THE BABES IN THE WOOD.
"'What are you singing of, soft and mild,
Green leaves, waving your gentle hands?
Is it a song for a little child,
Or a song God only understands?'
Answered the green leaves, soft and mild,
Whispered the green leaves, soft and clear,—
'It is a song for every child,
It is a song God loves to hear;
It is the only song we know,
We never question how or why.
'Tis not a song of fear or woe,
A song of regret that we must die;
Ever at morn and at eventide
This is our song in the deep old wood,—
"Earth is beautiful, heaven is wide;
And we are happy, for God is good!"'"
F. E. Weatherly.
"Have you anything for us to do, Auntie Alice?" said Darby Dene one day, after he had watched Aunt Catharine safely into the fowl-house to have a look at her Brahmas.
It was a still, bright afternoon in October, when the ripe apples were dropping from the trees in the garden, and up at Copsley Farm Mrs. Grey's turkeys wandered at will over the stubble whence the grain had all been carted and built into stacks beside the farmyard.
"Do say that you can think of something, please," pleaded the boy—"a message or anything. We are so tired of the garden, and the lawn, and the swing, and—and—everything.—Aren't we, Joan?"
"Yes, werry, werry tired," agreed Joan with ready assent. She always did agree with everything that Darby said. He was her model, her hero, who, in Joan's eyes, could do no wrong.
"I'm afraid I cannot invent or suggest any fresh occupation for you just now," answered Auntie Alice, smiling down into the eager upturned faces beside her knee. "Would you not run away and have a romp with pussy? she is frolicking with her kittens in the garden, quite close to the tool-house."
"We were playing with pussy for ever so long, and look there!" said Darby, holding up for his aunt's inspection one small brown and not over-clean hand. Across the back of it ran a long, straight scratch from which the blood was slowly oozing. "That's what pussy did! That's why we left her, and why we don't want to go back to the garden."
Darby's tone was so rueful, his expression one of such patient forbearance towards base treachery, that his aunt laughed outright. Yet she kissed the wounded hand again and again, whispering gently the while,—
"Poor Darby! poor little hand! and poor pussy too!" she added below her breath. For she guessed correctly that pussy—who was in general a long-suffering animal—must have been sorely beset when she used her claws in defence of herself or the rights of her family.
"If you really haven't an errand, won't you just invent one, auntie?" persisted Darby. Then suddenly he cried, while his face beamed with the happiness of the thought that had struck him, "May we go up to the farm and see Mrs. Grey? Oh, do say 'yes,' Auntie Alice!"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps we should hear what Aunt Catharine thinks. Still, I suppose you might," decided Auntie Alice, her hesitation overcome by the pleading look in Darby's eyes.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, dear Auntie Alice!" said both children in a breath, flinging themselves in ecstasy upon their aunt. She, however, did not like to have her delicate ribbons crumpled by smudgy, sticky little hands; so she gently withdrew herself from their embrace, shaking a warning finger playfully at the pair as she gave them a caution,—
"You must not stay too long or tease Mrs. Grey, either of you."
"We shan't stay very long," promised Darby; "and Mrs. Grey says we never tease her."
"Mrs. Grey hasn't got no chil'ens of her own to play wif and 'muse her, and that's why she likes Darby and me to go and talk to her whiles," explained Joan sagely, looking up at her aunt through the mop of golden curls which shaded her big blue eyes.
"Is that the reason? Well, since you are going, you might just bring those Cochin eggs with you that Mrs. Grey promised us. Your aunt Catharine was speaking about them a little ago. Wait a minute, and I'll hear what she says," and Auntie Alice made as if she would follow her sister to the fowl-house.
"Oh, please don't!" cried Darby wildly, clutching with both hands at his aunt's gown in order to stay her steps. "She'll be sure not to let us. She'll ask if we've learned our Catechism, and send us to wash our hands or change our clothes, or—or something. You know how she does, Auntie Alice!"
Yes, Alice Turner knew her elder sister's little way very well indeed, and because of this she yielded to Darby's importunity.
