QUEER VISITORS.
| "...they are what their birth |
| And breeding suffer them to be— |
| Wild outcasts of society." |
| Gypsies—Wordsworth. |
Miss Mitten, the young governess, had not yet come when the children got to the nursery, though all was in order for her—the table cleared, the three chairs set round it ready. There was nothing to do but to get out the books and slates. Duke went to the window and stood there staring out silently; Pamela, who always liked to be busy, dragged forward a chair, meaning to climb on to it so as to reach up to the high shelf where the lesson things were kept. But, as she drew out the chair, something that had been hidden from view in a corner near which stood a small side-table caught her eye. She let go the chair, stooping down to examine this something, and in a moment a cry escaped her.
"Bruvver! oh, bruvver," she exclaimed, "just see! How can it have got brokened?" and she held up the bowl—or what had been the bowl rather—out of which Toby had gobbled up his unexpected breakfast,—broken, hopelessly broken, into several pieces!
In an instant Duke was beside her, and together they set to work to examine the damage, as if, alas! any examining could have made it better. It was far past mending, for, besides the two or three large pieces Pamela had seized, there lay on the ground a mass of smaller fragments, down to mere crumbs of china.
"Toby couldn't have done it, could he?" said Pamela. "He stayed in here when us went down to prayers."
"No, oh no! Toby couldn't have broken it," said Duke; "and even if he had, it would not have been his fault. He didn't put it down on the floor. It was near here he ate the bread and milk up—perhaps he rolled the bowl behind the table."
"And Biddy pushed the table against it when she was taking away the things. Yes, that must have been it," said Pamela. "Biddy couldn't have noticed there was only one bowl on the tray."
"Anyway she didn't look for it," said Duke. "She is very careless; Nurse often says so."
"But us can't put the blame on her," said Pamela. "Us must tell, Duke."
Duke had the pieces of china in his hand, and was carefully considering them.
"Will Grandmamma be vexed, do you think, sister?"
"Grandmamma doesn't like things being brokened," said Pamela. "And Nurse said one day these bowls was very good china."
"And Grandmamma will ask all about how it was broken," added Duke dolefully; "and then us'll have to tell about giving Toby our bread and milk, and oh, sister, I said the bowls was quite empty, to make her think us had emptied them!"
"I'm afraid Grandmamma will fink us is very naughty," agreed Pamela; "she'll fink us don't listen to that—that speaking inside us that she was telling us about,—for it's quite true, bruvver; I felt it was quite true when she was talking. It does speak. I heard it this morning when us was planning about not telling. Only I didn't listen," and the tears rolled slowly down the little girl's face.
"I heard it too, sister. Yes, it's quite true," said Duke, beginning to sob. "But I can't go and tell Grandmamma now. There's such a great deal to tell; it isn't only about Toby. It's about having said the bowls was empty," and Duke's sobs redoubled. "Supposing—supposing, sister, us didn't tell Grandmamma just this time, and us would never, never not listen to that speaking inside us again?"
Pamela hesitated. She stood quite quite still, her eyes gazing before her, but as if seeing nothing—she seemed to be listening.
"Bruvver," she said at last, "I can't tell you yet. I must fink. But I'm almost sure it's speaking now. I'm almost sure it's saying us must tell."
"Oh don't, don't, Pamela," cried poor Duke; "you mustn't say that. For I can't—I am sure I can't—tell Grandmamma. And you won't tell without me knowing, will you, sister?"
"For sure not," replied Pamela indignantly. "Us must do it togevver like always. But there's Miss Mitten coming—I hear her. Wait till after she's gone, bruvver, and then I'll tell you what I've been finking."
With this Duke was obliged to content himself. But he and Pamela took care to put away in a shelf of the toy cupboard, where they would not be seen, the remains of the broken bowl.
Miss Mitten had two very quiet and subdued little pupils that morning. She noticed Duke's red eyes, but, not being on very intimate terms with the children, for she was rather a formal young person, she said nothing about them. Only when lessons were quite finished she told her pupils they might tell their Grandmamma that they had been very good and attentive.
"Your good Grandmamma will be pleased to hear this," she said, "for she must be troubled about poor Nurse's being ill. I hope you will do your best to give her no trouble you can possibly avoid," and with these words Miss Mitten took her leave.
