Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN .;%&3s i&gsfGSa/z ^Sm^^^& * 5^. :;:;>Xrrfv;, Jg .% " : . -vs^^f ^&g$* ^liiKMm^m c MCCO. A I.ITTI.F LAD. FrotiHspteee. LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. A STORY FOR CHILDREN. C. A. JONES, AUTHOR OF ' A NEW DAME TROT," "A MODERN RED RIDING HOOD," ETC., ETC. LONDON AND NEW YORK: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. 1892. [All rights reserved.] TO. E. D. IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OP LONG YEARS OF UNWEARIED FRIENDSHIP AND KINDNESS, THIS LITTLE STOEY is BctricatcU. 2000405 CONTENTS. I. INTRODUCTORY : THE NAMES IN THE OLD BOOKS 1 IE. A LITTLE SAILOK IN A COCKED HAT . . 7 III. AMONGST TUB CHIMNEY POTS . . .14 IV. WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN ... 24 V. FROM THE CHIMNEY POTS TO THE WESTERN SEA 33 VI. No DEMONSTRATION 41 VII. PETERKIN 52 VIII. "CALL ME GRANNY" 69 IX. ON FOREIGN SHORES 82 X. THE WRITING IN OLD MOTHER HTTBBARD . 94 XI. A TELEGRAM 106 XII. THE DEPOSED MONARCH AND THE EEIGNINO MONARCH ...... 121 B CONTENTS. XIII. NEVER A MAN, NEVER. ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 135 XIV. SIR NICHOLAS'S GUESTS . . . .148 XV. IN THE DUCK POND . . . 164 XVI. TOM AUSTEN TO THE EESCUE . . .176 XVII. CHRISTMASTIDE 184 XVIII. ABOUT A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH . .193 XIX. SIB Nicco STARTS UPON A JOURNEY . . 206 XX. THE KETURN JOURNEY . . . .218 XXI. THE INVISIBLE PILOT 227 XXTT. JOE SNELL'S LAST HOWL .... 237 XX1IL Two NEW NAMES IN THE OLD BLUE BOOK 243 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Nicco, A LITTLE LAD .... Frontispiece "ONLY A FEW MORE STITCHES, DARLING, AND THEN I WILL COME" . . ... . -.17 " THERE'S NEWS LN IT FOR YOU " . . .29 MR. CAREW WELCOMES MRS. TREMAINE AND HER CHILDREN 49 "AND THERE . . . WAS PETERKIN HIMSELF, SLEEK, SHINY, AND BEAUTIFUL " . . .61 ''THE BOY USED TO sir AT HER FEET, AND LISTEN TO THE STORIES OF THE BRAVE TREMAINES WHO HAD GONE BEFORE 5 ' 79 "THE ARTIST SAT ON THE STEPS OF THE CALVARY" 85 "HE TOOK THE BOY ON HIS KNEE, AND KISSED THE TANNED FOREHEAD AND THE GOLDEN HAIR . 98 LADY TREMAINE READS OF Nicco's SAFETY UNDER HIS PORTRAIT Ill xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "I AM VERY GLAD TO SEK YOU " .... 133 "NlCCO, DARLING, WILL YOU COME TO ME ? " . . 143 SIB NICHOLAS'S QUESTS 157 SIR NICHOLAS TALKING TO THE WHITE GOOSE . .167 NlCCO WRITES TO JOE SNELL 181 SIR NICHOLAS OFFERS OLD GRANNY AUSTEN HIS ARM 189 "!F YOU PLEASE, GRANNY, I WILL HAVE THE SHIP" 202 NlCCO FALLS ASLEEP 211 NlCCO STARTS UPON HIS JOURNEY . . . .217 GOING TO THE RESCUE . .... 235 THE COCKED HAT . . . 250 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY : THE NAMES IN THE OLD BOOKS. THEY were great people who lived in the large house on the cliff, just above the little Cornish village of Trecastle. Those Tremaines of Trecastle had always been great ; they dated their descent from a brave knight who had taken the Black Prince to the French wars in his own ship, and who came home crowned with laurels, and built a house for himself on a cliff which overlooked the wide Atlantic ; and in time a village sprung up at the foot of the cliff, which was for the most part inhabited by fishermen and their wives and families. Upon a great head- land which stretched out into the sea, a little chapel was built which was dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of sailors, where lights were always LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. kept burning at night as a landmark to the toilers on the sea, and where monks and friars passing along that wild rocky coast would spend hours pray- ing for the safety of the living, and for the repose of the souls of the dead. But this was hundreds of years ago ; now a beauti- ful church stood upon a little grassy mound which overlooked the sea, and the old chapel was never used, except when the wind howled more furiously than usual, and the waves beat more wildly against the nigged rocks ; then, loving hands would take candles to the Headland, and place them in the windows as a guide and a welcome to the fishermen as they neared the shore. It became an established custom that the eldest son of the house of Tremaine should be baptized Nicholas, and that he should go into the navy. There was a Nicholas Tremaine, the Admiral, twelfth Baronet, who had fought in a great naval battle, and whose last thought as he lay mortally wounded was for the sailors who had done their duty so nobly, and had been struck down by the enemy's fire. " Look after those poor fellows first," he had said to the doctors ; " most of them have wives and chil- INTRODUCTORY. 3 dren at home, and I am a lonely old man, and my life's work is done." His young descendant, the eldest son of the present Baronet, served with the Naval Brigade in the trenches before Sebastopol, and one night was giving a drink .of water to a wounded sailor lad, the only son of his old nurse, who had been shot down by his side, when a bullet came whizzing through the air and lodged deep in the brave young middy's breast. Jack Austen, his old playfellow in that far-away Cornish village, crawled to him and opened his jacket and tried to staunch the blood, but it was all of no avail ; the doctor came up at that moment, and shook his head hopelessly. " Jack," said Nicholas Tremaine, " don't fret, old fellow ; give my love to father and mother I'm glad it's me and not you, because of dear old nurse, and they jvill have Walter still tell them that I'm sorry not to go home ; and please take mother the little prayer-book that is in my pocket, and tell her that I always said my prayers and tried to do my duty." He closed his eyes then, and he never spoke again ; the battle of his short life was fought ; and surely well fought. Jack Austen went home invalided, to tell the story LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. of that winter's night in the trenches, to Sir Nicholas and Lady Tremaine as they sat in the old library of the House on the Cliff, sorrowing for their brave sailor boy. In that library there were two old books, one blue, and the other red, with solid silver clasps ; and in the blue book was written the story of all the Tremaines who had been sailors, and the red book told of those who had been soldiers ; but there were many more sailors than soldiers amongst them, be- ginning with that one who had fought in the French wars with the Black Prince and who had built the old house. Those two books contained some very remarkable specimens of handwriting. In some cases the ink was so faded that it was almost impossible to make out what was written there, in quaint old English characters, sometimes with whole sentences of Cornish dialect coming in and adding to the puzzle. When Jack Austen had gone away that day, after telling the father and mother all that " Master Nicholas" had done for him, Sir Nicholas opened the blue book, and on a fair white page wrote the record of the life and death of the sailor lad ; then he said to his wife, " His name and the fact that he did his INTRODUCTORY. duty are written in another book, my dear, and therefore we can be glad that God has taken him to Himself." And Lady Tremaine joined her hands, and looked out of the window upon the boundless sea, and she too could give thanks when she thought of the writing in that other book, which is " The Book of Life." And as young Nicholas had said when he was dying in the trenches, they had Walter still, their soldier boy, who had gone to India the year before, thirsting for glory ; three years afterwards he espe- cially distinguished himself by his gallant conduct at the siege of Lucknow, and his old father opened the red book, and wrote the account of his brave deeds. After a time he came home on twenty months' leave of absence, bringing something like sunshine into the desolate house. Then he went back to India for nine long years, and again the joyful news arrived that he was on his way home, bringing with him his sweet young wife, and his three years old boy, "Nicco," as they called him, who sent his love and his kisses to grandfather and grandmother, and wanted them to know that " some day he would be a sailor, and wear a cocked hat." 6 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. How the old folks in the old home longed for the day when the echoes of a little child's laughter would once more ring through the house. But one November night a noble ship in the channel was run down by a foreign vessel, in a dense fog. There were only five survivors left to tell the tale ; and a week afterwards there was a funeral in the churchyard by the sea, and Captain Walter Tremaine and his young wife were laid to their rest where the waves dashing against the old walls seemed always to be singing a sweet, sad lullaby. Very few of the bodies were recovered from that fatal wreck ; that of the little child was never washed ashore, and so in the red book poor old Sir Nicholas wrote the sad end of his brave soldier son's life, and in the sailor's book there was a little entry of three lines : " Nicholas Tremaine, a little lad aged three years. Who would have been a sailor, had not God taken him unto Himself in a terrible shipwreck. "The sea shall give up her dead." CHAPTER TI. A LITTLE SAILOR IN A COCKED HAT. THERE was a great hush and stillness over the little village of Trecastle after that November day when the sad news of that dreadful shipwreck came to the old House on the Cliff ; it seemed as though in every cottage and in every house there was a death, for " the master's and mistress's " joys and sorrows had always been shared by their faithful people, and those loyal-hearted fishermen and their wives, and even their children, brought wreaths of autumn flowers and laid them on those newly-made graves, and tears rolled down the rugged faces of the men and women, and the little boys and girls cried, out of sympathy, although they did not understand the full extent of the trouble that had come upon the Admiral and his wife ; did not know why it was that the cheery old man, who always had a kind word for every one of them, spoke those kind words still, 8 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. but in such a strangely altered voice, just as though he were going to cry. Jack Austen used to sit in his warm, comfortable cottage on winter evenings, and tell his old mother and his wife and his little boy and girl that story of the brave young middy whose grave was on the side of the Crimean Hill, and Tom and Peggy were never tired of listening to their grandmother's stories about the days when the soldier and the sailor were as little as they were ; but they talked to their companions most of little Nicco, the baby-boy who had said "that when he grew up to be a man he meant to be a sailor and wear a cocked hat." So it was that Nicco's name became a kind of house- hold word amongst the village children ; they spoke of him with bated breath, as one who, instead of being a sailor, had gone to the Paradise of God, to the Land beyond the Sea. At Christmastide they all, with their fathers and mothers, went up to the House on the Cliff, and in the old hall stood a grand Christmas Tree from which every one received a present, the very thing he or she happened most to want, and the children sang their hymns and Christmas Carols, and Sir Nicholas and Lady Tremaine greeted them all, kindly and A LITTLE SAILOR IN A COCKED HAT. 9 courteously, and tried to smile as brightly as they had always done. " My dear, what shall we do about the Christmas Tree?" the old Admiral had said to his wife ; " . don't think you could bear it." " Yes, I am sure I could, and it is what our own bright lads would have wished us to do ; it would have hurt them to think that the village children were deprived of the treat to which they look forward all the year round." So the invitations were sent out as usual, and the sailors and their wives wondered that the master and mistress could do it, but they loved them all the better for their thought for the little ones. On the walls of the old hall were two portraits which every man, woman, and child had seen before : a middy in his new uniform, and a young soldier in his scarlet tunic and dark facings, and between those two hung another picture, which had come from India on Christmas Eve, the gift of an artist friend of Captain Tremaine's. It represented a lovely little golden-haired boy, almost a baby, in a tiny sailor's suit, putting a little cocked hat on his head, whilst at his feet lay a ship upon which he was gazing proudly. 