Chapter X: What the Young Man Said

For some moments the children stared at the young man without saying a word--they were so surprised at finding him there; and he scowled back at them fiercely, as though he thought they had no right to have come under the ash-tree at all.

"We came to look for my hedgehog," said Una at last, making just the suspicion of a curtsey as she spoke, for this young man was so much younger than most of her father's visitors that she was not quite sure whether her old nurse would have told her to curtsey to him or not.

The young man looked at her, then muttered something to himself in a strange language, and shook his head.

Then Una spoke in French.

"We came to look for the little animal there," she said, pointing to the hedgehog; and the young man smiled as he pushed it gently with his foot and rolled it towards her.

He looked so much nicer when he smiled that the children began to feel more at ease with him, and to think that he was not such an ugly young man after all; but very soon the gloomy look came back to his face, and he pushed his way out through the branches, as if anxious to get away from the shade of tree and his own thoughts at the same time.

The children followed him out into the sunshine, and the young man looked down at them with a queer sort of expression in his black eyes; then he said something quickly in the strange language in which he had spoken before, and looked at Una as if he thought she would understand; but the little girl stared blankly back at him, and he saw that she did not know what he had said.

It was not the first time Una had heard that language, however. Her father had sometimes talked to her like that in soft caressing tones as she sat on his knee before the fire, or when they walked together in the garden; but he had always laughed when Una had asked him what he was saying, and had told her that she would understand some day. The only other people whom she had heard speak in that tongue were the strange gentlemen who sometimes came to stay in the house.

Then the young man began to speak in French--a little slowly at first, as if he were not at all sure that his listeners would understand; but when he saw that Una understood quite well, he brightened up and began to speak quickly, pouring out such a torrent of words that Tom and Norah and Dan had not the least idea what he was talking about, and wondered how it was possible for Una to understand what he said.

That Una did understand was quite certain, for her little face paled and flushed at the young man's words; her dark eyes grew big with fear, then filled with tears, and by-and-by a little sob broke from her throat, and the children saw that she was crying bitterly--not loudly, but very, very sadly, as if she could not help it and really hardly knew that she was crying at all.

When the young man saw Una's tears he suddenly stopped talking, and looked uncomfortable; then he softly stroked the little girl's fair hair, and whispered something to her so gently and kindly that Una smiled at him through her tears, and the children felt that they liked him a little bit after all; though just before, Tom had been wishing very much that he were quite big, so that he could knock the strange man down for making Una cry.

Then the young man turned to go, but came back to ask Una a question; and the little girl answered him eagerly in French, repeating something several times over, and nodding her head firmly as if she were making a promise. The young man smiled at her once more, and then went away into the house.

"Well!" Tom burst out as soon as the stranger was out of hearing, "I should like to know what all that gibberish was about, Una."

"And me, too," said Norah. "Please tell us, Una. I couldn't understand one word he said."

"Nor anyone else," said Tom; "at least--I forgot--Una did. I suppose that's because you gabble such a lot of French to Marie, isn't it, Una? Marie talks as fast as seven cats all rolled into one."

"Cats don't talk!" said Una, smiling; then she grew very grave. "Oh Tom," she said, "I don't feel a bit like laughing, really. He told me such sad, sad things, that man. He said there is a country, a long way off, where the little children are quite miserable--not happy and laughing like us. He said that it was seeing us all playing and laughing just now made him feel quite cross and angry with us, because it made him think of his little brothers and sisters--at least, I am not quite sure if he did say his little brothers and sisters, or some other little children he knows.

"They have been turned out of their home and have to live in a nasty, cold, snowy country with no friends, except their mother; yes, she is there; but their father has to work in a horrid sort of prison, and he hasn't done anything wrong--_that_ isn't why he's being punished. And he says--the man I mean--that there are lots of little children like that in that country, and they are all sad and cold and hungry and miserable.

"He told me the name of that country, too," the little girl went on; "but I mustn't tell you, because it is a secret and I promised not to. Oh, dear! I hope it is not naughty of me to have told you all this," cried Una, suddenly bursting into tears. "I do hope I'm not letting out any of father's secret; but it made me feel so sad all that the man told me, and I wanted to talk to someone about it, and--and I never thought of it being anything to do with--Oh, dear! oh, dear! now I'm letting out more and making it worse!"

"Never mind, Una! Don't cry. We won't tell, anyone, we promise faithfully we won't," cried the children, much distressed at Una's tears; and soon the little girl dried her eyes and was at last satisfied by their promise not to tell anyone about the poor little unhappy children she had told them of. She bade her little friends good-bye then, and carried "Snoozy" away rather sadly to his home in the kitchen garden--a disused cucumber frame, where he was generally put for safety when his little mistress was not with him in the garden.

Una met the black-haired young man several times after that in the house and garden, but he did not talk to her again about the little boys and girls who lived in that other country, which was so different from kind, peaceful old England. After a time he went away, and no more strange gentlemen came to the house. And then, one day, Una's father went away also.

This was not one of Monsieur Gen's usual visits to London, when he stayed sometimes one night, sometimes two, or even came back the very same day to Haversham. This time he would be away for some weeks, perhaps a month, perhaps longer, he said, as he kissed his little girl one sunny June morning; and now August had come, and Una's father had not come back again, and the little girl felt very lonely as she wandered among the weedy flower-beds in the rose-garden.

There were not many roses out that morning, and the few that still bloomed on the bushes were poor specimens compared with the beauties that used to scent the air in that old garden. For years the Grange roses had been noted for miles around; but it was long since pruning shears had touched those branches, or since care of any sort had been shown to the Grange grounds, and it was only the children who thought the flower-beds beautiful and the garden itself a play-ground of bliss.

It was indeed a pleasant place to them, that overgrown old garden; for no gardener looked askance when they dug holes in the gravel paths, or turned the rockery into a grotto large enough to get into themselves and play at elves and witches and mermaids and other delightful games; and no one said them nay when they built a hut upon the lawn--with willow branches and rushes from beside the pond--where they "camped out" many a long summer afternoon, pretending to be gipsies, or soldiers, or Ancient Britons, whichever their fancy pleased.