Part 16

Boy Hugh bashfully answered that his name was Hugh Kavannah. "And a very nice name it is, nice little boy!" the maid rattled on, heeding him but little, but loving the sound of her own twitter.

The children went over the moor together, till it began to feather into sparse birch-woods and thicker copses towards the plain. Sometimes as they went the little girl's hair whipped Boy Hugh's brow. He had forgotten all about Vara and the baby.

"Do they make you say your prayers in the morning as well as at night?" she asked; "they do me—such a bother! Aunt Robina, she said last week, that it was self-denial week, and we must give up something for the Lord. So I said I did not mind giving up saying my prayers in the morning. 'Oh, but,' said cousin Jimmy, 'you must give up something you _like_ doing.' Horrid little boy, Jimmy, always blowing his nose—you don't, well, I don't believe you have a handkerchief—and Aunt Robina, she says, 'Well, and what do you think God would say if you gave up saying your prayers?' 'God _has_ said already,' I told her. 'What has God said?' she wanted to know, making a face like this——. So I told her that God said, 'Pray don't mention it, Miss Briggs.' My name is Miss Briggs, you know. I have ten cats. Their names are Tom and Jim, and Harry and Dick, and Bob and Ben and Peter. But Peter's an awful thief."

She paused for breath, and shook her head at the same time. Hugh Boy listened with the open mouth of unbounded astonishment.

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Briggs, "and I fear he will come to a bad end. I've thrown him into the mill-dam three times already, like Jonah out of the ship of Tarshish. Aunt Robina says I may play Bible stories on Sundays, you know. So I play Jonah. But he always gets out again. Next time I'm going to sit squash on him till he's dead. Once I set on a nestful of eggs because I wanted some dear wee fluffy chickens—but I need not tell you about that. I got whipped, but Aunt Robina had to buy me a new pair of—oh, I forgot, I was telling you about wicked Peter. Peter is not a house-cat like the rest, you see. He is a bad, wicked cat. He lives in the barn or in the coach house and eats the pigeons. And he lies on the cows' backs on cold nights. But in the daytime Peter sleeps on the roof of the outhouses, and when any one of the other cats gets anything nice to eat, Peter comes down on them like a shot——"

"Oh aye!" cried Boy Hugh, excited to hear about something he understood, "I hae seen them do like that. Then there's a graund fecht, lying on their backs and tearing at ane anither wi' their claws, and spittin' and rowin' ower yin anither like a ba'——"

"My cats are not horrid creatures like that!" said Miss Briggs, in a dignified manner, "as soon as ever they see Peter coming they take to their heels and—oh, you should just see them run for the kitchen door! And their tails are just like the fox's brush that Aunt Robina dusts the pictures with. And then in a minute after you can see wicked Peter sitting on the rigging of the barn eating my poor darling house-cat's nice breakfast."

"Three cheers for Peter!" cried Hugh, who did not know any better than to express his real sentiments to a lady.

Miss Briggs instantly withdrew her hand from his. Her nose turned up very much, till its expression of scorn became almost an aspiration.

"I am afraid you are not such a nice little boy after all," she said, severely.

As they went on together the children came to the very edge of the moorland. They ascended a few steps to a place where there were many tumbled crags and cunning hiding-places. From the edge of these they looked down upon a plain of tree tops, in the midst of which peeped out the front of a considerable mansion. The lower windows and the door were hidden in a green haze of beech leaves.

"That is where I live, little boy," said Miss Briggs, grandly. "The propriety will belong to me some day. And then I shall send Peter away for good."

Miss Briggs looked down on the house and gardens with the eye of the possessor of a "propriety."

"Tissy, wissy—tissy—wissy!" she cried, suddenly forgetting her dignity.

There was a stirring here and there among the trees. And lo! from off the roofs of the barn and the byre, out of the triangular wickets, from off round-topped corn-stacks and out of different doors in the dwelling-house, there sprang a host of cats. "See them," said Miss Briggs, impressively, "every one of them comes to meet me. That's Peter, wicked Peter," she said, pointing to a large brindled pussy which led the field by half-a-dozen lengths. Over the bridge they came, all mewing their best, and all arching their tails.

