WET DAYS AT RAVENSNEST
For about a week after the row on the lake the weather was lovely, and
Milly wondered more than ever what the old gentleman who warned them of
the rain in the mountains could have been thinking about. She and Olly
were out all day, and nearly every afternoon nurse lifted the tea-table
through the low nursery window on to the lawn, and let them have their
tea out of doors among the flowers and trees and twittering birds. They
had found out a fly-catcher's nest in the ivy above the front door, and
every evening the two children used to fetch out their father to watch
the parent birds catching flies and carrying them to the hungry little
ones, whom they could just hear chirping up above the ivy. Olly was wild
to get the gardener's ladder that he might climb up and look into the
nest, but Mr. Norton would not have it lest it should frighten away the
old birds.
One delicious warm morning, too, the children had their long-promised
bathe, and what fun it was. Nurse woke them up at five o'clock in the
morning--fancy waking up as early as that!--and they slipped on their
little blue bathing gowns, and their sand shoes that mother had bought
them in Cromer the year before, and then nurse wrapped them up in
shawls, and she and they and father went down and opened the front door
while everybody else in the house was asleep, and slipped out. What a
quiet strange world it seemed, the grass and the flowers dripping with
dew, and overhead such a blue sky with white clouds sailing slowly about
in it.
"Why don't we always get up at five o'clock, father?" asked Olly, as he
and Milly skipped along--such an odd little pair of figures--beside Mr.
Norton. "Isn't it nice and funny?"
"Very," said Mr. Norton. "Still, I imagine Olly, if you had to get up
every day at five o'clock, you might think it funny, but I'm sure you
wouldn't always think it nice."
"Oh! I'm sure we should," said Milly, seriously. "Why, father, it's just
as if everything was ours and nobody else's, the garden and the river I
mean. Is there _anybody_ up yet do you think--in those houses?" And
Milly pointed to the few houses they could see from the Ravensnest
garden.
"I can't tell, Milly. But I'll tell you who's sure to be up now, and
that's John Backhouse. I should think he's just beginning to milk the
cows."
"Oh then, Becky and Tiza'll be up too," cried Milly, dancing about. "I
wish we could see them. Somehow it would be quite different seeing them
now, father. I feel so queer, as if I was somebody else."
If you have ever been up _very_ early on a summer morning, you will know
what Milly meant, but if not I can hardly explain it. Such a pretty
quiet little walk they had down to the river. Nobody on the road, nobody
in the fields, but the birds chattering and the sun shining, as if they
were having a good time all to themselves, before anybody woke up to
interrupt them. Mr. Norton took the children down to the
stepping-stones, and then, while Milly and nurse stayed on the bank he
lifted Olly up, and carried him to the middle of the stepping-stones,
where the water would about come up to his chest. Mr. Norton had already
taken off his own shoes and stockings, and when they came to the middle
stone, he put Olly down on the stone, and stepped into the water
himself. "Now, Olly, give me your hands and jump in. Mind, it'll feel
very cold."
Olly shut his eyes, and opened his mouth, as he always did when he felt
just a little frightened, and then in he went; splash! ugh! it was so
cold--much colder than the sea used to feel--but after a few splashes
Olly began to get used to it, and to think it fine fun.
"Oh, father, fetch Milly, and then we'll all dance about," entreated
Olly.
"Come, Milly," called Mr. Norton. "Try whether you can manage the
stepping-stones by yourself." So Milly came, holding up her bathing
dress, and stepping from one big stone to another with a very grave
face, as if she felt that there would be an end of her altogether if she
tumbled in. And then, splash! In she jumped by the side of Olly, and
after a little shiver or two she also began to think that the river was
a delightful bathing place, almost as nice as the sea, perhaps in some
ways nicer, because it was such a strange and funny one. They danced and
splashed about in the brown sparkling water till they were tired, and at
last Olly stopped to take breath.
"I should think the fishes must be frightened of us," he said, peering
down into the river. "I can't see any, father."
"Well, they wouldn't choose to swim about just where little children are
shouting and capering. The fishes are hidden safe away under the banks
and the big stones. Besides, it's going to be a very hot day, and they
like the shady bits of the river. Just here there's no shade."
