Miss Esperance and Mr Wycherly - L. Allen Harker

MISS ESPERANCE AND
MR WYCHERLY

L. ALLEN HARKER

AUTHOR OF "A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY," "CONCERNING
PAUL AND FIAMMETTA," "HIS FIRST LEAVE," ETC.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1908

Published September, 1908

BOOKS BY L. ALLEN HARKER

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherly
His First Leave
Concerning Paul and Fiammetta
A Romance of the Nursery

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

[Which Introduces Them]
[The Coming of the Children]
[The Education of Mr. Wycherly]
[The Secretiveness of Mause]
[Robina]
[The Awakening of Mr. Wycherly]
[Elsa Drives the Nail Home]
[Edmund Rechristens Mr. Wycherly]
[Cupid Abroad]
[The Sabbath]
[Loaves and Fishes]
[The Village]
[A Meeting]
[A Parting]
[The Bethune Temperament]
[The Coming of the Colonel]
[Mr. Wycherly Goes Into Society]
[Montagu and His Aunt]
[The Fond Adventure]
[A Question of Theology]
[In which Mr. Wycherly Hangs Up His College Arms]
[Vale]

"Love is an excellent thing, a great good indeed, which alone maketh light all that is burthensome and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carrieth a burthen without being burthened and maketh all that which is bitter sweet and savoury."

MISS ESPERANCE AND
MR. WYCHERLY

CHAPTER I

WHICH INTRODUCES THEM

And the kingdom of heaven is of the child-like, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure.—R.L.S.

Just as a Royal Princess is known only by her Christian name, so "Miss Esperance" was known to her many friends by hers. It would have seemed an impertinence to add anything more: there was only one Miss Esperance, and even quite commonplace people, deficient in imagination and generally prosaic in their estimate of their acquaintance, acknowledged, perhaps unconsciously, that in Miss Esperance was to be found in marked degree "that hardy and high serenity," distinguishing quality of the truly great.

A little, old lady, her abundant white hair demurely parted under the species of white muslin cap known in the North country as a "mutch," with beautiful, kind eyes, and a fresh pink-and-white complexion, having a slim, long-waisted figure, always attired in garments something of a cross between those of a Quakeress and a Sister-of-Mercy; a little, old lady, who walked delicately and talked deliberately the English of Mr. Addison; who lived in a small, square house set in a big, homely garden, on an incredibly small income; and out of that income helped innumerable people poorer than herself, to say nothing of much greater responsibilities undertaken at an age when most of us look for rest and a quiet life.

Long before there was a village of Burnhead at all, that small stone house had stood four-square to all the winds of heaven, and winds are boisterous in that cold North. So lonely had it been—that little house—that far back, beyond the memory of even hearsay it had been called "Remote." Now the village had crept up round it, but still it stood just a little aloof, alone in its green garden at the end of the straggling village street. And it seemed a singularly suitable setting for Miss Esperance who, also, by reason of her breeding and her dignified, dainty ways, moved wholly unconsciously and gracefully on a somewhat different plane from that of the homely folk amongst whom she spent her simple days.

Such was Miss Esperance; regarded by the inhabitants of her own village, and those of the big town on whose outskirts it lay, with something of the possessive pride with which they looked upon their famous Castle.

And then there was Mr. Wycherly.

For some years he had lived with Miss Esperance, occupying two rooms on the first floor. A very learned man was he, absorbed in the many books which lined his little sitting-room. Something of a collector, too, with a discriminating affection for first editions and a knowledge concerning them excelling that of Mr. Donaldson himself, the great second-hand dealer.

The attitude of Miss Esperance toward Mr. Wycherly somewhat resembled that of Miss Betsy Trotwood to Mr. Dick, with this difference—that Mr. Wycherly's lapses from a condition of erudite repose were only occasional. He had what Miss Esperance tenderly called "one foible." On occasion, particularly at such times as he left the safe shelter of the village on a book-hunting expedition in the neighbouring town, "he exceeded"—again to quote Miss Esperance—the temperate tumbler of toddy and single glass of port which she accorded him; and would return in a state of boisterous hilarity, which caused Elsa, the serving-woman, to shake her head and mutter something about "haverals" on his first wavering appearance at the far end of the garden path which led to the front door.

Then would she march upstairs and sternly "turn down" his bed; descending hastily again and, in spite of his protests, trundle him up the staircase, divest him of his boots, nor leave him till he was safe between the sheets. There he continued to sing lustily till he fell asleep.

He was never otherwise than courteous in his cups; but at such times his usually austere manner would unbend, and he would compare Elsa—who was older than Miss Esperance and extremely hard-favoured—to sundry heathen goddesses, eulogising her eyes and her complexion, and interspersing his compliments with sonorous Latin quotations; for, like Mr. Addison, "his knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."

Even when most mirthful he sang only two songs, "Here's a Health Unto His Majesty" and "Down Among the Dead Men." In his more sober moments he professed entire ignorance of music.

There were people who said that he was a descendant of the Mr. Wycherly who wrote plays, but he was never heard to claim any such relationship. When he first came to live with Miss Esperance his family and hers almost despaired of him, and even talked of putting him "in a home"; for his "foible" had become a habit, and health and brain were both seriously affected. Then Miss Esperance suggested that he should come to her, and he and his relatives were only too glad to fall in with the suggestion. What he could pay would make things easier for her, and she, if any one in the world, might reclaim him. But if his friends thought to make things more comfortable for Miss Esperance by the quarterly payments they made for his board and lodging, they were very far wrong. She deducted a few shillings for his rooms, but the rest was most religiously expended upon Mr. Wycherly; and as his health improved and the fine, keen, scholarly brain reasserted itself, he was only too glad to leave everything to Miss Esperance, never concerning himself so much as to order a pair of boots unless she accompanied him to be measured.

He "exceeded" less and less; his vocal exercises were confined to some four times in the year, and Miss Esperance rejoiced over him as a book-lover rejoices over some rare folio rescued from the huckster's stall to play an honoured part among "the chosen and the mighty of every place and time."

"It is of inestimable advantage to me to be able to listen daily to the instructive conversation of so cultivated a man as my good friend Mr. Wycherly," Miss Esperance would say. "He seems to comprise in his own person the trained intelligence of the ages."

And no matter to whomsoever she said it, he would bow gravely and look impressed. It was surprising what beautiful manners quite uncouth people developed in the society of Miss Esperance.

She had many relations in high places, and all who crossed her threshold were her life-long friends, eager to serve her, but she would accept pecuniary assistance from none of them.

She and Elsa, the faithful servant and friend of some fifty years, cooked and washed and gardened, caught and groomed the shaggy pony in the little paddock, and cleaned the queer little carriage in which Miss Esperance used to drive into Edinburgh, with a shawl pinned over her bonnet, on cold days, to protect her ears.

She and Elsa seldom tasted meat except on Sundays. "A man, my dear, is different," she would say, when chops were frizzling for Mr. Wycherly; but she always had a meal for a friend, and a good and daintily served meal it was!

When you stayed with Miss Esperance, Elsa would put her head into your bedroom—it seemed in the small hours—demanding loudly, "Will ye tak' a herring or an egg to your breakfast?" And you were wise if you chose the herring, for herrings "brandered" by Elsa were of a succulence unknown to ordinary mortals.

It fell upon a time during Mr. Wycherly's sojourn that one Archie, a young nephew of Miss Esperance, came to visit them, and in no time the jolly young middy, whose ship was anchored at Leith, had made a conquest of them, all three, with his youth, and good looks, and kindly, cheery ways.

Mr. Wycherly heard that a first edition of "Beaumont and Fletcher" was to be seen at some bookseller's in the new town, and set forth early with five pounds in his pocket, to see if he could secure such a find.

The day waned, and still no Mr. Wycherly returned triumphant to display his treasure before the admiring eyes of Miss Esperance and "that vastly agreeable youth," as he styled Archie.

Miss Esperance visibly grew more and more anxious, and Archie, who was quite ignorant of Mr. Wycherly's "foible," wondered why his aunt should concern herself that a dignified middle-aged gentleman had not returned by five o'clock on a spring afternoon. So perturbed did she become that Archie volunteered to go and look for him.

