PART II

CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY

A SMALL EVENT

All service ranks the same with God:

If now, as formerly He trod

Paradise, His presence fills

Our earth, each only as God wills

Can work--God’s puppets, best and worst,

Are we; there is no last nor first.

Say not “a small event”! Why “small”?

Costs it more pain than this, ye call

A “great event” should come to pass,

Than that? Untwine me from the mass

Of deeds which make up life, one deed

Power shall fall short in or exceed!

_Pippa Passes._

Every night the Alfresco Entertainers gave their performance on a

little platform set right under the shadow of the great cliff; while

in front of them, not a dozen yards away, the rhythmic wash of the sea

on a rocky shore seemed a sort of accompaniment to their songs, much

softer and more tuneful than that of the poor, jingly, rheumatic piano,

which had nothing between it and every sort of weather save an ancient

mackintosh cover.

The village itself was but a shelf of shore with one long, straggling,

lop-sided street: cottage and shop and great hotel set down haphazard,

cheek by jowl, all apparently somewhat inept excrescences on the side

of the green-clad cliffs rising behind them straight and steep, a sheer

five hundred feet, and just across the narrow line of red road lies the

Bristol Channel, with, on a clear day, the Welsh coast plainly in view.

At ten years old, people are generally found more interesting than

scenery, and Basil took a great interest in the variety entertainers.

They looked so smart and debonair, he thought, in their blue reefers,

white duck trousers, and gold-laced yachting caps--though they none

of them ever put out to sea. There were five of them altogether, two

ladies and three men. Basil did not care so much about the ladies, in

spite of the rows of Chinese lanterns that outlined the little stage

and shone so pink in the darkness; there seemed no glamor or mystery

about them. They were not transcendently beautiful like the gauzy good

fairy of pantomime, or the peerless, fearless circus lady in pink and

spangles: neither did they possess the mirth-provoking qualities of the

dauntless three clad in yatching garb. One always sang sentimentally of

“daddies,” or “aunties,” or “chords,” that had somehow gone amissing;

and the other--Basil almost disliked that other--sang about things he

could in nowise understand, in a hoarse voice, and danced in between

the verses, and she didn’t dance at all prettily, for she had thick

ankles and high shoulders.

But the three “naval gentlemen,” as Basil respectfully called them,

sang funny songs, and acted and knocked each other about in such

fashion as caused him almost to roll off his chair in fits of ecstatic

mirth. Nearly every fine night after dinner, if nobody wanted him,

Harnet, the tall man-servant, would take Basil, and they sat on two

chairs in the front row and listened to the entertainment. Sometimes

grandfather himself would come, but he generally went to sleep in his

chair at home; for when a man goes peel-fishing all day, walking half

a dozen miles up the rocky bank of a Devonshire trout stream to his

favorite pool, he is disinclined to move again, once he has changed and

dined.

The bulk of the audience attending the Alfresco Entertainment sat on

the wall separating shore from road, or on the curbstone, but there

were always a few chairs placed directly facing the stage, which were

charged for at sixpence each. Harnet was far too grand and dignified to

sit on either wall or curbstone, and as grandfather always gave Basil a

shilling to put in the cardboard plate, Harnet preferred to spend it in

this wise.

Now all that company had high-sounding, aristocratic names, except

one, who was called, as Basil said, “just simply Mr. Smith.” There

was Mr. Montmorency, the manager, whose cheeks were almost as blue

as his reefer, and his wife, the lady who danced in the evening, but

in the daytime affected flowing tea-gowney garments and large flat

hats; there was Mr. Neville Beauchamp, who sang coster songs, to whom

the particular accent required for this sort of ditty really seemed

no effort, as all his songs were given in similarly pronounced and

singular fashion. The lady of the melancholy ballads was called De

Vere; she looked thin and young and generally cold, as well she might,

for she played everyone’s accompaniments, and never wore a coat,

however cold the night. But it was for Mr. Smith that Basil felt most

enthusiasm. In the first place, his speaking voice was as the voices of

“grandfather’s friends.” In the second, he was, to Basil’s thinking, an

admirable actor--changing face and voice, even his very body, to suit

the part he happened to be playing; and thirdly, he was funny--funny in

a way that Basil understood. Even grandfather laughed at Mr. Smith and

applauded him, and when the cardboard plate went round, he sent Basil

with the first bit of gold they had had that season.

“Clever chap that,” he said as they strolled homeward under the quiet

stars. “Reminds me of someone somehow--looks like a broken-down

gentleman; got nice voice, and nice hands--wonder what he’s doing with

that lot?”

Basil, however, was quite content to admire Mr. Smith without

concerning himself as to his antecedents. He forthwith christened him

“the jokey man,” and it rather puzzled him that, except at night, the

jokey man was hardly ever with the others, but went wandering about by

himself in an aimless and somewhat dismal fashion. Could it be that

Mr. Montmorency and Mr. Neville Beauchamp were proud, Basil wondered,

because they had such fine names.

Basil’s face was as round as a full moon, and fresh and fair as a

monthly rose. Tall and well set up, he was good at games, and keen

on every kind of sport. Long days did he spend up the river with his

grandfather fishing for trout--he was to have a license for peel

next summer, but had to be content with trout during this. He went

sea-fishing, too, in charge of a nice fisherman called Oxenham, and

caught big pollock outside the bay, and every morning Oxenham rowed

Basil and Harnet out from the shore that they might have their morning

swim, for the coast is so rocky and dangerous that bathing from the

land is no fun at all--though the rocks are very nice to potter about

on at low tide, when energetic persons can find prawns in the pools.

One day as Basil was busily engaged in this pursuit, who should come

up behind him but the jokey man, looking as melancholy as though there

was no sunshine, or blue water, or pleasant pools full of strange sea

beasts. Indeed, although he was by profession such an amusing man, he

had by no means a cheerful face. Tired lines were written all round his

eyes, his shoulders were bent, and his long slim hands hung loose and

listless at his sides, yet it was plain that he was by no means old.

Moreover, he had changed his smart yachting suit for an old tweed coat

and knickerbockers, and a grey billycock dragged over his eyes bereft

his appearance of all traces of the jokey man. So that for a minute or

two Basil did not know him, even although he sat down on a rock close

by and lit his pipe.

Basil was standing bare-legged and knee-deep in water in pursuit of a

particularly active and artful shrimp, so that it was only when he at

last lifted his head with an emphatic “bother,” that he noticed the

stranger; then he beamed, for chance had tossed plump into his lap the

opportunity he had long been seeking.

“How do you do?” the little boy inquired politely, taking off his

muffin cap with one wet hand while he grasped his net with the other.

“I am so pleased to have met you; I’ve wanted to for ever so long.”

“That’s very nice of you,” said the man, and when he smiled he looked

quite young. “I am sure the pleasure is mutual.”

“I’ve something most pertickler to ask you,” continued Basil eagerly,

scrambling out of the pool to sit on the rock beside him, “and it

seemed as if I was never to get a chance. It’s not for myself either,

it’s for Viola--you know Viola by sight, I daresay?”

Now it happened that the jokey man, like most other people in that

village, knew Viola by sight very well indeed. In fact, Viola, and the

General, and Basil, were as speedily pointed out to every stranger who

arrived as though they had been bits of scenery. For they came every

summer and the village was proud of them.

“Is she your sister?” asked the jokey man, suddenly taking his pipe out

of his mouth.

“Yes, and she’s two year older than me, but she doesn’t go to

school--I’ve been for a year--she has a ma’mselle. I daresay you’ve

seen us with her. It’s been such a bore having her here, but she’s

going to-morrow, and then we shall do just what we like, for there

will be only Harnet and Polly, and we like them. Grannie had to go off

quite suddenly to nurse Aunt Alice, and won’t be back for a week, so

there’ll be nobody but grandfather and us; it’ll be simply ripping,”

and Basil paused breathless, beaming at the pleasant picture he had

conjured up.

The jokey man put his pipe back into his mouth and waited; but it had

gone out, so he just laid it on the rocks beside him, saying:

“What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“It’s rather difficult to explain,” Basil began, turning very red and

rumpling his hair. “It’s Viola, you know; she wants so dreadfully to

come to your entertainment. I’ve told her about it, you know, but

grandfather says----” Here Basil paused, and turned even redder than

before: “One has to be so particular over one’s girls, you know,” he

interpolated apologetically, “and she’s the only girl in our family.

Grandfather never had any sisters or any daughters, so he thinks no end

of Viola, and father and mother are in India, and he says----”

“That some of the songs are vulgar,” said the jokey man shortly. “So

they are; he’s perfectly right.”

The jokey man looked at Basil, and Basil looked at the jokey man for a

full minute. Then the little boy said very earnestly:

“Do you think that you could persuade them--those other gentlemen, I

mean--to leave out one or two songs one evening? There’s that one about

the ‘giddy little girl in the big black hat’ that Mr. Montmorency

sings. Grandfather doesn’t like that one, and it’s not very amusing, is

it? And Viola _does_ want to come so dreadfully.”

The jokey man made no reply, but stared straight out to sea with a

very grave face. Perhaps he was thinking of all those other Violas who

listened night after night to the songs the General objected to, and

were perhaps, unlike his Viola, not “cared about, kept out of harm, and

schemed for, safe in love as with a charm.”

Basil waited politely for some minutes, then, as the jokey man didn’t

speak, he continued earnestly:

“You see she can just hear that there is music and singing when the

windows are open, and it’s so tantalizing, and you see it would be rude

to walk away when we’d heard you, and come back next time you sang,

wouldn’t it? It doesn’t matter for boys----”

“I’m not at all sure of that,” said Mr. Smith hastily; “it matters very

much for boys, too, I think--especially if they don’t happen to have

wise grandfathers with good taste. I’ll see what can be done, and let

you know.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” cried Basil; “that is kind of you. Viola will

be so pleased; she’s up the village now with Polly, or I’d fetch her to

thank you herself.”

Now while Basil was talking he noticed that the jokey man’s coat had

got leather on the shoulders, and that the leather looked as worn as

the coat, so he rightly deduced that at some time or another his new

friend must have been something of a sportsman, and asked:

“D’you fish at all?”

“Not here,” said the jokey man, “but I’ve done some fishing in my time.

Have you had good sport?”

Then immediately ensued a long discussion on the relative merits of

flies, and Basil gave forth his opinion, an opinion backed up by the

experience of numerous natives, that the “Coachman” was the fly for

that neighborhood, but that there were occasions, especially early in

July, when exceedingly good results might be obtained by using red

ants. They told each other fishing stories. Basil confided to the

jokey man that he had just got a beautiful new split cane rod from

“Hardy Brothers,” promised to show it to him at the earliest possible

opportunity, and they speedily became the best of friends. For it is

a curious fact that although the actual sport itself is a somewhat

taciturn pursuit, there are no more conversational sportsmen in the

world than ardent followers of the gentle craft.

Another thing--they are always courteous listeners, and generally full

of good stories themselves, yet have the most delicate appreciation

of other people’s anecdotes. You can nearly always tell a member of a

fishing family by this rare and pleasing trait.