"Dear, dear, what a droll boy you are!" and by the way she spoke the youngsters knew that they had won their way. "Off with you both, then, quick! Take my white basket out of the breakfast-room, and see that you carry the eggs carefully, or I'm afraid we shall all get into trouble."
"Which way shall we go?" asked Darby, gleefully swinging the basket about his head. "May we go through the fields, Auntie Alice? The ground is quite dry to-day, and the path is ever so much nicer than the road past Copsley Wood."
"You may go through the fields, dear; but come back by the road. You might break the eggs if you were to return the field way; there are so many stiles to climb. And listen to me, chickabiddies," continued Auntie Alice earnestly. "You must not on any account go into the wood; it is not a safe place for children."
"Why?" demanded Darby in astonishment, for he had little or no fear of any living thing—man or beast.
"I need not detain you now, dear, to explain further than to say that there are sometimes rough people about who might think it rather funny to behave rudely to unprotected little children."
"Don't you know there's bears in Copsley Wood, and lions and tigers and effelants, and—and—oh, heaps of drefful fings!" explained Joan, as glibly as if she had in person penetrated the many mysteries that—to her infant mind—were hidden in the cool, dark depths of the old pine wood.
"Nonsense!" and Darby smiled in scorn of his sister's ignorance.—"Do you hear her, Auntie Alice?—Why, you little goose, don't you know that there aren't any bears, or lions, or tigers, or elephants in this country? If we were in a lonely part of Africa, we might see some; but there's only rabbits and squirrels and perhaps wild cats in Copsley Wood.—Isn't she a silly, Auntie Alice?"
"I'm not a silly!" said Joan stoutly.—"Sure I isn't, Auntie Alice?"
"No, child; and you are quite right to be shy of the wood," answered her aunt gravely. "And now, if you want to go to the farm to-day, you had better be off. I think I hear Aunt Catharine coming!"
Her caution came too late, however, for in another instant Aunt Catharine was upon them.
"What is it now?" she demanded, glancing from one to another of the guilty-looking group.—"What are you doing with that basket, Darby?"
"I—we—Joan and me were going up to the farm to see Mrs. Grey," faltered Darby. "And please, please, Aunt Catharine, don't say we aren't to get!"
"We's goin' to bring your Cochin eggs," added Joan sweetly.
"I hope you won't mind, sister," struck in Auntie Alice, in her soft, timid voice, "but I gave them leave to go. And I thought they might as well fetch the eggs when they are coming back."
"Alice Turner! when do you mean to grow up?" exclaimed Aunt Catharine, in withering accents. "Is it that boy you expect to carry a basket of eggs? Those fidgets! Why, they'll leave the half of them on the road or sit on them by the way!"
"We willn't sit on them," said Joan stoutly. "Jetty shall sit on them, and they'll turn into dear, soft, fluffy chickens! Willn't they, Aunt Catharine?"
Aunt Catharine did not answer directly, but she looked as if she did not feel quite so sure of results as Joan.
"We'll be very, very careful, indeed!" promised Darby earnestly; and Joan echoed likewise, "Werry, werry careful!"
"Well, well; since your Auntie Alice has already given permission, I shall not prevent you, and I must admit I am in a hurry for the eggs. Jetty is making a terrible to-do over a solitary china one in her nest. But if they are broken or shaken—"
There Aunt Catharine paused; yet her listeners perfectly understood what she did not say.
"And remember, children, what has been so often said to you about Copsley Wood. You are not to go there on any pretext whatever! Do you understand?"
"Yes, Aunt Catharine; and we've promised Auntie Alice already," replied Darby meekly.
"Very well; see that you keep your promise, my boy. You always say that you forgot when you have been disobedient, but you are both old enough to do as you are told. And I should not be doing my duty if I did not try to teach you," added Aunt Catharine significantly, as she bent and kissed the little ones good-bye.
"And that just means that she'll punish us badly the next time we're naughty," explained Darby to Joan, as they clambered over the stile at the foot of Mr. Grey's turnip field. "Well, I shouldn't mind greatly if it wasn't putting to bed. I do hate going to bed; don't you, Joan?"