His aunt hesitated, then said slowly, "Dear Archie, I am not sure whether it would be right to let you go. You are very young, and poor dear Mr. Wycherly——"

"Hoots, Miss Esperance," interrupted Elsa from the half-open door, where she had been listening in the most barefaced fashion, "just let the laddie gang: he is better suited to see after yon puir drucken body than you are yersel'!"

With that blessed reticence which characterises all honest and well-disposed boys, Archie asked no questions. The whole situation "jumped to the eye"; so, kissing his aunt, he seized his jaunty cap and was gone before Miss Esperance recovered from her wonder and indignation at Elsa's "meddling."

Archie walked smartly, keeping a sharp lookout to right and left till he reached the outskirts of the town: but he met nobody other than an occasional drover.

Presently he became aware of a little crowd which surrounded some one who was apparently sitting on the curbstone and singing.

The group of rough lads and fisher-girls joined derisively in the chorus of the song, marking the time by means of various missiles more calculated to soil than to injure their target.

With a sense of foreboding curiosity as the discordant "Fal-la-la, la, la la, la" smote upon his ears, Archie squeezed himself into the press under the arms of its taller members, and to his dismay discovered Mr. Wycherly—hatless, almost coatless, dirty and dishevelled—endeavouring to sing "Here's a Health Unto His Majesty" in very adverse circumstances.

Archie pushed through to his side, saying haughtily, "Don't you see that the gentleman is drunk? Be off, and let me take him home."

But the lads and lassies by no means saw it in that light, and in less time than it takes to write the sentence Archie was engaged single-handed in a free fight with all and sundry, and there seemed every likelihood of his getting decidedly the worst of it.

Fortune favours the brave, however, and a big collier lad, who had been the first to point out Mr. Wycherly's peculiarities of gait and costume to his companions, suddenly sided with Archie, and not only did he succeed in dispersing his quondam friends, but he fetched a "hackney coach" and lifted Mr. Wycherly bodily into it.

The "Beaumont and Fletcher" had proved to be a reprint, and Mr. Wycherly had drowned his sorrows in the flowing bowl.

* * * * *

At twenty-two, with nothing but his pay to live upon, Archie married a pretty girl whose face was her sole fortune. Two charming little boys were born to them in the next seven years, then Archie and his wife both died of typhoid fever at Portsmouth.

There were no living near relatives on either side, but kindly strangers forwarded a letter, written by Archie a week before his death, to Miss Esperance.

She was then nearly seventy years old, but in this matter she did not even consult Mr. Wycherly. She merely informed him of what had occurred, and announced her speedy departure for Portsmouth "to fetch dear Archie's children home."

She had not left her own house for a single night in fifteen years.

Mr. Wycherly took her frail, beautiful old hand in his and raised it to his lips. As he laid it down, he said beseechingly, "You will let me act as joint guardian with you to Archie's children? I will undertake the education of those boys myself—it will be a great interest for me."

"They will indeed be fortunate boys!" said Miss Esperance, and she raised such beautiful, trustful eyes to her old friend that he was fain to kiss her hand again and hasten from the room.

Shortly afterward he left the house and might have been seen hurrying along the road in the direction of Edinburgh, with a large and seemingly heavy parcel under his arm.

He was not long away, and he walked steady and straight, but all the same he sang softly under his breath, "and he that will this health deny," as he shut the garden gate with a clang and hurried toward the house.

Miss Esperance was standing in the little hall dressed for driving, looking pale and perturbed. She, too, had a parcel, a small square parcel, and Elsa was evidently remonstrating, for Mr. Wycherly heard her say as he came up: "It's just fair redeeklus, and onny o' them would be just prood to be askit—an' me wi' all yon wages lyin' idle i' the bank these thirty year!"

She paused abruptly as Mr. Wycherly appeared in the open door. Elsa had sharp ears in spite of her years, and the last "let him lie" sent her up the staircase as fast as her old legs would carry her.

"Miss Esperance," said Mr. Wycherly, "we start this afternoon. See, I have bought the tickets," and he waved them triumphantly. "I have made all our arrangements. We shall reach Portsmouth about midday to-morrow, and there is plenty of money for present expenses, so please—" he took the little square parcel from her very gently, and reached it up to Elsa, who stood on the top step of the curly staircase. Through the paper he felt it was the little leather jewel-case that had been her mother's. "We could not allow that, Miss Esperance!" he continued. "Journeys are a man's business."

Miss Esperance sat down on the only chair in the hall and began to cry.

Next day, when they were far away, and Elsa was dusting Mr. Wycherly's books—he took them out and dusted them himself three times a week; there were no glass doors, for he said he could not bear "to see his friends through a window"—she came on several gaps in the well-filled shelves. "The right edition of Gerard" was nowhere to be seen. The long row of "kind-hearted play-books" was loose in the shelf, for "Philip Massinger" was a-missing. And in the sacred place devoted to "first folios" there was a yawning chasm.

Elsa paused, duster in hand. "She maun never ken," she whispered. "They buiks was more to him than her braws is tae a woman. She maun never ken."

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE CHILDREN

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall;

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall.

LONGFELLOW.

Elsa had barely finished dusting Mr. Wycherly's books when Lady Alicia Carruthers walked over from the "big hoose" to see if she could be of any use. People found Elsa more approachable in this respect than Miss Esperance, and often seized such times as they had seen the mistress pass in her little pony carriage to tackle the maid, as to whether anything could be done to increase the old lady's comfort, without her knowledge.

And now that the news of her journey, and its reason, had flamed through the village with all the wonder of a torchlight procession, it was only what Miss Esperance herself would have described as "fitting" that the chief lady in it should be first in the field to offer her services.

Very managing was Lady Alicia, strong, kind-hearted, dictatorial; mother of many children and inclined to regard all the rest of the world as being equally in need of supervision.

"What on earth will she do with two wee things like that?" she cried to Elsa, as that worthy met her in the passage. "One's but a baby, isn't he?"

"Two years and one month," answered Elsa cheerfully; "he'll be walkin' onnyway."

"You know the little room leading from Miss Esperance's into the passage, you must put them both there," said Lady Alicia decidedly. "Have you got any beds? But of course you haven't. I'll send a bed for the older boy and a crib for the baby, and bedding, and sheets, and I've found the very girl to look after them—Robina Tod, a good douce lassie—you'll remember her mother, Elsa?"

"I ken her fine," said Elsa slowly. "But yer Leddyship, d'ye think Miss Esperance will consent? And where would the lassie sleep?"

"Miss Esperance just must consent. Robina will be thankful to come to get trained and for her food, and she must come at six in the morning, and go home at night to sleep, after they are bedded. You must manage Miss Esperance in this, Elsa—she will be so bewildered at having children here at all at first, that you'll find it easier than you expect. What does she know of the wants of little children? Just you tell her that you made arrangements because she hadn't time."

Elsa stood fingering her apron, and made no answer, nor did she look at Lady Alicia, who was looking hard at her.

"Come, now, Elsa, you know there's nothing for it but to give in gracefully. They must sleep somewhere, poor lambs, and you can't put an infant in a four-post bed."

"I'm thinkin'," said Elsa slowly, "that Master Montagu will have to sleep in the big bed, for yon room will never hold three beds, and Miss Esperance would never part wi' yon that's in there."

"Very well, then, I will only send the crib, and a bath, and Robina, and—anything else that comes into my head. You understand, Elsa?"

"I'll no promise Miss Esperance'll keep onny o' it, but you'll jest see. If it pleases ye to send the bits o' things, it's no for me to say ye nay."

Here Elsa raised her head and looked straight at Lady Alicia, and they understood one another perfectly.

When, later in the afternoon, Robina, a rosy-cheeked lass of sixteen, appeared in a spring cart along with the crib and a variety of other useful things, Elsa received her with but grudging courtesy, and might have been heard to mutter as she went about the house, "There's some folk that simply canna keep their fingers out o' other folk's business, and the worst o't is, that one must just thole't."

* * * * *

It is one of the eternal verities that no man knows what he can do till he tries. Mr. Wycherly suddenly developed a "handiness" with regard to babies that surprised himself, and caused Miss Esperance to regard him with almost worshipful astonishment.

