IN THE WOODS.
THE village schoolmistress, Mrs. Cliff, knew Ruth well, for she had
employed her as her laundress from the time she had taken charge of
the school; and no linen could be sweeter and whiter than that which
Ruth washed, and dried in the sun on the gorse-bushes growing about
the old lime-kiln. Ishmael had been one of the most constant and
least troublesome of her scholars; and she was willing to mark her
approbation of him by entrusting her little girl to his care for a long
day in the Lime-kiln Woods.
The spring had come slowly on during May, and though it was already
June the trees were not yet in full leaf. The delicate network of
boughs overhead still kept many an open space for the sunshine to
stream through; and the half-transparent leaves glistened with a green
light. There was no thick tangle of burdock and thistle at present to
catch their feet and hinder them as they strolled along under the hazel
bushes. Here and there patches of bluebells covered the dusky earth;
and in a few rare spots, known to Ishmael, white lilies of the valley
were growing amid their broad green leaves. No very tall or massive
forest trees grew in the thin soil; but now and then an elm or an oak,
somewhat stunted, spread out its crooked branches; and there were
clumps of larches, tall and thin, growing in close companionship, with
their pointed tops piercing the sky.
And what a sky it was! A deeper blue than the bluebells under the
hazels, with little clouds scattered over it whiter than the lilies,
some of gleaming brightness, and others of a pearly grey, floating
lazily along before the soft fresh westerly wind. Ishmael felt a pride
in it all, as if the woods, and the flowers, and the sky belonged to
himself.
"Sit down and listen, Elsie," he said, throwing himself under an elm
tree, and holding his breath for very pleasure, as he strained his ear
to catch the different notes of the birds, singing in these early hours
of the sunny day.
There was the merry whistle of the starling—did Elsie hear that?—and
the deep, soft cooing of the wood-pigeons from their great clumsy
nests in the fir trees; and the harsh cry of the jay, as he flitted
across the open space between some trees, displaying his bright blue
wing-feathers. Oftener than any other note, except the chirp of the
sparrows, came the deep, grave caw of the rooks, as they sailed by
high in the air. Or was not the clear merry song of the thrushes and
blackbirds in the bushes all about them the most frequent sound of them
all?
But Ishmael knew also the note of the kingfisher and the woodpecker,
and the plaintive cry of the lapwing, and the call of the little
moor-lion in the swampy ground, overgrown with water weeds and tall
bulrushes. Every sound, loud and low, of the busy woodlands was known
to him; but they had never been so sweet to him as now, when, for the
first time, he had a companion gazing admiringly into his face as he
displayed his knowledge. Elsie was far before him in school; but here
she sat with wide-open wondering eyes, drinking in every word he spoke.
[Illustration]
"Oh, Ishmael!" she exclaimed, with a sigh of happiness and admiration,
"I should think nobody in the world knows as much as you!"
Never before had Ishmael had such words spoken to him, and he felt
almost dizzy. He began to think what other wonders he could show or
tell to her. Yes, there were more wonderful things to disclose to her
admiring eyes. The woods were beautiful; but he knew what was hidden
underground as well as what lay open to the eye of day. For underneath
their feet the earth was honeycombed with long, deserted galleries,
and roadways, and tunnels, where ages ago the limestone had been dug,
and brought to the surface by level shafts opening on the hill slopes.
Far away from the light of the sun, these subterranean paths ran in
many windings and twistings. Even on the surface there were indications
of them in basin-like hollows of varying depths and sizes, where the
treacherous ground had sunk in.
Some of these hollows were filled with water, forming little pools,
which glistened up to the sun, while others were dry basins green with
turf and coltsfoot, amongst which wild strawberries grew. Ishmael and
Elsie had busily gathered the small red fruit, and strung it upon long
bents of grass, to keep it as a dessert to the dinner they were going
to eat in the woods. Ishmael hastily formed a surprise for Elsie. When
the right minute came, when she was tired and hungry, and the sun beat
hotly upon them, he would take her to the cool shelter of a cave near
at hand, where he could show to her the entrance into the old limestone
quarry.
They came at length to a broad open glade, stretching far away between
two rows of trees, which was the famous spot for shooting-bouts in the
autumn, when the squire's visitors spent whole days in sport. Here in
the long, untrodden grass lay the old cartridge-cases thrown hastily
away last year. Ishmael told Elsie how the cracking of the guns rang
all day long, and how the smell of the gunpowder and its thick smoke
tainted the sweet air; and how, at night, when all was over, there
seemed a sorrowful silence in the wood, as if its timorous inhabitants
had been scared into utter terror.
"And the rabbits keep in their burrows," said Ishmael, "and don't come
out to play after sunset, like they do other nights, ay, by hundreds
and thousands, running after one another, and tumbling about like us
on the green, when we've a holiday; and you can see their little white
pads tossing about in the dusk. If you sit very still they'll come
a'most to your feet. And the bats fly about, and the cockchafers, and
big white owls, that make no noise when they fly. I'll show you our big
owl at home before you go home to-night."
They were sauntering along the glade slowly, when suddenly, from
under their very feet, as it seemed to Elsie, there sprang up, with a
loud whirr and a great fluttering of wings, a pheasant which had been
sitting close on her nest among the long grass, till their feet nearly
touched her. Elsie uttered a little scream of fright; but Ishmael went
down on his knees in a moment, parting the tangled grass which hid the
nest. There lay a cluster of brown eggs, ten of them, packed closely
together, and warm with the brooding-heat of the mother-hen.
