Читать книгу Linnets and Valerians - Elizabeth Goudge - Страница 7

Where They Went

THEY JUMPED EAGERLY OUT of the trap and looked about them. The yard was enclosed by the stable and three high stone walls and had a pump in the middle of it. One wall was built against the hillside and a flight of stone steps led up beside it to a door at the top. Beyond the door there seemed to be a garden on the slope of the hill and above it a house. They could not see any lighted windows, but there was a glimmer through the trees that made them think there must be a light in one of the downstairs rooms.

‘But we must stable Rob-Roy first,’ said Robert. None of them had unharnessed a pony before, but by dint of unfastening every buckle they could find they got Rob-Roy free and led him into the stable. In the moonlight flooding through the open door they could see a rough towel hanging from a nail on the wall and with this Robert rubbed him down and they put the rug from the trap over him. There was hay in the manger and water in the bucket and he immediately made himself at home. They kissed him and patted him and said, ‘Good night, Rob-Roy,’ and they felt he liked them.

They came out and shut the stable door and climbed up the stone steps against the wall. It seemed to be an old wall, built of rough grey stone, with small ferns and plants growing in the crannies. The door at the top of the steps had a stone arch over it, and seemed old too, but the latch lifted easily and they went through into the garden. It was queer and creepy in the garden because there were so many tall bushes and odd steps here and there. Then the bushes vanished and they came out on a sloping lawn and there was the house up above them, its granite walls covered with creepers and a terrace running along in front of the french windows of the ground floor.

It was the centre one that was lighted up, and framed in the shadows of the creepers it was like a picture hung on a dark wall. There was a table in the window and in front of it an elderly gentleman dressed in black sat writing with a large quill pen, an oil lamp beside him on the table and piles of books all round him on the floor. He had a big domed forehead, with white hair sprouting up on either side of it, and white whiskers, but the rest of his face was clean-shaven. His eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows were looking down at the paper, but Nan was quite sure they were bright and fierce. He was writing with great concentration, his pen spluttering and his grim mouth working. He was a most alarming figure altogether, for his broad strong shoulders suggested he would be at least six feet tall when he stood up. The children and Absolom drew nearer, both terrified and attracted, for behind him they could see in the glimmer of firelight a great globe of the world shining like a second moon, and perched on the high carved back of the chair was a little owl. As the children watched it spread its wings and flapped them twice and hooted. They had now come so close that they were standing at the bottom of a flight of four narrow steps that led up from the lawn to the terrace exactly in front of the window. The owl hooted again in warning and the elderly gentleman looked up.

It was no good running away, for caught in the beam of the lamplight he could see them as clearly as though it were broad daylight. Nor could they have run if they had tried for his terrible gaze transfixed them. At first he was as still as they were, his face a mask of incredulous anger, and then he slowly rose to his feet, so slowly that it seemed his great height would never cease rising towards the ceiling. His big strong chin was propped up on a folded white stock that seemed to make him stiffer and taller than ever. He unfastened the French window, flung it wide and came out on to the terrace.

‘What on earth?’ he enquired in a terrible deep voice, gazing down at them huddled together at the foot of the steps.

Robert was usually the family spokesman, but his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth and it was Nan who replied, ‘Please, sir, four children and a dog.’

‘I have my eyesight,’ said the elderly gentleman, ‘and have already observed that there are four children and a dog, but may I be permitted to enquire what four children and a dog are doing on my lawn at this time of night?’

‘It’s where we’ve come to,’ said Nan.

‘That also I observe. But how did you come?’

Robert’s tongue came unstuck and he said, ‘Rob-Roy brought us, sir. Rob-Roy, my pony. He brought us in the trap.’

‘And where have you left this pony and trap?’

‘Rob-Roy is in the stable,’ said Robert, ‘and the trap in the yard.’

‘I also possess a pony and trap,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘My gardener drove to the town this afternoon to fetch my groceries and I am momentarily expecting his return. What do you suppose my own pony, Jason by name, will make of an intruder in his stable?’

Nan suddenly went very white and then all by herself she mounted the steps and came to the elderly gentleman. They were all brave children, but she was the bravest. She looked up at him where he stood, with his hands behind his back and legs wide apart, glaring down at her, and she said, ‘Rob-Roy isn’t really Robert’s pony. He only calls him that because he loves him so. Rob’s Roy. We’d walked a long way uphill and we were dreadfully tired, especially Betsy because she’s only six, and we saw the pony and trap outside an inn with a wheatsheaf painted on the board, and we got in and Rob-Roy, I mean Jason, brought us here.’ Then she went as red as she had been white, swallowed hard and whispered, ‘I’m afraid we’ve eaten all the groceries except half a pot of marmalade, the soap and eight tins of sardines.’

