“At least they did when Mr. Greville’s mother was ill, so they will now; and then you may ride upon the engine, for there won’t be any carriages, you know. I say, Sam, if you go to church, and the telegraph comes, I shall set off.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Sam. “You had much better come to church.”

“No, I sha’n’t. It is like a girl to go to church on a week-day.”

“It is much more like a girl to mind what a couple of asses, like the Grevilles, say,” returned Sam, taking up his cap and running after his sisters and their governess.

“It is quite right,” observed Henry to John and David, who alone remained to listen to him, “that one of us should stay in case the telegraph comes in, and there are any orders to give. I can catch the pony, you know, and ride off to Bonchamp, and if the special train is there, I shall get upon the engine.”

“But it is Sam and Susan who are going.”

“Oh, that’s only because Sam is eldest. I know Mamma would like to have me much better, because I don’t walk hard like Sam; and when I get there, she will be so much better already, and we shall be all right; and Admiral Penrose will be so delighted at my courage in riding on the engine and putting out the explosion, or something, that he will give me my appointment as naval cadet at once, and I shall have a dirk and a uniform, and a chest of my own, and be an officer, and get promoted for firing red-hot shot out of the batteries at Gibraltar.”

“Master Hal!” exclaimed Purday, “don’t throw them little apples about.”

“They are red-hot shot, Purday!”

“I’ll red-hot shot you if you break my cucumber frames, young gentleman! Come, get out with you.”

Probably anxiety made Purday cross as well as everyone else, or else he distrusted Henry’s discretion without Sam, for he hunted the little boys away wherever they went. Now they would break the cucumber frames; now they would meddle with the gooseberries, or trample on the beds; and at last he only relented so far as to let David stay with him on condition of being very good, and holding the little cabbages as he planted them out.

“Master Davie was a solemn one,” Purday said, and they were great friends; but Hal and Johnnie were fairly turned out, as their idle hands were continually finding fresh mischief to do in their sauntering desultory mood.

“I think,” said Hal, “since Purday is so savage, we’ll go and look out at the gate, and then we shall see if the telegraph comes.”

Johnnie had no clear idea what a telegraph was, and was curious to know how it would come, rather expecting it to be a man in a red coat on horseback, blowing a horn—a sight that certainly was not to be missed; so he willingly strolled down after Henry to the gate leading to the lane.

“I can’t see any way at all,” said Henry, looking out into the lane. “I shall get up, and so see over into the bend of the road;” and Hal mounted to the topmost bar of the gate, and sat astride there, John scrambling after him not quite so easily, his legs being less long, and his dress less convenient. Both knew that their Papa strongly objected to their climbing on this iron gate, the newest and handsomest thing about the place; but thought Hal, “Of course no one will care what I do when I am so anxious about poor Mamma!” and thought Johnnie, “What Hal does, of course I may do!”

So there the two young gentlemen sat perched, each with one leg on either side of the new iron gate. It was rather like sitting on the edge of a knife; and John could scarcely reach his toes down to rest them on the bar below, but he held on by the spikes, and it was so new and glorious a position, that it made up for a good deal to be five feet above the road; moreover, Hal said it was just like the mast-head of a man-of-war—at least, when the waves didn’t dash right overhead, like the picture of the Eddystone Lighthouse.

“Hollo! what, a couple of cherubs aloft!” cried a voice from the road; and looking round, Henry beheld the two Grevilles.

“Yes,” he answered; “it’s very jolly up here.”

“Eh! is it? Riding on a razor, to my mind. Come down, and have a lark,” said Osmond; while Martin, undoing the gate, proceeded to swing it backwards and forwards, to John’s extreme terror; but the more he clung to the spikes, and cried for mercy, the quicker Martin swung it, shouting with laughter at his fright. Henry meanwhile scrambled and tumbled to the ground, and caught the gate and held it fast, while he asked what his friends had been about. One held up a scarlet flask of powder, the other a bag of shot.

“You haven’t got a gun!”

“No, but we know where gardener keeps his; and the governor’s out for the day. Come along, Hal: you shall have your turn.”

“I don’t want to go far from home to-day.”

“Oh, stuff! What was it Mamma heard, Osmond? That your mother was ever so much better, wasn’t it?”

“I thought it was worse,” said Osmond.

