Chapter II: The Minstrels at Home

Though it wanted a good hour of the time at which Ralph, the splendid blood-hound, was in the habit of awaking, stretching himself, and yawning aloud by way of hinting to his little mistress that it was six o’clock, and that all good girls who live in the woods and wilds should be opening their eyes, the honest dog did not go to sleep again. He kept watching the door and wondering.

“Where could Peggy have gone at such an early hour?” he thought to himself.

Had she been intending to stay away a long while, she would have dressed herself and said, “Good-bye, Ralph, and be good till I come back.” She only just put on her Tammy, and went gliding out and away.

A whole half-hour passed, and then Ralph waxed very uneasy indeed.

He got up and stood for some time behind the door, sniffing and listening, his noble head a trifle on one side. There were no signs of Peggy in that direction. Then he stood at one of the windows for fully five minutes, gazing sideways out at the sea. For his mistress had a little tent she could easily carry, and often went to the beach to bathe. But he could not see her now, and his anxiety increased. It would not have been becoming in so noble a specimen of the race canine to lie down and cry. Leave such conduct for tiny dogs, he thought.

Yet she was staying so long. What could be the matter? He walked up to Kammie’s cage with outstretched neck, as if to ask him the question. Kammie was a good specimen of that strange, weird-looking, and old-world lizard called the chameleon, who stalks flies and little grubs when you place him on the grass in the sunshine, or even in your bedroom; who crawls about with marvellous slowness and deliberation, just one leg at a time; who changes colour to match his surroundings; who has two large, circular eyelids, a bright bead of an eye in the very centre of each, and possesses the power of looking in two different directions at one and the same time.

But Kammie was still exactly in the same position in which he had gone to sleep at sunset on the previous evening. No use expecting an answer from Kammie, so Ralph marched to the back door once again, and examined the fastenings. He even shook them, but all in vain.

With a deep dog-sigh he lay down now; but presently on his listening ear, from out the silent depths of the forest, fell a scream so pitiful and so agonising that Ralph started to his feet, all of a tremble with excitement.

Yes, yes; it was the voice of his dear little mistress! She must be in danger, and he not there to protect her!

Once again it rose and died away in terror, like the half-smothered shriek of one in a nightmare.

The dog hesitated no longer.

With a yelp which was half a bark, and which said plainly enough, “I am coming,” he dashed his fore-paws against a window. The glass was shivered into flinders, and Ralph sprang through, escaping with only a cut or two, which he minded no more than my brave young reader would mind the scratch of a pin or a thorn.

He ran hither and thither for a few seconds, uncertain.

But, see! the noble beast has found the trail, and with nose to the earth, his long ears touching it, goes speedily onwards in the direction Peggy had taken. On and on, and he is soon swallowed up in the woodland depths. In less than five minutes he is out of the gloom and in the open glade. He meets Peggy, frightened and fleeing. He dashes past her--no time at present for even congratulations.

Now woe is me for the foremost of his mistress’s pursuers! Ralph bounds at him, straight for his chest. Down rolls the Frenchman as if struck by a war-rocket, and the blood-hound already has him by the throat. It is a gurgling scream the man emits--a half-stifled cry for help. Then all is over. No; the fellow is not killed, for brave little Peggy McQueen, knowing well what would happen, has retraced her steps, and seized Ralph by the collar. And this splendid hound lets Peggy haul him off, and the villain slowly and timorously struggles to his feet, his shirt-front stained with blood.

“_Merci, merci_,” he mutters, meaning “thanks, thanks.” “_Merci_, my little forest flower. I meant not to harm you. _Non, ma petite!_”

But little Peggy looked quite the sylvan queen now, standing there erect on the heath, her hand still on Ralph’s collar, her tippet of fern-green slightly disarranged, the heightened tints upon her cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, with sun-rays playing hide-and-seek amidst the wealth of her wavy auburn hair. She seemed for a moment to fancy herself on the stage acting in the play. One long brown arm was outstretched towards the bush into which the other Frenchman had fled.