Her voice died away and she began to tremble, and to her horror she could feel a few hot tears trickling over her cheekbones and down in front of her ears, but she did not take her eyes from the elderly gentleman’s face or flinch when he shot out a large brown wrinkled hand, gripped her shoulder and swung her round so that the lamplight fell on her face. It fell on his face too and she ceased to be afraid. He was not exactly smiling, but there was a slight twitching at the corners of his grim mouth and the grip on her shoulder, though it hurt her, was reassuring. And then a very odd thing happened to her. From one moment to another she loved him.

‘Stealing eh?’ he said. ‘Were you running away, by any chance?’

Nan nodded.

‘From whom?’

‘Grandmama and Miss Bolt.’

‘Merciful heavens!’ he ejaculated. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Anna Linnet,’ said Nan.

The elderly gentleman gave a deep groan and looked down at the others. ‘You three down there. Come up. Come in. Bring the dog. In for a penny, in for a pound. If there is anything I dislike more than a child it’s a dog. Merciful heavens! And I trusted never to set eyes on a child again.’

He made a despairing gesture and led the way into his library. The children followed in single file, Absolom bringing up the rear with his tail between his legs. Then he caught sight of the owl, barked joyously and leapt up into the elderly gentleman’s chair. The owl took off and floated to the top of a large oil painting of some ruins and a thunderstorm that hung over the fireplace. Then he opened his beak, said, ‘Hick’, and a pellet shaped like a plum-stone shot out of it and hit Absolom on the nose. Glancing off on to the carpet, the pellet broke open and disintegrated into a collection of small beaks and claws and a threepenny bit. ‘Do not do that again,’ said the elderly gentleman to Absolom. ‘If Hector is annoyed he shoots out undigested matter in this unpleasant fashion. You, boy, what’s your name? Speak up. What? Timothy? Shovel up the beaks and claws and put them in the fire. You may keep the threepenny bit. Sit down. Do not touch my books or my papers. In twenty minutes I shall for my sins be with you again. Merciful heavens, here’s a kettle of fish!’

He left the room, banging the door behind him. They heard his footsteps in the hall and another door banged.

‘Is he quite right inside his head?’ asked Robert hoarsely.

‘Quite right,’ said Nan. ‘Let’s sit down, like he told us, and get warm.’

They sat in front of the fire and looked about them. It was a big room, but the bookcases that lined the walls could not hold the number of books the elderly gentleman possessed and they had overflowed on to the chairs and the floor. Where the carpet could be seen it was deep crimson, and so were the velvet curtains at the three long windows, but they were faded and torn and the deep leather armchairs had the stuffing bursting out of them. The mantelpiece was comfortably littered with pipes and tobacco jars, and the grandfather clock and the wonderful globe of the world were as kindly presences in the room as the glowing fire. Suddenly they felt befriended, in spite of Hector’s outraged gaze. It was a friendly room, smelling of leather and tobacco and burning logs and home. Absolom expressed the feelings of them all when he flopped down on the woolly hearthrug in front of the fire, laid his chin on his extended paws, sighed twice and fell asleep. Betsy fell asleep too, in Nan’s arms in the deepest armchair, and the boys sat on the rug by Absolom and fed the fire with fircones from a basket that stood on the hearth. The grandfather clock ticked gently and Hector’s expression slowly changed from outrage to resignation.

And then suddenly their drowsy peace was shattered by the sound of a quickly trotting horse coming from the direction of the village. The rider came past the house, slowing down where the hill was steep, crossed the bridge at the bottom and then urged his horse to a canter up the long slope beyond. The sound of the hooves died away in the distance and the children looked at each other in dismay. There were no telephones in those days, and only rich people had cars, so urgent messages were often carried on horseback.

‘Has he sent a message to Grandmama?’ gasped Timothy.

‘How could he?’ asked Nan. ‘He doesn’t know where she lives.’

‘Don’t be such a fool, Tim,’ said Robert.

