The Slowcoach Part 14

"They've got a caravan, and they don't know who gave it to them; and they've got envelopes, and they don't know what's in them. Does your mother know you're out?" he added as a farewell shot.

The Slowcoaches could not help it; they gave him three cheers, and then three more for Uncle Christopher.

"Well," said Janet, "that's all right, but it's lucky he did not see Uncle Christopher's letter. Listen:

DEAR CHILDREN,

"It has suddenly occurred to me that some a.s.s of a policeman may want to see your license, and I have therefore procured one for you. If you get into any kind of trouble, be sure to give my name and address, and telegraph for me.

"Your affectionate Uncle, CHRIS.

"It would have been better," Kink said, "if your uncle had handed you the license right away--not made a mystery of it."

"Oh, no," said Hester.

As it happened, they were destined not to reach Evesham that day, for at Abbots Salford Moses cast a shoe, and that meant the blacksmith and delay. When the accident was discovered, and the children were surrounding Moses and helping Kink in his examination of the hoof, a farmer who was walking by stopped and joined them. He asked the trouble, and offered them his advice.

"You put your caravan in my yard there," he said, pointing to a beautiful gateway just ahead, "and you make yourselves comfortable there while the horse is being shod. I'll show you the house if you like," he added; "it's very old, and haunted too, and there's a grand boatingplace at the weir just across the meadows. Don't worry about the horse or anything. If you go to bed early and get up early, it will come to the same thing as if you had gone right on."

Everyone except Robert, who liked to see his time-tables obeyed, and perhaps Gregory, who had been deprived for some days of his office of asking leave for a camping-ground, and was now balked again, was glad of the mischance that brought camp so early, and Hester was wild with pleasure, for Salford Hall is an old mansion of grey stone, built three hundred years ago, and now mysterious and, except for a few rooms, desolate. It has also an old garden and a fish-pond, and a little Roman Catholic chapel whose altar-candles have been alight for centuries.

The farmer was very kind. He gave the children leave to go anywhere and everywhere, but they must not, he said, run or jump, because the floors were not strong enough. He led them from room to room, to the dancing-gallery in the roof.

There was a very old bagatelle-table in one room, all moth-eaten, and a few old pictures still on the walls--a knight and his lady with Elizabethan ruffs, and a portrait of a greyhound. From a top window the farmer showed them Evesham's bell-tower.

But the most exciting moment was when each of them in turn was allowed to hide in the priest's hiding-hole. This was a very ingenious cupboard behind a row of shelves intended to have books or china on them, which swung back when you loosened a catch. Hester crouched here and shut her eyes, and firmly believed that the Protestants were after her.

In her next letter she implored her mother to take the Hall, and live there in the summer. "I am sure," she wrote, "it would be very cheap, because it is so shabby and is crumbling away in many places. I would gladly live in the priest's hiding-hole always. Please think about it seriously."

Afterwards the farmer showed them the way down to the weir, over the railway, and advised them to have the caravan taken down there, and sleep there that night near the rus.h.i.+ng water.

"You couldn't have done it two months ago," he said.

"Why not?" Robert asked.

"Guess why," said the farmer.

And will you believe it, none of them could guess.

"Because it was flooded," said the farmer. "In winter it's often just a great lake, from the railway at the foot of our garden right to the Marlcliff Hills."

And so Moses (with a beautiful new shoe) was put into the shafts again, and they went gently over the soft green meadows to the weir, and there they had their supper, and explored the mill and the s.h.a.ggy wood overhanging it, and rowed a little in a very safe boat, and stood on the little bridges, and watched the rus.h.i.+ng water, and then walked slowly beside the still stream higher up as the light began to fade, and surprised the water-rats feeding or gossiping on the banks--none of which things could they have done had Moses had the poor sense to retain his near fore-shoe.

CHAPTER 14

THE ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE OLD LADY

They left the weir very early the next morning, after a breakfast from the cold ham which Mrs. Avory had bought them at Stratford. On their way through the village they stopped at Salford Hall, because Hester and Gregory had had an argument as to whether or not it was possible to hear the breathing of the person in the hiding-hole. The farmer allowed them to go upstairs and try, and, as it happened, Hester was right, and you could hear it, if you had patience. Gregory came out again as purple as a plum through holding it in so long.

Then they said good-bye to the farmer and strode on through Harrington and Norton, and a little beyond this Robert took those that cared about it to see the obelisk on the site of the Battle of Evesham, at which Simon de Montfort was killed in 1265. And so they came through the orchards of plum-trees, on which the fruit was now forming, to Evesham itself.

