"FAIREST MASONS"
Billy did not take long to fetch the bread. He arrived at the wood
in a somewhat breathless condition.
"I ran," he explained, "'cos I saw Mr. Frampton's car outside the
inn."
Nancy was troubled. She wished Billy did not think it so necessary
to avoid him. She was quite sure she would have lingered rather than
hurried if she had known he was near, for after the troubles of the
afternoon a grown-up friend would have been so comforting. Besides,
he had evidently hoped to meet them in Barsdon. To be sure they had
not promised anything definite, but Nancy was quite sure that he
would be disappointed at missing them.
"Billy, _do_ say that if he comes this way we may stop him," she
pleaded. "We needn't tell him about the purse."
Billy, after she had pointed out her reasons, agreed.
"He's sure _not_ to come though--that lane would be the limit for a
car."
Meanwhile, tea, such as it was, awaited them. They divided up the
remains of the lunch before they attacked the loaf, as they would
need as much of the latter as their present hunger would allow for
breakfast. Acid drops, they found, filled up corners, though
everyone still owned to a dreadful thirst after the meal was
finished. Further up the hill they could see the chimneys of a
cottage, and the boys volunteered to go for water, while the girls
were unpacking blankets ready for the night. A whole brimming,
welcome pailful they brought on their return, and after they had
drunk their fill and had replenished the lemonade bottle there was
still a deep draught for poor little Modestine, who sighed her
contentment when she had sucked up the last cool drop.
Then, after the pail had been returned, they sat round and discussed
things. Wonderful what a difference a meal makes. On the other side
of it there had been terror for some of them at the thought of their
penniless condition; now, with bread and acid drops between them and
their loss, they could turn their thoughts from it and think only of
how best to overcome the difficulty.
"If we could spare a penny for tin-tacks," Montague said, "I could
make some little picture-frames out of that young elm-wood over
there. I used to make frames for Jocelyne and me for our cigarette
cards in Suffolk, but she's too grown-up for them now. I could use a
stone for a hammer."
"Oh, and I've thought of something!" Mavis cried. "I can run in a
race!"
"Run in a race?" Nancy repeated.
"Yes. While you and Billy were in the sweet shop, Monty and me were
reading a bill in the window about a Flower Show at Barsdon. It's
to-morrow, and there's a race for little girl visitors, _an' the
prize is seven and sixpence_!"
Seven and sixpence! Why, it was a fortune! But would Mavis mind
running? Of course she would get the prize.
"Yes, I'll do it," Mavis replied. "But can we spare sixpence for the
entrance fee?"
Certainly they could. The loaf had cost fourpence and that left them
with sixpence-halfpenny. Mavis should have the sixpence, and the
halfpenny--well, one _could_ not ask for a halfpennyworth of
tin-tacks; they must be bought after the race; nevertheless, the
halfpenny must not be despised; it was something, they felt, to have
at least that to face the world with.
Everybody's spirits rose considerably. With the almost certain
prospect of seven-and-sixpence in view what was there to worry about
now? Seven-and-sixpence, carefully spent, would last a long time,
especially if they gave up all idea of sleeping in cottages. Was not
a blanket in a wood or near a haystack good enough for anybody?
Would you not be robbing yourselves of many adventurous hours if you
slept under a stuffy roof when the big night-world awaited you?
Montague returned to the subject of the frames. He would prepare
them, he said, in the morning; it would take very little time to tack
them together later in the day.
"Someday," he added, looking at Mavis, "I'll make you some for your
dolls' house. Would you like them?"
For her dolls' house? Indeed she would. With the mention of the
dolls' house a shadow crossed the little girl's mind. It suddenly
seemed so long since she had played with it; since she had touched
any of her dear toys. It would be so nice--but, with a little sigh,
she pushed the regret away from her.
Nancy began to think of sleeping arrangements.
"Shall we just sleep on the ground?" she asked. "Nicolette, you
remember, builded herself a lodge of leaves and branches."
"Who's Nicolette?" Montague enquired.
