Chapter VII: Part II: Children of Last Century (2)

“I cannot help it. People must say what they please. I will not have Geordie go to such a school, even if I have to receive half the fallen women in London to prevent it. If Lochmaben never marries, Geordie will be head of our house.”

Lady Grizell spoke with passionate excitement. Mr. Fane felt that he hardly knew his wife, always so gentle and dignified, in this woman with the pale face and blazing eyes. He expostulated forcibly and at his usual length. If he was somewhat less conscious of the dignity of the House of Cochran than was Lady Grizell, he was keenly alive to the dignity of the House of Fane. But all his exhortation, all his arguments were of no avail. He could not shake Lady Grizell’s determination; and the afternoon saw her speeding in the express toward the interview with her brother.

The journey was not long, but the August day was hot. Lady Grizell felt faint and shaken when the omnibus (she had been too excited to wire for a cab) deposited her at her brother’s door.

The parlormaid looked curiously at the tall lady who asked so pointedly for _Mr._ Cochran, and showed her into the study. No ladies ever called, and here was an undoubted lady--“my lady” to boot--as the sharp girl discovered on reading the card.

She carried the card to her master in the garden, where he was sitting with his wife. He flushed as he read it, and tossed it to the woman beside him, exclaiming: “Grizie, by Jove!--can she be coming round?”

The woman caught the card, reading the name aloud in an eager, excited voice, then said, a little bitterly: “She only asks for _you_.”

“She wouldn’t come here to insult you. I know Grizie. It’s something about the boy, and she wants to be friends. You wait here till I send for you.”

He strode across the lawn, and entered the study by the open French window.

“Now this is really good of you, Grizie; Geordie will be in raptures--it’s kind and friendly!”

Lady Grizell was pale, and the cheek she turned to his kiss was very cold. She clasped her hands to stay their trembling and began in a low voice:

“Donald! you said that if I would receive Mrs. Cochran----”

“Nelly, you mean!” interrupted the Hon. Donald.

“If I would receive your wife--you would let me keep Geordie. If I promise to ask you both to the Towers--twice every year--will you let me have him, instead of sending him to that horrible school--will you, Donald? I’ll educate him, he shall cost you nothing--I have a little money, you know, and Augustus is very generous to me--will you let him come to me?”

Donald looked rather shamefaced as he muttered: “Isn’t it rather like selling the little chap?”

“But it’s selling him into happiness, Donald: he is such a dear lad, and he loves me, and ... it isn’t very easy for me!”

There was silence for two minutes. Lady Grizell’s heart thumped in her ears.

Overhead there was a sudden patter of little feet, and Lady Grizell sank upon her knees, sobbing: “Oh, give him to me, Donald, for God’s sake, give him to me! I cannot bear it!”

Donald’s eyes were red as he raised his sister and gently put her in an easy chair. He patted her shoulder soothingly, and his voice trembled as he said: “Look here, Grizie! you shall have the boy. There shall be no bargain between us; I never meant to send him to that beastly school. I tried it on to fetch you--as it has--but I can’t play the game so low down as that--I don’t set up for a model parent. I know you’ll bring him up better than we should. You can leave this house without meeting my wife if you prefer it, and I’ll send Geordie to you to-morrow. But, if you like to do a kind and generous thing to a woman who has known little but unkindness, and shame, and sorrow all her life, and who is a good and loyal wife to me, then I say, God bless you, Grizell Cochran, for you are a good woman!”

Donald was not given to the making of long speeches. His voice broke many times in the course of this, and the tears were running down Lady Grizell’s pale cheeks. She held out her hands to him, saying simply, “Take me to her!” and the two tall figures went out across the grass together.

A CLEAN PACK

Basil sat alone in the schoolroom, although it was past bedtime. Nurse, like everybody else, had apparently forgotten him, but Basil, absorbed in his own thoughts, sat on by the dying fire. There were always fires in his grandfather’s house whenever it was in the least cold, and that August it was very cold, so cold that grandfather, getting wet through out shooting, somehow got a chill, was ill only three days, and now was lying dead in the big bedroom over Basil’s head. So Basil had a good deal to think about. It was not that death was new to him--from his earliest infancy it had been impressed upon him that his father was dead--but that he could not by any stretch of fancy imagine what life would be without grandfather--grandfather who was lying with his beautiful hands crossed on his breast in that long, light-colored wooden box upstairs.

Basil resented the fact that grandfather’s coffin should be made of light wood. It seemed incongruous and impertinent, somehow, that anything used by grandfather should be otherwise than old--old and rich-colored and seemly; and the child found himself wondering whether grandfather was annoyed. There were many things in that bedroom calculated to annoy him, Basil reflected. In the first place, when mother took him in that afternoon that he might lay the asters gathered in his own garden at his grandfather’s feet, he remarked that all the blinds were down, and grandfather would have hated that, and the windows were shut, and there was a heavy scent of hot-house flowers. “I fear he’s very uncomfortable,” whispered Basil to himself. “He’ll be glad to get to heaven out of that stuffy room.” For grandfather had loved air as much as he liked fires.

The horizon of Basil’s experience was somewhat limited. It consisted of mother and grandfather, and of “other grandfather,” who lived at Altringham in Cheshire, and was mother’s father.

