PAUL'S HOPES RISE.
A few days later Paul returned to school, and Stella and Michael settled
down to lessons at home with their governess. They missed their elder
brother very much, for though he domineered over them a good deal, they
looked up to him as a hero, and a very splendid fellow, and they felt sad
and lonely when he went back to school.
At first Paul, too, felt very miserable, and out of spirits. When it came
to leaving his home he felt more real sorrow for the trouble they were in
than he had at all, and real shame for having behaved so crossly and
unkindly about his disappointment, and he became filled with a great
desire to work well, and make up in that way for his past behaviour.
So the weeks sped by; half term came and went, and early in July came a
letter from Stella. They were to go away for a summer holiday, after all,
she wrote excitedly, and evidently impressed with the idea that she was
conveying wonderful news. They were to go to Dartmoor. Father had taken
rooms in a big farmhouse on the moors, and it was lovely; there were
horses and wagons, and hay-fields and orchards, and big tors where they
could go for picnics.
"Dartmoor!" exclaimed Paul, as he thrust the letter into his pocket.
"What a place! What is there for me to do? Just go for walks with the
kids, I s'pose; I'd quite as soon stay at home." And he sniffed
scornfully, and went about all day in a bad temper.
"Dartmoor is a ripping fine place!" Paul had confided his woes to his
chum, Dennis Rogers, and that was the response he met with. "I only wish
I was going there this summer. We were there two years ago; oh, my, it
_was_ jolly! I wonder what part you are going to, and if you'll be
anywhere near the convict prison."
Paul pricked up his ears.
"The convict prison," he cried eagerly. "I'd forgotten that that was down
there. Oh, I do hope we go quite close to it. I'd like awfully to see
the convicts. Did you ever see any of them? Were you near them?"
"See them! I should just think so. I saw a convict's funeral once, too;
the coffin was carried by the convicts all in their prison clothes, with
whacking great broad arrows over them."
"What were they like? Did they look like murderers? Did you see any of
those that are in Madame Tussard's?" asked Paul, full of curiosity.
"Some of them were pretty bad-looking, but the rest were just like
ordinary people. You'd never think from their faces, that they were
murderers, and burglars, and forgers, and all that sort of thing.
I felt awfully sorry for them, but my mater hurried me away, and wouldn't
let me have a good look at them. I know one thing, I would have helped
them to escape if they had tried to."
"I do hope we shall be in that part," said Paul, excitedly. "I'd give
anything to see the prisoners and the prison. I say, did any escape while
you were there?"
"No, 'twas hard luck. One got away in the winter after we left, and
wasn't caught for a day or two; it was foggy, and that helped him, of
course. Then there is otter-hunting in some of the rivers," went on
Dennis, tiring of the subject of the convicts. "Oh, it's an awfully fine
place! There are wild cattle on the moor too, and they are no end of
excitement; they go for you like anything if you rile them. You _are_ in
luck's way, old chap. I wish I was going too, instead of to some silly
place in Norway where there's nothing to do when you get there but walk.
I hate being shut up in a stuffy steamer too. I'm ill all the time--so
are most of the people--and I don't see where the fun comes in.
But my people are set on it, so I suppose I've got to go. I don't want
to, a bit."
"Don't you!" said Paul sarcastically, all his old disappointment
returning. "I wish we could change places then. I think Dartmoor is
awfully tame compared with Norway."
And then a hot discussion followed, each boy sticking up, of course, for
his own favourite place.
But when, three weeks later, Paul travelled homewards, his disappointment
was quite forgotten, and he was in the best of spirits, for it is beyond
the power of any ordinary boy to feel morose and sulky the day his school
breaks up and he goes home for his summer holiday; and when the family
joined him at Slewbury station,--all except his father, who was to follow
later,--and they journeyed on together, he was the life of the whole merry
party.
"Mother," he exclaimed with sudden recollection, after the home news had
been listened to and school news told, "what is the name of the place we
are going to? Shall we be near the convict prison?"
"Oh, I hope not," cried Stella, her pretty blue eyes becoming round with
dismay, "I should hate to be near convicts, I should be afraid of them.
Supposing any of them run away, and come to Moor Farm, whatever shall we
do?"