“Well, never mind: your hanging about here won’t do her any good, I suppose.”

“No; but—”

“Oh, he’ll catch it from the governess!—I say, how many seams shall you have to sew to-day, Hal?”

“I don’t sew seams: I do as I please.”

“Ha! Is that them coming out of church!”

“Oh, it is! it is!” cried John from his elevation. “Oh, help me down, Hal!”

But Henry did not want Miss Fosbrook to find him partaking in gate-climbing; and either that desire, or the general terror a bad conscience, made him and the Grevilles run helter-skelter the opposite way, leaving poor little John stuck on the top of the gate, quite giddy at the thought of coming down alone, and almost as much afraid of being there caught by Miss Fosbrook coming home from church.

It was a false alarm after all, that the congregation were coming out. John would have been glad if they had; for nothing could be more miserable than sitting up there, his fingers tired of clutching the spikes, his feet strained with reaching down to the bar, his legs chilled with the wind, his head almost giddy when he thought of climbing down. He would have cried, could he have spared a hand to rub his eyes with; he had a great mind to have roared for help, especially when he heard feet upon the road; but these turned out to belong to five little village boys, still smaller than himself, who, when they saw the young gentleman on his perch, all stood still in a row, with their mouths wide open, staring at him. Johnnie scorned to let them think he was not riding there for his own pleasure; so he tried to put a bold face of the matter, and look as much at ease and indifferent as he could, under great bodily fear and discomfort, the injury of his brother’s desertion, the expectation of disgrace, and the reflection that he was being disobedient to his parents in the height of their trouble!

There is nothing in grief that of necessity makes children or grown people good. Sometimes, especially when there is suspense, it fills them with excitement, as well as putting them out of their usual habits; and thus it often happens that there are tremendous explosions of naughtiness just when some one is ill in a house, and the children ought to be most good. But it is certain that unless trouble be taken in the right way, it makes people worse instead of better.

CHAPTER XI

Hal had got into a mood in which he was tired of fears and of waiting for tidings, and was glad to shake off the thought, and be carried along to something new, he and the Grevilles were rather fond of one another’s company, in an idle sort of way. They “put him up to things,” as he said; they made a variety; and he was always glad of listeners to his wonderful stories, which rather diverted the other boys, who, though they sometimes made game of them, were much less apt to pick them to pieces than was Sam.

Poor Captain Merrifield! what had not befallen him, according to his son? He had been stuck on to a rock of loadstone; he had been bitten by mosquitos as big as jackdaws—at least as jack-snipes; he had sat down to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree, and it whisked him over on his face, and turned out to be a rattle-snake—at least, a boa-constrictor! Nay, Henry discoursed on the ponies he had himself tamed, the rabbits he had shot, the trees he had climbed, the nests he had found, the rats he had killed, in terms he durst not use when his brother was by; or if he did, and Sam brought him to book, he always said “it was all fun.” It often seemed as if he did not himself know whether he meant to be believed or otherwise; and as to his intentions for his sailor life, they were, as has been already seen, of the most splendid character! Sometimes he shot the French admiral dead from the mast-head; sometimes he sailed into Plymouth with the whole enemy’s fleet behind him; sometimes he, the youngest midshipman, rescued the whole crew in a wreck where all the other officers were drowned; sometimes he shot a shark through the head, just as it was about to make a meal of Prince Alfred!

He certainly was thus an entertaining companion to those who did not pay heed to truth, and liked to hear or laugh at great swelling words; and the Grevilles, on their idle day, were glad to have him with them, and were rather curious to prove how much fact there was in his boast of being a most admirable shot.

Meddling with guns was absolutely forbidden to all the three, except by special permission and with an elder looking on; but the Grevilles were not in the habit of obeying, except when they were forced to do so; and Henry, having once begun to think no one would heed his present doings, was ready to go on rather than be accused of minding his governess.

So the gardener’s gun was taken from the hiding-place, whither it had been conveyed from the tool-house; and the three boys ran off together, their first object being to get out of the Greville grounds, where they could be met by any of the men. They got quite out into the fields, before they ventured to stop that Osmond might load the gun. Each was to take a shot in turn; Osmond tried first, at a poor innocent young thrush, newly come out for his earliest flight. Happily he missed it; Martin claimed the next, and for want of anything better to shoot, took aim at the scare-crow in the middle of Farmer Grice’s beans. He was sure that he had hit it, and showed triumphantly the great holes in its hat; but the other boys were strongly persuaded that they had been there before.