Yet in spite of the impossibility of a message being sent to Grandmama, they all felt a little uneasy, and still more so when the elderly gentleman returned looking grimmer than ever and capable of anything. ‘I see nothing for it but for you to stay the night,’ he growled. ‘Dog and all. Merciful heavens, what an infliction! Since nothing is left of my groceries except marmalade and soap and Hector’s sardines, I presume you are not hungry. You are, however, extremely dirty and one of you is smelling abominably of violet scent. I dislike scent. That is why I am a bachelor. You must wash and get to bed. I know nothing of the routine of getting children to bed, but you, I presume,’ and he pointed a long forefinger at Nan, ‘can superintend the horrid business. I’ll show you where the bed is and provide you with hot water, and then I do not wish to hear a chirp out of any of you until the morning.’

He led the way out of the room and they followed him exactly as the children had followed the Pied Piper. He was more severe with them even than Grandmama and the Thunderbolt, yet they would have done anything he told them and followed him anywhere. And so would Absolom, who flopped along keeping as near him as he possibly could. Out in the hall the elderly gentleman lit the two candles that were on the table, took one himself and gave the other to the children. ‘That’s Ezra Oake’s candle,’ he said. ‘He is my gardener and general factotum and sleeps in the house. When you appropriated Jason and the trap he was in the Wheatsheaf, and I must warn you that when he returns, having no doubt strengthened himself with strong drink for the walk home, it is possible that he may create a considerable disturbance. If so do not be alarmed.’

‘How will he go to bed if we have his candle?’ asked Nan.

‘In the dark,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘Give me the child. She is too heavy for your strength. This way to the kitchen.’ He took Betsy from Nan, settling her in the curve of his free arm in a way that seemed to Nan very handy for a man who did not like children, and led the way down the passage. It was a glorious house. It had not been spring-cleaned for years. Delicate festoons of spiders’ webs swayed beautifully in the draught all the way down the passage, and when they reached the big stone-floored kitchen it was the most wonderful place they had ever seen. Apart from the settle by the hearth, and the black kettle murmuring gently on top of the range, everything was in the wrong place. A basket full of a cat and six kittens was on the draining board, the dishes and plates and two pairs of boots were stacked on the table, the cuckoo clock was in the sink, the saucepans were on the floor, and the mantelpiece, windowsills and dresser were crowded with plants in pots, bast and string and seed boxes. Some women, but no men or children, might have considered this a kitchen, but they would have been wrong. It was not dirty because it smelt right. It smelt of onions, herbs, geraniums and good earth, but not dirt. Cobwebs were spun between the rafters, but the washing-up had been done before the cat and the cuckoo clock had been put on the draining board and into the sink, and the copper saucepans on the floor were so bright that you could see your face in them. Nan, Robert and Timothy sighed with delight and wanted to look at the kittens, but the elderly gentleman would not let them linger. Handing his candle to Robert, he picked up the steaming kettle and led them all out again. ‘I’ll not have Andromache disturbed,’ he said. ‘Her accouchement took place only last Wednesday.’

He led them up a staircase, down a passage and into a room full of moonlight so bright that its reflection in the polished oak of the old wavy floor was almost dazzling. There was a four-poster bed, with maroon curtains and a flight of steps leading up to it, a bow-fronted chest of drawers and a vast washstand with two sets of willow-patterned jugs and basins.

‘My spare room,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘It has never been slept in, for if there is one thing I dislike more than paying visits, it is receiving them. As to the condition of the bedding, if any, I am unable to inform you.’ He set down the steaming kettle on the washstand and lifted the patchwork quilt which lay on the bed. Under it was a pile of feather pillows and blankets but no sheets. ‘Are they damp?’ he asked a little anxiously. ‘I should not like the child to take cold.’

He did not so much as glance at Betsy as he spoke, but yet Nan knew he liked Betsy, and liked her. What he felt about the boys she was not so sure.

‘Betsy never takes cold,’ she reassured him. ‘Timothy does, but I’ll make him keep his combinations on.’

‘Combinations of what?’ asked the elderly gentleman.

‘Just combinations,’ said Nan. ‘What we wear next to our skins.’

‘Ah,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘Combinations. I must behold them at some future and more suitable occasion, for the extension of knowledge has always been of prime importance to me. Good night.’

Laying Betsy down on the bed, he took his candle from Robert and walked out of the room without a backward glance. Yet they looked at each other with dancing eyes, for if he had really intended to turn them adrift tomorrow, he would not have expressed a wish to see their combinations.

