THE LIBRARY,
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
IN MEMORY OF
EDWIN CORLE
PRESENTED BY
JEAN CORLE
THE CHILDREN
AND THE PICTURES
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN
WONDERLAND. By LEWIS
CARROLL. With a Proem by
Austin Dobson, and Thirteen
Plates in Colour and numerous
Text Illustrationsby Arthur Rack-
ham, A.R.W.S. Square crown 8vo,
price 6s. net. [November /j.
RIP VAN WINKLE. By
WASHINGTON IRVING. With
fifty-one Coloured Plates by
Arthur Rackham, A.R.W.S. In
One Volume, crown 4to, price
155. net.
Timet. — " It will be hard to rival this
delightful volume.'
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21 Bedford Street, W.C.
MARIANNE AND AMELIA.
THE CHILDREN AND THE
PICTURES : BY PAMELA
TENNANT : PUBLISHED IN
LONDON BY MR. WILLIAM HRINE-
MANN AND IN NEW YORK BY THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY : MCMVII
THK SKETCH ON THE TITLE-PAGE
IS BY ARTHUR RACKHAM, A.R.W.S.
ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED BY
HENTSCHEL-COLOURTYPE
Copyright 1907 by William Heintmann
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
To fact
page
Marianne and Amelia . . . Hoppner Frontispiece
Mrs. Inchbald ..... Romney . . 4.
Robert Mayne, M.P. for Upper Gatton Reynolds . 10
Beppo ...... Reynolds . . 12
Peg Woffington Hogarth . . 1 6
Children Playing at Soldiers . . G. Morland . 18
The Apple-Stealers . . . G. Morland . 20
The Fortune-teller .... Reynolds . . 22
Mousehold Heath .... Cotman . . 56
Lewis the Actor .... Gainsborough . 76
Approach to Venice .... Turner . . 80
Miss Ridge Reynolds . . 82
Sir Joshua Reynolds .... Reynolds . . 84
The Green Room at Drury Lane . Hogarth . . 88
The Leslie Boy Raeburn . . 92
The Cottage by the Wood . . Nasmytb . . 96
On the Seashore .... Bonington . .154.
The Fish Market, Boulogne . . Bonington . .180
Miss Ross ..... Raeburn . 198
Lady Crosbie Reynolds . .214
Dolores Reynolds . . 222
CHAPTER I
If there were dreams to sell
What would you buy ?
Some cost a passing bell
Some a light sigh.
That shakes from Life* s full crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to W/,
Merry and sad to tell
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy f"
THOMAS L. BEDDOES
^ATALIE had been left downstairs, there
" was no doubt about it. She was not
in her cradle, she was not in the toy
cupboard, she was not on the shelf, she
was not on the dresser ; she must be downstairs
on one of the drawing-room tables, and what is
more, face downwards.
This is what passed in the mind of Natalie's
mistress as she lay warmly in her bed. She lay
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
looking at the nightlight shadows, but with this
last thought she sat upright, and looked round her.
Yes, she must have been asleep, for the nightlight
was burning brightly and fully, as it does when it
has been alight some time ; not showing that
melancholy little humpbacked flame with which
its vigil commences. " I wonder what time it is,"
thought Clare, " I wish I had remembered to bring
Natalie up to bed with me."
She lay down again, and tried to go to sleep, but
one feels very wide awake indeed if one keeps
thinking of one thing in particular. You feel even
if you buttoned your lids down, they would still
flutter wide.
There is a writer called George Herbert of whom
you have heard, and in one of his poems he says,
I hasted to my bed,
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults
(I sigh to speak)
I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts,
I would say thorns,
and rest was impossible. So it was with Clare.
She kept seeing Natalie nose downwards.
" I'll go and fetch her," she said, and she was
out of bed in a twink.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Quietly she passed through her little room to
the door, passing all the familiar shadows. There
was the big one cast by the cupboard, that looked
like a cloaked figure by the door. And there was
the black corner with the sharp shadow jutting out
of it, that was really only the chair-back, for she
had moved the chair one night to make sure. And
there lay her little pile of clothes on the chair itself,
but even the sight of these did not make her re-
member to put on her slippers, and passing all these
things and so through the room, she opened the
door, and went out into the passage.
How light she felt ! as if she'd left her body in
bed and was going downstairs in her soul. The
stair-rods touched the back of her heel strangely
cold ; how soft and deep the carpet was.
The floor round about the big landing window
was flooded by moonlight, and by this Clare moved,
but it did not reach very far, and soon she had
to feel along the wall towards the drawing-room.
Then she saw beneath the door a thin streak of
light shed on the carpet, showing the lights had not
yet been put out within.
" I wonder if they've been forgotten, or if
Mummie's still in there," thought Clare, and she
turned the handle.
3
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
The room was partially lit by one of the lamps,
and Clare ran in to seize Natalie. There she lay,
her furry eyelashes sweeping the faultless contour of
a china cheek.
But in the far end of the room by the shaded
light, some one was seated, writing. It was the
figure of a woman. Clare ran forward eagerly,
but a strange face was turned to her, strange, yet
not wholly so, in some way it was familiar. The
lady was dressed in white material, rather like stiff
muslin, her face was eager, and shrewd. She had
sharp brown eyes, and as she leaned back in her
chair, turning sideways, Clare recognised her. She
was Mrs. Inchbald. And as Clare realised this a
little wave of fear swept from the nape of her neck
to her heels, as she stood looking.
" Why aren't you in bed, child ? " Mrs. Inchbald
said, in measured tones. She spoke slowly, with a
controlled stammer. Clare felt as if she were not
going to like her, very much.
" Why aren't you in bed, child ? " Mrs. Inchbald
repeated. " Good Heavens, the way the children
over-run this house is something unparalleled !
Collina, Beppo, Dolores and Leslie, not to mention
Robin and Fieldmouse ; but I see now, you are
one of the others. Well, they make noise enough
4
^
MRS. IXCHBALD.
Romney.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
in all conscience. Why, I repeat, are you not in
bed ? "
All this time Clare had been looking at the lady,
and was now quite sure she didn't like her. The
wave of fear she had first experienced had receded,
and she had only an overmastering inclination to be
" rude back." She knew now she was talking to
one of the pictures, and " Why aren't you in your
frame ? " was on the tip of her tongue to utter.
But she knew she mustn't say it, so she just stood
and let her eyes grow as hard as Scotch pebbles, and
she Scotch-pebbled Mrs. Inchbald with all her might.
Evidently that lady was one of those who do not
need any answer, on the contrary who prefer con-,
ducting the talk, for she continued with a stammer-
ing fluency,
" I suppose there are nurses in the house ; to
be sure, I've seen them. But it's all this modern
movement among Mothers to have their children
with them, I suppose. The Parent's Review. I've
seen it lying about on the tables. By the way,
child, your Mother reads remarkably uninteresting
books. I found mine on the table once, but only
one was cut, and that partially. Why doesn't she
read Mrs. Radclyffe ? "
" I suppose people who live framed by themselves,"
5
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
thought Clare, " may grow rather prosy " ; but
she had discovered the value of making comments
inwardly. Even had she been about to speak,
Mrs. Inchbald would have given her small hearing.
" Goodness me ! I've heard the poor lady herself
allude to her own room as Piccadilly when two
nurses, three children, somebody with a note, the
cook and the clock-winder, all focus their energies
upon it at the same time.
" Then at dressing time it is like this :
" ' Will you hear me say my prayers to-night ? '
" ' And mine ? '
" « And mine ? '
" ' And mine ? '
" * Can I have a joo-joob ? '
" * Don't you think Juno was awfully inter-
fering ? *
" * When do we go to Peter Pan ? '
" ' Well, good-night, good-night, I won't speak
again really, — but you'll come and kiss me, won't
you Moth' ? '
" * Is to-morrow football ? '
" * O, my lips are so sore ! '
" ' And mine ! '
" ' And mine ! '
" * What have you got on, Mummie ? '
6
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" ' What ? '
" ' O, your yellow. Well, good-night, boys ! '
" * When do we go on our expedition ? '
" ' Oh ! it's soup.9
" ' I've got a flea-bite.'
" ' Have you ? Where ? '
" ' Will somebody brush the crumbs out ? '
" And so on, indefinitely. How she stands it I
can't imagine, but there is peace at last. And then
it's the turn of the other children ; but I'll say
this for them, they make very little noise."
" What other children ? " asked Clare, with
a sense of growing excitement, " do you
mean "
" I mean the picture children of course, child.
Leslie, Beppo, Collina, and the little Spencers.
You interrupt me as callously as you do your poor
Mother. My next novel shall be concerned with
the amazing difference in the up-bringing of chil-
dren, then and now. But how different it all is to
Grosvenor Square ! "
This caught Clare's fancy. She loved people to
criticise and draw comparisons. " O, what ? "
she said. " Is it different ? Of course I know it
is, but do tell me, don't you like it F And did
you like Grosvenor Square ? "
7
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" They knew how to live there," said Mrs. Inch-
bald severely : " everything was in order, my dear.
There was a butler, with all the punctuality of a
heavenly body surrounded by his satellites, the
footmen, who could be thoroughly depended on to
keep up the fires . . ."
" Yes, even in the very warmest weather, Mother
says. She doesn't like footmen, you know, except
in palaces ; she'd rather men were soldiers, or
ploughed fields. She doesn't like to see them hand
plates about, which women do far more prettily ;
besides, men stamp so, and blow down your
back."
" Perhaps the furniture," continued Mrs. Inch-
bald, regardless of interruption, " perhaps the
furniture was unsuited to child-life, holding the
priceless china as it did . . . the move was certainly
courageous. But O, how we were loved ! "
Something in Mrs. Inchbald's voice made Clare
listen. She liked her better now that her hard
face softened so.
" Ah, that was something like belonging ! it
warmed us, my dear, it warmed us ; that's what
made us alive. Do you think if your Grandpapa
had never loved us in the way he did that we should
be here walking and breathing — we, but semblances
8
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
of human form dwelling in pigment and paste ?
It's only love that can make alive, and he did it.
Sometimes, after all the lights were out and the
folks in bed, the door would open and he'd enter.
I can see him in his dressing-gown and slippers, the
light shining on the mahogany door ; his clean
white hair, and shrewd face. His hands so swift in
movement, so beautifully kept, his beard trimmed
so neatly. Did you ever see him untidy, I wonder,
or harassed, or wasting time ? Never — it all went
so easily, he had the long-houred day of a busy
man. Time to read aloud to others, time to look
over his old French books, time to saunter out and
play golf earnestly, and time, above all, to spend,
upon us. How he loved us. We shall never have
that again."
" O yes you shall," said Clare, for she was warm-
hearted really, for all the Scotch pebble in her eyes
on occasion — " O yes, you shall. Why — we all,
all like you we are all going to learn about you,
Mother says so ; it is only Lady Crosbie who some-
times . . . bores her, you know."
This came out rushingly, and Clare would have
withdrawn it, but the spoken word is like a sped
arrow, there is no calling either back. Mrs. Inchbald
changed completely. Her brown eyes twinkled
9
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
comfortably, and she leaned in her eagerness, right
out of her chair.
" You don't say so ? Well, I agree with her. I
believe I shall get on with your Mother, after all,
though she does let you all victimise her, and reads
such dull books. But I shouldn't have chosen the
word bore exactly. I shouldn't say Lady Crosbie
ever bored people . . . dear me, O no, she's vastly
entertaining, my dear, to those she thinks worth
it . . ."
" Well, Mother says however charming she must
have been in life, it is rather tiresome, in a picture,
to be looking permanently mischievous. She says,
although Lady Crosbie is flitting off into such a
lovely landscape, she's not really going to know how
to enjoy the country at all."
" My dear, your Mother's talking about something
she doesn't rightly know about, begging your
pardon, if she calls that country. That's studio,
my dear, sheer studio, and a very good studio land-
scape it is. But all the same, your Mother's opinion
interests me ; I notice she keeps the light on some,
and not so often on others. I wonder what she
thinks about it all."
" O well," said Clare, " once she's made up her
mind she's not to have bare walls (which is what
10
ROBERT MAYNE, M.P. FOR UPPER GATTON.
Reynolds.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
she likes best to live among), she says she likes you
all, and Miss Ridge she loves. She says she knows
she was a darling, and of course she loves Miss Ross,
and so do we all, only we long to make her happy.
And we like Lewis the actor, because he's showing
off so finely, and Bimbo longs for his sword. Robert
Mayne's got the loveliest clothes, and such a kind,
face, Mother says she feels he knows everything,
before she's spoken. She feels sure he's a dear,
and she says his face makes her feel bound to tell
him what she's been doing ; and he's never bored
by trifles. And often when we come into the room,
just for fun, Mummie says, 'Well, we've come in
again ; it's very windy and cold, but the crocuses
are showing. I had a few things to do at Woollands,
but it's so vexing, I couldn't find a match anywhere
for the blue . . . ' And then she goes on, looking
at him in his picture, and makes up all sorts of
enjoyable nonsense, and says get away with us,
she's talking to Robert Mayne ; and we love it
when she's in that mood ; and say * Go on, go on/
and sometimes she tells us what he says to her — but,
the best of all was when ..."
" Was when . . . was when . . ." echoed a very
pleasant voice beside her, and a hand was set on
Clare's shoulder. And, looking up, she saw Robert
ii
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Mayne standing there, M.P. for Upper Gatton.
Never did she think his face looked nicer than at
that moment, or his coat so warm and red.
" It's only love that makes alive," he repeated,
looking at Mrs. Inchbald. " Was I right or was I
wrong, Madam ? Should you and I be talking to
this little thing here to-night if they didn't care F "
His voice was so extremely comfortable that Clare
felt wonderfully happy, just as one always feels if
people are near one that understand. You feel
stroked down and peaceful, and as if you needn't
talk much, because they know. And you think you
never need feel as if your inside were made of red
serge soaked in lemon juice, which is the feeling
that another kind of person brings about. So
Clare stood and watched him talking to Mrs. Inch-
bald, and enjoyed it very much.
" I think I had the pleasure, Madam, of travelling
in the van with you, when we made the much-
dreaded move ? "
" You did, Sir, and you were mightily helpful
staying as you did the needless chatter and tittle-
tattle of the occasion."
" It was the morose forebodings that I felt grieved
by," said Robert Mayne, " the faithless despair,
the manufactured misery of morbid minds. Why,
12
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
what need was there to fill the children with appre-
hension, to chill our own hearts with fear ? You
yourself, madam," he continued with a charming
bow, " had need that day of all your energy of
character for which I have so much respect. You
would not let the weaker moods possess your heart.
How I wish we might then have shown those who
were fearful, these sheltering walls, these fair white
rooms, this Home ! "
" You might show some folk the loaves upon the
table, and they'd swear they were going to starve,"
said Mrs. Inchbald crisply. " The children are
well housed too, for that matter ; really better
than before. I don't think yellow satin and
brocade suits children — white-wash and brown
holland, say I. And this house is as near to white-
wash as the Mother can compass. Even the drawing-
room curtains, I'm told, are to have a decidedly
brown-holland appearance."
" But the children," said Clare, " are they really
in the house ? O, do let me see them, will you,
Ma'am ? "
" It's time I were framed, and you were in bed,
my dear, so we may as well go together " ; and the
brisk old lady rose in her stiff muslin and walked
towards the door. Clare just had sight of Robert
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Mayne settling himself comfortably to read in
an arm-chair. Then Mrs. Inchbald led her out
into the passage, and up the stairs to her own room.
But one strong impression remained in Clare's
mind, that the passage seemed in some way different.
" That's not my door," she said, as she looked
before her, " and Mother's room is further on. I
never noticed a door there before. O, Mrs.
Inchbald, is it the children's room ? "
She stood in a long low apartment, the light
shed from a nightlight falling softly on six beds.
On each pillow lay a little head.
Clare stepped quietly beside them ; how pretty
they looked in their sleep, Collina and Beppo and
Leslie, Dolores and Fieldmouse and Rob.
There they lay, the pillows scarce dinted. How
clearly she recognised them. And as she bent
over the white bed of Dolores, Clare saw the
tear glisten wet on the rounded cheek.
CHAPTER II
" Who are thy Playmates, boy ? "
" My favourite is Joyy
t/Ind he his sister Peace doth bring to playy
The livelong day.
I love her well^ but he
Is most to me."
j. B. TABB
jHEN Clare woke next morning it was
almost time to rise. She could guess
the hour by the wan light of a wintry
sunbeam touching the inner edge of
her window curtains, and the sound of housemaids
stirring in the house. There lay the grapes by her
bedside that her Mother had brought for her to
find on waking. She put out her hand for these, and
gradually as she lay there, there came back upon her
remembrance, the strange experience of last night.
Had she dreamed it ? If so, it was a vivid dream.
How sincerely she hoped not. " Because if I've
1$
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
dreamt it I shan't be able to go on with it and, if it
really happened, there is no reason why I shouldn't
see all the others, and what fun that might be.
I should ask what it was Field mouse had just told
Rob that made his eyes so round and shining, and
what it is makes dear Miss Ross so sad, and I should
ask how long Kitty Fischer has had her doves, and
if they lay eggs all through the winter like Mummie's ;
and ..."
" Clare ! d'epeche toi, ma mignonne, voyons,
voyons, voyons ; " and Mademoiselle entered the
room concerned to find Clare still in her nightgown,
and dawdling, with bare feet. But all day long,
through the hurry and skirmish of an ordinary day,
through the tedium of lessons and the ballyragging
of the boys, Clare hugged her precious secret to
her heart. She couldn't bear to speak of it, for if
it were only a dream, her longing for it to continue
would be intensified. She had seen Mrs. Inchbald
and Robert Mayne, and spoken to them, and the
children in the pictures were real. If this were
only a dream, then she'd rather not talk about it ;
but if it were true, if it were really true, then she'd
tell Bim and Christopher about her wonderful
discovery, and to-night, this very night it would
be proved.
16
PEG WOFFIXGTON.
Hogarth.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Have you ever lived through a day that has
some treasure of knowledge or expectation, that lies
hidden beneath everything tiresome, beautifying the
prosaic features of the day ? To Clare it made
it wonderfully easy to put up with all sorts of
difficulties, this enchanting secret of hers.
Bedtime came, and after the usual bath-skirmish
all three children were in bed. Prayers said, lights
out, and the shadows in possession. Then, because
she had had a long day and was tired, Clare slept.
And when she awoke she heard her name repeated.
She sat up wide awake, and saw Dolores by her
bedside — her little bodice crossed as prettily as in
the picture, with tiny skirt, and lifted eyebrow,
there she stood.
" Are you coming to play with us to-night,
Clare ? We've got the drawing-room to ourselves
for an hour before the party, and it's lovely, for the
furniture is moved away. But we shall have to go
to bed when Mrs. Inchbald says so, but there's still
time before that. Shall we go and fetch the others ? "
Clare's heart beat quickly, but she was out of bed
in a moment, following Dolores from the room.
" I must wake up Bim and Christopher," she
said. " Will you wait for me ? Their room is not
far away."
17 B
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
She ran off, but came headlong in collision with
somebody round the corner of the stairs.
" Mercy," exclaimed a sharp voice, " the children
again, I'll be bound." This was said with great
asperity, and Clare, recovering as best she might
from a stinging box on the ear, had just time to
see Peg Woffington pass round the corner in the
shortest skirt, and jauntiest little bodice imaginable.
" Bim said she looked cross, and isn't she ! "
thought Clare, as she ran on into the boys' room.
But what was her surprise to find the beds empty,
Bim and Christopher were gone. " Never mind,
come downstairs," said Dolores ; " I dare say Leslie
may have taken them down."
No steps of Clare's could take her sufficiently
swiftly. To be left behind was to her something
intolerable ; the boys were already down and
perhaps having all sorts of fun, and she'd gone in
to wake them up, and it wasn't fair. If you sound
the letters pr very quickly for a second, it will give
you some idea how quickly she ran downstairs.
Bim and Christopher were standing together
talking to a group of children, and Clare heard Bim
explaining :
" Fm so sorry ; it's my fault, but you must
come, boys, another day. You see two of my
18
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
friends mayn't play with children they don't know,
and so I hope you'll come again and have a game
with Christopher and my sister. My Mother
wants you to wipe your boots on the mat as you go
out, and I'll send word when next we want you.
Good-bye, good-bye, here's a bun for each — and,
wait a moment, take all this cake, won't you ? "
Clare's first thought was, " Bim's got his Wilsford
village boys here, but how has he managed it ? "
" O Bim," she cried out, " who are they, what
are you doing, why are they going away ? "
" Wait a minute, I'll tell you. You see, Leslie
woke me and Christopher, and said we were going
to have a jolly game. I had asked in the village
boys as usual, and found out too late that Charlotte
and Henry Spencer aren't allowed to play with
them, you know. I felt dreadfully awkward, but
it's all right now. I don't know how people can
have such swabs for Mothers. Anyhow, there it is,
and as Charlotte and Henry came down first, I can't
very well go against it. Come on, children," he
called out suddenly, and Leslie and Beppo rushed
up, their eyes glancing. But not before Clare
had a glimpse of an astonishing sight. It was this.
All the dear children to whom Bim had given cakes
filed out into the passage. With her own astonished
'9
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
eyes, she saw them walk up to the Morland pictures,
and disappear into them among the trees. They
were " the apple stealers," and the " children
playing at soldiers," and as she ran up to the pic-
tures with all her heart in her eyes to look closer
she was just in time to hear that sound of ineffable
beauty when the wind blows softly among a myriad
leaves.
There was a cool smell of moss.
A bough swayed under the weight of a climbing
boy, and she heard a dog bark in the distance.
Then the branches closed over, there was a rustle
in the greenwood, and everything was still.
CHAPTER III
. . . That ancient festival^ the Fair,
Below, the open space through every nook,
Of the wide area twinkles, is alive
With heads ; the midway region and above
Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls.
Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies,
With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles
And children whirling in their roundabouts,
With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes,
And crack the voice in rivalship. . .
THE PRELUDE
(FTER the village children had disap-
peared into the wood, Clare turned to
join her brothers. She found them
clustered round Fieldmouse and Robin.
" Whose fortune shall I tell now, good people ? "
Mousie was saying, her upper lip drawn into a
point, so that her mouth was shaped like the
tiniest V.
zi
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Mine, please," said Clare, " how do you do it ? "
" O," said Rob ; " she learnt it in our great
adventure ; she learnt it from the gipsies. Didn't
you know we'd had a great adventure ? "
" No, when ? "
" We were stolen by gipsies, and kept away from
Mother and Father a whole six weeks," said Robin.
" And then we only got back by being tied up in
bags, so that they thought we were barley."
" Oh, tell us all about it," cried the others.
And as they cared to hear it, perhaps you will care
to hear it, and so here is their story from beginning
to end.
The Story of the Children and the
Gipsies.
Charlotte and Henry Spencer lived with their
father and mother at Blenheim Palace, in the County
of Oxfordshire. Blenheim Palace was the name of
their home, and it may be seen to this day, standing
in all its magnificence in the midst of a great park.
For Charlotte and Henry were the children of the
Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and Blenheim
Palace was the gift of a grateful nation to their great-
THE FORTUNE-TELLER
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
grandfather, John Churchill, the first duke. He it
is you read of in your History books, who won
the battles of Ramilies and Malplaquet, Oudenarde
and Blenheim, fighting against the French ; and his
Duchess Sarah was famous for her beauty, and was
the friend of Queen Anne.
These children then lived, as I have said, at this
great Palace, and were dressed in red velvet and
feathers, and taught to dance the minuet and
gavotte. There were no trains in their day, and no
telegrams or motor-cars. They travelled by the
stage-coach if they came up to London, and life was
in many ways rougher and cruder then than it is
now.
If a message were needed, a man had to saddle a
horse and gallop miles with it, or perhaps foot-
runners were engaged. And this means that a man,
footsore and mud-stained, might arrive suddenly at
your father's door, having run or ridden over half the
country, with a note to deliver in his hand. Char-
lotte and Henry knew a very different England to
what we know now in many ways ; yet essentially
it was the same. The flower seeds in their
garden plots grew in just the same manner as do
yours, and when they went bird-nesting they found
just the same kind of nests in the same kind of
23
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
hiding- places as you do now. The wren's nest,
made of last year's leaves, because it is built in a beech-
wood, and the one made of green moss, because it
is built in a yew-tree ; these they knew just as
you know them, because these belong to the kind
of things that don't change. So you may imagine
them, when at last they had finished their lessons,
which occupied many more hours of the day than
yours, you may imagine them running out to the
hay-field, which looked to them just as you see it,
or running to the dairy, which held the same cool pans
of creamy milk. But in one way perhaps their con-
dition was different ; they were so rarely left alone.
They had always a nurse or governess or a tutor
with them ; and if they were with their parents, they
had to sit so quiet in the large rooms that it was little
or no pleasure to be there. They lived in the days
that Miss Taylor writes of when she says :
Good little boys should never say
" I will," and " give me these ! "
Oh no — that never is the way,
But " Madam, if you please."
And " If you please," to sister Anne,
Good boys to say are ready ;
And " Yes, Sir," to a gentleman,
And " Yes, Ma'am," to a lady.
24
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Those were the days of strict upbringing and formal
manners. If a little child wouldn't dress quickly,
she was left in her night-gown all day ; or if two little
girls quarrelled over two new dolls that they loved
intensely, their mothers would send these two new
dolls back at once to the shop from which they were
bought ; and no matter how many tears, no forgiveness.
Well, as one result of all this strict surveillance
Charlotte and Henry developed a passion for
being alone. The words " to escape " were to them
words of magical import, and they would sometimes
lean out of their little beds towards each other
whispering long plans. It began something like this :
" Mousie ? "
" Yes ? "
" Are you asleep ? "
" No — are you ? "
" No. I say."
" Yes ? "
" Shall we escape ? "
"0-0-Oh
This was Mousie putting her lips in that particular
way she has, and running her little eyebrows up. And
this was not a conversation of one evening, it was a
conversation of a hundred rush-light vigils, the burden
of a hundred corner-talks. And to run from one end
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
of a hay-field to another was a joy, and to look at
the wide world from the window of the family
coach, was an enchantment.
One day, as they were walking with their governess
in the gardens, something unusual occurred. Mousie
cut her hand badly with a sharp strand of Pampas grass,
and the blood flowed so swiftly from the fingers
that the governess became alarmed. Hurrying the
child into the gardener's cottage she asked for
cold water and a bandage for the wound. Robin
followed, distressed and silent, while the gardener's
wife eagerly fetched everything she could supply.