Suddenly there was a great commotion in the river, and when Mr. Norton
looked round for a second he could see nothing of Milly, till up came a
dripping head and a pair of hands, and there was Milly kneeling on the
stones at the bottom of the river, with just her head above water,
looking very much astonished and rather frightened.
"Why, what happened, old woman?" said Mr. Norton, holding out his hand
to help her up.
"I--I--don't quite know, father; I was standing on a big stone, and all
of a sudden it tipped up, and I tumbled right in."
"First of all I thought you was a big fish, and then I thought you was
going to be drowned," said Olly, cheerfully. "I'm glad you wasn't
drowned."
"Miss Milly! Miss Milly!" shouted nurse from the bank, "it's quite time
you came out now. If you stay in so long you'll get cold, and you, too,
Master Olly."
Olly was not inclined to come. He would have liked to go on dabbling and
splashing till breakfast-time, but Mr. Norton hurried him out, and the
two dripping little creatures were well wrapped up in large shawls which
nurse had brought with her. Then nurse took up Olly in her arms, and
father took up Milly, who was small and light for her age, and they set
off up the bit of road to the house. By this time it was past six
o'clock, and whom should they meet at the Ravensnest gate but John
Backhouse, with Becky and Tiza, and his two dogs. He was just bringing
the milk, and both he and his children looked as brisk and wide awake as
if they had been up and about for hours.
Milly and Olly were very much excited at the sight of them, and Olly
struggled hard to get down, but nurse held him tight.
"Oh, Becky! we've had such a nice bathe," cried Milly, as she passed
them muffled up in her shawl, her little wet feet dangling out.
Becky and Tiza looked longingly after them as they disappeared into the
house. They wished they could have had a bathe too, but they knew very
well that their hard-worked father and mother had something else to do
on a fine summer's morning than to take them to bathe, and in a few
minutes they had forgotten all about it, and were busy playing with the
dogs, or chattering to their father about the hay-making, which was soon
to begin now.
That evening there were strange clouds at sunset time, and Mr. Norton
shook his head as he heard Mrs. Norton arrange to take the children next
day to a small mountain village near Ravensnest, to call on some old
friends of hers.
"I wouldn't make much of a plan for to-morrow if I were you," he said to
his wife, "the weather doesn't look promising."
"Oh, father!" said Milly, protesting. "There are some red clouds over
there--look! and Nana always says it's going to be fine when there are
red clouds."
"Well, Milly, your red clouds may be right and I may be wrong. We shall
see."
But, alas! father was quite right. When Milly woke up next morning there
was no nice sunshine creeping on to her bed as it had done almost ever
since they came to Ravensnest; but instead there was rain beating
steadily against the window, coming down out of a heavy gray sky, and
looking as if it meant to go on for ever.
"Oh dear!" sighed Milly, as she began to dress, "we can't go out, and
the wild strawberries will get so wet. I meant to have gathered some for
mother to-day. There would have been such nice ones in the wood."
But it was no use thinking about woods or strawberries, and when Mrs.
Norton came into the children's room just as they were finishing
breakfast, she found a pair of dull little faces staring out at the
rain, as if looking at it would make it stop.
"Nasty rain," said Olly, climbing up on his mother's knee. "Go to Spain.
I don't want you to come and spoil my nicey time."
"I am afraid scolding the rain won't make it go away," said his mother,
smiling into his brown face as he knelt on her lap, with his arms round
her neck. "Now what are we going to do to-day?"
"I don't know," said Milly, sitting down opposite her mother, and
resting her face gravely on her hands. "Well, we brought _some_ toys,
you know, mother. Olly's got his top; I can help him spin it, and I can
play with Katie a bit."
"That won't take very long," said Mrs. Norton. "Suppose we do some
lessons first of all."
"Oh, mother, lessons!" said Milly, in a very doubtful voice.
"It's holidays, mother, it's holidays," cried Olly. "I don't like
lessons--not a bit."
