Chapter XXIII: 'well, Chops, to Run Away.'

Frank Antony Blake had gone! He had been summoned away suddenly--it is ever thus that sorrows come--to visit the sickbed of his mother. And this was the first dark cloud that had arisen on the horizon of Lotty's young life. It was sweet for her to know next evening by telegram that her hero's dear mother was better, and that a letter would follow. But--ah!--Antony had gone, and somehow everything was so changed now all about and around her.

It was springtime. Spring, indeed, was in its first fresh glory. The sea she loved, the sea out yonder stretching away and away to the illimitable north, may have lost none of its beauty--the blue of its waves when the sun had climbed the mountains, its opal and silver-gray on that cloud-streaked noon, its emerald streaks where sky's blue mixed with the yellow of half-hidden sandbanks, the pearl where the billows broke lazily over the brown-black of weed-capped rocks, its ineffable glory of sunset or moonlight clear gleaming. No, the sea must be the same, and yet it awakened less response, less sympathy, in the heart of the little gipsy lass.

Towards the forest, where she went wandering away alone with Wallace, because she wanted to think, things seemed strangely altered somehow. Was the moss that carpeted the beech-woods less soft and bright, or the bark of the birch-trees less snowy? Were the clouds of needled foliage on the brown-stemmed pines more black and solemn, and had the tasselled larches with buds of crimson lost already their spring-green tints? And where was the glory of the golden furze? Where the music of the rose-linnet? Ah! surely the fluting melody of the blackbird and the wild, ringing song of mavis, ay, and the bold lilt of the chaffinch, were less loud and stirring. Yes, and the _cur-r-r_ and _croodle_ of wood-pigeon in the planting's green shade, that used to thrill the heart, sounded farther away now and grown more sad and mournful.

The hero was gone. And, girl-like--well, childlike then--this wee gipsy maiden sat down upon a stone and burst into tears, much to the concern of ever-faithful Wallace, who did his best to kiss those tears away. But sorrow often ends in slumber; it is as if Nature needed the solace of sleep to make her forget. A colder breath of air appeared to sweep through the tree-trunks; and, drawing her tartan plaid up around head and dishevelled hair, Lotty lay down in the lee of the mossy stone, and, drawing up her knees, fell fast asleep, with Wallace at her back.

Crona some hours after this heard a low, ominous growl, and, looking in the direction whence it came, beheld the raven face and brown eyes of the honest dog. The witch-wife was doctor to half the fisher-families that dwelt in little villages by the sea, and she had been out wandering over the moors and through the forests looking for roots and simple herbs, when she came to the spot where Lotty lay.

'Poor Wallace, so your little mistress has gone to sleep? Yes, dear fellow; but it isn't on the damp moss it is safe to lie.'

Crona's cottage was but three hundred yards away, and when Lotty awoke she found herself lying in a gleam of sunshine on a wooden bench or dais by the cottage door. She sat up, wondering for a moment or two where she was, then back came all her grief, though she tried to hide it from her fairy godmother as much as she could.

This dear soul had spread a wee table with a white cloth, and placed thereon a cup of heather-ale--her own brewing, and she was famed for this--with barley-meal scones, butter, and honey. There was even a vase of fresh primroses on this little table, which she had drawn close up to Lotty's side.

'Eat, my lamb,' she was saying. 'If young folks would live, young folks must eat.'

She was smoothing Lotty's brow and hair. And the girl tried to eat and drink only just to please Crona, for she felt a little shivery and of appetite she had none. Besides, her fairy godmother's kind sympathy now touched her heart and made the tears stream down her face afresh. Indeed, unromantic though it may seem to say so, some of her tears fell among the heather-ale.

'I am not a witch, dear Lotty, though they say so; but this I can tell you, that you will, in course of time, see Frank Antony once again. So don't mourn for him, dearie.'

'But fa-fa-father has been so unkind! Do you know what he said, dear godmother? He sai-sai-said that by not being Grace Darling Redivivus I was the ruin of the show and all his prospects.'

