Part 27 (2/2)

'Why, the story of Red Mantle, Helen, cannot you see?' said Elizabeth; 'it was on the table all the morning.'

'O Lizzie, was there ever anything so cruel?' cried Rupert; 'Edie Ochiltree was nothing to you. Everyone was swallowing it so quietly, and you will not even let me enjoy the credit of originality.'

'I am sure I give you credit due,' said Elizabeth; 'it is really an ingenious compound of Red Mantle, the Sleeping Beauty, Robert of Paris, and Triermain, and the c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l s.h.i.+eld and star-fish spurs form an agreeable variation.'

'I never will tell another story in your presence, Lizzie,' said Rupert, evidently vexed, but carrying it off with great good humour; 'you are worse than Quarterly, Edinburgh, and Blackwood put together.'

'I really think you deserved it, Rupert,' said Anne; 'I cannot pity you, you ought not to laugh at the pilgrims.'

'Oh! I dare not open my lips before such devotees of crusading,' said Rupert.

'And pray, Rupert,' said Elizabeth, 'what did you mean by comparing me to Edie Ochiltree? did you mean to say that you were like Monkbarns? I never heard that that gentleman fabricated either legends or curiosities, and made them pa.s.s for genuine ancient ones.'

At this moment, happily for Rupert, they came to the top of a small rising ground, and beheld a farmhouse at about a hundred yards before them. Rupert whistled long and loud and shrill, and two or three of the young ladies exclaimed, 'Is this Whistlefar Castle?'

'It is only enchanted,' said Elizabeth; 'clear away the mist of incredulity from your eyes, and behold keep, drawbridge, tower and battlement, and loop-hole grates where captives weep.'

It cannot be denied that the young party were a little disappointed by the aspect of the renowned Whistlefar, but they did ample justice to all that was to be seen; a few yards of very thick stone wall in the court, a coat of arms carved upon a stone built into the wall upside down, and the well-turned arch of the door-way. Some, putting on Don Quixote's eyes for the occasion, saw helmets in milk-pails, dungeons in cellars, battle-axes in bill-hooks, and s.h.i.+elds in pewter-plates, called the baby in its cradle the sleeping Princess, agreed that the s.h.i.+eld must have been reversed by order of the palmer, and that one of the cows was the mischievous knight's cream-coloured donkey; so that laughter happily supplied the place of learned lore.

On the way home the party were not quite so merry, although Helen was unusually agreeable, and enjoyed a very pleasant conversation with Rupert and Anne, who, she was pleased to find, really thought her worth talking to. Elizabeth was occupied with Dora, who was tired, and wanted to be cheered and amused. She did not however forget her bulrushes, and when they came in sight of them, she ran forwards to claim Rupert's promise of gathering some for her and her little brother and sister. This was a service of difficulty, for some of the bulrushes grew in the water, and others on deceitful ground, where a pool appeared wherever Rupert set his foot. With two or three strides and leaps, however, he reached a little dry island, covered with a tuft of sedges, in the midst of the marsh, and was reaching some of the bulrushes with the hook of Anne's parasol, when he suddenly cried out, 'Hollo, what have we here?'

'What?' said some of the girls.

'A dead dog, I believe,' said Rupert.

'Oh! let me see,' cried Harriet, advancing cautiously over the mora.s.s.

'Are you curious in such matters. Miss Hazleby?' said Rupert, laughing, as Harriet came splas.h.i.+ng towards him through the wet, holding up her frock with one hand, and stretching out the other to him, to be helped upon the island. He pulled her upon it safely, but it quaked fearfully; and there was hardly room for them both to stand on it, while Harriet, holding fast by Rupert's hand, bent forwards, beheld the object of her curiosity, uttered a loud scream, lost her balance, and would have fallen into the river had she not been withheld by Rupert's strength of arm. They both slipped down on the opposite sides of the island, into the black mud, and Harriet precipitately retreated to the mainland.

'Well, what is the matter?' said Elizabeth.

'Oh! my poor dear little doggie!' cried Harriet.

'Is it Fido?' said Elizabeth; 'then, Harriet, there is no fear of your eating him in a sausage; you may be at rest on that score.'

'But can it really be Fido?' said Katherine, pressing forwards.

'Do you wish to see?' said Rupert, 'for if so, I advise you to make haste, the island is sinking fast.'

'I am splashed all over, so I do not care. Can I have one more look?'

said Harriet, in a melancholy voice.

Rupert handed her back to the island, where she took her last farewell of poor Fido, all his long hair drenched with water, and the very same blue ribbon which she had herself tied round his neck the day before, floating, a funeral banner, on the surface of the stream. She contemplated him until her weight and Rupert's had sunk the island so much, that it was fast becoming a lake, while Elizabeth whispered to Anne to propose presenting her with a forget-me-not, on Fido's part.

'I hope,' said Rupert, as they proceeded with their walk, 'that you are fully sensible of poor Fido's generous self-sacrifice; he immolated himself to remove, by the manner of his death, any suspicions of Winifred's having the Fidophobia.'

'Perhaps,' said Elizabeth, 'he had some knowledge of the frightful suspicions which attached to him, and, like the Irish varmint in St.

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