^5# 5 It Q?pc\tTr vr5^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES C^r. fey 5 K..CR.OCKGTT AOThOK OF "TnCSTlCKIT r\\r{\orLf<<' 'Tut f^AIOCKS, ILLUSTRA TED BY GORDON BROWNE AND W. H. C. GROOM E IRew L^ork an^ UoiiDon FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copierigbt, 1895, b^ jfrcfcertcl? H. Stohes Company. All rights reserved. (,_^ Z/ /tM^ BeMcateO To all iv/io have Sweethearts of theij- 0T.OH A>ui to those others Who only xvish they had «rA-*~t.*-» ->w JB PRFFACE. I KNOW well that I cannot give these vagrom * chronicles their ri^ht daintiness. I have grown too far from the grass and the good smell which it used to give when it came well- nigh to ni)' knee. They ouglit to be full of the glint of spring tlowers, when the)' are wet and the sun shines slantways upon them ; full of freshening winds and withdrawing clouds, and. above all, of the unbound gladness of children's laughter. But when I come to look at them, they seem little better than hill flowers in a herbarium, pinched and pulled, pasted and ticketed, correctly enough, no doubt — but not the wind flowers and harebells that curtseyed and bent as the breezes blew every way off the sea. Yet, because four years ago these papers were v>Titten to be read in the quietest of rooms, to one who could not otherwise accom- pany our wanderings, I cannot be content to PREFA CE. leave them in a drift of dead magazine leaves. For they brought to the eyes of their first and kindHest critic and only begetter, sometimes the unaccustomed delight of happy laughter, and again the relief of happy tears. After a little time some of the papers came to be printed in various fugitive forms, and presently there came back to me many letters from those who have never quite been able to put away childish things. Truthfully, the book is not mine but Sweet- heart's. For love was it first written, and the labour of making it ready for the mart of books has been also one of love, akin to that of dress- ing Sweetheart herself for the morning ride. For who could look to see better days than those of that deep summer time by brook-side and meadow, or high upon the cliffy corn-lands which look so quietly out upon the rushing tides of Solway ? Not I, at all events. Yet I am glad, for once at least, to have tasted so keenly and in such gracious company, the divine goodliness of life. S. R. Crockett. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Midsummer Day's Dream i II. The Lion-Slayer ^ III. Rutherford's Kirk 13 IV. Twinkle Tail, Strokie F.\ce, and Little Mappitt 17 V. The Honours or War 23 VL Sweetheart's Tea Party 30 VII. The Swallows on the Kite-String ... 35 VIII. Sweetheart's Ten-Shilling Donkey . . . 4S IX. The Unstable Equilibrium of Grim Rutherland 54 X. Of Huzz and Buzz, also of Fuzz and Muzz . 65 XL Hill Passes and Coast Lands .... 80 Xn. The Peakl of Policemen 93 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIII. The Joneses of Criccieth 98 XIV. The Home-Coming of David Roberts . . 107 XV. " Unwidder-like Deeds" 115 XVI. The Lost Land of Lleyn .... 125 XVII. A Child's Paradise 132 XVIII. Sweetheart's Sweethearts .... 136 XIX. The Philanthropy of Birdnesting . . . 147 XX. The Magic of the Rain .... 156 XXI. Sweetheart Travellers in Winter Woodlands 167 XXII. Drippy Days 182 XXIII. The Revolt of the Sweethearts . . . 189 XXIV. Sweetheart Pays Calls 196 XXV. Hugo's Opinion of Pigtails .... 207 XXVI. By the Bogle-Thorn 216 XXVII. The Rogue with the Luminous Nose . , 231 XXVIII. Heart of Gold 243 XXIX. Criminals in Hiding ..... 253 XXX. I Enjoy Quiet 264 XXXI. The Misdemeanours of Bingo . . . 281 XXXII. When Love was in the Making . . . 288 XXXIII. The Transmigrations of the Princess Melinda 303 XXXIV. "Good-Night, Sweetheart!" . . . 310 •^UJ^OHS. ^■^t'l^ Into the Woods Sweetheart Sweetheart Travellers .... My Sweetheart Trotted Here and There . A Man Far in Front Tea or Dinner ? " She Wanted to Marry Me "... A Tea Party in the Nukskry .... "If You Please, Mister Father " The Dragon Had the Splendidest Long Tail Above the Tors ok the Highest Trees Feeding the Robins A Good Average Tramp .... The Tramp Increased His Speed Grim Gets the Benefit of Good Intentions On the Way to Conway Through the Narrow Conway Streets " Had no Enklish " Frontispiece Title page PACE I II i8 23 26 30 31 39 43 43 54 59 62 65 67 XIV LIST OF ILL US TRA TIONS. PAGE The Law Would Have a Bad Chance .... 73 A Bunch of Flowers 76 Coast-lands * . . .80 The Road is Mended 84 He Rose and Sent after Us a Shrill Howl of Derision 86 Tremadoc 93 Criccieth 98 Gathered Mighty Store of Cowslips .... 100 He Discoursed upon the Glories of Criccieth . . 103 The Home-Coming of David Roberts .... 107 Resting on a Heap of Stones 109 She Looked Very Hard at Us iii Nevin Beach 115 The Jolly Farmer Responded with His Whip Right Gallantly 117 Out upon the Great Cliffs before Nightfall . . 121 The Lost Land of Lleyn 125 "A Fair Passage" 128 A Great Plain of Sapphire Sea 132 "Is It About Fairies?" 136 "How Would You Like It Yourself?" .... 147 "Why Does He not Settle Down to Housekeep?" . 151 The Magic of the Rain 156 We Look Out of the Window 157 Birds of the Fields and Woodlands .... 167 The Silence of these Winter Woods .... 171 He Has Been Carrying One Foot off the Ground . 174 Drippy Days 182 I LIST 01- ILLUSTRA TIONS. xv PACE Sweetheart Wii.i. Be Better on My Back . 187 The Revolt of the Sweethearts 189 Sweetheart Pays Calls 196 We Found Him Reclining 203 Cousins Twice Removed 206 Pigtails 207 We Were Only Savages 213 By the Bogle-thorn 216 Sweetheart Turned Her Head to Count the Milestones which We Passed 219 He Gazed Solemnly at Us 223 I Left Sweetheart to Run on hy Herself . . . 229 At the Foot of the Bank 231 I Lifted a Double Handful to Sweetheart's Lu's . 239 She Threw Herself Down 243 Hugo was Playing with His Horses .... 247 By the Loch-side 253 The Dutchman 264 We Made Quite a High Castle 275 She Retired Hastily 2S1 Meekly and Devotedly will Bingo Follow . . 2S5 Conway Castle 2S8 A Laughing-stock to Every Self-Respecting Fish , 298 Under-Gardener — that is, One who Pulls the Fruit . 303 "Good-Night, Sweetheart!" 314 lrv;:bWe^Tti^AK' iys' l'f ^ AV?;aZESII CHAPTER I. MIDSUMMER DAY's DREAM. [Mid-Galloway, iSgi.^ Y SWEETHEART is sweet. Al so she is my heart of hearts. To look into her eyes is to break a hole in the clouds and see into heaven, and the sunshine lies asleep ui)nn Ik.t hair. As men and women, care-weighted with the world, look upon her, you can see the smiles break over their faces. Yet am I not jealous when my Sweetheart smiles back at them. For my Sweetheart is but four years old, and does not know that there is a shadow on all God's world. To spend a day with her in the open air Is to get a glimpse into a sinless paradise. For there is no Eden any- 2 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. where like a little child's soul. One Jesus, a wayfarer, thought so also, for he said that with such is peopled the kingdom of heaven. Not once or twice only have I run off with this sweetheart of mine. For there is a seat woven of cunning wicker-work, on which she sits safely between my arms, as the swift tri- cycle, rimmed with the prisoned, viewless wind, bears us onward. There were a blue sky and a light warm wind that morning of our first adven- ture. It was just such a morning as completely to satisfy the mother of the little maid that she might safely be intrusted to my "courser of the air." So the charger was brought to the door, a miracle of shining steel and winking silver plate. And now, " Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " My lady mounted — making a charming Little Red Riding- Hood in her cap and cloak, warmly tucked about also as to her feet while we spin through the air. " Good-bye, darling, good- bye!" the home-keeping folks said. From cot- tage doors the women ran out to wave us a last good-speed. The smiths, half-way up the village, stopped the ringing anvil and looked MIDSUMMER DAY'S DREAM. 3 after us a moment, shading their eyes \vith duskiest hands. Presently we were out into the hio'h-road between low hedofes which led us to the moors. The track was perfect as the day itself — hard, stoneless, flecked WMth alternate sunshine and shadow. A light breeze came in our faces and lifted the tangles of my Sweet- heart's hair. It was the very height of living. It was hardly ordinary breath we breathed, but some "ampler ether, some di\'iner air." Who was it that in haste and ignorance declared all " riding upon bi-, tri-, or other cycles no better than a vain wriggling upon a wheel ? " Poor man ! This proves that he never could have run ofl^ with a sweetheart like mine upon a good steed of Beeston steel. " Haven't we only just left home?" asked in a little while the runaway maid. She turned round and glanced at me through the sunny ripples of her hair in a distracting way. It is pleasing to be able thus to praise her in print of which she cannot read so much as a letter. For though it is her private opinion that she knows the letter O bv sicrht, it is a fact that she has been known upon occasion to pass even 4 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. that favourite vowel without recoofnition. But then the cut direct is the privilege of her sex. [I am commanded by Sweetheart to be sure to add in this place that she was "only four and quite little " when she said and did most of the things hereafter recorded. This is important, because I know she will of a certainty look to see if I have kept my promise. For now Sweet- heart is quite grown up, and as far as words of two syllables.] " It '11 be ever such a long time before we have to go home?" she continued. " We are getting very far away from home ; are we not, father?" The sense of being out almost alone in the wide world, and thus sitting still between the galloping hedges, pleased her like sweet cake. She was silent for a long time as we whirled along, ere she turned her face upward again with a wistful look in it that I know well. " What are you looking at. Sweetheart ?" " I was only looking to see if you were really my own dear ossifer," she said. " It's such a long way from home ! " Now this was a distinct breach on Sweet- MIDSUMMER DAY'S DREAM. 5 heart's part of our unwritten agreement to make no "references to allusions." It was durino- the last ride w-e had tofjether. We were passing some barracks where the soldiers were tramping steadily to and fro. Some non-commissioned officers, off duty, were working in their little garden patches. " Where is Nelly Sanderson's father's observ- atory ? " my companion asked, as we passed the residence of a pla)mate. " Nelly Sanderson's father has no observatory. He is a soldier, you know." A pause for thought, and then : " But I thouorht that all fathers had observa- tories ?" was the interroofation. This also was somehow explained, and the small bright logical faculty went upon its way. " Well, then, if Major Sanderson is a soldier, why is he not working in his garden ? " This was a state of things which Major San- derson's commanding officer ought manifestly to look into. Then, sudden as a flash struck from a flint, came the words : " Father, do you know what makes those soldiers walk so smart ? " " Why, no, Sweetheart ; what might it be ? " 6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " It's their ossifers that makes them walk so smart." Again a little pause. Then triumphantly, as though recording the solution of a problem which had long- been troublesome : "And, father, do you know who it is that makes yo2i walk so smart ? " " No. my Sweetheart ; who is it ? " " It's mother that makes you walk smart ! It's my own dear mother — she's your ossifer!" But this, after all, is too serious a subject for even my Sweetheart to make a jest upon. So at this point we changed the subject. " Do you see those pretty sparrows there on the hedge ? " I said, as we continued to skim Solwaywards along a level road. I did not look at the birds very particularly, being, as it were, occupied in hunting easy water. But the little maid immediately gave them her best attention. The result is not to my credit. She looked at me with a kind of crushing and pitying scorn : "Those are not sparrows," she said; "those are chaffinches," Again the conversation closed. And as we went, this four-year-old, who did not know a MIDSCMMI'.R DA Y'S DREAM. 7 letter of the alphabet, told me tlie name of every tree we flew past, of ever)- bird that perched on the hedgerows or flew athwart the path. Anon, as we halted to rest in some quiet dell, she ran hither and thither to pick the mosses from the wall, and the flowers from the banks, for the " dear mother " so sadly left at home. She wrapped them, a damp and rather dirty love token, in the folds of her cloak, trusting that the resultant " mess " would be forgiven, inas- much as "her little orirl fetched them because she loved her" — a forgiveness upon which she did well to depend. CHAPTER II. THE LION-SLAYER. S we skimmed down the sunny braes and followed the road as it plunged into the dark shadows of an over-arching wood, Sweet- heart suddenly gave reins to her imagination. " There is bears and wolves here, I know," she said, in a far-reaching whisper. " Yes, indeed, I see their noses and some of their teeth ! They are just a-waiting till we pass by, and then they are going to jump on us, and grab us, and eat us all up — yes, every little bit ! " Yet this most alarming prospect seemed rather to deliofht Sweetheart than otherwise. " Hush, father ! " she whispered, "we must go by so softly and quickly. Ole Father Bear, he's waiting just round that corner. Now, let us And so, according to instructions, we did indeed dH22. Round the descending curves of 8 I Till: 1. 1 ON- SLA YEA'. 9 the road we glided, Basiling through the rivers of sunlight which barred the way here and there, and plunging again like lightning into the dark shadows of the " Forest of the Wolves." '*/ would not let a wolf come and eat 7ny father ! You are not friofhtened when you are with me; are you, father? I have got a gun, and pistols, and a big two-handed sword. It has cut off the heads of twenty-six lions, besides bears " In this place followed a sanguinary catalogue which, I regret to say, carried on its face the marks of inaccuracy. If only half of it were true, ]\Ir. Gordon Gumming bears no compari- son with the Nimrod whom I carried before me on my saddle. Even Mr. Selous himself might hide his dlminislied head. " And if a wicked man were to come and want to kill m)' father, I would shoot him dead, and then tell him — ' Go away, you wicked man ! ' " All w^hich w'as extremely reassuring, and cal- culated to make a timid traveller feel safe, journe)-ing thus under the protection of such a desperate character, all arrayed from head to foot in fine military scarlet. Now came a long uphill push. We left lo SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. sleepy, Dutch-looking Kirkcudbright to the south. We were soon climbing the long hill which leads over to Gatehouse by the Isles of Fleet. My Sweetheart trotted here and there, as I pushed the machine slowly uphill, weaving an intricate maze to and fro across the road. Suddenly there was a quick cry of distress from the undaunted lion-slayer. I looked back and saw the little maid putting a hand to her mouth, wailing most bitterly the while. " Oh, father ! come quick, get a dock-leaf," she cried. " A naughty, horrid nettle has stung me on the hand just when I was pulling a flower," The required leaf was not at hand, but I pulled a sorrel, in hopes that the juice would do as well. Once more I found that I had reckoned without my host. " Oh, father ! " she said, with a hurt expression showing through her tears, " that's not a dock- leaf ; that's only a ' soorock.' Get a docken, quick !" Obediently I searched high and low, and finally discovered one under the hedge. There- upon the sore-wounded member was duly anointed and kissed, and with all the honours the hurt made whole. #1 :pv. '^m-'^m"^ MY SWEETHEART TROTTED HERE AND THERE. CHAPTER III. RUTHERFORD S KIRK. GAIN we mounted and rode. The workers in the neio^hbourine field among- the corn, above the blue of Solway, waved us greeting. " Did you see that man on the top of the cart smile at you, father?" said my Sweetheart. I had indeed noticed the circumstance of a smile passing over a countenance peculiarly saturnine. But I also knew that it was entirely unconnected with myself. Soon we glided into the clean. French-lookinsf village of Gatehouse, after a most delightful spin downhill through leafy glades and long-vistaed woodland paths. We were not to '' put uj) " here, so I made my way into a little baker's shop, kept by the kindest of women, who not onl)' provided us with biscuits for our hunger, but added also of her tender heart some milk for "the bairn." 14 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. I went out with these and found the Httle maid the centre of a somewhat clamorous throno- of school children. They were fingering all parts of the machine — trying the bell, the valves of the pneumatic wheels, and generally driving my Sweetheart into a pretty distraction. Her mood at the moment was the imperative affirm- ative, her expression most threatening. " Don't touch father's machine, bad children !" she was saying, "or I'll shoot you! And, besides, I will tell my father on you." The turmoil magically ceased as I approached, and in the midst of a deeply interested and fairly silent company my Sweet- heart ate and drank as composedly and sedately as a queen eating bread and honey among her courtiers. Again we were up and away ! In a moment the shouting throng fell behind. Barking and racing curs were passed as we skimmed with swallow fliorht down the lonof villag-e street. Then we turned sharp to the right at the bottom, along the pleasant road which leads to Anwoth Kirk. Here in Rutherford's Quiet Valley of Well Content the hazy sunshine always sleeps. Hardly a bird chirped. Silence KUTIIERFORD'S KIRK. 1 5 covered us like a garment. We rode silently along, stealing through the shadows and gliding through the sunshine, only our speed making a pleasant stir of air about us in the mid-day heat. We dismounted and entered into the ivy-clad walls of Rutherford's kirk. It is so small that we realised what he was wont to say when asked to leave it : " Anwoth is not a large charge, but it is my charge. And all the people in it have not yet turned their hearts to the Lord ! " So here we took hands, mv Sweetheart and I, and went in. We were all alone. We stood in God's house, consecrated with the words of generations of the wise and loving, under the roof of God's sky. We uncovered our heads, my little maid standing with wide blue eyes of reverence on a hioh flat tombstone, while I told her of Samuel Rutherford, who carried the inno- cence of a child's love through a long and stormy life. Perhaps the little head of sunny curls did not take it all in. What matter ? The instinct of a child's love does not make any mistake, but looks through scarcely understood words to the true inwardness with unfailing intuition — it is the Spirit that maketh alive. 1 6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " The sands of ti?jte ai^e sinking'' we sang. I can hear that music yet. A child's voice, clear and unfaltering-, led. Another, halt and crippled, falteringly followed. The sunshine filtered down. The big bees hummed aloft among the leaves. Far off a wood-dove moaned. As the verse went on, the dove and I fell silent to listen. Only the fresh young voice sang on, strengthening and grow- ing clearer with each line : " Dark, dark hath been the midnigJit, But daysp7'itig is at hand, Atid glory ^glory dwelleth In Tnimanuer s Land ! " As we passed out, a man stood aside from the doorway to let us go by. His countryman's hat was in his hand. There was a tear on his cheek also. For he too had heard a cherub praise the Lord in his ancient House of Prayer. CHAPTER IV. TWINKLE TAIL, STROKIE FACE, AND LITTLE MAPPITT. LL the good mothers have doubt- less been asking- what my Sweet- heart is Hke when she goes a-riding. "It is all very well," they say, " to tell us of golden hair here and of blue eyes a little further on. But do not forget that there are other people's sweethearts who have golden hair and blue eyes. W^hat more is this Sweetheart of yours than any other sweet- heart ? " No more and no better, dear mothers in Israel, save only in this, that she is mine. And that she and I have passed many a hundred weary miles of road through between the steeh* circlets of our wheels. Her special care was the sweet-chiming bell clasped on the shining handle-bar which crossed in front of us both. It was her duty to clear 17 i8 5 IV££ THEAR T TEA VELLERS. the way. Let us say that we were on a long stretch of road. There was a man far in front. " Ting-a-Hng-ting ! " went the bell. The man, tramp by profession, but now bent "a man far in front.' and aged, moved not an inch aside, steadily plodding on his way. "Ting-a-ling-/z>2^-TiNG ! " again went the bell, with more emphasis this time, for Sweet- TIVIXKLE TAIL. 1 9 heart's feelings were getting the better of her. But still there was no move till we came within ten yards. Then the well-seasoned tramp moved reluctantly to the side of the road and stood at gaze to watch us pass. My Sweetheart wished to stop and bestow a copper. The tramp received it, louting low with professional reverence. " Mannie," asked the imperious Httle maid, "did you not hear us? We might have hurt you ! " Thank you, miss ; yes, miss ! " replied the tramp stolidly " Why does he call me missf was the next question as we sped off, leaving the trudging cadger shifting his meal-pokes far in the rear, for this was a new name for our Little Red Riding-Hood, who has as many names as there are people in our village. I told her that I could not tell, but thought it might very probably be because we did not hit him. The little one accepted the explanation with a simple faith which might well have made me ashamed. So we journeyed on, well con- tent, the little birds in our hearts singing their sweetest. Presently a small hand was shifted along the handle-bar till it lay on mine. 20 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " I like to feel your hand, father. It is so nice and warm." " And so is your heart, my dear," very promptly I replied, as a lover ought. When we mounted our patient steed at the lych-gate, our eyes were yet wet after the sweet singing in Rutherford's kirk — which, being now roofless and deserted, with only the tombs about it, seemed to have reverted to its original title of " God's Kirk and Acre." The Little Maid, like the child of whom Wordsworth wrote, was " exquisitely wild." Her merriment brimmed over. The mood of silent reverence for some- thing solemn, she knew not what, among the gravestones, the ivy-clad walls, and under the summer stillness, had now rippled into con- tagious mirth. There was a tinkle in her laughter like water running over loose pebbles, or the lap of wavelets within a coral cave. A rabbit scudded across our path. It was enough to set her romancing. "Old Brer Rabbit, he knows! Oh, he knows ! He's taking his little girl out to-day, too, on /iz's tricycle. Go on, old Brer Rabbit, or Maisie and her father will beat you. And then your little girl '11 cry ! Did you know. TWIN K IK TAIL. 21 father, Little Girl Rabbit's name is Twinkle Tail? Yes, indeed! Her mother's name is Strokie Face, but her father's is just plain old Brer Rabbit. And little Twinkle Tail has a dolly, and her name is Little Mappitt." "And where do they all live, Sweetheart?" "Why, don't )ou know? God gave them a lovely hole to live in. And you have to crawl far in, and the first thing you