"Oh!" cried Elsie, eagerly. "Can't we have some of them for dinner?
Only we can't cook them, you know, without a fire and a saucepan."
"Ay, but we can!" answered Ishmael, proud of doing what seemed
impossible to his companion. "We can make a fire, and roast 'em in the
ashes. We won't take more than four, two apiece; and I can tell which
are the newest laid. See, I've got a match in my pocket, and we'll pick
some sticks, and light a fire in a place I know of, where nobody can
ever find us."
Gathering up the sticks as they went along, he led Elsie to his cave.
It was situated about half-way down a steep slope which was overgrown
with hazel bushes and brambles. The low archway of the entrance was
little more than a yard high, and was quite concealed by the brushwood.
Within, the roof rose to a good height, and the floor of limestone was
dry, forming altogether a pleasant retreat, large enough to hold from
twenty to thirty persons. A green twilight reached them through the
closely-interwoven network of underwood; and a delicious coolness made
it the pleasantest place possible now the sun was so high in the blue
sky.
"Look, Elsie," said Ishmael, leading her to the back of the cave, where
a small hole, not unlike a large rabbit-burrow, led darkly into some
space beyond, "I've crawled through there many a time; and if it wasn't
for your frock, we'd go now—you and me. Oh, it goes for miles and miles
under the wood; and sometimes there's a little bit o' light coming
through cracks in the ground; and there are pools all black and still,
with just a tiny sparkle on them to show where they are; and there are
glistening stones hanging down from the roof, and drops o' water always
falling, falling from them. Oh, I wish you were a boy, and could creep
in along with me!"
"Oh, couldn't I?" cried Elsie.
"No, it 'ud never do,"' he said, decisively. "Never mind; I'll light
the fire now, and we'll have our dinner."
The fire was quickly kindled, and after it had died down a little, the
four eggs were covered over with hot embers, and left to roast. Ishmael
had brought a can of sparkling water from a little spring trickling
down the rock, whilst Elsie had laid out their dinner. Now she was
sitting beside it on a big stone, with her hands lying idly on her lap
in simple enjoyment, and her blue eyes gazing out happily on the waving
branches outside, whose shadows flickered up to her feet in a constant
dance.
"Oh, Ishmael," she cried, "I must say the song mother taught me about
'That's the way for Billy and me.' It seems as if it was made for us:
and I'll say them while the eggs are roasting.
"Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the grey trout lies asleep,
Up the river and over the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me.
"Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That's the way for Billy and me.
"Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thickest and greenest,
There to trace the homeward bee,
That's the way for Billy and me.
"Where the hazel-bank is steepest,
Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free.
That's the way for Billy and me.
"Why the boys should drive away
Little maidens in their play,
Or love to banter and fight so well
That's a thing I never could tell.
"But this I know, I love to play
Through the meadow, among the hay,
Up the water, and over the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me." ¹
¹ This lovely little song is by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd,
and is not as well-known as it deserves to be.
But Elsie had scarcely finished the last line when she saw the branches
before her slowly parted, and a man's head bent down, and looking into
their cave. It was a brown, sunburnt, rugged face: she knew it well
enough, but she had never liked it, and at this moment it filled her
with vague terror. Ishmael was kneeling by the red and smouldering
fire, and touching the eggs with the tips of his fingers. So absorbed
was he that he did not notice the darkening of the green twilight as
the gamekeeper came stooping under the archway; and he laughed a low,
quiet laugh of delight as he took one of the eggs from its hot bed.
"That one's done, Elsie!" he exclaimed, gaily.
"What's done?" asked Nutkin's harsh voice close beside him. "I saw the
smoke from your fire, you young rascal, and I came to see what mischief
you're up to. What, pheasant's eggs! Pheasant's eggs! Would nothing
else serve you for your dinner?"
Ishmael knelt, unable to stir, and gazing up aghast into the
gamekeeper's angry, yet triumphant face. What could he say? There were
the eggs in the ashes between them; he could not even drop the one he
was holding in his outstretched hand. He felt as if he could neither
move nor speak. He had no right to those eggs; they were stolen; but he
had not thought of that when Elsie had uttered her childish wish.
"I suppose you know," said Nutkin, very slowly, as if he meant every
word to strike home, "that I shall take you to gaol for this?"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Elsie, in an agony of fright. "We didn't know it
was any harm, did we, Ishmael? The eggs were on the ground, and we
might have trodden on them. Don't send us to gaol!"
"It's not you, only this young scoundrel," continued Nutkin; "you may
have to go before the justices, but it's him as 'll go to gaol for
poaching and stealing. I've told the squire scores of times, and now
he'll believe me. Get up, you rascal, and come along with me."
Suddenly Ishmael broke into a loud and bitter cry, which rang through
the cave, and seemed to be muttered back again from the old quarry.
"Oh, what will mother say when she hears of it?" he cried.
"And what will father say?" jeered the gamekeeper. "And brother
Humphrey? We'll take care you don't grow up a drunkard, and a disgrace
to the parish, like them, my fine fellow. Come along! Elsie, you run
home to your mother, and tell her to be more careful who you keep
company with another time. The squire 'll believe me now."
So saying, he dragged Ishmael out of the cave, and taking a strong
rope from his pocket, he knotted it into a sort of handcuff, by which
he bound the lad fast to him. Elsie followed them, sobbing, to the
white dusty road leading to Uptown, where there was a police-station;
and then sadly watching them out of sight, she went home, almost
heartbroken, to her mother.