Sweethearts at Home

"I must first know by what right you ask me that question!" said Elizabeth. And then, her lips quivering (I know exactly how) a long minute between pride and pitifulness, Cissy did the best thing in the world she could have done to soften Elizabeth Fortinbras. She struggled an instant with herself. Her pride gave way exactly as it had with me, and she began to sob quietly and continuously.

Elizabeth took one step towards her. Presently her cool, strong arms were about Cissy's neck, who struggled a second or two like a captive bird, and then the next Elizabeth was soothing her like an elder sister.

"Yes, dear, I know – I know! You did a foolish thing. But then it was to me. I understood! I understand! It does not matter! No one else need know!"

Then, in a voice quiet as the falling of summer rain among the misty isles of the West, Elizabeth added, "Not even Hugh John!"

XXVI

HAUNTS REVISITED

I think we were all a bit unstrung after this. It was a good many weeks before Cissy could bring herself to speak about Elizabeth Fortinbras, and then it was in a rush, as, indeed, she did everything. It was one afternoon, over at Young Mrs. Winter's. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary (who always was as superior as a pussy-cat with a new blue ribbon about her neck, all because her husband kept three gardeners, one of whom blacked the Camsteary boots) happened to remark that there was "a rather ladylike girl" in those butcher-people's sweet-shop opposite the station.

"She is a lady!" said Cissy Carter, lifting up her proud little chin with an air of finality.

And, indeed, there was, in Edam at least, no discussing with Miss Davenant Carter on such a matter. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary, whose husband, greatly to his credit, had made a large fortune in cattle-feeding oilcake ("in the wholesale, of course, you know, my dear!"), could not, even if she had wished, contradict the daughter of ten generations of Davenant Carters as to who was a lady and who not! So it was settled that, whenever Cissy Carter was in the room, Elizabeth Fortinbras was a lady. Which must have been a great comfort to her!

Well, the following summer-time when the good days came – perhaps because everybody, including even Hugh John, was a little tired and "edgy" – father took us all off to his own country.

I was the one who had seen the most of it before, as you may see if ever you have read the book called Sweetheart Travelers that father wrote about our gypsyings and goings-on. Of course (all our family say "of course" – and it all fills up first-rate when the man comes to count the pages up for printing) – well, of course I had forgotten a good deal about it, only I read over the book on the sly, and so was posted for everything as it came along.

This time we did not go on "The-Old-Homestead-on-Wheels," as we called the historic tricycle, but in the nicest and biggest of all wagonettes, with two lovely horses driven by a friend of ours with a cleverness which did one's heart good to see. His name was "Jim." We called him so from the first, and he was dreadfully nice to all of us, because he had been at school with father. This made us think for a good while that it was because of his superior goodness and cleverness there that so many people were glad to remember that they had been at school with father. Jim, when we asked him, said that it was so, but Hugh John immediately smelt a rat. So he asked another and yet older friend of father's, named Massa – because, I think, he sang negro melodies so beautifully. (Who would have thought that they sang "coon" songs so long ago? – but I suppose it was really just a kind of "boot-room music," or the sort of thing they play on board trip-steamers, when the trombone is away taking up a collection, and everybody is moving to the other side of the deck!) Well, Massa came along with us and Jim one lovely Saturday to see the place where my great-grandmother had kept sheep "on the bonny banks of the Cluden" a full hundred years ago.

Somehow I always liked that. It means more to a girl than even father's misdeeds, the hearing about which amuses the boys so.

