'WELL, CHOPS, TO RUN AWAY.'
Frank Antony Blake had gone! He had been summoned away suddenly--it is
ever thus that sorrows come--to visit the sickbed of his mother. And
this was the first dark cloud that had arisen on the horizon of Lotty's
young life. It was sweet for her to know next evening by telegram that
her hero's dear mother was better, and that a letter would follow.
But--ah!--Antony had gone, and somehow everything was so changed now all
about and around her.
It was springtime. Spring, indeed, was in its first fresh glory. The sea
she loved, the sea out yonder stretching away and away to the
illimitable north, may have lost none of its beauty--the blue of its
waves when the sun had climbed the mountains, its opal and silver-gray
on that cloud-streaked noon, its emerald streaks where sky's blue mixed
with the yellow of half-hidden sandbanks, the pearl where the billows
broke lazily over the brown-black of weed-capped rocks, its ineffable
glory of sunset or moonlight clear gleaming. No, the sea must be the
same, and yet it awakened less response, less sympathy, in the heart of
the little gipsy lass.
Towards the forest, where she went wandering away alone with Wallace,
because she wanted to think, things seemed strangely altered somehow.
Was the moss that carpeted the beech-woods less soft and bright, or the
bark of the birch-trees less snowy? Were the clouds of needled foliage
on the brown-stemmed pines more black and solemn, and had the tasselled
larches with buds of crimson lost already their spring-green tints? And
where was the glory of the golden furze? Where the music of the
rose-linnet? Ah! surely the fluting melody of the blackbird and the
wild, ringing song of mavis, ay, and the bold lilt of the chaffinch,
were less loud and stirring. Yes, and the _cur-r-r_ and _croodle_ of
wood-pigeon in the planting's green shade, that used to thrill the
heart, sounded farther away now and grown more sad and mournful.
The hero was gone. And, girl-like--well, childlike then--this wee gipsy
maiden sat down upon a stone and burst into tears, much to the concern
of ever-faithful Wallace, who did his best to kiss those tears away. But
sorrow often ends in slumber; it is as if Nature needed the solace of
sleep to make her forget. A colder breath of air appeared to sweep
through the tree-trunks; and, drawing her tartan plaid up around head
and dishevelled hair, Lotty lay down in the lee of the mossy stone,
and, drawing up her knees, fell fast asleep, with Wallace at her back.
Crona some hours after this heard a low, ominous growl, and, looking in
the direction whence it came, beheld the raven face and brown eyes of
the honest dog. The witch-wife was doctor to half the fisher-families
that dwelt in little villages by the sea, and she had been out wandering
over the moors and through the forests looking for roots and simple
herbs, when she came to the spot where Lotty lay.
'Poor Wallace, so your little mistress has gone to sleep? Yes, dear
fellow; but it isn't on the damp moss it is safe to lie.'
Crona's cottage was but three hundred yards away, and when Lotty awoke
she found herself lying in a gleam of sunshine on a wooden bench or dais
by the cottage door. She sat up, wondering for a moment or two where she
was, then back came all her grief, though she tried to hide it from her
fairy godmother as much as she could.
This dear soul had spread a wee table with a white cloth, and placed
thereon a cup of heather-ale--her own brewing, and she was famed for
this--with barley-meal scones, butter, and honey. There was even a vase
of fresh primroses on this little table, which she had drawn close up to
Lotty's side.
'Eat, my lamb,' she was saying. 'If young folks would live, young folks
must eat.'
She was smoothing Lotty's brow and hair. And the girl tried to eat and
drink only just to please Crona, for she felt a little shivery and of
appetite she had none. Besides, her fairy godmother's kind sympathy now
touched her heart and made the tears stream down her face afresh.
Indeed, unromantic though it may seem to say so, some of her tears fell
among the heather-ale.
'I am not a witch, dear Lotty, though they say so; but this I can tell
you, that you will, in course of time, see Frank Antony once again. So
don't mourn for him, dearie.'
'But fa-fa-father has been so unkind! Do you know what he said, dear
godmother? He sai-sai-said that by not being Grace Darling Redivivus I
was the ruin of the show and all his prospects.'