But Crona laughed and talked so quietly and nicely that she soon had Lotty smiling also. After the witch's heather-ale and the scones the spring air felt warmer, and something of its freshness seemed to have returned to the greenery of woods and wilds, the crimson and yellow and white of the flowers, and the gold of the scented furze. She felt she could even take an interest in Crona's pets now, and was a little cross with herself for not having asked before how little Tim was, for this affectionate mite had been ailing; but her godmother said he was once more as hearty and robust as before his indisposition. She told Lotty that she had journeyed six miles to procure certain roots for Tim, and that from the very day he had begun to nibble these there had been a marked change in both his physical and mental condition. And he slept now every night under pussy's chin.

To-day Wallace had found Tod Lowrie just commencing to feast upon a fine fat fowl, but which particular farmyard it had come from inquiry by Crona had failed as yet to elicit, only she always paid for Lowrie's extravagances. Wallace stood over Tod Lowrie for a moment, looking down at him with his head a bit to one side.

'Dear me, Lowrie,' he said, 'you'll never get through that fowl all by yourself. Then the bones you know--just fancy how you'd feel if a bone stuck in your throat and you required to send for Dr Heron to take it out! But,' continued Wallace, 'I have an excellent method of dealing with dead fowls. Artistic in a manner of speaking. Permit me,' and he gently drew the fowl quite away from the fox, and retired with it under the dais.

Poor Tod Lowrie had simply to sit on his haunches and look on; and, truth to say, all his share consisted of the feet and the head and the feathers.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Wallace when he had finished.

'Beautiful!' said Lowrie with a deep sigh.

All Crona's pets loved each other, and agreed very well on the whole; but of course little differences will at times arise in the best-regulated families. Pussy and Joe to-day, for example, had a little dispute on the boards.

Cats seem cruel; but it is just their nature, and perhaps they are no worse than human beings. Anyhow, pussy to-day had returned from the forest with two baby hedgehogs; she had killed them both, and now kept one safely between her forelegs until she should finish eating the other. And Joe chose to be very nasty and sarcastic about it, though of course she wasn't bound to go and catch young hedgehogs for him. He stood, showing an attitude of impudent grace, some two feet from her.

'Joe's cross! Joe's cross!' he cried. 'Ho, ho, ho! Set you up indeed! Joe's very cross!' He was looking at her with one evil eye. But pussy took no heed. Her tail was spread right out behind her carelessly enough, and now Joe took one long hop towards it and gave a cruel pinch. This was too much for any respectable cat to stand; and, just as Joe was holding back his head to laugh, puss sprang at him and gave him a box on the ear that sent him spinning round like a feathered whirlwind. Then the cat went back to resume the feast.

'Hallo! Why, where is the other hedgehog?'

Not echo, but Tod Lowrie could have answered 'where?' But he didn't. He had swallowed it, and Joe was high up in a tree now, laughing that wicked laugh of his--sarcastic, almost sardonic--'Ha, ha, ha!' and 'Ho, ho, ho!' And the cat's ears were laid far back as she eyed him. 'Just wait till I catch you, Master Joe,' pussy seemed to say.

Ah, well, there is one good thing about cats and dogs--they bear no malice, and very likely at dinner-time Joe would be forgiven, and all Crona's pets eating out of the same dish.

Her fairy godmother, as Lotty always called Crona, kept the child that day as long as she possibly could. But duty was duty, and Lotty had to leave at last. It was already getting dusk, and she must try to get through the forest before the gloom of night came down over sea and land.

The girl feared nothing when Wallace was with her; the faithful dog would have laid down his life defending his little mistress. Nor was she afraid of losing herself; for, thanks to the foresight of her friend Chops, the trees were still blazed. Indeed, the boy had but lately renewed the markings. And he was to meet her to-night somewhere in the wood where the footpath went winding through it. Footpaths never go straight, and perhaps that is the chief charm of them. But this narrow beaten track was probably more winding than most of them. It wound in and out and round about clumps of the thicker, darker spruce-firs and big moss-covered rocks, down into gloomy dells, where in the season the capercailzie gave vent to his ghostly crow and cushat doves croodled mournfully on the tall larch-trees. Down into one dell, over a more open hill, and down into another, where one had to cross a brown, roaring, 'jouking' burn by a tree-bridge.

