Part 11

“Why, my pretty,” cried Sam’s voice, which sounded very real and comfortable, “what be all this shindy? Have anybody been a-frightenin’ of ye? Have that rascal Bob been up to any games?”

Still clutching her in a tight embrace, he looked fiercely round.

“Bob!” ejaculated Martha. “Bob! Why what should he—” She broke off suddenly, adding with a wail of recurrent anguish: “Oh, Sam—oh, Sam, ye don’t know what I’ve a-seen this night! There, my heart be fair broke. I can never tell ’ee, but if ye knowed!”

“Nonsense, my maid,” cried Sam with a reassuring squeeze. “Ye haven’t seen nothing at all. I’ve been a-sittin’ in church-porch all the time an’ nothin’ have come nigh the place.”

“What!” gasped Martha, “’twas yourself—your own self as comed here—I—did think ’twas your sperret. Why whatever made ye walk so queer?”

With a chuckle Sam uplifted a large broad foot protected only by a stocking.

“I thought, ye see,” he explained, “as that there silly Bob ’ud very like be up to some tricks—makin’ believe to appear to ye, or some such thing—so, thinks I to myself, I’ll just bide handy in porch and if he do try it on I’ll pounce out on him.”

“Oh,” said Martha, “why I don’t suppose he knows naught about nothing of the kind.”

“Ye didn’t tell him your grandma’s tale, then?” said Sam, with a note of incredulous delight in his voice.

“N—no,” said Martha—“I didn’t reckon ’twould interes’ him, d’ye see. ’Twas different wi’ you.”

And then Sam laughed long and loud.

“Martha,” he said at last, “I take back all as I said agen this here old custom—I can see as there be sense in it. Ah, a deal o’ sense in it. My sperret, d’ye see, was very anxious to come to ’ee, Martha—that anxious that it did take the rest o’ me along wi’ it. I shouldn’t wonder if the rest of the tale was to come true too—about gettin’ married soon arter, ye know.”

“P’r’aps I’ll have summat to say about that,” tittered Martha coyly.

“Ye can’t say nothin’ but the one thing,” returned Sam triumphantly. “’Twouldn’t be lucky!”

JOHNNY AT SHROTON FAIR.

Oh, dear, what can the matter be? Johnny’s so long at the Fair!

JOHNNY’S father was busily chopping wood in the little shed at the back of the cottage, and Johnny himself sat on an upturned block with one chubby leg crossed over the other—a feat of some difficulty when one’s legs are short and one’s seat unsteady—superintending the parental labours, and revolving a certain project in his mind. John the elder was a red-bearded giant of a man, with strongly marked features and great, sinewy, hairy arms, which were now fully revealed under his rolled up shirt-sleeves. Johnny the younger, like his namesake of poetic fame, had a golden head “like a yellow mop in blow,” a cherub-face, big solemn blue eyes—very serious and thoughtful just now—and every other good point which may reasonably be looked for in a healthy little peasant four-year-old.

[Picture: “You do seem to be choppin’ a lot this evenin’, Dada”]

He had not long been promoted to the dignity of knickerbockers, and was the proud possessor of pockets which still retained all the charm of novelty. Into one of these pockets he now dived from time to time, extracting from its depths (which were not very profound) a small round wooden box, the lid of which he proceeded to unscrew; a painful squeaking accompanying the process. This, on being removed, displayed a bright, threepenny-bit; and Johnny, taking it out, contemplated it for a moment in the broad palm of his grimy little hand, turned it over, polished it on the knee of his little breeches, replaced it in its receptacle, screwed on the lid again with laborious grinding, and finally restored the whole to his pocket.

Observing, after these operations had been gone through some half-dozen times, that his father allowed them to pass unnoticed, Johnny heaved a deep sigh and made a remark on his own account.

“You do seem to be choppin’ a lot this evenin’, Dada.”

“’Ees, Johnny, I be”—and here John Reed senior laid down his hatchet, straightened himself, and wiped his brow. “I have to chop so much as your mother will want to-morrow and next day too, d’ ye see? I’m goin’ to Shroton to-morrow wi’ Maggie and Rosie. If you be a good little chap I’ll bring ’ee a cake, maybe.”

Johnny uncrossed his legs and sat rigid on the block, his eyes apparently ready to jump out of his head. The father nodded good-naturedly, and took up his axe again. The son threw out his hand after the manner employed by scholars desirous of attracting the teacher’s attention.