" We must bathe it in vinegar before bandaging,"
said the governess, " and if this is beyond your
power to provide, my good woman, I will myself go
and fetch some from the house. Lady Charlotte
must take no undue exertion till the wound is
properly tied." And Mrs. Goodenough left the
cottage immensely perturbed, walking past the good
gardener's wife in the doorway, as if no such person
held open the door.
Mousie had other manners, however, and now her
whole mind was centred on the actions of the kindly
woman who had done all so willingly.
14 I'm afraid your basin is stained, I am so sorry,
I didn't know that grass cut."
26
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"And how should you, my lady? 'tis a nasty
cut surely, and as for the basin there's no mariner
of harm done at all. I'm that sorry I've no
vinegar for your ladyship, but Peter was to buy
me some coming back from the fair."
"From the fair! O, what fair?" said both the
children.
" Why, Woodstock Fair," said the woman ; " the
road has just been packed with gipsy vans and
menageries, and tinkers, and droves of ponies —
just packed, for the last few days ! But you
wouldn't be seeing that, being never on the common
roads, as a body might put it. But George and
Peter are away to see the fun, and to bring us all
fairings." Smiling she went to the lintel to see if
Mrs. Goodenough were returning from her quest.
Mousie and Rob looked at each other, and their
eyes exchanged the same thought.
What longing possessed them to visit the fair ;
they knew well enough what it meant, for they had
had a nursery maid who used to tell them ; and now
to think the fat lady, and the mermaid in a bottle,
and the double-headed calf and the clowns, and
the cocoanuts were, so to speak, at their very door.
How should they get there ? It was no use asking
to go, for fairs were common things ; only common
27
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
people went to them, that is how Mrs. Goodenough
would have answered the request. Yet go they
must, thought Rob ; and " Mousie," he whispered,
" shall we escape ? "
Mrs. Brown was standing at the doorway and
heard no sound of Robin's whisper, nor caught a
glimpse of Mousie's bright-eyed response. She only
turned away as being satisfied Mrs. Goodenough
was not yet in sight, and she might set about some
household task.
But Robin held his little black hat with the white
plume across it in his hand, and in his finest manner
stepped to meet her.
"We thank you very much, Mrs. Brown," he
said, " for your kindness. Charlotte's hand is no
longer bleeding, and we will follow Mrs. Good-
enough from your door."
€< Do'ee stay, my dear," said the cottage woman.
" I shouldn't like to see 'ee leave the cottage till
Madam return : do'ee sit down by the settle and
I'll fetch the kittens for 'ee, they are but in the
wood-shed at the back."
But Robin's mind had but one thought, and
Mousie's hand was clasped in his.
" Come away, come away," he said, " Mousie,
we'll escape, we'll escape to the fair."
18
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Do you think Mousie needed any further instiga-
tion ? wasn't the lovely freedom implied in the word
" escape " enough ? They had no one round them
to whom their naughtiness would give pain ; dis-
pleasure had till now but followed the commission of
a fault. It is only when children really love those
around them, that they hold some rein upon their fitful
desires. Only when they stop to say : " Will it
grieve Mummie if I do it ? " is there a chance of
their denying themselves.
Robin and Mousie knew only severity, so their
inclination was a thing to be pursued, especially if it
outweighed in pleasure the chastisement it might
bring. They were soon running down the drive, and
dodging among the bushes, clambering over fences,
dropping into ditches, in the best manner of a
runaway thief. How their hearts pounded against
their ribs, how their cheeks glowed from running.
And how wonderful it was to be alone ; and to be so
excited and happy.
Sometimes a rabbit would dart away among the
bracken, its white scut bobbing up the hillside. And
once when they sat down to rest, shielded by the high
undergrowth, a large heron rose majestically from near.
" How lovely it all is," sighed Robin ; " at last
we've escaped."
29
CHAPTER IV
The bramble, the bramble^
The bonny jorest bramble,
Doth make a jest
Of silken vest,
That will through greenwood scramble.
T. L. PEACOCK.
!T was not long before Robin's pretty
red coat had a good many holes in it.
The lace was torn away from his throat
and his flying cape, and that delightful
little hat of his had disappeared altogether. Mousie
was the best off in the matter, for her skirts had
been kilted before starting. That is to say, the
puce-coloured overskirt that she generally wore
rather long, had been turned up round her waist,
showing the cream-coloured petticoat.
It was an early fair and took place in the month of
September, so they had good weather for their exploit.
30
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
While they were resting, rather weary, yet trying
still to think it was pleasant, they heard strange voices
among the trees. It sounded as if a man and a
woman were quarrelling, and something about the
sound made the children afraid. The man's voice
rose very roughly above that of the woman's, and
she seemed to be in pain. " Not if you strike
me dead ; I won't do it, Bill, not if you strike me
dead."
" Then take that, and cease your misery, and
leave your betters to do the work they've planned."
And there followed the sound of blows and a
clamour, half a strangled sob or cry, then a thud
as if some one fell heavily. And silence for a time.
And then there was the sound of footsteps slowly
withdrawing through the dead leaves of the wood.
There was something dreadful to the children in
this, something very frightening. Was somebody
really lying there, quite close to them and quite still ;
somebody who had been talking and moving about
just now, and who now made no movement whatever ?
What had happened ? Had that dreadful man
gone away ? O, should Robin go and see ? " No,
no," cried Mousie, hiding her face close to him,
" no, no ; let us go home, let us go home."
But Robin was made of sterner stuff, and Mousie's
31
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
fear only served to strengthen him. He found
many brave things to say to her. Very soon he
was upright and stealing through the trees, peeping
and peering as he crept forward. Then he saw the
figure of a woman lying quite still upon the ground.
She had long black hair, and brown clothes on, and
her face looked as if she were asleep. It was so
white and pretty that Robin didn't feel afraid of her,
so he went quite near to look. And he touched the
hand and thought how cold it was, and Mousie
soon came creeping up.
Then the best thought that could have come to
Robin, made him say : " I think she's only asleep,
because I saw her eyelids move. Run to the brook
Mousie, and dip your hands in and bring as much
water as you can." And together they brought
water, and patted the white face with it, and Robin
laid his wet hands on the pale lips. And after a
time the woman opened her eyes, very languidly and
raised her head, and looked about her. And when
she saw the children her eyes asked the questions
her lips could hardly frame.
" You're better now," said Robin. And, Mousie,
said, " I didn't think dead people could come alive."
But the woman said : " Where's Jasper ? "
" If you mean the man who was, who was . . .
3*
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
talking to you," said Robin politely, " he went
away into the wood . . . afterwards."
" That was Bill, that was," murmured the girl,
" I remember now." A sudden light came into her
dark eyes, making her look scared and hunted.
" O, 'twasn't to serve men like Bill that I come
into the world, with his foul tongue, and his black
heart, and his lies and cruelty and wickedness.
'Twasn't to serve men like Bill, I tell yer ! O my
Gawd, why didn't I die ? "
" Because Robin told me to fetch water from the
brook," answered Mousie, " and directly I put the
water on your face you came alive again."
The girl rose slowly from the ground, and stood
for a moment uncertainly, then she put out her hand
to the children.
" Where do you come from, you innercents ? " she
asked, " dropped out o' the clouds, eh ? or may
be fairies?"
" We're not fairies, thank you,'* said Robin. ** I'm
Henry Spencer you know, and this is Charlotte my
sister, I'm eight and she's nine, and we are on our
way to the fair."
" Then you kin take this here bit o' paper for me.
Keep straight along the road, and you'll get a lift
from a cart or a waggon, and do you take this bit o'
33 c
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
paper to the door of the mill by the stone bridge
in the valley ; and say it's from Freedom Cow-
per."
She swayed as she spoke, and Robin thought she
was going to die again, for her eyes half closed, and
she leaned against a tree. But soon she was
speaking urgently, " O Gawd in Heaven, take the
paper, give it to the man ... at the mill . . . run,
for I hear my folk comen, and they'll never let you
go, they'll never let you go."
There was a distant sound of footsteps, a far
stir in the leaves. Robin and Mousie fled from
the girl away among the trees, to the little wattle
that surrounded the woodland, and scrambling over
as best they might, they lay down on the further
side.
They heard voices talking, and the girl's voice
hardly audible, and then footsteps going further and
further away. At last there was silence and, their
courage returning, they arose and pursued their way
along the road.
But not now, alas, with a joyful anticipation.
How willingly now would Mousie have seen home's
familiar aspects, and Robin was far hungrier than he
had ever been. For it was now about six o'clock
in the afternoon, and they had made their escape
34
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
about eleven, and they had walked and scrambled for
seven hours, and had a severe fright as well.
But Robin held the bit of paper, and perhaps the
idea of a lift in a waggon, made him urge Mousie
along the road.
It was not long before they heard the sound of
wheels behind them, and a hooded farm-cart appeared.
" Please give us a lift," cried out Robin, and they
were soon up beside the driver.
" We want to be put down at the mill, please, by
the stone bridge in the valley."
" Whoi that be farmer Dreege's mill," said the
man ; " but Farmer Dreege he be at the fair surely ;
there'll not be a soul about I'm thinking, without
Jasper Ford be left to mind the place."
" Yes ; that's the man we want to see, Jasper Ford ;
we've got a message for him."
But the driver of the cart was a man who minded
his own business, for he said nothing more. He
seemed content to drop the children with a nod,
at their destination, when they reached the mill by the
bridge.
Robin knocked at the door stoutly. A young
man opened it, and stood looking quietly out upon
them. He had the swart face of a gipsy, and the
dark hair and flashing teeth ; but his eyes were set
35
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
well under a broad brow, and looked out kindly upon
you. So that Robin had no trace of fear and said :
"This piece of paper's for you, if you are Jasper
Ford ? "
Jasper read and re-read his bit of paper, the first
time half-aloud ; he was so earnest in his eager
interest, so careful to decipher each word :
" Warn Doctor Thorpe's household ', rick-burning to-
night, and robbery. Freedom"
" Rick-burning to-night, and robbery ! That
means when the folk are all out to quench the
fire, Bill and his lot will have the house to them-
selves. O, Freedom, if you would but have listened
to me, and had nothing to do with the gang.
But the Doctor, who Freedom owes her life to "
and Jasper thrust the paper in his pocket. " I must
go, d'ye hear, youngsters ? I must go now. Do
ye sit and rest, and eat your bread and sop here>
and I'll come back and get your names from you
when I return."
" But tell us,*' cried out Robin as Jasper turned
to leave them, " tell us, how long does the fair go
on ; is it all over ? "
" The fair ? Why, the fair '11 go on till ten
o'clock at night, youngsters : but you'd better be in
bed by then."
36
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Mousie and Robin, well refreshed by food and
drink, felt all their former zest for adventure re-
turning.
" O, we'll go to the fair, Mousie ; it's only half a
mile further, and we'll see all the shows after all."
And putting down the mugs and plates they had
eaten from, Mousie and her brother left the mill.
37
CHAPTER V
Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
HE children set out with renewed
pleasure, enheartened by the rest, and
food.
Soon they heard a strange medley
of sounds that their beating hearts told them came
from the fair. Men's voices shouting, the sound
of wheels and stirring, a clamour of many musical
instruments, each one not having anything to do
with any other, and then they saw lights ; and
very shortly they were surrounded by a crowd of
humanity, and an overwhelming sense of excitement
and unrest.
The next time your father takes you to the Tate
Gallery look at Mr. Frith's picture of the " Derby
Day." It will give you some idea of the crowd
of busy people and pleasure-seekers that Mousie
and Robin suddenly found themselves among. The
38
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
lights were being lit along the little booths, blending
strangely with the summer twilight, and Robin saw
acrobats in spangles and scarlet climbing and leaping
before their master's show. He heard a roar of
laughter and applause at a fellow grinning through
a horse-collar, for there was a competition as to
who could make the most excruciating grimaces,
his visage embellished by this frame. The crowd
was to determine who was the winner, and there had
been already four competitors upon the little stage.
This one was acquiring by his efforts immense
applause, as he seemed to be able to twist his face
anyhow ; he stretched it longer than you would
think possible ; he would open his mouth and raise
his eyebrows, so that his chin dropped still further
and his forehead shot up into a point. Then,
while the crowd was shouting encouragement, he
would collapse his face suddenly, and all the length
of it would fold into wrinkles, like the gurgoyle
on the church tower at home. His very head
seemed to flatten, and his ears grow out. Certainly
he was a master of the art, and the children watched
in amazement till their interest was taken by some
other marvel of the fair. But Captain Marryat has
described all this so well in " Peter Simple." Why
should we not have his words here ?
39
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" The coloured flags flapping in all directions, the
grass so green, the white tents and booths, the shining
gilt gingerbread. The variety of toys and the variety
of noise, the quantity of people and the quantity of
sweetmeats ; little boys so happy and shop people
so polite. The music at the booths and the bustle
and eagerness of the people outside was enough to
make one's heart jump. There was Flynt and
Gyngell, with fellows tumbling head over heels, play-
ing such tricks, eating fire and drawing yards of tape
out of their mouths. There was the Royal Circus,
all the horses standing in a line with men and
women standing on their backs waving flags, while
trumpeters blew trumpets. And the largest giant
in the world, and Mr. Paap the smallest dwarf in
the world, and a female dwarf who was smaller still.
The learned pig, the Herefordshire ox, and finally
Miss Biffin, who did everything without arms or legs."
So writes Captain Marryat. What a gay scene
he paints. All honour to him for one of the best
story-tellers. May all children read his books.
Just as Robin and Mousie were leaving Miss
Biffin's bower they heard shouts of " Fire ! fire ! "
and suddenly the crowd of strollers and sight-seers
all moved with one accord. Mousie and Rob were
shoved and jostled till they were borne along in
4o
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the rush of people, as helpless as a couple of corks
on a Scotch burn.
When they passed out from the narrowed alleys
of the fair, made by the lines of booths and side-
shows, the press became less great, and they were
able to keep clear of the rush.
How frightened they were at this sudden stampede ;
and now, to add to their dismay and the general ex-
citement, they saw a fierce conflagration among some
ricks. These ricks were standing about four fields'
distant, and what at first had been one fitful tongue
of flame climbing stealthily the side of the dark
mass, swiftly grew to be sevenfold and leaping.
And from sevenfold it spread like molten gold
over the stack, as if fire had been poured over it.
And now a strange rushing sound grew out upon
the air, and the stack was brilliantly illumined.
The figures of the onlookers were cut out black
against the glare. Then a heavy scroll of smoke
mounted up into the divine beauty of the night
sky, defiling it with thick vapour. Now and then
there would come a lull in the fierce demolition,
as if even the insatiable maw of the fire were
momentarily replete. Then again it would break
out all the more fiercely, and a bevy of sparks would
swing out, and sail away against the darkness, like
41
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
a great swarm of golden bees. The flames would
mount ever higher and higher, and the rushing
sound grow, and grow. How the antlered flames
leaped and roared into the night sky, what a fierce
light they shed on the surrounding world. How
black and jagged the shadows were, how vast the
columns of drifting smoke. The great elms in the
hedgerow stood changed in the strange light, their
lofty stillness intensified by the clamour, and all
the depths of their cool leafage showing grey in
the strong light.
The birds flew into the very faces of the onlookers,
witless of their direction, and the rats ran from the
burning hayricks among the crowd, blinded by the
glare.
To Rob and Mousie, who had lived such sheltered
lives, it was as if they had been transported to some
other planet, to a world of tumult and alarm. They
had no words to express their pitiful state ; they
stood dumbly clinging together.
And then two figures came towards them as they
stood somewhat in the shadow — the figures of two
men.
" The mischief's done right enough, but it's all
for nothing, and we'll get nothing for our trouble.
We're lucky if we gets quit of this ; they've got
42
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
news of it after all. I've been to the side-door and
the front-door, but the whole place is barred ; why,
the very windows have their shutters up, and the
great bulldog in the yard that Freedom said she'd
poisoned, standing right up against the opening,
showing his teeth. There's been foul play some-
where ; we've been split upon ; and if I can lay my
finger on who's done it, I'll " his speech lost
itself in a string of oaths and maledictions while
he trod heavily forward to where the children stood.
And as he turned his great ugly visage upon them,
Mousie screamed, " It's the man in the wood, Robin !
it's the man who killed the woman in the wood ! "
And before Robin could say a word in answer, he
felt a great blow, as if the earth had jumped up
and slapped him, and he knew nothing more. Then
one of the men caught the frightened Mousie and
tied a cruel bandage so quickly round her that she
could neither scream nor speak, and another picked
up Robin where he lay quite still upon the ground,
and between them they carried the children away
swiftly.
The men walked till they came to a belt of
trees, far out upon the Down. Here they set their
burdens by the embers of a fire of charred wood.
Two or three rail-backed ponies were picketed out
43
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
upon the green, and a great van loomed dark in
the half-light. Several rough, unkempt faces
peered at them, and dark forms crouched about
the fire, stirring its embers to a fitful flame.
Mousie and Robin were in a gipsies' encampment,
and the very thick of their adventure about to
begin.
44
CHAPTER VI
How can a bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing ?
How can a child when fears annoy
But droop his tender wing
And forget his youthful spring ?
W. BLAKE.
\T was late the next day when Mousie
opened her eyes. She had lain sensible
of discomfort for some time before
she wholly woke, and now a sense of
movement and the gritting of wheels on a road
shook sleep finally from her. She raised herself
and looked round. She was lying in a little box-
bed, only just large enough to hold her. A rough
sheet was thrown across her of the dingiest nature,
and the muscles of her neck and shoulders ached
when she turned about. And there in the corner
of the van, lying on the floor with his head on a
bundle of clothes, lay Robin. A very old woman
sat in a chair beside him, and every now and then
45
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
she would bend down and look earnestly into his
sleeping face.
" Robin, wake up," cried Mousie ; " Robin, where
are we ? "
"Whist there, with your wake up," said the
woman in a low voice. " Be silent, will 'ee ? rousing
him from the first bit o' quiet sleep he's had the
whole night long."
She looked at Mousie long after her half-whis-
pered words were uttered, scowling from under her
shaggy brows ; and the child kept her eyes fixed on
the old woman's evil face. She had never seen so
sinister and wrinkled a countenance — it held her
spell-bound ; she dared not so much as move in her
box-bed. Slowly the van ground along the flinty
roads, sometimes lurching this way and that, some-
times almost overturning in the stony inequalities.
The old hag moved about, but was never far from
Robin, bathing his temples with a moistened rag,
or forcing the pale lips asunder, and giving him
a spoonful of brown liquid. Then Mousie saw
that Robin moved languidly, and every now and
then opened his eyes. That he should be awake
and not seek her seemed strange, but so long as
the old hag watched over them, she dared say
nothing.
46
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Then the van stopped, and the door was thrown
roughly open. The old woman climbed down the
steps into the fresh air.
" Now then, get up, and let's see what you're
good for," she said crossly, as she looked back
threateningly at Mousie, and disappeared. The
child rose from her box-bed and followed.
The delight was great to feel the warm clear
sunlight round her, as she stepped out on to the
soft grass. They were in a wide track with ragged
thorn hedges, and two or three gipsies were un-
harnessing the horses. Freedom, the girl who had
swooned in the wood, was building a fire with sticks
and great branches. Mousie ran eagerly towards
her, but to her surprise Freedom seemed hardly to
recognise her, and Mousie shrank back before the
strange void of her face. It was as if she moved in
her sleep, barely conscious of her surroundings.
The gang consisted of seven gipses, three men
and three women, and a boy. There was Bill and
Mr. Petulengro, a shrivelled old man, whose grey
hair toned ill with the deep brown of his com-
plexion. There was a younger man than Bill,
whom they called Farrer, and the boy Abel. The
other woman, Maria, had a baby in the shawl at
her back.
47
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Soon the men had picketed out the ponies, and
gone their various ways, leaving Freedom, the old
grandmother, and Maria, in charge of the encamp-
ment on the Down.
Mousie was made to do the old Grannie's behests.
She had to clean the utensils, see to the fire, haul
out the murky rags that made their tents, and
generally fetch and carry. She got more scoldings
in half-an-hour than she had in a month at her own
home, and there was no time to look peaky over it.
"Just 'ee set that sack down where 'ee took un
from, and come 'ee here, and peel these potatoes,
and if 'ee cut deeper than the rind, I tell 'ee I'll
cut into 'ee ! Oho, my sweet pigeon, and it's fine
ladies we are, and the likes as I never see ; and when
you've done the potatoes do 'ee cut up that hill in
double-quick time and bring me back some tent-
pins, and if 'ee gather crooked ones, I'll prick yer
skin with them, I promise ye — I'll prick yer pretty
skin for 'ee ! I'll prick yer skin ! "
She leered, and scowled, and coughed, and spat,
while she shambled about talking, sometimes pinch-
ing Mousie's cheek with her clawlike hand, or
raising her skinny arm as if to strike her. It was
a new experience for Mousie, and had she been
given less to do, would have frightened her severely.
48
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
As it was she just obeyed, and dared not question,
far less object or make delay. Meanwhile Maria
sat on the steps of the van, crooning over her baby.
And the words of her song were these : —
" Holly stands within the hall, faire to behold ;
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a-cold.
Holly and his merry men they dancen and they sing ;
Ivy and her maidens, they weepen and they wring.
Ivy hath a smooth leaf, she wraps it like a cloak
Round about the ash-tree, round about the oak.
Holly hath his berries as red as any rose.
The foresters, the hunters, they keep them fro' the does.
Ivy hath her berries as black as any sloe.
For wayfarers a bitter wine as any they may know.
Holly hath his birds, a full faire flocke —
The nightingale, the perpinguy, the gentle laverocke.
And Ivy, good Ivy, what birds hast thou ?
None but the howlet that crieth Whoo, whoo."
Mousie heard these words as she peeled the
potatoes, and liked the list of the birds' na'mes.
She didn't know, however, that she was listening
to a song hundreds of years old, a song that has
been sung by voices long since dead and silent. Yet
49 »
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
there was the holly-tree in the hedge, as lusty as
ever, his strong spiny leaves giving back the sun-
shine, each one a polished green. And below at his
feet, creeping through a wattle and wrapping an old
ash pollard, was the insidious ivy.
" Ivy and her maidens, they weepen and they wring."
There are some characters like Ivy, gentle and
clinging, yet as terribly strong. They cannot stand
alone, others must support them — yes, till the weight
kills. And Ivy, the dependent, takes this service.
At first tentatively, even timidly — one tender little
trail innocently feeling its way up the great stem ;
no one would think there is any mischief here.
But Ivy must know while she weaves her mats and
meshes, that she kills to live. For all the fruit she
bears is bitter.
Throughout that day Robin lay sick and ailing
in the gipsy's van, and when Freedom came back
from a long errand, she climbed into the van and
stayed there, speaking to no one.
Towards evening the men returned, and old
Granny prepared the dinner. Mousie liked the
tripod with the heavy kettle hanging from it, and
the smell of the burning wood. Then Freedom
stepped out again carrying Robin in her strong
5°
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
arms, and brought him to the camp fire. But
when Mousie looked at him she cried out, for he
was as brown as a nut all over. His little face and
neck, and his hands and arms, and his feet and legs,
all stained with walnut juice, and his curls cropped
like a convict. This was Freedom's doing, and
Mousie's heart sank when she realised it, for she
had silently counted on Freedom as their friend.
How should they ever get home again if Freedom
wanted to hide and disguise them ?
However, as the days went on, the children learnt
to look on her once more as in some sort an ally,
partly because she got almost as many harsh words
as they, partly, because when no one was looking,
she would do them a kindness if she could.
And so the hard days passed over, full of work
and blows, and chidings ; ugly with the sound of
oaths, and rough voices, and coarse food.
CHAPTER VII
/ love to rise on a Summer morn
When birds sing on every tree.
The distant huntsman winds his horn^
And the skylarks sing with me.
0, what sweet company !
W. BLAKE.
NE day the children went on a long
expedition with Freedom. It was to
a neighbouring race meeting. They
started in the early morning, and it
was a treat to them to escape for once the morn-
ing maledictions of Granny Petulengro, and the
rough service of the camp. Freedom liked to have
them with her, and it was the one day in all their
long adventure that the children looked back on
with delight.
It was nice to be with some one who was not
always rating, and Freedom was a good companion
for a walk. She stepped free and lightly, a slim
brown hand always ready to help any one over
5*
THE CHILDREN AND THE, PICTURES
hedges or ditches, and, once away from the camp,
the lines about her mouth fell into peace and
happiness ; and she would sing now and again —
"Full many a night in the clear moonlight
Have I wandered by valley and Down,
Where the owls fly low, and hoot as they go,
The white-winged owl, and the brown.
For it's up and away, e'er the dawn of the day,
Where the glowworm shines in the grasses,
And the dusk lies cool on the reed-set pool,
And the night wind passes."
She showed them how to gather the gipsies' tent-
pins, which are the thorns that grow on the sloe
bushes. And she picked the thyme, that grew in
scented cushions on the turf, to make tea from it
later in the day. She saw squirrels before they did,
and beetles whose noses bleed a bright ruby drop
when you touch them — not because you've touched
them too hard, but because that is their weapon
of defence when in danger, and they do it to
frighten you away.
And she showed them the larder of a butcher-
bird, the bird who impales the things he is going
to eat on the sharp points of thorns. Beetles and
nestlings, and shrew-mice, and it's interesting to
53
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
find a strike's larder, because it's not a thing you
very often see.
And so on through the lovely day in September
they walked on, or sang, or rested, or lay quite
flat, and looked up through clinched eyelids to see
who could best bear the light of the wide blue sky.
When they arrived at the race meeting, Freedom
caught back her hair under a yellow kerchief, which
she tied round her head, and the real fun of the
day was over, for the children found themselves
once more in a crowd. Freedom kept them closely
with her, so that they might not get lost, and they
were interested in listening to her telling people's
fortunes. Have you ever heard a gipsy tell a
fortune? It is something like this. You must
imagine a very rapid utterance, and a face thrust
forward. An almost closed lid, veiling a very sharp
eye, the face set sideways looking upwards, and a
wheedling tone of voice.
