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diff --git a/old/13337-h/13337-h.htm b/old/13337-h/13337-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63de596 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13337-h/13337-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5389 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 1st August 2004), see www.w3.org" /> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>Milly and Olly</title> + +<style type="text/css" title="CSS styles"> +/*<![CDATA[*/ +<!-- + * {font-family: Georgia,serif;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; font-size: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + h1,h2,h3 {font-variant: small-caps;} + h1, h4 {margin: 2em;} + h2 {margin-top: 3em;} + hr {width: 33%;} + pre {font-family: Courier, monospaced; font-size: 9pt;} + .figure {padding: 1em; text-align: center; font-size: 0.9em; margin: auto;} + .figure img {border: none;} + .figure>p {text-align:center;} + .returnTOC {text-align: right; font-size: 70%;} + .blockquote {margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; text-indent: 0em; line-height: 1;} + blockquote > p {margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 0em;text-indent:0em;font-size:.9em;} + a:link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:visited {color: green; text-decoration: none;} + a:hover {color: red;} +// --> +/*]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Milly and Olly, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Milly and Olly + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: August 31, 2004 [EBook #13337] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILLY AND OLLY *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Barbara Tozier and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<center> +<img alt="Bookcover" src="images/cover.jpg" height="1062" width="655" /> +</center> + + + + +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus1.png"><img src= +"images/illus1.png" alt= +"“Two funny fair-haired children with their fingers in their mouths”" +id="illus1" name="illus1" width="100%" /></a> +<p>“Two funny fair-haired children with their fingers in +their mouths”</p> +</div> +<hr /> +<h1>Milly And Olly</h1> +<h4>New Revised Edition</h4> +<h6>by</h6> +<h2>Mrs. Humphry Ward</h2> +<h6>Illustrated by</h6> +<h4>Ruth M. Hallock</h4> +<h6>Garden City New York<br /> +Doubleday, Page & Company<br /> +1914</h6> +<hr /> +<h2>Dedication</h2> +<p style="text-indent:0em;font-variant:small-caps;">To F.A., In the +name of the children of Fox how, this revival of a child’s +story written twenty-seven years ago, under the spell of Rotha and +Fairfield, is inscribed by the writer.</p> +<hr /> +<h2>Preface</h2> +<p>After many years this little book is once more to see the light. +The children for whom it was written are long since grown up. But +perhaps the pleasure they once took in it may still be felt by some +of the Millys and Ollys of to-day. Up in the dear mountain country +which it describes, the becks are still sparkling; +“Brownholme” still spreads its green steeps and ferny +hollows under rain and sun; the tiny trout still leap in its tiny +streams; and Fairfield, in its noble curve, still girdles the deep +valley where these children played: the valley of Wordsworth and +Arnold—the valley where Arnold’s poet-son rambled as a +boy—where, for me, the shy and passionate ghost of Charlotte +Brontë still haunts the open door-way of Fox How—where +poetry and generous life and ranging thought still dwell, and bring +their benediction to the passers-by. “Aunt Emma” in her +beautiful home, unchanged but for its vacant chairs, is now as she +ever was, the friend of old and young; and the children of to-day +still press to her side as their elders did before them. The parrot +alas! is gone where parrots may; but amid the voices that breathe +around Fox How—the voices of seventy years—his mimic +speech is still remembered by the children who teased and loved +him. For love, while love lasts, gives life to all things small and +great; and in those who have once felt it, the love of the +Fairfield valley, of the gray stone house that fronts the fells, +and of them that dwell therein, is “not Time’s +fool—”</p> +<p style="text-align:center;">“Or bends with the remover to +remove.”</p> +<p>Mary A. Ward.<br /> +September 18, 1907.</p> +<hr /> +<h2><a id="Contents" name="Contents">CONTENTS</a></h2> +<h3>CHAPTER</h3> +<ol type="I" start="1" style= +"margin: 0 0 0 25%;font-variant:small-caps;"> +<li><a href="#Chapter1">Making Plans</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter2">A Journey North</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter3">Ravensnest</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter4">Out on the Hills</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter5">Aunt Emma’s Picnic</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter6">Wet Days at Ravensnest</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter7">A Story-telling Game</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter8">The Story of Beowulf</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter9">Milly’s Birthday</a></li> +<li><a href="#Chapter10">Last Days at Ravensnest</a></li> +</ol> +<h3><a id="Illustrations" name= +"Illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></h3> +<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin: 0 0 0 5%;font-size:.9em;"> +<li><a href="#illus1">“Two funny fair-haired children with +their fingers in their mouths”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus2">“‘I can’t do without my +toys, Nana’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus3">“The flowers Milly gathered for her +mother”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus4">“So they put Olly up on a tall piece of +rock, and he sang”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus5">“He was quite sure that h-a-y spelt +‘ham’ and s-a-w spelt ‘was’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus6">“‘Suppose we have a story-telling +game’”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus7">“Haymaking”</a></li> +<li><a href="#illus8">“‘Haven’t you got a +bump?’ asked Olly”</a></li> +</ul> +<hr /> +<h2><a id="Chapter1" name="Chapter1">CHAPTER I</a></h2> +<h3>Making Plans</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“Milly, come down! come down directly! Mother wants you. +Do make haste!”</p> +<p>“I’m just coming, Olly. Don’t stamp so. Nurse +is tying my sash.”</p> +<p>But Master Olly went on stamping, and jumping up and down +stairs, as his way was when he was very much excited, till Milly +appeared. Presently down she came, a sober fair-haired little +maiden, with blue eyes and a turn-up nose, and a mouth that was +generally rather solemn-looking, though it could laugh merrily +enough when it tried. Milly was six years old. She looked older +than six. At any rate she looked a great deal older than Olly, who +was nearly five; and you will soon find out that she was a good +deal more than a year and a half wiser.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter, Olly? What made you shout +so?”</p> +<p>“Oh, come along, come along;” said the little boy, +pulling at his sister’s hand to make her run. “Mother +wants to tell us something, and she says it’s a nice +something, and I kissed her like anyfing! but she wouldn’t +tell me without you.”</p> +<p>Then the two children set off running, and they flew down a long +passage to the drawing-room, and were soon scrambling about a lady +who was sitting working by the window.</p> +<p>“Well, monkeys, don’t choke me before I tell you my +nice something. Sit on my knee Olly. Now, Milly, guess—what +have father and I just been talking about?”</p> +<p>“Sending Olly to school, perhaps,” said Milly. +“I heard Uncle Richard talking about it yesterday.”</p> +<p>“That wouldn’t be such a nice something,” said +Olly, making a long face. “I wouldn’t like it—not +a bit. Boys don’t never like going to school. I want to learn +my lessons with mother.”</p> +<p>“I know a little boy that doesn’t like learning +lessons with mother very much,” said the lady, laughing. +“But my nice something isn’t sending Olly to school, +Milly. You’re quite wrong—so try again.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother! is it a strawberry tea?” cried Milly. +“The strawberries are just ripe, I know. Gardener told nurse +so this morning. And we can have tea on the lawn, and ask Jacky and +Francis!”</p> +<p>“Oh, jolly!” said Oliver, jumping off his +mother’s knee and beginning to dance about. “And +we’ll gather them ourselves—won’t you let us, +mother?”</p> +<p>“But it isn’t a strawberry tea even,” said his +mother. “Now, look here, children, what have I got +here?”</p> +<p>“It’s a map—a map of England,” said +Milly, looking very wise. Milly had just begun to learn geography, +and thought she knew all about maps.</p> +<p>“Well, and what happens when father and I look at maps in +the summertime?”</p> +<p>“Why,” said Milly, slowly, “you and father +pack up your things, and go away over the sea, and we stay behind +with nurse.”</p> +<p>“I don’t call <em>that</em> a nice something,” +said Olly, standing still again.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother, <em>are</em> you going away?” said +Milly, hanging round her mother’s neck.</p> +<p>“Yes, Milly, and so’s father, and so’s +nurse”—and their mother began to laugh.</p> +<p>“So’s nurse?” said Milly and Olly together, +and then they stopped and opened two pairs of round eyes very wide, +and stared at their mother. “Oh, mother, mother, take us +too!”</p> +<p>“Why, how should father and I get on, travelling about +with a pair of monkeys?” said their mother, catching hold of +the two children and lifting them on to her knee; “we should +want a cage to keep them in.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother, we’ll be <em>ever</em> so good! But +where are we going? Oh, do take us to the sea!”</p> +<p>“Yes, the sea! the sea!” shouted Olly, careering +round the room again; “we’ll have buckets and spades, +and we’ll paddle and catch crabbies, and wet our clothes, and +have funny shoes, just like Cromer. And father’ll teach me to +swim—he said he would next time.”</p> +<p>“No,” said Mrs. Norton, for that was the name of +Milly’s and Oliver’s mother. “No, we are not +going to the sea this summer. We are going to a place mother loves +better than the sea, though perhaps you children mayn’t like +it quite so well. We’re going to the mountains. Uncle Richard +has lent father and mother his own nice house among the mountains +and we’re all going there next week—such a long way in +the train, Milly.”</p> +<p>“What are mountains?” said Olly, who had scarcely +ever seen a hill higher than the church steeple. “They +can’t be so nice as the sea, mother. Nothing can.”</p> +<p>“They’re humps, Olly,” answered Milly eagerly. +“Great, big humps of earth, you know; earth mixed with stone. +And they reach up ever so high, up into the sky. And it takes you a +whole day to get up to the top of them, and a whole day to get down +again. Doesn’t it, mother? Fräulein told me all about +mountains in my geography. And some mountains have got snow on +their tops all year, even in summer, when it’s so hot, and +we’re having strawberries. Will the mountains we’re +going to, have snow on them?”</p> +<p>“Oh, no. The snow mountains are far away over the sea. But +these are English mountains, kind, easy mountains, not too high for +you and me to climb up, and covered all over with soft green grass +and wild flowers, and tiny sheep with black faces.”</p> +<p>“And, mother, is there a garden to Uncle Richard’s +house, and are there any children there to play with?”</p> +<p>“There’s a delightful garden, full of roses, and +strawberries and grapes, and everything else that’s nice. And +it has a baby river all to itself, that runs and jumps and chatters +all through the middle of it, so perhaps Olly may have a paddle +sometimes, though we aren’t going to the sea. And the +gardener has got two little children, just about your age, Aunt +Mary says: and there are two more at the farm, two dear little +girls, who aren’t a bit shy, and will like playing with you +very much. But who else shall we see there, Milly? Who lives in the +mountains too, near Uncle Richard?”</p> +<p>Olly looked puzzled, but Milly thought a minute, and then said +quickly, “Aunt Emma, isn’t it, mother? Didn’t she +come here once? I think I remember.”</p> +<p>“Yes, she came once, but long ago, when you were quite +small. But now we shall see a great deal of her I hope, for she +lives just on the other side of the mountain from Uncle +Richard’s house, in a dear old house, where I spent many, +many happy days when I was small. Great-grandpapa and grandmamma +were alive then. But now Aunt Emma lives there quite alone. Except +for one creature, at least, an old gray poll-parrot, that chatters +away, and behaves as if it were quite sensible, and knew all about +everything.”</p> +<p>“Hasn’t she got any pussies, mother?” asked +Olly.</p> +<p>“Yes, two I believe; but they don’t get on with +Polly very well, so they live in the kitchen out of the +way—”</p> +<p>“I like pussies better than pollies,” said Olly +gravely.</p> +<p>“Why, what do you know about pollies, old man?”</p> +<p>“Pollies bite, I know they do. There was a polly bited +Francis once.”</p> +<p>“Well, and pussies scratch,” said Milly.</p> +<p>“No, they don’t, not if you’re nicey to +them,” said Olly; who was just then very much in love with a +white kitten, and thought there were no creatures so delightful as +pussies.</p> +<p>“Well, suppose you don’t make up your mind about +Aunt Emma’s Polly till you’ve seen her,” said +Mrs. Norton. “Now sit down on the rug there and let us have a +talk.”</p> +<p>Down squatted the children on the floor opposite their mother, +with their little heads full of plans and their eyes as bright as +sparks.</p> +<p>“I’ll take my cart and horse,” began Olly; +“and my big ball, and my whistle, and my wheelbarrow, and my +spade, and all my books, and the big scrap-book, +and—”</p> +<p>“You can’t, Olly,” exclaimed Milly. +“Nurse could never pack all those up. There’d be no +room for our clothes. You can take your whistle, and the top, and +the picture books, and I can take my dolls. That’ll be quite +enough, won’t it, mother?”</p> +<p>“Quite enough,” said Mrs. Norton. “If +it’s fine weather you’ll see—you won’t want +any toys. But now, look here, children,” and she held up the +map. “Shall I show you how we are going to get to the +mountains?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes,” said Milly, “that’ll be like +my geography lesson—come, Olly. Now mother’ll teach +<em>you</em> geography, like Fräulein does me.”</p> +<p>“That’s lessons,” said Olly, with half a pout, +“not fun a bit. It’s only girls like lessons—Boys +never do—Jacky doesn’t, and Francis doesn’t, and +I don’t.”</p> +<p>“Never mind about it’s being lessons, Olly. Come and +see if it isn’t interesting,” said Mrs. Norton. +“Now, Milly, find Willingham.”</p> +<p>Willingham was the name of the town where Milly and Oliver +lived. It is a little town in Oxfordshire, and if you look long +enough on the map you <em>may</em> find it, though I won’t +promise you.</p> +<p>“There it is,” said Milly triumphantly, showing it +to her mother and Olly.</p> +<p>“Quite right. Now look here,” and Mrs. Norton took a +pencil out of her pocket and drew a little line along the map. +“First of all we shall get into the train and go to a place +called—look, Milly.”</p> +<p>“Bletchley,” said Milly, following where the pencil +pointed. “What an ugly name.”</p> +<p>“It’s an ugly place,” said Mrs. Norton, +“so perhaps it doesn’t deserve a better name. And after +Bletchley—look again, Milly.”</p> +<p>“Rugby,” said Milly, reading the names as her mother +pointed, “and then Stafford, and then Crewe—what a +funny name, mother!—and then Wigan, and then Warrington, and +then Lancaster. Ox-en-holme, Kendal, Wind-er-mere. Oh, mother, what +a long way! Why, we’ve got right to the top of +England.”</p> +<p>“Stop a bit, Milly, and let me tell you something about +these places. First of all we shall get out of the train at +Bletchley, and get into another train that will go faster than the +first. And it will take us past all kinds of places, some pretty +and some ugly, and some big and some small. At Stafford there is an +old castle, Milly, where fierce people lived in old days and fought +their neighbours. And at Crewe we shall get out and have our +dinner. And at Wigan all the trees grow on one side as if some one +had come and given them a push in the night; and at Lancaster +there’s another old castle, a very famous one, only now they +have turned it into a prison, and people are shut up inside it. +Then a little way after Lancaster you’ll begin to see some +mountains, far, far away, but first you’ll see something +else—just a little bit of blue sea, with mountains on the +other side of it. And then will come Windermere, where we shall get +out and drive in a carriage. And we shall drive right into the +mountains, Olly, till they stand up all round us with their dear +kind old faces that mother has loved ever since she was a +baby.”</p> +<p>The children looked up wonderingly at their mother, and they saw +her face shining and her eyes as bright as theirs, as if she too +was a child going out for a holiday.</p> +<p>“Oh! And, mother,” said Olly, “you’ll +let us take Spot. She can go in my box.”</p> +<p>Now Spot was the white kitten, so Milly and mother began to +laugh.</p> +<p>“Suppose you go and ask Spot first, whether she’d +like it, Olly,” said Mrs. Norton, patting his sunburnt little +face.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter2" name="Chapter2">CHAPTER II</a></h2> +<h3>A Journey North</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Milly and Oliver lived at Willingham, a little town in +Oxfordshire, as I have already told you. Their father was a doctor, +and they lived in an old-fashioned house, in a street, with a long +shady garden stretching away behind it. Milly and Oliver loved +their father, and whenever he put his brown face inside the nursery +door, two pairs of little feet went running to meet him, and two +pairs of little hands pulled him eagerly into the room. But they +saw him very seldom; whereas their mother was always with them, +teaching them their lessons, playing with them in the garden, +telling them stories, mending their frocks, tucking them up in +their snug little beds at night, sometimes praising them, sometimes +scolding them; always loving and looking after them. Milly and Olly +honestly believed that theirs was the best mother in the whole +world. Nobody else could find out such nice plays, or tell them +such wonderful stories, or dress dolls half so well. Two little +neighbours of theirs, Jacky and Francis, had a poor sick mother who +always lay on the sofa, and could hardly bear to have her little +boys in the room with her. Milly and Oliver were never tired of +wondering how Jacky and Francis got on with a mother like that. +“How funny, and how dreadful it must be. Poor Jacky and +Francis!” It never came into their, heads to say, “Poor +Jacky’s mother” too, but then you see they were such +little people, and little people have only room in their heads for +a very few thoughts at a time.</p> +<p>However, Milly had been away from her mother a good deal lately. +About six months before my story begins she had been sent to +school, to a kindergarten, as she was taught to call it. And there +Milly had learnt all kinds of wonderful things—she had learnt +how to make mats out of paper, blue mats, and pink mats, and yellow +mats, and red mats; she had learned how to make a bit of soft clay +look like a box, or a stool, or a bird’s nest with three clay +eggs inside it; she had begun to add up and take away; and, above +all, she had begun to learn geography, and Fräulein—for +Milly’s mistress was a German, and had a German +name—was just now teaching her about islands, and lakes, and +capes, and peninsulas, and many other things that all little girls +have to learn about some time or other, unless they wish to grow up +dunces.</p> +<p>As for Milly’s looks, I have told you already that she had +blue eyes and a turn-up nose, and a dear sensible little face. And +she had very thick fair hair, that was always tumbling about her +eyes, and making her look, as nurse told her, like “a yellow +owl in an ivy bush.” Milly loved most people, except perhaps +John the gardener, who was rather cross to the children, and was +always calling to them not to walk “on them beds,” and +to be sure not to touch any of his fruit or flowers. She loved her +father and her mother; she loved Olly with all her whole heart, +though he was a tease, she loved her nurse, whom she and Olly +called Nana, and who had been with them ever since Milly was born; +and she loved Fräulein, and was always begging flowers from +her mother that she might take them to school for +Fräulein’s table. So you see Milly was made up of +loving. And she was a thoughtful little girl too, tidy with her +dress, quick and quiet at her lessons, and always ready to sit +still with her fairy-book or her doll, when mother was busy or +tired. But there were two things in which Milly was not at all +sensible in spite of her sensible face. She was much too ready to +cry when any little thing went wrong, and she was dreadfully afraid +of creatures of all sorts. She was afraid of her father’s big +dog, she was afraid of the dear brown cow that lived in the field +beyond the garden, she was afraid of earwigs. I am even ashamed to +say she was afraid of spiders. Once she ran away as if a lion were +behind her from a white kitten that pulled her dress with its +frolicsome paws to make her play with it; but that, Milly would +tell you, was “when I was little,” and she was quite +sure she was a good deal braver now.</p> +<p>Now what am I to tell you about Olly?</p> +<p>Olly was just a round ball of fun and mischief. He had brown +hair, brown eyes, a brown face, and brown hands. He was always +touching and meddling with everything, indoors and out, to see what +was inside it, or what it was made of. He liked teasing Milly, he +liked his walks, he liked his sleep in the morning, he liked his +dinner, he liked his tea, he liked everything in the world, except +learning to read, and that he hated. He could only do one thing +besides mischief. He could sing all kinds of tunes—quick +tunes, slow tunes, and merry tunes. He had been able to sing tunes +ever since he was quite a tiny baby, and his father and mother +often talked together of how, in about a year, he should be taught +to play on the piano, or perhaps on the violin, if he liked it +better. You might hear his sharp, shrill little voice, singing +about the house and the garden all day long. John the gardener +called it “squealin’,” and told Olly his songs +were “capital good” for frightening away the birds.</p> +<p>Now, perhaps, you know a little more about Milly and Olly than +you did when I began to tell you about them, and it is time you +should hear of what happened to them on that wonderful journey of +theirs up to the mountains.</p> +<p>First of all came the packing up. Milly could not make up her +mind about her dolls; she had three—Rose, Mattie, and +Katie—but Rose’s frocks were very dirty, Mattie had a +leg broken, and Katie’s paint had been all washed off one wet +night, when Olly left her out on the lawn. Now which of these was +the tidiest and most respectable doll to take out on a visit? Milly +did not know how to settle it.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus2.png"><img src= +"images/illus2.png" id="illus2" name="illus2" alt= +"“‘I can’t do without my toys, Nana’”" +width="100%" /></a> +<p>“‘I can’t do without my toys, +Nana’”</p> +</div> +<p>“I think, Nana,” she said at last to her nurse, who +was packing the children’s trunk, “I will take Katie. +Mother always sends us away when we get white faces to make us look +nice and red again; so, perhaps, if I take Katie her colour will +come back too, you know.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it will, Miss Milly,” said nurse, laughing; +“anyhow, you had better give me the doll you want directly, +for it is time I packed all the toys now. Now, Master Olly, you +know I can’t let you take all those things.”</p> +<p>For there was Olly dragging along his wheelbarrow heaped up with +toys with one hand, and his cart and horse with a box of bricks +standing up in it with the other. He would not listen to what Milly +said about it, and he would scarcely listen to nurse now.</p> +<p>“I can’t do without my toys, Nana. I <em>must</em> +do mischief if you won’t let me take all my toys; I +can’t help it.”</p> +<p>“I haven’t got room for half those, Master Olly, and +you’ll have ever so many new things to play with when we get +to Ravensnest.”</p> +<p>“There’ll be the new children, Olly,” said +Milly, “and the little rivers and all the funny new +flowers.”</p> +<p>“Those aren’t toys,” said Olly, looking ready +to cry. “I don’t know nothing about them.”</p> +<p>“Now,” said nurse, making a place in the box, +“bring me your bricks and your big ball, and your +picture-books. There, that’s all I can spare you.”</p> +<p>“Wait one minute,” said Olly, rushing off; and just +then Mrs. Norton called nurse away to speak to her in the +drawing-room. When nurse came back she saw nobody in the nursery. +Milly had gone out in the garden, Olly was nowhere to be seen. And +who had shut down the trunk, which was open when she left it? +Me-ow, sounded very softly from somewhere close by.</p> +<p>“Why—Spot! Spot!” called nurse.</p> +<p>Me-ow, Me-ow, came again; a sad choky little mew, right from the +middle of the children’s trunk. “Master Olly and his +tricks again,” said nurse, running to the box and opening it. +There, on the top, lay a quantity of frocks that nurse had left +folded up on the floor, thrown in anyhow, with some toys scattered +among them, and the frocks and toys were all dancing up and down as +if they were bewitched. Nurse took out the frocks, and there was +the children’s collar-box, a large round cardboard-box with a +lid, jumping from side to side like a box in a fairy tale; and such +dreadful pitiful little mews coming from the inside! Nurse undid +the lid, and out sprang Spot like a flash of lightning, and ran as +if she were running for her life out of the door and down the +stairs, and safe into the kitchen, where she cuddled herself up in +a corner of the fender, wishing with all her poor trembling little +heart that there were no such things in the world as small boys. +And then nurse heard a kind of kicking and scuffling in the china +cupboard, and when she opened it there sat Olly doubled up, his +brown eyes dancing like will-o’-the-wisps, and his little +white teeth grinning.</p> +<p>“Oh! Nana, she <em>did</em> make a funny me-ow! I just +said to her, Now, Spottie, <em>wouldn’t</em> you like to go +in my box? and she said, Yes; and I made her such a comfy bed, and +then I stuck all those frocks on the top of her to keep her warm. +Why did you let her out, Nana?”</p> +<p>“You little mischief,” said Nana, “do you know +you might have smothered poor little Spot? And look at all these +frocks; do you think I have got nothing better to do than to tidy +up after your tricks?”</p> +<p>But nurse never knew how to be very hard upon Olly; so all she +did was to set him up on a high chair with a picture-book, where +she could see all he was doing. There was no saying what he might +take a fancy to pack up next if she didn’t keep an eye on +him.</p> +<p>Well, presently all the packing was done, and Milly and Olly had +gone to say good-bye to Fräulein, and to Jacky and Francis. +Wednesday evening came, and they were to start early on Thursday +morning. Olly begged nurse to put him to bed very early, that he +might “wake up krick”—quick was a word Olly never +could say. So to bed he went at half-past six, and his head had +scarcely touched the pillow two minutes before he had gone +cantering away into dreamland, and was seeing all the sights and +hearing all the delicious stories that children do see and hear in +dreamland, though they don’t always remember them when they +wake up. Both Milly and he woke up very early on Thursday morning; +and directly his eyes were open Olly jumped out of bed like an +india-rubber ball, and began to put on his stockings in a terrible +hurry. The noise of his jump woke nurse, and she called out in a +sleepy voice:</p> +<p>“Get into bed again, Master Olly, directly. It is only +just six o’clock, and I can’t have you out of bed till +seven. You’ll only be under my feet, and in everybody’s +way.”</p> +<p>“Nana, I won’t be in <em>anybody’s</em> +way,” exclaimed Olly, running up to her and scrambling on to +her bed with his little bare toes half way into his stockings. +“I can’t keep still in my bed all such a long time. +There’s something inside of me, Nana, keeps jumping up and +down, and won’t let me keep still. Now, if I get up, you +know, Nana, I can help you.”</p> +<p>“Help me, indeed!” said nurse, kissing his little +brown face, or as much of it as could be seen through his curls. +“A nice helping that would be. Come back to bed, sir, and +I’ll give you some picture-books till I’m ready to +dress you.”</p> +<p>So back to bed Master Olly went, sorely against his will, and +there he had to stay till nurse and Milly were dressed, and the +breakfast things laid. Then nurse gave him his bath and dressed +him, and put him up to eat his bread and milk while she finished +the packing. Olly was always very quiet over his meals, and it was +the only time in the day when he was quiet.</p> +<p>Presently up rattled the cab, and down ran the children with +their walking things on to see father and John lift the boxes on to +the top; and soon they were saying good-bye to Susan the cook, and +Jenny the housemaid, who were going to stay and take care of the +house while they were away; and then crack went the whip, and off +they went to the station. On the way they passed Jacky and Francis +standing at their gate, and all the children waved their hats and +shouted “Hurrah! hurrah!” At the station nurse kept +tight hold of Olly till father had got the tickets and put all the +boxes into the train, and then he and Milly were safely lifted up +into the railway carriage, and nurse and father and mother came +next, with all the bags and shawls and umbrellas.</p> +<p>Such a settling of legs and arms and packages there was; and in +the middle of it “whew” went the whistle, and off they +went away to the mountains.</p> +<p>But they had a long way to go before they saw any mountains. +First of all they had to get to Bletchley, and it took about an +hour doing that. And oh! what a lovely morning it was, and how +fresh and green the fields looked as the train hurried along past +them. Olly and Milly could see hundreds and thousands of +moon-daisies and buttercups growing among the wet grass, and every +now and then came great bushes of wild-roses, some pink and some +white, and long pools with yellow irises growing along the side; +and sometimes the train went rushing through a little village, and +they could see the little children trotting along to school, with +their books and slates tucked under their arms; and sometimes they +went along for miles together without seeing anything but the +white-and-brown cows in the fields, and the great mother-sheep with +their fat white lambs beside them. The sun shone so brightly, the +buttercups were so yellow, the roses so pink, and the sky so blue, +it was like a fairy world. Olly and Milly were always shouting and +clapping their hands at something or other, for Milly had grown +almost as wild as Olly.</p> +<p>Sh-sh-sh-sh went the train, getting slower and slower till at +last it stopped altogether.</p> +<p>“Bletchley, Bletchley!” shouted Olly, jumping down +off the seat.</p> +<p>“No, my boy,” said his father, catching hold of him, +“we shall stop five more times before we get to Bletchley; so +don’t be impatient.”</p> +<p>But at last came Bletchley, and the children were lifted out +into the middle of such a bustle, as it seemed to Milly. There were +crowds of people at the station, and they were all pushing backward +and forward, and shouting and talking.</p> +<p>“Keep hold of me, Olly,” said Milly, with an anxious +little face. “Oh, Nana, don’t let him go!”</p> +<p>But nurse held him fast; and very soon they were through the +crowd, and father had put them safe into their new train, into a +carriage marked “Windermere,” which would take them all +the way to their journey’s end.</p> +<p>“That was like lions and bears, wasn’t it, +mother?” said Olly, pointing to the crowd in the station, as +they went puffing away. Now, “lions and bears” was a +favourite game of the children’s, a romping game, where +everybody ran about and pretended to be somebody else, and where +the more people played, and the more they ran and pushed and +tumbled about, the funnier, it was. And the running, scrambling +people at the station did look rather as if they were playing at +lions and bears.</p> +<p>And now the children had a long day before them. On rushed the +train, past towns and villages, and houses and trains. The sun got +hotter and hotter, and the children began to get a little tired of +looking out of window. Milly asked for a story-book, and was soon +very happy reading “Snow White and Rose Red.” She had +read it a hundred times before, but that never mattered a bit. Olly +came to sit on nurse’s knee while she showed him pictures, +and so the time passed away. And now the train stopped again, and +father lifted Olly on his knee to see a great church far away over +the houses, and taught him to say “Lichfield +Cathedral.” And then came Stafford; and Milly looked out for +the castle, and wondered whether the castles in her story-books +looked like that, and whether princesses and fairy godmothers and +giants ever lived there in old times.</p> +<p>After they had left Stafford, Olly began to get tired and +fidgety. First he went to sit on his father’s knee, then on +mother’s, then on nurse’s—none of them could keep +him still, and nothing seemed to amuse him for long together.