It was while they were walking through Evesham, beside or behind the Slowcoach, in the middle of the road, that Janet felt a hand on her arm, and, looking round, perceived a very small and very neat and very anxious little servant maid.

"Please," she said, "Miss Redstone, my mistress says, will you all step into her house and partake of refreshment, and do her a very great favour?"

Janet could hardly believe her ears.

"All of us!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said the little servant, "all, please."

Janet thought very hard for a moment or two. Who was this Miss Redstone? What would Mrs. Avory do under the same circ.u.mstances? she was asking herself. "Which house?" she inquired at last.

"That one," said the little anxious servant, pointing to the neatest and brightest little house you ever saw, with dazzling steps and a s.h.i.+ning knocker, and a poor little pathetic face peering hopefully over the blind.

The pathetic little face settled it. "All right," Janet said at once, and, calling the others together and telling Kink to wait for them outside the town, she led them in.

They were shown into a tiny and spotless parlour, with woolwork footstools, where after a moment or so they were joined by Miss Redstone, the little old lady whom Janet had seen at the window, but whose face was now smiling and contented.

"You must think me very strange, my dears," she said, "but I will explain. I am G.o.dfrey Fairfax."

A dreadful silence fell on the room. The children looked at each other shamefacedly, and almost in fear, for they thought the little old lady must be mad.

As for her, she again looked the picture of woe. "O dear," she said, "is it possible that none of you have ever even heard of me! Surely one of my stories must have found its way to your house?"

"Do you write stories?" Janet asked.

"Yes, I have written lots, but I'm afraid they don't sell as they ought to. Of course, G.o.dfrey Fairfax is not my real name; it is just the name I take as a writer, because people prefer that books should be written by a man rather than by a woman. I am really Miss Redstone. Why I called you in was to ask if you would be so very kind as to sit down and have some cake and milk while I read you my last story--quite a short one--and you can tell me what you think of it. There are so few children that I know here, and it makes such a difference to get some real criticism. Do you mind?"

They all said they didn't mind at all, and after the cake and milk had been brought in by the little servant, G.o.dfrey Fairfax cleared her throat and began.

"It is a story," she said, "of Roundheads and Cavaliers--a very suitable story to write here, so close to the battlefields of Tewkesbury and Marston Moor. It is called 'Barbara's Fugitive.' Now listen, my dears."

BARBARA'S FUGITIVE

On a bright June morning, early in the Protectorate, Colonel Myddelton, followed by a groom, rode through the gates of the old Hall and turned his horse's head towards London. At the bend in the road, halfway up Sheringham Hill, he stopped a moment and waved his hand in the direction of the house. A white handkerchief fluttered at an upper window in reply.

"My poor lonely Barbara!" said the Colonel, smiling tenderly as he pa.s.sed again out of sight of his daughter.

"Dear father!" said Barbara, as the Colonel disappeared from view. She did not, however, at once leave the window, but remained leaning out, with the warm touch of the sun on her head, drinking in the morning sounds.

The village, half a mile distant, was just visible to Barbara through the trees--red-roofed, compact, the cottages gathering about the church like chickens round the mother hen. On a summer day like this anyone listening at the Hall could hear the busy noises, the hum of this little hive of humanity, with perfect clearness; the beat of the hammer on the anvil in Matthew Hale's smithy, the "Gee, whoa!" of the carter on the distant road, the scrunching of the wagon-wheels, the crowing c.o.c.ks, and now and then the shouts of boys and the laughter of children. These audible tokens of active life were a comfort to Barbara. A moment before, on parting with her father, she was aware of a new and disturbing loneliness, but now she felt no longer with the same melancholy that she was solitary, apart from her fellows.

It was the time when the country was divided between the followers of the Throne and the followers of Cromwell; the time when sour visages, who were for the moment in the places of authority, glowered beneath black hats, and the village games were forbidden; the time when Royalist gentlemen dropped a crumb into their winegla.s.ses after dinner, and, looking meaningly at each other, tossed off the red liquor, saying fervently as they did so, "G.o.d send this CRUMB WELL down." But actual fighting was over, and the country on the surface peaceable again, although a word often was sufficient to draw forth steel among the high folks or set an inn full of villagers to fisticuffs. There was not a Royalist in the country but awaited the moment when he could strike another blow to avenge his dead master and reinstate his young Prince.