"Nicolette? Oh, she's in a book. She and Aucassin were in love with
each other, only he's a king's son and she's poor, so they can't
marry at first. We think Aucassin a bit of a muff--he weeps too
much, but Nicolette was brave. She had all sorts of adventures and
she lived in a wood."
"She had a much worse time than we've had," Billy interrupted.
"Prisons and all sorts of things."
"Yes, she did. But she escaped and builded the lodge of saplings and
made a tapestry of leaves and flowers. There's such a pretty picture
of her building it in Aunt Letty's book."
"Does an aunt let you read her books--_touch_ 'em?" Montague enquired
with awe.
"Why, of course she does! We all go into her room on Sunday mornings
and have lots of fun. Sometimes she tells us stories, but if she's
sleepy then we each have a book. You have to have _very_ clean hands
'cos it's generally her special books you like best."
Montague stared in silence. This Aunt Letty of whom they talked so
much sounded so altogether different from his conception of an aunt
that he found it difficult to picture her. Indeed, if she had not
been an aunt he might almost have felt enough interest in her to wish
to see her some day.
"An' you _like_ going into her room?" he asked presently. "Why, of
course!" Mavis spoke a little impatiently. "She's our Aunt Letty!"
So tiresome of Monty not to understand what that implied.
Again Montague grew silent. Would he want to go to _his_ aunt's
room? Would she want him? Wouldn't she be horrified if he touched
any of her possessions? And this aunt played with them--that meant
there might be a noise in the house before breakfast.
"If there's a noise comes from my room before eight o'clock, well, I
know it!" he growled.
Poor Montague! How different his life had been from theirs, they
thought, and, until they had met him, they had simply accepted all
the love and happiness that made up their days as their natural
right. Now they were beginning to wonder--a little.
However, they were straying from the point; sleeping arrangements had
not yet been decided. Montague voted eagerly for the lodge, or
bower, for the girls; he and Billy would build them one--one as good
as Nicolette's. But she and Nancy must help, too, Mavis declared;
the boys could make the framework of boughs while she and Nancy wove
a tapestry of leaves.
Now indeed was sleeping out of doors transformed into an adventure.
Romance, with the building of that bower that was to rival fair
Nicolette's, entered into the little wood; each in their different
way felt it as they gathered armfuls of dry bracken or cut down
slender saplings; but Montague most of all. To build a bower for
Mavis! Why, it was like being a knight serving a princess. And he
would guard her; he would sleep near her door presently and guard her
from enemies just as a real knight would do. Not for a moment would
he compare himself with Aucassin, who sat at home and wept; he was
sure, however, that Nicolette was not more fairly beautiful than his
little princess. "Fairest mason," Nancy said they called Nicolette
in the book; well, that was what Mavis was, he thought stoutly, as he
watched her artistic little fingers skilfully weaving a covering of
leaves for the framework. "Very pretty it was and very dainty and
well furnished, both outside and in, with a tapestry of flowers and
of leaves." That, Nancy said, was Nicolette's bower. Yes, but
nobody, not Nicolette herself (though she did turn out to be a
princess after all) could wish for a daintier bower than this that
had been "builded" by four modern children who knew how to find
romance or adventure in the most trivial incident.
Time had passed rapidly during the building of the lodge. Evening
was coming on, yet, though the trees shut out much of the daylight,
it was still too light for them to sleep. And now that their
preparations for the night were completed they all began to realize
how very, very tired they were. The girls lay down in their dainty
bower, and the boys sprawled together on a bed of bracken outside,
yet nobody felt that bedtime had come. The evening was so warm that
blankets were not needed yet; indeed, had it not been for an
occasional breeze, the girls would have found their lodge almost
stifling.