"Shall I tell the pretty lady's fortune? Bless
her pretty heart, just cross the gipsy's palm with
a silver coin, my dear, and let the gipsy tell the
fortune of the pretty lady, so her fate shan't
cross her wishes, but everything come true just as
the lady (bless her pretty heart !) will be joyful
and thankful for the good fortune to be. And
54
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
remember the poor gipsy girl when she gives her
hand into the hand of her true lover, the sweet-
heart who has vowed to be true. It's just a coin
that does it, thank you, my lovely lady, cross the
gipsy's palm with a silver coin, and the good luck
will follow it. ... Thank you, my dear, thank
you, place your hand on mine and let the lines
tell the gipsy girl what never a print book can't
reveal, but only the stars as does it ; yes, my dear ;
there's a ship coming, a long journey, I see a
distant land, but there's happiness in store for
those as believe it, though for those as sets their
hearts agen' it, it may be far from otherwise.
"I see a beautiful young man, a bee-utiful young
man, O, but the strength of him, hasn't he got an
eye like a hawk, and a chin to him ? There'll be
never no turning him from the pretty lady as he
loves, not though others may say whatsoever they
likes, but he'll come straight as a beam of the
morning, though I see a dark lady and two enemies
what will do what they can, but don't you believe
'em, my dear, never you believe the written words
of crooked tongues, but you trust the gipsy girl,
my dear, and she sees troth plighted, and love
united, and a golden blessing, brighter than the
stars ; and a clergyman standin' by and all.
55
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Now, there's a letter to you coming, my dear,
but don't take nothing written on a Thursday, for
the dark lady's in it, and you must turn from your
enemies if you trust the poor gipsy girl, for you're
one of those as may be led but can't be druv, not
though they stand never so. But three moons
must shine before you hear what the gipsy girl
sees in your pretty hand, but just cross the palm
with another bit o' silver, my dear, because then
she can do it better with the cards, my dear, and
bring the good fortune that tarries. Bless your
heart, and thank you, my dear, and may you never
go sorrowful, but find the lucky shoe-leather that'll
take you where you will."
And so it goes on. The wheedling voice, the
cringing manner, the crazy medley of sound and
sense, with here and there a pretty phrase that is
the garbled garrulity of the gipsy.
Perhaps it was this that made the children
glad when the hours spent among the crowd were
over. It was not pleasant to see Freedom change
herself into this semblance of one of the most
artful of her thieving tribe. But we know that
she was bound over by the masterful nature of
Bill, under whose tyranny she suffered, belieing
indeed her beautiful name. While she belonged
56
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
to the camp she had to work for it, and to-day
had she returned from the race meeting without
any money, Bill would have been furiously enraged.
She looked back to the days when Jasper had
been one of the camp — Jasper who had broken
away and had begged her to go with him. But a
foolish waywardness had turned her to the stronger
mastery of Bill. She had not seen or exchanged
words with Jasper since then, with the exception of
the written message sent by the children on the
evening of the fire and the fair. But all this time
she had been growing fonder of the children, and
there was a plan for their release maturing in her
mind.
She knew that Bill was making for a wide
common in the county of Norfolk, called Mouse-
hold Heath. You may see the place in the picture,
by Cotman, over the drawing-room mantelpiece.
And if you look into it you will see it is an open
common with several windmills, eight sheep, some
poplars, and a white donkey, and a road of a warm
red, that goes up the hill with a sudden jag in it,
towards a row of cottages set on the crest of
the hill.
It took the gipsies some time to reach this place.
They had loitered, and lingered, and trespassed, and
57
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
poached their way through four counties, only the
poorer by the boy's coat, which had been left in
a farmer's hands one night while its owner was
stealing hens.
Both children were stained brown, and clad
roughly, in old unsavoury garments, and nearly all
their high spirits and gaiety cuffed out of them by
the old crone. We will not dwell on this part of
the story, for at last there came a break in their
dark sky.
Mousie woke one night to find Freedom bending
over her, whispering.
" Listen, dear ; it's Freedom talking. Don't
answer now, but just move your hand if you
understand. We mustn't wake Granny, and old
Petulengro is close outside. When you go with
Robin to-morrow to fetch the water, leave the
pitcher and make straight for the mill. You'll
see it standing high above ye, and never stop
running till you reach the lintel, and there knock,
and say ye come from me. I've told Robin ; do ye
understand me ? Once in the mill, we'll get ye
home."
The words seemed to dance and sing in
Mousie's ears. " Once in the mill, we'll get
ye home." She saw them gold and shining
58
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
before her, and " O Freedom, dear," she said,
"O Freedom!"
But Freedom had stepped out again beneath the
stars. Only old Granny snored and grunted, in her
corner of the van.
59
CHAPTER VIII
Anything is worth what it costs ; if it be only as a
schooling in resolution^ energy, and devotedness ; regrets
are the sole admission of a fruitless business ; they show
the bad tree. — G. MEREDITH.
|HAT day could not dawn too early
for Mousie. She lay, after Freedom's
whisper had ceased, staring upon the
darkness with wide lids. Her stay
among the gipsies had deepened her nature in
some measure. Before this the course of her being
had been like that of a little burn, full of kinks
and babblings, frothing round some obstructing
but tiny stone, now conveying a straw as im-
portantly as it had been a three-decker, now
leaping in the sunshine doing nothing at all. But
she had moments now of much thinking, and had
gained some of that self-control, that comes to
those who have faced the realities of life.
Soon the camp was stirring, and she rose from
60
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
her box-bed. She saw a look in Robin's face
that had not been there yesterday, and her heart
gave a great throb.
" Where are the childer ? " screamed the old
Granny, who was always at her Grossest in the
morning, spoiling the shining hours with her
rasping old tongue.
"Where be the childer? Off with yer ! off
with yer, I tell 'ee ; and if 'ee don't fetch the
water in double-quick time, it's Granny Petu-
lengro that 'ull know it, and make you know it,
ye lazy, loitering varmints, yer good-for-nothing
brats ! Now then get off wid 'ee, I tell 'ee ; get
off wid 'ee, ye brazen everlastin' nuisance. I'll
come after ye, I will ! " She stood and shook
her fist, muttering angrily.
Robin and Mousie took up the pitcher and ran
swiftly. They climbed over the little fence and
bent their steps towards the brook, then hardly
exchanging a word between them, they set the
pitcher down, and crossing to the other bank,
they sped up the rough hillside. How far off
the hill looked — it seemed to recede before them.
They ran and ran, till at last they had to slacken
their pace, but now the mill seemed nearer. O,
how thankful they were when they came up to
61
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
it, and heard the clank and lumber of the great
sails going round in the fresh wind.
They flung themselves against the door that was
to shelter them ; they battered in their eager-
ness. And then the door opened, and Jasper Ford
appeared. He drew them in with kind broad
hands, that seemed full of pity and protection,
and Mousie fell sobbing against his shoulder.
The mill seemed full of people, about six pairs
of eyes were looking on, expressing various degrees
of sympathy.
Mousie and Robin were given something to
eat, but every footstep outside was a terror.
Then Jasper told them what was about to hap-
pen, that Freedom and he together had planned
their escape. There was to be no time lost in
getting the stain off, the hour of their departure
was close at hand. Only Jasper required one
thing of them — implicit obedience ; and they were
to trust him through all. Even if it seemed
sometimes long, and as if he'd forgotten them,
they must still trust him, and wherever and how-
ever they found themselves, they were to wait
patiently and still.
Of course both children said " Yes," and Mousie
hugged Jasper, and thought how good his mealy
62
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
coat smelt, and said " yes " a hundred times
more.
And then Jasper took out two sacks and tied
the children up in them, and in half-an-hour's
time they were placed with about twenty other
sacks in a long waggon, that came to the mill.
So once more they were upon the road driving.
And Mousie and Robin spent the next hours
learning to weave that garment of the soul called
Patience, that hardly any children, and very few
people, know anything about.
In the afternoon of that same day they reached
Downham Market, and here Jasper was to deposit
his empty sacks and return next day with them
replenished, to Mousehold Mill. But in the mean-
time he must find a sure retreat for the lost pair,
for it was thought Bill would come seeking them ;
but if once beyond a certain point, they might
consider themselves safe.
Jasper's first duty was to go to the Inn, where
they kept post-chaises, and hire a messenger
mounted on horseback, to take a note. He had
money for this — the good people at Mousehold
Mill had provided it when he told them the
case. This mounted messenger was to ride
straight to the town of Woodstock, taking with
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
him a small packet, neatly sewn in canvas to be
safe. This parcel contained Mousie's head ker-
chief, and one of Robin's little shoes — two things
that had been stored away by Freedom all this
time. On a slip of paper were written the words : —
" That which was lost is found.
Apply to Master Larkynge,
The Wheatsheaf, Ely."
When the messenger had mounted his grey,
and was well upon the road, Jasper had a diffi-
cult matter to settle. He had to decide the
means to get them farther on their way towards
Ely, for he himself had to return in the early
morning to Mousehold Heath. And to do this
he decided to hire a cart and drive them far on
into the night, till he reached a turnpike cottage.
Here an old hunchback lived to whom he had
shown kindness. This turnpike cottage was on
the public road, and the carriers' carts passed
it. He intended hiding the children with the
hunchback, and commissioning him to put them
into the carrier's van on the morrow, with the
message that they were to be left at Master
Larkynge, till called for, at the " Wheatsheaf
Inn."
64
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
It was a lovely September night when Jasper
drove the children from Downham Market in the
hired gig. The moon rose large and full above
them, but Mousie didn't see it, for she was sound
asleep at Jasper's feet on a warm sheepskin.
Robin sat beside Jasper and counted the glow-
worms till his eyelids began to droop.
And as they drove along the silver'd highway,
the gorse bushes black against the grey Down, and
the woods lying like great dark mantles thrown
across the wold, Jasper sang. Surely a stanza of
Freedom's song, Robin thought. And the words
of his song were these : —
" Full many a day, have I found my way,
Where the long road winds round the hill.
Where the wind blows free, on a Juniper lea,
To the tune, and the clank of a mill.
For the miller's a man who must work while he can,
With the rye, and the barley growing,
While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn,
To the fresh wind blowing."
At last they arrived at the turnpike cottage.
The steam from the heated horse rose in clouds
upon the night air, and the cart moved to his
flanks heaving.
65
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Jasper roused Mousie, and the door opened to
his knock. A little bent old man with a great
hunch on his back appeared with a lantern, a
lantern that served more to blind every one than
to help them to see, as he held it up inquiringly
into their faces, narrowing his own eyes, to make
out what manner of folk these were. Then Jasper
carried the children in, dazed and sleepy, to the
tiny room. And soon they were sound asleep in
a bed in a corner of the cottage, for there was
no upstairs whatever.
Mousie woke just enough to feel happy all over,
with the comfortable knowledge that Jasper had
really come and taken them away. So thankful
did she feel that she tried with drowsy nodding
head, not to forget her prayers.
" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless this bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels at my head,
One to watch, one to pray,
And two to bear all fears away."
And they blest it, for she slept profoundly. She
dreamed she was playing with a white kid, on
the lawn at Blenheim.
And it was daylight when she woke.
66
CHAPTER IX
There is no private house in which people can enjoy them-
selves so welly as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so
great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever
so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should
be easy ; in the nature of things it cannot be : there must
always be some degree of care and anxiety. . . Now at
a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are
sure you are welcome ; and the more noise you make, the
more trouble you give, the more good things you call for,
the we/comer you are. . . . No, Sir, there is nothing
which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much
happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. — SAMUEL
JOHNSON.
I HE children were so glad to be free
from the arduous service of Granny
Petulengro, that all through the early
hours of the morning they were hardly
aware of the anxiety that filled the hunchback's
heart. He feared lest the gipsies should appear
before the carrier. Mousie could not restrain her
eagerness to run hither and thither, but he would
67
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
not let the children out upon the road. Once
inside the carrier's hooded van he thought they
would be safe, and though they were, properly
speaking, no concern of his, his friendship was
such for Jasper that he wished with all his heart
to serve him. And a very good heart it was
that beat within his shrunken body ; a heart that
would serve well to remind one, of the jewel
hidden in the uncouthness of the toad.
At last there sounded a distant rumbling of
wheels, and soon the hunchback was out upon
the threshold. The children were bundled into
the waggon in the sacks Jasper had brought with
him, but they were not tied up as before. The
sacks were to be secured round them only if any
of the gipsy gang appeared. And so they started
off once again upon their travels. But home was
getting nearer and nearer.
After a wonderfully slow drive with old Thorn
the carrier, who glowered out upon all wayfarers
from the shadow of the hood, they reached the
town of Ely ; and here they were taken to Master
Larkynge, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf. Thorn
had been well paid by Jasper for his share in it,
and asked no questions as to who the children
were, yet both children were glad to see the last
68
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
of him ; he had none of the hunchback's gentle-
ness, or the kindness of Jasper Ford.
There are some folk made of very common
clay, very rough pottery turned on the potter's
wheel. People who go through life, morally
shouldering their brothers out of the path, as it
suits them. Old Thorn was one of these. Every
movement of his body was one of determined
aggression. When he stepped ponderously for-
ward, his shoulders seemed to say,
" I'm coming along this way, and nobody's not
agoing to do nothin' to stop me." And when
he looked round upon his audience after he had
said anything, the lines about his mouth said,
" And now anybody wots got anythin' to say to
the contrary had better keep it to hisself, that's all."
The horses of his carrier's van seemed to
know him. They would start, lifting their heads
suddenly, to get beyond his reach. And as he
dealt largely in extraordinarily bronchial expletives,
he had not proved a very pleasant guide.
The Wheatsheaf was a different matter. Here
all was cheerfulness and order. A great fire leaped
and roared upon the hearth, piled bright with
burning wood. A high-backed settle was turned
towards the warmth, and the rosy light played
69
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
upon the red-brick floor, and the whitewash. Do
you know certain rooms that express as you enter,
" Come in, come in, and sit down and be comfort-
able." And every chair says " Welcome " to you
as you arrive ? Well, the kitchen of the Wheat-
sheaf was just such a room. And every one,
from the raven who stole the bones, to the cat
who frightened him away to eat them herself,
knew it. Prue, the daughter of Master Larkynge,
wore a white cap with a full frill to it, and an
apron with astonishingly small pockets. And
there was pewter to drink from, and there was
a humorous Ostler, and a painted sign that
creaked as it swung, showing the most prosperous
sheaf of corn ever garnered. Certainly everything
about it spelt hospitality.
In these snug and enviable surroundings, were
Robin and Mousie put to bed, in a wide four-
poster with dimity curtains, and rough white sheets,
that smelt of hay and lavender.
And because they were excited, and not very
tired, Prudence sang them to sleep. She was very
pretty, and rather sentimental, so she chose a very
sad song. But if you want children to go to
sleep, you had best not choose a song with a story
in it, because they keep awake to know what
70
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
happens. But Prue didn't know this, and being
very fond of the tune, sang it to the very end.
And the words of her song were these : —
" Cold blows the wind to-night, sweetheart ;
Cold are the drops of rain.
The very first love that ever I had
In greenwood he was slain.
I'll do as much for my true love
As ever a maiden may,
I'll sit and watch beside his grave
A twelvemonth and a day.
The twelvemonth and a day being up
The ghost began to speak :
4 Why sit you here by my graveside
From dusk till morning break ? '
* Oh think upon the garden, love,
Where you and I did walk.
The fairest flower that blossomed there
Is wilted on its stalk.'
* Why sit you there by my graveside
And will not let me sleep ?
Your salten tears they trickle down
My winding sheet to steep.'
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
' Oh think upon the spoken troth
That once to me you gave.
A kiss from off your clay-cold lips
Is all that I shall crave.'
Then through the mould he heaved his head,
And from the herbage green
There fell a frosted bramble-leaf,
It came their lips between.
* Then well for you that bramble-leaf
Between our lips was flung.
The living to the living hold,
Dead to the dead belong.' "
This is certainly a sad song, but you should know
the tune, to really feel its melancholy. It had far
from a soporific effect on Mousie and Rob.
" Did he like being there ? "
"Why did he stay?"
" What was his head like ? "
"Who flung the leaf?"
But then Mistress Larkynge looked into the room
with a flat candle in her hand, and a frilled cap like
Migg's. And she said, " Mercy on us, tell me one
thing, is it thieves ? "
And she roundly rated Prudence for keeping the
children awake, and disappeared again in a very
72
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
bad temper — her white bed-jacket was like the one
Mrs. Squeers wears — and her mouth full of anything
but thimbles.
Then at last the children, frightened lest Mrs.
Larkynge should return, lay down and really went
to sleep. And when they awoke, it was on the day
on which their parents came to the Wheatsheaf, to
fetch them.
That was a joyful day. They had had enough
of escaping. And when at last they found them-
selves once more at Blenheim, it is wonderful how
pleasant it was. Even Mrs. Goodenough's nose
seemed the right shape, and their parent's love
and protection things to be grateful for. They
were both of them in many ways the better for
their adventure ; it had brought out sound qualities
in each.
Years after, when Robin was a grown man and
Mousie a pretty lady, they went to Mousehold
Mill to revisit it. And the white donkey was
still alive, only being so much older, he carried
his head even more despondently than before.
The door was opened by Jasper, the same kind
Jasper, only a little greyer, but all the nicer for
that. And beyond by the fire stood Freedom, her
hair as black as ever it was in the earlier days.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
With the money the children's father had given
Jasper for his kindness, he had been able to set
up for himself, and eventually he had married
Freedom. Years afterwards, when the old pro-
prietor of the mill had died, Jasper had bought it,
and gone to dwell there ; for although he came of
gipsy stock, he had lost the love of wandering.
And Freedom was a happy wife, as she deserved
to be, and had many wonderfully brown babies.
Jasper would often stand at the open door in
summer time, with his hands in his pockets and
an eye on the cloud drift, and now and again as he
worked, he would sing the song Rob heard him
sing that night in the moonshine.
" For the miller's a man, who must work while he can,
With the rye and the barley growing,
While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn
To the fresh wind, blowing."
74
CHAPTER X
I HE story finished, all the children
bounded along the passage, laughing
and leaping as they ran. They
found the drawing-room lit, and a
company assembled. It took Clare's breath away,
and at first she felt excited. Then she espied Mrs.
Inchbald at the end of the long room, and ran
towards her.
Mrs. Inchbald saw her approaching, and " La,
child, what are you doing?" she said, "remember
your minuet. That is not the way to move in a
drawing-room, my dear."
But Clare didn't know a minuet. She lives, it
is to be deplored, in the day of barn-dances, kitchen
lancers, and general slouchback deportment. When
little boys walk with their hands in their pockets
(a most ungentlemanly attitude), and little girls
stand with their heads set on their shoulders as if
they were Odol bottles, poor things, and made that
way.
75
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" How well Mrs. Jordan stands," said Mrs.
Inchbald ; " look at her, my dear, and learn to
throw the small of your back in and to poise
your head."
Clare was getting good at keeping silence when
censured, so she stood still while Mrs. Inchbald
spoke. She was, moreover, immensely interested
in watching the animated groups around her ; she
saw Him as pre-occupied as possible, admiring
Lewis, the actor's, coat. Christopher was looking
at a large russet-coloured leather book spread open
before him, which Clare recognised as the port-
folio belonging to the Misses Frankland ; and as
she looked round the room, in they came, those
two pretty creatures, Amelia and Marianne. They
sat down, with Christopher between them, and
showed him their book. "Then they also live
here ? That accounts," thought Clare, " for that
dog I heard barking and whining just before I
woke up this morning."
But now the room was filling so quickly her eyes
kept falling on new old friends. One group in
particular attracted her attention ; it was so very
lively and vivid in effect. Yes, it was Barry, and
Quin, and Miss Fenton — Miss Lavinia Fenton of
the expressive hands. And towards this group
76
LEWIS, THE ACTOR.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Lewis, the actor, was striding, and Mrs. Jordan
was among them too.
Clare was glad to see Kitty Fischer. You would
hardly guess how pretty that grey dress of hers
looked among all the brighter colours there.
Lady Crosbie was talking to Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and Robert Mayne gave his arm to Miss Ridge.
She looked prettier than ever, chief of the roguish
school, and Robert Mayne looked amused and
comfortable. Her face twinkled when she spoke.
Miss Woffington's manner was decidedly crisp.
Something had gone wrong, or perhaps her bodice
was too tight ? It certainly appeared excruciating.
However that may have been she made remarks
with edges to them, and when she had spoken, her
lips went together as if they closed on a little slice
of lemon just inside.
Miss Hippesley dropped her blue scarf, and
Clare had an opportunity of showing her good
manners, returning it to her before any one had
seen it fall. For a long minute the quiet, clinched
eyes rested on hers, and Clare noticed the pretty
hands, as in the picture.
" Where did you get your honeysuckle ? " she
asked ; " I've never seen it sold in London."
" I got it from the old house in Kensington,"
77
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
said Miss Hippesley. " Come along, child, with
me. I dislike these crowded evenings, when every
one comes. I should not have accepted had I known
it was going to be so — mixed."
" O, but," said Clare, who had heard many frag-
ments of conversation, "Mrs. Inchbald says that
every one comes when they know Doctor Johnson
may be coming, no matter where the house, or
what the company."
"Doctor Johnson?" repeated Miss Hippesley.
" Ah, that is another matter ; I did not know he
was expected here to-night. Who brings him,
child ? "
"Mr. Robert Mayne knows him well, I heard
Mrs. Inchbald saying, and every one seems so glad
and happy. Do you really want to go away ? "
Miss Hippesley smiled : " I shall not stay very
long, I dare say, but, as I am here, I shall do my
best to be agreeable."
Clare was afraid she had been forward, but she
soon was reassured, for Miss Hippesley smiled on
her, as she rose. Seeking out Lady Crosbie, the
two withdrew, to a seat somewhat removed, from
the company.
CHAPTER XI
The lyfe so shorty the craft so long to /erne,
Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.
CHAUCER.
jHETHER you like it or not, depends
on what you require in a picture."
Robert Mayne was speaking to a circle
of friends. " If you like narrative in
a picture, then you will like the pictures by David
Wilkie, which tell a story, or rehearse a scene.
They have life-like imagery, and humour, and a
master's knowledge of composition, in the sense of
grouping effects. But poetry ? None. I ask for
poetry in a picture, just as I require painting in a
poem. But of narrative I desire none. Let narra-
tive be for prose."
At this there was an outcry, for Wilkie was
a great favourite with his contemporaries. And
Robert Mayne was called on to cite instances that
illustrated his contention, that poetry should be in
picture, and painting be found in verse.
79
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" I do not say there should be ; this is what I ask."
" But you must define poetry, Sir," said Miss
Ridge, " or, at least, what it means to you."
" Poetry, Madam, is the perception of what is
beautiful, not the perception of what is humorous
or sad. And I find this poetry in the pictures by
Cotman, because he shows the wide sky, and the
warm red earth, and poplars topping the horizon.
The limbs of trees, and the flight of clouds, and
quiet field labour. Such pictures give a * temperate
show of objects that endure.' And this must
please those who seek the perception of the
beautiful. Can you compare such a picture to
one that shows a village tavern, a debtor's prison,
or an errand-boy ? Equally true, you may reason.
It may be. But beautiful — no.
" Look at the pictures by Bonington ; cannot you
see the sands glisten, and hear the waves ? And the
fishwife who is walking there, do we not know that
as she steps the sands press white beneath her, to
darken as the moisture re-asserts itself beneath her
footfall, by the margin of the sea ? And the sea-piece
by Turner. There is the sting of the brine in it,
the very sound of the wind in the rigging. And
the picture by Constable. Isn't Fuseli right when he
exclaims, 'Come, Met me fetch my umbrella; I'm
80
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
off to see the Constables/ for isn't the rain just
about to be freed from that sagging cloud, that has
those planes of blue behind it ?
"And then the pictures by De Wint and Turner.
So huge in design, so simple in mass, yet if one
looks into them, one finds sheep, and cows, and tiny
horses in the distance, towing barges along canals.
And in some corner of foreground, deep woods, and
white doves, simply swinging through the air. Or,
perhaps, a man on a horse riding up a lawn, with
greyhounds at his heels, or tall foxgloves in deep
shadow. Then in Turner's pictures, his Venice
scenes ; small figures getting into barges — just a dab
of the brush, and a dot of pink for the head — and all
the vast canal with the sun dipping into it. And
towering ships, away in the haze.
" Or, again, early morning, and a fisherman putting
out on a lake to fish. The sun is just getting up
over the hills, where you know the deer are feeding,
and everything is grey, and drowsy with dew. The
men are so quiet, you can hear the dip of an oar,
a murmur of voices, perhaps the clank of a can
at the bottom of the boat, or a chain running out.
Only these men are about, and a coot or two.
The cottages on the hill are still asleep ; they have
all the quietness of early morning. And these men,
81 F
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
they are two dots of black paint ! These are the
pictures with poetry in them. Yes, these — and
one other."
" Which is that ? " asked Miss Ridge, listening
prettily, but with her charming eyes roving the
room.
" It is a picture by a man named Watts, after our
time, doubtless," said Robert Mayne ; " it has its
place here on these walls. It shows the descent of
Diana to the sleeping Endymion. The lovely form
conveys the arch of the crescent, the silver moon,
and the brown earth."
It is true Miss Ridge was interested ; she was
a woman who might coo soft, understanding little
noises about a picture, but all the time be arranging
her hair by the reflection in its glass. So Robert
Mayne's conversation was not altogether understood
by her. Yet in herself, she was so entirely satis-
factory, there was no immediate need for her to be
anything else.
" It is for homely features to keep home ;
They have their name thence, coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain have leave to ply
The sampler, and to tease the housewife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
Jvove-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn ? "
MISS RIDGE.
Reynolds.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
But now there was a stir and a re-grouping at the
far end of the room, and Clare saw a remarkable
figure enter. It was that of an elderly man of
great bulk, but the character of whose head and
countenance was such, as to make you oblivious of
his corpulence. He wore a brown suit of clothes
and black worsted stockings, ill drawn up, and an
unpowdered wig, slightly too small for him. You
must ask your Mother to take you to see his
picture in the National Portrait Gallery ; it gives
the forceful expression so well. This person was
none other than Doctor Johnson, who made the
Dictionary, wrote the "Lives of the Poets," and
" Rasselas," famous in his own day, and ours, for
the extraordinary power and precision of his speech.
He was followed by a gentleman to whom we
owe a great debt of gratitude, for he kept a faithful,
and painstaking diary, in which he recorded the
sayings of Doctor Johnson. And this is one of
the books you will learn to treasure when you are
older, nor find its six volumes a word too long.
This man's name was James Boswell, of Auchinlech.
