THE STORY OF MASTER BOGEY
“This time it will have to be a tale I remember hearing grandmother tell,” said the miller one evening, “for I’ve left my book in the town. The cover was so battered that it had to be mended.”
They were sitting on the steps of the mill. Every week now, and sometimes twice between Sunday and Sunday, they spent a delightful time with their friend. Little Peter thought he was the finest man in the world; and Janet, though she said little, was quite sure there was no one like him. And, indeed, they were not far wrong, for he was the most splendid miller that anybody ever saw; he was like a big boy at heart, though he was a grown-up man with a mill of his own and a horse and cart in the stable.
There was once a square house (he began) that stood in a garden. Outside the garden were great trees which had been there for more than a hundred years, and when the wind blew high and the gales raged in the autumn, they swayed about and creaked so that anyone might think they must fall and crush everything near them; but they never did. Up in the top story of the house was a row of windows belonging to the rooms where the children lived, and, as the blinds were often left up, you might see the lights inside and the shadows of the nurse and the little girls moving about.
Now, high up in the highest tree visible from the nursery lived a family of Bogeys. They were very nice people. There was Father Bogey and Madam Bogey and young Master Bogey, their son.
The children had no idea that they lived there, for they never showed themselves, but lurked hidden in the dark shadows of the boughs. When the wind blew they swayed hither and thither with the branches, and when the nursery blinds were up and the firelight shone behind them, Master Bogey, who was inquisitive, would sit staring and trying to make out what was going on in the room.
“How I should love to get in and see what it is like!” he would say to his parents.
And Madam Bogey would answer: “Nonsense! Your father and I have lived here for ages, and have never tried to get in. We know very well what is our business and what is not. You can see the little girls every morning as they come down the avenue with their nurse, and you know that their names are Josephine, Julia and Jane. What more can you want?”
And Master Bogey would say no more. But that did not prevent him from being as inquisitive as ever.
Every day as the little girls came out for their walk he would peer down on them, unseen. Each had her doll in her arms, and the two elder ones would talk to theirs and carry them as carefully as though they were babies. But Jane was always scolding hers; once, even, she threw the poor thing roughly on the ground. She did not suspect for a moment that Master Bogey was looking down at her, horrified.