Esther's Charge Part 12

"Will it always stand on end like that?" she asked, for the wave in her hair made it set off from her face and stand round it rather like the aureole round the heads of saints in the church windows. "I don't think Genefer will think it tidy like that. Can't I brush it and make it lie smooth, like Mr. Earle's?"

They got a brush, but the hair set them at defiance, and stood out in its own way. But it was delightful to have no heavy mane hanging down behind. Esther declared her headache almost gone, and so she was allowed to go out and find the boys, who had been set to play by themselves for an hour.

The shrieks of delight they set up at sight of Esther with her cropped head made her laugh and glow like a child; and she looked altogether so much brighter and merrier that the two gentlemen exchanged glances and nodded their heads, as though quite satisfied with the high-handed measure they had taken.

"We shall call you Roundhead now!" cried Puck, dancing round her in an ecstasy of amus.e.m.e.nt; but Mr. Trelawny came up and took him by the ears, saying in his gruffest way,--

"You will call your cousin by her proper name, or you will never come to my house again. Now, do you understand?"

"Do you mean really?" asked Puck, wriggling away and facing round.

"I mean really and truly," was the emphatic answer. "You've got to learn manners, you two, whilst you are here; and if Mr. Earle knocks some knowledge into your thick skulls, I'll knock a little respect for other people into your democratic little minds. So mind, if you don't behave yourselves properly to your cousin, and speak to her properly too, you'll never have the chance of coming to the Crag again."

CHAPTER VI.

THE SHORN SHEEP.

"I think you ought to come home with us, Uncle Bob, after cutting off Esther's tousle like that. I expect Aunt Saint will be in a jolly old wax."

The children had finished their tea out on the terrace, and a very nice tea it had been. Esther was looking brighter than she had done at first, and a little bit of color had stolen into her face; but her eyes still had a tired look in them, and there were dark marks underneath. Mr.

Trelawny paused beside her, and pa.s.sed his big hands over the cropped head. The touch was kindly, and Esther tried to conquer the little thrill of fear which ran through her. She felt as though she had behaved herself badly at the wizard's house, and that he had been very indulgent to her when he might have been very angry. She could not conquer her old fears all at once; but she resolved to try and mingle some liking with them for this big, strange man, who seemed wishful to be regarded as an uncle.

"What does the shorn sheep say herself about that?" asked Mr. Trelawny, bending down to look into Esther's face.

She made herself return the glance, and said timidly,--

"I think I should be much obliged if you would, Uncle Robert. You would explain to mama better than I can."

A smile lit up the rugged features of the Cornishman.

"To be sure I will then, my dear. I'll take all the blame, which is certainly all mine. I've got a few things I want to say to your mother, so I'll come down now and say them."

So when the shadows had grown a little longer, and the sea was lit up like a sheet of gold, the little party of four started down the hill again, the boys tearing about like a pair of wild animals, Mr. Trelawny following more soberly, holding Esther's hand in his, and helping her over the bits of rough ground; though, as he remarked laughingly, it was "like helping a bit of thistle-down over a hedge."

Mr. Trelawny told Esther a great many interesting things during that walk--things about birds and insects, which she had never known before.

He did not frighten her at all the whole way, and when she asked a timid question he always had a full and interesting answer ready.

Then he told her that he had a number of books full of pictures of live creatures in his library, and said she must come up another day and look at them. And though Esther could never think of the Crag without a certain shrinking and fear, yet she did want to see the pictures very much, if only they would not take her into those awful underground places, or into the rooms where all those strange things went on.

When they got home, there was a sound of voices coming from the open drawing-room windows. The boys had rushed headlong in, and now came tumbling out again.

"It's only Mrs. Poll-parrot and Pretty Polly!" cried the pair in a breath; whereupon Mr. Trelawny took the two heads, one in either hand, and knocked them pretty smartly together.

"Mind your manners, boys!" he said in his big gruff voice, and strode on, holding Esther's hand, whilst Pickle and Puck remained behind, staring after him and rubbing their heads with an air of injured innocence.