“Bide a bit!”—with a quaint assumption of authority—“I’ve got summat to show ’ee here.”

The chubby hand sought the pocket once more, the box was produced, and its contents displayed. “I’ve got fruppence,” announced Johnny triumphantly.

“Have ’ee, now?” returned Reed kindly but dispassionately. “Well done! Where did ’ee get that?”

“Gran’ma gived it me. Dada!”—here Johnny got off the block—“Dada, do ’ee take me to the fair to-morrow, and let me ’pend it.”

“Why, I never!” cried the father, half puzzled and half admiring. “You be too little, Johnny—you’d be tired out afore the day was half done.”

“Nay, nay” and the little head was shaken until the golden mop was in full display. “Nay, I’d not be tired. I can walk so far as Rosie, an’ I do want to go in the roundabouts.”

“Want to go in the roundabouts, do ’ee? That’s a tale.” Here John Reed laughed, scratched his head, and contemplated his small sturdy son. “I d’ ’low you’d enjoy the roundabouts, and the shows and that—jist about. But we shan’t be home till late. And whatever ’ud Mother say? Ye’d best stop an’ take care of Mother, I reckon, Sonny.”

“Nay,” said Johnny junior. “I be goin’ with ’ee; Mammy have got Puss!”

And thereupon the red-haired giant laughed long and loud, and the imp beside him knew the victory was his.

The sun was sinking when they came indoors, both looking extremely important, albeit somewhat sheepish, as became a pair of conspirators.

Mrs. Reed stood by the window mending the coat which her master was to wear on the morrow; Maggie, a tall, shapely girl of seventeen, was ironing a starched white petticoat; while Rosie, the younger daughter, busily stitched a lace frill on the neck of her Sunday dress. An air of joyful bustle and excitement pervaded the place, for, although Mrs. Reed herself had ceased to join in the annual outing, she was good-natured enough to share the others’ pleasure at the prospect.

“There, Missus, I’ve cut ye enough wood to do ye for a week,” announced John, “an’ me and the little chap ’ull feed chicken jist now.”

“It’s time for Johnny to go to bed,” remarked the mother, gazing at him fondly, however. “He’s best out of the way to-night—there do always seem to be sich a lot to be done afore Shroton.”

“Well,” agreed John falteringly, “p’r’aps he would be best abed, more particular as he has a mind to come wi’ us to-morrow.”

There was a chorus of surprise and disapproval, in the midst of which Johnny stood silent, gazing from one to the other with a solemn, resolute little face. It was not until “Dada” himself had begun to show signs of wavering that the little fellow suddenly sat down on the ground and began to cry.

Now Johnny occupied a somewhat unique position in the family, which may thus be accounted for: Rosie and Maggie had come tumbling into the world hard on each other’s heels; and then five little graves, side by side under the churchyard yew, marked the advent and departure of five little boys, not one of whom had lived more than a few years; and then, after a long interval, when the cradle had been put away and the baby-clothes laid by on the top shelf of the cupboard, Johnny had made his appearance; and Johnny had from the first evinced a determination to live, and from the moment he could walk had become the recognised ruler of the entire household.

Therefore, when Johnny lifted up his voice in protest, general consternation ensued. Dada, taking him in his arms, upbraided the women-folk, and remarked indignantly that the child was not so big yet but what he could carry him if he was tired: and Maggie with a blush reminded her mother that Jim Fry was going to give them a lift to Shroton and back, and therefore there would be no need for Johnny to walk except just at the Fair itself; and Rosie observed that he didn’t seem to be one for catching cold, and, moreover, opined that he would look beautiful in his new suit, and that it did seem a pity that he couldn’t wear it where it could be seen. This last suggestion turned the scale, and Johnny dried his eyes and was carried off to bed in triumph.

On the next morning the entire household was enlisted in the service of the youngest-born. The father, coming upon Rosie as she was blacking his sturdy little Sunday boots, desired her to hand them over—he’d show her how to make ’em shine. And shine they certainly did when he had done with them, for, though he could with difficulty squeeze two of his great fingers into them, he polished them with as much energy as would have sufficed for full-sized Wellingtons.

