THE BANTAM CHICKENS.
When Hugh John met Cissy Carter the first time after the incident of
the stile, it was in the presence of the young lady's father and
mother. Cissy smiled and shook hands with the most serene and chilling
dignity; but Hugh John blushed, and wore on his countenance an
expression of such deep and ingrained guilt and confusion, that, upon
catching sight of him, Mr. Davenant Carter called out, in his jolly
stand-before-the-fire-with-his-hands-in-his-pockets' manner, "Hillo,
boy! what have you been up to--stealing apples, eh? Come! What is it?
Out with it!"
Which, when you think of it, was not exactly fitted to make our hero
any more self-possessed. Mr. Davenant Carter always considered
children as a rather superior kind of puppy dogs, which were
specially created to be condescended to and teased, in order to see
what they would say and do. They might also be taught tricks--like
monkeys and parrots, only not so clever.
"Oh, Davenant," said his wife, "do let the boy alone. Don't you see he
is bashful before so many people?"
Now this was the last thing which ordinarily could be laid with
justice to the charge of our hero; yet now he only mumbled and avoided
everybody's eye, particularly Cissy's. But apparently that young lady
had forgotten all about the ivy bush at the back of the stable, for
she said quite loud out, so that all the room could hear her, "What a
long time it is since we saw you at Oaklands, Hugh John--isn't it?"
This sally added still more to Hugh John's confusion, and he could
only fall back upon his favourite axiom (which he was to prove the
truth of every day of his life as he grew older), that "girls are
funny things."
Presently Cissy said, "Have you seen Sammy, mother; I wonder if he has
fallen into the mill-dam. He went over there more than an hour ago to
sail his new boat." Mild Mrs. Carter started up so violently that she
upset all her sewing cotton and spools on the floor, to the delight of
her wicked little pug, which instantly began pulling them about,
shaking them, growling at them, and pretending they were rats that had
been given him to worry.
"Oh, do you think so?--Run Cissy, run Hugh, and find him!" Whereat
Cissy and Hugh John removed themselves. As soon as they were outside
our hero found his tongue.
"How could you tell such a whopper? Of course he would not fall into
the water like a baby!"
"Goos-ee gander," said Cissy briskly; "of course not! I knew that very
well. But if I had not said something we should have had to stay there
moping among all those Grown-Ups, and doing nothing but talking proper
for hours and hours."
"But I thought you liked it, Cissy," said Hugh John, who did not know
everything.
"Like it!" echoed Cissy; "I've got to _do_ it. And if they dreamed I
didn't like it, they'd think I hadn't proper manners, and make me stop
just twice as long. Mother wants me to acquire a good society
something-or-other, so that's why I've to stop and make tea, and
pretend to like to talk to Mr. Burnham."
"Oh--him," said Hugh John; "he isn't half bad. And he's a ripping good
wicket-keep!"
"I dare say," retorted Cissy, "that's all very well for you. He talks
to you about cricket and W. G.'s scores--I've heard him. But he speaks
to me in that peeky far-away voice from the back of his throat, like
he does in the service when he comes to the bit about 'young
children'--and what do you think the _Creature_ says?"
"I dunno," said Hugh John, with a world-weary air, as if the
eccentricities of clergymen in silk waistcoats were among the things
that no fellow could possibly find out.
"Well, he said that he hoped the time would soon come when a young
lady of so much decision of character (that's me!) would be able to
assist him in his district visiting."
"What's 'decision of character' when he's at home?" asked Hugh John
flippantly.
"Oh, nothing--only one of the things parsons say. It doesn't mean
anything--not in particular!" replied the widely informed Cissy. "But
did you ever hear such rot?"
And for the first time her eyes met his with a quaintly questioning
look, which somehow carried in it a reminiscence of the stile and the
ivy bush. Cissy's eyes were never quite (Hugh John has admitted as
much to me in a moment of confidence)--never quite the same after the
incident of the orchard. On this occasion Hugh John instantly averted
his own, and looked stolidly at the ground.
