A Terrible Tomboy Part 2

'Right in the middle of a gorse-bush, just on the top of the mound where the goat was tethered last year. He calls them bottle-t.i.ts, but it's just the same thing, Father says. Whew! isn't the gra.s.s scratchy on your legs!'

'Horrid! My boots are full of p.r.i.c.kles. I shall have to take them off soon. It's so deep here, it's scratching my very nose. Oh, look, Bobby!

There goes one of the t.i.ts! I saw just where she flew from. Oh, here it is! See, isn't it just the prettiest little nest that ever was?'

The t.i.t's nest would certainly have gained the prize if all the birds had been asked to take part in a building compet.i.tion. It was made of the softest moss and lichens, fashioned together in the shape of a bottle with the neck downwards; for the t.i.t must have some place in which to bestow her long tail, and she builds her home to suit her person.

Peggy thrust a cautious finger through the tiny opening in the side.

'It's full of eggs!' she exclaimed; 'I should think there must be seven or eight. I'll take two, one for you and one for me. They're the smallest you ever saw, and so warm. I hope they'll blow easily.'

Bobby had brought a box full of sheep's wool in his pocket, to hold anything they might find, so Peggy laid the eggs in with great pride, for bottle-t.i.ts were rare in that neighbourhood, and they had long wished to find such a treasure. Joe had certainly not misled them, and Bobby's memory, though defective as regarded Latin declensions and historical facts, was unerring where it was a case of locating birds'-nests.

He found three thrushes' nests low down in the elder-bushes, all filled with gaping yellow mouths, the pretty little chaffinch's up in the ivy-tree, with only two speckly eggs as yet, and Jenny Wren's household, hidden away in a bank, full of so many children that she surely resembled the old woman who lived in a shoe, and it was a marvel how she could remember which little chirping atom she had fed last. The robin had built early and her brood had flown and left the empty nest; but two blackbirds were sitting in the hawthorn-hedge, and flew away with cries of indignation and distress.

The cuckoos were still calling loudly in the distance.

'Tiresome things!' said Bobby; 'if they would only build nests like other birds, one might have a chance of finding them.'

'"In April the cuckoo comes, In May she'll stay, In June she changes her tune, In July she prepares to fly, Come August, go she must,"'

quoted Peggy.

'But you haven't said it all,' put in Bobby.

'"And if the cuckoo stays till September, It's as much as the oldest man can remember."'

'I wish the rhymes would tell us where she lays her eggs,' said Peggy.

She was poking about in the mossy bank as she spoke, when a hedge-sparrow flew out from the low bushes above almost straight into her face. It did not take Peggy long to find the neat little nest of twisted twigs and gra.s.s woven into the fork of a branch. There were four lovely blue eggs inside, and a slightly larger one of a greenish-gray colour. Peggy flushed all over with excitement.

'Bobby, Bobby!' she screamed, 'come here, quick! I do believe I have found a cuckoo's egg!'

There seemed little doubt about it, for the egg really looked quite different to the others; so the treasured find was safely put away in the small box, to be shown to Joe, who was wise in such lore, though he only knew the birds by their country names, and had never heard of such a science as ornithology. Quite elated with their success, the children hunted down the lane, searching in every bush and hedgerow, but they found nothing but a few last year's nests, full of acorns and dead leaves.

They came out by Betsy Owen's cottage--a little low, whitewashed, tumble-down building, standing in the midst of a neglected garden, with a very forlorn and deserted air about it.

'Joe says no doubt there'd be lots of nests in the ivy there,' confided Bobby, peeping through the hedge. 'But he wouldn't go in and see, not if you gave him five pounds for it.'

'Why not?' demanded Peggy.

'Because old Betsy's a witch, and you never know what she might do if you made her angry. John Parker and Evan Williams took some sticks from her hedge last autumn, and she came out in a rage, and crossed her fingers at them, and in six weeks John broke his leg, and Evan had sore eyes all the winter. And once Joe and another boy were coming home very late at night past the cottage, and they saw a bright light, and just as they reached the gate it went out, and they heard a most fearful shriek, and they were so frightened they ran all the way home.'

'What nonsense!' said Peggy. 'I expect the old woman was blowing out her candle to go to bed, and a screech-owl flew over their heads. Joe would have run away from his own shadow. But if you're afraid, stay outside in the lane, for I'm going in to see if there's a nest in that ivy; it looks such a likely place. I don't believe anyone's in the cottage, either, for the door's shut.'

But Bobby much resented such a slur on his manly courage, and insisted upon being the one to climb the ivy-covered chimney. He crept quietly round to the back of the cottage, and swung himself up by the thick stems, feeling in every little hole where he could lay his hand. The large old chimney was so wide at the top that he found he could peep right down it, as if he were looking into a well, and could see a good piece of the hearth underneath, with a small fire of sticks burning under a large, three-legged iron pot, and the old woman sitting close by on a low stool, smoking a short clay pipe.