</p> +<p>“Come and have a sleep, Master Olly,” said nurse. +“You are just tired and hot. This is a long way for little +boys, and we’ve got ever so far to go yet.”</p> +<p>“I’m not sleepy, Nana,” said Olly, sitting +straight up, with a little flushed face and wide-open eyes. +“I’m going to keep awake like father.”</p> +<p>“Father’s going to sleep, then,” said Mr. +Norton, tucking himself up in a shady corner; “so you go too, +Olly, and see which of us can go quickest.”</p> +<p>When Olly had seen his father’s eyes tight shut, and heard +him give just one little snore—it was rather a make-believe +snore—he did let nurse draw him on to her knee; and very soon +the little gipsy creature was fast asleep, with all his brown curls +lying like a soft mat over nurse’s arm. Milly, too, shut her +eyes and sat very still; she did not mean to go to sleep, but +presently she began to think a great many sleepy thoughts: Why did +the hedges run so fast? and why did the telegraph wires go up and +down as if they were always making curtsies? and was that really +mother opposite, or was it Cinderella’s fairy godmother? And +all of a sudden Milly came bump up against a tall blue mountain +that had a face like a man, and cried out when she bumped upon +it!</p> +<p>“Crewe, I declare,” exclaimed father, jumping up +with a start. “Why, Olly and I have been asleep nearly an +hour! Wake up, children, it’s dinner-time.”</p> +<p>Nurse had to shake Olly a great many times before he would open +his sleepy eyes, and then he stood up rubbing them as if he would +rub them quite away. Father lifted him out, and carried him into a +big room, with a big table in it, all ready for dinner, and hungry +people sitting round it. What fun it was having dinner at a +station, with all the grown-up people. Milly and Olly thought there +never was such nice bread and such nice apple-tart. Nothing at home +ever tasted half so good. And after dinner father took them a +little walk up and down the platform, and at last, just as it was +time to get into the train again, he bought them a paper full of +pictures, called the <em>Graphic</em>, that amused Olly for a long +way.</p> +<p>But it was a long long way to Windermere, and poor Milly and +Olly began to get very tired. The trees at Wigan did make them +laugh a little bit, but they were too tired to think them as funny +as they would have thought them in the morning. They are such +comical trees! First of all, the smoke from the smoky chimneys at +Wigan has made them black, and stopped the leaves from growing, and +then the wind has blown them all over on one side, so that they +look like ugly little twisted dwarfs, as if some cruel fairy had +touched them with her wand. But Olly soon forgot all about them; +and he began to wander from one end to the other of the carriage +again, scrambling and jumping about, till he gave himself a hard +knock against the seat; and that made him begin to cry—poor +tired little Olly. Then mother lifted him on to her knee, and said +to him, very softly, “Are you very tired, Olly? Never mind, +poor little man, we shan’t be very long now, and we’re +all tired, darling—father’s tired, and I’m tired; +and look at Milly there, she looks like a little white ghost. +Suppose you be brave, and try a little extra hard to be good. Then +mother’ll love you an extra bit. And what do you think we +shall see soon? such a lovely bit of blue sea with white ships on +it. Just you shut your eyes a little bit till it comes, I’ll +be sure to tell you.”</p> +<p>And sure enough, after Lancaster, mother gave a little cry, and +Olly jumped up, and Milly came running over, and there before them +lay the dancing windy blue sea, covered over with little white +waves, running and tumbling over each other. And on the other side +of it, what did the children see?</p> +<p>“Mother, mother! what is it?” cried Olly, pointing +with his little brown hand far away; “is it a fairy palace, +mother?”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it is, Olly; anyway, the hill-fairies live there. +For those are the mountains, the beautiful mountains we are going +to see.”</p> +<p>“But how shall we get across the sea to them?” asked +Milly, with a puzzled face.</p> +<p>“This is only a corner of the sea, Milly—a bay. +Don’t you remember bays in your geography? We can’t go +across it, but we can go round it, and we shall find the mountains +on the other side.”</p> +<p>Oh! how fast the train seemed to go now that there was something +to look at. Everywhere mountains were beginning to spring up. And +when they had said good-bye to the sea, the mountains began to grow +taller and taller. What had happened to the houses too? They had +all turned white or gray; there was no red one left. And the fields +had stone walls instead of hedges; and inside the walls there were +small sheep, about as big as the lambs they had seen near Oxford in +the morning.</p> +<p>Oxenholme, Kendal, Windermere. How glad the tired children were +when the train ran slowly down into Windermere station, and they +could jump out and say good-bye to it for a long, long time! They +had to wait a little, till father had found all the boxes and put +them in the carriage that was waiting for them, and then in they +tumbled, nurse having first wrapped them up in big shawls, for it +was evening now, and the wind had grown cold. That was a nice drive +home among the mountains. How tall and dark and quiet they were. +And what was this shining on their left hand, like a white face +running beside them, and peeping from behind the trees? Why, it was +a lake; a great wide lake, with tiny boats upon it, some with white +sails and some without.</p> +<p>“Mother! mother! may we go in those boats some day?” +shouted Olly, in a little sharp tired voice, and his mother smiled +at him, and said—“Yes, very likely.”</p> +<p>How happy mother looked. She knew all the mountains like old +friends, she could tell all their names; and every now and then, +when they came to a house, she and father would begin to talk about +the people who lived in it, just as if they were talking about +people they knew quite well. And now came a little town, the town +of Wanwick mother called it, right among the mountains, with a +river running round it, and a tall church spire. It began to get +darker and darker, and the trees hung down over the road, so that +the children could hardly see. On they went, and Olly was very +nearly asleep again, when the carriage began to crunch over gravel, +and then it stopped, and father called out—“Here we +are, children, here we are at Ravensnest.”</p> +<p>And out they all jumped. What were those bright lights shining? +Olly and Milly hardly knew where they were going as nurse took them +in, and one of Uncle Richard’s servants showed them the way +upstairs to the nursery. Such a nice nursery, with candles lit, and +a little fire burning, two bowls of hot bread and milk on the +table, and in the corner two little white beds, as soft and fresh +as nests! In twenty minutes Olly was in one of these little white +beds, and Milly in the other. And you may guess whether they were +long about going to sleep.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter3" name="Chapter3">CHAPTER III</a></h2> +<h3>Ravensnest</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>“Poor little souls! How late they are sleeping. They must +have been tired last night.”</p> +<p>So said nurse at eight o’clock, when she came back into +the nursery from a journey to the kitchen after the breakfast +things, and found the children still fast asleep; so fast that it +looked as if they meant to go on sleeping till dinner-time.</p> +<p>“Milly!” she called softly, shaking her very gently, +“Milly, it’s breakfast-time, wake up!”</p> +<p>Milly began to move about, and muttered something about +“whistles” and “hedges” in her sleep.</p> +<p>Then nurse gave her another little shake, and at last +Milly’s eyes did try very hard to open—“What is +it? What do you want, Nana? Where are we?—Oh, I +know!”</p> +<p>And up sprang Milly in a second and ran to the window, her +sleepy eyes wide open at last. “Yes, there they are! Come and +look, Nana! There, past those trees—don’t you see the +mountains? And there is father walking about; and oh! do look at +those roses over there. Dress me quick, dress me quick, please, +dear Nana.”</p> +<p>Thump! bump! and there was Olly out of bed, sitting on the floor +rubbing his eyes. Olly used always to jump out of bed half asleep, +and then sit a long time on the floor waking up. Nurse and Milly +always left him alone till he was quite woke up. It made him cross +if you began to talk to him too soon.</p> +<p>“Milly,” said Olly presently, in a sleepy voice, +“I’m going right up the mountains after breakfast. +Aren’t you?”</p> +<p>“Wait till you see them, Master Olly,” said nurse, +taking him up and kissing him, “perhaps your little legs +won’t find it quite so easy to climb up the mountains as you +think.”</p> +<p>“I can climb up three, four, six, seven mountains,” +said Olly stoutly; “mountains aren’t a bit hard. Mother +says they’re meant to climb up.”</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose it’s like going up stairs a long +way,” said Milly, thoughtfully, pulling on her stockings. +“You didn’t like going up the stairs in Auntie +Margaret’s house, Olly.”</p> +<p>Auntie Margaret’s house was a tall London house, with ever +so many stairs. The children when they were staying there were put +to sleep at the top, and Olly used to sit down on the stairs and +pout and grumble every time they had to go up.</p> +<p>But Olly shook his obstinate little head.</p> +<p>“I don’t believe it’s a bit like going up +stairs.”</p> +<p>However, as they couldn’t know what it was like before +they tried, nurse told them it was no good talking about it. So +they hurried on with their dressing, and presently there stood as +fresh a pair of morning children as anyone could wish to see, with +rosy cheeks, and smooth hair, and clean print frocks—for Olly +was still in frocks—though when the winter came mother said +she was going to put him into knickerbockers.</p> +<p>And then nurse took them each by the hand and led them through +some long passages, down a pretty staircase, and through a swing +door, into what looked like a great nagged kitchen, only there was +no fireplace in it. The real kitchen opened out of it at one side, +and through the door came a smell of coffee and toast that made the +children feel as hungry as little hunters. But their own room was +straight in front, across the kitchen without a fireplace, a tiny +room with one large window hung round with roses, and looking out +on to a green lawn.</p> +<p>“Nana, isn’t it pretty? Nana, I think it’s +lovely!” said Milly, looking out and clapping her hands. And +it <em>was</em> a pretty garden they could see from the window. An +up-and-down garden, with beds full of bright flowers, and grass +which was nearly all moss, and so soft that no cushion could be +softer. In the distance they could hear a little splish-splash +among the trees, which came, Milly supposed, from the river mother +had told them about; while, reaching up all round the house, so +that they could not see the top of it from the window, was the +green wild mountain itself, the mountain of Brownholme, under which +Uncle Richard’s house was built.</p> +<p>The children hurried through their breakfast, and then nurse +covered them up with garden pinafores, and took them to the +dining-room to find father and mother. Mr. and Mrs. Norton were +reading letters when the children’s curly heads appeared at +the open door, and Mrs. Norton was just saying to her husband:</p> +<p>“Aunt Emma sends a few lines just to welcome us, and to +say that she can’t come over to us to-day, but will we all +come over to her to-morrow and have early dinner, and perhaps a row +afterward—”</p> +<p>“Oh, a row, mother, a row!” shouted Olly, clambering +on to his mother’s knee and half-strangling her with his +strong little arms; “I can row, father said I might. Are we +going to-day?”</p> +<p>“No, to-morrow, Olly, when we’ve seen a little bit +of Ravensnest first. Which of you remembers Aunt Emma, I +wonder?”</p> +<p>“I remember her,” said Milly, nodding her head +wisely, “she had a big white cap, and she told me stories. +But I don’t quite remember her face, mother—not +<em>quite</em>.”</p> +<p>“I don’t remember her, not one bit,” said +Olly. “Mother, does she keep saying, ‘Don’t do +that;’ ‘Go up stairs, naughty boys,’ like +Jacky’s aunt does?”</p> +<p>For the children’s playfellows, Jacky and Francis, had an +aunt living with them whom Milly and Olly couldn’t bear. They +believed that she couldn’t say anything else except +“Don’t!” and “Go up stairs!” and they +were always in dread lest they should come across an aunt like +her.</p> +<p>“She’s the dearest aunt in the whole world,” +said mother, “and she never says, ‘Don’t,’ +except when she’s obliged, but when she does say it little +boys have to mind. When I was a little girl I thought there was +nobody like Aunt Emma, nobody who could make such plans or tell +such splendid stories.”</p> +<p>“And, mother, can’t she cut out card dolls? asked +Milly. Don’t you know those beautiful card dolls you have in +your drawer at home—didn’t Aunt Emma make +them?”</p> +<p>“Yes, of course she did. She made me a whole family once +for my birthday, a father and a mother, and two little girls and +two little boys. And each of the children had two paper dresses and +two hats, one for best and one for every day—and the mother +had a white evening dress trimmed with red, and a hat and a +bonnet.”</p> +<p>“I know, mother! they’re all in your drawer at home, +only one of the little boys has his head broken off. Do you think +Aunt Emma would make me a set if I asked her?”</p> +<p>“I can’t say, Milly. But I believe Aunt Emma’s +fingers are just as quick as ever they were. Now, children, father +says he will take you out while I go and speak to cook. Olly, how +do you think we’re going to get any meat for you and Milly +here? There are no shops on the mountains.”</p> +<p>“Then we’ll eat fisses, little fisses like +those!” cried Olly, pointing to a plate of tiny red-spotted +fish that father and mother had been having for breakfast.</p> +<p>“Thank you, Olly,” said Mr. Norton, laughing; +“it would cost a good deal to keep you in trout, sir. I think +we’ll try for some plain mutton for you, even if we have to +catch the sheep on the mountains ourselves. But now come along till +mother is ready, and I’ll show you the river where those +little fishes lived.”</p> +<p>Out ran the children, ready to go anywhere and see anything in +this beautiful new place, which seemed to them a palace of wonders. +And presently they were skipping over the soft green grass, each +holding one of father’s hands, and chattering away to him as +if their little tongues would never stop. What a hot day it was +going to be! The sky overhead was deep blue, with scarcely a cloud, +they could hear nothing in the still air but the sleepy cooing of +the doves in the trees by the gate, and the trees and flowers all +looked as if they were going to sleep in the heat.</p> +<p>“Father, why did that old gentleman at Willingham last +week tell mother that it always rained in the mountains?” +asked Milly, looking up at the blue sky.</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, I’m afraid you’ll find out +before you go home that it does know how to rain here. Sometimes it +rains and rains as if the sky were coming down and all the world +were going to turn into water. But never mind about that +now—it isn’t going to rain to-day.”</p> +<p>Down they went through the garden, across the road, and into a +field on the other side of it, a beautiful hay-field full of +flowers, with just a narrow little path through it where the +children and Mr. Norton could walk one behind another. And at the +end of the path what do you think they found? Why, a chattering +sparkling river, running along over hundreds and thousands of brown +and green pebbles, so fast that it seemed to be trying to catch the +birds as they skimmed across it. The children had never seen a +river like this before, where you could see right to the very +bottom, and count the stones there if you liked, and which behaved +like a river at play, scrambling and dancing and rushing along as +if it were out for a holiday, like the children themselves.</p> +<p>“What do you think of that for a river, children?” +said Mr. Norton. “Very early this morning, when you little +sleepyheads were in bed, I got up and came down here, and had my +bath over there, look—in that nice brown pool under the +tree.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father!” cried both children, dancing round +him. “Let us have our baths in the river too. Do ask +Nana—do, father! We can have our bathing things on that we +had at the sea, and you can come too and teach us to +swim.”</p> +<p>“Well, just once perhaps, if mother says yes, and +it’s very warm weather, and you get up very <em>very</em> +early. But you won’t like it quite as much as you think. +Rivers are very cold to bathe in, and those pretty stones at the +bottom won’t feel at all nice to your little toes.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but, father,” interrupted Milly, “we +could put on our sand shoes.”</p> +<p>“And wouldn’t we splash!” said Olly. +“Nurse won’t let us splash in our bath, father, she +says it makes a mess. I’m sure it doesn’t make a +<em>great</em> mess.”</p> +<p>“What do you know about it, shrimp?” said Mr. +Norton, “you don’t have to tidy up. Hush, isn’t +that mother calling? Let’s go and fetch her, and then +we’ll go and see Uncle Richard’s farm, where the milk +you had for breakfast came from. There are three children there, +Milly, besides cows and pigs, and ducks and chickens.”</p> +<p>Back ran Milly and Olly, and there was mother watching for them +with a basket on her arm which had already got some roses lying in +it.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother! where did you get those roses?” cried +Milly.</p> +<p>“Wheeler, the gardener, gave them to me. And now suppose +we go first of all to see Mrs. Wheeler, and gardener’s two +little children. They live in that cottage over there, across the +brook, and the two little ones have just been peeping over the wall +to try and get a look at you.”</p> +<p>Up clambered Milly and Olly along a steep path that seemed to +take them up into the mountain, when suddenly they turned, and +there was another river, but such a tiny river, Milly could almost +jump across it, and it was tumbling and leaping down the rocks on +its way to the big river which they had just seen, as if it were a +little child hurrying to its mother.</p> +<p>“Why, mother, what a lot of rivers,” said Olly, +running on to a little bridge that had been built across the little +stream, and looking over.</p> +<p>“Just to begin with,” said Mrs. Norton. +“You’ll see plenty more before you’ve done. But I +can’t have you calling this a river, Olly. These baby rivers +are called becks in Westmoreland—some of the big ones, too, +indeed.”</p> +<p>On the other side of the little bridge was the gardener’s +cottage, and in front of the door stood two funny fair-haired +little children with their fingers in their mouths, staring at +Milly and Olly. One was a little girl who was really about +Milly’s age, though she looked much younger, and the other +was a very shy small boy, with blue eyes and straggling yellow +hair, and a face that might have been pretty if you could have seen +it properly. But Charlie seemed to have made up his mind that +nobody ever should see it properly. However often his mother might +wash him, and she was a tidy woman, who liked to see her children +look clean and nice, Charlie was always black. His face was black, +his hands were black, his pinafore was sure to be covered with +black marks ten minutes after he had put it on. Do what you would +to him, it was no use, Charlie always looked as if he had just come +out of the coal-hole.</p> +<p>“Well, Bessie,” said Mrs. Norton to the little girl, +“is your mother in?”</p> +<p>“Naw,” said Bessie, without taking her fingers out +of her mouth.</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m sorry for that. Do you know when +she’s likely to be in?”</p> +<p>“Naw,” said Bessie again, beginning to eat her +pinafore as well as her fingers. Meanwhile Charlie had been +creeping behind Bessie to get out of Olly’s way; for Olly, +who always wanted to make friends, was trying to shake hands with +him, and Charlie was dreadfully afraid that he wanted to kiss him +too.</p> +<p>“What a pity,” said Mrs. Norton, “I wanted to +ask her a question. Come away, Olly, and don’t tease Charlie +if he doesn’t want to shake hands. Can you remember, Bessie, +to tell your mother that I came to see her?”</p> +<p>“Yis,” said Bessie.</p> +<p>“And can you remember, too, to ask her if she will let you +and Charlie come down to tea with Miss Milly and Master Olly, this +afternoon, at five o’clock?”</p> +<p>“Yis,” said Bessie, getting shyer and shyer, and +eating up her pinafore faster than ever.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, then,” said Mrs. Norton.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Bessie,” said Milly, softly, taking her +hand.</p> +<p>Bessie stared at her, but didn’t say anything.</p> +<p>Olly, having quite failed in shaking hands, was now trying to +kiss Charlie; but Charlie wouldn’t have it at all, and every +time Olly came near, Charlie pushed him away with his little fists. +This made Olly rather cross, and he began to try with all his +strength to make Charlie kiss him, when suddenly Charlie got away +from him, and running to a pile of logs of wood which was lying in +the yard he climbed up the logs like a little squirrel, and was +soon at the top of the heap, looking down on Olly, who was very +much astonished.</p> +<p>“Mother, <em>do</em> let me climb up too!” entreated +Olly, as Mrs. Norton took his hand to lead him away. “I want +to climb up krick like that! Oh, do let me try!”</p> +<p>“No, no, Olly! come along. We shall never get to the farm +if you stay climbing here. And you wouldn’t find it as easy +as Charlie does, I can tell you.”</p> +<p>“Why, I’m bigger than Charlie,” said Olly, +pouting, as they walked away.</p> +<p>“But you haven’t got such stout legs; and, besides, +Charlie is always out of doors all day long, climbing and poking +about. I daresay he can do outdoor things better than you can. +You’re a little town boy, you know.”</p> +<p>“Charlie’s got a black face,” said Olly, who +was not at all pleased that Charlie, who was smaller than he was, +and dirty besides, could do anything better than he could.</p> +<p>“Well, you see, he hasn’t got a Nana always looking +after him as you have.”</p> +<p>“Hasn’t he got <em>any</em> Nana?” asked Olly, +looking as if he didn’t understand how there could be little +children without Nanas.</p> +<p>“He hasn’t got any nurse but his mother, and Mrs. +Wheeler has a great deal else to do than looking after him. What +would you be like, do you think, Olly, if I had to do all the +housework, and cook the dinner, and mind the baby, and there was no +nurse to wash your face and hands for you?”</p> +<p>“I should get just like shock-headed Peter,” said +Olly, shaking his head gravely at the idea. Shock-headed Peter was +a dirty little boy in one of Olly’s picture-books; but I am +sure you must have heard about him already, and must have seen the +picture of him with his bushy hair, and his terrible long nails +like birds’ claws. Olly was never tired of hearing about him, +and about all the other children in that picture-book.</p> +<p>“What a funny little girl Bessie is, mother!” said +Milly. “Do they always say <em>Naw</em> and <em>Yis</em> in +this country, instead of saying No and Yes, like we do?”</p> +<p>“Well, most of the people that live here do,” said +Mrs. Norton. “Their way of talking sounds odd and queer at +first, Milly, but when you get used to it you will like it as I do, +because it seems like a part of the mountains.”</p> +<p>All this time they had been climbing up a steep path behind the +gardener’s house, and now Mr. Norton opened a door in a high +wall, and let the children into a beautiful kitchen-garden made on +the mountain side, so that when they looked down from the gate they +could see the chimneys of Ravensnest just below them. Inside there +were all kinds of fruit and vegetables, but gooseberry bushes and +the strawberries had nothing but green gooseberries and white +strawberries to show, to Olly’s great disappointment.</p> +<p>“Why aren’t the strawberries red, mother?” he +asked in a discontented voice, as if it must be somebody’s +fault that they weren’t red. “Ours at home were +ripe.”</p> +<p>“Well, Olly, I suppose the strawberries know best. All I +can tell you is, that things always get ripe here later than at +Willingham. Their summer begins a little later than ours does, and +so everything gets pushed on a little. But there will be plenty +by-and-by. And suppose just now, instead of looking at the +strawberries, you give just one look at the mountains. Count how +many you can see all round.”</p> +<p>“One, two, three, five,” counted Olly. “What +great big humps! Should we be able to touch the sky if we got up to +the top of that one, mother?” and he pointed to a great blue +mountain where the clouds seemed to be resting on the top.</p> +<p>“Well, if you were up there just now, you would be all +among the clouds, and it would seem like a white fog all round you. +So you would be touching the clouds at any rate.”</p> +<p>Olly opened his eyes very wide at the idea of touching the +clouds.</p> +<p>“Why, mother, we can’t touch the clouds at +home!”</p> +<p>“That comes of living in a country as flat as a +pancake,” said Mr. Norton. “Just you wait till we can +buy a tame mountain, and carry it to Willingham with us. Then +we’ll put it down in the middle of the garden, and the clouds +will come down to sit on the top of it just as they do here. But +now, who can scramble over that gate?”</p> +<p>For the gate at the other end of the garden was locked, and as +the gardener couldn’t be found, everybody had to scramble +over, mother included. However, Mr. Norton helped them all over, +and then they found themselves on a path running along the green +mountain side. On they went, through pretty bits of steep +hay-fields, where the grass seemed all clover and moon-daisies, +till presently they came upon a small hunched-up house, with a +number of sheds on one side of it and a kitchen-garden in front. +This was Uncle Richard’s farm; a very tiny farm, where a man +called John Backhouse lived, with his wife and two little girls and +a baby-boy. Except just in the hay-time, John Backhouse had no men +to help him, and he and his wife had to do all the work, to look +after the sheep, and the cows, the pigs, the horse, and the +chickens, to manage the garden and the hayfield, and to take the +butter and milk to the people who wanted to buy it. When their +children grew up and were able to help, Backhouse and his wife +would be able to do it all very well; but just now, when they were +still quite small, it was very hard work; it was all the farmer and +his wife could do to make enough to keep themselves and their +children fed and clothed.</p> +<p>Milly and Olly were very anxious to see the farmer’s +children and looked out for them in the garden as they walked up to +the house, but there were no signs of them. The door was opened by +Mrs. Backhouse, the farmer’s wife, who held a fair-haired +baby in her arms sucking a great crust of brown bread, and when Mr. +and Mrs. Norton had shaken hands with her—“I’m +sure, ma’am, I’m very pleased to see you here,” +said Mrs. Backhouse. “John told me you were come (only Mrs. +Backhouse said ‘coom’), and Becky and Tiza went down +with their father when he took the milk this morning, hoping they +would catch a sight of your children. They have been just wild to +see them, but I told them they weren’t likely to be up at +that time in the morning.”</p> +<p>“Where are they now?” asked Mrs. Norton. “Mine +have been looking out for them as we came along.”</p> +<p>“Well, ma’am, I can’t say, unless +they’re in the cherry-tree. Becky! Tiza!”</p> +<p>A faint “Yis” came from the other end of the garden, +but still Milly and Olly could see nothing but a big cherry-tree +growing where the voice seemed to come from.</p> +<p>“You go along that path, missy, and call again. +You’ll be sure to find them,” said Mrs. Backhouse, +pointing to the tree. “And won’t you come in, +ma’am, and rest a bit? You’ll be maybe tired with +walking this hot day.”</p> +<p>So Mr. and Mrs. Norton went into the farmhouse, and the children +went hand-in-hand down the garden, looking for Becky and Tiza.</p> +<p>Suddenly, as they came close to the cherry-tree, they heard a +laugh and a little scuffling, and looking up, what should they see +but two little girls perched up on one of the cherry-tree branches, +one of them sewing, the other nursing a baby kitten. Both of them +had coloured print bonnets, but the smaller had taken hers off and +was rolling the kitten up in it. The little girl sewing had a +sensible, sober face; as for the other, she could not have looked +sober if she had tried for a week of Sundays. It made you laugh +only to look at Tiza. From the top of her curly head to the soles +of her skipping little feet, she was the sauciest, merriest, +noisiest creature. It was she who was always playing tricks on the +cows and the horse, and the big sheep-dogs; who liked nothing so +well as teasing Becky and dressing up the kittens, and who was +always tumbling into the milkpail, or rolling downstairs, or losing +herself in the woods, without somehow ever coming to any harm. If +she and Olly had been left alone in the world together they +<em>must</em> have come to a bad end, but luckily each of them had +wiser people to take care of them.</p> +<p>“Becky,” said Milly, shyly, looking up into the +tree, “will you come down and say how do you do to +us?”</p> +<p>Becky stuck her needle in her work and scrambled down with a red +shy face to shake hands; but Tiza, instead of coming down, only +climbed a little higher, and peeped at the others between the +branches.</p> +<p>“We came down to the house when fayther took the milk this +morning,” said Becky. “We thought maybe we’d see +you in the garden. Only Tiza said she’d run away if she did +see you.”</p> +<p>“Why doesn’t Tiza come down?” asked Olly, +looking hard up into the tree. “I want to see her.”</p> +<p>Thump! What was that rattling down on Olly’s head? He +looked down at his feet very much astonished, and saw a bunch of +green cherries which Tiza had just thrown at him.</p> +<p>“Throw some more! Throw some more!” he cried out, +and Tiza began to pelt him fast, while Olly ran here and there +picking them up, and every now and then trying to throw them back +at Tiza; but she was too high up for him to reach, and they only +came rattling about his head again.</p> +<p>“She won’t come down,” said Becky, looking up +at her sister. “Maybe she won’t speak to you for two or +three days. And if you run after her she hides in such queer places +you can never find her.”</p> +<p>“But mother wants you and her to come to tea with us this +afternoon,” said Milly; “won’t Tiza +come?”</p> +<p>“I suppose mother’ll make her,” said Becky, +“but she doesn’t like it. Have you been on the +fell?”</p> +<p>Milly looked puzzled. “Do you mean on the mountain? No, +not yet. We’re going to-morrow when we go to Aunt +Emma’s. But we’ve been to the river with +father.”</p> +<p>“Did you go over the stepping-stones?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Milly, “I don’t know what +they are. Can we go this evening after tea?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes,” said Becky, “they’re just +close by your house. Does your mother let you go in the +water?”</p> +<p>Now Becky said a great many of these words very funnily, so that +Milly could hardly understand her. She said “doos” and +“oop,” and “knaw,” and “jist,” +and “la-ike,” but it sounded quite pretty from her soft +little mouth, and Milly thought she had a very nice way of +talking.</p> +<p>“No, mother doesn’t let us go in the water here, at +least, not unless it’s very warm. We paddle when we go to the +sea, and some day father says we may have our bath in the river if +it’s very fine.”</p> +<p>“We never have a bath in the river,” said Becky, +looking very much astonished at the idea.</p> +<p>“Do you have your bath in the nursery like we do?” +asked Milly.</p> +<p>“We haven’t got a nursery,” said Becky, +staring at her, “mother puts us in the toob on Saturday +nights. I don’t mind it but Tiza doesn’t like it a bit. +Sometimes she hides when it’s Saturday night, so that mother +can’t find her till it’s too late.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you have a bath except on Saturday?” +said Milly. “Olly and I have one every morning. Mother says +we should get like shock-headed Peter if we +didn’t.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know about him,” said Becky, shaking +her head.</p> +<p>“He’s a little boy in a picture-book. I’ll +show him you when you come to tea. But there’s mother +calling. Come along, Olly. Tiza won’t come down Becky +says.”</p> +<p>“She’s a very rude girl,” said Olly, who was +rather hot and tired with his game, and didn’t think it was +all fun that Tiza should always hit him and he should never be able +to hit Tiza. “I won’t sit next her when she comes to +tea with us.”</p> +<p>“Tiza’s only in fun,” said Becky, +“she’s always like that. Tiza, are you coming down? I +am going to get baby out, I heard him crying just now.”</p> +<p>“May you take baby out all by yourself?” asked +Milly.</p> +<p>“Why, I always take him out, and I put him to sleep at +nights; and mother says he won’t go to sleep for anybody as +quick as for me,” said Becky proudly.</p> +<p>Milly felt a good deal puzzled. It <em>must</em> be funny to +have no Nana.</p> +<p>“Will you and he,” said Becky, pointing to Olly, +“come up this afternoon and help us call the cows?”