"Well, we haven"t any, anyhow," said Felicity. "I suppose blueberry wine wouldn"t do in its place?"
Peter did not think blueberry wine would be any good.
It was ten o"clock before Dan began to get better; but from that time he improved rapidly. When the doctor, who had been away from home when Uncle Roger reached Markdale, came at half past ten, he found his patient very weak and white, but free from pain.
Dr. Grier patted Cecily on the head, told her she was a little brick, and had done just the right thing, examined some of the fatal berries and gave it as his opinion that they were probably poisonous, administered some powders to Dan and advised him not to tamper with forbidden fruit in future, and went away.
Mrs. Ray now appeared, looking for Sara, and said she would stay all night with us.
"I"ll be much obliged to you if you will," said Uncle Roger. "I feel a bit shook. I urged Janet and Alec to go to Halifax, and took the responsibility of the children while they were away, but I didn"t know what I was letting myself in for. If anything had happened I could never have forgiven myself--though I believe it"s beyond the power of mortal man to keep watch over the things children WILL eat. Now, you young fry, get straight off to your beds. Dan is out of danger, and you can"t do any more good. Not that any of you have done much, except Cecily. She"s got a head of her shoulders."
"It"s been a horrid day all through," said Felicity drearily, as we climbed the stairs.
"I suppose we made it horrid ourselves," said the Story Girl candidly.
"But it"ll be a good story to tell sometime," she added.
"I"m awful tired and thankful," sighed Cecily.
We all felt that way.
CHAPTER XV. A DISOBEDIENT BROTHER
Dan was his own man again in the morning, though rather pale and weak; he wanted to get up, but Cecily ordered him to stay in bed. Fortunately Felicity forgot to repeat the command, so Dan did stay in bed. Cecily carried his meals to him, and read a Henty book to him all her spare time. The Story Girl went up and told him wondrous tales; and Sara Ray brought him a pudding she had made herself. Sara"s intentions were good, but the pudding--well, Dan fed most of it to Paddy, who had curled himself up at the foot of the bed, giving the world a.s.surance of a cat by his mellifluous purring.
"Ain"t he just a great old fellow?" said Dan. "He knows I"m kind of sick, just as well as a human. He never pays no attention to me when I"m well."
Felix and Peter and I were required to help Uncle Roger in some carpentering work that day, and Felicity indulged in one of the house-cleaning orgies so dear to her soul; so that it was evening before we were all free to meet in the orchard and loll on the gra.s.ses of Uncle Stephen"s Walk. In August it was a place of shady sweetness, fragrant with the odour of ripening apples, full of dear, delicate shadows.
Through its openings we looked afar to the blue rims of the hills and over green, old, tranquil fields, lying the sunset glow. Overhead the lacing leaves made a green, murmurous roof. There was no such thing as hurry in the world, while we lingered there and talked of "cabbages and kings." A tale of the Story Girl"s, wherein princes were thicker than blackberries, and queens as common as b.u.t.tercups, led to our discussion of kings. We wondered what it would be like to be a king. Peter thought it would be fine, only kind of inconvenient, wearing a crown all the time.
"Oh, but they don"t," said the Story Girl. "Maybe they used to once, but now they wear hats. The crowns are just for special occasions. They look very much like other people, if you can go by their photographs."
"I don"t believe it would be much fun as a steady thing," said Cecily.
"I"d like to SEE a queen though. That is one thing I have against the Island--you never have a chance to see things like that here."
"The Prince of Wales was in Charlottetown once," said Peter. "My Aunt Jane saw him quite close by."
"That was before we were born, and such a thing won"t happen again until after we"re dead," said Cecily, with very unusual pessimism.
"I think queens and kings were thicker long ago," said the Story Girl.
"They do seem dreadfully scarce now. There isn"t one in this country anywhere. Perhaps I"ll get a glimpse of some when I go to Europe."
Well, the Story Girl was destined to stand before kings herself, and she was to be one whom they delighted to honour. But we did not know that, as we sat in the old orchard. We thought it quite sufficiently marvellous that she should expect to have the chance of just seeing them.
"Can a queen do exactly as she pleases?" Sara Ray wanted to know.