“Well, come away,” said Osmond; “this is a great deal too near old Grice’s farm-yard. If we go popping about here, we shall have him out upon us, for an old tiger as he is!”

“Come along, then,” said Martin.

But Hal had just got the gun, and saw something so black and shiny through the hedge, that he was persuaded that a flock of rooks were feeding in the next field, and he fired!

Such a cackling and screeching as arose! and with it one dying gobble, and a very loud “Hollo! you rascal!”

“My eyes! you’ve been and gone and done it!” cried Osmond.

“Cut! cut!” screamed Martin; and Hal, not exactly knowing what he had done, but sure that it was something dreadful, and hearing voices in pursuit, threw down the gun, and took to his heels; but the others had the start of him, and were over the gap long before he could get to it. And even as he did reach it, a hand was on his throat, almost choking him, and a tremendous voice cried, “You young poacher, you sha’n’t get off that way! I’ll have you up to the Bench, that I will, for shooting the poor old turkey-cock before my very eyes.”

“Oh! don’t, don’t! I didn’t mean it,” cried Hal, turning in the terrible grip; “I thought it was only a rook!”

“A rook, I dare say! And what business had you to think, coming trespassing here on my ground, and breaking the hedges! I’d have you up for that, if for nothing else, you young vagabond!”

“Oh, don’t, don’t! I’m Henry Merrifield!”

“I don’t care if you’re Henry Merry Andrew!” said Farmer Grice, who was a surly man, and had a grudge of long standing against the Captain, for withstanding him at the Board of Guardians. “I’ll have the law out of you, whoever you are.”

“But—but—Mamma is so very ill!” cried Hal, bursting into tears.

“The more shame for you to be rampaging about the country this fashion,” said the farmer, giving him a shake that seemed to make all his bones rattle in his skin. “Serve you right if I flogged you within an inch of your life.”

“Oh, please don’t—I mean please do—anything but have me up to the magistrates! I’ll never do it again, never!” sobbed Henry in his terror.

Mr. Grice had some pity, and also knew that his wife and all the neighbours would be shocked at his prosecuting so young a boy, whose parents were in such distress. So he said, “There, then, I’ll overlook it this time, sir, so as I have the value of the bird.”

“And what is the value—” asked Henry, trembling.

“Value! Why, the breed came from Norfolk; he was three years old; and my missus set great store on him, he was as good as a house-dog, to keep idle children out of the yard; and it was quite a picture to see him posturing about, and setting up his tail! Value! not less than five-and-twenty shillings, sir.”

“But I have not five-and-twenty shillings. I can’t get them,” said Hal, falling back into misery.

“You should have thought of that before you shot poor old Tom Turkey!” quoth Farmer Grice.

“But what in the world shall I ever do?” said Henry.

“That’s for you to settle, sir,” said the farmer, taking up the unlucky gun. “I shall take this, and keep it out of further harm.”

“Oh pray, pray!” cried Henry. “It is not my gun; it is Mr. Greville’s; please let me have it!”

“What! was it those young dogs, the Master Grevilles, that were with you!” growled Mr. Grice. “If I’d known that, I’d not have let you off so easy. Those boys are the plague of the place; I wish it had been one of them as I’d caught, I’d have had some satisfaction out of them!”

Henry entreated again for the gun, explaining that they had not leave to take it; but the farmer was unrelenting. He might go to them, he said, to make up the price of the poor turkey-cock; how they could have got the gun was no affair of his; have it they should not, till the money was brought to him; and if it did not come before night, he should carry the gun up to the Park, and complain to Mr. Greville.

With this answer the unhappy Hal was released, and ran after his friends to tell them of the terms. He found them sitting on a low wall, just within their own grounds, waiting to hear what had become of him. When he had told his story, they both set upon him for betraying them, and declared that they should send him to Coventry ever after, and never do anything with him again; but as it was plain that the gun must be redeemed, if they wished to avoid severe punishment, there was a consultation. Nobody had much money; but Osmond consolingly suspected that the farmer would take less; five-and-twenty shillings was an exorbitant price to set on a turkey-cock’s head, and perhaps half would content him.

