Sweethearts at Home Part 24

Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered.

He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking flowers in the kindly shade of woods.

Soon after this, on our journey through father's country, we came to a little village--the cleanest and dearest that ever was seen. It was the one after which father had called one of his early books of verse--"Dulce Cor." Here we were very happy, for there was a lovely old Abbey, roofless, of course, but all blooming like one great rose when the sun shone on it at evening and morning. The colors of the stones were so rich with age and mellowing that from the little walk on the other side of the valley it seemed as if the whole had been dipped for a thousand years in a bath of sunset clouds, and then left out among the cornstooks to dry! Even more beautiful and kindly was a certain nice Doctor--only he wasn't the sort that come to see you when you are ill, to tap you on the back and write prescriptions. He took me to see the Abbey, and told me about the Last of all the Abbots, who was so kind that the people would not let him be sent away, but kept him always hidden here and there among them. And about how he died at long and last, "much respected and deeply regretted," as the papers say, even by those who did not go to his church--which, indeed, very few in these parts did.

And though it was, of course, foolish, and I would never have said it to the Doctor himself for worlds, I could not help thinking that this Last of all the Abbots (Gilbert Brown, I think his name was) must have been a good deal like this friend of mine, with his beautiful silvery head, and maybe the same gentle break in his voice when he gave out such a text as "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

We went through the cornfields very early next morning, father and I. It was Sunday, at dawn or a little after. The dew was still on all the little fairy cobwebs, but the sun had been before us in getting out of bed, and now was busy as he could be, drinking up the dew. We had to cross the churchyard under the big eastern side of the Abbey, all drowned in level sunshine, yellow as primrose-beds. We crossed a stile, and there, pacing slowly, his hands behind his back, saffron cornstooks on his one side and five centuries of well-peopled holy ground on the other, was the minister. He did not see us--lost in high thoughts, his lips moving with the unspoken prayer.

"Come away," whispered father, hurrying me along. "He speaks with his Master! A stranger intermeddleth not therewith!"

Then I did not know very well what he meant, nor did I ask. Only the two of us slipped down where, beyond the cornfields, a little road, all fern-grown, saunters half hidden; and where, a bit farther on, there is a bridge and a burn in which, in the daytime, children play and women wash their linen. But this morning all was still and quiet--as father said, "with the Peace of Jubilee, when all the land had rest!" I like to hear things like that--things I only half understand, but can think over afterwards. They make me feel all nice and thrilly, like after a shower-bath--only it is a mind-bath, and not a body-bath! Perhaps a soul-bath, if I knew what that was.

We came back another way by a higher path, and through a lane of tall old trees. When we got to our inn, the door was closed just as we had left it, and not a soul astir. We had seen no one at all that Sabbath morn except the silver-haired minister, his hands behind his back--perhaps, as the Psalm says, looking to the hills from which cometh his aid. Going up-stairs, I opened my grandmother's Bible at the metrical Psalms, and the first words that met my eyes were these: "In Salem is his tabernacle--in Sion is his seat!" Now I will confess again that I always like texts and poems out of which I can take my own meaning, without being bothered with notes and explanations. And so I thought how that morning I had surely gone out by Salem His Tabernacle and come back by Sion His Holy Seat!

XXVII

SIR TOADY RELAPSES

Ever such a lot of children whom I don't know have written to me to say how glad they were that I made father take me with him on his cycle such splendid long journeys. Because, you see, _their_ fathers read the book, and had a little seat fitted for them! On the other hand, I suppose parents write and abuse my father for putting such ideas into their little girls' heads. In fact, I know they do. Here is a true story. One irate old fellow wrote to say that "Sir Toady" was quite unfit to a.s.sociate with clean and properly brought up children! And he put down the references, too, where Toadums had misbehaved, like you find them on the margin of a Bible! How he had sat down in the dusty road at page some-number-or-other, where he had omitted to blow his nose, how he had fought, and thrown mud, and generally broken every law laid down for the good conduct of little boys in the olden times--just exactly what Sir Toady used to do! As if father was responsible for all that! Well, he _was_, in the old gentleman's opinion. For he ended with: "If only your little rascal of a hero were _my_ son, sir----!"

This amused my brother Toadums for quite a long time, and one day he sneaked the letter, and wrote himself to the old gentleman to say how that he had reformed, and now always went about with two pocket-handkerchiefs; also how, at school, he had founded the "Admiral Benbow Toilet Club," to which the annual subscription was five shillings.