see, when you get in, is a bit of blue sky." The Sir Walter of the wondrous eyes looked up, to see if there was any twinkle of unbelief in the older and duller eyes that glanced down into hers. But to-day we were all bound for the land of Faery, and the faith she saw was satisfactory in its perfect trustfulness. She went on : " Yes, a bit of blue sky ; and then you come out (if you are a little rabbit) in a country where it is all blue sky — the houses are built of bricks of blue sky, and the windows are just thinner bits of blue sky, and Little IMappitt herself is just a bit of blue sky, dressed in the old twinks of last year's stars Oh, what a pretty bird ! That's a Blue Tit. He's a bit of blue sky too, and he lives in a rabbit-hole. Yes, indeed, I saw him come out amon<'- the leaves ! " 2 2 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. We were coastingalong, now through the arches of the trees, now bending to the left along the seashore. The roar of the swift Skyrebiirn, heavy with last night's rain, came to our ears. "Father, there is ' Mac' Stop, father!" cried the Lady of the Bell. And very obediently the brake went down and we stopped. It was a painter of our acquaintance, an old admirer and present flame of the Little Maid's. She now responded to his renewed and honourable pro- posals by vehemently expressing a wish for an immediate matrimonial alliance — as she did, alas ! the faithless maiden, in many other cases. But I was compelled to shut down, in the char- acter of the ruthless parent of melodrama, upon " love's young dream," and speed incontinently onward, while the swain with the fishing-rod was left lamenting. But woe worth the day for the inconstancy of woman ! As soon as we were out of sight the lady said frankly : " Isn't it nice to be able to run off when you want?" For Sweetheart is evidently of the easy-hearted lovers who love and ride away — at least, at the age of four. TEA UR DINNER ? CHAPTER V. TITK HONOURS OF WAR. OON we were crossino- the rocks of the Solway side — a pleasant land Open to the south and the sun, with cornfields blinking in the hazy light, and reaping-machines "gnarring" and clicking cheerfully on every slope. Past Ravenshall we went, where the latest Scottish representatives of the Chough or Red-legged Ciow were, a few years ago, still to be found — a beautiful but unenterprising bird, long since shouldered out of his once wide fields and lord- ships by the rusty underbred democracy of the Rook. We passed a fountain of clear, cool water, sequestered from the sun beneath a tree, where 23 24 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. a little streamlet "seeps" its way through the ambient granite. It was the place for which the Little Maid had been looking all day. " Where was it that Sir James gave mother a drink out of a leather cup?" The question had been asked a hundred times already. Here was the spot. Ah ! no more will Sir James Caird, greatest of agriculturists and most lovable of men, pursue his pastoral avocations — " watering his flocks," as he loved to say, by taking out his guests to taste "the best water in the Stewartry," at this well by the wayside, fresh from the lirks of the granite hills. There, at last, was the old tower of Cassencary, lookinor out from its bosoming^ woods across to the Wigtown sands, where two hundred years ago the mart3'r women perished in the gray ooze of the Blednoch, The small girl Sweetheart had heard of this also. And having to-day passed a series of monuments to the martyred men and women of the Covenant, she now wanted to know if anyone would want to drown her for saying her prayers. If so, she frankly avowed her in- tention of saying them after she got into bed — the depfenerate little conformist and latitudi- narian that she is! She does not want to be rifF. //OXOURS OF WAR. 25 drowned. So. instead, she is going to play "Wig- town Mart)Ts" with the oldest and least con- sidered of her dolls as soon as she o(:ts home. Thus history and martyrology have their uses. Presently we wheeled peacefully nito Cree- toun, and dismounted at a quiet-looking house over which, upon a small, fixed sign, was promise of refreshment. While the kind and motherly hostess prepared the eggs and ham, and spread the white cloth, an important question was dis- cussed. " Father, is this tea or dinner ? " '' Dinner, of course, my dear." "Then why did you tell the lady it was tea?" " Well, Sweetheart, let us call it tea." " Then, whether am I to get no dinner to- day, if this is tea — or no tea, if this is dinner?" The conversation was suffered to drop at this point, but the interest did not lapse. " Well, father dear, I hope it is dinner ; for if it is dinner, we might get tea further on. But if it is tea, then we have passed dinner some- where without noticino" !" For the angel is mundane on the subject of meals and sweets. Also upon another subject. The hostess had two comely bo)s who were 26 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. brought, all dumbly resistant and unwilling, off the street to be introduced, clinging shyly to their mother's skirts. The Little Maid, as be- came a traveller and a woman of experience in m "she wanted to marry me. affairs of the heart, went forward to make the advances, which is a graceful thing at four. But inexperience as to the proper method of saluting little girls with hair all aspray about scarlet- riiE HONOURS of war. 27 cloaked shoulders, kept the brig;ht lads silent and abashed, in spite of maternal encourage- ment. Plainly thev meditated retreat. There, 'tis done — a chaste salute, which each gallant swain wipes carefully off with the back of his hand I At home there was once upon a time a parallel case. A mother, friend and neighbour of ours, heard her little boy come into the house be- moanino his lot with tears and outcries. "What is the matter now, Jack ?" she said, thinking that at last it had happened. "O-hu-hu-hu ! The little orirl hit me on the head because she said she wanted to marry me and I said I wouldn't." Nor, even when expostulated with, could the errinof youno- woman be brouo^ht to see the im- propriety of her action. " But it seryed hini right!" said Beauty, for even in a certain place there is no fury like a woman scorned. And taking everything into consideration there is no doubt that it did. Being thus refreshed, we mounted once again, and the long, clean street of the village sank behind us. We climbed up and up till we were immediately beneath the railway station, where 28 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. signals in battle array were flanked against the sky ; then down a long descent to the shore levels at Palnure. It was now nearly four in the afternoon, and we paused at the entrance of the long hill road to New Galloway, uncertain whether to attempt it or not. A man drove along in a light spring-cart. Of him we inquired reofardinor the state of the road. " Ye're never thinkin' o' takin' that bairn that lang, weary road this nicht ?" he asked. It seemed that the road was fatally cut up with the carting of wood, that much of it was a mere moorland track, and the rest of it unrid- able.* This might do for a man, but it would not do for little Sweetheart at four o'clock of a September day. Therefore we thanked our in- formant, who raced us, unsuccessfully but good- humouredly, along the fine level road toward Newton-Stewart, which smoked placidly in its beautiful valley as the goodwives put on the kettles for their " Four-hours" tea. Here we were just in time to wait half an hour for the train — as usual. During this period the Little Maid became exceedingly friendly with everyone. She went and interviewed a very * It is now very much improved, and is quite ridable all the way. THE HONOURS OF JVAR. 29 dignified station master, and incjuired of him wliy he was keeping her waiting for the train. But the train chd come at last, when \ve were whirled WMth some deliberation throuorh the wild country to the eastward, and disembarked at the lonely little moorland station of New Galloway. It was growing dusk as we wheeled home along the dusty lanes by the side of the placid beauties of Grenoch Loch, the Lake of Pair Colours. We entered the village of our sojourn with the honours of war. " Were you not frightened, Sweetheart ? " asked the Lady of the Workbox when we sat down to "a real tea," the stains of travel having dis- appeared. " Oh, no ! cerLainl)' not ! Even father was not much frightened when I was with him. Do you know, mother, we shotted fourteen — yes, more than a hundred lions and tiorers — we did, didn't we, father ? " A pause of corroboration, during which I blush, for really we had not destroyed quite so many as that. "Yes, indeed, and father and I went down a rabbit-hole, and " [Left speaking.] CHAPTER VI. SWEETHEART S TEA PARTY. HERE was a state tea party in the nurser)' to-day. Sweetheart, Hugo, and Baby Brother sent out the invitations. At least, Sweet- lieart did, for she is nearly five. Hiioo (lid nothino- but watch for a chance at the box of rusks. And as for Baby Brother he also did nothino- but knock over the tea table after it was all set. So he had to be tied in his tall chair by fastening" his broad blue sash throuo-h the bars at the back. Then he said very loud that he did not like it at all — so loud that he brouo^ht in mother off the stairs. This was a chance for Sweetheart to ask mother 30 SWEETHEART'S TEA PARTY. 31 if she would come to the tea part)', aiul if she might take the note of invitation to the study, where father was workini;, and must not be disturbed. So mother said she might, ami Sweetheart came down and knocked very gentl)- at the study door. " Come in !" cried some- one within, so quickl)' that Sweetheart was quite star- tled. " If you please, Mister F'ather," she said very politely, " Lady Jane Howard, Sir Hugo, and Lord Baby Brother re- quest the pleasure of your company to tea in the Castle Nursery." That was the way Sweetheart said it, for she liked to pretend that she was either a duchess or a schoolmistress. She was cjuite determined to be somebody really great. Of course she liked best to be a school-teacher, for il is so nice IF YOl" ri.F.ASE, MISTER I ATIIER." 32 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. to whip the chairs with a little cane when they are naughty — and then, you know, they mostly are. Now, it happened that " Mister Father," as Sweetheart called him, was a little tired, or per- haps a little lazy (such things, alas ! have been), and so he thouo-ht it would do him Pood to eo up to tea in the nursery. He came in after the guests were all seated, looking very grave and solemn, as Sweetheart thought, when he peered over the top of his glasses. Then Sweetheart, whose hands shook with the pleasure and dignity, made tea in a beauti- ful set of little cups without any handles, which had been given her at Christmas. This is how she did it. First she put a pinch of tea into each cup, and then she poured hot water out of a little teapot upon the tea. This pleased father very much. " This is just the wa}^ that tea ought to be made," he said. " Do you know that in China, where tea first came from, that was the old way of making tea ? " Here Mr. Father looked very wisely through his glasses at the little cup and sipped his tea. Sweetheart felt a little anxious. SWEETHEART'S TEA PARTY. H "This is very nice," she said to herself, "hut I do hope; it's not going to be improving." But father went on, without hearing- her : " Do you know. Sweetheart, that all the tea used to come from China in tall ships. And when the captains got their cargoes of fresh tea on board, they used to try with all their might who would get first to England. Famous races there used to be. Sometimes two or three of the fast-sailing ships would keep within sight of each other all the \va\', and the sailors orew so anxious for their ship to win that they could hardly go to bed at all." " Why did they want to get to England so fast ? " asked Sweetheart. " Because they could get more money for the tea in the market, and then the captain and all the sailors would get something for themselves for winnincj the race." " That was nice," said Sweetheart. " I wish I had been there. 1 like to run fast, and I hate to go to bed." Baby Brother here intimated that he had not had enouo-h, bv hammerinor on the trav in front of his chair with his little tin cup, which he held upside down. Sweetheart went to him and gave 34 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. him a little piece of biscuit, which, grievous to relate, he instantly threw on the floor. " It's more sugar you want, I know," she said sadly, "and that's just what you can't have." " I'll take another cup, if you please, Lady Jane Howard," said father. Lady Jane was very proud of being asked for another cup of her very own tea, and made it out instantly. Then she was ready to listen again. " Do you know," Mr. Father continued, " that in a strange, wild place called Tartar)^, the peo- ple boil the tea into a kind of porridge with butter and flour? How would you like that for breakfast ? " " Baby Brother could have that. He likes porridge," answered Lady Jane Howard promptly. After this the tea party was broken up, for nurse came to the door to dress Lord Baby Brother for his perambulator. And as Lady Jane washed up the tea things she said to her- self : "It was very nice, and not so very improving, after all ! We shall ask Mister Father again, I think." CHAPTER VII. THE SWALLOWS ON THE KITE-STRING. 0\V Sweetheart meant, to do just the very same next day. But notliing ever does happen just the same \va)' twice over. It is a \va)' thini^s have, and there is no rea- soninof with tliem. But somethino- (^uite as nice happened, and the way of it was this : Lady Jane How^ard has many friends. " Can you fl\- a kite, Sweetheart?" said one of them next morning-. Perhaps he was trying to in- gratiate himself at the expense of Sweetheart's other friends. (Young men have even been known to do tliis when there is a sweetheart in the question. Sad ! but so it is.) " No," answered Sweetheart promptly ; " but I have seen a kit(> fly." " And where mioht that have been. Sweet- heart ? " said he. 35 36 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " It was up among the great big hills, once when I was with my father, and a brown bird flew quickly out of a wood. It floated very fast, but it made no noise. So I asked father what bird that was. He told me it was a kite. So it was a kite. I have seen a kite fly." " But," said her friend, " that may be one kind of kite ; but did you ever see a paper kite fly ? " " Go 'way," said Sweetheart indignantly ; "paper kites don't fly — only feather kites with lesfs and wings." For Sweetheart does not like to be imposed upon. " But for all that, paper kites do fly, Sweet- heart," urged her friend patiently. "/know paper things," said the little girl — and you must remember that she had never been to school, and was at that time only five years of age. " I know paper things," said Sweetheart again, with much decision ; " once, a great many years ago, when I was quite a little girl, I had a paper dolly. Her name was Edith Marga- M rine " Marjory ! " interrupted her friend ; " surely." Sweetheart looked at the daring man with a sudden flashing eye. SIVALLOIVS OX THE KITE-STKIXG. 37 " Did you name that doll)-, or did I ? " she said. " Oh, )()Li did, of course," said the friend meekl)'. " I should think so. Well, then, the doll)'s name was Edith Margarine ! " Sweetheart paused for a rcph', but there was none. The critic was crushed. So be it ever ! "Of course I knew the dolly's name, for I was its mother — at least, at that time," Sweet- heart added for^ivinorly. " Afterward 1 <'"ave her to Essie Maxwcdl for a doll's rocking-chair. But I was her mother at that time — so, of course, I knew her name." " Of course," said her friend. " And 1 did not so much as know you to speak to at that time — except just to say, ' Oh, look at the funny man that's coming down the road ! ' That was the way I first knew you," said Sweetheart confidentially. "Indeed?" said her friend. " Yes, and mother said " But as there is no assurance company in the world which would undertake the fearful risks of what Sweetheart mioht sav next, and no one rich enough to pay the premiums if there were, her mother struck in : 38 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " But you have not asked about the paper kites, Sweetheart. I am sure Mr. Friend will tell you all about them." Sweetheart put her hands on her knees, as she does when she plays marbles or sails boats. Then she looked fixedly at Mr. Friend, who was smiling. Finally she decided that he was worthy of her confidence. " Well," she said, "you don't look as if you would tell improving things. You can go on about the paper kites." " Thank you ! " said the friend, with a great deal of gratitude and submission. " When I was a boy," began he, " I used to make kites of paper and fiy them away up in the air." " As hicjh as this house?" asked Sweetheart, ^who has a passion for details. "Oh, much higher," said Mr. Friend; "and sometimes they pulled so hard on the string that the kite nearly lifted me off my feet." "How do you make that kind?" asked Sweetheart, who thought it might be in the same way that her kind friend, Marion the cook, made blackberry jam. "Well," said Mr. Friend, "you take five or TIIK URAC;ON II All THK SI'LKNUIDKST LONG TAIL. SWALLOWS ON THE KITE-STRING. 4i six thin lig-ht pieces of lath, ami you join them tQcrether." " No, I don't," interjected Sweetheart unexpectedly. " You come and do it yourself to-morrow, and then I'll know how!" said Sweetheart, who never could understand explanations. Mr. Friend looked across the room, to see if this proposition had due sanction. Mother smiled, and the bargain was made. Next day Mr. P>iend came, true to his prom- ise, and he made a beautiful kite, which he called " St. Georcre and the Draoon." The dragon had the splendidest long tail, made of crumpled pieces of newspaper. Sweetheart soon knew all about kite-making, and got herself so sticky with paste that she said it was just lovely. She had never been so happy. But then she had got on an old dress on purpose, because her mother also remembered what kite-making was like not so very many years ago. When IT was finished Sweetheart said : " You won't be able to wash it when it gets dirty, will you ? " " \Vhv do \o\\ think so, Sweetheart?" asked 42 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. her friend, who always Hked to know what Sweetheart was thinking-. " Well, because once I put Edith Margarine Into the bath when she was dirty, and she began to come all to pieces. She was made of paper, though not so thin as the kite. It was after that that I gave her to Essie Maxwell for the rocking-chair," added Sweetheart thoughtfully. ''Do you know that, far away, big grown men fly kites?" said the friend, slipping in a bit of information artfully, as he was putting on a beautiful dragon's head with red paint. "I suppose they fly grown-up kites there?" said Sweetheart. " Yes ; that is just right, Sweetheart. They are very big kites, and all the gentlemen of a town go out and try whose kite will go the highest." " My father's kite would go highest if he tried ! " said Sweetheart sharply. Mr. Friend asked why, without looking up. Sweetheart was surprised and a little hurt at the question. " Why, because he is my father, of course," she said. Which settled it. " I wish I had a little girl to stick up for me like that!" said Mr. Friend, sighing. 'ABOVE THE TOPS OK THE HIGHEST TREES, SWALLOWS OX THE KITE-STRING. 45 "Well," said Sweetheart encouragingly, "per- haps, if you are very good, you may get one some day. Of course, not as good as mc," she added hastily, to prevent undue expectations ; " for you would not be so nice a father, you see I" " I see," said Mr. F'riend, again smiling across the room to someone who smiled back again. Then they went out into the field at the back of the house, and Mr. Friend had a large ball of string. He soon let the twine go a little, and with a great many pulls and slackenings he got the kite up high in the air. Sweetheart jumped with joy as she saw it growing tinier high up in the sky. She danced as it went above the tops of the highest trees. And when it sailed away into the blue till it was just a little diamond-shaped dot on the heavens, Sweetheart almost cried, she was so pleased. " Now% you can hold it yourself," said ]Mr. Friend, oivinof her the string". "Oh, can I?" said Sweetheart breathlessly. Something would keep bobbing up and down like a little mouse at the bottom of her throat. She felt so happy and frightened all at once. She held both her hands hiijh above her head 46 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. to let the kite out as far as possible, and she danced on tiptoe as she felt it pulling like a living thing away up near the clouds. It was almost too much happiness for a little girl. " I think this is nicer kite-flying than any old Chinaman's with a pigtail," said Sweetheart, when at last she gave up the string to Mr. Friend, who stuck a peg into the ground and put the string round it. Then the kite rose and fell, dipping and soaring all by itself, while Sweetheart watched it with a glad heart. " I wonder if our kite can see the China boys' kites flying on the other side of the world?" said the Little Maid, into whose head all sorts of things came of their own accord. "No," said Mr. Friend; "it sees a good way, and many things that we do not see. But the other side of the world is rather a long way off, you know." Then Mr. Friend got up, and taking a sheet of note paper from his pocket, he put the end of the string through it. Away it went up the curved string, rising and leaping joyfully, like a white-winded bird. "That is what we call a messenger," said Mr. SliALLOll'S OX THE KITE-STRING. 47 Friend ; " it goes up to the kite to take it a message from us." Soon the messenger reached the tl\incr kite. It was just Hke a point of light in th(^ blue. " Now the messenger has got there," said Sweetheart. " But what are these swallows doing?" She clapped her hands. "They are perching on the string, I declare !" she said. Mr. Friend looked up. The young maid's eyes had been more watchful than his own. A family of young house-swallows were playing about the string, and every now and then one of them lighted on it. Then, as soon as he was comfortably swinging on the slender line, one of his brothers would fly at him and knock him off. They played for all the world like boys on the street — noisily and merrily, but a little roughly. Each of them screamed and argued all the time, without ever attendinor to what the other said. " I think," said Sweetheart, after meditating for some time, "that the swallows stay six months here with us to make us glad. And after that, they fly away to perch on the kite- strinos of tlie little children on the other side of the world. Tliat is the way of it." And, do )ou know, perhaps it is. .^ CHAPTER VIII. SWEETHEARTS TEN-SHILLING DONKEY. WEETHEART often goes with- out bread at dinner just to have the pleasure of feeding the robins outside on the garden walk. "They need it more than me," she says, her heart being better than her grammar, " because, you see, they never get any soup to thez'r dinner!" 48 SWEETHEART'S TEN-SHILLING DONKEY. 