10 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. And beneath the picture was written : " NlCCO, A LITTLE LAD," and in a corner was scrawled the artist's name in those queer kind of hieroglyphics which artists love to indulge in, and which it is very difficult for any one else to decipher; but after a good deal of spelling backwards and forwards Jack Austen, who was the best scholar in the village, satisfied himself that the name the man had meant to write, although it was done badly enough, was " John Randall," and he turned to his wife and said " That John Randall must be a clever chap to make such a beautiful picture as that ; I'm thinking, Jane, that when our dear old master and mistress goes to their own true Home, they'll be able to tell which of the blessed babies there is their own little Master Nicco.% And Jane drew out her pocket-handkerchief and wiped her eyes, as she too looked at the sweet face of the baby sailor-boy who was to have been the comfort of Sir Nicholas and Lady Tremaine's old age, had not God willed it otherwise. That portrait of the little lad had not been gazed upon all the evening ; it had a red curtain before it, A LITTLE SAILOR IN A COCKED HAT. 11 and it was only when the Admiral and his wife had bidden their guests good-night, and gone back to the quiet of the library to talk of those they had loved and lost, that Robinson, the old butler, drew back the curtain and said : " The master and mistress wanted you to see this, only they couldn't quite bear the talk about it ; it's our little Master Nicco, as would have been the joy of all of us, only only " Then poor old Robinson, who had been a page at the House on the Cliff when he was but nine years old, and was now a grey-haired old man almost past his work, turned his head away, and those who were near him saw the tears roll down his cheeks, and he went on in a broken voice which very few of them heard " Perhaps he wouldn't have been strong enough to fight, and that's the reason why he was not to be a sailor-lad ; God only knows what the next one who comes here will be like ; but the last sailor Nicholas was our dear young middy, who saved your life, Jack Austen ; and the old line has ended now, and when when our old master goe< a new line will begin, new people will come to the house, and the good old times will have passed away." There was deep silence for a few moments, then 12 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. came a tramp of footsteps, and the boys and girls who had been into the housekeeper's room to get their caps and hats and cloaks, came filing in, most of them wrapped up for the walk down the steep hill, on that clear, frosty night. They had none of them seen the picture, and it was Jack Austen who said to them, "Walk gently, my lads and lasses, and look at this; it's the picture of our own little Master Nicco, who ought to have been here to-night, only he was drowned at sea." The impetuous footsteps were hushed, and many a pair of wondering eyes looked at the sweet childish face, and little Tom Austen took off his fisher's cap, just as he had been taught to do when he went into Church, and. all the other boys followed his example, and the girls dropped their little curtseys, as you see children in foreign lands showing reverence to the picture of some saint they have been taught to honour, or to some wayside cross which they pass on their way to school or to their play. " ' Twas a strange sight, Sir Nicholas, a very strange sight, my lady," said Robinson, when half an hour afterwards he took some message into the library, and told how little Tom Austen had taken the lead which A LITTLE SAILOR IN A COCKED HAT. 13 all the others had followed. " 'Twas, if I might be so bold as to speak what's in my mind, owning him as their little Master, even though he was so far away. It wasn't as though they Avere a-bowing and a-curtsey- ing to a picture, 'twas as if the real little sailor-lad was there, a-looking at them out of his sweet blue eyes." Sir Nicholas and Lady Tremaine could not answer, but they each went up to the old man and took his hand, and then he went away muttering about " the good old times which were so quickly passing away." Quickly, certainly, but not to end just yet, not until three more summers had come with sunshine and gladness, three more winters with storm and cold. Then, in the sweet springtide, when the hedges were bright with flowers, and the rippling waves played gently against the churchyard wall, Sir Nicholas Tremaine went " to the other Shore," and the House on the Cliff was the property of the new Baronet ; only, strange to say, no one knew where that Baronet was to be found. CHAPTER III. AMONGST THE CHIMNEY POTS. THAT same bright April sun which shone over the little Cornish village under the Cliff, shone too over the great city of London, over the grand houses, and the dull streets, and the wretched courts and alleys, in which such swarms of human beings lived their daily lives, whether of joy or of sorrow, of pleasure or of pain, of luxury and seeming idleness, or of poverty and hard work, ay, sometimes worse than all else, of utter hopeless misery and starvation. It is with a dull house in one of the dullest of dull streets that we have to do now, or rather with a room in that house, a top room three pairs of stairs high, and yet, although it was so high up, the bright sunshine seldom found its way through the narrow windows, from which you looked out upon what seemed to be a forest of chimney pots, with great clouds of smoke rising from them. AMONGST THE CHIMNEY POTS. 15 It was not very often that the great Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was only a very little way off, was distinctly visible, only sometimes in the evening when some of the fires were put out, or at others when a great gale blew away the black murky smoke clouds, the bright golden Cross stood out clearly above the houses and chimney pots, pointing up- wards to the sky. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of an April day, and a girl and boy were in the dreary room, she, working at some coarse shirts, he, playing with an old headless horse, and occasionally asking his sister to help him to mend the broken legs of the miserable animal. She was a small dark-eyed girl of twelve or thir- teen, who looked as if somehow or another life had been too hard for her, for there was nothing child- like about her ; the very steadiness with which she worked at the shirt, which was the last of twelve which had come from a neighbouring shop, and for which she was to receive threepence each, seemed to belong to some one much older than this poor little pale, sickly-looking girl ; and when she spoke to her brother it was in a low gentle voice, with no ring of gladness in it, not even the tone of command 16 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. which an elder sister of her age generally assumes to\vards a small boy of seven, especially when that small boy was worrying her considerably, and order- ing her to put down " that rubbishy old work and come and play. with him." " Only a few more stitches, darling, and then I will come," she had said ever so many times. But the few stitches seemed to grow into a great many, and the boy stamped and screamed, and threw Dobbin into the farthest corner of the room, thereby breaking the only sound leg which remained to him. And still the girl stitched on, with a grave, troubled look upon her face, only glancing up now and then and saying, " Gerald, darling, I will see what I can do to Dobbin as soon as I have done these last few stitches." Meantime Gerald had followed Dobbin into the corner, and was amusing himself by knocking him against the wall, and thus speedily reducing the headless steed, into a shapeless mass. At last the boy left off screaming and stamping, and stood before his sister, his handsome little face flushed and angry, his fist clenched as though he meant mischief : " I'll tell mother about you," he said, as a terribly hard blow fell upon the head which was bent so " Only a few more stitches, darling, and then I will come." AMONGST THE CHIMNEY POTS. 19 industriously over the shirt, " I'll tell her that you are a bad, wicked Margaret, and I hate you." There were tears in the gentle brown eyes which looked up for an instant into the little boy's face, then two more stitches were put in, and Margaret's task was done. " Gerald," she said, and there was a ring of pain in her voice, " what do you want ? You know, dear, I was obliged to finish my work ; I can play with you now for a little while if you wish it." " I don't want to play," answered Gerald, looking just a little ashamed of himself; "I have nothing to play with, now that Dobbin is all smashed ; what I want is threepence to buy another horse ; there is a beauty at the toy shop round the corner, and I must have it ; I must go and get it now, at once." " I can't give you threepence, darling ; I haven't got it." " You have ; it's in the box ; I saw it there this morning." " I put it there for the milkman, dear ; it's all we have in the house ; we owe it to him." "You'll have heaps of money to-morrow, when you take those old shirts home. I tell you I musi have the threepence, I will have another Dobbin ; the 20 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. little boys in the square have such beautiful horses, why shouldn't I have one ? " and again Gerald stamped his little foot and looked at his sister defiantly, whilst he made a dash at the old box which contained the riches of the family. This time Margaret asserted herself. " Gerald," she said, pushing him back gently and taking possession of the box and putting it upon a shelf out of his reach, " Gerald, you are not to have the money ; you must learn to be obedient." Another howl from Gerald. " Why shouldn't I have a horse as well as those stuck up little swells in the square ? " he said. " They are not stuck up, Gerald ; their fathers and mothers are rich, and we are poor : they can afford to have things, and we cannot." " That's just it ; why are we poor, why aren't we rich ? Mother says I ought to be a lord or a bar , bar , I forget what ; but I don't care about that ; I only want to have a lot of money, and to buy every- thing I like." There was only one picture hanging up in that poor, barely-furnished room, a picture of the Holy Child in the Manger at Bethlehem, and Margaret looked at it with a puzzled expression upon her grave face ; AMONGST THE CHIMNEY POTS. 21 she could not put the thought that came to her into words, much less explain it to Gerald ; but she said to herself : " He was poor ; the clergyman said so when he gave me the little picture, and He knows that we are poor." " Gerald," she said gently, " if you are a good boy, I will try and buy the horse for you to-morrow when I take my work to the shop." But Gerald