The entry of the distinguished guest caused a
general rearrangement ; the company fell into new
groups and knots of talkers, just as the kaleido-
scope will scatter its fragments, to re-form into
83
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
some fresh design. Mr. Mayne walked forward
to receive him, for the Doctor was here at his
invitation, and then Clare saw Sir Joshua Reynolds
in his wake. The actors and actresses closed round
Doctor Johnson, for he was a great favourite with
them, often frequenting the Green Room, being
very easy and facetious, in their company. So for
a time the ungainly figure, moving with a constant
roll of the head, was hid from Clare's view ; but
she heard his voice uttering characteristic phrases of
astonishing finality. When he spoke, you wondered
if there could be anything more to be said on that
subject, ever again, by anybody. There dwelt the
apotheosis of the pfinkt finale in his speech. Oliver
Goldsmith said of him, "It is ill arguing with
Doctor Johnson ; though you may be in the right,
he worsts you. If his pistol misses fire, he clubs
his opponent over the head with the butt-end of it."
Here are only some of his many utterances re-
corded for us by Boswell. I will tell you a few.
His profound reverence for the hierarchy made
him expect from Bishops the highest degree of
decorum. He was offended even at their going to
restaurants, or taverns, as they were then called.
" A Bishop, Sir, has nothing to do at a tippling-
house. It is not, indeed, immoral in him to go to
84
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
Reynolds
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
a tavern, neither would it be immoral in him to
whip a top in Grosvenor Square."
Mrs. Thrale, a friend of his, once gave high
praise to an acquaintance.
"Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr.
Long's character is very short. He is a man
of genteel appearance. He fills a chair. That
is all."
He was chilled by wordy enthusiasm. He knew
it to be possible to blast by praise.
" Where there is exaggerated praise every one is
set against the character."
This, I think, would fit some of the exponents of
the gushing speech of our modern social day.
" Sir, these are enthusiasts, by rule."
Yet, very near the time of his decease, how
humbly did this great man receive the diffident
expression of regard from some person unknown to
him, in which he found the sincerity he prized.
"Sir, the applause of a single human being is of
great consequence."
" Depend upon it," said he on one occasion, " if
a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in
them that is not disagreeable to him. Where there
is pure misery, there is no recourse to the mention
of it."
85
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
He must have loved folk of simple bearing :
" Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no burst
of admiration on trivial occasions. He never em-
braces you with an over-acted cordiality."
Once, on hearing it observed of one of their
friends that he was awkward at counting money,
" Why, Sir," he said, " I am likewise awkward at
counting money ; but then, Sir, the reason is plain :
I have had very little money to count."
Though he used to censure carelessness very
strongly, he once owned to Boswell that, just to
avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, he
had hid them so well that he had never found them
since.
Talking of Gray's Odes, which he did not
care for, he said, " They are forced plants, raised
in a hot-bed ; they are but cucumbers, after all."
A gentleman present, unluckily for himself said,
" Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been
better things than odes."
" Yes, Sir," said Johnson, " for a hog."
Once Johnson was in company with several
clergymen, who, starting a war of wits, carried the
conversation to an excess of conviviality. Johnson,
whom they thought to entertain, sat moodily silent.
Then bending to a friend, he said, by no means
86
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
in a whisper : " This merriment of parsons is mighty
offensive."
Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity of
moral conduct, he said : " Men of harder minds
than ours will do many things from which you
and I would shrink. Yet, Sir, they will perhaps
do more good in life than we. But let us help
one another."
Clare's eyes were now attracted to the animated
group of players, at the far end of the room.
Barry, the actor, was standing in a fine attitude,
dressed in his brown velvet suit. The calves of
his legs were resplendent in silk stockings, and
he was repeating lines from the part of Romeo
to his listening friends. Now and again a little
ripple of applause rose and spread among the
group, but the gentlemen did not seem so en-
thusiastic as the ladies. Old Quin was distinctly
adverse, and sat, with quite three dissenting chins,
rolling his eyes in a ferocious manner. There
sat Fielding, the writer. Clare had often heard
her Mother read his name aloud from the frame, and
say how much she liked the shape of his nose. So
she looked at this feature particularly. It was cer-
tainly a very long nose, and aquiline ; what physiog-
nomy books speak of as the " cogitative nose."
8?
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Some day I shall read ' Tom Jones,' " said
Clare to herself, " and I expect I shall like it as
much as Mother does. But I shall read it in
comfortable print, not in the edition that makes
one say fowls for souls all through. O, there's
Miss Ridge. / see her." She threaded her way
in and out of the company till she came to that
bird-like person, Miss Ridge. She had the pale
ribbon in her fawn-coloured hair, and the little
shadows round her nose and the corners of her
mouth, were just as exquisite in real life, as in
the picture.
" Ring-a-ring a-roses
A pocket full of posies,"
she was saying, holding Christopher and Bim by
the hands. But Bim thought this childish, and
asked her if she couldn't sing " Bonnie Dundee."
" Sing * Bonnie Dundee ' ? I should think so ; I
can sing twenty c Bonnie Dundees.' But what's
this caravan expedition on which you say you
are going with your Mother ? I'll tell you ! we'll
go for a walk one morning. I'll take you to
the Lock on the Stour, and we'll have a pocket-
lunch on the bit of green field where the big
burdock-leaves grow. We'll watch the boy
88
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
opening the lock, and we'll go and see Dedham
Church, and pay a visit at the cottage, for I
know the people, and you'll be able to climb
into the large pollards."
"O, that would be lovely," cried the children.
They are not the sort of children who look you
up and down, when you suggest a plan, but they
are down your throat in a minute, so to say,
and you are lucky if you can finish your
sentence.
"Oh, yes." "When?" "Let's do it to-
morrow!" "Can I take Pont?" "We'll bathe,
won't we?" "Oh come and sit down." "What
are the people called who live in the cottage?"
and so on, and so on — you can imagine it.
But Miss Ridge reverted to the caravan.
"Well, we're going to start about the I5th
of April," said Bim in reply, " and Mummie
and Clare are going to cook, and Christopher
and I shall be armed, of course — two petronels, a
pocket-knife, a musket, and bows and arrows."
" I'll come too," said Miss Ridge. " I could
sweep the van out. I shall be in nobody's way,
and whenever your Mother comes round the
corner, I'll jump into the nosebag."
But now there was a general movement towards
89
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the door, and from among many people across
the room, Mrs. Inchbald beckoned.
" You must go across to the schoolroom," she
said, "the others have been in bed sometime
now."
Just at that moment a vision of Lady Crosbie
flitted across the open doorway, the very incarna-
tion of flying movement, and grace.
But Mrs. Inchbald looked only one word, and
that was " bed." It was written all over her face,
and up and down it, and Clare knew quite well
there was to be no story that night, and certainly
no reprieve.
"You shall hear it to-morrow evening when
we have a quiet time to ourselves," said Mrs.
Inchbald. And she bundled them all three, through
the swing-doors, and up the stairs, and into their
rooms, in a moment.
Clare crept into her bed ; she felt tired all over.
Passing before her eyes in charm and beauty, she
saw again in recollection, Miss Hippesley, Mrs.
Billington, Lady Crosbie, and Miss Ridge. Barry
strutted before her, chatting in brisk self-satisfac-
tion, and once more Miss Lavinia Fenton raised
her hands and eyes.
"I wonder why Peg Woffington said Doctor
90
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Johnson had snuff on his shirt-front," she said
to herself, sleepily, " and that his linen wasn't "
But she didn't finish the sentence even to her-
self. She knew it was but a poor mind that
dwells upon the weaknesses of great men.
CHAPTER XII
/ saw these glassy messengers of pain
Drench her cheeks damask in a watery rout,
Of salty rush and follow.
Till one,
A Laggard in its sorry chase
Gathered more slowly on the chin's pale curve
Where it hung trembling^ in a globy dance
Its little weight, its anchor.
DREAM LINES.
)WO or three days passed over without
the children seeing anything' more of
the life of the pictures. They had
gone to bed that night after the
party, with the promise of a story held out to
them, to soften the pang. Yet morning came after
morning, and always found them with the usual
everyday life. Lessons through the day, walks,
and readings aloud in the evenings, and nothing
more to reveal that hidden life. Now Clare
could almost think it had been a dream. Yet the
boys vowed it was real, and Bim had proof of it.
92
THE LESLIE BOY.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Don't you think there is a deepening of the
shadow in the face in the Raeburn in the drawing-
room ? " said the children's Father one evening.
" The Leslie boy, I mean."
" I think there is," said their Mother ; " it has
a glass. Can the dirt get in ? "
Bimbo listened, and the recollection of a fight with
Leslie, came vividly before him. Leslie had a black
eye distinctly, and Bim's fist had blacked it. So
how could there be the least doubt that the picture
people were alive ? They must just wait, they told
each other ; and so the days passed on.
One night Clare heard a sound in the passage.
It was that of a silk skirt brushing past the door-
way, whispering crisply to the stairs, as its folds
swept by. She was out after it in a moment, and
saw Miss Woffington pass through the swing-doors
on her way to the hall.
"They're about again," said Clare to herself
joyfully, and she flew to the boys' room. This
was empty, and their voices were in the hall.
" I'm not going to racket with the children," she
said, "they'll come directly they know Mrs. Inch-
bald promised stories ; but I wonder where Miss Ross
is all this time ? " As she passed the drawing-room
Clare looked in, and Miss Ross's frame was empty.
93
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Then I shall see her, and talk to her," said
Clare ; " when she speaks she may not look so
sorrowful." She ran swiftly to the far end of
the room, where already a small company had
assembled.
There she found Mrs. Inchbald, Marianne and
Amelia, Miss Ross and all the children, and Miss
Ridge.
"Just the right people," she thought, as she sat
down among them. " Lady Crosbie is too busy, and
has too wide an acquaintance, and Mrs. Jordan is
too airified, and Miss Fisher might have other things
to do. These are the ones who are just right, and
look as if they could tell stories if they chose."
But a good deal of time is lost in real life in
unnecessary conversation ; so we'll learn by that, and
not lose any more here. I'll just go straight on to
Mrs. Inchbald's story, as she told it that afternoon.
The Story of Mother Midnight^ or the
Witch of Wend les tone.
"The scene of my narrative," commenced Mrs.
Inchbald, " lies before you, my dears. Which of
you can find me a small forest cottage, a river, a
white cow, a church, and an oak-tree ? "
94
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"1 can."
"I can."
" I know."
"There it is."
" The picture by Nasmyth," cried ten voices all
at once.
"Well, that small cottage once sheltered the
unhappy head of the unfortunate subject of my
tale. Unfortunate, yet not so at the last. Let us
be happy in thinking, that after years of persecu-
tion and winters of privation, when the coldness of
her fellow-creatures' hearts was only equalled by
the rigour of the pitiless winter snow that threat-
ened to cover her humble lodge, let us be happy
to remember, I repeat, that this woman lived to
know the protection of a friend."
Mrs. Inchbald paused. She was fond of tell-
ing stories. It was good practice for her art.
She never gave up a life-long struggle with a
stammer, that tripped her up constantly in short
sentences, or conversational phrase. This stammer,
however, was utterly routed by her fine-sounding
and ornate sentences of narration, which she de-
claimed in a magnificent voice : —
There was an age of superstition which blackens
history's page. During the period immediately
95
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
following the Reformation, fear of witchcraft in
England was so great, that many innocent lives were
sacrificed needlessly to assuage the malignant ignor-
ance of the time. It is true that other countries
were even more to blame than England, a greater
number of innocent people being put to death in
Germany, Italy, and France. Yet for all that, our
crimes are sufficient to make us shudder in reading
of them, and thankful that such things can never
recur.
Let us imagine that there is a village called
Wendlestone, and that it lies a distance of a mile
and a half, from a large wood. There is a common
on the confines of this wood, and here the dwellings
of squatters, as they are called, may be seen. This
means, that a man building his own hut, and
driving some humble trade, such as knife-grinder
or tin-waresman, might live here free of rent.
One of these dwellings is the little house you see
in the picture by Nasmyth, and here in the year
1545 an old woman lived. She had a tiny patch
of garden, and a donkey which she drove to market
with some small load of vegetables and eggs. Or
more often some medicines that she compounded
from herbs, with which she administered to the
ailments of the country people. She was reticent,
96
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
quiet, and of a stern cast of countenance, and
had lived here for many years. Her people had
not belonged to Wendlestone, and no one knew
her origin ; perhaps this first led people to look
on her with distrust.
She had herself put to rights the little tumble-
down house, which let the weather in when first she
appropriated it. And she had, by her industry and
thrift, managed to make a comfortable living, cutting
the rushes from the riverside, and thatching her own
roof. Often you might see her, crouched low and
bent by rheumatism, a straw hat tied beneath her
nut-cracker chin, and her red cloak battling with
the weather, while she gathered sticks from the
woodlands, or took her donkey laden to the town.
" There com' Granny Gather-stick," the children
would cry. " Some say as she d' fly by night."
And they would scamper into their cottages, and
peer back from their mothers' apron-folds.
You have only to live in a village for a year
without going away from it, to understand how
busy people can be manufacturing stories about
each other. Given plenty of time, and every one
knowing every one else, there is sufficient irre-
sponsible mischief in the average human heart to
bring about the same result as deliberate malice.
97 G
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
How many of our friends are there, I wonder,
who have not at various times given utterance to
some thorny thrust, or spiky supposition, at our
expense, loving us, nevertheless, quite warmly all
the while? It is a valuable training to be early
taught the eleventh commandment : " Thy neigh-
bour shalt thou not discuss." Detraction, defamation
and dislike may be grouped under the comfortable
word " Gossip." We often flatter ourselves it is
the human interest that we feel.
And so it came about that on Granny Gather-
stick centred the gossip of the village. She was
first looked on with suspicion, because they did not
understand her, and, with ordinary minds, to fail
to understand generally means to dislike. Passive
dislike grew to fear, and from fear of her grew
lies and wicked charges, of which the unfortunate
woman was wholly innocent.
"Whoi doan't her be satisfied wi' the ways of
other folk ? Whoi can't her be in her bed at night
time, sem as other folk, 'sted o' flitting about a'
gathering of them nesty pisonous stuffs ? d' be only
when the moon's full, that she d' stir. Noa, noa,
say I, let folk keep to folk's ways, and then there
won't be nothen' said about un. If a body come
to get the name of Mother Midnight, it's not for
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
nothen', of that you may be sure ; I don't hold
wi' such ways."
This was what was felt generally among the
village folk, and, if you come to think of it, it is
not only among the uneducated that such feeling
prevails. How seldom people are allowed in this life
to take their own way unmolested. Even children
playing together interfere, and scold, and bicker
about trifles, and family life among grown-up
people may be devastated by the same pest.
Let us early write on the tablets of our heart :
" Let others lead their own life, in their own way."
Then shall our ways be ways of pleasantness, and
all our paths be peace.
One day a little boy and girl were playing in
the woodlands, which you see painted in that picture
before you now. They were friends, not brother
and sister, and their names were Martin and Faith.
They were wood-cutter's children, and often they
played together, for their homes stood near each
other in the wood.
There was no authorised village school. You
must remember I am telling you of English village
life, some three hundred years ago. Children of
humble parents were brought up to learn to plough,
and reap, and carpenter ; they hardly ever were
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
taught to read, or write. Such as could do so
in those days were called " clerkes," and some day,
you will read a ballad that tells how Clark
Saunders loved May Margaret, and you will find
it one of the most sorrowful stories, ever written
down.
So it came about that these children spent hours
in the woodlands with the flowers, and animals, and
insects for companions. And their books were the
clouds and streams.
It was in the month of October when the acorns
lie freshly fallen. There is something arresting
about an acorn ; the form is beautiful, the texture
glossy, there is perfection in the cup, and complete-
ness in the whole. Who could pass under an oak
tree in autumn without picking up a fallen acorn,
and turning it in the hand ? Faith was threading
these, and Martin wandered into the wood. He
was away a long time, and Faith was telling herself
stories, as she loved doing when she was alone.
" Now it happened the water was very crystal-
clear at this part of the river," she was saying, " and
flowed between tall sedges, and forget-me-nots, like
angels' eyes. And the river was so clear because it
was the home of a very beautiful Water Nixie who
lived in it, and who sometimes could emerge from
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
her home, and sit in woman's form upon the bank.
She had a dark green smock upon her, the colour
of the water-weed that waves as the water wills it,
deep, deep down. And in her long wet hair were
the white flowers of the water-violet, and she held
a reed mace in her hand. Her face was very sad,
because she had lived a long life, and known so
many adventures, ever since she was a baby, which
was nearly a hundred years ago. For creatures of
the streams, and trees, live a long, long time, and
when they die they lose themselves in Nature.
That means that they are for ever clouds, or trees,
or rivers, and never have the form of men and
women again.
"All water-creatures would live, if they might
choose it, in the sea, where they are born. It is in
the sea they float hand in hand upon the crested
billows, and sink deep in the great troughs of the
strong waves, that are green as jade. They follow
the foam and lose themselves in the wide ocean —
* Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail with unshut eye,'
and they store in the Sea King's palace the golden
phosphor of the sea.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" But this Water Nixie had lost her happiness
through not being good. She had forgotten many
things that had been told her, and she had done
many things that grieved others ; she had stolen
somebody else's property — quite a large bundle
of happiness — which belonged elsewhere and not
to her. Happiness is generally made to fit the
person who owns it, just as do your shoes, or
clothes ; so when you take some one else's it's very
little good to you, for it fits badly, and you can
never forget it isn't yours.
" So what with one thing and another, this Water
Nixie had to be punished, and the Queen of the
Sea had banished her from the waves.
" The punishment that can most affect Mer-
folk is to restrict their freedom. And this is
how the Queen of the Sea punished the Nixie
of our tale.
" ' You shall dwell for a long time in little
places, where you will weary of yourself. You
will learn to know yourself so well, that every-
thing you want will seem too good for you, and
you will cease to claim it. And so, in time, you
shall get free.'
" Then the Nixie had to rise up and go away,
and be shut into the fastness of a very small
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
space, according to the words of the Queen.
And this small space was, a tear.
" At first she could hardly express her misery,
and by thinking so continually of the wideness
and the savour of the sea, she brought a dash
of the brine with her, that makes the saltness of
our tears. She became many times smaller than
her own stature, even then by standing upright
and spreading wide her arms, she touched with
her finger-tips, the walls of her tiny crystal home.
How she longed that this tear might be wept,
and the walls of her prison shattered. But the
owner of this tear was of a very proud nature,
and she was so sad that tears seemed to her, in
nowise to express her grief.
" She was a Princess who lived in a country that
was not her home. What were tears to her?
If she could have stood on the very top of the
highest hill and with both hands caught the great
winds of heaven, strong as they, and striven
with them, perhaps then she might have felt as
if she expressed all she knew. Or, if she could
have torn down the stars from the heavens, or
cast her mantle over the sun ; but tears ! would
they have helped to tell her sorrow ? You cry if
you soil your copy-book, don't you, or pinch
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
your hand ? So you may imagine the Nixie's
home was a safe one, and she turned round and
round in the captivity of that tear.
" For twenty years she dwelt in that strong
heart, till she grew to be accustomed to her cell.
At last in this wise came her release.
"An old gipsy came one morning to the castle
and begged to see the Princess. She must see
her, she cried. And the Princess came down
the steps to meet her, and the gipsy gave her a
small roll of paper in her hand. And the roll
of paper smelt like honey as she took it, and it
adhered to her palm as she opened it. There
was little sign of writing on the paper, but in
the midst of the page was a picture, small as
the picture reflected in the iris of an eye. The
picture showed a hill, with one tree on the sky-
line, and a long road wound round the hill.
" And suddenly in the Princess's memory a
voice spoke to her. Many sounds she heard,
gathered up into one great silence, like the quiet
there is in forest spaces, when it is Summer,
and the green is deep : —
* Blessed are they that have the home longing,
For they shall go home?
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Then the Princess gave the gipsy two golden pieces,
and went up to her chamber, and long that night
she sat, looking out upon the sky.
"She had no need to look at the honeyed scroll,
though she held it closely. Clearly before her did
she see that small picture ; the hill, and the tree,
and the winding road, imaged as if mirrored in
the iris of an eye. And in her memory she was
upon that road, and the hill rose beside her, and
the little tree was outlined, every twig of it, against
the sky. And as she saw all this, an overwhelm-
ing love of the place arose in her, a love of that
certain bit of country that was so sharp and
strong, that it stung and swayed her, as she
leaned on the window-sill.
"And because the love of a country is one
of the deepest loves you may feel, the band of her
control was loosened, and the tears came welling to
her eyes. Up they brimmed and over, in salty
rush and follow, dimming her eyes, magnifying
everything, speared for a moment on her eyelashes,
then shimmering to their fall. And at last came
the tear that held the disobedient Nixie.
" Splish ! it fell. And she was free.
" If you could have seen how pretty she looked
standing there about the height of a grass blade,
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
wringing out her long wet hair. Every bit of
moisture she wrung out of it, she was so glad to
be quit of that tear. Then she raised her two
arms above her in one delicious stretch, and if you
had been the size of a mustard-seed perhaps you
might have heard her laughing ; then she grew a
little, and grew and grew, till she was about the
height of a bluebell, and as slender to see.
" She stood looking at the splash on the window-
sill that had been her prison so long, and then
with three steps of her bare feet, she reached
the jessamine that was growing by the window,
and by this she swung herself to the ground.
"Away she sped over the dew-drenched meadows
till she came to the running brook, and with, all
her longing in her outstretched hands, she kneeled
down by the crooked willows among all the comfry,
and the loosestrife, and the yellow irises, and the
reeds.
" Then she slid in to the wide, cool stream."
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CHAPTER XIII
But now her nose is thin,
And it resteth on her chin
Like a staff".
And a crook is in her back,
And a melancholy crack
In her laugh.
O. WENDEL HOLMES.
.ITH had finished her story, and
looked up. It was surely some
time since Martin had moved
away? She looked round and
found she did not recognise her surroundings :
wandering along with Martin, she was accustomed
to leave the leadership to him. Now that she was
alone she had not the smallest idea which way led
to her father's cottage ; so she called Martin's
name. Out it went upon the soft September air,
the long-drawn " Martin " of her call. Then
again, and again. And at the third or fourth
time of hearing her own voice wandering far into
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the deep, still woods, Faith began to fear. To fully
realise your loneliness, if you are feeling lonely,
you have only to call aloud some familiar name
several times, and receive no reply. It is curious
how uncomfortable the silence following may grow.
Faith soon was looking over her shoulder, then
hastening her steps, stopping altogether, only to
break into a little run ; and soon her thoughts
were filled with stories of these very woods.
Wasn't it here that Dan'l Widdon, and Harry
Hawk, had been walking on their way home from
the fair, when they heard the sound of skirling
and groans ? and surely it was by this dark stream
that her old Grandmother had seen the wan face of
a drowned babe, float up beneath her pitcher, like
some pale lily, while she stooped to draw water
from the stream ? Oh, why had she let Martin
wander away ? surely it is in these thick woods
that Mother Midnight has her dwelling, she who
can change into a hare if she will, who flies out
when the wind huffles, and flaps her cloak at your
window pane ? She keeps toads in her bosom — yes,
the children say so, and she gathers sparks from her
black cat to make charms. . . . Faith's heart was
pounding in her ears, and she stood petrified, for
now a figure flitted by among the trees. There
1 08
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
was not so much as the snap of a dry twig beneath
the tread to reassure her, and it was a cloaked
figure ; yes, there it was again. A cloaked figure,
deeply hooded, leaning on a stick ; now Saints and
Martyrs preserve us ! it is the witch herself.
" Who be you, my dear ? "
It was said in a voice that had the sound of a
wicket gate with a rusty hinge to it.
" I be main glad to see but a little maid before
me — I, who have to live among the shadows, and
to hide from the light. When I heard your foot-
fall on the dead leaves I had to shrink away, for
how should I know if it might not be the per-
secutors ? but it's you that seem to be feared, my
dear, it's you that seem to be feared."
Faith was reassured, although still frightened.
" Arn't you Mother Midnight ? " she asked.
" Well, by some called Mother Midnight, it be
true. But only poor old Granny Gather-stick all
the time."
Her nose and chin almost met, and her face was
a network of tiny wrinkles. Her mouth was like
the hole to a wren's nest, except when it was
closed, and then it shut down into a straight, hard
line. Her eyes were set deep under a furrowed
brow, and her grey elf-locks blew about her.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Not a very pleasant appearance you will say ;
perhaps not, but then her voice was another
matter.
It sounded to me as though, cracked and rude,
Years had but softened, nor made it shrill,
As a time-worn flute makes the music crude,
Yet the spirit of music haunt it still.
When Faith listened to her talking, her fear
disappeared. And Granny Gather-stick liked to
talk.
" Do'ee come up here, my dear, and tell me
where ye d' live, and you can sit before my fire,"
she said.
" Is your cottage near here, then ? "
" Only a step or two across the water, but not
my own cottage, child, that you see from the road.
No, this to which I be going is just one of my
homes. For those who live in hiding must make a
shelter where they can."
" Why do you Jive in hiding ? " asked Faith.
" Because of the evil in men's hearts, my dear.
Not content with killing each other, and quarrel-
ling, and drinking, and all the many sports and
wickednesses that inflame the hearts of men, they
must even turn aside from their gay paths to hunt
no
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
a poor old woman, and to spin lies about her like
a net."
As Granny Gather-stick said these words, Faith
saw she had her hand against the bole of a tree that
grew beside a thick tangle of underwood. And
drawing a little bolt aside, a tiny door opened that
appeared like a hurdle set thick with bramble and
autumn leaves.
Faith stepped after Granny into the opening,
and found herself in the dearest little room im-
aginable. It was about the size of a large cup-
board, and the walls were hurdles with brambles
and leaves outside, but hung with rough matting
within. A hole in the roof let out the smoke of
the log fire, burning low in a heap of grey ashes
on the ground. The floor was swept clean and
bare, showing the brown earth hard and trodden,
and a log or two served for chairs ; and in the
middle was a little round table, holding a cup
and a plate. A tripod held the kettle, and on
the plate upon the table lay a great golden piece
of honeycomb, its sweetness stealing slowly from
its sides.
Faith exclaimed with pleasure and sat down upon
a log. " Granny, what a lovely little house." As
she spoke she heard Martin's voice calling her.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Nearer and nearer the sound travelled, till soon he
was by the door.
" Now call to him, my dear, and let us see if the
birds have given Granny a good hiding lesson."
" Here I am ! " called Faith.
" Where ? "
" Here ! "
"Where?"
" Find me."