"Not nowadays," explained the Story Girl.
"Then I don"t see any use in being one," Sara decided.
"A king can"t do as he pleases now, either," said Felix. "If he tries to, and if it isn"t what pleases other people, the Parliament or something squelches him."
"Isn"t "squelch" a lovely word?" said the Story Girl irrelevantly. "It"s so expressive. Squ-u-e-l-ch!"
Certainly it was a lovely word, as the Story Girl said it. Even a king would not have minded being squelched, if it were done to music like that.
"Uncle Roger says that Martin Forbes" wife has squelched HIM," said Felicity. "He says Martin can"t call his soul his own since he was married."
"I"m glad of it," said Cecily vindictively.
We all stared. This was so very unlike Cecily.
"Martin Forbes is the brother of a horrid man in Summerside who called me Johnny, that"s why," she explained. "He was visiting here with his wife two years ago, and he called me Johnny every time he spoke to me.
Just you fancy! I"ll NEVER forgive him."
"That isn"t a Christian spirit," said Felicity rebukingly.
"I don"t care. Would YOU forgive James Forbes if he had called YOU Johnny?" demanded Cecily.
"I know a story about Martin Forbes" grandfather," said the Story Girl.
"Long ago they didn"t have any choir in the Carlisle church--just a precentor you know. But at last they got a choir, and Andrew McPherson was to sing ba.s.s in it. Old Mr. Forbes hadn"t gone to church for years, because he was so rheumatic, but he went the first Sunday the choir sang, because he had never heard any one sing ba.s.s, and wanted to hear what it was like. Grandfather King asked him what he thought of the choir. Mr. Forbes said it was "verra guid," but as for Andrew"s ba.s.s, "there was nae ba.s.s aboot it--it was just a bur-r-r-r the hale time.""
If you could have heard the Story Girl"s "bur-r-r-r!" Not old Mr. Forbes himself could have invested it with more of Doric scorn. We rolled over in the cool gra.s.s and screamed with laughter.
"Poor Dan," said Cecily compa.s.sionately. "He"s up there all alone in his room, missing all the fun. I suppose it"s mean of us to be having such a good time here, when he has to stay in bed."
"If Dan hadn"t done wrong eating the bad berries when he was told not to, he wouldn"t be sick," said Felicity. "You"re bound to catch it when you do wrong. It was just a Providence he didn"t die."
"That makes me think of another story about old Mr. Scott," said the Story Girl. "You know, I told you he was very angry because the Presbytery made him retire. There were two ministers in particular he blamed for being at the bottom of it. One time a friend of his was trying to console him, and said to him,
""You should be resigned to the will of Providence."
""Providence had nothing to do with it," said old Mr. Scott. ""Twas the McCloskeys and the devil.""
"You shouldn"t speak of the--the--DEVIL," said Felicity, rather shocked.
"Well, that"s just what Mr. Scott said."
"Oh, it"s all right for a MINISTER to speak of him. But it isn"t nice for little girls. If you HAVE to speak of--of--him--you might say the Old Scratch. That is what mother calls him."
"""Twas the McCloskeys and the Old Scratch,"" said the Story Girl reflectively, as if she were trying to see which version was the more effective. "It wouldn"t do," she decided.
"I don"t think it"s any harm to mention the--the--that person, when you"re telling a story," said Cecily. "It"s only in plain talking it doesn"t do. It sounds too much like swearing then."
"I know another story about Mr. Scott," said the Story Girl. "Not long after he was married his wife wasn"t quite ready for church one morning when it was time to go. So, just to teach her a lesson, he drove off alone, and left her to walk all the way--it was nearly two miles--in the heat and dust. She took it very quietly. It"s the best way, I guess, when you"re married to a man like old Mr. Scott. But just a few Sundays after wasn"t he late himself! I suppose Mrs. Scott thought that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, for she slipped out and drove off to church as he had done. Old Mr. Scott finally arrived at the church, pretty hot and dusty, and in none too good a temper. He went into the pulpit, leaned over it and looked at his wife, sitting calmly in her pew at the side.
""It was cleverly done," he said, right out loud, "BUT DINNA TRY IT AGAIN!""