</p> +<p>“If we may,” said Milly; “who calls +them?”</p> +<p>“Tiza and I,” answered Becky; “when I’m +a big girl I shall learn how to milk, but fayther says I’m +too little yet.”</p> +<p>“I wish I lived at a farm,” said Milly +disconsolately.</p> +<p>Becky didn’t quite know what to say to this, so she began +to call Tiza again.</p> +<p>“Swish!” went something past them as quick as +lightning. It was Tiza running to the house. Olly set out to run +after her as fast as he could run, but he came bang up against his +mother standing at the farmhouse door, just as Tiza got safely in +and was seen no more.</p> +<p>“Ah, you won’t catch Tiza, master,” said Mrs. +Backhouse, patting his head; “she’s a rough girl, +always at some tricks or other—we think she ought to have +been a boy, really.”</p> +<p>“Mother, isn’t Becky very nice?” said Milly, +as they walked away. “Her mother lets her do such a lot of +things—nurse the baby, and call the cows, and make pinafores. +Oh, I wish father was a farmer.”</p> +<p>“Well, it’s not a bad kind of life when the sun +shines, and everything is going right,” said Mrs. Norton; +“but I think you had better wait a little bit till the rain +comes before you quite make up your mind about it, +Milly.”</p> +<p>But Milly was quite sure she knew enough about it already to +make up her mind, and all the way home she kept saying to herself, +“If I could only turn into a little farmer’s girl! Why +don’t people have fairy godmothers now like +Cinderella?”</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter4" name="Chapter4">CHAPTER IV</a></h2> +<h3>Out On The Hills</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Milly and Olly, and the four little Westmoreland children, had a +very pleasant tea together in the afternoon of the Nortons’s +first day at Ravensnest. Bessie and Charlie certainly didn’t +talk much; but Tiza, when once her mother had made her come, +thought proper to get rid of a great deal of her shyness, and to +chatter and romp so much that they quite fell in love with her, and +could not be persuaded to go anywhere or do anything without her. +Nurse would not let Milly and Olly go to call the cows, though she +promised they should some other day; but she took the whole party +down to the stepping-stones after tea, and great fun it was to see +Becky and Tiza running over the stepping-stones, and jumping from +one stone to another like little fawns. Milly and Olly wanted +sorely to go too, but there was no persuading Nana to let them go +without their father to fish them out if they tumbled in, so they +had to content themselves with dangling their legs over the first +stepping-stone and watching the others. But perhaps you don’t +quite known what stepping-stones are? They are large high stones, +with flat tops, which people put in, a little way apart from each +other, right across a river, so that by stepping from one to the +other you can cross to the opposite side. Of course they only do +for little rivers, where the water isn’t very deep. And they +don’t always do even there. Sometimes in the river Thora, +where Milly and Olly’s stepping-stones were, when it rained +very much, the water rose so high that it dashed right over the +stepping-stones and nobody could go across. Milly and Olly saw the +stepping-stones covered with water once or twice while they were at +Ravensnest; but the first evening they saw them the river was very +low, and the stones stood up high and dry out of the water. Milly +thought that stepping-stones were much nicer than bridges, and that +it was the most amusing and interesting way of getting across a +river that she knew. But then Milly was inclined to think +everything wonderful and interesting at Ravensnest—from the +tall mountains that seemed to shut them in all around like a wall, +down to the tiny gleaming wild strawberries, that were just +beginning to show their little scarlet balls on the banks in the +Ravensnest woods. Both she and Olly went to bed after their first +day at Ravensnest with their little hearts full of happiness, and +their little heads full of plans. To-morrow they were to go to Aunt +Emma’s, and perhaps the day after that father would take them +to bathe in the river, and nurse would let them go and help Becky +and Tiza call the cows. Holidays <em>were</em> nice; still +geography lessons were nice too sometimes, thought Milly sleepily, +just as she was slipping, slipping away into dreamland, and in her +dreams her faithful little thoughts went back lovingly to +Fräulein’s kind old face, and to the capes and islands +and seas she had been learning about a week ago.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus3.png"><img src= +"images/illus3.png" alt= +"“The flowers Milly gathered for her mother”" id= +"illus3" name="illus3" width="100%" /></a> +<p>“The flowers Milly gathered for her mother”</p> +</div> +<p>The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Norton were busy indoors till +about twelve o’clock; and the children wandered about the +garden with nurse, finding out many new nooks and corners, +especially a delightful steep path which led up and up into the +woods, till at last it took the children to a little brown +summer-house at the top, where they could sit and look over the +trees below, away to the river and the hay-fields and the +mountains. And between the stones and this path grew the prettiest +wild strawberries, only, as Milly said, it was not much good +looking for them yet, for there were so few red ones you could +scarcely get enough to taste what they were like. But in a week or +two, she and Olly planned that they would take up a basket with +some green leaves in it, and gather a lot for father and +mother—enough for regular dessert—and some wild +raspberries too, for these also grew in the wood, to the great +delight of the children, who had never seen any before. They began +to feel presently as if it would be nothing very extraordinary to +find trees covered with barley sugar or jam tarts in this wonderful +wood. And as for the flowers Milly gathered for her mother, they +were a sight to see—moon-daisies and meadow-sweet, wild roses +and ragged-robins, and bright bits of rhododendrons. For both the +woods and the garden at Ravensnest were full of rhododendrons of +all colours, pink and red, and white and flame colour; and Milly +and Olly amused themselves with making up bunches of different +coloured flowers with as many different colours in them as they +could find. There were no rhododendrons at Willingham; and the +children thought them the loveliest, gayest things they had ever +seen.</p> +<p>But at last twelve o’clock came. Nurse tidied the +children, gave them some biscuits and milk, and then sent them to +the drawing-room to find father and mother. Only Mrs. Norton was +there, but she said there was no need to wait for father, as he was +out already and would meet them on the way. They were to go +straight over the mountain instead of walking round by the road, +which would have taken much longer. So off they set—Olly +skipping, and chattering as he always did; while Milly stuck close +to her mother, telling her every now and then, when Olly left off +talking, about their morning in the wood, the flowers they had +gathered and the strawberries they had found. At the top of the +garden was a little gate, and beside the gate stood Bessie and +Charlie, who had really been watching for the children all the +morning, though they didn’t dare to come into the garden +without leave.</p> +<p>“Bessie, we are going to Aunt Emma’s,” said +Milly, running up to them. “Where are you and Charlie going +to?”</p> +<p>“Nawhere,” said Bessie, who, as usual, had her +pinafore in her mouth, and never said more than one word at a time +if she could help it.</p> +<p>“Nowhere! what do you do all the morning, +Bessie?”</p> +<p>“I doan’t know,” said Bessie, gravely looking +up at her; “sometimes I mind the baby.”</p> +<p>“Do you mind the baby, too? Dear, dear! And what does +Charlie do?”</p> +<p>“Nawthing,” said Bessie again. “He only makes +himself dirty.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you go to school ever?”</p> +<p>“No, but mother’s going to send us,” said +Bessie, whose big eyes grew round and frightened at the idea, as if +it was a dreadful prospect. “Are you going to be away for all +day?”</p> +<p>“Yes; we shan’t be back till quite evening, mother +says. Here she is. Good-bye, Bessie; good-bye, Charlie. Will you +come and play with us to-morrow morning?”</p> +<p>Bessie nodded, but Charlie ran off without answering; for he saw +Olly coming, and was afraid he might want to kiss him. On the other +side of the gate they had to begin to climb up a steep bit of soft +green grass; and very hard work it was. After quite a little way +the children began to puff and pant like two little steam +engines.</p> +<p>“It <em>is</em> a little bit like going upstairs, +don’t you think, Olly?” said Milly, sitting down by her +mother on a flat bit of gray stone.</p> +<p>“No, it isn’t a bit like going upstairs,” said +Olly, shaking his head; for Olly always liked contradicting Milly +if he could. “It’s like—it’s +like—walking up a house!”</p> +<p>Suddenly they heard far above them a shout of +“Hullo!” Both the children started up and looked about +them. It was like father’s voice, but they couldn’t see +him anywhere.</p> +<p>“Where are you, father?”</p> +<p>“Hullo!” again. And this time it sounded much nearer +to them. Where could it be? The children began to run about and +look behind the bushes and the rocks, till all of a sudden, just as +Milly got near a big rock, out jumped Mr. Norton from behind it +with a great shout, and began to run after her. Away ran Milly and +Olly as fast as their small feet could carry them, up and down, up +and down, till at last there came a steep place—one of +Milly’s feet tripped up, down she went, rolling over and +over—down came Olly on the top of her, and the two of them +rolled away together till they stopped at the bottom of the steep +place, all mixed up in a heap of legs and arms and hats and +pinafores.</p> +<p>“Here’s a boy and girl tied up in a knot,” +said Mr. Norton, scrambling down after them and lifting them up. +“There’s no harm done, is there?”</p> +<p>“I’ve got a bump on my arm,” said Milly, +turning up her sleeve.</p> +<p>“And I’ve got a scratch on my nose,” said +Olly, rubbing it.</p> +<p>“That’s not much for a nice tumble like that,” +said Mr. Norton, “you wouldn’t mind another, would you, +Milly?”</p> +<p>“Not a bit,” said Milly, merrily skipping along +beside him. “Hide again, father.”</p> +<p>“Another day, not now, for we want to get to Aunt +Emma’s. But tomorrow, if you like, we’ll come up here +and have a capital game. Only we must choose a nice dry place where +there are no bogs.”</p> +<p>“What are bogs?” asked Olly.</p> +<p>“Wet places, where your feet go sinking deeper and deeper +into the mud, and you can’t find any stiff firm bit to stand +on. Sometimes people sink down and down into a bog till the mud +comes right over their head and face and chokes them; but we +haven’t got any bogs as bad as that here. Now, children, step +along in front. Very soon we shall get to the top of the mountain, +and then we shall see wonderful things on the other +side.”</p> +<p>So Milly and Olly ran on, pushing their way through the great +tall fern, or scampering over the short green grass where the +little mountain sheep were nibbling, and where a beautiful creeping +moss grew all over the ground, which, mother told Milly, was called +“Stags’ horn moss,” because its little green +branches were so like stags’ horns.</p> +<p>“Now look, children,” shouted their father to them +from behind. “Here we are at the top.”</p> +<p>And then, all of a sudden, instead of only the green mountain +and the sheep, they could see far away on the other side of the +mountain. There, all round them, were numbers of other mountains; +and below, at their feet, were houses and trees and fields, while +straight in front lay a great big blue lake stretching away ever so +far, till it seemed to be lost in the sky.</p> +<p>“Look, look, mother!” cried Milly, clapping her +hands, “there’s Windermere lake, the lake we saw when +we were coming from the station. Look at that steamer, with all the +people on board! What funny little black people. And oh, mother, +look at that little boat over there! How can people go out in such +a weeny boat as that?”</p> +<p>“It isn’t such a weeny boat, Milly. It only looks so +small because it’s such a long way off. When father and I +take you and Olly on the lake, we shall go in a boat just like +that. And now, instead of looking so far away, look just down here +below you, and tell me what you see.”</p> +<p>“Some chimneys, and some trees, and some smoke, ever so +far down,” shouted the children. “Is it a house, +mother?”</p> +<p>“That’s Aunt Emma’s house, the old house where +I used to come and stay when I was a little girl, and when your +dear great-grandfather and great-grandmother were alive. I used to +think it the nicest place in the world.”</p> +<p>“Were you a very little girl, mother, and were you ever +naughty?” asked Milly, slipping her little hand into her +mother’s and beginning to feel rather tired with her long +walk.</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I was very often naughty, Milly. I used +to get into great rages and scream, till everybody was quite tired +out. But Aunt Emma was very good to me, and took a great deal of +pains to cure me of going into rages. Besides, it always did +naughty children good to live in the same house with +great-grandmamma, and so after a while I got better. Take care how +you go, children, it’s very steep just here, and you might +soon tumble over on your noses. Olly, take care! take care! where +<em>are</em> you going?”</p> +<p>Where, indeed, was Olly going? Just the moment before the little +man had spied a lovely flower growing a little way off the path, in +the middle of some bright yellow-green moss. And without thinking +of anything but getting it, off he rushed. But oh! splish, splash, +splish, down went Olly’s feet, up splashed the muddy water, +and there was Olly stuck in a bog.</p> +<p>“Father, pull me out, pull me out!” cried the little +boy in terror, as he felt his feet stuck fast. But almost before he +could speak there was father close beside him, standing on a round +little hump of dry grass which was sticking up out of the bog, and +with one grip he got hold of Olly under his arm, and then jump! on +to another little hump of grass, jump! on to another, and there +they were safe on the path again.</p> +<p>“Oh, you black boy!” cried father and mother and +Milly all together. Was there ever such a little object! All his +nice clean holland frock was splashed with black mud; and what had +happened to his stockings?</p> +<p>“I’ve got mud-stockings on,” shouted Olly, +capering about, and pointing to his legs which were caked with mud +up to his knees.</p> +<p>“You’re a nice respectable boy to take out to +dinner,” said Mrs. Norton. “I think we’ll leave +you on the mountain to have dinner with the sheep.”</p> +<p>“Oh no, father,” pleaded Milly, taking Olly fast by +the hand. “We can wash him at Aunt Emma’s, you +know.”</p> +<p>“Don’t go too close to him, Milly!” exclaimed +Mrs. Norton, “or you’ll get as black as he is. We shall +have to put him under the pump at Aunt Emma’s, that’s +quite certain. But there’s nothing to wash him with here, so +he must just go as he is for a bit. Now, Olly, run along and your +feet will soon dry. Father’s going first, you go next, just +where he goes, I’m coming after you, and Milly shall go last. +Perhaps in that way we shall get you down safe.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but, mother, look at my flower,” said Olly, +holding it up triumphantly. “Isn’t it a +beauty?”</p> +<p>“Shall I tell you what it’s called, Olly? It’s +called a butterwort, and it always grows in boggy places; I +wouldn’t advise you to go after one again without asking +father first.”</p> +<p>It was a very different thing going down the mountain from +climbing up it. It seemed only a few minutes before they had got +almost to the bottom, and there was a gate leading into a road, and +a little village of white houses in front of them. They walked up +the road a little way, and then father opened a big gate and let +them into a beautiful garden full of rhododendrons like the +Ravensnest garden. And who was this walking down the drive to meet +them? Such a pretty little elderly lady, with gray hair and a white +cap.</p> +<p>“Dear Aunt Emma!” said Mrs. Norton, running up to +her and taking both her hands and kissing her.</p> +<p>“Well, Lucy,” said the little lady, holding her +hands and looking at her (Lucy was Mrs. Norton’s Christian +name), “it <em>is</em> nice to see you all here. And +there’s dear little Milly, I remember her. But where’s +Olly? I’ve never seen that small creature, you know. Come, +Olly, don’t be shy. Little boys are never shy with Aunt +Emma.”</p> +<p>“Except when they tumble into bogs,” said Mr. +Norton, laughing and pulling Olly forward, who was trying to hide +his mud-stockings behind his mother. “There’s a clean +tidy boy to bring to dinner, isn’t he, Aunt Emma? I think +I’ll take him to the yard and pump on him a little before we +bring him in.”</p> +<p>Aunt Emma put up her spectacles to look at Olly.</p> +<p>“Why, Olly, I think Mother Quiverquake has been catching +hold of you. Don’t you know about old Mother Quiverquake, who +lives in the bogs? Oh, I can tell you splendid stories about her +some day. But now catch hold of my hand, and keep your little legs +away from my dress, and we’ll soon make a proper boy of you +again.”</p> +<p>And then Aunt Emma took one of Milly’s hands and one of +Olly’s, and up they went to the house. But I must start +another chapter before I begin to tell you what the children saw in +Aunt Emma’s house, and of the happy time they spent +there.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter5" name="Chapter5">CHAPTER V</a></h2> +<h3>Aunt Emma’s Picnic</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Instead of taking them straight into the house, however, Aunt +Emma took the children up a little shady path which very soon +brought them to a white cottage covered with honeysuckle and +climbing roses.</p> +<p>“This is where my coachman’s wife lives,” said +Aunt Emma, “and she owns a small boy who might perhaps find +you a pair of stockings, Olly, to put on while your own are +washed.”</p> +<p>Olly opened his brown eyes very wide at the idea of wearing some +other little boy’s stockings, but he said nothing.</p> +<p>Aunt Emma tapped at the door, and out came a stout kind-looking +woman.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Tyson, do you think your Johnny could lend my little +nephew a pair of his stockings while we get his own washed? Master +Olly has been tumbling into a bog by way of making friends with the +mountains, and I don’t quite know how I am to let those legs +into my dining-room.”</p> +<p>“Dear me, ma’am, but Johnny’ll be proud if +he’s got any clean, but I’ll not answer for it. +Won’t ye come in?”</p> +<p>In they walked, and there was a nice tidy kitchen, with a wooden +cradle in the corner, and a little fair-haired boy sitting by it +and rocking the baby. This was Johnny, and Olly looked at him with +great curiosity. “I’ve got bigger legs than +Johnny,” he whispered solemnly at last to Aunt Emma, while +they were waiting for Mrs. Tyson, who had gone upstairs to fetch +the stockings.</p> +<p>“Perhaps you eat more bread and milk than Johnny +does,” said Aunt Emma, very solemnly too, “However, +most likely Johnny’s stockings will stretch. How’s the +baby, Johnny?”</p> +<p>“She’s a great deal better, ma’am,” said +the little boy, smiling at her. Milly and Olly made him feel shy, +but he loved Aunt Emma.</p> +<p>“Have you been taking care of her all the morning for +mother?”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma’am, and she’s never cried but +once,” said Johnny proudly.</p> +<p>“Well done! Ah! there comes Mrs. Tyson. Now, Olly, sit up +on that chair, and we’ll see to you.”</p> +<p>Off came the dirty stockings, and Mrs. Tyson slipped on a pair +of woolen socks that tickled Olly very much. They were very thick, +and not a bit like his own stockings; and when he got up again he +kept turning round and round to look at his legs, as if he +couldn’t make them out.</p> +<p>“Do they feel funny to you?” said Mrs. Tyson, +patting his shoulder. “Never you mind, little master; I know +they’re nice and warm, for I knitted them myself.”</p> +<p>“Mother buys our stockings in the shop,” said Olly, +when they got outside again; “why doesn’t Mrs. +Tyson?”</p> +<p>“Perhaps we haven’t so many shops, or such nice ones +here, Olly, as you have at Willingham; and the people here have +always been used to do a great many things for themselves. Some of +them live in such lonely places among the mountains that it is very +difficult for them to get to any shops. Not very long ago the +mothers used to make all the stuffs for their own dresses and their +children’s. What would you say, Milly, if mother had to weave +the stuff for it every time you had a new dress?”</p> +<p>“Mother wouldn’t give me a great many new +dresses,” said Milly, gravely, shaking her head. “I +like shops best, Aunt Emma.”</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose it’s best to like what we’ve +got,” said Aunt Emma, laughing.</p> +<p>Indoors, Olly’s muddy stockings were given to Aunt +Emma’s maid, who promised to have them washed and dried by +the time they had to go home, and then, when Mrs. Norton had +covered up the black spots on his frock with a clean pinafore she +had brought with her, Olly looked quite respectable again.</p> +<p>The children thought they had never seen quite such a nice house +as Aunt Emma’s. First of all it had a large hall, with all +kinds of corners in it, just made for playing hide-and-seek in; and +the drawing-room was full of the most delightful things. There were +stuffed birds in cases, and little ivory chessmen riding upon ivory +elephants. There were picture-books, and there were mysterious +drawers full of cards and puzzles, and glass marbles and +old-fashioned toys, that the children’s mother and aunts and +uncles, and their great-aunts and uncles before that, had loved and +played with years and years ago. On the wall hung a great many +pictures, some of them of funny little stiff boys in blue coats +with brass buttons, and some of them of little girls with mob-caps +and mittens, and these little boys and girls were all either dead +now, or elderly men and women, for they were the great-aunts and +uncles; and over the mantelpiece hung a picture of a lovely old +lady, with bright, soft brown hair and smiling eyes and lips, that +looked as if they were just going to speak to the two strange +little children who had come for their first visit to their +mother’s old home. Milly knew quite well that it was a +picture of great-grandmamma. She had seen others like it before, +only not so large as this one, and she looked at it quietly, with +her grave blue eyes, while Olly was eagerly wandering round the +room, spying into everything, and longing to touch this, that, and +the other, if only mother would let go his hand.</p> +<p>“You know who that is, don’t you, little +woman?” said Aunt Emma, taking her up on her knee.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Milly, nodding, “it’s +great-grandmamma. I wish we could have seen her.”</p> +<p>“I wish you could, Milly. She would have smiled at you as +she is smiling in the picture and you would have been sure to have +loved her; all little children did. I can remember seeing your +mother, Milly, when she was about as old as you, cuddled up in a +corner of that sofa over there, in ‘grandmamma’s +pocket,’ as she used to call it, listening with all her ears +to great-grandmamma’s stories. There was one story called +‘Leonora’ that went on for years and years, till all +the little children in it—and the little children who +listened to it—were almost grown up; and then +great-grandmamma always carried about with her a wonderful +blue-silk bag full of treasures, which we used to be allowed to +turn out whenever any of us had been quite good at our lessons for +a whole week.”</p> +<p>“Mother has a bag like that,” said Milly; “it +has lots of little toys in it that father had when he was a little +boy. She lets us look at it on our birthdays. Can you tell stories, +Aunt Emma?”</p> +<p>“Tell us about old Mother Quiverquake,” cried Olly, +running up and climbing on his aunt’s knee.</p> +<p>“Oh dear, no!” said Aunt Emma; “it’s +much too fine to-day for stories—indoors, at any rate. Wait +till we get a real wet day, and then we’ll see. After dinner +to-day, what do you think we’re going to do? Suppose we have +a row on the lake to get water-lilies, and suppose we take a kettle +and make ourselves some tea on the other side of the lake. What +would you say to that, Master Olly?”</p> +<p>The children began to dance about with delight at the idea of a +row and a picnic both together, when suddenly there was a knock at +the door, and when Aunt Emma said, “Come in!” what do +you think appeared? Why, a great green cage, carried by a servant, +and in it a gray parrot, swinging about from side to side, and +cocking his head wickedly, first over one shoulder and then over +the other.</p> +<p>“Now, children,” said Aunt Emma, while the children +stood quite still with surprise, “let me introduce you to my +old friend, Mr. Poll Parrot. Perhaps you thought I lived all alone +in this big house. Not at all. Here is somebody who talks to me +when I talk to him, who sings and chatters and whistles and cheers +me up wonderfully in the winter evenings, when the rains come and +make me feel dull. Put him down here, Margaret,” said Aunt +Emma to the maid, clearing a small table for the cage. “Now, +Olly, what do you think of my parrot?”</p> +<p>“Can it talk?” asked Olly, looking at it with very +wide open eyes.</p> +<p>“It <em>can</em> talk; whether it <em>will</em> talk is +quite another thing. Parrots are contradictious birds. I feel very +often as if I should like to beat Polly, he’s so provoking. +Now, Polly, how are you to-day?”</p> +<p>“Polly’s got a bad cold; fetch the doc—” +said the bird at once, in such a funny cracked voice, that it made +Olly jump as if he had heard one of the witches in Grimm’s +“Fairy Tales” talking.</p> +<p>“Come, Polly, that’s very well behaved of you; but +you mustn’t leave off in the middle, begin again. Olly, if +you don’t keep your fingers out of the way Polly will snap +them up for his dinner. Parrots like fingers very much.” Olly +put his hands behind his back in a great hurry, and mother came to +stand behind him to keep him quiet. By this time, however, Polly +had begun to find out that there were some new people in the room +he didn’t know, and for a long time Aunt Emma could not make +him talk at all. He would do nothing but put his head first on one +side and then on the other and make angry clicks with his beak.</p> +<p>“Come, Polly,” said Aunt Emma, “what a cross +parrot you are. One—two—three—four. Now, Polly, +count.”</p> +<p>“Polly’s got a bad cold, fetch the doc—” +said Polly again while Aunt Emma was speaking. +“One—two—six—seven—eight—nine—two—<em> +Quick</em> march!”</p> +<p>And then Polly began to lift first one claw and then the other +as if he were marching, while the children shouted with laughter at +his ridiculous ways and his gruff cracked voice.</p> +<p>Then Aunt Emma went behind him and rapped gently on the table. +The parrot stopped marching, stuck his head on one side and +listened. Aunt Emma rapped again.</p> +<p>“Come in!” said the parrot suddenly, quite softly, +as if he had turned into quite another person. +“Hush—sh—sh, cat’s got a mouse!”</p> +<p>“Well, Polly,” said Aunt Emma, “I suppose she +may have a mouse if she likes. Is that all you’ve got to tell +us? Polly, where’s gardener?”</p> +<p>“Get away! get away!” screamed Polly, while all his +feathers began to stand up straight, and his eyes looked fierce and +red like two little live coals.</p> +<p>“That always makes him cross,” said Aunt Emma; +“he can’t bear gardener. Come, Polly, don’t get +in such a temper.”</p> +<p>“Oh, isn’t he like the witches on the broom-sticks +in our fairy-book, Olly?” cried Milly. “Don’t you +think, Aunt Emma, he must have been changed into something? Perhaps +he was a wicked witch once, or a magician, you know, and the +fairies changed him into a parrot.”</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, I can’t say. He was a parrot when I +had him first, twelve years ago. That’s all I know about it. +But I believe he’s very old. Some people say he’s older +than I am—think of that! So you see he’s had time to be +a good many things. Well, Polly, good-night. You’re not a +nice bird to-night at all. Take him away, Margaret.”</p> +<p>“Jane! Jane!” screamed Polly, as the maid lifted up +the cage again. “Make haste, Jane! cat’s in the +larder!”</p> +<p>“Oh, you bad Polly,” said Aunt Emma, +“you’re always telling tales. Jane’s my cook, +Milly, and Polly doesn’t like cats, so you see he tries to +make Jane believe that our old cat steals the meat out of the +larder. Good-bye, Polly, good-bye. You’re an ill-natured old +bird, but I’m very fond of you all the same.”</p> +<p>“Do get us a parrot, mother!” said Olly, jumping +about round his mother, when Polly was gone.</p> +<p>“How many more things will you want before you get home, +Olly, do you think?” asked his mother, kissing him. +“Perhaps you’ll want to take home a few mountains, and +two or three little rivers, and a bog or two, and a few +sheep—eh, young man?”</p> +<p>By this time dinner was ready, and there was the dinner-bell +ringing. Up ran the children to Aunt Emma’s room to get their +hands washed and their hair brushed, and presently there were two +tidy little folks sitting on either side of Aunt Emma’s +chair, and thinking to themselves that they had never felt quite so +hungry before. But hungry as Milly was she didn’t forget to +look out of the window before she began her dinner, and it was +worth while looking out of the window in Aunt Emma’s +dining-room.</p> +<p>Before the windows was a green lawn, like the lawn at +Ravensnest, only this lawn went sloping away, away till there was +just a little rim of white beach, and then beyond came the wide, +dancing blue lake, that the children had seen from the top of the +mountain. Here it was close to them, so close that Milly could hear +the little waves plashing, through the open window.</p> +<p>“Milly,” whispered Aunt Emma when they were all +waiting for pudding, “do you see that little house down there +by the water’s edge? That’s where the boat +lives—we call it a boathouse. Do you think you’ll be +frightened of the water, little woman?”</p> +<p>“No, I don’t think so,” said Milly, shaking +her little wise head gravely. “I am frightened sometimes, +very. Mother calls me a little goose because I run away from Jenny +sometimes—that’s our cow at home, Aunt Emma, but then +she’s got such long horns, and I can’t help feeling +afraid.”</p> +<p>“Well, the lake hasn’t got horns, Milly,” said +Aunt Emma, laughing, “so perhaps you will manage not to be +afraid of it.”</p> +<p>How kind and nice Aunt Emma looked as she sat between the +children, with her pretty soft gray hair, and her white cap and +large white collar. Mrs. Norton could not help thinking of the +times when she was a little girl, and used always to insist on +sitting by Aunt Emma at dinner-time. That was before Aunt +Emma’s hair had turned gray. And now here were her own little +children sitting where she used to sit at their age, and stealing +their small hands into Aunt Emma’s lap as she used to do so +long ago.</p> +<p>After dinner the children had to sit quiet in the drawing-room +for a time, while Aunt Emma and father and mother talked; but they +had picture-books to look at, and Aunt Emma gave them leave to turn +out everything in one of the toy-drawers, and that kept them busy +and happy for a long time. But at last, just when Olly was +beginning to get tired of the drawer, Aunt Emma called to them from +the other end of the room to come with her into the kitchen for a +minute. Up jumped the children and ran after their aunt across the +hall into the kitchen.</p> +<p>“Now, children,” said Aunt Emma, pointing to a big +basket on the kitchen table, “suppose you help me to pack up +our tea-things. Olly, you go and fetch the spoons, and, Milly, +bring the plates one by one.”</p> +<p>The tea things were all piled up on the kitchen table, and the +children brought them one after another to Aunt Emma to pack them +carefully into the big basket.</p> +<p>“Ain’t I a useful boy, Aunt Emma?” asked Olly +proudly, coming up laden with a big table-cloth which he could +scarcely carry.</p> +<p>“Very useful, Olly, though our table-cloth won’t +look over tidy at tea if you crumple it up like that. Now, Milly, +bring me that tray of bread and the little bundle of salt; and, +Olly, bring me that bit of butter over there, done up in the green +leaves, but mind you carry it carefully. Now for some knives too; +and there are the cups and saucers, Milly, look, in that corner; +and there is the cake all ready cut up, and there is the bread and +butter. Now have we got everything? Everything, I think, but the +kettle, and some wood and some matches, and these must go in +another basket.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Emma,” said Milly, creeping up close to her, +“were you ever a fairy godmother?”</p> +<p>“Not that I know of, Milly. Would you like me better if I +had a wand and a pair of pet dragons, like old Fairy +Blackstick?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Milly, stroking her aunt’s hand, +“but you do such nice things, just like fairy godmothers +do.”</p> +<p>“Do I, little woman? Aunt Emma likes doing nice things for +good children. But now come along, it’s quite time we were +off. Let us go and fetch father and mother. Gardener will bring the +baskets.”