Next morning the jokey man called at the hotel and asked for Basil

at the door. He wouldn’t come in, and when Basil, greatly excited,

appeared, only waited to say hastily: “If you like to bring your

sister to-night, I think I can promise you that it will be all right.”

Then fled before Basil could thank him, and was soon pounding up the

steep hill that ends abruptly at the hotel door, as though he were

training for a mountaineering race.

Basil tore back into their sitting-room to lay the case before his

grandfather, who, for once, was lunching in the hotel.

“He promised, you know,” he concluded jubilantly, “so she _can_ come,

can’t she?”

Grandfather pulled his moustache and laughed. Then Viola came and laid

her fresh soft cheek against his, murmuring pleadingly: “Darling,

it would be so lovely,” till he pinched Viola’s cheek and made

stipulations about heavy cloaks, and the children knew the day was won.

And the end of it all was that, at half-past eight that evening,

grandfather, Basil and Viola were seated on three chairs in the very

middle of the road that ran past the Alfresco Entertainers’ stage;

but as the road ends abruptly in a precipitous rock some thirty yards

further along, there is no fear of being run over by traffic.

What an evening of delight that was! How Basil and Viola laughed, and

how pleased was grandfather! Another thing is quite certain--that the

Alfresco Entertainers in no way lost by the alterations they had made

in their programme; the rest of the audience seemed as pleased as Basil

and Viola, and no one appeared to miss the “giddy little girl in the

big black hat” the least little bit in the world.

“Really, it’s vastly civil of Mr. Thingummy,” said grandfather on their

way home.

* * * * *

Grandfather and Harnet had gone fishing for the whole day. Mademoiselle

had departed, only Polly was left in charge, and she had so bad a

headache--she put it down to the close, cloudy weather--that she was

fain to go and lie down directly she had waited upon Basil and Viola

at their lunch, having given the children permission to go for a walk

along the beach.

It was a grey day, humid and still, and, being low tide, there seemed

no fresh wind blowing in from the sea as usual. The children scrambled

over the rocks, very happy and important at being, for once, left to

their own devices, and they decided to make an expedition to a little

sandy bay that can be reached from the shore at low tide, and to come

back by a steep winding path up the cliffs which terminates in the

coach road just above the village. They had not considered it necessary

to confide their intention to Polly, who would certainly have objected.

They reached the bay all right, paddled for a little time on the hard,

smooth sand, and then set out to climb the path which winds in and out

of the side of the cliff for all the world like a spiral staircase up

to some nine hundred feet above the sea. This path is so narrow that

travelers can only walk in Indian file. On the one side is the steep

face of the heather-clad rock, on the other a sheer drop on to the

rocks below.

When the children had climbed about a third of the way they found

themselves enveloped in white mist--a mist so thick, and fine, and

clinging, that you cannot see your own hand held before your face. It

was no use to go down again; the tide had turned, and soon the sea

would be lapping gently at the foot of the pathway. There was nothing

for it but to go on slowly, carefully, step by step, feeling all the

time for the rocks on the inner side; by and by the path would widen.

“Don’t be frightened, Viola,” said Basil cheerfully. “It’ll take us a

goodish while, but a bit higher up we can walk together.”

“I’m not exactly frightened,” said Viola in a tremulous voice, “but I

rather wish we hadn’t come.”

“So do I,” Basil answered fervently. “If I hadn’t been such a juggins

I’d have looked up and seen the mist on those cliffs long ago. Probably

you can’t see that there _are_ any cliffs in the village now.”

On they toiled, slowly and painfully. It is really a most unpleasant

mode of progression, walking sideways up a hill with your back against

a very nubbly sort of wall.

“Hark!” cried Basil presently. “Didn’t you hear a call?”

The children paused, leant against the cliff, and listened

breathlessly. Sure enough someone was calling. It sounded very muffled

and far off; but it was plainly a man’s voice, and he was calling for

help.

“Do you think it’s above or below?” Basil asked anxiously. “I can’t

seem to tell in this fog.”

“It must be above, or we should have heard it before. Call out that

we’re coming.”

Basil shouted with all the force of his young lungs, and again the

faint, muffled voice answered with a cry for help.

“Come on,” exclaimed Basil in great excitement; “we’ll find him!” and

sure enough in another bend of the path Basil nearly fell over the

prostrate figure of a man lying right across it, for here it suddenly

grew wider. The man raised himself on his elbow, exclaiming:

“I say, do you think that when you get to the village you could send

help? I’m very much afraid that I’ve broken my leg. I can’t stand, and

moving at all hurts it no end.”

“Why, it’s the jokey man!” Basil cried out in dismay. “However did you

do it?”

“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” added Viola. “This is sad.”

None of them could see the other, but nevertheless, the jokey man knew

in a minute who had come to his rescue, and forgot his injuries in his

surprise, exclaiming:

“Whatever are you two doing here? Is the General with you?”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Viola proudly; “we’re _quite_ alone, or we

shouldn’t be here, but isn’t it a good thing we _are_ here? How did you

fall?”

“I was mooning along, not thinking where I was going, when down came

the mist. I made a false step and went bang over the edge, but only

fell on to the path below, not right over, as I might have done....

Perhaps it would have been better if I had,” he added to himself.

“You’d better go and get help, Basil,” said Viola decidedly, “and I’ll

stay and take care of Mr. Smith till they come.”

But Mr. Smith wouldn’t hear of this. The children helped him to crawl

as near the inner side as possible, and when they left him he nearly

fainted with the pain of moving. It began to rain, the cold, soft,

wetting rain of a Devonshire summer, and Mr. Smith groaned and shivered.

“I am so sorry for you,” said a soft voice close beside him. “Is there

nothing I could do? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you were to

rest your head in my lap? It would be a sort of pillow. Daddie used to

go to sleep like that sometimes out on the moors last summer, when they

were home.”

“Oh, Viola, Viola!” exclaimed the jokey man, with far more distress

than he had yet shown, “why did you stay? You will get cold. It’s

raining already, and they will be ages.”

“There’s no use worrying about that,” said Viola, edging herself

nearer. “We couldn’t leave you here all alone and hurt, and Basil

wouldn’t let me go on to the village ’cause of the fog, so of course I

stayed. I hope you won’t mind very much; I won’t talk if you’d rather

not, but I think I’d like to hold your hand if you don’t mind. It would

be comforting.”

The kind little hand was curiously comforting to the jokey man: he

insisted on taking off his coat and wrapping Viola in it, in spite

of all her protests. Presently the white pall of mist lifted a little

and they could see one another, and it certainly was a great pleasure

to the man lying against the cliff to watch the little high-bred face

with the kind blue eyes turned in such friendly wise toward him.

Viola was so like Basil, and yet so entirely individual. Basil’s

face was round, hers was oval; Basil’s nose was broad and indefinite

as yet, Viola’s nose was small and straight and decided, with the

dearest little band of freckles across the bridge. Basil’s manner was

extremely friendly, Viola’s was tender and protecting, and it was such

a long time since anyone had taken care of the jokey man, that he

almost crooned to himself in the delight of being so tended. She was

very tender in her inquiries after his aches and pains, expressed a

pious hope that he always wore “something woolly next him,” and being

reassured on that head, proceeded to suggest that he should smoke if he

found it comforting. Then she told him a great deal in very admirative

terms about daddy, and grandfather, and Basil, for Viola was of that

old-fashioned portion of femininity that looks upon her own mankind

as beings of stupendous strength and wisdom. The man lay watching her

very intently, but it is not certain that he heard half of what she

was saying. He had the look of one who was trying to make a difficult

decision. The voices of habit and tradition called very loudly to him

just then--dared he listen?

Presently Viola’s voice ceased. She was evidently waiting for an

answer, and none came.

“Have you any sisters, Mr. Smith?” she repeated.

Mr. Smith shook his head, then he raised himself on his elbow, saying

earnestly:

“Look here, Viola! I want you to tell me exactly what you think

about something. Suppose Basil--of course it’s utterly impossible,

but still--suppose that when he was grown up he did something that

annoyed you all very much, something disappointing and entirely

against his father’s wishes”--he paused, for Viola looked very grave

and pained--“and then,” he continued, “if he went right out of sight,

and you, none of you, heard anything more about him for nearly a

year--supposing _then_ he was sorry, said he was sorry----”

“We should never lose sight of Basil,” said Viola decidedly, her eyes

dark and tragic at the mere thought. “At least, I’m sure I shouldn’t;

whatever he did I should love him just the same. You don’t love people

for their goodness--you love them because they’re _they_.”

“Are you sure?” asked the jokey man earnestly.

Viola looked hard at him, turned very red, and said shyly:

“Do you think you could tell me just what you did? I know it’s you.”

The man leant back against the wall again.

“It’s not an interesting story,” he said wearily, “but it may pass

the time. I was at the ’varsity, Cambridge. I was always very fond of

acting, and I was extravagant and lazy, too. The very term I went in

for my degree I was acting in the A.D.C., and--I was plucked. My father

was furious. Then came a whole sheaf of debts. He said I must go back

to a small college, live on next to nothing, work, and take my degree.

Instead of taking my punishment like a man, I quarreled with everybody,

vowed I’d go on to the stage, and came to this. I have kept body and

soul together, and I don’t think I’ve done anything to be ashamed of

since, but I’m sick and sorry at the whole business. Yet now that

I’m all smashed up and useless, it seems somehow mean to go back. My

father’s a parson, you know, not over well off, and there are a good

many of us.”

All the pauses in his story, and there were a good many, had been

punctuated by Viola with reassuring little pats, and now that the pause

was so long that he seemed to have finished his story, she turned a

beaming face toward him.

“How _glad_ they will be!” she exclaimed. “You must write to-night

directly you get back. How _glad_ your mother will be!”

A spasm of pain crossed his face. “My mother died just before I left

school,” he said.

Viola’s eyes filled with tears, and she had just exclaimed, “And

you have no sisters either, you poor dear?” when the rescue party,

accompanied by Basil and the nearly frantic Polly, appeared just

below them. They carried the jokey man to the foot of the cliff and

took him back to the village in a boat, and as his ankle proved to be

very badly broken he elected to go into the cottage hospital on the

hill. The long wait in the wet, that had not in the least hurt Viola,

proved altogether too much for the jokey man. That night he became

feverish and delirious, and when the children and the General went to

ask for him next day, they were told that he was very ill indeed, and

that the broken ankle was quite a small matter in comparison with the

pneumonia. That evening the doctor called on the General, and directly

the performance was over, the General went to see the Alfresco Players

at their lodgings.

“Do you happen to know who his people are?” the General asked Mrs.

Montmorency.

“He never let on that he’d got any folks, poor fellah,” she answered

with a sob. She had a kind heart if her ankles were thick. “He was

never one to talk about himself, and he’s never had so much as a

postcard by post since he’s been here, that I do know. His real name’s

not Smith at all; all his linen--beautiful and fine his shirts are

too--is all marked ‘Selsley.’”

