When he did obey her at last, she could contain herself no longer. Down
she must sit on a bank of withered pine-needles and give vent to sobs
and tears.
Then the boy's heart melted for her, and he went and threw his arms
around her and kissed her, and said:
"Oh! Guvie dear, don't cry, and Harry will never, never be _quite_ so
naughty again. Don't cry, dear, and when Harry grows a big man, he will
fight for you and then marry you."
She was pacified at last, and they started for home.
"I'll keep firm hold of your hand," said Harry, "and then you won't cry
any more, and nothing can hurt you."
"We'll both want brushing, won't we, Harry?" she said, smiling.
It was true. For Harry's jacket was altogether green, with the mould
from the tree, and he had transferred a goodly portion of it to her
velveteen jacket, while hugging her.
"Ha!" laughed Harry; "we are both foresters now, Guvie. What fun! All
green, green, green."
But Harry had given his governess a terrible fright, and she tried to
make him promise that he would not climb trees again.
The boy held his wise, wee head to one side for a few seconds and
considered.
"That wouldn't do, Guvie," he said. "But when I go up a tree you shall
come with me. There now!"
"But, dear child, _I_ cannot climb trees."
"You could a beech?" quoth Harry.
"Well, I might a beech, a little way."
"If you don't climb a beech, I shall go a mile high up into a fir," said
the young rascal.
So poor Miss Campbell had to consent, and in the depth of the forest
where many lordly beeches grew, "Guvie" took lessons in climbing.
It certainly is no difficult operation for even a girl to get out on to
the arm of a beech tree. One could almost walk there, and the branches
are as clean as a table.
The governess was further commanded by her lord and pupil to take books
with her up into the trees and read to him.
When summer came, and the beech trees were one mass of tender green
leaves, with the bees all singing their songs, as they flew from flower
to flower, it was far from unpleasant to get up into leafland, and while
away an hour or longer with a delightful book.
Sometimes indeed they went high enough to let a branch shut out the view
of the earth entirely, and then it was like being in fairyland.
One beautiful evening in the latter end of June Miss Campbell and he
went out for a stroll as usual.
Eily did not follow them. Truth to say, Harry had shut her up in the
saddle-room.
There was much to be seen and noticed, and oceans of wild flowers to
cull, and there were birds' nests to be visited, many of which contained
only eggs, while others had in them little half-naked, hairy "gorbals,"
that opened such extraordinary big gaping yellow mouths, that they could
have swallowed a church--that is, if the church were small enough.
There grew not far from the five-barred gate, mentioned in last chapter,
an immensely large and beautiful beech tree; and it had its branches
close to the ground, so that it presented no great difficulty to get up
into it.
Miss Campbell had never been this way before, but to-night her guide led
her hither, under pretence of showing her a tree with a hawk's nest in
it.
The hawk's nest was up there in the pine tree-top right enough, and it
was not an old one either, for when Harry kicked the tree and cried
"Hush-oo-oo!" out and away flew the beautiful and graceful bird. Then
they came to the beech tree.
"Let us get up here and read," said Harry; "the sun isn't thinking of
going down yet. I don't think the sun is moving a bit. I don't suppose
he knows what o'clock it is."
As soon as they were safely and securely seated, and Miss Campbell had
read a short but stirring story to her pupil, Harry pulled aside a
branch.
"Do you see that grass field?" he asked.
"Yes, dear."
"Well, do you know who lives there?"
"No, Harry."
"Towsie."
"And who is Towsie?"
"Why, silly Guvie, Towsie is Towsie, of course; Towsie is his Christian
name; Jock, I suppose, is his papa's name. Towsie Jock, there now!"
"What nonsense _are_ you talking, dear?" said Miss Campbell.
"Why, telling you about Towsie Jock, to be sure. Towsie Jock is _so_
funny, and what faces he makes when I make faces at him! Mind you,
Guvie, I don't think he quite likes to be called Towsie Jock. And _I_
wouldn't either, would you, dear Guvie?"
"I haven't the remotest idea, Harry, what it is all about, nor who or
what Towsie Jock, as you call him, or _it_, is."
"Oh, haven't you, Guvie? Well, you shall see. Mind you it isn't a
hedgehog. Something, oh, ever so much bigger."
As he spoke Harry slipped like an eel down from the tree. He
accomplished this by sliding out to the tip of the branch, out and out
till it bent with his light weight, and dropped him on the ground.
Harry went straight to the gate, the top bar of which he had previously,
in one of his lonely rambles, taken the precaution to tie down. He
looked now to see that the fastening was all secure, then commenced to
shout.