Betsy Owen was a withered, cross-grained old dame, who by dint of the knowledge of the uses of some simple herbs and a good deal of cunning, had contrived to establish a reputation something between a witch and a quack doctor. People came to her from remote farms to have warts charmed away or the toothache cured; she dressed burns and wounds, and concocted lotions for sore eyes and bad legs. Her one room was hung all round with plants in various stages of drying, and she was always ready to prescribe a remedy for an ailing cow or a sick child, generally at much profit to herself, whatever might be the benefit to the sufferer. She was bending over her iron pot now, stirring the concoction with a long-handled spoon. Bobby could see her quite plainly in the fire light, and could catch the curious aromatic smell which rose up from the smouldering wood. I do not know what prompted him--probably the love of mischief which dwells in all small boys--but he picked up a loose piece of mortar which was lying on the roof, and dropped it suddenly down the chimney. It fell plump into the iron pot with a loud, hissing sound.

Out rushed Betsy from the cottage, scolding furiously. Down dropped Bobby from the chimney, and was through a hole in the hedge and away down the lane as fast as his st.u.r.dy legs could carry him. Peggy had been waiting in the garden, and, before she could realize what had happened, she found herself seized and shaken violently by the angry old woman.

'I'll larn yer to come into other folk's places and drop stones down decent body's chimleys!' shrieked Betsy. 'Be off with yer, yer ill-mannered young good-for-naught; and if ever I catch yer here again, yer'll get such a hidin' yer won't forget it for a month!'

Peggy was so amazed by the suddenness of the attack that for the moment she offered no resistance; but, finding a storm of blows descending on her head like hail, she managed to squirm out of Betsy's ungentle grasp, and fled after Bobby down the lane, followed by a shower of epithets from the gate, where the old woman stood shaking her fist until long after the children were out of sight.

When they judged themselves to be at a safe distance the pair sat down on a fence to get their breath, and talk over their adventure.

'We're in for it now,' laughed Peggy. 'She was so fearfully angry I'm sure Joe would say she'd bewitched us!'

'Yes, he'll be in a great state of mind when we tell him. He'll quite expect us to break our arms or legs or necks or something before long!'

'You'll do that without her if you try to swing head downwards on one leg like that,' said Peggy; for Bobby was executing some marvellous gymnastics on the top rail of the fence.

He came down feet foremost, however, and they sauntered off along the road to the old water-mill, where the miller's man was slinging a sack of flour on to a patient donkey who stood, with drooping ears, eyeing the burden which he must carry up far into the mountains, while his mistress, a little black-eyed Welshwoman, poured forth a torrent of gossip in high-pitched tones.

The wheel was standing idle, and the children went down the slippery steps to the pool below. It was cool and dark there, for the trees grew low over the stream, and the water, escaping from the race above, poured down by the side of the wheel in a foaming cataract. A dipper was hopping about from stone to stone in the centre of the stream, pruning her sleek feathers, and calling her lively 'chit, chit' to her mate.

Peggy grasped Bobby by the arm.

'Keep still,' she whispered. 'Let us watch her. Perhaps she may have a nest somewhere close by.'

All unconscious of her audience, the little bird jerked her short tail, dived rapidly into the water, and, emerging at the other side of the pool, flew suddenly into the green, moss-grown wall which overhung the mill-wheel.

'That's her nest,' cried Bobby. 'Oh, don't you see it? It looks just like a great lump of moss; you can hardly tell it from the wall, only I see a little round hole at the bottom. What a shame it's in such a horrid place! We can never get it up there.'

'Yes, we can,' replied Peggy stoutly. 'I'm going up.'

'But how?'

'Up the mill-wheel, of course, stupid! No, you're not coming too. You climbed the chimney, and it's my turn. Just hold my hat, and I'll manage all right, you'll see!'

It was a slippery climb, for the wheel was green with slime, and it needed a long step to get from one blade to the other; but Peggy was utterly fearless, and she had soon pulled herself to the top. Balanced there, she could easily reach to the nest, which was only a few feet away from her. Out flew the dipper in a panic, and in went Peggy's fingers.

'Three eggs, Bobby--lovely white eggs! Look! I think I shall take this one, at any rate.'

She held out her hand to show her prize, but at that instant the mill-wheel began to turn, and she was whirled from the dizzy summit down--down--into the dark pool below.

Bobby's agonized shrieks brought out the miller's man, who, dashing into the stream, caught the child just as she rose to the surface, and before she had drifted into the swifter current further on. It was a very forlorn and draggled Peggy which he laid upon the bank, but she was game to the last.

'I haven't broken the egg,' she gasped out, with the water streaming from her hair.

'Better thank the Lord you're not drowned, miss,' said the miller's man, looking ruefully at his own wet garments. 'Let me take you into the house, and Mrs. Griffiths'll get you some dry clothes to your back; you'll catch your death of cold sitting there.'

Peggy essayed to get up and walk, but she was such a very water-logged vessel that to hasten matters her rescuer picked her up in his arms, and bore her off like a sack of flour.

Stout old Mrs. Griffiths was sitting knitting in the chimney-corner, but she jumped up in a hurry when John carried in his dripping burden.

'Sakes alive!' she screamed, 'what is it? Is she dead? Lay her out on the parlour sofa. Sarah Grace, run for the parish nurse and the Rector--quick!'

But Peggy's voluble tongue a.s.suring her that she was very much alive, and only in need of drying, she soon hustled that young lady upstairs, and out of her wet clothes. Ten minutes later Peggy sat on the settle by the kitchen fire, an odd little figure, attired in Sarah Grace's Sunday jacket over Mrs. Griffiths' best red flannel petticoat, and a steaming gla.s.s of hot elder wine in her hand.