‘We’ll do everything he tells us,’ said Robert. ‘We’ll wash. Come on.’

Now Robert hated washing, and he hated doing what he was told, so it was all the more extraordinary that it was he who poured hot water into one of the big basins, rummaged out a bath towel from under the bedding, a piece of hard yellow soap from a cupboard under the washstand, and fell upon Timothy. There was no flannel, but he soaped Timothy’s face and neck good and hard with the soap in direct contact with the skin, ducked his head in the basin and then rubbed him dry. Timothy yelled once, kicked twice and then submitted. Nan woke up Betsy, washed her face, took off her smock and petticoat and tucked her back into bed again. Then she washed her own face and hands, took off her smock and helped the boys with their sailor suits. Followed by Absolom, they climbed up the little flight of steps and settled themselves joyously in the big bed. With the girls at the top, the boys at the bottom and Absolom in the middle there was plenty of room for all of them. It was cosy and soft with all the feather pillows and a feather bed, and about eight blankets. Their combinations, excellent garments, but as out of fashion now as the kind of grandmother Grandmama was, clung warmly. The moonlight lay in benediction upon the bed and they were immensely happy and presently immensely sleepy. Yet suddenly Nan raised her head from the deep hollow in her feather pillow and asked, ‘Robert, did you wash?’

There was no answer. He was asleep and so were Timothy, Betsy and Absolom. For a moment Nan felt annoyed, then she dropped her head back in the hollowed pillow again. What did it matter? She was too warm and happy to mind. It was nice sleeping in blankets, with no chilly sheets. She gave a sigh of contentment and closed her eyes.

A few hours later she suddenly woke up again, and in a moment she was sitting bolt upright with trickles of fear 1g down her spine. She had been awakened by a tremendous crash, followed by a piercing yell and then yowling and booting. She was so terrified that for a moment or two she forgot about Ezra Oake, and then she heard a tenor voice carolling out a rollicking song that was like a spring wind and the sea on a fine day and suet pudding with treacle. It was punctuated by the sound of castanets, and an extraordinary thumping sound, and was altogether so exciting that her fear vanished and she shook the others awake so that they could hear it too. ‘It’s Ezra Oake,’ she told them. ‘He’s come home and fallen into the saucepans. But now he’s singing and I think Hector and Andromache are singing too. And he’s dancing. Come on.’

All four children had the gift of awaking instantly from the deepest of sleeps if there was anything exciting going on. They rolled out of bed on to the floor without bothering to go down the steps, picked themselves up and made for the door. Nothing except being picked up and dropped woke Absolom and so he remained in bed and asleep. They raced down the passage and down the stairs to the kitchen, where a glorious sight met their eyes. A man with a wooden leg was dancing in the bright moonlight, two saucepan lids held in his hands as castanets, singing as he danced. Hector was perched on a flowerpot on the mantelpiece hooting like mad, and Andromache was yowling melodiously on top of a pile of dishes on the kitchen table. To complete the perfection it only needed the cuckoo clock to join in, which it immediately did, cuckooing twelve times down inside the sink, and after the cuckooing came the sound of a great bell tolling far up in the sky. The children only paused for a moment at the door and then they leapt in and began to dance too, stamping their feet and clapping their hands and trying to join in the song that was like a spring wind and the sea on a fine day and suet pudding with treacle. They did not get the words properly that night, but they caught the tune. They could have sung and danced for ever, only suddenly the man tripped over a saucepan, fell on his back on the settle, stretched out his legs and was instantly asleep.

Andromache returned to her box, where she could be heard purring contentedly to her kittens, Hector flitted away into the passage and back into the library and the children gazed in adoration at the man.

He was a little man, not much bigger than Robert, and he lay with his brown gardener’s hands placidly folded on his chest. His rosy wrinkled face was even in sleep extraordinarily kind. He had a short grey beard, but there was not a single hair upon his acorn-coloured head. His brown corduroy trousers were fastened below the knee with string on his real leg, but on the wooden leg they were folded back to show the fascinating bee that was carved and painted upon its round polished surface. He had a mustard-coloured waistcoat, a full-skirted beech-brown coat and a scarlet handkerchief knotted round his throat. In the moonlight all these wonderful colours were muted and the moon lent them mystery. With a sigh of satisfaction the children tiptoed out of the kitchen and up the stairs and back to their room. One by one they climbed the flight of steps that led up into the big bed, fell among the blankets and pillows and Absolom, and snuggled down. They were asleep at once and did not see the fading of the moonlight and the growing of the dawn, or hear the morning chorus of the birds and the sound of the sheep bleating on the hills.

