A Terrible Tomboy

by Angela Brazil

The air was sweet and cool up there, delightfully refreshing after the hot climb uphill. Below them the country lay stretched out like a map, the fields looking no larger than the squares of a chess-board, and the village a pretty child's toy by the side of the river which wound, a mere silver thread, along the valley. Far in the distance, among the trees, the outline of the Abbey rose gray against the background of soft beeches; a little dark cloud, the only one in the whole expanse of clear blue sky, hung over it like a warning of distant danger, and Father sighed as he looked, for to him it appeared as if the shadow of ruin were already creeping near, and stretching a threatening hand over the old home.

But Peggy and Bobby were at the very high-tide of happiness. Children live so entirely in the present, that so long as the existing day brings joy, they literally take no thought for the morrow, and catching their infectious spirits, Mr. Vaughan shook off his forebodings, and joined in the delight of the moment as if he were a boy once more. He hunted in the brook for sedges, captured a Red Admiral to grace Bobby's collection, filled his pockets with sweet gale and asphodel for Lilian's dried vases, and made himself such a delightful companion that the children agreed that Father on a holiday was out and out the best playmate they knew.

'Come, we must be getting on!' he said at last, when the last piece of bread-and-butter had vanished, and the remains had been scattered for the fishes. 'Do you see that little farm nestling in the hollow, with the fir-trees behind it? That is our last link with civilization. We shall find no more human habitations until we reach our hut by the lake, so we must make the most of our opportunity, and buy some milk as we pass. They will lend us a can, and we can leave it as we return to-morrow.'

The farm proved, on a nearer acquaintance, to be a little one-storey dwelling built of rough stones, with a roof so covered with a mass of green polypody fern as to completely hide the slate underneath. There was no garden, only a low wall on which the milk-cans and most of the family crockery seemed to be taking an airing; but a patch of potatoes and a scanty half-acre of oats lay beyond the little homestead, roughly railed off to keep out the marauding sheep.

Peggy, who always liked to be first and foremost, ran on before the others to ask for the milk, and was greeted by a furious barking from a collie-dog who guarded the doorstep, while a small, shock-headed girl peeped shyly from behind the shelter of his rough back. At the sight of a stranger she fled with a howl, for visitors were almost unknown on these heights, and the child was as wild as a young rabbit. Her cry of alarm brought out a woman, who kicked the dog yelping into the house, and looked at Peggy with as much curiosity as if she were the inhabitant of another world.

'Please can you let us have some milk?' asked Peggy politely.

'Dim Saesneg,' replied the woman, shaking her head, which, being interpreted, means, 'I can't speak English.'

For once Peggy was at a loss, but Father soon came to the rescue, for he had picked up a little Welsh in his expeditions on the mountains, and readily made the woman understand, in her native tongue, what they required.

The little black cow with the long horns looked strange to eyes accustomed to the large red and white cows at the Abbey, but her milk seemed sweet and good, and the woman sang a song in Welsh while she milked it, to a strange, haunting kind of melody that, like most of the Celtic music, had a touch of sadness and pathos about it.

'Ask her if she ever comes down to Gorswen, and how they get food up here,' whispered Peggy to Father, anxious to be initiated into the mysteries of life among the moors.