As for her, she again looked the picture of woe. "O dear," she said, "is it possible that none of you have ever even heard of me! Surely one of my stories must have found its way to your house?"
"Do you write stories?" Janet asked.
"Yes, I have written lots, but I'm afraid they don't sell as they ought to. Of course, Godfrey Fairfax is not my real name; it is just the name I take as a writer, because people prefer that books should be written by a man rather than by a woman. I am really Miss Redstone. Why I called you in was to ask if you would be so very kind as to sit down and have some cake and milk while I read you my last story—quite a short one—and you can tell me what you think of it. There are so few children that I know here, and it makes such a difference to get some real criticism. Do you mind?"
They all said they didn't mind at all, and after the cake and milk had been brought in by the little servant, Godfrey Fairfax cleared her throat and began.
"It is a story," she said, "of Roundheads and Cavaliers—a very suitable story to write here, so close to the battlefields of Tewkesbury and Marston Moor. It is called 'Barbara's Fugitive.' Now listen, my dears."
BARBARA'S FUGITIVE
On a bright June morning, early in the Protectorate, Colonel Myddelton, followed by a groom, rode through the gates of the old Hall and turned his horse's head towards London. At the bend in the road, halfway up Sheringham Hill, he stopped a moment and waved his hand in the direction of the house. A white handkerchief fluttered at an upper window in reply.
"My poor lonely Barbara!" said the Colonel, smiling tenderly as he passed again out of sight of his daughter.
"Dear father!" said Barbara, as the Colonel disappeared from view. She did not, however, at once leave the window, but remained leaning out, with the warm touch of the sun on her head, drinking in the morning sounds.
The village, half a mile distant, was just visible to Barbara through the trees—red-roofed, compact, the cottages gathering about the church like chickens round the mother hen. On a summer day like this anyone listening at the Hall could hear the busy noises, the hum of this little hive of humanity, with perfect clearness; the beat of the hammer on the anvil in Matthew Hale's smithy, the "Gee, whoa!" of the carter on the distant road, the scrunching of the wagon-wheels, the crowing cocks, and now and then the shouts of boys and the laughter of children. These audible tokens of active life were a comfort to Barbara. A moment before, on parting with her father, she was aware of a new and disturbing loneliness, but now she felt no longer with the same melancholy that she was solitary, apart from her fellows.