Every year Basil and mother went to Altringham for six weeks, and life there was so utterly different from what it was with grandfather that Basil never ceased to puzzle over it and to wonder why mother always cried when she came away, and why “other grandfather” always said: “You moost bear with the old heathen, Sophia; he’s been generous enough as regards mooney, and, remember, you can be _in_ the world but not of it.”

There were aunts, too, at Altringham, who made a great fuss of Basil for about three days, and then seemed to find him greatly in the way; while “other grandfather” had a most embarrassing way of suddenly demanding: “Well, yoong mon, and how’s the ciphering?”

Basil loved his mother very dearly, but he could have wished that she took life a little less sadly. A gentle melancholy characterized her every thought, and the child felt rather than understood that her mental attitude toward her father-in-law was that of a deprecating disapproval. Grandfather felt it too, for only a week before Basil had heard him say to one of the gentlemen who were tramping the stubble with him: “We shall never understand each other, my poor little daughter and I, though we’ve lived together seven years. She’s as good as gold, and I don’t think I’m particularly _difficile_, but there it is--we can never get the same focus for anything.” Basil was walking just behind with the keeper, who blushed up to the roots of his hair as he called out: “I’m here, you know, grandfather.”

Grandfather pulled up short and turned to look at Basil. Then he gave a queer little laugh. “There’s not much Manchester about the boy,” he said, and tramped on.

They all went to London from November till the end of March, and there grandfather generally dined at his club and played whist afterward, while Basil’s mother had supper with him or had friends of her own to dinner, just as she liked. Grandfather could not get on without his rubber. Even in the country, three times a week three broughams drove solemnly up the drive, and three old gentlemen descended therefrom to dine with grandfather and play whist afterwards.

In London on fine nights he walked to his club, and Basil used to watch him go from the nursery window just as he was going to bed; and at the lamp grandfather always stopped and looked up at the curly head pressed against the pane, then he would lift his hat with a grand sweep and walk on, while Basil hugged himself with the delighted conviction that _his_ grandfather was the very handsomest old gentleman in the whole world. And sometimes grandfather would crush his hat over his eyes, while a spasm of pain crossed his clean-shaven, stately old face, and he’d whisper to himself: “My God! how like he is to my poor boy.”

* * * * *

Among the very first things that Basil ever learned were the different “suits” in cards. Grandfather taught him and gave him a shilling for every suit as he knew them and the values of the cards, as in whist. Then he taught Basil whist, playing double-dummy, and explaining as they went along: “I wish you, Basil, to play whist as a gentleman should, carefully and with due consideration, with the intelligence and respect that the game deserves, not like a counter jumper for penny points.”

It must be confessed that Basil took to this instruction much more kindly than to that included under the heading of “ciphering,” or even of reading and spelling. At six he could play a “fair hand,” at which he was somewhat puffed up, the only drawback being that mother did not seem to take any interest in his achievements. She never played herself, though grandfather impressed upon her that she was preparing for herself an unhappy old age; in fact, she did not seem to like cards at all.

One very wet Sunday grandfather had arranged four “hands” on the library table, and was proceeding to play a game out of “Cavendish” for Basil’s instruction, when his mother suddenly came into the room. She gave one quick glance at the table with the cards, and came forward and stood beside it, saying very quietly: “I do not wish Basil to play cards on Sunday.”

Grandfather had risen to his feet as Basil’s mother entered the room. It would never have occurred to him to sit down while his daughter-in-law was standing; he swept the cards into a little heap with one swift movement of his beautiful white old hands, and said, with a grave little bow:

“I apologize, my dear. I had for the moment forgotten your--er--convictions on this question. What _may_ we play at?--for I’ve made a bet with myself to keep Basil amused till teatime, and I don’t want to lose it.” Then, turning to Basil--who, conscious of the thunder in the air, felt very unhappy indeed: “It’s not your fault, my boy. You’ve not been naughty. It’s I who was forgetful.”

Basil’s mother looked from one to the other a little piteously. She had no weapons wherewith to meet her father-in-law’s smiling courtesy. She might have liked him better had he sometimes been rude. “Other grandfather” was not uniformly courteous.

On Sunday mornings they all three went to church together, and grandfather sat under the big carved tablet which set forth how Basil’s father had died at Ulundi, “aged twenty-nine.” Grandfather always carried his daughter-in-law’s prayer book for her up to the house, discussed the sermon with her, and was, as he himself would have put it, “vastly agreeable.”

* * * * *

A piece of coal fell out on the hearth and startled Basil out of his reverie. He had evidently come to some decision, for he nodded his head emphatically, muttering: “I’d better do it. I’m sure he’ll be bored if I don’t, and I mayn’t get another chance.”

The room was quite dark but for the flickering firelight, which had brightened since that big piece of coal fell apart. Basil went to his own special cupboard and took from it a pack of cards, which his grandfather had given him only last week. Grandfather never used the same pack on two consecutive evenings, and gave one to Basil nearly every week with the instruction: “Never use dirty cards, even to build castles with.” The child had never played with the ones he held in his hands, and his big grey eyes filled with tears as he wrapped them up in a leaf torn out of his copy-book. Then, laboriously, for Basil was no scribe, he wrote on the packet, a proceeding which took a considerable time. He gave a sob as he kissed his message, but there was no time to be lost. Slipping off his shoes, he opened the door very softly, raced across the hall and up the stairs. The staircase was quite dark, for Chapman had forgotten to light the lamps.

