Odd Part 11

'And I'm awfully afraid I've broken the horrid old thing, and I don't like that d.i.c.k Green! He took my sixpence and ran off, and I worked the handle up and down for hours; he told me the music would come in about a quarter of an hour. It never did, but the organ gave great gasps and groans; you never heard such a noise, just like Mr. Giles when he goes to sleep after tea! It's awfully hard work pulling the handle up and down; I hope I haven't broke it. I think it wants some one to play on the front of it, but the front part is locked up. But I've had a kind of adventure. When I came out there was a strange gentleman looking at one of the graves in the church, so I went up to see what he was looking at, and it was the stone image of a little girl, and there were some pink roses in her hands.'

Betty edged up close to her brother as he got thus far, and asked eagerly, 'What did he say about the roses?'

'He looked at me with an awful frown, and I folded my arms and frowned back, like this!'

And Douglas rumpled his fair brow into many creases, and looked so ferocious that Molly was quite awed, though disrespectful Betty laughed aloud.

'"What are you doing here?" he said. "Did you put these roses here?"

'"No," I said; "oughtn't they to be there? I'll take them away." And then he frowned worse than ever, and said, "Don't you dare to lay a finger on them!" and then he muttered something about the church being always full of children now. But I didn't listen to him much; I was busy looking at the little girl, and thinking, and then I made up a beautiful story on the spot; it's something like some of the fairy stories we read in our big books. I'll tell it to you in a minute. I said to him that I thought I could tell him where the roses came from, and he said "Where?" and then I said to him that the little girl was a sleeping beauty waiting for a prince to come along and kiss her and wake her up; but he hadn't come yet, so a fairy was watching her till he came; and every moonlight night she would bring some flowers in, and creep inside them and sleep with her, to keep all the goblins off, and she would sing her songs in the night, and tell her stories, and comfort her----'

'But,' interrupted Molly, 'if she was asleep, how could she hear the fairy?'

'You're too sharp! Perhaps you'll wait. I was just going to say that in the night she was able to open her eyes, only she couldn't get up.

I had just got as far as that, when the gentleman said "Pshaw!" and then he told me to run off, and not come into the church again to tomfool--that's what he said. He was a kind of dark, grim-looking ogre, and I'll--well, I shall have more to do with him yet!'

This awful threat was accompanied with a very significant shake of the flaxen head, but Betty cried out hotly,--

'You don't know anything about it! He's the father of that little girl, and he goes to her grave to say his prayers and cry. I know more about him than you do, so there!'

'What do you know?'

But Betty walked off, hugging Prince under her arm, and calling out as she went, with a spice of superiority in her tone, 'Prince and I know all about him, and her, and the roses; that's _our_ secret.'

CHAPTER VII

Haymaking

It was only a few days after this that nurse took all the children to tea at an old farmhouse about two miles off. They rode part of the way in a farm waggon, and were all in the best of spirits, for it was haymaking time,--a time of entrancing joy to all children, and to the little Stuarts a new and delightful experience. They had tea out in one of the fields under a shady elm, and were just separating after it was over to have one more romp in the hay, when, to Betty's intense surprise, who should come across the field but Nesta Fairfax! She evidently knew Mrs. Crump, the farmer's wife, well, for she sat down and began chatting away about all her family, and then she caught sight of Betty.

'Why, it's my little friend!' she said, stooping down and kissing her; 'and are these your brothers and sisters?'

Betty got crimson with delight, and introduced one after the other with great importance, and Nesta won all their hearts at once by joining them in their frolic. Her laugh was as gay as theirs, and she could run as fast as any of them.

'You're rather a nice grown-up person,' said Douglas approvingly, as at last she took her leave; 'you aren't so dull and stupid as grown-up people generally are! Will you come and see us one day at our farm?

I'll take you to see the sweetest white mice in the stable that Sam keeps, and there's heaps of easy trees to climb in the orchard, if you like climbing!'

'And I'll show you a baby calf only two days old,' put in Molly, 'and three black and white kittens in a loft, with a lot of apples one end.

We've jolly things at our farm, if you'll only come.'

'And a see-saw and a swing,' added the twins.

'And what will Betty show me?' asked Nesta, amused.

'I think I'll show you the flowers, and the forget-me-nots and watercress in the brook,' said Betty meditatively.

'Then I really must come, with such an enchanting programme before me,'

said Nesta; and she kissed them all round, told nurse she envied her her little family, cracked some jokes with old Crump and his wife, and departed, leaving behind her a breezy brightness and cheeriness that she brought with her wherever she came.

'A pleasant young lady,' said nurse; 'who is she, Mrs. Crump?'

'Ah, well,' said Mrs. Crump, shaking her head solemnly; 'there's a sad story attached to the family. My niece, what the master and I have brought up like one of our own children, has got the sitivation as maid to Mrs. Fairfax, and she knows all the ins and outs of their trouble as no one else do. You see, this is how it is! They were a Lunnon family, and come down here first for change of air. They took lodgings in Mrs. Twist's farm; there were Mrs. Fairfax and the two young ladies, and a das.h.i.+ng young gentleman, the son, who came down for a day or two at a time, but he never stayed long. Mrs. Fairfax were proud as proud could be, and very cold and stern-like except to her son, so Jane says, and him she couldn't do enough for; her heart was just bound up in him!