"Well, but, Olly, think a bit; you can't spin your top and look at
picture-books all day, and I'm afraid it's going to rain all day--it
looks very like it. If you come and do some reading and counting with me
this morning, I can give you some spills to make, or some letters to
tear up for me afterwards. That will save the toys for this afternoon;
and some time this afternoon, if it doesn't stop raining, we'll all
have a romp. And as for you, Milly, don't you think it's quite time
Katie had a new frock? I believe I can find a beautiful bit of blue silk
in my bag, and I'm sure nurse will show you how to make it."
Milly's face brightened up very much at this, and the two children went
skipping upstairs to the drawing-room after their mother, in very fair
spirits again. Olly did some reading, while Milly wrote in her copybook,
and then Olly had his counting-slate and tried to find out what 6 and 4
made, and 5 and 3, and other little sums of the same kind. He yawned a
good deal over his reading, and was quite sure several times that h-a-y
spelt "ham," and s-a-w spelt "was," but still, on the whole, he got
through very well. Milly wrote her copy, then she learnt some verses of
a poem called "Lucy Gray," and last of all mother found her a big map of
Westmoreland, the county in which the mountains are, and they had a most
delightful geography lesson. Mother pretended to take Milly a drive all
about the mountains, and made her find out their names, and the names of
the towns and the lakes, beginning with Lake Windermere. Olly was
interested too, for Mrs. Norton told them a great many things about the
places, and made quite a story out of it.
[Illustration: "He was quite sure that h-a-y spelt 'ham' and s-a-w spelt
'was.'"]
"Why, mother, I never could go all that long way all at once--_really_,
could I?" asked Milly, when they had been all round the mountains, in
and out and round about.
"No, Milly, not quite," said Mrs. Norton, laughing, "but it's very easy
to go a long way in a pretendy drive. It would only take us about ten
minutes that way to get to the other side of the world."
"How long would it take really?" asked Olly.
"About three months."
"If we could fly up, and up, ever so far," said Olly, standing on
tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as high as they would reach,
"it wouldn't take us long. Mother, don't you wish you was a bird?"
"No, I don't think so, Olly; why do you?"
"Because I should like to go so _krick_. Mother, the fly-catchers do fly
so krick; I can't see them sometimes when they're flying, they go so
fast. Oh, I do wish father would let me get up a ladder to look at
them."
"No Olly, you'll frighten them," said Milly, putting on her wise face.
"Besides, father says you're too little, and you'd tumble down."
Olly looked as if he didn't believe a word of it, as he generally did
when Milly talked wisely to him; but just then he found that mother had
put into his lap a whole basketful of letters to tear up, and that
interested him so much that he forgot the fly-catchers. Nurse cut out a
most fashionable blue dress for Katie, and Milly was quite happy all the
rest of the morning in running up the seams and hemming the bottom. So
the morning passed away. After dinner there were the toys to play with,
and Katie's frock to try on, for nurse had taken a turn at the body
while Milly had been making the skirt. It fitted very well, and Milly
had only the band to put on and the sleeves to make before it would be
quite finished. Then nurse promised to put a little white lace round the
neck, and cut out a blue sash, that Katie might be quite turned into an
elegant young lady. Tea came very soon, and when it was cleared away
father and mother came into the big kitchen without a fireplace, next to
the children's room, and they all had a splendid romp. Mr. Norton made
himself into a tiger, with a tiger-skin in the hall, that Uncle Richard
had brought home from India, and Olly shot him all over with a
walking-stick from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. When they
were tired of this, mother set them to play hide-and-seek, and Milly hid
herself in such out-of-the-way cupboards, and squeezed herself into such
small corners, that mother said she was like a needle in a bundle of
hay--there was no finding her.
Seven o'clock came before they had time to think about it, and the
children went chattering and skipping up to bed, though on fine evenings
they had been staying up much later. How the rain did rattle on the
window while they were undressing.
"Oh, you tiresome rain," said Milly, standing by the window in her
nightdress, and gazing up into the sky. "Where does it all come from, I
wonder? Won't it be wet to-morrow, Nana? and oh, what is that roaring
over there?"
"That's the beck," said nurse, who was brushing Olly's hair, and trying
hard to make him stand still for two minutes.
"The beck! why, what's the matter with it?"