They woke up to the smell of fried sausages and were quickly dressed and pursuing it. Just at first, after they had caught up with it in the kitchen, they wondered if that wonderful interval of song and dance in the middle of the night had been a dream, because the man who was frying the sausages, turning them over and over in the huge iron pan with a long two-pronged fork, was wearing a shepherd’s smock tied round the waist with bast. But when he turned his head it was Ezra Oake all right, and when he saw them he smiled. He had the most wonderful smile, which seemed to run up into all the wrinkles on his face. His eyes were bright blue.

‘Lucky us weren’t out of sausages,’ he said. ‘Nor bread. If it ’ad been pickle an’ cheese you was wantin’ for your breakfast you’d ’ave ’ad none.’ And he winked one eye and chuckled. He had a deep rumbling chuckle and a husky voice. The children gathered round him fascinated by the interior of the frying pan, which contained not only sausages but bread, eggs and kidneys, all sizzling gloriously.

‘Nothin’ like a good fry for breakfast,’ said Ezra. ‘An’ a nice strong cup o’ tea. Settles the stomach.’

The cuckoo clock in the sink struck ten.

‘Ten?’ gasped the children.

‘Aye,’ said Ezra. ‘Ten. The master ’e ’ad breakfast an’ ’e was off in the trap two hours ago.’

‘Where to?’ said Robert, and fear clutched at their hearts.

‘Down to town,’ said Ezra.

‘Why?’ whispered Nan.

‘Us be short o’ cheese, pickles, biscuits, ’am, sugar an’ marmalade,’ said Ezra, and again he winked. ‘But I reckon us should be thankful ’Ector ’as ’is sardines. ’E takes the ’uff if ’e don’t get breakfast.’

The children now saw that Hector was sitting at the open window above the sink with an open tin in front of him. As they watched he stretched out a claw and delicately removed a sardine. It went down at one swallow and he removed another. Andromache was looking at them over the top of her basket, a tortoise-shell cat with apprehensive green eyes.

‘Better put the dog out,’ said Ezra.

Nan grasped Absolom’s collar and pulled him past Andromache’s basket and out into the garden. The back door opened straight into the little yard behind the house, where there was a well and a washing line. Opposite the back door four steps led up to a small walled kitchen garden on the slope of the hill. At the top of the garden under the wall were four beehives and beyond the wall was an old grey church with a tower that soared so far into the sky that it took Nan’s breath away. A door in the wall beside the beehives led from the garden to the churchyard. There was a jumble of whitewashed thatched cottages grouped round the church, and on the other side of the lane, and the smoke was curling lazily up from their crooked chimneys. She shut her eyes and smelt flowers, wood-smoke and sausages, and heard a real cuckoo calling and the sheep bleating, and what she heard and smelt matched what she had seen. Yet it seemed too good to be true.

‘Be you hungry, maid?’

She opened her eyes and it was true and Ezra was beside her. She looked up at him and smiled and he smiled back, and again she felt that the midnight dancing had been a dream, for this Ezra did not seem quite the same as the other. That had been a many-coloured, gay, fantastic creature; this was a kindly, earthy, sober man who moved slowly on his wooden leg, and this morning his corduroy trouser-leg was pulled down to hide the bee that was carved and painted upon it. But perhaps the bee was no longer there. Perhaps there were two Ezras, a midnight one and a daytime one, for anything was possible in a place like this. The daytime Ezra was looking tired and old and she was filled with remorse.

‘Because we took Rob-Roy, I mean Jason, and the trap, you had to walk all the way home from the Wheatsheaf on your wooden leg,’ she said.

He laughed and lowered his voice to a husky whisper. ‘As I be now, maid, I couldn’t ’ave done it,’ he said. ‘But as I were then I done it easy.’

And with this cryptic remark he led her back to the kitchen where the other three had already started their breakfast. Ezra had put everything that was on the kitchen table on the floor and pushed the settle up to it, with four piles of sacks of varying heights upon it, so that each child should be at exactly the right height for comfortable eating.

