Take the boys into the study, Miss Maudie dear, for a few minutes, and I"ll run round by the lodge, and ask if they have seen her pa.s.s. If she"s gone up the wood to that cottage again they must have seen her.
Dear me, dear me, I might have thought of it when she teased so about her basket."
Off rushed Martin, and Maudie, faithful to her charge, kept watch over the little boys. They were not kept waiting very long, however. In two minutes Martin put in her head again.
"Is she with you, Miss Maudie?" she said, quite breathless with running so fast, "No? Oh dear, where _can_ she be? The woman at the lodge says she saw her running back to the house a few minutes ago. She is sure she did."
"Perhaps she"s gone up to the nursery again," said Maudie.
"Oh no," said Martin, "she"d never go there, once she thinks she"s escaped again. She"s got something new in her head, I"m sure. I"ll just ask in the servants" hall if any of them have seen her."
She left the room to do so, but as she pa.s.sed by the foot of the stairs she heard a step. There, calmly coming down, was Hoodie, without her basket, however. But that, in her delight at recovering her truant, Martin did not notice.
"Miss Hoodie, Miss Hoodie," she cried, "where _have_ you been? You"ve given me such a fright again. Where _have_ you been?"
"Up in the nursley," said Hoodie, coolly. "I wented out a little, and then up-stairs to the nursley."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Up in the nursley," said Hoodie coolly]
And with this account of her doings Martin was obliged to be content.
CHAPTER V.
STORIES TELLING.
"This is the c.o.c.k that crowed in the morn."
Late that night, no, very early the next morning, just as dawn was breaking, the peacefully sleeping inhabitants of Mr. Caryll"s house were awakened by strange and alarming sounds which seemed to come from the direction of the nursery. The children"s mother was one of the first to wake, and yet the sounds which had roused her having been heard indistinctly through her sleep, she was not able to say what they were.
"It must be one of the children with croup--I am sure it sounded like what I have heard croup described, or like that dreadful illness they call the crowing cough," she said to Mr. Caryll, as she rushed out of the room in a fright.
She had only got to the end of the long pa.s.sage leading to the children"s rooms when she ran against Miss King, closely followed by her maid and one, two, three other servants all pale and alarmed.
"What can it be?" each said to the other.
"Martin, Martin," cried Mrs. Caryll, "are you there? What _is_ the matter?"
But before any Martin was to be seen, again the sounds shrilled through the house.
"Kurroo--kurallarrallo-oo-_ook!_" with a queer sudden sort of pull-up at the end, it seemed to sound.
They all turned to look at each other.
"It must be a real c.o.c.k," said Miss King, looking less frightened.
"It certainly doesn"t sound like croup," said Mrs. Caryll.
"It"s just one of them mischievous bantams, ma"am," said the cook, a countrywoman who had made a study of c.o.c.ks and hens. "They always give that sort of catchy croak at the end of their crows. But, to be sure, what a fright it"s gave us all! And where can the creature be?"
As she spoke, Martin appeared at the end of the pa.s.sage, a basket in her arms, her face pale, leading by the hand a small figure in a white nightgown, a figure that pulled and pushed and kicked valiantly in its extreme reluctance to come any farther.
"I won"t be takened to Mamma. I won"t, I won"t. I"m not naughty. It"s zou that"s ugly and naughty," it screamed.
Mrs. Caryll gave a despairing glance at her cousin.
"Hoodie again!" she said.
Martin hastened forward as fast as she could, considering the difficulties in her way.
"Oh, ma"am," she exclaimed, looking nearly ready to cry, "I am so sorry, so sorry and ashamed to have such an upset in the house at this time of the night, or morning, I should say. It really must seem with all these troubles as if I wasn"t fit to manage the children. And just as Miss King has come, too. But oh dear, ma"am, I don"t know _what_ to do with Miss Hoodie and her queer ways."
"But what _is_ it, Martin? What has Hoodie been doing?" said Mrs.
Caryll, rather impatiently. "Stop crying, Hoodie. You _must_," she added sternly, turning to the little girl, who was now regularly set agoing on one of her roars.
Hoodie took not the slightest notice, but roared on. Her mother turned again to Martin, shaking her head.
"No, ma"am," said Martin, "it"s not the least use speaking to her. She has wakened all the others, of course--first with that nasty creature and then with her screaming."
"What nasty creature? For goodness" sake explain yourself, Martin."
"The c.o.c.k, ma"am--the bantam c.o.c.k," replied Martin, seeming quite astonished that Mrs. Caryll did not know all about it by instinct. "Miss Hoodie fetched it in in her basket, unbeknown to me, last night, and had it hidden under her bed. The creature was quite quiet all night, as is its nature, I suppose, and very likely frightened and not knowing where it was. But this morning all of a sudden it started the most awful screeching; it really sounded much worse than common crowing, or else it was hearing it half in one"s sleep like. I thought, to be sure, one of those dear boys had got some awful fit. And to think it was nothing but Miss Hoodie"s naughtiness--real mischievous naughtiness." Martin stopped, quite out of breath, and Hoodie"s roars increased in violence.
"Had she really no reason for it but mischief?" said Miss King.
Martin hesitated.
"She did begin some nonsense, ma"am, about having brought it in to lay an egg, or something like that."
"Hoodie," said Magdalen, "can"t you leave off screaming and tell us about it?"
"No," said Hoodie, stopping at once and with perfect ease, "I can"t leave off sc"eaming, and I won"t. But I"ll tell zou, "cos it was for zou. I brought the little c.o.c.k in to lay a egg for zour breakfast, "cos zou said zou likened zem kite fresh, and now Martin"s spoilt it all. Of course it c"owed to tell me it was going to lay the egg, and now it won"t. It"s all spoilt, and I _must_ sc"eam."
True to her determination she set to work again and roared so that it was almost impossible to hear one"s voice.
"What _shall_ we do with her?" said her mother.
"May I take her to my room?" said Cousin Magdalen. "It is farther away from the other children, so she can"t disturb them even if she screams all day."
Hoodie stopped again as suddenly as before.
"I won"t go to zour room," she said. "I don"t like zou now--not one bit."
Magdalen glanced at Mrs. Caryll.
"May I take my own way with her!" her glance seemed to say. Mrs. Caryll nodded her head, and notwithstanding Martin"s whispered warning, "Oh, Miss King, you don"t _know_ what a work you"ll have with her," Magdalen turned to Hoodie, and before the child in the least understood what she was about, she had picked her up in her strong young arms and was half way down the pa.s.sage before Hoodie"s surprise had given her breath to begin her roars again.