When he reached his grandfather’s bedroom door he paused with his hand on the handle. His heart was pounding in his ears, and for a full minute he could not hear whether all was quiet in the room or not. Opening the door very softly, and as softly shutting it after him, he ran across the room and pulled up the blind of the big window that faced the bed. The moon came out from behind a bank of cloud, as if to aid him in his task, and shone full on that strange last couch at the foot of the bed in which grandfather lay so still under his coverlet of flowers. Basil pushed at the heavy window, but it was fastened far out of his reach, and he could not let in the fresh night air that grandfather loved. As his eyes grew accustomed to the lighter room, he came and stood by that light-colored box that he hated so, lifted the white cloth covering his grandfather’s face, and looked at him long and earnestly.

Basil had very vague notions as to what heaven was like; but, on reviewing all that he had heard of it, he came to the conclusion that if there was no whist there grandfather would be dull, and he had often heard him say: “There’s only one thing that I dread, and that’s boredom.” So Basil had decided that at all costs such a contingency must be avoided, and grandfather must teach the angels to play whist. “They can p’obably make more cards when they’ve seen them,” said Basil to himself, and pushed his little packet underneath the folded hands, kissed them, and turned to go as softly as he had come.

But the door opened at that moment, and his mother, candle in hand, stood on the threshold gazing at the little figure standing full in the strand of moonlight thrown across the carpet.

“What are you doing here, Basil?” she asked breathlessly.

“I came to give something to grandfather. Oh, don’t take it away from him!”

The passionate distress in the child’s voice moved her.

“I will take nothing away from him that you wish to give him. But what is it? Is it flowers?”

“No, mother, it is not flowers.”

She came into the room, closing the door after her.

“I must see what it is,” she said very gently.

Basil stood where he was as though turned to stone. Would she take it away--or would she put it back? He could not see her, for he stood with his back to her, and seemed incapable of turning round. His mother, noting the disarrangement of the flowers, drew out the little packet, and, holding her candle close, read the inscription in the large uncertain writing:

“DEAR GRANDFATHER,

“I’m sory it’s not a cleane pak, but I don’t know where they are.

“Your loving boy,
“BASIL.”

AN IRON SEAT

He sat at one end of the seat, she at the other, and the seat was on the cliffs overlooking the sea at Wolsuth on the Suffolk coast. They say that if your eyes were strong enough you could see the coast of Holland; but even with telescopes no one has yet succeeded in doing that.

At first he hardly noticed her--she was so small and still and read her book so assiduously; but she could have passed a searching examination as to his appearance, for she had studied it carefully. She would have told you that he was tall, and thin, and dark, and “rather old”; that his beard was grey, though his hair was black and decidedly thin on the top; that his spectacles had gold rims and the eyes behind them were very kind; that his manner struck you as extremely grave and decorous: what impressed her most, however, was that big, dull, paper-covered book he was always reading. She was sure it was dull, for _she_ couldn’t read a word of it; it was in German--she knew that much, and she had tried to pronounce the title to herself in bed at night, but never came near it at all, for it looked like this: “Mendelejeef Chemie,” and it would take a very sharp little girl of ten to make much out of that.

No one ever came to sit between them on that iron seat; it was far from the esplanade, and overlooked a lonely part of the beach where there were no “entertainments.” When they had sat there for several days, the man who read “Mendelejeef Chemie” looked up suddenly to find that his companion at the other end of the seat was wiping her eyes with the absurdest little red-bordered handkerchief. She held her book in one hand--a somewhat large and heavy book for such a little hand--and wiped her eyes with the other, and yet the man was sure that she was not unhappy, for her thin brown cheeks were flushed, and though her mouth was tremulous it wore a proud and happy smile. He was devoured by curiosity. What book could it be that had the power to move a little girl in so complex a fashion?

He shifted down the seat toward her; but she was so absorbed in what she was reading that she never looked his way, and he found that the book she held in her hand was “From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria.”

Suddenly she looked round and saw him. Quite simply and naturally she offered him a share of her book, saying enthusiastically:

“Isn’t it splendid? And my daddie was there through it all.”

“Are you ready?” she said presently.

The man nodded, and she turned the page. Then, with tears still shining on her cheeks, she began to read aloud:

“It was a procession of lions. And presently, when the two battalions
of Devons met--both full of honors--and old friends breaking from the
ranks gripped each other’s hands and shouted, everyone was carried
away, and I waved my feathered hat and cheered and cheered until I
could cheer no longer for joy that I had lived to see the day....”

Here she stopped, and, turning her radiant face to the man beside her, cried:

“Aren’t you glad you weren’t born in any other century? Isn’t it a good thing to be in the world when there are such splendid things happening?”

The man smiled down at her, saying heartily: “It is, indeed!” And straightway they were friends.

Ever afterward they sat in the middle of the seat quite close together, and although Winny--that was her name--continued to read “From London to Ladysmith,” she read it aloud, and “Mendelejeef” lay neglected on the far end of the seat.

They talked a great deal about the war, and the man found that this little girl knew all about it, from the battle of Glencoe to the relief of Ladybrand, the name and whereabouts of every regiment, the result of every single engagement big or little.

