Part 7

"Well, try then! But when I am big I shall marry a very rich American and I shall go away with him to America, and I shall send a whole ship full of money back to mother, so that she will not need your stupid old books."

"No one will ever marry you," put in Iason, "you are too cross!"

"Yes, they will, I tell you!"

"I know!" cried the little boy, Nikias; "I know why she is so sure, because she has taught Katerina when she finishes washing her hair instead of wishing her as she always used to, 'And a fine bridegroom some day,' to say 'And an American!' I know because I heard her when I was waiting my turn for the bath in mother's room!"

There was loud laughter and Andromache flew at Nikias with tooth and nail for telling overheard secrets, and the struggle which ensued, and at which Pavlo looked on in secret dismay, was Homeric. Traces of it were visible at lunch time but were attributed to "playing soldiers." The Four of the Red House were not tell-tales; that is one good thing I can say of them.

After lunch they were condemned to afternoon rest. The reason given being that Pavlo had been up so early, and they trooped sadly upstairs; but Iason, who was nothing if not inventive, comforted them.

"When they are all asleep, you girls come into our room and we will take all the sheets off the beds and fix them up with broom handles and pretend we are deserters in a cave and soldiers coming after them."

The sheets, with the aid of the broom handles and sundry wooden clothes pegs, which Andromache managed to secure by a barefooted expedition to the wash house, made a splendid cave, but the triumphant discovery of the deserters by the soldiers was a little noisy, and the mother of the Four coming unexpectedly on the scene, wisely chose the lesser of two evils, and turned them all out of doors quite early in the afternoon while the soft wind was still blowing,--the soft sweet sea "batti"[14] that makes a swish, swish in the pine branches and shakes down the geranium petals from the stone vases on the terrace; that blows coolly in one's face while all the grown-ups are stupidly lying down for afternoon sleeps.

The Four and Pavlo tore madly up the hill and, throwing themselves down on the pine needles under the trees, graciously signified to Chryseis that she "might tell stories."

So the long fair hair was tossed back, the eyebrows were puckered for a moment, and then the quick little voice began:--

"There was once upon a time a dryad who lived in a great big tree...."

Good old Kerberos had allowed Nikias to make a pillow of his soft black body, Philos lay curled up with his nose between his paws, and Deko stretched out his forelegs as far as they would stretch, making a prodigious curve in the middle of his back; then suddenly righting himself he sat back on his haunches, twitched his pointed ears backwards and forwards and prepared to listen with the rest.

Over their heads the "batti" made a soft roar as of the sea, in the pine branches the fir cones cracked in the heat, and far away over the Narrow Beach there were white-tipped waves on the open sea, that made Andromache whisper to Pavlo, "It will not be too hot later on; they will let us go to the Monastery."

It was glorious! glorious! glorious! Certainly the Four had no words then to describe how they loved it all. Since then, Iason has turned some of the glory of those days into verse, and those who read it, feel the warm scent of the pine, the note of the tettix, and the blue of that sea, but he and the other three know that only when colour-words are invented can the real beauty of those sights and sounds be expressed!

IV

In the days that followed, Athens and Solon Street and the thick dust of the streets and Aphrodite's cross frown seemed very far away indeed to Pavlo; even of his uncle he saw very little; now and then the doctor came to luncheon or to dinner on the terrace, but already he seemed to belong to a past life. There was so much to see and to do! There were delightful torpedo boats to watch, steaming in and out of the bay and sometimes passing quite close under the terrace; there were the long narrow boats from the Naval School, full of new sailors learning how to row; there was fishing with home-made bamboo rods off the end of the landing stage, while the broad flapping straw hats which they were all obliged to wear because of the sun were weighted down on the ground with stones, so as to be better out of their way, as soon as the grown-ups were not looking; there was fire-fishing with spearing rods from the boat at nights when there was no moon; there were rambling afternoon walks to the Monastery or to the beach of the little pines; there were longer expeditions to the Devil's Bridge, to the lemon wood, or up to the Seven Mills;[15] there were visits to the funny little shops of the village in search of picture post cards, or even of what sweets Poros could supply, when the town stock ran out. For of course, visiting aunts and uncles and cousins generally brought proper boxes of chocolates and sweets from Athens; and though the grown-ups never failed to repeat the same stupid remarks such as, "How you are spoiling the children!" or, "Indeed that was quite unnecessary!" still visitors scarcely ever failed to fulfill this elementary duty. Once, a certain absent-minded uncle so far forgot his obligations, as to bring only some silly old caramels, and Pavlo heard all the abuse that was lavished on him.