</p> +<p>Such a merry party they were, trooping down to the boathouse. +There lay the boat; a pretty new boat, painted dark blue, with a +little red flag floating at her bows, and her name, +“Ariel,” written in large white letters on the stern. +And all around the boathouse stretched the beautiful blue water, so +clear and sunny and sparkling that it dazzled Milly’s eyes to +look at it. She and Olly were lifted into the boat beside Aunt Emma +and mother, father sat in the middle and took the oars, while +gardener put the baskets into the stern, and then, untying the rope +which kept the boat tied into the boathouse, he gave it a good push +with one hand and off she went out into the blue lake, rising up +and down on the water like a swan.</p> +<p>“Oh! mother, mother, look up there,” shouted Olly, +“there’s the mountain. Isn’t that where we +climbed up this morning?”</p> +<p>Yes, there it was, the beautiful green rocky mountain, rising up +above Aunt Emma’s house. They could see it all so clearly as +they got farther out into the lake; first the blue sky, then the +mountain with the little white dots on it, which Milly knew were +sheep; then some trees, and in front, Aunt Emma’s house with +the lawn and the boathouse. And as they looked all round them they +could see far bigger and grander mountains than Brownholme, some +near and green like Brownholme, and some far away and blue like the +sky, while down by the edge of the lake were hayfields full of +flowers, or bits of rock with trees growing on the top of them. The +children hardly knew what it was made them so quiet; but I think it +was because everything was so beautiful. They were really in the +hill-fairies’ palace now.</p> +<p>“Aren’t there any water-fairies in this lake, +mother?” whispered Milly, presently, looking down into the +clear blue water, and trying to see the bottom.</p> +<p>“I can’t tell, Milly, I never saw any. But there +used to be water-fairies in old days. After tea suppose we ask Aunt +Emma to tell us a story about a king in olden times whom the +water-fairies loved; she used to tell it to me when I was small, +and I liked it best of all stories. But, Olly, you must sit still, +or the boat will go tipping over to one side, and father +won’t be able to row.”</p> +<p>“Do let me row, father,” begged Olly.</p> +<p>“Not yet, old man—I must get used to the boat first, +and find out how to manage her, but presently you shall come and +try, and so shall Milly if she likes.”</p> +<p>On they rowed, farther and farther from the shore, till Aunt +Emma’s house began to look quite small, and they could hardly +see the gardener working on the lawn.</p> +<p>“Father, what a long way we’ve come,” cried +Milly, looking all round. “Where are we going to?”</p> +<p>“Well, presently, Milly, I am going to turn the boat a +little bit, so as to make her go over to that side of the lake over +there. Do you see a big rock with some trees on it, far away, +sticking out into the lake?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said the children, looking very hard.</p> +<p>“Well, that’s where we’re going to have tea. +It’s called Birdsnest Point, because the rocks come out in a +point into the lake. But first I thought I would bring you right +out into the middle of the lake, that you might see how big it is, +and look at the mountains all round.” “Father,” +said Olly, “if a big stone fell down out of the sky and made +ever such a big hole in the boat, and the water came into the hole, +should we all be dead?”</p> +<p>“I daresay we should, Olly, for I don’t think I +could carry mother, and Aunt Emma, and Milly, and you on my back, +safe home again, and you see none of you can swim but +me.”</p> +<p>“Then I hope a big stone won’t come,” said +Milly, feeling just a little bit frightened at Olly’s +suggestion.</p> +<p>“Well, big stones don’t grow in the sky generally, +Milly, if that’s any comfort to you. But do you know, one day +long ago, when I was out rowing on this lake, I thought all of a +sudden I heard some one shouting and screaming, and for a long time +I looked and waited, but could see nothing; till at last I fancied +I could see, a long distance off, what looked like a pole, with +something white tied to it. And I rowed, and rowed, and rowed, as +fast as I could, and all the time the shouting and screaming went +on, and at last what do you think I saw? I saw a boat, which looked +as if something was dragging it down into the water. Part of it had +already sunk down into the lake, and in the part which was still +above the water there were three people sitting, a gentleman, and +two little girls who looked about ten years old. And they were +shouting ‘Help! help!’ at the top of their voices, and +waving an oar with a handkerchief tied to it. And the boat in which +they sat was sinking farther and farther into the water, and if I +had’n’t come up just when I did, the gentleman and the +two little girls would have been drowned.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father!” cried Milly, “what made their +boat do like that? And did they get into yours?”</p> +<p>“There was a great hole in the bottom of their boat, +Milly, and the water was coming through it, and making the boat so +heavy that it was sinking down and down into the lake, just as a +stone would sink if you threw it in. How the hole came there we +never quite knew: I thought they must have knocked their boat +against a sharp rock—in some parts of the lake there are +rocks under the water which you can’t see—and the rock +had made the hole; but other people thought it had happened in some +other way. However, there they were, and when I took them all into +my boat you never saw such miserable little creatures as the two +little girls were. They were wet through, they were as white as +little ghosts, and when they were safe in my boat they began to cry +and shake so, poor little souls, though their father and I wrapped +them up in our coats, that I did want their mother to come and +comfort them.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but, father, you took them safe home to their mother, +didn’t you? And do tell me what she said.”</p> +<p>“They had no mother, Milly, they had only their father, +who was with them. But he was very good to them, and I think on the +whole they were happy little girls. The Christmas after that I got +a little parcel one morning, and what do you think was in it? Why, +two photographs of the same little girls, looking so neat and tidy +and happy, I could hardly believe they were really the same as the +little drowned rats I had pulled out of the water. Ask mother to +show you the pictures when we get home; she has them somewhere. +Now, Olly, would you like to row?”</p> +<p>“Oh, father, don’t bump against any rocks,” +said Milly, whose thoughts were very full of the little girls.</p> +<p>“Don’t you trouble your head about rocks, old woman. +I know a good deal more about this lake than those little +girls’ father did, and I won’t take you into any harm. +Come along, Olly.”</p> +<p>Olly was helped along the boat by mother and Aunt Emma till his +father caught hold of him and pulled him on to his seat, where he +let him put his two small paws on one of the oars, and try what he +could do with it. Mr. Norton pulled too; but Olly thought it was +all his doing, and that it was really he who was making the boat +go.</p> +<p>“Don’t we go fast, father?” he cried out +presently, his little face flushed with pleasure and excitement. +“You couldn’t row so fast without me, could you, +father?”</p> +<p>“You little fly-on-the-wheel,” said his father, +smiling at him.</p> +<p>“What does that mean, father?”</p> +<p>“Never mind, you’ll know when you’re bigger. +But now look, children, how close we are coming to the shore. And +quick, Milly, quick! What do you see over there?”</p> +<p>Mr. Norton pointed over the water to a place where some green +rushes were standing up out of the water, not very far from the +edge. What were those great white and gold things shining among the +rushes; and what were those large round green leaves lying on the +water all about them?</p> +<p>“Water-lilies! water-lilies!” cried Milly, stamping +her little feet with delight. “Oh, mother, look! it was on +one of those leaves that the old toad put little Tiny in my +fairy-book, don’t you remember? Only the little fishes came +and bit off the stalk and set her free. Oh, I wish we could see +little Tiny sitting on one of those leaves!”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Aunt Emma, “there’s no +saying what you may find in these parts if you look long enough. +This is a very strange country. But now, Milly, look out for the +lilies. Father’s going to take us in among them, and +I’ll hold you, while you gather them.”</p> +<p>And presently, swish went the boat up against the rushes, and +there were the lovely white lilies lying spread out on the water +all round them, some quite open and showing their golden middles, +and some still buds, with their wet green cases just falling off, +and their white petals beginning to unclose. But what slippery +stalks they had. Aunt Emma held Milly, and father held Olly, while +they dived their hands under the water and pulled hard. And some of +the lilies came out with such short bits of stalk you could +scarcely hold them, and sometimes, flop! out came a long green +stalk, like a long green snake curling and twisting about in the +boat. The children dabbled, and splashed, and pulled, to their +hearts’ content, till at last Mr. Norton told them they had +got enough and now they must sit quite still while he rowed them in +to the land.</p> +<p>“Oh, father, just those two over there!” pleaded +Milly, who could not bear leaving so many beauties behind.</p> +<p>“No, Milly, no more. Look where the sun is now. If we +don’t make haste and have our tea, we shall never get back to +Ravensnest to-night.”</p> +<p>Milly’s face looked as if it would like to cry, as the +boat began to move away from the rushes, and the beautiful lilies +were left behind. I told you, to begin with, that Milly was ready +to cry oftener than a sensible little girl should. But Aunt Emma +was not going to have any crying at her picnic.</p> +<p>“Who’s going to gather me sticks to make my +fire?” she said suddenly, in a solemn voice.</p> +<p>“I am! I am!” shouted both the children at once, and +out came Milly’s smiles again, like the sun from behind a +cloud.</p> +<p>“And who’s going to lay the table-cloth?”</p> +<p>“We are! we are!”</p> +<p>“And who’s going to hand the bread and +butter?”</p> +<p>“I am!” exclaimed Milly, “and Olly shall hand +the cake.”</p> +<p>“And who’s going to <em>eat</em> the bread and +butter?”</p> +<p>“All of us!” shouted the children, and Milly added, +“Father will want a <em>big</em> plate of bread and butter, I +daresay.”</p> +<p>“I should think he would, after all this rowing,” +said Mr. Norton. “Now then, look out for a bump!”</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus4.png"><img src= +"images/illus4.png" alt= +"“So they put Olly up on a tall piece of rock, and he sang.”" +id="illus4" name="illus4" width="100%" /></a> +<p>“So they put Olly up on a tall piece of rock, and he +sang.”</p> +</div> +<p>Bump! Splash! there was the boat scraping along the pebbles near +the shore; out sprang Mr. Norton, first on to a big stone, then on +to the shore, and with one great pull he brought the boat in till +it was close enough for Aunt Emma and Mrs. Norton to step on to the +rocks, and for the children to be lifted out.</p> +<p>“Oh! what a nice place!” cried Milly, looking about +her, and clapping her hands, as she always did when she was +pleased. It was a point of rock running out into the lake, a +“peninsula” Milly called it, when she had been all +round it, and it was covered with brown heather spread all over the +ground, and was delightfully soft and springy to sit upon. In the +middle of the bit of rock there were two or three trees standing up +together, birch trees with silvery stems, and on every side but one +there was shallow brown water, so clear that they could see every +stone at the bottom. And when they looked away across the lake, +there were the grand old mountains pushing their heads into the +clouds on the other side, and far away near the edge of the lake +they saw a white dot which they knew was Aunt Emma’s house. +How the sun shone on everything! How it made the water of the lake +sparkle and glitter as if it were alive! And yet the air was not +hot, for a little wind was coming to them across the water, and +moving the trees gently up and down.</p> +<p>And what was this under the trees? Why, a kind of fireplace made +of stones, and in front of it a round green bit of grass, with +tufts of heather all round it, just like a table with seats.</p> +<p>“Who put these stones here, Aunt Emma?” asked Olly, +as she and mother and Mr. Norton brought up the baskets, and put +them in the green place by the stones.</p> +<p>“Well, Olly, long ago, when all your uncles and aunts were +little, and they used to come here for picnics, they thought it +would be very nice to have a stone fireplace, built up properly, so +that they needn’t make one every time. It was Uncle +Richard’s idea, and we had such fun building it up. The +little ones brought the stones; and the big ones piled them +together till you see we made quite a nice fireplace. And it has +lasted ever since. Whenever I come here I mend it up if any of the +stones have tumbled down. Numbers of little children come to picnic +here every summer, and they always use our fireplace. But now, come +along into the woods, children, and gather sticks.”</p> +<p>Off they ran after Aunt Emma, and soon they were scrambling +about the wood which grew along the shore, picking up the dry +sticks and dry fern under the trees. Milly filled her cotton frock +full, and gathered it up with both her hands; while Olly of course +went straight at the biggest branch he could see, and staggered +along with it, puffing and panting.</p> +<p>“You grasshopper, you!” said Mr. Norton, catching +hold of him, “don’t you think you’d better try a +whole tree next time? There, let me break it for you.” Father +broke it up into short lengths, and then off ran Olly with his +little skirts full to Aunt Emma, who was laden too with an armful +of sticks. “That’ll do to begin with, old man. Come +along, and you and I’ll light the fire.”</p> +<p>What fun it was, heaping up the sticks on the stones, and how +they did blaze and crackle away when Aunt Emma put a match to them. +Puff! puff! out came the smoke; +fizz—crack—sputter—went the dry fir branches, as +if they were Christmas fireworks.</p> +<p>“Haven’t we made a blazey fire, Aunt Emma?” +said Olly, out of breath with dragging up sticks, and standing +still to look.</p> +<p>“Splendid,” said Mr. Norton, who had just come out +of the wood with his bundle. “Now, Olly, let me just put you +on the top of it to finish it off. How you would fizz!”</p> +<p>Off ran Olly, with his father after him, and they had a romp +among the heather till Mr. Norton caught him, and carried him +kicking and laughing under his arm to Aunt Emma.</p> +<p>“Now, Aunt Emma, shall I put him on?”</p> +<p>“Oh dear, no!” said Aunt Emma, “my kettle +wouldn’t sit straight on him, and it’s just boiling +beautifully. We’ll put him on presently when the fire gets +low.”</p> +<p>“Olly, do come and help mother and me with the +tea-things,” cried Milly, who was laying the cloth as busily +and gravely as a little housemaid.</p> +<p>“Run along, shrimp,” said his father, setting him +down.</p> +<p>And off ran Olly, while Mr. Norton and Aunt Emma heaped the wood +on the fire, and kept the kettle straight, so that it +shouldn’t tip over and spill.</p> +<p>Laying the cloth was delightful, Milly thought. First of all, +they put a heavy stone on each corner of the cloth to keep it down, +and prevent the wind from blowing it up, and then they put the +little plates all round, and in the middle two piles of bread and +butter and cake.</p> +<p>“But we haven’t got any flowers,” said Milly, +looking at it presently, with a dissatisfied face, “you +always have flowers on the table at home, mother.”</p> +<p>“Why, Milly, have you forgotten your water-lilies; where +did you leave them?”</p> +<p>“Down by the water,” said Milly. “Father told +me just to put their stalks in the water, and he put a stone to +keep them safe. Oh! that’ll be splendid, mother. Do give me a +cup, and we’ll get some water for them.”</p> +<p>Mother found a cup, and the children scrambled down to the edge +of the lake. There lay the lilies with their stalks in the water, +close to the boat.</p> +<p>“They look rather sad, mother, don’t they?” +said Milly, gathering them up. “Perhaps they don’t like +being taken away from their home.”</p> +<p>“They never look so beautiful out of the water,” +said mother; “but when we get home we’ll put them into +a soup-plate, and let them swim about in it. They’ll look +very nice then. Now, Olly, fill the cup with water, and we’ll +put five or six of the biggest in, and gather some +leaves.”</p> +<p>“There, look! look! Aunt Emma,” shouted Milly, when +they had put the lilies and some fern leaves in the middle of the +table. “Haven’t we made it beautiful?”</p> +<p>“That you have,” said Aunt Emma, coming up with the +kettle which had just boiled. “Now for the tea, and then +we’re ready.”</p> +<p>“We never had such a nice tea as this before,” said +Olly, presently looking up from a piece of bread and butter which +had kept him quiet for some time. “It’s nicer than +having dinner at the railway station even.”</p> +<p>Aunt Emma and mother laughed; for it doesn’t seem so +delightful to grown-up people to have dinner at the railway +station.</p> +<p>“Well, Olly,” said mother, “I hope we shall +often have tea out of doors while we are at Ravensnest.”</p> +<p>Milly shook her head. “It’ll rain, mother. That old +gentleman said it would be sure to rain.”</p> +<p>“That old gentleman is about right, Milly,” said Mr. +Norton. “I think it rains dreadfully here, but mother +doesn’t seem to mind it a bit. Once upon a time when mother +was a little girl, there came a funny old fairy and threw some +golden dust in her eyes, and ever since then she can’t see +straight when she comes to the mountains. It’s all right +everywhere else, but as soon as she comes here, the dust begins to +fly about in her eyes, and makes the mountains look quite different +to her from what they look to anybody else.”</p> +<p>“Let me look, mother,” said Olly, pulling her down +to him.</p> +<p>Mrs. Norton opened her eyes at him, smiling.</p> +<p>“I can’t see any dust, father.”</p> +<p>“Ah, that’s because it’s fairy dust,” +said Mr. Norton, gravely. “Now, Olly, don’t you eat too +much cake, else you won’t be able to row.”</p> +<p>“It’ll be my turn first, father,” said Milly, +“you know I haven’t rowed at all yet.”</p> +<p>“Well, don’t you catch any crabs, Milly,” said +Aunt Emma.</p> +<p>“Catch crabs, Aunt Emma!” said Milly, very much +puzzled. “Crabs are only in the sea, aren’t +they?”</p> +<p>“There’s a very big kind just about here,” +said Mr. Norton, “and they’re always looking out for +little children, particularly little girls.”</p> +<p>“I don’t understand, father,” said Milly, +opening her eyes very wide.</p> +<p>“Have some more tea, then,” said Mr. Norton, +“that always makes people feel wiser.”</p> +<p>“Father, aren’t you talking nonsense?” said +Olly, stopping in the middle of a piece of cake to think about what +his father was saying.</p> +<p>“Very likely, Olly. People always do at picnics. Aunt +Emma, when are you going to tell us your story?”</p> +<p>“When we’ve washed the things and put them +away,” said Aunt Emma, “then Olly shall sing us two +songs, and I’ll tell you my story.”</p> +<p>But the children were so hungry that it was a long time before +they gave up eating bread and butter, and then, when at last tea +was over, what fun it was washing the cups and plates in the lake! +Aunt Emma and Olly washed, and mother and Milly dried the things on +a towel, and then everything was packed away into the baskets, and +mother and Aunt Emma folded up the table-cloth, and put it tidily +on the top of everything.</p> +<p>“I did like that,” said Milly, sighing as the last +basket was fastened down. “I wish you’d let me help +Sarah wash up the tea-things at home, mother.”</p> +<p>“If Sarah liked to let you, I shouldn’t say no, +Milly,” said Mrs. Norton. “How soon would you get tired +of it, old woman, I wonder? But come along, let’s put Olly up +on a rock, and make him sing, and then we’ll have Aunt +Emma’s story.”</p> +<p>So they put Olly up on a tall piece of rock, and he sang +“The Minstrel Boy,” and “Bonnie Dundee,” +and “Hot Cross Buns,” just as if he were a little +musical box, and you had nothing to do but to wind him up. He had a +sweet, clear, little voice, and he looked a delightful brown gipsy, +as he sat perched up on the rock with his long legs dangling, and +his curls blowing about his face.</p> +<p>“There!” said Olly, when he had shouted out the last +note of “Hot Cross Buns.” “I have singed three +whole songs; and now, Aunt Emma, tell us about the king and the +fairies. Krick, please.”</p> +<p>“It must be ‘krick’ indeed,” said Aunt +Emma, “if we want to get home to-night.”</p> +<p>For the sun had almost sunk behind the mountains at their back, +and the wind blowing across the lake was beginning to get a little +cold, while over their heads the rooks went flying, singing +“caw, caw,” on their way to bed. And how the sun was +turning the water to gold! It seemed to be making a great golden +pathway across the lake, and the mountains were turning a deep +blue, and plash, plash, went the little waves on the rocks, so +softly they seemed to be saying “Good-night! +good-night!”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Aunt Emma, settling herself on a soft +piece of heather, and putting her arms round Milly and Olly, +“Once upon a time there was a great king. He was a good king +and a wise man, and he tried to make all the people round about him +wiser and better than they were before he came to rule over them; +and for a long time he was very powerful and happy, and he and the +brave men who helped him and were his friends did a great deal of +good, and kept the savage people who lived all about him in order, +and taught them a great many things. But at last some of the savage +people got tired of obeying the king, and they said they would not +have him to reign over them any more; so they made an army, and +they came together against the king to try and kill him and his +friends. And the king made an army too, and there was a great +battle; and the savage people were the strongest, and they killed +nearly all the king’s brave men, and the king himself was +terribly hurt in the fight. And at last, when night came on, there +were left only the king and one of his friends—his knights, +as they were called. The king was hurt so much that he could not +move, and his friend thought he was dying. They were left alone in +a rocky desert place, and close by there was a great lake with +mountains round it—like this, Olly. It was very cold, and the +moon was shining, and the king lay so still that once or twice his +friend almost thought that he was dead. But at last, about the +middle of the night, he began to speak, and he told his friend to +take his sword that was by his side and to go down to the side of +the lake and throw it as far as he could into the water. Now, this +sword was a magic sword. Long before, the king was once walking +beside this lake, when he suddenly saw an arm in a long white +sleeve rising out of the lake, and in the hand at the end of it was +a splendid sword with a glistening handle. And the king got into a +boat and rowed as fast as he could till he got near enough to take +hold of the sword, and then the arm sank down under the water and +was seen no more. And with the sword the king won a great many +battles, and he loved it, and never would part with it; but now +that he was dying, he told his friend to take the sword and throw +it back into the lake where he had found it, and see what would +happen. And his friend took it, and went away over the rocks till +he came to the edge of the lake, and then he took the sword out of +its case and swung it above his head that he might throw it far +into the water; but as he lifted it up the precious stones in the +handle shone so splendidly in the moonlight that he could not make +up his mind to throw it into the water, it seemed such a pity. So +he hid it away among the rushes by the water side, and went back to +the king. And the king said, ‘What did you see by the +lake?’</p> +<p>“And the knight said, ‘I saw nothing except the +water, and the mountains, and the rushes.’</p> +<p>“And the king said, ‘Oh, unkind friend! Why will you +not do as I ask you, now that I am dying and can do nothing for +myself? Go back and throw the sword into the lake, as I told +you.’</p> +<p>“And the knight went back, and once more he lifted the +sword to throw it into the water but it looked so beautiful that he +<em>could</em> not throw it away. There would be nothing left, he +thought, to remember the king by when he was dead if he threw away +the sword; so again he hid it among the rushes, and then he went +back to the king. And again the king asked, ‘What did you see +by the lake?’ and again the knight answered, ‘I saw +nothing except the water and the mountains.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, unkind, false friend!’ cried the king, +‘you are crueller to me than those who gave me this wound. Go +back and throw the sword into the water, or, weak as I am, I will +rise up and kill you.’</p> +<p>“Back went the knight, and this time he seized the sword +without looking at it, so that he should not see how beautiful it +was, and then he swung it once, twice, thrice, round his head, and +away it went into the lake. And as it fell, up rose a hand and arm +in a long white sleeve out of the water, and the hand caught the +sword and drew it down under the water. And then for a moment, all +round the lake, the knight fancied he heard a sound of sobbing and +weeping, and he thought in his heart that it must be the +water-fairies weeping for the king’s death.</p> +<p>“‘What did you see by the lake?’ asked the +king again, when he came back, and the knight told him. Then the +king told him to lift him up and carry him on his back down to the +edge of the lake, and when they got there, what do you think they +saw?”</p> +<p>But the children could not guess, and Milly pressed Aunt +Emma’s hand hard to make her go on.</p> +<p>“They saw a great black ship coming slowly over the water, +and on the ship were numbers of people in black, sobbing and +crying, so that the air was full of a sound of weeping, and in +front sat three queens in long black dresses, and with gold crowns +on their heads, and they, too, were weeping and wringing their +hands.</p> +<p>“‘Lift me up,’ said the king, when the ship +came close beside them, ‘and put me into the ship.’ And +the knight lifted him up, while the three queens stretched out +their hands and drew him into the ship.</p> +<p>“‘Oh, king! take me with you,’ said the +knight, ‘take me too. What shall I do all alone without +you?’ But the ship began to move away, and the knight was +left standing on the shore. Only he fancied he heard the +king’s voice saying, ‘Wait for me, I shall come again. +Farewell!’</p> +<p>“And the ship went faster and faster away into the +darkness, for it was a fairy ship, till at last the knight could +see it no more. So then he knew that the king had been carried away +by the fairies of the lake—the same fairies who had given him +the sword in old days, and who had loved him and watched over him +all his life. But what did the king mean by saying, ‘I shall +come again’?”</p> +<p>Then Aunt Emma stopped and looked at the children.</p> +<p>“What did he mean, auntie?” asked Milly, who had +been listening with all her ears, and whose little eyes were wet, +“and did he ever come back again?”</p> +<p>“Not while the knight lived, Milly. He grew to be quite an +old man, and was always hoping that the fairies would bring the +king again. But the king never came, and his friend died without +seeing him.”</p> +<p>“But did he <em>ever</em> come again?” asked +Olly.</p> +<p>“I don’t know, Olly. Some people think that he is +still hidden away somewhere by the kind water-fairies, and that +some day, when the world wants him very much, he will come back +again.”</p> +<p>“Do you think he is here in this lake?” whispered +Milly, looking at the water.</p> +<p>“How can we tell what’s at the bottom of the +lake?” said Aunt Emma, smiling. “But no, I don’t +think the king is hidden in this lake. He didn’t live near +here.”</p> +<p>“What was his name?” asked Milly.</p> +<p>“His name was King Arthur. But now, children, hurry; there +is father putting all the baskets into the boat. We must get home +as quick as we can.”</p> +<p>They rowed home very quickly, except just for a little time when +Milly rowed, and they did not go quite so fast as if father were +rowing alone. It was quite evening now on the lake, and there were +great shadows from the mountains lying across the water. Somehow +the children felt much quieter now than when they started in the +afternoon. Milly had curled herself up inside mother’s arm, +and was thinking a great deal about King Arthur and the fairy ship, +while Olly was quite taken up with watching the oars as they dipped +in and out of the water, and occasionally asking his father when he +should be big enough to row quite by himself. It seemed a very +little time after all before they were stepping out of the boat at +Aunt Emma’s boathouse, and the picnic and the row were both +over.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, dear lake,” said Milly, turning with her +hands full of water-lilies to look back before they went up to the +house. “Good-night, mountains; good-night, Birdsnest Point. I +shall soon come and see you again.”</p> +<p>A few minutes more, and they were safely packed into a carriage +which drove them back to Ravensnest, and Aunt Emma was saying +good-bye to them.</p> +<p>“Next time, I shall come and see you, Milly,” she +said, as she kissed Milly’s little sleepy face. +“Don’t forget me till then.”</p> +<p>“Then you’ll tell us about old Mother +Quiverquake,” said Olly, hugging her with his small arms. +“Aunt Emma, I haven’t given Johnny back his stockings. +They did tickle me so in the boat.”</p> +<p>“We’ll get them some time,” said Aunt Emma. +“Good-night, good-night.”</p> +<p>It was a sleepy pair of children that nurse lifted out of the +carriage at Ravensnest. And though they tried to tell her something +about it, she had to wait till next morning before she could really +understand anything about their wonderful day at Aunt Emma’s +house.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter6" name="Chapter6">CHAPTER VI</a></h2> +<h3>Wet Days At Ravensnest</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>For about a week after the row on the lake the weather was +lovely, and Milly wondered more than ever what the old gentleman +who warned them of the rain in the mountains could have been +thinking about. She and Olly were out all day, and nearly every +afternoon nurse lifted the tea-table through the low nursery window +on to the lawn, and let them have their tea out of doors among the +flowers and trees and twittering birds. They had found out a +fly-catcher’s nest in the ivy above the front door, and every +evening the two children used to fetch out their father to watch +the parent birds catching flies and carrying them to the hungry +little ones, whom they could just hear chirping up above the ivy. +Olly was wild to get the gardener’s ladder that he might +climb up and look into the nest, but Mr. Norton would not have it +lest it should frighten away the old birds.</p> +<p>One delicious warm morning, too, the children had their +long-promised bathe, and what fun it was. Nurse woke them up at +five o’clock in the morning—fancy waking up as early as +that!—and they slipped on their little blue bathing gowns, +and their sand shoes that mother had bought them in Cromer the year +before, and then nurse wrapped them up in shawls, and she and they +and father went down and opened the front door while everybody else +in the house was asleep, and slipped out. What a quiet strange +world it seemed, the grass and the flowers dripping with dew, and +overhead such a blue sky with white clouds sailing slowly about in +it.</p> +<p>“Why don’t we always get up at five o’clock, +father?” asked Olly, as he and Milly skipped along—such +an odd little pair of figures—beside Mr. Norton. +“Isn’t it nice and funny?”</p> +<p>“Very,” said Mr. Norton. “Still, I imagine +Olly, if you had to get up every day at five o’clock, you +might think it funny, but I’m sure you wouldn’t always +think it nice.”</p> +<p>“Oh! I’m sure we should,” said Milly, +seriously. “Why, father, it’s just as if everything was +ours and nobody else’s, the garden and the river I mean. Is +there <em>anybody</em> up yet do you think—in those +houses?” And Milly pointed to the few houses they could see +from the Ravensnest garden.</p> +<p>“I can’t tell, Milly. But I’ll tell you +who’s sure to be up now, and that’s John Backhouse. I +should think he’s just beginning to milk the cows.”</p> +<p>“Oh then, Becky and Tiza’ll be up too,” cried +Milly, dancing about. “I wish we could see them. Somehow it +would be quite different seeing them now, father. I feel so queer, +as if I was somebody else.”</p> +<p>If you have ever been up <em>very</em> early on a summer +morning, you will know what Milly meant, but if not I can hardly +explain it. Such a pretty quiet little walk they had down to the +river. Nobody on the road, nobody in the fields, but the birds +chattering and the sun shining, as if they were having a good time +all to themselves, before anybody woke up to interrupt them. Mr. +Norton took the children down to the stepping-stones, and then, +while Milly and nurse stayed on the bank he lifted Olly up, and +carried him to the middle of the stepping-stones, where the water +would about come up to his chest. Mr. Norton had already taken off +his own shoes and stockings, and when they came to the middle +stone, he put Olly down on the stone, and stepped into the water +himself. “Now, Olly, give me your hands and jump in. Mind, +it’ll feel very cold.”