[Illustration: “She stood on a rock in the sunlight.”
_Page 55._
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YOUNG
PEGGY McQUEEN
BY
GORDON STABLES, M.D., R.N.
WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON AND GLASGOW
COLLINS’ CLEAR-TYPE PRESS
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
CHAP. PAGE
I. ON A SWEET MAY MORNING 7
II. THE MINSTRELS AT HOME 17
III. A FOREST PLAY 30
IV. SO ENDS THE PLAY 45
V. A NYMPH OF THE WAVE 50
VI. PEGGY’S HOME UPON WHEELS 63
VII. PEGGY LITTLE KNEW WHAT WAS BEFORE HER 70
VIII. “DARK LIKE A WINTER’S EVE” 78
IX. BLOODHOUND ON THE TRAIL 90
X. OH, FOR THAT BEAUTIFUL SUMMER! 107
BOOK II.
I. POOR KAMMIE 120
II. STORM AND WRECK 127
III. WHEN THE WORST COMES TO THE WORST 134
IV. ON THE CANNIBAL ISLE 146
V. A BLOODLESS BATTLE.--LIFE ON THE ISLAND 156
VI. WHITE WINGS UPON THE WAVES 166
VII. SHE SAILED AWAY IN THE MIDDLE WATCH 175
Young Peggy McQueen.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
On a Sweet May Morning.
Peggy McQueen was all alone on this beautiful morning in early spring.
Only a child in years, for not a month over twelve was Peggy. She stood
there, leaning on the half-door of her own little caravan, and gazing
dreamily out and away across the sea, the sunshine on her shapely
arms--bare to her well-rounded shoulders were they, for she was not yet
quite dressed--sunshine on her rosy cheeks and lips, and sunshine trying
to hide itself in the floating masses of her auburn hair.
Calm and lovely though the sea was to-day, with its blues and its opals
and its patches of silver--silver borrowed from the sun--this little
lass was not at this moment thinking of the sea at all, much though she
loved it at most times.
Peggy was wondering if she might venture.
“What do you think, Ralph?” she said, kneeling down to throw her arms
round the neck of a great blood-hound who lay on a goat-skin on the
floor, his long, silken ears trailing down at each side of his noble
head like some fair lady’s tresses, his eyes turned up to his mistress’s
face.
Ralph gave his strong tail an almost imperceptible waggle.
“I think,” he seemed to say, “it is folly to be out of bed for three
hours yet. Better go back.”
Peggy glanced at a companionable little clock that ticked on her morsel
of a dressing-table, beneath the dimity-bedecked looking-glass. The
hands were pointing to half-past four. Very early, surely, for a little
maiden to be out of bed!
But Peggy McQueen knew right well what she was about. This was the first
day of May, and all around the camp the green grass was bespangled with
dew. Is it not a fact, that if a young girl dips her face in the dews of
this merry morning, she will be sweet and beautiful all the glad year?
Nobody in his senses would think of denying this.
But Peggy wanted to have pretty arms and pretty feet and legs as well,
and this was the reason she was astir so early. She put on her sandals
now, and placed a very roguish and bewitching Tam o’ Shanter on the back
of her head. It was a tartan-rimmed Tammy, with a crimson feather in it
which had been dropped from the tail of her favourite parrot. Then she
stepped lightly over Ralph, cautiously opened the back door a few
inches, and peeped out.
Not a soul stirring in the camp: the large caravan stood not far off,
but the blinds were still drawn. The white tent in which the giant slept
was not yet opened. Under the caravan was a bundle of straw, and in a
blanket-lined sack thereon was wee Willie Randolph, the dwarf, nothing
out but his small white face and one arm, the latter placed
affectionately round Dan, the lurcher dog. Dan was a person of some
importance to the camp, for many a hare and rabbit, and many a fat
hedgehog did he supply for the larder.
Behind, and stretching away and away to the wooded hills on the horizon,
was a forest of oak and beech and pine trees, with clumps of larch, now
clad in the tender greens of spring, and o’erhung with crimson tassels.
Making sure, first, that no one was astir, and that Willie was as sound
asleep as everybody else, Peggy closed the door carefully behind her,
and tripped lightly and gaily down the back steps. She wanted to sing to
herself, but dared not just yet. She would do so, however, as soon as
she got well into the shadow of the woods, because every bird therein
was singing its _matinée_, and adding its quota to swell the sylvan
music of this lovely May morning.
Now and then there would come a strange panic in the wild bird medley,
presently to be broken by the melodious fluting of the blackbird or the
joy notes of a nightingale, then at once and in all its strength the
feathered choir commenced again. So bright was the sunshine, so dark the
shadows under the trees, that Peggy could not see a single songster, nor
even tell to a certainty the direction from which any particular
bird-note rang out. The music was all about and around her, and she was
fain now to lift up her happy treble voice and join the chorus.
She went wandering on for a while, unheeding and unheeded. No one had
seen the girl leave the camp except the ancient, warty-faced rook who
came very early every morning to seek for his breakfast near the tent.