There were the delicious long-stretched-out sea baths, notwithstanding the unfortunate governess's cries of, "You are staying too long in the water! Come out this very minute!" There were swimming matches between Chryseis and Iason; and there was under water swimming by Andromache. As for poor Nikias, his sea-bathing usually took place on dry land, under the shelter of the pines, where he would flee wet and naked for refuge, till his elders were safely out of the water. It is true, the others were very merciless and he was only eight years old, and when they caught him and dipped him, they dipped him so far down, and kept him so long under!

There were endless games on the hill, of soldiers, of robbers, of outlaws, of Turks, in which Pavlo for the first two or three days was politely allowed to be Kanaris, Athanasios Diakos, Odysseus Androutsos, Marcos Botzaris, or his own great-grandfather, according to the moment, but afterwards was obliged to take his turn at being a Turk, or at commanding a big Turkish frigate represented by three long planks behind the servants' quarters. Two of the Four were his crew, and the two others,--for of course they always had to be inferior in numbers or where would the bravery be?--were Miaoulis[16] and his devoted followers, heroically bent on blowing up the frigate, or perishing in the attempt.

Then there were stories read or told on the terrace in the hour before dinner, by the mother of the Four, when Nikias would climb up on the arm of her chair, or even sometimes, if it were getting pretty dark, on her knees, and listen with both eyes and ears, and Iason would draw funny men or officers while he listened. All the old tales of Theseus and Heracles, and King Midas, and the winged Pegasus were retold, and the fairy tales of the King's daughter with her three wonderful dresses, the Sea with its Fish, the Earth with its Flowers, and the Heavens with their Stars; and the tale of the Pacha with his three pairs of slippers. There were French tales too, of the heroes who rode through the valley of Roncesvalles, of Roland, and Ganelon; and even, for the mother of the Four had lived abroad in England in the remote past, English tales, of knights and ladies with curious names, of whom Pavlo had never heard; of Enid and Geraint, of Lancelot, of Pelleas, and Gareth and the Lady Lyonors.

And while the tales were told the sky turned into a lovely golden pink behind the pines, and the stars came out one by one. Iason knew many of their names and would show Pavlo the exact spot on the terrace from which one could see the whole of the Great Bear, and how the Scorpion dipped its tail behind the hill over Galata.[17]

Of course the shadow of lessons did occasionally fall across the sunshine. The village schoolmaster came over in a boat twice a week for the boys, and there was a family of friends living in the "Garden" on the mainland who had a French holiday governess, and every other day the Four went across in the small boat with Kyria Penelope, and Greek and French lessons were exchanged. But even so, there were ways and means. Pavlo overheard Chryseis early one morning reproaching her sister:--

"You have only written half your verb, and you do not know your poetry at all! Mademoiselle will be furious again. You will have pages and pages to write afterwards."

"No!" declared Andromache stoutly, "I shall not!"

"But you will. There is no time to learn anything now. It is time to start."

"I shall learn nothing, and I shall have nothing to write."

"How will you manage?"

"Wait, and you will see," answered Andromache darkly, shaking her short wavy hair.

They all ran down the long flight of steps to the sea, and Yanni the boatman was already settling the boat cushions. The big clock of the Naval School was just on the last stroke of eight and the boys had entreated Kyria Penelope to wait till the flag went up on the tower, as Iason wanted to run their boat flag up on its pole at the same moment.