</p> +<p>Olly shut his eyes, and opened his mouth, as he always did when +he felt just a little frightened, and then in he went; splash! ugh! +it was so cold—much colder than the sea used to +feel—but after a few splashes Olly began to get used to it, +and to think it fine fun.</p> +<p>“Oh, father, fetch Milly, and then we’ll all dance +about,” entreated Olly.</p> +<p>“Come, Milly,” called Mr. Norton. “Try whether +you can manage the stepping-stones by yourself.” So Milly +came, holding up her bathing dress, and stepping from one big stone +to another with a very grave face, as if she felt that there would +be an end of her altogether if she tumbled in. And then, splash! In +she jumped by the side of Olly, and after a little shiver or two +she also began to think that the river was a delightful bathing +place, almost as nice as the sea, perhaps in some ways nicer, +because it was such a strange and funny one. They danced and +splashed about in the brown sparkling water till they were tired, +and at last Olly stopped to take breath.</p> +<p>“I should think the fishes must be frightened of +us,” he said, peering down into the river. “I +can’t see any, father.”</p> +<p>“Well, they wouldn’t choose to swim about just where +little children are shouting and capering. The fishes are hidden +safe away under the banks and the big stones. Besides, it’s +going to be a very hot day, and they like the shady bits of the +river. Just here there’s no shade.”</p> +<p>Suddenly there was a great commotion in the river, and when Mr. +Norton looked round for a second he could see nothing of Milly, +till up came a dripping head and a pair of hands, and there was +Milly kneeling on the stones at the bottom of the river, with just +her head above water, looking very much astonished and rather +frightened.</p> +<p>“Why, what happened, old woman?” said Mr. Norton, +holding out his hand to help her up.</p> +<p>“I—I—don’t quite know, father; I was +standing on a big stone, and all of a sudden it tipped up, and I +tumbled right in.”</p> +<p>“First of all I thought you was a big fish, and then I +thought you was going to be drowned,” said Olly, cheerfully. +“I’m glad you wasn’t drowned.”</p> +<p>“Miss Milly! Miss Milly!” shouted nurse from the +bank, “it’s quite time you came out now. If you stay in +so long you’ll get cold, and you, too, Master +Olly.”</p> +<p>Olly was not inclined to come. He would have liked to go on +dabbling and splashing till breakfast-time, but Mr. Norton hurried +him out, and the two dripping little creatures were well wrapped up +in large shawls which nurse had brought with her. Then nurse took +up Olly in her arms, and father took up Milly, who was small and +light for her age, and they set off up the bit of road to the +house. By this time it was past six o’clock, and whom should +they meet at the Ravensnest gate but John Backhouse, with Becky and +Tiza, and his two dogs. He was just bringing the milk, and both he +and his children looked as brisk and wide awake as if they had been +up and about for hours.</p> +<p>Milly and Olly were very much excited at the sight of them, and +Olly struggled hard to get down, but nurse held him tight.</p> +<p>“Oh, Becky! we’ve had such a nice bathe,” +cried Milly, as she passed them muffled up in her shawl, her little +wet feet dangling out.</p> +<p>Becky and Tiza looked longingly after them as they disappeared +into the house. They wished they could have had a bathe too, but +they knew very well that their hard-worked father and mother had +something else to do on a fine summer’s morning than to take +them to bathe, and in a few minutes they had forgotten all about +it, and were busy playing with the dogs, or chattering to their +father about the hay-making, which was soon to begin now.</p> +<p>That evening there were strange clouds at sunset time, and Mr. +Norton shook his head as he heard Mrs. Norton arrange to take the +children next day to a small mountain village near Ravensnest, to +call on some old friends of hers.</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t make much of a plan for to-morrow if I +were you,” he said to his wife, “the weather +doesn’t look promising.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father!” said Milly, protesting. “There +are some red clouds over there—look! and Nana always says +it’s going to be fine when there are red clouds.”</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, your red clouds may be right and I may be +wrong. We shall see.”</p> +<p>But, alas! father was quite right. When Milly woke up next +morning there was no nice sunshine creeping on to her bed as it had +done almost ever since they came to Ravensnest; but instead there +was rain beating steadily against the window, coming down out of a +heavy gray sky, and looking as if it meant to go on for ever.</p> +<p>“Oh dear!” sighed Milly, as she began to dress, +“we can’t go out, and the wild strawberries will get so +wet. I meant to have gathered some for mother to-day. There would +have been such nice ones in the wood.”</p> +<p>But it was no use thinking about woods or strawberries, and when +Mrs. Norton came into the children’s room just as they were +finishing breakfast, she found a pair of dull little faces staring +out at the rain, as if looking at it would make it stop.</p> +<p>“Nasty rain,” said Olly, climbing up on his +mother’s knee. “Go to Spain. I don’t want you to +come and spoil my nicey time.”</p> +<p>“I am afraid scolding the rain won’t make it go +away,” said his mother, smiling into his brown face as he +knelt on her lap, with his arms round her neck. “Now what are +we going to do to-day?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” said Milly, sitting down +opposite her mother, and resting her face gravely on her hands. +“Well, we brought <em>some</em> toys, you know, mother. +Olly’s got his top; I can help him spin it, and I can play +with Katie a bit.”</p> +<p>“That won’t take very long,” said Mrs. Norton. +“Suppose we do some lessons first of all.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother, lessons!” said Milly, in a very +doubtful voice.</p> +<p>“It’s holidays, mother, it’s holidays,” +cried Olly. “I don’t like lessons—not a +bit.”</p> +<p>“Well, but, Olly, think a bit; you can’t spin your +top and look at picture-books all day, and I’m afraid +it’s going to rain all day—it looks very like it. If +you come and do some reading and counting with me this morning, I +can give you some spills to make, or some letters to tear up for me +afterwards. That will save the toys for this afternoon; and some +time this afternoon, if it doesn’t stop raining, we’ll +all have a romp. And as for you, Milly, don’t you think +it’s quite time Katie had a new frock? I believe I can find a +beautiful bit of blue silk in my bag, and I’m sure nurse will +show you how to make it.”</p> +<p>Milly’s face brightened up very much at this, and the two +children went skipping upstairs to the drawing-room after their +mother, in very fair spirits again. Olly did some reading, while +Milly wrote in her copybook, and then Olly had his counting-slate +and tried to find out what 6 and 4 made, and 5 and 3, and other +little sums of the same kind. He yawned a good deal over his +reading, and was quite sure several times that h-a-y spelt +“ham,” and s-a-w spelt “was,” but still, on +the whole, he got through very well. Milly wrote her copy, then she +learnt some verses of a poem called “Lucy Gray,” and +last of all mother found her a big map of Westmoreland, the county +in which the mountains are, and they had a most delightful +geography lesson. Mother pretended to take Milly a drive all about +the mountains, and made her find out their names, and the names of +the towns and the lakes, beginning with Lake Windermere. Olly was +interested too, for Mrs. Norton told them a great many things about +the places, and made quite a story out of it.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus5.png"><img src= +"images/illus5.png" id="illus5" name="illus5" alt= +"“He was quite sure that h-a-y spelt ‘ham’ and s-a-w spelt ‘was.’”" +width="100%" /></a> +<p>“He was quite sure that h-a-y spelt ‘ham’ and +s-a-w spelt ‘was.’”</p> +</div> +<p>“Why, mother, I never could go all that long way all at +once—<em>really</em>, could I?” asked Milly, when they +had been all round the mountains, in and out and round about.</p> +<p>“No, Milly, not quite,” said Mrs. Norton, laughing, +“but it’s very easy to go a long way in a pretendy +drive. It would only take us about ten minutes that way to get to +the other side of the world.”</p> +<p>“How long would it take really?” asked Olly.</p> +<p>“About three months.”</p> +<p>“If we could fly up, and up, ever so far,” said +Olly, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as +high as they would reach, “it wouldn’t take us long. +Mother, don’t you wish you was a bird?”</p> +<p>“No, I don’t think so, Olly; why do you?”</p> +<p>“Because I should like to go so <em>krick</em>. Mother, +the fly-catchers do fly so krick; I can’t see them sometimes +when they’re flying, they go so fast. Oh, I do wish father +would let me get up a ladder to look at them.”</p> +<p>“No Olly, you’ll frighten them,” said Milly, +putting on her wise face. “Besides, father says you’re +too little, and you’d tumble down.”</p> +<p>Olly looked as if he didn’t believe a word of it, as he +generally did when Milly talked wisely to him; but just then he +found that mother had put into his lap a whole basketful of letters +to tear up, and that interested him so much that he forgot the +fly-catchers. Nurse cut out a most fashionable blue dress for +Katie, and Milly was quite happy all the rest of the morning in +running up the seams and hemming the bottom. So the morning passed +away. After dinner there were the toys to play with, and +Katie’s frock to try on, for nurse had taken a turn at the +body while Milly had been making the skirt. It fitted very well, +and Milly had only the band to put on and the sleeves to make +before it would be quite finished. Then nurse promised to put a +little white lace round the neck, and cut out a blue sash, that +Katie might be quite turned into an elegant young lady. Tea came +very soon, and when it was cleared away father and mother came into +the big kitchen without a fireplace, next to the children’s +room, and they all had a splendid romp. Mr. Norton made himself +into a tiger, with a tiger-skin in the hall, that Uncle Richard had +brought home from India, and Olly shot him all over with a +walking-stick from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. When +they were tired of this, mother set them to play hide-and-seek, and +Milly hid herself in such out-of-the-way cupboards, and squeezed +herself into such small corners, that mother said she was like a +needle in a bundle of hay—there was no finding her.</p> +<p>Seven o’clock came before they had time to think about it, +and the children went chattering and skipping up to bed, though on +fine evenings they had been staying up much later. How the rain did +rattle on the window while they were undressing.</p> +<p>“Oh, you tiresome rain,” said Milly, standing by the +window in her nightdress, and gazing up into the sky. “Where +does it all come from, I wonder? Won’t it be wet to-morrow, +Nana? and oh, what is that roaring over there?”</p> +<p>“That’s the beck,” said nurse, who was +brushing Olly’s hair, and trying hard to make him stand still +for two minutes.</p> +<p>“The beck! why, what’s the matter with +it?”</p> +<p>“It’s the rain has made it so full I suppose,” +said nurse. “To-morrow, gardener says, it’ll be over +the lawn if the rain goes on.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but it mustn’t go on,” said Milly. +“Now, rain, dear rain, good rain, do go away to-night, right +away up into the mountains. There’s plenty of room for you up +there, and down here we don’t want you a bit. So do be polite +and go away.”</p> +<p>But the rain didn’t see any good reason for going away, in +spite of Milly’s pretty speeches, and next morning there was +the same patter on the window, the same gray sky and dripping +garden. After breakfast there was just a hope of its clearing up. +For about an hour the rain seemed to get less and the clouds a +little brighter. But it soon came on again as fast as ever, and the +poor children were very much disappointed.</p> +<p>“Mother,” said Milly, when they had settled down to +their lessons again in the drawing-room, “when we get back to +Willingham, do you know what I shall do?”</p> +<p>“No, Milly.”</p> +<p>“I shall ask you to take me to see that old +gentleman—you know who I mean—who told you about the +rain. And I shall say to him, ‘please, Mr. Old Gentleman, at +first I thought you were quite wrong about the rain, but afterwards +I thought you were quite right, and it does rain dreadfully much in +the mountains.’”</p> +<p>“Very well, Milly. But you have only just had a taste of +what the rain can do in the lakes you know, so far. Father and I +have been here sometimes when it has rained two or three weeks +without stopping.”</p> +<p>“Oh dear!” said Milly, looking extremely melancholy. +“I like the mountains very much, mother; but <em>do</em> you +think we’d better come to Ravensnest again after this +year?”</p> +<p>“Oh you ungrateful little woman!” said Mrs. Norton, +whose love for the place was so real that Milly’s speech gave +her quite a pang. “Have you forgotten all your happy sunshiny +days here, just because it has rained for two? Why, when I was a +little girl, and used to come here, the rainy days never made me +love the place a bit the less. I always used to think the fine days +made up.”</p> +<p>“But then, mother, you were a nice little girl,” +said Milly, throwing her arms round her mother’s neck and +kissing her. “Now, I don’t feel a bit nice this +morning. It makes me so cross not to be able to go out and get +flowers and wild strawberries. And you know at home it hardly ever +rains all day.”</p> +<p>“Gardener says sometimes it rains all over the +road,” interrupted Olly, “and people can’t walk +along, and they have to go right up on the mountains to get past +the water place. And sometimes they have to get a boat to take +people across. Do you think we shall have to go in a boat to church +on Sunday, mother?”</p> +<p>“Well, we’re a long way off that yet, Olly. It will +take a good many days’ rain to flood the roads so deep that +we can’t get along them, and this is only the second rainy +day. Come, I don’t think we’ve got much to complain of. +Now suppose, instead of doing all your lessons this morning, you +were presently to write to Jacky and Francis—you write to +Jacky, Milly, and Olly to Francis. Don’t you think that would +be a good thing?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes, yes!” cried Milly, shutting up her copybook +in a great hurry. “They’ll be so much astonished, +mother, for we didn’t <em>promise</em> to write to them. I +don’t believe they ever get any letters.”</p> +<p>The children had a great deal of affection and some secret pity +for these playfellows of theirs, who had a sick mother, and who did +not get half the pleasures and amusements that they did. And, as I +have already told you, they could not bear Miss Chesterton, the +little boys’ aunt, who lived with them. They felt sure that +Jacky and Francis must be unhappy, only because they had to live +with Miss Chesterton.</p> +<p>This was Milly’s letter when it was done. Milly could only +write very slowly, in rather big hand, so that her letters were +never very long:</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span style="font-variant:small-caps;">My Dear +Jacky</span>—Don’t you think it very odd getting a +letter from me? It is nearly a fortnight since we came here. At +first it was <em>very</em> nice. We went up the mountains, and Aunt +Emma took us in a boat on the lake. And we gathered some wild +strawberries, only some of them were quite white—not red a +bit. But now it has begun to rain, and we don’t like it at +all. Perhaps we sha’n’t be able to get home because the +rain will cover up the roads. It is <em>very</em> dull staying in, +only mother makes us such nice plays. Good-bye, Jacky. I send my +love to Francis. Mind you don’t forget us.</p> +<p>Your loving little friend,<br /> +MILLY.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Olly wrote a much longer letter, that is to say, mother wrote +for him, and he told her what to say, and as this was a much easier +way of writing than Milly’s way, he got on very fast, and +Mrs. Norton had to write as quickly as she could, to keep up with +him. And this was what Olly had to say:</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span style="font-variant:small-caps;">My Dear +Francis</span>—I wonder what you’ll say to-morrow +morning when the postman brings you this letter. I hope +you’ll write back, because it won’t be fair if you +don’t. It isn’t such fun here now because it does rain +so. Milly and I are always telling the rain to go away, but it +won’t—though it did at home. Last week we went out in a +boat, and I rowed. I rowed a great way, much farther than Milly. We +went very slow when Milly rowed. It was very jolly at the picnic. +Aunt Emma gave me some cake, and mother gave me some bread and jam. +Nana won’t let us have cake and jam both, when we have tea at +home. Aunt Emma told us a story about King Arthur. I don’t +believe you ever heard it. The water-fairies took him away, and his +friend wanted to go too, but the king said ‘No! you must stop +behind.’ Milly cried because she felt sad about the king. I +didn’t cry, because I’m a little boy. Mother says you +won’t understand about the story, and she says we must tell +it you when we get home. So we will, only perhaps we +sha’n’t remember. Do you do lessons now? We don’t +do any—only when it rains. Milly’s writing a letter to +Jacky—mine’s much longer than hers.</p> +<p>Your little friend,<br /> +OLLY.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then came the putting up the letters, addressing them, and +stamping them, all of which the children enjoyed very much, and by +the time they were laid on the hall table ready to go to the post +it was nearly dinner-time.</p> +<p>How the beck did roar that afternoon. And when the children +looked out from the drawing-room window they could see a little +flood on the lawn, where the water had come over the side of the +stream. While they were having their tea, with mother sitting by, +working and chattering to them, they heard a knock at the door, and +when they opened it there was father standing in the unused +kitchen, with the water running off his waterproof coat, making +little streams all over the stone floor.</p> +<p>“I have been down to look at the river,” he said to +Mrs. Norton. “Keep off, children! I’m much too wet to +touch. Such rain! It does know how to come down here! The +water’s over the road just by the stepping-stones. John +Backhouse says if it goes on another twenty-four hours like this, +there’ll be no getting to Wanwick by the road, on +foot.”</p> +<p>“Father,” said Milly, looking at him with a very +solemn face, “wouldn’t it be dreadful if it went on +raining and raining, and if the river came up and up, right up to +the drive and into the hall, and we all had to sit upstairs, and +the butcher couldn’t bring us any meat, and John Backhouse +couldn’t bring us any milk, and we all <em>died</em> of +hunger.”</p> +<p>“Then they would put us into some black boxes,” said +Olly, cheerfully, with his mouth full of bread and butter, +“and they would put the black boxes into some boats, and take +us right away and bury us krick—wouldn’t they, +mother?”</p> +<p>“Well, but—” said Mr. Norton, who had by this +time got rid of his wet coat, and was seated by Milly, helping +himself to some tea, “suppose we got into the boats before we +were dead, and rowed away to Windermere station?”</p> +<p>“Oh no! father,” said Milly, who always liked her +stories to be as gloomy as possible, “they wouldn’t +know anything about us till we were dead you know, and then +they’d come and find us, and be <em>very</em> sorry for us, +and say, ‘Oh dear! oh dear! what a pity!’”</p> +<p>Olly began to look so dismal as Milly’s fancies grew more +and more melancholy, that Mrs. Norton took to laughing at them all. +What did they know about Westmoreland rain indeed. This was +nothing—just nothing at all; she <em>could</em> remember some +floods in the wintertime, when she was a little girl, and used to +stay with Aunt Emma and great-grandmamma; but as for this, why, it +was a good summer wetting, and that was all.</p> +<p>A romp sent the children to bed in excellent spirits again. This +time both Milly and Olly stood at the window together, and told the +rain to be sure to go to Spain that night, and never come back +again while they were at Ravensnest.</p> +<p>“Or you might go to Willingham, you know, dear Mr. +Rain,” said Milly; “I daresay mother’s flowers +want a good watering. And there’s Spot—you might give +her a good washing—she <em>can</em> wash herself, but she +won’t. Only we don’t want you here, Mr. +Rain.”</p> +<p>But what an obstinate disagreeable Mr. Rain it was! All that +night it went on pouring, till the little beck in the garden was so +full it was almost choked, and could only get along by sputtering +and foaming as if some wicked water-fairies were driving it along +and tormenting it. And all the little pools on the mountain, the +“tarns,” as Becky and Tiza called them, filled up, and +the rain made the mountain itself so wet that it was like one big +bog all over.</p> +<p>When the children woke up the flood on the lawn was growing +bigger, and it seemed to them as if the house and garden were all +wrapped up in a wet white cloud-blanket. They could not see the +mountain at all from the window, it was all covered with a thick +white mist, and the dark fir trees in the garden looked sad and +drooping, as if the weight of raindrops was too much for them to +carry.</p> +<p>The children had made up their minds so completely the night +before that it <em>couldn’t</em> rain more than two days +running, that they felt as if they could hardly be expected to bear +this third wet morning cheerfully. Nurse found them cross and out +of spirits at breakfast. Even a prospect of asking Becky and Tiza +to tea did not bring any smiles to their forlorn little faces. It +would be no fun having anybody to tea. They couldn’t go out, +and there was nothing amusing indoors.</p> +<p>After breakfast, Olly set to work to get into mischief, as he +generally did when he felt dull. Nurse discovered him smearing +Katie’s cheeks with raspberry jam “to make them get red +kricker” as he said, and alas! some of the jam had stuck to +the new silk frock, and spoilt all its smart fresh look.</p> +<p>When Milly found it out she began to cry, and when Mrs. Norton +came in she saw a heap on the floor, which was Milly, sobbing, +while Olly sat beside her with his mouth wide open, as if he was a +good deal astonished at the result of his first attempt at +doctoring.</p> +<p>“Pick up the pieces, old woman,” said Mrs. Norton, +taking hold of the heap and lifting it up. “What’s the +matter with you both?”</p> +<p>“Olly’s spoilt my doll,” sobbed Milly, +“and it <em>will</em> go on raining—and I feel +so—so—dull.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t spoil her doll, mother,” cried Olly, +eagerly. “I only rubbed some jam on its cheeks to make them a +nicey pink—only some of it <em>would</em> sticky her +dress—I didn’t mean to.”</p> +<p>“How would you like some jam rubbed on your cheeks, +sir?” said Mrs. Norton, who could scarcely help laughing at +poor Katie’s appearance when nurse handed the doll to her. +“Suppose you leave Milly’s dolls alone for the future; +but cheer up, Milly! I think I can make Katie very nearly right +again. Come upstairs to my room and we’ll try.”</p> +<p>After a good deal of sponging and rubbing, and careful drying by +the kitchen fire, Katie came very nearly right again, and then Mrs. +Norton tried whether some lessons would drive the rain out of the +children’s heads. But the lessons did not go well. It was all +Milly could do to help crying every time she got a figure wrong in +her sum, and Olly took about ten minutes to read two lines of his +reading-book. Olly had just begun his sums, and Milly was standing +up to say some poetry to her mother, looking a woebegone little +figure, with pale cheeks and heavy eyes, when suddenly there was a +noise of wheels outside, and both the children turned to look out +of the window.</p> +<p>“A carriage! a carriage!” shouted Olly, jumping +down, and running to the window.</p> +<p>There, indeed, was one of the shut-up “cars,” as the +Westmoreland people call them, coming up the Ravensnest drive.</p> +<p>“It’s Aunt Emma,” said Mrs. Norton, starting +up, “how good of her to come over on such a day. Run, +children, and open the front door.”</p> +<p>Down flew Milly and Olly, tumbling over one another in their +hurry; but father had already thrown the door open, and who should +they see stepping down the carriage-steps but Aunt Emma herself, +with her soft gray hair shining under her veil, and her dear kind +face as gentle and cheery as ever.</p> +<p>“Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma!” shouted Olly, dancing up to +her, and throwing his arms round her, “<em>are</em> you come +to tell us about old Mother Quiverquake?”</p> +<p>“You gipsy, don’t strangle me! Well, Lucy dear, here +I am. Will you have me to dinner? I thought we’d all be +company for each other this bad day. Why, Milly, what have you been +doing to your cheeks?”</p> +<p>“She’s been crying,” said Olly, in spite of +Milly’s pulling him by the sleeve to be quiet, “because +I stickened her doll.”</p> +<p>“Well, and quite right too. Dolls weren’t made to be +stickied. But now, who’s going to carry my bag upstairs? Take +it gently, Milly, it’s got my cap inside, and if you crumple +my cap I shall have to sit with my head in a bandbox at dinner. Old +ladies are <em>never</em> seen without their caps you know. The +most dreadful things would happen if they were! Olly, you may put +my umbrella away. There now, I’ll go to mother’s room +and take off my things.”</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter7" name="Chapter7">CHAPTER VII</a></h2> +<h3>A Story-Telling Game</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>When Aunt Emma was safely settled, cap and all, in one of the +drawing-room arm-chairs, it seemed to the children as if the rain +and the gray sky did not matter nearly so much as they had done +half an hour before. In the first place, her coming made something +new and interesting to think about; and in the second place, they +felt quite sure that Aunt Emma hadn’t brought her little +black bag into the drawing-room with her for nothing. If only her +cap had been in it, why of course she would have left it in +mother’s bedroom. But here it was in her lap, with her two +hands folded tight over it, as if it contained something precious! +How very puzzling and interesting!</p> +<p>However, for a long time it seemed as if Aunt Emma had nothing +at all to say about her bag. She began to tell them about her +drive—how in two places the horse had to go splashing through +the water, and how once, when they were crossing a little river +that ran across the road, the water came so far up the wheels that +“I put my head out of the window,” said Aunt Emma, +“and said to my old coachman, ‘Now, John, if it’s +going to get any deeper than this, you’d better turn him +round and go home, for I’m an old woman, not a fish, and I +can’t swim. Of course, if the horse can swim with the +carriage behind him it’s all right, but I have my +doubts.’ Now John, my dears, has been with me a great many +years, and he knows very well that I’m rather a nervous old +woman. It’s very sad, but it is so. Don’t you be +nervous when you’re old people. So all he said was ‘All +right, ma’am. Bless you, he can swim like a trout.’ And +crack went the whip, splash went the water! It seemed to me it was +just going to come in under the door, when, lo and behold! there we +were safe and sound on dry ground again. But whether my old horse +swam through or walked through I can’t tell you. I like to +believe he swam, because I’m so fond of him, and one likes to +believe the creatures one loves can do clever things.”</p> +<p>“I’ll ask John when he comes to take you away, Aunt +Emma,” said Olly. “I don’t believe horses can +swim when they’re in a carriage.”</p> +<p>“You’re a matter-of-fact monkey,” said Aunt +Emma. “Dear me, what’s that?”</p> +<p>For a loud squeak had suddenly startled the children, who were +now looking about them everywhere in vain, to find out where it +came from. Squeak! again. This time the voice certainly came from +near Aunt Emma’s chair, but there was nothing to be seen.</p> +<p>“What a strange house you live in,” said Aunt Emma, +with a perfectly grave face. “You must have caught a magician +somehow. That’s a magician’s squeak.”</p> +<p>Again came the noise!</p> +<p>“I know, I know!” shouted Olly. “It’s +Aunt Emma’s bag! I’m sure it came out of the +bag.”</p> +<p>“My bag!”—holding it up and looking at it. +“Now does it look like a bag that squeaks? It’s a +perfectly well-behaved bag, and never did such a thing in its +life.”</p> +<p>“I know, Aunt Emma,” said Olly, dancing round her in +great excitement. “You’ve got the parrot in +there!”</p> +<p>“Well now,” said Aunt Emma. “This is really +serious. If you think I am such a cruel old woman as to shut up a +poor poll-parrot in a bag, there’s no help for it, we must +open the bag. But it’s a very curious bag—I +wouldn’t stand too near it if I were you.”</p> +<p>Click! went the fastening of the bag, and out jumped—what +do you think? Why, the very biggest frog that was ever seen, in +this part of the world at any rate, a green speckled frog, that +hopped on to Aunt Emma’s knee, and then on to the floor, +where it went hopping and squeaking along the carpet, till all of a +sudden, when it got to the door, it turned over on its back, and +lay there quite quiet with its legs in the air.</p> +<p>The children followed it with looks half of horror, half of +amazement.</p> +<p>“What is it, Aunt Emma? Is it alive?” asked Milly, +jumping on to a chair as the frog came near her, and drawing her +little skirts tight round her legs, while Olly went cautiously +after it, with his hands on his knees, one step at a time.</p> +<p>“You’d better ask it,” said Aunt Emma, who had +at last begun to laugh a little, as if it was impossible to keep +grave any longer. “I’m sure it looks very peaceable +just now, poor thing.”</p> +<p>So the children crept up to it, and examined it closely. Yes, it +was a green speckled frog, but what it was made of, and whether it +was alive, and if it was not alive how it managed to hop and +squeak—these were the puzzles.</p> +<p>“Take hold of it, Milly,” said Mr. Norton, who had +just come up from his work, and was standing laughing near the +door. “Turn it over on its legs again.”</p> +<p>“No, I’ll turn it,” cried Olly, making a dash, +and turning it over in a great hurry, keeping his legs and feet +well out of the way. Hop! squeak! there it was off again, right +down the room with the children after it, till it suddenly came up +against a table leg, and once more turned over on its back and lay +quite still.</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Emma, is it a toy?” asked Milly, who now +felt brave enough to take it up and look at it.</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, I believe so—a very lively one. Bring +it here, and I’ll tell you something about it.”</p> +<p>So the children brought it very cautiously, as if they were not +quite sure what it would do next, and then Aunt Emma explained to +them that she had once paid a visit to a shop in London where +Japanese toys—toys made in the country of Japan—far +away on the other side of the world—were sold, and that there +she found master froggy.</p> +<p>“And there never was such a toy as froggy for a wet +day,” said Aunt Emma. “I have tried him on all sorts of +boys and girls, and he never fails. He’s as good a cure for a +cross face as a poultice is for a sore finger. But, Milly, listen! +I declare there’s something else going on in my bag. I really +think, my dear bag, you might be quiet now that you have got rid of +froggy! What can all this chattering be about? Sh! sh!” and +Aunt Emma held up her finger at the children, while she held the +bag up to her ear, and listened carefully. Olly was almost beside +himself with excitement, but Milly had got his little brown hands +tight in hers for fear he should make a jump at the bag. +“Yes,” said Aunt Emma. “It’s just as I +thought. The bag declares it’s not his fault at all, but that +if I will give him such noisy creatures to carry I must take the +consequences. He says there’s a whole family now inside him, +making such a noise he can hardly hear himself speak. It’s +enough, he says, to drive a respectable bag mad, and he must blow +up if it goes on. Dear me! I must look into this. Milly, come +here!”</p> +<p>Milly came near, and Aunt Emma opened the bag solemnly.</p> +<p>“Now, Milly, I’ll hold it for fear it should take it +into its poor head to blow up, and you put your hand in and see +what you can find.”</p> +<p>So Milly put her hand in, feeling a good deal excited as to what +might happen—and what do you think she brought out? A whole +handful of the most delicious dolls:—cardboard dolls of all +sorts and kinds, like those in mother’s drawer at home; paper +dolls, mamma dolls, little boy dolls and little girl dolls, baby +dolls and nurse dolls; dolls in suits and dolls in frocks; dolls in +hats and dolls in nightgowns; a papa in trousers and a mamma in a +magnificent blue dress with flounces and a train; a nurse in white +cap and apron and the most bewitching baby doll you ever saw, with +a frilled paper cap that slipped on and off, and a white frock with +pink ribbons. And the best of these dolls was, that each of them +had a piece of cardboard fastened on behind and a little bit of +cardboard to stand on, so that when you spread out the piece behind +they stood up as naturally as possible, and looked as if they were +going to talk to you.