"Their ten tails over their ten backs!" said Miss Briggs, as if she found much spiritual comfort in the phrase.

The cats rubbed themselves against her. Some of them leaped upon her shoulder and sat there, purring loudly. Hugh Boy was unspeakably delighted.

"I wish Vara could see," he said, remembering for the first time his sister and Gavin.

A harsh voice broke in upon them.

"Elizabeth Briggs! Elizabeth Briggs! What is all this play-acting? And what gangrel loon is this that ye are bringing to the door by the hand? Is there not enough wastry and ruination aboot the house of Rascarrel already, without your wiling hame every gypsy's brat and prowling sorrow of a gutter-bluid? Think shame o' yoursel', Elizabeth Briggs!"

Hugh Boy dropped the hand which held his. He would not bring disgrace on the friend who had helped him.

"Aunt Robina, you forget yourself," interposed the young lady with prim dignity, "and you forget 'what sayeth the Scripture.'"

She took Boy Hugh's hand again, and held it tighter. "Forget the Scripture," cried a tall dark-browed woman who came limping out from a seat under a weeping elm. She was leaning heavily with both hands upon a staff, which she rattled angrily on the ground as she spoke.

"Yes," said Miss Briggs, "do you not know that I am Pharaoh's daughter, and this is little Moses that I drew out of the water?"

"Hold your tongue, Elizabeth Briggs, and come here instantly!" said the dark woman, tapping the ground again with her staff.

Hugh Boy knew the tone. He had heard something like this before.

"Is that your 'awfu' woman'?" he said aloud, pointing with his finger at the woman leaning upon the stick.

"Elizabeth Briggs," she commanded again, pointing at the little girl with her stick, "come in to your lesson this minute. And you, whatever you may call yourself, take yourself off at once or I'll get the police to you!"

"Yes, do go away, nice little boy," said Miss Briggs; "but when you grow big, come back to the house of Rascarrel and Miss Briggs will marry you. And I will give you another kiss at the garden stile—and so will Peter!" she added. For she felt that some extra kindness and attention was due from her, to make up for the most unscriptural hardheartedness of her Aunt Robina.

So the children took their way together to the garden stile, and as they went out of sight, Boy Hugh turned round to the dark-browed woman:

"My name is Boy Hugh," he said, "but I'm not a beggar, awfu' woman!"

The children went slowly and sorrowfully along a gravel walk thickly overgrown with chickweed and moss. Their feet made no sound upon it. On either side box borders rose nearly three feet, straggling untended over the walks. Still further over were territories of gooseberry bushes, senile and wellnigh barren, their thin-leaved, thorny branches trailing on the ground and crawling over each other. Beyond these again was a great beech hedge rising up into the sky. Boy Hugh looked at the dark Irish yews standing erect at the corner of every plot. He thought they were like the sentinels at the gate of Holyrood, at whom he used to look as often as he could slip away from the Tinklers' Lands.

Then all suddenly and unexpectedly he began to cry. Miss Briggs stopped aghast. She was, like all womenfolk, well accustomed to her own sex's tears. But a male creature's emotion took her by surprise.

"What is the matter?" she said; "tell me instantly, nice little boy."

"This maun be heaven, after a'," said he, "an' your awfu' woman winna let Boy Hugh bide."

Presently they came out upon a circular opening where the bounding beech edge bent into a circle, and the gloomy yew tree sentinels stood wider about. Overhead the crisp leafage of the beeches clashed and rustled.

Here was a great garden seat of stone, and there at the back rose a fountain with stone nymphs—a fountain long since dry and overgrown with green moss. It seemed to Boy Hugh as if they could never get out of this vast enclosure.

There was also a little stone building at the end down the vista of the gravel walk. Its door stood open and Boy Hugh looked within. It was empty like a church. The floor was made of unpainted wood in squares and crosses. There were painted pictures on the walls, and a shining thing with candles standing upon it at the far end. Behind this the sun shone through a window of red, and yellow, and blue.

"Is that God?" said Hugh Boy, after gazing a long time at the glory of the shining crimson and violet panes and the shining gold upon the altar.

But Miss Briggs dragged him away without making him any answer.