Though they could not sleep everybody was too tired to bother to
talk. Nancy's imagination, scarcely ever at rest, carried her to
Nestcombe and Nestley. Suddenly, a great longing for the familiar
places swept over her. Their playroom, the paddock, the garden with
its beloved trees, the high wall at the bottom of the garden, where
they so often sat and gazed across the river--the river itself. How
dear every corner of the home-place was. And yet, when they had had
home all around them they had accepted it just as they accepted the
love and happiness that was theirs. Why should coming to the hills
awaken your heart to these things? When you were in the Land of your
Desire, oh, it was curious that home should jostle that longed-for
country into the background. And then there was the forest that
would not let you forget it. Nancy closed her eyes, and saw it as it
would be now in the twilight hour and in her imagination she listened
to the great silence that was as much a part of the forest as the
trees themselves. A wonderful silence that was filled with little
still sounds and whispers, the stirring of night things, the
breathing of sleepers, oh, a friendly, home-like silence. She seemed
to hear too the sharp metallic clot-clot of the horse's hoofs ringing
on the forest road--that, too, was simply part of the friendly
silence.
And then again there was the smoke from the lime kilns high up in the
forest, yes, and the smell of the smoke, the smell of the forest, oh,
it was all home. What comfort even in the thought of those forest
scents and sounds. To be sure, there was a whispering here amongst
the tree-tops, yet it was not the familiar whispering of the forest;
there was, indeed, almost a loneliness about it. Yes, deep in her
heart Nancy owned to loneliness (Mavis, too, was feeling it, Nancy
knew from the way the little fingers clung to hers), and remembering
the troubles of the evening--she had forgotten the prospective
seven-and-sixpence--disappointment came to keep the loneliness
company. These hills that they had come out to see with hope so high
in their hearts, what had they offered them more than the forest?
They were lovely, oh yes; this afternoon they had seemed all
laughter, but what a long, long time ago that seemed. And was there
not a kind of mockery in the laughter? Would the forest, if children
had come adventuring into its heart as they had come to the hills,
would the forest have been so cruel? To offer so much, to pretend to
take you right into its secret heart, then to thrust you out again.
Ah, surely the forest would not do that!
And yet, and yet, there was Monty. What had the forest given to him?
Wasn't it there, at the foot of the forest, that he had been so
unhappy? Love abounded for them up and down the forest, besides in
their own home, but Monty--why, wasn't it here in the hills that he
was finding happiness? Wasn't there a kind of different look about
him--something Nancy did not in the least know how to describe except
by the word "happiness." Though his poor little body had been so
battered about, some other more important part was receiving healing.
What an April girl was Nancy, what a child of moods. Disappointment
and depression left her when she arrived at this stage in her
reflections. She sat up suddenly and peeped out of the bower.
"Monty, tell me again what your guardian said about courage and
life?" she demanded.
"He said, 'it's not life that matters, but the courage you bring to
it,' an' he said he'd have to make a personal application of that
sentence when he'd got Jocelyne and me living with him. _I_ dunno
what he means."
"Do you think, Billy," Nancy said, "it means _us_ an' our travels?
Could it mean that we mustn't mind losing our money?"
Yes, Billy replied, that certainly was his interpretation of the
quotation. Not to mind things going wrong, or, at least, not to be
turned from your purpose by the first difficulties that arose, that
in his eyes was courage. Nevertheless, Billy was feeling somewhat
uncomfortable in his mind. Ought they, he was wondering, to go on?
If he had been alone he would have had no doubts or hesitations;
little setbacks could not even have suggested giving in. But there
were the girls. Was it fair to ask them to go on, perhaps to face
worse things than had happened this afternoon? He even had a slight
twinge of conscience concerning Mavis running in the race; he would
have preferred to run himself, but he knew quite well that there was
less certainty of him carrying off the much needed prize--besides,
the race was for little girls. Yet, what ought he to do?
"I've been thinking," he blurted out presently. "If there's anyone
of us doesn't want to go on, if--if anybody would rather go home,
I'll send that telegram to the Prior to-morrow, or if we see Mr.
Frampton ask him to take us home. If one goes then we'll all go.
Let's decide now at once."
Nobody spoke a word in reply.
"Say quick if you'd like to go home. I'll not blame anybody if you
do--you've been so plucky all the time, and I promise I'll never say
you weren't sports not to go on. Which shall we do, Nancy?"
It was sleepy little Mavis, however, who decided. "Let's wait until
after the race, an' if I don't win the prize, then we'd better go
home, hadn't we?"