“Have you no idea what part of the country he came from?” the General

asked. “Then we could look in a directory. It would be a horrible thing

if----”

“He joined us in London,” Mrs. Montmorency gasped between her sobs,

while her tears made little pathways on her painted cheeks. “He hadn’t

any references, but I persuaded my husband to take him. He carried his

references in his face, I said, and so I’m sure we’ve found it, for a

nicer, more obliging, gentlemanly----”

“Do you think, sir,” Mr. Montmorency interrupted, “that he told the

little lady anything about himself when they were up on the cliff

together?”

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the General in great excitement. “Of

course he did; I have it. Who has got a clergy list?”

Naturally none of the Alfresco Players possessed such a work, and it

was already too late to knock up the vicar of the parish. But next

morning the General called on the vicar very early, and then despatched

an exceedingly long telegram to the post office and several bottles of

champagne to the cottage hospital, where Polly, Basil and Viola hung

about the doors all the morning hoping for better news. The Alfresco

Players got out a green leaflet to the effect that there would be that

night a benefit performance for that talented artist, Mr. Smith, who

had been suddenly stricken down by serious illness. The General seemed

to send and receive a great many telegrams, and did not go fishing all

that day. At sundown there was no better news at the hospital, and it

seemed exceedingly probable that the jokey man would joke no more. The

General met the last train, and drove away from the station accompanied

by an elderly, severe-looking clergyman. They stopped at the hospital

and the clergyman went in.

* * * * *

The jokey man was so noisy and talked so continuously that the hospital

authorities had him moved from the men’s surgical ward into a little

room by himself. As the matron showed the strange clergyman into this

room, a nurse rose from the chair at the bedside. The jokey man’s

voice was no longer loud, but he kept saying the same thing over and

over again.

“All day long he keeps repeating it,” she whispered. “I’m so thankful

you’ve come, for he can’t possibly last if this restlessness continues.”

“I’m sure he’ll come if you send,” the weak, irritable voice went on.

“Why don’t you send? I want my father--‘father, I have sinned’--that’s

it--‘father, I have sinned’--but I know he’ll come if you send. I want

my father, I tell you--why won’t you send? I want my father.”

The whispering voice persisted in its plaint, the hot hands plucked at

the sheet when other hands closed over them, holding them firmly, and

the voice he was waiting for said quietly:

“My dear son, I am here.”

As the sick man raised his tired eyes to the grave grey face bent

over him, his troubled mind was flooded with an immense content, his

poignant restlessness was calmed.

“Good old father!” he said softly, and lay quite still.

The jokey man thought better of it, and didn’t die after all. In

another week Basil and Viola were allowed to go and see him. They stood

very hushed and solemn on either side of his bed, for he looked very

thin and white, and was still lying right on his back, which made him

seem more ill somehow. For quite a minute nobody said anything at all,

till Basil, who held a large folded bracken leaf in his hand, laid it

down on the jokey man’s chest and spread it out. A fish speckled with

brown reposed in solemn glory in the midst.

“It’s for your dinner,” whispered Basil. “It’s only four ounces off the

pound. I caught it myself two hours ago. Viola saw me do it. I think a

‘Coachman’s’ the best fly after all.”

IN DURANCE VILE

Gabrielle always remembered the day that the ringmaster of the circus

came to see her pony jump. She was proud of her pony, who was dapple

grey and Welsh, and could jump nine inches higher than himself.

Gabrielle was five, and had ridden without a leading rein for two

years, but her father never let her jump Roland, the pony. So the pony

jumped by himself, greatly to the edification of the ringmaster who had

been bidden to see the feat.

While all this was going on, Nana called her to nursery tea, and as she

trotted down the long yard, past the stables, and towards the drive,

the ringmaster turned to Jack Ainslie, Gabrielle’s father, and said:

“Has the little Missie hurt her foot? She’s a thought lame.”

Jack Ainslie looked hastily after the idolized little figure, and noted

that the ringmaster was right. She _was_ a thought lame.

Hastily excusing himself, he ran after the child. “Have you hurt your

foot, darling?” he asked anxiously. “You’re limping a little. Did you

twist your ankle?”

“Oh, no, Daddy dear, I’m not hurt. I’m going to tea.” Gabrielle put

up her face for the ever-expected kiss and ran after her nurse. Jack

Ainslie dismissed the subject from his mind and showed the ringmaster

the rest of the horses.

From that day, however, things changed for Gabrielle. Other people

noticed the little limp, and her parents, terrified and distressed,

sent for the family doctor. He discovered that in some way, probably

at birth, her hip had been dislocated, and had formed a new socket for

itself, and that henceforth she would limp--unless--and here all the

mischief began--something could be done. Her father was frantic. Of

course something must be done. That his Gabrielle, his dainty little

lady with her pretty face, her quick intelligence, and her gracious

ways, should be lame--oh, it was intolerable! He was broken-hearted

and rebellious, and even his wife’s steadfast patience and unchanging

tenderness could not make him resigned. Then began for Gabrielle a

series of visits to London. She was taken from one great doctor to

another till she grew quite used to marching about on thick piled

carpets, clad in nothing but her sunny hair, while they discussed her

interesting “case.”

“Doctors are chilly men,” said Gabrielle; “their hands are always cold

to my body.”

An operation was arranged, but at the last moment Jack Ainslie drew

back, for the surgeons would not guarantee success, and the family

doctor said grave things about Gabrielle’s constitutional delicacy.

So it was decided that more gradual means must be tried to bring

about the desired result. The “gradual means” assumed the shape of

an instrument, hideous to behold and painful to wear. It broke Jack

Ainslie’s heart to see his little lady cabined and confined in such a

cruel cage, and for the little lady herself it blotted out the sunshine

and made life very grey and terrible. One thing was quite plain to

Gabrielle, and that was that evidently Nature was very much to blame

in having provided a new “socket” for the poor little dislocated bone.

This impertinence must be interfered with at all costs--the doctors

seemed to agree upon that. And Gabrielle wondered why it was so wrong

to have no pain, to be perfectly unconscious of her “affliction,” as

her nurse called it, and so interesting (to the doctors) and right,

to be uncomfortable and to wear a hideous high-soled boot and an iron

cage, with crutches under the arms that pushed her shoulders up to her

ears.

As for the instrument, it was designed and ordered by three famous

surgeons, and it cost the price of many ponies. Gabrielle tried to be

brave. She was curiously conscious that the pain her parents suffered

was far greater than her own. The instrument was adjusted in London,

and on the way home in the train her mother asked her many times, “Does

it hurt you, my darling?” And Gabrielle always answered bravely, “I can

bear it, mother dear; I can bear it!”

When she got home that night, the poor little leg was black from the

cruel pressure, and Mary Ainslie broke down and cried till she could

cry no longer. Gabrielle tried to walk bravely in her cramping irons,

and to smile at her parents when she met their troubled eyes. At

first she broke the thing continually, for she was an active child,

much given to jumping off chairs and playing at circus on the big old

sofa. But by and by all desire to jump and run left her. She grew

high-shouldered, and would sit very still for hours, while her daddy

told her stories or drove her behind Roland in a little basket-carriage

he had bought for her. Truly the iron entered into her soul, the cruel

iron that cramped the child’s soft body; and Gabrielle’s eyes grew

larger and larger, and her chin more pointed, while the once plump

little hands were white as the petals of the pear-blossom outside the

nursery window.

“I wish people wouldn’t ask me about it; they are kind, but I wish they

wouldn’t,” Gabrielle would say. “I’m tired of telling them about the

socket, and I’m not ‘a poor little soul’--I’m daddy’s little lady!”

There came to Jack Ainslie a very old college friend, a doctor,

Gabrielle’s godfather, and devoted to her, and he was supremely

dissatisfied with her treatment and implored them to take her to see a

young surgeon, a friend of his own, who was making a great name, and

doing wonders for everyone who came under his care. Jack Ainslie and

his wife needed but small persuasion, and it was decided that Gabrielle

should go to London as soon as possible.

What hastened the visit was this: Gabrielle was devoted to fairy lore,

and a favorite play of hers was to be the beautiful princess who is

freed from giants and dragons and lions by the gallant “Boots” of the

Norse tales. Her father always enacted the part of that redoubtable

third son, and was wont to kneel before her, making extravagant

protestations of his devotion, which she accepted with gracious

condescension. On this particular afternoon, just after tea, her father

proposed to play the favorite game, but Gabrielle would have none

of it. “I can’t be a princess any more, Daddy; I’m sure no princess

ever wore an instrument!” she said. “I don’t feel like a princess any

more at all.” Her father caught her up in his arms, with a great hard

sob, which frightened her, and she stroked his face, saying tenderly:

“Don’t be sorry, dear, dear Dad! I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll be a

princess, I will, indeed! I _will_ feel like a princess really!” The

next day Jack Ainslie and his wife took Gabrielle up to town. They did

not even take the faithful Nana, for Gabrielle’s mother could hardly

bear to let any hands but hers touch her darling, ever since the day

that the ringmaster had made his sad discovery.

Mary Ainslie took Gabrielle to the new doctor the following morning,

while Jack sat in the smoking-room of the hotel, lighting innumerable

cigars which he did not smoke, and turning over illustrated papers

which he did not see. Then he turned out of the hotel and walked down

Piccadilly, blundering into the passers-by, and when he crossed the

road, was nearly ridden over by an omnibus, so blind and stupid was

he in his heavy sorrow. Poor Jack! his honest heart was very full of

grief, for he loved his little lady dearly, and he felt that unless

something were done quickly, he would soon have nothing but a tender

memory to love.

Gabrielle and her mother were shown into the new doctor’s

consulting-room at once. He was a tall young man, with red hair

and keen green eyes. Her mother undressed Gabrielle, all but the

“instrument,” which clasped the tender little body, and seemed so

cruelly unnecessary. The young doctor frowned when he saw it, then he

took it off himself, and Gabrielle noticed that his touch was as gentle

as her mother’s, and that his hands were warm. She gave a happy little

shake when she was free of it, a little wriggle and jump of relief.

Then the doctor made her walk, and felt her all over, after which he

rolled her up in a big fur rug, to sit in front of the fire, while he

went into the next room with her mother. They were not long away, and

on their return Gabrielle looked up at the doctor with bright, curious

eyes.

“Does the instrument hurt you?” he asked. Gabrielle looked at it, as it

leaned feebly against a chair, and said: “It does, rather; but it does

its best not to. I think...!”

“Well, any way, you’re not going to wear it any more. Are you glad?”

“But what will the socket do?”

“Bless me, child; they’ve talked about you far too much. The socket

will do beautifully--much better without it than with it!”

“May I wear shoes like other little girls?”

“Certainly; the prettiest shoes that can be got!”

“Not compensatum shoes?”

“No; ordinary shoes, exactly alike!”

By this time Gabrielle had been arrayed in some clothes. She noticed

that her mother’s hands trembled, but that her eyes were glad. The

child looked up at the tall young doctor, who was watching her with his

keen green eyes, and said: “My Daddy will be so glad. He will look at

me, and not look so sorry, and there will be no hard things to stick

into him when he cuddles me! He will be so glad!”