Martin's steps went hither and thither through
the wood, till at last Faith opened the door, and
soon they were all three in the tiny hut with very
little room surrounding, but happy, listening to
Granny's talk. She sat at her table sorting herbs.
" Milkwort or Hedge-hyssop against the cough.
Borage brings courage for purging melancholy,
and to fortify the heart. The Plantain for its
healing juices. St. John's Wort against lightning
and evil charms. Colchicum for rheumatism, and
the like. . . . Here are Black Archangel and Key-
of-Spring, Love-in-a-tangle, and Witch's-tree ;
Grave-of-the-Sea and Golden Greeting, Lad's-love,
and Rue.
" Here be Arum roots ; I put these aside — they
be for stiffening lawn with the starch I make from
them — starch to stiffen the fine ruffs of the great
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
lords and ladies ; and the Arums themselves we call
Lords and Ladies hereabout, though some call them
Wake Robin, too.
"Hedge Woundwort or Sickleweed, or Carpenter's
Herb, that has ' All Heal ' for a name. The Iris,
called by the gipsies the Eye of Heaven, pleasant
to the skin when made into a paste, as I know
how. And here's Corn Fever-few to cool the
blood, and Rest Harrow to restore reason."
The children watched her dividing and tying
them into bunches with thread, then suspending
the fragrant sprigs against the hurdled walls to dry.
Her hands moved nimbly, and her voice sounded
pleasantly, as she murmured the names of the
flowers, while she worked.
And so it came to be a happy custom with the
children to seek her out in her cottage, or in her
wren-houses, as they came to call her little hidden
huts. And she would have a story for them.
Sometimes they were rhymed ballads, of the kind
such as Tamlane, or the Merry Goshawk, sometimes
they were the stories of her dreams.
She would say, " You midden believe all that old
Granny tells, my dear, when she tells her dreams.
Sometimes I d' think they may be what happened
to me long ago, but what can I know about it ?
"3 H
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Why, once I was given King Solomon's Seal for my
wisdom, in a dream."
" When was that ? " cried the children ; " please
tell us ! "
And in the next chapter you may read the story
in her dream.
CHAPTER XIV
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances.
Are where thy footstep gleams.
In what ethereal dances.
By what eternal streams.
E. A. POE.
DREAMED I was in a great garden
full of flowers, and beautiful trees.
The lawns were smooth, with never
a daisy to break the green of them,
and the shadows in the moonlight lay dark upon
the ground.
" For I was there at night, and there were many
others with me, dream-people, who I couldn't see.
But I knew we were all gathered together to be
put to some great test. I can see the night sky
now above me, as I saw it in my dream, with the
moon like a shining shield, and never a star.
" And the test we were put to was to count the
flowers of the Solomon's Seal.
"5
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Do you know the plant, and the beauty of it ?
The flowers hang down in little bunches from a
green stem that makes a rainbow span. I saw
the white flowers as I bent down to seek them,
and ten of them I counted as they hung there.
And all the time that I was counting, there were
small voices about me, like thin breaths of air.
" * Count us, count us,' they were saying ;
4 different and yet the same ; count us.'
" It seemed to me there might be some more
flowers hidden among the leaves. And I turned
the leaves back with my hands, seeking. I can
feel the coolness, and the firmness, of them now.
But I could find no more flowers than those ten.
Yet the thin voices were still whispering, ' Count
us, count us.'
" Then in the great clearness of the moonlight I
saw that everything in the garden had its shadow,
every flower I had counted was shadowed black
upon the ground ; and together I made twenty, and
the clamouring of the voices ceased. Then in my
dream it seemed to me the time had come when
we must answer. We must have been standing
in a long line, for I heard the voices of the many
who were there, coming nearer and nearer, like
a soft wind blowing through a wood. * Ten —
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
ten — ten — ten,' sounded the answers, and some
one who seemed to be standing at my shoulder
said 'Ten.' But when my turn came, I was filled
with the strength of a great spirit, and cried out
so that my voice filled all the hollow of the sky.
" ' Twenty, I make it ! ' I called out — ' Twenty !
for substance is shadow, and shadow is substance,
and what is — seems, and what seems — is.'
" I d' know, I'm sure, if that makes sense or not,
my dears ; but I was given Solomon's Seal for my
wisdom."
The children sat quietly while she told her story.
Even if they did not understand, they liked her
voice. The logs glowed warmly beneath the
hanging kettle, and the feather of steam would
float out, and curl upwards from the kettle's spout.
But best of all her stories they liked one that told
of a strange adventure in her dream.
"That was when I was travelling in a distant
land, my dears, when I was cast out for dead upon
the desert. But the life in my spirit was hidden
and secret, and the flame was not blown out. I
was sent on a great mission away in a foreign land ;
I had papers with me, and I knew in my dream if
I were discovered, it would be my life they would
take. Then as my dream went on, I knew I was
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
betrayed into the hands of my enemies, and on
the morrow I was to die.
" That was a great land I was in, a land of dead
races; a land of desert sand, and ruined temples,
and bright colours, and blue skies. I and many
others were to come by our deaths in a strange
fashion. It was this, look.
4iWe were all taken up to stand on the great
head of a statue. Terrible it was in its sightless
eyes, its heavy plaited hair, and its paws of a
creature. But I had no time to feel afraid, or
astonished. I was there to die. So large was this
great statue that as many as thirty people, or
more, could stand upon its head, and those who
had to die were to leap from the head, down into
the depths below. And as I stood there with the
other prisoners, I looked, and saw the people walk-
ing about in their colours, far down, like spilt
beads upon the earth. Every one that leaped from
that statue had to cry aloud some great loud cry.
And I saw them leap and fall, crushed upon the
earth beneath us.
"Then it came to the turn of two before me,
then one before me, then it was my turn to leap.
And suddenly I felt the spirit surge within me,
and I thought, * They shall see that I, at least, know
118
THE CHILDREN AJTD THE
And I seat my voice out so that my
burst with the strength of it, and I
"The air tore at my ears as I fell, and there
~i.s * rushing sound, and the sun reeled in the
sky before me, with Wood-red bars crossing the
yellow of his light. Then the ground seemed to
rise up and smite me, and I lay all braised and
broken from my fall. I felt the blood burst out
in warm gouts in breathing, and I said, "I am
broken to pieces. I am dying. Soon I shall be
dead.' And then I became aware of a voice speak-
ing to me, as if through grey clouds that were
around me. 'Lie still,' said the voice, 'and they
will think us dead like the others, and by this we
may escape; lie still.'
"I knew then I was not dead but broken, and
I dreaded moving because of the sickening sense of
the red stream that welled from my open lips.
"Only my spirit was kept from fainting by the
sound of that voice. *Iife,' it whispered; 'we
are not dead. Life.*
"And surely for hours the bodies fell from a
height around us, and I lay listening to the sound.
And when at last that sound was finished, they
brought carts to take us away. I was thrown in
119
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
among the dead bodies — taken up and thrown in,
like any refuse that must be carted away. My
dears, this happened long ago ; this happened —
God knows it was no dream. And I lay in that
earth with the dead around me, the dead already
cold. Eyes glazed and open, lay near me, and
hands with the fingers stiff upon them, thrust out
against my face. Flung in they were, these dead
bodies. Is there anything worse than to be alive
among the dead ?
" So I lay under this load of corpses, now strain-
ing my head to get a crevice to breathe through,
now striving to rid myself of some cold body
lying on my face.
" At last the carts started. Slowly they were
driven from the town. Through a long night
journey we travelled till we came to a stand. I
heard the men come round, and release the pins
that hold a cart steady, and when these were
loosened, the heap of corpses was shot out upon
the ground.
" Once more upon the earth I lay with the dead
around me, and I saw the carts making their slow
journey returning to the town. The wheels
sounded more and more distantly, till at last all
was still.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"And the sky changed from grey dusk to the
flush of dawn, then a long streak of red, and I
lay watching it. And in that dawn my companion
and I, rose up from among the dead bodies, and
took our way across the plain.
" We exchanged no words ; we had but the one
thought between us — to leave the dead, to get
away.
" And directing our steps across the open desert,
we walked silently, the sand muffling our footsteps
as we went."
121
CHAPTER XV
But I hae dreamed a weary dream
Beyond the land of Skye ;
I saw a dead man win a fight,
And I think that man was I.
OLD BALLAD.
)HE days passed happily for the children
in their almost daily companionship of
the old woman. They liked to work
for her. They would clean the cottage,
or wash the china, hanging all the cups again by
their handles on the hooks of the dresser. And you
may roam through pleasures and palaces and never,
to my mind, happen upon a prettier decoration to
the wall of a room, than cups thus suspended in a
row.
When Granny Gather-stick returned from her
expedition to the neighbouring market-town, she
would find all comfortably prepared. Her tea in
making, the table spread, a fire of logs, with
the cat purring before them, and two children glad
of her return.
122
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
After she had refreshed herself and was rested,
she told them more stories of her dreams. One
was called "The Story of the Greatest Sufferer,"
and in nearly all her dreams kings and queens
figured — she could give no reason why.
"I thought I was reading once in a book the
story of a king. The king worshipped many gods,
but in his heart he longed to know who of all his
gods was the greatest, and the worthiest of praise.
Now it happened this king had a dream, and in his
dream it was told him he should worship none
but the highest, and that he who had suffered
most was the highest, and the worthiest of praise.
And it was further told him that on the morrow all
those who had suffered would come before his
throne, and when he who had suffered most should
appear before the king, the stars would fall from
heaven in a golden rain.
" Now, my dears, it seemed to me that I ceased
reading and I lived in the story, and saw and felt
the rest. I saw a crowd assembled around an
empty space of great magnitude, and I saw the king
and his courtiers round him, robed in purple with a
golden crown. I knew we were all there to see the
Sorrowful ; and first I saw the figure of a man.
Slowly he came, and he was clad in black velvet,
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
wearing his hair long, with a pointed beard. And
all the people watched his sorrowful countenance.
' Deeply as you suffered,' my heart said within me,
' you cannot deem yourself to be the highest/
But no word was said. And while we all watched
him, he passed out of sight waveringly, as if he
were no real person in the flesh.
" Then I dreamed the heralds blew their trumpets,
and the crowd moved across the scene. This time
I saw the figure of a woman, and, dear heart, when
I looked upon her my spirit was like to faint.
" ' This is Sorrow herself,' I kept saying in my
dream. 'Yes, this must be Sorrow.' And I saw
others thought the same as I, for the crowd looked
upward. But the stars were firm, and the king
asked, ' Are there any more to appear ? '
" ' There are no more,' answered the courtiers ;
but I saw a woman approach the throne.
" * There is one more, and you must see him,' she
cried ; ' there, is one more.'
" The courtiers would have thrust her aside, but
the king said, ' Let all those appear, that have
suffered.'
" Then it seemed to me that I was looking over a
vast sight of country, a wide view, such as there is
from the Windmill Hill, at home. And there in
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the air I saw lying, and yet not falling, a naked
child.
"I knew it was Christ I was seeing — I knew it
was Christ. And while I was just standing looking,
all the stars fell from heaven in a shower of golden
rain."
There was silence, and the children watched a
bevy of sparks race up the wide chimney, the
laggards among them creeping glowingly, among
the black soot at the chimney back.
Then the old woman said : —
" That was a good dream ; but I have had others
that were not so good.'*
" Tell us ! " said the children, " tell us ! "
And the old woman began the "Story of the
Five Queens."
" There was once a king who had five queens, and
he took to himself yet another queen, and this
woman was proud and cruel. She would not brook
rivals, wishing to reign alone. So she sought
out the ancient laws of that country, among which
she knew she would find something to fit her mind.
For in these laws it had been written, that where
the king ceased to love his queens, those queens
must die.
tl And now in my dream the story grew around me,
125
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
and I lived within it, as is the custom in my dreams.
I heard and saw the people speaking and moving
of whom I tell.
" I was in a darkened chamber, silver lamps hanging
from a low ceiling, the air heavy with sweet essences,
and I was one of the queens.
" We were gathered in this room to kill ourselves,
but within my heart I knew I intended to do no
such thing. For while they pricked themselves
with a poisoned needle, I was going to pretend to
do so, and when they had died I meant to make
my escape. Determining thus, 1 had thrust my
poisoned needle deeply out of sight into the earth,
in the garden of the palace.
" Now in my dream I looked around me. There
was no sound in the room but a soft moaning, and
I saw shrouded forms lying on low couches, wrapped
round with silk.
"I lay on a great bed, and close beside me
lay the youngest queen, and I dreamed that her
name was Ayilmah. Her voice was speaking to
me very quietly, in the dusk of that darkened
room.
"' Where hast thou pricked thyself?' she was
saying.
" * In the slender part of my wrist,' I answered,
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
lyingly, and I dreamed she expressed great sorrow
at my words.
" * Oh, why hast thou done it there ? ' she cried.
' Dost thou not know that the pain will grow and
grow, till at last it will get past bearing. And
death tarries while the pain grows. Why didst thou
do it there ? Dost thou not suffer exceedingly ? '
" And I, in my dream, replied once more lyingly :
* My life is already so numb within me that I feel
no pain/ Then I thought she put her hand into
mine to comfort me, and even as her fingers closed
round mine, I felt her hand's warmth, and the
movement of it, cease. Hurriedly I slipped my
hand higher, and I found her arm was chill, and
now the rounded fingers in mine were cold like
small columns of polished jade.
" Then I knew she lay dead beside me, and suddenly
I was filled with a great awe. I started up and cried,
* Listen, I have done you a great wrong.' But
everything was very quiet. There was no answer
to my words.
" Then I knew that in that room I alone was
living, and a great horror overwhelmed me, a
great fear.
*' I moved from the couch where I was lying, my
feet caught and held, by the wrappings of the bed.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Freeing them, I crept through the warm, scented
darkness, between the couches of the queens. Very
quietly they lay there in the stillness, and the light
the silver lamps gave out through their fretted
sides, was so dim that I could barely see the heavy
curtains hiding the walls. I drew the curtains aside,
seeking an outlet, but everywhere my hands fell on
the smooth surface of the wall.
" Then I knew that what had been a chamber for
the living had been sealed into a tomb, for it had
been thought, that knowing the law, the five queens
had dealt faithfully. And with this knowledge my
life maddened within me, and I tore the curtains
down. Stumbling over the heaps of fallen draperies
I sped forward, seeking with frenzied hands. I laid
both hands flat out against the wall, passionately
seeking.
" But there was no opening, no door.
" Only the dead were free. And I, who had
planned so cunningly.
"The silver lamps moved slightly as they hung."
128
CHAPTER XVI
Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away.
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space^ decay.
But ohy the very reason why
I clasp theniy is because they die.
CORY JOHNSTONE.
| HE children only half liked these
stories of Granny's. They cared more
for her flower-lore. For while she
spoke of her more horrible dreams, she
became possessed by their spirit, and they could then
better understand her causing fear in the breasts of
others, and therefore suspicion and dislike. Best
of all, they liked to get her to sing to them. Her
voice was like the fitful pipe of the keyhole when
the wind blows through, yet all the words sounded
clearly. And the words of one of her songs were
these : —
" The holly and the ivy
Are both now fully grown,
Of all the trees in greenwood
The holly bears the crown.
129 i
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
O, the rising of the sun.
The running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the quoir.
The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily-flower ;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus
To be our Saviour.
O, the rising of the sun,
The running of the deer.
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the quoir.
The holly bears a berry,
As red as any blood ;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus
To do poor sinners good.
O, the rising of the sun.
The running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the quoir.
The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall ;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus
To redeem us all.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
O, the rising of the sun.
The running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the quoir."
You may know the tune of these words, for it is
to be found in the Carol Book. It is lovely, and
when it comes to the lines —
" O, the rising of the sun,
The running of the deer,"
there is warmth in the music, and the notes give
the sound of light feet pricking through dry leaves
of the russet floor of woodlands.
And here is another of her songs. This one she
would sing as she plied her spinning-wheel, and
the last two lines, if you notice, have a pleasant
recurrence in their sound. Something sustained
and continuous, like the whirring of a wheel : —
" Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ?
O sweet content !
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd ?
O punishment !
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers ?
O sweet content !
Work apace, apace, apace, apace ;
Honest labour bears a lovely face.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring ?
O sweet content !
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
O punishment !
Then he that happily wants burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king.
O sweet content !
Work apace, apace, apace, apace ;
Honest labour bears a lovely face."
Soon the children grew able to help in the pre-
paration of the herbs. They learned to know their
names and uses. After Granny had sorted the
sweet-smelling sprigs Faith would tie them, and
prepare them for drying or soaking in hot water, as
it might be.
" This is good for burns," the old woman would
say as she sorted them.
"And this for the palsy. But did you ever
think what a precious herb that would be, could
one but find it, that would save folk from grow-
ing old ? There are pastes and ointments against
wrinkles, there are soft washes for the skin, but
there's nothing that grows that can save the hair
turning grey at the end of a lifetime — no, nor a
flower, or herb, that can give back the, flower of
youth. And that brings to memory a strange
dream I had ; but this time it was read to me from
13*
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
a book. The words weren't mine, my dears ; and
the voice that read it to me was strange to me ;
and the book that held the story was bound in
covers of horn. There's meaning here for those
who can find it, for I've heard there are two gates
that our dreams pass through. If they pass
the Gate of Ivory, they are false dreams, but if
they pass through the Gate of Horn, they are
true.
" Now the voice that was telling me this story was
gentle, and I seemed to have been listening to it
for a long, long time.
" Once there reigned a king over a great country,
it was saying, ruler over many tribes. He had
wise councillors and many riches, but the chief of
his treasure lay in a house apart from the palace,
where he passed the choicest of his days. Here
dwelt the nymph la, by whom he set great store.
Deeply versed was she in the art of witchery, the
sound of her voice was like bells harmoniously
according, and when she danced her feet moved
like white pigeons over the floor. In this house
there was a great store of rubies, so that a man
might take them up in both hands, yet was the
casket filled. Gold was here, and ivory, chryso-
prase, jasper and chalcedony, and curious images
'33
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
from other lands. Robes of great price were here,
robes that might have been woven of the sea in
moonlight, or fashioned of the night sky, pointed
with many stars.
" And all these things the king gave willingly, for
he loved la as the light of his eyes.
" Now it chanced a great cloud hung over this
country, a cloud of adversity and evil days.
Sorrow was there in the land, for a war wasted
it, moreover a famine wrought further misery in
many homes. Only in the House of Dalliance
might the king fly the evil hour, forgetting here
the sorrow of his realm.
" One day his servants came into his presence
saying one craved audience of the king.
" ' An aged woman who promiseth a remedy is
here.'
" ' Then let her come before us,' the king made
answer.
" And there entered an old woman, at his word.
Heavily she leaned upon a stick in walking, and
the wrinkles in her face were as the ripples in
the sand, when the tide is far sped. Her eyes
were dim with the years that bowed her, and her
hair fell in meagre locks of grey.
" * Heaven save you, mother,' quoth the king,
'34
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
as she entered. * What words of wisdom find
you in your heart to-day ? '
" The old woman bent her head before him,
signing to him to send the courtiers from the
room. And when they were alone together,
' What is the need of your land, O king ? ' she
asked. ( In what measure may you stay the
evil ? '
" And the king made answer : * I had thought
thou broughtest counsel, mother, and now thou
openest thy lips but to question me. Many years
has a war vexed this country, and a famine
wasteth many homes. The treasures of State are
empty, and now I know not where to turn for
gold. Had I half the bulk of the country's
customary treasure, peradventure I might stay the
war ; but seeing this is exhausted through years
of adversity, we must bethink ourselves of other
means.'
" * Yes, verily, other means,' replied the old
woman ; ' and the wisdom that lieth nearest is
the wisdom that is overlooked. Yet do thou
listen : I have knowledge of a means by which
the evil may be stayed.'
" ' Speak, and may God enlighten thee,' said
the king.
'35
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" The old woman continued : ' Hast thou no
store of treasure in the House of Dalliance ? Shalt
thou not give this utterly to thy country's needs ? '
" The king held silence as she spake thus, mar-
velling that any one dared so venture. To live
without days in the House of Dalliance would
have been to him the wisdom of a fool, sacri-
ficing the only means of comfort, he knew for
his wearied mind.
"Well he knew the store of treasure in that
house bound the nymph to him, for light was
she as a weaver's shuttle, and her thoughts little
longer in the same place. And as he thought
thus, he became greatly wrath with the old woman,
so that he cried out, 'Who art thou, who darest
so to speak to me? Who art thou, I say?'
" And very quietly the words came in answer,
'It is the nymph la who speaks to thee — it is
la who speaks.'
"Then the king would have laughed aloud at
the old woman, but something in her countenance
held him back. For as he gazed on her he saw,
as a man may see the picture of the skies in
summer, dimmed and wrinkled in the broken sur-
face of a pool, even so in the countenance of the
old woman did the king see la's youth.
136
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" And as he gazed the truth came to him, and
he shook, as one who after long watching, sees
dawn break on a frozen sea. For he knew the
day would come when the nymph la would look
even as this old woman before him. When her
eyes, deep and fringed as the forest pools, would
be no longer bright with the splinters of stars
in them, but sunken, aye, sunken and filled with
rheum. And the sound of her voice would be
scrannel, and the swiftness of her feet fail. And
what would his treasure avail him, with the core
of his treasure gone?
"And again he thought upon his country and
the necessity that was knocking at his door. And
he beheld with the eyes of his soul, this sacrifice,
growing and shining, with the years. He saw
it take radiant form unto itself, and rising above
the fears of a little moment, he beheld it mount
gloriously to the habitations of eternity, clapping
its hands for joy.
"And as he beheld this, his heart cried out
suddenly within him, for the good that is born
in men's souls is born in pain.
" And with that cry the king stirred in his sleep
uneasily. And lo, it had been a dream.
" He was alone in his chamber in the palace, his
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
great dog slumbering by the fire, nose couched
up on slender paws.
" And the perched macaw at the king's elbow,
bowed and scrambled at its chain.
" Only the remembrance of the king's dream
stayed with him, till he loathed the tag of an
old rhyme.
" ' If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains,
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.'
"But the king, did he make common store of
his treasure, and loose his soul for ever from the
nymph ? "
'38
CHAPTER XVII
For mine enemies have constrained me, as a bird,
without cause.
THE APOCRYPHA.
)T happened one day Granny had been
longer than usual, and the children
sat waiting her return. When she
entered the cottage it was with a
hurried step and her hood drawn over her counten-
ance. She stood listening with a scared face by the
closed door, and had no word for the children. But
gradually as the afternoon wore on, and she sat at
her herb-bundles, she became quieter, and more
at rest.
" Folk'll come to me fast enough when they're
ailing," she said to Martin. " ' Have you got any-
thing to cure the dizziness ? ' they'll say. * So
soon as ever I do go to stoop down to reach any-
thing, I come up all over the hot blooms,' they'll say.
" And I always give them something to take for
it, but they won't willingly come into my cottage
for all that.
'39
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" * What do you fear ? * I say to them. * Come
inside, now, and sit down.'
" But they're off. Though they stop till they
get their medicine. Ah, I sometimes think if ever
I were overtaken by the persecutors, how many of
those I've doctored, would stand by me in my
need ? "
" Who do you mean by the persecutors ? " asked
the children.
" Why, the folk who hunt the witches, my dears,
those who, having evil in their own hearts, see it in
others. Folk who read the Scriptures only to chastise
their fellows by the twisted Word."
She turned to stir the smouldering wood, and as
she turned the children heard a distant sound. It
was a sound that grew and gathered, and was com-
posed of many cries. Granny Gather-Stick faced
the children.
"They are here, even as we speak of them —
Lord, Lord, be Thou my Friend."
A sense of fear seized the children as the confused
sounds grew louder.
Have you ever heard an angry mob? It is a
dreadful thing. There is malignant strength in
the sound, confusion, and alarm.
Nearer and nearer it came, and the old Granny
140
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
turned to the children, her eyes like coals in her
white face.
" They're upon me this time ; they can't miss me,
for the smoke is rising. I ventured it, and lit my fire,
though I knew they had been seeking me. And
now they are here."
She stood erect in her little hut, her hands clasped
upon her bosom, the dark hood fallen from her
grey hair.
"To the horse-pond with the hell-cat, to the
horse-pond! Drown her! drown her! Out upon her
for her sorcery ! Sink or swim — sink or swim ! "
The boughs cracked and rustled as the crowd
pushed on, surrounding her hiding-place, and the
wood was filled with cries. Suddenly, with a crash
the little dwelling was shattered round her, and in
an instant she was seized by rude hands. For a
moment the children saw her borne high among the
crowd, dragged, wrenched, torn, hustled, from one
grasp to another, till they could no longer bear the
sight.
" O Martin ! " cried Faith, as the crowd that had
at first swept them with it, passed beyond them and
left them by themselves. " How can we save her?"
They stood staring at one another, their eyes
wide with the anguish of their hearts.
141
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" They mustn't kill her, we must save her.
Quick, to the house of Master Coverdale."
No sooner said than done. They started running
swiftly through the forest. The dry twigs snapped
beneath them as they ran. They knew of Granny's
danger, they also knew of the one man to whom
they could go for help. If only they might not
be too late — that was the fear that winged their
footsteps.
Through the greener open spaces they went, now
threading their way through the more closely
growing trees, now creeping through the under-
growth and brushwood. Bending back the tough
boughs that laced themselves before them, and
skirting the impenetrable brakes. Sometimes the
roots of ribbed oak trees would catch their steps, or
the brambles take their garments, but they did not
stop to disentangle, or to rub their bruises. On
they ran, forcing their way impetuously, where in a
cooler moment they might have hesitated to pass.
And at last they reached the open, and saw the
gables of the Manor-house, where dwelt the man
they sought.
It stood, away in the green fields by the river,
the gables showing grey through the foliage of
the trees.
142
CHAPTER XVIII
)HE Manor-house was a small gabled
building, set deep among orchards
and lush grass. It was built of flint
and stone in chequers, and was one
of those buildings (you see them close to old mills
and barns, in the southern counties) that have a face.
Yes, a countenance bearing an expression of their
character, whereas most houses have merely out-
sides.
This house, when the moon shone on it, looked
mysterious and unreal. The windows gleamed
silver green, like old armour, dinted, and the whole
fabric appeared as though it had no true context
with the earth.