49 But too iiuicli attention is not o;ood for child or bird, and our warden robins had become very spoiled urchins indeed. There was one with breast plump as a partridge and ruddy as a winter apple, who stood every day and defied all his own kind to come near a large loaf on which there was enough and to spare for fifty snippets such as he. He erected his head. He drooped his wings, trailing them on the ground like a game-cock. He strutted and swelled himself like a perfect Bobadil. He would even fly like a dart at a blackbird or a thrush, so exceedingly self-confident and pugnacious did he become. But this morning Sweetheart forgave him. " Perhaps he had not any mother to teach him better," she said, " or never was allowed to go walks with his father." Sweetheart ap[)reciates the benefits of a sound commercial education. In fact, just at present she is sa\ ing up for a donkey, and she is not backward in announcing the fact, either. " Not a oineerbread one, you know, like what you buy at the fair, with currants in the places where the eyes should be. But a real live donkey, that stops in a stable and makes a noise 50 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. inside him — like he had whooping-cough and it wouldn't come up right. You know the kind !" I did know the kind. " And when I get enough money," Sweet- heart went on, " then we shall put the real donkey in a stable, and Hugo and I shall attend to it, and dress it with ribbons — and sometimes ride on it, when it is not too tired !" The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will have nothing to do for its subscrip- tions round about Sweetheart's house. But the thrifty resolve has also its drawbacks. When our small maid goes a-walking, she in- forms every person worthy of confidence that she is going to get such a donkey, and that immediately. " And I have nearly plenty to buy a first-rate one now — I have seven silver shillings and four- pence — all my own, in the bank !" she said yesterday. " And I have dot two pennies and a little wee one!" cried Hugo, who was going to turn the concern into a joint-stock company of which he should be general manager — this being about the amount of stock usually requisite for the purpose. " Sweetheart shall lead the donkey by the bridle and I shall ride on it !" he explained. SWEETHEART'S TEN-SHILLING DONKEY. 5' "Just like a boy!" answered Sweetheart sharply ; "boys is made of slugs and snails " " But w')' was girls made at all ?" interrupted Hugo. Having no answer ready, Sweetheart recurred to the general subject. Hugo had no right to be a rude boy. But then he was very young — not nearly grown up — and could not be expected to know any better. "/am going to buy the donkey, but some- times I shall allow you to feed it, Hugo ! " said Sweetheart firmly. " But it's 7)2y donkey," answered Hugo, stick- ing to his point; "'cause w'y, I've dot two bid pennies and a little wee one." "What's two pennies?" said Sweetheart scornfully, " they're only copper, and coppers is what you give to beggar-men — and put in the church-plate on Sundays ! " Sweetheart has been learning too many of the evil ways of the neighbourhood. This putting of coppers in the offertory is a habit which, when once acquired, is not easily got rid of. We must see to this. But there were certain curious consequences which sprang directly from Sweetheart's public 52 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. declaration that she was going to buy a donkey. I was informed one roaring black night that there was a boy at the door, wishful to see me. "Well, my lad," I remarked, standing a little back, for the wind made the rain-drops splash into the hall, "what can I do for you ?" " If ye please, sir, I heard that ye was gaun to keep twa horses and a carriage. I'm used wi' pownies; so I thought I wad like to tak' the place." " But, my lad, I never thought of keeping even a pony. Who told you such a thing?" I replied. The boy's countenance fell. There was a moment of hesitancy. At last, unwillingly, the answer came : " It was Geordie Parton that said that his brither Tam had heard a woman tell anither woman on the street that your wee lassie said it last Tuesday fortnight ! " It is a lonof lane that has no turnina- • a lonor Scottish explanation which is not finished at last. But the thing itself was clear. From Sweetheart's ten-shilling donkey and Hugo's joint-stock investment of twopence halfpenny, a coach and horses of my own had grown within SWEETHEART'S TEN-SHILLING DONKEY. 53 the brief space of t(Mi days. It was an instruct- ive local object-lesson, wiih the old fable of the three black crows for a text. Once upon a time there was a man in Fife, not famous for the excellence of his stud of horses. He was on his way to the market town one morning- to supply the place of a recent loss. As he went his way he passed the window at which his wife was washing dishes. " Hey, John, bide a wee!" cried the acting heatl of the house. John bided. " Whaur are ye gaun, guidman ?" asked his wife. " I'm gaun to Cupar to buy a horse," said her husband. " Hoo muckle siller hae ye wi' ye ?" "A pound," quoth John promptly, with the consciousness of ample enough means to buy a Derby winner. "Hoot, man," cried his wife, " tak' ither five shillin's an' get a guid yin — aii no hae thou aye ciee-dcein ! " Sweetheart's ten-shilling donkey is to be of "ither five-shilling" kind. It is not to be " (7ye dee-dee in ! " CHAPTER IX. THE UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF GRIM RUTHER- LAND. T must have been for some hidden reason of contraries that our large collie Grim was so named. Peace and goodwill were written broadly upon his countenance. Welcome shone benevolently from his eye. There was no possible guile in him. He was too fat for guile. Also he had been brought up along with Sweetheart, and had become inured, like the renowned Brer Fox in the fascinating tale of Uncle Remus, to being made " de ridin' hoss of 54 GRIM RUTHERLAiXD. 55 de rabbit family." Sweetheart rode upon him for years, tlien Hugo had his turn. And now, all uureproved and fearless. Baby Brother twists tiny hands savigerously into Grim Rutherland's shaggy fell. For Grim was placid by nature, and had become, besides, a dog of some philosophy, When he had had enough of his rider, he simply sat down. Then the laws of gravitation (which, as every sixth standard boy knows, were invented by Sir Isaac Newton), took their course, and — but it is obvious what happened. For family reasons connected with washing- day, this performance has been systematically discouraged on muddy afternoons. Such a tyrant does prejudice become in the domestic relations. Not that Grim had any particular prejudices. He was quite ready to sit down anywhere. Indeed, if anything, he rather preferred a puddle. For he is a utilitarian, and submitted to carry weight only so long as it was clearly for his good. He sat down, therefore, so soon as he was tired. Usually he did this suddenly and without warnino — even maliciouslv, like an Anarchist explosion. Then a new packet of 5^ SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. Hudson's Extract of Soap had to be ordered. The traveller for that article has noticed a marked increase in the orders from our village. But he did not know the cause. Sweetheart knew. It was all owing to the unstable equi- librium of Grim Rutherland. It is a strange thing that there is no Society for the Preven- tion of Cruelty by Animals. If there were, we hold to it that both Sweetheart and Hugo have good ground for applying for a warrant against Grim, on account of wilful and mischievous damage done to the most sacred interests of dignity and cleanliness. However, to square the reckoning as it were, many a tramp might also lodge informations, and then Grim's master mio^ht find it hard to find adequate defences. For the mild- mannered collie was ever a mighty respecter of persons. He was, indeed, glad to see every new visitor. But to none did he tender a warmer welcome than to a good average, slouching, hang-dog, foot-shuffling tramp. Grim might be couched in the shape of a very thick capital Q under the table in the kitchen. He might be sound asleep in his kennel in the yard. He might even be dreaming of the GRIM RUrUERLAXD. 57 Elysian fields to which all good dogs go (where there are plenty of rabbits and no rabbit-holes more than three feet deep). But so surely as the gate clicked and a tramp slouched past the kitchen window, there was Grim \\\) and raging like a fur\-. It is related in the rhyme of Thackeray how " The iminortal Sniitli O'Brine Was raging like a line " but Grim raged like an entire menagerie — indeed, like a zoological garden of some pretensions. If he happened to be shut up alone in the house, the visitor hastil}' retired and tried the front-door bell. But, on the other hand, if Grim happened to be in the yard, and loose, he added to his already extensive collection of tramps' trouser-lesf«. \Ve all collect somethino- in our house. One j)ostage stamps, another damaged toys, a third stones of price. Or yet another personal " wanity " may be a library of rare volumes of unattainable editions, concerning the price of which the collector certainh' jjrevaii- cates when put to the question. \\'i\es will certainlv have a cU;al to answer for some ilaw But assuredly ill is is too large a question. To return. Grim Rutherland was a phiin dog, and 58 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. dwelt in kennels. He did not attempt to collect anything- really esoteric, but simply continued to amass his precious frayed fragments of tramps' trouser-legs. A horrid thought occurred to Sweetheart the other day which surprised and pained me. "Are there never any bits of legs along with them ? " she said. For, indeed, to the disinterested observer, the process of collection seems a rough one. The enemy was usually retiring- in some disorder down the road. Grim was following and shak- ing his head from side to side, steadily harassing the rear. Suddenly there would come an explo- sive rent, the tramp increased his speed — and Grim had made an addition to his collection. But Sweetheart was not easy in her mind about the question of the possibly enclosed leg. For Grim is undoubtedly carnivorous. No per- fectly unprejudiced person could watch his habits and customs for a single day without coming to that conclusion. " Horrid dog ! " says Sweetheart ; " I hope it is not true. I never could love you again if you did. And you getting as much nice clean dog- biscuit as ever you can eat ! GKIM Ji U TllERLAND. 59 Sweetheart do(;s not approve of the miscel- laneous feedinLr of doers — at least she draws the line at feeding them on tramps. *' And you are actually getting fat. too, Grim ! " she continued severely. Grim licked his lips and wagged a tail like a ^ "the tramp increaskd his speed." branch of spruce. He thought he was going to get something good to eat. Hut Sweetheart went on to give him a lecture instead. " Are you aware that the butcher's boy com- plained of you to-day, Grim Rutherland, \()u wicked. nauo"ht\' doe?" 6o SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. I do not think I mentioned the fact before, but it may be as well to say that the family name was Rutherland. Consequently our dog's name is Grim Rutherland. By that he is known all over the village, and even as much as a mile into the next parish. But undoubtedly sometimes Grim Rutherland presumed upon his good name, and the head of the house had to suffer — as is usual in such cases. It was, for instance, wholly certain that of late Grim had been getting too fat. He was, indeed, regularly and sparsely fed, as Sweetheart had said, upon dog-biscuit. But, all the same, like a certain famous person, he waxed fat and attached himself to many tramps. And to this also there was a reason annexed. One day, in the broadest sunshine of the fore- noon, the horrid fact was made abundantly mani- fest. Grim Rutherland was a freebooter, a cataran, a wild bandit. There he sat crouched like a wolf, and crunched the thigh-bone of an ox upon the public highway. So that the passers-by justly mocked and said, " What an example ! " Thus disgrace is brought upon innocent households. GRIM RUTHERLAXD. Ol Sad to relate, Grim Rulherlaiul proved him- self a bad character of lono- standiiiL!' and con- siimmate hypocris)' — a lamentable fact which we found out as soon as ever we had started out to make inquiries. He had been obtaining credit on the famih' oood name — tradincr on his name and address, indeed, like many other amiable gentlemen. After he had partaken of a good meal at home, he regularly started out to make the grand tour of the butchers' shops. And we found that the rascal's effrontery had grown to such a pitch that he would march straight into a shop without even the poor preface of an apology. Nor did he return alone. He brought out a bone with him, in preciseh' the same fashion as that in which he brings a stick out of the water. He did not even hurry him- self like an ordinar)- malefactor. For his name was Grim Rutherland, and he had never yet known what it was to have his entrances retarded or his exits accelerated by such a projectile as a pound weight — as would assuredly have hap- pened in the case of any ordinary dog less respectably connected. For that is the kind of dog Grim Rutherland is. You would never have thought it. to look at 62 S WEE THE A K T TEA FELLERS. him as he basked upon the sunny part of the walk in front of the door. A conscious recti- tude and tolerance pervaded his whole being. GRIM GETS THE BENEFIT OF GOOD INTENTIONS. He looked as if he might almost have stood beside the plate on Sundays himself — a very proper elder's dog. But 3'et he was entirely a GRIM RUrHEKLAM). 63 fraud. Grim could listen to a first-rate sermon with his mind upon the delights of rabbiting — which, of course, could not be the case with a real elder, who never gives his mind while in church to anything but the divisions of the text. Or so, at least, we have been informed. Yet you must not sa\' that Grim Rutherland is an out-and-out bad dog. Every child in the village would contradict you if )ou did. And, besides, you would certainly forfeit the friend- ship and countenance of Sweetheart — which, in a thinly populated district, is a serious matter. For Sweetheart's friends have many privileges, " Grim is not a bad dog," she would say, daring you to contradiction. You try hard (but fail in your attempt) to appear credulous. Sweetheart looks at )-ou with an air which says that you must be an in- dividual of very indifferent morals indeed, to harbour such bad thoughts aqainst a blameless " dumb animal." " But he lets you drop in the mud. Sweet- heart !" you urge pitifully on your own behalf. " I know," she says, a little sadly ; " but then, you know, his head means all right. After all, it is only one end of him that sits down." 64 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. And SO Grim Rutherland eets the benefit of tlie good intentions of his nobler part, instead of being judged by the actual transgressions of his worse. Even so may it be with all of us. \ ON THE WAY TO CONWAY. CHAPTER X. OF HUZZ AND BUZZ, ALSO OF FUZZ AND MUZZ. HERE was not a cloud in the sky, and the painters were busy giving *" ) to Conway station its spring clean- ing. " Walk close behind, Sweet- heart — and keep the red cloak clean" — I was on the point of adding, "Re- member, mother will not be pleased if you get paint on it." But I recollected that this was not quite the time to recall " mother" to a little four- year-old. A small heart is always a little sore till the wash of leaves, the steady push of the wind which drives the fair curls back hke spray over the brim of the red cap, and the rush of wheels bring the anodyne of distance to its achine. It is a standing sorrow with the maid 65 66 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. that there is only room on the tricycle for one passenger. It is also true, on the one hand, that if there were room for another, even of Sweetheart's fighting weight, the unfortunate engineer would come to an early grave at the first lonof hill. Outside the station we sprang to the saddle, and through the narrow Conway streets we wheeled ; sharp-featured, dark-haired Welsh- women looking out in sympathy upon us, shrilly commending my Sweetheart's curls, and depre- cating the hazardous quest on which she was bent. It was still and hot in the deep valley, and before we were clear of the town altogether there were provisions to buy, for we were going into an unknown land. We entered the shop, leaving the steed surrounded by a reverent crowd of shy Welsh children. With whom — oh, happy and unusual experience — it was perfectly safe. We laid in our stores with appropriate gravity and deliberation. Chocolate was the staple of life — "creams" for the front and " plain " for the rear rider. Then a reprint of some good old fairy tales in cheap wrapper for thereadino- of both. It is indeed most fortunate when two sweethearts travelling upon one horse \ \ "through the NAKKdW CONWAY STREETS. OF HUZZ AXD BUZZ. 69 have the same Hterary tastes. A difference in taste as to what constitutes a jest is more fatal to domestic peace than a difference in rehgion. But as neither of us have ever yet t^ot beyond " Jack the Giant-Killer," and as we both loathe the Folk-Lore Society (or at least all its commen- taries), everything went merrily as a marriage- bell — which for Sweetheart Travellers is cer- tainly an auspicious comparison. It is liill)', lumpy country out from Conway. After we got down into the valley it was a long and fairly steady pull for a good many miles. The road straggled off out of the straight path in quite an unattached manner, looking like any- thing in the world but what it was — the main- travelled road to the important towns and villages of the Conw^ay Valley. We asked a man which of two roads was the rioht one for Llanrwst. He told us. We had not gone five hundred yards down this road before we met another man, who manifested an interest in us, and immediately informed us that the one we had just left was the only correct road to Llanrwst. The day was hot, and so were we. We hastened back, mv Sweetheart and I, to express ourselves vigorously to the first misin- 70 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. formant, but he had seen us coming- and escaped over into a field. We shouted anathemas, but he only shook his head, and said that he " had no Enklish." Yet, ten minutes ago, he had enough to tell a great lie ! We were now on the crest of the ridge. We dismounted, walked a little, and lo ! we were looking into a gulf of air through which we were about to project ourselves down to the depths of a great blue valley. It was very still, and the blue sky had come ever so much nearer to the earth. The horizon seemed to have pulled a navy-blue cap about its ears. As we paused, Sweetheart as usual tempered the observation of nature with chocolate. She was always great at observing colour. "What a lot of blue things there are here, father — all different ! " That may be true enough, but it does not seem the observation of a child, says a wiseacre. Now that is just the thing that is most delight- ful about the Sweetheart. She never says what she is expected to say^and, indeed, very seldom what she ought to say. It is true that there were a lot of blue thing-s there— all different. There was the sky, for instance, not far from OF IIUZA AXD BUZZ. ?• iiltraniarinc, so dark .ind intinitc it was, )ct appai'ciuK 1)\ lU) iiK-ans far olf. 'I here was llie nearer Ii'^Iu-IjIik^ haze in the shallow hollows of the vall('\-, and la'^t of all there were the azure pools where one looked away into the "blind HAD NO ENKI.ISH. hopes and lirks o' the hills" nn the skirts of the Snowdonian highlands. When Sweetheart was not yet three years old. it is recorded in the book of the chronicles of Rutherland that a conversation was conducted somewhat in this fashion. There was a deep wooded valley underneath her private drawing-room (commonK- called nursery) window. Sweetheart was standing, finger on lip, gazing into the haze which filled 72 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. it — unexpectedly quiet, and therefore probably plotting- further mischiefs. Her mother looked up to make investigations. It is a terrible thinor to have a bad character. The innocent are so often misjudged. No ; the crockery was safe. There was no actual transgression con- nected with jam. What, then, could be the matter ? The little one's eyes were looking wistfully across the valle}'. There dwelt a deep puzzle- ment on the puckered forehead. At last it came. " Mother, is leaves gween ?" "Why, yes, Sweetheart; of course leaves are green." " But those leaves over there is blue!''' And thev were— the blue of ultramarine ash — only our older eyes had not seen so clearly. We often said at this time that if Sweetheart treated all her other friends as brusquely as she treated her two principal lovers, conversations would have a way of dying a natural death. But to return to our high-poised hamlet over- looking the Conway Valley, a kind of natural lookout tower both seaward and hillward. " There is a policeman," said Sweetheart. OF HUZZ AND BUZZ. 73 She was always friendly with these officers of the law. Perhaps Sweetheart is like the cau- tious old Scotswoman who, when her minister reproved her for pra)ing- for the devil, said : " It's as easy to be cee\il as unceevil to the ^^- THE LAW WOULD HAVE A BAD CHANCE. chiel, an' wha kens hoo sune ye may need a frien' ? " So my Sweetheart smiled upon the best-look- ing and most kindly of portly W'elsh policemen. It occurred to us that on the hill above Llanrwst, this particular representative of the law would have a bad chance in pursuit of an evil-doer — specially if his steed, like ours, hailed from " Beeston, Notts." But there was not an ounce 74 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. of evil intent among the three of us. It was all downhill, we heard with joy — from now all the way to Bettws. So we were at peace with all men, • So we skimmed downward, and ran races with the pheasants which scurried along- the road in front of us, apparently forgetting till we were quite upon them that they possessed such things as wings at all. Then, whirr! they were over the dyke and away to the woods, flying swift and low. A big brown bee, homeward bound, blundered waveringly alongside of us for some distance, either heavy laden with pollen or a little tipsy with heather honey. If he does not mind where he is going he "won't get home till morning." I repeated this to Sweetheart, and the tender little heart was instantly so much concerned that I was ashamed of the reference — to her happily meaningless. She seized the situation, however, as was her habit, for this was a part which exactly suited her. It was wonderful how long we could see the bee's orreat bulk, like the end of a black man's thumb which had somehow flown off by itself. At last he went from sight, but Sweetheart followed him with her eyes. OF HUZZ AND BUZZ. 75 "His name is Buzz, father; did you know?" " No, Sweetheart ; how should 1 know ?" " Well, he told me — yes, indeed ! His name is Buzz, and he lives in a hole in a hollow tree." " No, dear; in a meadow, surely !" "Well, I don't know — but" (severely)"//^ said ' in a hollow tree.' And his wife's name is Huzz. And he has two little baby bees, and their names are Fuzz and Muzz — at least he said so — and he has to work so hard to buy bread and butter for them. He works a typewriter at home, and old Mother Huzz she makes their clothes and puts Fuzz and Muzz to bed. And every night when it is time to go to sleep. Fuzz puts his head in his mother's lap and says, ' Bless father and mother, and make Fuzz a good little bumble-bee, for " "That will do, Sweetheart!" I interjected hastily, for there was not the least ouarantee as to what miL>ht come ne.xt. "It is time we were going on." Now in our fateful journej'ings we came to the lono- villao'e of Llanrwst. We