A Curious Playground
AUDREY stood a long time looking out of that window. It opened like a
door, and the ground outside was only two feet below it. Audrey could
get into her playground in a moment by jumping through the window; and
oh, how she longed to be there!
It was a strange place in which to play, for it was a very old and
long-disused churchyard. A great tombstone stood close to the window,
and shut out much of Audrey's view. A green, moss-grown, dirty old
tombstone it looked; but it was only like all the other stones in that
melancholy and deserted place.
They had all been put up to the memory of people long since dead—long
since forgotten. No loving hands ever brought flowers or wreaths to lay
on those old graves, for the ones who loved them and cared for them had
themselves been long since numbered with the dead, and were lying in
their own quiet resting-places.
Behind the old stones, so black with the smoke of years, so discoloured
and weather-stained by the dews of many a summer and the rains of
many a winter, Audrey could see the ancient church, which was fully
as dismal and deserted as were the graves amongst which it stood. It
had been built eight hundred years ago, and at one time large and
fashionable congregations had no doubt attended it. Now they had all
passed away, and with them had departed the usefulness of the old
church. It was shut up and neglected, and was left to the spiders and
other creeping things, which had made a happy home there.
That old churchyard was the happiest place in the world to Audrey; she
had loved it ever since she was a little child. She knew every corner
of it; she felt as if it belonged to her, and as if no one else had a
right to be there—no one except little Stephen.
She shared everything with him, and she loved him as if he were her
brother. There he was now under the lilac tree, sitting patiently
waiting for her to come; and Aunt Cordelia would not let her go out to
him. How disappointed Stephen would be! A tear trickled down Audrey's
cheek at the thought, and fell on the top of poor Miss Olivia's head.
"What—Audrey crying!" said her aunt, coming briskly into the room.
"What is it all about?"
Audrey wiped the tear off Miss Olivia's hair, and made no answer.
"What?" said her aunt. "Because I said you were not to go out? Now,
Audrey!"
"Aunt, it isn't that—it isn't that," sobbed Audrey. "It's because
Stephen will be disappointed, and it's his birthday. He is five years
old to-day, is Stephen."
"Oh, it's his birthday, is it?" said her aunt, relenting. "Well,
I did not know that. I suppose I must let you go; but mind your
pinafore—that's all!"
"Thank you, aunty!" said Audrey, her face filling with sunshine in
a moment, as she climbed on a chair, crept through the small square
casement, and jumped to the ground outside.
The little boy gave a cry of joy as he saw her, and came slowly forward
to meet her. He could not come quickly, for Stephen was a crippled
child, and had never known what it was to run or to jump like other
children.
When he was a baby, he was so small that he was quite a curiosity; and
the neighbours declared that such a child had never been seen before.
But his father had nursed him and watched him as a gardener tends and
watches a little sickly plant of which he is very fond. And Stephen had
learnt to walk when he was three years old, and could now creep about
the churchyard and play quietly with Audrey amongst the old graves. He
was his father's only treasure, for Stephen's mother had died when he
was a baby; and he loved the little lad with all the love of his heart.
Stephen's father was a cobbler, and his window also opened on the
churchyard; and there he sat mending his shoes, and now and then
glancing at the children at their play. He was never happy when Stephen
was out of his sight, for the child's back was deformed and crooked,
and his legs were weak and unsound, and his father always feared some
evil might befall him.
And this was Stephen's birthday, and he was five years old.
"Oh, Audrey, I'm glad you've come!" he cried. "I've waited and waited
till school should leave, and it did seem so long! I've been looking in
at the window of the church and, Audrey, do you know, there's a bird
building his nest inside, just over the pulpit. Come and look!"
The two children went round to the other side of the church, and
climbing on the top of a large flat tombstone they peered in through
the yellow and discoloured panes of the window. What a strange place it
was!
The high, rotten old pulpit looked as if it must soon fall; the narrow
brown pews, with their high backs, and the large square pews, where the
grand people once sat, were all alike gradually slipping into crooked
positions, and leaning over on the uneven stone floor.
Audrey and Stephen loved to look into that old church; they peeped in
at all times of the day—in the morning, when the church looked bright
and almost cheerful, as the sunbeams danced on the old pillars and
streamed down the deserted aisles; in the afternoon, when the long
shadows fell across the chancel, and the coloured window at the western
end threw blue and red lights on the font and on the mouldy pavement
below; and again in the evening, just before going to bed, when the old
church was weird and ghostly, and the stone figures on the tombs in the
chancel looked to the children as if they were alive, and might stand
up and call to them as they watched.
Stephen would tremble at such times and cling fast to Audrey; but she
was never afraid of the old church by night or by day, and she would
have slept as soundly and as happily in one of the square pews as she
did in her own bed at home.
This afternoon the church looked very bright, and the sunshine showed
the dust and cobwebs which clung to the roof, as Stephen pointed out
the nest he had discovered.
It was a swallow's nest, and presently they saw the swallows themselves
flying in and out of a broken pane in the east window, and adding
finishing touches to their neat little nest.
"Isn't it lovely?" said Audrey. "We will come every day to watch them,
and we shall see if any little birds come in the nest."
Then she lifted Stephen down from the stone, and they wandered together
through the churchyard. What a forlorn place it was, full of long grass
and weeds! All the grave-stones seemed to have fallen out of place,
just as all the pews had done. Some were leaning one way and some
another.
The names on most of them had long since been worn away, but others
were still quite distinct; and Audrey loved to spell them out and to
calculate how long it was since those buried in the old graves had died.
In one corner of the churchyard was a swing, which Stephen's father
had put up for them; and just underneath the wall of the church was a
hutch, where Stephen's white rabbit lived.
It was very, very seldom that any one visited the old church, except
the deaf old woman who had the key of the gate; and she only came when
some stranger, passing through the old city, happened to discover the
whereabouts of the ancient building, and made it worth her while to
unlock the door.