He himself sat opposite them behind a large black teapot and presided with a wonderful benignity. When breakfast was over they helped him to wash up, a process which involved the removal of the cuckoo clock and Andromache and her kittens to the floor, the placing of the frying pan and crockery and knives and forks in the sink, the turning of the cold tap on full blast, the emptying of the kettle of boiling water on top of the resultant whirlpool, the stirring of the mixture as though it were a Christmas pudding and then its removal to the draining board where it was left to dry by itself, because Andromache had all the drying-up cloths to make the basket soft for her kittens.

When they had finished Ezra asked, ‘Will you be stoppin’ for dinner?’

‘What’s for dinner?’ asked Timothy.

‘Fried steak an’ onions an’ rhubarb pie,’ said Ezra.

‘Yes,’ they said in chorus.

‘Then be off with you an’ let me get to me pastry,’ said Ezra. ‘An’ don’t speak to them bees. Not yet.’ They obeyed him instantly because obedience, which had seemed so difficult at Grandmama’s, came easily here, and they were out in the yard before they realised they had got there. But Nan came back to ask, ‘Will the elderly gentleman be back to dinner?’

‘Couldn’t say,’ said Ezra. ‘Over and above that little matter o’ the groceries, the master ’ad a call to make in town.’

Nan ran back to the others, feeling uneasy, and found them grouped about the well looking uneasy too. Though they brazened it out about dinner, the mere suggestion that they might not be stopping for it had upset them terribly. ‘I shall stay here until Father comes home,’ said Betsy suddenly. ‘And then I shall go on staying here, with Father.’

‘Sh!’ the others hissed at her. It seemed to them dreadfully dangerous to put it into words like that, for lately the things they didn’t want to happen were the things that happened, and the logic of this was that if you pretended not to want what you really wanted dreadfully, you would be more likely to get it.

‘But I think it would be all right to explore the garden,’ said Nan. ‘Only not to want too much to play in it every day.’

‘Come on,’ said Robert.

It was a wonderful garden, quite different from Grandmama’s. Hers had been a sort of continuation of the house, dreadfully tidy and a place where you had to step carefully and not touch things. This garden was also a continuation of the house, but untidy, unexpected, comfortable and homely. They explored the kitchen garden first and it seemed made for them. The grass paths between the miniature box hedges were just the right width for children running in single file, and the tangle of apple trees, currant and gooseberry bushes, flowers, weeds, vegetables, and herbs, that the paths intersected, was so wild that leaping through it couldn’t make it much wilder than it was. Betsy, who loved picking flowers, picked a bunch of periwinkles and primulas, but there were so many that no holes were left. When the children reached the top of the garden they stood at a little distance from the beehives and surveyed them with awe, but they did not speak. Even if Ezra had not forbidden them to do so, they would not have presumed, for there was a strangeness there. It was like standing on the frontier of a foreign country. You would have to know something of the customs and a few words of the language before you dared to go over.

An exciting tunnel of yew trees beside the house led to the front garden. At the lower end of the sloping lawn was a mulberry tree, its lower limbs held up by stakes of crotched wood. Its branches grew out from the main trunk in such a way that to climb the tree would be as easy as running upstairs. Timothy, who loved climbing trees, dared not look too long and they all ran determinedly past it to the part of the garden down below that they had not seen properly last night. They found it now to be a rough grassy slope planted with rhododendrons and azaleas and flaming with glorious colours. The path, with steps here and there, descended steeply among them and as they came down they could look right over the wall of the stableyard and see the river and the bridge and the stretch of the moor beyond. The road down which they had driven last night was looped like a ribbon round the shoulder of a hill that was blue and green with bluebells and bracken. Stone walls divided the wilderness into fields in which sheep were feeding, and cows and a few ponies.

They sat down under a flame-coloured rhododendron and gazed, with the sun on their faces, and then they shut their eyes and listened. They could hear the voice of the little river as it tumbled over the stones in its shallow bed, the sheep bleating, the humming of the bees, but at first nothing else, and then suddenly there was the sound of a pony’s trotting feet and their eyes flew open. The little trap was coming down the hill at a brisk pace, Rob-Roy in fine fettle and the elderly gentleman apparently in fine fettle too, for he was sitting very upright with a tall hat set upon his head, his whip held upright like a king’s sceptre. As he rattled over the bridge they saw he was swaying a little as though in time to music. Could he be singing? It didn’t seem possible that so terrible and statuesque a person could be doing such an unsuitable thing, yet as the trap disappeared from sight and slowed up on the hill they heard the strains of The British Grenadiers floating up to them. They jumped up and raced down to the arched door in the wall, pulled it open and ran down the steps to the stableyard as he drove in, Absolom at their heels. The moment the elderly gentleman had pulled Rob-Roy to a standstill they had surrounded him.