"Perhaps Mr. Burnham has heard that you went with medicine and stuff
to the gipsy camp," he said after a pause, trying to find an
explanation of the apparently indefensible folly of his cricketing
hero. Cissy had not thought of this before.
"Well, perhaps he had," she said, "but that was quite different."
"How different?" queried Hugh John.
"Well, that was only dogs and Billy Blythe," said Cissy, somewhat
shamefacedly; "that doesn't count, and besides I like it. Doing good
has got to be something you don't like--teaching little brats their
duty to their godfathers and godmothers, or distributing tracts which
only make people stamp and swear and carry on."
"Isn't there something somewhere about helping the fatherless and the
widow?" faltered Hugh John. He hated "talking good," but somehow he
felt that Cissy was doing herself less than justice.
"Well, I don't suppose that the fox-terrier's pa does much for him,"
she said gaily; "but come along and I'll 'interjuce' you to your ally
Billy Blythe."
So they walked along towards the camp in silence. It was a still,
Sunday-like evening, and the bell of Edam town steeple was tolling for
the six o'clock stay of work, as it had done every night at the same
hour for over five hundred years. The reek of the burgesses'
supper-fires was going up in a hundred pillar-like "pews" of tall blue
smoke. Homeward bound humble bees bumbled and blundered along, drunk
and drowsy with the heady nectar they had taken on board--strayed
revellers from the summer-day's Feast of Flowers. Delicate little blue
butterflies rose flurriedly from the short grass, flirted with each
other a while, and then mounted into a yet bluer sky in airy wheels
and irresponsible balancings.
"This is my birthday!" suddenly burst out Hugh John.
Cissy stopped short and caught her breath.
"Oh no--it can't be;" she said, "I thought it was next week, and they
aren't nearly ready."
Whereat Cissy Cartar began most incontinently and unexpectedly to cry.
Hugh John had never seen her do this before, though he was familiar
enough with Prissy's more easy tears.
"Now don't you, Ciss," he said; "I don't want anything--presents and
things, I mean. Just let's be jolly."
"Hu-uh-uh!" sobbed Cissy; "and Janet Sheepshanks told me it was next
week. I'm sure she did; and I set them so nicely to be ready in
time--more than two months ago, and now they aren't ready after all."
"What aren't ready?" said Hugh John.
"The bantam chickens," sobbed Cissy; "and they are lovely as lovely.
And peck--you should just see them peck."
"I'd just as soon have them next week, or the next after that--rather
indeed. Shut up now, Ciss. Stop crying, I tell you. Do you hear?" He
was instinctively adopting that gruff masculine sternness which men
consider to be on the whole the most generally effective method of
dealing with the incomprehensible tears of their women-kind. "_I_
don't care if you cry pints, but I'll hit you if you won't stop! So
there!"
Cissy stopped like magic, and assumed a distant and haughty expression
with her nose in the air, the surprising dignity of which was marred
only by the recurring spasmodic sniff necessary to keep back the
moisture which was still inclined to leak from the corners of her
eyes.
"I would indeed," said Hugh John, like all good men quickly remorseful
after severity had achieved its end. "I'd ever so much rather have the
nicest presents a week after; for on a regular birthday you get so
many things. But by next week, when you've got tired of them all, and
don't have anything new--that's the proper time to get a present."
"Oh, you _are_ nice," said Cissy impulsively, coming over to Hugh
John and clasping his arm with both her hands. He did not encourage
this, for he did not know where it might end, and the open moor was
not by any means the ivy-grown corner of the stable. Cissy went on.
"Yes, you are the nicest thing. Only don't tell any body----"
"I won't!" said Hugh John, with deepest conviction.
"And I'll give you the mother too," continued Cissy; "she is a perfect
darling, and won a prize at the last Edam show. It was only a second,
but everybody said that she ought by rights to have had the first.
Yes, and she would have got it too--only that the other old hen was a
cousin of the judge's. That wasn't fair, was it?"
"Certainly not!" said Hugh John, with instant emphasis.