</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Emma, dear Aunt Emma!” cried Milly, beside +herself with delight as she spread them all out in her lap. +“They’re just like mother’s at home, +mother’s that you made for her when she was a little +girl—only ever so many more.”</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, I made mother’s for her long ago, when +it rained for days and days without stopping, and she had grown +tired of pretty nearly everything and everybody indoors; and now I +have been spending part of these rainy days in making a new set for +mother’s little girl. There, dear little woman, I think you +must have given me a kiss for each of them by this time. Suppose +you try and make them stand up.”</p> +<p>“But, Aunt Emma,” said Olly, who was busy examining +the mysterious bag—how could the dolls talk? they’re +only paper.”</p> +<p>“I know nothing about it,” answered Aunt Emma, +rescuing the bag, and putting it safely under her chair. “You +<em>might</em> ask the bag—but it wouldn’t answer you. +Magical bags never do talk except to their masters or +mistresses.”</p> +<p>So Olly had to puzzle it out for himself while he played with +the Japanese frog. That was an extraordinary frog! You should have +seen nurse’s start when Olly hid himself in the passage and +sent the frog hopping and squeaking through the open door of the +night nursery, where nurse was sitting sewing; and as for cook, +when the creature came flopping over her kitchen floor she very +nearly spoilt the hash she was making for dinner by dropping a +whole pepper-box into the middle of it! There was no end to the fun +to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused himself with it the whole +of the morning, while Milly went through long stories with her +dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma, who sat +knitting and talking to mother.</p> +<p>At dinner the children had to sit quiet while Mr. and Mrs. +Norton and Aunt Emma talked. Father and mother had been almost as +much cheered up by Aunt Emma’s coming as the children +themselves, and now the dinner-table was lively with pleasant talk; +talk about books, and talk about pictures, and talk about foreign +places, and talk about the mountains and the people living near +Ravensnest, many of whom mother had known when she was a little +girl. Milly, who was old enough to listen, could only understand a +little bit here and there; but there was always Aunt Emma’s +friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in its black +mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so +taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he +had seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it +came, that it seemed no trouble to him to sit still.</p> +<p>As for the rain, there was not much difference. Perhaps there +were a few breaks in the clouds, and it might be beating a little +less heavily on the glass conservatory outside the dining-room, +still, on the whole, the weather was much the same as it had been. +It was wonderful to see how little notice the children had taken of +it since Aunt Emma came, and when they escorted her upstairs after +dinner, they quite forgot to rush to the window and look out, as +they had been doing the last three days at every possible +opportunity.</p> +<p>The children got her safe into a chair, and then Olly brought a +stool to one side of her, and Milly brought a stool to the +other.</p> +<p>“<em>Now,</em> can you remember about old Mother +Quiverquake?” said Olly, resting his little sunburnt chin on +Aunt Emma’s knee, and looking up to her with eager eyes.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus6.png"><img src= +"images/illus6.png" id="illus6" name="illus6" alt= +"“‘Suppose we have a story-telling game’”" +width="100%" /></a> +<p>“‘Suppose we have a story-telling +game’”</p> +</div> +<p>“Well, I daresay I shall begin to remember about her +presently; but suppose, children, we have a <em>story-telling +game</em>. We’ll tell stories—you and Olly, father, +mother, and everybody. That’s much fairer than that one +person should do all the telling.”</p> +<p>“We couldn’t,” said Milly, shaking her head +gravely, “we are only little children. Little children +can’t make up stories.”</p> +<p>“Suppose little children try,” said mother. “I +think Aunt Emma’s is an excellent plan. Now, father, +you’ll have to tell one too.”</p> +<p>“Father’s lazy,” said Mr. Norton, coming out +from behind his newspaper. “But, perhaps, if you all of you +tell very exciting stories you may stir him up.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father!” cried Olly, who had a vivid +remembrance of his father’s stories, though they only came +very seldom, “tell us about the rat with three tails, and the +dog that walked on its nose.”</p> +<p>“Oh dear, no!” said Mr. Norton, “those +won’t do for such a grand story-telling as this. I must think +of some story which is all long words and good children.”</p> +<p>“<em>Don’t</em> father,” said Milly, +imploringly, “it’s ever so much nicer when they get +into scrapes, you know, and tumble down, and all that.”</p> +<p>“Who’s to begin?” said Aunt Emma. “I +think mother had better begin. Afterwards it will be your turn, +Olly; then father, then Milly, and then me.”</p> +<p>“I don’t believe I’ve got a scrap of a story +in my head,” said Mrs. Norton. “It’s weeks since +I caught one last.”</p> +<p>“Then look here, Olly,” said Aunt Emma, +“I’ll tell you what to do. Go up gently behind mother, +and kiss her three times on the top of the head. That’s the +way to send the stories in. Mother will soon begin to feel one +fidgeting inside her head after that.”</p> +<p>So Olly went gently up behind his mother, climbed on a stool at +the back of her chair, and kissed her softly three times at the +back of her head. Mrs. Norton lay still for a few moments after the +kisses, with closed eyes.</p> +<p>“Ah!” she said at last. “Now I think +I’ve caught one. But it’s a very little one, poor +little thing. And yet, strange to say, though it’s very +little, it’s very old. Now, children, you must be kind to my +story. I caught him first a great many years ago in an old book, +but I am afraid you will hardly care for him as much as I did. +Well, once upon a time there was a great king.”</p> +<p>“Was it King Arthur, mother?” interrupted Olly, +eagerly.</p> +<p>“Oh no! this king lived in a different country altogether. +He lived in a beautiful hot country over the sea, called +Spain.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother! a <em>hot</em> country!” protested +Milly, “that’s where the rain goes to.”</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, I don’t think you know any more about +it, except that you <em>tell</em> the rain to go there. Don’t +you know by this time that the rain never does what it’s +told? Really, very little rain goes to Spain, and in some parts of +the country the people would be very glad indeed if we could send +them some of the rain we don’t want at Ravensnest. But now, +you mustn’t interrupt me, or I shall forget my +story—Well there was once a king who lived in a <em>very</em> +hot part of Spain, where they don’t have much rain, and where +it hardly ever snows or freezes. And this king had a beautiful +wife, whom he loved very much. But, unluckily, this beautiful wife +had one great fault. She was always wishing for the most +unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always +trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and +every day she seemed to grow more and more discontented and +exacting. At last, one day in the winter, a most extraordinary +thing happened. A shower of snow fell in Cordova, which was the +name of the town where the king and queen lived, and it whitened +the hills all around the town, so that they looked as if somebody +had been dusting white sugar over them. Now snow was hardly ever +seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at it, and +talked about it a great deal. But after she had looked at it a +little-while the queen began to cry bitterly. None of her ladies +could comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the +matter. There she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to +see her. When he came he could not imagine what she was crying +about, and begged her to tell him why. ‘I am weeping,’ +she said, sobbing all the time, ‘because the hills—are +not always—covered with snow. See how pretty they look! And +yet—I have never, till now, seen them look like that. If you +really loved me, you would manage some way or other that it should +snow once a year at any rate.’</p> +<p>“‘But how can I make it snow?’ cried the king +in great trouble, because she would go on weeping and weeping, and +spoiling her pretty eyes.</p> +<p>“‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said the +queen, crossly, ‘but you can’t love me a bit, or +you’d certainly try.’</p> +<p>“Well, the king thought and thought, and at last he hit +upon a beautiful plan. He sent into all parts of Spain to buy +almond trees, and planted them on the hills all round the town. Now +the almond tree, as you know, has a lovely pinky-white blossom, so +when the next spring arrived all these thousands of almond trees +came out into bloom all over the hills round Cordova, so that they +looked at a distance as if they were covered with white snow. And +for once the queen was delighted, and could not help saying a nice +‘Thank you’ to the king for all the trouble he had +taken to please her. But it was not very long before she grew +discontented again, and began once more to wish for all kinds of +ridiculous things. One day she was sitting at her window, and she +saw some ragged little children playing by the river that ran round +the palace. They were dabbling in the mud at the side, sticking +their little bare feet into it, or scooping up pieces which they +rolled into balls and threw at one another. The queen watched them +for some time, and at last she began to weep bitterly. One of her +maidens ran and told the king that the queen was weeping, and he +came in a great hurry to see what was the matter.</p> +<p>“‘Just look at those children down there!’ +said the queen, sobbing and pointing to them. ‘Did you ever +see anybody so happy? Why can’t I have mud to dabble in too, +and why can’t I take off my shoes and stockings, and amuse +myself like the children do, instead of being so dull and stuck-up +all day long?’</p> +<p>“‘Because it isn’t proper for queens to dabble +in the mud,’ said the poor king in great perplexity, for he +didn’t at all like the idea of his beautiful queen dabbling +in the mud with the little ragged children.</p> +<p>“‘That’s just like you,’ said the queen, +beginning to cry faster than ever,’ you never do anything to +please me. What’s the good of being proper? What’s the +good of being a queen at all?’</p> +<p>“This made the king very unhappy, and again he thought and +thought, till at last he hit upon a plan. He ordered a very large +shallow bath of white marble to be made in the palace-garden. Then +he poured into it all kinds of precious stones, and chips of +sweet-smelling wood, besides a thousand cartloads of rose-leaves +and a thousand cartloads of orange flowers. All these he ordered to +be stirred up together with a great ivory spoon, till they made a +kind of wonderful mud, and then he had the bath filled up with +scented water.</p> +<p>“‘Now then,’ he said to the queen, when he had +brought her down to look at it, ‘you may take off your shoes +and stockings and paddle about in this mud as much as you +like.’ You may imagine that this was a very pleasant kind of +mud to dabble in, and the queen and her ladies amused themselves +with it immensely for some time. But nothing could keep this +tiresome queen amused for long together, and in about a fortnight +she had grown quite tired of her wonderful bath. It seemed as if +the king’s pains had been all thrown away. She grew cross and +discontented again, and her ladies began to say to each other, +‘What will she wish for next, I wonder? The king might as +well try to drink up the sea as try to get her all she +wants.’ At last, one day, when she and her ladies were +walking near the palace, they met a shepherdess driving a flock of +sheep up into the hills. The shepherdess looked so pretty and +bright in her red petticoat and tall yellow cap, that the queen +stopped to speak to her.</p> +<p>“‘Where are you going, pretty maiden, with your +woolly white sheep?’ she asked.</p> +<p>“‘I am going up to the hills,’ said the +shepherdess. ‘Now the sun has scorched up the fields down +below we must take our sheep up to the cool hills, where the grass +is still fresh and green. Good-day, good-day, the sheep are going +so fast I cannot wait.’ So on she tripped, singing and +calling to her sheep, who came every now and then to rub their soft +coats against her, as if they loved her. The queen looked after +her, and her face began to pucker up.</p> +<p>“‘Why am I not a shepherdess?’ she exclaimed, +bursting into tears. ‘I <em>hate</em> being a queen! I never +sang as merrily as that little maiden in all my life. I must and +will be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up into the mountain, or I +shall die!”</p> +<p>“And all that night the foolish queen sat at her window +crying, and when the morning came she had made herself look quite +old and ugly. When the king came to see her he was dreadfully +troubled, and begged her to tell him what was the matter now.</p> +<p>“‘I want to be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up +into the mountains,’ sobbed the queen. ‘Why should the +little shepherdess girls look always so happy and merry, while I am +dying of dulness?’</p> +<p>“The king thought it was very unkind of her to say she was +dying of dulness when he had taken so much trouble to get her all +she wanted; but he knew it was no good talking to her while she was +in such a temper. So all he said was:</p> +<p>“‘How can I turn you into a shepherdess? These +shepherdesses stay out all night with their sheep on the hills, and +live on water and a crust of bread. How would you like +that?’</p> +<p>“‘Of course I-should like it,’ said the queen, +‘anything for a change. Besides, nothing could be nicer than +staying out of doors these lovely nights. And as for food, you know +very well that I am never hungry here, and that it doesn’t +matter in the least to me what I eat!’</p> +<p>“‘Well,’ said the king, ‘you shall go up +to the hills, if you promise to take your ladies with you, and if +you will let me send a tent to shelter you at night, and some +servants to look after you.’</p> +<p>“‘As if that would give me any pleasure!’ said +the queen, ‘to be followed about and waited upon is just what +I detest. I will go alone; just like that pretty little +shepherdess, if I go at all.’</p> +<p>“But the king declared that nothing would induce him to +let her go alone. So the queen set to work to cry, and she cried +for two days and two nights without stopping, and at the end of +that time the poor king was ready to let her go anywhere or do +anything for the sake of a little peace.</p> +<p>“So she had her own way. They found her a flock of the +loveliest white sheep, all with blue ribbons round their necks, and +blue rosettes on their little white tails; and the queen dressed +herself up in a red silk petticoat and a cap embroidered in gold +and silver, and then she set out by herself.</p> +<p>“At first it was all delightful. She drove the sheep up +the soft green hillsides, and laughed with delight to see them +nibbling the fresh grass, and running hither and thither after her, +and after each other. The evening sun shone brightly, and she sat +herself down on a rock and sang all the tunes she knew, that she +might be just like the little shepherdess. But while she was +singing the sheep strayed away, and she had to run after them as +fast as she could, to catch them up. This made her hot and tired, +so she tried to make them lie down under a chestnut tree, that she +might rest beside them. But the sheep were not a bit tired, and had +no mind to rest at all. While she was calling one set of them +together the other set ran scampering off, and the queen found out +that she must just give up her way for once and follow theirs. On +went the sheep, up hill and down dale, nibbling and frisking and +trotting to their hearts’ content, till the queen was worn +out.</p> +<p>“At last, by the time the sun was setting, the poor queen +was so tired that she could walk no longer. Down she sat, and the +ungrateful sheep kicked up their little hind legs and trotted away +out of sight as fast as they could trot. There she was left on the +hillside all alone. It began to get dark, and the sky, instead of +being blue and clear as it had been, filled with black clouds.</p> +<p>“‘Oh dear! oh dear!’ sighed the queen, +‘here is a storm coming. If I could only find my way down the +hill, if I could only see the town!’</p> +<p>“But there were trees all about her, which hid the view, +and soon it was so dark there was nothing to be seen, not even the +stars. And presently, crash came the thunder, and after the thunder +the rain—such rain! It soaked the queen’s golden cap +till it was so heavy with water she was obliged to throw it away, +and her silk petticoat was as wet as if she had been taking a bath +in it. In vain she ran hither and thither, trying to find a way +through the trees, while the rain blinded her, and the thunder +deafened her, till at last she was forced to sink down on the +ground, feeling more wretched and frightened and cold than any +queen ever felt before. Oh, if she were only safe back in her +beautiful palace! If only she had the tent the king wanted to send +with her! But there all night she had to stay, and all night the +storm went on, till the queen was lying in a flood, and the owls +and bats, startled out of their holes, went flying past her in the +dark, and frightening her out of her senses. When the morning came +there was such a shivering, crumpled up queen sitting on the grass, +that even her own ladies would scarcely have known her.</p> +<p>“‘Oh, husband! husband!’ she cried, getting up +and wringing her cold little hands. ‘You will never find me, +and your poor wicked wife will die of cold and hunger.’</p> +<p>“Tirra-lirra! tirra-lirra! What was that sounding in the +forest? Surely—surely—it was a hunting horn. But who +could be blowing it so early in the cold gray morning, when it was +scarcely light? On ran the queen toward where the sound came from. +Over rocks and grass she ran, till, all of a sudden, stepping out +from behind a tree, came the king himself, who had been looking for +her for hours. And then what do you think the discontented queen +did? She folded her hands, and hung her head, and said, quite sadly +and simply:</p> +<p>“‘Oh, my lord king, make me a shepherdess really. I +don’t deserve to be a queen. Send me away, and let me knit +and spin for my living. I have plagued you long enough.’</p> +<p>“And suddenly it seemed to the king as if there had been a +black speck in the queen’s heart, which had been all washed +away by the rain; and he took her hands, and led her home to the +palace in joy and gladness. And so they lived happy ever +afterward.”</p> +<p>“Thank you <em>very</em> much, mother,” said Milly, +stretching up her arms and drawing down Mrs. Norton’s face to +kiss her. “Do you really think the queen was never +discontented any more?”</p> +<p>“I can’t tell you any more than the story +does,” said Mrs. Norton. “You see there would always be +that dreadful night to think about, if she ever felt inclined to +be; but I daresay the queen didn’t find it very easy at +first.”</p> +<p>“I would have made her be a shepherdess,” said Olly, +shaking his head gravely. “She wasn’t nice, not a +bit.”</p> +<p>“Little Mr. Severity!” said Aunt Emma, pulling his +brown curls. “It’s your turn next, Olly.”</p> +<p>“Then Milly must kiss me first,” said Olly, looking +rather scared, as if something he didn’t quite understand was +going to happen to him.</p> +<p>So Milly went through the operation of kissing him three times +on the back of the head, and then Olly’s eyes, finding it did +no good to stare at Aunt Emma or mother, went wandering all round +the room in search of something else to help him. Suddenly they +came to the window, where a brown speck was dancing up and down, +and then Olly’s face brightened, and he began in a great +hurry:</p> +<p>“Once upon a time there was a +daddy-long-legs—”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Milly, when they had waited a little +while, and nothing more came.</p> +<p>“I don’t know any more,” said Olly.</p> +<p>“Oh, that <em>is</em> silly,” said Milly, +“why, that isn’t a story at all. Shut your eyes tight, +that’s much the best way of making a story.”</p> +<p>So Olly shut his eyes, and pressed his two hands tightly over +them, and then he began again:</p> +<p>“Once upon a time there was a +daddy-long-legs—”</p> +<p>Another stop.</p> +<p>“Was it a <em>good</em> daddy-long-legs?” asked +Milly, anxious to help him on.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Olly, “that’s it, Milly. +Once upon a time there was a good daddy-long-legs—”</p> +<p>“Well, what did he do?” asked Milly, +impatiently.</p> +<p>“He—he—flewed on to father’s +nose!” said Olly, keeping his hands tight over his eyes, +while his little white teeth appeared below in a broad grin.</p> +<p>“And father said, ‘Who’s that on my +nose?’ and the daddy-long-legs said, ‘It’s me, +don’t you know?’ And father said, ‘Get away off +my nose, I don’t like you a bit.’ And the +daddy-long-legs said, ‘I shan’t go away. It’s hot +on the window, the sun gets in my eyes. I like sitting up here +best.’ So father took a big sofa-cushion and gave his nose +<em>ever</em> such a bang! And the daddy-long-legs tumbled down +dead. And the cushion tumbled down dead. And father tumbled down +dead. And that’s all,” said Olly opening his eyes, and +looking extremely proud of himself.</p> +<p>“Oh, you silly boy!” cried Milly, “that +isn’t a bit like a real story.”</p> +<p>But Aunt Emma and father and mother laughed a good deal at +Olly’s story, and Aunt Emma said it would do very well for +such a small boy.</p> +<p>Whose turn was it next?</p> +<p>“Father’s turn! father’s turn!” cried +the children, in great glee, looking round for him; but while +Olly’s story had been going on, Mr. Norton, who was sitting +behind them in a big arm-chair, had been covering himself up with +sofa cushions and newspapers, till there was only the tip of one of +his boots to be seen, coming out from under the heap. The children +were a long time dragging him out, for he pelted them with +cushions, and crumpled the newspapers over their heads, till they +were so tired with laughing and struggling they had no strength +left.</p> +<p>“Father, it isn’t fair, I don’t think,” +said Milly at last, sitting a breathless heap on the floor. +“Of course little people can’t <em>make</em> big people +do things, so the big people ought to do them without +making.”</p> +<p>“That’s not at all good reasoning, Milly,” +said Mr. Norton, who could not resist the temptation of throwing +one more sofa cushion at her laughing face. “You can’t +<em>make</em> nurse stand on her head, but that’s no reason +why nurse should stand on her head.”</p> +<p>Just then Olly, moving up a stool behind his father’s +chair, brought his little mouth suddenly down on his father’s +head, and gave him three kisses in a great hurry, with a shout of +triumph at the end.</p> +<p>“Dear me!” said Mr. Norton, shutting his eyes and +falling back as if something had happened to him. “This is +very serious. Aunt Emma, that spell of yours is really <em>too</em> +strong. My poor head! It will certainly burst if I don’t get +this story out directly! Come, jump up, +children—quick!”</p> +<p>Up jumped the children, one on each knee, and Mr. Norton began +at once.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter8" name="Chapter8">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2> +<h3>The Story of Beowulf</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Once upon a time there was a great—”</p> +<p>“Father,” interrupted Milly, “I shall soon be +getting tired of ‘Once upon a time there was a great +king.’”</p> +<p>“Don’t cry till you’re hurt, Milly; which +means, wait till I get to the end of my sentence. Well, once upon a +time there was a great—hero.”</p> +<p>“What is a hero?” asked Olly.</p> +<p>“I know,” said Milly, eagerly, “it’s a +brave man that’s always fighting and killing giants and +dragons and cruel people.”</p> +<p>“That’ll do to begin with,” said Mr. Norton, +“though, when you grow older, you will find that people can +be heroes without fighting or killing. However, the man I am going +to tell you about was just the kind of hero you’re thinking +of, Milly. He loved fighting with giants and dragons and wild +people, and my story is going to be about two of his +fights—the greatest he ever fought. The name of this hero was +Beowulf, and he lived in a country called Sweden (Milly knows all +about Sweden, Olly, and you must get her to show it you on the +map), with a number of other brave men who were his friends, and +helped him in his battles. And one day a messenger came over the +sea from another country close by, called Denmark, and the +messenger said, ‘Which of all you brave men will come over +and help my master, King Hrothgar, who is in sore trouble?’ +And the messenger told them how Hrothgar, for many years past, had +been plagued by a monster—the hateful monster +Grendel—half a man and half a beast, who lived at the bottom +of a great bog near the king’s palace. Every night, he said, +Grendel the monster came out of the bog with his horrible mother +beside him—a wolf-like creature, fearful to look +upon—and he and she would roam about the country, killing and +slaying all whom they met. Sometimes they would come stalking to +the king’s palace, where his brave men were sleeping round +the fire in the big hall, and before anyone could withstand him +Grendel would fall upon the king’s warriors, kill them by +tens and twenties, and carry off their dead bodies to his bog. Many +a brave man had tried to slay the monster, but none had been able +so much as to wound him.</p> +<p>“When Beowulf and his friends had heard this story they +thought a while, and then each said to the other, ‘Let us go +across the sea and rid King Hrothgar of this monster.’ So +they took ship and went across the sea to Hrothgar’s country, +and Hrothgar welcomed them royally, and made a great feast in their +honour. And after the feast Hrothgar said to Beowulf, ‘Now, I +give over to you the hall of my palace, that you may guard it +against the monster.’ So Beowulf and the brave men who had +come over with him made a great fire in the hall, and they all lay +down to sleep beside it. You may imagine that they did not find it +very easy to get to sleep, and some of them thought as they lay +there that very likely they should never see their homes in Sweden +again. But they were tired with journeying and feasting, and one +after another they all fell asleep. Then in the dead of the night, +when all was still, Grendel rose up out of the bog, and came +stalking over the moor to the palace. His eyes flamed with a kind +of horrible light in the darkness, and his steps seemed to shake +the earth; but those inside the palace were sleeping so heavily +that they heard nothing, not even when Grendel burst open the door +of the hall and came in among them. Before anyone had wakened, the +monster had seized one of the sleeping men and torn him to pieces. +Then he came to Beowulf; but Beowulf sprang up out of his sleep and +laid hold upon him boldly. He used no sword to strike him, for +there was no sword which men could make was strong enough to hurt +Grendel; but he seized him with his strong hands, and the two +struggled together in the palace. And they fought till the benches +were torn from the walls, and everything in the hall was smashed +and broken. The brave men, springing up all round, seized their +swords and would gladly have helped their lord, but there was no +one but Beowulf could harm Grendel.</p> +<p>“So they fought, till at last Beowulf tore away +Grendel’s hand and arm, and the monster fled away howling +into the darkness. Over the moor he rushed till he came to his bog, +and there he sank down into the middle of the bog, wailing and +shrieking like one whose last hour was come. Then there was great +rejoicing at Heorot, the palace, and King Hrothgar, when he saw +Grendel’s hand which Beowulf had torn away, embraced him and +blessed him, and he and all his friends were laden with splendid +gifts.</p> +<p>“But all was not over yet. When the next night came, and +Hrothgar’s men and Beowulf’s men were asleep together +in the great hall, Grendel’s horrible mother, half a woman +and half a wolf, came rushing to the palace and while they were all +asleep she carried off one of Hrothgar’s dearest +friends—a young noble whom he loved best of all his nobles. +And she killed him, and carried his body back to the bog. Then the +next morning there was grief and weeping in Heorot; but Beowulf +said to the king, ‘Grieve not, O king! till we have found out +Grendel’s mother and punished her for her evil deeds. I +promise you she shall give an account for this. She shall not be +able to hide herself in the water, nor under the earth, nor in the +forest, nor at the bottom of the sea; let her go where she will, I +will find a way after her.’</p> +<p>“So Beowulf and his friends put on their armour and +mounted their horses, and set out to look for her. And when they +had ridden a long and weary way over steep lonely paths and past +caves where dragons and serpents lived, they came at last to +Grendel’s bog—a fearful place indeed. There in the +middle of it lay a pool of black water, and over the water hung +withered trees, which seemed as if they had been poisoned by the +air rising from the water beneath them. No bird or beast would ever +come near Grendel’s pool. If the hounds were hunting a stag, +and they drove him down to the edge, he would sooner let them tear +him to pieces than hide himself in the water. And every night the +black water seemed to burn and flame, and it hissed and bubbled and +groaned as if there were evil creatures tossing underneath. And now +when Beowulf and his men came near it, they saw fierce water +dragons lying near the edge or swimming about the pool. There also, +beside the water, they found the dead body of Hrothgar’s +friend, who had been killed by Grendel’s mother, and they +took it up, and mourned over him afresh.</p> +<p>“But Beowulf took an old and splendid sword that Hrothgar +had given him, and he put on his golden helmet and his iron war +shirt that no sword could cut through, and when he had bade his +friends farewell he leapt straight into the middle of the bog. Down +he sank, deeper and deeper into the water, among strange water +beasts that struck at him with their tusks as he passed them, till +at last Grendel’s mother, the water-wolf, looked up from the +bottom and saw him coming. Then she sprang upon him, and seized +him, and dragged him down, and he found himself in a sort of hall +under the water, with a pale strange light in it. And then he +turned from the horrible water-wolf and raised his sword and struck +her on the head; but his blow did her no harm. No sword made by +mortal men could harm Grendel or his mother; and as he struck her +Beowulf stumbled and fell. Then the water-wolf rushed forward and +sat upon him as he lay there, and raised aloft her own sharp dagger +to drive it into his breast; but Beowulf shook her off, and sprang +up, and there, on the wall, he saw hanging a strange old sword that +had been made in the old times, long, long ago, when the world was +full of giants. So he threw his own sword aside and took down the +old sword, and once more he smote the water-wolf. And this time his +sword did him good service, and Grendel’s fierce mother sank +down dead upon the ground.</p> +<p>“Then Beowulf looked round him, and he saw lying in a +corner the body of Grendel himself. He cut off the monster’s +head, and lo and behold! when he had cut it off the blade of the +old sword melted away, and there was nothing left in his hands but +the hilt, with strange letters on it, telling how it was made in +old days by the giants for a great king. So with that, and +Hrothgar’s sword and Grendel’s head, Beowulf rose up +again through the bog, and just as his brave men had begun to think +they should never see their dear lord more he came swimming to +land, bearing the great head with him.</p> +<p>“Then Hrothgar and all his people rejoiced greatly, for +they knew that the land would never more be troubled by these +hateful monsters, but that the ploughers might plough, and the +shepherds might lead their sheep, and brave men might sleep at +night, without fear any more of Grendel and his mother.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father!” said Milly, breathlessly, when he +stopped. “Is that all?”</p> +<p>But Olly sat quite still, without speaking, gazing at his father +with wide open brown eyes, and a face as grave and terrified as if +Grendel were actually beside him.</p> +<p>“That’s all for this time,” said Mr. Norton. +“Why, Olly, where are your little wits gone to? Did it +frighten you, old man?”</p> +<p>“Oh!” said Olly, drawing a long breath. “I did +think he would never have comed up out of that bog!”</p> +<p>“It was splendid,” said Milly. “But, father, I +don’t understand about that pool. Why didn’t Beowulf +get drowned when he went down under the water?”</p> +<p>“The story doesn’t tell us anything about +that,” said Mr. Norton. “But heroes in those days, +Milly, must have had something magical about them so that they were +able to do things that men and women can’t do now. Do you +know, children, that this story that you have been listening to is +more than a thousand years old? Can you fancy that?