Jane went back with them to Lunnon, but she says the way the young gentleman went on were enough to break any mother's heart. He was fast going to the bad; and yet his mother, though she would scold and fume at times, never seemed to see it, and paid his debts, and let him have his fling. Miss Nesta were engaged to be married, and Jane says her lover did all he could to stand by her brother and keep him straight; but it weren't no good whatever. And about two year ago the end came.

Mr. Arthur had some trouble over a gaming-table; that was the beginning; then he went and signed a bank cheque that wasn't his--I believe as how it is called forging, and the gentleman whose cheque it was had him up in court; he wouldn't hush it up, and it was the talk of all Lunnon, so Jane tells me. His mother would have paid up, though it would have ruined her; but she weren't allowed, and he were sent to prison across the seas for seventeen years. Jane says Mrs. Fairfax seemed turned to stone; she shut up the Lunnon house, and went abroad to some foreign place with a long name, I forgets it now; and then she comes back and takes Holly Grange, which is as nice an old house as ever you see, and belonged to a Colonel Sparks, who died only a twelvemonth ago, and is about a mile from here, over against that wood you see yonder. But I'm tiring of you with this long tale.'

'I like to hear it,' said nurse; and so did Betty, though a good deal of it was incomprehensible to her. She sat with Prince in her arms on the gra.s.s close by, and her quick little ears were listening to every word.

'Well,' said Mrs. Crump, with a sigh, 'there ain't much more to tell.

Jane says Mrs. Fairfax shuts herself up and won't see a single visitor; Miss Grace, the eldest daughter, who was never very strong, has become a confirmed invalid, with very crotchety and fidgety ways, and makes every one miserable who comes near her. Miss Nesta is the only one that keeps bright; and Jane says her temper is that sweet, she bears with all her sister's crossness and unreasonableness, and her mother's icy coldness, like an angel. She have had her troubles, too, poor thing! Jane tells me that it was Mrs. Fairfax made her break off her engagement with her lover; he were some relative of the gentleman that lost the cheque, and she wouldn't have the engagement go on on no account. Jane says her lover had a talk with Mrs. Fairfax, and he were rather a high and mighty gentleman, and he left the room as white as death, and declared he would never set foot in the house again. Jane thinks Mrs. Fairfax was beside herself at the time, and must have insulted him fearful. Anyhow, it all came to an end. It's a world of trouble, Mrs. Duff. But I feel very sorry for Miss Nesta. The other ladies hardly ever leave the house or grounds, and they would like to keep Miss Nesta in as well; but she comes across to me and has a chat, and she reads a chapter and has prayers with grandfather. She's a very good young lady, and no one would think, to look at her, what she have come through.'

'Has she come through tribulation?' asked Betty, looking up suddenly.

'Well, I never did! To think of that child a-taking it all in!'

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Crump. 'What do you know about tribulation, little missy?'

'It means trouble or distress, I know;' and Betty's face was very wistful as she spoke.

'Run along and play with the others,' said nurse quickly, 'and don't worry your head over other people's troubles. There is plenty of it in the world, but your time hasn't come for it yet.'

'I wish it would come,' said Betty softly, 'and then I could put myself in that text.'

But only Prince heard the whispered words, and he wagged his tail in sympathy.

It was that night that Betty added another clause to her evening prayers. She generally said them aloud at nurse's knee, but it was not the first time that she had said, 'I want to whisper quite a secret to G.o.d'; and nurse always let her have her way.

'She is a queer little thing,' she told her brother; 'sometimes naughtier and more contrary than all the rest put together, and sometimes so angel-like that I wonder if she won't have an early death.

But there's no knowing how to take her!'

Betty's secret was this,--

'And please, G.o.d, forgive Prince his sins and take him to heaven when he dies, and let me come through great tribulation, so that I may be like your people in heaven.'

When haymaking commenced at Brook Farm the children's delight knew no bounds. Every moment of the day they were out in the fields; and as the great cart-loads of hay were driven off, they felt proud and pleased with having helped in the work. Prince enjoyed it as much as any one; but he never left his little mistress's side for long. One evening, as the tired haymakers were resting, after having placed the last load on the wagon, Betty, dancing by the cart, was inspired to ascend the ladder which had been left against it.

'Come on,' she shouted to Douglas and Molly, 'and we'll have a ride home.'

Up they went, unnoticed by any, and danced up and down with delight when they reached the top. Then nurse discovered them, and in her fright and anxiety at their risky position she rushed towards them and screamed aloud. The horses, startled, swerved hastily aside, and Douglas, dangerously near the edge, over-balanced himself, and fell with a terrible thud to the ground. It was the work of a moment to seize him and drag him from the wheels, which mercifully did not touch him; but he was carried into the house stunned and insensible, and Molly and Betty, with scared, white faces, were taken down and sent indoors.

'It's your fault,' whispered Molly to the frightened Betty; 'you made us come up, and now Douglas will die! I think he's dead already; you'll be a murderer, and you'll be sent to prison and hung!'

And Betty quite believed this a.s.sertion, and crept up to the pa.s.sage outside Douglas's bedroom trembling with excitement and fright. She crouched down in a corner, and Prince came up, put his two paws on her shoulder, and licked her face with a little wistful whine. It was a long time before nurse came out of the room, and then she wasted very few words on the little culprit.

'Go to bed, you naughty child, and tell Miss Molly to go too. You are never safe from mischief, and it's a mercy your brother hasn't been killed.'

'Will he get better, nurse?'