Part 3

Miss Esperance possessed a whole shelf of little "Gilt-Books," which had belonged to her mother and herself, and Mr. Wycherly feverishly rummaged among these to find some childish lore suitable for the little boys: with the result that he became exceedingly interested in the books from an antiquarian point of view, and forgot his original quest. They were most of them published by John Newbery, the philanthropic bookseller in Saint Paul's Churchyard, who bought the MS. of the "Vicar of Wakefield" for sixty pounds and kept it two years before he published it. One find, however, he did make, a tiny two-inch "Cries of London, as they are Exhibited in the Streets, With an Epigram in verse adapted to Each, embellished with sixty-two elegant Cuts." Some of these epigrams found much favour with the children, as, "My old Soul, will you buy a Bowl?" "Who Buys my Pig and Plumb Sauce," or--

Who liveth so merry in all this land, As doth the poor Widow that selleth the Sand? And ever she singeth, as I can guess, "Will you buy any Sand, any Sand, Mistress?"

He also discovered among the verses of that most genial and child-like of poets, Robert Herrick, many rhymes that delighted the children, a special favourite being the old watch rhyme--

From noise of scare fires rest ye free, From murders, Benedicite. From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night, Mercy secure ye all and keep The Goblin from ye while ye sleep. Past one o'clock and almost two, My masters all, Good day to you.

Mr. Wycherly was a little put to it to explain the "Goblin," as he would not for the world have told the children anything that might frighten them. He passed it over lightly as "a bad dream," and when Montagu further demanded what that was, Mr. Wycherly felt inexpressibly comforted at the child's ignorance; he had dreamed so many evil dreams himself.

Summer had passed, the late September days were drawing in, but it was still almost hot, as it often is in autumn in the north. Even Mr. Wycherly, who was always cold, admitted that the weather had remained agreeably mild. And when Lady Alicia came, and partly by means of bluster and partly by reason of prolonged petitioning, succeeded in carrying off Miss Esperance to dine at the Big House, Mr. Wycherly seconded her efforts nobly. She had asked Mr. Wycherly, too, but he never went anywhere, and on this occasion he had pointed out that his presence made it perfectly safe for Miss Esperance to leave the children. He would sit with his door open, so that he would hear the faintest sound in the children's room, he would go and see them last thing--"and hear them their prayers," Miss Esperance anxiously interpolated--he would do everything that Miss Esperance usually did.

"Now there's nothing whatever can happen to those children," said Lady Alicia, as they drove away. "They're both looking as brown and bonny as they can well look, and once they're in their beds, they'll just sleep the round of the clock. As for you, my dear, you've hardly been out of the house since they came, and it's very bad for you."

As a rule the children did sleep the round of the clock, but on this particular evening, although they went to sleep directly they were "bedded," as Robina put it, and she had gone home for the night, while Elsa had retired to the back door for a gossip with the minister's maid, Edmund took it into his head to wake up.

Mr. Wycherly was sitting in his arm-chair reading "Marius the Epicurean." It was one of his many imperfections, in the eyes of the inhabitants of Burnhead, that he was known to revel in the works of "yon man, Pater." The very name seemed redolent of papistry, even if the man himself did not happen to be a papist, and it was known that the Reverend Peter Gloag did not approve of his writings. In an English village nobody would have concerned himself as to what anybody read--the amount of reading done at all being quite a negligible quantity--but in a Scottish village, where the cobbler probably reads the "Saturday Review" and the works of Carlyle are as household words, people regard the reading of their neighbours.

The light from the lamp fell full on Mr. Wycherly's white hair and regular, scholarly profile; and the figure in the chair made a pleasant picture of erudite repose. There was something clear-cut and delicately finished about everything connected with Mr. Wycherly's appearance. One long, slim hand with exquisitely tended nails held his book; the other kept up a noiseless rhythmic beat upon the arm of his chair.

Suddenly he heard a little sound, an indescribable small sound as of some soft body moving. He laid down his book and leant forward to listen. Again he heard it, and with it a request for "'Obina." It was not a cry; it was rather a curious, tentative flinging of the word into space to see what would happen.

