tregennis spoke she put some coppers into Tommy's hand.
Tommy's fingers remained limp and the pennies rolled over the kitchen
floor. At the same time he kicked off the strap shoes and sent them to
the farthest corner of the room.
Then Tommy was whipped, and in spite of cries and kicks the strap
shoes were again buttoned on his wet, resisting feet. "Now go and get
me two cabbages to Bridget's," commanded Mrs. Tregennis.
"Shan't fetch no more errands for ee, ever;" asseverated Tommy, his
fingers clenched.
"Go an' get me two cabbages to Bridget's," said Mrs. Tregennis, now
punctuating each word with a slap, and Tommy's sobs rose anew.
At this moment Aunt Keziah Kate entered. Tommy fled to her from the
enemy, and buried his head in her clean white apron.
"What is ut, ma lovely?" Aunt Keziah Kate asked tenderly, as she
stroked the tousled head.
By this time the Blue Lady had come downstairs to find out the cause
of Tommy's trouble.
"Go and get me two cabbages to Bridget's," once more repeated Mrs.
Tregennis, while Daddy walked over to the soap-dish by the kitchen
sink, and having taken from it a square of damp flannel wiped Tommy's
tearful eyes.
"Come, ma lovely!" said Aunt Keziah Kate, and
"Go!" ordered Mammy.
Still Tommy wavered.
"Go to Bridget's, Tommy Tregennis, an' get me two stockin's."
"If they're for our dinner," interrupted Miss Margaret, "we'd really
prefer cabbages."
Tommy looked up with the shadow of a smile, then, holding out his hand
for the pennies, walked to the door. On the threshold, however, he
paused for a moment, then returned to the kitchen, took the flannel
which Daddy still held and vigorously rubbed his eyes.
"Shan't let no-one see as 'ow I've been a-cryin'," he explained, and
ran off to fetch the errand.
After tea Tommy sat on Tregennis's knee, while Tregennis took off the
offending stockings, and rubbed the wet feet in front of the kitchen
fire, the while a spirited conversation was carried on between the
two.
"You shouldn't never disobey your Mammy, Tommy."
"Shan't fetch no more errands, not never, for she."
"An' the ladies in the house, too."
"Annie or Mabel can fetch they errands, I tell ee."
"Your Mammy's always workin' so hard, too, Tommy. 'Eaps an' 'eaps of
work she do get through in the day."
"I'll not go never no more! Somebody else can fetch they cabbages and
things."
"When you haven't got your Mammy an' me you'll be sorry you'm a
naughty boy, Tommy."
This was a subject of conversation which Tommy always discouraged.
"When you an' Mammy do be dead," he replied, "I shall get married
quick, I shall. I shall marry Ruthie to wanst, else I shan't have no
one to look after me, I shan't."
Then the tousled head began to droop wearily, for it had been a day of
sorrow. "Can't talk to ee any more to-night, Daddy. I be too tired to
talk to ee any more to-night. Put I to bed, Daddy."
Mrs. Tregennis was upstairs laying the cloth for supper, so with
clumsy hands Tregennis undressed the boy and tucked him tightly in his
cot.
"Say 'good-night' to my Mammy for me, 'n, good-night, Daddy."
The sleepy head burrowed into the pillow, while the long lashes
drooped over the tired blue eyes.
Although Tommy still felt defiant he could not go to sleep in such an
unfinished way. He heard a step on the creaking stair, and "Mammy," he
shouted, "good-night, Mammy."
Mrs. Tregennis came into the room.
"Haven't said no prayers yet, Mammy."
"I shouldn't say no prayers to-night," Mrs. Tregennis advised; "not if
I was you. Jesus 'e don't love little boys what's naughty."
"Oh, yes, 'e do," said Tommy, with conviction. Then, "'E don't like
'em to be naughty, 'e don't," he added, "but 'e loves 'em all the
same."
Then Tommy said his prayers and the good-night kiss was exchanged.
Once more Tommy burrowed into the pillow and Mammy left the room.
But there was still one thing forgotten, and Tommy raised himself in
his cot. "Daddy," he called, "Daddy, you needn't say good-night to my
Mammy for me; I've said it to she myself."
After this he lay down contentedly. Five minutes later he was asleep
and the day of sorrows was ended.