However, it really was about those that I began. So, reluctantly, I must leave the little hundred-year-old girl keeping her sheep on the green holms of Cluden, and tell about father and his wonderful influence. Massa said that we were not to tell on him, and of course we promised. This is not telling, but only writing all about it down in my Diary – quite a different thing. Well, Massa said that when "Mac" and he had "done anything," they used to climb up different trees as quickly as they could, and then, when father came after them (he was not our father then, of course, but only Roman Dictator and Tyrant of Syracuse), he could only get one of them. For while he was climbing the tree occupied by one, the other could drop out of the branches and cut and run. It was a good way, especially for Number Two, who got away – not quite so fine, though, for Number One, who was caught. Whenever a new boy visited the town and the Dictator was seen coming along, they ran the stranger up a tree and introduced him from there, as it were, lest, by mistake, a worse thing should befall him! Really it is difficult to believe all this, even when Massa swears it. Because father, if you let his pet books alone and don't make too big a row outside the châlet when he is working, hardly minds at all what you do. We don't really recognize him in the Roaring Lion, going about seeking whom he might devour, of Mr. Massa's legends.

So Sir Toady, in the interests of public information, asked Mr. Massa if the boys of that time were not pretty bad. And Mr. Massa said that they were, but that "they were not a patch on your – " He stopped just at the word "your," for father was coming round the corner. And, do you know, I don't believe he has quite lost his influence with Mr. Massa even now. It is a fine thing, Hugh John says, to be such a power for good among your fellows. He had that sort of power himself at school, and he managed to keep it, even though fellows ever so much bigger came while he was there.

Well, no matter; what I keep really in my heart, or maybe like an amulet about my neck, is the memory of the little hundred-year-old girl (that is, she would be if she were alive now) tending sheep and twining daisy-chains on the meadows by the Water of Cluden, with the Kirk of Iron-gray glinting through the trees, and Helen Walker (which is to say Jeanie Deans) calling in the cows to be milked at the farm across the burn.

Now I don't know how you feel, but the story of this great-grandmother of mine always seems sort of kind and warm and sacred to me, a mixture of the stillness of an old-fashioned Sabbath and the first awakening hush when you remember that it is your birthday – a sort of religious fairyland, if you know what I mean – like "playing house" (oh, such a long time ago!) with Puck and Ariel and the Queen of the Fairies, while several of the very nicest people out of the Bible stories sat in the shade and watched – perhaps Ruth and, of course, her mother-in-law, and David when he was very young, and kept sheep also. He would certainly come to see our play – his shepherd's crook in his hand, and his eye occasionally taking a survey of great-grandmother's flocks and herds to see that there were no lions or bears about!

Yes, I know it's fearfully silly. Of course it is. But, all the same, I have oftener put myself happily to sleep thinking about that, and with the music of the Cluden Water low in my ear, than with all the wisdom that ever I learned at school! So there!

Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered.

He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking flowers in the kindly shade of woods.

Soon after this, on our journey through father's country, we came to a little village – the cleanest and dearest that ever was seen. It was the one after which father had called one of his early books of verse – "Dulce Cor." Here we were very happy, for there was a lovely old Abbey, roofless, of course, but all blooming like one great rose when the sun shone on it at evening and morning. The colors of the stones were so rich with age and mellowing that from the little walk on the other side of the valley it seemed as if the whole had been dipped for a thousand years in a bath of sunset clouds, and then left out among the cornstooks to dry! Even more beautiful and kindly was a certain nice Doctor – only he wasn't the sort that come to see you when you are ill, to tap you on the back and write prescriptions. He took me to see the Abbey, and told me about the Last of all the Abbots, who was so kind that the people would not let him be sent away, but kept him always hidden here and there among them. And about how he died at long and last, "much respected and deeply regretted," as the papers say, even by those who did not go to his church – which, indeed, very few in these parts did.

And though it was, of course, foolish, and I would never have said it to the Doctor himself for worlds, I could not help thinking that this Last of all the Abbots (Gilbert Brown, I think his name was) must have been a good deal like this friend of mine, with his beautiful silvery head, and maybe the same gentle break in his voice when he gave out such a text as "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

We went through the cornfields very early next morning, father and I. It was Sunday, at dawn or a little after. The dew was still on all the little fairy cobwebs, but the sun had been before us in getting out of bed, and now was busy as he could be, drinking up the dew. We had to cross the churchyard under the big eastern side of the Abbey, all drowned in level sunshine, yellow as primrose-beds. We crossed a stile, and there, pacing slowly, his hands behind his back, saffron cornstooks on his one side and five centuries of well-peopled holy ground on the other, was the minister. He did not see us – lost in high thoughts, his lips moving with the unspoken prayer.