The children's door was closed but not fastened, Mr. Wycherly's was wide open, and he immediately hurried across the landing to the children's room. The light from his lamp exactly opposite to their door, shone in as he pushed it open, showing a fair, curly head and a pair of bright eyes appearing above the side of the cot. Montagu was still fast asleep.

"Lie down, my child," Mr. Wycherly whispered, "it is night time, you must go to sleep again."

"No," said Edmund firmly but kindly, "you must take me."

Mr. Wycherly looked at the wide-awake mutinous person in the cot, then he looked at the peacefully sleeping Montagu in the big four-post bed. To engage in argument with Edmund meant the inevitable waking of his brother. For there would be tears; perhaps loud outcries which would bring Elsa, scornful and capable, to his assistance.

It is to be feared that in some respects Mr. Wycherly was a weak man. He would do anything to avoid a disturbance, almost anything to avoid an argument. Small wonder, then, that he was despised in Burnhead, where argument flourished as the green bay tree and was the chief object of social intercourse.

He wrapped Edmund in his quilt, carried him across to the study, and sat down in his big chair with the deliciously warm, naughty bundle on his knee. Edmund blinked at the bright light, wriggled his arms out of the enwrapping counterpane, and remarked "Bikky" in a tone whose subtly seductive combination of command and supplication Mr. Wycherly never could resist. The children had not been three months in the house without teaching him to keep a store of biscuits in his cupboard. When Edmund was duly supplied, he leant his head luxuriously against Mr. Wycherly's shoulder, saying sleepily, "Say, deah man--say anysing."

This was gracious of Edmund, and Mr. Wycherly had already discovered that when the baby was sleepy he did not cavil even at Latin verse. Mr. Wycherly had a singularly musical voice; and as he "said," the biscuit dropped from Edmund's hand and his head lay heavy on the kind shoulder that supported it. As the reciter reached the lines: "Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem," he discovered, to his joy, that Edmund was asleep. Softly he repeated the musical last two lines again, smiling down at the little figure in his arms. But it was not of Lalage that Mr. Wycherly was thinking.

He succeeded in putting Edmund into bed without waking him, and just as he had got back to his study he heard Miss Esperance come in.

Softly he closed the door so that it only stood open a little way, and seated himself once more in his favourite chair. If all was quiet it was quite unlikely Miss Esperance would come to speak to him that night. She would go straight to her little bedroom next that of the children. He heard her door shut. Mr. Wycherly rubbed his hands together quite gleefully. "I really am learning how to manage those children," he said.

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE SECRETIVENESS OF MAUSE*

A boy and a dog together will go, You may jail them, or chain them: They will have it so. Anon.

Mause was the bobtailed sheep-dog that lived in a kennel at the side of the house nearest the back door, to keep guard. Like Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherly and Elsa, she was not in her first youth; and when the children came Miss Esperance was nervously apprehensive as to the old dog's conduct. Would she be jealous and growl at them, or perhaps even fly out at them from her kennel as she did at the village boys if they ventured into the garden for any illegitimate purpose? A good watch-dog was Mause, with more discrimination in her vigilance than is displayed by most dogs. She never barked at poor old Mistress Dobie, who would come humbly to the back door for her bi-weekly handful of meal and a screw of snuff, who looked a very scarecrow of shabbiness, and tapped with her staff as she walked: but Mause did bark, and bark loudly, only pausing every now and then to growl thunderously, at the very grand gentleman who tried to sell Elsa an inferior sewing-machine on the hire system. And when he returned a few weeks later with Bibles, Mause nearly broke her chain in her frantic attempts to reach him. The poor dog was kept chained up for the greater part of the day, which is never improving to the canine temper even when, as in this case, the chain is a long one. Miss Esperance let her run by the pony trap whenever she drove into Edinburgh, but this was by no means every day, and Elsa rather grudged poor Mause even these occasional absences, and generally put the chains on both doors when she had gone.

