Hildegarde's Home Part 16

"Hester's song. Is it Hester, or an angel?"

The notes rose, swelled into the pathetic refrain,--

"And for bonny Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die."

Then they sank away, and left the silence still throbbing, as the hearts of the listeners throbbed.

"_I_ thought it was an angel," cried Hugh, "when I first heard him, Mr.

Saul. But it isn't. It is the ostrich gentleman, and he has to play up in the attic generally, because his uncle is a poor person who doesn't know how to like music. I am _so_ sorry for his uncle, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Colonel Ferrers gruffly. "Yes, I am. Very sorry."

A pause followed. Then Hugh asked cautiously: "How do you feel now, Mr.

Saul? Do you feel as if the evil spirit were going away?"

"I've got him," said the Colonel, in whose eyes the fire of anger was giving place to something suspiciously like a twinkle. "I've got him--bottled up. Now, youngster, who told you all that?"

"All what?" asked Hugh, whose thoughts were beginning to wander as he gazed around the garden. "About the poor person who doesn't know how to--"

"No, no," said the Colonel hastily, "not that. About Saul and David, and all that. Who put you up to it? Hey?"

His keen eyes gazed intently into the clear blue ones of the child. Hugh stared at him a moment, then answered gently, with a note of indulgence, as if he were speaking to a much younger child: "It is in the Bible. It is a pity that you do not know it. But perhaps there are no pictures in your Bible. There was a big one where I lived, all _full_ of pictures, so I learned to read that way. And I always liked the Saul pictures," he added, his eyes kindling, "because David was beautiful, you know, and of a ruddy countenance; and King Saul was all hunched up against the tent-post, with his eyes glaring just as yours were when you roared, only he was uglier. You are not at all ugly now, but then you looked as if you were going to burst. If a person _should_ burst--"

Colonel Ferrers rose, and paced up and down the path, going a few steps each way, and glancing frequently at the boy from under his bushy eyebrows. Hugh fell into a short reverie, and woke to say cheerfully:--

"This place fills me with heavenly joys. Does it fill you?"

"Humph!" growled the Colonel. "If you lived here, you would break all the flowers off, I suppose, and pull 'em to pieces to see how they grow; eh?"

Hugh contemplated him dreamily. "Is that what you did when you were a little boy?" he answered. "I love flowers. I don't like to pick them, for it takes their life. I don't care how they grow, as long as they _do_ grow."

"And you would take all the birds' eggs," continued the Colonel, "and throw stones at the birds, and trample the flower-beds, and bring mud into the house, and tie fire-crackers to the cat's tail, and upset the ink. _I_ know you!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUGH AND COLONEL FERRERS.]

Hugh rose with dignity, and fixed his eyes on the Colonel with grave disapproval. "You do _not_ know me!" he said. "And--and if that is the kind of boy you were, it is no wonder that the evil spirit comes upon you. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you did burst some day. Good-by, Mr. Saul! I am going away now."

"Hold on!" cried the Colonel peremptorily. "I beg your pardon! Do you hear? Shake hands!"

Hugh beamed forgiveness, and extended a small brown paw, which was shaken with right good will.

"That's right!" said Colonel Ferrers, with gruff heartiness. "Now go into the house and find your great-aunt, and tell her to give you some jam. Do you like jam?" The boy nodded with all the rapture of seven years. "Give you some jam, and a picture-book, and make up a bed in the little red room. Can you remember all that?"

"Yes, Mr. Saul!" cried Hugh, dancing about a little. "Nice Mr. Saul!

Shall I bring you some jam? What kind of jam shall I say?"

"What kind do you like best?"

"Damson."

"Damson it is! Off with you now!"

When the boy was gone, the Colonel walked up and down for a few moments, frowning heavily, his hands holding his stick behind him. Then he said quietly, "Jack!"

Jack came forward and stood before him, looking half-proud, half-sheepish, with his fiddle under his arm.

The Colonel contemplated him for a moment in silence. Then, "Why in the name of all that is cacophonous, didn't you play me a tune at first, instead of an infernal German exercise? Hey?"

Jack blushed and stammered. He had played for his uncle once only, a fugue by Hummel, of which his mind had happened to be full; he felt that it had not been a judicious choice.