Meanwhile Maggie was sedulously brushing the smart new sailor-suit, and the little pilot-coat with its two rows of brass buttons, while Mrs. Reed was carefully winding round her fingers the yellow curls which looked so much better when allowed to cluster freely about brow and neck, but which were now persuaded to assume the corkscrew shape dear to the village mother’s heart. She devoted particular time and care to the arrangement of a top-knot, which much resembled a small sausage-roll, and was poised immediately above Johnny’s right eye. At last the only son of the house stood arrayed in all his glory, while the admiring family gathered round.

“He do look a pictur’—I’ll say that for him,” remarked the father proudly. “There’ll not be his like at the Fair.”

“See and keep your coat buttoned, Johnny,” observed Mrs. Reed anxiously; “and don’t ’ee go for to take off your muffler, not if you be ever so warm.”

Johnny rolled his eyes towards his mother over the white woollen folds—which, indeed, very nearly came up to them—and then looked down to where the fringed ends showed beneath the bottom of his coat. The comforter was certainly uncomfortably warm, and the day was mild and sunny; but Johnny was in the mood to promise anything; therefore he gravely nodded.

Presently the sound of wheels was heard, and Jim Fry’s “trap” halted outside the little garden-gate. Jim himself looked very smart in his best clothes; his hat being set on at a knowing angle over his well-sleeked locks; a nosegay about the size of a saucer in his button-hole. There were flowers, too, at the horse’s ears, and the harness was polished to a nicety.

“Now, then, how had we best divide?” inquired Jim. “Suppose you sit next me, Maggie, and Rosie t’ other side of you? And if you’ll get up behind wi’ the little chap, Mr. Reed, you’ll just about balance us.”

John Reed stared a little, winked solemnly at his wife, and finally agreed; and the girls came tripping down the path, Maggie blushing as she clambered into the cart, while Rosie, with many giggles, ascended on the other side. Then little John waved his hand from his place beside his father, big John shouted “Right!” in a stentorian voice, Jim Fry cracked the whip, and they were off.

Oh, what a merry drive was that! The old horse hammering along briskly, up the hills as well as down, and covering the ground at a prodigious rate, constantly overtaking other parties of pleasure-seekers who were proceeding more soberly, some on waggons, some on foot, some in little donkey carts. Now the pretty village of Stourpaine was left behind; a few old folks came to their doors to look after the dashing equipage, and some children ran for a little way beside the horse; now they turned off by Steepleton, and for a while enjoyed the shade of the plantation farther on; and at last they drew near the scene of the Fair itself, being forced to proceed more slowly, for the road was well-nigh blocked with vehicles.

A mingled and extraordinary din greeted their ears as they approached. The shrieking music of the merry-go-rounds mingling with the shouting and laughter of many voices, the banging of the shooting-galleries, the hoarse cries intermingled with trumpet-blasts from proprietors of the different shows.

Johnny was at first disposed to be alarmed, and clutched his father’s hand somewhat tightly, but when the latter cheerily remarked that it was “rare sport” the little fellow strove to put away his fears, and to think it rare sport too.

Presently he was securely mounted on John Reed’s great shoulders, and watched the jumping of the horses, which were sent from all parts of the country for sale. It was exciting to see the dealers flap their crackling calico flags, and with strange, uncouth cries urge on the animal actually under inspection to show off his paces, and to leap an adjoining hedge—the latter feat being one not often accomplished; the rider indeed, much to the delight of the lookers-on, more frequently taking the fence than the horse. It was, however, a very amusing sight, and Johnny shouted and laughed and drummed on his father’s chest with his shining little boots, and stared about him at the seething mass of heads, and at the horses thundering past, and at those other horses tied up in pickets or rows, some of them plentifully bedecked with ribbons, while the manes and tails of others were curiously ornamented with straw. Over yonder were the booths and the tents and the waggons, and the red-and-yellow roundabouts and the swings and the shooting-galleries, and the crowds and crowds of merry folk. Johnny’s spirits rose more and more as the moments passed, and he presently found himself obliged not only to drum upon his father’s chest, but to jig up and down upon his shoulder, supporting himself by the crown of John Reed’s best Sunday hat.

“Hold hard!” cried his parent good-naturedly, when a more than usually ecstatic movement had well-nigh bonneted him. “Sit still, my lad. Where be climbin’ to, eh?”