His hand was holding the rope loosely, and all eyes were fixed on the square tower of the Naval School, waiting for the signal.

Bam! Boum! went the morning gun, and the lovely old blue and white flag rose majestically to the top of the flagstaff.

At the same moment, with naval precision, Iason pulled the rope, and the little boat flag was waving at the top of its pole; and almost at the same moment, Splash! went Andromache into the sea, books and all.

A shrill shriek followed, as Kyria Penelope went down on her knees on the landing stage, and flapped helpless arms over the water.

But the boatman was there and the boys too, and the next moment a drenched, dripping, sea-weedy Andromache was standing in the midst of them, little pools of water rapidly forming all round her. Yanni was reaching out for two floating books, and a soaked copy-book was slowly sinking beyond recovery.

"If I could possibly imagine," said the poor innocent governess, who had no small brothers and sisters at home, "that you would jump into the sea on purpose, I would keep all the others waiting, till you changed your wet clothes; but as such a thing is quite impossible, you may stay at home to-day and not delay us."

And such a thing being quite impossible, naughty Andromache stayed comfortably at home, finished all the chocolates out of her box; successfully fished out a big bunch of grapes through a hole in the wire netting of the store room window, carefully enlarged by the boys; visited the kitchen and learned all about the cook's little nieces and nephews and what their names were and how old they were; stood outside the gate watching the "trata"[18] and did a whole host of other equally pleasant and forbidden things.

That same afternoon they went to the Monastery with ten "lepta" each, with which to buy and light a taper in the Chapel.

"Look at Kyria Penelope!" cried Chryseis. "She has stopped to tie her shoe lace again; it is always coming untied. Let us run on to the cave; we shall have time to get in before she reaches us!"

The magic word "cave" sufficed, and they were all off racing down the hill and up again towards the second bridge.

It was not a real cave, Chryseis jerkily explained to Pavlo as they ran; only a dark hole in the earth under the bridge, and it was not mysterious at all and did not seem to lead anywhere, but the governess would never let them look properly into it. Over on the mainland there were some splendid real caves, that real robbers and deserters had hidden in; and in the old days people who were escaping from the Turks; but the Four had only been there once and then they were with grown-ups.

"Lambro the shepherd told me," panted Iason, "that there is one here on the island over on the other side of the hills, near the beach of Vayonia. A great big dark cave with a small opening, and you go in and in and never find the end. He says there were old swords and guns hidden there and ... all sorts of things. I mean to look for it some day."

"Will they let us?" asked Nikias, stooping to pull up a sock which threatened to cover his shoe entirely.

"Let us!" said Iason contemptuously; "they never let us! But we will go!"

The cave under the bridge was nothing but a small hole full of cobwebs and dry leaves. However, they all managed to wriggle in and wriggle out again, dirty, but triumphant, before Kyria Penelope, hot and protesting, came up to them.

V

Of course Pavlo's uncle had finished all he had to do in Poros long before this time, but it so happened that another summons had called him on to Nauplia, and it had been settled that while he was there, Pavlo should stay on at the Red House and that his uncle should spend one more day in Poros on his way back, and then that both should return together to Athens. There had been cries of delight over this arrangement, and Andromache had expressed a wish that the patient in Nauplia might have a nice proper illness. He need not die, of course, she added, but just be ill enough to want to keep the doctor from Athens near him for a long time.

So it was strange that the very day after this, Pavlo should have been lying on his face under the pines in the small wood, crying his heart out.

For alas and alack, it had daily been getting more and more difficult to live up to all that was expected of his name, and this particular morning it had been worse than impossible. He had been at the gate with the girls and the three dogs watching the "trata." For him, it was a new sight, and the Four were never tired of looking at the fishermen and the fisher boys with their bare brown limbs, wet and glistening in the sun, pulling all together at the ropes, and emptying all the squirming little silver fishes out of the long net.