Presently they came to half-a-dozen steps in an angle, which led over the outer wall. They had slipped under a mysterious archway of leaves and so through the beech hedge in order to reach this ladder of stone.

"Good-bye!" said Miss Briggs; "remember—come back, nice little boy, as soon as you are growed up, and I will marry you. And then we will send Aunt Robina to the poorhouse. Kiss me, nice boy—and now kiss Peter."

With that Miss Briggs disappeared, running as hard as ever she could, so that she would not need to cry within sight.

But as soon as she got to the great circle of the beeches and yews, she burst out sobbing. "He was the very nicest boy—the nicest boy. But of course there could be nothing in it. For he is only a mere child, you know!"

But Boy Hugh walked stolidly up the steps, and so out of Paradise.

"I am very hungry!" he said.

ADVENTURE XXXIX.

THE ADVENTURE OF SNAP'S PORRIDGE.

But he found Providence just over the wall. For there sat Vara and there was the great stone behind which they had spent the night. All his wanderings had just brought him back to where he had started from. But for all that he was exceedingly glad to see Vara.

He called her, standing still on the top of the wall. She started up as if she had heard a voice from the grave. And the face which she turned to him was colourless like chalk.

"Wi' Vara," said Hugh, "what's wrang? Your face looks terrible clean?"

"O, Boy Hugh—Boy Hugh," she cried, bursting into relieving tears, "it's you. What a night you have given me!"

But not a word of reproach came from the lips of Vara Kavannah. She had, indeed, enough to do to keep the babe quiet. For having run hither and thither over the moor looking for her brother, she had not had time to seek for any farmhouse where she could get some milk for Gavin's bottle.

In a little, however, they were again walking hand in hand, and Boy Hugh was pouring out all the story of his adventures in the Paradise of the House of Rascarrel.

Chiefly he dwelt upon the divine beauty and abounding merits of Miss Briggs.

"Dinna you think she was an angel frae heeven?" said Boy Hugh.

"I think she was a nasty, wicked, enticing little monkey!" burst out Vara. For though it is part of womanhood's privilege to put up with the truantry of mankind without complaint, it is too much to expect her to suffer gladly his praises of the Canaanitish women he may have collogued with upon his travels.

And then Vara walked a long way silent and with her head in the air. Hugh Boy kicked all the stones out of his path and was silent also.

Nevertheless, though in this sulky silence, they travelled steadily on and on. Horizon after horizon broke up, spread out to either side, streamed dispersedly past them, and recomposed itself again solidly behind them.

"I'm awesome hungry!" at last said Boy Hugh, humbly. Vara became full of compassion in a minute.

"And Vara has nothing to give ye!" she said; "poor Boy Hugh!"

The baby woke with a faint cry.

They had passed off the moor and were now come among inhabited houses again. They were just passing a little cottage which stood with its end to the road, as a little boy came out of the gate with a great bowl of porridge and milk in his hand.

"Snap! Snap!" he cried, and looked up and down the road. A small terrier pricked its ears briskly over a wall and then leaped down upon the road. "Here, Snap!" cried the boy.

Snap came slowly walking down the dusty highway. He smelled at the dish of porridge and milk. Then he sniffed loudly upon the nose of contempt. For he had just been dining richly in the outhouse on a rat which he had killed himself.

Vara's eyes blazed at the sight of the porridge and milk.

"O, gie that to the baby!" she cried, her eyes fairly sparkling fire. "Gie that to wee Gavin. The dog doesna want it!"

The little boy ran back into the house, crying out at the top of his voice, "O, mither, mither, here's a lassie wants to gie our Snap's porridge to a babby!"

A kindly-faced, apple-cheeked country woman came to the door of the cottage. She had been baking cakes, and she dusted the oatmeal off her hands as she stood there.

"Can I get the dog's porridge for the bairns? He doesna want them. 'Deed he doesna!" cried Vara, beseechingly.

"Of course, lassie, ye can hae the porridge, and welcome!" said the woman, doubtfully.

"O, thank ye, mem, thank ye!" cried Vara, pouncing instantly on the porridge, lest the permission should be withdrawn. In a minute she had put most of the milk into the babe's bottle and the rest into the hands of Boy Hugh, who fell upon the porridge unceremoniously with his fingers. Vara smiled as she looked. She was hungrier than either—but happy.