But Crona laughed and talked so quietly and nicely that she soon had
Lotty smiling also. After the witch's heather-ale and the scones the
spring air felt warmer, and something of its freshness seemed to have
returned to the greenery of woods and wilds, the crimson and yellow and
white of the flowers, and the gold of the scented furze. She felt she
could even take an interest in Crona's pets now, and was a little cross
with herself for not having asked before how little Tim was, for this
affectionate mite had been ailing; but her godmother said he was once
more as hearty and robust as before his indisposition. She told Lotty
that she had journeyed six miles to procure certain roots for Tim, and
that from the very day he had begun to nibble these there had been a
marked change in both his physical and mental condition. And he slept
now every night under pussy's chin.
To-day Wallace had found Tod Lowrie just commencing to feast upon a fine
fat fowl, but which particular farmyard it had come from inquiry by
Crona had failed as yet to elicit, only she always paid for Lowrie's
extravagances. Wallace stood over Tod Lowrie for a moment, looking down
at him with his head a bit to one side.
'Dear me, Lowrie,' he said, 'you'll never get through that fowl all by
yourself. Then the bones you know--just fancy how you'd feel if a bone
stuck in your throat and you required to send for Dr Heron to take it
out! But,' continued Wallace, 'I have an excellent method of dealing
with dead fowls. Artistic in a manner of speaking. Permit me,' and he
gently drew the fowl quite away from the fox, and retired with it under
the dais.
Poor Tod Lowrie had simply to sit on his haunches and look on; and,
truth to say, all his share consisted of the feet and the head and the
feathers.
'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Wallace when he had finished.
'Beautiful!' said Lowrie with a deep sigh.
All Crona's pets loved each other, and agreed very well on the whole;
but of course little differences will at times arise in the
best-regulated families. Pussy and Joe to-day, for example, had a little
dispute on the boards.
Cats seem cruel; but it is just their nature, and perhaps they are no
worse than human beings. Anyhow, pussy to-day had returned from the
forest with two baby hedgehogs; she had killed them both, and now kept
one safely between her forelegs until she should finish eating the
other. And Joe chose to be very nasty and sarcastic about it, though of
course she wasn't bound to go and catch young hedgehogs for him. He
stood, showing an attitude of impudent grace, some two feet from her.
'Joe's cross! Joe's cross!' he cried. 'Ho, ho, ho! Set you up indeed!
Joe's very cross!' He was looking at her with one evil eye. But pussy
took no heed. Her tail was spread right out behind her carelessly
enough, and now Joe took one long hop towards it and gave a cruel pinch.
This was too much for any respectable cat to stand; and, just as Joe was
holding back his head to laugh, puss sprang at him and gave him a box
on the ear that sent him spinning round like a feathered whirlwind. Then
the cat went back to resume the feast.
'Hallo! Why, where is the other hedgehog?'
Not echo, but Tod Lowrie could have answered 'where?' But he didn't. He
had swallowed it, and Joe was high up in a tree now, laughing that
wicked laugh of his--sarcastic, almost sardonic--'Ha, ha, ha!' and 'Ho,
ho, ho!' And the cat's ears were laid far back as she eyed him. 'Just
wait till I catch you, Master Joe,' pussy seemed to say.
Ah, well, there is one good thing about cats and dogs--they bear no
malice, and very likely at dinner-time Joe would be forgiven, and all
Crona's pets eating out of the same dish.
Her fairy godmother, as Lotty always called Crona, kept the child that
day as long as she possibly could. But duty was duty, and Lotty had to
leave at last. It was already getting dusk, and she must try to get
through the forest before the gloom of night came down over sea and
land.
The girl feared nothing when Wallace was with her; the faithful dog
would have laid down his life defending his little mistress. Nor was she
afraid of losing herself; for, thanks to the foresight of her friend
Chops, the trees were still blazed. Indeed, the boy had but lately
renewed the markings. And he was to meet her to-night somewhere in the
wood where the footpath went winding through it. Footpaths never go
straight, and perhaps that is the chief charm of them. But this narrow
beaten track was probably more winding than most of them. It wound in
and out and round about clumps of the thicker, darker spruce-firs and
big moss-covered rocks, down into gloomy dells, where in the season the
capercailzie gave vent to his ghostly crow and cushat doves croodled
mournfully on the tall larch-trees. Down into one dell, over a more open
hill, and down into another, where one had to cross a brown, roaring,
'jouking' burn by a tree-bridge.
