Chapter 5

Adventures

The visit to the wood came off the day after. Nurse arrayed all her little charges in large holland overalls, and sent them out into the fields for the afternoon. And the little party set out in good spirits, Bobby and Billy tramping sturdily along, under the firm conviction that they were going to meet with wild beasts, and go through the most harrowing adventures.

It was a long walk, but they reached it at last, and came to a standstill when they saw the ditch and the thick hedge that surrounded it.

'There's a castle and a princess inside, so they don't like people to come in,' asserted Douglas; 'but we'll find a hole somewhere and creep through.'

And this was soon done. The children looked round them with delight at the little winding paths, the banks of green moss, and the thick overhanging bushes and trees, that seemed so full of life and interest. Douglas was in his element.

'We'll find a place we must call home first, and then we'll see what food we've got.'

The foot of an old oak tree was chosen. Bits of cake, pudding, some biscuits, and a few lumps of sugar were then produced from different pockets, and these were given over to Douglas, who, wrapping them in paper, deposited them inside the hollow trunk of the tree.

'Now,' he said, 'we must all divide, and go in search for adventures; and when we've found them, we can come back and tell the others here, and then we'll have a feast.'

'And if we don't find any?' questioned Betty doubtfully.

'Then you must go on till you do. Why, of course a wood is full of dangers. I mean to have an _awful_ time. We must go two and two; Molly and I will take this path, and the twins can take that one, and you, Betty, must go by yourself, because you're the odd one.'

'I always have to go alone,' murmured Betty; 'it isn't fair.'

Bobby and Billy stood clasping each other's hands, and looking with anxious though determined faces along the path mapped out for them.

'And if we should meet a cwocodile?' Billy asked, lifting his blue eyes to those of his big brother.

'Then you must either kill it or run away,' said Douglas. 'And crocodiles don't live in woods.'

'And if we lose ourselves in the wood?' questioned Bobby.

'If you're frightened, you needn't go, but stay here till we come back,' put in Molly, her conscience a little uneasy with turning such little fellows loose on their own resources.

But this gave the twins courage. Frightened! Not a bit of it! And they trotted off, calling out they were going to kill every one they met.

Betty likewise started on her journey. She was feeling rather depressed with the truth of which she was always being reminded--namely, that she was the odd one.

'I wish there had just been one more of us,' she kept saying to herself; 'I'm either one too many or one too few, and it's very dull to be always alone.'

But her thoughts soon left herself when she saw some rabbits scudding away in the distance; and the flowers on her path, and the strangeness of her surroundings, were quite enough to occupy her mind. She soon found that her path was coming to an end; right across it was some fine wire netting, and for a moment she hesitated, then, deciding to go straight on, clambered over it with great difficulty. The grass was smoother here, and the path a wide one; a little distance farther was an iron seat, and then she came to a long, straight grass walk, with trees on either side, and at the end a gate, in an old stone wall.

'I shall have to get through that gate,' she mused, 'or else I must climb the wall. I wonder what is inside! It might be anything--a castle, with an ogre or giant, or a prince and princess--and I can't go back till I find out. My adventures have come. But I'm very tired. I'll just sit down for a little before I go on.'

A few moments after Betty's little body was lying full length on the grassy path, and she was counting over a cluster of primroses with great care and precision.

'Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three--ah, what a pity! there is a little odd one, just like me!'

'What are you doing, child?'

Betty started to her feet. Looking down upon her was a tall old lady, dressed in a shady straw hat and black lace shawl; her black silk dress rustled as she moved. One hand was resting on a stick, the other was holding a sunshade. Her face was as still and cold-looking as some of the figures on the monuments in the little village church, and her voice stern and peremptory.

Wild thoughts flashed through Betty's brain. Was this a fairy godmother, a queen, a princess? Or might it possibly be the old governess that Mr. Roper loved so much?

Again the question was repeated, in the same stern tone, and Betty gazed up in awe, as she answered simply,--

'I was counting the primroses, to see if they were even or odd.'

'And what business have you to be trespassing in my private grounds?'

'I didn't know this was trespassing,' Betty faltered; 'a wood belongs to anybody in the country, and I haven't got inside your gate yet, though I was going to try.'

'And pray what were you coming inside my gate to do?'

'I'm--I'm looking for adventures; I have to do something before I go back.'

'I think you had better explain to me who you are.'

The voice was gentler, and Betty took courage. The lady listened to her attentively, and seemed interested; she even smiled when Betty, looking up, asked innocently, 'I suppose you are not a princess, are you?'

'No, I'm not a princess,' she said; 'but this is a private wood, and I cannot allow children to run wild all over it.'

'And mustn't we ever come here again?' asked Betty, with a grave face. 'We should be ever so careful, and we won't pick a flower if you'll only let us walk about. We've never seen a wood before, only read about one in our story-books; and children always go through woods in books without being stopped, unless it's an ogre or a giant that stops them.'