"Come away," whispered father, hurrying me along. "He speaks with his Master! A stranger intermeddleth not therewith!"

Then I did not know very well what he meant, nor did I ask. Only the two of us slipped down where, beyond the cornfields, a little road, all fern-grown, saunters half hidden; and where, a bit farther on, there is a bridge and a burn in which, in the daytime, children play and women wash their linen. But this morning all was still and quiet – as father said, "with the Peace of Jubilee, when all the land had rest!" I like to hear things like that – things I only half understand, but can think over afterwards. They make me feel all nice and thrilly, like after a shower-bath – only it is a mind-bath, and not a body-bath! Perhaps a soul-bath, if I knew what that was.

We came back another way by a higher path, and through a lane of tall old trees. When we got to our inn, the door was closed just as we had left it, and not a soul astir. We had seen no one at all that Sabbath morn except the silver-haired minister, his hands behind his back – perhaps, as the Psalm says, looking to the hills from which cometh his aid. Going up-stairs, I opened my grandmother's Bible at the metrical Psalms, and the first words that met my eyes were these: "In Salem is his tabernacle – in Sion is his seat!" Now I will confess again that I always like texts and poems out of which I can take my own meaning, without being bothered with notes and explanations. And so I thought how that morning I had surely gone out by Salem His Tabernacle and come back by Sion His Holy Seat!

XXVII

SIR TOADY RELAPSES

Ever such a lot of children whom I don't know have written to me to say how glad they were that I made father take me with him on his cycle such splendid long journeys. Because, you see, their fathers read the book, and had a little seat fitted for them! On the other hand, I suppose parents write and abuse my father for putting such ideas into their little girls' heads. In fact, I know they do. Here is a true story. One irate old fellow wrote to say that "Sir Toady" was quite unfit to associate with clean and properly brought up children! And he put down the references, too, where Toadums had misbehaved, like you find them on the margin of a Bible! How he had sat down in the dusty road at page some-number-or-other, where he had omitted to blow his nose, how he had fought, and thrown mud, and generally broken every law laid down for the good conduct of little boys in the olden times – just exactly what Sir Toady used to do! As if father was responsible for all that! Well, he was, in the old gentleman's opinion. For he ended with: "If only your little rascal of a hero were my son, sir – !"

This amused my brother Toadums for quite a long time, and one day he sneaked the letter, and wrote himself to the old gentleman to say how that he had reformed, and now always went about with two pocket-handkerchiefs; also how, at school, he had founded the "Admiral Benbow Toilet Club," to which the annual subscription was five shillings.

Further, he expressed a willingness to propose the old gentleman's name at the next meeting, and in the meantime he suggested sending on the money! Yes – and would you believe it? – he actually got the five shillings, along with a very nice letter from the old gentleman, couched in a sort of Better-Late-than-Never strain. So Toady Lion, who can be honest when he tries very hard, wrote and asked the old chap whether he would prefer to have the brilliantine supplied by the club in bottle, or like paint in a squeezable tube. But the old gentleman replied that, being completely bald, Sir Toady had better consider himself as a new returned prodigal, and use the five shillings "to kill the fatted calf"! So we killed him, and the noise we made on the top of Low-Hill was spread abroad over three counties. A "gamey" came to tell us that we were trespassing. But we feasted him on the old man's five shillings, while Hugh John explained that there was no such thing as trespass, and Sir Toady, getting hold of the keeper's double-barrel, practiced on bowlders till he nearly slew a stray pointer dog! Then, after braying ourselves hoarse, we had fights, rebellions, revolutions, cabals, which always ended in pushing each other into pitfalls and peat-bogs. We tripped in knotted heather as we chased downhill, skirmishing and yelling. Even Hugh John forgot himself, and all returned home, sated with the slaughter of the old gentleman's fatted calf, tired to death, not a shout left in any of us, but, as it were, stained with mud and crime!

