Acton in the reading-room, smoked pipes with him in the garden, and thought him a very nice fellow; his wife was the daughter of poor Cartwright of the Artillery, and a sensible ladylike woman as ever he saw."
With a resigned sigh at the folly of mankind, his wife asked, "How about the others? That woman with the hair? and that man with the velvet coat?
Jessie says Jock told her that he was a mere play-actor!"
"Jock told Jessie! Nonsense, my dear! The man is going out to China in the tea trade, and is come to take leave. I believe he did sing in public at one time; but Joe attended him in an illness which damaged his voice, and then he put him in the way of other work. You need not be afraid. Joe was one of the most particular men in the world in his own way."
Mrs. Brownlow could do no more. She had found that her little sister-in-law could be saucy, and personal squabbles, as she justly thought, had better be avoided. She could only keep Jessie from the contamination by taking her out in the carriage and to garden parties, which the young lady infinitely preferred to long walks that tired her and spoilt her dress; to talk and laughter that she could not understand, and games that seemed to her stupid, though everybody else seemed to find them full of fun. True, Allen and Bobus were always ready to push and pull her through, and to snub Janet for quizzing her; but Jessie was pretty enough to have plenty of such homage at her command, and not specially to prefer that of her cousins, so that it cost her little to turn a deaf ear to all their invitations.
Her brothers were not of the same mind, for Rob was never happy out of sight of Jock. Johnny worshipped his aunt, and Joe was gregarious, so there was generally an accompanying rabble of six or seven boys, undistinguishable by outsiders, though very individual indeed in themselves and adding a considerable element of noise, high spirits, and mischievous enterprise. The man in the velvet coat, whose proper name was Orlando Hughes, was as much of a boy as any of them, and so could Mr. Acton be on occasion, thus giving a certain Bohemian air to their doings.
Things came to a crisis on one of the dog-days. Young Dr. Drake had brought his bride to show to his old friend, and they were staying at the Folly, while a college friend of Mr. Ogilvie"s, a London curate, had come to see him in the course of a cathedral tour, and had stayed on, under the attraction of the place, taking the duty for a few Sundays.
The weather was very sultry, forbidding exertion on the part of all save cricketers; but there was a match at Redford, and Kenminster was eager about it, so that all the boys, grown up or otherwise, walked over to see it, accompanied by Nita Ray with her inseparable Janet, meaning to study village groups and rustic sports. The other ladies walked in the cool to meet them at the Acton"s farmhouse, chiefly, it was alleged, in deference to the feelings of the bride, who could not brave the heat, but had never yet been so long separated from her bridegroom.
The little boys, however, were alone to be found at the farm, reporting that their elders had joined the cricket supper. So Mrs. Acton made them welcome, and spread her cloth in the greensward, whence could be seen the evening glow on the harvest fields. Then there was a feast of cherries, and delicious farmhouse bread and b.u.t.ter, and inexhaustible tea, which was renewed when the cricketers joined them, and called for their share.
Thus they did not set out on their homeward walk, over fragrant heath and dewy lanes, till just as the stars were coming out, and a magnificent red moon, scarcely past the full, was rising in the east, and the long rest, and fresh dewiness after the day"s heat, gave a delightful feeling of exhilaration.
Babie went skipping about in the silvery flood of light, quite wild with delight as they came out on the heath, and, darting up to Mr. Ogilvie, asked if now he did not think they might really see a fairy.
"Perhaps I do," he said.
"Oh where, where, show me?"
"Ah! you"re the one that can"t see her."
"What, not if I did my eyes with that Euphrasia and Verbena officinalis?" catching tight hold of his hand, as a bright red light went rapidly moving in a straight line in the valley beneath their feet.
"Robin Goodfellow," said Mr. Hughes, overhearing her, and immediately began to sing--
"I know a bank"--
Then the curate, as he finished, began to sing some other appropriate song, and Nita Ray and others joined in. It was very pretty, very charming in the moonlight, very like "Midsummer Night"s Dream;" but Mary Ogilvie, who was a good way behind, felt a start of dismay as the clear notes pealed back to her. She longed to suggest a little expediency; but she was impeded; for poor Miss Ray, entirely unused to long country walks and nocturnal expeditions, and further tormented by tight boots, was panting up the hill far in the rear, half-frightened, and a good deal distressed, and could not, for very humanity"s sake, be left behind.
"And after all," thought Mary, as peals of the boys" merry laughter came to her, and then again echoes of "spotted snakes with double tongue"
awoke the night echoes; "this is such a solitary place that it cannot signify, if they will only have the sense to stop when we get into the roads."
But they hadn"t. Mary heard a chorus from "Der Freischutz," beginning just as she was dragging her companion over a stile, which had been formidable enough by day, but was ten times worse in the confusing shadows. That brought them into a lane darkened by its high hedges, where there was nothing for it but to let Miss Ray tightly grapple her arm, while the songs came further and further on the wind, and Mary felt the conviction that middle-aged spinsters must reckon on being forgotten, and left behind alike by brothers, sisters, and friends.