"A watch-dog sud be there to guard the hoose," said Elsa, "and no gang stravaigin aff for hoors at a stretch."

Mr. Wycherly took Mause for a walk whenever he went for one himself, and she greatly enjoyed these excursions, which were, however, but fleeting joys; for Mr. Wycherly's walks were by no means prolonged. That he should go for walks at all was, in the eyes of the villagers of Burnhead, but another sign of his general futility and "genty ways," like his bath and the wooden feet in three pieces that he liked kept in his boots, "just as if he was feart some ither body sud wear them." Besides, what could a man who hardly ever stirred abroad want with six pairs of boots? The folk in the village pitied Elsa that she had to give in to such havers.

On rare occasions Mause managed to sneak into the house with Mr. Wycherly and secrete herself in his room: but he did not encourage these clandestine visits, for when Elsa discovered her--as she invariably did--she drove the poor beast forth with much contumely; and Mr. Wycherly was haunted for hours afterward by the reproach in the eyes of Mause that he had not the courage to take her part.

Yet Mause was fond of Elsa, and in her heart of hearts Elsa loved Mause. She would far sooner have gone without her own meals than have omitted the plate of broken biscuit and bones that she carried twice daily to the kennel. Every day she filled the dog's tin with fresh water, and she brushed the thick, shaggy coat as religiously and even more vigorously than she brushed Mr. Wycherly's clothes. It grieved her rather that the latter, like Mause, wore the same coat week-days and Sundays.

Mause was meekness and gentleness itself with the dwellers at Remote, but outsiders gave her a very different character, and the Reverend Peter Gloag even went so far as to remonstrate with Miss Esperance for keeping such a savage brute about the place. Not that Mause had ever actually bitten even a man selling sewing-machines, but she had a way of barking and bouncing, of growling and gyrating at the full length of her chain, that was decidedly alarming; and if she happened to be loose, her swift rush to the gate at the sound of a strange foot-step was disconcerting in the extreme. What would she say to the children?

"If she's ill-natured with them, she'll have to go, poor beastie," Miss Esperance had said, as they drove from the station with the two tired, cross, little boys on that first day. "She's a dear, faithful animal, but I could not let such wee things be frightened."

However, the fears of Miss Esperance were groundless. From the first moment that she beheld the little boys, Mause took them under her protection. Perhaps it was that neither of the children showed the slightest fear of the great, clumsy, shaggy beast, but greeted her with joyful outcries, instantly demanding her release from that harassing chain. The right kind of dog and the right kind of child are friends always, by some immutable, inscrutable law of attraction. It seemed almost as if Mause mistook Montagu and Edmund for the puppies which had been her pride some five years before. And the baby certainly did his very best to confirm her in her mistake. Like a puppy, he had a fondness for carrying off numerous and inconceivably incongruous articles from places where they ought to be to distant parts of the garden, where he would be found surrounded by a selection of improvised playthings, while Mause sat by regarding the work of destruction with her tongue hanging out, and an expression of maternal pride upon her broad and blurry countenance.

When the children played in the garden their first thought was that Mause must play too. "She must be very lonely in that little wooden house," Montagu said pleadingly. "She would be so happy with us, and we do want her so." And Edmund roared and refused to be comforted unless his "big bow-wow" might go with him whenever Robina took him out in his perambulator.

There was a little plot of shaven grass in the garden at Remote, and on this Edmund and Mause and Montagu spent many an hour at play, while Robina sat by demurely knitting at a stocking. It was Edmund's habit when he fell down (a somewhat frequent occurrence that did not disturb him in the least unless he happened to fall on "something scratchful") to grasp firmly in each little hand a handful of the dog's thick hair, and by this means pull himself up to his feet again. Mause bore it stoically, and generally turned her patient face that she might lick the small, fat hands that hurt her. And by the time the children had been a month at Remote Manse was only chained up at night.