"He's rather an old beast sometimes, I think," said Puck rather ruefully. "I don't quite like him always."

"He makes us do as he says," added Pickle, "like Mr. Earle--I mean the Owl. I think it's rather interfering of them."

Meantime Mr. Trelawny had entered the window, drawing Esther after him.

"Good evening, madam," he said in his breezy way--"good evening to you all. Mrs. St. Aiden, I have come to make my peace with you. Tell me first what you think of your shorn lamb."

Then he pushed Esther forward, and the child stood before her mother, the color coming and going in her face rather too fast to please Mr.

Trelawny, who looked at her from under his bushy brows and shook his head once or twice.

Mrs. St. Aiden gave a little gasp, almost a little scream. Mrs.

Polperran stared, and began to laugh; while Prissy cried out in unveiled astonishment,--

"O Esther, your hair, your hair! Where has it gone?"

"Here it is," said Mr. Trelawny, producing a packet wrapped in soft paper, and laying it upon Mrs. St. Aiden's knee. "I daresay some enterprising hairdresser would give a pretty penny for it. Now, Miss Prissy, you run off with your little friend here. I want to talk a little to these good ladies."

Prissy rose, and Esther was glad to escape with her into the garden. It was delightful to have such a cool, comfortable head; but all the talk about herself made her feel hot and shy.

"O Esther!" cried Prissy, "you do look so funny. But I've often heard mother say that it is bad for you having such a great head of hair. What was it made Mr. Trelawny cut it off? Don't you think it was taking a great liberty without your mother's leave?"

"I don't know," answered Esther slowly. "I don't think mama would ever have let him."

The boys came running up now, and the four children were soon well hidden from view in the clipped yew arbor, which was Esther's especial haunt.

"I thought he cut it off to use it in his experiments," said Pickle.

"I've read of magicians who took people's hair, and then they used to burn bits of it and make them come to them in their sleep. I expect that's what he's done it for. I expect that you'll often be walking up to the cave in your sleep now."

Esther began shaking at once, but Prissy said, with her grown-up air of reproof,--

"You are talking great nonsense, Philip." (Prissy very often called the boys Philip and Percy, to their own unspeakable disgust.) "There are no magicians now; and besides, it was all nonsense when there were any. And Mr. Trelawny gave Esther's hair back to Mrs. St. Aiden just now. I saw him."

But Pickle wasn't going to be shut up like that.

"I expect he kept some of it back for himself," he said; "and you needn't pretend to know such a mighty lot about Mr. Trelawny and what he can do. If he isn't a magician, he's something uncommonly like it. You should have seen the things he did to-day for us to see; and he'd have done some funnier ones still, only _she_ went and flopped down in a heap on the floor, and then they had to carry her out, and they wouldn't go back any more."

"What did you do, Esther?" asked Prissy.

"I don't know. I felt funny down there, and everything seemed going round, and I didn't know anything about the rest."

"Well, she just spoiled the fun," said Puck. "They were going to show us some things--skeletons in the tanks, I expect, or jolly things like that--but when _she_ went flop they didn't seem to think a bit about us.

They hustled us away up to the house, and wouldn't show us anything more. That's always the way when there are girls. They are always sure to spoil the fun."

"I'm very sorry," said Esther penitently, "but I didn't mean to. Only I don't like underground places. They make me feel queer."

"I've heard father speak about Mr. Trelawny's cave," said Prissy. "I don't think he likes it much. Quite a little while ago I heard him say to mother that he was afraid, now Mr. Earle had come, that there might be something horrid happening there. I can't quite remember the words, but he said something like that. And mother said she was afraid he was reckless, and too fond of experiments. I wonder what he does there, and what father is afraid of."

"People always are afraid of magicians and wizards," said Pickle with a sly look of triumph at Prissy; and for a moment she was silent, feeling as though she had been somehow caught in a trap.