She had scarcely left when Biddy came to take the children out a walk, and after that it was their dinner-time, so that it was not till the afternoon that they found themselves quite alone and able to talk over their troubles. They had not seen Grandmamma since the morning, for she had gone out in the pony-carriage with Grandpapa to pay some visits, which in those days were really "morning calls"! and she had left word that after their dinner Duke and Pamela might play in the garden till she and Grandpapa came home.
"And when us sees them coming us'll ask Grandpapa to tell Walters to drive us round to the stable in the pony-carriage," said Duke, jumping up and down in great excitement, quite forgetting his troubles for the moment. But his forgetfulness did not last long. Biddy began looking about the room as if in search of something; she seemed vexed and uneasy.
"What's the matter, Biddy?" said Duke, stopping in the midst of his gymnastics.
"Have you seen one of the china bowls anywhere about, you or Miss Pamela, Master Duke?" asked the girl. "Cook is so angry with me, and she will have it I've broken it and won't tell," and poor Biddy looked ready to cry.
"Didn't you miss it when you took the tray down?" said Pamela, and Duke was astonished she could speak so quietly.
"No," replied Biddy, "and then I was at fault, for sure I gathered up the things quickly, and never noticed there was but one bowl. And they must have been both there, for you both had your breakfast. The only thing I can think of is that some one took it out of the room after you were downstairs, master and missy," for it never occurred to Biddy to think Duke or Pamela would have concealed it had they broken the bowl, "but I'm afeared Cook will lay it all on me."
"Do you fink they cost much—bowls like these?" asked Pamela.
"Not so very much perhaps, but I don't think I've ever seen any quite like them in any shop. Besides, if even I could get to Sandle'ham to see, it's a thing I daren't do. It's one of your Grandmamma's strictest rules that if anything's broke we're to tell. And I'm sure if I had broke it I would tell."
"Perhaps Cook won't say anything more about it," said Duke, but Biddy shook her head.
"Not to-day perhaps. She's busy to-day, for two ladies and two gentlemen are coming to dinner. But she'll be very angry with me when she comes to send up your bread and milk to-morrow morning if so be as the bowl isn't there."
"Are there only two like that?" asked Pamela.
"Your Grandmamma has some others, I think, but they're kept locked up in a cupboard in the china closet," said Biddy dolefully. "I'd tell my mistress myself in a minute if I had broke it, but the worst is, it will seem as if I have broke it and won't tell, and that will make her very vexed with me. But you must make haste to go out into the garden, master and missy. It's such a fine day, and if you stayed here it might wake Nurse. She's just fallen asleep, and the doctor said she might be better to-morrow if she got some sleep."
"Out in the garden" to-day it was lovely, for though only April it was unusually bright and warm. And the garden of Arbitt Lodge matched the house. It was so quaint and neat, and yet such a very delightful garden to play in, full of queer little unexpected paths between high stiff hedges that quite hid such small people as "us," leading to tiny bits of lawn, where one was sure to find, if not a summer-house, at least a rustic bench in a nice corner beside some old tree whose foliage made a pleasant shade. Duke and Pamela had given names of their own to some of the seats and arbours, as they found this a great convenience for their games, especially that of paying visits. I think their favourite bench was one placed on what they called "the hill;" that was a part of the garden banked up very high against the wall, from which you could look down on the passers-by without being seen by them, and the name of this one was "Spy Tower." It was a nice place on a sunny day, for the high trees made it shady, and when they had no particular game they cared to play it was always amusing to watch who passed.
This afternoon they did not feel in good enough spirits to play, and almost without speaking they walked quietly in the direction of "the hill."
"Us can see when Grandpapa and Grandmamma are coming in time to run round and meet them at the gate," said Pamela, as they climbed up the bank.
"I don't think I want to see them coming, and I don't want them to see us," said Duke. "Sister, I am so midderable that I think if there was a big sea near here I would go into it and be drowned."
"Bruvver!" ejaculated Pamela.
"Yes, sister," he continued, "it would be the best thing. For if I was drownded quite dead, they'd all be so sorry that then you could tell them about the bowl, and Biddy would not be scolded. And—and—you could say it was far most my fault, you know, for it was, and then they wouldn't be very angry with you. Yes," he repeated solemnly, "it would be the best thing."
By this time Pamela was completely dissolved in tears—tears of indignation as well as of grief.
"Bruvver," she began again, "how can you say that? Us has always been togevver. How can you fink I would ever say it was most your fault, not if you was ever so drownded. But oh, bruvver, don't frighten me so."