Montagu, the elder boy, fitted into his new surroundings at once. He was a thoughtful, dreamy child, gentle and biddable, with an inborn love of books that immediately endeared him to Mr. Wycherly. But the baby, Edmund, was a strenuous person of inquiring mind, who toddled and crawled and tumbled into every corner of the little house; who poked his fat fingers into the mustard, the ink, and the mangle, impartially; who pulled Mr. Wycherly's heaviest books out of the shelves, and built a tower with them, which fell upon and almost buried him in the ruins, whence, howling dismally, he was rescued by Mr. Wycherly himself, only consenting to be comforted when that gentleman "gappled" with him round the garden, Edmund sitting enthroned upon his shoulders, and admonishing him to "gee up."

"Walking" indeed! I should think he was walking—swarming, climbing, crawling, tumbling in every unimaginable direction, and celebrating his innumerable accidents by vociferous outcries which invariably brought the whole household to his assistance. Robina, who in spite of Elsa's fears had been retained as the children's attendant, declared that Master Edmund was "ayont her," but Elsa, manifesting a wholly unexpected toleration for mischief of all kinds, declared him to be a "wee, stumpin stoozie" after her own heart.

Lady Alicia proved to be right. Miss Esperance on her return with the children expressed no objection to any of the preparations they had made for her. Furthermore, she accepted gratefully, and with a dignified humility very affecting to those who knew her, the offers of "help with the children" that poured in upon her from all sides.

"For myself it was only fitting that I should be somewhat reserved," she gently explained to Elsa when that honest woman exclaimed in surprise at her meek acceptance of so much neighbourly "interference," "but dear Archie's children are different, I have no right to refuse kindness toward them: and my good friends have been so wonderfully kind—and as for you, Elsa, you are the most wonderful of all—look how little Edmund loves you!"

Elsa exclaimed, "tuts havers!" and hastened back to the kitchen, where she relieved her feelings by making more of the gingerbread "pussies" beloved of Baby Edmund.

Mr. Wycherly found his learned leisure considerably curtailed by the new arrivals. Both Montagu and Edmund (it was curiously characteristic of the household that the children were "Montagu" and "Edmund" from the very first, never "Monty" or "Baby") infinitely preferred his society to that of Robina, even though she was so much nearer their own age. Children are very quick to see where they may tyrannise, and gentle, scholarly Mr. Wycherly, who had loved few people, and those few so dearly, fell an easy victim to "dear Archie's boys."

Montagu was called after him, but if on this score the elder boy may seem to have had more claim on his attention than Baby Edmund, the little brother made up in what Montagu called "demandliness," what he may have lacked in legitimate pretension.

Even in a very large house it is impossible to conceal the presence of children. They are of all human creatures the most ubiquitous, the least repressible. Wherever they are they betray themselves in a thousand ways no foresight can presage. Their very belongings seem possessed of their own all-pervading spirit, and toys and small shed garments have a way of turning up in the most unlikely places.

When, three days after the little boys arrived at Remote, Mr. Wycherly discovered an absurd small glove, with holes in every finger, shut inside the "Third Satire of Horace," he remembered to have heard Elsa loudly rebuking the lass, Robina, for having suffered it to get lost. He took it out and looked at it, fingering it with wistful wonder and tenderness: then, almost guiltily he put it back again and closed the book, apologising to himself with the reflection that it really was quite worn out.

The spare bedroom with the four-post bed was next to Mr. Wycherly's bedroom, and as it was the only room in Remote that was possible as a night nursery, he heard in the early morning all sorts of mysterious sounds connected with the toilet of the two small boys. The little high voices: Baby Edmund's bubbling laugh that was exactly like the beginning of a thrush's song: equally often, Baby Edmund's noisy outcries when things displeased him: Robina's pleadings, and the gentle counsels of Miss Esperance—all these things smote upon the ears of Mr. Wycherly as he lay in bed waiting for the big can of hot water which, every morning, Elsa dumped down outside his door that he might take the chill off his bath. This matutinal bath being something of a grievance with Elsa, who considered it as a part of Mr. Wycherly's general "fushionlessness" that he should require so much more washing than other folk.

Thus did she always set down the can with a thump, and perform a species of tattoo on Mr. Wycherly's door, exclaiming loudly, "Here's yer bawth watter—sir." The "sir" always following after a pause, for it was only added out of deference to continual admonishment on the part of Miss Esperance, who thought that Elsa's manner to Mr. Wycherly was frequently lacking in respect, as indeed it was. She could never be got to look upon him as other than a poor, silly pensioner of her mistress.

A few days after the children arrived, Mr. Wycherly was awakened by the voice of Edmund in the next room, vociferously demanding "man." Mr. Wycherly sat up in bed and listened.

"Want man, want to see man."

Murmured remonstrances from Robina, laboured explanations as to the impossibility of beholding any man when he was still in his bed.

"Want man, want to see man," in tones ever growing louder and more decided from Baby Edmund.

This went on for about half an hour, while all the time Mr. Wycherly lay awake listening and longing to get up and join the little person who showed so flattering a desire for his society; but that he dared not do till Elsa brought his hot water. At last it came: dumped down as usual with a resounding impact with the floor, while Elsa knocked loudly with her wonted vibrant announcement.

Mr. Wycherly was just preparing to get up when there were new and strange sounds outside his door: rustlings and whisperings and curious uncertain fumblings with the handle. Suddenly the door was pushed open to show the children standing on the threshold behind the hot-water can.

"Man! Man'! Me see man in bed," cried Edmund, jumping up and down gleefully. He made a plunge forward to reach Mr. Wycherly, and of course fell up against the can, which upset, while the baby capsized on to the top of it. The water was hot and the baby was very frightened. So was Mr. Wycherly. As loud wails rent the air he leaped out of bed to rush to the rescue, only to skip back again with even greater haste as he heard Elsa and Robina on the stairs. Edmund was picked up and carried off, Robina volubly explaining how she had only left them for a minute. Mr. Wycherly's door was banged to, indignantly, as though he was entirely to blame, and the hot water continued to stream gaily over the carpet.

Mr. Wycherly stood in great awe of Elsa. Here was a most tremendous mess, and so long as he was in bed no one could or would come to his assistance. He arose hastily, arrested the flow of the stream in one direction with his big bath sponge, sopped up the water as well as he could, and concluded the operation by the employment of all his towels.

Presently there came a new thump on his door. "Have ye moppet it up?" asked Elsa anxiously.

"As well as I could," Mr. Wycherly replied humbly. "I don't think it will soak through to the room below."

"Pit oot the can an' I'll bring ye some mair hot watter—sir." Standing well behind the door Mr. Wycherly opened it gingerly and handed out the can. It was brought back full in no time, and again he heard Elsa's voice thus adjuring him, "Ye'd better mak a steer or yer breakfast will be ruined—sir."

Poor Mr. Wycherly did his best to "mak a steer," but his towels were a sodden mass, and it is not easy to dry one's self, even with a selection of the very largest handkerchiefs. His toilet was assuredly less careful than usual, for he was very anxious about little Edmund, although the sounds of woe had ceased in a very short time after the catastrophe of the hot-water can. Mr. Wycherly's sitting-room was across the landing from his bedroom, but before he went to breakfast he hastened downstairs to ask after Edmund's welfare.

He knocked at the parlour door, and on being bidden to enter discovered that lusty infant jumping up and down on the horse-hair sofa, while Miss Esperance sat on its very edge to make sure that he should not take a sudden dive on to the floor.

"I do hope he was not hurt—" Mr. Wycherly began.

"Man, man, me go to man!" Edmund cried before his aunt could answer; and scrambling off the sofa he raced across the room to Mr. Wycherly; he held up his arms exclaiming, "Uppee, uppee!" and of course was lifted up. "Ta, ta," he remarked, smiling benignly upon Miss Esperance from this eminence, "Me go wiv man."

He waved a fat hand to his aunt, and kicked Mr. Wycherly in the waistcoat to hasten their departure. Mr. Wycherly wavered.

"No, Edmund," said Miss Esperance, "you cannot go with Mr. Wycherly now, he is going to his breakfast."

"Bretfus," echoed Edmund in joyful tones, "me go bretfus too, wiv man." "I would like to come, too," Montagu interpolated, hastily clutching at Mr. Wycherly's coat.

"May I take them?" that gentleman pleaded. "It would be very agreeable to have their society at breakfast."

"I doubt it," said Miss Esperance, "but since you are so very kind—for this once—and if you find them too much, just ring."