Ordinarily now Sir Toady has grown too old for the "sins and faults of youth" already set down against him. But sometimes he relapses – and then he has it bad. He does not say "roo" for "you" any more, but sometimes the house is afflicted for days with an exhibition of what Hugh John calls "Royal Naval Manners." Usually this occurs at table when father is absent, because Toady has a quite real respect for the Fifth Commandment, a respect gained at an early age, and ever since retained. But on this journey there were a good many opportunities. You see, we did not go to bed at the usual time. We got up when we liked, and I often had to say the prayers for the entire family. Because the boys shirked most shamefully, and the Maid was so sleepy with driving in the open air all day that she often would be found sound asleep on her knees when not carefully looked after.

"The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak!" said our good old Doctor of the parish of "Dulce Cor." "I wish all my own prayers had as good a chance of being heard as this little sleeping child's!" After this Toady Lion declared that he would always say his prayers in the same way —asleep!

Well, of course you could not imagine – nobody could – the new and peculiar wickedness devised by Sir Toady. It was simply bound to be a success. Besides which, it was perfectly safe; after what Mr. Massa had told up at the Communion Stones of Iron-gray, The Powers-That-Be could not say a word. Oh, the beautiful thing it is to have a friend of your youth with a good memory, and, above all, communicative and frank with your own children! Oh, I know that there are people who will say, with some outside show of reason, "Well, just be perfectly good when you are young, and then you don't need to fear the frankest of your intimate friends!"

This, of course, is rank nonsense, and nothing but! For that kind of very immaculate young person does not make the best sort of father or mother when the time comes. They don't know anything. They are not up to things, and get "taken the loan of," as the boys say in that rude but expressive speech of theirs. But it is not accounted healthy to "monkey" with ours, who generally can tell beforehand when you are going to do a thing, and after it is done (if you get the chance) will tell you – what very likely you didn't know before —why you did it. If, in spite of all, you get into scrapes, The Powers-That-Be usually sympathize. But (and this is the awkward part) they remember the remedy that proved effectual in former and more personal cases. That remedy is applied, and, generally speaking, the same result follows. With this experience we shall all make excellent heads of families, and shall hire ourselves out – if we do not happen to have any of our own! Only, we are glad that we came into the world too early to be part of Hugh John's family. His methods are altogether too Spartan. And we tell him that the plain English for the name of his favorite hero, Brutus (the one who cut his children's heads off), was just simply Brute!

To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front. Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and buttoned down the front with white sheep. What dainty coves! What pleasing, friendly-featured lambs with shiny black noses and goggle eyes! How tame the very gulls had become from never being shot at! There never was such a place as Rough Island for us, or, indeed, any children. Away to the right you could see Isle Rathan, certainly more famous in romance. But to go there you had to get kind Captain Cassidy to take you in his boat. And generally it ended (because the Captain is a busy man) in your staying with his wife, and seeing – and being the better for seeing – how the threatening of blindness at once sweetens and strengthens the life of a delicate woman. But to Rough Island we could go by ourselves, so be that we returned with the first flowing of the tide. There is a certain Black Skerry to the south which, when covered, announces to all concerned that haste of the hastiest kind had better be made. Of course we called it Signal Rock. But one fine September forenoon, when the light was mellow and gracious even on the rough slopes of the Island of our choice, Sir Toady set us all (that is, all the children) searching in sheltered coves and little pebbly bays for "leg-o'-mutton" shells – just, he said, what father used to do. It was the bottom of the "neaps," when the water does not go very far out – which, of course, every shore child would have known by instinct. But we were landward bred, and such distinctions as to the ebbing and flowing of salt water were too fine for us! But Sir Toady had had converse with the instructed. He had profited thereby. And so no one will be surprised that, by dint of keeping our backs to the Signal Rock, our noses pointing down, and our eyes well employed in the search for "legs-o'-mutton," we did not discover the treachery of Sir Toady till the Rock was covered, and there was no hope of return! None, that is, for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had reckoned without his Hugh John!