"We are not any very great distance from the prison, I am afraid,"
Mrs. Anketell answered, "though it is further than either of us could
walk. But you know, dear, the poor creatures are well guarded and we
shall be well guarded; and I want you to feel nothing but pity for them,
my Stella. You must be a brave little woman. Many of the poor creatures
there are quiet and harmless, and would not hurt a little child."
"_I_ am jolly glad we are so near," said Paul delightedly; and he talked
so much about it that Stella soon began to share his excitement, and lose
much of her nervousness, while Michael sat very still and quiet, listening
to all that was being said. But presently they grew tired of that
subject, and turned their attention to the country through which they were
hurrying, and the quaint little stations at which they stopped, where the
one porter shouted such odd names in so funny a voice that they could not
help laughing; then on they went again through rich yellow cornfields,
past streams where men were fishing, and then they saw the high hills in
the distance, standing so solitary on the great browny-grey moor.
It was hard to picture a big, gloomy prison anywhere near such a lovely
land, or hundreds of sinful, unhappy men shut in behind high grey walls,
seeing nothing of the beauty about them.
"Mother, mother, there's Row Tor, and there's Brown Willy, and there--"
"And here is our station," said Mrs. Anketell, smiling, getting up to
collect baskets and parcels, "and there is Farmer Minards himself with his
car and a cart for the luggage." Then out they got, the only passengers
for that little station, while the people in the train stared at them,
enviously the children thought, and the people on the platform looked with
curiosity and interest at them, and their big pile of luggage.
Then Stella and Michael and Mrs. Anketell were shown in to the funny
little car, which was called the 'pill-box,' but Paul asked if he might
ride up in the front of the cart on which the luggage was piled, and was
allowed to, and a few minutes later they started off in procession down
the road on their way to Moor Farm.
The boy who drove the cart was shy at first, and sat very stolid and stiff
beside Paul apparently absorbed in guiding his horse, but Paul was not
troubled with shyness, or anything else but curiosity, and after he had
looked at the horse and cart, and everything about him, his tongue refused
to be silent any longer, and a stream of questions was poured into the shy
boy's ears. As they were nearly all questions he could answer he did not
mind, and replied very patiently, and soon grew more at ease, especially
as some of Paul's questions made him laugh too, and feel how much more he
knew than 'the young master,' which is always a comfortable feeling.
"And that is Cawsand Beacon, isn't it?" said Paul at last, pointing to a
big, big hill, in the near distance. He spoke in an off-hand casual sort
of way, and was rather proud of his knowledge until the boy laughed.
"No, sir, that there is Crockern Tor. Cawsan' Baycon be right 'way
'tother side of Dartymoor, right 'long up in the narth, Oke'ampton way."
"Is Crockern Tor as high as Cawsand Beacon?" asked Paul, more humbly.
"I reckon not, not by a brave bit," said the boy, "but it's a purty place
to go to."
They were driving now along a rough road across the moor itself; the
'pill-box' had outstripped them and was out of sight. "Let's drive on the
grass," said Paul suddenly, "t'would be ever so much jollier than jolting
along like this. Why don't you drive across there to the farm," pointing
to a stretch of smooth, green turf, "instead of going all around by this
road?"
The boy laughed again. "I reckon 'twouldn't be no quicker by time us had
hauled the 'orse and cart out. That there green is'n' no turf 't'all,
'tis a bog."
Paul's attention was riveted in a moment. "That isn't one of the bogs
that suck people right down, and kill them, is it?" he asked excitedly.
"That's one on 'em," answered the boy; "that isn't so bad as some.
Anybody small and light might get across by keeping right 'way out to the
very edge if they was quick, but a horse and cart wouldn't stand no
chance. Don't you never go trying of it, sur, you'd be swallowed up in no
time. Gee, wug, Lion," he called to the lazy horse. "Would 'ee like to
drive a bit, sur?"
But Paul's thoughts were far away. "Anybody light and small might get
across," he was repeating to himself, and he made up his mind that
somebody light and small would try. After all, Dartmoor wasn't such a bad
place, he admitted already. He would have something, anyhow, to tell the
boys when he got back. Something worth telling too. He thought there
would be few with a better story than his to tell.