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Milly, shaking her head. “I +can’t fancy it a bit, father. It’s too long. It makes +me puzzled to think of so many years.”</p> +<p>“Years and years and years and <em>years</em>!” said +Olly. “When father’s grandfather was a little +boy.”</p> +<p>Mr. Norton laughed. “Can’t you think of anything +farther back than that, Olly? It would take a great many +grandfathers, and grandfathers’ grandfathers, to get back to +the time when the story of Beowulf was made. And here am I telling +it to you just in the same way as fathers used to tell it to their +children a thousand years ago.”</p> +<p>“I suppose the children liked it so, they wouldn’t +let their fathers forget it,” said Milly. “And then +when they grew up they told it to their children. I shall tell it +to my children when I grow up. I think I shall tell it to Katie +to-morrow.”</p> +<p>“Father,” said Olly, “did Beowulf +die—ever?”</p> +<p>“Yes. When he was quite an old man he had another great +fight with a dragon, who was guarding a cave full of golden +treasure on the sea-shore; and though he killed the dragon, the +dragon gave him a terrible wound, so that when his friends came to +look for him they found him lying all but dead in the cave. He was +just able to tell them to make a great mound of earth over him when +he was dead, on a high rock close by, that sailors might see it +from their ships and think of him when they saw it, and then he +died. And when he was dead they carried him up to the rock, and +there they burned his body, and then they built up a great high +mound of earth, and they put Beowulf’s bones inside, and all +the treasure from the dragon’s cave. They were ten days +building up the mound. Then when it was all done they rode around +it weeping and chanting sorrowful songs, and at last they left him +there, saying as they went away that never should they see so good +a king or so true a master any more. And for hundreds of years +afterwards, when the sailors out at sea saw the high mound rising +on its point of rock, they said one to another, ‘There is +Beowulf’s Mount,’ and they began to tell each other of +Beowulf’s brave deeds—how he lived and how he died, and +how he fought with Grendel and the wild sea dragons. There, now, I +have told you all I know about Beowulf,” said Mr. Norton, +getting up and turning the children off his knee, “and if it +isn’t somebody else’s turn now it ought to +be.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma!” shouted Olly, who was so +greedy for stories that he could almost listen all day long without +being tired.</p> +<p>But Aunt Emma only smiled through her spectacles and pointed to +the window. The children ran to look out, and they could hardly +believe their eyes when they saw that it had actually stopped +raining, and that over the tree-tops was a narrow strip of blue +sky, the first they had seen for three whole days.</p> +<p>“Oh you nice blue sky!” exclaimed Milly, dancing up +and down before the window with a beaming face. “Mind you +stay there and get bigger. We’ll get on our hats presently +and come out to look at you. Oh! there’s John Backhouse +coming down the hill with the dogs. Mother, may we go up ourselves +and ask Becky and Tiza to come to tea?”</p> +<p>“But Aunt Emma must tell us her story first,” +persisted Olly, who hated being cheated out of a story by anything +or anybody. “She promised.”</p> +<p>“You silly boy!” said Aunt Emma, “as if I was +going to keep you indoors listening to stories just now, when the +sun’s shining for the first time for three whole days. I +promised you my story on a wet day, and you shall have +it—never fear. There’ll be plenty more wet days before +you go away from Ravensnest, I’m afraid. There goes my +knitting, and mother’s putting away her work, and +father’s stretching himself—which means we’re all +going for a walk.”</p> +<p>“To fetch Becky and Tiza, mother?” asked Milly; and +when mother said “Yes, if you like,” the two children +raced off down the long passage to the nursery in the highest +possible spirits.</p> +<p>Soon they were all walking along the dripping drive past high +banks of wet fern, and under trees which threw down showers of +rain-drops at every puff of wind. And when they got into the road +beside the river the children shouted with glee to see their brown +shallow little river turned into a raging flood of water, which +went sweeping and hurrying through the fields, and every now and +then spreading itself over them and making great pools among the +poor drowned hay. They ran on to look for the stepping-stones, but +to their amazement there was not a stone to be seen. The water was +rushing over them with a great roar and swirl, and Milly shivered a +little bit when she remembered their bathe there a week before.</p> +<p>“Well, old woman,” said Mr. Norton, coming up to +them, “I don’t suppose you’d like, a bathe +to-day—quite.”</p> +<p>“If we were in there now,” said Olly, watching the +river with great excitement, “the water would push us down +krick! and the fishes would come and etten us all up.”</p> +<p>“They’d be a long time gobbling you up, Master +Fatty,” said his father. “Come, run along; it’s +too cold to stand about.”</p> +<p>But how brilliant and beautiful it was after the rain! Little +tiny trickling rivers were running down all the roads, and +sparkling in the sun; the wet leaves and grass were glittering, and +the great mountains all around stood up green and fresh against the +blue sky, as if the rain had washed the dust off them from top to +toe, and left them clean and bright. Two things only seemed the +worse for the rain—the hay and the wild strawberries. Milly +peered into all the banks along the road where she generally found +her favourite little red berries, but most of them were washed +away, and the few miserable things that were left tasted of nothing +but rain water. And as for the hay-fields, they looked so wet and +drenched that it was hard to believe any sunshine could ever dry +them.</p> +<p>“Poor John Backhouse!” said Aunt Emma; +“I’m afraid his hay is a good deal spoilt. Aren’t +you glad father’s not a farmer, Milly?”</p> +<p>“Why, Aunt Emma,” said Milly, “I’m +always wishing father <em>was</em> a farmer. I want to be like +Becky, and call the cows, and mind the baby all by myself. It must +be nice feeding the chickens, and making the hay, and taking the +milk around.”</p> +<p>“Yes, all that’s very nice, but how would you like +your hay washed away, and your corn beaten down, and your fruit all +spoilt? Those are things that are constantly happening to John +Backhouse, I expect, in the rainy country.”</p> +<p>“Yes, and it won’t always be summer,” said +Milly, considering. “I don’t think I should like to +stay in that little weeny house all the winter. Is it very cold +here in the winter, Aunt Emma?”</p> +<p>“Not very, generally. But last winter was very cold here, +and the snow lay on the ground for weeks and weeks. On Christmas +eve, do you know, Milly, I wanted to have a children’s party +in my kitchen, and what do you think I did? The snow was lying deep +on the roads, so I sent out two sledges.”</p> +<p>“What are sledges?” asked Olly.</p> +<p>“Carriages with the wheels taken off and two long pieces +of wood fastened on instead, so that they slip along smoothly over +the snow. And my old coachman drove one and my gardener the other, +and they went round all the farmhouses near by, and gathered up the +children, little and big, into the sledges, till the coachman had +got eight in his sledge, and the gardener had got nine in his, and +then they came trotting back with the bells round the horses’ +necks jingling and clattering, and two such merry loads of +rosy-faced children. I wish you had been there; I gave them tea in +the kitchen, and afterward we had a Christmas tree in the +drawing-room.”</p> +<p>“Oh what fun,” said Milly. “Why didn’t +you ask us too, Aunt Emma? We could have come quite well in the +train, you know. But how did the children get home?”</p> +<p>“We covered them up warm with rugs and blankets, and sent +them back in the sledges. And they looked so happy with their toys +and buns cuddled up in their arms, that it did one’s heart +good to see them.”</p> +<p>“Mind you ask us next time, Aunt Emma,” said Milly, +hanging round her neck coaxingly.</p> +<p>“Mind you get two pairs of wings by that time, +then,” said Aunt Emma, “for mother’s not likely +to let you come to my Christmas tree unless you promise to fly +there and back. But suppose, instead of your coming to me, I come +to you next Christmas?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes! yes!” cried Olly, who had just joined Aunt +Emma and Milly, “come to our Christmas tree, Aunt Emma. +We’ll give you ever such nice things—a ball and a top, +and a train—perhaps—and—”</p> +<p>“As if Aunt Emma would care for those kind of +things!” said Milly. “No, you shall give her some +muffetees, you know, to keep her hands warm, and I’ll make +her a needlebook. But, Aunt Emma, do listen! What can be the +matter?”</p> +<p>They were just climbing the little bit of steep road which led +to the farm, and suddenly they heard somebody roaring and +screaming, and then an angry voice scolding, and then a great +clatter, and then louder roaring than ever.</p> +<p>“What <em>is</em> the matter?” cried Milly, running +on to the farm door, which was open. But just as she got there, out +rushed a tattered little figure with a tear-stained face, and hair +flying behind.</p> +<p>“Tiza!” cried Milly, trying to stop her. But Tiza +ran past her as quick as lightning down the garden path towards the +cherry tree, and in another minute, in spite of the shower of wet +she shook down on herself as she climbed up, she was sitting high +and safe among the branches, where there was no catching her nor +even seeing her.</p> +<p>“Ay, that’s the best place for ye,” said Mrs. +Backhouse, appearing at the door with an angry face, +“you’ll not get into so much mischief there perhaps as +you will indoors. Oh, is that you, Miss Elliot (that was Aunt +Emma’s surname)? Walk in please, ma’am, though +you’ll find me sadly untidy this afternoon. Tiza’s been +at her tricks again; she keeps me sweeping up after her all day. +Just look here, if you please, ma’am.”</p> +<p>Aunt Emma went in, and the children pressed in after her, full +of curiosity to see what crime Tiza had been committing. Poor Mrs. +Backhouse! all over her clean kitchen floor there were streams of +water running about, with little pieces of cabbage and carrot +sticking up in them here and there, while on the kitchen table lay +a heap of meat and vegetables, which Mrs. Backhouse had evidently +just picked up out of the grate before Aunt Emma and the children +arrived.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Backhouse, pointing to the floor, +“there’s the supper just spoilt. Tiza’s never +easy but when she’s in mischief. I’m sure these wet +days I have’nt known what to do with her indoors all day. And +what must she do this afternoon but tie her tin mug to the +cat’s tail, till the poor creature was nearly beside herself +with fright, and went rushing about upstairs like a mad thing. And +then, just when I happened to be out a minute looking after +something, she lets the cat in here, and the poor thing jumps into +the saucepan I had just put on with the broth for our supper, and +in her fright and all turns it right over. And now look at my +grate, and the fender, and the floor, and the meat there all +messed! I expect her father’ll give Tiza a good beating when +he comes in, and I’m sure I shan’t stand in the +way.”</p> +<p>“Oh no, please, Mrs. Backhouse!” said Milly, running +up to her with a grave imploring little face. “Don’t +let Mr. Backhouse beat her; she didn’t mean it, she was only +in fun, I’m sure.”</p> +<p>“Well, missy, it’s very troiblesome fun I’m +sure,” said Mrs. Backhouse, patting Milly kindly on the +shoulder, for she was a good-natured woman, and it wasn’t her +way to be angry long. “I don’t know what I’m to +give John for his supper, that I don’t. I had nothing in the +house but just those little odds and ends of meat, that I thought +would make a nice bit of broth for supper. And now he’ll come +in wet and hungry, and there’ll be nothing for him. Well, we +must do with something else, I suppose, but I expect her +father’ll beat her.”</p> +<p>Milly and Olly looked rather awestruck at the idea of a beating +from John Backhouse, that great strong brawny farmer; and Milly, +whispering something quickly to Aunt Emma, slipped out into the +garden again. By this time father and mother had come up, and Becky +appeared from the farmyard, wheeling the baby in a little wooden +cart, and radiant with pleasure at the sight of Aunt Emma, whose +godchild she was, so that Milly’s disappearance was not +noticed.</p> +<p>She ran down the garden path to the cherry tree, and as, in the +various times they had been together, Becky and Tiza had taught her +a good deal of climbing, she too clambered up into the wet +branches, and was soon sitting close by Tiza, who had turned her +cotton pinafore over her head and wouldn’t look at Milly.</p> +<p>“Tiza,” said Milly softly, putting her hand on +Tiza’s lap, “do you feel very bad?”</p> +<p>No answer.</p> +<p>“We came to take you down to have tea with us,” said +Milly, “do you think your mother will let you +come?”</p> +<p>“Naw,” said Tiza shortly, without moving from behind +her pinafore.</p> +<p>It certainly wasn’t very easy talking to Tiza. Milly +thought she’d better try something else.</p> +<p>“Tiza,” she began timidly, “do your father and +mother tell you stories when it rains?”</p> +<p>“Naw,” said Tiza, in a very astonished voice, +throwing down her pinafore to stare at Milly.</p> +<p>“Then what do you do, Tiza, when it rains?”</p> +<p>“Nothing,” said Tiza. “We has our dinners and +tea, and sometimes Becky minds the baby and sometimes I do, and +father mostly goes to sleep.”</p> +<p>“Tiza,” said Milly hurriedly, “did you +<em>mean</em> pussy to jump into the saucepan?”</p> +<p>Up went Tiza’s pinafore again, and Milly was in dismay +because she thought she had made Tiza cry; but to her great +surprise Tiza suddenly burst into such fits of laughter, that she +nearly tumbled off the cherry tree. “Oh, she did jump so, and +the mug made such a rattling! And when she comed out there was just +a little bit of carrot sticking to her nose, and her tail was all +over cabbage leaf. Oh, she did look funny!”</p> +<p>Milly couldn’t help laughing too, till she remembered all +that Mrs. Backhouse had been saying.</p> +<p>“Oh, but, Tiza, Mrs. Backhouse says your father +won’t have anything for his supper. Aren’t you sorry +you spoilt his supper?”</p> +<p>“Yis,” said Tiza, quickly. “I know +father’ll beat me, he said he would next time I vexed +mother.”</p> +<p>And this time the pinafore went up in earnest, and Tiza began to +cry piteously.</p> +<p>“Don’t cry, Tiza,” said Milly, her own little +cheeks getting wet, too. “I’ll beg him not. Can’t +you make up anyway? Mother says we must always make up if we can +when we’ve done any harm. I wish I had anything to give you +to make up.”</p> +<p>Tiza suddenly dried her eyes and looked at Milly, with a bright +expression which was very puzzling.</p> +<p>“You come with me,” she said suddenly, swinging +herself down from the tree. “Come here by the hedge, +don’t let mother see us.”</p> +<p>So they ran along the far side of the hedge till they got into +the farmyard, and then Tiza led Milly past the hen-house, up to the +corner where the hayricks were. In and out of the hayricks they +went, till in the very farthest corner of all, where hardly anybody +ever came, and which nobody could see into from the yard, Tiza +suddenly knelt down and put her hand under the hay at the bottom of +the rick.</p> +<p>“You come,” she whispered eagerly to Milly, pulling +her by the skirt, “you come and look here.”</p> +<p>Milly stooped down, and there in a soft little place, just +between the hayrick and the ground, what do you think she saw? +Three large brownish eggs lying in a sort of rough nest in the hay, +and looking so round and fresh and tempting, that Milly gave a +little cry of delight.</p> +<p>“Oh, Tiza, how be—utiful! How did they get +there?”</p> +<p>“It’s old Sally, our white hen you know, laid them. +I found them just after dinner. Mother doesn’t know nothing +about them. I never told Becky, nor nobody. Aren’t they +beauties?”</p> +<p>And Tiza took one up lovingly in her rough, little brown hands, +and laid it against her cheek, to feel how soft and satiny it +was.</p> +<p>“Oh, and Tiza, I know,” exclaimed Milly eagerly, +“you meant these would do for supper. That would be a lovely +make up. There’s three. One for Mr. Backhouse, one for Mrs. +Backhouse, and one for Becky.—There’s none for you, +Tiza.”</p> +<p>“Nor none for Becky neither,” answered Tiza shortly. +“Father’ll want two. Becky and me’ll get bread +and dripping.”</p> +<p>“Well, come along, Tiza, let’s take them +in.”</p> +<p>“No, you take them,” said Tiza. “Mother +won’t want to see me no more, and father’ll perhaps be +coming in.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but, Tiza, you’ll come to tea with +us?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” said Tiza. “You +ask.”</p> +<p>And off she ran as quick as lightning, off to her hiding-place +in the cherry tree, while Milly was left with the three brown eggs, +feeling rather puzzled and anxious. However, she put them gently in +the skirt of her frock, and holding it up in both hands she picked +her way through the wet yard back to the house.</p> +<p>When she appeared at the kitchen door, Aunt Emma and Mrs. +Backhouse were chatting quietly. Mr. and Mrs. Norton, and Olly, had +gone on for a little stroll along the Wanwick road, and Becky was +sitting on the window-sill with the baby, who seemed very sleepy, +but quite determined not to go to sleep in spite of all +Becky’s rocking and patting.</p> +<p>“Oh, Mrs. Backhouse,” began Milly, coming in with a +bright flushed face, “just look here, what I’ve +brought. Tiza found them just after dinner to-day. They were under +the hayrick right away in the corner, and she wanted to make up, so +she showed me where they were, so I brought them in, and +there’s two for Mr. Backhouse, and one for you, you know. +And, please, won’t you let Tiza come to tea with +us?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Backhouse looked in astonishment at the three eggs lying in +Milly’s print skirt, and at Milly’s pleading little +face.</p> +<p>“Ay, that’s Sally, I suppose. She’s always +hiding her eggs is Sally, where I can’t find them. So it was +Tiza found them, was it, Missy? Well, they will come, in very handy +for supper as it happens. Thank you kindly for bringing them +in.”</p> +<p>And Mrs. Backhouse took the eggs and put them safely away in a +pie-dish, while Becky secretly pulled Milly by the sleeve, and +smiled up at her as much as to say,</p> +<p>“Thank you for helping Tiza out of her scrape.”</p> +<p>“And you’ll let Becky and Tiza come to tea?” +asked Milly again.</p> +<p>“Well, I’m sure, Miss, I don’t know,” +said Mrs. Backhouse, looking puzzled; “Becky may come and +welcome, but perhaps it would do Tiza good to stay at +home.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you think she’d better have a little +change?” said Aunt Emma in her kind voice, which made Milly +want to hug her. “I daresay staying indoors so long made her +restless. If you will let me carry them both off, I daresay between +us, Mrs. Backhouse, we can give Tiza a talking to, and perhaps +she’ll come back in a more sensible mood.”</p> +<p>“Well, Miss Elliot, she shall go if you wish it. Come +Becky, give me the baby, and go and put your things on.” And +then going to the door, Mrs. Backhouse shouted “Tiza!” +After a second or two a little figure dropped down out of the +cherry tree and came slowly up the walk. Tiza had shaken her hair +about her face so that it could hardly be seen, and she never +looked once at Aunt Emma and Milly as she came up to her +mother.</p> +<p>“There, go along, Tiza, and get your things on,” +said Mrs. Backhouse, taking her by the arm. “I wouldn’t +have let you go out to tea, you know, if Miss Elliot and Missy +hadn’t asked particular. Mind you don’t get into no +more mischief. And very like those eggs’ll do for +father’s supper; so, I daresay, I’ll not say anything +to him this time—just for once. Now go up.”</p> +<p>Tiza didn’t want to be told twice, and presently, just as +Mr. and Mrs. Norton and Olly were coming back from their walk, they +met Aunt Emma coming back from the farm holding Becky’s hand, +while Milly and Tiza walked in front.</p> +<p>“Well, Tiza,” said Mr. Norton, patting her curly +head, I declare I think you beat Olly for mischief. Olly never +spoilt my dinner yet, that I remember. What should I do to him do +you think, if he did?”</p> +<p>“Beat him,” said Tiza, looking up at Mr. Norton with +her quick birdlike eyes.</p> +<p>“Oh dear, no!” said Mr. Norton, “that +wouldn’t do my dinner any good. I should eat him up +instead.”</p> +<p>“I don’t believe little boys taste good a +bit,” said Olly, who always believed firmly in his +father’s various threats. “If you ettened me, father, +you’d be ill.”</p> +<p>“Oh no,” said Mr. Norton, “not if I eat you +with plenty of bread-sauce. That’s the best way to cook +little boys. Now, Milly, which of you three girls can get to that +gate first?”</p> +<p>Off ran the three little girls full tilt down the hill leading +to Ravensnest, with Olly puffing and panting after them. Milly led +the way at first, for she was light and quick, and a very fair +runner for her age; but Tiza soon got up to her and passed her, and +it was Tiza’s little stout legs that arrived first at +Ravensnest gate.</p> +<p>“Oh, Becky!” said Milly, putting her arm round +Becky’s neck as they went into the house together, “I +hope you may stay a good long time. What time do you go to +bed?”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Becky. “We go +when fayther goes.”</p> +<p>“When fayther goes!” exclaimed Milly. “Why, we +go ever so long before father. Why do you stay up so +late?”</p> +<p>“Why, it isn’t late,” said Becky. +“Fayther goes to bed, now it’s summertime, about +half-past eight; but in winter, of course, he goes earlier. And we +all goes together, except baby. Mother puts him out of the way +before supper.”</p> +<p>“Well, but how funny,” said Milly, “I +can’t think why you should be so different from +us.”</p> +<p>And Milly went on puzzling over Becky and her going to bed, till +nurse drove it all out of her head by fetching them to tea. Such a +merry tea they had, and after tea a romp in the big kitchen with +father, which delighted the little farm children beyond measure. +Some time in the evening, I believe, Aunt Emma managed to give Tiza +a little talking to, but none of the other children knew anything +about it, except perhaps Becky, who generally knew what was +happening to Tiza.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter9" name="Chapter9">CHAPTER IX</a></h2> +<h3>MILLY’S BIRTHDAY</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Now we have come to a chapter which is going to be half merry +and half sad. I have not told you any sad things about Milly and +Olly up till now, I think. They were such happy little people, that +there was nothing sad to tell you. They cried sometimes, of +course—you remember Milly cried when Olly stickied her +doll—but generally, by the time they had dried up their tears +they had quite forgotten what they were crying about; and as for +any real trouble, why they didn’t know what it could possibly +be like. But now, just as they were going away from Ravensnest, +came a real sad thing, and you’ll hear very soon how it +happened.</p> +<p>After those three wet days it was sometimes fine and sometimes +rainy at Ravensnest, but never so rainy as to keep the Nortons in +all day. And every now and then there were splendid days, when the +children and their father and mother were out all day long, +wandering over the mountains, or walking over to Aunt Emma’s +or tramping along the well-known roads to Wanwick on one side, and +the little village of Rydal and Rydal Lake on the other. They had +another row on Windermere; and one fine evening Mr. Norton borrowed +a friend’s boat, and they went out fishing for perch on Rydal +Lake, the loveliest little lake in the world, lying softly in a +green mountain cup, and dotted with islands, which seemed to the +children when they landed on them like little bits of fairyland +dropped into the blue water.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus7.png"><img src= +"images/illus7.png" alt="“Haymaking”" id="illus7" name= +"illus7" width="100%" /></a> +<p>“Haymaking”</p> +</div> +<p>And then! crown of delights! came the haymaking. There were long +fine days, when the six small creatures—Milly, Olly, Becky, +Tiza, Bessie, and Charlie—followed John Backhouse and his men +about in the hayfields from early morning till evening, helping to +make the hay, or simply rolling about like a parcel of kittens in +the flowery fragrant heaps.</p> +<p>Aunt Emma was often at Ravensnest, and the children learned to +love her better and better, so that even wild little Olly would +remember to bring her stool, and carry her shawl, and change her +plate at dinner; and Milly, who was always clinging to somebody, +was constantly puzzled to know whose pocket to sit in, +mother’s or Aunt Emma’s.</p> +<p>Then there was the farmyard, the cows, and the milking, and the +chickens. Everything about them seemed delightful to Milly and +Olly, and the top of everything was reached when one evening John +Backhouse mounted both the children on his big carthorse Dobbin, +and they and Dobbin together dragged the hay home in triumph.</p> +<p>And now they had only one week more to stay at Ravensnest. But +that week was a most important week, for it was to contain no less +a day than Milly’s birthday. Milly would be seven years old +on the 15th of July, and for about a week before the 15th, +Milly’s little head could think of nothing else. Olly too was +very much excited about it, for though Milly of course was the +queen of the day, and all the presents were for her, not for him, +still it was good times for everybody on Milly’s birthday; +besides which, he had his own little secret with mother about his +present to Milly, a secret which made him very happy, but which he +was on the point of telling at least a hundred times a day.</p> +<p>“Father,” said Milly, about four days before the +birthday, when they were all wandering about after tea one evening +in the high garden which was now a paradise of ripe red +strawberries and fruit of every kind, “does everybody have +birthdays? Do policemen have birthdays?”</p> +<p>“I expect so, Milly,” said Mr. Norton, laughing, +“but they haven’t any time to remember them.”</p> +<p>“But, father, what’s the good of having birthdays if +you don’t keep them, and have presents and all that? And do +cats and dogs have birthdays? I should like to find out +Spot’s birthday. We’d give her cream instead of milk, +you know, and I’d tie a blue ribbon round her neck, and one +round her tail like the queen’s sheep in mother’s +story.”</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose Spot would thank you at all,” +said Mr. Norton. “The cream would make her ill, and the +ribbon would fidget her dreadfully till she pulled it +off.”</p> +<p>“Oh dear!” sighed Milly. “Well, I suppose Spot +had better not have any birthday then. But, father, what do you +think? Becky and Tiza don’t care about their birthdays a bit. +Becky could hardly remember when hers was, and they never have any +presents unless Aunt Emma gives them one, or people to tea, or +anything.’</p> +<p>“Well, you see, Milly, when people have only just pennies +and shillings enough to buy bread and meat to eat, and clothes to +put on, they can’t go spending money on presents; and when +they’re very anxious and busy all the year round they +can’t be remembering birthdays and taking pains about them +like richer people can, who have less to trouble them, and whose +work does not take up quite so much time.”</p> +<p>“Well, but why don’t the rich people remember the +poor people’s birthdays for them, father? Then they could +give them presents, and ask them to tea and all, you +know.”</p> +<p>“Yes, that would be a very good arrangement,” said +Mr. Norton, smiling at her eager little face. “Only, somehow, +Milly, things don’t come right like that in this +world.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m going to try and remember Becky’s +and Tiza’s birthdays,” said Milly. “I’ll +tell mother to put them down in her pocket-book—won’t +you, mother? Oh, what fun! I’ll send them birthday cards, and +they’ll be so surprised, and wonder why; and then +they’ll say, ‘Oh, why, of course it’s our +birthday!’—No, not <em>our</em> birthday—but you +know what I mean, father.”</p> +<p>“Well, but, Milly,” asked Mrs. Norton, “have +you made up your mind what you want to do this birthday?”</p> +<p>Milly stopped suddenly, with her hands behind her, opposite her +mother, with her lips tightly pressed together, her eyes smiling, +as if there was a tremendous secret hidden somewhere.</p> +<p>“Well, monkey, out with it. What have you got hidden away +in your little head?”</p> +<p>“Well, mother,” said Milly, slowly, “I +don’t want to <em>have</em> anybody to tea. I want to go out +to tea with somebody. Now can you guess?”</p> +<p>“With Aunt Emma?”</p> +<p>“Oh no, Aunt Emma’s coming over here all day. She +promised she would.”</p> +<p>“With Becky and Tiza?”</p> +<p>Milly nodded, and screwed up her little lips tighter than +ever.</p> +<p>“But I don’t expect Mrs. Backhouse will want the +trouble of having you two to tea.</p> +<p>“Oh mother, she won’t mind a bit. I know she +won’t; because Becky told me one day her mother would like us +very much to come some time if you’d let us. And Nana could +come and help Mrs. Backhouse, and we could all wash up the +tea-things afterwards, like we did at the picnic.”</p> +<p>“Then Tiza mustn’t sit next me,” said Olly, +who had been listening in silence to all the arrangements. +“She takes away my bread and butter when I’m not +looking, and I don’t like it, not a bit.”</p> +<p>“No, Olly dear, she shan’t,” said Milly, +taking his hand and fondling it, as if she were at least twenty +years older. “I’ll sit on one side of you and Becky on +the other,” a prospect with which Olly was apparently +satisfied, for he made no more objections.</p> +<p>“Well, you must ask Mrs. Backhouse yourselves,” said +Mrs. Norton. “And if it is her washing-day, or inconvenient +to her at all, you mustn’t think of going, you +know.”</p> +<p>So early next morning, Milly and Nana and Olly went up to the +farm, and came back with the answer that Mrs. Backhouse would be +very pleased to see them at tea on Thursday, the 15th, and that +John Backhouse would have cut the hay-field by the river by then, +and they could have a romp in the hay afterwards.</p> +<p>Wednesday was a deeply interesting day to Olly. He and his +mother went over by themselves to Wanwick, and they bought +something which the shopwoman at the toy-shop wrapped up in a neat +little parcel, and which Olly carried home, looking as important as +a little king.</p> +<p>“Milly,” he began at dinner, +“<em>wouldn’t</em> you like to know about your +presents? But of course I shan’t tell you about mine. Perhaps +I’m not going to give you one at all. Oh, mother,” in a +loud whisper to Mrs. Norton, “did you put it away safe where +she can’t see?”</p> +<p>“Oh, you silly boy,” said Milly, “you’ll +tell me if you don’t take care.”</p> +<p>“No, I shan’t. I wouldn’t tell you if you were +to go on asking me all day. It isn’t very big, you know, +Milly, and—and—it isn’t pretty +outside—only—”</p> +<p>“Be quiet, chatterbox,” said Mr. Norton putting his +hand over Olly’s mouth, “you’ll tell in another +minute, and then there’ll be no fun to-morrow.”</p> +<p>So Olly with great difficulty kept quiet, and began eating up +his pudding very fast, as if that was the only way of keeping his +little tongue out of mischief.</p> +<p>“Father,” he said after dinner, “do take Milly +out for a walk, and mother shall take me. Then I can’t tell, +you know.”</p> +<p>So the two went out different ways, and Olly kept away from +Milly all day, in great fear lest somehow or other his secret +should fly out of him in spite of all his efforts to keep it in. At +night the children made nurse hurry them to bed, so that when +mother came to tuck them up, as she generally did, she found the +pair fast asleep, and nothing left to kiss but two curly heads +buried in the pillows.</p> +<p>“Bless their hearts,” said nurse to Mrs. Norton, +“they can think of nothing but to-morrow. They’ll be +sadly disappointed if it rains.”</p> +<p>But the stars came out, and the new moon shone softly all night +on the great fir trees and the rosebuds and the little dancing beck +in the Ravensnest garden; and when Milly awoke next morning the sun +was shining, and Brownholme was towering up clear and high into the +breezy blue sky, and the trees were throwing cool shadows on the +dewy lawn around the house.</p> +<p>“Oh dear!” said Milly, jumping up, her face flushing +with joy “it’s my birthday, and it’s fine. Nana, +bring me my things, please.—But where’s +Olly?”</p> +<p>Where indeed was Olly? There was his little bed, but there was a +nightdress rolled up in it, and not a wisp of his brown curls was +to be seen anywhere.</p> +<p>“Why, Miss Milly, are you woke up at last? I hardly +thought you’d have slept so late this morning. Many happy +returns of the day to you,” said nurse, giving her a hearty +hug.</p> +<p>“Thank you, <em>dear</em> nurse. Oh, it is so nice having +birthdays. But where can Olly be?”</p> +<p>“Don’t you trouble your head about him,” said +nurse mysteriously, and not another word could Milly get out of +her. She had just slipped on her white cotton frock when mother +opened the door.