CHAPTER XXII.

“NOW THESE BE SECRET THINGS.”

“Libbie, what is that funny noise that we hear up here? It always seems to go on and on, as if a big crowd of people were talking, only such a long way off that it is more like a muffled, rumbling roar.”

Diana was up in the big cheese room, helping or hindering Libbie in the making of a splendid “double duttons” for which, Mrs. Busson had quite a reputation in the country side.

“What does that noise come from, Libbie?” Di repeated.

“Take care, Miss Di, do, you’ll be upsetting that crock there, by your elbow,” was Libbie’s answer. “There! I do believe by the look of that cloud that we’re going to have a thunderstorm, and if we do, all the pans in the dairy will be spoilt before I can scald them. I wonder--”

“But Libbie, do listen,” broke in Diana. “_What_ is that funny noise? Sometimes it sounds like a lot of voices and then again like a barrel organ a long way off.”

“I expect that will be about it,” said Libbie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one, playing over at Mr. Tossle’s Farm, on the other side of Primrose Hollow.”

“But you said yesterday, that barrel organs never came into these parts,” persisted Di; and then noting poor Libbie’s confusion, she went on mercilessly, “Why you said yourself, that you hadn’t seen one for twenty years, so it can’t be an organ; you know very well that it is not.”

By this time, Di’s curiosity as to the origin of the mysterious noise, which up to this point had not been so very great, was thoroughly roused. “Libbie,” she said, coming round to where Libbie was at work, and planting her elbows on the table, “Libbie, I’m quite sure now, that you do know what that noise means, and that for some reason, you won’t tell me.

“Whatever next!” exclaimed Libbie, with an air of such ill-used innocence, that it only served to strengthen Di’s suspicions. “Why, what could I know about it?”

“Oh” said Di, coolly, “you do know all about it quite well, you are only pretending not to. Oh! yes, Libbie, you wouldn’t get so fearfully red, if you weren’t.”

“I expect you’d get just as red, Miss Di, if you had all these heavy cheeses to handle on such a piping hot day,” said poor hard-pressed Libbie. “Good me! I declare that was a clap of thunder. Run downstairs quick, do, Miss Di, and ask Mrs. Busson if she didn’t hear it.”

Di burst out laughing. “Oh! I can tell you she didn’t, for as you know there was none to hear. No, Libbie, it’s no good, I’m determined--”

“Coming, coming Ma’am,” shouted Libbie, in answer to a call, which was as imaginary as the thunder, and without giving Di time to say another word, the faithful Libbie fled downstairs.

For a few minutes Di awaited her return; then deciding that she was not coming back, Di thought she would go and help Nellie, in the boiling down of some giant rhubarb stalks, which were to make wine.

“I’ll go and see what Nellie looks like, when I ask _her_ about that noise,” thought inquisitive Di.

Before, however, she was half way down the steep staircase, the sounds of Libbie’s voice conversing in agitated tones with her mistress, reached Diana. Though she had never been guilty in her life of eaves-dropping, she paused involuntarily now, to listen to what was being said. Mrs. Busson was evidently engaged inside the long, low wine-cellar, that ran under the staircase on which Di was standing, for her voice could only be heard now and again, speaking in answer to Libbie, who was talking to her in the doorway of the cellar.

“But good me! Ma’am,” Libbie was saying, “I tried my Sunday best to put her off, I promise you that.”

Mrs. Busson’s reply was inaudible.

“Turn a deaf ear! goodness me, if I’d turned half a hundred, it wouldn’t have been no good.”

Another inaudible reply from the cellar, then Libbie said, “Begging pardon, Ma’am, I can’t see how very great harm could be done by telling the truth; I can’t see if as how they were told exactly--”

This suggestion brought Mrs. Busson from the depths of the cellar.

“Tell them, did you say?” she cried very distinctly, “why bless the woman, she must be clean daft! Why, Libbie Kibblethwaite, don’t you understand boys and girls better than that? Why just the temptation to lay hands on the tons and tons of sweet stuff that must be in that room would be enough to tempt even Master Andrew to do something daring, and he isn’t so specially brave either.