"Yes, werry much; for they're always sure to come for us when we'se not ready, nurse or Aunt Catharine! They seem to know 'zactly when we're in the middle of somefin' awful nice, and then they says, 'Bedtime, chil'ens!' Oh, it's just ho'wid!"
Joan puckered up her pretty face so comically in imitation of nurse's worried expression, and mimicked Aunt Catharine's lofty tones so cleverly, that Darby clapped his hands in delight and admiration. Then they raced each other along the breezy headland, across the sweet-smelling stubble field, through the stackyard and the orchard, until, flushed and breathless, they stood beside the mistress in the cool, red-tiled dairy of Copsley Farm.
Mrs. Grey was always well pleased to see the little folks from Firgrove, and made them warmly welcome; just as, in the long-ago days, she had welcomed their father when he too found it a relief sometimes to slip away from the prim precision of his aunts' establishment, and come rushing up the hill to count the calves, tease the turkey-cock, ride the donkey, plague the maids, and generally enjoy himself to his heart's content. She dearly loved children although, as Joan said, she had none of her own; and the day always seemed brighter to her when Darby and Joan came flying over the fields to pay her one of their frequent visits.
There was a new donkey at the farm in those days, and as neither of the children was particular about a saddle, they rode him in turn until Neddy rose in revolt—actually, with his heels in the air!—or lay down, which was more hopeless still; for once he did that they knew that he, for one, had frolicked enough, that day, at any rate. But there were other things. They played hide-and-seek round the stacks with Scott the huge collie, who was so gentle that he would allow Joan to put her fingers in his eyes or pull his big bushy tail. They gathered apples in the orchard, hazel nuts in the copse, late blackberries from the hedge at the back of the stackyard; and they watched the pigs at their afternoon meal until Joan turned away in disgust, declaring that "the dirty fings should be teached better manners, and made to sup their pow'idge wif a spoon!"
Then, when the sun was sinking low in the west, and they had feasted to their complete satisfaction on all the dainties that their hostess loved to set before them, it was time to return to Firgrove.
Mrs. Grey put into Darby's hand the shallow basket of round brown eggs, with two tiny white ones on the top for themselves that had been laid by Specky, the lovely black-and-buff bantam. Then, with many kisses and warnings to be careful, she set the happy pair upon their homeward way.
They took turns at carrying the basket, and paused now and again to peep at their bantam eggs, not much bigger than marbles, and the others which held the promise of such sweet baby Cochins within their smooth, silk-lined shells.
"Oh, I am tired!" sighed Darby at length, when they were still only half-way down the road, just passing by the entrance to the pine wood. "Are you tired, Joan?"
"Yes," assented Joan promptly; "this basket's so heavy. Can't we rest awhile after we pass the trees?"
"We shall rest here," said Darby decidedly; and suiting the action to the word, he took the basket from his sister's hand, placed it carefully on the roadside, and, with a deep breath of satisfaction, dropped on the soft grass beside it, just where the path branched off the highway into Copsley Wood.
"Darby!" cried Joan in remonstrance, "are you forgetting what you promised Auntie Alice, and that Aunt Catharine said we wasn't to go into the wood?"
"I'm not forgetting one bit," he replied loftily. "Sure, sitting here isn't going into the wood, is it, Miss Joan? Besides, I don't believe there's any bad people in it. They only want to frighten us," he continued, in a grown-up sort of tone; and when Darby spoke like that, Joan felt quite sure he knew what he was talking about—better even than Aunt Catharine herself!
They sat still for a little while, resting on the soft, mossy grass, listening to the song of the robins in the hedges, watching the snowy sea-gulls that hovered about the tail of Mr. Grey's plough as it turned the stubble into long, even furrows of dark, fresh-smelling soil.
Then a couple of rabbits darted by to their burrow in the wood; and at the foot of a big beech tree growing close beside the children a whole party of squirrels had gathered, nibbling hungrily at the nuts that were scattered round its base.
The little ones hushed their chatter, afraid to breathe almost, lest they should disturb the merry family meal.
By-and-by, however, Joan spoke, for she could not keep silent many minutes at a time.
"I wish I had one of those dear pretty fings, Darby," she whispered. "How sweet and soft it would be to love and stroke! far nicer than pussy, for I don't think it would scratch. Look at their great bushy tails!"