"It's the rain has made it so full I suppose," said nurse. "To-morrow,
gardener says, it'll be over the lawn if the rain goes on."
"Oh, but it mustn't go on," said Milly. "Now, rain, dear rain, good
rain, do go away to-night, right away up into the mountains. There's
plenty of room for you up there, and down here we don't want you a bit.
So do be polite and go away."
But the rain didn't see any good reason for going away, in spite of
Milly's pretty speeches, and next morning there was the same patter on
the window, the same gray sky and dripping garden. After breakfast there
was just a hope of its clearing up. For about an hour the rain seemed to
get less and the clouds a little brighter. But it soon came on again as
fast as ever, and the poor children were very much disappointed.
"Mother," said Milly, when they had settled down to their lessons again
in the drawing-room, "when we get back to Willingham, do you know what I
shall do?"
"No, Milly."
"I shall ask you to take me to see that old gentleman--you know who I
mean--who told you about the rain. And I shall say to him, 'please, Mr.
Old Gentleman, at first I thought you were quite wrong about the rain,
but afterwards I thought you were quite right, and it does rain
dreadfully much in the mountains.'"
"Very well, Milly. But you have only just had a taste of what the rain
can do in the lakes you know, so far. Father and I have been here
sometimes when it has rained two or three weeks without stopping."
"Oh dear!" said Milly, looking extremely melancholy. "I like the
mountains very much, mother; but _do_ you think we'd better come to
Ravensnest again after this year?"
"Oh you ungrateful little woman!" said Mrs. Norton, whose love for the
place was so real that Milly's speech gave her quite a pang. "Have you
forgotten all your happy sunshiny days here, just because it has rained
for two? Why, when I was a little girl, and used to come here, the rainy
days never made me love the place a bit the less. I always used to think
the fine days made up."
"But then, mother, you were a nice little girl," said Milly, throwing
her arms round her mother's neck and kissing her. "Now, I don't feel a
bit nice this morning. It makes me so cross not to be able to go out and
get flowers and wild strawberries. And you know at home it hardly ever
rains all day."
"Gardener says sometimes it rains all over the road," interrupted Olly,
"and people can't walk along, and they have to go right up on the
mountains to get past the water place. And sometimes they have to get a
boat to take people across. Do you think we shall have to go in a boat
to church on Sunday, mother?"
"Well, we're a long way off that yet, Olly. It will take a good many
days' rain to flood the roads so deep that we can't get along them, and
this is only the second rainy day. Come, I don't think we've got much
to complain of. Now suppose, instead of doing all your lessons this
morning, you were presently to write to Jacky and Francis--you write to
Jacky, Milly, and Olly to Francis. Don't you think that would be a good
thing?"
"Oh yes, yes!" cried Milly, shutting up her copybook in a great hurry.
"They'll be so much astonished, mother, for we didn't _promise_ to write
to them. I don't believe they ever get any letters."
The children had a great deal of affection and some secret pity for
these playfellows of theirs, who had a sick mother, and who did not get
half the pleasures and amusements that they did. And, as I have already
told you, they could not bear Miss Chesterton, the little boys' aunt,
who lived with them. They felt sure that Jacky and Francis must be
unhappy, only because they had to live with Miss Chesterton.
This was Milly's letter when it was done. Milly could only write very
slowly, in rather big hand, so that her letters were never very long:
MY DEAR JACKY--Don't you think it very odd getting a letter from
me? It is nearly a fortnight since we came here. At first it was
_very_ nice. We went up the mountains, and Aunt Emma took us in
a boat on the lake. And we gathered some wild strawberries, only
some of them were quite white--not red a bit. But now it has
begun to rain, and we don't like it at all. Perhaps we sha'n't
be able to get home because the rain will cover up the roads. It
is _very_ dull staying in, only mother makes us such nice plays.
Good-bye, Jacky. I send my love to Francis. Mind you don't
forget us.
Your loving little friend,
MILLY.