The doctor made a queer little sound in his throat; then he lifted

Gabrielle in his arms and carried her to the window.

“Do you see the end of this street,” he asked, “where the roar and the

rumbling sound comes from? That’s Oxford Street. Well, in that street

is a beautiful shop full of shoes--shoes for little girls--and you are

going there directly, to get the prettiest pair that mother can find

for you!”

“May they have silver buckles?” Gabrielle asked eagerly.

“I think it extremely advisable they should have big silver buckles.

You will walk both fast and far in buckles shoes, and you must learn to

dance the _tarantella_, and all the dolls will sit in a row to watch

you!”

Gabrielle gave a delighted laugh. “Will the leg that wore the irons get

fat again, like the other?”

“Oh, dear, yes! You mustn’t think about that leg any more, but you must

do all the exercises mother is going to show you, and when you can

hang on a trapeze for twenty minutes, without falling off, you must

write and tell me.”

Then Gabrielle’s mother finished dressing her, all but her boots. The

boot with the “compensatum” sole lay near the instrument. Gabrielle

looked at it with great aversion. “It’s a very dry day,” said she. “May

I go to the cab in my stockings, and not put on no shoes till I have my

new ones?”

The doctor pushed the little boot out of sight, under the chair, with

his foot, and said: “I’ll carry you to the cab, and mother or the

cabman will carry you to the shop across the pavement, and you shall

never see that iron horror or that boot again!”

As the doctor carried her across the hall, Gabrielle put her arms round

his neck, and kissed him on both his eyes.

“Your eyes taste very salt!” she said, “But you are the best doctor in

the world!”

THE SURRENDER OF LADY GRIZELL

Geordie had found the world a rather draughty place since that March

morning when his mother went out hunting and was brought back in a

strange secret fashion, and he saw her face no more.

“Your poor Ma’s met with a haccident, Master Geordie--poor lady she’ve

broke her back and now she’s gone to ’Eaven.”

So Nana explained things to him. New black clothes came from the

tailor’s, and Geordie went with Nana to lay flowers upon his mother’s

grave.

At five years old discomfort is felt, rather than defined; Geordie

was conscious of a difference, an uncomfortable difference in his

surroundings, but by no means directly traced its cause to the loss of

his mother. Nor was he actively miserable. It is true that he sometimes

wondered why Nana so often omitted his bath in the morning, and why he

was never dressed to go down in the evening; but in some respects he

had quite a dissipated time. So many people asked him out to tea, and

amusement of which Nana distinctly approved, for she went too.

Geordie regarded his father with immense admiration, he was so tall,

and handsome, and jolly. But since that day when everything was

altered, the Hon. Donald Cochran found less time than ever to devote to

Geordie. It is true he did not go out hunting any more, but he seemed

always to be shut up in that hitherto almost unused room--called the

“study,” sorting papers and interviewing stout gentlemen, who wore

aggressive watch-chains, and whose footsteps were much lighter than

those of the hunting friends who used to come about the house.

After a month of vague loneliness and discomfort there came a change in

Geordie’s fortunes. His aunt, Lady Grizell Fane, who had been abroad at

the time of Mrs. Cochran’s death, appeared upon the scene.

A tall woman, with keen grey eyes, a woman who observed much and said

little--Lady Grizell after three days realized the exact position of

affairs. On the fourth day she went back to the Towers, taking Geordie

with her.

Lady Grizell was one of those women, so often childless, in whom the

maternal instinct is passionately alive. The love of children was a

religion with her, and all the love she would have lavished on her own

child had the fates bestowed one on her, she lavished upon Geordie.

The world suddenly became a sunny, sheltered place for the lonely

little boy. Baths were plentiful and nursery tableclothes were clean,

as meals were regular. Above all, somebody wanted him, somebody took

an interest in his doings, and a great warm human love “enwheeled

him round.” A new experience this for Geordie--no one had ever been

actively unkind to him, his mother had looked after his creature

comforts thoroughly. He was always well dressed and well tended, but

she had never found his society particularly interesting, nor did she

manifest any desire to see him often during the day. Though a fine

strong child, he was too like the Cochrans to be pretty. Big nose,

grey eyes, thin face, high cheekbones, and dogged mouth, may be well

enough in a man, but in a child are apt to be all indefinite and out

of proportion. No, Geordie was not a pretty child. Neither was he very

clever; but he was honest and kind-hearted, and he worshipped those who

were kind to him, Aunt Grizell most of all.

Uncle Fane was a philanthropist, absorbed in blue books and statistics.

When Parliament was sitting he went to London, while Aunt Grizell not

infrequently preferred to remain with Geordie at the Towers.

Geordie learned to ride with his aunt (his father had never been

able to afford a pony for him, it takes such a lot of money to keep

hunters), he did gardening with her, and with her he learned to read

indifferently well. But he learned many things more important than

these.

He learned to be immensely proud of “the family,” to hold the reigning

house in due respect certainly, but with reservations in favor of one

Charles Edward, and his descendants, for whose sake “the family” had

greatly dared and suffered. He learned that he must be courteous and

deferent in his manners, true and just in all his dealings, and that he

must control his temper, which, like that of the rest of the family,

was inclined to be hasty. Moreover, he quickly discovered that his aunt

_was_ herself all she would have him be. To know that a thing grieved

her was enough with Geordie to prevent its happening again, so they

were very happy.

His father came from time to time to spend a few days at the Towers,

praised his improved appearance, and his seat in the saddle, took him

out shooting on occasions, and was always profuse in his thanks to his

sister for her care of the boy.

But this happy and peaceful state of things was not to last. A cloud

came over the horizon. Lady Grizell went about with red eyes and a

harrassed look, and Geordie found Uncle Fane regarding him with an

expression, kindlier than of yore certainly, but in which he discovered

so large a proportion of pity that he resented it, without knowing why.

Then Lord Lochmaben, his father’s eldest brother, came to the Towers.

During his visit, the child was always hearing scraps of conversation

in which the words “madness,” “that woman,” and “social suicide”

occurred with bewildering frequency. He felt that in some mysterious

way these irrelevant remarks had some bearing on his own fortunes. Lord

Lochmaben also regarded him with that strange pitying expression, and

during his lordship’s visit, Aunt Grizell’s eyes were redder, and her

manner more perturbed than ever.

At last, one morning at the end of May--Geordie will always hate the

scent of the lilacs--Lady Grizell called him from his play to come to

her in the morning room.

He came, running through the open French window, and when he reached

his aunt’s chair she put her arm round him, saying huskily: “Geordie

dear! your father wants you at home, until September--and then you are

to go to school!”

Lady Grizell made the announcement abruptly. To her surprise it was

received in absolute silence. Geordie was, as his aunt herself would

have said, “utterly dumbfoundered.” To go to school some day was

natural and proper--but to go home.... “Why does father want me now?”

asked Geordie in a shaky voice. The Hon. Donald never betrayed any

distress at parting from him when he left the Towers--what could it

mean?

The child was very like “the family,” he was not at all demonstrative,

and he “thought shame” to cry.

He flung his arms round his aunt, holding her so tight that the buttons

of his Norfolk jacket made deep dents on her cheek, and Lady Grizell

could hear how painfully the little heart was thumping.

There was silence for a minute between these two who understood each

other so well; then Geordie asked: “When am I to go, Aunt Grizy?”

“In a week--oh, what shall I do without you, my bonnie man?”

“But I shall come to see you often, shan’t I? Papa won’t want me all

the time, and you will ask him to let me come often, won’t you, Aunty?”

Lady Grizell stroked his hair tenderly, but she could not deceive even

a child, and she shook her head.

“I’ll ask him, my dear, you may be sure. But I fear he may not be able

to grant my request. Unfortunately, there is a subject upon which your

father and I cannot agree, and he is vexed with me, and naturally wants

his son for himself.”

“Is it that ‘suicide woman’ that is the subject?” asked Geordie

breathlessly.

Lady Grizell gazed at him in thunderstruck amazement. “What _do_ you

mean, child?”

“Well, whenever I was out walking with Uncle Lochmaben and Uncle Fane,

I kept hearing little bits about ‘that woman’ and ‘suicide’ and papa,

so I thought it might be that. I didn’t listen, truly--I couldn’t help

hearing, and I didn’t understand.”

Lady Grizell put back the hair from the boy’s square forehead and

looked into his honest grey eyes, then she spoke:

“Geordie dear, there are always things in life that we cannot

understand, and things we cannot help; what we must do is to be as

brave and honest as we can, and leave the rest to God. Your dear father

is very lonely and he has recently married a lady who will be your new

mamma. You must try to be as good and courteous and obedient to her as

you are to me--and Geordie, son! don’t forget me!”

Here Lady Grizell broke down, and Geordie thought it no shame to cry

too.

That week was terribly short. At the end of it Geordie went out into

the draughty world again, while Lady Grizell went about saying like

her more famous namesake: “Oh, werena my heart lecht I wad dee!”

Geordie could never be induced to speak much about the three months

that followed. During those three months Lady Grizell grew thin and

pale.

One morning she received a letter from the Hon. Donald in which he

informed her that he and his wife had made arrangements for Geordie to

go in September to an excellent school in the Forest of Dean where boys

received board and education for the modest sum of twenty guineas a

year.

Lady Grizell gave a little cry, and stared at the letter in her hand as

though it had been some horrible phantom. Then she flew downstairs and

into her husband’s study, where he sat writing a report for the Society

of Agriculture.

“Augustus, read this! I am going to see Donald to-day, and tell him

that I will receive his wife--I can’t let my pride stand in the way of

that child any longer--read this!” and she thrust the letter under her

husband’s aristocratic nose.

Mr. Fane put on his glasses, read the letter, took them off, folded

them up and put them in the case--a methodical, deliberate man, Mr.

Fane--then he said slowly:

“Have you considered what people will say? Have you forgotten that

everybody knows her most unpleasant story?”

“I cannot help it. People must say what they please. I will not have

Geordie go to such a school, even if I have to receive half the fallen

women in London to prevent it. If Lochmaben never marries, Geordie

will be head of our house.”

Lady Grizell spoke with passionate excitement. Mr. Fane felt that he

hardly knew his wife, always so gentle and dignified, in this woman

with the pale face and blazing eyes. He expostulated forcibly and at

his usual length. If he was somewhat less conscious of the dignity

of the House of Cochran than was Lady Grizell, he was keenly alive

to the dignity of the House of Fane. But all his exhortation, all

his arguments were of no avail. He could not shake Lady Grizell’s

determination; and the afternoon saw her speeding in the express toward

the interview with her brother.

The journey was not long, but the August day was hot. Lady Grizell felt

faint and shaken when the omnibus (she had been too excited to wire for

a cab) deposited her at her brother’s door.

The parlormaid looked curiously at the tall lady who asked so pointedly

for _Mr._ Cochran, and showed her into the study. No ladies ever

called, and here was an undoubted lady--“my lady” to boot--as the sharp

girl discovered on reading the card.

