Queen Hildegarde Part 6

"Pink won't let me say 'I swow,' 'cause it's vulgar; an' if I say 'by'

anything, Ma says it's swearin',--an' I can't swear, nohow!"

"Of course not," said Hilda. "But why _must_ you say anything, Bubble,--anything of that sort, I mean?"

"Oh!" said the boy, "I d' 'no 's I kin say ezackly _why_, Miss Hildy; but--but--wal, I swan! I mean, I--I don't mean I swan--but--there now!

You see how 'tis, Miss Hildy. Things don't seem to hev no taste to 'em, without you say _somethin'_."

"Let me think," said Hilda. "Perhaps I can think of something that will sound better."

"I might say, 'Gee Whittekers!'" suggested Bubble, brightening up a little. "I know some fellers as says that."

"I don't think that would do," replied Hilda, decidedly. "What does it mean?"

"Don't mean nothing as I knows on," said the boy; "but it sounds kind o'

hahnsome, don't it?"

Hilda shook her head with a smile. She did not think "Gee Whittekers" a "hahnsome" expression.

"Bubble," she said after a few moments' reflection, during which her scholar watched her anxiously, "I have an idea. If you _must_ say 'something,' beside what you actually have to say, let it be something that will remind you of your lessons; then it may help you to remember them. Instead of Gee--what is it?--Gee Whittekers, say Geography, or Spelling, or Arithmetic; and instead of 'I swan,' say 'I study!' What do you think of this plan?"

"Fustrate!" exclaimed Bubble, nodding his head enthusiastically. "I like fustrate! Ge-_o_graphy! Why, that sounds just like pie! I--I don't mean that, Miss Hildy. I didn't mean to say it, nohow! It kind o' slipped out, ye know." Bubble paused, and hung his head in much confusion.

"Never mind!" said Hilda, kindly. "Of course you cannot make the change all at once, Bubble. But little by little, if you really think about it, you will bring it about. Next week," she added, "I think we must begin upon grammar. You are doing very well indeed in spelling and geography, and pretty well in arithmetic; but your grammar, Bubble, is simply frightful."

"Be it?" said Bubble, resignedly. "I want to know!"

"And now," said the young instructress, rising, and shaking out her crumpled frock, "that is enough for to-day, Bubble. We must be going home soon; but first, I want to take a peep at the lower part of the old mill, that you told me about yesterday. You have been in there, you say?

And how did you get in?"

"I'll show ye!" cried Bubble, springing up with alacrity, and leading the way towards the mill. "I'll show ye the very place, Miss Hildy.

'Tain't easy to get in, and 'tain't no place for a lady, nohow; but I kin git in, jist like--like 'rithmetic!"

"Bravo, Bubble!" said Hilda, laughing merrily. "That is very well for a beginning. How long is it since the mill was used?" she asked, looking up at the frowning walls of rough, dark stone, covered with moss and lichens.

"Farmer Hartley's gran'f'ther was the last miller," replied Bubble Chirk. "My father used to say he could just remember him, standin' at the mill-door, all white with flour, an' rubbin' his hands and laughin', jes' the way Farmer does. He was a good miller, father said, an' made the mill pay well. But his eldest son, that kem after him, warn't no great shakes, an' he let the mill go to wrack and ruin, an' jes' stayed on the farm. An' then he died, an' Cap'n Hartley came (that's the farmer's father, ye know), an' he was kind o' crazy, and didn't care about the mill either, an' so there it stayed.

"This way, Miss Hildy!" added the boy, breaking off suddenly, and plunging into the tangled thicket of shrubs and brambles that hid the base of the mill. "Thar! ye see that hole? That's whar I get in. Wait till I clear away the briers a bit! Thar! now ye kin look in."

The "hole" was a square opening, a couple of feet from the ground, and large enough for a person of moderate size to creep through. Hildegarde stooped down and looked in. At first she saw nothing but utter blackness; but presently her eyes became accustomed to the place, and the feeble light which struggled in past her through the opening, revealed strange objects which rose here and there from the vast pit of darkness,--fragments of rusty iron, bent and twisted into unearthly shapes; broken beams, their jagged ends sticking out like stiffly pointing fingers; cranks, and bits of hanging chain; and on the side next the water, a huge wheel, rising apparently out of the bowels of the earth, since the lower part of it was invisible. A cold, damp air seemed to rise from the earth. Hilda s.h.i.+vered and drew back, looking rather pale. "What a _dreadful_ place!" she cried. "It looks like a dungeon of the Inquisition. I think you were very brave to go in there, Bubble. I am sure _I_ should not dare to go; it looks so spectral and frightful."

"Hy Peters stumped me to go," said Bubble, simply, "so o' course I went.

Most of the boys da.s.sent. And it ain't bad, after the fust time. They do say it's haunted; but I ain't never seed nothin'."

"Haunted!" cried Hilda, drawing back still farther from the black opening. "By--by what, Bubble?"

"Cap'n's ghost!" replied the boy. "He used to go rooklin' round in there when he was alive, folks say, and some thinks his sperit haunts there now."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Hildegarde, with a laugh which did not sound quite natural. "Of course you don't believe any such foolishness as that, Bubble. But what did the old--old gentleman--want there when he was alive? I can't imagine any one going in there for pleasure."