was not to be pacified, and was ponder- ing in his own mind how he could get the box down from its eminence, and try and possess himself of the coveted threepence, when the door opened, and a small, pale, sad-looking woman entered the room. Gerald darted at her at once, and cried : " Mother, Margaret is horribly cross ; she will not let me have threepence to buy a new horse, and mine is smashed to atoms, look at it," and the child pointed ruefully to the heap of fragments in the corner. " Margaret, how can you be so unkind to the poor little fellow, when you know how few pleasures come into his life ? " and the mother stooped down and kissed Gerald lovingly, and allowed herself to be 22 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. pulled towards the box, which she took down from the shelf, and gave the threepence to the boy, who glanced triumphantly at Margaret and said : "I told you mother would give it to me." There was a knock at the outer door, and Margaret took up a jug and said, in a voice that had something of a tremble in it, " Is there any money for the milkman, mother ? " " No, not to-day ; tell him he shall have it to- morrow, dear. Mr. Plummer had not time to look at my cards to-day," and the poor little woman sighed wearily, whilst Gerald entreated her to let him go to the corner shop at once and buy the lovely horse. " After tea, darling, I will go with you. Be a good boy for a few minutes, and then mother will do any- thing you like." " Mother's always a darling," said Gerald, throwing his arms round his mother's neck, " and Maggie is always cross, and I don't like her." " Hush, hush ! my boy. She is very good ; she works very hard ; and she's only a little girl." " No, she isn't ; she's a great big girl. She'll be bigger than you are soon, and not half so nice." Again the mother stooped and kissed the handsome AMONGST THE CHIMNEY POTS. 23 little face which was raised so lovingly to hers, and at that moment Margaret entered, milk-jug in hand, and in the same old-fashioned way in which she had sat at her sewing, she began to get the tea ready, and to cut the bread-and-butter. Upon her own plate she put a slice of dry bread, for the little supply of butter had run very short before her task was ended, and what remained she put away carefully in the cupboard for the morning's breakfast. Her mother always left the housekeeping to her. She said she had neither strength nor energy for it, and her whole time was taken up in painting the little Christmas cards, which, with the work which Margaret managed to get from the shops, was all upon which the three had to depend for their daily bread. They had known better .days. The poor sad- looking woman was always talking about those days when Margaret's and Gerald's father had been a clerk in a large county bank, and she, an officer's orphan daughter, had been his happy wife. When Gerald was only two months old, and Margaret, who had been her father's idol, a bright, merry little maiden of six years, the poor Avife was left a widow, the children fatherless. CHAPTER IV. WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN. SEVEN years had passed since that day years of poverty and hardship, for the young clerk's salary, of course, died with him, and he had had no time to make provision for the future. The mother took her children to London ; she had no relatives of her own, and she had an idea that she might do something in the great city which would provide food for her little ones. She could paint flowers very nicely, and she managed to get an intro- duction to a large publishing firm, and from them she got almost constant employment, and very scanty pay- The children grew, as children always do grow, whether they are brought up in luxury or poverty ; and in spite of the poverty one of them at least throve ; for search all London through, it would have been im- possible to find a finer, stronger little fellow than WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN. 25 Gerald, with his rosy cheeks and bright brown eyes. He was so small and helpless when his father died that, perhaps, it was but natural that he became his mother's first thought, and that the little inde- pendent Margaret was left to get on as best she could, and to take care of herself. She grew into a little pale, thoughtful girl, looking after Gerald when his mother was busy at her painting, and giving up her will to his, " so that mother might draw her pretty flowers, and not be troubled by baby's crying." And so the years had gone on, and Margaret did her own work now, and Gerald in his imperious way ruled the little household. The girl's life was a strange one, spent upon her mother and her brother, and yet lived very much to herself. She was always hearing of those " better days " that had been, of those " better days which ought to come again " ; only somehow they didn't ; and she kept on wondering and wondering how they would come, and whether she could help to hurry them on. There was an old shoemaker, who lived in the opposite room, who in his way was something of a scholar, and one day Margaret had confided her diffi- 26 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. culties to him, and asked him " how she could make better days come for mother and Gerald." Old Nolan had looked puzzled for an instant, then he had scratched his head, which was a trick he had, and put his glasses up over his forehead, and ham- mered the nails resolutely into a boot he was mend- ing ; then he said : " It's strange you should ask me that question this evening, little Miss, for last night I was at the church in Heliotrope Gardens, and the minister there, him as is so good to the poor, and gives away all he has, says he, ' My friends, if the days seem dark, there's better ones a- coming to all of you, who does your work well and faithful, as our Master who died for us on the Cross did His work, and the longest day must come to an end, and the dawn must come, and all our troubles, and all our sufferings, and all we gives up for others are the tracks that lead us on to the better days that will never end, and the sunlight that will never set ; and so we must set our footsteps in the track of the dawn, and walk straight on till we get to our true Home, though there may be a mortal deal to bear before we gets there.' >! Margaret did not quite understand all that was meant by this, but somehow it seemed to comfort WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN. 27 her ; an indistinct idea which she could not have put into words was in her mind, that if she worked hard, and bore things patiently, better days would come, although they might be ever so far off ; although it might be very dark before the dawn came ; although there might be very much work to do, before she could find time to rest. She was thinking about old Nolan's words as she stood at the table washing up the tea things, on that April evening when we first make her acquaintance. Gerald and his mother had gone round to the toy- shop, and she was left to do the work that had to be done ; the tea-cups were washed, then Gerald's knickerbockers and her mother's dress had to be mended, and her own much worn stockings darned. She hardly knew where to begin, for the daylight was waning fast, and she was feeling very tired and weary. After a moment's thought she decided in favour of the knickerbockers, for it would not do for Gerald to wear his best ones again the next day. She took her chair to the window, and looked out towards the Dome of St. Paul's, and there all bathed in a flood of golden light, stood the Cross pointing to the sky. 28 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. The smoke and mist had cleared off, and the sun went down behind the chimney pots in all its glory, and as the girl looked at its last lingering rays she sighed and said to herself : " I don't think I can do much more than these knickerbockers to-night, for there is hardly any oil in the lamp, and no money to buy any, but perhaps to- morrow will be a better day. Mother and I will both get our money, and we shall be able to give poor Gerald a little treat." There was a knock at the door, and old Nolan, in his cobbler's apron, put his head in. " Be you alone, little Miss ? " he said. " Yes, Mr. Nolan ; quite alone." " Well, I ain't fit to come in, not having had time to so much as to wash my hands, all along of Mr. Spicer's soles as he was bound to have to-night ; and then I got the Standard sent in to me for half an hour, by a neighbour who knows as I like the news, and there's news in it, I'm a-thinking, not for me, but for you." " For me for us, Mr. Nolan ? " "Yes, for all of you. What was your father's name, my dear I beg your pardon, I mean little Miss ? " WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN. 29 " Edward Tremaine, Edward John Tremaine." " I thought as much ; see, here it is " ' Wanted, the next of kin of Edward John Tre- maine, late a clerk in the Torchester branch of the . for you.' National Bank. Apply to Messrs. Harris and Graham, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields.' ' The knickerbockers dropped from poor Margaret's hands, a frightened look came upon her face : 30 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Father is dead," she said. " He did live at Tor- chester ; but what's next of kin, Mr. Nolan ?" " Why, his nearest relations, to be sure, little Miss, you and the little Gent, to say nothing of your Mother." " What do they want us for ?" " There's something more here, little Miss ; I read this first, but never took no notice of it ; it's about a funeral down in Cornwall, not very far from my old home, as I left when I was a lad of eleven year old ; I minds now that I heard the name long, long ago, and 'twas that that made yours come like something I had known afore when you first come to live here. It's old Sir Nicholas Tremaine, as was a baronite, as is dead and buried, and both his sons are dead also, two fine chaps, according to the paper, as ever trod in shoe leather, one a sailor and the other a soldier ; the sailor was killed in the Roosian war, and the soldier was a- coming home from India and he and his wife and their little boy was drounded, so when the poor old gentleman died, he left ne'er a son nor a grandson to be a baronite after him, only some far away cousin, who might be dead too for aught any one knew, and if he can't be found, the title, that's the baronitecy, would become extinguished, WANTED THE NEXT OF KIN. 31 snuffed out as you may say ; but if I reckon right, the baronite is found, and here he is upon the stairs ; I'll leave the paper with you, little Miss, for a bit, and I offers my respects, and I hopes the better days is nearer than we thought they was when I told you of the Parson's sermon, but whether we're cobblers or baronites there must come a day which will be best of all, when we've done our work as best we could, and followed in the track of the dawn, and that track will lead us to the Perfect Day." "Thanks, Mr. Nolan," said Margaret, timidly. "I don't quite understand what it all means ; I daresay mother will ; but you've been very good to us, and to-morrow we will pay you part of the money for Gerald's new boots. We are sorry you have had to wait for it so long." " Don't mention it, little Miss ; I wish I had had no call to ask for it, but now I daresay it will be all right ; and perhaps I might be so bold as to mention that I've worked for the Lord Mayor's first cousin, and given him satisfaction, and it will be an honour to measure the baronite for anything, from slippers to Wellingtons." Again poor bewildered Margaret said, "Thank you, Mr. Nolan." LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Then