Nor did they come up with the party till they found them waiting in the road, close to the Rays" lodgings, having evidently just missed them, for Mr. Ogilvie and the clergyman were turning back to look for them when they were gladly hailed, half apologised to, half laughed at by a babel of voices, among which Nita"s was the loudest, informing her sister that she had lost the best bit of all, for just at the turn of the lane there had come on them Babie"s fiery-eyed monster, which had "burst on the path," when they were in mid song, flashing over them, and revealing, first a horse, and then a brougham, wherein there sat the august forms of Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow, going home from a state dinner, the lady"s very marabouts quivering with horror.
Mary stepped up to Nita, and gave her a sharp, severe grasp.
"Hush! remember their boys are here," she whispered; and, with an exaggerated gesture, Nita looked about her in affected alarm, and, seeing that none were near, added--
"Thank you; I was just going to say it would be a study for Punch"
"O do send it up, they"ll never know it," cried Janet; but there Caroline interfered--
"Hush, Janet, we ought to be at home. Don"t stand here, Armine is tired to death! 11.5 at the station to-morrow. Good-night."
They parted, and Mary and her brother turned away to their own home. If it had not been for the presence of the curate, Mary would have said a good deal on the way home. As it was, she was so silent as to inspire her brother with enough compunction for having deserted her, to make him follow her, when she went to her own room. "Mary, I am sorry we missed you," he said; "I ought to have looked about for you more, but I thought--"
"Nonsense, David; of course I do not mind that, if only I could have stopped all that singing."
"That singing; why it was very pretty, wasn"t it?"
"Pretty indeed! Did it never occur to you what a sc.r.a.pe you may be getting that poor little thing into with her relations, and yourself, too?"
David looked more than half-amused, and she proceeded more resolutely--
"Well! what do you think must be Mrs. Brownlow"s opinion of what she saw and heard to-night? I blame myself exceedingly for not having urged the setting off sooner; but you must remember that what is all very well for holiday people, only here for a time, may do infinite mischief to residents."
David only observed, "I didn"t want all those men, if that"s what you mean. They made the noise, not I."
"No, nor I; but we swelled the party, and I am much disposed to believe that the best thing we can do is to take ourselves off, or do anything to break up this set."
He looked for a moment much disconcerted; but then with a little masculine superiority, answered--
"Well, well, we"ll think over it, Mary. See how it appears to you to-morrow when you aren"t tired," and then, with a smile and a kiss, bade her good-night.
"So that"s what we get," said Mary, to herself, half amused, half annoyed; "those men think it is all because one is left behind in the dark! David is the best boy in the world, but there"s not a man of them all who has a notion of what gets a woman into trouble! I believe he was rather gratified than otherwise to be found out on a lark. Well, I"ll talk to Clara; she will have some sense!"
They were all to meet at the station the next morning, to go to an old castle, about an hour from Kenminster by railway; and they filled the platform, armed with sketching tools, sandwich baskets, botanical tins, and all other appliances; but when Mr. Ogilvie accosted Mrs. Joseph Brownlow, saying, "You have only half your boys," she looked up, with a drolly guilty air, saying, "No, there"s an embargo on the other poor fellows."
They had just taken their seats, and the train was in motion, when a heated headlong boy came dashing over the platform, and clung to the door of the carriage, standing on the step. It was Johnny. Orlando Hughes, who was next the window, grasped his hands, and, in answer to the cries of dismay and blame that greeted him, he called out, "Yes, here I am; Rob and Joe couldn"t run so fast."
"Then you"ve got leave?" asked his aunt.
Johnny"s grin said "No."
She looked up at Mr. Ogilvie in much vexation and anxiety.
"Don"t say any more to him now. It might put him in great danger. Wait till the next station," he said.
It was a stopping train, and ten minutes brought a halt, when the guard came up in a fury, and Johnny found no sympathy for his bold attempt.
Carey had no notion of fostering flat disobedience, and she told Johnny that unless he would promise to go home by himself and beg his father"s pardon, she should stay behind and go back with him, for she could have no pleasure in an expedition with him when he was behaving so outrageously.
The boy looked both surprised and abashed. His affection for his aunt was very great, as for one who had opened to him the gates of a new world, both within himself and beyond himself. He would not hear of her giving up the expedition, and promised her with all his heart to walk home, and confess, "Though "twasn"t papa, but mamma!" were his last words, as they left him on the platform, crestfallen, but with a twinkle in his eye, and with the station-master keeping watch over him as a dangerous subject.
Mr. Ogilvie said it would do the boy good for life; Caroline mourned over him a little, and wondered how his mother would treat him; and Mary sat and thought till the arrival at their destination, when they had to walk to the castle, dragging their appurtenances, and then to rouse their energies to spread out the luncheon.
Then, when there had been the usual amount of mirth, mischief, and mishap, and the party had dispersed, some to sketch, some to scramble, some to botanize, the "Duck and Drake to spoon,"--as said the boys, Mary Ogilvie found a turfy nook where she could hold council with Mrs. Acton about their poor little friend, for whose welfare she was seriously uneasy.
But Clara did not sympathise as much as she expected, having been much galled by Mrs. Robert Brownlow"s supercilious manner, and thinking the attempt to conciliate her both unworthy and useless.
"Of course I do not mean that poor Carey should truckle to her," said Mary, rather nettled at the implication; "but I don"t think these irregular hours, and all this roaming about the country at all times, can be well in themselves for her or the children."