“No, no, that room has been closed for over fifty years to my knowledge, and it shall never be opened whilst I’ve a voice in the matter. Tell them indeed! Go back to your cheese-making, Libbie and just remember to-day isn’t April Fool’s day.”

What Libbie may have replied was lost upon Di. For awakening to the risk that she was running of being discovered eaves-dropping, she flew back to the cheese-room and appeared to be wholly intent on counting the rows of “double duttons” on the well filled shelves, when the unsuspecting Libbie returned.

“It would be a mistake to ask her any more question,” Di decided; but after a few minutes, she invented an excuse for slipping off and leaving Libbie alone.

But it was not to the rhubarb-stewing that Di next turned her attention. Bursting with her newly-acquired knowledge, she dashed in amongst her companions, who happened to be all assembled in their favourite Cuckoo-copse.

Jack and Phil had come in from a long ride on some delightfully rough ponies which the farmer had put at their disposal. Andrew was amusing himself,--if not Hubert--by teaching his valet to shoot with a bow and arrow, but they were all awaiting the bell which always rang then to give them notice to get ready for dinner.

“Oh! I say,” began Di, “I’ve something to tell you. Infants,”--this to Hubert and Marygold,--”run away.”

“Please mayn’t we stop?” they implored.

“Why shouldn’t they, poor little beggars?” said Jack.

“Oh! then I shan’t tell you, that’s all,” said Di.

Jack felt in his pockets. “Here’s a halfpenny for each infant that runs as far as that fir tree,” he said, tossing the coins in the air.

“Now, Di,” cried Phil, as the “infants” ran off.

“I’ve found out this morning,” cried Di, excitedly, “that there’s a mysterious room in the house, which has been shut up for hundreds of years, and Mrs. Busson doesn’t want us to find it out.”

“Then,” said Jack, promptly, “it would be beastly mean of us to try to find it out.”

“Of course it would be,” echoed Phil.

“Oh! but you haven’t half heard,” said Di, greatly crestfallen; “it’s most exciting, I’m not supposed to know anything about it, but just by accident, I happened to hear--”

“Oh! isn’t that like a girl?” broke in Phil, “just to listen by acci--”

“Not like all girls,” put in Phoena, indignantly, “I’ve never listened by accident, and I’m sure Fay never has, have you, Fay?”

“Well, if it were an accident, Di couldn’t help it,” said Faith; “but it is horridly mean to repeat what you weren’t meant to hear. And I think considering how good and kind dear old Mrs. Busson is to all of us, it would be very ungrateful and horrid of us to go and pry into anything that she doesn’t want us to know.”

“Rather!” cried Phoena and her brothers in one breath. Andrew said nothing.

“I see you don’t understand,” faltered Di, on the verge of tears, “if you’d chosen to hear me out you would have seen that I hadn’t done anything mean or underhand either. However, I shan’t tell you any more,” she added, “though I _could_ tell you the most extraordinary things, things that would sound more like fairy tales than--”

“Well, chain up now, for here are the infants coming back,” said Jack, “and the next time you do any eaves-dropping, don’t come and tell us about it, Madam Di, do you see?” and Jack tickled the end of his cousin’s nose with a long bracken frond, but very gently, for Jack was never rude to girls.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Faith,” said Di, ignoring Jack’s last remark. “Libbie tells me that horrid old Nannie is going to pay us a visit. I am sure I don’t want to see her, do you, Andrew?”

“Oh! of course she’s only coming to see you girls,” said Andrew.

“Who’s Nanny?” asked Jack.

“Oh! she’s our old nurse; the first, we ever had,” explained Faith.

“She’s Libbie’s sister, and lived with us till she married. I thought she would come to see us as she lives near here. Of course, we must be nice to her, if she comes.”

“She was never nice to me,” said Andrew.

“Nor to me either,” said Di, “but Fay never got punished by anyone, she was born a saint.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Fay, “Nanny was very strict with us all, but I daresay, we were troublesome enough; any way, we must behave properly to her, when we see her.”