And this green hollow with the streamlet running through it was supposed
to be haunted. Real fairies, they told one, used to dwell here at one
time, before the ferns withered away. But five fairies used to be seen
at once floating downstream on a plantain-leaf, which they used as a
raft--pleasant little parties of five male and apparently rather
reckless fairies, for they danced and sang and quaffed honey-dew from
acorn-cups. But they were polite, and when a lady-fairy went floating
past in a foxglove bell they never failed to lift their hats and hide
their cups for the time being, as well as their pine-needle cigars.
But the fairies did not come back after the ferns were withered, only
ugly warty toads, and they are not fairies. And the reason why the ferns
withered in the dell was that a ghost had come to walk at midnight here.
It was the ghost of a gamekeeper, and his story was a gruesome one. He
was killed here, but the man who slew him was never found out, and that
is why the ghost walks there. Some of the gamekeeper's blood, it is
said, trickled into the stream, and that is how it has been brown ever
since.
Well, something happened on this very night. At one side of the
tree-bridge was a rail, and it was pretty dark by the time Lotty had her
hand on it. And she was pausing here for a moment to listen to the
gurgling song of the brooklet, and also to hear if Chops was coming.
Chops always whistled to keep his courage up when coming through this
wood at night. But she could not hear him, nor did Wallace, else he
would have barked a half-hysterical bark of joy. She was just about to
move on, when, lo! she was startled by seeing a light like that of a
candle moving straight upstream towards her. She certainly was a little
trembling, but she could not have been called frightened.
The light stopped not far off, and bobbed about and round and round,
sometimes low to the ground as if the invisible thing that held it was
looking for something that could not be found. Lotty tried to cry 'Who
is there?' and was very much surprised that she could not say the words;
all the sound, indeed, that she made was a little pitiful 'Hoo--hoo,'
like what one hears from a dog when he is dreaming.
Then the light went suddenly out, and now Lotty ran quickly on up the
brae, and some distance from the top thereof she listened again, and now
she distinctly heard Chops whistling the air '_Fra poco a me_,' and
presently she met him.
Chops listened wonderingly to her story of the strange light.
'An' it were nought else, Miss Lotty, but a dead-candle. An' more's
seen't nor you on still nights like this. An' they do say that
dead-candle will never be laid till the man as killed the keeper is
found an' 'anged on 'igh on a gallows-tree. An' ain't ye glad I've come,
Miss Lotty?'
'Oh, so glad, Chops!'
'Oh Miss Lotty, I wish they was more ghostes if they'd allers make ye
glad to meet yours truly, Chops, his mark.'
'You're a funny boy; but let us get home now as soon as possible. Poor
Mary will think I'm lost.'
'Take my 'and, Miss Lotty, won't ye? It's a honest one.'
'I know that, Chops; you've always been good to me, and I'm never going
to forget you, Chops, never, never, _never_.'
'Miss Lotty, ye speaks queer-like to-night,' said Chops.
'Yes, I think it is because Crona and I have been talking such a lot,
and it was nearly all about Mr. Blake.'
'Ye won't hever forget he, Lotty, I'll lay.'
'Oh no, Chops, and I felt somehow that I could have dropped and
died--like--like a dead mouse or something'----
'A dead rose-lintie, eh?' Chops suggested.
'When he told me he was going away, and we might not meet again for
ever, ever so long. Ah, Chops, I've no right to think of him, even as my
only brother, which he called himself, and me only a mite of a gipsy
lass. I should have said "I only," Chops, but somehow "me only" seems
sweeter.'
They had reached the cliff-top, and stars were out in the north and the
east, and glinting on the sea.
'We've often stood here together, Chops, looking at the stars and the
sea.'
'Us has,' said Chops.
'Well, Chops, I won't see them much longer now.'
'Miss Lotty, wot yer a-saying of? Cold water be a-tricklin' down my
spine. Was it the dead-candle wot'----
'No, no, Chops. But I made up my mind to-night in the dark wood, when
all alone with Wallace, to--to---- Eh, maybe I mustn't tell even you.'
'Oh, Miss Lotty!'
'Well, poor Chops, to run away.'