But when the day bathed it in golden sunshine,
laying the shadows of its gables sharply black
against its roof, then it appeared positively to hold
the ground it stood on, and would stand so square
at you, as to almost dominate the bright garden
that bunched it close. Its walls would give back
'43
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the sunshine in warm washes of colour, while the
pigeons crooned and sidled on the roof. The
house-martins built their mud nests against it,
more wonderful than the nests of swallows, for
they choose the sheer wall for nesting purposes,
whereas the swallows must build upon a ledge.
To and fro these house-martins would fly, weaving
a black-and-white flicker of pointed wings, with
sudden encounters, and sweet creedling beneath
the eaves. And in front of the house on the lawn
there grew a mulberry tree, with a great limb laid
down upon the ground, so that it looked as if it
felt how old it was, and liked leaning that way, to
rest.
The cows wrenched the long grass in a meadow
so close to the windows, that any one within doors
could easily see them and be rested by their move-
ments of reposeful content. Beyond this paddock
again was a church, with a roof orange with
lichen-growth, and grey walls, ivy-clad.
So now you may imagine this Manor-house and
its surroundings, and call it by any well-loved name
you like.
In this house dwelt the man the children were in
search of, a man named Miles Coverdale. He was
a doctor of learning, not of medicine, and lived a
i44
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
quiet life among his books. He it was who trans-
lated the Bible, carrying out the work that William
Tyndall began. The people loved him for his
charity and neighbourliness, and would often bring
their disputes to him, content to abide by his word.
Martin, arriving at the door, pulled with all his
might at the bell. A little rusty, buried tinkle
sounded grudgingly, far away in the old house. He
pulled again — wasn't every moment of importance ?
But the bell only gave the same inarticulate reply
as if it had just turned round to go to sleep again,
and couldn't be troubled to sound.
There are moments in life when we put forth
the strength of Thor to attain some object, and the
giant of circumstance, just as did the giant in the
Norse legend, merely says, " Was that an acorn
brushed my brow ? "
At last, however, the door opened, and a shrill
voice began to scold.
" Now then, just you step away off this thres-
hold, and don't come ringing off the roof of the
house, enough to make the rafters fall to pieces !
Any one would think the rats and mice were
enough, let alone children to make a racket. Lord
bless us and save us, and mud enough on the shoon
to muck the whole place up, let alone the door-mat
H5 K
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
and the stonen steps. Now, do'ee just go right
away with ye, and doant let me so much as see the
corner of your "
" Now, now, now," said a quiet voice behind the
shrillness of the other, " what is it, Keziah ? Your
kitchen's feeling lonely without you ; I'll attend to
this."
And the children saw the fine face, and kind
smile of Miles Coverdale, as he stood behind his
shrewish old serving-maid. Keziah turned, mut-
tering some cross apologies, and disappeared down
the stone passage, leaving, like the widening wake
of a ship in quiet waters, a trail of grumbling
talk.
But the children at once began to tell their story,
and they had come to the right house. Soon all
three were entering the village. Faith sickened
as they neared the angry sound again, and saw a
crowd by the edge of the horse-pond.
" Now we'll teach 'ee how to count the stars,
Mother ! They be all shown in the water come
nightfall, and the toads, and the loach, and the
newts can feed upon 'ee, and come by their own,"
said one voice.
"Sim as if the very water wouldn't look at her,
she be that dead heavy to bear," said another.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Who be it, then," cried a third, " as come over
Double-Dyke Farm and witched the cows dead ? "
"Who was it charmed my churn so the butter
wouldn't come ? " cried a shrill voice ; " no, not if
I turned me arms off! Ah, the nesty, spiteful
crittur, she knowed as how my daughter wasn't
near ; she thought she'd make me lose my butter."
" Sink or swim, sink or swim," cried other voices ;
" to feed the evil sperrits and the mud-worms, we
don't want no better than she."
There was a scramble, a clumsy rush forward,
and Martin saw old Granny half lifted, half
dragged, amid the tumult, her eyes closed, her
mouth set. The blood was welling out upon her
forehead, dyeing the whiteness of her hair. Never
before had he felt such sudden strength of wrath
within him. He leaped forward with a cry. But
the doctor was already speaking to them, already
the voices of the crowd were lessening ; they were
inclining to attend.
The children held their breath while they heard
his voice raised in expostulation; and soon it was
the only voice heard.
" You may not understand why I am here
speaking to you, you may think me wrong. But
1 have lived among you now for thirty years;
H7
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
and in all that time I have loved this village, and
its folk, and there is not so much as a tree that I
have not, at one time or another, blessed for the
shade it has given, or a stream that I have not
walked beside, and loved for its kindly uses and
clear way. And all through these years there
has come nothing before me of the cruelty of
human nature. Its folly I have seen, and its
sorrows, its failure to fulfil its own wayward desires,
for even in the stress of vigorous life, man does not
often rightly know what he would have. But I
have one desire now before me, and these are the
words of an old man — the words of one who says,
how shall I go down to my grave comforted if I
see this woman killed ? This woman who has dwelt
as my neighbour all these years, who has given to
such as have asked, of her store of knowledge and
wisdom. Are there not many here among you
who have known her help ? Has she not ministered
to your children? Drown her, and you are allow-
ing the very spirits you think her possessed by, to
strive and gain an evil victory in your souls. Show
mercy to her, and God Himself will be with you,
and I shall not have asked a kindness of you now,
in vain."
The village folk muttered among themselves,
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
some turning as if about to go. Others stood in
knots, appearing dissatisfied, and repeating the charge
that she was a witch. But a voice here and there
asserted itself, chiefly the voices of women, and
these spake good.
" She gave me good yerbs, when my little maid
lay dying ; ay, and I went to her — she didden come
to me."
"She never put her hand to anybody else's
business, as I know on, not unless they d' go and
ask her to. It's all sorts that go to make a world,
that's certain. She midden have our ways, and we
midden have hers, but there ! she be flesh and blood,
and I d' know as how she'd have hurt a body, not if
a body went to leave her to herself-like."
"Well, I know one thing," cried a shrill voice,
" she washed my baby what died o' the plague-spots,
yes, washed 'un and lay'd 'un out fine, when there
wasn't so much as one of ye who'd come nigh me,
and me like to die."
This woman thrust her way through the crowd ;
she was young, and her eyes were alight and eager.
She went to the prostrate figure of the old woman
lying upon the ground.
" Look up ! look up ! Granny — see the sky and
the birds ! Look up, poor soul, you midden die,
i49
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
no, no, not to-day, nor yet to-morrow ; we've got
place for more o' the likes o' you. You come round
again, poor soul, you open your eyes. Lord !
Lord ! you midden die."
She said this in a kind, comfortable murmur, her
hands laid on the old woman's brow. Now support-
ing her head, now chafing her listless hands, as she
lay where they had left her, by the water. And the
great tears of love and pity ran from her eyes,
falling on her tattered garments.
Miles Coverdale waited till the last lingerer
in that angry crowd had left the scene, and even
after they had all dispersed, he stood lost in
meditation.
" Why do the heathen so furiously rage together,
and the people imagine a vain thing ? " he murmured,
as he turned his steps towards the Manor-house.
Then the children heard the heavy oak door shut
behind him, as he disappeared from their sight.
Mrs. Inchbald ceased speaking, and there was
silence for a space. Then someone asked —
"What became of the old woman?" and some-
body else said,
" Did she die ? "
Mrs. Inchbald replied—
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"Look at the Nasmyth, and you will find the
answer there, my dears."
The children rose, and crowded round the picture,
looking at it with interested eyes. And what did
they see ?
They saw a figure in a red cloak and a yellow
kerchief, on the river-path leading to the pointed
house.
And they cried out severally —
"She's still there ! "
" She didn't die ! "
" I see her ! "
And if you look you will see they are right.
CHAPTER XIX
Bobby Shafto's gone to sea.
Silver buckles at his knee.
When he comes home he'll marry me.
Pretty Bobby Shafto.
Bobby Shafto fat and fair,
Blessings on his yellow hair,
He's my lover ever dear.
Pretty Bobby Shafto.
OLD SONG.
JNE afternoon you might have seen
Clare running downstairs swiftly, her
legs twinkling, like the water-wagtail's
as he spins over the lawn.
For news spreads quickly in a household of
children, and rumour had it that Mrs. Inchbald
was sitting in the drawing-room, and an idea of
stories was about. Clare met Bimbo here, and
Dolores there, and a little farther on she gathered
Leslie, Beppo, and Collina ; finally she swept up
Robin and Mousie and Christopher, who followed
in her wake, and together they all poured into
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the drawing-room helter-skelter, to see if this
rumour were true.
Mrs. Inchbald sat by the fire with her knitting,
and Miss Ross stood by her side. Her long black
dress fell in soft folds, and the firelight touched
and was reflected in the loose coils of her dark
hair. She looked supremely sad, as in her picture,
only the quiet movement of her eyes as she turned
towards the children, lent a greater animation to
her face.
Soon all the children were gathered round the
hearthrug chattering like pies, and loudly choosing
various stories.
" I think the Smugglers' Cave."
"No, I think Turn-Churn Willie."
" No, no, about highwaymen."
" Another witch story, please."
" No, smugglers, smugglers."
"And smugglers it shall be," interposed Mrs.
Inchbald, in a voice that allowed no arguing.
And then and there she began the following
tale : —
I must ask you, dear children, to wing your
imagination and come with me to a tawny-cliffed
village on the coast of Kent. When the tide is
far out there are miles of sand, and here when the
153
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
sun sets in November, you may see a beautiful
effect of colour. The flaming skies are duplicated
in the moistened sands, so that the whole firmament
is imaged in the earth around you.
Again, on summer evenings, these sands will
reflect the long shafts of amber light, so that the
failing day will take new life from them, seeming
to recover once again its golden morning beams.
Look at the smaller picture by Bonington, and
you will see what I mean. The sands stretch be-
yond you inimitably, steeped in the rosy and
golden colours of the sky.
In the year 1819, the practice of smuggling
had reached a point of such craft and effrontery,
that only by special methods did the authorities
hope to check its course. They realised that in
having local spies, in getting help from the village
people themselves, lay the best chance of per-
manently quelling it.
So it happened that as one Daniel Maidment
was digging in his garden, situated in the village
that I have described, a spruce and very dapper
gentleman on horseback reined up beside his gate.
" Good-morning to you. Am I addressing Mr.
Daniel Maidment of the village of Stowe-i'-the-
Knowe ? "
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" That's my name, and that's my village,"
answered Daniel, and he stood leaning on his
spade.
" I have a little matter of business with you, my
man," continued the stranger in that particular
voice in which some people talk to children, or
use when they address such as they consider their
inferiors.
" You may find it to your advantage to give me
your attention for a little while. With your per-
mission, I will walk into your house."
The rider dismounted, and tying his horse to
the gate-post, went up the gravel path to the
cottage door.
Daniel followed, and set a chair by the table, at
which an old woman sat making lace. Her eyes
were blind, as you might see by their wide dim-
ness, and by the extreme serenity of her face. This
is a quality that accompanies blindness. All signs
of anxiety, of transient expression, are smoothed
away, and all fretful activity ; the features are set
in the beauty of a great repose.
But her hands plied with swiftness the work on
a lace pillow, with a pleasant recurrency of sound
the wooden bobbins flew round, and about the
shining pins.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"If your mother is deaf as well as blind," re-
commenced the stranger, in a tone fitted to reach
the deafest ears, " there is no reason at all why we
should disturb her, my good fellow ; but my busi-
ness is of a private nature, and it would perhaps
be better if we were alone."
He stood with his hands under his coat-tails, and
waved a high and foolish nose over the chimney
ornaments as he investigated the spotted spaniels,
the china paladins on white and gold chargers, and
the pretty shell boxes that ornamented the mantel-
piece. But when he turned he found the old
woman had softly risen, and passed out.
" If you will kindly state your business with me,
sir," said Daniel, " I shall be pleased to attend."
The stranger cleared his throat, and began im-
portantly : —
" I am commissioned by the authorities serving
under his most gracious Majesty the king, to in-
vestigate this district thoroughly with a view to
checking the illicit trading that is carried on.
Time and again the hand of the law has been held,
and its object baffled by the collusion of the vil-
lagers with the smuggling trade. It is only possible
for us to secure an advantage if we are helped by
those on the spot.
156
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" It is an open secret that the landlord of the
' Mariner's Rest ' keeps a receiving house ; but such
is the organised system of signals and alarms that
hitherto we have found it impossible to surprise
their vigilance. Your character, Mr. Maidment, I
find on inquiry is unblemished as regards this
matter as yet. I repeat, as yet — I have no desire
to go into the past. Your trade as a fisherman
enables you to know this coast, and the people who
live along it, more thoroughly than any one coming
as a stranger upon the scene. Will you work
with the law ? May we look upon you for such
service as will conform to a better governing of
the country's trading? Will you help in abolish-
ing an evil that is growing more and more flagrant,
and unbridled, every year ? "
Daniel understood very well what was wanted of
him. He had lived for years on the outskirts of
smuggling, fully aware of his neighbours' activity in
the trade. Was he to turn spy upon them ? It is
true he had no near friends concerned in it, but it
was hardly the kind of part he would choose, to
watch and tell.
He looked across at this gentleman with a level
gaze. How cordially he disliked him. From the
flat lock on his forehead, to the very points of his
«57
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
smart, disagreeable boots. He felt this feeling of
dislike grow within him, as if it literally spouted
bitter juices up his veins. Then he said —
" What do you want with me ? Do you want
me to turn spy ? "
He moved abruptly to the window, thinking,
his hands deep into his pockets as he stood, and
his hand rustled against a letter in his pocket that
brought him suddenly to a standstill in thought.
He drew it out and stood looking at it. Then he
went out at the cottage door, and down the path.
The stranger never did a wiser thing than when
he remained in the cottage. He stood looking into
the fire waiting for Daniel to return, and out in the
garden Daniel opened the folded sheet of paper,
written closely in a neat hand.
" O, my dear," ran the words of the letter, " how
well I love you, and how often I think of you, God
alone knows, for I shall never find the poor words
to tell you. Only I pray every night that I may
soon see you, and that this long waiting may cease.
But it isn't only right but what our Jove should be
tested, I know that, and God doesn't send us trials
for nothing.
" You know what I spoke to you about last time
when we were walking on the Common. Do you
158
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
remember how the gorse was out, and how I
begged you to get free from everything that wasn't
honest — how it isn't like you to have dealings of that
kind ? I know it hasn't come very nigh you yet,
Daniel ; I know you won't let it part us. There's
always plenty of things in this life ready to come in
between goodness and turn lives crooked, if they
can ; but we won't let them hurt our happiness, will
we ? — not we two. Only the other day I was think-
ing about you, and I took the Book and let my
hands wander among the pages for a sign. And I
said, ' This'll be for Daniel,' as I was doing it, and I
looked down and read. And the words were : ' Love
the brotherhood, obey God, honour the king,' and
that was a sign, Daniel, and it was for you."
The wind blew softly through the cottage garden,
bending the bushes of chrysanthemums by the wall.
It rustled among the nasturtiums, and away out into
the field beyond. And the words of the letter kept
repeating themselves in Daniel's brain, " Obey God,
honour the king." And now they were not only
written words, but they brought the tone of a voice
with them.
He re-entered the cottage and faced the stranger
once more.
" I can't do what you're asking of me," he said,
'59
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" but at least I shan't work agin you, I've made up
my mind. You may depend upon me."
" That's well ; then I'll say good-morning to you,
Mr. Maidment. I will leave you this address if you
should have any written communication you may
want to send."
He unhitched his horse's reins from the gate-
post, and mounting, went at a swinging trot down
the road.
160
CHAPTER XX
Under the salt sea's foam it /ay.
At the outermost point of a rocky bay,
A sandy, tide-pooly, cliff-bound cove
With a red-roofed fishing village above
Of irregular cottages perched up high
Amid pale yellow poppies next to the sky.
She/Is, and pebbles, and wrack below,
And shrimpers shrimping all in a row,
Tawny sails and tarry boats,
Dark-brown nets and old cork floats,
Nasty smells at the nicest spots,
Elue-jersefd sailors, and lobster pots.
J. H. EWING.
LOG fire burnt clearly on the wide
stone hearth of the "Mariner's Rest."
Two men sat smoking. A narrow
table held their pots of beer, and they
had a dingy pack of cards between them. One of
these men had lost the third finger of his right
hand, and the sinews having contracted, the maimed
hand had the rigidity of a claw. This man was
161 L
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
alert in expression, his eyes restless. The receding
chin suggested the rodent type, and his ears set
back on the narrow head completed it.
Opposite him sat Daniel Maidment, and his was
an open face, with broad beard, honey-coloured.
He wore a blue flannel shirt, falling open at the
collar, and a red belt. His hands were brown as
mahogany, and he wore gold rings in his ears.
Over these two men stood Master Crumblejohn,
the landlord, and watched the game.
" Dan hasn't the luck to-night he had yesterday,"
said the rat-faced man, in the tone of voice that
whines at you, " Dan hasn't the luck. Not but
what you play very well, Dan, my boy — not but
what you play re-markably."
Daniel rose from the table, pushing a small pile
of silver and copper coins towards his companion
in the game.
" You've got the luck, Rat. I believe it's that
monkey's paw of yours that gets the cards witched
the way you want them," and he raised his tankard.
Crumblejohn watched him as he stood draining
it, and in the moment that Dan's face was covered,
the landlord looked at the rat-faced man. Some
intelligence passed between them. A message slid
from the lowered lid of old Crumblejohn to the
162
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
shifty, watery eyes of the man called Rat. Daniel
replaced the tankard, and saying good-night to his
companions, left the room.
Crumblejohn rose and barred the shutters and
locked the outer door, then closing the door of
communication between the inner parlour and the
kitchen, he sat down again to smoke.
"We've got a big job on hand, and it's likely
to miscarry if we can't get a message over. How
do you think Dan'l is working out in the matter ? "
he asked of his companion.
" He won't come in," Rat replied in his whingeing
voice. " And if you think you'll get Dan'l into it
you're much mistaken, my friend ; what's more, we
must keep an eye on Dan'l.*'
" Keep an eye on him ? " said Crumblejohn, " a
more guileless crittur you couldn't find, to my
thinking. Keep our eye on Dan'l ? " he repeated.
" What d'you think he's hanging about here for,
living as he does two villages off? " said the other.
" D'you think he comes here for the hair and
hexercise ? No, he's deeper than what you take
him for, is Dan'l — you take my word for it. What
news of the Lambkin, eh ? "
" Nothing but this," answered Crumblejohn,
stretching a bit of rag upon the table. Both
163
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
men leaned closely over it, deciphering with diffi-
culty the ill-written message it contained : —
"Fresh lot to be shipped 18. If change of place •,
send ladr
" When did you get this ? " asked Rat.
" It came by pigeon late yesterday," answered the
landlord ; " and it must have been blown out of
the track, for look at the date of it. The excise-
men are looking about pretty closely, but there's
nothing for their finding now. But here's to-day
the 1 4th, and to-morrow the Captain's wedding,
and the fresh stuff coming over, unless we stop it,
and every hole and corner on the watch."
" It isn't cards that's Dan'l's only game, Crumble-
john," said the rat-faced man. " We must send the
lad over — but what about the boat ? "
" On the other side with Lambkin," said the
landlord.
" Pigeons ? "
" Not safe enough. I'll send a pigeon, but I
must send the lad too, for they're on the track of
this here business, and unless we can beach it by
Knapper's Head, this matter must stand over for
the time. Now, if we was going to get Dan'l into
it, as I thought we should, we could have got his
boat for the business. Lord, how handy now that
164
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
boat would ha' come in. But I gathered you hadn't
seen your opportoonity this evening ; he didn't give
no manner o' sign ? "
" Give no manner o' sign, do you put it ? Why
the man's working for the excisemen, and if you'd
half an eye you'd have guessed it, but leastways you
was mum. No, don't you put no trust in Dan'l
for our little trade, master ; and what's more, there
mustn't be any stuff in the cave till he's off the
track, for he knows this coast as he knows his own
pocket, and if he's paid for it, he'll make it his
business to find out even more than he knows."
" Then how's the boy to go ? " mumbled old
Crumblejohn. He disliked his friend's superior
cunning, yet he was sufficiently harassed to be
dependent on it now. " How's the boy to go, I
ask yer ? Captain Bluett don't want no cabin-boy,
for I asked it ov' him ; the places on the vessel is
all filled."
" Oliver shall go all the same, captain or no
captain," whined the rat-faced ; " and you may be
thankful as I've got my full wits if I haven't got
my full fingers. The captain's lady goes with him ? "
" So they say. Married here to-morrow, and no
end of a business, and straight off to France with
her husband in his ship."
165
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Where's she bound ? "
" Boulogne/' (Only the landlord called it Boo-
lone.)
"Boo-lone?" repeated the rat-faced, "the very
place where Lambkin's waiting for a word, and you
stand there asking me how we're to get the lad over,
with a vessel making for the very port ? No, no,"
he murmured, looking into the fire, " you 'urt me,
Crumblejohn, you 'urt me when you go on like
that. You can be stoopid for a whin, and you can
be stoopid for a wager, but it ain't natterel to be
quite so stoopid as you are ; it ain't natterel, and
it ain't safe."
" Well, hang it all, a snivelling, whining rag-
picker as may be thankful to be sitting by a fireside
in a comferable house, comes and talks to me about
stoopid " — Crumblejohn's wrath broke suddenly into
an angry incoherency of words — " comes talking to
me about stoopid, I say, well, sir, stoopid yerself,
sir, if yer can't keep a civil tongue in yer head,
talking a matter over comferably with a friend,
stoopid yerself, Ratface, and be d — d to yer."
The man with the maimed hand sat smoking
while Crumblejohn spluttered and swore.
He could afford to sit there till the anger
passed over, for by reason of his superior cunning,
1 66
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
he held the landlord in the palm of his hand ; and
he knew Crumblejohn knew this. So he sat quietly
waiting, his crafty eyes upon the fire while he smoked.
After a bit Crumblejohn became quieter, and
asked sarcastically if Rat had got any suggestion
since he was so thunderin' clever, and if so, would
he mind spitting it out as time was getting on, and
if there was going to be any getting the lad on to
the captain's ship artful-like, they'd best be pre-
paring the way.
" Now you show yourself to be the sensible
man wot I've ever took you for," replied the
rat-faced, " and here's my little plan according.
To-morrow, being the wedding-day, you begs
leave to have a word with the bride. You sug-
gests a barrel of apples for her acceptance with
your werry best compliments, and if you make so
bold as to ask, does the lady stay at Boo-lone, or
does she travel ? Mistress Bluett, as is to be,
answers according, and you congratulates her on
her opportoonities of a seafaring life.
" You says you have a favour to ask her, and you
knows of a poor sail-maker at Boo-lone ; and might
you make so bold as to beg Mrs. Bluett to let a
sack of sail-yarn, odd pieces and leavings, in short,
a package o' mixed goods, go on board the captain's
167
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
vessel, and be left at Boo-lone ? You'd take it
werry pleasant of her if she'd be agreeable, and
you tip her a little tale of the hunchback and his
mother, and the hard life they have of it, and how
you knows of 'em through being so werry par-
ticular to recognise the King's laws in the matter
of liquor, your sister's husband being in the trade.
One thing and another, you'll have this bale o'
goods all ready, and your speech about it said, just
about the moment of starting, when folks' thoughts
are swinging like bees in a wind, and they're already
more in the place they're going to, than where
they're standing at the time. And what with the
good-byes and the God-bless-yous, and the village
crowding down to see them off, and you or me
carrying the package, and the lad all the time
inside it, as tight as a cauliflower, and thanks to
you and starvation weighing about half his size,
and so on to the boat with a jack-knife in his
pocket to cut his way out again, according to in-
structions and stripes."
The whining voice ceased, and the two men sat
in silence. Then Crumblejohn moved uneasily in
his chair.
" A power o' talking, Rat," he said, " you've
allowed me, a power of talking."
1 68
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"And it's talking you've got to do this time,
Crumblejohn; don't you make any mistake. You've
got this lot out of the cave all right, and you've
got the vaults filled up in time before the company.
But if we have another run of goods before we get
this lot up-country, there'll be more trouble than
you nor me can do away with. I haven't read
Dan'l's letters in his coat pocket for nothing, when
he was washing himself at the pump."
Crumblejohn enjoyed this immensely.
"Ye don't tell me he carries his orders about
with him for all the world to see? A wal'able
servant of the Crown, 'pon my honour. Rat,
you're a wily one."
"And wily-er than you'd suppose, for Dan'l
warn't such an innercent as you'd be ready to
think. He didn't keep his letters so careless
neither. But I've been watching him, and what I
learned when he was at the pump 's only a trifle
to what I've learned by signs and tokens."
The inn-keeper knocked the ashes from his pipe.
Then he rose from his chair, ponderously.
"I wish you hadn't given me such a power o'
talking, Rat ; wish I mayn't break my neck over
it, wish I mayn't break my neck."
He walked across the sanded floor and unlocked
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the door cautiously, and the rat-faced man slipped
past him into the night.
But how did he manage to muffle his footsteps,
so that Crumblejohn heard no sound of him upon
the road ?
170
CHAPTER XXI
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark,
Brandy for the parson,
Baccy for the clerk.
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling,
While the gentlemen go by !
R. KIPLING.
the day on which the last run
of goods had been cellared, Master
Crumblejohn stood looking with
pride, at the swift succession of
casks that were being rolled briskly along his
stone passage. He wore a leather apron, a good
stock collar, and his hair tied in a queue, with a
black ribbon in his neck. He had big buckles
to his shoes and a canary waistcoat, and a brown
coat upon his back.
Everybody knew the history of his liquor. In
these days of a thriving back-hand trade with the
wines, many houses that stood fairly with the
171
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Justices, got their supply in a manner that would
have brought humbler folk to punishment. But
if inquiry was pushed in regard to the " Mariner's
Rest," the landlord had a good book to show the
authorities.
Everything in his cellar was duly entered and
paid for; he would show the King himself round
if his Majesty chose to call. This was a favourite
jest of Master Crumblejohn's when in lighter mood,
and it would be said with a nodding head to clinch
matters, and between quiet puffs of a long clay-
pipe.
It was hardly the fault of the excisemen if
they didn't know of a certain trap-door in the
cellar, a door sufficiently hidden to be unguessed,
which led down to a vault below the basement.
Now this was how the illicit trade was carried
on. There had to be people party to it on each
side of the water, and a fishing boat or lugger, for
the transport of the goods. Most of the inn-
keepers, and a great many others, were in sym-
pathy with the smugglers, and the practice was
spread in so fine a network of collusion all over
the country, that it was a matter of great diffi-
culty for the authorities to cope with it at all.