The half, however, seemed as impossible as the whole. Osmond had three shillings, Martin two, Hal fourpence! What was to be done? And the boys declared that if it should come to their father’s knowledge, Hal, who had given up their names, should certainly not be shielded by them. In fact, he, who had done the deed, was the only one who ought to pay.

The sound of the servants’ dinner-bell at the Park broke up the consultation; the boys must not be missed at luncheon; and they therefore separated, agreeing to meet at that same place at four o’clock, to hear the result of Hal’s negotiation with the farmer; for neither of the Grevilles would hear of helping him to face the enemy.

Poor Hal plodded home disconsolately. Once he thought of telling Sam, and asking his help; but Sam would be so much shocked at such a scrape at such a time, as possibly to lick him for it before helping him. Indeed Hal did not see much chance of Sam being able to do anything for them; and he had too often boasted over his elder brother to like to abase himself by such a confession—when, too, it would almost be owning how much better it would have been to have followed Sam’s advice and have gone safely to church.

Could he borrow of any one? Had he nothing of his own to sell or exchange? Ah! if it had not been for that stupid hoard of little David’s, he might have had even so much! By-the-bye, some of that collection was his own. He might quite lawfully take that back again. How much could it be? How much did he put in last week? the week before? Oh, never mind; some of it was his at all events; there was no harm in taking that. Most likely he should be able to restore it four-fold when Colonel Carey made his present; or, if not, nobody knew exactly what was in Toby Fillpot; and after all very likely they would forget all about it; people could not think about pigs when Mamma was ill; or, maybe, he should go to join his ship, and hear no more of it. So he came home, and crossed the paddock just as the dinner-bell was ringing, opening the hall-door as the children were running across it to the dining-room.

Miss Fosbrook, who was walking behind them, turned as he came in.

“Henry,” she said, “I have sent Johnnie to dine in the nursery, for his disobedience in climbing the gate. I certainly shall not give you a less punishment. You must have led him into it; and how could you be so cruel as to leave the poor little fellow alone in such a dangerous place?”

“Stupid little coward! it was not a bit of danger!” said Hal.

“So young a child—” began Miss Fosbrook.

“Oh, that’s all your London notions,” said Hal. “Why, I climbed up our gate at Stonehouse, which was twice as high, when I wasn’t near as old as that!”

“I am not going to argue with you, Henry; but after such an act of disobedience, I cannot allow you to sit down to dinner with us. Go up to the school-room, and Mary shall bring you your dinner.”

“I’m sure I don’t want to dine with a lot of babies and governesses!” exclaimed Henry, and bounced up-stairs, leaving Miss Fosbrook quite confounded at such an outbreak of naughtiness.

She intended, as soon as dinner should be over, to go up to him, and try to lead him to be sorry for his conduct, and to think what a wretched moment this was for such audacity; and then she feared that she ought to punish him farther, by keeping him in all the afternoon. He was so soft and easily impressed, that she almost trusted to make him feel that it would be right that he should suffer for his misconduct.

When she went up-stairs, almost as soon as grace had been said, he was gone. Nobody could find him, and calling produced no answer. She became quite distressed and anxious, but could not go far from the house herself, nor send Sam, in case the message should arrive.

“Oh,” said Sam, “no doubt he’s after something with the Grevilles, and was afraid you would stop him in.”

She tried to believe this, but still felt far from satisfied all the afternoon, and was glad to see the boy come back in time for tea.

He said he had been with the Grevilles; he did not see why anybody need ask him questions; he should do what he pleased without being called to account. Nobody told him not to run away after dinner; he was not going to stay to be ordered about for nothing.

This was so bad a temper, that Christabel could not bear to try to touch him with the thought of his sick mother. She knew that softening must come in time, and believed the best thing to do at the moment would be to put a stop to his disrespectful speeches to her, and his cross ones to his brothers and sisters, by sending him to bed as soon as tea was over, as the completion of his punishment. He did not struggle, for she had taught him to mind her; but he went up-stairs with a gloomy brow, and angry murmurs that it was very hard to be put under a stupid woman, who knew nothing about anything, and was always cross.