The joyful procession was already mounting the steep, curly staircase, and "Bretfus—man" resounded cheerily in the distance till Mr. Wycherly's door was shut.

Miss Esperance sat where she was on the edge of the sofa. She was very tired, for she had been up since five o'clock; moreover, her own breakfast had been of the slightest, so busy was she superintending that of the children. Her head felt swimmy and the familiar room seemed unreal and strange. The sudden silence after the ceaseless and noisy activity of Baby Edmund was restful and consoling. Elsa and Robina were upstairs busy making beds and emptying baths.

Miss Esperance felt so exhausted that she even folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes; a thing she never did in the day except sometimes on a Sabbath afternoon. She did not lean back, for she belonged to that vanished school of old ladies who considered that to loll was akin to something positively disreputable: bed was the only place where it was proper to repose. Sofas were for the invalid or the indolent, and easy-chairs for men folk and such-like feeble spirits as were indulgent to the frailties of the flesh.

"As thy days so shall thy strength be," whispered Miss Esperance. The precepts and promises by which she had ruled her gentle life did not fail her now in her need: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint."

She opened her eyes. Once more the room looked homely and familiar; the pictures on the walls had ceased to chase each other in a giddy round. She unclasped her hands and rose. "I'd better go and see what those bairns are doing," she thought to herself, "it's not fair to leave them with him for long."

She mounted the steep stairs and paused on the landing to listen. The only sound to be heard was a sort of munching. Then, in Edmund's decisive voice, "Maw toas'."

Another pause. "Bacon all dawn," in tones of sorrowful conviction. Silence again for a minute, then, "Maw mink."

A gurgle, and a hasty movement, evidently on the part of Mr. Wycherly. "He always pours it down his chin if he holds it himself," said Montagu, in a slightly reproving voice.

A sound of rubbing.

"Toas' all dawn," mournfully, from Edmund.

Miss Esperance opened the door. The two children were sitting on either side of Mr. Wycherly at his round table. Edmund's chubby face was liberally besmeared with bacon fat, and the board had been cleared of every sort of eatable except a small "heel" of loaf and a pot of marmalade, which neither of the children liked. It was Oxford marmalade and very bitter.

"Have they been good?" Miss Esperance inquired anxiously.

Mr. Wycherly looked somewhat flushed and perturbed, but he hastened to reply, "They have been model children—but—" here he hesitated, "do you think they had enough to eat downstairs? They seemed so exceedingly hungry, and it would be so dreadful——"

"Hungry?" Miss Esperance repeated incredulously. "Hungry? They had each a large bowl of porridge and milk, and bread and jam after that."

"Maw dam," Edmund immediately struck in; "'at nasty dam," and he pointed a scornful fat finger at the pot of marmalade.

Here Robina appeared opportunely to take them for a walk. Edmund roared at the top of his voice at being reft from his beloved man. But Miss Esperance was firm.

When Elsa had cleared away Mr. Wycherly's breakfast, he found it unusually difficult to concentrate his mind upon his great work dealing with Aristotle's Nikomachean Ethics. Like Miss Esperance, he had had very little breakfast. Two rashers of bacon had Elsa provided, and the usual four pieces of toast. Each little boy had had a rasher. Edmund had eaten three pieces of toast and Montagu the fourth. Edmund also drank all the milk that he did not spill. Mr. Wycherly was fain to content himself with a cup of exceedingly black tea, and one small piece of bread. But he was quite unconscious that he had eaten less than usual. So shaken was he out of his customary dreamy calm that he decided to go for a walk. He did not confess to himself that he hoped he might meet the children while he was out.

CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATION OF MR. WYCHERLY

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books,

When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks?

LONGFELLOW.

For several days Mr. Wycherly's privacy was not again invaded before breakfast, though he heard through the wall continual and loudly expressed demands to visit "man" from his friend of the curly pate and strap shoes. One morning, however, Robina's suspicions as to Edmund's propensity for roving were lulled into security by particularly exemplary conduct on his part during the time of dressing; and she slipped downstairs to give a hand with the breakfast, leaving the children safety shut in their nursery.

No sooner had she departed than Montagu, of whom people expected better things, suggested that they should go and visit Mr. Wycherly next door. The morning hours had been so unusually quiet that that gentleman was still dozing, although Elsa had already brought his hot water. When he heard the now unmistakable fumbling with the door handle, which always proclaimed the advent of the children, he called out—"Come in, but for heaven's sake mind the hot-water can."

In they came without accident of any kind, as Elsa had taken the precaution of placing the can well on the hinge side of the door. Very fresh and spick and span did the two little boys look in clean, blue pinafores, and shining morning faces. Edmund made a dash for Mr. Wycherly, with his usual joyful cry of "Uppee! Uppee!" Montagu hastily banged the door after him to keep Robina out, and he, too, climbed up on Mr. Wycherly's bed. The soft, indescribable fragrance of clean children was supremely pleasurable to Mr. Wycherly, and excited strange, unfamiliar stirrings of recollections, long buried but by no means dead, of his own nursery days in the old house in Shropshire where he and his brothers were brought up.

But there was no time to indulge in retrospect, for Edmund had already settled the programme. "Sing!" he commanded. "Sing, man!"

"I fear," Mr. Wycherly said, somewhat breathlessly, for Edmund was sitting upon that portion of his body known in sporting circles as "the wind," "that I cannot sing, for I don't know any songs."

"Say, zen, say, man," Edmund cried, jumping up and down upon poor Mr. Wycherly's yielding frame.

"He means you to say him a poem," Montagu explained.

Now of poetry Mr. Wycherly knew plenty, both in Greek and Latin and English, but none of it seemed particularly suitable to the present circumstances. The only lines that came willingly to his call were—

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste,

which he felt would meet with but scant approval from his present audience.

"Say 'ime, say 'ime, man!" cried Edmund, with an ominous droop of the corners of his mouth.

"Say 'Hickory, dickory, dock," Montagu suggested kindly, "he likes that—and you tickle him where it runs up, and where it runs down, and at the end, you know."

"But I don't know any poem called 'Hickory, dickory, dock," Mr. Wycherly protested despairingly.

"Say 'ime, man! Say dock!" Edmund persisted, punching Mr. Wycherly in the chest to emphasise his wishes. "Say dock. Quit."

"I'll whisper it to you," murmured the helpful Montagu, "it goes like this—'Hickory, dickory, dock."

"Hickory, dickory, dock," Mr. Wycherly repeated dutifully and distinctly.

"The mouse ran up the clock," Montagu continued.

"The mouse ran up the clock——"

"But you didn't tickle him," Montagu interrupted.

Mr. Wycherly looked at Edmund, and Edmund looked with eager expectation at Mr. Wycherly.

Now to tickle any one appeared to Mr. Wycherly a most unwarrantable liberty. Such a mode of procedure had never entered into his scheme of life at all. He was not even sure how he ought to set about it. He decided that tickling was altogether out of his province, and he would not experiment, even upon Edmund.

He cleared his throat nervously. "Ahem," said Mr. Wycherly, "Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock——"

"No! No!" shouted Edmund. "'E mouse 'an down."

"The mouse ran down the clock," echoed the obedient Mr. Wycherly.

"No, No," cried both the little boys. "The clock struck one." Here Edmund gave a most tremendous bounce that really hurt Mr. Wycherly.

"Ve mouse 'an down," he continued, scrabbling with his fingers all over Mr. Wycherly's face, and seizing him by the collar of his night shirt to burrow in his neck.

"Hickory, dickory, dock," Montagu concluded in a joyful chant. "Now you know it, only you must run up and down, you know."

"Oh, I really cannot do that," Mr. Wycherly expostulated, "not before I am dressed."

Montagu looked puzzled. "You ought to tickle us, you know, like Edmund did, and with your fingers; it's quite easy, really."

"Adain!" Edmund commanded, squirming and jumping all over the very softest portions of Mr. Wycherly's person, and causing that patient gentleman acute agony. "Adain!"

"Let us all say it together," Mr. Wycherly gasped, painfully drawing himself a little higher up in the bed, "and do you think you could sit a little more to one side, or a little further forward, or a little lower down, or anywhere except just where you are at present?"

"Edmund heavy boy," that youth remarked proudly.

"He is," Mr. Wycherly fervently agreed, "a very heavy boy—ah, that's better now."

