The Children of Wilton Chase

It was very still in the house, for not a servant as yet had thought of stirring. Eric pushed back the oak doors, which so effectually divided the nursery people from the grown ups.

"There you stay, you nasty things!" he said, hooking them back with an air of great triumph. "This is our day, and you can't keep us prisoners. Come along, Mag, I've broken the prison-bars."

Marjorie's own spirits were rising fast. After all, it was delicious to be up in the early morning. She was glad she had taken the trouble to get out of bed now.

The children ran down the wide corridor into which the best bedrooms opened. They paused at length outside their father's door. Here Marjorie once again grew a little pale, but Eric, with a look of resolution, turned the handle of the door and went in.

Marjorie followed him on tiptoe. Father's room was very large, and to the culprits who stood just inside the door, looked solemn and awe-inspiring. Even Eric felt a little subdued; the chamber seemed so vast, and the great four-poster, away by itself in an alcove, had a remote and unapproachable aspect. It was one thing to have a rollicking, merry, good-humored father to romp about with all day, and another to approach the solemn personage who reposed in the center of that bed.

"Let's come away," whispered Marjorie.

"Fudge!" retorted Eric. "It's father's birthday! It's our day! Come along – he can't be angry with us even if he wished."

Thus exhorted, but with many misgivings at her heart, Marjorie followed her brother across the big room and up the two steps which led to the alcove.

A picture of the children's mother hung over the mantelpiece. It was a very girlish picture, and represented a slim figure in a white dress, with a blue sash round her waist. The face was a little like Ermengarde's, but the eyes which looked down now at the two children had Marjorie's expression in them. There were other portraits of Mrs. Wilton in the house, later and more matronly portraits; but Marjorie liked this the best – the girlish mother seemed in touch with her youthful self.

"Do come away, Eric," she said again, and tears almost sprang to her eyes. It seemed cruel to wake father just to add to their own pleasure.

Eric, however, was not a boy to be lightly turned from his purpose. He had very little sentiment about him, and had stern ideas as to what he termed his rights. Father's birthday was the children's lawful day: on that day they were one and all of them kings, and the "king could do no wrong."

Accordingly this little king, with a somewhat withering glance at his sister, stepped confidently up to the big bed, raised himself on tiptoe, so as to secure a better view, and looked down with his chubby expectant face on his slumbering father.

It is all very well for the little folk, who are in bed and asleep as a rule between eight and nine in the evening, to feel lively and larky, and quite up to any holiday pranks at four o'clock on a summer's morning; but the older and less wise people who sometimes do not close their eyes until the small hours, are often just enjoying their deepest and sweetest slumbers about the time the sun likes to get up.

This was the case with Mr. Wilton. He had not arrived home until midnight – he had found some letters before him which must be replied to – he had even dipped into a book in which he was specially interested. Then his favorite spaniel Gyp had begun to howl in his kennel, and Mr. Wilton had gone out to see what was the matter.

So, from one cause or another, he had not laid his tired head on his pillow until one and two o'clock in the morning.

Therefore Mr. Wilton was now very sound asleep indeed, and not Eric's buzzing whispers nor Marjorie's cautious repentant "Hush – hush, Eric!" disturbed him in the very least.

"How lazy of father!" pronounced Eric in a tone of withering scorn. "He has not even stirred. Oh, you needn't go on with your 'hush – hush!' Mag – he's as sound as a button. Look here, I must speak a little louder. Fa – ther! oh, I say, father, open your eyes!"

Eric's voice became piteous, but the eyes remained closed, the face peaceful and immovable.

"We might both of us jump on the bed at the same moment," said Eric. "That ought to shake him a good bit, and perhaps he'd begin to yawn. Oh, jolly, it's a spring mattress; we can give him a great bounce if we jump on together. Now then, Mag, be sure you jump when I do."

Marjorie, still looking rather terrified, but led on by Eric's indomitable spirit, did spring on the bed, and so heavily that she rolled on to Mr. Wilton's leg. He started, groaned, said "Down, Gyp!" in a very angry voice, and once more pursued his way in dreamland, without any idea that two little imps were perched each on one side of his pillow.

"It's too bad," said Eric. "The whole morning will go at this rate; it will soon be five o'clock. Oh, I say – pater – father – gov! do wake!"

"You shouldn't say pater or gov," said Marjorie. "Father doesn't like it."

"Much he cares! He doesn't hear anything. He's stone deaf – he's no good at all!"

"Well, we shouldn't say words he doesn't like, even if he is asleep," said Marjorie in her properest tones.

"I like that," said Eric. "And why mayn't I say pater, I wonder? Pater is the Latin of father. It's a much nicer word than father, and all our fellows say it. You think it isn't respectful because you're an ignorant girl, Maggie, but Julius Cæsar used to say pater when he was young, so I suppose I may."

"Father looks very handsome in his sleep," said Marjorie, turning her head on one side, and looking sentimentally at her parent.

"He doesn't," said Eric. "He looks much better with his eyes open. Oh, I say, I can't stand this! The morning will go, and we'll never get our water-lilies. Father, wake up! Father, it's your birthday! Don't you hear us? Here, Mag, let's begin to jump up and down again on the bed. Couldn't you manage to hop on his leg by accident? You're heavier than me."

Marjorie and Eric joined hands, the fun entered into their souls, and they certainly jumped with energy.

Mr. Wilton began to have a very bad dream. Gyp, his favorite spaniel, seemed suddenly to have changed into a fiend, and to have seized him by the leg. Finally the dream dissolved itself into a medley of laughter and childish cries. He opened his eyes: two little figures with very red faces and very disordered hair were tumbling about on his bed.

"Eh – what? Is the house on fire?" he gasped.

"Oh, father! At last!" exclaimed Marjorie. She flung herself upon him, and began to kiss him all over his face.

"My dear child – very affectionate of you, no doubt, but why this sudden rush of devotion in the middle of the night?"

"It isn't!" exclaimed Eric in a voice of awful emphasis. "It's nearly five o'clock!"

"And it's your birthday," said Marjorie, beginning to kiss him again.

"Yes," continued Eric, "it's your birthday, father. Our day, you know."

The victim in the bed lay quite still for a moment. That much grace he felt he must allow himself to recover from the shock of the announcement. Then he said, as cheerfully as he could speak, "What did you say the hour was?"

"Close on five o'clock – awfully late," answered both children, shouting their words into his ears.

"All right; what do you want me to do?"

"To get up at once, and come with us to gather water-lilies."

"Oh!"

"Isn't it a delightful plan?"

"Very. Are you sure the morning isn't wet?"

"The morning wet, father! The sun is shining like anything. Run to the window, Mag, and pull the blind up. Now you can see, can't you, father?"

"I can, thanks, Eric."

"Well, aren't you getting up?"

"I will, if you will both favor me by retiring into the corridor for five minutes. And listen, even though it is my birthday, it isn't necessary to have any more vic – I mean, we need not wake the rest of the house."

"Oh, we'll be as quiet as mice," retorted Marjorie. "Dear father, you'll promise to be very quick?"

"Dear Maggie, I promise; I am your devoted and humble servant for the rest of the day."

"Isn't father delicious?" said Marjorie, as they waited in the passage.

"Delicious!" retorted Eric; "what a girl's expression! One would think you were going to eat him. I tell you what it is, pater ought to be very much obliged to us for waking him. He was lazy, but he'll have a time of it for the rest of the day."