Esther's Charge Part 17

The young folks did not enjoy themselves any the less for the small sacrifice they had made. The delight of the Polperrans at being driven in Esther's little carriage made amends to her for the loss of the boys; and Prissy was quite nice and merry, and never once put on her grown-up airs of superiority.

Pickle and Puck occupied the box seat of a big wagonette, and were permitted by the driver to hold the reins now and then up the hill, or along the level, so they had nothing left to wish for; and it was a very merry and happy party that arrived by midday at the old ruined castle perched commandingly on the summit of a crag, not so very unlike the one where Mr. Trelawny lived.

Prissy had been there once before, and showed Esther a great many of the wonders it contained--the great banqueting hall, with a part of its beautiful vaulted roof still standing; the old chapel, where the tracery of the windows was wonderful in its graceful beauty; and the ancient keep, with the thick walls, in which little pa.s.sages could run without interfering with them.

Mr. Trelawny was a capital host, and knew how to make people enjoy themselves. There was plenty to eat, and plenty to do; but he seemed fondest of getting all the little people about him, and telling them the wonderful stories of battles and sieges and escapes which had taken place around these very walls.

"Show us the prisons!" cried Pickle. "Aren't there some dungeons underneath? And isn't there a block or an ax or something like that? I like those jolly old underground places. I'd soon have got out though, if I'd been a prisoner."

"I'll show you one prison, anyhow," answered Mr. Trelawny; "but I think you'd be puzzled how to get out of it, if once you were shut in."

Esther felt her breath coming and going. She did so hope there were no underground places here. The old feeling of horror came back directly she heard this talk. She felt as though everything had suddenly been spoiled.

She didn't want to think about poor wretched prisoners, shut out from the light of day, lying in chains down in those terrible places. She couldn't think how all the children seemed to want to go and look. It made her feel sick and miserable; and yet she did not like to hang back when everybody else was moving.

She thought of her resolution not to be frightened of fancied terrors; but this was not fancy. These were real prisons, and real people had been shut up there; and perhaps she would hear of horrid things that were done to them, which would make her feel all creepy at night, and not let her go to sleep.

Her feet lagged more and more as the party trooped on after Mr.

Trelawny, laughing and asking questions; and then Esther suddenly found that she could not make up her mind to go with the rest. She turned tail, and ran in the opposite direction, and threw herself down on the warm gra.s.s, shaking all over.

"What is the matter?" asked a voice close beside her. She gave a great jump, and looked round with scared eyes. There was Mr. Earle sitting very near indeed to her, with a sketch-book in his hand. She wished then she had not come, or had seen him in time to run somewhere else.

"What is the matter?" he asked again quite kindly.

"I--I don't know. They were going down to the dungeons. I didn't want to go--that's all."

"There is nothing very pretty down there; come and look at my drawing, and tell me how you like it. Isn't that a fine bit of molding there? Do you know people come from all over the country to see it. It's one of the best bits that exist in the world--or at least in this country."

"How nicely you draw!" said Esther admiringly, feeling the cold tremors abating. "What a lot of things you can do, Mr. Earle! It must be nice to be clever."

"Very, I should think," he answered with a smile. "Would you like to learn to sketch some day?"

"Oh, very much, only there are so many things to learn. There does not seem time for them all."

"No, that's the worst of it; it is like picking up pebbles on the seash.o.r.e. One can never get more than a few out of all the millions there. Still, if we make these few our own we have done something."

Mr. Earle went on with his drawing, and Esther sat watching him, feeling soothed and comforted, she did not know why. Her thoughts went off on their own wonderings, and presently she said suddenly,--

"Mr. Earle, is it wrong to be afraid of things--I mean of things that don't hurt, like dark places and cellars?"

"It is not wrong, but it is often inconvenient."

"You don't mind them, I suppose?"

"Not now. I used to be afraid of the dark once when I was a little boy."

"How did you cure yourself?"

"My mother asked me to try and get over it. So she taught me to say my prayers first, and then walk over the dark part of the house every night alone. I used to make believe that an angel came with me. After that I soon stopped being afraid."

Esther sat very still for a little while, a light coming slowly into her face.

"Do you think the angel was there really, Mr. Earle?"

"I should not be very much surprised," he answered gravely, and they sat in silence till the rest came back.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CITY OF REFUGE.

It must not be supposed that the city of refuge was forgotten or neglected all this time.

Sat.u.r.day afternoons had always been kept sacred to it, except when some other attraction took the children elsewhere. The changes which had taken place on the other days did not affect Sat.u.r.day to any great extent.