He learned that last year her father had been home on long leave and had brought them all to Wolsuth, “and oh! we did have a lovely time!” but that this year mother couldn’t afford it, “War risks are so expensive, you know,” that she--Winny--had been silly enough to get influenza in July, and an aunt had consented to let her come with her own family.

“Mother and the boys--there’s three boys younger than me: I’m the eldest--have got to stay at home this year. I’m so sorry, though I’d far rather be with them, only I’ve _got_ to get strong. Daddie said so in his last letter.”

The man gathered that her aunt and cousins were not altogether _simpatica_, though Winny never said so; still, every day she came and sat on the iron seat after her bath and talked of her book, for which she had unbounded admiration, and of her own small affairs. Being an excellent listener, the man found himself well amused, for he was one of those people who keep the best part of themselves for old friends and little children, and are always quite misunderstood and unappreciated by casual acquaintances, which lack of appreciation doesn’t trouble them in the least.

He learned that one of the “boys” was going into the Royal Engineers, “because there you can live on your pay from the first if you’re careful,” another into the Artillery, “and we may spare one for the Navy.”

“And what are you going to be?” he asked one day, after they had exhaustively discussed the futures of the three boys.

“Oh, I’m going to be a mother,” she replied, with immense decision. “You see, you have such a lot of people to take care of you and love you, if you’re a mother.”

“But you have to take care of them first, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, just at first--but afterwards---- You should just see the care we take of mother, daddie and all.”

The man looked out to sea and tried to picture the eager little figure at his side as a large comfortable mother of many children. He tried so hard that he forgot to answer her last remark, and she asked anxiously:

“Don’t you think it’s a good thing to be?”

“Excellent!” he answered heartily. “It is one of the oldest and most honorable professions; mothers are people we can in nowise ever do without.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Winny, in a satisfied voice, “and that’s what I’m going to be; I made up my mind years ago.”

* * * * *

One day as he arrived at their trysting place he discovered that Winny was crying in right down earnest, and not for joy that Ladysmith had been relieved. The little red-bordered handkerchief was screwed up into a tight, wet ball, and the small figure in blue serge looked very woebegone indeed. She had taken off her fisherman’s cowl, and cast it on the ground beside her; and when she saw her friend, instead of waving him a gay welcome as he came up, she shook her curly brown hair round her cheeks to hide her face.

All this was so unlike Winny that the man immediately reflected with dismay that he had not read the morning paper at all carefully. It was possible that some disaster had happened to her father. In those days we were apt to trace all sorrows to South Africa.

“No bad news, I hope?” he said in rather a hesitating way as he came up.

Winny shook her head till her face was entirely hidden by her hair; but she did not answer otherwise.

“You may as well tell me what’s the matter,” said the man; “it may not be past mending.”

Now there was something about this man that inspired confidence; moreover, he offered Winny his own handkerchief, which was large and clean and comforting. So she accepted it, mopped her wet face, shook back her hair, and began: “I don’t bathe with the others, you know.” Here she paused so long that the man said, “Well?” though it was against his principles to interrupt anybody’s narrative.

“I bathe at Herrington’s machines,” she continued, “where we always bathed last year--daddie too--right far away at the end of the beach. My aunt and cousins bathe where the niggers are, and the concert, and such crowds of people you have to wait ever so long for a machine. So I asked if I might bathe with Herrington like last year, for he’s such a nice man, and he takes such care of me, and daddie liked him awfully. There’s been Herringtons in Wolsuth since 1400!”

Winny paused after this announcement, evidently expecting comment of some sort.

“That’s a long record,” said the man, rising to the occasion. “And what was Mr. Herrington before he took to keeping bathing-machines?”

“He was mate on a schooner, and one of his sons is a captain of a merchantman; he’s raised himself tremendously. Then there’s two sons who help Herrington, and are fishermen in winter; and Mrs. Herrington does washing. Oh, they’re such a nice family!” she exclaimed ecstatically.

The man looked out to sea, wondering what on earth all this had to do with her tears. But he was a patient person; so he waited.

“I go home to-morrow,” she continued, “and I’ve had one of Herrington’s bathing-machines ever since I came--going on for three weeks now--and he’s taken me out in the boat and let me dive and swim, and been so kind and jolly, and to-day, when I asked my aunt for the money to pay him--it’s fourpence each time--she wouldn’t give it me, and laughed and said that it wouldn’t hurt him to take me for nothing this year, he made such a lot out of us last. Think of it!” she exclaimed, clasping and unclasping her hands. “It’s his living! It’s like taking a leg of mutton from a butcher for nothing. I told auntie that mother would send it to her if she’d let me have it, but she only laughed and said it was nonsense. Of course mother will send it to _him_, but that’s not the same. He’ll have to think me shabby and ungrateful for nearly three days, for I can’t go and say good-bye to him when I’ve nothing to give him. I’ve only sixpence. Isn’t it dreadful?”

The man reflected that there were people who had no objection to accepting legs of mutton from their butchers, who rather resented the fact that these same butchers ventured on occasion to send in a bill; but evidently the soldier who had been shut up in Ladysmith brought up his children with a different view of their obligations. He was very sorry for Winny, but he didn’t dare to offer her the money. There are people to whom one cannot offer money.