CHAPTER XII

Saturday’s post brought a letter, and a comfortable one. All Thursday Mrs. Merrifield had been in so doubtful a state, that her husband could not bear to write, lest he should fill the children with false hopes, or alarm them still more; but she had had a good night, was stronger on Friday, and when the post went out, the doctors had just ventured to say they believed she would recover favourably. The letter was finished off in a great hurry; but Captain Merrifield did not forget to thank his little Susan warmly for her poor scrambling letter, and say he knew all she meant by it, bidding her give Miss Fosbrook his hearty thanks for forwarding it, and for telling him the children were all behaving well, and feeling properly. His love to them all; they must try to deserve the great mercy that had been granted to them.

To the children, this was almost as good as saying that their mother was well again; but there was too much awe about them for their joy to show itself noisily. Susan ran away to her own room, and Bessie followed her; and Sam said no word, only Miss Fosbrook remarked that he did not eat two mouthfuls of breakfast. She would not take any notice; she knew his heart was full; and when she looked round on that little flock, and thought of the grievous sorrow scarcely yet averted from them, she could hardly keep the tears from blinding her. They were all somewhat still and grave, and it was too happy a morning to be broken into by the reproofs that Henry deserved, even more richly than Christabel knew. She had almost forgotten his bad behaviour; and when she remembered something of it, she could not but hope that silence, on such a day as this, might bring it home to him more than rebuke. Yet when breakfast was ever, he was among the loudest of those who, shaking off the strange, awed gravity of deep gladness, went rushing together into the garden, feeling that they might give way to their spirits again.

Sam shouted and whooped as if he were casting off a burthen, and picking little George up in his arms, tossed him and swung him round in the air in an ecstasy; while John and Annie and David went down on the grass together, and tumbled and rolled one over the other like three kittens, their legs and arms kicking about, so that it was hard to tell whose property were the black shoes that came wriggling into view.

Susan was quieter. She told Nurse the good news, and then laid hold upon Baby, and carried her off into the passage to hug all to herself. She could tell no one but Baby how very happy she was, and how her heart had trembled at her mother’s suffering, her father’s grief, and at the desolateness that had so nearly come on them. Oh, she was very happy, very thankful; but she could not scream it out like the others, Baby must have it all in kisses.

“Christabel,” said a little voice, when all the others were gone, “I shall never be pipy again.”

“You must try to fight against it, my dear.”

“Because,” said Elizabeth, coming close up to her, “when dear Mamma was so ill, it did seem so silly to mind about not having pretty things like Ida, and the boys plaguing, and so on.”

“Yes, my dear; a real trouble makes us ashamed of our little discontents.”

“I said so many times yesterday, and the day before, that I would never mind things again, if only Mamma would get well and come home,” said the little girl; “and I never shall.”

“You will not always find it easy not to mind,” said Christabel; “but if you try hard, you will learn how to keep from showing that you mind.”

“Oh!” said Elizabeth, (and a great mouthful of an oh! it was,) “those things are grown so silly and little now.”

“You have seen them in their true light for once, my dear. And now that you have so great cause of thankfulness to God, you feel that your foolish frets and discontents were unthankful.”

“Yes,” said Bessie, her eyes cast down, as they always were when anything of this kind was said to her, as if she did not like to meet the look fixed on her.

“Well then, Bessie, try to make the giving up of these murmurs your thank-offering to God. Suppose every day when you say your prayers, you were to add something like this—” and she wrote down on a little bit of paper, “O Thou, who hast raised up my mother from her sickness, teach me to be a thankful and contented child, and to guard my words and thoughts from peevishness.”

“Isn’t it too small to pray about?” said Elizabeth.

“Nothing is too small to pray about, my dear. Do you think this little midge is too small for God to have made it, and given it life, and spread that mother-of-pearl light on its wings? Do you think yourself too small to pray? or your fault too small to pray about?”

Elizabeth cast down her eyes. She did not quite think it was a fault, but she did not say so.

“Bessie, what was the great sin of the Israelites in the wilderness?”

The colour on her cheek showed that she knew.

“They tempted God by murmurs,” said Christabel. “They tried His patience by grumbling, when His care and blessings were all round them, and by crying out because all was not just as they liked. Now, dear Bessie, God has shown you what a real sorrow might be; will it not be tempting Him to go back to complaints over what He has ordained for you?”