And while they were standing about and watching, a big yellow sheep dog had rushed down the hill, and though at first he had contented himself harmlessly enough with sniffing at ropes and the nets, Deko who, it is true, was always very impertinent to big dogs, had provoked him. Chryseis snatched Deko up in her arms, and Andromache seizing Philos screamed for help, for the sheep dog was ready to spring at them. Then the two boys rushing down to the rescue from the top of the hill, instead of finding Pavlo standing in front of the girls, found him behind the trunk of a mimosa tree, staring horror-struck at the big snarling yellow brute, whom they drove howling away with two well-directed stones.

Then Iason had turned fiercely on Pavlo:--

"You may be a Zamana as much as you like; you are a coward all the same!" and even Nikias had echoed jeeringly:--

"Coward! Coward!"

And then Pavlo had fled blindly to the shelter of the dark little wood.

He longed, as he lay there sobbing, that it might be possible never to see any of them again. For he had found out from the first that for the Four the great rule was, "Never be afraid, and if you are, mind you hide it!" Of course they knew that Nikias shirked being dipped far down, or being held long under water. That was a family misfortune, never mentioned before strangers, but on the other hand even Nikias had only two days ago boldly attacked a long snake when it glided out of a thick bush, round which Philos had been sniffing for so long. He had struck at it with all his might on its flat head, and while Anneza, the Andriote serving maid, had picked up her skirts knee-high and fled down the hillside shrieking loud enough to be heard over at Galata, he had followed, his little long face flushed with triumph, his socks hanging over his shoes, and the corpse of the victim dangling horribly at the end of a long stick.

"Were you not afraid, you little one?" his father had asked; and Nikias answered that he had been just a little afraid when it raised its head and hissed, but that Chryseis was so stupid that he knew she would never sit comfortably under the big pine again with her book, if she felt there were a snake, however harmless, wriggling about in the bushes beside her, so that he had to kill it all the same; did they not understand? And the mother of the Four had looked rather proud, and the father had said:--

"Of course I understand."

And Nikias was not yet eight years old, and he, Pavlo, was over eleven!

So he lay there and sobbed, till Chryseis found him out and sat beside him, and expressed her energetic opinion that her brothers were "Pigs" because, of course, as she said, Pavlo had always lived in Athens, and how was he to know that those fierce-looking sheep dogs only require a stone thrown at them to run away; she even succeeded in making him laugh a little, by relating how Andromache had once, when she was quite little, called an officer who had offended her in some way "A green pig!" No one had understood why, but the insult had evidently been intended to be terrible. Then Chryseis had wiped his eyes with a handkerchief which happened to be not so much "a rag of all work" as the handkerchiefs of the Four generally were, and brought him down to the house, to show him the pictures in the Doré Dante which was usually reserved for rainy days or for convalescence. The mother of the Four had wondered a little at this very peaceful occupation in the middle of the morning, but was too wise to make awkward enquiries.

There was a prolonged visit that same afternoon from the children of the house in the "Garden," which had made matters easier for all, and by the evening everyone was too busy making plans for the morrow, to think of past disagreeables.

It was to be the last day of Pavlo's stay, and a picnic had been proposed, a real picnic, with no accompanying governess. There was some hesitation over this, but Andromache had urged that it was really only fair to the poor creature herself to give her a whole day's freedom now and then. "I suppose," she added thoughtfully, "we may be rather tiring sometimes."

At last, consent was obtained on two conditions, the first being that they should be back early, the second, that they must promise to obey Chryseis. This, they did not mind much, knowing of old that her rule was mild. The picnic was to be somewhere on the hills behind the Red House, wherever a nice shady spot should be found. Eatables were to be packed in small hand baskets, so that each might carry his share; and everyone was to wear his very oldest clothes.

The master of the House wanted to know why the enjoyment would not be just the same if they simply carried their food to the big pine and ate it there? But this question was treated with the contempt it deserved.

VI

Happily, the next morning was wonderfully cool, for July, for though they had all got up at impossible hours, by the time all the baskets were packed and all the last recommendations given to Kyria Penelope to look after poor Deko who had run a big thorn into his foot and had to be left behind, it was nearly nine o'clock. In fact the clock of the Naval School had just boomed out the three-quarters when Iason turned the big key in the lock of the hill gate.