“Can’t you tell Herrington how you are placed?” he feebly suggested.

“Of course not,” the child answered scornfully. “He’d say I was ‘more’n welcome’ to my baths, and that it didn’t matter a pin. It’s just because I know he’d gladly give me my baths that it hurts so. It’s his _living_,” she repeated. As she spoke she stood up and stuffed the little wet handkerchief into her pocket.

The man was sitting with his hands thrust deep into his own, as men will when perplexed or troubled. Winny stood with her back to him, gazing sorrowfully at Herrington’s bathing-machines on the distant beach.

The little pocket gaped, and the man succumbed to temptation. Very gingerly he dropped a crown piece into the opening which displayed the drenched handkerchief. Then he stood up. “I’m going by the afternoon train,” he said, “so I fear I must say good-bye. But I hope we shall meet again some day.”

“I hope so,” sighed Winny, as she held up her face to be kissed, and wondered why he seemed in such a hurry and never even asked her to walk back with him.

LÉON

I would have our children taught, so far as teaching can go, to love
and admire France, that glorious nation which has done so much and
suffered so much for humanity.--WILLIAM ARCHER, 1898.

We did not believe it possible that a boy of nine could wear high-buttoned boots, a pale blue sash, and long hair like a girl’s, and yet possess a character unaffected by these deplorable externals. That, in addition to this, he should be French, speaking that “_nimini pimini_” language with perfect ease; and, in further proof of his mental slipperiness, speak English almost equally well--but for a curious roll and rumble of the letter “r” in the back of the throat--was another serious stumbling-block in the way of our liking. It was not natural. Had he been puny, or sallow, or in any way physically “Frenchy” as we supposed it, we should have found him less bewildering. But he was sturdy, ruddy, and fair-haired; tall for his age, and of a frank cheerfulness that was rather engaging. Absolutely unashamed of his inferior nationality, unconscious, seemingly, of those elongated buttoned boots, he would shake back his tawny hair and look you squarely in the face with big blue eyes that smiled. He didn’t look a “Molly,” somehow, in spite of his hair; but we children were convinced that he “must be one, really,” and that what the twins called his “false French smile” was a sort of cloak for the innate cowardice of his disposition.

What induced Aunt Alice to marry a French officer, we could not think! That she and her husband were what mother called “devoted to one another” seemed to us an insufficient explanation. Not only did she marry this foreigner and desert her native land, but she became a Roman Catholic--nurse minded this most and called her a Papist--and she seemed perfectly happy in her exile. She was supposed to be a very beautiful person, but what most impressed us during her rare and brief visits was the quality and quantity of the sweets she brought us; sweets in gorgeous boxes which bore the mystic device _Gouache_. France was, we were convinced, a poor sort of place, but exception must be made in favor of her sweets.

In reflecting upon our general attitude toward France and the French at this time, I am reminded of the man who scornfully held up to ridicule a country so far left to itself as to speak of bread as “Pain.”

“But,” suggested a more tolerant friend, “we call it bread.”

“Ah! it _is_ bread, you see.”

But to return to Léon. His father’s regiment had been ordered to some place in Africa, where they could not take Léon, and as Aunt Alice was going with her husband for at least six months, Léon was sent to us.

Eric and I decided that it was a bore. Jennie, who is queer and contradictory at times, said nothing. She adores Aunt Alice. The twins, who had just been doing the Battle of Waterloo in history, and were rampantly patriotic, expressed grave doubts as to whether it was quite loyal to Queen Victoria to receive Léon at all.

“No one likes to go about all day with a mountebank!” grumbled Eric.

“If only he’d had fewer clothes!” I sighed.

But even the most sanguine destroyer of garments could hardly hope that Léon would wear out the quantity of which he was possessed in less than six months.

The twins and Léon came toward us from the tennis lawn; the twins red and triumphant, Léon red and evidently perturbed. Jennie followed, lingering in the rear; she is lame, not a cripple, you know, but noticeably lame.

“England won!” shouted the twins. They always seemed to speak in a sort of chorus.

Léon sat down on the bank beside us and shook his hair back from his face. He evidently intended to appeal to Eric about something; but just as he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Jennie.

“Come, my cousin,” he called, patting the bank beside him; “we shall have good fortune another time!”

“England won!” chanted the twins again. “We always do!”

“That is not so!” cried Léon angrily. “Why do you speak to despise my country? If you were in France, my guest, we speak not forever of Hastings?”

“Oh, that was ages ago,” said Eric judicially; “but you were not fairly matched.”

“Léon had me, you see,” put in Jennie.

“Not so, my cousin, your play was beautiful,” said Léon, and he took her hand and patted it. He had queer affectionate ways, and never seemed to mind showing that he liked people. “We beat them next time.”

“I wonder what makes Léon so chummy with Jennie?” I asked Eric half an hour later, as we rested after a hot “single.” “Do you think it’s because she’s the only one of us that couldn’t lick him?”

Eric raised himself on his elbows and stared at me.

“Well, of all the chuckle-headed ideas I ever heard! Really, for downright wrong-headedness, give me the average girl. Can’t you see, you silly, that it’s because she’s lame, and the little beggar’s sorry for her? He’s a good-hearted kid if he is Frenchy, and as to licking, just you wait----”

I felt very much snubbed and rather aggrieved, for only that afternoon Eric had grumbled about Léon’s clothes and called him a “mountebank.” Boys seem to keep things separate somehow, in a curious way.