the door opened, and Gerald broke in, look- ing very flushed and excited, carrying an unshapely wooden horse in one hand, and a penny trumpet in the other, and trying with all his might to perform a tune upon the instrument. Nolan disappeared as fast as he could, only stop- ping for one moment in the doorway to say to Margaret : "You won't forget to mention the Lord Mayor's first cousin to your ma, little Miss ; if I recollects right his soles was cork, and I know I gave him entire satisfaction." u Margaret," said Mrs. Tremaine, in a somewhat peevish tone, " what is that old man doing in here, preventing you from going on with your work?" " Mother, dear, he has brought this newspaper for us to read ; you will understand it all ; it's about the next of kin of Edward John Tremaine ; indeed that's all he came to speak about, except I was to tell you he made a pair of boots for the Lord Mayor's first cousin, and gave him entire satisfaction!" CHAPTER V, FHOM THE CHIMNEY POTS TO THE WESTERN SEA. IT was just two months afterwards ; the sun still shone into the dreary London room, but its shadows fell on nothing but the four walls. There was not a stick of furniture in the place, except an old stool, which no one had thought worth carrying away, and in the midst of a little heap of dust which had been swept into a corner, one of Dobbin's hind legs might have been discovered ; but Dobbin's little owner was no longer there to mourn over the loss of the old toy, nor to clamour for a new one. The one picture had gone from the wall ; it was hanging now in a bright little room in the old House on the Cliff, where the sunlight fell upon the deep blue Western Sea, and upon the grand rocks which girt the wild Cornish coast. You will see from this that what old Nolan had LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. read in the Standard was all quite true, and Gerald was " the next of kin " who had been wanted when old Sir Nicholas Tremaine died. It had all been settled very quickly. There had of course been lawyers to see, and a good deal of business to arrange, and little Mrs. Tremaine was nervous and bewildered, and only seemed capable of realising the fact that Gerald her darling, her idol, was a real live Baronet ; the head, such a tiny head as it was, of one of the oldest families in Cornwall. As for Gerald himself he at once seemed to rise to the dignity of his position, and to imagine that he was to rule every one with whom he came in contact. "You see, Mr. Nolan," he said, "now that I am rich and a Baronet, I can do anything I like ; nobody will dare to refuse to obey me ; I'll have to rule every one down at Trecastle." "Excuse me, Sir Gerald, but there's one person as you'll have to learn to rule afore you tries it on upon others." "Who is it?" asked the small Baronet drawing himself up to his full height. " It's yourself, Sir Gerald," answered the old man looking very grave, "it's your own heart and your own tempers." TO THE WESTERN SEA. 35 " You are a very impertinent old man, Mr. Nolan, and I'll tell mother not to let you make my boots," and Gerald dashed out of the room and slammed the door after him, whilst the shoemaker remarked to himself " I'm thinking that some day the little Baronite'a pride will have a fall." It had somewhat of a fall the next day, when the boy insisted upon going to the board school, and telling his companions there, that he did not intend to speak to them any more when he met them in the street, for he was a gentleman now more than a gentleman, a Baronet, with thousands of pounds of his very own, and a beautiful house, and horses and carriages, as grand, in fact a great deal grander, than anything they had ever seen, even in the park. Those young cockneys were not as impressed as they ought to have been at the news which was communicated to them, with what they considered a good deal of swagger, by the small boy who had never been much of a favourite with them. I am sorry to have to record that they used language towards him which was anything but com- plimentary, and when they got outside the door (Gerald had chosen twelve o'clock when the boys 36 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. were leaving school, as the best opportunity of imparting the intelligence which he felt sure would awe and impress them so much), they began to empty their pockets, and to draw from their respec- tive depths anything they could find there with which they might pelt " the Earonite." Small stones, and hard round balls of dirty, sticky paper, which had contained bulls' eyes and orange peel, and in one case an egg, fell upon the unfortunate Sir Gerald in wild confusion, as he ran at full speed through the streets, about a dozen boys in full chase, laughing and jeering, and wanting to know " what he would stand them, now that he was a bigger swell than the Prince of Wales hisself?" He reached home at last, and then he turned round and said, " You're nasty cads, you are, not fit for a gentleman to speak to." Before he could get inside the door, a blow fell upon his cheek, and a piteous scream mingled with the hootings and yellings of the angry boys. Poor Gerald rushed upstairs and poured out his woes to his mother, who petted him, and tried to soothe him, and bathed the swollen face, which the next day, and for some days afterwards, bore traces of the combat in which he had been engaged. TO THE WESTERN SEA. 37 " That's fall number one," said old Nolan to him- self as he heard poor Mrs. Tremaine's account of " the wickedness of those dreadful boys." " I wonder how many more there'll have to be afore the poor little swell will have learnt the lesson that we've all got to learn to rule hisself." It was Margaret who, in her quiet old-fashioned way, did the work that had to be done in those spring days, which came and went so strangely, with all their new experiences. There was no one in the outside world to come to that little family in the top room, and congratulate them upon their good fortune ; in fact, no one but the lawyers and old Nolan knew anything about it, for of course the boys at the board school thought no more about Gerald after the day they had chased him through the streets ; and the Clergyman of the Church where the mother and her children went on Sundays, and who had given Margaret the little picture at Christmas tide, was away for a holiday, and when he returned he wondered where the gentle little girl with the grave look upon her face had gone. There was a good deal of shopping to be done, mourning to be bought for the old man none of them had ever seen, of whom even Mrs. Tremaine herself G 38 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. had scarcely known the existence, until that day when the account of the funeral in the Standard recalled to her mind that he was the far away cousin of whom her husband had sometimes spoken in a vague kind of way as " the swell of the family." The lawyer had suggested the desirability of mov- ing into other lodgings for the two or three weeks that must elapse before the journey to Cornwall could be made. It was done : a kind of break between the poverty- stricken abode amongst the chimney pots and the grandeur of the old Cornish home. A kind letter had come from Lady Tremaine ; say- ing that as soon as she could, she would move to the old Dower House which stood in a little nook at the foot of the cliff. It had been the home for many years of the widows and daughters of the house of Tremaine ; and now the poor old lady was going to it alone, the last of the old direct line, and of the good old times. All the furniture of the House on the Cliff was entailed ; every book in the old library belonged to the boy Baronet ; but Messrs. Harris and Graham had begged her to ask for anything she might like to have, to take away with her to her new home, and all she TO THE WESTERN SEA. 39 had asked for were the blue and the red books, about those Tremaines who had been sailors and soldiers. So they were taken to the Lower House, and the widowed, childless woman put them upon a shelf in her own room, with her Bible and Prayer-book. The day came at last, when Mrs. Tremaine and Gerald and Margaret started for Cornwall. There was only one friend at Paddington to see them off, and that was old Nolan. Margaret had been to wish him good-bye, the day before, arid taken him a five-pound note as a present from her mother. The poor old fellow had cried for joy when he saw it, and announced his intentions as soon as possible of following the Tremaines to the village under the cliff. " It's near my old home H he said, " and I was feeling as though I'd like to be somewhere near you, little Miss." Although he had only known Margaret for a few months, he felt that something would go out of his life when she went away, and he was very lonely in the top room, with only, as he used to remark, " soles, as was only boot soles, for company." Now, the tears were in his eyes as he stood upon the platform, and shook hands with Mrs. Tremaine *0 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. and the young Baronet, who was very condescending to him, and told him he was going to buy a beautiful pony the next day. " Good-bye, little Miss," he said to Margaret ; " I'm glad better times has come to you, but you'll think of the track that leads to the dawn, and you'll walk straight along in it, for it's the only way Home." "Yes, Mr. Nolan, I'll try, and I'll look out for you every day, and I'm sure the people at Trecastle will like your boots ; I will be sure to tell them about the Lord Mayor's first cousin. CHAPTER VI. NO DEMONSTRATION. ALL that had happened in the little village by the Western Sea during those last few years had come so suddenly and unexpectedly, that the simple village folk hardly seemed to understand what might come next, and waited on from day to day not knowing what they were to expect. At last the news came, the heir was found, and he was a little boy of seven or eight years old, the son of a banker's clerk, not a bit of a sailor about him, to say nothing of a soldier ; possibly a common -looking little fellow, who would grow into a money-grubbing man, so different from all those open hearted, open handed, generous Tremaines, who had been the lords of Tre- castle for all those hundreds of years. The fishermen settled all this as they smoked their pipes before their cottage doors, and their wives en- dorsed what they said as they stood at their wash tubs, 42 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. or sat at their knitting, looking up sorrowfully at the library window where they knew " their own lady " was sitting in the sunshine, gazing upon the sea, and upon the little Churchyard where her loved ones had been laid to their rest "beneath the Church's shade." " Seven years old," Jack Austen had said, when poor old Robinson in trembling tones had told the new baronet's name and age ; " and our little Sir Nicco would have been just six if he'd 'a been spared." Then rough hands were dashed across eyes which, whether they were old or young, were full of tears, and deep silence fell upon them all, as they thought of the little lad who had wanted to be a sailor. " Gerald ! " exclaimed another fisherman, " Sir Gerald indeed ! I take it, it is a heathenish name, as no Tremaine was ever called by before ; t'aint English is it?" " No," answered Austen, " I don't think it is ; t'aint Roosian neither, nor French ; maybe it's Dutch." They all agreed that it was Dutch ; anyhow, as it wasn't English it didn't much matter what it was, and they consoled themselves with the thought " that after all it was better that the clerk's son should not be a "Sir Nicholas," nor a " Sir Edward," nor any name that had ever belonged to the Tremaines of the good NO DEMONSTRATION. 