"Can you play 'The Harp of Tara'?" demanded the Colonel; and Jack played, with exquisite feeling, the lovely old tune, the Colonel listening with bent head, and marking the time with his stick. "Harry Monmouth!" he said, when it was over. "Because a man doesn't like to attend the violent ward of a cats' lunatic asylum, it doesn't follow that he doesn't care for music. Music, sir, is melody, that's what it is!"

Jack shuddered slightly, and did silent homage to the shade of Wagner, but knew enough to keep silence.

"And--and where did you pick up this child?" his uncle continued. "I take it back about his having been put up to what he did. He is true blue, that child; I shouldn't wonder if you were, too, in milksop fashion. Hey?"

"Skim-milk is blue, you know, uncle," said Jack, smiling. "But I didn't discover Hugh. Isn't he a wonderful child, sir? Hildegarde discovered him, of course. I believe Hildegarde does everything, except what her mother does. Come here, Hildegarde! Come and tell Uncle Tom about your finding Hugh."

But Hildegarde was gone.

CHAPTER XIII.

A PICNIC.

"MY dear Colonel, I congratulate you most heartily! Indeed, I had little doubt of your success, for this was a case in which Reynard the Fox was sure to have the worst of it. But I am very curious to know how you managed it."

"Nothing could be simpler, my dear madam. I went to the fellow's house yesterday morning. 'Mr. Loftus, your little nephew is at my house. Your aunt, Mrs. Beadle, has taken charge of him, according to his mother's wish, and I undertook to inform you of the fact.' He turned all the colours of the rainbow, began to bl.u.s.ter, and said he was the boy's nearest relation, which is very true. 'I want him to grow up a gentleman,' said he. 'Precisely,' said I. 'He shall have a chance to do so, Mr. Loftus.' The fellow didn't like that; he looked black and green, and spoke of the law and the police. 'That reminds me,' I said, 'of a story. About twenty-five years ago, or it may be thirty, a sum of money was stolen from my desk, in what I call my counting-room in my own house. Am I taking up too much of your valuable time, sir?' He choked and tried to speak, but could only shake his head. 'The thief was a mere lad,' I went on, 'and a clumsy one, for he dropped his pocketknife in getting out of the window,--a knife marked with his name. For reasons of my own I did not arrest the lad, who left town immediately after; but I have the knife, Ephraim, in my possession.' I waited a moment, and then said that I would send for the little boy's trunk; wished him good-day, and came off, leaving him glowering after me on the doorstep. You see, it was very simple."

"I see," said Mrs. Grahame. "But is it possible that Mr. Loftus--"

"Very possible, my dear Mrs. Grahame. As I told him, I have the knife, with his name in full. One hundred dollars he stole; for Elizabeth Beadle's sake, of course I let it go. Her peace of mind is worth more than that, for if she's thoroughly upset, the dinners she orders are a nightmare, positively a nightmare. That is actually one reason why I planned this picnic for to-day, because I knew I should have something with cornstarch in it if I dined at home. Why cornstarch should connect itself with trouble in the feminine mind, I do not know; but such seems to be the case."

Mrs. Grahame laughed heartily at this theory; then, in a few earnest words, she told Colonel Ferrers how deeply interested she and her daughter were in this singular child, and how happy they were in the sudden and great change in his prospects.

"And I know you will love him," she said. "You cannot help loving him, Colonel. He is really a wonderful child."

"Humph!" said the Colonel thoughtfully. Then after a pause, he continued: "I thought I had lost the power of loving, Mrs. Grahame; of loving anything but my flowers, that is, any living creature; lost it forty years ago. But somehow, of late, there has been a stirring of the ground, a movement among the old roots--yes! yes! there may be a little life yet. That child of yours--you never saw Hester Aytoun, Mrs.

Grahame?"

"Never," said Mrs. Grahame softly. "She died the year before I came here as a child."

"Precisely," said Colonel Ferrers. "She was a--a very lovely person.

Your daughter is extremely like her, my dear madam."

"I fancied as much," said Mrs. Grahame, "from the miniature I found in Uncle Aytoun's collection."