</p> +<p>“Well, birthday-girl! The top of the morning to you, and +many, many happy returns of the day.”</p> +<p>Whereupon Milly and mother went through a great deal of kissing +which need not be described, and then mother helped her brush her +hair, and put on her ribbon and tie her sash, so that in another +minute or two she was quite ready to go down.</p> +<p>“Now, Milly, wait one minute till you hear the bell ring, +and then you may come down as fast as you like.”</p> +<p>So Milly waited, her little feet dancing with impatience, till +the bell began to ring as if it had gone quite mad.</p> +<p>“Oh, that’s Olly ringing,” cried Milly, +rushing off. And sure enough when she got to the hall there was +Olly ringing as if he meant to bring the house down. He dropped the +bell when he saw Milly, and dragged her breathlessly into the +dining-room.</p> +<p>And what did Milly see there I wonder? Why, a heap of red and +white roses lying on the breakfast table, a big heap, with odd +corners and points sticking up all over it, and under the roses a +white napkin, and under the napkin treasures of all sorts—a +book from father, a little work-box from mother, with a picture of +Windermere on the outside, and inside the most delightful cottons +and needles and bits of bright-coloured stuffs; a china +doll’s dinner-service from Aunt Emma, a mug from nurse, a +little dish full of big red strawberries from gardener, and last, +but not least, Olly’s present—a black paint-box, with +colours and brushes and all complete, and tied up with a little +drawing-book which mother had added to make it really useful. At +the top of the heap, too, lay two letters addressed in very big +round hand to “Miss Milly Norton,” and one was signed +Jacky and the other signed Francis. Each of these presents had neat +little labels fastened on to them, and they were smothered in +roses—deep red and pale pink roses, with the morning dew +sprinkled over them.</p> +<p>“We got all those roses, mother and me, this morning, when +you was fast asleep, Milly,” shouted Olly, who was capering +about like a mad creature. “Mother pulled me out of bed ever +so early, and I putted on my goloshes, and didn’t we get wet +just! Milly, <em>isn’t</em> my paint-box a beauty?”</p> +<p>But it’s no good trying to describe what Milly felt. She +felt as every happy little girl feels on a happy birthday, just a +little bit bewitched, as if she had got into another kind of world +altogether.</p> +<p>“Now,” said father, after breakfast, +“I’m yours, Milly, for all this morning. What are you +going to do with me?”</p> +<p>“Make you into a tiger, father, and shoot you,” said +Olly, who would have liked to play at hunting and shooting games +all day long.</p> +<p>“I didn’t ask you, sir,” said Mr. Norton, +“I’m not yours, I’m Milly’s. Now, Milly, +what shall we do?”</p> +<p>“Will you take us right to the top of Brownholme, father? +You know we haven’t been to the very top yet.”</p> +<p>“Very well, we’ll go if your legs will carry you. +But you must ask them very particularly first how they feel, for +it’ll be stiff work for them.”</p> +<p>Not very long after breakfast, and before they started for their +walk, Aunt Emma’s pony carriage came rattling up the drive, +and she, too, brought flowers for Milly, above all a bunch of +water-lilies all wet from the lake; and then she and mother settled +under the trees with their books and work while the children +started on their walk.</p> +<p>But first Milly had drawn mother into a corner where no one +could see, and there, with a couple of tears in her two blue eyes, +she had whispered in a great hurry, so that Mrs. Norton could +scarcely hear, “I don’t want to have everything just as +<em>I</em> like, to-day, mother. Can’t I do what somebody +else likes? I’d rather.”</p> +<p>Which means that Milly was a good deal excited, and her heart +very full, and that she was thinking of how, a year before, her +birthday had been rather spoilt toward the end of it by a little +bit of crossness and self-will, that she remembered afterward with +a pang for many a long day. Since then, Milly had learnt a good +deal more of that long, long lesson, which we go on learning, big +people and little people, all our lives—the lesson of +self-forgetting—of how love brings joy, and to be selfish is +to be sad; and her birthday seemed to bring back to her all that +she had been learning.</p> +<p>“Dear little woman,” said Mrs. Norton, putting back +her tangled hair from her anxious little face, “go and be +happy. That’s what we all like to-day. Besides, you’ll +find plenty of ways of doing what other people like before the end +of the day without my inventing any. Run along now, and climb away. +Mind you don’t let Olly tumble into bogs, and mind you bring +me a bunch of ferns for the dinner-table—and there’ll +be two things done at any rate.”</p> +<p>So away ran Milly; and all the morning she and Olly and father +scrambled and climbed, and raced and chatted, on the green back of +old Brownholme. They went to say good-morning to John +Backhouse’s cows in the “intake,” as he called +his top field, and they just peeped over the wall at the fierce +young bull he had bought at Penrith fair a few days before, and +which looked as if, birthdays or no birthdays, he could have eaten +Milly at two mouthfuls, and swallowed Olly down afterwards without +knowing it.</p> +<p>Then they climbed and climbed after father, till, just as Olly +was beginning to feel his legs to make sure they weren’t +falling off, they were so tired and shaky—there they were +standing on the great pile of stones which marks the top of the +mountain—the very tip-top of all its green points and rocks +and grassy stretches. By this time the children knew the names of +most of the mountains around, and of all the lakes. They went +through them now like a lesson with their father; and even Olly +remembered a great many, and could chatter about Helvellyn, and +Fairfield, and Langdale Pikes, as if he had trudged to the top of +them all himself.</p> +<p>Then came the getting down again. Father and Milly and Olly +hand-in-hand, racing over the short fine grass, startling the +little black-faced sheep, and racing down the steep bits, where +Milly and Olly generally tumbled over in some sort of a heap at the +bottom. As for the flowers they gathered, there were so many I have +no time to tell you about them—wood-flowers and bog-flowers +and grass-flowers, and ferns of all sizes to mix with them, from +the great Osmunda, which grew along the Ravensnest Beck, down to +the tiny little parsley fern. It was all delightful—the +sights and the sounds, and the fresh mountain wind that blew them +about on the top so that long afterward Milly used to look back to +that walk on Brownholme when she was seven years old as one of the +merriest times she ever spent.</p> +<p>Dinner was very welcome after all this scrambling; and after +dinner came a quiet time in the garden, when father read aloud to +mother and Aunt Emma, and the children kept still and listened to +as much as they could understand, at least until they went to +sleep, which they both did lying on a rug at Aunt Emma’s +feet. Milly couldn’t understand how this had happened at all, +when she found herself waking up and rubbing her eyes, but I think +it was natural enough after their long walk in the sun and +wind.</p> +<p>At four o’clock nurse came for them, and when they had +been put into clean frocks and pinafores, she took them up to the +farm. Milly and Olly felt that this was a very solemn occasion, and +they walked up to the farmhouse door hand-in-hand, feeling as shy +as if they had never been there before. But at the door were Becky +and Tiza waiting for them, as smart as new pins, with shining hair, +and red ribbons under their little white collars; and the children +no sooner caught sight of one another than all their shyness flew +away, and they began to chatter as usual.</p> +<p>In the farmhouse kitchen were Bessie and Charlie, and such a +comfortable tea spread out on a long table, covered with a red and +black woollen table-cloth instead of a white one. Becky and Tiza +had filled two tumblers with meadow-sweet and blue campanula, which +stood up grandly in the middle, and there were two home-made cakes +at each end, and some of Sally’s brown eggs, and piles of +tempting bread and butter.</p> +<p>Each of the children had their gift for Milly too: Becky had +plaited her a basket of rushes, a thing she had often tried to +teach Milly how to make for herself, and Tiza pushed a bunch of +wild raspberries into her hand, and ran away before Milly could say +thank you; Bessie shyly produced a Christmas card that somebody had +once sent to her; and even Charlie had managed to provide himself +with a bunch of the wild yellow poppies which grew on the wall of +the Ravensnest garden, and were a joy to all beholders.</p> +<p>Then Mrs. Backhouse put Milly at one end of the table, while she +began to pour out tea at the other, and the feast began. Certainly, +Milly thought, it was much more exciting going out to tea at a +farmhouse than having children to tea with you at home, just as you +might anywhere, on any day in the year. There were the big hens +coming up to the door and poking in their long necks to take a look +at them; there were the pigeons circling round and round in the +yard; there was the sound of milking going on in the shed close by, +and many other sights and sounds which were new and strange and +delightful.</p> +<p>As for Olly, he was very much taken up for a time with the red +and black table-cloth, and could not be kept from peering +underneath it from time to time, as if he suspected that the white +table-cloth he was generally accustomed to had been hidden away +underneath for a joke. But when the time for cake came, Olly forgot +the table-cloth altogether. He had never seen a cake quite like the +bun-loaf, which kind Mrs. Backhouse had made herself for the +occasion, and of which she had given him a hunch, so in his usual +inquisitive way he began to turn it over and over, as if by looking +at it long enough he could find out how it was made and all about +it. Presently, when the others were all quietly enjoying their +bun-loaf, Olly’s shrill little voice was heard +saying—while he put two separate fingers on two out of the +few currants in his piece:</p> +<p>“<em>This</em> currant says to <em>that</em> currant, +‘I’m here, where are you? You’re so far off I +can’t see you nowhere.’”</p> +<p>“Olly, be quiet,” said Milly.</p> +<p>“Well, but, Milly, I can’t help it; it’s so +funny. There’s only three currants in my bit, and cookie puts +such a lot in at home. I’m pretending they’re little +children wanting to play, only they can’t, they’re so +far off. There, I’ve etten one up. Now there’s only +two. That’s you and me, Milly. I’ll eat you up +first—krick!”</p> +<p>“Never mind about the currants, little master,” said +Mrs. Backhouse, laughing at him. “It’s nice and sweet +any way, and you can eat as much of it as you like, which is more +than you can of rich cakes.”</p> +<p>Olly thought there was something in this, and by the time he had +got through his second bit of bun-loaf he had quite made up his +mind that he would get Susan to make bun-loaves at home too.</p> +<p>They were just finishing tea when there was a great clatter +outside, and by came the hay-cart with John Backhouse leading the +horse, and two men walking beside it.</p> +<p>“We’re going to carry all the hay in yon lower field +presently,” he shouted to his wife as he passed. “Send +the young ‘uns down to see.”</p> +<p>Up they all started, and presently the whole party were racing +down the hill to the riverfield, with Mrs. Backhouse and her baby +walking soberly with nurse behind them. Yes, there lay the hay +piled up in large cocks on the fresh clean-swept carpet of bright +green grass, and in the middle of the field stood the hay-cart with +two horses harnessed, one man standing in it to press down and +settle the hay as John Backhouse and two other men handed it up to +him on pitchforks. Olly went head over heels into the middle of one +of the cocks, followed by Charlie, and would have liked to go head +over heels into all the rest, but Mr. Norton, who had come into the +field with mother and Aunt Emma, told him he must be content to +play with two cocks in one of the far corners of the field without +disturbing the others, which were all ready for carrying, and that +if he and Charlie strewed the hay about they must tidy it up before +John Backhouse wanted to put it on the cart. So Olly and Charlie +went off to their corner, and for a little while all the other +children played there too. Milly had invented a game called the +“Babes in the Wood,” in which two children were the +babes and pretended to die on the grass, and all the rest were the +robins, and covered them up with hay instead of leaves. She and +Tiza made beautiful babes: they put their handkerchiefs over their +faces and lay as still as mice, till Olly had piled so much hay on +the top of them that there was not a bit of them to be seen +anywhere, while Bessie began to cry out as if she was suffocated +before they had put two good armfuls over her.</p> +<p>Presently, however, Milly got tired; and she and Tiza walked off +by themselves and sat down by the river to get cool. The water in +the river was quite low again now, and the children could watch the +tiny minnows darting and flashing about by the bank, and even amuse +themselves by fancying every now and then that they saw a trout +shooting across the clear brown water. Tiza had quite left off +being shy now with Milly, and the two chattered away, Milly telling +Tiza all about her school, and Jacky and Francis, and Spot and the +garden at home; and Tiza telling Milly about her father’s new +bull, how frightened she and Becky were of him, and how father +meant to make the fence stronger for fear he should get out and +toss people.</p> +<p>“What a happy little party,” said Aunt Emma to +mother looking round the field; “there’s nothing like +hay for children.”</p> +<p>By this time the hay-cart was quite full, and crack went John +Backhouse’s whip, as he took hold of the first horse’s +head and gave him a pull forward to start the cart on its way to +the farm.</p> +<p>“Gee-up,” shouted John in his loud cheery voice, and +the horse made a step forward, while the children round cried +“Hurrah!” and waved their hands. But suddenly there was +a loud piteous cry which made John give the horse a sudden push +back and drop his whip, and then, from where they sat, Milly and +Tiza heard a sound of crying and screaming, while everybody in the +field ran toward the hay-cart. They ran too; what could have +happened?</p> +<p>Just as they came up to the crowd of people round the cart, +Milly saw her father with something in his arms. And this something +was Becky—poor little Becky, with a great mark on her temple, +and her eyes quite shut, and such a white face!</p> +<p>“Oh, mother! mother!” cried Milly, rushing up to +her, “tell me, mother, what is the matter with +Becky?”</p> +<p>But Mrs. Norton had no time to attend to her. She was running to +meet Mrs. Backhouse, who had come hurrying up from another part of +the field with the baby in her arms.</p> +<p>“She was under the cart when it moved on,” said Mrs. +Norton, taking the baby from her. “We none of us know how it +happened. She must have been trying to hand up some hay at the last +moment and tumbled under. I don’t think her head is much +hurt.”</p> +<p>On ran Mrs. Backhouse, and Milly and her mother followed.</p> +<p>“Better let me carry her up now without moving her,” +said Mr. Norton, as Mrs. Backhouse tried to take the little bundle +from him. “She has fainted, I think. We must get some water +at the stream.” So on he went, with the pale frightened +mother, while the others followed. Aunt Emma had got Tiza and Milly +by the hand, and was trying to comfort them.</p> +<p>“We hope she is not much hurt, darlings; the wheel did not +go over her, thank God. It was just upon her when her father backed +the horse. But it must have crushed her I’m afraid, and there +was something hanging under the cart which gave her that knock on +the temple. Look, there is one of the men starting off for the +doctor.”</p> +<p>Whereupon Tiza, who had kept quiet till then, burst into a loud +fit of crying, and threw herself down on the grass.</p> +<p>“Nurse,” called Aunt Emma, “stay here with +these two poor little ones while I go and see if I can be of any +use.”</p> +<p>So nurse came and sat beside them, and Milly crept up to her for +comfort. But poor little Tiza lay with her face buried in the grass +and nothing they could say to her seemed to reach her little deaf +ears.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Aunt Emma hurried after the others, and presently +caught them up at a stream where Mr. Norton had stopped to bathe +Becky’s head and face. The cold water had just revived her +when Aunt Emma came up, and for one moment she opened her heavy +blue eyes and looked at her mother, who was bending over her, and +then they shut again. But her little hand went feebly searching for +her mother, who caught it up and kissed it.</p> +<p>“Oh, Miss Emma, Miss Emma,” she said, pointing to +the child, “I’m afeard but she’s badly +hurt.”</p> +<p>“I hope not, with all my heart,” said Aunt Emma, +gently taking her arm. “But the doctor will soon be here; we +must get her home before he comes.”</p> +<p>So on they went again, Mr. Norton still carrying Becky, and Mr. +Backhouse helping his wife along. Mrs. Norton had got the baby safe +in her motherly arms, and so they all toiled up the hill to the +farmhouse. What a difference from the merry party that ran down the +hill only an hour before!</p> +<p>They laid Becky down on her mother’s bed, and then Aunt +Emma, finding that Mrs. Norton wished to stay till the doctor came, +went back to the children. She found a sad little group sitting in +the hay-field; Milly in nurse’s lap crying quietly every now +and then; Tiza still sobbing on the grass, and Olly who had just +crept down from the farmhouse, where he and Charlie had seen Becky +carried in, talking to nurse in eager whispers, as if he +daren’t talk out loud.</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Emma,” cried Milly, when she opened the +gate, “is she better?”</p> +<p>“A little, I think, Milly, but the doctor will soon be +here, and then we shall know all about it. Tiza, you poor little +woman, Mrs. Wheeler says you must sleep with them to-night. Your +mother will want the house very quiet, and to-morrow, you know, you +can go and see Becky if the doctor says you may.”</p> +<p>At this Tiza began to cry again more piteously than ever. It +seemed so dreary and terrible to her to be shut out from home +without Becky. But Aunt Emma sat down on the grass beside her, and +lifted her up and talked to her; with anybody else Tiza would have +kicked and struggled, for she was a curious, passionate child, and +her grief was always wild and angry, but nobody could struggle with +Aunt Emma, and at last she let herself be comforted a little by the +tender voice and soft caressing hand. She stopped crying, and then +they all took her up to the Wheelers’s cottage, where Mrs. +Wheeler, a kind motherly body, took her in, and promised that she +should know everything there was to be known about Becky.</p> +<p>“Aunt Emma,” said Milly, presently, when they were +all sitting in the conservatory which ran round the house, waiting +for Mr. Norton to bring them news from the farm, “how did +Becky tumble under the cart?”</p> +<p>“She was lifting up some hay, I think, which had fallen +off, and one of the men was stooping down to take it on his fork, +and then she must have slipped and fallen right under the cart, +just as John Backhouse told the horse to go on.”</p> +<p>“Oh, if the wheel <em>had</em> gone over!” said +Milly, shuddering. “Isn’t it a sad birthday, Aunt Emma, +and we were so happy a little while ago? And then I can’t +understand. I don’t know why it happens like this.”</p> +<p>“Like what, Milly?”</p> +<p>“Why, Aunt Emma, always in stories, you know, it’s +the bad people get hurt and die. And now it’s poor little +Becky that’s hurt. And she’s such a dear little girl, +and helps her mother so. I don’t think she ought to have been +hurt.”</p> +<p>“We don’t know anything about ‘oughts,’ +Milly, darling, you and I. God knows, we trust, and that helps many +people who love God to be patient when they are in trouble or pain. +But think if it had been poor mischievous little Tiza who had been +hurt, how she would have fretted. And now very likely Becky will +bear it beautifully, and so, without knowing it, she will be +teaching Tiza to be patient, and it will do Tiza good to have to +help Becky and take care of her for a bit, instead of letting Becky +always look after her and get her out of scrapes.”</p> +<p>“Oh, and Aunt Emma, can’t we all take care of Becky? +What can Olly and I do?” said Milly, imploringly.</p> +<p>“I can go and sing all my songs to Becky,” said +Olly, looking up brightly.</p> +<p>“By-and-by, perhaps,” said Aunt Emma, smiling and +patting his head. “But hark! isn’t that father’s +step?”</p> +<p>It had grown so dark that they could hardly see who it was +opening the gate.</p> +<p>“Oh yes, it is,” cried Milly. “It’s +father and mother.” Away they ran to meet them, and Mrs. +Norton took Milly’s little pale face in both her hands and +kissed it.</p> +<p>“She’s not <em>very</em> badly hurt, darling. The +doctor says she must lie quite quiet for two or three weeks, and +then he hopes she’ll be all right. The wheel gave her a +squeeze, which jarred her poor little back and head very much, but +it didn’t break anything, and if she lies very quite the +doctor thinks she’ll get quite well again.” “Oh +mother! and does Tiza know?”</p> +<p>“Yes, we have just been to tell her. Mrs. Wheeler had put +her to bed, but she went up to give her our message, and she said +poor little Tiza began to cry again, and wanted us to tell her +mother she would be <em>so</em> quiet if only they would let her +come back to Becky.”</p> +<p>“Will they, mother?”</p> +<p>“In a few days, perhaps. But she is not to see anybody but +Mrs. Backhouse for a little while.”</p> +<p>“Oh dear!” sighed Milly, while the tears came into +her eyes again. “We shall be going away so soon, and we +can’t say good-bye. Isn’t it sad, mother, just +happening last thing? and we’ve been so happy all the +time.”</p> +<p>“Yes, Milly,” said Mr. Norton, lifting her on to his +knee. “This is the first really sad thing that ever happened +to you in your little life I think. Mother, and I, and Aunt Emma, +tell you stories about sad things, but that’s very different, +isn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Milly, thinking. “Father, are +there as many sad things really as there are in stories?—you +know what I mean.”</p> +<p>“There are a great many sad things and sad people in the +world, Milly. We don’t have monsters plaguing us like King +Hrothgar, but every day there is trouble and grief going on +somewhere, and we happy and strong people must care for the sad +ones if we want to do our duty and help to straighten the world a +little.”</p> +<p>“Father,” whispered Milly, softly, “will you +tell us how—Olly and me? We would if we knew how.”</p> +<p>“Well, Milly, suppose you begin with Becky, and poor Tiza +too, indeed. I wonder whether a pair of little people could make a +scrap-book for Becky to look at when she is getting +better?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes, yes!” said Milly, joyfully, +“I’ve got ever so many pictures in mother’s +writing-book, she let me cut out of her ‘Graphics,’ and +Olly can help paste; can’t you, Olly?”</p> +<p>“Olly generally pastes his face more than anything +else,” said Mr. Norton, giving a sly pull at his brown curls. +“If I’m not very much mistaken, there is a little fairy +pasting up your eyes, old man.”</p> +<p>“I’m not sleepy, not a bit,” said Olly, +sitting bolt upright and blinking very fast.</p> +<p>“I think you’re not sleepy, but just asleep,” +said Mr. Norton, catching him up in his arms, and carrying him to +his mother to say good-night.</p> +<p>Milly went very soberly and quietly up to bed, and for some +little time she lay awake, her little heart feeling very sore and +heavy about the “sad things” in the world. Then with +her thoughts full of Becky she fell asleep.</p> +<p>So ended Milly’s birthday, a happy day and a sorrowful +day, all in one. When Milly grew older there was no birthday just +before or after it she remembered half so clearly as that on which +she was seven years old.</p> +<h2><a id="Chapter10" name="Chapter10">CHAPTER X</a></h2> +<h3>Last Days at Ravensnest</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>On Friday morning the children and their father trudged up very +early to the farm to get news of Becky. She had had a bad night Mr. +Backhouse said, but she had taken some milk and beef-tea; she knew +her father and mother quite well, and she had asked twice for Tiza. +The doctor said they must just be patient. Quiet and rest would +make her well again, and nothing else, and Tiza was not to go home +for a day or two.</p> +<p>As for poor Tiza, a long sleep had cheered her up greatly, and +when Milly and Olly went to take her out with them after breakfast, +they found her almost as merry and chatty as usual. But she +didn’t like being kept at the Wheelers’s, though they +were very kind to her; and it was all Mrs. Wheeler could do to +prevent her from slipping up to the farm unknown to anybody.</p> +<p>“They don’t have porridge for breakfast,” said +Tiza, tossing her head, when she and Milly were out together. +“Mother always gives us porridge. And I won’t sit next +Charlie. He’s always dirtying hisself. He stickied hisself +just all over this morning with treacle. Mother would have given +him a clout.”</p> +<p>However, on the whole, she was as good as such a wild creature +could be, and the children and she had some capital times together. +Wheeler the gardener let them gather strawberries and currants for +making jam, a delightful piece of work, which helped to keep Tiza +out of mischief and make her contented with staying away from home +more than anything else. At last, after three days, the doctor said +she might come home if she would promise to be quiet in the house. +So one bright evening Tiza slipped into the farmhouse and squeezed +in after her mother to the little room where Becky was lying, a +white-faced feverish little creature, low down among the +pillows.</p> +<p>“Becky,” said Tiza, sitting down beside her sister, +as if nothing had happened, “here’s some strawberries. +Wheeler gave me some. You can have some if you want.”</p> +<p>“Just one,” said Becky, in her weak shaky voice, +smiling at her; and Tiza knelt on the bed and stuffed one softly +into her mouth.</p> +<p>“You’ll have to nurse baby now, Tiza,” said +Becky presently; “he’s been under mother’s feet +terrible. Mind you don’t let him eat nasty things. +He’ll get at the coals if you don’t mind +him.”</p> +<p>“I’ll not let him,” said Tiza shortly, setting +to work on her own strawberries.</p> +<p>All this didn’t sound very affectionate; but I think all +the same Tiza did love Becky, and I believe she tried to do her +best in her own funny way while Becky was ill. Baby screamed a good +deal certainly when she nursed him, and it was quite impossible of +course for Tiza to keep out of mischief altogether for two or three +weeks. Still, on the whole, she was a help to her mother; while as +for Becky she was never quite happy when Tiza was out of the house. +Becky, like Milly, had a way of loving everybody about her, and +next to her mother she loved Tiza best of anybody.</p> +<p>After all, the children were able to say good-bye to Becky. Just +the day before they were to go away Mr. Backhouse came down to say +that Becky would like to see them very much if they could come, and +the doctor said they might.</p> +<p>So up they went; Milly a good deal excited, and Olly very +curious to see what Becky would look like. Mr. Backhouse took them +in, and they found Becky lying comfortably on a little bed, with a +patchwork counterpane, and her shoulders and arms covered up in a +red flannel dressing-gown that Aunt Emma had sent her.</p> +<div class="figure"><a href="images/illus8.png"><img src= +"images/illus8.png" alt= +"“‘Haven’t you got a bump?’ asked Olly”" +id="illus8" name="illus8" width="100%" /></a> +<p>“‘Haven’t you got a bump?’ asked +Olly”</p> +</div> +<p>Milly kissed her, and Olly shook her hand, and they didn’t +all quite know what to say.</p> +<p>“Is your back better?” said Milly at last. +“I’m so glad the doctor let us come.”</p> +<p>“Haven’t you got a bump?” asked Olly, looking +at her with all his eyes. “We thought you’d have a +great black bump on your fore-head, you know—ever so +big.”</p> +<p>“No, it’s a cut,” said Becky; “there +now, you can see how it’s plastered up.”</p> +<p>“Did it hurt?” said Olly, “did you kick? I +should have kicked. And does the doctor give you nasty +medicine?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Becky, “I don’t have any now. +And it wasn’t nasty at all what I had first. And now I may +have strawberries and raspberries, and Mr. Wheeler sends mother a +plate everyday.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think it’s fair that little boys +shouldn’t never be ill,” said Olly, with his eyes +fastened on Becky’s plate of strawberries, which was on the +chest of drawers.</p> +<p>“Oh, you funny boy,” said Milly, “why, mother +gives you some every day though you aren’t ill; and I’m +sure you wouldn’t like staying in bed.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I should,” said Olly, just for the sake of +contradicting. “Do you know, Becky, we’ve got a secret, +and we’re not to tell it you, only Milly and I are going +to—”</p> +<p>“Don’t!” said Milly, putting her hand over, +his mouth. “You’ll tell in a minute. You’re +always telling secrets.”</p> +<p>“Well, just half, Milly, I won’t tell it all you +know. It’s just like something burning inside my mouth. +We’re going to make you something, Becky, when we get home. +Something be—ootiful, you know. And you can look at it in +bed, and we won’t make it big, so you can turn over the +pages, and—”</p> +<p>“Be quiet, Olly,” said Milly, “I should think +Becky’ll guess now. It’ll come by post, Becky. +Mother’s going to help us make it. You’ll like it I +know.”</p> +<p>“It’s—it’s—a picture-book!” +said Olly, in a loud whisper, putting his head down to Becky. +“You won’t tell, will you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, you unkind boy,” said Milly, pouting. +“I’ll never have a secret with you again.”</p> +<p>But Becky looked very pleased, and said she would like a +picture-book she thought very much, for it was dull sometimes when +mother was busy and Tiza was nursing baby. So perhaps, after all, +it didn’t matter having told her.</p> +<p>“I’m going to write to you, Becky,” said +Milly, when the time came to go away, “and at Christmas +I’ll send you a Christmas card, and perhaps some day +we’ll come here again you know.”</p> +<p>“And then we’ll milk the cows,” said Olly, +“won’t we, Becky? And I’ll ride on your big +horse. Mr. Backhouse says I may ride all alone some day when +I’m big; when I’m sixty—no, when I’m +ninety-five you know.”</p> +<p>And then Milly and Olly kissed Becky’s pale little face +and went away, while poor little Becky looked after them as if she +was <em>very</em> sorry to see the last of them; and outside there +were Tiza and baby and Mrs. Backhouse and even John Backhouse +himself, waiting to say good-bye to them. It made Milly cry a +little bit, and she ran away fast down the hill, while Tiza and +Olly were still trying which could squeeze hands hardest.</p> +<p>“Oh, you dear mountains,” said Milly, as she and +nurse walked along together. “Look Nana, aren’t they +lovely?”</p> +<p>They did look beautiful this last evening. The sun was shining +on them so brightly that everything on them, up to the very top, +was clear and plain, and high up, ever so far away, were little +white dots moving, which Milly knew were cows feeding.</p> +<p>“Good-bye river, good-bye stepping-stones, good-bye doves, +good-bye fly-catchers! Mind you don’t any of you go away till +we come back again.”</p> +<p>But I should find it very hard to tell you all the good-byes +that Milly and Olly said to the places and people at Ravensnest, to +the woods and the hay-fields, and the beck, to Aunt Emma’s +parrot, John Backhouse’s cows, to Windermere Lake and Rydal +Lake, above all to dear Aunt Emma herself.</p> +<p>“Mind you come at Christmas,” shouted both the +children, as the train moved away from Windermere station and left +Aunt Emma standing on the platform; and Aunt Emma nodded and smiled +and waved her handkerchief to them till they were quite out of +sight.</p> +<p>“Mother,” said Milly, when they could not see Aunt +Emma any more, and the last bit of Brownholme was slipping away, +away, quite out of sight, “I think Ravensnest is the nicest +place we ever stopped at. And I don’t think the rain matters +either. I’m going to tell your old gentleman so. He said it +rained in the mountains, and it does, mother—doesn’t +it? but he said the rain spoilt everything, and it +doesn’t—not a bit.”</p> +<p>“Why, there’s that curious old fairy been sprinkling +dust in your eyes too, Milly!”</p> +<p>But something or other had been sprinkling tears in +mother’s. For to the old people there is nothing sweeter than +to see the young ones opening their hearts to all that they +themselves have loved and rejoiced over. So the chain of life goes +on, and joy gives birth to joy and love to love.</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Milly and Olly, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILLY AND OLLY *** + +***** This file should be named 13337-h.htm or 13337-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/3/13337/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Barbara Tozier and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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