"Dunno, I'm sure!" replied Bubble. "Father, he come down here one day, after blackberries, when he was a boy. He hearn a noise in there, an'

went an' peeked in, an' there was the ol' Cap'n pokin' about with his big stick in the dirt. He looked up an' saw father, an' came at him with his stick up, roarin' like a mad bull, father said. An' he cut an' run, father did, an' he hearn the ol' Cap'n laughin' after him as if he'd have a fit. Crazy as a loon, I reckon the Cap'n was, though none of his folks thought so, Ma says."

He let the wild briers fly back about the gloomy opening, and they stepped back on the smooth greensward again. Ah, how bright and warm the suns.h.i.+ne was, after that horrible black pit! Hilda s.h.i.+vered again at the thought of it, and then laughed at her own cowardice. She turned and gazed at the waterfall, creaming and curling over the rocks, and making such a merry, musical jest of its tumble into the pool. "Oh, lovely, lovely!" she cried, kissing her hand to it. "Bubble, do you know that Hartley's Glen is without exception the most beautiful place in the world?"

"No, miss! Be it really?" asked Zerubbabel, seriously. "I allays thought 'twas kind of a sightly gully, but I didn't know't was all that."

"Well, it is," said Hilda. "It is all that, and more; and I love it! But now, Bubble," she added, "we must make haste, for the farmer will be wanting you, and I have a dozen things to do before tea."

"Yes, miss," said Bubble, but without his usual alacrity.

Hilda saw a look of disappointment in his honest blue eyes, and asked what was the matter. "I ain't had my ballid!" said Zerubbabel, sadly.

"Why, you poor lad, so you haven't!" said Hildegarde. "But you shall have it; I will tell it to you as we walk back to the farm. Which one will you have,--or shall I tell you a new one?"

The blue eyes sparkled with the delight of antic.i.p.ation. "Oh, please!"

he cried; "the one about the bold Buckle-oh!"

Hilda laughed merrily. "The bauld Buccleugh?" she repeated. "Oh! you mean 'Kinmont Willie.' Yes, indeed, you shall have that. It is one of my favorite ballads, and I am glad you like it."

"Oh, I tell yer!" cried Bubble. "When he whangs the table, and says do they think his helmet's an old woman's bunnit, an' all the rest of it,--I tell ye that's _some_, Miss Hildy!"

"You have the spirit of the verse, Bubble," said Hilda, laughing softly; "but the words are not _quite_ right." And she repeated the splendid, ringing words of Buccleugh's indignant outcry:

"Oh! is my basnet a widow's curch, Or my lance a wand o' the willow-tree, Or my arm a lady's lily hand, That an English lord should lightly me?

"And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, Against the truce of Border tide, And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh Is warden here o' the Scottish side?

"And have they e'en ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, Withouten either dread or fear, And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh Can back a steed or shake a spear?"

Zerubbabel Chirk fairly danced up and down in his excitement "Oh! but begin again at the beginning, _please_, Miss Hildy," he cried.

So Hilda, nothing loth, began at the beginning; and as they walked homeward, recited the whole of the n.o.ble old ballad, which if any girl-reader does not know, she may find it in any collection of Scottish ballads.

"And the best of it is, Bubble," said Hilda, "that it is all true,--every word of it; or nearly every word."

"I'll bet it is!" cried Bubble, still much excited. "They couldn't make lies sound like that, ye know! You kind o' _know_ it's true, and it goes right through yer, somehow. When did it happen, Miss Hildy?"

"Oh! a long time ago," said Hildegarde; "near the end of the sixteenth century. I forget just the very year, but it was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. She was very angry at Buccleugh's breaking into Carlisle Castle, which was an English castle, you see, and carrying off Lord Scroope's prisoner; and she sent word to King James of Scotland that he must give up Buccleugh to her to punish as she saw fit. King James refused at first, for he said that Lord Scroope had been the first to break the truce by carrying off Kinmont Willie in time of peace; but at length he was obliged to yield, for Queen Elizabeth was very powerful, and always would have her own way. So the 'bauld Buccleugh' was sent to London and brought before the great, haughty English queen. But he was just as haughty as she, and was not a bit afraid of her. She looked down on him from her throne (she was very stately, you know, and she wore a crown, and a great stiff ruff, and her dress was all covered with gold and precious stones), and asked him how he dared to undertake such a desperate and presumptuous enterprise. And Buccleugh--O Bubble, I always liked this so much!--Buccleugh just looked her full in the face, and said, 'What is it a man dare not do?' Now Queen Elizabeth liked nothing so much as a brave man, and this bold answer pleased her. She turned to one of her ministers and said, 'With ten thousand such men our brother in Scotland might shake the firmest throne in Europe.' And so she let him go, just because he was so brave and so handsome."

Bubble Chirk drew a long breath, and his eyes flashed. "I wish't I'd ben alive then!" he said.

"Why, Bubble?" asked Hilda, much amused; "what would you have done?"

"I'd ha' killed Lord Scroope!" he cried,--"him and the hull kit of 'em.

Besides," he added, "I'd like t' ha' lived then jest ter see _him_,--jest ter see the bold Buckle-oh; that's what _I_ call a man!"

And Queen Hildegardis fully agreed with him.

They had nearly reached the house when the boy asked: "If that king was her brother, why did she treat him so kind o' ugly? My sister don't act that way."