Naughty Miss Bunny Part 18

"Oh _do_ let us go and look for it!" said Bunny.

"I think we'd better not," said Mervyn; "remember the thrush, Bunny, and we might kill some of the little birds."

"Quite right, Mervyn," said Frank Collins; "we should very likely step upon it or frighten the hen bird so much that she would leave the nest. It would be like somebody coming and driving us away from home, you know. When I was as young as you are, I used to rob the nests of their eggs, but I have left off doing so now, and even if you should ever collect eggs you should only take one from a nest and contrive not to frighten the birds. But there are young larks and not eggs in this nest, so we will let them alone to grow strong and fly out into the sunshine and sing under the blue sky, won't we, Bunny?"

You may well believe that the children thought the last part of their holiday was the pleasantest of all; for beside Frank they had found another playmate, a great friend of his.

His name was Captain, and he was a grand, black, curly, Newfoundland dog. Such a fine fellow was seldom to be seen, and he learnt to lie down in a patch of gra.s.s on the hill, just at the place where he could watch for Bunny and Mervyn when they went out for their afternoon walk.

He would pretend to be asleep, and when they came quite close to him would spring up and begin to leap about, leading the way to the sands, and barking or rolling over and over till Frank or Mervyn threw a stick as far as ever they could into the sea that he might dash in after it and fetch it out.

Captain was a splendid swimmer, and had once jumped into the sea from the end of a pier after a little girl who had fallen into the water. The child would have been drowned, but Captain seized her by the frock and held her up till a boat could put out and fetch her, and then the brave fellow turned and swam ash.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter decoration.]

CHAPTER XIV.

BUNNY'S IMPROVEMENT. HOME AGAIN.

The time had arrived when the holiday at Scarborough was to come to an end. The last evening was spent on the cliff. It was while they were all sitting on the hillside looking out to sea that Frank began to talk to them about "lighthouses," those tall buildings, having a strong lantern at the top, the bright light from which can be seen far out at sea, so that sailors may know to what part of the coast they are going, and may steer their ships in such a direction as to avoid danger, or guide them into a place of safety.

Then Miss Kerr told them a story about a lighthouse, and how a brave and thoughtful little girl was able to save a great ship from being dashed to pieces on the rocks. This lighthouse was at a very dangerous part of the coast, and every day the lamps had to be cleaned and fresh oil put in them, and the great metal "reflectors"

that were behind the lamps and threw the light far out to sea had to be burnished.

The little girl was the child of the keeper of the lighthouse, and he often took her with him to stay there. He had a companion, for in lighthouses there are mostly two men; but one day this companion slipped off the ladder up which he had to climb to light the lamps in the great lantern, and broke his leg. At the same time he struck his head and became insensible, and so the father of the little girl was obliged to leave her and to fetch a doctor. He meant to come back very soon, but the doctor was out, and in trying to find him he was away for many hours, and by the time he could get down to his boat a great storm had come on, and the waves were breaking over the sh.o.r.e so that he could not put out to sea again.

Night was coming on, and the poor fellow paced the beach and wondered what was to be done, for it would soon be time for the lamps to be lighted, and there was n.o.body in the lighthouse but the helpless man and his little girl. The sailors and fishermen all came round, but it would have been a desperate venture to put out a boat in such a storm, and with the great waves roaring and leaping on a long sharp ridge of rocks quite close to where the lighthouse stood, n.o.body could have expected to reach it alive.

At last, just as the night was coming on, the poor fellow prepared to risk his life rather than leave the ships that might be far off at sea without a guide or a warning; but six strong men dragged a large boat down to the edge of the sh.o.r.e where the waves were lowest, and agreed to share his danger. Their hands were on the boat ready to push her in and then scramble to their places; an old fisherman was in his seat ready to steer, when he suddenly gave a shout and pointed towards the lighthouse.

There from the lantern high above the roaring waves shone the brilliant beams of the lamps, and with a hearty cheer the brave fellows drew the boat back, and shading their eyes with their hands stared as though they had never seen the familiar light before.