Duke's own tears were flowing too.
"There isn't any big sea near here," he said; "I only said if there was. It's just that I am so very midderable. I wish Nurse hadn't got ill."
"Oh, so do I," said Pamela fervently.
By this time they had reached Spy Tower. Pamela seated herself discreetly on the bench, though it was so much too high for her that her short legs dangled in the air. Duke established himself on the ground in front of her. It was a very still day—more like late summer than spring—hardly a leaf stirred, and in the distance various sounds, the far-off barking of a dog, the faint crowing and cackling of cocks and hens, the voices, subdued to softness, "of the village boys and girls at play," all mingled together pleasantly. The children were too young to explain to themselves the pleasant influences about them, of the soft sunshine and the cloudless sky, seen through the network of branches overhead, of the balmy air and sweet murmurs of bird and insect life rejoicing in the spring-time; but they felt them nevertheless.
"How very happy us would have been to-day if it hadn't been for the bowl being brokened," said Duke.
"No, it began before that," said Pamela. "It was the not telling Grandmamma. I fink that was the real naughty, bruvver. I don't fink Grandmamma would have minded so much us giving the bread and milk to Toby."
"Her wouldn't have given us any treat," objected Duke.
"Well, that wouldn't have mattered very much for once. And perhaps it would have been a good fing; perhaps Grandmamma would have told Cook not to send up quite so much, and——"
"Why do you say that now?" said Duke rather crossly; "it's only making it all worser and worser. I wish——"
But what Duke wished was never to be known, for just at that moment sounds coming down the lane, evidently drawing nearer and nearer, made him start up and peep out from behind the few thin low-growing shrubs at the top of the wall.
"Hush, sister," he said, quite forgetting that it was himself and not "sister" who had been speaking,—"there are such funny people coming down the lane. Come here, close by me; there, you can see them—don't they look funny?"
Pamela squeezed herself forward between Duke and a bush, and looked where he pointed to. A little group of people was to be seen making their way slowly along the lane. There were a man, two women, and two boys—the women with red kerchiefs over their heads, and something picturesque about their dress and bearing, though they were dirty and ragged. They, as well as the man, had very dark skins, black hair, and bright piercing eyes, and the elder of the two boys, a great loose-limbed fellow of sixteen or so, was just like them. But the other boy, who did not look more than nine or ten, though his skin was tanned by the weather nearly as brown as his companion's, had lighter hair and eyes. He followed the others at a little distance, not seeming to attend to what they were saying, though they were all talking eagerly, and rather loudly, in a queer kind of language, which Duke and Pamela could not understand at all. The younger boy whistled as he came along, and he held a stout branch in his hand, from which, with a short rough knife, he was cutting away the twigs and bark. He did not seem unhappy though he looked thin, and his clothes hardly held together they were so ragged.
All these particulars became visible to the children, as the party of gipsies—for such they were, though of a low class—came nearer and nearer. I forgot to say that the sixth member of the party was a donkey, a poor half-starved looking creature, with roughly-made panniers, stuffed with crockery apparently, for basins and jugs and pots of various kinds were to be seen sticking out of them in all directions. And besides the donkey's load there was a good deal more to carry, for the man and the women and the big boy were all loaded with bundles of different shapes and sizes, and the little fellow had a sort of knapsack on his back. They would probably have passed on their way without dreaming of the two small people in Spy Tower up above their heads, had not Duke, suddenly catching sight of the donkey's burden, exclaimed loudly to Pamela:
"See, see, sister; they have jugs and dishes. Perhaps us could get a bowl like ours."
At the sound of the child's voice the man stopped short in what he was saying to his companions, and looked up.
"Good day, my little master, and my pretty missy too," he said in a smooth voice, not the least like the rather harsh tones in which he had been speaking a moment before in the strange language. "At your service, and is there anything I can do for you?"
"Oh the pretty dears," exclaimed one of the two women, while the other turned away with a rough laugh, muttering something the children could not distinguish the meaning of. "Oh the pretty dears! Like two sweet birds up in a nest. And wouldn't you like your fortunes told, my honeys?"
"I don't know what that means," replied Duke, feeling very valiant at the top of the wall. "I want to know if you've got any china bowls to sell—bowls for bread and milk, with little blue leaves running over them."
