Part 20 (2/2)

A slight noise behind made them turn round, and there the children beheld with indignation the whole body of the servants grouped together on the landing, most of them with their handkerchiefs to their eyes; while Jane Housemaid who had none, was sobbing undisguisedly with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and vainly endeavouring to express her opinion that ”it was just beautiful--they was for all the world like little angels a-praisin' G.o.d, and--_a-hoo!_ I can't help it, no more I can't! And their mother never to see them growed up--her bein' in her grave, the blessed lamb!”

”_I_ don't see nuffin to kye for,” said Toady Lion unsympathetically, trying to find pockets in Prissy's night-gown; ”it was a nice sing-song!”

At this moment Janet Sheepshanks came on the scene. She had been crying more than anybody, but you would never have guessed it. And now, perhaps ashamed of her own emotion, she pretended great scandal and indignation at the unseemly and irregular spectacle, and drove the servants below to their morning tasks, being specially severe with Jane Housemaid, who, for some occult reason, found it as difficult to stop crying as it had been easy to begin--so that, as Hugh John said, ”it was as good as a watering-can, and useful too, for it laid the dust on Jane's carpets ready for sweeping, ever so much better than tea-leaves.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BANTAM CHICKENS.

When Hugh John met Cissy Carter the first time after the incident of the stile, it was in the presence of the young lady's father and mother. Cissy smiled and shook hands with the most serene and chilling dignity; but Hugh John blushed, and wore on his countenance an expression of such deep and ingrained guilt and confusion, that, upon catching sight of him, Mr. Davenant Carter called out, in his jolly stand-before-the-fire-with-his-hands-in-his-pockets' manner, ”Hillo, boy! what have you been up to--stealing apples, eh? Come! What is it?

Out with it!”

Which, when you think of it, was not exactly fitted to make our hero any more self-possessed. Mr. Davenant Carter always considered children as a rather superior kind of puppy dogs, which were specially created to be condescended to and teased, in order to see what they would say and do. They might also be taught tricks--like monkeys and parrots, only not so clever.

”Oh, Davenant,” said his wife, ”do let the boy alone. Don't you see he is bashful before so many people?”

Now this was the last thing which ordinarily could be laid with justice to the charge of our hero; yet now he only mumbled and avoided everybody's eye, particularly Cissy's. But apparently that young lady had forgotten all about the ivy bush at the back of the stable, for she said quite loud out, so that all the room could hear her, ”What a long time it is since we saw you at Oaklands, Hugh John--isn't it?”

This sally added still more to Hugh John's confusion, and he could only fall back upon his favourite axiom (which he was to prove the truth of every day of his life as he grew older), that ”girls are funny things.”

Presently Cissy said, ”Have you seen Sammy, mother; I wonder if he has fallen into the mill-dam. He went over there more than an hour ago to sail his new boat.” Mild Mrs. Carter started up so violently that she upset all her sewing cotton and spools on the floor, to the delight of her wicked little pug, which instantly began pulling them about, shaking them, growling at them, and pretending they were rats that had been given him to worry.

”Oh, do you think so?--Run Cissy, run Hugh, and find him!” Whereat Cissy and Hugh John removed themselves. As soon as they were outside our hero found his tongue.

”How could you tell such a whopper? Of course he would not fall into the water like a baby!”

”Goos-ee gander,” said Cissy briskly; ”of course not! I knew that very well. But if I had not said something we should have had to stay there moping among all those Grown-Ups, and doing nothing but talking proper for hours and hours.”

”But I thought you liked it, Cissy,” said Hugh John, who did not know everything.

”Like it!” echoed Cissy; ”I've got to _do_ it. And if they dreamed I didn't like it, they'd think I hadn't proper manners, and make me stop just twice as long. Mother wants me to acquire a good society something-or-other, so that's why I've to stop and make tea, and pretend to like to talk to Mr. Burnham.”

”Oh--him,” said Hugh John; ”he isn't half bad. And he's a ripping good wicket-keep!”

”I dare say,” retorted Cissy, ”that's all very well for you. He talks to you about cricket and W. G.'s scores--I've heard him. But he speaks to me in that peeky far-away voice from the back of his throat, like he does in the service when he comes to the bit about 'young children'--and what do you think the _Creature_ says?”

”I dunno,” said Hugh John, with a world-weary air, as if the eccentricities of clergymen in silk waistcoats were among the things that no fellow could possibly find out.

”Well, he said that he hoped the time would soon come when a young lady of so much decision of character (that's me!) would be able to a.s.sist him in his district visiting.”

”What's 'decision of character' when he's at home?” asked Hugh John flippantly.

”Oh, nothing--only one of the things parsons say. It doesn't mean anything--not in particular!” replied the widely informed Cissy. ”But did you ever hear such rot?”

And for the first time her eyes met his with a quaintly questioning look, which somehow carried in it a reminiscence of the stile and the ivy bush. Cissy's eyes were never quite (Hugh John has admitted as much to me in a moment of confidence)--never quite the same after the incident of the orchard. On this occasion Hugh John instantly averted his own, and looked stolidly at the ground.

”Perhaps Mr. Burnham has heard that you went with medicine and stuff to the gipsy camp,” he said after a pause, trying to find an explanation of the apparently indefensible folly of his cricketing hero. Cissy had not thought of this before.

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