They followed the little stream right up to the high hedge which went about the Happy Cottage; they crossed it by a plank, pushed open a gate and entered. Flowers, flowers everywhere and the banjo-music of bees humming. A red-tiled path, moss-grown and edged with box, led through a wilderness of beauty, comfortably untrimmed and neglected. The door of the cottage stood open; across its threshold lay a Great Dane, which rose up and growled at sound of their footsteps. The boy called to him, “All right, Canute, old dog. Come here, old fellow.”
Canute came with the solemn suspicion of majesty, ignoring the strangers, and placed his great head against his master’s breast, gazing up attentively.
“Canute, this is Kay and this is Peter. They’re my friends. You’ve got to look after them. D’you understand?”
The dog blinked his eyes and turned away indifferently, as much as to say, “Your friends! Humph! We’ll see. Very sudden!”
“He’s always like that with newcomers,” said the boy. “He’s very particular about my brother. Guess he’s thinking what I said, that he don’t let the Faun Man know just anybody.” Fearful lest he should have given offence, he made haste to add, “But you’re not just anybody any longer.”
The door opened without ceremony directly into the living-room. The leaded windows were pushed back; roses stared in and bent inquisitively across the sills, spilling their petals. The house was silent; it was like stealing into someone’s heart when the soul was absent. Guns on the walls, brilliant little sketches, golf-sticks in a corner, old oak furniture, a mandolin lying in a chair—everything betrayed the room’s habitation by a strong and alluring personality. Peter, looking round, became conscious of a spirit of loneliness and yearning. On the walls were pictures of many beautiful women, but in the house itself were no signs of a woman’s hands.
The boy explained. “He’s not here to-day. He’s gone to town. This is where we play; it’s upstairs that he works.” He volunteered no information concerning the task at which the Faun Man worked. Casting his eyes round the walls, he said, “Those are all his girls. Pretty! Oh, yes. But they give me an awful lot of trouble. Want some tea? Yes?”
He went out into the kitchen at the back. He let the children follow him, but refused their offers of help. “I’m a rare little cook, I can tell you. Had to be on our ranch in America—there was no one else. You just watch me.”
But Kay had been thinking. She had supposed that there were mothers everywhere—that every boy had a——. She said, “Where are your mother and sisters?”
He looked up from toasting some bread. “Haven’t any.”