She carried the card to her master in the garden, where he was sitting

with his wife. He flushed as he read it, and tossed it to the woman

beside him, exclaiming: “Grizie, by Jove!--can she be coming round?”

The woman caught the card, reading the name aloud in an eager, excited

voice, then said, a little bitterly: “She only asks for _you_.”

“She wouldn’t come here to insult you. I know Grizie. It’s something

about the boy, and she wants to be friends. You wait here till I send

for you.”

He strode across the lawn, and entered the study by the open French

window.

“Now this is really good of you, Grizie; Geordie will be in

raptures--it’s kind and friendly!”

Lady Grizell was pale, and the cheek she turned to his kiss was very

cold. She clasped her hands to stay their trembling and began in a low

voice:

“Donald! you said that if I would receive Mrs. Cochran----”

“Nelly, you mean!” interrupted the Hon. Donald.

“If I would receive your wife--you would let me keep Geordie. If I

promise to ask you both to the Towers--twice every year--will you let

me have him, instead of sending him to that horrible school--will you,

Donald? I’ll educate him, he shall cost you nothing--I have a little

money, you know, and Augustus is very generous to me--will you let him

come to me?”

Donald looked rather shamefaced as he muttered: “Isn’t it rather like

selling the little chap?”

“But it’s selling him into happiness, Donald: he is such a dear lad,

and he loves me, and ... it isn’t very easy for me!”

There was silence for two minutes. Lady Grizell’s heart thumped in her

ears.

Overhead there was a sudden patter of little feet, and Lady Grizell

sank upon her knees, sobbing: “Oh, give him to me, Donald, for God’s

sake, give him to me! I cannot bear it!”

Donald’s eyes were red as he raised his sister and gently put her in an

easy chair. He patted her shoulder soothingly, and his voice trembled

as he said: “Look here, Grizie! you shall have the boy. There shall

be no bargain between us; I never meant to send him to that beastly

school. I tried it on to fetch you--as it has--but I can’t play the

game so low down as that--I don’t set up for a model parent. I know

you’ll bring him up better than we should. You can leave this house

without meeting my wife if you prefer it, and I’ll send Geordie to you

to-morrow. But, if you like to do a kind and generous thing to a woman

who has known little but unkindness, and shame, and sorrow all her

life, and who is a good and loyal wife to me, then I say, God bless

you, Grizell Cochran, for you are a good woman!”

Donald was not given to the making of long speeches. His voice broke

many times in the course of this, and the tears were running down Lady

Grizell’s pale cheeks. She held out her hands to him, saying simply,

“Take me to her!” and the two tall figures went out across the grass

together.

A CLEAN PACK

Basil sat alone in the schoolroom, although it was past bedtime. Nurse,

like everybody else, had apparently forgotten him, but Basil, absorbed

in his own thoughts, sat on by the dying fire. There were always fires

in his grandfather’s house whenever it was in the least cold, and that

August it was very cold, so cold that grandfather, getting wet through

out shooting, somehow got a chill, was ill only three days, and now

was lying dead in the big bedroom over Basil’s head. So Basil had a

good deal to think about. It was not that death was new to him--from

his earliest infancy it had been impressed upon him that his father

was dead--but that he could not by any stretch of fancy imagine what

life would be without grandfather--grandfather who was lying with his

beautiful hands crossed on his breast in that long, light-colored

wooden box upstairs.

Basil resented the fact that grandfather’s coffin should be made of

light wood. It seemed incongruous and impertinent, somehow, that

anything used by grandfather should be otherwise than old--old and

rich-colored and seemly; and the child found himself wondering whether

grandfather was annoyed. There were many things in that bedroom

calculated to annoy him, Basil reflected. In the first place, when

mother took him in that afternoon that he might lay the asters gathered

in his own garden at his grandfather’s feet, he remarked that all

the blinds were down, and grandfather would have hated that, and the

windows were shut, and there was a heavy scent of hot-house flowers.

“I fear he’s very uncomfortable,” whispered Basil to himself. “He’ll

be glad to get to heaven out of that stuffy room.” For grandfather had

loved air as much as he liked fires.

The horizon of Basil’s experience was somewhat limited. It consisted

of mother and grandfather, and of “other grandfather,” who lived at

Altringham in Cheshire, and was mother’s father.

Every year Basil and mother went to Altringham for six weeks, and life

there was so utterly different from what it was with grandfather that

Basil never ceased to puzzle over it and to wonder why mother always

cried when she came away, and why “other grandfather” always said: “You

moost bear with the old heathen, Sophia; he’s been generous enough as

regards mooney, and, remember, you can be _in_ the world but not of it.”

There were aunts, too, at Altringham, who made a great fuss of Basil

for about three days, and then seemed to find him greatly in the way;

while “other grandfather” had a most embarrassing way of suddenly

demanding: “Well, yoong mon, and how’s the ciphering?”

Basil loved his mother very dearly, but he could have wished that she

took life a little less sadly. A gentle melancholy characterized her

every thought, and the child felt rather than understood that her

mental attitude toward her father-in-law was that of a deprecating

disapproval. Grandfather felt it too, for only a week before Basil had

heard him say to one of the gentlemen who were tramping the stubble

with him: “We shall never understand each other, my poor little

daughter and I, though we’ve lived together seven years. She’s as good

as gold, and I don’t think I’m particularly _difficile_, but there it

is--we can never get the same focus for anything.” Basil was walking

just behind with the keeper, who blushed up to the roots of his hair as

he called out: “I’m here, you know, grandfather.”

Grandfather pulled up short and turned to look at Basil. Then he gave

a queer little laugh. “There’s not much Manchester about the boy,” he

said, and tramped on.

They all went to London from November till the end of March, and there

grandfather generally dined at his club and played whist afterward,

while Basil’s mother had supper with him or had friends of her own to

dinner, just as she liked. Grandfather could not get on without his

rubber. Even in the country, three times a week three broughams drove

solemnly up the drive, and three old gentlemen descended therefrom to

dine with grandfather and play whist afterwards.

In London on fine nights he walked to his club, and Basil used to watch

him go from the nursery window just as he was going to bed; and at the

lamp grandfather always stopped and looked up at the curly head pressed

against the pane, then he would lift his hat with a grand sweep and

walk on, while Basil hugged himself with the delighted conviction that

_his_ grandfather was the very handsomest old gentleman in the whole

world. And sometimes grandfather would crush his hat over his eyes,

while a spasm of pain crossed his clean-shaven, stately old face, and

he’d whisper to himself: “My God! how like he is to my poor boy.”

* * * * *

Among the very first things that Basil ever learned were the different

“suits” in cards. Grandfather taught him and gave him a shilling for

every suit as he knew them and the values of the cards, as in whist.

Then he taught Basil whist, playing double-dummy, and explaining as

they went along: “I wish you, Basil, to play whist as a gentleman

should, carefully and with due consideration, with the intelligence and

respect that the game deserves, not like a counter jumper for penny

points.”

It must be confessed that Basil took to this instruction much more

kindly than to that included under the heading of “ciphering,” or even

of reading and spelling. At six he could play a “fair hand,” at which

he was somewhat puffed up, the only drawback being that mother did

not seem to take any interest in his achievements. She never played

herself, though grandfather impressed upon her that she was preparing

for herself an unhappy old age; in fact, she did not seem to like cards

at all.

One very wet Sunday grandfather had arranged four “hands” on the

library table, and was proceeding to play a game out of “Cavendish”

for Basil’s instruction, when his mother suddenly came into the room.

She gave one quick glance at the table with the cards, and came forward

and stood beside it, saying very quietly: “I do not wish Basil to play

cards on Sunday.”

Grandfather had risen to his feet as Basil’s mother entered the

room. It would never have occurred to him to sit down while his

daughter-in-law was standing; he swept the cards into a little heap

with one swift movement of his beautiful white old hands, and said,

with a grave little bow:

“I apologize, my dear. I had for the moment forgotten

your--er--convictions on this question. What _may_ we play at?--for

I’ve made a bet with myself to keep Basil amused till teatime, and I

don’t want to lose it.” Then, turning to Basil--who, conscious of the

thunder in the air, felt very unhappy indeed: “It’s not your fault, my

boy. You’ve not been naughty. It’s I who was forgetful.”

Basil’s mother looked from one to the other a little piteously. She

had no weapons wherewith to meet her father-in-law’s smiling courtesy.

She might have liked him better had he sometimes been rude. “Other

grandfather” was not uniformly courteous.

On Sunday mornings they all three went to church together, and

grandfather sat under the big carved tablet which set forth how Basil’s

father had died at Ulundi, “aged twenty-nine.” Grandfather always

carried his daughter-in-law’s prayer book for her up to the house,

discussed the sermon with her, and was, as he himself would have put

it, “vastly agreeable.”

* * * * *

A piece of coal fell out on the hearth and startled Basil out of his

reverie. He had evidently come to some decision, for he nodded his head

emphatically, muttering: “I’d better do it. I’m sure he’ll be bored if

I don’t, and I mayn’t get another chance.”

The room was quite dark but for the flickering firelight, which had

brightened since that big piece of coal fell apart. Basil went to

his own special cupboard and took from it a pack of cards, which his

grandfather had given him only last week. Grandfather never used the

same pack on two consecutive evenings, and gave one to Basil nearly

every week with the instruction: “Never use dirty cards, even to build

castles with.” The child had never played with the ones he held in his

hands, and his big grey eyes filled with tears as he wrapped them up in

a leaf torn out of his copy-book. Then, laboriously, for Basil was no

scribe, he wrote on the packet, a proceeding which took a considerable

time. He gave a sob as he kissed his message, but there was no time to

be lost. Slipping off his shoes, he opened the door very softly, raced

across the hall and up the stairs. The staircase was quite dark, for

Chapman had forgotten to light the lamps.

When he reached his grandfather’s bedroom door he paused with his hand

on the handle. His heart was pounding in his ears, and for a full

minute he could not hear whether all was quiet in the room or not.

Opening the door very softly, and as softly shutting it after him, he

ran across the room and pulled up the blind of the big window that

faced the bed. The moon came out from behind a bank of cloud, as if to

aid him in his task, and shone full on that strange last couch at the

foot of the bed in which grandfather lay so still under his coverlet

of flowers. Basil pushed at the heavy window, but it was fastened far

out of his reach, and he could not let in the fresh night air that

grandfather loved. As his eyes grew accustomed to the lighter room, he

came and stood by that light-colored box that he hated so, lifted the

white cloth covering his grandfather’s face, and looked at him long and

earnestly.

Basil had very vague notions as to what heaven was like; but, on

reviewing all that he had heard of it, he came to the conclusion that

if there was no whist there grandfather would be dull, and he had

often heard him say: “There’s only one thing that I dread, and that’s

boredom.” So Basil had decided that at all costs such a contingency

must be avoided, and grandfather must teach the angels to play whist.

“They can p’obably make more cards when they’ve seen them,” said Basil

to himself, and pushed his little packet underneath the folded hands,

kissed them, and turned to go as softly as he had come.