“I’m lookin’ at the roundabouts,” chanted Johnny; “all the folks ridin’, and the harses goin’ up an’ down. There’s Maggie and Jim—and Rosie a-ridin’ behind! O-o-oh, Dada, do ’ee take I to ’em!”

“Well, a promise is a promise. I did say I’d take ’ee, didn’t I? Come along, then jump down! That’s the boy! Now we’ll go. Which shall it be? That great, big, red un?”—as the child pointed with his small forefinger. “We’ll make straight for he, then. Now, will ’ee ride in front o’ Dada, or will ’ee have a horse all to yourself?”

Johnny’s eyes were growing rounder and rounder, and his little hot hand clutched his father’s finger with almost feverish eagerness, as he answered stoutly that he’d like to ride all by his own self.

“Well done!” cried Reed admiringly. “You wouldn’t think the spirit of en,” he remarked to the red-faced proprietress of the merry-go-round as he paid the fare. “Ye’d think a little chap same as this ’ud be afeared to go alone. But no, not he. ‘I’d like to ride all by my own self,’ says he, as cool as a cucumber—an’ him but just turned four years old.”

It was pleasant to see the pair circling to the sound of the diabolical music: the father perspiring with terror on the child’s account, with one great hand hovering over him, ready to support him at the smallest sign of wavering, his own huge form ridiculously out of proportion to his wooden steed, his long legs trailing; the son, very red in the face, clutching the wooden neck of his horse with strong, resolute little hands, his eyes bright with rapture, his smile growing broader and broader until at length he was forced to chuckle aloud for glee.

Well, they had two rides on the roundabout, and then they went on the switchback, and then they went in a swing, and then Reed bought a large flabby cake and a couple of very green apples, and while Johnny was munching these dainties they suddenly knocked up against an acquaintance whom his father had not seen for years. There was much greeting and hand-shaking and questioning—the two deep voices booming over the child’s head, which was now beginning to swim a little, partly as a result of much agitation, and partly, perhaps, because those very green apples began to make him feel rather uncomfortable.

He hung more and more heavily on his father’s hand, and at last, his short legs giving way beneath him, he fairly dropped on the ground.

“Gettin’ tired, eh?” said Reed, glancing down at him. “Come, we’ll look for Maggie and Rosie, and get ’em to take ’ee somewhere where ye can sit down and rest for a bit.”

Lifting him up, he threaded his way through the crowd, followed by his new acquaintance. Soon they came upon the two girls, who, provided with an admirer apiece, were gleefully “shying” at cocoanuts.

They readily agreed to take charge of Johnny, and their father, turning to Jim Fry, informed him that he intended to return home on foot, as he had met an old friend, and when they had finished with the Fair they would probably go to the village for a glass or two.

“Right, sir, right,” returned Jim amiably. “I’ll take care of the two young ladies, without Tom Davis there likes to get up at the back along of Rosie to keep the balance even.”

And here Jim grinned and winked knowingly.

“I d’ ’low he won’t have no objections,” returned Reed good-humouredly. “But ye must see and take ’em home afore dark, Jim, same as ye did promise the missus. And take good care o’ Johnny, maids, whatever ye do.”

Johnny had by this time stared his fill at the cocoanuts, and now came backing up against his father, turning suddenly as the latter was about to move away.

“I want to stop with Dada!” he cried. “Let me go with you, Dada?”

“Ah, he be ter’ble fond o’ Dada, that he be,” remarked John to his friend. “Never was such a chap for wantin’ to be al’ays at my heels. There, but ye must stop with sister now, Johnny—and Dada ’ull come back for ’ee by-and-bye.”

“You’ll not keep the child out late, Father, will ye?” inquired Maggie anxiously. “Ye’ll let him come home wi’ us.”

But he had already turned away.

Johnny was at first disposed to lament, but was somewhat consoled on being invited to try his luck with the cocoanuts; the sticks thrown by his small arm, however, fell wide of the mark, and presently his lip began to droop again and his eyes to roam wistfully,

“Why, you haven’t spent your money yet,” cried Rosie, catching him up. “Come, we’ll go to the stalls and find summat to buy.”

After Johnny was perambulated up and down the stuffy arcade between the rows of shouting, excited vendors of toys, sweet-stuff, and crockery, after he had paused irresolutely in front of several booths, and screwed and unscrewed his precious little squeaking box any number of times, he found himself unable to part with his threepenny-bit, and finally agreed, with a sigh of satisfaction, to follow Rosie’s advice and keep it for another day.