43 old times ; " 'twas better," they said, " that he should be different in every way from their old masters." Of course it was very foolish of them, and very wrong to talk in this way of poor little Sir Gerald ; but those loyal Cornish fishermen were a somewhat obstinate race, forming their own opinions, and stick- ing to them manfully. There were no changes to be made in the old house ; all the family pictures were to be left as they had been, hanging in the hall, only that one which had come from India was carried down to the Cottage (as the Dower House was called), by Robinson him- self, and hung up in Lady Tremaine's own sitting- room. And little Tom Austen and some of the other children, who had followed the old butler down the drive, were allowed to have one more look at the picture of the baby sailor boy, in his cocked hat ; and again the boys took off their fisher caps, and the girls dropped their little curtsies, just as they had done when they had seen Nicco's likeness, for the first time, three years before. " He should ought to have been Sir Nicholas," said Tom, who was a determined youngster of ten years old, " and I hato this new Sir Gerald as is coming, that I does." 44 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Which of course was very wrong of Tom, but you see his father and mother had expressed their opinion somewhat freely in his presence, and it was not to be wondered at that he should follow suit. " He's a Dutchman, ain't he ? " said some of the other boys, "and Dutchmen are no good." Which also of course was a very wrong thing of the boys to say, considering they had not the most remote acquaintance with any Dutchman ; in fact, the smallest of them asked "if he was the same as Jack the giant killer," and was assured that that gentleman, whatever his faults may have been, was an Englishman. " For Jack's a real English name," said Tom Austen, with an air of authority; "there's no mistake about that." You will see by all this that the good people of Trecastle were not prepared to welcome the new Baronet at all warmly, and as the day drew near for his arrival things grew worse instead of better. The good old vicar tried to make them see that all that had happened was not Sir Gerald's fault ; that the sorrows which had come to them one by one, had been dealt by Him who, in His mercy and His love, knows what is best for all of us. NO DEMONSTRATION. 45 They had always been ready to take his fatherly advice, but they would not do so now ; they knew all that he said was right, " but you see," they told him, " you see, sir, as how we ain't so wicked as to fight against God's will ; them as is gone, is gone to a better Land, and we couldn't wish them back ; only we don't want no one in their place ; we're quite con- tented with ' our own lady' in the house, and don't need no strangers here." They argued as a great many people argue, and submitted as a great many people think they submit ; that is to say, they accepted half God sent them, because in reality there was no help for it, but so long as they could fight, they were determined to do it. They could not, even had they wished it, call back those for whom they mourned, from their home in Paradise, but they could, and did, rebel against him who was coming amongst them now ; they would not see that the same loving Hand ruled it all, had taken from them what He willed, and now gave them what He willed. There were one or two of the younger men who were at home for a time on leave from their ships, who had seen something of the world, and who knew H 46 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. that Sir Gerald was not coming amongst them as an intruder, and who suggested that some show of welcome should be given to the new Baronet ; just a few of them to stand at the lodge gates and give the carriage " a bit of a cheer," as it drove in. But such a thing was not to be thought of. " We're honest men, if we're anything at all," said Jack Austen, " and we ain't agoing to pretend what we can't feel. I ain't even going to allow my children to go out when we knows they're a-coming ; my missus and me don't think it would be decent like to the memory of him as is gone. I hope, Ben and Dick, that you won't make no demonstration as we men of Trecastle could not approve of." And Ben and Dick said they would do nothing that the others did not sanction. So it came about that on the evening of that day upon which old Nolan had stood on the platform of Paddington Station to wish the travellers good-bye, those same travellers were met by the Tremaine car- riage at a little wayside station about two miles from Trecastle, and were driven to their new home. They were all three very tired and worn out with the long journey, but Gerald moved restlessly from side to side looking out for the triumphal arches, and the pro- NO DEMONSTRATION. 47 cossion of the village children which his mother told him would be sure to greet his arrival. But neither the one nor the other was to be seen. In fact, Trecastle might have been taken for a deserted village, as the fat old horses trotted along at their usual sober pace, evidently quite ignorant of the fact that the villagers from behind their blinds were peeping out to see what the new Baronet was like. I am bound, in common honesty, to confess that a great many pairs of eyes, both old and young, were peeping from behind those blinds, whilst some of the juniors had even taken up a more advantageous position behind the hedges. " There's no one to look at us, no arch, no proces- sion, no music," said poor Gerald, disconsolately ; " I say, they're a pack of duffers here ; I wish we had stayed in London, and lived in a big house, and not come to this stupid place." " Perhaps they did not like to make a noise because of poor Lady Tremaine," said Mrs. Treraaine, apologetically ; " you know, if her own little grandson had not been drowned, he would have been the Baronet." " But he isn't, and I am," answered Sir Gerald ; and 18 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. then he burst into a flood of tears, and laid his tired head upon his mother's shoulder. She soothed him as best she could, and made him lift his cap as the old lodge keeper opened the gates and dropped a curtsey, and when they drove up to the door of the house, two or three of the servants were standing there ; and Mr. Carew, the old vicar, came forward, and, in his kind, courteous way, wel- comed Mrs. Tremaine and her children to the Old House on the Cliff. Then they all went into the great hall where the portraits of all the Tremaines looked down upon this little descendant of theirs, who had come to claim his rights. Robinson came to them there, very stiff, and grave, and dignified, and he gave a letter to Mrs. Tremaine ; a few shaky lines of kindly greeting from the child- less old lady who had gone to her lonely home at the Cottage that morning. " I hope your boy will be worthy of his name," she wrote ; " I feel that I love him already, because I love all children, and because God has sent him in my little Nicco's place. I will pray every day that the Father's best blessings may rest upon him." Robinson waited to see whether there was any NO DEMONSTRATION. 49 answer to the letter ; meanwhile Gerald and Margaret were looking at the portraits on the walls. "Mr. Carevv welcomes Mrs. Tremaine and her children." " What's gone from there ? " asked the boy, in the 50 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. little imperious tone in which he usually spoke ; and he pointed to where, between the middy and the soldier, a mark and some nails on the wall showed that something had been removed. Robinson answered in the most frigid tone, look- ing very much displeased. " It was a beautiful picture of our own little Master Nicco as hung there, and it's gone to my lady at the Cottage." " Oh," said the little Baronet, " I'll have my like- ness taken, and have it hung up there." It was a childlike speech, and poor Gerald did not mean any harm, but Robinson bestowed upon him a glance of such withering scorn that he felt frightened, and again began to cry and to say he was hungry. There was no answer to the note, only "Mrs. Tremaine's kind regards, and she and Sir Gerald would call at the Cottage the next morning." Robinson went down to the village to be greeted on all sides by questions as to what the new comers were like ; for of course those peeps behind the blinds had not been particularly satisfactory. "Mrs, Tremaine, of course, ain't a Tremaine at all, and it couldn't be expected she would be like them, and the bov Sir Gerald, well, you might have NO DEMONSTRATION. 51 thought that there might have been just a something that would have been a bit like them as is gone, but there ain't ! He's a big fellow for his age, with brown curly hair and rosy cheeks, but he won't do after them as we've known for so long, he ain't one of them no more than, than " "Than a Dutchman is," put in young Tom Austen. " No ; no more than a Dutchman is," said Robin- son, really, poor old man, because he did not know what else to say. " And the girl, Mr. Robinson, what is she like ? " A softened expression came upon Robinson's face as he said, " Well, she's more one of the old sort than any of the three ; there's something about her, though I don't know what it is, that's like the old master, and her name is Margaret, the same as our own lady's, nothing outlandish like Gerald," and Robinson gave a grunt of dissatisfaction as he walked sorrowfully away. " Well," said Jack Austen to his friends, as they sat and smoked their pipes that night, and watched the stars coming out one by one and shining on the sea, " I think as how everything has gone off very satis- factory ; there isn't one of us in the village as has seemed glad to see Sir Gerald." CHAPTER VH. PETERKIN. VERY early the next morning Margaret and Gerald were standing upon the terrace of the House on the Cliff looking out upon the sea and the rocks, and at the fishing-boats coming into the little harbour after their night's work. It was all very new and very full of delight to those London-bred children. They had slept off their fatigues, and Margaret's usually grave face was bright with smiles, and some of her funny little old-fashioned ways seemed to have left her during those last few weeks. She looked more of a child than she had done when we saw her in the top room, thinking of how she could best get through the work that was before her. From the terrace the brother and sister went into the poultry-yard and the stables and the gardens, and when at last they were called hi to breakfast, into PETERKIN. 