The woman stood watching the wolfish eagerness of the younger children at the sight of food with a strange look on her face. Her lip tightened and her eyes grew sterner. Suddenly Vara glanced up at her with frank blue Irish eyes, brightened by hunger and suffering. They looked through and through the woman at the door.

"Mither," said the boy, "they're eatin' up a' our Snap's porridge, and there will no be a drap left——"

The woman turned on him with a kind of gladness.

"Hold your tongue!" she said, with quite unnecessary vehemence. And she slapped her son smartly for no particular reason. The tears were running down her cheeks. She almost dragged the children into the house. Then and there she spread such a breakfast for them as Vara had been seeing in her dreams ever since she grew hungry. It seemed that Gavin grew visibly plumper before her very eyes, with the milk which he absorbed as a sponge takes up water. And there appeared to be no finality to Boy Hugh's appetite. He could always find room for just another scone, spread with fresh butter and overlaid with cool apple-jelly such as Vara had never in her life partaken of.

Vara herself was almost too happy to eat. But the kind woman pressed her and would not let her leave the table.

"But I hae naething to pay ye wi'!" said Vara, whose soul was great.

"Hoot, hear to the lassie! I wadna tak' pay frae the Queen if she caaed in aff the road to drink a dish of tea. My man's the Netherby carrier. But tell me what's brocht ye here, wi' sic a bairn?"

And Vara told her as much as was necessary.

"To Liverpool to find your faither," said the woman. "Ye dinna stir a fit till the morrow's morn, and then ye can get a ride wi' our John as far as Netherby, at ony rate."

Vara was more than grateful to her. She was the first person who had taken their quest seriously. So the carrier's wife kept them till night, and helped Vara to give the baby and Hugh a bath. Then she made Vara strip herself, and shut the door upon her till the girl had enjoyed such a tubful of warm water as she had never washed in before. As Vara was finishing and rubbing her slender, wearied body and blistered feet with a soft towel, the carrier's wife opened the door. "Put on these!" she said; "they were my wee Gracie's, and I canna bear to keep them in the house." Vara would have protested, but the woman shut the door with a slam.

When Vara came out, Gavin was sitting on the carrier's knees and plucking at his beard. For "our John" had come in and heard their story. He was a wise carrier, and knew better than to attempt to interfere with his wife's benevolences. Then what was Vara's astonishment to find the babe also clad in a new frock, and giving rustling evidence of fresh underclothing. She could hear Boy Hugh's voice outside. He and Snap's master had made up the peace, and were now out somewhere about the barn, encouraging Snap to possess himself of another dinner of rat.

The woman's wonderful kindness went to Vara's heart.

"Ye shouldna, oh, ye shouldna!" she said, and bowing her head in her hands, she wept as she had never done in the worst of all her sufferings.

"Hoot! can ye no haud your tongue, lassie?" said the carrier's wife. "So mony bairn's things were just a cumber and a thocht to me in this hoose. Our youngest (Tam there) is ten, an' we hae dune wi' that kind o' nonsense in this hoose. What are ye lauchin' at, guidman?" she cried, suddenly turning on the carrier, who had been quaintly screwing up his face.

"I wasna lauchin'," said "our John," his face suddenly falling to a quite preternatural gravity.

"They were juist a cumber and a care," continued the carrier's wife. "And they are better being o' some use to somebody."

"Now ye will lie down and sleep in the back room, till the guidman starts on his round at five i' the mornin'."

So the wearied children were put to bed in the "back room," and they fell asleep to the sound of psalm-singing. For the good carrier and his wife were praising the Lord. It is quite a mistake to suppose that most psalm-singers are hypocrites. Much of the good of the world is wrought by those who, being merry of heart, sing psalms.

ADVENTURE XL.

A NEW KIND OF HERO.

Then with the morning came the new day. The bitterest blast was over for these small pilgrims. The night's rest, the clean clothes, the goodness of the kind carrier folk were new life to Vara. There was brighter hope in her heart as the carrier's wife set them under the blue hood of the light cart, for her "man" did not expect any heavy loads that day. The children, therefore, were to ride in the covered waggon. The good woman wept to let them go, and made Vara promise many a time, to be sure and send her a letter. As they went away she slipped half-a-crown into Vara's hand.