That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis, stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with The-Folk-Over-There!"

And at first Toady Lion had laughed, thinking that for once the immaculate Hugh John would be caught along with the rest of us. He did not laugh, however, at all when he saw his elder brother take his watch out of his pocket and place it in his cap. He shouted out, "It's all right, Hugh John; Mr. Massa told me at Iron-gray that he and father often did it – spent ''Tween-Tides' on the Island. He will know all about it. Come back, you fool, you'll be drowned!"

But our Old Ironsides only shouted back over his shoulder that father and Mr. Massa had not passed their words to be in for lunch, and that he had!

"If the People are anxious Over-Yonder, they can come and fetch us off in a boat. We can say that we forgot!"

But by this time Hugh John had made his first dash into the wimpling line of creamy chocolate, like a steamer's wake, which marked the causeway to the land. His last will and testimony came to us in the command to "Stay where we were!" And in the final far-heard rider that, "when he got him," he would quicken Sir Toady's uncertain memory by one of the most complete fraternal "hidings" on record.

All the same, as we watched him plod along, the tides sweeping in from both sides upon him, and the struggle swaying him now to one side and now to the other in the effort to keep his feet, Sir Toady burst into a kind of roar (which he now says is a "way they have in the Navy" for long-distance signaling, but which sounded to us very much like a howl). "Come back, Hugh John," he cried, "and I'll take the best 'whaling' you can give me now!"

But out in the brown pother the struggle went on. Hugh John never so much as turned his head. We stood white and gasping, all pretty close together, I can tell you. And once when we saw him swept from his feet and only recovered his balance with an effort – though my heart was in my throat, I said out loud to comfort the others, "Well, anyway, he has taken the school medal for swimming. He has it on him now!"

Then Sir Toady turned on me a face of scorn and anger. He pointed to the gush and swirl of the currents of Solway over the bank of pebbles. "Swim in that!" he cried, "no, he can't! No, nor nobody can. I tell you one of the best swimmers in Scotland was drowned over there in Balcary, within sight of his own house, and a man in a boat within stonethrow!"

But for all that, Toady himself pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and made him ready to go to the rescue (oh, how vainly!). So that in the long run the Maid and I had to hold him down on the beach, half weeping, half desperate, calling on Hugh John, his Hugh John, to come back and slay him upon the spot. As if he was his Hugh John, any more than anybody else's Hugh John – and the two of them fighting like cat and dog nine-tenths of the time! But at times, when his elder brother is in danger or ill, Sir Toady is like that. Janet Sheepshanks speaks yet about his face when he came back from Crusoeing-it with Dinky and Saucy Easedale – all drawn and haggard and white it was. Well, it was like that now. I declare, he turned and struck at us every time that Hugh John stumbled, or looked like being carried away.

"See here, Sis," he gasped, "you let a fellow go, or I'll kill you. I will, mind – if anything happens to My Hugh John – I'll kill you for holding me back like this."

But at this very moment we began to see the lank figure of Hugh John rising higher out of the swirling scum. Presently he scrambled out on the steep beach of pebbles, all dripping. Then he gave himself a shake like a retriever dog, shook his fist at the distant Sir Toady, now sparsely equipped in fluttering linen: "Wait till I get you, you young beast! Just you wait!"

That was what he was saying as plain as print. But Sir Toady, completely reassured, only heaved a long sigh, murmuring, "That's all right!" And went on calmly putting on his clothes, and laughing at the Maid and me for having been frightened. He actually had the cheek to ask us what we had been crying about!

XXVIII

TWICE-TRAVELED PATHS