CHAPTER VI.

“IN THE CUCKOO COPSE.”

That mid-day meal was a very merry one. Everybody had so much to tell, and each had had such delightful experiences in his or her own particular line.

True, Di had not found a pheasant’s nest, but she had practised her climbing to her satisfaction, if not to the benefit of her garments, which showed sundry tattered traces of the results of her morning’s occupation. The boys, according to their own account, had tried their hands at everything in turn--haymaking, boating, fishing; whilst Marygold and Hubert were so voluble and persistent in detailing their marvellous adventures, that even Andrew was forced to allow them a hearing, although he had tried hard to hold forth about some marvels in natural history with which he had meant to impress his companions.

“Shut up about your old crawlers and creepers,” said Phil, “let’s hear what the infants have to say.”

Jack actually dropped his spoon, laden as it was with cherry-tart, to call again for details of the boar-hunt.

“By-the-way, where is that little French beggar?” asked Andrew, with infinite condescension. For Gaston was not at table.

Though encouraged by his playfellows and urged by Ruth, he had come as far as the threshold of the parlour, one peep through the doorway at the big boys waiting to take their places at the table, had put all Gaston’s courage to flight, and with a murmured “Ah! but I cannot, I cannot,” the poor little waif had returned to his shelter in the orchard ditch.

“I expect he’s stopped behind to have some spree with the pigs,” said Phil, turning to begin a whispered conversation with Jack.

Poor Mrs. Busson--to say nothing of poor Mrs. Busson’s black porkers--would have trembled to hear how those two boys were plotting to organize a jolly good boar-hunt all for themselves. As for Gaston, he would certainly have sought a yet deeper ditch and a more remote orchard if he had heard the tone in which Andrew announced after dinner, that he meant to take an early opportunity of “sampling that French frog.”

Happily, however, for all parties, the effects of that singularly hot day, coupled perhaps with the very hearty dinner, made themselves felt even by the adventure-thirsty infants; so that all, from Andrew downwards, readily fell in with Faith’s suggestion that they should adjourn to the shade of the Cuckoo-copse on the other side of the water-meadow.

“Mrs. Busson has had two splendid swings put up there,” she announced, “on two of the biggest oaks, and there’s a lovely stretch of moss and bracken under the trees, where we can all sit and lounge about as we like.”

And so, greatly to Mrs. Busson’s and Ruth’s relief, the whole party, refreshed, but likewise subdued, by their plentiful repast, presently decamped together to the Cuckoo-copse.

Phil and Jack, however, carefully assured Libbie that she might depend on them to drive up the cows from the long meadow in time for milking.

“No need to call Jerry, the cowman, from the hay,” they declared.

“There, I do hope,” cried Libbie, seeing the children troop off, “that they won’t have broken any bones before milking-time comes.”

“Hold your tongue,” said Mrs. Busson, “I’d a deal sooner break all my own. Just you go down in a minute, Ruth, and take a birds’-eye view of the little dears, to make sure they are going on all right.”

Ruth did go, and brought back a very satisfactory report.

“They’ve all settled down as quiet as lambs,” she declared, “Miss Fay’s needle-working, Miss Di seems writing a letter, Miss Phoena’s got a book, and all the young gentlemen look like going to sleep.”

“Bless their dear hearts, they must be just a picture for good behaviour,” said Mrs. Busson fervently; and so they were, at any rate at the moment when Ruth saw them.

“Beware of the bluest sky,” says the old adage, and the picture of good behaviour in the Cuckoo-copse was alas! not painted in durable colours. Di was the first to break the sleepy silence which had reigned at most for ten minutes.

“I say, boys,” she began, “isn’t this just the sort of copse to make exploring expeditions in?” and, heedless of Fay’s imploring look, signifying that she would do well to let “sleeping _boys_” lie, Diana proceeded to demonstrate how twenty travellers at least might set out in as many different directions, without interfering with each other’s field of enterprise.

“Oh! yes, oh! yes,” cried the younger children, “let’s start exploring.”

“P’raps we’ll find some more buried gardens,” suggested Hubert.

“Or _earfmen_, little earfmen,” shrieked Marygold.

Even Phoena dropped her book, fired by a sudden desire to hunt an ant’s nest.

“Oh, blow the ants,” said Jack, “I want to find a jolly old fox burrow, and dig out the cubs.”

“Plaguey hot work in this weather,” remarked Phil, with a yawn, “a hornet’s nest, that we could blow up this evening, would be better.”

“Oh! but I’d like to find an earfman,” piped Marygold again, “one that could hide under Fay’s thimble.”

“Shut up that rot,” said Andrew, crossly, “and I say, Di, keep out of that nettle-bed, will you? None of you are to disturb those nettles, do you hear, all of you, I’m the eldest, and I mean what I say.”

“Do you?” retorted Di, “and please, your majesty, why can’t I begin my explorations by jumping into the very middle of that nettle-bed if I see fit as I most probably shall.”

“Because, probably, amongst those nettles there’ll be some Hipparchia.”

“Now, chain up with that jargon,” broke in Jack, “we’re not going to stand a butterfly-butcher bossing it over us.”

“You horrid boy,” cried Faith, “that sounds so ugly.”

“There, Mrs. Faith, you show your ignorance of the best verse of the period,” was the retort, “for I was quoting from a very fine piece of modern poetry, eh, Di?’

“Here’s the original, I declare,” said Phil, stretching out his hand from where he was sprawling on the grass, and snatching up the paper on which Di had been busily scribbling before she had arisen, on exploration bent. “Capital,” went on Phil, glancing at the paper, “you’ve improved on it since the morning. Now, pay attention, Miss Annie, here is something worth listening to.”

“Oh, never mind about reading it now,” said Faith, whose previous acquaintance with Di’s verses was not encouraging as to the results of their declamation, “don’t read them now, Phil.”

Phil turned a deaf ear. Scrambling up the nearest tree, he perched himself astride one of the branches best adapted for his purpose, and then proceeded to declaim:

“Will you buzz behind my coffin?” Begged a butterfly, “dear bee; For that insect-butcher, Andrew, Will soon have slaughtered me. No more upon my painted wings My slender form will soar, And, midst the flowers in sunny hours, You’ll never see me more.”

“Oh! cruel is the havoc made By Andrew’s net and pin; There’s no one left to mourn me now, Of all my kith and kin. ’Twas only yesterday I found A widowed moth in tears, ‘My husband’s corpse lies stretched,’ she sobbed, ‘On one of his cork biers.’ Then will you buzz behind my coffin?” Once more he asked the bee, “Right gladly,” quoth that insect, “If you’re sure he won’t kill _me_.”

“And now, gentlemen and ladies, you’ll kindly join in the chorus,” said Phil, “I’ll lead it.”

“Then down with Butcher Andrew!” Hark, all the insects cry, “Let him be caught, and pinned on cork,” Moans every butterfly.

And the chorus was taken up with such goodwill, and so much noise, that every owl within a radius of at least a mile must have been startled from his afternoon’s nap, whilst old widow Pugsley, who was a proverb for deafness, paused in her hay-tossing to remark that “Mussa Busson had a rare lot of merry youngsters down yonder in the Cuckoo-copse.”