"Well, sit you still and mind the eggs, and I'll creep over ever so softly and catch one for you," replied her brother under his breath, only too willing, alas! to gratify her wish. "It'll be quite easy: just one grab at its tail and there you are!"
"But, Darby, Aunt Catharine. What ever will she say? Darby!" cried Joan in distress.
Darby was creeping on all-fours over the springy grass, and did not mind her. Slowly, stealthily he went—near, nearer, and yet nearer the root of the beech tree with every movement of his lithe, wriggling body. He is now only a few feet from the squirrels, who seem not to notice the intruder. He puts out his hand. He almost touches the smallest member of the group, a bright-eyed, furry little fellow. Joan starts to her feet in excitement. Darby does exactly as he had planned—makes a sudden clutch at the coveted prize. The object of her desire is really within her reach, Joan believes, and she shouts aloud in her delight. There is a flash of bead-like eyes, a waving of plumy tails, a scurry of flying feet, a chorus of queer, chattering cries, and, lo, the squirrels have disappeared, some up one tree, some up another—all except one, the very one which Darby desired to possess, and it scampered along the pathway, seeming too frightened to know where it was going; and, without giving a thought to the Cochin eggs, to Aunt Catharine, or to probable consequences, away rushed Darby in hot pursuit, with Joan treading closely on his heels.
Soon the squirrel found refuge in a lofty pine where, most probably, some of its friends had their home, and the children halted to take breath. Just at that instant, however, a frisky young rabbit started from its hiding-place in a hole at their feet. Off it went, scampering over the fallen fir needles that were spread so thickly like a soft brown carpet over the ground. And away, too, Darby and Joan raced after it, as quickly as they could thread their way through the trees, following where in front the rabbit led the way, its stumpy whitish tail turned up like a beckoning signal-flag. Still they struggled and stumbled on and on, in and out, until they stopped for want of breath in what seemed the very heart of the wood. Their prey had escaped into the shelter of a burrow, and the hunters gazed blankly at the spot where it had disappeared. Then they turned to each other in discomfiture and disappointment. Afterwards they looked about them, and were filled with confusion and affright, for the pathway was nowhere to be seen.
"The eggs, Darby!" cried Joan, suddenly conscious, now that the play was played out, of what had been, what was, and what might be. "Let us go back diwectly and get Aunt Catharine's basket of eggs."
"Yes, of course, that's what we shall do; but don't be in such a hurry. You only confuse a fellow," answered Darby, trying to speak lightly, although his lips were quivering. He had sought up and down, backwards, forwards, and roundabout, but still could see neither track nor footmark—just trees, tall trees everywhere, one seeming the exact counterpart of the other.
Joan, however, was quick to catch his expression of bewilderment, which so sadly belied his brave words, and she began to sob weakly. She always cried easily, and seemed sometimes to enjoy it; at least Darby thought so privately.
"Be quiet, can't you! There's nothing for you to cry about," he said, in a tone of easy assurance; "at least not yet—not until after we get home," he added comically. "I do hope Aunt Catharine will be in the drawing-room, or out to dinner, or—or—something when we arrive. If she sees us like this, she'll be certain sure to put us to bed at once," continued Darby, with sad conviction, glancing anxiously at his soiled sailor suit, which a few hours before was white, his straw hat with the brim dangling by a thread; and, worst of all, at Joan's torn pinafore, scratched legs, and shoeless foot—for in the flurry and fervour of the chase one small slipper had somehow been left behind.
Joan still sobbed.
"Hush, Joan! don't cry any more, like a good girl," said the little lad soothingly. "We shall be sure to find the way out very soon now. We left the basket at the edge of the wood; I don't think any one will have taken it away. And when we get it, we shan't be hardly any time going down the hill. We'll slip in softly, softly, and find Auntie Alice first. We'll ask her to coax Aunt Catharine not to be too angry; and perhaps, if we tell her we're sorry, she'll not punish us very badly. I think we had better not say anything about forgetting this time; we'll just be sorry right off."
