That dear old sea, how she loved it! The Wandering Minstrels, with their tents and their vans, were in the habit of hugging the shores of Merrie England, only sometimes making a detour of a day or two into the interior to visit some country town, but Peggy McQueen was always happy when the sight of the ocean greeted her again on the horizon, with its ships, its boats, and maybe, away in the offing, a steamer, the gray smoke trailing snake-like far astern of it. And there were times when the sea appeared quite unexpectedly, perhaps while they were jogging quietly across some bare but beautiful heath, with no houses in sight, no life near them except the wild birds, the soaring lark or lonesome yerlin twittering on a bush of golden furze. On such occasions Peggy would clap her tiny hands, and say to whoever might happen to be near her—
“Oh, look, look! The sea, the darling sea!”
And there it would be, sure enough, though only a V-shaped patch of blue between two distant hills.
There was always music to Peggy in either the sight or the sound of the ocean, but when it was far away like this, and she could not hear its voice, nor the solemn sound of its waves breaking on rocks or sand, she always brought out her mandoline, and played to it, singing low the while in childish, yet soft, sweet treble. There really was poetry and romance too in the girl’s soul.
She did not stand long, however, on this bright May morn to look at her sea. She was still in a state of great agitation; besides, it was already six o’clock, and Giant Gourmand had opened his tent, and was standing wonderingly looking at her and Ralph as they approached.
Peggy ran quickly past him, hardly condescending to listen to his astonished exclamation of “Hoity toity, little wench!”
The giant was generally “awfully nice and good,” but on some occasions—and this was one of them—absurdly stupid, and she felt she would have liked to box his very large ears, just then, only she had no time.
She hurriedly dressed herself, and soon came down the steps, smiling, for anger had no abiding-place in Peggy’s breast. She sat down on a huge tree-top and beckoned to her audience to step forward. Gourmand threw his great bulk at her feet, and the white-faced, sad-eyed boy, Willie Randolph the dwarf, lay down on the giant’s chest, and crossed his legs like a tiny mite of a tailor.
The bloodhound also lay down, with his beautiful head upon his paws, his eyes turned up towards his mistress’s face, love in them, that deep, undying love that only dogs are capable of.
“Now, all be quiet,” said Peggy. “I have had such a fearful adventure, and I want to tell you all about it. Ralph there knows all about it already, but you don’t, Willie, nor you either, Gourmie, and Johnnie and Daddy aren’t up yet. Well, listen. This is May morning, you know, and I went away to the woods to wash my face in the dew, so that I shall be beautiful all the year through.”