They passed out in single file; all except Philos, who had found it simpler to climb up the wall and jump down on the other side.

Iason hid the padlock safely in a big lentisk bush just outside the gate, and then, standing up, faced the others, pointing up the thickly wooded hill.

"Listen you! We are going straight up there, and down on the other side towards Vayonia. I am going to find that cave of which Lambro the shepherd told me."

Andromache and Nikias gave a united whoop of joy and were rushing forward in the direction of the pointing finger, when Chryseis cried:--

"Stop! Stop! It will be ever so much too far. We had better go to the little chapel of Saint Stathi."

"We have been there hundreds of times; and I tell you we may never get such a splendid opportunity for the cave again."

"But to Vayonia! So far ...!" objected Chryseis.

"Now, listen!" persisted Iason. "What did father say last week, when I said we wanted to go to Vayonia?"

"He said, 'We shall see.'"

"Well, that does not mean 'no,' does it? Only when the grown-ups say, 'We shall see,' sometimes it does not happen for a long time, and we want this to happen now, to-day, at once!" Then as Chryseis still hung back, he added, "Of course we will say where we have been, directly we get back. Come, then!"

And Chryseis came.

The first part of the climb was uneventful. Kerberos plodded on heavily and sedately, Philos of course stopped to dig round the roots of nearly all the thyme and lentisk bushes on their way. Andromache, who considered him her special dog, would catch him by the neck and pull him off by main force, but in an instant he was back again, digging frantically, shaking his head, sneezing and beginning all over again.

After some time there was a rest under a clump of pines, and Nikias suggested opening the baskets. But when the others all told him he was "A greedy little pig!" he explained that he had only wanted to see if Athanasia had not forgotten the peaches which he had seen on the pantry shelf.

"And of course you would run back for them if she had!" said Iason derisively.

"Wait till we get to the top," said Chryseis.

So they started off again.

"Where shall you look for the big cave?" asked Andromache, who was beginning to find her basket heavy and the sun hot. "Did Lambro say if it were high on the hills above Vayonia, or to the right near the vineyards?"

"Did you ever hear of a cave near vineyards, stupid?" answered Iason, whose basket was heavier still as it had the bottles of water in it. "Lambro said near the sea; so of course it will be to the left in the big rocks."

"You do not know really," persisted Andromache, "you only say 'it will be.'"

"I never said I knew; I said 'let us go and find it!'" Suddenly he pointed some way above them, "There is a shepherd! No, not there; on that little footpath where the hill is bare. Let us ask if he knows!"

"Perhaps," suggested Pavlo hopefully, "it may be Lambro himself."

"No," answered the Four in chorus, "Lambro is lame. See how this man jumps from one rock to another! Bah! Whatever is he doing?"

The distant shepherd who seemed taller than any man they knew, was waving his arms above his head, and the movements looked curious and almost startling against the sky. When he caught sight of the children, instead of continuing on his way quietly and heavily as most peasants do, he seemed to stop short, to hesitate, and then suddenly using his long shepherd's crook as a vaulting pole he leapt over a piece of rock in his way, and came running towards them.

"Good-day to you!" cried all the children as soon as he was within hearing distance. He swung himself down to the little plateau on which they were standing.

"May your day be good!" he answered, but as he said it, he laughed a little.

The children looked at him curiously. At first sight he seemed one of the ordinary shepherds of the hills with his short "foustanella,"[19] his coloured kerchief knotted over his head, and the long "glitsa"[20] in his hand; but certainly they had never seen such a strange-looking shepherd before. He was extraordinarily tall and broad, a matted unkempt reddish beard covered most of his face, and round the pale blue eyes nearly all the white seemed to show. The "foustanella" was incredibly dirty and ragged, the red kerchief greasy with age, half fallen off his head. A brightly striped "tagari"[21] was slung over his shoulder.