Olly wrote a much longer letter, that is to say, mother wrote for him,
and he told her what to say, and as this was a much easier way of
writing than Milly's way, he got on very fast, and Mrs. Norton had to
write as quickly as she could, to keep up with him. And this was what
Olly had to say:
MY DEAR FRANCIS--I wonder what you'll say to-morrow morning
when the postman brings you this letter. I hope you'll write
back, because it won't be fair if you don't. It isn't such fun
here now because it does rain so. Milly and I are always telling
the rain to go away, but it won't--though it did at home. Last
week we went out in a boat, and I rowed. I rowed a great way,
much farther than Milly. We went very slow when Milly rowed. It
was very jolly at the picnic. Aunt Emma gave me some cake, and
mother gave me some bread and jam. Nana won't let us have cake
and jam both, when we have tea at home. Aunt Emma told us a
story about King Arthur. I don't believe you ever heard it. The
water-fairies took him away, and his friend wanted to go too,
but the king said 'No! you must stop behind.' Milly cried
because she felt sad about the king. I didn't cry, because I'm a
little boy. Mother says you won't understand about the story,
and she says we must tell it you when we get home. So we will,
only perhaps we sha'n't remember. Do you do lessons now? We
don't do any--only when it rains. Milly's writing a letter to
Jacky--mine's much longer than hers.
Your little friend,
OLLY.
Then came the putting up the letters, addressing them, and stamping
them, all of which the children enjoyed very much, and by the time they
were laid on the hall table ready to go to the post it was nearly
dinner-time.
How the beck did roar that afternoon. And when the children looked out
from the drawing-room window they could see a little flood on the lawn,
where the water had come over the side of the stream. While they were
having their tea, with mother sitting by, working and chattering to
them, they heard a knock at the door, and when they opened it there was
father standing in the unused kitchen, with the water running off his
waterproof coat, making little streams all over the stone floor.
"I have been down to look at the river," he said to Mrs. Norton. "Keep
off, children! I'm much too wet to touch. Such rain! It does know how
to come down here! The water's over the road just by the
stepping-stones. John Backhouse says if it goes on another twenty-four
hours like this, there'll be no getting to Wanwick by the road, on
foot."
"Father," said Milly, looking at him with a very solemn face, "wouldn't
it be dreadful if it went on raining and raining, and if the river came
up and up, right up to the drive and into the hall, and we all had to
sit upstairs, and the butcher couldn't bring us any meat, and John
Backhouse couldn't bring us any milk, and we all _died_ of hunger."
"Then they would put us into some black boxes," said Olly, cheerfully,
with his mouth full of bread and butter, "and they would put the black
boxes into some boats, and take us right away and bury us
krick--wouldn't they, mother?"
"Well, but--" said Mr. Norton, who had by this time got rid of his wet
coat, and was seated by Milly, helping himself to some tea, "suppose we
got into the boats before we were dead, and rowed away to Windermere
station?"
"Oh no! father," said Milly, who always liked her stories to be as
gloomy as possible, "they wouldn't know anything about us till we were
dead you know, and then they'd come and find us, and be _very_ sorry for
us, and say, 'Oh dear! oh dear! what a pity!'"
Olly began to look so dismal as Milly's fancies grew more and more
melancholy, that Mrs. Norton took to laughing at them all. What did they
know about Westmoreland rain indeed. This was nothing--just nothing at
all; she _could_ remember some floods in the wintertime, when she was a
little girl, and used to stay with Aunt Emma and great-grandmamma; but
as for this, why, it was a good summer wetting, and that was all.
A romp sent the children to bed in excellent spirits again. This time
both Milly and Olly stood at the window together, and told the rain to
be sure to go to Spain that night, and never come back again while they
were at Ravensnest.
"Or you might go to Willingham, you know, dear Mr. Rain," said Milly; "I
daresay mother's flowers want a good watering. And there's Spot--you
might give her a good washing--she _can_ wash herself, but she won't.
Only we don't want you here, Mr. Rain."
But what an obstinate disagreeable Mr. Rain it was! All that night it
went on pouring, till the little beck in the garden was so full it was
almost choked, and could only get along by sputtering and foaming as if
some wicked water-fairies were driving it along and tormenting it. And
all the little pools on the mountain, the "tarns," as Becky and Tiza
called them, filled up, and the rain made the mountain itself so wet
that it was like one big bog all over.