“Go at once,” she cried, in the voice of a tragedienne. “Go! The forest around us holds no meaner reptile than thou. Go, and thank Heaven that my faithful hound has not torn you limb from limb.”

She turned as she spoke, and walked slowly back towards the forest, while the Frenchman slunk away to join his more fortunate companion.

As he turned to look back at the retreating figure of poor Peggy, he shook his fist. “_Sacré!_ maiden!” he muttered to himself, “you have now the best of it, but--Jules Furet’s time will come. Jules can afford to wait.”

Just as she was, without pausing to divest herself of a single green fern, but joyful now, and with the beautiful hound bounding on by her side, only stopping now and then to awaken the echoes of the forest with the melody of his baying, Peggy ran homewards through the dark wood, never even pausing to breathe until she reached the camp and stood for a moment to look at the sea.

That dear old sea, how she loved it! The Wandering Minstrels, with their tents and their vans, were in the habit of hugging the shores of Merrie England, only sometimes making a detour of a day or two into the interior to visit some country town, but Peggy McQueen was always happy when the sight of the ocean greeted her again on the horizon, with its ships, its boats, and maybe, away in the offing, a steamer, the gray smoke trailing snake-like far astern of it. And there were times when the sea appeared quite unexpectedly, perhaps while they were jogging quietly across some bare but beautiful heath, with no houses in sight, no life near them except the wild birds, the soaring lark or lonesome yerlin twittering on a bush of golden furze. On such occasions Peggy would clap her tiny hands, and say to whoever might happen to be near her--

“Oh, look, look! The sea, the darling sea!”

And there it would be, sure enough, though only a V-shaped patch of blue between two distant hills.

There was always music to Peggy in either the sight or the sound of the ocean, but when it was far away like this, and she could not hear its voice, nor the solemn sound of its waves breaking on rocks or sand, she always brought out her mandoline, and played to it, singing low the while in childish, yet soft, sweet treble. There really was poetry and romance too in the girl’s soul.

She did not stand long, however, on this bright May morn to look at her sea. She was still in a state of great agitation; besides, it was already six o’clock, and Giant Gourmand had opened his tent, and was standing wonderingly looking at her and Ralph as they approached.

Peggy ran quickly past him, hardly condescending to listen to his astonished exclamation of “Hoity toity, little wench!”

The giant was generally “awfully nice and good,” but on some occasions--and this was one of them--absurdly stupid, and she felt she would have liked to box his very large ears, just then, only she had no time.

She hurriedly dressed herself, and soon came down the steps, smiling, for anger had no abiding-place in Peggy’s breast. She sat down on a huge tree-top and beckoned to her audience to step forward. Gourmand threw his great bulk at her feet, and the white-faced, sad-eyed boy, Willie Randolph the dwarf, lay down on the giant’s chest, and crossed his legs like a tiny mite of a tailor.

The bloodhound also lay down, with his beautiful head upon his paws, his eyes turned up towards his mistress’s face, love in them, that deep, undying love that only dogs are capable of.

“Now, all be quiet,” said Peggy. “I have had such a fearful adventure, and I want to tell you all about it. Ralph there knows all about it already, but you don’t, Willie, nor you either, Gourmie, and Johnnie and Daddy aren’t up yet. Well, listen. This is May morning, you know, and I went away to the woods to wash my face in the dew, so that I shall be beautiful all the year through.”

“O hark at the child!” cried the gruff-voiced Giant Gourmand. “Just as if there were any need for her being more lovely than she is at present.”

“Yes,” piped the dwarf, “hark at her! And look at her at the same time, Gourmie! Look at the flowers in her hair! But what flower in all the forest could be more sweet than she? Fairer is Peggy than the anemone, that waves gently by the treefoot when spring zephyrs are blowing, or floats coyly on the broad bosoms of yonder pond. Prettier is Peggy than dog-rose on the hawthorn hedge asleep; more modest than mountain daisy--the wee, crimson-tipped flower that met the poet in that evil hour; more tender than the blossoms of the blue-eyed pimpernel, more----”

But Peggy stamped her little foot as she bade him be silent, but the glad look in her eye, and her heightened colour showed that young though she was, the maiden could appreciate a compliment as much as e’en a lady of the court of a king.