"But you know you'll win it. You always do!"
"Well then, if we've got seven-and-sixpence we'll be rich, and it'll
be all right."
Billy sighed with relief, and again silence fell between them. And
again their thoughts went wandering. To the hills and the big open
world? No, not when the night is pushing loneliness towards you.
"When the young eyes of the day
Open on the dusk, and see
All the shadows fade away
Till the sun shines merrily,
Then I leave my bed and run
Out to frolic in the sun.
Through the sunny hours I play
Where the grass is warm and long;
I pluck the daisies, and the gay
Buttercups, or join the song
Of the birds that here and there
Sing upon the sunny air.
But when night comes, cold and slow.
When the sad moon climbs the sky,
When the whispering wind says, 'Boh,
Little Boy,' and makes me cry,
By my mother I am led
To my home and to my bed."
The daylight called them to the Unknown, but the night sounds
whispered in each little adventurer's heart the one word "Mother."
Just to see her, how comforting it would be. Yet, though they longed
for her, none of them, not even Nancy, had yet awakened to _her_
point of view--that awakening was to come later.
In Montague's heart, too, there must have been loneliness, for,
presently, the other three heard a small voice speaking:
"I wish I had a mother."
He voiced his need so simply that the children's hearts ached for
him. He should share their mother, Mavis said kindly, and never go
back to that horrid aunt.
"There's three of you," Montague replied sadly; "she wouldn't have
room for me."
Well, there was Aunt Letty. Now that she wasn't going to be married
she would have lots of room for him. He could be her little boy.
"If she wasn't an _aunt_," Montague murmured doubtfully.
"She can't help being an aunt, you know, Monty dear," Nancy replied
gently.
"No, an' I'd _like_ you to love her," Mavis added.
"If I could think of her as not an aunt p'raps I might like her a
little." Could he, even for Mavis, overcome his prejudice? Well, if
she wished it he must certainly try.
Silence again and then, at last, the gentle breathing of four
sleeping children.
For an hour perhaps they slept. Suddenly, their dreams were
disturbed by a terrific sobbing sound--the sobbing of giants, it
seemed. They awoke with a start to find that Modestine, who was used
to either a comfortable stable or roaming at large in the paddock,
was voicing her disapproval of her night-quarters, voicing it as only
a donkey knows how. Billy sleepily admonished her.
"Come over here if you're feeling as bad as all that, but for
goodness' sake don't make that row again," he said.
Sleep did not come again immediately, and while they were still lying
awake the sound of a car in the lane broke on their ears. Then such
a honking of a horn as they had never heard before! Honk, honk,
honk, honk! The Barsdon people must have heard it and wondered, but
the children did not wonder for they knew!
"Mr. Frampton! It's him!" they cried in one voice, and, being now
wide awake, they sprang up and ran along the cart-track to the road.
Honk, honk, honk, honk!
Slowly, very slowly the car drew near.
"It's us he's honking for!" Nancy cried, and there was relief in her
voice. "'Spect he heard Modestine, so knew where we were."
They stood where Dick could not fail to see them and waited
breathlessly for the creeping car. At last it was here!
"Mr. Frampton! Oh, Mr. Frampton, we're so glad to see you," Nancy
cried. "Have you been looking for us?"
Now, Dick was feeling both worried and annoyed. Worried because he
had searched the country for miles, and could find no trace of the
children until he heard Modestine's voice; annoyed because they had
not waited for him in Barsdon. Even if they had decided to sleep out
of doors after all, they might have let him know, he argued with
himself, knowing nothing of the lost purse. To be sure they had not
promised, yet in the afternoon they had seemed so friendly, so glad
of his company that he could not understand their action. And he was
quite prepared when he sighted his elusive charges to show his
annoyance, but the reproach that was on his lips was checked by
something in the children's voices. He was quite sure there was
relief in their eager, welcoming shout; something in their attitude,
too, as they stood there in the moonlight seemed to suggest
forlornness. What could have happened? As he sprang from the car he
noticed the boys' puffy, battered faces. Ah, there had been a fight,
that was it; the details he would find out diplomatically later on.