They went to a shooting-gallery next, and the noise made Johnny’s head ache; and then to a peep-show, which he didn’t understand; and then to watch an acrobatic performance, which failed to interest him.

The day was wearing on now, and he was becoming very tired. He dragged at his sister’s skirts as he walked beside her, and his head was ever turned backwards over his shoulder in the hope of descrying “Dada”. Big folk going past tumbled over him or pushed him to one side with curt admonitory remarks. “Now, then, my man!” “Out of the way, youngster!” “Look where you are going, can’t you, child?” Even Maggie and Rosie, who were themselves probably a little weary, began to lose patience with him, and when, under his despairing clutch, the gathers of the elder sister’s dress gave way, she shook him, not roughly, but irritably, and said sharply:—

“Bless me, Johnny, hold up a bit, can’t ’ee? Jist see what ye’ve a-done to my new dress.”

Thereupon all Johnny’s stoicism gave way, and he began to cry piteously. “I want Dada, I want Dada!”

“Why, he’s over there—see!” cried Jim Fry, who had found Johnny by no means a welcome addition to the party. “Look, Johnny, there’s Dada standin’ jist by that tent. He’ll be comin’ to fetch ’ee in a minute.”

Sure enough the stalwart form of the elder John was plainly discernible some fifty yards or so away.

“Let me go to him!” wailed the child. “I want to go to Dada—I _will_ go to Dada!”

And thrusting aside Maggie’s hand, he broke from the little group and ran at full speed towards the spot where his father was standing.

“Best let him go,” advised Jim, catching hold of Maggie as she was about to start in pursuit. “He’ll be twice so happy wi’ he, and you know your father did say he was a-comin’ back to fetch en.”

“That’s true,” assented she.

As they stood watching the little figure making its way among the groups of people, Tom Davis came up in great excitement, with Rosie on his arm.

“There’s a man over there as is eatin’ fire!” he called out. “I never see sich a thing in my life! He be a-swallerin’ yards of it. ’Tis a kind of a ribbon, and he do set a light to one end, and do put it in his mouth, and goes on a-swallerin’ and a-swallerin’! Ye never did see sich a thing! His cheeks—there, ye can very nigh look through them! Come quick, else it will be over. He’ve a-been doin’ all sorts o’ things—playin wi’ knives and a-pullin’ rolls and rolls o’ coloured ribbons out of his mouth. Dear heart alive, how he can keep all they things inside of him I can’t think! But come along quick—this way!”

Maggie turned her head for a last look at Johnny, who was by this time but a few yards away from the tent near which John Reed was standing; and then, deciding in her own mind that he was now quite safe, hastened away with the others.

But Johnny was not quite safe: though so close to his father that two or three of the latter’s strides would have covered the space between them, he was not destined to reach his side that day.

Lo! just as he was preparing to uplift his shrill little voice and call ecstatically on his parent, there was a sudden stampede among the crowd, and Johnny found himself lifted off his feet. One of the colts exposed for sale had broken loose, and, excited by the strange medley of sights and sounds around him, was galloping madly hither and thither, snorting and lashing out with his heels. A big, bearded farmer had caught up the little chap in his arms and ran with him out of harm’s way. In a few moments he halted breathless, and set the child upon his feet.

“They’ve caught en, I see,” he said; “no fear now. There, give over hollerin’, my boy; nobody wants to hurt ’ee. If I hadn’t a-catched ’ee up ye’d ha’ been run over.”

Johnny gave one scared look at the kind red face, shook off the hand upon his shoulder, and then made off as fast as his tired little legs would carry him in the direction of the tent where he had last seen his father standing. But alas! no father was to be seen, and the poor little fellow, wailing aloud, began a fruitless search for him amid the throng.

He did not find him; perhaps because the elder John had already left the Fair, perhaps because the younger, though he imagined himself to be covering a large area, was in reality wandering round and round about the same place. Nobody noticed his continuous cry—there were many tired children at Shroton Fair that day—and now that the dusk was beginning to fall the heads of families were too busy gathering together their own belongings to take heed of a fretful stranger. So Johnny stumbled wearily along, and at last, being thoroughly worn out, climbed into a wicker chair which formed part of a large assortment of basket wares, and resolved to wait until “Dada” came by.