"Well, I"m blessed!" the farmer cried. "And to think we should be falling out when I"ve been waiting to see you these many days! My name"s Pescod. My halfsister"s your cook."
Mr. Pescod climbed out of his cart and shook hands with all the children. "Now I"ll turn," he said, with a smile to Kink, and he led his horse up the lane, talking all the while, while the Slowcoach followed. They told him about their difficulty in finding any trace of him, and he called Collins a donkey for not directing them better, and forgetting to say that her name and his were different.
"Never mind," he said; "here you are at last. We"ve been looking out for you for a long time. My missis never hears wheels nowadays but what she runs to the door to see if it"s you."
Lycett"s farm was a long, low, white house with a yew hedge leading from the garden gate to the front door. This hedge, of which Collins had told them, was famous in the neighbourhood; for it was enormously old, and as thick almost as masonry, and it was kept so carefully clipped that it was as smooth also as a wall. At the gate itself the yews were cut into tall pillars with a pheasant at the top of each, and then there were smaller pillars at intervals all the way up the path, about twenty yards, with a thick joining band of yew between them. They were so ma.s.sive that very little light could get into the front windows or the doorway; but, as Mr. Pescod said, "anyone can have light, few yew hedges like that in the world."
Mrs. Pescod was a comfortable, smiling woman whose one idea was that everyone must either be hungry or in need of feeding up. All of the children in turn she looked at anxiously, saying that she was sure that they had not had enough to eat. As a matter of fact, they had not perhaps eaten as much as they would have done at Chiswick, and they had, of course, worked harder; but they were all very well, and said so. But it made no difference to Mrs. Pescod.
"Ah, my dear," she said to Janet, "you"re pale. I shouldn"t like you to go back to your ma looking like that. No, while you"re here you must have three good meals. A good tea, and a good supper, and a good breakfast. I wish you"d stay longer, and let me have a real go at you; but if you can"t, you can"t, and there"s an end of it."
Mrs. Pescod"s notion of a good tea was terrific. Eggs for everyone to begin with (to Gregory"s great pleasure, for an egg with his tea was almost his favourite treat). Freshly baked hot cakes soaking in b.u.t.ter.
Hot toast. Three kinds of jam. Bread and b.u.t.ter. Watercress. Mustard and cress. This was at five o"clock, and as supper was at half-past eight, Janet urged the others to explore as much as possible, or they would have no appet.i.te, and then Mrs. Pescod would be miserable.
It was a delightful farm. There was everything that one wants in a farm,--a pond with ducks; a haystack half cut, so that one might jump about on it; straw ricks on stone posts; cowsheds smelling so warm and friendly, with swallows darting in and out of the doorway to their nests in the roof; stables with gentle horses who ate the green stuff you gave them without biting you; guinea-pigs, the property of Master Walter Pescod, who was a weekly boarder at Cirencester; fantail pigeons; bantams; ferrets, very frightening to everyone but Kink, who knew just how to hold them; and a turnip-slicer, which Gregory turned for some time, munching turnip all the while.
Mrs. Pescod led the girls round with her on an egg-hunt, which is always one of the most interesting expeditions in life; and Mr. Pescod, as the evening drew on, allowed the boys to accompany him with his gun to get a rabbit or two under the hedge, and he permitted Jack to fire it off. Nothing happened except that Jack was nearly knocked backwards by the "kick"; but he was very proud of the bruise, and when he returned to Chiswick showed it to his father and to William in triumph.
It was getting purple then, with green edges, and Dr. Rotheram p.r.o.nounced it one of the best bruises he had ever seen. "Good enough,"
he said, "to have killed a lion with."
"Yes," said William, "instead of missing a rabbit."
Mrs. Pescod, of course, wanted the children to sleep indoors, but they would not. "It is our very last night in the caravan," said Janet, "and we couldn"t give it up." So Mrs. Pescod instead made them promise to come to breakfast, and gave them each a large cake of her own making in case they felt hungry in the night.
CHAPTER 22
THE ADVENTURE OF THE GIANT
After receiving a thousand messages for Collins, both affectionate and jocular--one from Mr. Pescod being on no account to forget to tell her to try anti-fat--they said good-bye to these kind folk and marched into Faringdon the next morning, very sorry it was the last, but determined to make a brave show. Through watery Lechdale they went, over the Isis (as the Thames is called here), and past Buscot.
It was just after leaving Buscot that Gregory, who had been ahead alone, suddenly rushed back in a wild state of excitement.
"What do you think I"ve seen?" he panted. "A giant! A real live giant!"
"Don"t be an a.s.s!" said Jack
"But I have," he protested--"I have. He"s there in that wood, kneeling by the stream, washing his face. I watched him walk to it. He"s enormous! He"s as tall as this caravan nearly. Do come and peep at him."
They all very readily accompanied Gregory into the wood, and there, sure enough, was a giant, combing his hair.
He heard them coming, and looked round. They stopped, open-eyed and openmouthed.
"Here, I say," the giant said at last, "this won"t do. You mustn"t look at me like that--free. It"s a penny each, you know."
He had a broad Yorkshire accent and a kind face.
"Where do you come from?" he asked.
"We come from London," said Janet. "We are on a caravan journey."
"A caravan journey," said the giant. "So am I. I always am, in fact."
"Are you?" said Gregory. "How splendid!"
"Splendid!" said the giant. "Do you think so? I"d give a good deal to sleep in a bed in a house. Excuse me if I sit down," he added. "My legs aren"t very strong."
He sat down, but even then he was taller than any of the children.
"Where is your caravan?" Janet asked.
"Just over there," the giant said. "They"re waiting for me. I came here to make my toilet. Where are you going?"
"We"re going to Faringdon," said Robert.
"That"s where we"ve come from," said the giant. "There"s been a fair there. We"re going to Cirencester."
"What a shame!" said Horace. "That means we"ve missed you."
"But you"re seeing me now," said the giant, adding again, with his Yorkshire laugh, "free."
"I know," said Jack, "but that"s not the same as at a fair. The naphtha lamps, you know."
The giant shuddered. "I like to be away from them," he said.
"Who else is there with you?" asked Gregory.
"The King," said the giant.
"The King!" they all exclaimed.
"Yes, King Pip. He"s a dwarf. We travel together, but we show separately. A penny each."
"Might we see him if we paid a penny?" Janet asked.
"I shouldn"t if I were you," said the giant.
"Why not?" said Gregory. "Isn"t he nice?"
"No," said the giant very firmly. "He"s not; he"s nasty."
"I"m so sorry," said Janet.
"So am I," said the giant.
"I"ve always liked giants best," said Mary.