‘Ah,’ he said, grimly surveying their eager anxious faces. ‘You slept well, I see. Breakfasted well also, I trust. I see no signs of fatigue or starvation upon your grubby faces. Robert, look after your pony. You three, carry up the groceries. The luggage follows in the carrier’s cart.’

He stalked up the steps to the garden door with his hands folded in the small of his back and the three followed. His back looked very grim, yet he had returned with a great many groceries, far more than he and Ezra would need, and peeping into one bag Nan saw that it was full of dog biscuits. And what did he mean by the luggage following in the carrier’s cart? As they went up through the garden the church clock struck one, a gong boomed inside the house and he said, ‘Ah! Luncheon! I breakfasted early. What’s for luncheon?’

‘Fried steak and onions and rhubarb pie,’ said Nan.

‘Ah,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘There is in my pocket a packet of peppermint lozenges for indigestion should the need for them subsequently arise.’

Ten minutes later they were all sitting round the table in the cool panelled dining room, with steaming plates of steak and onions before them. Ezra, with a large apron tied over his shepherd’s smock, was handing spring greens and baked potatoes. Absolom was under the table with a dog biscuit. Hector was on top of the marble clock on the mantelpiece with a dead mouse. The dining-room window looked out on the village street and the scent of the flowers that were growing in the garden of the cottage opposite came in warm gusts through the window.

At first there was no conversation because everyone was too hungry, but presently Ezra asked, ‘Will the young ladies an’ gentlemen be stoppin’ for tea?’

‘Use your intelligence, Ezra,’ said the elderly gentleman severely. ‘Did you not take note of the muffins and strawberry jam I brought back from town? You know my personal abhorrence of muffins and strawberry jam.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Ezra and left the room with a broad grin on his face.

‘Ezra’s mental processes are always somewhat slow on the morning after an evening’s visit to the Wheatsheaf,’ explained the elderly gentleman. ‘I trust you were not disturbed in the night? He has, I fear, this one regrettable failing. In all else he is the soul of rectitude.’

The children laid down their knives and forks and gazed at the elderly gentleman in astonishment. A failing? Did he consider it a failing to sing and dance in the moonlight? ‘It was grand in the night,’ said Timothy. ‘We sang and danced too. It was grand.’

It was the elderly gentleman’s turn to be astonished. ‘You danced in the night?’ he ejaculated. ‘What am I clasping to my bosom? Four young bacchanalians? It will be but a short period now before my grey hairs are brought with sorrow to the grave. It surprises me that your grandmother and the excellent Miss Bolt have survived so long. It does not surprise me that my suggestion of shouldering the burden in their place should have been received with such profound and touching gratitude. Never in my sixty-five years of mortal life have I seen my poor old mother so favourably impressed by a humble suggestion of my own. Ah, here comes Ezra with the rhubarb tart. Place it in front of Miss Nan, Ezra. If we are to have a mistress of this house, an infliction which by the mercy of God we have hitherto escaped, at least let her relieve us of some labour. What are you gaping at, Ezra? I have thought the strong family likeness between Miss Betsy and myself should have informed you that these young people are my relatives. They are my nephews and nieces, the children of my youngest brother. They are to live with us for the present. I feel for you, Ezra. I feel for myself. This has come upon us for our sins. Nan, my dear, why are you crying? If there is one thing I dislike more than a child it’s a crying child, and let me tell you, my dear…’

He got no further, for sobbing with joy Nan had flung herself into his arms. Betsy followed, scrambling up on his left knee, Nan being now settled on his right, held within the curve of his right arm. For a few moments there was pandemonium, the boys cheering, Ezra laughing and stamping his wooden leg on the floor, Absolom barking and Hector hooting and flapping his wings.

‘That will do,’ said the elderly gentleman sternly. ‘The rhubarb tart grows cold. I am partial to rhubarb tart. Nan, return to your duties. Betsy, get down. Boys, hold your tongues. Hector, hold your beak. Ezra, you may go. Down, Absolom.’

In a moment order was restored and they were all eating rhubarb tart in a wonderful golden silence, one of those musical silences rich with the chiming of unheard bells and the ring of silent laughter. When the tart was finished the elderly gentleman, now so marvellously transformed into Uncle Ambrose, got up and said, ‘Your joy, children, has been premature. I intend to impose conditions upon your sojourn with me. You will keep them or go to your Uncle Edgar, who lives in Birmingham and will dislike you even more than I do myself. Come into my study.’