The lady did not speak for a minute, then she said,--

'How many are there of you?'

'Five with me; there's Molly and Douglas, and there's Bobby and Billy--I'm the odd one.'

'Why should you be the odd one?'

'Because Molly and Douglas are the eldest ones, and they always go together, and Bobby and Billy are the babies. Mother always calls them the babies, and I come in between, and I belong to no one. You see, in our games it's generally two and two; I always make everything odd, and Molly and Douglas are always having secrets, and that only leaves me the babies to play with, and they're only just four years old--much too small for me.'

'I suppose you have a doll or something to comfort yourself with? I remember I used to when I was a little girl.'

'I don't much like dolls,' said Betty, with a decided shake of her curly head; 'I like something really alive, something that moves by itself. There's a big sheepdog at our farm called Rough. I sometimes get hold of him for a game, but he likes Douglas better than me. Sam says he's always fond of boys.'

'Would you like to come inside my gate?' asked the lady, looking down upon Betty with a strange tenderness in her eyes, though her lips were still grave and stern.

Betty slipped her hand confidingly into hers.

'Yes, please; and will you tell me who you are? I think you're rather like a lady I'm trying to find. She teaches children, a governess she is, and she's old and young together. You're much more like her than Mrs. Giles is.'

But the lady did not satisfy Betty's curiosity; she only said,--

'I have never taught any children in my life,' and led her up the grassy walk to the gate in the wall.

'I am only going to let you stand inside for a moment, and then you must run away. And you must never come over the wire netting in the wood again. You and your brothers and sister can play in the other part of the wood, but I will not have children running over my private walks.'

She opened the gate, and Betty saw a lovely flower garden, with a smooth, grassy lawn, and away in the distance a great white house. The flowers were exquisite, and to Betty's London eyes they were a feast of delight. Her little face flushed with pleasure.

'Do you live here?' she asked. 'How happy you must be!'

'Do you like it better than my wood?'

Betty turned from the blaze of sunshine and brightness to look at the cool green glade behind her. She did not answer for a minute, then she said, pointing with her small finger down the grassy avenue,--

'It's something like church down there, it looks so quiet. But this garden is like heaven, I think.'

The lady smiled. 'I will give you any flower you like to take away, so choose.'

Betty was not long in making her choice. There were some beautiful white lilies close by--lilies that might have come from the same plant as that one lying between the little girl's hands in church.

'I should like one of those, please,' she said, with sparkling eyes.

She was given, not one, but several, and then was dismissed.

'And I shall never see you again,' Betty said, as she put up her mouth for a kiss. She did not say it regretfully, only as if stating a fact.

The lady stooped and kissed her. 'Not unless I send for you,' she said. 'Can you find your way back?'

Betty nodded brightly, and ran off. The lady stood watching her little figure for some minutes, then she gave a deep sigh, and her face relapsed into its usual stern and immovable expression as she entered her garden and locked the gate behind her.

Betty ran on as fast as she could to join the others. When she reached the oak tree, Douglas and Molly were already there, seated on the ground, busily employed in dividing the provisions for the feast. They exclaimed at the sight of her flowers.

'I've had a lovely adventure,' said Betty. 'Where are Bobby and Billy?'

'We don't know,' said Molly, rising to her feet and looking anxious. 'I'm sure they ought to be here by this time.'

'Perhaps they're lost,' Douglas suggested cheerfully; 'I was hoping some of us would get lost, and then we should have the fun of finding them. We'll go in a few minutes and look for them. Would you like to hear where we have been, Betty?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it is rather a stupid wood, for we came to nothing particular; only we've found a little house. It has three sides and a roof--tumbling in. We're going to mend it up, and live there, next time we come out here. At least, I mean to live in it. I shall be a disguised prince hiding for my life, and you will all have to search the wood to get food for me. Molly and I have made it all up. She is to be my daughter, who steals out at night time to visit me; you can be a servant, who mends the roof, and makes me comfortable; and the twins can be soldiers scouring the wood for me.'

Neither Betty nor Molly showed much interest in this plan; they were both thinking of the twins, and Douglas, having said his say, was quite ready to start off on the quest.

Together they ran along the path by which the little boys had gone. It led them under some low brushwood, and then along the banks of a stream. And then calling their names aloud, they were relieved to hear an answering call. A moment later and they came upon them. The stream was broad, and rather deep here, with great boulders of stone appearing above the water. Upon one of these boulders, in the centre of the stream, sat the two little boys, wet to the skin, and looking the pictures of abject despair.

'However did you get there?' said Douglas rather angrily.

'Billy was getting some forget-me-nots, and tumbled in, and so I came over to help him, and we can't get back,' explained Bobby, not very lucidly.