One day Jennie and Léon had been sent to the Home Farm to fetch eggs. It was really the twins’ turn, but they hid so that they shouldn’t have to go, for it was a very hot afternoon. Eric and I went for a stroll through the fields in the same direction to look at a nest of young yellow-hammers in the big paddock. There’s a sort of hill in the big paddock, and we saw Jennie and Léon coming down the cart road from the farm; they went by the road because Jennie hates climbing gates--it hurts her. Léon was carrying the eggs and they came very slowly, because Jennie was tired. Toward them came one, Fred Oram, a village boy, not a nice boy at all. He hates us because the head groom gave him a thrashing when he caught him throwing stones at the thoroughbreds.

Fred Oram began to limp like Jennie, and called out:

“’Ullo, Frenchy! Shall I plait your ’air for ya?”

Eric, who happened to be at home because two-thirds of his school got measles and mother was nervous, began to run, and I ran after him; but we were a good way from the gate, and the hedge is too thick to get through. We ran alongside of it, and heard Léon say in his funny, stilted English:

“Please hold the eggs, my cousin!” Then, evidently to Fred: “How dare you to mock at my cousin and insult me?”

As we reached the gate Eric pulled me back.

“Let the kid alone!” he whispered. “He’s not afraid.”

It reminded me of old King Edward, and “Let the boy win his spurs.”

None of the three saw us. Jennie was standing on the grass at the side, looking very red and excited; Fred Oram was pulling Léon’s hair and dancing round him, making derisive remarks. Léon wrenched his head away, and with a bound stood in the middle of the road, facing his enemy. In spite of his buttony boots--in spite of his blue sash and his long hair--Fred seemed rather afraid of him, for Léon looked, and was, furious.

For about half a minute they stood looking at each other. Léon shouted, “Lâche! Lâche!”--he forgot to speak English, he was so excited--then, “En garde!”--and there seemed a thousand _r_s in that _garde_--and he sprang on Fred, who went down like a ninepin.

Eric vaulted the gate, yelling excitedly, “By Jove! the kid can box.”

Jennie laid down the eggs on the grass, and hid her face in her hands. But she looked through her fingers. I saw her.

In another minute Fred was upon his feet. He was bigger than any of us--even Eric. Léon went at him again, calling out what we supposed to be battle-cries in French, and I do believe that the French alarmed Fred as much as the pommelling. Anyway, down he went again, with Léon on the top of him.

“Time!” shouted Eric, picking upon Léon and wiping his face, which was hard to see, for his nose was bleeding and one eye was swollen.

But Fred got up and began to walk away, remarking with surly dignity:

“I don’t care for to fight with no French tiger-cats.”

Léon broke away from Eric, and ran after his late foe. Fred stopped and took up a defensive attitude, but Léon went up with his grubby right hand held out.

“Shake!” he cried. “We have foughten; it is over. Shake with me?” And Fred shook. “That was quite English?” asked Léon anxiously, as he came back to be cleaned.

Eric looked at him very kindly. “It was all right,” he said; and Léon squared his shoulders with modest pride.

“I never saw such a nose to bleed!” exclaimed Eric, ten minutes later, as the last available handkerchief had been reduced to a crimson, pulpy ball. “There’s one sash done for, anyway. I suppose the suit’ll wash, which is a pity.”

On the way home Eric carried the eggs, and Jennie walked hand in hand with Léon. They rather lagged behind, and presently I heard Jennie whisper--I have very sharp ears:

“Léon, am I so very lame?”

“My little cousin, I do not see you lame at all, except when you are fatigued; and we all of us walk badly when we are fatigued;” and he stopped and kissed Jennie on both cheeks.

I had often heard that the French say what is pleasant at the expense of what is true; but just then I wondered if it was always such a bad thing, for when I turned and looked at my little sister her face was perfectly radiant, and she was hardly limping at all.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Eric, when Léon had been carried off by the authorities to have keys put down his back, his eye bathed, and to be generally cleaned up; and we were all five sitting in solemn conclave on the largest wheelbarrow--the twins had joined us, much excited by recent events--“I’ll tell you what it is: you kids must drop that Waterloo business, and we must none of us mind his queer clothes any more. He’s a ripping good sort, and, after all, he can’t help being French!”

“And he wouldn’t help it if he could!” cried Jennie. “France is a great country.”

For a wonder nobody contradicted her. We were all busy readjusting preconceived ideas.

THE OLD RELIGION

God is above the sphere of our esteem,
And is the best known, not defining Him.

ROBERT HERRICK.

It’s a far cry from a busy street in Leith to a village in the loveliest part of wooded Gloucestershire; but, at eight years old, vicissitude is borne with a calm philosophy seemingly unattainable in later years, and Maggie McClachlan expressed no great wonder at her new environment, rather to the disappointment of her worthy aunt, who was fully aware of her own extreme good nature and condescension in “taking the lassie for the whole summer, and paying her fare _both_ ways.”

Measles followed by an obstinate “hoast,” was the commonplace cause that transported Maggie to this strange new country. The long, roaring, whirring, bewildering journey--in which she was passed by a kindly official into the varied guardianship of such passengers as were going her way--left her dazed and puzzled, but not unhappy. Her childless uncle and aunt were kind, and there were the woods.

