CHAPTER VIII

OGRES.

For the next quarter of an hour, perhaps, certainly no longer, comparative calm reigned amongst the little party.

But the spirit of discord having once broken bounds in their midst, the happy peace of that glorious summer afternoon, which might have worn away so merrily, was gone, and sad to say, wrangling soon began again. First of all, Di, bent on being idle herself, took to teasing Phoena. The latter was trying to read, but Di confiscated her book. Then she ridiculed Fay, who was making a knock-about frock for Marygold’s big doll to wear in the hayfields. Meanwhile Phil and Jack decided to give Hubert a lesson in tree-climbing, and though they began their instructions with the best intentions, they soon started teazing him when he showed himself somewhat unamenable to their orders.

“Look here,” said Phil, indicating a very inaccessible limb of a birch tree, “you’re a regular little molly, but you’ll have to climb up to that branch and ride-a-cock-horse on it before we’ve done with you.”

“But I’ll tumble down, I know I will,” said Hubert, with an amount of caution which his six years made very excusable.

“Well, and if you do tumble down, and if you do break your precious little neck--”

“But I’ll be _deaded_ then,” shrieked Hubert.

“Well, and what are the odds?” asked Jack, with a coolness that curdled Marygold’s blood, “much better that you should die like a man--”

“But I ain’t a man yet and I don’t want to die like one,” yelled Hubert, who was being prodded up the tree now by both his brothers.

“You’re wicked, bad boys,” cried Marygold, “I’ll deliver you, Hubert, I will deliver you.”

Therewith she flew upon Phil and hanging all her weight upon his arm, strove to disable him from tormenting Hubert any further.

“I do wish a big ogre would come now and gobble you up,” she gasped.

Then as the boys still persisted that Hubert _must_ reach the perilous point first indicated, Marygold grew quite desperate.

“Please, please don’t break his _pore_ little neck,” she pleaded. There was such real horror in her voice, she looked so pitiful with her brilliant blue eyes brimming over with tears, that the sight of her face helped Hubert quite as effectually as any ogre might have done. For it did gain Hubert’s welcome “deliverance.”

And Marygold gained something further still. For when she suggested that as it had got cooler now, they might all have a really nice game before tea time, Jack and Phil actually consented to “give the infants a turn,” and graciously permitted them to choose the game they would play.

“Oh! ogres, ogres!” they cried, “for this wood will be just beautiful.”

“There’ll be such heaps of room, you know,” added Marygold, “for the little innocents to play at _gaffering_ strawberries and picking up sticks.”

“And such splendid bushes,” went on Hubert, “for the wicked ogre and his blood-thirsty wife to hide in.”

“Come on,” shouted Phil, “you must all come and play.”

“‘I’ll be the ogre’s wife,” volunteered Di, “and Andrew always likes to be the ogre because he’s only got to sit still and receive the live prey as it’s brought in.”

“All right,” said Phil, the master of the ceremonies, “Fay’ll be the infants’ mother, Phoena must be the ogre’s cook, and Jack his caterer, and I’ll be the old man of the wood who’ll side with the infants.”

“At that rate,” objected Jack, “there’ll only be the two kids to bag; there ought to be a better show of game than that.”

“Where’s that French froggy?” asked Andrew, suddenly, “we may as well make him come and play.”

“Yes,” assented Jack, “infants, where’s his Froggy-ship to be found?”

“I think he’s in the orchard,” said Hubert, whilst Marygold added, “But you won’t call him froggy, will you? for he’s a good little boy and very frightened.”

“Oh! is he?” cried Andrew, “then we’ll have some fun with him.”

“Oh! Fay, you won’t let them tease him,” pleaded Marygold, who felt in honour bound, if she betrayed Gaston’s whereabouts, to provide for his safety, “you promise me you won’t.”

“No, no, we won’t bully him,” cried several voices.

Comforted by these assurances, the infants set off to fetch Gaston. They found him sitting disconsolately amongst the long grass. Tired of boar-hunting all by himself, he was playing with an ugly, unsavoury looking toad.

So the children’s invitation to join their game in the wood was acceptable, though his face betrayed some alarm when Gaston understood that he was to play with all the big boys and girls too.

“But we’re all going to be ever, ever so kind to you,” said Hubert.

Thus re-assured, he consented to come. Indeed the prospect of a real good romp soon raised his spirits and voice too, to such a pitch of volubility, that Phil declared that he could hear Monsieur Frog chattering “like a vanful of monkeys” before either he or the infants came in sight.

“Here he is, here’s Gaston,” announced the latter, with a note of pride in their voice, bred of a certain sense of proprietorship in the small foreigner.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Grenouille,” began Andrew.

But Gaston did not heed him. His good manners might have put his new acquaintance to shame.

Pulling off his cap, he fan straight to Faith, attracted by her gentle face, and standing bare-headed before her, executed the most perfect bow.

(“With his feet in the first position,” Di sneered, “and his hands hanging straight at his sides.”)

“Good day, Mees,” Gaston stammered.

But when Faith threw her arms round him and kissed his small pale face, he swiftly abandoned all formality and nestled up to her side, as if he had found a long-lost and sorely-missed shelter.

“I told you he was a good little boy,” said Marygold.

“A precious Molly, though,” remarked Andrew.

“Molly yourself,” retorted Jack, “come on now and let’s begin sport.”

“And you,” said Phil, turning to Marygold, “tell Gaston the rules of the game.”

These were of a delightfully simple nature.

“Fay’s our mother,” began Marygold, “and Hubert and you and I are her little children and we pretend that we’ve come into the wood to _gaffer_ strawberries and pick up sticks. And we pretend that we don’t know there’s a wicked ogre’s den behind the bushes. He’s always wanting children to eat you know, so he sends out a bad man, that’s Jack--to catch us. When we see him coming, Phil, (that’s the old man of the wood who tries to protect us) comes to fight him off and we have to run away as fast as ever we can.”

“And we yell as loud as we can,” added Hubert, shrieking this item of information at the tip of his voice.

“There, now do you see, the wicked ogre has gone away to hide,” said Marygold, “with his wife, that’s Di, and his cook, that’s Phoena. So we’d better go to Fay. She’s dreadfully sorry when we get caught, but very often she gets caught herself.”

Then from the leafy depths of an old oak, Phil gave the signal for the game to begin.

“My little dears,” he cried, “come out to play.”

“That means, come out to be eaten,” said Hubert.

Therewith Gaston, who by this time was not so sure that this new form of amusement was likely to prove so very charming, was dragged off to play his part in the ogre game.

“It really is quite _strordinary_ fun,” Hubert assured him.