When the children woke up the flood on the lawn was growing bigger, and
it seemed to them as if the house and garden were all wrapped up in a
wet white cloud-blanket. They could not see the mountain at all from the
window, it was all covered with a thick white mist, and the dark fir
trees in the garden looked sad and drooping, as if the weight of
raindrops was too much for them to carry.
The children had made up their minds so completely the night before that
it _couldn't_ rain more than two days running, that they felt as if they
could hardly be expected to bear this third wet morning cheerfully.
Nurse found them cross and out of spirits at breakfast. Even a prospect
of asking Becky and Tiza to tea did not bring any smiles to their
forlorn little faces. It would be no fun having anybody to tea. They
couldn't go out, and there was nothing amusing indoors.
After breakfast, Olly set to work to get into mischief, as he generally
did when he felt dull. Nurse discovered him smearing Katie's cheeks with
raspberry jam "to make them get red kricker" as he said, and alas! some
of the jam had stuck to the new silk frock, and spoilt all its smart
fresh look.
When Milly found it out she began to cry, and when Mrs. Norton came in
she saw a heap on the floor, which was Milly, sobbing, while Olly sat
beside her with his mouth wide open, as if he was a good deal astonished
at the result of his first attempt at doctoring.
"Pick up the pieces, old woman," said Mrs. Norton, taking hold of the
heap and lifting it up. "What's the matter with you both?"
"Olly's spoilt my doll," sobbed Milly, "and it _will_ go on raining--and
I feel so--so--dull."
"I didn't spoil her doll, mother," cried Olly, eagerly. "I only rubbed
some jam on its cheeks to make them a nicey pink--only some of it
_would_ sticky her dress--I didn't mean to."
"How would you like some jam rubbed on your cheeks, sir?" said Mrs.
Norton, who could scarcely help laughing at poor Katie's appearance when
nurse handed the doll to her. "Suppose you leave Milly's dolls alone for
the future; but cheer up, Milly! I think I can make Katie very nearly
right again. Come upstairs to my room and we'll try."
After a good deal of sponging and rubbing, and careful drying by the
kitchen fire, Katie came very nearly right again, and then Mrs. Norton
tried whether some lessons would drive the rain out of the children's
heads. But the lessons did not go well. It was all Milly could do to
help crying every time she got a figure wrong in her sum, and Olly took
about ten minutes to read two lines of his reading-book. Olly had just
begun his sums, and Milly was standing up to say some poetry to her
mother, looking a woebegone little figure, with pale cheeks and heavy
eyes, when suddenly there was a noise of wheels outside, and both the
children turned to look out of the window.
"A carriage! a carriage!" shouted Olly, jumping down, and running to the
window.
There, indeed, was one of the shut-up "cars," as the Westmoreland people
call them, coming up the Ravensnest drive.
"It's Aunt Emma," said Mrs. Norton, starting up, "how good of her to
come over on such a day. Run, children, and open the front door."
Down flew Milly and Olly, tumbling over one another in their hurry; but
father had already thrown the door open, and who should they see
stepping down the carriage-steps but Aunt Emma herself, with her soft
gray hair shining under her veil, and her dear kind face as gentle and
cheery as ever.
"Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma!" shouted Olly, dancing up to her, and throwing
his arms round her, "_are_ you come to tell us about old Mother
Quiverquake?"
"You gipsy, don't strangle me! Well, Lucy dear, here I am. Will you have
me to dinner? I thought we'd all be company for each other this bad day.
Why, Milly, what have you been doing to your cheeks?"
"She's been crying," said Olly, in spite of Milly's pulling him by the
sleeve to be quiet, "because I stickened her doll."
"Well, and quite right too. Dolls weren't made to be stickied. But now,
who's going to carry my bag upstairs? Take it gently, Milly, it's got my
cap inside, and if you crumple my cap I shall have to sit with my head
in a bandbox at dinner. Old ladies are _never_ seen without their caps
you know. The most dreadful things would happen if they were! Olly, you
may put my umbrella away. There now, I'll go to mother's room and take
off my things."