Girls of the Forest Part 48

"He can't help liking it," said Briar.

"I wonder if he will," said Patty.

"What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and we have not disturbed one single blessed thing."

Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to greet their returning parent.

"How is Pauline, father?" asked Briar in an anxious voice.

"Pauline?" replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly through his thin locks. "What of her? Isn't she here?"

"Nonsense, father!" said Patty. "You went to see her. She was very ill; she was nearly drowned. You know all about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us how she is."

"To be sure," said Mr. Dale. "I quite recall the circ.u.mstance now. Your sister is much better. I left her in bed, a little flushed, but looking very well and pretty. Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too, and Pen, and your good aunt. Yes, I saw them all. Comfortable lodgings enough for those who don't care for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not seem to be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why I was summoned. Don't keep me now, my dears; I must get back to my work. The formation of that last sentence from Plato's celebrated treatise doesn't please me. It lacks the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how you stare!

There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty, why the English translation should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended itself considerably of late, and close application and study may recall to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing certain, my dear girls---- Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from his immortal work does not please me; but toil--ceaseless toil--the midnight oil, _et cetera_, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in a way worthy of the immortal master."

Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his forehead. He removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired with long, shuffling strides to his beloved study.

"No food until I ring for it," he said when he reached the door, and then he vanished.

"Blessed man!" said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. "He might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don't know, but his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden--do."

"You'll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of yours," was John's answer.

Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then proceeded to make tea.

But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with each other, Mr. Dale's condition was by no means so favorable. At first when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see?

He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the opposite bookcase. There was his Plato--his idol--actually placed in the bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime--a crime that he felt he could never forgive--that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked across to the fireplace and rang the bell.

"You must go, Miss Patty," said nurse. "I was willing to do it, but I can't face him. You must go; you really must."

"Well, I'm not frightened," said Patty. "Come on, Briar."

The two little girls walked down the pa.s.sage. Mr. Dale's bell was heard to ring again.

"Aren't you the least bit frightened, Patty?" asked Briar.

"No," answered Patty, with a sigh. "If only I could get the real heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter. Oh, Briar, Briar!"

"Don't talk of it now," said Briar. "To-night when we are alone, when we are by ourselves in our own room, but not now. Come, let us answer father's bell."

They opened the door and presented themselves--two pretty little figures with rosy faces and bright eyes--two neatly dressed, lady-like little girls.

"Do you want anything, father?"

"Yes," said Mr. Dale. "Come in and shut the door."

The girls did what he told them.

"Who did this?" asked the master of The Dales. He swept his hand with a certain majesty of gesture round the restored room. "Who brushed the walls? Who put those flimsies to the windows? Who touched my beloved books? Who was the person? Name the culprit."

"There were quite a lot of us, father. We all did it," said Briar.

"You all did it? You mean to tell me, little girl, that you did it?"

"I dusted a lot of the books, father. I didn't injure one of them, and I put them back again just in the same place. My arms ached because the books were so heavy."

"Quite right that they should ache. Do you know what injury you have done me?"

"No," said Patty suddenly. "We made the room clean, father. It isn't right to live in such a dirty room. Plato wouldn't have liked it."

"Now what do you mean?"

Mr. Dale's white face quieted down suddenly; for his daughter--his small, young, ignorant daughter--to dare to mention the greatest name, in his opinion, of all the ages, was too much for him.

"You are always talking to us about Plato," said Patty, who grew braver and braver as she proceeded. "You talk of Plato one day, and Virgil another day, and you always tell us how great they were; but if they were really great they would not be dirty, and this room was horrid and dirty, father. It really was. Nice, great, good, n.o.ble people are clean. Aunt Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt Sophy came we have been very happy, and the house has been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and so does Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil--that is, if they can see us."

"If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?" said Mr. Dale.

He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead, and gazed at the children.

"There is the door," he said. "Go."

They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.

"Upon my word!" he said several times. "Upon--my--word! So Plato liked things clean, and Virgil liked things orderly. Upon--my--word!"

He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was working, for his gla.s.ses were sometimes removed and then put on again, and several times he brushed his hand through his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and, gazing at the frills of the white window-curtains, he opened the French windows, and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open air. He went for a walk--a long one. When he came back he entered his clean study, to find the lamp burning brightly, his Plato restored to its place by his left-hand side, and a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own old pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled with fresh ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and wrote on a sheet of paper, "Plato likes things clean, and Virgil likes things orderly," and then pinned the paper on the opposite wall.

For the rest of the evening the astonished household were much beguiled and overcome by the most heavenly strains from Mr. Dale's violin. He played it in the study until quite late at night; but none of the household went to bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that music.

About eleven o'clock Patty and Briar found themselves alone.

"Well," said Patty suddenly, "I have made up my mind."

"Yes," said Briar, "I thought you had."

"When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her everything."

Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her.

"I wonder what she will say," said Briar.

"Say!" echoed Patty. "She will be hurt. Perhaps she'll punish us; but that doesn't matter, for in the end she is quite, quite certain to forgive us. I am going to tell her. I couldn't go through another night like last night again."

"Nor could I," said Briar. "I stayed awake and thought of Paulie, and I seemed to see her face as it might look if she were really dead. I wish they'd all come back, for Paulie is better. And then we'd have just a dreadful ten minutes, and everything would be all right."

"That's it," said Patty. "Everything would be all right."