flashed throuoh it at a great speed, and the children came run- ning to see us pass. Outside the town we paused a moment to get a drink out of Sweet- 76 S WEE THE A R 7 ' TRA VELLERS. heart's favourite drinking-cup, being the joined pahns of her faithful slave's hands. It is won- derful how daintily water can be drunk. You 'A BUNCH OF FLOWERS.' could not believe what a charming sight it is un- less you had seen my Sweetheart sip that water from the Welsh hills. OF HCZZ AXD BUZZ. 77 A little girl stepped up and gave the Red RidiiiQ-Hood a bunch of flowers. Now it is the only unpleasant thing about these little Cymri, that they do continually pester the traveller with bunches of flowers — by no means expectant of nothing in return. But the wav in which my Sweetheart said, " Thank you, little girl, for your pretty flowers ! " was such a natural lesson in gratitude that I must perforce spoil the effect of it by adding a penny. For so the manner of blundering man is. We went on in the quiet evening light until we reached the inn at Bettws — now, alas ! a stately hotel. Here there was dinner, where we had the best of company — that is, we were left entirely to ourselves. But at another table four young men told one another in loud tones what great fellows they were. Mercifully they had only eyes for themselves, and did not heed, save to despise, the two wayworn and disreputable wanderers. "/like two dinners in one day," remarked a mercenary maid, presently. And the working partner agreed that (at least while cycling in Wales) three would be no over- plus. 78 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. The sun was dropping down-hill rapidly as we took the broad, beautifully surfaced road toward Capel Curig. There was a white haze in the valley, and the workmen were coming home. It was a cheerful time. The crisp sug- gestion of fried bacon and eggs carried far, and the children were callinof one to the other in shrill Cymraeg. As we approached the scattered lakes of Capel Curig, with inns peppered casually among them, we hesitated a little whether we should dismount and abide here, or whether we should try the bolder adventure of distant Pen-y-Gwryd. The lady, of course, was all for the bolder course. Also, equally of course, she got her way. In a little, therefore, we were parting the mist with resolute shoulders, and leaving beneath us, ghostly in the gathering whiteness, the lakes of Llyniau Mymbyr. Up and up we went. There was no sound save the souorh which the lioht wind makes as it forever draws to and fro through the valley, airing it out, as it were, before the lieht sheets of the nio-ht-mist are spread over it. " Are you warm. Sweetheart ? " I asked. * V 01- III'ZZ AXD BUZZ. 79 '• Yes. father dear, warm and cosey. And I want a chocolate." The road hael recently been metalled, and there were long interludes of pushing. It was very lonely up here. Gradually the mist drew down beneath us, and we seemed to be riding on th(> clouds. Across the sea of white the summits of a lono- featureless ranore of hills stood black airainst the western skv. In the middle of the darkness the liorht of a farmhouse o-leamed. It looked Madsome to think of hearth-fires flickering cheerily on the bleak hill- side. SuddcnU' the ghost of a great house started out of the night-mist before us. and an open door threw a gush of warm welcome across the road. " Jump down, Sweetheart. It is Pen-y-Gwryd at last, and here? is kind Mrs. Owen !" We had arri\cd. COAST LANDS. CHAPTER XI. HILL PASSES AND COAST LANDS. HEN we arose betimes, we were astonished to look out and see the wind of the morning off the west- ern sea, steadily pushing- back the mists from the mountain-tops, exactl)^ as a shepherd " wears " his flocks on the hill when his dogs are working well together. " I thought you told me, father," said the Sweetheart, ''that it always rains here?" She was speaking to me through the closed window so eagerl)' that the little nose, not naturally " tip-tilted," flattened itself at the point in a way calculated to give pain to any lover 80 HILL PASSES AND COAST LANDS. 8i less devoted tlian 1. But for all that she was a singularly attractive Juliet. She was referring to a hast)- speech of the night before, made when we were pushing up the long, slate-covered glen from Capel Curig. The cheery lights, gleaming hospitably from the long dark slopes of the valley opposite to our painful way, looked altogether too aggravating as they winked comfortably through the mist. And the contrast led to the unsupported asser- tion that "there never was such a hole as Pen-y- Gwryd for rain " — a remark, doubtless, which has been made about every place where travel- lers happen to arrive in a shower. But then Sweetheart always takes everything literally — perhaps, like others of her sex, desiring to com- pound for her own romancing by requiring an exact and inflexible veracity from all the world beside. It was a pleasant scene which greeted our eyes as we looked out of the window. The crest of JNIoel Siabod, falling back a little like a wave which has not quite succeeded in breaking, showed silver gleams of leaping rivulets from last nieht's rain amid the flat blue of its hiorher slopes. All night we had heard the storm beat 82 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. against the windows. Yet the morning came so brightly as to make us forget that there had ever been such a thing as damp night-mist clos- ing in about us and the rain running in streams from our mackintoshes. But the pools on, the roadway and the sad state of our hastily stabled steed were evidence convincing enough. Sweetheart romped wildly about the roadway, while with rag and vaseline I groomed the noble animal, which stood patient and still, proudly arching his silver-plated Stanley head. So steep are the slopes in this land of Wales, that the rains seem to run off almost as soon as they fall. Whenever it is blue above, the road beneath is dry. So that it was no long time before we were again in the saddle, and had committed ourselves to one of the primary powers of nature — that of gravitation — in order to take us down the steep pass of Nant Gwynant, which begins almost at the door of the hotel. Most happily, a complete trust in back-pedalling and the strength of our new band-brake enabled us to regard the abrupt descent with equanimity. The road lay beneath us, in long winding loops and circles, like an apple-peeling which some Snowdonian I HILL PASSES AXn COAST LAA'DS. «3 g-iant had thrown over his shoulder for luck. At least it looked thus fair and inxitino; while yet we were high above it. I^ut when we came actual!)' up(Mi it, even Sweetheart became anxious for the safet)- of the pneumatic tires. For it was not upon honest road-metal that we had to progress, but over the most unadulter- ated and natural of rocks. The ways of the Cymric Celt in road-mendino; amonij his own mountains are happily uni(|ue. A road there is to mend. Taffy has the job committed to him. That is well. He is just the man to carr}- it through. He betakes himself up the hillside to do his dut\', for Taffy is an honest man and no "thi(;f,"' as has frequenth' been libellously asserted. He fully intends to mend the road, and also he means to make a job of it which will last. So he loosens rocks from the side of the mountain — stones monstrous, shapeless, primeval — boulders last moved by the ice rivers of the Glacial period. These he blasts and crowbars down, till, to be rid of him, they roll of their own accord upon the road. There he lets them lie. The road is mended. Then he goes to chapel a-Sundays, and sings and prays as if there were no Jutlgment Day. 84 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. Thus very slowly we staggered downward amid this ddbris of creation and Taffy, and at a / ^ / mm THE ROAD IS MENDED." walking pace we finally conquered these diffi- culties—powdered resin giving some stability to HILL PASSES A. YD COAST LAXDS. «5 our band-brake, wliich had been whceziii"' and complaining^" all the \va)' from Pen-\'-G\vryd. A small boy contemplated us with surprisiuLj^ dis- favour from the top of a wall, on which he lay prone with his 1cl;s in the air till we had passed, whereupon he rose and sent after us a shrill howl of derision. " What dirty boy is that ?" asked Sweetheart, to whom the animal was unknown, but who had returned the look of disfavour with u.sur)' thereto. "Only a silly boy who does not know any better," I answered sententiously, after the manner of parents when they have no informa- tion, but who desire nevertheless to retain an appearance of superiority. " I know," said Sir Walter of the Red Cap briskly, rending the futile make-believe without an effort. " He used to be a little pupp)- dog, that barked and whined after everybod\-. And one day he did it to a good fair)', and she turned him into a bad little boy on the top of a wall, who makes faces as people go by." " Let us hope," I interjected, "that his father* will give him something else as a present." *' 1 know what," cried the much-experienced maid, quick as a Hash — "a whipping!" 56 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " HE ROSE AND SENT AFTER US A SIIRIU. HOWL OF DERISION. Then, after a pause, and very thoughtfully, " Whippings is good for boys ! " Now, at last, there came a stretch of unboul- /////. PASSES AXD COAST LANDS. 8? dered road, and then before us la)- Bedd Gclert, with its (jiiaint streets and sleeping houses. Ten o'clock in tlie niorninL;', and there was not a dog stirring! Everything was fast asleep in the broad litjht of the morninir sun. But we managed to obtain some milk and seltzer at an inn which looked suitable for luunble folk like us, at whom even the ragged boy upon the wall might shriek and gibber un reproved. Our pride had indeed gotten a fall, for we had hitherto received so much kindness that we had bep"un to think ourselves to be some iireat ones. But here in Bedd Gelert even the maid who served our seltzer looked at us with extreme suspicion, as though Sweetheart and I were making a Gretna Green flight in the wrong direction. However, the womanl)- e^e of my fellow-traveller soon lighted upon one cause of the suspicion, It was that the lining of my cap had l^een saturated by the rain of the bygone nicrht and the exertion of the mornino-. So that now sundry streaks of red d\e were trickling over my face, imparting an appearance even more suspicious and felonious than is natural. Then, having hastily executed repairs by the summary method of turning the cap inside 88 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. out — an excellent and reputable makeshift — we proceeded still downward, after having duly paid our hill. The Maid-of-the-Inn somewhat relented when she found us unexpectedly sol- vent, but even then she evinced no emotion, following us stolidly to the door to watch us off the premises. "Her tongue does not go!" said Sweetheart, speaking by the book. But her perception for once was at fault. For no sooner was I at my straps and screws than we heard our servitor discussing us in high-pitched Welsh of a peculiarly piercing and up-three- stairs variety. It cost us not a pang, therefore, to pass onward, over a road still copiously bouldered, toward the bridge, infinitely bepainted and besung, of Aberglaslyn. " It looks quite shut-up here !" said my com- panion, expressing in her own way the idea that we were running our heads into a bag, as the mountain walls of the pass closed sharply in upon us. There was a little climb again after we had crossed the bridge and had begun to turn our faces away from the hills. As w^e breasted the little rise and set our horse's head downward, a new^ scent — warm, wet, yet deli- HILL PASSES AND COAST LA ADS. 89 ciously fresh — came up from the long, wide valley, at the end of which we could see in a dreamy haze the network of lines which told of the masts of ships at Port Madoc. The town itself clustered along the edge of a dark, whale-backed ridge. The scent was the scent of the sea, whereupon my maid at once became clamorous for cliffs and sandy coves, and desirous of " throwing stones in the water " — a cheap form of recreation much affected by her, which happily immemorial custom does not stale. Now again there was some level road, and the rain still lay in pools upon it. The road-mak- ing was still of the Welsh type previously described, but, if possible, more barefacedly so. For the piles of unbroken stone with which the road was to be " mended" were lying here and there upon it as we rode along. " I do not call it very kind of them," was the Sweetheart's verdict, and it was mine also. My feelings were expressed chiefly by kicking vehe- mently at the largest stones as I pushed the machine along — a mistake, however, for one w'ho wears tennis shoes. For the exercise was like drivino- a cart alono- a boulder-strewn beach. However, just before we got into Tremadoc the 9° SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. road unexpectedly improved. We leaped at once into the saddle and were thus enabled to make our entrance into that famous old town with some distinction. It was market-day, and half a dozen carts stood about with their shafts on the ground. There were also many groups of chaffering country-folk, who on our appear- ance crowded about us, and had their due share of the excitement. Few of them appeared to " have any English." But they all seemed eager that we should visit the apothecary of the place, a certain notable Mr. Evans, domiciled at the corner of the road by which we had come in. Thither we went, and found a man, certainly remarkable enough in himself — in appearance the last of the bards — gray and reverend, and speaking English with a pretty antique flavour, as of one who had learned it in his sleep. But in no wise asleep was Mr. Evans. In his wonderful shop he had books of all sorts — vol- umes of legends into which Sweetheart and I peered with envious eyes. They looked so rich in possible giants and visits of the " tilwyth teg " — the Little People, with whom it was evi- dent Mr. Evans was on good terms, and whom he might even be keeping concealed in some HILL J'. I SSL'S AXD COAST LAXDS. 9 1 unseen corner of his shop — that wonderfully tangled, quaint-smelling magazine of his. But, alas ! the books were all written in Welsh, which, though we knew that it could be read musically enough, looked to us jjoor unin- structed ones only a chance lucky-bag of some consonantal alphabet without any vowels in it at all. Mr. Evans was, indeed, for the time being our fairy godmother— in that he bestowed upon us everything we needed. Never was there such a man. He had cycle oil, into which he put a drop of paraffin that it might "seek further in," as he remarked. Then he had colza oil for the lamp, and a nutshell of camphor to put in it to make it burn better. He had a square of American cloth to make a sausage-roll luggage- carrier to fasten on the handle-bar. He cut strips from a tanned hide which lay on the counter to gear the roll on to the machine. He had sweets of various sorts, mellow with age. Above all, he had extensive information about the uncycled region of the Lleyn to which we were going. Altogether he was a treasure of a Mr. h^vans, and when at last we left the shop, lie came out 92 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. to pilot US across the street, having charged us a perfectly infinitesimal amount for all this wealth — a sum indeed which made us ashamed to present a fraction of a shilling to such an ancient and honourable man, and withal a bard of Wales. By him we were commended to a good wife at the inn opposite, who, as it was market-day, and the crowd were "drinking fine," had however no time to brew us tea. So that we had to be content with as much milk as we could drink and with the dark-coloured bread of the country. But as we had good-going appe- tites and teeth in excellent working order, we did not very grievously complain. Our fare cost us fivepence, and I remarked to Sweet- heart that we would get rich, living in this way and at this rate. " Then let us ride on for ever and for ever, and never go back any more," said the Little Maid promptly. "Unless" — she hesitated — "the rain should come on." But, alas ! just then the rain came on. CHAPTER XII. THE PEARL OF POLICEMEN. ._. m^ ES, it was indubitably raining, and ^ l*^^ it is no joke when it rains in Tre- r madoc, where nobody is quite alive except Mr. Evans, who keeps the chemist's shop at the corner — and every other kind of shop. Our landlady, at least, being a Jones, one of a clan great and powerful, could give us no attention. It was surely bad enough to be compelled to give obedience and service to people who were pa\ing 93 94 SWEE THE A R T TRA FELLERS. for their liquor, without troubHng about suspi- cious gangrel bodies who ordered fivepence worth of milk and bread, and then took more than an hour to eat it. It was, however, raining, without any doubt about it whatever; and there did not appear to be any house of refuge for our tricycle. The country-folk about Tremadoc did their stabling simply by unharnessing their beasts and tying them to the tail of their carts in the great open square of the village, where they stood arching their backs in the rain, their noses in moist brown corn-bags, with pathetic patience and the most invincibly sad-eyed determination. So I betook myself out to see what could be done with our steed. I stood a moment in doubt, till a very friendly policeman (whose name, strangely enough, was also Jones) came up and invited me to put it in a kind of market- hall on one side of the village square, the door of which he unlocked for the purpose. He had a " notion of them cycle machines," he said, and (oh, too rare officer of the Crown) he liked those who rode upon them. He did not mind much if they did occasionally ride on the foot- path. And he was not grieved in heart because THE PEAR I. OF POLICEMEN. 95 a vagrant cyclist rode tlirough at nightfiill witli- out a lamp. He was a most accommotlating officer, and he did not seem overhurdened with duty. After I hatl returned to the inn, the Sweetheart and I watched him throuoh the window. He had obtained a bottle of oil and a rag from some hidden treasure of his own. And there, in the shelter of the market arches, he was employing himself in going carefully over the tricycle's every part. Most excellent No. 37 of the Carnarvon County Police, Sweet- heart and I ha\-e not forootten \ou ! We abode in our inn for a long wliile, and watched the rain drip over the white crag under which the village nestles. I told Sweetheart, out of a guide-book which I found on a side- table, that the village had been founded by a member of Parliament named Maddox (Sweet- heart evidently thinks him a Jones masquerad- ino- in disguise) in the beoinnino- of the centur\', and that he had built all the houses. Now Sweetheart has no opinion of guide- books, though she thinks mai)s pretty — spe- cialh' those which she is allowed to colour with a penny painting outfit. She, therefore, promptly contemned the information. g6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " Did Mr. Jones build all these houses ?" she asked in a supercilious manner, indicating a number of houses with their fronts boarded up. " The book says he did, but his name was Maddox," I answered meekly. " Then why did he not make people come and live in them?" said Sweetheart, with the air of a Prime Minister moving the closure. I could only weakly appeal to the book. But that authority was decidedly rejected, for the simple and sufficient reason that "it did not look a very nice kind of book" — which, con- sidering that some generations of beer-pots had been set down upon its covers, was assuredly well within the fact. The friendly officer of justice having polished up our " Humber" to the point of perfection, as though it were the buckle of his own waistbelt and he loved it, came across the street to tell us that the sky was clearing, and that he did not think there would be any more rain to the west, whither we were going. " It's the hills, you see, sir," he said lucidly. " It crawls down from the hills and it crawls up from the sea and so " — with a sigh he said it — " indeed yes — it mostly rains in Tremadoc ! " THE PEARL OF POLICE.UEX. 97 As we went he wished us God-speed on our way, and told us that he was hoping for a transfer to "Carnarfon, or some other lartch town." He was a very pearl of a policeman, and if ever I have to be taken up, I mean to send for No. 2>7 to do it. Sweetheart and I both earnestly hope that one day he will be made a chief constable, and dwell in peace and consideration in " Carnarfon or some other lartch town," according to his desire. c^ /^ ■iTS*'- CRICCIETH. CHAPTER XIII. THE JONESES OF CRICCIETH. E wheeled away over a much finer road than we had yet trav- elled on in Wales, a turnpike which reminded ns of our own Scottish highways. We kept our eyes fixed on the blue peaks of the Rivals, to the foot of which we desired to go. As we went I told over again to Sweetheart what the retailer of drugs and fairy tales in Tremadoc had told me — how that this road on which we were travelline had been made to the great empty harbour of Porthdynlleyn to which we were going. But 98 I THE JOXKSES OF CRICCIETII. 