"Towsie Jock! Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie! Towsie!"
Jock was at a distant corner of the field, his favourite corner, on high
ground, where he could see the country for miles around. He was
standing there chewing his cud and looking at the sky. Perhaps he was
wondering what kind of a day it was to be to-morrow.
Suddenly he thrust one ear back to listen.
"Towsie! Towsie!" came the shout in shrill treble.
"It is that monkey again," said Towsie, to himself. "If I can only pin
one horn through him, I'll carry him all round and round the field, at
the gallop too."
Miss Campbell, from the tree, first heard a dreadful bellowing roar,
which ended in one continuous stream of hoarse explosions, as it were.
"Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow," and next moment, to her horror, she saw a
gigantic horrid homed bull coming tearing towards the gate, his nose on
the ground, and his tail like a corkscrew over his back.
"Harry, Harry!" she screamed. "Oh! fly, Harry, fly!"
"He can't get over, Guvie," cried Harry, coolly. "Let me introduce you,
as papa says. That is Towsie Jock. Towsie! Towsie! Towsie Jock!
Towsie Jock!"
"Wow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"
On came the bull as mad as ever bull was.
Miss Campbell shouted again, and screamed with terror.
"Harry, come, oh, dear Harry, come up. For my sake then."
"But he _can't_ get over, I tell you, Guvie."
"But I'm fainting, Harry."
"Oh, in that case I'll come, Guvie. Papa says, `Always, whatever you
do, Harry, be kind and polite to ladies.' I'm coming, Guvie. Don't
fall till I get hold of you."
And none too soon.
"Wow-ow--_woa_!"
Next moment the gate flew in splinters with the awful charge of that
Highland bull.
Miss Campbell's head swam, but she clutched the rash boy to her breast,
and thanked God he was saved.
Meanwhile the bull was at the foot of the tree. He first commenced an
attack upon it with head and horns; every time, he battered it he shook
it to its uttermost twig and leaf. But Miss Campbell and Harry had a
safe seat in a strong niche between two great branches, with another
branch to sit on and one behind.
At every blow the bull reeled back again.
The governess was white and trembling.
Harry was as cool as a hero.
He looked down and enjoyed the performance.
"Isn't he naughty and wicked!" he said.
"Won't he have a headache in the morning, Guvie!"
While attacking and battering the tree, Towsie Jock was silent, only the
noise of the "thuds" resounded through the forest.
"If I had a big turnip now," said the boy, "to throw down, Towsie would
eat it and go away, oh! _so_ well pleased, and not naughty at all."
Towsie soon saw that to knock down that sturdy old beech was impossible;
he commenced, therefore, with angry bellowings to root round it with his
feet.
But even of this he soon tired. He stood up, red-eyed and
furious-looking, and sniffed and snorted.
"May I cry `Towsie' again, Guvie?"
"Oh, no, no, no."
"He can't climb the tree, you know. He'll go away presently, then we
can get down and run, Guvie dear."
But Towsie had evidently no such intentions. He stood there for quite
half an hour, then he began to chew his cud again. That was a pacific
sign, and Miss Campbell gave a sigh of relief.
Towsie Jock was a good general. He had tried and tried in vain to storm
the citadel, that is, the tree; he had tried to batter it down, and he
had tried to undermine it; now the only thing to do was simply to lay
siege to it.
And this he did by quietly lying down.
Meanwhile, far away in the east, they could see, through the greenery of
the branches, red or crimson streaky clouds, and they knew that gloaming
was falling, and that gloaming would soon be followed by night.
The red clouds grew a lurid purple, then grey, then seemed to melt away,
and only a gleam of light remained in the west. That also faded, and
next a bright, bright star peeped in through the leaves at them, and all
grew gloomy around.
Still the bull lay still.
Miss Campbell took a scarf from her neck and bound one of Harry's arms
tightly to a branch, lest he might sleep and slip from her grasp. For
Harry had grown very silent.
"Harry, dear," said Miss Campbell, "say your prayers."
"Guvie," replied the boy, "papa tells me I should bless my enemies; must
I pray for Towsie Jock?"
"If you like, dear."
Then Miss Campbell bethought her of a story, the funniest she could
remember, and began it.
Harry laughed for a time. But he soon grew suddenly silent.
He was fast asleep!
Meanwhile more and more stars came out, cushat's croodle and song of
bird gave place to the deep mournful notes of the brown owl, and the
gloaming deepened into night.
Book 1--CHAPTER THREE.