Mr. Earle was always up at the Crag on that afternoon, shut up in the laboratory with Mr. Trelawny. He did not volunteer either drives or sails on that day, and other people were busy too. Esther always had a number of little Sat.u.r.day duties to think of; Prissy was safely shut up in the lending library; and the four younger children invariably spent the leisure time together, and almost as regularly got the old fisherman's boat and took a trip across to their island.

But they had kept this a profound secret, and, so far, there had been no danger of its escaping them. Mr. Polperran had not been told about the island, but Bertie had had leave to whisper to him that they had a very nice place they went to down by the sea, and he had said it was all right, and he was glad they should play there. For Mr. Polperran was a Cornishman born and bred, and he did not wish his children to grow up timid or dependent. He would have brought them up more robustly had it not been for the fears and prejudices of his wife, who had lived almost all her previous life in London. As it was, he was quite pleased for his little son to have boy companions to teach him bolder sorts of games than he had ever learned at home, and he told Mrs. Polperran not to mind if Milly and Bertie did come back wet and dirty. They were getting good from the salt water and from their companions, and the rest mattered nothing.

So the secret of the island never transpired in that house, and Esther always thought that Pickle and Puck spent their Sat.u.r.day afternoons in the rectory orchard.

Orders had been issued to the fishermen generally, and Pollard in particular, that the children were not to be permitted to go out alone in a boat; and had they attempted to embark down at the little quay in the village, they would have been quickly stopped. But Pickle had had the wits to foresee that from the first, and had made his bargain with the queer, old, half-daft man who lived at the creek, and who was very glad to let the little gentleman have the use of his boat for a few hours on Sat.u.r.day, for the payment of the shilling which Pickle always gave him.

Pocket-money was plentiful with the two boys, who had come with an ample store, and who received their usual amount weekly from their aunt. There was not much chance of spending it in such a quiet place. Fishing-tackle and sweet stuff from the one village shop absorbed a little, but there was always a shilling for "Jonah," as they called him, whenever they wanted the boat, and the old fellow was cunning enough not to say a word about it, so that n.o.body in the place knew that the children made a practise of being out on the water alone.

To be sure, there was not a great deal of risk in this. The boat was very safe and heavy; their island was not far away, and was well within shelter of the bay. They were not strong enough to care to row farther out to sea, and the weather through the summer had been exceptionally fine and calm.

"I wish we could get a nice breezy day," Pickle had often said; "then we'd hoist up the sail and have a jolly time. But it never blows on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. I call it a swindle."

There was a sail to the boat, and the boys were learning more and more of the management of a sailing craft. They often went out with Mr. Earle in the _Swan_, and sometimes he would take the tiller and make them manage the sail, whilst sometimes he would take the sail and set them on to steer. They were growing expert now, and they had never been lacking in boldness from the first. One day Mr. Trelawny came down himself, and Puck was put in charge of the tiller and Pickle of the sheet; and between them, with only a little a.s.sistance and instruction, they managed to get the boat through the water very creditably.

"You'll make a pair of good jack-tars in time," had been Mr. Trelawny's encouraging verdict at the end of the voyage; and ever since Pickle and Puck had been burning and yearning for a chance of displaying their prowess by taking a sail quite on their own account.

They had begged to have the _Swan_ for their experiment, but had been forbidden.

"Don't try to run before you can walk," Mr. Earle had advised. "This is a ticklish coast, and you don't know much about it yet. And though the weather has been very settled, n.o.body knows what may happen. Sometimes a gale of wind gets up just when one expects it least. You'd be in a nice predicament if that were to happen. You must wait till you're older and stronger before you go sailing alone."

"I call that rot," Pickle said rather loftily in private to his brother afterwards; "we could do it perfectly well now, I'm sure."

But as Pickle was really trying to cure himself of his self-will and desire to do everything his own way, he did not say anything more about having the _Swan_ to go sailing in. Perhaps he felt that Mr. Earle's "no" was a different sort of thing from his father's, and that coaxing and teasing would be thrown away here. So the two things together kept him quiet.

Nevertheless there was a great desire in his mind to show off his prowess and skill in the art of practical navigation, and it had been quite a disappointment to him that Sat.u.r.day after Sat.u.r.day came and went, and there was not enough breeze in the bay to fill the sail of "Jonah's" old boat.

"It seems as if it was just to spite us," he grumbled more than once; "but it'll have to come some day, and then you'll see what you'll see."

It did not seem much like coming this breathless September afternoon.