Nora and Hilary were staying in the country with their cousins. It was a new part of the world to them, for their own home, though not actually in a town, was not far from one, and therefore far less rich in wild flowers and mushrooms and blackberries, and all such delightful things than the _real_ country place where these fortunate cousins lived.
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Had it not been for the newness and the freedom of it all, they might have found it a little dull, for there was only one child in the family at all near their ages--Nora was eight and Hilary six--and this was a boy of seven called Cecil. Cecil was very much younger than his brothers and sisters, and seemed even younger than his age, for he was small and delicate, and very quiet. Hilary, a great big strong fellow, seemed much older; indeed if you had seen the two together you would certainly have guessed that Cecil and not his cousin was the, so to say, town-bred boy.
Cecil had never been so happy in his life as since the two little visitors had come to stay with him. They seemed to find out all sorts of new things that had never struck him before; pleasures and interests springing all about and close at hand which he had never thought of.
They found everything delightful; as the summer gradually faded into autumn, and the bright flowers grew scarcer and less tempting to gather, the wild fruit in its turn began to ripen. Day by day the children watched the blackberries with the greatest eagerness, as the small red heads steadily got rounder and deeper in colour, till at last one day some of the big people said in the children"s hearing, "a couple of days" sunshine and the blackberries will be at their prime; there"s a splendid show of them this year."
Nora and Hilary could scarcely keep from jumping with joy, and they made Cecil nearly as eager as themselves. The sun seemed to enter into their feelings, for the very next morning he showed a more smiling face than for some time past, and continued in this amiable humour for several days, so that the children were able on the third day to set off, armed with baskets nearly as big as themselves, for a regular good blackberrying.
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All went well for some time. They had been told where and how far they might go, and though it took _rather_ longer than they had expected, to fill even one of the baskets, they worked on cheerfully, nowise disheartened, chattering to each other from time to time, when a strange thing happened.
Nora was just saying that the _only_ thing she was ever afraid of in the woods was "snakes," and Cecil was a.s.suring her that he was quite certain there were none in "our woods," when he was startled by her giving a little scream.
"What"s the matter?" he called out, half thinking that a snake had appeared after all.
"Hush, Cecil, oh, hush!" said Nora in a low and startled voice; "come here, and you, Hilary, come close here, but don"t make any noise."
Wondering, and a little frightened, the two boys crept through the bushes to her side.
"What is it, Nora?" they both whispered in an awestruck tone.
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"I don"t know," she replied. "Cecil, do _you_ know of anything _queer_ in these woods? Are there any dwarfs or--or creatures like in fairy stories? For I am sure I saw a very, very little black or dark-brown man with a red jacket and cap--he wasn"t as high as up to my waist--scrambling among the bushes over there, and picking and eating blackberries."
Cecil and Hilary stared at her.
"You must have fancied it, Nora," said Cecil. "I never heard of a--" but he was interrupted by a sort of smothered scream.
"There, there," whispered Nora, clutching hold of both the boys, "there he is again!"
And sure enough there "he" was, and just exactly as Nora had described him. A tiny dark-brown creature, like a wee old man, with a little red jacket, and a small red skull-cap on the top of his head. He seemed to have come up suddenly from among the bushes; he was holding the branch of a blackberry tree in one hand, and with the other greedily plucking and eating the fruit as fast as he could.
"Who can he be?" said Nora, who had grown very pale.
"I wish I"d a gun here," said Hilary, who was rather given to boasting.
"Nonsense," said Nora, "if he"s some kind of a man,--and he can"t be an _animal_--animals don"t wear jackets and caps--it would be very wrong, and if he"s a--a wood-spirit, or anything like that, shooting would be no good."
But Hilary and she had raised their voices in this discussion without knowing it. Suddenly the small man turned round, placed one hand behind his big black ear, as if listening, and then, seemingly catching sight of the children, sprang forward, stretching out his two long arms before him in a curious way towards the little group.
A group no longer--with a scream, or three screams joined into one, the children had turned and fled. How they got through the thick growing bushes without being torn to pieces I am sure I cannot tell. Fear lends wings, I suppose. However that may be, I know it was in a wonderfully short time that they found themselves, panting and shaking, breathless and trembling, but safe, inside the shelter of their own garden gate.
"Oh, Nora!"
"Oh, Cecil!"
"Oh, Hilary!"
"I never was so frightened in my life," each exclaimed in turn.
"If we hadn"t _all_ seen it, we might think it was fancy," said Nora.
"I"m afraid the big ones will say it"s fancy as it is," said Cecil, "and they will so laugh at us."
"Then we won"t tell them," said Nora, "at least we"ll wait a little and see. But I daren"t go into the woods again; I really _daren"t_."
"Not without a gun," said Hilary.
"Rubbish," said Nora.
They kept their own counsel all that day, though strongly tempted to confide in one or other of the big ones. But after dinner that evening, when they went into dessert, Cecil"s father called them to him.
"I"ve got a story which will amuse you, children," he said. "I was riding past Welby"s farm this morning, and Welby was quite full of a present his sailor son has sent him. It is a monkey--the funniest little fellow possible. He arrived, dressed in a red jacket and cap, and was soon as friendly as possible with them all, he says. But the queerest thing is this. Last week Tom Welby took the monkey a walk in the woods and gave him some blackberries. Mr. Monkey seemed to like them very much, and the next morning be disappeared, to the Welbys" consternation.
They were sure he was stolen or lost. But late in the afternoon he came home again in a very good humour. And the next morning off he went again, to come home just like the day before. They couldn"t make it out, but Tom was determined to find out, so he watched Mr. Monkey, and where do you think he was? In the woods gathering blackberrries on his own account, "like a Christian," said old Welby, and enjoying himself thoroughly. And now he goes off every morning regularly, and comes home when the afternoon gets chilly. It"s really most amusing, isn"t it?"
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The children looked at each other, but for a moment none of them spoke.
Then at last Nora burst out.
"Uncle, we saw him this morning. But--we were very silly--"
"We thought he was a wood-spirit--a--a--I can"t remember the name,"
said Cecil.
"I wanted to shoot him," said Hilary.
At this there was a shout of laughter all round the table. The children hesitated, then they looked at each other again, and burst out laughing too.
"Why didn"t you tell us?" asked big sister Mabel.
"We thought you"d laugh at us," they said.
"And after all we _have_ laughed at you, but I don"t think you"re any the worse," said Mabel smiling, as she kissed their little flushed faces.
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