“Silence, small sir, or I shall hie me at once to my caravan, and you will sigh in vain for the story of my strange adventure in the dewy woods.”

“And yet, Miss Peggy,” the giant insisted, “hardly can I blame my little friend if he waxes both eloquent and enthusiastic in your praise on this lovely May morn.”

“Like Poppies red in the corn’s green is Peggy,” sighed the dwarf.

“Like moonlight on the ocean wave”--from the giant.

“Like music trembling o’er the sea.”

“Or elves that laugh among the ferns.”

“Like Naiads sporting in the fountain’s spray.”

“Or cloudlets sailing in the blue.”

“Like----”

“Really, gentlemen, I must curtail the exuberance of your poetic fancies, for poor Ralph and I are getting plaguey hungry.”

“Go on, sweet maid. We listen to thy voice as to a houri from paradise. Pray proceed.”

“You deserve not, sirs, to hear me speak. But--I was in the woods, and had culled a few fresh wild flowers to--to--well to make a garland for faithful doggie here. I paused for a moment at the forest’s edge to gaze upon the sighing sea, when two villains sprang from their lair and bound me in their iron embrace. Had I been anything save a poor gipsy girl, I should have fainted dead away, and been carried prisoner to some loathsome den, soon to be shipped to distant France. They offered me riches untold if I would but go willingly and join the stage somewhere abroad. My dancing they said would bring down the house, and all the world would lie at my feet.

“But I would not hear of their gold, and jewels, and their gallants gay.--What should I want with gallants gay?”

“While you have me, love,” interrupted the dwarf.

“And me,” sighed Gourmand.

“Had not honest Ralph rushed to my assistance, I should not now be here. But see, my hand is cut, and my wrist is blue and swollen!

“And that is all my little adventure,” she added.

There was silence for long wondering seconds after the child had finished. It was broken at last by Willie. He shook a hard, bony fist, which really did not appear to be much bigger than a mole’s white hand.

“Oh,” he cried, a fire seemed to scintillate in his black, black eyes, “if _I_ had only been there, Peggy, I would have----”

It may never be known what Willie would have done, for the giant interrupted his speech in a way that was more comical than polite.

He laughed with a gruff “No, no, no!” and a deep-toned “Ha, ha, ha!” that stirred the leaves in the bushes near them, and, as he laughed, he hoisted Willie right up, and on to the sole of one of his monstrous boots, then extended the leg in the air till the dwarf looked a mere midget.

“There you are! Now we can see you. He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho,! Now we can see you, Willie. Stand there and talk down to us what you would have done.”

Nothing could have put wee Willie out of countenance. He smiled down upon Peggy, and his smile was an ineffably sweet one, for dwarf though he might be, his face and form were perfect.

“Peggy, love,” he said, “hand me up your maidenly little mandoline, and I’ll sing you a song before I come down from my perch.”

Peggy ran laughing away, and soon returned with the instrument, and, still standing there on the sole of the giant’s boot, he went through his performance without moving a muscle, and as coolly as if he had been on the platform before an audience of gaping rustics.

Then, laughing merrily, he sprang through the air and alighted on the giant’s great head. But Gourmand’s head was a hard one, and wasn’t hurt one little bit.

* * * * *

Sweet, soft, melodious music was now heard coming from behind the alder clump. A sad and plaintive air from Gounod’s “Faust.”

“Oh,” cried Peggy, “that’s Father’s flute; he wants to play us in to breakfast.”

Ah, breakfast is a magic word to denizens of the woods and wilds; and now the giant, and the dwarf, and Ralph and Peggy, all made a somewhat unromantic rush for the tent, and were soon seated, laughing and talking, at the breakfast-table.