'If you got over there you can get back again,' Molly said decisively.

At this both the twins began to cry.

'It's so cold; we was nearly drownded; and we've seen a shark swim along.'

Douglas laughed, but took off his shoes and stockings.

'I shall have to wade in and bring them over on my back,' he said, with rather a lordly air.

And this he did, landing both the twins safely on the bank.

'Nurse will scold awfully, they're both so wet; we shall have to go home at once,' said prudent Molly, as with very small handkerchiefs she and Betty tried to wipe some of the wet off their clothes.

'And then she'll say we're never to come to the wood again. I wish we hadn't brought them with us!'

It was a quiet little party that returned to Brook Farm; and in the excitement of receiving the vials of nurse's wrath, and the fuss made over the poor little victims, Betty's adventures remained still unheard and unknown.

She was not sorry that this was so, and was quite content to muse in the secrecy of her own heart upon the beautiful cold lady who had given her the lilies. She thought of her sleeping and waking, and with a strange longing wondered if she would ever be allowed to see her again.

The next afternoon was a very warm one; but Betty's restless little feet could not stay in the buttercup meadow close to the house, where the others were playing, and soon a small white figure in a large sun-bonnet could have been seen plodding along the dusty road towards the churchyard in the distance.

Her little determined face relaxed into wonderful softness when she entered the cool church. Going on tip-toe up the aisle, she came to the monument of little Violet Russell, and here she paused, then clambering up with a little difficulty, she laid two fresh lilies by the side of the sculptured one, across the clasped hands of the child's figure.

'There,' she said in a hushed voice; 'you shan't always hold a cold dead lily, Violet dear; I've brought them to you from my own self, because they're mine, and I'll get you some other flowers when they are dead.'

She put her soft red lips down and left a kiss on the little clasped hands, and then slipped down to the ground again, where she stood for a moment looking up at the stained window above. A noise startled her: walking up the middle aisle was the lady who had played to her before, and following her a rough country boy, who disappeared through a little door behind the organ.

Betty slipped behind a pillar, and watched eagerly. Yes, she was going to play again; and her heart beat high with expectation. She crept into one of the high, old-fashioned pews, and sitting on a hassock, leant her little head back upon the seat, and prepared herself to listen.

The music began, and sent a little shiver of delight through Betty's soul. The long, soft notes that died away like a summer breeze, the deep, grand rolls that seemed to come from a cavern below, and then blend with the clear, sweet echoes rising and falling, and at length ascending in a burst of praise and gladness--it seemed to her that the angels above would be stooping to listen to such strains.

And then, after a little, the lady began to sing; and Betty drew in one deep breath after another. It must be an angel, surely! and yet there was something in the fresh holland dress and shady hat of the singer this afternoon that seemed hardly suitable for an angel's apparel.

The lady once looked round; and Betty thought her face looked sad; but when she began to sing her face was illumined with such light and gladness that the child watched it entranced.

An hour passed, and then the singer was startled by the sound of a sob. She was singing 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove!' and turning round, was startled at the sight of a white sun-bonnet and two small hands grasping the back of one of the pews. Betty had mounted on the hassock to have a full view of the singer long ago, and was now trying in vain to restrain the pent-up feelings of her sensitive little soul.

In an instant the lady had left her seat and come up to the child.

'What is the matter, little one? How did you find your way in here?' she asked gently, as she put her arm round the sobbing child.

But Betty could not put her feelings into words; she only shook her head and sobbed, 'I like the music; don't stop singing.'

'I must stop now: my hour is up. Tell me who you are.'

Betty made an effort to recover her self-possession.

'I'm only Betty,' she said, dabbing her face with her handkerchief; 'are you an angel?'

'Indeed I am not; do I look like one?'

And the lady threw back her head and laughed in a very amused way.

'Not now,' said Betty soberly; 'but you did look like one when you were singing, and I--I hoped you might be.'

'Why did you hope so?'

Again Betty was silent; then, looking up, she seemed to gather courage from the kind face looking down upon her, and burying her face in the lady's dress, she sobbed out,--

'I thought God might have sent you; and then you could have told me lots of things I wanted to know.'

'Perhaps God may have sent me instead of an angel. Tell me some of the things you want to know.'

'I want to know about Violet, and heaven, and tribulation,' murmured Betty a little incoherently; and then she started as the church clock in the belfry began to chime five.

'It's tea-time; nurse will be looking for me.'

The lady stooped and kissed her. 'I must go too,' she said; 'will you come and see me to-morrow afternoon? I shall be here at the same time, and then we can have a little talk.'

'What is your name?' asked Betty.

'Nesta,' the young lady answered, a little briefly.

'And do you teach children?' was the next question, breathlessly put.

'Sometimes; on Sundays I do.'

Betty's face lighted up, but she said no more, and trotted out of the church and along the road as hard as ever she could.