53 a pretty room all bright with fresh-cut flowers, it seemed to the girl, although she did not put it into words, that " their lines had, indeed, fallen in a plea- sant place," and that the heritage that had come to Gerald " was a goodly heritage." And the little Baronet himself was just at this par- ticular time delighted with everything, but, unfor- tunately, he was a young gentleman who, if he took an idea into his head wished it carried out at once, and would brook no delay. His mother had always tried to please him, and to give in to him in everything. Just as she had yielded to him on that April evening in London when we first made his acquaintance, in the matter of the ill- fated Dobbin's successor, she had always yielded to him when it was possible ; sometimes when it seemed almost impossible to do so. The child had had through all his little life, what is a very bad thing for all children, ay, and for grown up people too, to have his own way. Now, as he sat at breakfast, there came into his little head, or rather returned into his little head, an idea which had been there for some days past, but which he knew could not Dossibly be carried out in London. i 54 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. It was not this time to go to the corner shop and buy a new Dobbin, although there was some sort of relationship to the Dobbin incident in it, inasmuch as it had to do with horseflesh. The Baronet wanted a pony, and have it he must before the day was out. In vain his mother told him that she feared it would be impossible to gratify his wish that day, but it should be inquired about at once ; probably there was not such a thing in the village as a pony that would be fit for him to ride on. In vain Margaret tried to pacify him by telling him that very likely Lady Tremaine would be able to tell him where he would be able to get the wished-for animal. Gerald would not listen to reason ; he kicked and screamed, and alarmed the footman, who was a nephew of Robinson's, and who gave it as his opinion in the servant's hall, " that the new Baronet had a temper." At last came a diversion in the shape of a pea- cock with the most gorgeous of all gorgeous tails, who appeared at the open window, and condescended to be fed out of the children's hands, and to spread out his tail to its fullest extent. PETER KJN. 55 Then he strutted away, evidently extremely proud of himself, and Gerald tried to chase him, but could not catch him, so there was nothing left for him but to return to the breakfast-room and the subject of the pony. " I say, Robert," he said, when the footman appeared to take away the breakfast things ; " I say, there isn't a pony in the stable, is there ? " " No, Sir Gerald." "And is there one in the village fit forme to ride? Mother says there isn't ; for I want a beauty, and I must have it to-day." Something had gone wrong with the coffee-pot, and it was engaging all Robert's attention ; he was bend- ing over it earnestly, and his face was very red, for if there was a person he feared in the world it was " Uncle Robinson," and he remembered some words which the stately butler had spoken to him only a few days before. " Whatever you do, Robert, don't mention Peterkin to Sir Gerald. Sir Nicholas was a-speaking of him to me last time as ever he was out, and we went down to the village, I a-walking by the side of his chair ; says he, ' Robinson, I don't want any one to ride Peterkin ; it's an old man's fancy, I dare say, but he was 56 LITTLE STR NICHOLAS. bought for our little Master Nicco, and I think I should like him always to have his liberty, and not to belong to any one else.' So, Robert, you understand, you're not to mention Peterkin on pain of my most severest displeasure. My lady will settle it all with Mrs. Tre- maine." So, with these words ringing in his ears and the fear of Uncle Robinson's " most severest displeasure" hanging over his head, Robert lingered as long as he could over the coffee-pot, and the young Baronet went behind him, and pulled his coat-tails and said, "Did you hear what I said about a pony, Robert?" " I beg your pardon, Sir Gerald ; I " Mrs. Tremaine came to the rescue, contrary to her usual custom where her boy was concerned. " Gerald," she said, " you are not to tease Robert ; we are going to see Lady Tremaine, and we will ask her about the pony/' " Yes, my Lady, I mean ma'am," answered Robert, looking up with an air of relief ; " my Lady will be able to tell you all about it." " Let us go at once/' said the impatient Gerald. " No, darling, it is too early ; I have things to see about in the house, but you and Margaret can go down to the beach, and perhaps some more fishing- PETERKIN. 57 boats will come in, and you will see them unloading ; I will come down to you there, and then we will go and see Lady Tremaine." The boy and girl went off together down the steep avenue with its green flower-covered banks, and its spreading shady trees, into the quiet village nestling at the foot of the cliff ; the old grey ivy-covered church standing just above it, whilst far away into the sea stretched the grand headland, the little chapel of St. Nicholas rising on its summit, seeming to keep watch and ward over the rocky bay beneath. Trecastle boasted of a village green, where the ducks and geese waddled about in stately fashion, either basking in the sunshine, or finding their way to the muddy pond which stood in a far-away corner, where they revelled in a swim, and partook of what food they could find. The ducks and geese did not have the whole of the green to themselves ; two donkeys disputed the right of possession with them, and the white gander, who was looked upon as a kind of leader by his fellow geese and ducks, used to fly at the legs of the grey don- keys, and occasionally there was a good deal of excite- ment amongst the children, who thought it great fun to see " Neddy" pursued by " Goosey Gander." 58 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. But it was not often that these little scenes took place ; on the whole both birds and beasts conducted themselves with great propriety, and lived on the best of terms. Beyond the green there was a paddock, and just rising above the wall that enclosed it, was a pretty little red brick building, which might have been any- thing, but which really was a stable. How it came to be there was, that when little Nicco was expected home with his father and mother, Sir Nicholas had bought the prettiest Dartmoor pony that ever was seen, for his grandson, and it was found that there was not a stall in the stable for him ; so there was nothing for it but to build him a little house of his own, and it was thought that it would be a good thing for him to have the paddock as a kind of small park, where he could roam at pleasure. So the red brick stable was built, and Peterkin was installed there, waiting for Nicco to come home and ride him. But, as you know, Nicco did not come home, and for two or three years Peterkin had lived a very lazy life ; and he was so very fat and in such good con- dition that there was no doubt that the paddock grass was very excellent grass. PETERKIN. 59 Of course, that was not his only food. Never was pony so spoilt and pampered. He was the pet of the whole village, from Sir Nicholas and Lady Tremaine downwards. Jack Austen took care of him, and little Tom was his devoted slave. It was a generally known fact in Trecastle that Tom's pence, which were few and far between, were spent upon sugar beautiful white sugar for Peterkin. Gerald and Margaret stood for a time on the green, and admired the geese and the ducks and the donkeys. No one interrupted them. It was the hour when every one was busy ; the men on the beach mending their nets, the women at their house- work, the children at school. After a time the brother and sister wandered on towards the beach and the paddock ; the gate was half open, and there, nibbling the grass, and then raising his pretty shapely head to look at the in- truders, was Peterkin himself, sleek, and shiny, and beautiful. For an instant Margaret believed herself to be in fairyland, for there stood exactly what Gerald wanted. Surely the fairies must have built that pretty little 60 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. stable, with the sweet clematis trailing round the open door, and then put the pony to live in it. For Margaret was a believer in fairies. Sometimes she had fancied they had lived amongst the chimney- pots, but this sweet seaside village was a much more fitting residence for them than dingy, smoky London. Gerald was of a more practical turn of mind, and to do him justice, he was a brave fearless little fellow, and he went up to Peterkin and patted his head, and the pony, who was of a sociable nature, rubbed him- self against his cheek, and was evidently inclined to make friends. " Margaret," exclaimed the boy, his handsome little face all in a glow ; " Margaret, here is the very pony for me. Did you ever see such a beauty ? " By this time Margaret had descended from fairy- land, and had begun to think that the red brick stable could hardly have been the work of fairy fingers, raised especially for her little brother's benefit. " Gerald, dear," she said, " I don't suppose you can have it. It must belong to someone else ; some little boy, perhaps, who is very fond of it." A scowl came upon the little baronet's face. " I mean to take it," he said, " whoever it belongs And there . . was Pcterkin himself, sleek, shiny, and beautiful." K PETERKIN. 63 to. Mother has the money to pay for it, and she can buy it of the little boy." "But he may not like to sell it." " He must if I want it, so it's no good your saying that he wouldn't like it ; but oh, I say ! come here Mag ; it's all right. Look at this pretty cloth, and at the dear little saddle and stirrups, and the little whip. Oh ! I do think I am the luckiest little boy in all the world." The door of the little stable was open, and Gerald had penetrated into the tiny harness room, and stood upon the step, radiant with joy at what he saw there. Margaret went up to him, and again began, " But, darling, the little boy may not like " " I tell you there's no little boy at all. Look here at this pretty cloth with the letters N. T. Why, Mag, he was Nicco's pony poor little Nicco's, who was drowned, and, of course, he's mine now." " No, he ain't," said a clear boyish voice, " and he never will be no one's but our little Master Nicco's Sir Nicholas said so." Both the children started. They had not seen that any one was near, and now a sturdy rosy-cheeked boy in a coarse sailor's suit and a fisher's cap, stood 64 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. before them, looking at Gerald defiantly, and holding in his hand a small paper parcel. " Who are you ? " said Gerald ; " the pony doesn't belong to 3^011. He's mine, and I'm Sir Gerald Tre- maine." "Oh, you be, be you ? Well, for all that, Peter- kin don't belong to you no more than he do to me. I'm his little groom, that's what I am, and my name's Tom Austen, and my father is Jack Austen, and our boat is called the Mermaid, and I have three sisters, and " But at this juncture the family history was inter- rupted by Peterkin himself, who trotted up to Tom, and began to sniff at thj small paper parcel which he held, as though he knew it was intended for him. " Good Peterkin, good old boy," said Tom lovingly, " you shall have your sugar, you shaU, and nobody else shall have you. You belongs to our little Master Nicco, as is dead, and to no one else." Peterkin proceeded to eat and enjoy the sugar, and the little Baronet and the little Sailor stood and looked at each other, while something of the old troubled look came upon Margaret's face. " Gerald, dear," she said, " it is getting late, and mother will be looking for us." PETERKIN. 