He left the room with Hector on his shoulder and they followed him gravely, but with their joy no whit diminished. They were prepared to fulfil any conditions and they knew very well that Uncle Ambrose did not dislike them. Does a man buy muffins and strawberry jam for those whom he dislikes? In the study Uncle Ambrose stood with his back to the fire and motioned the children to sit down. He looked very awe-inspiring, he was so tall, and Hector on his shoulder made him look taller than ever, for Hector had a way of elongating himself when he wanted to look alarming. By stretching he could add five inches to his height, and when he did this on Uncle Ambrose’s shoulder, the feathers on the top of his head nearly touched the ceiling.

‘It appears,’ said Uncle Ambrose, ‘that you children wish to live with me. Why, I cannot imagine. It also appears that I am willing that you should do so, and that not only to relieve my poor old mother of the exhaustion of your society. I must tell you that I have a devouring passion, not for children themselves, for I abominate children, but for educating them. For thirty years I educated boys. When I retired from my labours I had caned more boys into bishoprics and the Cabinet, and on to the Woolsack, than any headmaster living. My boys lived to bless me for their sore backsides and I’ve lived to miss them. Yes, I’ve missed my boys these last five years. You live with your Uncle Ambrose only on condition that he educates you. Is that understood?’

Nan replied steadily, ‘You can do what you like with us so long as you let us stay with you and each other and Absolom. Grandmama was going to send me and Robert to boarding school, and give Absolom away because of fleas, and that’s partly why we ran away. We have to stay with each other.’

‘Nan to boarding school?’ ejaculated Uncle Ambrose. ‘By Hector, no! I don’t hold with boarding schools for girls. Home’s the place for girls, though they should have a classical education there. I have always maintained that women would not be the feather-headed fools they are, were they given a classical education from earliest infancy.’ He shot out a finger at Betsy. ‘Can she read?’

‘No,’ said Nan.

‘What’s her age?’

‘Six,’ said Nan.

‘Six and not read? I could read Homer at four. She’ll read him by eight. As for you, Robert, the excellent Miss Bolt tells me that you can read and write, but no more. Do you suppose I will send you to boarding school, to bring shame upon the name of Linnet, until I have given you a thorough grounding in at least the rudiments of a gentlemanly education? I shall not. Now, children, which is it to be? Education or your Uncle Edgar at Birmingham?’

They replied in unison, ‘Education,’ but they all looked a little pale and Timothy enquired in a brave but slightly wavering voice, ‘For how long every day are we to be educated?’

‘Nine till one,’ said Uncle Ambrose promptly.

‘Not nine till one for Betsy?’ asked Nan.

‘Certainly. Why not? She shall have milk and a ginger biscuit at eleven.’

‘Will there be homework?’ asked Robert, and he looked a bit miserable, for he hated learning anything.

‘For yourself and Nan, yes. It will be of an hour’s duration, 6 p.m. until 7 p.m., and will take place under my personal supervision, and if you do not come home in time for it you will go supperless to bed. For the rest of each day you will be free to go where you like and do what you like. Only don’t disturb me, for in the intervals between my parochial duties I am writing a book, a study of the Dialogues of Plato, and if you don’t know who he is you soon will. Your education will start tomorrow at nine sharp. Now we will each have a peppermint lozenge.’

Inserting finger and thumb into a waistcoat pocket, he produced a white package and handed it round. The peppermints were good, but a bit on the strong side and Absolom’s eyes watered before he could get his down. Hector did not try to swallow his. He said ‘Hick’, and sent it to the top of the grandfather clock.

‘I shall now take a short nap,’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘Tea is at five, with muffins and strawberry jam. You may come to meals or not, just as you please, but if you do not come to meals you will go without them. Be off with you.’

They made off immediately. Nan, the last out, looked back as she closed the door. Uncle Ambrose had already disposed his great length in the biggest armchair and spread his large white silk handkerchief over his head. Hector had perched on the back of the chair and as Nan watched he slowly sank down and down into himself, his head sinking into his shoulders until he was nothing but a large round ball of feathers with two great eyes glaring out of it. Then one eye closed, but the other stayed open and winked at her. Then that closed too and Nan went out and shut the door softly behind her.