99 that in spite of all the vast sums of money which had been spent upon it, not a vessel had ever sailed over from the harbour nor a ton of goods passed to Ireland along this beautiful highway. Sweetheart was interested so long as I told her of the kind people who had made the road, in order that little girls could ride with their fathers to a beautiful sandy beach, there to gather shells and sea-weed. But she mani- ^ fested no concern whatever in the economics of the question, and was left quite untouched by the short and simple annals of the failure of the wide, shipless harbour of Porthdynlleyn. It grew very hot as we paced easily along the road toward Criccieth. So we refreshed our- selves, pulling the tricycle into a snug cavity where there had once been a heap of stones for road-mending. For this particular road is not kept in the simple primitive Cymric condition, of which we had tasted enough to suffice us earlier in the day. Sweetheart dispersed her- self generally over the fields and gathered mighty store of cowslips, while the chief acting- engineer rested and watched the quick-flitting scarlet figure and the one blue peep of sea. As we lazied here a train passed us on its lOO S IVEE THE A R T TRA VELLERS. way to Pwllheli (which being pronounced is " Poothelly "). The fussy activity of the tiny GATHERED MIGHTY STORE OF COWSLIPS.' engine warned us that we must proceed. So we gathered our belongings reluctantly together, THE JOXESES OE CRICCIETH. lOl and it was no great length of time before we found ourselves within sight of Criccit^th, which in the distance looked, on such a day of clean- washen skies and bright sunshine, precisely like a little Welsh Monaco, with its castle set almost jauntily upon the jutting promontory. Sweet- heart looked long upon it, and at last pro- nounced it very good. " I mean to live here when I am grown up — yes, indeed ! Then it will always be holidays at the sea-side, and I shall let my children play on the sand all day. And never tell them to come in till it is tea time and they are quite tired — and you and mother shall live here also " "And your husband !" I suggested. At first Sweetheart was not at all willing to be convinced of the necessity for such an en- cumbrance. But, being finally over-persuaded to accept my amendment, owing to the over- whelminor analo^ries which I suogrested, she said, as an ultimatum : " Well, then, he could stop at home and work," It is at least well that the poor man should be forewarned and forearmed. At Criccieth we dismounted at the door of a I02 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. house which promised refreshment, and which looked clean and cosey. We were much too poor to go to the fine hotels which stood near the station. Besides which we had had enoucjh, on our first day out, of the manners and cus- toms of the great to such as we. So, very respectfully, we knocked at the door of " Glanar- fon House," which, in spite of its grand name, is just like every other house in the village. And as soon as we set eyes on the cap of the particular Mrs. Jones who opened to us, we were sure that we had fallen upon our feet. " Please, father," thus I was instructed, "ask for jam for two, and if there is a cat to play with !" There were all three, so the maid was more than ever determined to live always in Criccieth. While things were getting into working order at " Glanarfon House," we strolled casually down to the beach, at sight of which, with its crescent of sand, yellow shining against the pure blue. Sweetheart uttered a little cry of pleasure and darted out to see if she could find any store of shells upon it. I sat down on an upturned boat. To me presently entered an aged man with a nautical THE /OXESKS OE CRICCIETH. lO hitch in liis walk. lie discoursed upon the glories of Criccieth. He was also a huidator of the comiii": times. There was to be a grfeat hotel. There were already the beginnings of a " HF, DISCOIRSED UPON THE GLORIES OF CRICCIETH. promenade — all made of expensive concrete, along the shore. B)--and-by there would be exhibitions, and photographic saloons, and a band on the beach. Nay, it was even whispered, but for the present it must be kept dark to 104 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. guard against the envy and jealousy of Pwll- heli — that cunningest of rivals — that the com- missioners of town improvements were in terms with a troupe of minstrels — real darkies, who had formerly performed upon the bones and tambourine at the mighty Blackpool itself. I could not sufificiently express to the reverend man my envious admiration of the march of im^provement. With geraniimis on the village green, planted out in pots, and a troupe of niggers dancing clog-dances on a new concrete promenade — I felt that Criccieth would indeed be an Arcady all too perfect. But I felt compelled to ask the seafaring man not to mention these thinos to Sweetheart. For the determination to reside permanently at Criccieth would undoubtedly have turned to adamant at the idea of the minstrels. The ancient mariner, who in his youth had often sailed to America, declared in the dialect of that country that " he would not give me away." I thanked him with tears in my eyes, for I am a man under authority. He said that he was a married man himself, and knew how it was when "them childer got round the old woman." In spite of the fact that his name THE JONESES OF CRICCIETH. 105 was Jones, he was a most feeling-hearted man. On returning to " Glanarfon House," we found a repast spread for us. There was great plent)' of the articles which were beloved of the Sweet- heart — jam and also marmalade, besides the bacon and eggs which she and I consider to be the traveller's staff of life, and tea from the brown pot, brewed, not boiled. We contributed on our own account two of the healthiest and most sufficient appetites on record. All the while Mrs. Jones (the nine and ninetieth we had encountered) stood over us, moving rest- lessly about and crooning with delight. She queried chiefly of Sweetheart's age. " And is the young lady only four ? Indeed, it is a wonder. It is beautiful to see — beautiful." But what was beautiful I was not quite able to make out, though Mrs. Jones repeated the statement an inconceivable number of times. As for Sweetheart, she did not trouble herself about the matter. But, "like a well-conducted person," that eminently practical damsel " kept on eating bread and butter " — also ham, eggs, and marmalade, all on the same plate and at the same time. For this is one of tlie most sacred io6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. conventions of the gipsydom in which Sweet- heart and I love to travel — that everything good eats admirably with everything else, when served up on one plate with hunger sauce. In which sentiment Sweetheart concurs. The affidavit carries both our siofnatures. CHAPTER XIV. THE IIOMK-COMINC OF D.WID ROBERTS. was a o'lowinLi' evenino as we wheeled sl()\vl\- over the crisp road whicli led along the shore from Criccieth to Pwllheli. We were lea\ ing the hills behind iis. tlioiicrh the Rivals and the long", undulating' line of the Lle)'n peninsula still rose before us. Sweetheart and I were almost too eager to get to our journe\'s end to watch the quick trij)ping turnstones on the beach as they insertetl their bills under a pebble, hitched it over cleverl\- with a quick turn, and gobbled up the worm which lay coiled beneath. Half-a-dozen dunlins, too, purred and scpiabbled further out. While beyond 107 io8 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. all the herring gulls cried wildly, and a few terns with clipper-built, swallow-like wings, flashed and fell like rockets in the bay, sending up jets of white foam. " What a lot of thincrs there are ! " said Sweetheart, unconsciously paraphrasing Mr. Stevenson, who sings : " The world is so full of a number of things, I think we should all be as happy as kings." Along the unstable, sandy indentations of the sea marge we took our way ; now coming out on the broad sea view, now getting behind a cutting of the little railway — which pursued us all the way to Pwllheli, where we were glad to be altogether quit of its ill-natured, snorting fussiness. Some- times we got off to walk a little, when Sweetheart pulled a few flowers to go in the envelope of mother's letter. Where they made, we fear, a sad mess, the colour coming off, and the viscous green of the stalks acting as a natural glue between the sheets. At the foot of one of the short descents we encountered a sailor boy, with his bundle on a stick, resting on a heap of stones. It was like the old romances of forty years ago. He had THE HOME-COMIXC, Of DAVID ROBERTS. \0(j been to sea and was cominL; l)arl^ {vom liis tirsl voyage. Me showed us his pass U) the htlle villacre station, halfway between Criccieiii and Pwllheli. H(; also let lis look at ihc order for ^» ^y* ;^^'2^t //■ ,'■'/'• ii,' ' ' " RKSTINi; ON A HRAP OF STO.NES. his money, made out upon the post-of^ce at the latter town, where he and his mother would joy- fully go on the morrow to claim it. Mis " kit" had. he said, gone on b\- train. He was a nice boy, and so little bashful was he that, right before our eves, he first washed his tace and then combed no SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. his hair with a pocket comb into a sleek nautical curve over his forehead. He w^ished to be neat before he would venture round the corner to his mother's door to take her by surprise. There was poetry in the thought. Small doubt but that he had dreamed a thousand times of this when his ship was tossing round the Horn, or when he was loading grain at Cali- fornia and hides at Valparaiso or Callao. He had fancied himself back at this little brook just round the corner from his mother's cottage/ making his toilet, and the brown Welsh bees humming all about in the stone-crop and the heather. So here, after all his adventures, he was, just as he had so often dreamed. And yet, in spite of all, he had time to talk to a couple of tramps by the wayside. "Will your mother know that you have landed ?" we asked. "Oh, no!" he said; "for we just got into Liverpool last night, at ten o'clock." " But the newspaper " I suggested. The sailor lad laughed cheerily. He had thought of that. There is time aboard ship to think of everything. " SHE LOOKED VERY HAKU AT US." THE HOME-COMIXG OF DAVID KO BERTS. 113 " My mother gets the Banner once a week," he said — "on Saturdays." Suddenly our friend leaped briskly over the turf dyke, and to our astonishment whispered to us from the other side to keep still and say nothing. A tall slip of a girl, with her hair done into a plait, came slowly along, swinging a cow-switch in her hand. She looked very hard at us, as Sweetheart and I sat, mighty guiltily, by the side of the road. But though we were all astonished, not one of us said a single word. As soon as she was past our friend sprang over the dyke with a joyous light in his eye. " That was my sister," he said, " and if she had seen me she would have run riorht off and told my mother, and that would have spoiled it all." Evidently the dramatic grandeur of this arrival was to pay for a great deal. He was to make a memorable entry, and we wanted with all our hearts to see it without being too intrusive. David Roberts was our sailor's name. We could almost have hugged him that it was not Jones. But it would, indeed, have been some- what too cruel to have stayed and taken part in that welcome. So, rising from the stone-heap, he put himself into marching order. We all 114 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. shook hands, and I think there was a warmth about our hearts, as if we too had all been round the Horn and were going, after two years, to take our mothers by surprise. David Roberts went on ahead, while we mounted in some haste and followed discreetly after. There was a low-built, white-washed cottage before us, basking in the evening sun. And there, too, was David Roberts, who had now no eyes for the like of us. The door was open, and we caught a glimpse of a woman, with gray hair and a print gown, standing at a table within. We thought that her face looked weary. Be of good cheer, good mother ! There is that on the threshold of your door which will bring back the light to the eyes which have wept so many tears since the little lad went away. Go in, David Roberts, and shut the door. With the heart-joy of thy mother and thee, God forbid that a stranger should intermeddle ! As we glanced round for the last time ere we • turned the curve out of sight, the road was empty and bare. But we knew where David Roberts was, and we knew, too, what his mother was saying to him. NEVIN BEACH. CHAPTER XV. (( UNWIDDEK-LIKE DEEDS. I T^"^ 10 Sweetheart and I posted on with I \Mi'^ >7i J our eves a little dim. We were v/ ^^y^ V, agreed in the opinion that l)a\id Roberts was the best of boys, but that would n<^t help us to reach Nevin above the cru milling heughs of Porth- dynlle\n. So at long and last came Pwllheli, where, in the funny little wooden restaurant by the station, a very polite maiden gave us most excellent tea. There was also an aquiline-faced young man, bold of e\"e, seated at the table. 115 Il6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. He had a cup of coffee set before him, which he stirred round and round while he gazed, without winking, at the pair of us. He might, by his look, have been a policeman sent to take us up for some unheard-of crime, but he was clad in workman's moleskins and dusted gray with quarry dust. " Been takin' the young 'un riding, boss ?" he asked. " That's a bright idea." "You've been in the States?" replied I, giving him back question for question, as a Scotsman must by nature. He had, he said. It was "a son-of-a-gun of a fine country out there." He wished he had never left it. We asked him why he forsook it at all, since these were his opinions. " Too much shoot," he said enigmatically. And he imitated with wonderful accuracy the movements of taking a revolver from his thigh and discharging it at a visionary antagonist. The Sweetheart looked at him with fascinated eyes, and yet without any fear. "Did they make gold where you were?" she asked, looking at his great hands and arms as they lay resting on the bare boards of the table opposite us, veined and muscular with toil. ''UNIVIDDER-LIKE DEEDS." 1 19 "Not SO bright as your hair, missy," he said, pohtely and kindl\-, as he rose to go out. This was cjuite another t\pe from our sailor boy. He was. we found, employed in manag- ing the dynamite at some quarries in the neigh- bourhood, and was known tlicrc as "Denver Mike." Soon we were speeding out of Pwllheli, through the fine trees that made a pleasant lattice-work overhead. It was more like Mr. Gale's Arcady in leaf\- Warwickshire, than the bare wind-swept west of Carnarvon. As we went, a farmer, driving a smart trap, raced lis for a while along the splendid road. Sweetheart was, of course, immensely delighted, and leaned back and forward to expedite the pace at the word of command. As we drew awav, owino- to our superior speed on the level, and also, I fear, to our recklessness down-hill, she turned round and waved her hand with a kind of dainty provocation, to which the jolly farmer responded with his whip right gallantly. I do not think that he really meant to beat us, see- ing that the lady passenger's heart would have been well-nigli broken by that event. But Sweet- heart and I were sure that he could not have I20 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. done so if he would. Thus scouring the road, " like stour," as we say in Scotland, we came out on a fine, open, wind-swept plain, across which the long, broad highway ran, straight as an arrow, right into the eye of the setting sun. The telegraph wires, a perfect network of them, hummed and buzzed overhead. They were carrying messages, so we imagined (and let no man correct us if we be wrong) over to the Green Island — lovers' messages to their sweethearts, above that beautiful, useless road which had been intended to carry so much precious merchandise to poor old Ireland. So swiftly were we speeding that it was not long before we came to the angle in the road, where a guide-post told us that we must turn aside and face the short hill which leads up to Nevin. Thither arrived, we found our way to the Nanhoron Arms, which is a goodly hostelry and a kindly, whose ham and eggs are of the best, and where there is no scorn for the light- pocketed travellers who prefer " tramps' ordi- nary " to the state and expense of a dinner in three volumes. There still remained time before nightfall for OUT I'PON THE GREAT CLIFFS BEFORE NIGHTFALL. ''UNWIDDER-LIKE DEEDS." 123 US to go out Upon the great cliffs of which we had caught a ghmpse as we rode into the town. The road was a pleasant one, meandering throuQ-h fields. Stonechats were flittiner here and there, flirting with each other in pairs, and keeping just a few paces in front of us. The lover was got up in his gayest holiday attire, and he poised himself in the air like a hum- ming-bird over a flower. There were many pairs of them on the open hillside, and they were to be found on almost every bramble bush. They would permit the nearer approach of the Sweetheart than of anyone else — her red cloak and sunshiny hair being somehow akin to them- selves, and her gait being obviously devoid of any serious or deadly intent. It is some- times a great privilege to be only four years old. And this w^as the son^ she was sineine. She had learned it as we rode that morninor under the great Glyder and in front of the deep corrie of Cwm Dyli : " A blooming young widder, Ran right up tlie Glyder, All in her wiclder's weeds ; She came back by Cwm Dyli, Astride of a filly — Dear me, what unwidder-liUe deeds !" 124 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. This I had taught her, to my sorrow, and for my sins it had been ringing in my ears all the day. However, now at eventide, the stone- chats seemed to like it. And they were not shocked at the Bacchantic abandon of the singer, nor yet at the " unwidder-like deeds" of the bereaved lady of the song. The cliffs at Nevin are many hundreds of feet high — the exact number may be ascertained, no doubt, from the guide-books. To Sweetheart and myself they looked simply tremendous. The fact that they are nothing more than crumbling earth only adds to the aspect of alarm. We seemed in momentary danger of slipping over into the sea. As we came to the steep ascent, we saw a glorious picture before us. The sun was dipping into the water. He was as red as blood, and a broad pathway of fire stretched across toward him, which broadened as it went westward. "What is over there?" asked the Sweetheart, pointing where the sun had gone down. " That," I replied, " is Ireland." " Then," she said, " it will just be beginning to be sunshine in Ireland ! " For which, indeed, we pray. CHAPTER XVI. THE LOST LAND OF LLEYN. UR last day out dawned like the appearing of a new heavens and a new earth. " emerged from some diviner bath of birth," as somebody says. Nevin, but for the slate roofs, might this morn- ing have been mistaken for some exiguous sub- urb of Paradise. i here was exactly the feeling of George Herbert's Sabbath around us, though as yet it was only Saturday : " Sweet clay, so cool, so calm, so bright. The bridal of the earth and sky." This day we were finally to perform what we 125 126 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. had come so far to do. So it was no wonder that we were up betimes. We had to circum- navigate, or rather circum-cycle, the entire prom- ontory of the Lleyn. Years ago, before the Sweetheart hopped up h"ke a restless Bird of Paradise into the world's cage, the Lleyn had fascinated the chief-engineer, as he saw it from the woody skirts of Cader Idris. Then, for the sake of a prehistoric Sweetheart, he made a verse- sketch which, though of no account in itself, had ever since held out the promise of an enchanted land, some day to be visited. Here it is : " Goldener than gold's clear self, Above the purpling mountain mass the sun Doth hang, mist-mellow in the even-shine. Higher, the level curtain of the rain — Soft summer rain, that blesseth where it falls — Lets drop two sun-illumined folds of shower Over yon dim blue western promontory — The folk here call it Lleyn. Seen hence it seems A chain of islands like our Hebrides, Adream amid the rain-stilled Northern Sea. Even thus, my Love, as thy life circles mine, And thy dear influence, like the blessed rain, Stilleth and purifieth the sea's surge — So is the barren, lone, unquiet sea Bound by the bands of habitable land. Stilled by the gentle falling of the rain." THE LOST LAND OF LLEYN. 127 Ever since writiair these lines between the summer showers on the slopes of Cader, as a painter may throw a hasty memorandum on paper for memory's sake, the Lleyn had been a haunted land, and now we were to encircle it. To Sweetheart and myself it was indeed a " Blue day." There was a cheerful crying about the Nanhoron Arms in the early morn- ing. William Hughes was shrilly requested to turn out our team in marching order, and in due time William Hughes, be it said, approved him- self a good and capable groom. " A fair good passage all the way to Aber- daron," cried after us Captain Thomas, a warm- hearted sailor, now safe in port at Kevin. He had talked of strange lands with us on the evenino- before, so now with his hearty benison we wheeled swiftly southward, with the sun and wind uniting to make for us a brisk perfection of riding. The road, too. though stony and uneven, was of fair gradient, and conducted us through a country quite new and unknown. We found the Lleyn to be on the whole a flat, broomy. heathery country, rising toward the other side of the promontory into darkly shagg)' and 128 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. rugored ridoes. But it was far from beino- a land without inhabitants. On the contrary, A FAIR PASSAGE." blue-bloused men and white-capped women-folk stirred slumberously about a score of small crofts and wayside farm-towns. The Lleyn is THE LOST LAND OF LLEYN. 129 indeed a " band of habitable land," as 1 had imagined it ten years ago from the shores of County Meirion. But these were not at all the Lleyn folk I had pictured. There was something of the PVench peasant about them. Their cloaks of red, seen in the distance, burned holes in the landscape, like peony roses with the sun on them. The wind blew scraps of shrill Cymric speech athwart us. And miniature Welshmen, compendiously clad in their fathers' cast-off trousers for sole garment (buttoned over their shoulders, their arms through the pocket-holes), stood bare- headed to let us pass. Their instinctive courtesy was a marvel to us, accustomed to the Gothic boorishness of our own more northern type. Up from the sea ^^^^ came a waft of air, blowing warm and cool alternatel}' — warm from the heather, cool from the wide green- tiecked, purple-veined levels of the sea, sown with white ships, and making with the sky one continuous hollow vault of colour. Then aeain a swirl of still warmer summer air blew softly across the purple moorlands that divided us from the eastern seaboard, and touched our cheeks like a caress. 13° SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. As we breathed ourselves for a few minutes on the summit of a long rise, Sweetheart said : " Father, I hear the grass-chatterers ! " It was the chirp of the grasshoppers among the long bennet grasses that she heard. For the "chatterers" were out in hosts that fine spring morning, though it was hardly their time yet, and in the sound we seemed to learn that hay-time was not so far off. A clergyman stood at his door — a farmer parson he, with straws on his coat and a fork in his hand. He was a heart- some cleric, and gave us jovial greeting with the hay- fork as we went by. We kept the sea on our right all the way, and from that hand also the breeze unsteadily came. The sun beat on the other side till the south- ward slopes of Sweetheart and myself were completely baked. Still there was no word of Aberdaron. The fourteen miles from Nevin had spun themselves out wondrously. There, at last, far away over the flat moorlands we caught a glimpse of the crown of Bardsey Island. The green-and-purple streaked sea stood up behind it, solid as veined malachite. A white path wound up to the heathery summit THE LOST LAND OF LLRYN. 131 of a hill near at hand, in mazy loops of rocky pathway. But that was the last ascent before we rattled down into Aberdaron, and descended at the New Inn to partake of home-brewed beer and delicious brown bread. CHAPTER XVII. A CHILD S PARADISE. BERDARON is unique. There is no place in the three kingdoms in the least like it. It is a vil- lage transferred bodily from the operatic stage. The houses are toylike and unconnected, so tiny that "we looked instinctively for comely little hay-makers in pink and emerald green, scattering baskets of flowers, to come dancing and balancing out of them, twirling skirts and pirouetting as they came. Little artificial-looking streams run here and there, dividing the whole place into a series of 132 A CHILD'S PARADISE. '33 green islands, as if for the purpose of being- crossed by a multiplicity of wooden bridges transported from Lilliput. The houses are overgrown with creepers, and the aspect of the whole is that of a stage village after the play is over. The only thing practical about the whole neighbourhood is a universal provider's shop, and that is kept by a Scotsman, whole-souled and hearty. Shake hands. Captain jMacdonald, you keep up right well the hospitable traditions of your countr)' and clan. I have not forgotten your fraternal welcome in a strange land, nor yet the excellence of your good cheer. As we went through the street of the villai^e toward the shore, the sea might have been a hundred miles away. Suddenh', however, we turned a corner between a pigsty and an up- turned boat, and lo, there — quick as a drop- curtain, a glorious half-moon of shining sand and a great plain of sapphire sea were flashing upon us in a moment. The sight fairly took OLir breaths from us. We could hardlv think that we were in the land of reality. It was so e.xact a "crib" froni the lantlscape painter. Usually Nature is accitlcntal and not pictorial. But let those who think that Nature never com- 134 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. poses anything naturally pictorial go to Aber- daron. The "sickle sweep" of Aberdaron Bay ends in two bold headlands, which to-day were blended of gray and purple and crimson according to the strictest conventions of art. Two islands had been placed in exactly the right positions to be most effective in the middle distance, and there they swam in a golden purple haze. Boats and wreckage strewed the beach, which was flecked with magnificently coloured pebbles — some red as blood, others splashed with orange and lilac. Pure white nuggets of quartz and saffron sea- shells lie scattered among them. The man who first bui'lds a hotel at Aberdaron will first make his fortune — and then go to his own place for desecrating the fairest spot God made. The Sweetheart never had seen such a place. She had always had a lingering doubt about the possibility of greater joy in heaven than she has experienced on earth. But the horizon of her possibilities of happiness was suddenly widened. And the chief engineer begran to dream of the works which might be accomplished in the tranced quiet of this earthly paradise, looking out on these summer isles of beauty, and stilled A CHILD'S PARADISE. 