“I shall net complain now; I shall not care,” said Elizabeth. But she took the little bit of paper, and Christabel trusted that she would make use of it, knowing that in this lay her hope of cure; for whatever she might think in this first joy of relief, her little troubles were sure to seem quite as unbearable while they were upon her as if she had never feared a great one.

However, nothing remarkable happened; everyone was bright and happy; but still the influence of their past alarm subdued them enough to make them quiet and well-behaved, both on Saturday and Sunday; and Miss Fosbrook had never had so little trouble with them.

In consideration of this, and of the agitation and unsettled state that had put the last week out of all common rules, she announced on Monday morning that she would excuse all the fines, and that all the children should have their allowance unbroken. Maybe she was moved to this by the suspicion that these four sixpences and three threepennies would make up the fund to the price of a “reasonable pig;” and she thought it time that David’s perseverance should be rewarded, and room made in his mind for something beyond swine and halfpence.

Her announcement was greeted by the girls with eager thanks, by the boys with a tremendous “Three times three for Miss Fosbrook!” and Bessie was so joyous, that instead of crying out against the noise, she joined in with Susan and Annie; but they made such a ridiculous little squeaking, that Sam laughed at them, and took to mocking their queer thin hurrahs. Yet even this Elizabeth could bear!

David was meanwhile standing by the locker, his fingers at work as if he were playing a tune, his lips counting away, “Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four—that’s me; ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven—that’s Jack,” and so on; till having plodded up diligently, he turned round with a little scream, “One hundred and twenty! That’s the pig!”

“What?” cried Annie.

“One hundred and twenty pence. Sukey said one hundred and twenty pence were ten shillings. That will do it! That’s the pig! Oh, we’ve done it! May I take it to Purday?”

“It was to be let alone till fair-day, you little bother!” said Hal.

“No, no, no,” cried many voices; “only till we had enough.”

“And I am sure nobody knows if we have,” added Hal hotly. “A lot of halfpence, indeed!”

“But I know, Hal,” insisted David. “There are eighty-nine pence and one farthing in Toby Fillpot, and this makes one hundred and twenty-two pence and one farthing.”

“You’d no business to peep,” said Sam.

“I didn’t peep,” said David indignantly. “There were forty-eight pence at first, and then Susie had three, that was fifty-one—” And he would have gone on like a little calculating machine, with the entire reckoning in his head, if the others had had patience to hear; but Annie and Johnnie were urgent to have the sum counted out before their eyes. Hal roughly declared it was against the rules, and little inquisitives must not have their way. But others were also inquisitive; and Sam said it would be best to know how much they had, that Purday might be told to look out for a pig at the price; besides, he wanted to have it over; it was such a bore not to have any money.

“It’s not fair!” cried Henry passionately. “You don’t keep the rules! You sha’n’t have my sixpence, I can tell you; and I won’t—I won’t stay and see it.”

“Nobody wants you,” said Sam.

“I didn’t know there were any rules,” said the girls; but Hal was already off.

“Hal has only put in fivepence-halfpenny,” said David, “so no wonder he is ashamed. Such a big boy, with sixpence a week! But if he won’t let us have his sixpence now—”

“Never mind, we will make it up next week,” said Susan.

“Now, then, who will take Toby down?” said Miss Fosbrook, unbuttoning one glass door, and undoing the two bolts of the second, behind which the cup of money stood.

“Susie ought, because she is the eldest.”

“Davie ought, because he is the youngest.”

David stood on a chair to take Toby off his shelf. Solemn was the face with which the little boy lifted the mug by the handle, putting his other hand to steady the expected weight of coppers; but there was at once a frown, a little cry of horror. Toby came up so light in his hand, that all his great effort was thrown away, and only made him stagger back in dismay, falling backward from the chair, and poor Toby crashing to pieces on the floor as he fell, while out rolled—one solitary farthing!

Nobody spoke for some moments; but all stood perfectly still, staring as hard as if they hoped the pence would be brought out by force of looking for them.

Then David’s knuckles went up into his eyes, and he burst forth in a loud bellow. It was the first time Miss Fosbrook had heard him cry, and she feared that he had been hurt by the fall, or cut by the broken crockery; but he struck out with foot and fist, as if his tears were as much anger as grief, and roared out, “I want the halfpence for my pig.”