But the door opened at that moment, and his mother, candle in hand,

stood on the threshold gazing at the little figure standing full in the

strand of moonlight thrown across the carpet.

“What are you doing here, Basil?” she asked breathlessly.

“I came to give something to grandfather. Oh, don’t take it away from

him!”

The passionate distress in the child’s voice moved her.

“I will take nothing away from him that you wish to give him. But what

is it? Is it flowers?”

“No, mother, it is not flowers.”

She came into the room, closing the door after her.

“I must see what it is,” she said very gently.

Basil stood where he was as though turned to stone. Would she take it

away--or would she put it back? He could not see her, for he stood with

his back to her, and seemed incapable of turning round. His mother,

noting the disarrangement of the flowers, drew out the little packet,

and, holding her candle close, read the inscription in the large

uncertain writing:

“DEAR GRANDFATHER,

“I’m sory it’s not a cleane pak, but I don’t know where they are.

“Your loving boy,

“BASIL.”

AN IRON SEAT

He sat at one end of the seat, she at the other, and the seat was on

the cliffs overlooking the sea at Wolsuth on the Suffolk coast. They

say that if your eyes were strong enough you could see the coast of

Holland; but even with telescopes no one has yet succeeded in doing

that.

At first he hardly noticed her--she was so small and still and read her

book so assiduously; but she could have passed a searching examination

as to his appearance, for she had studied it carefully. She would

have told you that he was tall, and thin, and dark, and “rather old”;

that his beard was grey, though his hair was black and decidedly thin

on the top; that his spectacles had gold rims and the eyes behind

them were very kind; that his manner struck you as extremely grave

and decorous: what impressed her most, however, was that big, dull,

paper-covered book he was always reading. She was sure it was dull, for

_she_ couldn’t read a word of it; it was in German--she knew that much,

and she had tried to pronounce the title to herself in bed at night,

but never came near it at all, for it looked like this: “Mendelejeef

Chemie,” and it would take a very sharp little girl of ten to make much

out of that.

No one ever came to sit between them on that iron seat; it was far from

the esplanade, and overlooked a lonely part of the beach where there

were no “entertainments.” When they had sat there for several days,

the man who read “Mendelejeef Chemie” looked up suddenly to find that

his companion at the other end of the seat was wiping her eyes with

the absurdest little red-bordered handkerchief. She held her book in

one hand--a somewhat large and heavy book for such a little hand--and

wiped her eyes with the other, and yet the man was sure that she was

not unhappy, for her thin brown cheeks were flushed, and though her

mouth was tremulous it wore a proud and happy smile. He was devoured by

curiosity. What book could it be that had the power to move a little

girl in so complex a fashion?

He shifted down the seat toward her; but she was so absorbed in what

she was reading that she never looked his way, and he found that the

book she held in her hand was “From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria.”

Suddenly she looked round and saw him. Quite simply and naturally she

offered him a share of her book, saying enthusiastically:

“Isn’t it splendid? And my daddie was there through it all.”

“Are you ready?” she said presently.

The man nodded, and she turned the page. Then, with tears still shining

on her cheeks, she began to read aloud:

“It was a procession of lions. And presently, when the two battalions

of Devons met--both full of honors--and old friends breaking from the

ranks gripped each other’s hands and shouted, everyone was carried

away, and I waved my feathered hat and cheered and cheered until I

could cheer no longer for joy that I had lived to see the day....”

Here she stopped, and, turning her radiant face to the man beside her,

cried:

“Aren’t you glad you weren’t born in any other century? Isn’t it a good

thing to be in the world when there are such splendid things happening?”

The man smiled down at her, saying heartily: “It is, indeed!” And

straightway they were friends.

Ever afterward they sat in the middle of the seat quite close together,

and although Winny--that was her name--continued to read “From London

to Ladysmith,” she read it aloud, and “Mendelejeef” lay neglected on

the far end of the seat.

They talked a great deal about the war, and the man found that this

little girl knew all about it, from the battle of Glencoe to the relief

of Ladybrand, the name and whereabouts of every regiment, the result of

every single engagement big or little.

He learned that last year her father had been home on long leave

and had brought them all to Wolsuth, “and oh! we did have a lovely

time!” but that this year mother couldn’t afford it, “War risks are so

expensive, you know,” that she--Winny--had been silly enough to get

influenza in July, and an aunt had consented to let her come with her

own family.

“Mother and the boys--there’s three boys younger than me: I’m the

eldest--have got to stay at home this year. I’m so sorry, though I’d

far rather be with them, only I’ve _got_ to get strong. Daddie said so

in his last letter.”

The man gathered that her aunt and cousins were not altogether

_simpatica_, though Winny never said so; still, every day she came

and sat on the iron seat after her bath and talked of her book, for

which she had unbounded admiration, and of her own small affairs.

Being an excellent listener, the man found himself well amused, for

he was one of those people who keep the best part of themselves for

old friends and little children, and are always quite misunderstood

and unappreciated by casual acquaintances, which lack of appreciation

doesn’t trouble them in the least.

He learned that one of the “boys” was going into the Royal Engineers,

“because there you can live on your pay from the first if you’re

careful,” another into the Artillery, “and we may spare one for the

Navy.”

“And what are you going to be?” he asked one day, after they had

exhaustively discussed the futures of the three boys.

“Oh, I’m going to be a mother,” she replied, with immense decision.

“You see, you have such a lot of people to take care of you and love

you, if you’re a mother.”

“But you have to take care of them first, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, just at first--but afterwards---- You should just see the

care we take of mother, daddie and all.”

The man looked out to sea and tried to picture the eager little figure

at his side as a large comfortable mother of many children. He tried so

hard that he forgot to answer her last remark, and she asked anxiously:

“Don’t you think it’s a good thing to be?”

“Excellent!” he answered heartily. “It is one of the oldest and most

honorable professions; mothers are people we can in nowise ever do

without.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Winny, in a satisfied voice, “and that’s

what I’m going to be; I made up my mind years ago.”

* * * * *

One day as he arrived at their trysting place he discovered that Winny

was crying in right down earnest, and not for joy that Ladysmith had

been relieved. The little red-bordered handkerchief was screwed up

into a tight, wet ball, and the small figure in blue serge looked very

woebegone indeed. She had taken off her fisherman’s cowl, and cast

it on the ground beside her; and when she saw her friend, instead of

waving him a gay welcome as he came up, she shook her curly brown hair

round her cheeks to hide her face.

All this was so unlike Winny that the man immediately reflected with

dismay that he had not read the morning paper at all carefully. It was

possible that some disaster had happened to her father. In those days

we were apt to trace all sorrows to South Africa.

“No bad news, I hope?” he said in rather a hesitating way as he came up.

Winny shook her head till her face was entirely hidden by her hair; but

she did not answer otherwise.

“You may as well tell me what’s the matter,” said the man; “it may not

be past mending.”

Now there was something about this man that inspired confidence;

moreover, he offered Winny his own handkerchief, which was large and

clean and comforting. So she accepted it, mopped her wet face, shook

back her hair, and began: “I don’t bathe with the others, you know.”

Here she paused so long that the man said, “Well?” though it was

against his principles to interrupt anybody’s narrative.

“I bathe at Herrington’s machines,” she continued, “where we always

bathed last year--daddie too--right far away at the end of the beach.

My aunt and cousins bathe where the niggers are, and the concert, and

such crowds of people you have to wait ever so long for a machine. So I

asked if I might bathe with Herrington like last year, for he’s such a

nice man, and he takes such care of me, and daddie liked him awfully.

There’s been Herringtons in Wolsuth since 1400!”

Winny paused after this announcement, evidently expecting comment of

some sort.

“That’s a long record,” said the man, rising to the occasion. “And what

was Mr. Herrington before he took to keeping bathing-machines?”

“He was mate on a schooner, and one of his sons is a captain of a

merchantman; he’s raised himself tremendously. Then there’s two

sons who help Herrington, and are fishermen in winter; and Mrs.

Herrington does washing. Oh, they’re such a nice family!” she exclaimed

ecstatically.

The man looked out to sea, wondering what on earth all this had to do

with her tears. But he was a patient person; so he waited.

“I go home to-morrow,” she continued, “and I’ve had one of Herrington’s

bathing-machines ever since I came--going on for three weeks now--and

he’s taken me out in the boat and let me dive and swim, and been so

kind and jolly, and to-day, when I asked my aunt for the money to pay

him--it’s fourpence each time--she wouldn’t give it me, and laughed and

said that it wouldn’t hurt him to take me for nothing this year, he

made such a lot out of us last. Think of it!” she exclaimed, clasping

and unclasping her hands. “It’s his living! It’s like taking a leg of

mutton from a butcher for nothing. I told auntie that mother would send

it to her if she’d let me have it, but she only laughed and said it was

nonsense. Of course mother will send it to _him_, but that’s not the

same. He’ll have to think me shabby and ungrateful for nearly three

days, for I can’t go and say good-bye to him when I’ve nothing to give

him. I’ve only sixpence. Isn’t it dreadful?”

The man reflected that there were people who had no objection to

accepting legs of mutton from their butchers, who rather resented the

fact that these same butchers ventured on occasion to send in a bill;

but evidently the soldier who had been shut up in Ladysmith brought up

his children with a different view of their obligations. He was very

sorry for Winny, but he didn’t dare to offer her the money. There are

people to whom one cannot offer money.

“Can’t you tell Herrington how you are placed?” he feebly suggested.

“Of course not,” the child answered scornfully. “He’d say I was ‘more’n

welcome’ to my baths, and that it didn’t matter a pin. It’s just

because I know he’d gladly give me my baths that it hurts so. It’s his

_living_,” she repeated. As she spoke she stood up and stuffed the

little wet handkerchief into her pocket.

The man was sitting with his hands thrust deep into his own, as men

will when perplexed or troubled. Winny stood with her back to him,

gazing sorrowfully at Herrington’s bathing-machines on the distant

beach.

The little pocket gaped, and the man succumbed to temptation. Very

gingerly he dropped a crown piece into the opening which displayed the

drenched handkerchief. Then he stood up. “I’m going by the afternoon

train,” he said, “so I fear I must say good-bye. But I hope we shall

meet again some day.”

“I hope so,” sighed Winny, as she held up her face to be kissed, and

wondered why he seemed in such a hurry and never even asked her to walk

back with him.

LÉON

I would have our children taught, so far as teaching can go, to love

and admire France, that glorious nation which has done so much and

suffered so much for humanity.--WILLIAM ARCHER, 1898.

We did not believe it possible that a boy of nine could wear

high-buttoned boots, a pale blue sash, and long hair like a girl’s,

and yet possess a character unaffected by these deplorable externals.

That, in addition to this, he should be French, speaking that

“_nimini pimini_” language with perfect ease; and, in further proof

of his mental slipperiness, speak English almost equally well--but

for a curious roll and rumble of the letter “r” in the back of the

throat--was another serious stumbling-block in the way of our liking.