One hot afternoon in late September Mr. Wycherly had taken Montagu for a walk to a wood, near where there was a tiny tributary of the bigger burn from which the village took its name. So narrow was this stream that Montagu could jump over it: and it was one of his greatest joys to be taken there and to leap solemnly from one side to the other during a whole afternoon, provided that at each effort his audience made some suitably admirative remark.

Robina's patience failed her after about three demonstrations of Montagu's saltatory prowess, but Mr. Wycherly would take his seat at the foot of a big tree, and with tireless interest notice every jump, finding something new and congratulatory to say after each fresh effort.

Robina, Edmund and Mause remained at home: baby and dog disporting themselves upon the little square of turf, while Robina sat in the shade doing the mending. Elsa was busy in the house and Miss Esperance had gone to a sewing meeting at the manse.

At the foot of the garden was a low stone wall, and beyond that wall a lane. From that lane presently there came a sound of light-hearted whistling as Sandie, the flesher, his empty butcher's tray borne lightly on his shoulder, returned from the delivery of meat at the "Big Hoose."

Sandie, the flesher, could see over the wall, and he beheld Robina sitting under the alder tree. He thought her fair to look upon, and his whistling ceased. Robina gave one hasty glance back at the house. Elsa was making scones and would be far too busy to look out of the window just then: besides, one could see very little from the kitchen window save the raspberry canes, as Robina was sadly aware. Edmund and Mause were engaged in an intricate game of ball. They alone knew the rules, but they appeared to find it of absorbing interest. Once more Robina looked back at the house, and then flew down to the bottom of the garden to speak to Sandie.

We all know that there are minutes that seem as hours, and hours that slip by as a single moment of time. Robina's conversation with Sandie was somewhat prolonged, but doubtless for them it passed even as the twinkling of an eye.

When at last she tore herself away from Sandie's blandishments and returned hot-footed to her charge, baby and dog were gone. The worsted ball and the mending lay on the grass, and perfect quiet reigned in the garden of Remote.

"He'll be in mischief somewhere," she said to herself. "The wee Turk!"

For it was only when he was in mischief that the continual flow of Edmund's conversation ceased, and he was traced by his silences rather than by his sounds.

Warily did Robina search through every nook and corner of that garden: behind raspberry canes, between gooseberry bushes, even among the cabbages, but nowhere was there any sign of either child or dog. The girl's heart sank. Edmund had probably gone back to the house and Elsa had just kept him that she might the better come down on his young nurse for her carelessness. Robina well knew the awful "radgin" that awaited her if this were the case. It was just possible that the baby had toddled round to the front and was playing among the flower beds, doing damage in exactly inverse ratio to his size and weight. As she passed the open kitchen window Robina looked in: a great gust of hot air laden with the clean, good smell of newly made scones met her. Elsa was over at the fire giving the scones, still on the griddle, an occasional poke with her gnarled old finger. Edmund most certainly was not there. Robina's spirits rose. She might escape the "radgin" after all. She ran round to the front, but there was no baby here either; the tidy little garden with its gay flower beds on either side of the broad central path lay peaceful and deserted in the cool shadow thrown by the house itself. She noticed that the green gate was unlatched and she began to feel anxious, and not wholly on her own account. Where could that baby have got to, and where in all the world was Mause?

Robina hurried to the back garden again and went over every inch of ground, with no more success than the first time.

She was now very frightened indeed. She hunted in the stable, she looked in the loft, she even took all the tools out of the tool-house lest Edmund might be secreted behind them; but it was all useless, baby and dog had completely vanished.

All this searching had taken some time. The afternoon began to wane, it would soon be tea time. Miss Esperance would return from her sewing meeting, and even as it was, Robina heard Mr. Wycherly and Montagu come into the house.

She rushed to Elsa in the kitchen, where that worthy woman was arranging her last batch of scones round the top of the wire seive to cool.

"The wee boy's lost!" cried Robina desperately. "I can find him nowhere and no place, and the dug's awa' too."

