Chapter Twenty One.
In a “Rift Imprisoned.”
Wyn gave up his basket of wild flowers to Mr Elton, who had charge of the arrangements for the flower show, and then went on to Ravenshurst with those he had collected for Lily. He had been sent over there once or twice with parcels or messages for Florence, and the nurse, thinking him a well-behaved little boy, allowed him to stop and give his opinion, whether the white flowers gathered in the hedges were all, as Florence said, “hemlock,” or would rank as different specimens. Wyn sorted out yarrow and wild parsley, cow parsley, and several others, and then said:
“Miss Lily hasn’t got any honeysuckle. That’s not rare, but it is very sweet, and suitable for a young lady’s basket. You should put the climbing things round the edge for her, Florrie; different sorts of brambles, and dog-rose berries, and traveller’s joy.”
“There’s some honeysuckle on the old oak tree,” said Florrie, “but we can’t get it, it’s too high up.”
“I’ll fetch it down for you,” said Wyn, scrambling up the lower branches of the tree. “Why,” he said, putting his hand into a hole a few feet up, “how clean someone’s scraped out this hole—taken all the old nests out of it!”
“There ain’t nothing in it, Wyn, is there?” said Florrie.
“No; I once tried to make that hole ever so nice and soft with moss and stuff, and put acorns and nuts in it to get the squirrels there. I even went and got a bit of putty and stopped up the hole in the bottom and put decayed wood over it; but, bless you, they never came.”
“What did you do, Wyn?” said Florence, coming close.