65 " I want a ride upon the pony," answered Gerald, " and I will have it. Put the saddle on him, Tom, and give me the pretty little whip." Tom stood perfectly still. Evidently he had not the smallest intention of obeying Gerald's orders. " Do you hear what I say ? Put on his saddle." " No, Sir Gerald ; I ain't a-going to. It was Sir Nicholas who said as how he was never to be ridden by anybody, and father wouldn't let me do it, and Mr. Robinson would most kill me if I tried, and I don't want to do it, for I loves little Master Nicco, and I wish he was here now." Gerald with clenched fist pushed Margaret on one side, and aimed a blow at Tom's face. The other would have returned it had not another actor appeared on the scene, a strong hand was laid upon the boy's arm, and a manly voice said : " Tom, how dare you ? " Tom coloured crimson, and looked up at the tall gentleman, who stood there with a smile upon his face, that was half sad, and half amused. " I beg your pardon, sir," said the boy, " only he " (and he pointed somewhat scornfully at Gerald) "wanted me to put the saddle on Peterkin, and I couldn't and I wouldn't" 66 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " I heard it all, Tom, and I'll speak to your father about it. Go home now, my boy, and learn respect for your superiors. As to you, Sir Gerald, I think the best thing you can do is to make up your mind that Peterkin can never be yours, and there is no good in your thinking he can." At the beginning of this speech the small Baronet began to open his mouth and indulge in one of those yells which were always so successful with his mother, in obtaining his wishes, but one glance at the calm determined face which looked upon him so gravely caused him to change his mind, and seize Mar- garet's hand, and draw her away as quickly as he could. " I am very sorry," said the girl gently, " very sorry indeed, sir, but Gerald wants a pony, and he thought he could have this one, because, you see, poor little Nicco is dead." " Yes, I know it. I know all about it. Nicco " (and the manly voice softened as the stranger spoke) " Nicco was a great friend of mine. I loved him very dearly." Margaret looked puzzled. It seemed such a strange thing that this tall bearded stranger should have been a friend of little Nicco' s, who had lived his short life PETERKIN. 67 in India, and had been drowned at sea, but of course, if he said it, it must be true. " I am very sorry that Nicco is dead," she said. " Thanks, my child, I am sure you are." By this time they had reached the gate, where a group of village children, just out of school, were peering in curiously, having heard Tom's account of the new Baronet's " cheek." If the gentleman had not been there, they might have expressed their opinion of Sir Gerald rather too openly ; as it was, they contented themselves with staring at him, rather rudely, and it was a good thing that at that moment the grey donkey and the white goose came up, evidently knowing that there was something wrong, and feeling that as lords of the village green, it was their duty to inquire into things. The donkey kicked the goose, and the goose pecked at the donkey ; then a chase began in which the children joined, and just then Mrs. Tremaine appeared, and in a few words the stranger told her of Gerald's trouble, and added kindly : " I dare say it will be very easy to find another pony for him soon." "But I want Peterkin, I don't want another pony, and little Nicco is dead, and " 68 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Mother," broke in Margaret, " this gentleman was Nicco's friend." "Yes," said the stranger, "his father and mother were the greatest friends I ever had. My name is John Randall ; when Nicco was two years old I painted his picture." Then he lifted his hat and walked away, soon to be followed by Tom Austen, and the village children, who used to look forward to his yearly visits to Trecastle as a great event in their lives. CHAPTER VIIT. "CALL ME GRANNY." LADY TREMAINE was sitting alone in her sitting- room at the Cottage with a sad expression upon her gentle old face, which looked sadder, as she gazed at the picture on the wall opposite to her, and murmured in a low voice, " my little Nicco." Then through the open window came the sound of children's voices, and the old lady got up nervously, and there was a flush upon her usually pale cheek, as she went towards the door, which the next minute was opened by Robinson, who in his stiffest and most important tone announced : "Sir Gerald, Mrs. and Miss Trenmine." The old lady smiled as she met her visitors, and spoke a few trembling words of cordial welcome. Gerald was on his very best behaviour ; he sat down quite quietly and looked up at the picture, and whispered to Margaret : 70 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " I suppose that is poor little Nicco's likeness : isn't he a pretty little boy ? I wish he had not been drowned ; I wish he was here now to play with me." "Come here, dear, and give me another kiss," said Lady Tremaine, who had heard the somewhat audible whisper, and Gerald went up to her and put his little arms round her neck and said : " I love you, Lady Tremaine. What am I to call you ?" There was a moment's pause, another glance at Nicco's likeness, and then the old lady drew the little boy more closely to her side and stroked his brown curls. "Call me granny, darling," she said ; "it is what he would have called me if he had been here." "He was a good little boy, wasn't he?" inquired Gerald. " Yes, a very good little boy." " Why does he wear a cocked hat ?" "Because he used to call himself Nicco, 'a little lad, who some day would be a sailor and wear a cocked hat.' ' "I'll be a sailor some day," said Gerald ; " Mother says all the Tremaines are sailors, and I'll fight and not be afraid." "CALL ME GRANNF." 71 Again Lady Tremaine kissed the boy ; it was such a delight to her to have something of child life about her, and to watch over and care for this little one whom God had sent to her in the place of those she had lost. " I think," she said, " I must look out for a little pony for you, Gerald." Mrs. Tremaine turned pale, and Margaret turned red, as Gerald answered : " If you please, Granny, I've seen Peterkin, and he's a beautiful pony, and I like him ; only a very rude boy, who said his name was Tom Austen, would not put the saddle on him, and let me ride him." " My dear " and the poor old lady's voice trembled as she spoke, "my dear, I am afraid you can't have Peterkin ; he was to have been Nicco's, and Sir Nicholas did not wish any one else to have him." " It was a fancy of my husband's," she continued, turning to Mrs. Tremaine ; " sometimes he said he feared it was a selfish fancy ; but he went to the Moor himself, and chose Peterkin from amongst twenty other ponies, and then and then, when the sad news came to us, he said that he would keep 72 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. him for a time, for perhaps our own little Nicco might come home, for you know his body was not found, and there was just a faint hope that he might have been picked up alive ; then when all hope died away Sir Nicholas still said that no one else was to have the pony, and I feel I must respect his wishes. So, Gerald, my boy, we must look out for another pony for you ; I will tell Robinson to make inquiries about it to-morrow." Poor Mrs. Tremaine by this time was visibly trembling, and Margaret in her agitation had got up and walked to the window. They need have had no fear ; they could hardly believe it was Gerald who said quite gently : "Thanks, Granny, only please let it be a pretty one like Peterkin." Two days afterwards a pony appeared, not quite as perfect as Peterkin such another animal was not to be found anywhere but Gerald was quite content, and used to ride about the country very fearlessly ; and even those who had been most prejudiced against him were obliged to confess " that he was a plucky little chap, and there must be some Tremaine blood in him somewhere." The summer days passed^ quietly away ; a gover- "CALL ME GRANNY:' 73 ness from the nearest town came out every day by train and taught Margaret and Gerald ; for the girl's education had of course been very much neglected, and the boy had never had any other teaching than the few months at the London board school. : They were both very intelligent, and very anxious to improve. Margaret was just as loving and gentle in her new life as she had been in the old one, and Gerald was certainly a much better boy than he had been. He was wilful and perverse still, but Lady Tre- maine's quiet influence had done its work, and it was a matter of wonder and astonishment to her that the villagers did not like him better. Of course, they were all very respectful to him now ; Robinson in a solemn voice had told them it was their Lady's wish that they should be so ; even Tom Austen took off his fisher's cap civilly when the little baronet rode past him on Dandy, and used to console him- self for the effort that civility cost him by saying : " Compare that 'ere pony with Peterkin ! why he ain't fit to hold a candle to him ; I wouldn't waste a lump of sugar upon him, not if I knowed it." There was a new occupant of a little two-roomed cottage looking out upon the green. No less a 74 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. person than old Nolan, who had arrived there one day after the receipt of a rather ill-spelt letter from Margaret, in which she told him that the shoemaker who had worked for every one had gone off to Australia, and now the people had to go a long way to buy their boots and shoes, and she had spoken to Robinson, who knew everything, and he had said that if Mr. Nolan would come there he was sure he would do a wonderful business. " He knows about the Lord Mayor's first cousin," the girl added as a postcript, " and he thinks you must be very clever." So Nolan came, and Margaret was very glad to see him ; it seemed like a bit of the old life, coming into that new strange life she was lead- ing now ; not that that old life had not been very full of troubles and the new life did not seem to have any real trouble in it, but it was very lonely ; there was so little to do except lessons ; and there was no one to think for, no one for whom she could give up anything, as she had done in the old days, for her mother and Gerald. " I think it was nice to go without butter, and to let them have it," she one day said to herself; " it was doing something for them that they didn't know about, and I liked it ; it made me happy." "CALL ME GKAAWF." 75 She told old Nolan of her trouble, and just as he had helped her before, he helped her now. " You see, little Miss," he said, "he as was good to me in London, the Minister at the church in Helio- trope Gardens, said once, that there was something for all of us to do ; some of us had to do things, and some of us had to bear things, and perhaps the bearing is the hardest like, but it's what the Master corned to teach us ; He lived more than thirty years at Nazareth, and we don't hear of nothing that He did, except to be subject to His Parents, and it must have been hard for Him to see all the wickedness that was in the world He had come to save, and yet to do nothing to stop it like, until His Father, and our Father, called Him to His work, and that work led to the Gross atop of the hill of Calvary. "I ain't saying it as the Minister said it, little Miss, but it's all I can remember, and it's helped me many a time when I've sat at my work, and never seemed to do nothing for nobody (for of course I don't count the boots and shoes for which I'm paid) ; and maybe it may help you, just to think that if you learns to bear doing nothing for nobody, the time will come when you'll do the doing all the better, because of the patience and the waiting." LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. It did help the girl ; she remembered the old man's words very often as she looked at the picture in her room, and thought of the Life of patient wait- ing, begun in the Manger and ended on the Cross. There is very little to tell of those summer days, each one of them was very like the other, very calm and tranquil ; the greatest excitement to the children was an occasional visit to one of the nearest towns when any shopping was necessary. Mr. Randall the artist was another excitement ; lie used to come to Trecastle for a day or two, and then go away, and then came back again. He used to sit upon the beach and paint the grand rocks, whilst the village children stood round him and wondered and admired, and bought penny paint boxes for