It was not natural. Had he been puny, or sallow, or in any way

physically “Frenchy” as we supposed it, we should have found him less

bewildering. But he was sturdy, ruddy, and fair-haired; tall for his

age, and of a frank cheerfulness that was rather engaging. Absolutely

unashamed of his inferior nationality, unconscious, seemingly, of those

elongated buttoned boots, he would shake back his tawny hair and look

you squarely in the face with big blue eyes that smiled. He didn’t

look a “Molly,” somehow, in spite of his hair; but we children were

convinced that he “must be one, really,” and that what the twins called

his “false French smile” was a sort of cloak for the innate cowardice

of his disposition.

What induced Aunt Alice to marry a French officer, we could not

think! That she and her husband were what mother called “devoted to

one another” seemed to us an insufficient explanation. Not only did

she marry this foreigner and desert her native land, but she became a

Roman Catholic--nurse minded this most and called her a Papist--and

she seemed perfectly happy in her exile. She was supposed to be a very

beautiful person, but what most impressed us during her rare and brief

visits was the quality and quantity of the sweets she brought us;

sweets in gorgeous boxes which bore the mystic device _Gouache_. France

was, we were convinced, a poor sort of place, but exception must be

made in favor of her sweets.

In reflecting upon our general attitude toward France and the French at

this time, I am reminded of the man who scornfully held up to ridicule

a country so far left to itself as to speak of bread as “Pain.”

“But,” suggested a more tolerant friend, “we call it bread.”

“Ah! it _is_ bread, you see.”

But to return to Léon. His father’s regiment had been ordered to some

place in Africa, where they could not take Léon, and as Aunt Alice was

going with her husband for at least six months, Léon was sent to us.

Eric and I decided that it was a bore. Jennie, who is queer and

contradictory at times, said nothing. She adores Aunt Alice. The twins,

who had just been doing the Battle of Waterloo in history, and were

rampantly patriotic, expressed grave doubts as to whether it was quite

loyal to Queen Victoria to receive Léon at all.

“No one likes to go about all day with a mountebank!” grumbled Eric.

“If only he’d had fewer clothes!” I sighed.

But even the most sanguine destroyer of garments could hardly hope that

Léon would wear out the quantity of which he was possessed in less than

six months.

The twins and Léon came toward us from the tennis lawn; the twins red

and triumphant, Léon red and evidently perturbed. Jennie followed,

lingering in the rear; she is lame, not a cripple, you know, but

noticeably lame.

“England won!” shouted the twins. They always seemed to speak in a sort

of chorus.

Léon sat down on the bank beside us and shook his hair back from his

face. He evidently intended to appeal to Eric about something; but just

as he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Jennie.

“Come, my cousin,” he called, patting the bank beside him; “we shall

have good fortune another time!”

“England won!” chanted the twins again. “We always do!”

“That is not so!” cried Léon angrily. “Why do you speak to despise

my country? If you were in France, my guest, we speak not forever of

Hastings?”

“Oh, that was ages ago,” said Eric judicially; “but you were not fairly

matched.”

“Léon had me, you see,” put in Jennie.

“Not so, my cousin, your play was beautiful,” said Léon, and he took

her hand and patted it. He had queer affectionate ways, and never

seemed to mind showing that he liked people. “We beat them next time.”

“I wonder what makes Léon so chummy with Jennie?” I asked Eric half

an hour later, as we rested after a hot “single.” “Do you think it’s

because she’s the only one of us that couldn’t lick him?”

Eric raised himself on his elbows and stared at me.

“Well, of all the chuckle-headed ideas I ever heard! Really, for

downright wrong-headedness, give me the average girl. Can’t you see,

you silly, that it’s because she’s lame, and the little beggar’s sorry

for her? He’s a good-hearted kid if he is Frenchy, and as to licking,

just you wait----”

I felt very much snubbed and rather aggrieved, for only that afternoon

Eric had grumbled about Léon’s clothes and called him a “mountebank.”

Boys seem to keep things separate somehow, in a curious way.

One day Jennie and Léon had been sent to the Home Farm to fetch eggs.

It was really the twins’ turn, but they hid so that they shouldn’t

have to go, for it was a very hot afternoon. Eric and I went for a

stroll through the fields in the same direction to look at a nest of

young yellow-hammers in the big paddock. There’s a sort of hill in the

big paddock, and we saw Jennie and Léon coming down the cart road from

the farm; they went by the road because Jennie hates climbing gates--it

hurts her. Léon was carrying the eggs and they came very slowly,

because Jennie was tired. Toward them came one, Fred Oram, a village

boy, not a nice boy at all. He hates us because the head groom gave him

a thrashing when he caught him throwing stones at the thoroughbreds.

Fred Oram began to limp like Jennie, and called out:

“’Ullo, Frenchy! Shall I plait your ’air for ya?”

Eric, who happened to be at home because two-thirds of his school got

measles and mother was nervous, began to run, and I ran after him;

but we were a good way from the gate, and the hedge is too thick to

get through. We ran alongside of it, and heard Léon say in his funny,

stilted English:

“Please hold the eggs, my cousin!” Then, evidently to Fred: “How dare

you to mock at my cousin and insult me?”

As we reached the gate Eric pulled me back.

“Let the kid alone!” he whispered. “He’s not afraid.”

It reminded me of old King Edward, and “Let the boy win his spurs.”

None of the three saw us. Jennie was standing on the grass at the side,

looking very red and excited; Fred Oram was pulling Léon’s hair and

dancing round him, making derisive remarks. Léon wrenched his head

away, and with a bound stood in the middle of the road, facing his

enemy. In spite of his buttony boots--in spite of his blue sash and his

long hair--Fred seemed rather afraid of him, for Léon looked, and was,

furious.

For about half a minute they stood looking at each other. Léon shouted,

“Lâche! Lâche!”--he forgot to speak English, he was so excited--then,

“En garde!”--and there seemed a thousand _r_s in that _garde_--and he

sprang on Fred, who went down like a ninepin.

Eric vaulted the gate, yelling excitedly, “By Jove! the kid can box.”

Jennie laid down the eggs on the grass, and hid her face in her hands.

But she looked through her fingers. I saw her.

In another minute Fred was upon his feet. He was bigger than any of

us--even Eric. Léon went at him again, calling out what we supposed to

be battle-cries in French, and I do believe that the French alarmed

Fred as much as the pommelling. Anyway, down he went again, with Léon

on the top of him.

“Time!” shouted Eric, picking upon Léon and wiping his face, which was

hard to see, for his nose was bleeding and one eye was swollen.

But Fred got up and began to walk away, remarking with surly dignity:

“I don’t care for to fight with no French tiger-cats.”

Léon broke away from Eric, and ran after his late foe. Fred stopped and

took up a defensive attitude, but Léon went up with his grubby right

hand held out.

“Shake!” he cried. “We have foughten; it is over. Shake with me?” And

Fred shook. “That was quite English?” asked Léon anxiously, as he came

back to be cleaned.

Eric looked at him very kindly. “It was all right,” he said; and Léon

squared his shoulders with modest pride.

“I never saw such a nose to bleed!” exclaimed Eric, ten minutes later,

as the last available handkerchief had been reduced to a crimson, pulpy

ball. “There’s one sash done for, anyway. I suppose the suit’ll wash,

which is a pity.”

On the way home Eric carried the eggs, and Jennie walked hand in hand

with Léon. They rather lagged behind, and presently I heard Jennie

whisper--I have very sharp ears:

“Léon, am I so very lame?”

“My little cousin, I do not see you lame at all, except when you are

fatigued; and we all of us walk badly when we are fatigued;” and he

stopped and kissed Jennie on both cheeks.

I had often heard that the French say what is pleasant at the expense

of what is true; but just then I wondered if it was always such a bad

thing, for when I turned and looked at my little sister her face was

perfectly radiant, and she was hardly limping at all.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Eric, when Léon had been carried off

by the authorities to have keys put down his back, his eye bathed, and

to be generally cleaned up; and we were all five sitting in solemn

conclave on the largest wheelbarrow--the twins had joined us, much

excited by recent events--“I’ll tell you what it is: you kids must drop

that Waterloo business, and we must none of us mind his queer clothes

any more. He’s a ripping good sort, and, after all, he can’t help being

French!”

“And he wouldn’t help it if he could!” cried Jennie. “France is a great

country.”

For a wonder nobody contradicted her. We were all busy readjusting

preconceived ideas.

THE OLD RELIGION

God is above the sphere of our esteem,

And is the best known, not defining Him.

ROBERT HERRICK.

It’s a far cry from a busy street in Leith to a village in the

loveliest part of wooded Gloucestershire; but, at eight years old,

vicissitude is borne with a calm philosophy seemingly unattainable in

later years, and Maggie McClachlan expressed no great wonder at her new

environment, rather to the disappointment of her worthy aunt, who was

fully aware of her own extreme good nature and condescension in “taking

the lassie for the whole summer, and paying her fare _both_ ways.”

Measles followed by an obstinate “hoast,” was the commonplace cause

that transported Maggie to this strange new country. The long, roaring,

whirring, bewildering journey--in which she was passed by a kindly

official into the varied guardianship of such passengers as were going

her way--left her dazed and puzzled, but not unhappy. Her childless

uncle and aunt were kind, and there were the woods.

The first thing that struck Maggie about these woods was the singular

absence of bits of paper; neither did she come upon any broken bottles

in the course of her wanderings. This lack seemed even more wonderful

to her than the presence of innumerable foxgloves. She had spent an

occasional afternoon in the woods at Aberdour, but always in a crowd.

Here the spaciousness and peace attracted her, even as it filled her

little soul with an awe that was a thing apart from fear. If in after

years Maggie should read what Mr. Henry James has written of “a great,

good Place,” she will understand it better than most people.

For the first week she met with no adventures. Her aunt, a bustling,

busy, thrifty Scotswoman, worked a great deal up at the big house; her

uncle assisted in the manufacture of the “superfine broadcloth” for

which the little village used to be famous, and Maggie was left to do

much as she pleased. Her cough left her, and the color came into her

pale cheeks, and the sun set his mark upon the bridge of her nose in

the shape of a band of the dearest little brown freckles.

Hitherto she had not gone far into the woods, but with returning health

came a spirit of adventure. One afternoon she wandered on and on,

singing softly to herself a ditty relating that “Kitty Bairdie had a

coo,” going on to describe minutely, and at length, the various animals

owned by this worthy lady, and concluding each verse with the cheerful

injunction, “Dance, Kitty Bairdie!”

Everything seemed to want to sing that afternoon, and did sing, too,

lustily and long. Unconsciously Maggie raised her voice till the

final “Dance, Kitty Bairdie!” had quite a rollicking sound, and she

found herself doing a sort of double shuffle among the ground ivy and

foxgloves.

It is not easy to dance in and out of ground ivy and brambles, and

Maggie paused for breath, only to catch it again in a perfect agony

of fear, as, not five yards from her, she beheld a big white figure,

apparently just risen out of the ground.