When the liquor first came over, it was deposited
172
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
in some cave, or buried in some sandy cove along
the coast. Here it was left till notice was sent by
the various receiving-houses that they were ready
for the housing of the kegs. Then, when the
attention of the authorities had been drawn off to
some other quarter, night parties would be set on
foot ; and where the countryside was sufficiently
lonely, the kegs were carried upon men's shoulders
and received by the landlord, and hidden in his
vault. In some places these lawless gangs were
both armed and mounted, and thus conveyed the
goods far into the interior, distributing them
among the various receiving-houses by the way.
There was hardly a house that had not its place
of concealment, which could accommodate either
kegs, bales, or the smugglers themselves, as the
case might be. Sometimes the kegs would be
stuffed in hay trusses, and carried disguised as
fodder along the road, to be lodged secretly by
the light of a stable lanthorn again, in some straw
ricks farther inland.
You probably know the story of the Wiltshire
men who hid the kegs in the dew-pond? They
were surprised one moonlight night, standing with
rakes in their hands by the excisemen. Suspicion
was at once aroused, and they were questioned.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
"What are you doing there?"
"We be raaken the moon out of the water,
Masters." And the excisemen rode on, thanking
their stars they were not as these country loons.
But the answer showed that on occasion stupidity
may be used as a cloak to cover guile.
Now, in the case of Crumblejohn's gang of
smugglers, they stored their kegs, or ankers, in a
cave. Here they left their liquor as short a time
as possible, lest it should be discovered by those
on the look-out. But this cave led up to the
vaults of the inn-cellars, and very swiftly could
these kegs be rolled along the tunnelled passage
in the cliff.
A boy was working strenuously at the keg-
rolling, Oliver Charlock by name. He was the
odd boy and general servant of the establishment,
and had more kicks and fewer crusts than were
his share. Crumblejohn stood looking at him as
he worked ; if he stayed but a moment to stretch
his back, or to rest his arms, he was reminded of
his business.
"Do you think I keep servants, giving them
board and bed, to see them a-lolling back agin'
my walls and postes, a-playing the fine gentleman
abroad ? No, no, Oliver Charlock, you remember
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
what you're here for, and where you comes from ;
and let me see all them kegs in their places, or
back you goes to your field, and finds another
master."
Oliver was nobody's child, and had been picked
up in a field of charlock. Just where the rough
margin of the field joins the yellow flowers, he
had been found by the old parson ten years before
the time of which I speak. But when the Rectory
changed hands, and the old housekeeper died, who
had reared him, he was left friendless.
Then Crumblejohn had taken him as an extra
lad at the Mariner's, and henceforth life opened
for him at a different page. He slept in a rat-
riddled garret on a worn-out wool-sack on the
floor. He rose at dawn and worked till the bats
were out, bearing hard words for his services.
Repeatedly was he admonished by Mr. Crumble-
john to recall where he came from, and other
sour-faced remarks. As nobody knew his origin,
least of all the boy himself, this might seem a
useless question ; but for Crumblejohn it held point
in tending to depress any growth of self-esteem in
Oliver, and was calculated to nip incipient ideas
as to wages in the bud.
"Little warmint what had nobody to chuck a
«75
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
crust to 'im, found in a furrer of a field. I gives
'im board, and I gives 'im bed, and I expects such-
like to work for their wittels."
And work Oliver Charlock did, and not only at
keg-rolling. When the vigilance of the authorities
forbade the more usual signal of a fire being lit on
some prominent point inland, he had been sent
before now as emissary between the English
smugglers, and Lambkin, in France. Lambkin
was a man named Thurot. He was a Channel
Islander, and you may read of him as rising to
great prominence in the smuggling annals of his
day. He was known also as O'Farrell, and was
an Irish commodore in the French service for a
time. He was but twenty-two when he met his
death, yet he was a terror, we read, to the mer-
cantile fleet of this kingdom. Whatever opinion
we may hold as to his right or wrong doing, there
is a light about his name, because he led a life of
great romance, and daring.
Before leaving, Thurot had arranged with his
confederates the place of the intended run of
goods. Now, however, that Ratface suspected
Daniel Maidment was spying on them, it became
imperative to get the message over in some de-
pendable manner, to intimate a change of place
176
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
for beaching this next run. So a rag message
had been written, and Oliver had to bear it, and
as Crumblejohn stood watching the keg-rolling,
it was with the comfortable assurance of some
anxiety having been removed. Very soon he would
be standing there, watching yet another lot roll-
ing into his capacious cellars. Already the gold
chinked in his imagination, that was to fill his
pockets so well ; and the rings of smoke from his
clay pipe rose, to float up and fade lingeringly,
before his meditative eye.
But the " best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
gang aft agley," and there was something in store
for Master Crumblejohn, the mere possibility of
which, his slow wits had never dreamed.
177 M
CHAPTER XXII
jWO days later there were few people
situated more uncomfortably than
Oliver Charlock, of the " Mariner's
Rest." For he was in a hamper, a
variety of sail-cloth, and oddments of material
packed on the top of him, and his knees into his
chin. Scant air, no place for shifting, sometimes
knocked this way, sometimes bundled that ; shoved,
huddled, bumped, and stowed, wherever man's hand
chose to shove him, or in whatever direction the
ship rolled.
The discomfort grew to such sickening pain that
his senses almost left him, while his partial suffoca-
tion threatened momentarily to be complete.
But at last he was on the Boulogne Quay ; he
knew it, for the bale had been left quiet. He cut
his way through the cords and fastenings ; he loosed
his sacking and finally threw open the hamper lid.
The fresh sea-wind fanned his forehead ; at first
that seemed all he needed, or knew. To move was
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
such agony, it must be done only by degrees. And
it was good to lie still with the air on his face, and
to see the clouds float by.
It was about five or six o'clock in the morning.
Looking towards the town he saw evidence of the
fish-market of Boulogne. Women walked here and
there with shrimp baskets on their shoulders, and
some trawlers and fishing-smacks were coming in.
The high French houses of the old town looked
like ghosts of houses in the grey dawn, and the
sands stretched away unbrokenly, in opalescent light.
Oliver stepped out freed from his prison, and
walked lamely towards the town. He knew his
work pretty well ; he had no need to think about it.
He had merely to walk about on the quay, or
mingle among the people in the fish-market, and
sooner or later the man he knew as Lambkin would
come up and take from him the written rag. The
message was written on a rag, because had he been
searched, no letter would have been found upon
him, and this rag was wrapped round his finger or
his wrist as it might be, and generally had some
stray drops of blood on it, as if it bound up a slight
wound.
But on this occasion the hours passed, and there
appeared no Lambkin ; and now the Boulogne
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
fish-market was in full activity. Groups of
peasants chattering, old women gesticulating, every-
body talking, nobody listening, bargaining, chaffer-
ing, dealing, and vending, going on among a vivid
crowd. Look at the picture, and you will see this
busy scene. Oliver wandered among the throng for
a little, buying some food at an old woman's ginger-
bread stall, for Crumblejohn had provided him with
a few French coins. Now that his stiffness was
lessened and his hunger appeased, he was enjoying
himself. It was good not to be cleaning boots, and
mopping the stone floors of the Mariner's Tavern ;
laying the fires, and opening the windows to let out
the spent air of last night's company, the fumes of
stale tobacco and spilt beer; now, all the scent of
the morning was about him, and the tang of the
sea breeze.
Soon his eyes were attracted by a small hunch-
backed boy who was sitting at a little table. He
had a pointed wicker cage with a pair of doves in
it, and on his table were many simple contrivances
of home-made nature. These were set out on a
small square of red baize. The people smiled at
the hunchback as they passed him, and soon Oliver
saw that he was preparing to give a show. The
fish-market was now over, and some people from
1 80
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the town were walking on the quay. For these the
hunchback waited, and soon he had a small crescent-
shaped crowd.
He took the doves out of their cage, and spoke
lovingly to them, kissing their soft necks. They
pattered with pink feet over the table cooing and
bowing, and he put some peas before them, which
they picked up eagerly with slender bills.
" These doves, ladies and gentlemen," the hunch-
back began in French, " are the celebrated Joli and
Jou-Jou of Boulogne. Long have they been the
delight of visitors to our pretty town. Once more
they bow before you, and beg you, in all courtesy
to watch their well-known performance in the
chaise, in the ring, and on the pole."
With a bow he finished his speech to the on-
lookers, and commenced with deft fingers to arrange
a small trapeze. He placed a dove on it, and then
attaching the upright posts so that they could not
turn over, he set the bird swinging on the bar.
Nothing could have exceeded the innocence of the
performance, for the birds did nothing at all wonder-
ful, or in any sense trained, but the air of the
showman and the simplicity of the performance
must have endeared it to any one of feeling in the
crowd.
181
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Joli, now wilt thou attend to thy master, and
place thy pink feet firmly upon the ring ? Thou
knowest it is but a little time, my Joli, and thou
shalt be, once more, pecking the peas."
He lifted the dove from the table, while it made
every movement of revolt, but only foolish feathered
revolt, swiftly quelled. Slowly round and round the
bird revolved in the ring, staying there simply because
it had not the wit or will to flutter out of it, and
the hunchback swung the ring quicker and quicker
so that the onlookers murmured applause.
Then it was Jou-Jou's turn to be harnessed to a
tiny charette made from a wooden box, painted in
red and blue. Joli sat within while Jou-Jou pattered
round drawing it, guided by the hunchback's
hand.
Soon Oliver heard an English voice among the
spectators.
"Oh, look at those doves, Papa," it said. "I
want to stop and look."
A very smartly dressed little girl pressed forward,
brushing aside other people. She had an eager
face, and looked discontented.
" What do you call the doves, boy ? " she asked
in French, in a sharp voice.
" Joli and Jou-Jou, mademoiselle."
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Who taught them to do their tricks, boy ? "
" It is I who taught them, mademoiselle."
" I want to buy them ; will you tell me how much
money they would cost ? "
" They are not for sale, mademoiselle."
" But if I want them ? " said the little girl im-
periously ; " and if I give gold for them, of course
they will be for sale. Here, Papa," she cried but
suddenly,
" I want these doves, please ; you know you said
you would give me my birthday present in advance,
and I don't want the goat-carriage now. I'm sure
the little boy will be glad to get two gold pieces ; we
will give him one for each dove ; look how ill and
starved he appears ! and his clothes, I never
saw such tatters. You can send the doves round
to the Hotel d'Angleterre, do you hear, boy ? and
we shall give you two, perhaps three, whole gold
pieces."
She opened her eyes very wide, and nodded her
head at him, so busy in her shrill speech that she
was quite blind to the expression on the face before
her. You have no doubt read the Fairchild Family ?
Well, when I tell you she was first cousin to Miss
Augusta Noble, and very like her too, wearing the
same kind of clothes in the same arrogant manner}
183
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
you will be able to conjure her before the mind's
eye very accurately indeed.
"You will get perhaps three whole gold
pieces ! " she repeated, " but be sure to be there
before to-morrow at noon, for we leave on the day
following.
" Papa," she cried, springing towards her father,
" I'm sure to get them, I know I shall : and they
can go in my nice, new, great, big aviary."
In a turmoil of noisy, selfish conversation, she
took her excited little person off the scene, bustling
through the crowd, and taking her own world with
her, in the manner of children who will sometimes
burst into a room speaking, never thinking to see if
people are talking, or reading aloud within.
And so she went away down the quay, leaving
a sense of disturbance behind her. Evidently
bound to grow up, poor thing, into one of those
people who cause every one to live in a draught
around them.
Oliver stood for some time listening. He had
no further orders than to remain on the quay in
such a manner as that he might readily be seen.
He decided he would stay here at all events till
sunset, should the French agent by some chance
have been delayed. So he stood watching the little
184
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
hunchback's quick movements as he caged his doves,
packed his tressle-table, and walked away towards
the town.
And now Oliver was left to watch the clouds and
sea-gulls, and to wonder what life would feel like,
if it were happy and free.
The slow hours passed, and he grew hungrier and
thirstier. He sought through his pockets and found
a crust. And then because he had passed such an
uncomfortable night, and he was tired, he lay down,
with his head on a coil of rope, and looked drowsily
at the wide and glimmering sea.
Here and there, hidden away in his memory, there
lingered some stray phrases and couplets learnt long
ago. These he treasured, though he hardly knew he
did so, for the sense of comfort they bestowed —
" Thou whose nature cannot sleep
On my temples sentry keep.
While I rest my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance.
These are my drowsy days, in vain,
I do but wake to sleep again.
O, come that hour when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever."
The light faded. Grey clouds banked them-
185
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
selves where the sun was westering, prodigal of
his gold.
Oliver slept.
He was woken by a hand laid upon his shoulder,
and stumbling to his feet, he saw the man Thurot,
standing beside him.
1 86
CHAPTER XXIII
Read rascal in the motions of his back.
And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.
TENNYSON.
*!HEN Ratface left the "Mariner's Rest"
that evening, he walked skirting the
hedgerow, his thoughts busy with a
new plan. For some time he had
been suspicious of Daniel Maidment, but now,
reading the evil of his own character into that
of another, he suspected him of an intention to
betray the smugglers to the excisemen.
He had read the letter from the sweetheart,
and seen the pencilled address on the slip of
paper in Daniel's pocket. It conveyed no mean-
ing to him that this bit of paper was torn across,
and all but in two. Like most of us he judged
others by his own knowledge of himself; and so
he decided to anticipate Daniel, and turn King's
evidence himself. He saw many signs around
him of an increase of vigilance on the part of
187
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the authorities. Crumblejohn's muddle-headedness
and Thurot's dare-devilry in conjunction, made him
decide now was the time for him to leave the
smuggling gang.
There would be a good reward, so he argued,
and he'd risked his neck often enough with them,
and now if somebody was to get the money, that
somebody must be he. So he went straight away
to the address given, a walk of some twelve miles
through the night, and slept through the early
hours of the morning, in a cart-shed in the farm
steading.
About nine o'clock next day he was ringing
the door-bell of the supervisor of Customs for
the counties of Sussex and Kent.
Before the coastguards were organised, the inland
branch of preventive service was carried on by the
riding officers, one of whom we have seen speak-
ing to Daniel Maidment, as he dug in his garden
that day.
At this time, a stretch of some two hundred
miles of coast-line would be given in charge of
fifty riding officers, and utterly inadequate until
reinforced by soldiers, this force proved to be.
For by lighting false signals, nothing was easier
than to draw the riding officers off on some wild-
188
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
goose chase, while the smugglers beached their
cargo undisturbed.
It was not long before Ratface was shown
into a room where the riding officer was seated,
writing.
" Your business ? "
" My business is to tell you what you and
your men have been wanting some time to know,
sir. And if you makes it worth my while, I'll
give you information what'll help you to clap
your hands upon as pretty a shipload of ankers
and half-ankers, as you've ever heard on."
" Where do you come from ? "
"Stowe i' the Knowe."
" Do you come from Daniel Maidment ? "
"Ah, I thought I should hear that name now.
No ; Dan'l ain't a pertickler friend of mine."
" What is your information ? "
"My information is accordin' to the informa-
tion money."
"And that again, as you must know, depends
on the value of goods seized, and not on this
alone. A full seizure reward cannot be earned
without a good proportion of smugglers being
captured. Twenty pounds for every smuggler
taken, and full seizure money if the boat, as well
189
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
as goods, be ours. Where is this intended run
to be made?"
" On the night of the 1 8th, as soon after dusk
as possible, at the Grey Rock, off Knapper's
Head."
" And who are the chief smugglers concerned ? "
" Obadiah Crumblejohn of the * Mariner's Rest,'
Thurot, known as Lambkin, freighter and owner
of the smuggling galley Lapwing, to row sixteen
oars. Cargo, brandy and silks."
The revenue officer made full notes, then he
looked at Ratface as he stood blinking those
restless eyes of his, scraping a lean cheek with
his maimed hand.
The officer rang the bell, and the door was
opened by a servant, who showed Ratface out.
"There is something in our appearance being
an index to what we are," thought the officer,
as his eyes followed Ratface. " Certainly, the
other day, I went to the wrong house."
Then he turned to the notes that he had taken,
and his glance lingered on the entry of Thurot's
name.
190
CHAPTER XXIV
Where now are these ? Beneath the cliff they stand
To show the freighted pinnace where to land ;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste ;
To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste ;
Or, when detected in their straggling course.
To foil their foes by cunning, or by force,
Or yielding part which equal knaves demand
To gain a lawless passport through the land.
CRABBE.
T is a soft moonless night in October.
The darkness seems filled with that
calmest and most sufficing of all
sounds, the sea, breaking on a sandy
shingle, with the long-drawn hush of the retreating
wave. Yet if you listen you may hear another
sound. A footfall on the sand occasionally, and the
sound of men's voices, lowered.
For Crumblejohn and Ratface have sent round
the message that tub-carriers, a full force of them,
will be wanted on this night of the i8th, at Grey
Rock, off Knapper's Head. And the tub-carriers
191
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
are already assembled, numbering about twenty-five
villagers, and half as many boys.
A light flares up against the night-sky at some
point along the coast, far away.
It stars the darkness, a crumb of light. Then it
grows slenderly, and sinks once more to waver
upward, and then the night engulphs it all but a
creeping thread of light that holds it own.
" You can light that pipe o' yourn, master."
"Whoi doant yon light bleaze then? Be 'ee
sure they gave the right beacon word ? Who done
it ? Whose work wer to see to yon ? "
" It was Ratface that see'd to that. That's why
he be^nt here to-night. He'll see the light's all
right."
Even as the words are spoken the spark broadens,
and shoots up into a tongue of flame. And now
the caution of the tub-carriers appears to lessen ;
pipes are lit, with a hand to shade the glow, and
there is a restless movement of swingles changing
hands, or being laid down upon the sand beside
their owners.
These are the flail-like implements, that with
the long ash bludgeons, are the weapons of the
yokel's defence. Crumblejohn has a large retinue,
a goodly force on which he may depend. Beside
192
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the villagers, there is the riding force of
smugglers, a company of some thirty or more;
innkeepers, tradesmen, farmers, who band together
to ride with the goods far inland. The villagers,
he may call out with little or no trouble, and as
porters of the kegs they are enough ; but to-night
the riding gang has been summoned, Ratface was
to see to this, for this run of goods is exceptional,
and only mounted men can manage the bales of
silks and other goods.
A dark object looms near. There is the sound of
muffled oars, a word is passed along to the carriers,
and almost before the boat-keel grates the beach,
she is surrounded. Each man seizes and slings a
brace of kegs around him ; there are words of
command from the freighters, a sound of trampling
feet, of shipping oars, and the hurried breathing of
an eager crowd, working in the dark.
And then a lighter sound, the jingle of bridles,
and horses hoofs upon the sand.
" The mounted gang," mutters Crumblejohn, as
he stands upon the shingle, looking down upon the
tangled crowd of jostling men.
Here and there he sees a lantern, and the light
of one bald, flaring torch, held high in the prow
of the boat by Thurot. The torch flares vividly,
193 N
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the flame is taken sideways by the wind. It throws
its jagged shadows ; the sea crawls grey round the
beached boat.
And then a pistol-shot cracks out upon the
air, followed by another, and another, and the
man who stands high in the boat with the torch
uplifted, falls heavily among the crowd.
" God . . ." — it is Crumblejohn who stumbles
forward ; ** God . . ."
The air rings now with the sound of fire-arms,
there is a stampede among the villagers — they are
caught and bound. One man in a mask runs
here and there in the crowd, a demon of agility.
He is followed by a man on horseback, and
wherever he leads, the smugglers are thickest.
He passes the villagers, he lets these go by ;
but of the sixteen men that were in the galley,
he has crept, and run, and striven among them,
and always at his heels the man on horseback,
whose followers secure the chief men. They over-
power them, three to one, wherever the man in the
mask has given the signal. And the swingles, the ash
bludgeons, these have been turned against the men
who bore them, wrenched from their hands. And
where a stand among the men has been attempted,
the mounted officers have ridden them down.
194
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
The night, so dark and quiet, has been given over
to confusion. Oliver Charlock crouches low in the
smuggling boat.
And now the tumult lessens. Most of the
villagers have fled, and ten men of those who had
manned the Lapwing stand bound upon the beach.
Crumblejohn has long since staggered off, and sub-
sided, blue with fright, in a ditch, to be picked
up by the Excise men some fifty yards or more
from the scene of the encounter, to be marched
more briskly than his failing senses would have
thought possible, along the road, hands bound, to
his own Inn.
And Thurot, the gallant Thurot, with arms
flung wide on either side of him, lies dead, in his
faded uniform, beside a blackened torch.
But there is another corpse. It lies distressfully.
The form is contorted, so that you may barely see
the masked face.
Yet it should not be difficult to identify this
body.
There is a finger lacking to the right hand.
'95
CHAPTER XXV
0 day, pass gently that art here again.
Turn memory's spear, and may thy vespers close
Upon a twilight odorous of the rose,
Drooping her petals in the falling rain.
There is no virtue in remembered pain.
The past is sleeping. Watching its repose
1 shudder, lest those weary lids unclose,
And I be folded in its coils again.
)NE evening the children were gathered
in the drawing-room, and Miss Ross
sat among them working at her
tambour frame. She wore a slender
gold thimble set with corals, and in a slanting,
almost obliterated handwriting, the posie, " Use
me, nor lose me" was writ around its base. This
thimble had been her mother's, and when her work
was done for the evening, she would shut it away
in a narrow case that held her scissors, and needle-
case, and bodkin ; and this case was lined with
196
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
velvet that had faded to the colour of silver
weed when the wind reverses it.
"We should feel indebted to Mrs. Inchbald,"
she was saying, " for telling us so spirited a tale.
I found my share of entertainment in watching
your faces the while. Bimbo, I take it, will do
well in life to set himself a fine example, for his
sympathies are sufficiently fluid to shape them-
selves according to their groove. Let him see
that they flow in a fine mould. While Mrs.
Inchbald spoke of Ratface, his chin receded, his
eyes narrowed, and I momentarily expected his
ears to change their position on his head. Later,
when she sketched for us the brave Thurot, his
very shoulders broadened, his eye lightened, and
his jaw set square. None of you, I noticed, found
it in your heart to compliment her on the picture
of Miss Augusta Noble's cousin, the spoilt
child."
" I wish I'd asked her, though," said Christopher,
"what they did to smugglers when they were
caught."
'* I can tell you," said Miss Ross. ** They were
forced for five years into the service, as either
soldiers or sailors ; but as they nearly always de-
serted, this was changed, and smugglers were sent
197
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
to prison instead. As for the smuggling vessels,
when these were taken, they were sawn through in
three places."
Bimbo groaned aloud.
" Nothing nice happens nowadays," he said.
" No smuggling, no highwaymen, no pirates ;
nothing. People go about in top hats."
" There are burglars still," said Clare.
" I was much afraid of robbers when I was a
child," said Miss Ross. " When the nurses with-
drew, and I was left alone to go to sleep, I became
immediately so convinced of the presence of a
robber close to me, that I invented a way of soften-
ing his heart. I took to saying my prayers aloud.
'O bless my mother and father,' I would say,
' and teach me to live dutifully towards them in
word and deed ; bless my brothers and sisters, my
playmates and friends ; ' and then, slightly raising
my voice, I would say, ' and O, bless the thief now
in the room.* I used to think he could not
possibly harm me if he heard himself prayed for,
and I did not stop here. I would explain to God
that I felt he only stole because he hadn't thought
much about it, and that if God blessed him and
made him happy, he would give it up. And so
my thoughts being distracted by inventing excuses
198
MISS ROSS
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
for the robber, my fear would gradually decline,
and I would fall asleep.
" But I have never found among grown people,"
she continued, " a just appreciation of this torture
children may undergo in their fear of being alone
in the dark. It is better in your days, my dears,
I have noticed this. You may have night lights,
and your doors are left wide ; but in my generation
these qualms were all brushed aside."
"Do go on telling us about when you were
little," said Clare. "There's hardly any story I
like better than when grown-up people will do
that."
" I was not an amusing child," answered Miss
Ross, " and nothing very much happened to me.
But I suppose children are the same in all ages, as
to what they like and what they think about, and
in the manner to them in which life appears. Have
you ever looked back at the house you live in from
a distance, and caught yourself saying, ' I must
just run back, and find the house without me.'
The instant recognition of its being an impossi-
bility is less real than the impulse itself.
" I used to think, too, if I only could see when
my eyes were shut everything would appear different.
So I would lie pretending to be asleep, and then
199
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
suddenly jerk my eyes open, thinking I should
catch everything strangely changed. But there
invariably was the cupboard and the dressing-
table, and all the familiar objects just as they had
been. I endowed them with a sense of mockery at
my efforts, and of being immeasurably subtler than
I. So I would lie quite still, and stealthily lift
a lid. But no, they were always the same. This
did not convince me they did not move. On the
contrary, I would say to myself with a sense of
vexed despair, * I shall never, never know what
things look like when I'm not seeing them.' "
Clare said, " Mummie believes, you know, that
if you think about a thing a great deal — something,
I mean, that isn't really alive, as we are — that you
endow it with a sort of image of life, and that
strange things can happen in this way. Gems that
have been thought magical, and idols that have
been worshipped for centuries, have their being.
That is why she would never like to have a Buddha in
her house ; she would think it would feel neglected.
It would suffer and be cold, and its suffering would
stream from it, and affect others. Besides, the
wrongfulness it would be, to treat something that
a great many people think sacred, merely as an
ornament, or a curiosity."
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" I had a brooch once," said Miss Ross, " that
had a life of its own. It had many other things
to do beside being my brooch, that was quite
certain. I first found out it was a person by
its evidently hearing what I said. It was a gold
brooch, fashioned like an instep, or a curved willow
leaf, and the pin worked on a principle evolved
ages ago by some primitive race. ' Never,' said I
one morning, in a moment of impatience — * never
will I again use such a clumsy pin as this. It tears
lace, and once inserted in any material it is almost
impossible to dislodge.' I was pricked to the
bone.
" This brooch would go away for days to attend
to its own business ; and when I'd given up looking
for it, there I would find it on my pincushion, look-
ing me in the eye. Even my maid, a most un-
imaginative woman, appeared to be conscious of
its ways.
" * I see your brooch has come back, Miss,' she
would say. Finally it chose a worthier home.