"Hickory, dickory, dock" was now performed in chorus, and if one of the trio made any mistakes, his companions were making such a row that they did not detect him. At the conclusion of the verse the little boys gave Mr. Wycherly a practical demonstration as to what they meant by tickling.

It was only when the racket had somewhat subsided that they heard Robina's timid voice outside the door bidding the children come at once to their breakfast.

"Det up, man," Edmund directed, "and take me to 'Obina."

"You are perfectly able to trot across to the door," said Mr. Wycherly, mildly remonstrant and much exhausted.

"Come in," shouted Edmund, "come and fesh me."

"No, don't do anything of the kind," cried Mr. Wycherly, horror-stricken; "he can quite well come to you."

"I'll surely no come in," said Robina in a slightly offended voice. "They're to come oot at once, the mistress is waitin' breakfast."

"Me tiahed," Edmund announced, languidly lying down beside Mr. Wycherly. "Me tay heah."

Robina knocked sharply. "Come at once," she cried. "Please, sir, make them come, or the mistress will be rale vexed."

"Go, Montagu," said Mr. Wycherly firmly. "I suppose I must carry this—myself."

Robina, outside, heard much gurgling and giggling on the part of Edmund, as Mr. Wycherly arose and hastily donned his dressing-gown. He carried the struggling baby across to the door, which he had to open widely in order to give his charge into his nurse's arms. Montagu departed with his little brother, but not one moment sooner.

Mr. Wycherly shut and locked his door, only to remember that he had left his hot water outside. When he had secured it and again made the door fast, he sank upon his bed: "I must certainly lock my door overnight," he reflected; "to be tickled is a truly dreadful experience."

He dressed to the rhythm of "Hickory, dickory, dock," and although the two things had no sort of connection he found himself thinking of the forget-me-nots on the banks of the Cherwell; they were exactly the colour of Baby Edmund's eyes.

It had already become a matter of course that the children should spend half an hour in Mr. Wycherly's study before they went to bed.

They were left in his charge while Robina got things ready for the night, and he strove to make the time pass pleasantly for them by every means in his power. Edmund's requests were occasionally a little difficult to understand, as although his speech was fluent and his vocabulary singularly large for his age, he had a habit of omitting any consonant that was troublesome to pronounce. Both "l" and "r" were of this number. He did not attempt to provide a substitute but simply left the letter out, and nothing delighted old Elsa more than to hear him repeat after her—"'ound the 'ugged 'ock the 'adical 'ascals 'an."

Mr. Wycherly did his best to correct this defect in Edmund's speech, and on this particular evening was showing him a picture book of coloured animals.

"Poor little Edmund can't say lion," he said sadly, apropos of a picture of the king of beasts.

"He can say tigah," that infant rejoined cheerfully; "no maw pitchers. Man, make a 'abbit," and Edmund scrambled off Mr. Wycherly's knee the better to behold the feat in question.

Mr. Wycherly shook his head hopelessly while Montagu shyly explained: "He means a rabbit out of a handkerchief, you know. Daddie always did it, and it ran up his arm and jumped so. Do make one!"

Mr. Wycherly almost groaned. He hadn't the faintest notion how to make a rabbit, and felt that he had lived in vain. He proposed building a tower with some bricks that the children had brought with them, but Edmund would have none of such well-worn devices. He persisted in his demands for "a 'abbit," growing more and more vociferous, till his wishes culminated in a roar that brought Robina to the rescue and to Mr. Wycherly's door, whence she bore Edmund away, wailing dismally.

Mr. Wycherly, helpless and distressed, looked appealingly at Montagu, who only said rather reproachfully, "You might learn to make a rabbit, you know," and followed Robina.

Almost unconsciously the student's eyes sought the book-shelves where generally was to be found any information that he wanted; but among the familiar calf-bound backs there was not one that seemed to promise any information about the manufacture of rabbits, and for the first time Mr. Wycherly felt dissatisfied with a scholarship that seemed to ignore so many possible contingencies in a man's life. Of what use was the utmost familiarity with Aristotle's Politics if an indignant baby could put one so wholly out of countenance? For a few minutes he moved restlessly about the room, then he took his hat and went out.

He had a vaguely formulated plan in his head that he would knock at the door of every house in the village till he found somebody capable of instructing him in the art of making rabbits; for learn he would, even if he had to advertise in the "Scottish Press" for a teacher.

As he walked down the road leading to the village he met the minister, who immediately remarked that something or other was amiss. Whether Edmund had ruffled Mr. Wycherly's hair and neck-cloth as well as his equanimity we are not told, but it is certain that the Reverend Peter Gloag thought him looking less "Oxfordish" than usual, and stopped him to ask kindly, "Nothing wrong up at the house I hope?"

"No, I thank you," said Mr. Wycherly, stopping in his turn. "At least—I wonder now if you happen to know of any one who can make rabbits out of handkerchiefs?"

The minister stared at Mr. Wycherly as though for a moment he feared for his reason, then he looked as though he were about to laugh, when quite suddenly his face changed, and the eyes under his bushy eyebrows were wonderfully kind and gentle as he said, "You'll hardly believe it, but I can do something in that sort myself. I used often to make them when the bairns were wee."

"My dear friend," Mr. Wycherly exclaimed delightedly, "can you really? But of course you can, you have children of your own. Why didn't I think of you at the very first? Are you pressed for time at present? Could you return with me now, at once?"

For answer the minister turned and walked with Mr. Wycherly toward Remote, and not only did he teach him how to make the most lively and enchanting of rabbits, but he also instructed him how to originate one "Sandy," who sat on the manipulator's hand, whose arms were worked by his fingers, a creature of infinite jest and dexterity. Mr. Wycherly was not half so elated when he got the Newdigate as when he achieved this latter feat.

But Oh, dear me, Mr. Wycherly had a tremendous deal to learn! Every day was he confronted with new deficiencies in his education. The constant demand for songs was most embarrassing: even Miss Esperance seemed to fail the children here, for although she knew innumerable psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and endless and delightful Scottish ballads, yet her repertoire of purely nursery ditties was but small. It was heartrending to Mr. Wycherly, when, during their first days at Remote, Edmund would remark reproachfully anent his inability to sing some hitherto unheard-of nursery song, "Mamma singed it." And the eyes of Miss Esperance would fill with tears at the thought of these two little ones bereft of their young parents, who seemed to have been so light-hearted, so ready to sing upon every possible occasion. No books of nursery rhymes had come with the children from Portsmouth. Perhaps they were forgotten in the hurry of their departure. Perhaps they did not exist: where was the need, with a girl-mother whose store of such ditties seemed inexhaustible? It did not occur either to Miss Esperance or Mr. Wycherly that such books could be purchased. It is true that the latter received many catalogues, but they mostly concerned learned works dealing with the more obscure of the Latin authors.

Miss Esperance possessed a whole shelf of little "Gilt-Books," which had belonged to her mother and herself, and Mr. Wycherly feverishly rummaged among these to find some childish lore suitable for the little boys: with the result that he became exceedingly interested in the books from an antiquarian point of view, and forgot his original quest. They were most of them published by John Newbery, the philanthropic bookseller in Saint Paul's Churchyard, who bought the MS. of the "Vicar of Wakefield" for sixty pounds and kept it two years before he published it. One find, however, he did make, a tiny two-inch "Cries of London, as they are Exhibited in the Streets, With an Epigram in verse adapted to Each, embellished with sixty-two elegant Cuts." Some of these epigrams found much favour with the children, as, "My old Soul, will you buy a Bowl?" "Who Buys my Pig and Plumb Sauce," or—

Who liveth so merry in all this land,

As doth the poor Widow that selleth the Sand?

And ever she singeth, as I can guess,

"Will you buy any Sand, any Sand, Mistress?"

He also discovered among the verses of that most genial and child-like of poets, Robert Herrick, many rhymes that delighted the children, a special favourite being the old watch rhyme—

From noise of scare fires rest ye free,

From murders, Benedicite.

From all mischances that may fright

Your pleasing slumbers in the night,

Mercy secure ye all and keep

The Goblin from ye while ye sleep.

Past one o'clock and almost two,

My masters all, Good day to you.