135 by tlic murmur of this slumberous sea. Per- chance it might prove all too slumberous for action, who knows ? But, at all events, Aberda- ron made a good and appropriate resting-place after our long-time journeyings. It was true that we had to return some time. But not yet ! It was true, also, that in time Sweetheart would tire of collectincr the red stones and the white. But what need to thmk of sad satiety ? — at least, not yet a while. Sufficient unto the day is the pleasure thereof. See the Sweetheart thrill with laughter as she watches a green crab scuttle sidelonor into its hole. There is not a note of discord or possible pain in all her world. The happiness of Aberdaron beach abides but for an hour — a child's paradise, maybe ; but it is all perfect while it lasts. " Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven !" I wonder if we quite understand. It is the \ouno: child's hour, and it is without alloy. Heaven will last longer — that is all. " IS IT ABOUT FAIRIES?" CHAPTER XVIII. sweetheart's sweethearts. T grieves me to be compelled to put on record the facts con- tained in this chapter. But as a warning to wayward children, and an incentive to parents to practise a sternness which, alas ! the writer only preaches, I am deter- mined to do my duty. For what is life without love ? And what is love without fidelity? It w^ould be a proud day if, with some approach to the truth, I could speak of Sweet- heart's sweethearts in the singular number. Once upon a time — ah, happy happy day ! — I 136 SWEETHEART'S SWEETHEARTS. 137 fondly deluded myself with the belief that she had but one— and that one a person whose many admirable qualities so speak for them- selves that I may be excused from further alluding to them. But that day has long- passed away. The multiplication-table itself cannot contain the number of the victims. Even Tw^elve-times- Twelve itself is unequal to the strain. Yet wdien Sweetheart is charged with being of a fickle heart, she only tosses her head, and with the charming privilege of her sex she says, " I don't care !" And she really does not care. Which is the saddest part of it, and argues a orowine callousness. For once she did care. It is recorded in the earlier chronicles of the family that on one occasion little Johnny Fox ran in to his mother, beblubbered with tears and melodious with howls. He was the same youth to whom Sweetheart once proposed honourable w'edlock. "Johnny, what is the matter?" asked his doting parent. "Oh, mother," cried Johnny, between his sobs, " Sweetheart says — if I won't play — Kiss- in-the-rino-, she'll bauQ- me over the head !" 13^ SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. He was, to say the least of it, not a warlike youth. " Never mind, Johnny," replied his mother, " it is possible that some day you may change your mind about that ! " But when that day comes, it is possible that Johnny Fox's mother may not like the idea quite as well as she does now. But the fury of a woman scorned no longer abides in Sweetheart's bosom. Boys, her equals in age, delight her not. For has she not sweet- hearts a many, all bearded and moustached, grown men of standing and dignity. Indeed, grave and reverend seniors have been proud to do obeisance to our Giddy-pate-a-dreams for no brief space. She drags them captive at the wheels of her chariot, affecting a primness and distance of demeanour in the drawing-room which is belied by the extreme familiarity of her discourse to them in her hours of ease. " Come here at once and help to play going to church ! " was her word of command on one occasion to the least of her slaves. "You come right into the vestibule!" she commanded. " No — not that way, but prop- erly. I'll show you how. Take off your hat ! SWEETHEART'S SWEETHEARTS. 139 There ! Now, i^ct your collection ready. No, you don't ! [The unprincipled churchgoer being about to [)ass in without contributing.] Oh, no ; [nit y(jur pcnii)' in the plate first. There now ! Noio I will show you to a seat." So, with slow and fateful step and censorious chin in the air, the Slave is duly shown to a pew, and the imaginary door shut upon him. From which safe eminence— it is upon the rickety seat of a prehistoric summer-house — he is privileged to observe the dignity with which the small elder stands at the plate, the calm importance of her attitude, and especially the bcatidc smile with which each j>urely imaginary contribution is acknowledged. It is indeed a notable lesson in ecclesiastical deport- ment, and shows us kirk-proud Scots that our most national and cherished institutions are capable of improvement. Yet there is not the faintest le\ it)' in Sweetheart's treatment of the- subject. Upon the least flicker of a smile being discerned upon any face. Sweetheart instantly concludes that the smiler is wholly unworth)- of her confidence, and dismisses him with ignominy into the outer void of those who are not fit to play in her plays. 14° SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. But I promised to speak of Sweetheart's other lovers. I admit that the lady is by no means mercenary in her attachments. " I am not allowed to take money," she said in a dignified manner to one who proffered coin of the realm to propitiate the favour of the goddess, " but you can send me a book — they mostly do. Or toffee," she added thoughtfully, " there is a good shop just round the corner." So, as has been remarked by some super- fluously wise man or other, there are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in cream. Sweetheart has a shelf of books — all her own, and nearly each one of them has been sent to her by the authors of these books. But, alas ! not in every case does she appear to appreciate the value of the gift. She has, in fact, but one question to ask about a new arrival when it is unwrapped. And that is : " Is it about fairies?" If it is, well. She will be graciously pleased to be read to out of it, and to pore over the pictures, particularly if they are coloured. But if otherwise, and if no fairies appear to be treated of, she says : SWEETHEART'S SWEETHEARTS. M^ "I think that I shall irivc this one to liueo!" For it is always a fine thing to be generous. To Mr. Sagaman, the famous author of one of the luost approved books of fairy lore, — and one, indeed, who afterward stood on the dizzy pinnacle of her favour, — Sweetheart's first com- mand was : " Now, tell me all about the Giant Blunder- bore ! " The unfortunate author, thus assaulted, inti- mated that all his information about the person alluded to was summed up in a couplet which hc! is suspected of having feloniously made up on the spot. (With authors you never can tell I) The lines were these : "The Cornish giant Blunderbore, He gave a mighty thunder-roar." Sweetheart, however, was entirely dissatisfied with this explanation, tliough Hugo instantly appropriated the stanza, and has repeated it to every person whom he has encountered unto this day. But Sweetheart could not make out how the author of a book (and sucli a book I) could fail to know more about one of his most important characters. 142 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " Did you copy that out of another book?" she said. And the wretched being could not deny it- — or at least did not. He only nervously laughed, no doubt in distress at being found out, and said : " Some day I'll write you another story, all for yourself ! " This was wholly satisfactory. But Sweet- heart wanted a stated contract. "All about Blunderbore ?" persisted Sweet- heart, to make sure. " Yes, all about nothing but the most fearful kind of oriants and oriantesses ! " For Sweetheart is no devotee of the schools of fiction which deal in a nicely wrapped-up moral lesson in each book, like a surprise packet,, A good-going, cut-ancl-thrust giant story, a pictured horror on every page, the corner of an arijichair to curl up in, and something nice to nibble at, are good enough for Sweetheart. For she is a woman of a very old variety indeed. And had she been placed in the sinless garden instead of Eve, our mother, I do not think that the history of the race would very materially have been altered. But the Old Woman — she SWEETHEART'S SWEETHEARTS. 143 of the clan of Eve — has never been without dis- tinct and undeniable attractions — at least for old-fashioned people. And such, for the most part, Sweetheart's admirers are. One day a young man arrived. He was full of good humour and kindliness. It was just as well. For when he made his first advances toward the shy especial favours of a lover. Sweetheart eyed him carefull)'. "Have you written anything?" she asked. The young man admitted that he had remarked books, with his name upon the backs of them, lying about on bookstalls and such places. So he supposed he must have written them. " Are they about fairies?" Sadly the young man had to confess, under the sternness of Sweetheart's eye, that they were not. At this point he was made to feel very much ashamed of himself, as well he might. Somewhat weakly he added that noiL* he would have a fairy to write about. He had never seen one — before. In a year or two this sugared compliment might have served his turn. For he is an ingenuous youth, and has the prettiest turn for phrasing. But at the age of 144 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. five (nearly) maids need compliments put very plainly in order that they may understand them— indeed, even concretely. Candy is best. " Then," said Sweetheart remorselessly, " I don't think I shall like you nearly so much as Mr. Sagaman. You know, I love him. Besides, he is much nicer-looking than you. He has such beautiful hair and is a darlinof." The young man of letters expressed his sorrow, but said that he would immediately get some gray hair-wash. He wondered if putting his head in the flour-barrel would do. It was (green-eyed) jealousy which made him say this. " Oh, do try ! " said Sweetheart, instantly and eagerly, feeling that this might be better even than writing fairy books. " I should so like to see you do it ! Our flour-barrel is in the back pantry. I'll show you ! " But the unhappy young man withdrew his offer, on the shallow plea that his hair was so black that it would take the whole barrelful. And to that, as there mio;ht not be a fairv at hand to fill it again, cook Marion might object. Sweetheart has yet another admirer, of whom she is exceedingly fond. Mr. Dignus is a grave man of affairs, in aspect serene and reverend. SWEETHEART'S SWEETHEARTS. 145 Rut he has a manner with him as of onr; wlio knows the way of a man with a maid — at least when that maid is very young indeed. In his case, however, it was certainly Sweet- heart who made the advance. She was younger then, and success had not yet made her shy. But she oave the o-ood man warnincr of her intentions — which, however, were strictl)- hon- ourable. " I think I am froinof to love vou," she said. Whereupon my friend Dignus, somewhat flattered, said modestly : " Thank you very much, Sweetheart. But I am married, don't you know?" A saying which Sweetheart did not appear to notice at the time, but afterward she showed that she had heard and remembered it, " He need not have mentioned about being married just then," she said. " It was not nice of him." But for all that Sweetheart was true to her proffer of friendship. Indeed, her heart is remarkably capacious. And the fact that she already loves a hundred is no reason wh\- she should not love a hundred and one — that is. if due cause be shown. 146 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. Once upon a time, in the absence of her parents, Sweetheart, proudest of maidens, was doing the honours of the table all alone to an unexpected guest. She was engaging him in conversation. (" Combesation " is Sweetheart's form, and a very good one, too.) " What is that gentleman ?" asked the guest, pointing to a portrait on the ledge of a bookcase. " That ?" said Sweetheart. " Don't you know ? That is Mr. Dignus. He conies to see me, biU he talks to father about his American copyrights^ Which, when you think of it, is just what most visiting lovers do. They come to see the maid, But they talk to the parent about American copyright. And they think that the parent gull does not see throuQ^h the subterfuo^e. What ostriches these lovers be ! .-3^ CHAPTER XIX. THE PHILANTHROPY OF BIRDNESTING. WEETHEART and I sometimes go a-birdnesting. W'c do this purely from motives of philan- thropy. Sweetheart, you see, wishes to save the poor birds from the hardshij) of bringing up too laroe families. So we alwavs take one eeof if there are four, but two if the improvident and reckless parents have arranged for more than that number. Yet Sweetheart and I share the lot of many other more worthy benefactors of the race. We have never yet been thanked as we deserve for 147 148 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. our unselfish interest. For instance, no further gone than to-day, a blackbird stood on a bough and used quite improper language to us, when we interfered with his domestic arrangements entirely for his own benefit. He wholly declined to see it, and most obstinately and stupidly con- tinued to assert that a blackbird's nest was his castle — a perfectly absurd contention. Has a blackbird rights ? Can he exercise the franchise ? Does he get drunk on election day ? Go to ! " How would you like it yourself?" he said. Now, we admit that this was rather a home- thrust on the blackbird's part, but Sweetheart did not mind. She said that he could come and take her third-best dolly — and welcome — the one with only one limb out of four and with the back of its head caved in. A fair exchange is no limited company. Upon which the blackbird retorted that we always took his best ^^'g, and asked us why we would not be content with the broken one which he had shoved over the side. But Sweetheart very soon disposed of him. She threatened that we would tell three school- boys of our acquaintance about his nest if he did not hold his toneue. THE PHILANTHROPY OF BIKDNESTING. H9 That very quickly made him humble, I can tell you. And lie not only asked our pardons (thoug-h he was perfectly in the right), but in addition he promised to come and sing in the laurels outside our windows every morning from seven to eight — a promise which I am bound to say he has most thoroughly and conscientiously kept. It is nice to awake in the mornino- and hear him at it in the earliest dawn. His mellow, seductive notes thrill deep down into us through the mists of sleep, and tell us what a fine morn- ing it is to be out and about. And so it is, no doubt, when one is up. It is the intermediate processes which are disagreeable. " It is a strange thing," says Sweetheart mus- ingly, " that one has to do the most unpleasant thing in the dayyf;\s7/" "And what might that be, Sweetheart?" I ask. "Get up!" says she — with, I admit, a good deal of truth and [xunt. There is but one correct way of getting up — that is, not to stand u}K)n the order of your get- ting — but to get. He who hesitates is lost. I am not speaking 150 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. to women, for they never get up till they cannot possibly help it. One's head seems scarcely to have reached the pillow a single moment, when " Chirr-r-r-r-r !" like an angry rattlesnake off goes the alarm, apparently under one's ear. It is a critical moment. " What a fool I was to set that thing last night," we say. " I wish it would quit making that horrid racket." It does stop at last, and the silence comes like a porous plaster to heal the wounds of sound, as somebody said. Or words to that effect. The supreme moment has come. In thirty pulse-beats you will be asleep again if you are not upon your feet. And if you succumb, in a morning or two the loudest and longest alarm will awake you no more. At best it will only punctuate the night with a reminder that it is three or four hours before you require to get up. However, all this is beside the question. We two a7'e up and going out for a spring ramble, that is. Sweetheart and I. The trees are not very far advanced, even yet, on these mountain slopes. Only the catkins of the alder and the bloom of the sloe thorn give promise of the .1, I V "WHY DOES HE NOT SETTLE DOWN TO HOUSEKEEP ? " THE PHILANTHROPY OF BIRDNESTING. I53 thousand blossoming; bushes of a month licnce. The wincUlower and the celandine are all the flowers that one can find by the bankside. Ah, no ! that was too hasty a saying. Here is the sweet violet — that precious flower of a good smell. "Listen, Sweetheart," I say. "Can you tell me \vhat is that we hear?" "It is the snipe! "cries Sweetheart happily. For the bird, drumming far away by itself on the moorlands, always touches our hearts with a vague, mysterious thrill. The melancholy whim- perings grow nearer to us. But not until we are fairly out on the open moor can we see the quiver of the stoop as the bird pauses in his whirlino-s in the far field of blue. The wdiaup sweeps wailing and " zvilly-icJia- ing''' across the brae face on his way to the marshy hollow where his nest is to be. A myriad of small birds are flitting and twittering. A white-flecked wheatear junkets about, flying here and there in his peculiarly aimless and casual way. " Why does he not settle down to house- keep?" says Sweetheart, whose tendencies just now are markedl)- domestic. She has eighteen 154 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. of a family herself, and is thinking of nineteen as soon as she can raise a sixpence for a very fasci- nating kilted boy in a window. " And lay eggs," she continues. " I want two wheatear's eggs." But strangely the wheatear does not agree. He is a bird without serious convictions — prob- ably a Malthusian or Anarchist of some kind. The willow wren, on the contrary, is already busy constructing his nest, and has entered on the happy condition of double blessedness which he has been anticipating ever since, five days ago, he was pecking insects on a North African palm, and saying, " It is getting a great deal too hot down here ! " So he started, and after many perils he found himself on this dwarf thorn, where, remember- ing Africa, he shivers in the cutting keenness of our April wind. But he is a delightsome little chap, and never goes far from running water. Sweetheart says that he is as dainty and chipper as if he were a cage bird and fed on hempseed. He is, to speak in the American language, the cunning- est of birds. And his fairy flute of a song — is it not sweet beyond telling? THE PHILANTHROPY OF BIRDNESTING. 155 Listen, Sweetheart, again, to what he is saying- : " Dididay-deiiy , what can I sady ? Indeed I atn gay ! Far aivay-iiy I did stay, now I'll stop if I inay-ay / Dididay, dedy, dudy-day ! didide-dedy / I'll not get in yottr way-elty. Please don't send me away-edy." "What a nice dear he is!" says Sweetheart, who approves of poHte hirds. "Not a bit hke the nasty jay, who is only a vulgar boy for all his fine coat, and calls ' Yali-yah !' after \()u out of the bushes. But the willow wren is a nice bird. I shall only take one of his eggs — unless he has quite a lot ! " So you see tliis is what it is to be polite. Be virtuous, obligiiig", always subscribe to every pass-book that comes to the door, and the philanthropist will not take all your money — unless you happen to have quite a lot. CHAPTER XX. THE MAGIC OF THE RAIN. WET day has a fascination for me. Tap ! tap ! come the stray I triangles of the ivy leaves upon the study window. The wind drives a scatter of rain-drops on the pane, spreading broad and flat like spent bullets on a target. Then what a fine heartsome roar there is in the wide chimney. There is truly enough and to spare to do indoors. Yet Sweetheart and I cannot, for the life of us, stop thinking of the way the branches of the trees are wheezing and creak- 156 THE MAGIC OF THE RAIX. 157 ing against each other out there in the storm- tossed woods. And with the thouglit restless- ness orows in the blood. WE LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOW. We get lip and look out of the window. Over the orav Pentland side the mist is driving. Across the lift the clouds are scourinor, chanore- 158 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. ful and swift. The rain comes in furious dashes, and a blue blink looks momently through between. A white herring-gull wafts himself composedly athwart my field of vision. By way of imitation a rook tries vainly to fan his w^ay across the hurl of the tempest, but, failing midway, he is blown heels over head down the sky, a ragged and bewildered tatter- demalion. But a starling projects himself suc- cessfully from the pinnacle of the church, like a flat-headed Government "broad arrow" with- out any shaft. And with no difficulty whatever he transits the window of my observatory with swift, jerky undulations right in the teeth of the wind. It is too much for mortal to stand. "Take the cash and let the credit go," sayeth great Omar Khayyam of Naishapur. Such a day as this may not come hastily again. Booted and cloaked I stand ready, and pres- ently Sweetheart trips downstairs huddled in waterproofs, good advices and cautions shower- ing after her, as to the conduct of our walk and conversation and the care of her feet outside. The degree of sanity possessed by certain per- sons who cannot remain comfortably by a fire on THE MAGIC OF THE RAIN. 1 59 such a day is also slightingly dwelt upon by an unseen orator somewhere hioh over our heads. o But we are not much interested, thouLfh we listen dutifully enough. It is astonishing how many points of view there are in the world. For instance, Sweetheart thinks that it is jolly to be out in the rain. And that for many reasons. First of all, because you can catch the rain-drop which distils from the end cf )our nose upon your outstretched tongue. Sweet- heart stands still for a moment while she illus- trates the ease with which this notable feat can be performed. Now you cannot possibly do this upon an ordinary day. Again, it is jolly to come out in the rain, because you have not to pick your way among the puddles. And for an excellent reason. It is all puddle together. There is but one slight drawback. The wind blow^s the small maid's hair all about her eyes, making in the meantime a picture of wind- tossed oold tanoled above a scarlet cloak. But Sweetheart fears that the result will be "dread- fully tuggy " when it comes bedtime. But bed- time is far away, and, as soon as we are really in the woods, the fears of the future and of the stern comb of ruthless Fate are alike for^rotten. i6o SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. There is a rook upon the pinnacle of the church. Sweetheart says that there is always one there. I assert hastily that she means a jackdaw. But she does not, as it appears. For this particular rook dwells in patriarchal ease among a colony of jacks, having probably been expatriated from his own community for reasons into which it is better not to enter. In fact, we may say, without fear of an action for libel, that he left his country for his country's good. Whether Mr. Rook dwells in the jack- daws' country for his own good or theirs is a still unsolved problem. Sweetheart thinks that a rook upon a church tower is somehow in keeping with the ecclesiastical surroundings. For, by a simple association of ideas, she asks next why clergymen always dress in black. "What else could they dress in?" I reply, thinking a simple and Socratic method the safest. Sweetheart does not know, because the idea of a clergyman arrayed in any other colour than black has not yet dawned upon her mind. " Do you know, father, how I should know an angel from a clergyman, if one of them should come to see me.'