"We did so hope you would come this way," Nancy said.
"But why didn't you wait for me in Barsdon?"
"We--couldn't," Billy replied awkwardly. "But we were awfully sorry
not to."
Dick noticed his confusion but let the subject drop for the time
being. Well, never mind, he said, but now could they tell him how to
dispose of the car; clearly it could not be left in the road all
night. They showed him the gate leading into the cart-track and he
backed the car through it.
"Aren't you going to sleep at the inn?" Nancy asked, as he followed
them into the wood.
"I'm not!" Dick replied decidedly. Lose sight of them now that,
after his long search, he had found them? Not if he could help it!
"I'm sleeping here. Besides, the inn is closed--it's nearly
half-past eleven, and, do you know, I'm hungry, dreadfully hungry.
I've had nothing to eat since that excellent lunch you gave me, and I
shall have to ask you to take pity on me again."
The children flushed uncomfortably. The thought of offering dry
bread to someone who had evidently gone without his dinner, in order
to keep what he had considered an appointment with them, who had
apparently spent hours searching for them, was humiliating. And it
was all they had for breakfast! Well, they would have to go without
any, for a Warden who was so conscientious in looking after
travellers must certainly be fed.
"I--I'm sorry we've nothing to go with it," Nancy faltered, as she
handed him the portion of loaf that was left. "We ate everything
else up."
Dick smiled to himself at what he supposed was simply a
happy-go-lucky kind of housekeeping and wondered whether they had
even given a thought to breakfast. He accepted the bread gratefully,
however; he was too hungry, he assured them, to need luxuries, in
fact, never had anything tasted more delicious, and his enjoyment as
he munched steadily through the loaf was apparent to the children.
"I am indebted to you little people for two meals," he laughed
apologetically as he dug his teeth into the last crust. "To-morrow,
please, it's _my_ turn, and if you don't let me be responsible for
the catering for the whole day I shall be more than hurt. Is it a
bargain?"
How could they refuse such an offer? In making it Dick had not the
remotest idea that otherwise they would have been foodless, that he
himself had eaten their very last crust. Yet, for a moment Billy
eyed him suspiciously. Could he possibly know that they were
penniless? In the ordinary course of events he would simply have
accepted Dick's offer without further thought, but poverty,
unfortunately, has a way of making you think. Sixpence-halfpenny
between you and charity was a miserable sum to a proud young person
like Billy, and his thoughts of the lad who had stolen their money
were by no means gentle. That Dick might have helped them recover
the lost purse, had they confided in him, never occurred to him. The
purse was gone, and that was the end of the matter.
Dick, meanwhile, had finished the last crumb and was feeling in his
pocket for his pipe.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "what an ass I am! Your Prior has sent you
some chocolates--I'd forgotten them!"
He produced four huge packets of chocolate. The children were glad
of it, for being awake, they found, made you hungry. And how nice to
be able to offer Mr. Frampton something more than dry bread! How
grateful they were to the Prior.
And while they all munched, Dick told them how overwhelmed the Prior
had been at the thought behind their gift. An unrepayable and
unforgettable gift, he had said, and Nancy could just picture him
saying it. She wanted to question Dick further about their kind
friend, but seeing Mavis' sleepy little face he insisted on bed for
them all immediately.
"We can talk to-morrow," he said, "so now good-night!"
And now they really settled down finally for the night. How
comforting, Nancy thought, as she snuggled down with Mavis in the
bower, how comforting to have a grown-up person near at hand (Dick
was sleeping in the car); what a difference it made to the
night-sounds! Somehow, all the loneliness vanished and Nancy was
aware only of the beauty of the stars in the blue vaulted sky. Stars
seen through tree-tops and you a little atom in the arms of Mother
Earth! What a discovery, what an adventure in an unknown world of
beauty for an imaginative child.
"Thank you, God," she murmured drowsily, "for the lovely star-world."
And the Prior, I think, would not have called _that_ little prayer
"the gabbling of empty words."