"For the baby!" she whispered, like one who makes a shamefaced excuse. And at that moment the carrier pretended to be specially busy about his harness.

But Hugh Boy had quarrelled again with Snap's master, and that enterprising youth sat on the fence opposite and made faces at the party, till his mother, turning round somewhat quickly, caught him in the act.

"Ye ill-set hyule," said she, "wait till I get ye!"

But her firstborn did not wait. On the other hand, he betook himself down the meadow with much alacrity. His mother's voice followed him.

"My lad, wait till bedtime. It'll dirl far waur then. 'Warm backs, guid bairns!' I'll learn you to make faces ahint my back."

And as Snap's master went down the meadow, the parts likely to be nocturnally affected began to burn and tingle.

And the thought of the interview she would have with her son in the evening did something to console the carrier's wife for the loss of the children to whom she had taken such a sudden liking.

The light cart went jingling on. The Netherby carrier whistled steadily as he sat on the edge of his driving-board, with his feet on the shaft. Every now and then he passed over a bag of peppermint drops to the children.

"Hae!" he said.

The Netherby carrier was a man of few words, and this was his idea of hospitality. Hugh Boy did not remember ever to have been so happy in his life. Kissing was very well in its way, though Vara had not been pleased when she heard of it. But it was nothing to sitting in a blue-hooded cart and hearing the click and jingle of brass-mounted harness. Now and then the carrier stopped at snug farm-houses, and went in to chaffer with the goodwife for her eggs. Then he left the horse in charge of Hugh Boy, and so completely won that small heart. When the carrier came out again, the farmer's wife mostly came too, and the bargaining and bantering were kept up as the cart receded from the door. Even when the blue-hooded cart was far down the loaning, a belated and forgetful goodwife would come running to some knowe-top, and from that eminence she would proceed to give further directions for commissions from the town.

"Mind ye buy the thread at Rob Heslop's—no at that upstart sieffer's at the corner, wi' his wax figgurs an' his adverteesements. I dinna haud wi' them ava'!"

For there are still uncouth and outlandish parts of the country, where the medical axiom that it is wicked and unprofessional to advertise holds good in practical commerce. Now the road toward England does not run directly through Netherby, but leaves the town a little to one side with its many spires and its warring denominations. From the outside Netherby looks like a home of ancient peace. But for all that, there were hardly two neighbour shopkeepers down all its long main street who belonged to the same religious denomination—the only exceptions being Dickson the baker and Henderson the butcher. But Henderson and Dickson did not speak to one another, having quarrelled about the singing of paraphrases in the Seceder kirk.

However, the poor benighted Kavannahs did not know one kirk from another. And what is worse, indeed held almost criminal in Netherby, they did not care.

It was here at the parting of the roads that John the carrier took his leave of them. His farewell was not effusive.

"Weel," he said, cracking his whip three times over, while he thought of the rest of his speech, "guid-day. Be sure and come back and see us, as the wife bade ye. The sooner the better!"

But he put a shilling into Hugh's hand as they parted.

"For peppermints!" he said.

Vara did not know when she might come to another town on her way, so she decided to buy a loaf in Netherby before going further. For though they never asked for food, except when driven by hunger, as in the case of Snap's dinner, yet since the night on the moor she had resolved to ask for shelter if they came to any house at nightfall. So after the carrier was gone, with many charges Vara left Hugh in care of Gavin and went into the town to make her markets.

Hugh Boy sat a good while by the roadside, till the time began to pass very dully. Then he became interested in the trains which kept shunting and whistling behind him. So he carried Gavin to the side of the railway line, where he could just see the road by which Vara would return. He was quite sure that he could not be doing any harm. Directly opposite there was a fascinating turn-table, upon which two men stood with iron poles in their hands wheeling round a great engine as if it had been a toy. This was really too much for Boy Hugh. Forgetting all about Vara's warning, he scrambled over the wire paling, and staggered across the netted lines in order to get a nearer view of the marvel.