*" THE MAGIC OF THE RAIN. if)i I reply that, as she lias not yet informed me of her method of making the distinction, I cer- tainly cannot guess.. " Well," says Sweetheart, " the way I should know is this. An anoel would be dressed in white and have wings. A clergyman would be dressed in black and have an unibrella." Our practical Sweetheart does not mean to entertain any angels unawares if she can help it. She means to know it, and full)- to occupy her visitors' time in answering questions. For there are many things which she exceedingly desires to find out — as, for instance, whether dolls go to heaven. And if the little children there sometimes get out to play, or only have to stop in church all da)". Then, upon the information received, she means to settle the question as to the place she wants to go to. A very good lad)' approached Sweetheart the other da)', and claimed the reluctantly perfunc- tory and strictly ceremonial kiss which Sweet- heart keeps for such occasions. "Wouldn't you like to go to heaven, Sweet- heart ? " she asked, with the comfortable, purr- ing affection characteristic of certain dear old ladies. l62 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. "Yes, indeed!" said Sweetheart instantly, and with considerable emphasis. Our good old friend was much pleased, and so (at the moment) were we. It is gratifying to have one's family brought up to express so readily such very corre<:t and orthodox aspira- tions. But the querist ought to have let well alone. She should not have asked Sweetheart for a reason, but rested content with the fact. Yet this is just what she proceeded to do. " And won't you tell me ivhy you would like to go to heaven ? " she said sweetly. Sweetheart was nothing loath, in spite of the frowns of her well-wishers. " Why, because there is no night there," she replied briskly. " And why because there is no night. Sweet- heart?" persisted our friend. " Because," said Sweetheart earnestly, " there would be nobody to say, 'It's bedtime!' right in the middle of sitting up in the drawing- room ! " Then there fell a great silence, and vSweet- heart was asked no more questions. But we felt distinctly rebuked, for the lack of capable instruction was manifest. But then Sweet- THE MAGIC OF THE RAIN. 163 heart's views on cschatology arc \vholl\- original, and her tendencies are distinctly rationalistic — in so far, at least, that she must always have a reason for every fact supplied for her absorption and belief. Our only consolation is that any sort of a reason will do. Indeed, she is as credulous as a biologist. But the rain sprays refreshingly on our faces as we enter tlie woods and begin to tread on the pine cones and elastic fir needles. These make a delightful carpet for our feet, infinitely cleaner and drier than the muddy roads we have left behind. The trees are dripping with wet, of course, and shining drops are blowing from every bud and knot. Long pendent sprays whip the air and sprinkle us as we pass. Lucent pearls glance off our waterproofs. The sky above is perpetually brightening and paling. It is an April day which has somehow lost its way in mid-February. From under a splendid umbrella-like spruce we look down into the whirlpool of shifting vapour whicli fills the deep glen. The dark green of every fir-tree is surrounded with a violet haze, sometimes deepening into purple, sometimes paling into lilac. Anon drifts of 1 64 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. grayish-white misty rain make all the landscape glamourous, as though we were seeing it through a translucent veil. Again of a sudden the sun shines out, and the red, wet boles of the Scotch firs shine like pillars of crimson fire. The larger birds are busy in the spacious open-air ball-room beneath us. Here is our sea- gull waltzing and balancing all by himself — as if he were practising his steps, Sweetheart says. A wood-pigeon blunders across the glen with prodigious fuss and bluster. He pretends some- thing is after him, but his terror is most obvi- ously assumed. Sweetheart and I stand and listen to the varied noises the wind makes, and try to find out the reason of each sound. First there is the great, resonant roar of the storm in the nearer high trees over our heads. Then there is a more fitful sough, as the sucking swirls and reverse currents blow about the underbrush on the sides of the ravine. And, last of all, mak- ing one clear, sustained note, which sounds high above both of these, there is the steady scream of the storm, as it presses northward up the long glen, hurtling unweariedly toward the Pole. THE MAGIC OF THE A'ALV. 165 But now we must turn us homeward. It is sad, indeed. But, after all, there are such things as colds, and the consequences would be un- utterable if, even in the interests of science on a rainy day, we were to take home one of these between us. " I like so much to come out with you," observes Sweetheart, with the instinct of her sex — "because you never say ' \'ou mustn't!' at the nice places. Nor ' You're going to get your boots wet!' at the dear little pools!" I was, in fact, upon the point of making the latter remark at that moment. But in face of such sweet llatler\-, how could ilie thing be done ? I leave it to the reader who has been similarly situated. " Do you know, I think it's very kind of you to take me out walking with you, father," is the next statement — also made in the interests of the future. I disclaim an\- [)articular kindness in the matter, except to myself. " Have I been a good 'panion to you, father.-'" is th(^ next link in the chain which I feel weav- ino- about me. But I have to admit the fact or perjure myself. l66 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. " And not been a dreadful trouble to you ? " This pathetically, and thrusting a small hand into mine. Which also being satisfactorily answered, I feel that the point is coming now. " Then," says Sweetheart, " can I have tea in the dining-room to-night, stop up till eight o'clock, and come out walking with you again to-morrow ? " As I have several times remarked, there are distinct reasons for believing that our Sweet- heart is in the direct line of descent from Eve, the wife of one Adam, who kept a garden some time ago. CHAPTER XXI. SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS IN WINTER WOOD- LAND. S you may see, she is not a Sweetheart only for the sum- mer-time, this of mine. Now that she is grown up (four years and six months is quite grown up for a Sweet- heart), she and I go a-walking even in tlie time of frost and snow. We have received, in fact, a roving commission to inquire into the condition of the furred and feathered unemployed, into the housing of tlie out-of-doors poor, and into various other thincr.s. We are also interested in the problem how the birds and beasts of the 167 i68 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. fields and woodlands eat and sleep during this black and bitter winter weather. And very specially we try to find out how, in this time of coal dearth, they manage to obtain fuel to keep the fires burning in their brave little hearts. We have it on good authority that God thinketh on these. But as no one else seems to think on them much, at least in our nei^h- bourhood, Sweetheart and I humbly take the matter in hand. There are many feathered pensioners on Sweetheart's bounty, and yet not a word of pauperising do we hear. Even the Charity Organisation Society does not interfere. Only the great black rook, who eats everything, grumbles, " Why was so much good crow's meat cut up into little bits and given to the poor?" By which he means the tits, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, robins, and wrens who most do con- gregate about, and wait with fluffed feathers for Sweetheart's bounty. As she and I go toward the woods the snow is crisp with frost and whistles beneath our feet. There is a sharpness also about our faces as if Jack Frost had been sharpening the end of our noses at his orindstone — as indeed he has. First we ofo throuoh a little woodland ravine. AV WIXTER WOODLAXDS. 169 It is almost waist-deep in fallen leaves. Here the mighty beeches, in all their plcntitiide of foliage, have stood for ages on the slopes above. And in this place all the summer you can listen to the noise of their rustling branches. Now they are bare and stark. But the winds have swept all their russet and orange leaves into this narrow defde. Some few, perhaps, have sped over the boundary wall. But for the most part here they lie, and now they crunch shari)ly under the feet with a pleasant sound. The)- are matted together on the surface with frost, but underneath is a whole underground world of dormant living things which we must explore some day. But it is not until we get fairly into the woods, and leave the shallow frozen snow of the fields behind us, that we see any signs of life. The silence of these winter woods is their main characteristic. But that is chiefiy owing to the observer. It strikes the wayfarer, tramping along at a good steady policeman's pace to keep himself warm, that there is not a single sign of life in all the frosty woodlands. And this is natural. For sylvan eyes and ears are exceedingly acute. 17° SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. The Stamp of a leather-shod foot can be heard many hundreds of yards. Then, at once, every bird and beast witliin the radius stands at atten- tion, to judge of the direction of the noise. Crack goes another rotten branch. In a second all the woodland folk are in their holes, in the deepest shrubberies, or in the upper branches of the trees. The twang of the broken twig tells them that the intruder is off the beaten path, and is therefore probably a dangerous intruder. At the best, after no good. But Sweetheart and I are warmly wrapped up. So we can crouch and watch in the lee of a dyke, or stand wrapped in one great cloak behind a tree trunk. It is not much good to go abroad at noon. In the morning, when the birds are at their breakfast, is the time. Or better still, in the early afternoon when the low, red sun has yet about an hour and a half to travel — that is the time to call upon the bird folk in the winter season. They are busy, and have less time to give to tbeir suspicions. " The sun is like one big cherry," says Sweetheart, suddenly looking up between the boughs ; "like one big cherry in streaky jelly." "THE SILENCE OF THESE WINTER WOODS. IN WINTER WOODLANDS. 173 And it is SO precisely. He lies low clown in the soLilh in a ruby haze of winter frost. The reflections on the snow are red also, and the shadows purple. The glare of the morning's staring white and blue is taken off by the level beams. Snow certainly does not help the colour of a landscape. Sweetheart has something to say on this subject : " Father, I thought the first day that the; snow was prettier, but then it keeps us from seeing a great many pretty things." Never mind, Sweetheart. It will also let us see a sufficient number of pretty things, if we only wait and look closely enough. But it is ccrtainlv true that the crlare of the snow does reduce most of the delicate tints of the landscape to the uniform black and white of a monrninof attire. Imu' instance, the dainty, low-toned lilac of the tree branches is killed, just because there is a strip of snow along each branch toward the eastern side, the direction from which the snow- storm came. But as a compensation there is brilliant colour above our heads. The cherry* coloured sun, shining on the boles of the Scotch firs in the plantation, turns them into red gold, and causes their crooked branches to stand out 174 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. against the dull indigo sky like veins of white- hot metal. But look down, Sweetheart — see the traeks on the snow. Can you tell me what all these are ? HE HAS BEEN CARRYING ONE FOOT OFF THE GROUND. There is the broad-spurred arrow of that black vagrant, Mr. Rook, who is everywhere. We need not mind him. See, a little further on, the regular lopings of the rabbits as they cross the beaten path down from the bank, and go into IN WINTER WOODLANDS. 175 the hedgerows for tender shoots and leaf-pro- tected grasses. Here they have been nibbhng at the leaves themselves — even at the laurel leaves, which surely must be an acquired taste, and must mark a particularly decadent bunny. Here is a hare's track — a wounded one, too. See, he has been carrying one foot off the ground. Only here and there do we see where it has just skimmed the snow. His trail goes dot and dash like a Morse teleoram. Sweet- heart does not know what that is, but she is brimming over with pity for the poor lame hare. Would it not be possible to find him and get his poor foot tied up, like the robin redbreast of precious memory, whose wounded leg we once doctored and healed ? Ah, I reply, but this is quite a different mat- ter. You see, Mr, Hare unfortunately omitted to leave his card in passing. We really do not know where he lives, and besides, even if we did, it is hardly likely that we could catch him. For he would run a great deal faster on three legs, even with a spare one to carry, than Sweetheart and I on our whole equipment of four between us. Sweetheart thkiks, with a sioh that this most fascinating" ambulance work must be given up. 176 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. Yet it is a pity. A wounded and grateful hare, coming to the back door every morning with a bandaged foot in the air, would just fill her cup of joy to the brim. But I remind her that there are two dogs at the back door, and that it is possible that they might receive the visitor with quite another sort of gratitude. Why, oh why (thinks the little maid), will things turn out so contrary ? But here is the place where we must turn off the path and go softly down into the thicker woods. Let us watch our feet carefully, and tread on no brittle branches. For the birds will surely hear, and then we may say good-bye to our chance of seeing them. Presently we are behind the giant bole of a beech, whose tender gray satin skin gives a dainty and ladylike expression to its winter beauty. Now, wrapped closely in our one cloak, and with the pair of field-glasses ready in hand, we abide warm and eager. There are birds all about us. We can hear them. ''See — see — seej' froni above, ''Chip — chip'' from somewhere underground. Sweetheart's quick eye catches the flash of the first bird. She points with an eager finger through the /X WINTER WOODLANDS. 177 folds of the cloak, anrl looks up to me with a hushed and awe-struck face. " Oxeye ! " she whispers. Oxeye it is — the great tit, with his yellow breast flashing like a lemon-coloured sunbeam, and above it his bold black-and-white head. How he darts and dashes I Now he is lost to view, now he is out again. He has a bit of bark in his bill, and he shakes it furiously, as a terrier shakes a rat. He puts his foot on it, and tears at it just as Sweetheart once saw an eagle do at a dead rabbit, in those unforgotten (Zoological) gardens of delight from which, a very reluctant Eve, she was only expelled, still protesting, by the stern guardian at closing time. We stand breathlessly silent. This Oxeye has enough energy in him to decimate a countryside. If he were only as big as a horse he would not leave man, woman, or child alive between Pent- land and Solway. As it is, he makes it hot indeed for the bark-boring beetles. Tap, tap — shake, shake, he goes. And out tumbles from a hole in the bark a wicked little gentleman, Scohtus the Destroyer by name, a ver\' Attila of beetles. He looks exactly as if he were the business end of a much bigger beetle chopped 178 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. off short. Or, as Sweetheart more descriptively says, " lilve an engine without the tender." Oxeye winks, and there is an end of Scolytus. But the victor is at it again. He is up on the elm, clinging head down, exactly like a Creeper, though he does not run so quickly up the trunk as that darling little bird. But what he does is walk round the trunk till he finds something to suit him, and then he has it down on the ground in a moment to inquire into its nature. But oJiiefly Oxeye delights in poking among the tangled debris of rotten branches thrown down by the great storm of 1884. Do you remember that, Sweetheart ? No ; how stupid of me ; how can you possibly remember? Dear me, that was just eight years ago, in the Krakatoa year. How time speeds, and we stand still and forget ! That was nearly four years before Sweetheart was born ! " Where was / then ? " whispers Sweetheart eagerly. '^ But I hastily point her again to the Oxeye, for Sweetheart's metaphysical mind in pursuit of a solution to such a question has greater terrors than the stiffest pass examination. Luckily there are several Oxe^^es now, and they are giving nV WINTER WOODLANDS. 1 79 Scolytus the Destroyer and all his clan a warm time of it. Without doubt they must be doing much good to the growing trees. Though I find that the gamekeepers, ignorant of all that does not strictly concern the rearing of game, class them with the lesser vermin of the woods. Now there is a wren among the tits. Only one little Jenny. But she is in the best of spirits, and, I grieve to say, is ready to flirt with anybody. She also is hunting among the leaves, and (what is very curious) carrying them in her bill to a hollow in a tree stem, which is nearly as full of them already as it can hold. We examine this cavity before we leave, and agree that if . Jennie nestles in there at night she has none so poor a dwelling-place, except, perhaps, when the wind is in the north. Dropping the leaves, Jennie makes overtures of friendship to a very handsome (but sadly misanthropic) Robin, clad in a splendid scarlet vest, who is moping listlessly about, taking an occasional aimless peck at nothing, watching us all the while fur- tively with a sharp and shining eye. But Robin is incorruptible, and takes not the slightest notice of her. Whereat Jenny jerks her saucy i8o SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. tail, and says, with a quite perceptible sniff, " Mfff ! Think you are somebody great, don't you ! " And she flies off contemptuously to the nearest birch-tree. So, all too soon, it comes time to go home. As we march alonsf there are a thousand thin8:s that Sweetheart wants to know, and "Whys" and "But, fathers" hurtle through the tortured air. She has not been able to speak for a whole hour, and is therefore well-nigh full to bursting of marks of interrogation. On the whole I do as well as can be expected, and receive an honour certificate. The crows also are going home to tea, and fly clanging and circling overhead, playing at "tig" to keep themselves warm. Sweetheart watches them, cogitating the while. I point out to her how the brackens, being thin and poor in blood, have all died down, brown and rusty ; but how the stronger and sturdier male ferns and bucklers still keep their greenness, though they have got a little tired standing up, and so have laid themselves down to sleep under the plaid of the snow. Yet, in spite of all. Sweetheart has not lost track of a former problem. LV WINTER WOODLANDS. i8i " But, father, I want to know where I was when the trees fell ten )-ears ago." Then I say hurriedly: "We must be quick, Sweetheart. They will be waiting for us at the window. Now, would you like two lumps of sugar in your tea — or three?" For one must act promptl)' in such an emergency. CHAPTER XXII. DRIPPY DAYS. FTER the frost, sooner or later comes the thaw. The huddled birds separate. The snow- wreaths dissipate, as though the warm south wind, blowing upon them, had sucked them up in its passage. Which, indeed, is just what it has done. For wind will not only blow the snow off a road, but also the ice. Such a wind as this, whistling up a country road on a January day, will soon clear away the little ice-bound pools in the cart-tracks, not by thawing them, but simply by blowing them away. 182 DRIPPY DAYS. 183 To-day Sweetlieart and I ventured out, though it was still raining a little. It is won- derful upon how many days in the year it is possible to go out and see Nature, if only one makes a little preparation before starting. It had very decidedly " come fresh," as they say in this countryside. But being booted and cloaked, the gray drizzle above does not daun- ton us, nor yet the snaw-broo beneath make us afraid. Though it w^as already afternoon (which in these northern latitudes and in the heart of the short days means evening), the smaller birds were enjoying themselves in the soft smurr of rain which came soughingly from the south. They were no longer chilled into silence by the oppression of the binding frost. " What is that?" said Sweetheart, before we had gone many yards over the doorstep. From far down among the dripping woods came the half-human cry of the pheasant. He w^as telling his mate that "gloomy winter's noo awa ' " — which is as may be. At any rate, he thought so, and his rejoicing cry rang through the wide gloomy spaces. " Look at these beautiful birdies," said Sweet- 1 84 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. heart again; "they are playing at ' Catch-as- catch-can.'" And indeed it looked like it. Some twenty pairs of yellow-hammers were sporting in the branches of a low, scrubby thorn, which tangled its branches away from the southwest, and trailed them shapelessly on the ground like the distorted limbs of a dwarf. The yellow-hammer is not a bird of the trees, but at this time of the 3'ear you can see him in all the copse bushes upon the margin of nearly every wood. As Sweetheart and I came up, the "yorlins" took fright at my companion's red cloak and flew in a compact body over to a hedge a hundred yards away. "Now, watch them, Sweetheart," I said; "do you see how they are flying?" "They are going two and two!" said Sweet- heart. It w^as true. The yellow-hammer had already found his mate. In the large wise books which are my favourite reading, it is usually stated that the yellow-hammer pairs in March or April. But Sweetheart and I are of a different opinion. We are sure that, at least among our woods and fields of the North, nearly all the birds