And this green hollow with the streamlet running through it was supposed to be haunted. Real fairies, they told one, used to dwell here at one time, before the ferns withered away. But five fairies used to be seen at once floating downstream on a plantain-leaf, which they used as a raft--pleasant little parties of five male and apparently rather reckless fairies, for they danced and sang and quaffed honey-dew from acorn-cups. But they were polite, and when a lady-fairy went floating past in a foxglove bell they never failed to lift their hats and hide their cups for the time being, as well as their pine-needle cigars.

But the fairies did not come back after the ferns were withered, only ugly warty toads, and they are not fairies. And the reason why the ferns withered in the dell was that a ghost had come to walk at midnight here. It was the ghost of a gamekeeper, and his story was a gruesome one. He was killed here, but the man who slew him was never found out, and that is why the ghost walks there. Some of the gamekeeper's blood, it is said, trickled into the stream, and that is how it has been brown ever since.

Well, something happened on this very night. At one side of the tree-bridge was a rail, and it was pretty dark by the time Lotty had her hand on it. And she was pausing here for a moment to listen to the gurgling song of the brooklet, and also to hear if Chops was coming. Chops always whistled to keep his courage up when coming through this wood at night. But she could not hear him, nor did Wallace, else he would have barked a half-hysterical bark of joy. She was just about to move on, when, lo! she was startled by seeing a light like that of a candle moving straight upstream towards her. She certainly was a little trembling, but she could not have been called frightened.

The light stopped not far off, and bobbed about and round and round, sometimes low to the ground as if the invisible thing that held it was looking for something that could not be found. Lotty tried to cry 'Who is there?' and was very much surprised that she could not say the words; all the sound, indeed, that she made was a little pitiful 'Hoo--hoo,' like what one hears from a dog when he is dreaming.

Then the light went suddenly out, and now Lotty ran quickly on up the brae, and some distance from the top thereof she listened again, and now she distinctly heard Chops whistling the air '_Fra poco a me_,' and presently she met him.

Chops listened wonderingly to her story of the strange light.

'An' it were nought else, Miss Lotty, but a dead-candle. An' more's seen't nor you on still nights like this. An' they do say that dead-candle will never be laid till the man as killed the keeper is found an' 'anged on 'igh on a gallows-tree. An' ain't ye glad I've come, Miss Lotty?'

'Oh, so glad, Chops!'

'Oh Miss Lotty, I wish they was more ghostes if they'd allers make ye glad to meet yours truly, Chops, his mark.'

'You're a funny boy; but let us get home now as soon as possible. Poor Mary will think I'm lost.'

'Take my 'and, Miss Lotty, won't ye? It's a honest one.'

'I know that, Chops; you've always been good to me, and I'm never going to forget you, Chops, never, never, _never_.'

'Miss Lotty, ye speaks queer-like to-night,' said Chops.

'Yes, I think it is because Crona and I have been talking such a lot, and it was nearly all about Mr. Blake.'

'Ye won't hever forget he, Lotty, I'll lay.'

'Oh no, Chops, and I felt somehow that I could have dropped and died--like--like a dead mouse or something'----

'A dead rose-lintie, eh?' Chops suggested.

'When he told me he was going away, and we might not meet again for ever, ever so long. Ah, Chops, I've no right to think of him, even as my only brother, which he called himself, and me only a mite of a gipsy lass. I should have said "I only," Chops, but somehow "me only" seems sweeter.'

They had reached the cliff-top, and stars were out in the north and the east, and glinting on the sea.

'We've often stood here together, Chops, looking at the stars and the sea.'

'Us has,' said Chops.

'Well, Chops, I won't see them much longer now.'

'Miss Lotty, wot yer a-saying of? Cold water be a-tricklin' down my spine. Was it the dead-candle wot'----

'No, no, Chops. But I made up my mind to-night in the dark wood, when all alone with Wallace, to--to---- Eh, maybe I mustn't tell even you.'

'Oh, Miss Lotty!'

'Well, poor Chops, to run away.'