Mr. Wycherly was a little put to it to explain the "Goblin," as he would not for the world have told the children anything that might frighten them. He passed it over lightly as "a bad dream," and when Montagu further demanded what that was, Mr. Wycherly felt inexpressibly comforted at the child's ignorance; he had dreamed so many evil dreams himself.

Summer had passed, the late September days were drawing in, but it was still almost hot, as it often is in autumn in the north. Even Mr. Wycherly, who was always cold, admitted that the weather had remained agreeably mild. And when Lady Alicia came, and partly by means of bluster and partly by reason of prolonged petitioning, succeeded in carrying off Miss Esperance to dine at the Big House, Mr. Wycherly seconded her efforts nobly. She had asked Mr. Wycherly, too, but he never went anywhere, and on this occasion he had pointed out that his presence made it perfectly safe for Miss Esperance to leave the children. He would sit with his door open, so that he would hear the faintest sound in the children's room, he would go and see them last thing—"and hear them their prayers," Miss Esperance anxiously interpolated—he would do everything that Miss Esperance usually did.

"Now there's nothing whatever can happen to those children," said Lady Alicia, as they drove away. "They're both looking as brown and bonny as they can well look, and once they're in their beds, they'll just sleep the round of the clock. As for you, my dear, you've hardly been out of the house since they came, and it's very bad for you."

As a rule the children did sleep the round of the clock, but on this particular evening, although they went to sleep directly they were "bedded," as Robina put it, and she had gone home for the night, while Elsa had retired to the back door for a gossip with the minister's maid, Edmund took it into his head to wake up.

Mr. Wycherly was sitting in his arm-chair reading "Marius the Epicurean." It was one of his many imperfections, in the eyes of the inhabitants of Burnhead, that he was known to revel in the works of "yon man, Pater." The very name seemed redolent of papistry, even if the man himself did not happen to be a papist, and it was known that the Reverend Peter Gloag did not approve of his writings. In an English village nobody would have concerned himself as to what anybody read—the amount of reading done at all being quite a negligible quantity—but in a Scottish village, where the cobbler probably reads the "Saturday Review" and the works of Carlyle are as household words, people regard the reading of their neighbours.

The light from the lamp fell full on Mr. Wycherly's white hair and regular, scholarly profile; and the figure in the chair made a pleasant picture of erudite repose. There was something clear-cut and delicately finished about everything connected with Mr. Wycherly's appearance. One long, slim hand with exquisitely tended nails held his book; the other kept up a noiseless rhythmic beat upon the arm of his chair.

Suddenly he heard a little sound, an indescribable small sound as of some soft body moving. He laid down his book and leant forward to listen. Again he heard it, and with it a request for "'Obina." It was not a cry; it was rather a curious, tentative flinging of the word into space to see what would happen.

The children's door was closed but not fastened, Mr. Wycherly's was wide open, and he immediately hurried across the landing to the children's room. The light from his lamp exactly opposite to their door, shone in as he pushed it open, showing a fair, curly head and a pair of bright eyes appearing above the side of the cot. Montagu was still fast asleep.

"Lie down, my child," Mr. Wycherly whispered, "it is night time, you must go to sleep again."

"No," said Edmund firmly but kindly, "you must take me."

Mr. Wycherly looked at the wide-awake mutinous person in the cot, then he looked at the peacefully sleeping Montagu in the big four-post bed. To engage in argument with Edmund meant the inevitable waking of his brother. For there would be tears; perhaps loud outcries which would bring Elsa, scornful and capable, to his assistance.

It is to be feared that in some respects Mr. Wycherly was a weak man. He would do anything to avoid a disturbance, almost anything to avoid an argument. Small wonder, then, that he was despised in Burnhead, where argument flourished as the green bay tree and was the chief object of social intercourse.

He wrapped Edmund in his quilt, carried him across to the study, and sat down in his big chair with the deliciously warm, naughty bundle on his knee. Edmund blinked at the bright light, wriggled his arms out of the enwrapping counterpane, and remarked "Bikky" in a tone whose subtly seductive combination of command and supplication Mr. Wycherly never could resist. The children had not been three months in the house without teaching him to keep a store of biscuits in his cupboard. When Edmund was duly supplied, he leant his head luxuriously against Mr. Wycherly's shoulder, saying sleepily, "Say, deah man—say anysing."

This was gracious of Edmund, and Mr. Wycherly had already discovered that when the baby was sleepy he did not cavil even at Latin verse. Mr. Wycherly had a singularly musical voice; and as he "said," the biscuit dropped from Edmund's hand and his head lay heavy on the kind shoulder that supported it. As the reciter reached the lines: "Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem," he discovered, to his joy, that Edmund was asleep. Softly he repeated the musical last two lines again, smiling down at the little figure in his arms. But it was not of Lalage that Mr. Wycherly was thinking.

He succeeded in putting Edmund into bed without waking him, and just as he had got back to his study he heard Miss Esperance come in.

Softly he closed the door so that it only stood open a little way, and seated himself once more in his favourite chair. If all was quiet it was quite unlikely Miss Esperance would come to speak to him that night. She would go straight to her little bedroom next that of the children. He heard her door shut. Mr. Wycherly rubbed his hands together quite gleefully. "I really am learning how to manage those children," he said.

CHAPTER IV

THE SECRETIVENESS OF MAUSE

A boy and a dog together will go,

You may jail them, or chain them: They will have it so.

Anon.

Mause was the bobtailed sheep-dog that lived in a kennel at the side of the house nearest the back door, to keep guard. Like Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherly and Elsa, she was not in her first youth; and when the children came Miss Esperance was nervously apprehensive as to the old dog's conduct. Would she be jealous and growl at them, or perhaps even fly out at them from her kennel as she did at the village boys if they ventured into the garden for any illegitimate purpose? A good watch-dog was Mause, with more discrimination in her vigilance than is displayed by most dogs. She never barked at poor old Mistress Dobie, who would come humbly to the back door for her bi-weekly handful of meal and a screw of snuff, who looked a very scarecrow of shabbiness, and tapped with her staff as she walked: but Mause did bark, and bark loudly, only pausing every now and then to growl thunderously, at the very grand gentleman who tried to sell Elsa an inferior sewing-machine on the hire system. And when he returned a few weeks later with Bibles, Mause nearly broke her chain in her frantic attempts to reach him. The poor dog was kept chained up for the greater part of the day, which is never improving to the canine temper even when, as in this case, the chain is a long one. Miss Esperance let her run by the pony trap whenever she drove into Edinburgh, but this was by no means every day, and Elsa rather grudged poor Mause even these occasional absences, and generally put the chains on both doors when she had gone.

"A watch-dog sud be there to guard the hoose," said Elsa, "and no gang stravaigin aff for hoors at a stretch."

Mr. Wycherly took Mause for a walk whenever he went for one himself, and she greatly enjoyed these excursions, which were, however, but fleeting joys; for Mr. Wycherly's walks were by no means prolonged. That he should go for walks at all was, in the eyes of the villagers of Burnhead, but another sign of his general futility and "genty ways," like his bath and the wooden feet in three pieces that he liked kept in his boots, "just as if he was feart some ither body sud wear them." Besides, what could a man who hardly ever stirred abroad want with six pairs of boots? The folk in the village pitied Elsa that she had to give in to such havers.

On rare occasions Mause managed to sneak into the house with Mr. Wycherly and secrete herself in his room: but he did not encourage these clandestine visits, for when Elsa discovered her—as she invariably did—she drove the poor beast forth with much contumely; and Mr. Wycherly was haunted for hours afterward by the reproach in the eyes of Mause that he had not the courage to take her part.

Yet Mause was fond of Elsa, and in her heart of hearts Elsa loved Mause. She would far sooner have gone without her own meals than have omitted the plate of broken biscuit and bones that she carried twice daily to the kennel. Every day she filled the dog's tin with fresh water, and she brushed the thick, shaggy coat as religiously and even more vigorously than she brushed Mr. Wycherly's clothes. It grieved her rather that the latter, like Mause, wore the same coat week-days and Sundays.

Mause was meekness and gentleness itself with the dwellers at Remote, but outsiders gave her a very different character, and the Reverend Peter Gloag even went so far as to remonstrate with Miss Esperance for keeping such a savage brute about the place. Not that Mause had ever actually bitten even a man selling sewing-machines, but she had a way of barking and bouncing, of growling and gyrating at the full length of her chain, that was decidedly alarming; and if she happened to be loose, her swift rush to the gate at the sound of a strange foot-step was disconcerting in the extreme. What would she say to the children?