Further, he expressed a willingness to propose the old gentleman's name at the next meeting, and in the meantime he suggested sending on the money! Yes--and would you believe it?--he actually got the five shillings, along with a very nice letter from the old gentleman, couched in a sort of Better-Late-than-Never strain. So Toady Lion, who can be honest when he tries very hard, wrote and asked the old chap whether he would prefer to have the brilliantine supplied by the club in bottle, or like paint in a squeezable tube. But the old gentleman replied that, being completely bald, Sir Toady had better consider himself as a new returned prodigal, and use the five shillings "to kill the fatted calf"! So we killed him, and the noise we made on the top of Low-Hill was spread abroad over three counties. A "gamey" came to tell us that we were trespa.s.sing. But we feasted him on the old man's five shillings, while Hugh John explained that there was no such thing as trespa.s.s, and Sir Toady, getting hold of the keeper's double-barrel, practiced on bowlders till he nearly slew a stray pointer dog! Then, after braying ourselves hoa.r.s.e, we had fights, rebellions, revolutions, cabals, which always ended in pushing each other into pitfalls and peat-bogs. We tripped in knotted heather as we chased downhill, skirmishing and yelling. Even Hugh John forgot himself, and all returned home, sated with the slaughter of the old gentleman's fatted calf, tired to death, not a shout left in any of us, but, as it were, stained with mud and crime!

Ordinarily now Sir Toady has grown too old for the "sins and faults of youth" already set down against him. But sometimes he relapses--and then he has it bad. He does not say "roo" for "you" any more, but sometimes the house is afflicted for days with an exhibition of what Hugh John calls "Royal Naval Manners." Usually this occurs at table when father is absent, because Toady has a quite real respect for the Fifth Commandment, a respect gained at an early age, and ever since retained.

But on this journey there were a good many opportunities. You see, we did not go to bed at the usual time. We got up when we liked, and I often had to say the prayers for the entire family. Because the boys shirked most shamefully, and the Maid was so sleepy with driving in the open air all day that she often would be found sound asleep on her knees when not carefully looked after.

"The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak!" said our good old Doctor of the parish of "Dulce Cor." "I wish all my own prayers had as good a chance of being heard as this little sleeping child's!" After this Toady Lion declared that he would always say his prayers in the same way--_asleep_!

Well, of course you could not imagine--n.o.body could--the new and peculiar wickedness devised by Sir Toady. It was simply _bound_ to be a success. Besides which, it was perfectly safe; after what Mr. Ma.s.sa had told up at the Communion Stones of Iron-gray, The Powers-That-Be could not say a word. Oh, the beautiful thing it is to have a friend of your youth with a good memory, and, above all, communicative and frank with your own children! Oh, I know that there are people who will say, with some outside show of reason, "Well, just be perfectly good when you are young, and then you don't need to fear the frankest of your intimate friends!"

This, of course, is rank nonsense, and nothing but! For that kind of very immaculate young person does not make the best sort of father or mother when the time comes. They don't know anything. They are not up to things, and get "taken the loan of," as the boys say in that rude but expressive speech of theirs. But it is not accounted healthy to "monkey"

with ours, who generally can tell beforehand when you are going to do a thing, and after it is done (if you get the chance) will tell you--what very likely you didn't know before--_why_ you did it. If, in spite of all, you get into sc.r.a.pes, The Powers-That-Be usually sympathize. But (and this is the awkward part) they remember the remedy that proved effectual in former and more personal cases. That remedy is applied, and, generally speaking, the same result follows. With this experience we shall all make excellent heads of families, and shall hire ourselves out--if we do not happen to have any of our own! Only, we are glad that we came into the world too early to be part of Hugh John's family. His methods are altogether too Spartan. And we tell him that the plain English for the name of his favorite hero, Brutus (the one who cut his children's heads off), was just simply Brute!

To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front.

Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and b.u.t.toned down the front with white sheep. What dainty coves! What pleasing, friendly-featured lambs with shiny black noses and goggle eyes! How tame the very gulls had become from never being shot at! There never was such a place as Rough Island for us, or, indeed, any children. Away to the right you could see Isle Rathan, certainly more famous in romance. But to go there you had to get kind Captain Ca.s.sidy to take you in his boat. And generally it ended (because the Captain is a busy man) in your staying with his wife, and seeing--and being the better for seeing--how the threatening of blindness at once sweetens and strengthens the life of a delicate woman. But to Rough Island we could go by ourselves, so be that we returned with the first flowing of the tide. There is a certain Black Skerry to the south which, when covered, announces to all concerned that haste of the hastiest kind had better be made. Of course we called it Signal Rock. But one fine September forenoon, when the light was mellow and gracious even on the rough slopes of the Island of our choice, Sir Toady set us all (that is, all the children) searching in sheltered coves and little pebbly bays for "leg-o'-mutton"

sh.e.l.ls--just, he said, what father used to do. It was the bottom of the "neaps," when the water does not go very far out--which, of course, every sh.o.r.e child would have known by instinct. But we were landward bred, and such distinctions as to the ebbing and flowing of salt water were too fine for us! But Sir Toady had had converse with the instructed. He had profited thereby. And so no one will be surprised that, by dint of keeping our backs to the Signal Rock, our noses pointing down, and our eyes well employed in the search for "legs-o'-mutton," we did not discover the treachery of Sir Toady till the Rock was covered, and there was no hope of return! None, that is, for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had reckoned without his Hugh John!

