"'Oh, Tom, it's alive!' cried Una."
"Yes, it's alive," said Tom. "It's a hedge-hog, Una. The little gipsy-boy found it this morning under a gorse-bush, among some leaves. Hedgehogs go to sleep all the winter, rolled up like this in a ball; and they store up a lot of food somewhere near in case they wake up and get hungry during the winter; and when the spring comes they wake quite up, and begin to move about. That is why this one is really awake now, only he has rolled himself up, and pretends to be asleep, because he's frightened."
"Oh, the funny little thing!" said Una, bending down to see if she could catch a glimpse of the hedgehog's bright little eyes.
"What do you think I'm going to do with it?" asked Tom.
"Keep it?" suggested Una.
"No," said the boy, "I'm going to give it to you."
"Oh, Tom—what for?" asked the little girl, trying to look very pleased and grateful, but wondering whatever she was to do with such a prickly present.
"What for? Why, for you to have as a pet," said Tom. "You're not half such a silly girl as I thought you were; and, of course, you can't help not being English," he added magnanimously. "And, you know, I do think it is awfully dull for you, shut up in that big garden, when we're not there to play with you: and now you'll have the hedgehog to play with."
"So I shall," said Una. "What—what shall I do with it, Tom?"
"Why, feed it," said the boy, "and teach it to know you and to come when you call. You'll have to name it, Una, and teach it tricks and all sorts of things," and poor Tom gave one big sigh as he thought how he would have liked to keep that hedgehog for himself instead of giving it to Una.
Una was too polite, however, to say she did not want the little animal. She knew that it was very kind of Tom to have given it to her, though she had no idea how much he wanted it himself; and she asked him to come home with her that afternoon and make a house for it in the garden, so that it should not run away and get lost in the woods.
After all, Tom's present turned out a great success. It was the first time Una had ever had a pet in her life, and she became so fond of the little creature that she would spend hours playing with it in the garden, tickling its little head with the tip of her finger, and feeding it with dandelion flowers, which it loved.
It was through the hedgehog that rather a queer thing happened one day in the garden.
I think I told you that Una's father went away somewhere by train once a week, and usually came back either the next day or two or three days later, but I don't think I told you that sometimes he brought back gentlemen to stay with him; and occasionally these gentlemen stayed until Monsieur Gen went away again the next week, though more frequently they remained only one night at the Grange and went away again the next day. Now and then, however, they stayed much longer than that—for weeks together indeed; and Una noticed that the ones who stayed longest always looked very pale and thin, and very, very sad, as if they had had much trouble.
But she did not see very much of any of her father's visitors—only coming across one or another of them sometimes on the stairs or in the garden; and the little Carews had never seen any of them, for when they were playing there with Una the strange gentlemen did not come into the garden.
Una used to wonder sometimes what made all the gentlemen who came to her father's house look so sad. All men did not look sad, she knew, for the baker's man who came to the house looked quite jolly, and had a round, red face which seemed always laughing; and Mr. Carew, her little friends' father, looked quite cheerful, too, quite different from her own grave father.
Poor little girl! It was sad for her, this mystery which hung about her life; and I think she would have grown into a very quiet, grave little maiden in those days if she had not had the little Carews to play and be merry with.
One day the children had been having a game on the terrace in the front of the house. It was a new game which Tom had made up, and which they all liked very much. One of them stood, blindfolded, in front of a heap of little sticks at one end of the terrace, and the others all had to hop on one leg and try to get the sticks, one by one, without the blindfolded one catching them; the fun of the game being that it was very difficult not to make a noise hopping on the gravel, and the "blind man" usually pretended not to hear, and then made a dash at the hopping thief just as he or she was carrying off a stick.
They had been playing so long at this game that they had made themselves quite tired and hot, and had sat down on the lawn to rest; and then it was that Una remembered that she had forgotten to shut up "Snoozy," as she had named the hedgehog, after she had given him his breakfast that morning, and now she could not think what had become of him.
The hedgehog had got so tame now that he would follow his little mistress about the garden, and come when she called or whistled; and Una generally let him have a run in the garden every morning, and then shut him up again when she went in to lessons.
To-day, however, although she called and whistled, and looked in all the little animal's usual haunts, she could not find him, and they had almost begun to think that he must have run away into the wood, when Tom thought of the drooping ash-tree at the end of the lawn, and wondered whether "Snoozy" might have hidden himself in there.
"How silly of us," cried Norah. "Why, of course, he must be there. Fancy not thinking of looking there before!"
"I don't know," said Una, "he has never hidden there before; but we can go and look," and they all raced across the lawn, and pushed their way through the drooping branches of the tree.
Yes, there was the hedgehog, curled up into a little ball against the trunk of the tree—thinking, no doubt, that evening had come round again; for the branches and leaves were so thick that it was quite dark under the ash-tree—and beside the hedgehog, leaning carelessly against the trunk of the tree, with folded arms and a scowl upon his face, was a tall, pale-faced, black-haired young man.
CHAPTER X.
WHAT THE YOUNG MAN SAID.
For some moments the children stared at the young man without saying a word—they were so surprised at finding him there; and he scowled back at them fiercely, as though he thought they had no right to have come under the ash-tree at all.
"We came to look for my hedgehog," said Una at last, making just the suspicion of a curtsey as she spoke, for this young man was so much younger than most of her father's visitors that she was not quite sure whether her old nurse would have told her to curtsey to him or not.
The young man looked at her, then muttered something to himself in a strange language, and shook his head.
Then Una spoke in French.
"We came to look for the little animal there," she said, pointing to the hedgehog; and the young man smiled as he pushed it gently with his foot and rolled it towards her.
He looked so much nicer when he smiled that the children began to feel more at ease with him, and to think that he was not such an ugly young man after all; but very soon the gloomy look came back to his face, and he pushed his way out through the branches, as if anxious to get away from the shade of tree and his own thoughts at the same time.
The children followed him out into the sunshine, and the young man looked down at them with a queer sort of expression in his black eyes; then he said something quickly in the strange language in which he had spoken before, and looked at Una as if he thought she would understand; but the little girl stared blankly back at him, and he saw that she did not know what he had said.