"If she's ill-natured with them, she'll have to go, poor beastie," Miss Esperance had said, as they drove from the station with the two tired, cross, little boys on that first day. "She's a dear, faithful animal, but I could not let such wee things be frightened."

However, the fears of Miss Esperance were groundless. From the first moment that she beheld the little boys, Mause took them under her protection. Perhaps it was that neither of the children showed the slightest fear of the great, clumsy, shaggy beast, but greeted her with joyful outcries, instantly demanding her release from that harassing chain. The right kind of dog and the right kind of child are friends always, by some immutable, inscrutable law of attraction. It seemed almost as if Mause mistook Montagu and Edmund for the puppies which had been her pride some five years before. And the baby certainly did his very best to confirm her in her mistake. Like a puppy, he had a fondness for carrying off numerous and inconceivably incongruous articles from places where they ought to be to distant parts of the garden, where he would be found surrounded by a selection of improvised playthings, while Mause sat by regarding the work of destruction with her tongue hanging out, and an expression of maternal pride upon her broad and blurry countenance.

When the children played in the garden their first thought was that Mause must play too. "She must be very lonely in that little wooden house," Montagu said pleadingly. "She would be so happy with us, and we do want her so." And Edmund roared and refused to be comforted unless his "big bow-wow" might go with him whenever Robina took him out in his perambulator.

There was a little plot of shaven grass in the garden at Remote, and on this Edmund and Mause and Montagu spent many an hour at play, while Robina sat by demurely knitting at a stocking. It was Edmund's habit when he fell down (a somewhat frequent occurrence that did not disturb him in the least unless he happened to fall on "something scratchful") to grasp firmly in each little hand a handful of the dog's thick hair, and by this means pull himself up to his feet again. Mause bore it stoically, and generally turned her patient face that she might lick the small, fat hands that hurt her. And by the time the children had been a month at Remote Manse was only chained up at night.

One hot afternoon in late September Mr. Wycherly had taken Montagu for a walk to a wood, near where there was a tiny tributary of the bigger burn from which the village took its name. So narrow was this stream that Montagu could jump over it: and it was one of his greatest joys to be taken there and to leap solemnly from one side to the other during a whole afternoon, provided that at each effort his audience made some suitably admirative remark.

Robina's patience failed her after about three demonstrations of Montagu's saltatory prowess, but Mr. Wycherly would take his seat at the foot of a big tree, and with tireless interest notice every jump, finding something new and congratulatory to say after each fresh effort.

Robina, Edmund and Mause remained at home: baby and dog disporting themselves upon the little square of turf, while Robina sat in the shade doing the mending. Elsa was busy in the house and Miss Esperance had gone to a sewing meeting at the manse.

At the foot of the garden was a low stone wall, and beyond that wall a lane. From that lane presently there came a sound of light-hearted whistling as Sandie, the flesher, his empty butcher's tray borne lightly on his shoulder, returned from the delivery of meat at the "Big Hoose."

Sandie, the flesher, could see over the wall, and he beheld Robina sitting under the alder tree. He thought her fair to look upon, and his whistling ceased. Robina gave one hasty glance back at the house. Elsa was making scones and would be far too busy to look out of the window just then: besides, one could see very little from the kitchen window save the raspberry canes, as Robina was sadly aware. Edmund and Mause were engaged in an intricate game of ball. They alone knew the rules, but they appeared to find it of absorbing interest. Once more Robina looked back at the house, and then flew down to the bottom of the garden to speak to Sandie.

We all know that there are minutes that seem as hours, and hours that slip by as a single moment of time. Robina's conversation with Sandie was somewhat prolonged, but doubtless for them it passed even as the twinkling of an eye.

When at last she tore herself away from Sandie's blandishments and returned hot-footed to her charge, baby and dog were gone. The worsted ball and the mending lay on the grass, and perfect quiet reigned in the garden of Remote.

"He'll be in mischief somewhere," she said to herself. "The wee Turk!"

For it was only when he was in mischief that the continual flow of Edmund's conversation ceased, and he was traced by his silences rather than by his sounds.

Warily did Robina search through every nook and corner of that garden: behind raspberry canes, between gooseberry bushes, even among the cabbages, but nowhere was there any sign of either child or dog. The girl's heart sank. Edmund had probably gone back to the house and Elsa had just kept him that she might the better come down on his young nurse for her carelessness. Robina well knew the awful "radgin" that awaited her if this were the case. It was just possible that the baby had toddled round to the front and was playing among the flower beds, doing damage in exactly inverse ratio to his size and weight. As she passed the open kitchen window Robina looked in: a great gust of hot air laden with the clean, good smell of newly made scones met her. Elsa was over at the fire giving the scones, still on the griddle, an occasional poke with her gnarled old finger. Edmund most certainly was not there. Robina's spirits rose. She might escape the "radgin" after all. She ran round to the front, but there was no baby here either; the tidy little garden with its gay flower beds on either side of the broad central path lay peaceful and deserted in the cool shadow thrown by the house itself. She noticed that the green gate was unlatched and she began to feel anxious, and not wholly on her own account. Where could that baby have got to, and where in all the world was Mause?

Robina hurried to the back garden again and went over every inch of ground, with no more success than the first time.

She was now very frightened indeed. She hunted in the stable, she looked in the loft, she even took all the tools out of the tool-house lest Edmund might be secreted behind them; but it was all useless, baby and dog had completely vanished.

All this searching had taken some time. The afternoon began to wane, it would soon be tea time. Miss Esperance would return from her sewing meeting, and even as it was, Robina heard Mr. Wycherly and Montagu come into the house.

She rushed to Elsa in the kitchen, where that worthy woman was arranging her last batch of scones round the top of the wire seive to cool.

"The wee boy's lost!" cried Robina desperately. "I can find him nowhere and no place, and the dug's awa' too."

Mr. Wycherly and Montagu heard the loud excited voices in the kitchen, and for the first time in all the years he had spent with Miss Esperance Mr. Wycherly entered the domain sacred to Elsa. He questioned Robina very gently and quietly, but could obtain no information that threw any light upon Edmund's mysterious disappearance.

They searched the house thoroughly, but with no success, and all four had gone out to look once more in the garden when Montagu exclaimed, "Why Mause is here, in her kennel, and she's not chained up."

The kennel was a large one, but Mause also was large and effectually blocked the doorway.

"We'd better take her with us," said Mr. Wycherly, who was preparing to scour the village. "She'll find him sooner than any of us."

But to their astonishment Mause did not come to call. She refused to budge, and if any one came near her except Montagu she growled ominously and showed her teeth, a thing she had never done to members of her own household in the whole of her existence.

By this time Miss Esperance had returned and was gravely disquieted by the news that met her, most of all by the fact that Mause should have deserted Edmund and that she should be so surly in her temper.

"I can't think what can have come over the dog," cried poor Miss Esperance. "Don't go near her, Montagu, my son. I just wish she was on the chain."

"I'll put the chain on her, auntie; I'm not afraid," cried Montagu, breaking from his aunt's detaining hand; and sure enough, Mause made not the smallest objection, but licked Montagu's hand, and gazed with speaking, pathetic eyes at the group around the kennel, although she would allow no one to approach her except the little boy.

"The gate was unlatched when we came in," said Mr. Wycherly. "I noticed that. I think he must have strayed into the village, and we'll probably find him in one of the cottages. What I cannot understand is that Mause should have left him."

"Mebbe some gaun-aboot-body's ta'en him," wailed Robina, "and drove the dug awa'."

"Hoot fie!" cried Elsa, indignantly. "They gaun-aboot-bodies has plenty bairns o' their ain wi'oot nain o' oor's."

"The burn's gey and deep up the rod," sobbed Robina, who was determined to take the gloomiest view of things.

Miss Esperance looked at Mr. Wycherly, and both were very pale. "Elsa and I will go into the village," she said tremulously. "Will you, dear friend, go—the other way? You would be of more use if—anything——"

Miss Esperance paused, unable to voice the dreadful fear that possessed her.

