“How jolly!” murmured David.
“Jolly! jolly! jolly!” repeated Dickie, jumping up and down in the snow.
“Why were they burned?” asked Ambrose, who was never tired of asking questions, and liked to get to the bottom of a matter if possible.
“Why, I am not quite sure,” answered Pennie cautiously, “because I’ve only just got to it; but I think it was something about the Bible. I’ll ask Miss Grey.”
“Oh, never mind all that,” interrupted the practical Nancy impatiently; “we’ll make a splendid bonfire all round him and watch him melt. Come and get the wood.”
“And we’ll call him ‘a distinguished martyr,’” added Pennie as she moved slowly away, “because I can’t remember any of their real names.”
Pennie was never satisfied to leave things as they were; she liked to adorn them with fancies and make up stories about them, and her busy little mind was always ready to set to work on the smallest event of the children’s lives. Nothing was too common or familiar to have mysteries and romance woven round it; and this was sometimes a most useful faculty, for winter was not always kind enough to bring snow and ice with him. Very often there was nothing but rain and fog and mud, and then mother uttered those dreadful words:
“The children must not go out.”
Then when lessons were over, and all the games exhausted, and it was still too early for lights, the schoolroom became full of dark corners, and the flickering fire cast mysterious shadows which changed the very furniture into something dim and awful.
Then was Pennie’s time—then, watching her hearers’ upturned faces by the uncertain light of the fire, she saw surprise or pity or horror on them as her story proceeded, and, waxing warmer, she half believed it true herself. And this made the tales very interesting and thrilling. Yet once Pennie’s talent had an unfortunate result, as you shall hear in the next chapter.