“They came up,” he was saying, “up the little path that comes from the shore. They left their boats on the beach. They broke down our doors, making a great noise. The doors fell down; I heard them fall; I could hear the others shrieking as the men killed them. I was painting, you know; I painted coloured letters round a face which was in the middle. I drew the face myself; it was a white face with gold all round it. The men broke into my room and killed an old man who was there with me. I stood with my back against the wall. I put out my hands, so; I had no sword, and—and—then they killed me....”
The child broke off abruptly; he gasped, threw himself face downwards on the turf sobbing either with grief or excitement. The audience drew a long breath. Never—never—never—in all the annals of the nursery had even the most gifted grown-up person told them such tales as did this, their small orphan cousin.
“What’s the matter now,” said a man’s voice. “Quarrelling? Dennis, why are you crying?”
Three people had unheard approached the little group; a man, a young girl, and a boy. The man and boy were sufficiently alike to be easily recognisable as father and son. The boy was seventeen or eighteen years old; handsome, vigorous, and graceful. He carried a gun; he had been shooting rabbits on the cliffs, and two little helpless brown bodies dangled from his left hand. The man was past middle age, but time alone had not carved the straight, severe lines about his mouth, nor made his eyes so cold. That was the work of temperament; the comely lad beside him would never have such lips and eyes, though the tinting and moulding of the two faces were very much the same.
The crying child scrambled to his feet blushing and half laughing; his grief had not been very deeply rooted. The youngest girl clinging to her father’s hand cried out eagerly in praise of the tale; “Dennis tells us such lovely stories, daddy.”
The boy with the gun threw the rabbits on the grass. “Kitty’s quite right,” he said. “They’re ripping. I can’t think how he gets hold of them. He says they’re true.” “He says they happened to him,” broke in the enthusiastic auditor. “And he tells us what he sees too. O Dennis, tell them about the little men you saw in the mist this morning.”
The dark brows of the elder listener drew together.
“Look here, Dennis,” he said shortly, “if you prefer to tell stories to the girls rather than go rabbiting with the boys”—there was a little touch of contempt in the voice—“of course there’s no harm in that; but you must not say what is untrue.”
“But it is true,” said the child eagerly. “It is true, Uncle Hugh. That did happen to me; it did really. It was a grey house by the sea, and they killed me in the room where I was painting.”
“Take care, Dennis. When did this happen, may I ask?”