Montagu had sat down on the ground beside Mause, facing the kennel, with his arm round her shaggy neck; he leant his head against her, for he felt that she was in some sort of disgrace, and needed comforting. A sudden shaft of sunlight shone full on the pretty group. "Why, he's in there all the time," Montagu cried excitedly. "I can see him; he's fast asleep in Mause's kennel, and that's why she wouldn't come out."

The shrill voice woke the baby, who stirred, rolled over, and finally crawled out from his hiding-place, flushed and tumbled with little beads of perspiration all over his nose. Mause politely making way for him the instant he showed a desire to come out.

As he scrambled to his feet he beheld Mr. Wycherly, and gave his usual cry of "Man! Uppie, uppie!" and was somewhat bewildered by the effusion with which that same man caught him up in his arms. Miss Esperance grasped his fat legs and wept over them; Robina and Elsa caught at any possible portion of his clothing and wept over that. In fact, they all more or less hung on to Mr. Wycherly in their excitement, while the cause of all this enthusiasm blinked his sleepy eyes and wondered what it was all about. Mause ran round and round in a circle, hanging out her tongue and giving occasional short, sharp barks, expressive of approval.

Presently, when the women let go of him, Edmund bent down to scratch one of his fat pink legs. "I fink," he said majestically, "vat a fee has bited me."

Mause looked apologetic, and licked the spot.

CHAPTER V

ROBINA

Jenny rade tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan,

Jenny rade tae Cowtstan upon a barra'pin O!

An' aye as she wallopit, she wallopit, she wallopit,

An' aye as she wallopit, she aye fell ahin' O!

Old Song.

For Robina, it was a distinct rise in the social scale to have taken service with Miss Esperance. Any lass could get a place at the term in Edinburgh, but only one lass in the whole village could have been chosen to look after the little newcomers at Remote.

In the village Miss Esperance was familiarly known as "the wee leddy": and in the eyes of Burnhead the fact that she lived in an extremely small house with one old servant, and did a large portion of the household work herself, in no way detracted from her dignity. In Burnhead, too, there were people who remembered her father, the Admiral—"a gran' man yon! A radgy man whiles, mind ye, but a rale man. When he gave ye a glass he aye looket the ither way and left ye to help yersen—eh, but he was a gran' man yon!"

Lady Alicia had described Robina as "douce," and that young woman fully acted up to this reputation during her first weeks at Remote. She trembled and cringed before Elsa. She dropped whatever she happened to be holding if suddenly addressed by Miss Esperance, while in the presence of Mr. Wycherly extreme shyness lent to her appearance an expression of such abject imbecility as caused that gentleman to demand anxiously of her mistress whether she thought it was safe to allow Robina to take the children for walks.

Once outside the walls of Remote, however, Robina's whole attitude changed. She bridled: she minced: she was positively swollen with pride in the importance of her position; and when she condescended to exchange remarks with such neighbours as she met, her demeanour was distant and haughty. No sooner had she set forth with Edmund in the perambulator and Montagu trotting by her side, than she at once radiated an atmosphere of "say nothing to nobody" so forbidding as to discourage all attempts at sociability except on the part of the boldest. Everybody wanted to see the little boys, who were, themselves, most friendly and approachable and always ready to respond to the overtures of kindly neighbours.

A comely lass was Robina, sturdy and thickset, but with the exquisite colouring often to be found among the Lowland Scottish peasantry; and of late her rosy cheeks had bloomed to a deeper rose, while her forehead and chin and neck were white as the elder flower growing against the wall at the bottom of the garden. Very blue eyes had Robina, and thick, wavy hair—red hair that would escape from its tight braids in frivolous little curls at the nape of her neck and round her ears. From far away, Sandie, the flesher, would espy that brilliant hair burning like a lamp, and wheresoever that beacon shone there would Sandie be fain to follow. He escorted her from her home to Remote in the early morning, and was generally waiting at a safe distance from Remote to walk home with her in the evening. So devoted was he, that Robina had as yet made an exception in his favour, and in spite of her exalted position treated him with moderate friendliness.

The day that Edmund was lost she had got off comparatively lightly. The household at Remote was so excited over finding the baby in Mause's kennel that they all forgot to inquire till some time afterwards, how in the world he had got there without the knowledge of his nurse. Robina did not consider it necessary to mention her conversation with Sandie, and beyond a moderate amount of cavilling on the part of Elsa, very little had been said.

One afternoon, during the same week, she took the small boys for a walk along the highroad leading to Edinburgh; and as she, with stately mien, was pushing the perambulator on the pathway, a young man, driving a light spring cart, overtook her and pulled up and hailed her with the inquiry, "Well, Robiny, hoo's a' wi' ye the day?"

Robina stopped and pretended to be absorbed in settling Edmund in his perambulator; for the moment the baby spied the trap, he began to wriggle out of the strap that bound him in his seat, waving his arms and shouting, "Me go 'ide in caht."

"I would like a ride, too," Montagu remarked in his usual deliberate fashion, and he smiled up at Sandie engagingly.

Sandie saw the little boy and smiled back broadly, but he was mostly looking at Robina.

"Is they wee things Piskeys tae?" Sandie asked, nodding his head toward the children.

"Na, na," Robina replied, shaking her head emphatically, "there's noan o' the wee leddy's flesh and blood's Piskeys, I'se warrant. They'll gang tae the kirk wi' their auntie like ither Christian folk."

"What's a Piskey?" asked Montagu of the inquiring mind.

"I'm no very sure," the girl said slowly. "It's a new-fangled kin' o' kirk—is't no?" she added, looking up at Sandie.

Sandie grinned broadly and drew himself up. "I once went into one o' they kirks in Edinbory—" he said with the air of one who has passed through many strange adventures, "on a Sabbath evening," he continued hastily, as Robina looked disapproving. "I gang no place else than oor ain kirk in the mornin'."

"And what like was it?" asked Robina, somewhat reassured by this assertion of orthodoxy.

"Dod' an' it's more than I can say. Ye was aye hoppin' up an' sittin' doon, wi' a wee thing singin' here an' a wee bit prayin' there, an' a wee sma' readin'. Ma certy! there was sae monny preeleeminaries 'at I never thocht we'd reach the sairmon. An' when we did it was just as scampit as a' the rest. An' what wi' human hymns an men i' their sarks jumpin' up here an' there, it was mair like play-actin' than a kirk. Nae mair Piskeys for me, I can tell ye!"

"But what is a Piskey?" Montagu again demanded.

"The auld gentleman wha' lives wi' us is a Piskey, so I've heard," Robina said in a low voice.

"I can well believe that," Sandie remarked meaningly, and tapped his forehead.

"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund exclaimed for about the thirtieth time, this time with an ominous warning of tears in his voice.

Sandie looked up the road and down the road. There was not a soul in sight.

"Wull I gie them a wee bit hurrl?" he asked Robina.

"The wee stoot yen couldna' sit wi'oot some person to hold him," Robina said irresolutely, "an' I daurna' let them oot o' my sight. Mine's is a poseetion o' great responsibeelity." And once more she lifted the struggling Edmund back into his seat, from which he instantly wriggled so that he was hung up under the arms by the strap.

"Pit the pram inside yon gate," suggested the ready Sandie, "and come tae. No harm'll happen it, an' I'll gie ye a bit hurrl doon the rod."

"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund shouted joyfully, and held out his arms to Sandie. Edmund looked upon mankind in general as a means specially provided for his quick transit from place to place. "Uppie! Uppie!" the baby cried impatiently.

"Let the bairn have his hurrl," pleaded Sandie.

Montagu as yet found it somewhat difficult to follow the Scots tongue, but he realised that Sandie was inviting them to go for a drive, and forthwith declared his own intention of accepting the invitation without Robina if she declined to avail herself of it.

Finally the perambulator was put inside a field, well out of sight. The two small boys were lifted into the cart, where Robina, with much display of white-stockinged substantial ankles, followed them. Away went the butcher's cart with four "precious souls and all agog" seated abreast upon the wooden seat. Robina firmly clutched the "wee stoot yen" who chattered incessantly, giving the loudest expression to his satisfaction.

They had gone about half a mile along the Edinburgh road when a gray bobtailed sheepdog was seen trotting along towards them, followed by a small pony tub driven by an old lady.

"Megsty me!" Robina exclaimed in great consternation, "if yon's no the wee leddy hersel', and I thocht she was up at the hoose. Turn man, turn! and get back afore she comes."