The first thing that struck Maggie about these woods was the singular absence of bits of paper; neither did she come upon any broken bottles in the course of her wanderings. This lack seemed even more wonderful to her than the presence of innumerable foxgloves. She had spent an occasional afternoon in the woods at Aberdour, but always in a crowd. Here the spaciousness and peace attracted her, even as it filled her little soul with an awe that was a thing apart from fear. If in after years Maggie should read what Mr. Henry James has written of “a great, good Place,” she will understand it better than most people.

For the first week she met with no adventures. Her aunt, a bustling, busy, thrifty Scotswoman, worked a great deal up at the big house; her uncle assisted in the manufacture of the “superfine broadcloth” for which the little village used to be famous, and Maggie was left to do much as she pleased. Her cough left her, and the color came into her pale cheeks, and the sun set his mark upon the bridge of her nose in the shape of a band of the dearest little brown freckles.

Hitherto she had not gone far into the woods, but with returning health came a spirit of adventure. One afternoon she wandered on and on, singing softly to herself a ditty relating that “Kitty Bairdie had a coo,” going on to describe minutely, and at length, the various animals owned by this worthy lady, and concluding each verse with the cheerful injunction, “Dance, Kitty Bairdie!”

Everything seemed to want to sing that afternoon, and did sing, too, lustily and long. Unconsciously Maggie raised her voice till the final “Dance, Kitty Bairdie!” had quite a rollicking sound, and she found herself doing a sort of double shuffle among the ground ivy and foxgloves.

It is not easy to dance in and out of ground ivy and brambles, and Maggie paused for breath, only to catch it again in a perfect agony of fear, as, not five yards from her, she beheld a big white figure, apparently just risen out of the ground.

Paralyzed with terror, she stood staring at the vision. A tall man it was--she was sure it was a man, and no ghost--clad in curious flowing robes of soft whitey flannel, falling to his feet in innumerable folds, while in his hand he held what Maggie took to be some instrument of torture. It was a butterfly net; but Maggie did not know this, for people did not catch many butterflies in Commercial Street, Leith.

The whole dreadful truth flashed upon her. This was one of the monks! Had she not read in a guide to the neighborhood that “The Dominican Priory of the Annunciation is a large and handsome building; here candidates for the priesthood pursue a course of study in divinity and philosophy. It is under the government of a Prior.” This, then, must be one of the priests, and having been very well brought up in the strictest sect of the Free Kirk, she was sure that if only he succeeded in “catching her,” she would be put to unspeakable tortures, or forced to recant her faith.

Had she not with her own eyes seen her mother hastily slam the door of their flat in the face of a woman wearing a queer head-dress and long cloak, who had come to beg for money?

“I’ll ha’e none o’ they Papishes here!” her mother exclaimed angrily, and then--for it was just before Maggie came south--“and you, Maggie, if you see ony o’ them when you’re wi’ your aunty, just turn and flee. I’m told there’s a whole clamjamfray o’ them there, an’ ye can never tell what they Jesuits will be at.”

So, having found her breath sufficiently to give a wild cry, Maggie turned and fled.

The queer white man, who, as she afterward remembered, looked astonished, called something after her. But Maggie’s heart was thumping in her ears to the exclusion of every other sound, and she ran blindly on till one treacherous little foot, more used to pavements than rough forest ground, gave under her with a horrid wrench, and she fell forward in a terrified little heap just as she reached a footpath leading she knew not whither.

There she lay shivering with pain and fear, with her eyes shut, for she heard the soft swish of long garments through the undergrowth. Then a shadow fell upon her, and she was lifted up into a pair of strong arms, while a voice that even her excited imagination could not construe as unkindly exclaimed:

“I do believe I frightened you, and I’m awfully sorry. I don’t suppose you ever saw such a funny frock before!”

There was something human and disarming about the “awfully” and “funny frock”; moreover, the owner of the voice did not hold her as though she were a captive. He sat down at the foot of the big tree whose gnarled roots had tripped Maggie up, and set her on his knee. Besides, the voluminous flannel garment had a most reassuring and workaday smell of soap. But she could not bring herself to open her eyes just yet. She screwed them and her courage up very tight, and whispered:

“I’ll no recant! Ye may burn me, but I’ll no recant!”

The big, queer man threw back his head and laughed, and his laugh was even more inspiring of confidence than his speaking voice. But he pulled himself up short in the very middle of his laugh to ask:

“I say, though, did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

Maggie opened her eyes the tiniest little bit, and for the first time saw this queer man’s face. It was a kind face, a handsome face, with large merry brown eyes and an exceedingly straight nose. His mouth was well cut and firm, and when he smiled as he did then, he showed two rows of admirably white and even teeth. And the good smell of soap was in no way deceptive, for there was about this queer man’s appearance a radiant cleanliness that was by no means merely physical. All this did Maggie gravely take in through half-shut eyes, and though the pain in her ankle was horrible, and her heart still danced a sort of breakdown against her ribs, she was no longer afraid--only very, very curious.

