“I’m sure it’s a mercy you have got back, Miss Amabel,” said she; “for Bogy lives in that wood; and, if you’d got in, it’s ten to one he’d have carried you off.”
“You said Bogy lived in the cellar,” said Amabel.
Nurse was in a dilemma which deservedly besets people who tell untruths. She had to invent a second one to help out her first.
“That’s at night,” said she: “he lives in the wood in the daytime.”
“Then I can go into the cellar in the day, and the wood at night,” retorted Amabel; but in her heart she knew the latter was impossible.
For some days Nurse’s fable availed. Amabel had suffered a good deal from Bogy; and, though the fear of him did not seem so terrible by daylight, she had no wish to meet him. But one lovely afternoon, wandering round the field for cowslips, Amabel came to the wall, and could not but peep over to see if there were any flowers to be seen. She was too short to do this without climbing, and it ended in her struggling successfully to the top. There were violets on the other side, and Amabel let down one big foot to a convenient hole, whence she hoped to be able to stoop and catch at the violets without actually treading in Bogy’s domain. But once more she slipped and rolled over,—this time into the wood. Bogy lingered, and she got on to her feet; but the wall was deeper on this side than the other, and she saw with dismay that it was very doubtful if she could get back.
I think, as a rule, children are very brave. But a light heart goes a long way towards courage. At first Amabel made desperate and knee-grazing efforts to reclimb the wall, and, failing, burst into tears, and danced, and called aloud on all her protectors, from the Squire to Miles. No one coming, she restrained her tears, and by a real effort of that “pluck” for which the Ammaby race is famous began to run along the wall to find a lower point for climbing. In doing so, she startled a squirrel, and whizz!—away he went up a lanky tree. What a tail he had! Amabel forgot her terrors. There was at any rate some living thing in the wood besides Bogy; and she was now busy trying to coax the squirrel down again by such encouraging noises as she had found successful in winning the confidence of kittens and puppies. Amabel was the victim of that weakness for falling in love with every fussy, intelligent, or pitiable beast she met with, which besets some otherwise reasonable beings, leading to an inconvenient accumulation of pets in private life, though doubtless invaluable in the public services of people connected with the Zoölogical Gardens.
The squirrel sat under the shadow of his own tail, and winked. He had not the remotest intention of coming down. Amabel was calmer now, and she looked about her. The eglantine bushes were shoulder-high, but she had breasted underwood in the shrubberies, and was not afraid. Up, up, stretched the trees to where the sky shone blue. The wood itself sloped downwards; the spotted arums pushed boldly through last year’s leaves, which almost hid the violets; there were tufts of primroses, which made Amabel cry out, and about them lay the exquisite mauve dog-violets in unplucked profusion. And hither and thither darted the little birds; red-breasts and sparrows, and yellow finches and blue finches, and blackbirds and thrushes, with their cheerful voices and soft waistcoats, and, indeed, every good quality but that of knowing how glad one would be to kiss them. In a few steps, Amabel came upon a path going zig-zag down the steep of the wood, and, nodding her hooded head determinedly, she said, “Amabel is going a walk. I don’t mind Bogy,” and followed her nose.
It is a pity that one’s skirt, when held up, does not divide itself into compartments, like some vegetable dishes. One is so apt to get flowers first, and then lumps of moss, which spoil the flowers, and then more moss, which, earth downwards (as bread and butter falls), does no good to the rest. Amabel had on a nice, new dress, and it held things beautifully. But it did not hold enough, for at each step of the zig-zag path the moss grew lovelier. She had got some extinguisher-moss from the top of the wall, and this now lay under all the rest, which flattened the extinguishers. About half way down the dress was full, and some cushion-moss appeared that could not be passed by. Amabel sat down and reviewed her treasures. She could part with nothing, and she had just caught sight of some cup-moss lichen for dolls’ wine-glasses. But, by good luck, she was provided with a white sun-bonnet, as clean and whole as her dress; and this she took off and filled. It was less fortunate that the scale-mosses and liverworts, growing nearer to the stream, came last, and, with the damp earth about them, lay a-top of every thing, flowers, dolls’ wine-glasses, and all. It was a noble collection—but heavy. Amabel’s face flushed, and she was slightly overbalanced, but she staggered sturdily along the path, which was now level.
She had quite forgotten Nurse’s warning, when she came suddenly upon a figure crouched in her path, and gazing at her with large, black eyes. Her fat cheeks turned pale, and with a cry of, “It’s Bogy!” she let down the whole contents of her dress into one of Jan’s leaf-pictures.