Mr. Wycherly and Montagu heard the loud excited voices in the kitchen, and for the first time in all the years he had spent with Miss Esperance Mr. Wycherly entered the domain sacred to Elsa. He questioned Robina very gently and quietly, but could obtain no information that threw any light upon Edmund's mysterious disappearance.

They searched the house thoroughly, but with no success, and all four had gone out to look once more in the garden when Montagu exclaimed, "Why Mause is here, in her kennel, and she's not chained up."

The kennel was a large one, but Mause also was large and effectually blocked the doorway.

"We'd better take her with us," said Mr. Wycherly, who was preparing to scour the village. "She'll find him sooner than any of us."

But to their astonishment Mause did not come to call. She refused to budge, and if any one came near her except Montagu she growled ominously and showed her teeth, a thing she had never done to members of her own household in the whole of her existence.

By this time Miss Esperance had returned and was gravely disquieted by the news that met her, most of all by the fact that Mause should have deserted Edmund and that she should be so surly in her temper.

"I can't think what can have come over the dog," cried poor Miss Esperance. "Don't go near her, Montagu, my son. I just wish she was on the chain."

"I'll put the chain on her, auntie; I'm not afraid," cried Montagu, breaking from his aunt's detaining hand; and sure enough, Mause made not the smallest objection, but licked Montagu's hand, and gazed with speaking, pathetic eyes at the group around the kennel, although she would allow no one to approach her except the little boy.

"The gate was unlatched when we came in," said Mr. Wycherly. "I noticed that. I think he must have strayed into the village, and we'll probably find him in one of the cottages. What I cannot understand is that Mause should have left him."

"Mebbe some gaun-aboot-body's ta'en him," wailed Robina, "and drove the dug awa'."

"Hoot fie!" cried Elsa, indignantly. "They gaun-aboot-bodies has plenty bairns o' their ain wi'oot nain o' oor's."

"The burn's gey and deep up the rod," sobbed Robina, who was determined to take the gloomiest view of things.

Miss Esperance looked at Mr. Wycherly, and both were very pale. "Elsa and I will go into the village," she said tremulously. "Will you, dear friend, go--the other way? You would be of more use if--anything----"

Miss Esperance paused, unable to voice the dreadful fear that possessed her.

Montagu had sat down on the ground beside Mause, facing the kennel, with his arm round her shaggy neck; he leant his head against her, for he felt that she was in some sort of disgrace, and needed comforting. A sudden shaft of sunlight shone full on the pretty group. "Why, he's in there all the time," Montagu cried excitedly. "I can see him; he's fast asleep in Mause's kennel, and that's why she wouldn't come out."

The shrill voice woke the baby, who stirred, rolled over, and finally crawled out from his hiding-place, flushed and tumbled with little beads of perspiration all over his nose. Mause politely making way for him the instant he showed a desire to come out.

As he scrambled to his feet he beheld Mr. Wycherly, and gave his usual cry of "Man! Uppie, uppie!" and was somewhat bewildered by the effusion with which that same man caught him up in his arms. Miss Esperance grasped his fat legs and wept over them; Robina and Elsa caught at any possible portion of his clothing and wept over that. In fact, they all more or less hung on to Mr. Wycherly in their excitement, while the cause of all this enthusiasm blinked his sleepy eyes and wondered what it was all about. Mause ran round and round in a circle, hanging out her tongue and giving occasional short, sharp barks, expressive of approval.

Presently, when the women let go of him, Edmund bent down to scratch one of his fat pink legs. "I fink," he said majestically, "vat a fee has bited me."

Mause looked apologetic, and licked the spot.

*CHAPTER V*

*ROBINA*

Jenny rade tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan, Jenny rade tae Cowtstan upon a barra'pin O! An' aye as she wallopit, she wallopit, she wallopit, An' aye as she wallopit, she aye fell ahin' O! _Old Song_.

For Robina, it was a distinct rise in the social scale to have taken service with Miss Esperance. Any lass could get a place at the term in Edinburgh, but only one lass in the whole village could have been chosen to look after the little newcomers at Remote.