Paralyzed with terror, she stood staring at the vision. A tall man it

was--she was sure it was a man, and no ghost--clad in curious flowing

robes of soft whitey flannel, falling to his feet in innumerable folds,

while in his hand he held what Maggie took to be some instrument of

torture. It was a butterfly net; but Maggie did not know this, for

people did not catch many butterflies in Commercial Street, Leith.

The whole dreadful truth flashed upon her. This was one of the monks!

Had she not read in a guide to the neighborhood that “The Dominican

Priory of the Annunciation is a large and handsome building; here

candidates for the priesthood pursue a course of study in divinity and

philosophy. It is under the government of a Prior.” This, then, must

be one of the priests, and having been very well brought up in the

strictest sect of the Free Kirk, she was sure that if only he succeeded

in “catching her,” she would be put to unspeakable tortures, or forced

to recant her faith.

Had she not with her own eyes seen her mother hastily slam the door of

their flat in the face of a woman wearing a queer head-dress and long

cloak, who had come to beg for money?

“I’ll ha’e none o’ they Papishes here!” her mother exclaimed angrily,

and then--for it was just before Maggie came south--“and you, Maggie,

if you see ony o’ them when you’re wi’ your aunty, just turn and flee.

I’m told there’s a whole clamjamfray o’ them there, an’ ye can never

tell what they Jesuits will be at.”

So, having found her breath sufficiently to give a wild cry, Maggie

turned and fled.

The queer white man, who, as she afterward remembered, looked

astonished, called something after her. But Maggie’s heart was thumping

in her ears to the exclusion of every other sound, and she ran blindly

on till one treacherous little foot, more used to pavements than rough

forest ground, gave under her with a horrid wrench, and she fell

forward in a terrified little heap just as she reached a footpath

leading she knew not whither.

There she lay shivering with pain and fear, with her eyes shut, for she

heard the soft swish of long garments through the undergrowth. Then a

shadow fell upon her, and she was lifted up into a pair of strong arms,

while a voice that even her excited imagination could not construe as

unkindly exclaimed:

“I do believe I frightened you, and I’m awfully sorry. I don’t suppose

you ever saw such a funny frock before!”

There was something human and disarming about the “awfully” and “funny

frock”; moreover, the owner of the voice did not hold her as though she

were a captive. He sat down at the foot of the big tree whose gnarled

roots had tripped Maggie up, and set her on his knee. Besides, the

voluminous flannel garment had a most reassuring and workaday smell of

soap. But she could not bring herself to open her eyes just yet. She

screwed them and her courage up very tight, and whispered:

“I’ll no recant! Ye may burn me, but I’ll no recant!”

The big, queer man threw back his head and laughed, and his laugh was

even more inspiring of confidence than his speaking voice. But he

pulled himself up short in the very middle of his laugh to ask:

“I say, though, did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

Maggie opened her eyes the tiniest little bit, and for the first time

saw this queer man’s face. It was a kind face, a handsome face, with

large merry brown eyes and an exceedingly straight nose. His mouth was

well cut and firm, and when he smiled as he did then, he showed two

rows of admirably white and even teeth. And the good smell of soap was

in no way deceptive, for there was about this queer man’s appearance a

radiant cleanliness that was by no means merely physical. All this did

Maggie gravely take in through half-shut eyes, and though the pain in

her ankle was horrible, and her heart still danced a sort of breakdown

against her ribs, she was no longer afraid--only very, very curious.

The queer tall man, looking down at the face resting against his arm,

noticed that it was small and white, with long-lashed closed eyes set

rather far apart, and that the little freckles looked pathetically

prominent across the thin small nose; and even as Maggie was comforted

by the good smell of clean flannel, so he recognized approvingly that

he held in his arms a very clean little girl, even though her pinafore

was patched and her shoes worn at the toes.

“Are you hurt, you poor mite?” he asked again.

For answer Maggie stuck out the painful foot, and behold! there was a

big lump on the ankle, and it looked twice as big as the other one.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” cried the queer man. “You’ve sprained

your ankle.”

As he spoke he set Maggie on the ground beside him very gently, and

diving into the folds of his habit produced a large handkerchief, which

he proceeded to tear into strips. Then, very gently and deftly, he

bandaged up the poor swollen foot. By this time Maggie’s blue eyes were

wide open, and as he stooped over her foot she found time to wonder why

he wore such “a wee, wee roond cappie” on the back of his head. The

pain was bad, but she tried hard not to flinch, and when it was all

done and the bandage fastened with a little pebble brooch that she had

worn at her neck, he said gaily:

“And now to carry you home, for that foot must have hot fomentations as

soon as possible.”

Here, however, Maggie demurred. “I can walk fine,” she announced with

great dignity, and tried; but it was no use--she couldn’t even stand,

the pain was so bad.

So the “papist man” picked her up in his arms and set off toward the

village.

Now, Maggie was just a little anxious at this, for she had wandered a

good way into the park, and the path he took seemed quite unfamiliar.

With unprecedented courage she took hold of his chin with her hand and

turned his face that she could see it.

“You’re sure you’re no takin’ me to your convent?” she asked gravely,

as one who begs to know the worst at once. She still had fleeting

visions of a dungeon followed by stake and faggots if she proved leal

to the faith of her fathers.

“My dear child, they wouldn’t have you there. We don’t allow any women

to come in--not even little girls--where I live.”

Maggie was silent for a minute; then, because every Scotsman, woman, or

child loves an argument, and a theological argument best of all, she

said slowly:

“But you worship a woman--images of a woman.”

“Ah, that’s rather different. I don’t think we’ll discuss that,

because, you see, we look at everything from rather different points of

view. How’s that poor foot of yours? You’re a regular Spartan to bear

pain. Am I carrying you comfortably?”

Here was another facer for Maggie; he did not want “to discuss that.”

“I thought,” she said, “that you liked to burn everybody wha’ didna

’gree wi’ you--when ye got the chance,” she added.

“Oh, we’re not quite so black as we’re painted, and the world is big

enough for us all nowadays, even though there are so many more people

in it. Isn’t that a good thing?”

Maggie’s honest little heart yearned over this mistaken man, who

carried little girls so tenderly, who seemed so kind and gay.

“I wish that you were no a papish,” she said softly, “for I’m sorely

afraid that ye’ll no win Heaven if you worship graven images.”

The papist in question stopped short in the middle of the woodland

path. The sunlight shining through the leaves painted fantastic

patterns on his white draperies, and his eyes were very kind as he said

gently:

“Don’t you think there will be even more room in Heaven than there is

here for all sorts of people, provided they are kind, and brave, and

honest, and do their best?”

And Maggie agreed that it might be possible, and was something

comforted. By and by he asked her what the nice song was that she had

been singing when he first met her, and she sang it again for him all

through, till he, too, learned the tune; then she taught him the words,

and although his Scotch left much to be desired, they made a very

considerable noise between them, and the woods resounded to the strains

of “Dance, Kitty Bairdie.”

* * * * *

“They monks seem different to the ordinary sort,” said Maggie that

night, when, after much fomentation of the injured ankle, her aunt

tucked her into bed.

“They’re just harmless haverals,” said her aunt indulgently; but

Maggie “added a wee thing” onto her prayers, and whispered under the

bed-clothes:

“Please make room for yon clean man at--any--rate.”

COMRADES

He was called Bunchy because, when a very little boy, his clothes

_would_ bunch; the tiny petticoats were short for their width, and

everything stuck out all round him like a frill.

Now that he was five, and wore breeches with four little buttons at the

knee, the name still stuck to him, though it was no longer appropriate.

Bunchy was lonely.

If Pussy had been there it would have been very different; but she had

been sent for quite suddenly to go and nurse dad, who had incontinently

fallen ill with influenza just three days after mother (Bunchy always

called her Pussy), Nana, and he had settled down for a fortnight’s

holiday in a Cotteswold village.

It was a delightful village! It had a green with noisy geese upon it,

a stream that gurgled and splashed and told fairy tales on sleepy

September afternoons, and real woods surrounded it.

The cottage where Pussy had taken rooms was ever so pretty, and had a

garden full of currant-bushes and celery.

For three days they had a lovely time. They sought giants in the

woods, finding squirrels instead--which were prettier and only less

exciting; they paddled their feet in the stream and caught minnows in

a bottle; they pretended that the geese on the green were “Trolls,” and

routed them with great slaughter; and they had found mushrooms before

breakfast in a neighboring field.

Then Pussy had to go away, and for Bunchy the face of Nature was

changed and clouded. Only Nana was left, and, although very kind, she

was not an exciting companion. She knew nothing of giants, and seemed

to care very little about Trolls. Moreover, on this particular morning

she sat indoors making a cotton dress, and told Bunchy to “run and play

in the garden like a good little boy, and not worry.” How can people,

he thought, sit in a room and sew when all the beautiful out-of-doors

seems clamoring for them to come and admire it?

However, he played in the garden for a while; but it was rather a small

garden, and he grew tired of being a “third son” all by himself, with

no one to admire him, so he came in again and climbed the steep little

staircase. Finding the door of his mother’s room open, he went in. The

dressing-table faced the door, and the first thing he saw was a pair

of Pussy’s slippers standing in front of it. They had tall curly heels

and buckles, such as she loved, and he remembered how, even with the

tall heels, she did not reach to daddy’s shoulder. Somehow the sight of

those slippers made him want her so dreadfully that he couldn’t stay

in the room or in the garden. He went out into the road to walk and

walk until he should come to Yorkshire, where daddy was laid up in the

house of a bachelor friend with whom he had gone to shoot.

It was a very straight road, with a trim path by the side. By and by

he came to some big gates. There was a little house inside them, all

covered with purple clematis. The gate stood open, and as Bunchy was

rather tired of the neat, straight road, he turned in, and went down a

very broad gravel path. A little way inside the gate stood two little

churches, one on each side of the path; beyond them, as far as Bunchy

could see, it was all garden. There were flowering shrubs, and trees,

and lots of grass, but it was unlike any garden he had ever seen

before, for it was full of little mounds, and there were crosses, and

slabs of stone, and marble angels dotted about among the mounds.

He turned down a side-path to investigate further in this strange

garden. Nobody was in sight, and he wandered on by himself till,

turning a corner suddenly, he came upon a man.

The man was dressed in black, and was sitting on a big stone slab--a

very grew old slab; but close at his feet there was one of those

curious mounds that puzzled Bunchy, and although this one had no grass

upon it, you could hardly see the brown earth, for it was almost

covered with scattered flowers--all of one kind.

Bunchy knew the flower by sight, for Pussy always wore a bit in her

tam-o’-shanter when she came back from Scotland. The man did not move

as Bunchy came up to him. The little boy regarded him with grave brown

eyes, and something in his expression made Bunchy sure that the man

was sorry.

Now, in Bunchy’s house, when people are sorry, Pussy talks about

something else, and she does it so beautifully that they straightway

forget their sorrow in the interest of her remarks. Bunchy felt that he

ought to talk about something else to this man who looked so sorry; but

how can you change a subject when no subject has been broached?