That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis, stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with The-Folk-Over-There!"

And at first Toady Lion had laughed, thinking that for once the immaculate Hugh John would be caught along with the rest of us. He did not laugh, however, at all when he saw his elder brother take his watch out of his pocket and place it in his cap. He shouted out, "It's all right, Hugh John; Mr. Ma.s.sa told me at Iron-gray that he and father often did it--spent "Tween-Tides' on the Island. He will know all about it. Come back, you fool, you'll be drowned!"

But our Old Ironsides only shouted back over his shoulder that father and Mr. Ma.s.sa had not pa.s.sed their words to be in for lunch, and that _he_ had!

"If the People are anxious Over-Yonder, they can come and fetch us off in a boat. We can say that we forgot!"

But by this time Hugh John had made his first dash into the wimpling line of creamy chocolate, like a steamer's wake, which marked the causeway to the land. His last will and testimony came to us in the command to "Stay where we were!" And in the final far-heard rider that, "when he got him," he would quicken Sir Toady's uncertain memory by one of the most complete fraternal "hidings" on record.

All the same, as we watched him plod along, the tides sweeping in from both sides upon him, and the struggle swaying him now to one side and now to the other in the effort to keep his feet, Sir Toady burst into a kind of roar (which he now says is a "way they have in the Navy" for long-distance signaling, but which sounded to us very much like a howl). "Come back, Hugh John," he cried, "and I'll take the best 'whaling' you can give me _now_!"

But out in the brown pother the struggle went on. Hugh John never so much as turned his head. We stood white and gasping, all pretty close together, I can tell you. And once when we saw him swept from his feet and only recovered his balance with an effort--though my heart was in my throat, I said out loud to comfort the others, "Well, anyway, he has taken the school medal for swimming. He has it on him now!"

Then Sir Toady turned on me a face of scorn and anger. He pointed to the gush and swirl of the currents of Solway over the bank of pebbles. "Swim in that!" he cried, "no, he can't! No, nor n.o.body can. I tell you one of the best swimmers in Scotland was drowned over there in Balcary, within sight of his own house, and a man in a boat within stonethrow!"

But for all that, Toady himself pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and made him ready to go to the rescue (oh, how vainly!). So that in the long run the Maid and I had to hold him down on the beach, half weeping, half desperate, calling on Hugh John, his Hugh John, to come back and slay him upon the spot. As if he was _his_ Hugh John, any more than anybody else's Hugh John--and the two of them fighting like cat and dog nine-tenths of the time! But at times, when his elder brother is in danger or ill, Sir Toady is like that. Janet Sheepshanks speaks yet about his face when he came back from Crusoeing-it with d.i.n.ky and Saucy Easedale--all drawn and haggard and white it was. Well, it was like that now. I declare, he turned and struck at us every time that Hugh John stumbled, or looked like being carried away.

"See here, Sis," he gasped, "you let a fellow go, or I'll kill you. I will, mind--if anything happens to My Hugh John--I'll kill you for holding me back like this."

But at this very moment we began to see the lank figure of Hugh John rising higher out of the swirling sc.u.m. Presently he scrambled out on the steep beach of pebbles, all dripping. Then he gave himself a shake like a retriever dog, shook his fist at the distant Sir Toady, now spa.r.s.ely equipped in fluttering linen: "Wait till I get you, you young beast! Just you wait!"

That was what he was saying as plain as print. But Sir Toady, completely rea.s.sured, only heaved a long sigh, murmuring, "That's all right!" And went on calmly putting on his clothes, and laughing at the Maid and me for having been frightened. He actually had the cheek to ask us what we had been crying about!

XXVIII

TWICE-TRAVELED PATHS

Then we went to Kirkcudbright, where there is an old castle, very dirty, but where we stayed in the loveliest old inn. It was so "comfy" and home-like at the "Selkirk" that it seemed as if the hostelry had wandered out into the country one fine day and--forgot the way to come back again! We liked it so much because it was kept by a nice jolly man, whose mother had been good to father once when he was ill, and who made the nicest cakes. We were in clover there, I can tell you. Specially because "Mac" (the painter whom, when I was very little, I once named "The Little Brown Bear") came for walks with us, and made us laugh at dinner till we youngsters nearly got sent from the table. Yet it wasn't a bit our fault. He told us a lot of things, and I could see father listening with all his ears, and not even checking Sir Toady when he stole the sugar, though he saw him. I was sure that something would come out of that. You see, I know father's ways. And so it comes about that I don't need to write any of the funny things that we heard that night, or the nights that followed. You have only to read them in the chapters of _Little Esson_, the part all about Ladas II, and the trip in the caravan. I think that father ought really to have sent some of the money he got to "The Little Brown Bear"--but I don't believe he ever did.