"To be sure, to be sure," said the man. "We've the very thing—it is strange, to be sure, that I should have just what the little master wants, isn't it?" he went on, turning to the woman.
"If the gentleman and lady could come down and look at them, they would see better," said she, seizing the panniers with a great show of getting out the crockery they contained.
"Us can't come down there," said Duke. "You must come in at the gate, and us will meet you at the back door."
The man and woman hesitated.
"Will the servants let us come so far, d'ye think?" asked the man. "Are there no dogs about? Must we say the little master and missy told us to come for that they want to buy a bowl?"
"Oh no," cried Pamela hastily, "that wouldn't do. The servants mustn't know."
The man glanced at the woman with a meaning look.
"To be sure, to be sure," she said. "Master and missy must please themselves. It's no business of the servants. Perhaps it's for a little present to their mamma they want one of our pretty bowls?"
"Us hasn't any mamma," said Duke, "and it isn't for a present, but still us doesn't want any one to know. Are you sure you've got any bowls just like ours?"
"Certain sure," said the woman; "you see we've such a many—if I was to get them all out you'd see. Yours is blue—with leaves all over it—we've some, sweet and pretty, with pink roses and green leaves."
"No, no," said the children, shaking their heads, "that wouldn't do. It must be just the same."
"And have you got it there, then?" asked the woman. "But that won't matter. You'll soon see what beauties ours are. And so cheap! Not to everybody of course as cheap as to you, but it isn't often we see so pretty spoken a little gentleman and lady as you. And you shall have them as cheap as we can give them."
"Then us must get our money-box," said Duke. "It's in the nursery cupboard. Will you go round to near the back gate," and he pointed in the direction he named, "and sister will go through the garden to meet you, and I'll run in for our money-box."
The man peered about him, and again a sort of meaning look passed between him and the woman.
"To be sure, to be sure," he said. "And pretty missy will wait with us till you come. But don't be long, master, for we've a weary way to go afore night."
"Poor things," said Pamela, "are you tired and hungry? I wish us could ask you to come in and rest, but you see Grandpapa and Grandmamma are out and Nurse is ill, and there's no one to ask."
"Dear me, what a pity!" said the woman. "To be sure we're tired and hungry, and it's not an easy business to unpack the panniers, but anything to please master and missy."
Just then the other woman, who had been standing apart with the big boy all this time, called out something in the same strange-sounding language. And, apparently forgetting the children's presence, the man roared out at her with such brutal roughness that Duke and Pamela shrank back trembling. The first woman hastened to reassure them.
"For shame, Mick," she said, and then with a laugh she turned to the children. "It's just a way he has. You must excuse him, master and missy. And if little master will go quick for the money-box it would be better. There won't be much in it, I suppose, but it isn't much we'd want to take."
"Oh but there's a great deal," said Duke. "One big guinea—that's between us, and two little ones, one each, and three shillings and a fourpenny of mine——"
"And five sixpences and seven pennies of mine," said Pamela.
"Who'd a-thought it?" said the woman admiringly. "I'd be pleased to see so much money for once."
"Well, I'll show it you," said Duke, and off he started. Pamela looked after him for a moment.
"Wouldn't it be better," she said to the woman, "if you saw a bit of the bowl, then you could find the ones like it in a minute?"
"What a clever missy!" exclaimed the woman, bent on flattery.
"Then I'll run after bruvver and fetch the bits," said Pamela, and, not heeding the woman's calling after her that there was no need to give herself the trouble, off she set too, overtaking Duke just before he reached the house.
"I've come after you!" she exclaimed, breathless; "I want to get the broken bits and then they'll see what the bowl was like. And, bruvver,"—and the little girl hesitated a little,—"I was raver frightened to stay alone wif those people. The man did speak so rough, didn't he?"
Duke had felt very brave on the top of the wall, and rather proud of himself for feeling so.
"You needn't be afraid when I'm there, sister," he said. "Besides they can't hurt us—us'll just buy the bowl and run back with it. Us needn't go farther than just by the back gate."
"Do you fink you should take all the money?" asked Pamela doubtfully. "It can't cost all that."
"I'll not take the gold guineas, then," said Duke. "At least," he went on, sorely divided between caution and the wish to show off his riches, "I'll only take one—just to let them see it. And one shilling and one sixpence to let them see, and all the pennies. You needn't be frightened, sister," he repeated encouragingly, as the two trotted across the garden again, "I won't let the man speak rude to you."