Joan ceased crying. She dabbed her eyes with the corner of her soiled pinafore until they smiled like violets new washed with dew; she wiped the trickling tear-drops from her smudgy China rose cheeks until they bloomed afresh.
Thus the brave boy soothed his small sister's terror, although his own heart was heavy with fear; for the farther they walked the deeper they seemed to go into the depths of the dark pine wood. And night was coming on. In daytime, even, Copsley Wood was a shadowy place; but now, when above the trees and beyond their margin twilight had fallen, it was indeed a dark and lonesome spot. All around the pines rose straight and tall, like gaunt giant forms flinging out long, skeleton arms eager to infold them in a cruel clasp. Strange and stealthy sounds from bird and beast came to their ears at intervals, while the unfamiliar music of rustling branches and whispering leaves filled the souls of these two little travellers with a feeling of awe and vague alarm. Nevertheless they kept moving on, on; now stumbling over a fallen branch, again shrinking in terror as a great soft owl flitted slowly by, or hooted solemnly right above their heads.
At length Joan cried out that she could not walk another step. A sharp stone had cut her poor little shoeless foot, and she was limping painfully. She sank down on a smooth tree-stump, and Darby sat beside her, allowing her to lean her drooping head against his shoulder.
"Are we lost, Darby?" she asked piteously. "Are we goin' to die here like the babes in the wood? And will the robins come in the mornin' and cover us up wif leaves?"
"No, no," answered Darby, shivering at the mere thought of such a hurried burial, yet trying to speak cheerfully in spite of the tears in his eyes, the lump in his throat. "When you are rested a bit we will go on again. If you can't walk, perhaps I could carry you—a short distance, anyway. Surely we shall soon find the path, or some one will come to look for us," he added, feeling as if at that moment any one, even Aunt Catharine herself, would be welcome.
"It's gettin' awful dark," sobbed Joan, in a choked, weak voice. "Why, we can't see even a single star."
"We'd be all right if we could see anything," replied the boy ruefully. "Maybe the moon will shine soon; then we'll find our way," he added, still trying to cheer his little chum as best he could.
For a while they were silent. Joan was almost asleep, with her head still resting on Darby's breast. None but the creatures of the wild were near them; only the sounds of the night were in the air—those soft, mysterious voices that whisper to the listening soul of the spirit world which wraps so closely round the pure in heart.
But stay! Who dare disturb the sweetness of nature's symphony? Whose stealthy steps are those that steal so cautiously over the tell-tale twigs and withered bracken? What figures are they that crouch and slide from tree to tree, then pause within half a dozen yards of the wandered children, ready to pounce like cruel beasts upon their prey?
The shuffling noise attracted Darby's attention. He looked all about him, but observed nothing unusual. He peered into the gathering gloom, yet failed to see the ugly, red-haired man, the bold, black-browed woman who glared at them from behind a screen of hazel bushes. And again he settled himself comfortably on the moss-grown stump, and drew Joan's head into an easier position against his shoulder.
He thought she was asleep, and was nearly over himself, when suddenly she sat up and said eagerly,—
"Darby, I'se been finkin'. Don't you know in that nice hymn of ours—the one we singed to daddy the Sunday before he goed away—there's somefin' about bein' 'guided by a star'? P'raps if we was to sing it now God would un'erstand, and send a star to show us the way out of the wood."
Darby hesitated.
"Well, I don't know; I'm not sure," he said at length. "Still, if you think singing would make you feel better we might try it," he yielded. "Yes, we'll do a verse, anyway. It'll be cheerier than praying—not so much like as if we were going to bed. And it doesn't really matter which we do; God will be sure to know 'zactly what we mean. Now, are you ready? Come on!"
And there, in the depths of the forest that to these two babes was as desolate, dark, and drear as any of which they had heard in fairy tale or nursery rhyme, they raised their clear, tremulous voices in pathetic appeal to that unseen Presence whom from their cradles they had been taught to look upon as "our Father:"—
"From the eastern mountains
Pressing on they come,
Wise men in their wisdom,
To His humble home;
Stirred by deep devotion,
Hasting from afar,
Ever journeying onward,
Guided by a star."