The “giant’s arm-chair” stood high up in the hedge-bank beside the road; it was made of white granite, and the seat of it was as large as the floor of a small room; it had also an enormously wide, rounded back, and two large arms; down in front of it, at one corner, was a smaller block of granite, which was always known as the “giant’s footstool.”
Loveday had driven past the great chair very often, and longed to stop and climb up into it, but until to-day she had never had a chance. In her delight she forgot all about the women and their laughter. But, alas! when she reached the chair she found that the seat was far too high for her to climb up into by herself; it would have taken a very tall man to lift her high enough to reach it.
“Never mind, I can sit on the footstool,” she thought; but even that proved a climb, and it was a difficult matter to get up and hold on to her parasol all the time. She did manage it, though, after a struggle, and when she sat up on it, holding her parasol open over her, she felt quite repaid for her trouble, and very pleased and proud, only she did wish Priscilla was there too.
“I wonder if the giant had any little children, and if they used to sit on this footstool. I expect so. Oh, I do wish Prissy would come and see me now. She can’t really want to stay and look at those babies any longer.”
“The ‘Giant’s Footstool.’”
Only a very low hedge bordered the road on the other side, and beyond that stretched a large piece of wild moorland, covered with large blocks of granite. “That was one of the giant’s play-grounds,” her father had once told her, “when Cornwall was full of giants, and very probably the great rocks scattered about were the stones they had thrown at each other in play, or when quarrelling.”
“I am very glad I didn’t live then,” thought Loveday; “I wonder what happened to little girls like me. I wonder if they ate them all up! I expect they did if they caught them sitting in their armchairs,” and a little thrill of fear ran through her at the thought. It was very wild and lonely there, with not a living thing in sight, except a few big crows cawing noisily as they flew overhead, and a few goats clambering about over the moorland opposite her. If one had not known that there was the school-house and a little shop and a house round the bend of the road, one might have felt oneself miles and miles from anywhere, and anybody. Loveday felt as though she were, and it really seemed to her that at any minute a big giant might come striding along the wide white road to have a rest in his chair, and would catch her!
Of course, she did not really expect him, and she knew there were no giants nowadays, but she felt she would rather like to see Betsy again, and be safely in the dear old carriage, where there were rugs and things to hide under, and she at once scrambled down from the footstool and ran, not because she was nervous, of course! but because she wanted a change, and to see Betsy.
“O Betsy, I am so glad to see you!” she cried, as she ran up to the dear old horse and hugged her; and Betsy, who had been having “forty winks,” opened her eyes and looked down at her little mistress with what was certainly a smile, and she put down her soft nose and snuzzled her affectionately. Once more Loveday mounted the carriage, but as she did so she remembered the mothers and babies in the schoolroom. “Oh dear,” she cried impatiently, “it seems to me I can’t get any rest; if it isn’t giants it’s mothers! But I know what I’ll do: I will lie down here, and when I hear them coming I will pull the rug up over me so that they can’t see me.”