All night long they watched, till at break of day the storm abated, the sea grew still, and far far away they could see a great three-masted ship rolling and tossing, with one of her sails blown to rags, but still keeping off the sh.o.r.e. The pilot had seen the lights, and so knowing how to steer had kept her away from the rocky reefs where she might have been dashed to pieces.

It was not till the sun rose high and they were able to go out in their boats that the men on sh.o.r.e could take the doctor to the lighthouse, and then they found the little girl kneeling beside the injured man and feeding him with some cold tea which had been left in the teapot. He had come to his senses, and had tried to crawl to the ladder, when he heard her voice singing softly right up in the lantern. He contrived to drag himself along the floor of the room, and could just see a gleam from one of the lamps coming through the c.h.i.n.ks of the wood-work. The child, when she found her father did not return, had grown afraid; but her great fear was that the lamps would not be lighted, and as the place grew dark she made up her mind to try to light them herself. She had seen her father clean the lamps, and had been with him up the ladder, holding his strong hand; and she knew too where the match was kept, for she had been shown everything about the place while she was there on those long days alone with her father till the other man came on duty in the evening. So up she went, softly singing a hymn to herself, and after steadying herself by one of the iron rods that supported the lantern, put the lighted match to the wick, and was so startled to see the great yellow glare that shone from the reflector that she nearly lost her balance. When she reached the bottom of the ladder she found her friend looking at her quite wide awake; but he could do nothing to help her, except by telling her how to manage the light, and also how to move up there in the great gla.s.s lantern of the lighthouse, so that she might reach each lamp in turn.

When her father came up the steep stair, followed by a dozen of his comrades, she gave a cry of delight and was in his arms in a moment; and she was soon made such a pet of by the men there that they all wanted her to accept knives, and rings, and pocket combs, and even tobacco-boxes, because they had nothing else to offer her; but she had her father and that was quite enough for her, and as he held her to his breast she could feel his tears fall upon her head, and yet he was as brave as any man who lived upon that coast.

"However could she do it?" said Bunny, who had earnestly listened to this story.

"She forgot all about herself, Bunny, and thought only of other people and of the duty that was straight before her," said Frank gently.

Bunny remained very serious all the rest of the evening; perhaps the story of the child lighting the lamps reminded her of the trick she had played poor old Ashton when she poured water into his wine-gla.s.ses.

But as we have seen already, Bunny was improving, and her mama was indeed delighted to notice the change, and quite shared her sorrow that they were so soon to leave for London.

A day or two before they had begun to pack up Mr. Dashwood brought the children glorious news. Frank Collins was to go to London and stay with them till the arrival of his mother, who was on her voyage home and would be in England in a few days. Then he was to go to school, and perhaps Mervyn would some day be sent to the same school, but of course in a lower cla.s.s.

This last part of it was not very cheering for poor Bunny, and she was ready to cry; but she looked at Miss Kerr's kind gentle face and saw the look of joy in Mervyn's eyes, and so she choked back her tears, and presently when Mervyn said softly, "Of course I can't help being glad, Bunny, but I shall never be anything but sorry to be parted from you;" she was ready to say, "And I shall be awfully sorry, Mervyn dear, but then when the holidays come we shall both know so much more, and--and--"

Here poor Bunny broke down and hid her face in her pinafore. But the next day she had recovered her spirits, and she and Mervyn were talking over their future plans, for it would be some months before her cousin would know enough to enter even the lowest form. But one chief reason for their rapid recovery of spirits was that it would be a whole month or more before Frank himself could begin his studies, and there were promises of visits to the Zoological Gardens, the great Palm House at Kew, the old Tower of London, and other places which would remind them of the stories they had heard, and of the books which they had yet to learn to read.

They had all these things to talk about when they found themselves in the train that was to carry them home, and were so full of plans and expectations that they were many miles upon the journey before they remembered that they had not waved a good-bye to their old friend Oliver's Mount, or thought of the sorrow of leaving Scarborough for smoky, noisy, old London.

THE END.