" I was travelling with my parents in Italy, driving
through Tuscany in our private coach. We stayed
for some weeks in Florence, and during that time
I used to attend Mass in one of the great churches
there. I became acquainted with the old priest
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
who officiated. One day as I was leaving the
church, he said to me, * Signora, have you seen
the gift that has been made ? The blue robe that
has been presented to the Madonna ? '
" I re-entered the church with him, and he led
me to the Lady Chapel, and my eyes rested on the
carved figure representing the Virgin Mary. To
celebrate the Easter festival, some one had pre-
sented new robes. I looked from the kindly face
of the old priest, filled as it was with fond de-
votion, to the pensive face of the carved figure
with the outstretched hands.
" And there, where the folds of the blue mantle
were gathered full upon the breast, I saw my
brooch.
" I stepped forward. * Ah, you notice that,' said
the Father. * Yes, for three weeks now we await
the owner to appear. We have had notices written,
and placards put about, but no one has claimed
it. And so, till the festival is over, I have placed
it where you see it. It is a gold brooch, there-
fore worthy to clasp the new robe.'
" I kept silence. I would not have cared to take
it from where it now was.
** I turned to go. A ray from one of the lighted
candles glinted on the surface of the gold. Clearly,
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
thought I, a signal of recognition. I knew its
ways.
"I let the old priest move a few paces in front
of me, and quickly stepping back I touched it
twice with my hand in token of farewell. I was
filled with fear lest the priest should turn and see
me, for however crazy one may be in these matters,
one doesn't like others to think one so."
" No," said Clare. " I know that. If somebody
comes in when I've been talking to myself, or saying
lines out loud when I'm alone, I always quickly
turn it into a cough of some description. It never
sounds in the least like one, though."
" Have you always named things that belong to
you ? " asked Miss Ross. " Nothing can really live
to you unless it has got a name."
"Yes," said the children, " Mummie has names
for things. She used to think when she was little
that her feet were boys, and that they were called
Owen and Barber. And she had an umbrella called
Harvey, for years."
" It's right to have fancies about things," said
Miss Ross. " I will tell you one that I read once
long ago.
"The writer said, 'When I have risen to walk
abroad in the fresh new air of summer, in the
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
hour of dawn when mankind is still at rest, the
face of Nature has taken to me a new aspect, the
unity of all things in creation appears revealed. It
has seemed to me that I have surprised a great secret.
" ' I have seen Nature at such times depicted in
the vast form of some great goddess, a woman
of Titanic form. The races of mankind are her
children, and according to the features of the land
they live in, so are they placed upon her mother
form. Those who live upon the plains dwell on
the great palms of her hands ; those whose dwellings
are placed among the embosoming hills have her
breast for their shelter. The lakes are her eyes
and the great forests her hair, the rivers are her
veins and the rain her tears, and she sighs in the
sound of the Sea.
" * The rainbows are her thoughts, and the mists
rising from the quiet meadows are her meditations and
her prayers. Her laughter is in the sound of brooks,
and she breathes in the warmth that exhales from the
earth, after it is dusk in Summer. The lightning
is her anger, and in the thunder she finds utterance,
and the darkness of the night is her great mantle over
the land.' " Miss Ross ceased speaking, and there
was silence for a time. Then Christopher said :
" And what are the earthquakes ? "
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Perhaps when she yawns," said Bim. Children
often save people trouble by giving themselves a reply.
Miss Ross had a large white book on her lap,
she was turning the pages.
" I like this book of your Mother's," she said ;
" these phrases are from the writings of an old
herbalist, and he speaks of the lime-leaf that ' in
Autumn becomes wan, and spotted as the doe.'
" ' The wyche-elme whose gold is let loose on the
wind after night frostes, and cold dawnes.
"'The delicate jargonell that keeps the sweets
of France in old, warm, English gardens.'
" And further on he writes of ' the sloe whose
excellent purple blood makes so fine a comfort.'
" He speaks of the ' green smockt filberte,' and
finally talks in this pleasant manner of the nature
of mushrooms.
" ' Many do fear the goodly musherooms as
poysonous damp weeds. But this doth in no ways
abate the exceeding excellence of God's Providence,
that out of the grass and dew where nothing was,
and where only the little worm turned in his sporte,
come, as at the shaking of bells, these delicate
meates.'
" The older you grow, children," Miss Ross said,
looking up from the book, " the more pleasure you
205
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
will find in comfortable words. In well-adjusted
phrase, and in lines that have beauty in their sound
as in their imagery. I have found nourishment for
the soul in the positive satisfaction to be derived
from words.
' With how slow steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face,'
and —
* A world of leafage, murmurous and a-twinkle
The green, delicious, plentitude of June.'
And these lines seem to me full of music.
* O, Philomela fair, O, take some gladness,
That here is juster cause for plaintful sadness.
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth.
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.'
" These are only a few of the many fragments I
have in my memory."
" But poetry is nearly always so sad," said Bimbo.
" I like things with jokes in them."
" I know you do," said Miss Ross, and her face
was lovely when she smiled. " I know exactly what
you feel like. When you get up in the morning
you feel the whole day is not long enough for
206
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
all you mean to do in it, the whole world is your
playground. And when you glow after the cold
bath there is nothing you don't feel ready for,
from wittling a stick, to building an empire. And
you're downstairs and out early, and ' away to the
meadows, the meadows again,' with your rod and
your line, and your bait at your belt, and your
family see no more of you till dinner-time."
The children gave a deep breath, for this made
them think of water-meadows and minnow-fishing,
marsh- marigolds in golden clumps, and deep, clear
runlets.
" This is the fun of being young," said Miss
Ross, " prize it."
" And what is the fun of being old ? " asked Bimbo.
" Many people have asked that before you,
but all those who see the right aspects of youth
may be trusted, I think, to grow old properly.
Good taste is the highest degree of sensibility.
And nowhere so clearly as in growing old, is good
taste more subtly evidenced.
"The great thing is to feel. Let every bit of
you be alive, even though you may suffer. The
only sin is indifference."
"Is it people's fault when they are indifferent, or
can't they help it ? " asked Clare.
207
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" Oh, there are folk who will close their eyes and
sit in the very market-place of the universe, with
their fingers in their ears."
"Then a bullock runs into them, I suppose,"
said Bim ; " and they pick themselves up from the
dust, saying, * What have I done to deserve it ? ' '
"Yes," added Clare, "or they will say, 'See, we
were promised music to dance to, and where are the
sweet strains ? ' '
All the older children would have shrunk from
an allusion to the great grief of which the beautiful
face before them bore so deep an impress, but one
of the younger ones said :
" I'm so surprised that you, who are so sad to
look at, should have such nice laughing eyes all
the same when you speak, and seem so ready to
be amused."
Miss Ross did not answer immediately, her lips
framed some words. Only Clare who was nearest
to her heard them, for she was speaking to herself :
" And even yet I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain,
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again ? "
But aloud, she said to the little child who had
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
spoken : " Sorrow and gladness are close together,
the more you have it in your nature to suffer, the
more thoroughly you can enjoy. And these
two things, suffering and gladness, mean a full
comprehension of life. The psalmist says, ' Grant
me understanding, and I shall live? and understand-
ing means the spirit that makes us accept our
joys, our duties, and our sorrows ; deliberately
adjusting ourselves to them, giving them their
place.
"It is a good prayer, * Help me better to bear
my sorrows, and to more fully understand my
joys.' For only when we understand our joys do
we find contentment."
" There's a poem Mummie read to us once," said
Bimbo, "in which a man tells how he had every-
thing in life to make him happy. He had riches,
he had houses, he had talents, he had friends, and
lots of fun of every description, but he hadn't con-
tentment, and wanting that, he wanted all. And so
he set out to seek her, and he travelled far and
wide, till at last he went home, because he was
tired. And there, when he got home, he found
her by his own doorstep, sitting spinning ! "
" Yes," said Miss Ross ; " I like that story. We
have got to find her. And those who have grudges
209 o
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
against Fate, and grievances, are the people who
expect her to find them.
"I assure you, my dear children, I've more
sympathy with murderers than with grumblers ;
they at least have some compelling motive, are
strongly exercised by hatred or revenge. (I rather
like people who can hate, very few people can
do it.) But grumblers — I place them in the same
class as those who talk about being resigned.
Let there be fortitude ; indeed if we are to face
life at all, we must have it. But resignation, I
despise."
Miss Ross rose from her chair, and a piece of
paper fell on the ground beside her. Clare picked
it up to return it, but she had already passed down
the room. And as Clare's glance fell on the paper
she saw that it was poetry written there.
" No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere.
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
210
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity.
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality.
There is no room for Death,
No atom that his might could render void.
Thou, Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed."
CHAPTER XXVI
Light foot to press the stirrup,
In fearlessness and glee ,
Or dance till finches chirrup.
And stars sink in the sea.
CORY JOHNSTONE.
)NE day you might have seen Clare
sitting with Miss Hippesley in the
drawing-room.
The dusk was falling, and the great
limbs of the elms in St. James' Park stood leaf-
less and black against the sombre twilight. Flocks
of white seagulls circled among them. It was a
world of black, and white, and grey.
Only within doors was comfort. The lamps had
not yet been lit, but the fire, burning those rainbow
logs of old ships' wood, filled the room with
chequered light and dancing shadows.
" Will you tell me about Lady Crosbie ? " said
Clare. " I know she is a friend of yours."
" Then you must come with me to Drayton,"
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
said Miss Hippesley, " for that was her home. But
were I able to transport you there in spirit, I would
have to get Mrs. Gladwell to speak to you. She
could tell you even more about Lady Crosbie
than I."
" Who is Mrs. Gladwell ? "
" She was the steward's wife, and knew the family
since the children were quite small, for she had been
second nurse there. She left as they grew up, and
she married ; but her husband proved an idle fellow,
living on his wife's earnings; and gradually she
came to be the hard-worked servant in a London
lodging-house. Her health broke down, and being
left a widow, she wrote to the eldest Miss Sackville,
telling her case. And Miss Sackville, having kindly
memories of her, got her placed in one of the lodges.
And later she married Gladwell the steward, and
became housekeeper at Drayton Hall."
Miss Hippesley narrowed her eyes in her charac-
teristic manner which you may see delineated in her
portrait. She sat quietly, looking steadfastly before
her.
" I will see if I cannot paint a picture in words
for you, Clare, that may bring Diana Crosbie before
you."
Clare watched the firelight glimmering on the
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
gold of the picture-frames. She was unwilling to
break the silence, for her companion was evidently
deep in thought.
Presently, however, Miss Hippesley spoke.
" I see a room whose windows look out upon a
lawn shaded by cedar-trees. A woman sits within
in a white mob cap with a cherry ribbon on it,
dressed in a mulberry- coloured gown. The room
is the steward's room at Drayton, and though the
chintz on the sofa is worn and the wall-paper here
and there has faded, yet the ladder-backed chairs
and the stout mahogany table give character and
dignity to the room. There is an appearance of
great comfort ; a winged chair is drawn to the fire-
place, and a kettle sings upon the hob. The woman
is reading a letter.
" It is one written by Miss Sackville, the elder
sister of Diana. The lines are penned in a tall,
slender handwriting on thick paper, sealed. They
had no envelopes in those days ; a letter was written
on a broad sheet, folded upon itself.
"There will be allusions, Clare, in this letter to
names unknown to you. Yet this is not surprising
when you remember that it is a letter two hundred
years old.
214
LADY CROSBIE.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" * To MRS. GLADWELL,
At LORD VISCOUNT SACKVILLE,
DRAYTON,
Near THRAPSTON,
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
" ' DEAR MRS. GLADWELL, — I had the pleasure
of seeing Charles a little while ago, who told me
that you were quite well and looked very happy,
which I was exceedingly glad to hear. He says
you are grown a prodigious buck in your dress, that
you have got quite a youthful bloom on your cheeks,
and are the picture of health and content. I am
sure you deserve to be so to compensate for the
many years of misery which you drudged on in
those horrid rooms in Pall Mall ; and if you feel
like me, you will never wish to see them or anything
else in that cursed town of London as long as you
live. I heard from Di lately. She had been at
Lady Grandison's and seen Nurse Porter, who, she
says, has not a wish ungratified but of seeing Betty
Love, whom she quite raves about.
" * Di is to return to Lord Grandison's at Christ-
mas, where she is to meet all the best company from
Dublin, and to live in a continual train of amuse-
ment. She is so popular in Kerry that when she
goes to a play that is acted by strolling players at
215
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Tralee, the whole house rings with applause at her
entrance, and she is obliged to curtsey her thanks
like a queen. Remember me to Molly Thomas,
and believe me, your sincere friend,
" ' C. SACKVILLE.'
" The woman in the mulberry-coloured dress closes
the letter. It has set in movement before her inward
eye a train of images, pictures of past years.
" She sees a child of four years old running to
meet her. The hair curls abundantly, the cheeks
are delicately pink, the curved lips smiling. In
both hands she brings treasures — bright spindle
berries heaped together, crimson and orange, in
her little hands.
" And the woman hears her glad voice calling :
* Look, Ellen ! corals like Di's necklace ! corals
growing on trees ! '
" The memory passes, and she sees another scene.
The room is darkened ; she is sitting by a bed. A
child lies on it, tossing restlessly, and all the pretty
hair has been cut off. She hears a fretful voice say
repeatedly, ' Sing, Ellen ; Ellen, sing.' And softly,
over and over again until weary, she hears herself
singing an old ballad to the child : —
216
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" * London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my lady lea ;
London Bridge is broken down
With a gay lady.
How shall we build it up again ?
Dance over my lady lea ;
How shall we build it up again ?
With a gay lady.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Dance over my lady lea ;
Wood and clay will wash away
With a gay lady.
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Dance over my lady lea ;
Silver and gold will be stolen away
With a gay lady.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance over my lady lea ;
And then it will last for ages long
With a gay lady.'
" Her voice, set low for the sick-room, repeats the
familiar lines. She dare not cease, for immediately
the eyes are wide upon her, and she hears, * Sing,
sing.' And so she sings on till the little form
shifts less restlessly, and the breathing grows longer
and more profound.
217
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" The fire dies down and the clock ticks on in a
comfortable monotony. Then she rises, and, writ-
ing on a piece of paper, she slips it under the door.
And after a while there is a quiet footstep in the
passage, and she knows the child's father is reading
the message, c Miss Diana sleeps'
" Again the past is built before her. She sees
the large house lighted for a ball. There are gar-
lands over the doors, holly and ivy deck the pictures,
and everywhere the soft candlelight is shed on the
dark and polished floors. Music streams through
the brightly-lit rooms, and a brilliant company pass
to and fro in silks and jewels.
" Mrs. Gladwell stands in the gallery, looking
down on the gay scene. She sees a laughing com-
pany, a knot of some seven or eight, pass into the
hall. The men wear their hair long and are dressed
in colours, and in their midst moves Diana Sack-
ville. She wears her hair over cushions, and pearls
are threaded through the soft mass. She paces
through the gavotte with head held high, poised
like a flower, with laughing lips and gleeful eyes,
her step light as thistledown ; and though the
violins are sounding their slender music, through
it all the onlooker hears another melody —
218
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" * Silver and gold will be stolen away
Dance over my lady lea ;
Silver and gold will be stolen away
With a gay lady.' "
Miss Hippesley's voice ceased, and Clare sat
thinking. Still was she seeing in imagination that
bright throng.
"But Diana shall speak for herself; this is a
letter written by her to her father." And Miss
Hippesley opened as she spoke a broad paper.
Though the ink was brown, you might readily see
the tails of the £*s and d's were all turned cheer-
fully, with a kink in them.
" ' MY DEAR FATHER, — I have spent a week
with a friend of yours at Edmomsbury, and been
very much entertained there. Lord and Lady
Buckingham have been obliging enough to give a
ball on purpose for me at St. Woolstans, where I
danced in great spirits, being now mighty well and
able to enjoy, as usual, all amusements.
" * We had a good deal of company at Edmoms-
bury, and dear whist finished every evening. I had
the long-wished-for happiness of driving a little
cabriolet myself every morning, and am grown an
excellent coachman.
219
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
" ' I must inform you that your friend the Speaker,
with all his outside gravity and demureness, is a
jolly buck at bottom. He does not dislike the
sight of a pretty woman, for such, entre nous,
am I universally thought here, whatever I may be
reckoned in England; but no prophet is a" prophet
in his own country.
" ' I was much surprised as I was quietly seated
one evening to feel myself pulled back in the chair
by the shoulders, and, looking up, perceived it was
the frisky Speaker's doing, who vowed he had such
an inclination to kiss me he could hardly withstand
the longing he felt. Instead of looking grave, I burst
out a-laughing, and indeed well I might when I saw
that demure old face extended into a tender simper.
" ' He afterwards confessed he repented not having
gratified his kissing inclination, and assured me if I
gave him any encouragement, he should certainly do
it in spite of me.
" * Mrs. Perry was half inclined to look grave,
and I to be much entertained.
" * Poor Sir John Irwin's head is quite turned
with his Mrs. Squib. He gets himself abused every-
where.
" * We talk of returning to England in a very
short time. I confess, if it were not for seeing you
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
all, I should feel sorry at leaving a place where I
have been so well received, and am so well amused.
" ' Adieu, my dear father. I shall direct this to
Richmond, as my sisters do not mention your leav-
ing that place yet. — Dutifully yours,
"' DIANA CROSBIE.' "
Clare took the letter from Miss Hippesley's hand.
The notepaper, where it was not frayed, had a slender
gold edging. Across the corner, written in the same
round handwriting, were some lines added —
" The Duke of Leinster told somebody the other
day that I was a dear, charming girl, and danced
like an angel."
That night as Clare was going to bed, she stood
before Lady Crosbie's picture. She noted the pearls
in the hair, the laughing eyes, the flying grace of
movement.
Had all this light-heartedness, all this beauty
become (to borrow one of Mrs. Inchbald's crisp
sayings) long since dust and daisies ?
" Not while this picture lasts," thought Clare.
"With this before us, Beauty, like stone-built
London Bridge, may last for ages."
CHAPTER XXVII
One I have marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the best :
Hail to thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion !
Thou, Linnet ! in thy green array.
Presiding spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.
W. WORDSWORTH.
@]OLORfeS had a tame bird called
' Piripe,' you know," said Clare one
day to the children.
" She brought him up by hand, and
when he died she was miserable. She's got a long
poem that a man called Skelton wrote long ago
when English was spelt strangely. It is full of
pretty phrases, and it has got a long list of birds'
names ; if you'll listen, she'll read it to you, she
says."
Clare spoke eagerly. But she had no need to
222
DOLORES.
Reynolds.
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
call the children twice. They gather round any
one willingly enough who will read to them.
Dolores looked very small and sad as she sat on
a low stool, about to commence reading. There is
something you will see, in the manner her little
bodice is crossed, that is curiously at one with that
lift in her eyebrow.
" My bird was a green finch," she said, " and he
had the Grossest little eye I've ever seen ; it was
like a sour bead, full of greediness. But all the
same I loved him, and I shall never have such an-
other. I shall never, never, have such a dear again.
This man Skelton who wrote this poem must have
known some little girl who lost a bird she loved,
for listen to what he writes about it. It is called
The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe,
and these are only some of the lines : —
" « When I remember again
How my Phylyp was slain
Never half the payne
Was between you twain,
Pyramus and Thisbe,
As then befell to me.
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THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
I wept and I wayled,
The tears down hayled,
But nothing it availed
To call Philyp again,
Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.
Gib, I say, our cat
Worried her on that
Which I loved best.
It cannot be expressed
By sorrowful heaviness.
It was so prety a fool
It wold sit on a stool ;
It had a velvet cap,
And would sit upon my lap,
And seek after small wormes
And sometymes white bread crommes.
Sometimes he wold gasp
When he saw a wasp,
A fly, or a gnat,
He would fly at that ;
And pretily he wold pant
When he saw an ant ;
Lord, how he wold pry
After the butterfly !
Lord, how he wold hop
After the gressop !
And when I sayd, Phyp, Phyp !
Then he wold leap and skyp
And take me by the lyp.
224
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
Alas ! it will me slo
That Phyllyp is gone me fro !
For it wold come and go
And fly so to and fro,
And on me it wold leap
When I was asleep,
And his fethers shake,
Wherewith he wold make
Me often for to wake.
He did nothing perdie
But sit upon my knee.
Phyllyp had leave to go
To pike my lytell toe ;
Phyllip might be bold
And do what he wold.
Phyllyp wold seek and take
All the fleas blake
That he could there espy
With his wanton eye.
That vengeance I aske and cry
By way of exclamation
On the whole nation
Of cattes, wyld and tame.
God send them sorrowe and shame !
That cat specially
That slew so cruelly
My lytell prety sparowe
That I brought up at Carowe.
225 1
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
When I remember it,
How pretily it wold sit
Many times and oft
On my finger aloft !
His bill between my lippes —
It was my prety Phyppes !
He was wont to repayre
And go in at my spay re,
And creep in at my gore
Of my gown before,
Flyckering with his wings.
Alas ! my heart it stings
Remembrynge prety things !
Of fortune this the chance
Standeth on variance
Oft time after pleasaunce,
Trouble and grievaunce
No man can be sure
All way to have pleasure.
As well perceive ye may
How my desport and play
From me was taken away
By Gyb, our cat, savage,
That in a furious rage
Caught Phyllyp by the head
And slew him there, starke dead.
Kvrie eleison,
Christt, eleison,
Kyrie e/eisony
226
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
For Phyllyp Sparowe's soule
Set in our bead roll
Let us now whisper
A Pater noster.
All manner of birdes in your kind
So none be left behind,
Some to sing and some to say,
Some to weep and some to pray
Every birde in his laye.
The goldfink, the wagtayle,
The jangling pie to chatter
Of this dolorous matter ;
And robyn redbreast
He shall be the priest
The requiem mass to sing
Softly warbelynge.
With help of the red sparrow
And the chattringe swallow
This hearse for to hallow.
The larke, with his long toe,
The spynk and martinet, also
The shoveler with his brode bek ;
The dotterell, that folyshe pek
The partryche, the quayle,
The plover, with us to wayle,
The lusty chaunting nightingale ;
The popinjay to tell her tale
227
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
That looketh oft in the glasse,
Shall read the gospel at Masse.
The mavis with her whystle
Shall read the epistle,
But with a large and a longe
To keep just playne songe
Our chanters shall be the cuckoo,
The culver, the stockdoo,
With puwyt, the lapwyng,
The versicles shall syng.
The bittern with his bumpe,
The crane with his trumpe,
The swan of Menander,
The gose and the gander,
The duck and the drake,
Shall watch at this wake.
The owle, that is so fowle,
Must help us to howle ;
The barnacle, the bussarde,
With the wild mallarde ;
The puffin and teal
Money they shall dele ;
The seamewe, the tytmose,
The wodcocke, with the longe nose ;
The throstyll, with her warblyng,
The starling, with her brablyng ;
The roke and the osprey
That putteth fysshe to the fraye ;
And the dainty curlew,
With the turtyll most trew.
228
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
And it were a Jewe
It wold make one rewe
To see my sorrow newe !
These villainous false cattes
Were made for myse and rattes,
And not for birdes smale.
Alas ! my face waxeth pale
Telling this piteous tale.
Alas ! I say agayne,
Deth hath departed us twayne ;
The false cat hath thee slayne.
Farewell, Phyllyp, adieu,
Our Lord thy soule reskew ;
Farewell, without restore,
Farewell for evermore.' "
JOHN SKELTON, born 1460.
229
CONCLUSION
HE day came when the children were
to leave London. The demon of
packing was abroad. Open trunks in
the passage, frothing over with paper,
busy people, excited children, and bustle everywhere.
This is the spirit of packing, much beloved of children,
but only to be endured in varying degrees of patience
by those more nearly concerned.
The children must see after their own toys, how-
ever. So Huckaback and Bombasine, the cloth
monkeys, are placed with other things on the nursery
table, where they lie grinning, with bead teeth. Here
also is Natalie, who we read of in the first chapter, and
Mrs. Apollo Johnson, a white material bear. Here
are Molly Easter, the horse Anthony, and Ben and
Greet.
Clare, having put these toys aside, left the nur-
sery, where the sense of dislocation was almost too
acute. Going to her own room, she stood looking
out of the window. The scene before her brought
to her mind the view she was so soon to see. She
230
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
thought of the green paddock to be full of daffodils
in March, where the ashes stand with their grey
stems, and the great yew tree. She saw the curve
in the oak paling as it skirts the withebed, and the
winding path that leads to Minnow Corner. She
caught the scent of the old stone granary, that
has just sufficient dash of mouse in it to make
the hay and grain smell doubly sweet, and she re-
membered the thick yew hedges where linnets build,
and the leaning boughs of the mulberry tree.
" And all this," thought she, " I shall soon see
once more." And with this thought there flooded
into her heart a wave of love for the country,
bringing with it the remembrance of some lines.
" ' 'Tis she that to these gardens gave
The wondrous beauty that they have.
She straightness on the wood bestows,
To her the meadow sweetness owes.
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pure but only she.
She, yet more pure, sweet, straight and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.' "
And as Clare said these lines, with her mind
dwelling on the country, suddenly it took a swal-
low's angle, and she thought of London again and
231
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
the life of the pictures that she had come to know.
Swiftly she ran downstairs and stood in turn before
each one of them. The morning light touched
them unsympathetically. They seemed strangely
aloof. Was it because her thoughts had been
among the green living things of the country, her
memory out in the fresh, sweet air of Nature, that
these pictures seemed so dead ?
She stood before Lewis the actor. He gripped
his sword and looked away. Before Mrs. Inchbald.
She leaned from her chair, gazing intently, but not
at Clare. Miss Ridge smiled, but the smile was
not for her. Clare knew if she turned away, Miss
Ridge would still be smiling. She stood before
Kitty Fischer; but nothing that Clare could do
or say would make her look up.
" Miss Ross will say something," thought Clare.
But no spoken word came from Miss Ross. Yet
as Clare stood looking, she remembered two lines,
she knew not whence they came —
Endurance is the noblest quality,
And Patience all the passion of great hearts.
Clare went out upon the landing. Here again
there was no recognition. The Spencer children
were painted children, and Lady Crosbie, though
232
THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES
she tripped forward with smiles for every one, was
but a bright form on canvas.
The life of the pictures had been withdrawn.
Only Robert Mayne, Clare thought, looked back
at her with any friendship.
Then she looked steadfastly at the wide country
round Dedham Lock.
And as she looked, she saw the wind was in the
sedges, bowing the great dock leaves as it passed.
THE END
233
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