"Mac owes me more than that!" he said, when I asked him about it. "I brought him up by hand!"

I presume he meant the way Hugh John, my brother, brings up Sir Toady--though that is with both hands, sometimes feet too.

There was one Sunday that I remember very well; at Newton Stewart it was. There had been (or was going to be) a kind of circus in the town.

Or maybe they were only resting, as even circus folk must do sometimes.

Anyway I looked out at the window in the early morning, and if I had seen a ghost I could not have been more surprised. And so would you--for there, calmly grazing on the field just under my window, as quietly as if it had been a cow, was a huge elephant! I did not see any circus vans, nor the tents, nor anything--save and except this great Indian elephant in the middle of the green field! You may imagine I thought that I was still dreaming. I watched it pad-padding softly about, taking the greatest pleasure in rolling like a donkey when the harness is taken off. It also rubbed the big soft spreads of its feet on the softer gra.s.s. I suppose its poor soles were sore with traveling over our hard cycling roads, and now it was keeping Sunday after its kind, doing its best to obey the commandment. And, as father says, what more can any of us do than be fully persuaded in our own minds? One thing I noticed which astonished me, and I think it will most people. The big beast must have weighed a ton, I should think, at the least. And yet, as it went here and there over the field of nice Galloway gra.s.s, it walked so softly that the gra.s.s "rose elastic from its airy tread." Yes, it actually did. Even Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly have found a footmark in a quarter of an hour. Why, even the Maid, not to speak of myself, could not get so lightly over the ground as that. We watched the elephant all that day, whenever we could, that is--and thought of him in church, though the minister was a nice man, nice-looking too, and did not preach too long. It was, of course, frightfully wicked of us.

Because it was in one of the old "Kirks of the Martyrs" that the service was held. But when the minister came to see us in the evening, we showed him the elephant still grazing away, wig-wagging its long trunk like a supple pendulum, and switching away quite imaginary flies with its tiny tail! The minister was such a very good sort that we thought we ought to own up why we had been restless in church. (He might have seen us, you know.) So I said we were ashamed that we had not attended better to his sermon. And do you know what he answered back, after seeing the elephant take a double donkey roll, with its great sausagey legs in the air? "I'm glad," he said, "that I did not see the elephant do that _before_ sermon. For if I had, I don't believe that I could have preached!"

"A pretty nice sort of a minister, that!" said Hugh John afterwards.

"I should go to his church myself," cried Toady Lion, and then, checking himself suddenly under the gaze of Hugh John, he added, "I mean, when I had to!"

There--that is quite enough to put in my Diary about a circus elephant, though I will admit that it was about the very queerest thing that ever happened to me in all my life--I mean the most unexpected, of course, for when explained it was all perfectly simple.

But I must get on with my Diary of this Galloway journey, and the "Sweethearty" things we saw there. Dear me, I had meant to tell about Gatehouse too (which happened before Newton Stewart, only I forgot).

There was a nice minister there too, who went about without his hat, and smoked, and called out nice things across the street to Tom and d.i.c.k and Harry. Altogether we were fortunate in the ministers we met all through the trip. And I think the children of Gatehouse must have benefited too, owing to the nice bareheaded minister. For certainly they are not nearly so rude and pesterful as I remember them when father and I stopped there--oh, how many years ago? Ten, at least, or maybe more. Then they rang the bell of the tricycle and said horrid things when father was in the baker's shop. They made me so angry--I can remember it yet--I said I would tell father. I nearly cried. But this time there was no one who was not quite nice to us--except, Oh, yes, one person who wouldn't let us any rooms. But that did not matter. Indeed, it was a blessing. For we went farther down the street till we came to a delightful hotel or inn or something, where Miss Blackett, who kept it, was just as good to us as she could be, and gave us nice things to eat on the sly. Also the "Little Brown Bear" came again, and told us more stories in the evenings. Then, at ten or eleven at night, he got on his cycle and wheeled away into the dark. It was so nice and romantic that I wished I could have gone too. It is splendid in the summer to wheel on and on through the archway of the green and sleeping woods. It is best when you are sure of the policemen, and can ride without a light, which does no good, but makes everything dark as pitch, and as uninteresting as the Queensferry Road.

Then I saw the two boys at Creetown who once on a time were brought in from playing on the street, and tidied up so that they might be ready to kiss me. They both howled at the thought. For which I don't in the least blame them. But all the same they had high collars on, and I don't think that they would have minded nearly as much now.

This, of course, came before the elephant, but then, you see, if things don't go into my Dear Diary just when I think of them, the probability is that they won't go at all.