He had not flown away when she appeared. He just said “Caw--caw--caw!”
in a very hoarse voice, which meant “Good-morning, Peggy, and happy I am
to see you!” A dormouse had peeped drowsily out from a hole among the
grass when he heard her footsteps, but, seeing who it was, he had merely
rubbed his nose and gone on eating his earth-worm.
But presently Peggy came to a green glade or clearing, quite surrounded
by spruce trees, with, in the centre, a pool fed by the water of a tiny
purling brook, with crimson wildflowers growing here and there on its
banks. The water in the pool was not deep, and so clear was it that
Peggy could easily see the sandy bottom, where strange, black,
glittering beetles played at hide-and-seek, and where the caddis-worm
rolled in its jacket of many-coloured gravel.
This was just the secluded glade that Peggy had come to seek. She
seated herself on the bank, and taking off her sandals, plunged her legs
up to the knees into the cool water. Then she laved her face, her
shoulders, and her arms. These were all of the same colour--a light
Italian tan--but the rose-tints shimmered through this tan on her
innocent and sweetly pretty face. Taking from her pocket a dainty little
towel, she now carefully dried herself.
Then, laughing in her healthful glee, she skipped playfully over to a
spot where the grass was long and tender and green, and threw herself
boldly among it. The dewy blades brushed cheeks and neck, her arms and
legs, and dimpled hands and knees.
She felt as fresh now as the clear-skinned, speckled trout in the
streamlet, and as happy as the rose-linnet that sang on a golden furze
bush near her. She must not wipe the dew off, though. Oh, no, that would
have broken the spell and spoiled the charm. In the sun she stood,
therefore, and danced and sang till dry.
Then a spirit of revelry came over her. It would still be a long time
till six o’clock. She would have time to rehearse for her night’s
performance--a dance and a song. Happy thought! She would introduce an
innovation. Back she ran now into the forest and commenced gathering an
armful of the tenderest and prettiest fern-fronds and wild crimson
silené flowers.
Peggy, like the thoughtful and handy little maid she was, never went
anywhere without her ditty-bag. No girl who leads a wandering life
should. It was hanging to her waist, and contained as many knick-knacks
as you might find in an ordinary small work-box. Here were tape and a
pair of scissors too, and these were about all she needed at present.
Standing in the glade close by the pool in which her shapely form was
mirrored, she quickly and deftly adorned her hair with the wild-flowers;
then she just as speedily made herself a tippet of fern-fronds, which
she fastened around her shoulders, encircling her knees with fringes of
the same. She glanced once more into the pool. She was satisfied, for
she was really beautiful, and would remain so all the year round. Oh,
the gladsome thought!
If I were merely romancing, I would say that the birds of the forest
ceased to sing, and listened enraptured to the merry May maiden’s song,
and that they gazed entranced to witness her dance, waving her arms and
pirouetting to her own sweet lilt.
But the birds did nothing of the sort. Birds are sometimes a trifle
prosaic and selfish, and even the chaffinch will not cease its bickering
lilt to listen to the nightingale.
While Peggy was dancing, she was, I fear, thinking of nothing else
except the effect she expected to produce that evening on the minds of
the rustic lads and lasses who would gather round to see the performance
of “The Forest Maiden,” at the camp of the Wandering Minstrels.
The girl’s head was well thrown back as she sang and danced, else surely
she would have noticed the stealthy approach of two figures that had
emerged from the forest at its darkest side, and were now almost within
five yards of her.
They were both of the medium height, and though dressed in the cow-gowns
of English rustics, were undoubtedly foreigners. They were handsome men,
but very dark, with shaven faces and an unmistakable look of the stage
about them.
As soon as Peggy saw them, she screamed in terror, and attempted to fly,
but it was too
[Illustration: “What wouldst thou with me?”
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late. One of them had already seized her by the wrist, firmly, yet not
cruelly.
“Nay, nay, my little fallow deer,” he said, in tones that were meant to
be soothing, “nay, my beautiful ring-dove, you must not be alarmed.
There! do not flutter so, pretty bird. We would but speak with you for
one short minute. We have seen you dance and heard you sing many
evenings when the pretty flower did not observe us. We are charmed with
the flower’s performance, and have come to offer her an engagement. The
Wandering Minstrels is not a good enough show for your talent. No, you
must try to get away for one little minute. We offer you a big, big
salary. We will take you to France, and place you before a large and
admiring audience in a splendid concert-room. You will have dresses more
beautiful than you can now even dream of, besides gold and jewels, and
you will become a rich lady, before whom the gayest knights in fair
France will bow. It is a splendid offer for one so young as you.”
“Do not fear us,” said the other man, advancing a step nearer to the
frightened and shrinking girl. “We do not wish your answer now. Only
promise, and we shall meet you again, and only of your own free will
must you come with us.”
He extended his arms beseechingly. But at this moment, with a sudden and
painful effort, she wrenched herself free, and fled towards the forest,
shrieking for help.
And help was at hand, and came in the very nick of time to save this
child, the joy of whose May-day morning had been so suddenly changed to
grief and terror.