which DRIPr Y DA YS. 1 8 keep together in flocks during- the severe weather have their own friends and particular companions right through the winter. This is speciall}- true of the rooks, wliich are at this moment i)assing- above us on their home- ward wav in countless mvriads. The rook goes forth in armies, it is true. He blackens many a field when he alights. He devours in innumer- able company the squirmy worm, the succulent slug. But at a word he Hies off in platoons. At the sound of a nearer alarm, the same squad of half a dozen rooks will always scurry off tocrether. These doubtless form a mess, just as a number of soldiers do in a regiment. And as in barracks, so e\ery rook will have his own chum, mate, or comrade. I cannot say that these friendships are made in every case between the sexes, but in most cases, no doubt, they are. Now our yellow-hammers had flown off accurately in pairs, and in a little, from the top- most bough of the thorn which looks over the park wall, we heard their monotonous song. The sino-er was a little indignant at our intru- sion, though, as Sweetheart said, he need not have troubled his head. We were not going to t> 1 86 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. touch liim or his mate. But the yellow yorlin is a foolish, fretful bird and easily frightened. " Chich, chick, cJiich, chich, chee-ee ! Churr-ee, churr / Please go away, my go-ood sir-ee, sir ! Chich, chich, chiirr — chee-ee, chterr ! " That is what he sings — nothing about bread and cheese to-night, you observe. Sweetheart claps her hands at this new interpretation, and away go the little clouds of flashing citron dress suits, yellow most elegantly slashed with brown. See how they wheel in the air like starlings, as accurately in time as soldiers manoeuvre. Here and there they dash, changing and turning. Suddenly in mid flight they fall, as if shot in a body by some concealed sportsman with a great noiseless air-gun. Plump ! Down they go into a clump of ash-trees by the stackyard, where they sit concealed. " Are they all dead ? " says Sweetheart, much concerned for their fate. For she loves the bold uniform of his excellency the Trumpet Major, as in memory of Mr. Hardy's hero we always call him. Now there is great chattering and scolding in a little wood of thick spruces and Scotch firs just over the park wall. Sweetheart and I won- DRIPP Y DA YS. 187 der much what can be the matter. There is a row there and no policeman. So we decide, in SWEETHEART WILL BE BETTER ON MY BACK, the interests of Her iNIajesty's peace and pubh'c morality generally, that we shall go down and see what is the disturbance. Nobody asked us 1 88 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. to interfere ; but that is the way of philan- thropists. It is rather a marshy place, and Sweetheart will be better on my back. Once — twice — thrice, and up she goes ! We are off among the trees. Such behaviour may be con- sidered somewhat unusual between sweethearts, but this particular Sweetheart is perfectly accus- tomed to the performance. " Go on quicker, father ; I believe it's a hawk ! " The "hawk" is the wicked uncle — the inter- esting petty tyrant of our fields and woods. So we splash hastily into the depths of the little wood, stepping over the ditches where the thaw has melted the snow and reduced it to a slushy and unpleasant pulp. As we get nearer the chattering waxes louder and the bad lan- guage becomes more pronounced. It sounds, indeed, quite unseemly in this quiet place. " Hush, Sweetheart ! Draw your cloak about you. We shall see everything from here. Listen ! It is in the spruce just above us to the right." CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVOLT OF THE SWEETHEARTS. . .-',-X=^ jE look eagerly upward, but for a lonor time we cannot see more than a confused passing and re- passing of dark forms between the interstices of the branches. And we can hear no more than a babel of sharp, scolding voices. The shrewish scolders are evidently gentle- 189 I90 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. men blackbirds, and they are very angry indeed about something. " Check / Check! Check— check—check ! ! ! " Fifty of them are reeling off this word at once in every variety of tone and key. But each is more indignant and vixenish than the other. Now your blackbird, for all that he is so gentlemanly a bird when he comes out in his black calling-coat upon the garden walk, and hops about in such a purely disinterested and observational way, without asking for anything like a mere sparrow or chaf^nch, has yet a fund of bad barrack-room language (to which only Mr. Kipling could do justice) whenever he thinks that he is not overheard. He is, indeed, a black hypocrite and deceiver. When you hear him pouring out his fluty melody, as Mr. Birket Foster has pictured him many a time, from the farthest-reaching branch of a tree set purple against the evening sky, his notes are as soft and mellow as if he had never said a bad word in all his blameless life. It is all the difference between the tenor's expression when he is singing a serenade in the balcony scene, and the same artist's look and tone when THE REVOLT OF THE SWEETHEARTS. 19 ^ the stacre-manaoer rates him for coming- late to rehearsal. And certainly these blackljirds are very much in undress now. Sweetheart waxes silent and sad. She could not have believed that her favourite could possibly have acted so disgracefully. Why should a blackbird want to be a blackguard ? Why should a human being, for that matter ? In a moment the reason was plain. The turmoil orrew till the wheeling rooks above paused on their homeward way, and sent a scouting party to the copse to find out what was wrong. Suddenly a pair of cushat-doves dashed out of the bush with a tumultuous swirl of wings, flapping them clatteringly like little lapping waves beating against a rock. They flew upward with a rush like a pair of rockets. A cloud of blackbirds darted after them a little way, screaming with shrill anger. Then the blackbirds returned and had quite a livel)' little friendly "turn-up" among themselves, as soon as the wood-pigeons had betaken themselves to pastures new and copses unoccupied. It was, after all. nothing more than a vulgar going-to-bed quarrel. A pair of great blunder- ing doves had quite innocently taken possession 192 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. of the upper branches of a spruce, where, under cover of the thick spines, for all the world as though they were under an umbrella, the blackbirds had been accustomed to roost. Hence this unseemly waking of the woodland echoes. Sweetheart was quite relieved. " Then after all it was not the blackbirds' fault, perhaps ! " she said, " But," thinking the matter over, " I do think they might have ob- jected them more quietly." Sweetheart mixes words sometimes, but we never correct her. She will learn all too soon to talk as other people do. But what was done is well done from the point of view of the blackbirds. For soon we could hear them settling themselves in the branches with little sleepy murmurings and com- plainings at each other's encroachments. It was time also for Sweetheart and me to be turnine homeward. We looked above us. The pale half moon was already sailing through some fleecy cloudlets. I quoted from " Lucy Gray" : " The minster clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon." THE REVOLT OF THE SWEETHEARTS. 193 " But it hasn't — it's after three ! " said Sweet- heart, so much alarmed by my unveracity that she forgot to be quite polite. I explained that it is not meant to be true. It was only poetry. " Oh ! " said Sweetheart contentedly, with much meaning in her tone. The explanation was entirely satisfactory. There are no Ten Commandments for poets. But immediately, as is her wont, she pro- ceeded to better the quotation according to her lights — which, I fear, were not Wordsworth's. " The eight-day clock has just struck three, I must go home to cake and tea." But this is, indeed, one word for sense and one for rhyme, for really Sweetheart cares very much for cake but not at all for tea. All poets feel these little difficulties, and are compelled to the same inaccuracies. This, in turn, was followed by : " The minister's clock has just struck four — That cake is good — I'll have some more." It was indeed time we were ofoine home. Easy (we have it on authority) is the descent to 194 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. Avernus. And many a bold bad poet has begun with something quite as innocent as these nonsense rhymes of Sweetheart's. So on the spot I reproved her severely, and asked if she was aware that I promised the clergyman at her christening to bring her up to respectable habits, and to give her a sound commercial education — instead of which she goes about the country making poetry. But Sweetheart was not at all abashed. " There is a whole book of poetry upstairs which mother says j)/ Stones in order to find yourself in it. The tall trees stand widely about, the copses nestle close round it, a birch-tree's pendent plume brushes WHEN LOVE WAS IN THE MAKING. 299 across your face like your lady's love-locks as you turn into it. Sunshine glints sprinklingly athwart it. Rabbits " j-^^/ " across it. Squirrels drop hazel husks and shells upon it, and then disappear with the flashing of a russet brush. Then, again, a bypath is always the nearest way, wherever you may be going. It is certain to cut off a dull corner. There is no dust on it. " Let us go this way," we say. But we soon for- got where we were going in the lingering delight of it. By pleasant little copses, over open green swards, among bees and birds and flowers who all love it as much as we, over stiles and betwixt hedges it goes ; through birch plantations that extend down to the riverside, with the water's pleasant murmur coming up all the time in an undertone of sono- from beneath the leaves. The birds are ever clamorous there, and insist upon telling each other what a paradise it is this lucent, cloudless noontide. And, resting on a mossy bank, we know of two who agree with them. So we descended by the riverside and crossed a stile, high-tilted like the roof of an Alpine chalet. Then presently we found ourselves on a picturesque old bridge, and continued on our way down the valley in the fervent heat. We 300 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. saw no one among the skirting woods or any- where about the scattered farms. At the next bridge we turned sharp to the left, to the time-honoured inn. Here we had reason to wish that the bread and mutton had been a Httle less time-honoured. Two travellers, casuals like ourselves, had just come in — young cotton operatives from Oldham, walking in their Sunday best. They looked much more dusty and travel-stained than we — not from any virtue in us, but because cricketing-flannels and summer prints possess this inherent advantage over black broadcloth — that they are both cool in them- selves, and look cooler than they are. But the travellers were honest, hard-working, rough-spun lads, and it was much to their credit to be thus tramping the worth out of their money and the sun into their cheeks, instead of spending all their living in one grand local " spree," or at the annual saturnalia of the " Wakes." There were three pianos in the room, each in its way curiously suggestive of the lapse of time. The first was old-fashioned, low, spindle- legged, spinet-like, full of quaint pathos and lavender delicacy. It suggested "teacup times," and Squire Western growling and nod- WHEN LOVE WAS IN THE MAKING. 301 ding his head as his daughter Sophia played him to sleep to the tinkling of quaintly dainty minuets. The second was of the earlier part of the century, recalling a faded portrait of one's grand-aunt under the Regency, with a limited amount of ringlet and a good deal of compensat- ing shoulder. Its stiff, organ-like, high-backed case was panelled with crimson silk, now happily faded to wine-stained russet. Still there was not wanting a certain old-maidish dignity about it, which completel)' put to shame the smart Philistinism of the brand-new German over the way — with its gilt pedals, polished mouldings, and back of grass-green silk. From the bridge we took a lingering look up and down the beautiful vale lying beneath the afternoon sun — a very lotus-looking land — as still as it was in the days before ever man or any creature came thither. Our two last memories of the day were peaceful also. They were of the clatter of the shoes of the home-going quarrymen along the streets of Ffestiniog the Upper, and Conway Castle standing lone and purple against the glowing estuary and the broad crimson sunset. All these — our dear old maids, our lover and 302 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. his lass in the valley hay-field, our woodland path and mossy bank, our brave rough Oldham lads — abode still with us, set in bracing moun- tain air, as we came back slowly through the cornfields. There is only room for two on the woodland path among the birch trees, yet many pairs of sweethearts have trodden it, and many more will go that way. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF THE PRINCESS ME LIN DA. POSSESS not one but many Sweethearts in the course of a day. Yet can I not be charged with fickleness. Hiere is, for instance, the early morning one. She is a Sweetheart of intense application, and is endued with qualities quite portentously busi- nesslike. This particular Sweetheart at pres- ent occupies the uncovenanted position of under-gardener. I passed her this morning on 303 304 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. the way to the chalet. She was carefully brush- ing the leaves off the path, and picking the weeds which will persist in growing along the borders. " You would not believe how trying these weeds are ! " she said, as I passed, without paus- ing for a moment, or even looking at me. Up came the weed ! Whisk went the garden brush, or rather besom of stiff birch twigs. This Sweetheart must not be interfered with, except at one's peril. There is no time for nonsense or philandering with such a very practical per- son. In fact, you may look, but you must not touch. But this morning energy of hers takes many forms. Sweetheart shows, indeed, no very marked persistence in any particular occupation. A week ago, to my certain knowledge. Sweet- heart was an enthusiastic under-housemaid, and the dust she was raising in the passage showed how thoroughly she was mistress of her busi- ness. It made me cough full five minutes by the clock, and, when next Sweetheart applies for a place, I am prepared to state the fact on oath in the usual testimonial — or character, as I be- lieve it is called in the profession. THE PRINCESS ME LINDA. 305 But all through the fruit season, in spite of all temptations, Sweetheart sticks to the post of under-gardener, that is, the one who pulls the fruit and sends it in to the cook. " Sweetheart, what are you doing ? " I called out one day last June, when I happened to see a blue-bloused figure bending among the straw- berry-beds. " Pulling strawberries for lunch, father," she answered readily — almost too readily, "And where have you got the basket?" I asked. " Here it is," said Sweetheart, lifting one from between the leaves. " Oh," said I, " I was afraid that you might have been compelled to use your mouth. I saw your hand going there so often that I thought you must have forgotten an ordinary basket." "It was only one or two mushy ones that broke off in m\- hand," said Sweetheart re- proachfully, and with such an innocence in her up-looking eyes as almost to make me call my- self a brute for my unjust suspicions. One day I saw Sweetheart shelling peas on the garden-seat, with only a doll stuck up stiffly in one corner for company. I stole up " unbe- 3o6 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. knowns" behind her. She was talking to her- self : " And the prince dived down again to the bottom of the sea and brought up another oyster-shell full of most precious pearls, and gave it to the princess. Then the princess took the shells in her lily-white hands, and with taper rosy fingers she opened them, till all her apron — no, her royal mantle I mean, of course — was full of the radiant pearls." This is what she was saying, for Sweetheart in her plays talks by the book, or at least as like it as ever she can. Suddenly she looked over her shoulder, moved by a subtle knowledge of someone near. She was instantly silent. It came to me with a moment's pain that one short year ago she would not so have silenced her romancing for my coming. Now I know very well that my Sweetheart will grow past me one of these days. I fear it will be I who must lose my "little 'panion." Already she has her secret plans, her plots, her schemes, her prodigious secrets. Most of these she still confides to me, but the number she does not tell me will gradually increase. I know that it must be so, and I do not THE PRINCESS MEIJXDA. 307 repine. But I would keep the little heart 0[)en as long as I can, and for my own good be, like her, wayward and childlike, a comrade of the child's thought and the child's play, " Princess," I said to her, " let me play your play. I will be the prince who dives down into the sea. I cannot be a very elegant Prince Charming, but at least I shall be very willing and faithful. I will bring you gold and jewels done up in precious caskets of sandal-wood and costly veined malachite." She glanced up with eyes keen as love, quick as life. "Is father in earnest?" she was asking her- self. I could see the thought in her eyes. Indeed I was never more in earnest in my life. My service was accepted. I expected it, for above all things she likes the sound of fine words. So I raided fiercely upon the pea-sticks, and brought back noble handfuls of the pods. " Fair Princess Melinda," I said, " light of the palace, Princess of the Golden Crown, accept these trifles which the meanest of thy slaves brings thee. They are reft for thy sweet sake from the halls of the King of the Sea — costly 308 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. emeralds are they, and aqua-marine, translucent as the nethermost ocean." Sweetheart holds up her pinafore for the gift, bending her head and smiling graciously the while. " I like you to speak proudly like that," she says. " I do so love fine picture words." And so I pour out all the jewelled words five syllables long that I can remember, and when, like the prodigal, I have spent mine all thus riotously, I set to work to invent more. And so on till Princess Melinda of the Pinafore has in her lap more than enough of the treasured preciousness of the ages — smaragdus, cornelian, topaz, chrysolite, chrysoprasus, jacinth — all bear- ing, however, a strong family likeness not only to each other, but also to the domestic pea, to which, in spring, the thoughts of men turn so lightly in connection with roast duck, " Oh, Sweetheart," cried the Lady of the Workbasket, coming just then to the place where we were sitting, " you have shelled enough for two days." In a moment the princess was herself again. "Well, mother," she cried, "that is easy. Have peas to-morrow for dinner as well." I looked at Sweetheart and Sweetheart looked THE PKLVCESS ME LIN DA. 309 at me. I knew what was in her niind. hut I ditl not tell. To-morrow at eventide she will, I fear, certainly lie in wait in the hall as the dishes are being brought out, and like a pirate bold levy contributions of diamond, sapphire, and veined agate of the sea. But this is, after all, no more than the risfht of the Princess Mclinda. Fordid not her own Prince Charming (save the mark) bring the jewels at his peril from the Sea King's palace among the pea-sticks in the fastnesses of the kitchen garden ? CHAPTER XXXIV. " GOOD-NIGHT, SWEETHEART ! " UT for a moment more I must return to my various Sweethearts. After the appHcation of the morn- ing" has dulled the eager edge of J diligence, arrives once more the Sweetheart of riotous play — the same for whom I looked in vain, that day when I walked about so long enjoying the blessed quiet. This Sweet- heart needs no herald to go before her. You can hear her approach quite a mile off. When she comes there is a sound of distant revelry, a gleam of fluttering kirtles winking through the woods, a barking of dogs, a crack- ling of branches. Presently, scratched, flushed, dishevelled, toused, Sweetheart appears with Hugo in full chase after her, and the pair roll over each other on the grass, gripping and nip- ping like young puppies at their play. This same wild romp, who has to go back a hundred 310 ' • GOOD-NIGH T, S IVEE THE A RT!" 311 yards to find her hat, who scatters her buttons and distributes her slioe-strin^rs over a leaofue of ground, is just our model liousemaid and unchr- gardener of an hour a*;o. I state it upon oatli, attested by the seeing of the eye and the hear- in^ of the ear. In the afternoon you will find yet another Sweetheart on a seat in the shade with a fairy book — blue, green, red, or, as it may be, yellow. She is deep in tales of prince and princess, goblin and fairy, and she is hoping that it will be a long time before she comes to the part about them being married and living happy ever after. Of course that must come in time, for Sweet- heart justly resents any other ending. But, for all that, it must not come too soon. If it arrives before she is ready for it. Sweetheart decides that the writer man does not know his business. Sometimes it is not a fairy book which Sweet- heart holds. I found her the other da)- dc&j:) nestled in an arbour with a most rare and valu- able octavo — nothing less than the first edition of the Catechisms of the very venerable W^est- minster Assembly of Divines ; a book to which this most quaint and whimsy of maids is (for the 312 SWEETHEART TRAVELLERS. time being) passionately attached. For Sweet- heart is a perfectly eclectic lover of fine words, upon what subject soever they may be expended. She really and genuinely loves the roll of the great dogmatic sentences — involved, turgid, sur- charged with the thunders of a thousand years of controversy. " God is a Spirit, Infinite, Eternal, and Unchangeable. In His Being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice, Goodness, and Truth." Or, again, a little further down, " God's Works of Providence are His most Holy, Wise, and Powerful Preserving and Governing all His Creatures and all their Actions." Such sentences please Sweetheart like the roll of drums. And if her understanding lags some way behind her ear, who shall cast the first stone at her ? Once more : in the afternoon appears the young lady who can very politely receive and entertain any guest in the absence of her elders. This is the Sweetheart of the tea-party, the drawing-room, the afternoon call. This is the grown-up young lady who smiles reprovingly or complacently upon the childish irresponsibility of Hugo; who explains his doubtful passages, suppresses or extemporises the context, and ' * GOOD-NIGHT, S IVEE THEAR Tl" ^i i finally leads him out oentlv, hut firniK , when he misbehaves. But 1 have yet one Sweetheart more — she of the twilight. And for a name we call her our little Miss Wistful. Sometimes )Ou may come upon her sitting very still, and looking out at the sky with eyes that are unfathomable, like its depths — the shadows in them deep as night, and with lips that are parted with the wonder of things not seen. The day has been long, but now after all the time approaches to say, "Good-night, Sweet- heart ! " A little sadly shall we say it, for as the shadows thicken, the time begins to seem long till morning. Sweetheart saddens at the th