The queer tall man, looking down at the face resting against his arm, noticed that it was small and white, with long-lashed closed eyes set rather far apart, and that the little freckles looked pathetically prominent across the thin small nose; and even as Maggie was comforted by the good smell of clean flannel, so he recognized approvingly that he held in his arms a very clean little girl, even though her pinafore was patched and her shoes worn at the toes.

“Are you hurt, you poor mite?” he asked again.

For answer Maggie stuck out the painful foot, and behold! there was a big lump on the ankle, and it looked twice as big as the other one.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” cried the queer man. “You’ve sprained your ankle.”

As he spoke he set Maggie on the ground beside him very gently, and diving into the folds of his habit produced a large handkerchief, which he proceeded to tear into strips. Then, very gently and deftly, he bandaged up the poor swollen foot. By this time Maggie’s blue eyes were wide open, and as he stooped over her foot she found time to wonder why he wore such “a wee, wee roond cappie” on the back of his head. The pain was bad, but she tried hard not to flinch, and when it was all done and the bandage fastened with a little pebble brooch that she had worn at her neck, he said gaily:

“And now to carry you home, for that foot must have hot fomentations as soon as possible.”

Here, however, Maggie demurred. “I can walk fine,” she announced with great dignity, and tried; but it was no use--she couldn’t even stand, the pain was so bad.

So the “papist man” picked her up in his arms and set off toward the village.

Now, Maggie was just a little anxious at this, for she had wandered a good way into the park, and the path he took seemed quite unfamiliar.

With unprecedented courage she took hold of his chin with her hand and turned his face that she could see it.

“You’re sure you’re no takin’ me to your convent?” she asked gravely, as one who begs to know the worst at once. She still had fleeting visions of a dungeon followed by stake and faggots if she proved leal to the faith of her fathers.

“My dear child, they wouldn’t have you there. We don’t allow any women to come in--not even little girls--where I live.”

Maggie was silent for a minute; then, because every Scotsman, woman, or child loves an argument, and a theological argument best of all, she said slowly:

“But you worship a woman--images of a woman.”

“Ah, that’s rather different. I don’t think we’ll discuss that, because, you see, we look at everything from rather different points of view. How’s that poor foot of yours? You’re a regular Spartan to bear pain. Am I carrying you comfortably?”

Here was another facer for Maggie; he did not want “to discuss that.”

“I thought,” she said, “that you liked to burn everybody wha’ didna ’gree wi’ you--when ye got the chance,” she added.

“Oh, we’re not quite so black as we’re painted, and the world is big enough for us all nowadays, even though there are so many more people in it. Isn’t that a good thing?”

Maggie’s honest little heart yearned over this mistaken man, who carried little girls so tenderly, who seemed so kind and gay.

“I wish that you were no a papish,” she said softly, “for I’m sorely afraid that ye’ll no win Heaven if you worship graven images.”

The papist in question stopped short in the middle of the woodland path. The sunlight shining through the leaves painted fantastic patterns on his white draperies, and his eyes were very kind as he said gently:

“Don’t you think there will be even more room in Heaven than there is here for all sorts of people, provided they are kind, and brave, and honest, and do their best?”

And Maggie agreed that it might be possible, and was something comforted. By and by he asked her what the nice song was that she had been singing when he first met her, and she sang it again for him all through, till he, too, learned the tune; then she taught him the words, and although his Scotch left much to be desired, they made a very considerable noise between them, and the woods resounded to the strains of “Dance, Kitty Bairdie.”

* * * * *

“They monks seem different to the ordinary sort,” said Maggie that night, when, after much fomentation of the injured ankle, her aunt tucked her into bed.

“They’re just harmless haverals,” said her aunt indulgently; but Maggie “added a wee thing” onto her prayers, and whispered under the bed-clothes:

“Please make room for yon clean man at--any--rate.”

COMRADES

He was called Bunchy because, when a very little boy, his clothes _would_ bunch; the tiny petticoats were short for their width, and everything stuck out all round him like a frill.

Now that he was five, and wore breeches with four little buttons at the knee, the name still stuck to him, though it was no longer appropriate.

Bunchy was lonely.

If Pussy had been there it would have been very different; but she had been sent for quite suddenly to go and nurse dad, who had incontinently fallen ill with influenza just three days after mother (Bunchy always called her Pussy), Nana, and he had settled down for a fortnight’s holiday in a Cotteswold village.

It was a delightful village! It had a green with noisy geese upon it, a stream that gurgled and splashed and told fairy tales on sleepy September afternoons, and real woods surrounded it.

The cottage where Pussy had taken rooms was ever so pretty, and had a garden full of currant-bushes and celery.

For three days they had a lovely time. They sought giants in the woods, finding squirrels instead--which were prettier and only less exciting; they paddled their feet in the stream and caught minnows in a bottle; they pretended that the geese on the green were “Trolls,” and routed them with great slaughter; and they had found mushrooms before breakfast in a neighboring field.

Then Pussy had to go away, and for Bunchy the face of Nature was changed and clouded. Only Nana was left, and, although very kind, she was not an exciting companion. She knew nothing of giants, and seemed to care very little about Trolls. Moreover, on this particular morning she sat indoors making a cotton dress, and told Bunchy to “run and play in the garden like a good little boy, and not worry.” How can people, he thought, sit in a room and sew when all the beautiful out-of-doors seems clamoring for them to come and admire it?