themselves, and tried to imitate him. But a far more wonderful painting than the sea or the rocks, or the little fishing boats, was a likeness of Peterkin with Tom Austen standing at his head. It was intended as a Christmas present for Lady Tremaine, and it was to be a profound secret. Mr. Randall also painted Gerald's picture. It was a very pretty one, but the little villagers, as they peeped in at the door of the artist's studio, which by the way was one of the rooms in old Nolan's " CALL ME GRANNY 77 cottage, pronounced it very inferior to Nicco's likeness. " Will you put me on a cocked hat ? " the boy had said, " for you know when Tin big I'm going be a sailor." " No," Mr. Randall had answered, " I don't think I can do that ; we'll Avait till you are one." Gerald looked angry, but said nothing ; truth to tell, the artist was the one person besides Lady Tremaine of whom he stood in considerable awe ; perhaps he remembered his first introduction to him in the pad- dock, and thought it well to give into him at once, as he instinctively felt that he would most surely have to do so in the end. He told his trouble about the cocked hat to Lady Tremaine, who sympathized with him, and said she should have liked to have seen him in one in the picture. The lonely lady had taken the boy into her loving old heart, in a way that some of the village folks resented. After all it was but natural ; he was a tak- ing little fellow in the long run, and always good and obedient to her. She felt that her loved ones were at rest, and that before long she would go to them ; meantime she was M 78 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. thankful for this new interest in her sorrowful life, and the boy used to sit at her feet, and listen to the stories of the brave Tremaines who had gone before, as she read them to him out of the old blue and red books. " I'll be a sailor, Granny, and I'll do my duty, and then when I'm dead, shot through the heart by a bullet, somebody will write about me my wife perhaps or my son ; wouldn't, it sound grand ? " "Never mind about the bullet, my boy," the old lady would answer ; " it's a grand thing to die for one's country, but it's the grandest thing of all to be honest and true, and God fearing, and to do one's duty, pray that you may do that, Gerald, and then all else that comes will be right." " Yes I will, Granny," the boy would answer, and she would sit and think what a sweet little fellow he was, and wish that everybody would love him as they had been prepared to love Nicco. " He is so good," she one day said to Mr. Randall. " When he has learnt to give up his own will, and to think of others before himself, I shall like him better," answered the artist " He is a spoilt boy, Lady Tre- maine, but it is quite possible that he may be yet licked into shape." In her secret heart she thought he was unjust to " The boy used to sit at her feet, and listen to the stories of the brave Tromaines who had gone before " "CALL ME GRANNF." 81 her favourite, but she could not quarrel with him for his loyalty to Nicco, " his little friend." " Perhaps by the time you come to see us again he may have had the necessary licking," she said with a smile. And he laughed as he answered, "Perhaps so, and now I must wish you good-bye ; you will think of me sometimes at my work on the Breton coast, and when I come home late in the autumn I will run down and see you again." Then he looked up at the picture he had painted, and as he remembered those days in the Indian bungalow, when the baby sailor boy had to be nursed into quiet, so that he might catch the ex- pression of the sunny little face, he smiled sadly and went on his way, with the thought of Nicco and his father and mother uppermost in his mind. CHAPTER TX. ON FOREIGN SHORES. NEAR the town and harbour of Brest, where the ships of the French Navy stand at anchor, there is a little fishing village called Plougastel, and at the top of the hill which leads up from the shore is the old church, whilst in the churchyard which stands in front of it is a Calvary, where in the carved stone figures you can read the Bible story : the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Crucifixion, the holy deeds of the Saints, the sufferings of the Martyrs. High above all else this beautiful Calvary stands ; sailors look for it as they toss about in their little boats along the stormy coast, and it speaks to them of courage in danger, of hope and safety when the perils of their life of toil shall have passed away, and the sweet sunlight of the other Shore shall welcome them to their rest. It was a glorious September day ; a fete day in ON FOREIGN SHORES. 83 Plougastel, the villagers were in their holiday dress ; they had begun the day in church, the children had walked in procession round the Calvary, singing sweet childish hymns in the old Breton language which, by the way, has a very strong likeness to the Welsh tongue, and to what is still spoken in the remote parts of Cornwall. The banners had waved in the soft breeze, the clear voices had mingled with the distant sound of the waves, as they dashed against the shore. It seemed as though those strange stone figures of the Holy Ones of old overshadowed with their shelter- ing arms that quaint, but most solemn and reverent procession. The elders had had their procession the day before ; they had got up very early in the morning, and had journeyed miles away to the village of Folguet ; and there before a High Altar, erected in a great field, thousands of those simple Bretons had knelt, and worshipped, and given thanks to their God, and their Saviour. It had been too far to take the children ; so this day, the 9th of September, was given to them ; a day of prayer, and worship, and thankfulness, and inno- cent childish joy. 84 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Such quaint little old-world things they looked, so utterly unlike anything we English ever see in our own country ; it was no marvel that a tall auburn- bearded Englishman stood and gazed at them admir- ingly, and wished he could have painted the scene then and there. As it was, he was busy with pencil and paper, and when the procession filed into the church, and the priest had afterwards dismissed the children with his blessing, the artist sat on the steps of the Calvary surrounded by a little group of boys and girls, all eager to see what he was drawing, surprised and delighted beyond measure when they recognised their own quaint little dresses. Mr. Randall, for of course you know that the Eng- lishman was Mr. Randall, could speak fluent French, and a little Breton patois, so he entered into conver- sation with the children, heard their family histories, and was invited into several houses to eat pancakes ; for pancakes are the great institution of Brittany fete days ; looked upon much in the same way as our children at home look upon plum pudding at Christmas. He promised to visit them later in the day, mean- while out came his colour box, and a little girl ON FOREIGN SHORES. 85 appeared upon his block, dressed in a dark frock and a red bodice laced up the front, and a funny little gay shawl, and an embroidered apron, and a tight fitting cap of many colours, adorned with gold and silver lace, tied under her chin. The Artist sat on the steps of the Calvary. The face was the face of Lucie Gouarhne', the prettiest little girl in all the village, and when Mr. Randall looked round to see whioh of the boys he would paint, the smallest of them all, a little fellow of about six years old, was pushed forward by universal consent. N 86 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Paint Andre 7 , monsieur," they said, " paint little Andre* ; his clothes are quite new, and he has no mother, only a grandmother, and he is I'enfant de la mer (the child of the sea), and he is a good little boy." Mr, Randall looked at Andre 7 , and thought his attire was certainly the smartest and newest there. It consisted of a very bright blue jacket, a green waistcoat with brass buttons, a small frilled shirt front, loose white trowsers, and a red fisher cap. Andre* was a slight delicate looking little fellow, with blue eyes and bright golden hair, and a com- plexion that would have been very fair had it not been tanned by the sun and the sea. There was a timid expression in the blue eyes, as he raised them to the artist's face and said : " Please, monsieur, may I take the picture home to my grandmother ; she is very old ? " " Yes, certainly, my little man, you shall have a picture to-morrow. I am afraid I cannot spare this one to-day. What is your grandmother' s name ? " " Annette Penvraz, if you please, monsieur." " And you are Andre' Penvraz ? " " No, monsieur, I'm Andre, but not Penvraz. Azicklezad is my name." ON FOREIGN SHORES. 87 " A a what ? " There was a titter from the surrounding group. " He calls himself Azicklezad, monsieur," said one of the older boys ; "he will never call himself any- thing else ; he brought the name with him from the sea. We don't know how to spell it ; some say it's English but my uncle, who has been to the Red Sea, thinks it is Persian." " I don't think it is English," answered Mr. Ran- dall, so engrossed in his picture that he hardly heeded the boy's words. " Look up, Andre*, " he said, and the child, amused at the sight of himself on the block, laughed merrily, and somehow Mr. Randall's thoughts went back at that moment to the Indian bungalow and to the little sailor boy who had been his " friend." The morning passed away, the children, Andre' included, went off to their dinners, the artist stayed on, and put the finishing touches to his little sketches, and he smiled as he looked at the likeness of the quaint little Breton lad in his holiday suit, for it struck him that the expression on the tanned face was more like Nicco than like Andre. " I suppose I shall never forget the little lad," he said to himself ; "for his father's sake, who was the .88 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. most faithful friend a man ever had, I couldn't but love the boy, and I have managed to make this little chap look like him." In the evening of that September day the weather changed ; the wind rose, and the waves were high, and came dashing over the rocks against the shore ; the fishing-boats which had gone out in the afternoon were trying to get back as fast as they could, for the coast was a dangerous one, and each hour increased the fury of the raging, pitiless storm. The villagers had assembled on the beach; the children seemed to enjoy being blown about, and merry shouts of laughter were heard as some huge wave came in, and a shower of foaming spray covered them from head to foot. They had taken off their holiday suits, and now in their loose trowsers and blue smocks the boys felt free to do anything they liked ; they did not know what fear was ; even then a few of them were anxious to get into one of the little boats and try their rowing powers. A command from their respective mothers stopped them ; then they began to run races and to climb the mast of a disabled vessel which had been driven ashore in the last gale, and above the whistling wind ON FOREIGN SHORES. 89 and the roaring waves you could hear their young clear voices, singing one of the strange old monoto- nous songs which told of the marvellous exploits of some Breton hero of long ago. Mr. Randall stood and watched them, an amused spectator of the scene. Suddenly it seemed to him as though he heard a little plaintive cry, and looking round he saw Andre' sitting in a little cleft of a rock, looking pale and frightened. " What is it, my man ? " he said. Andrd did not answer, and a little girl, who was standing near, spoke for him. "It is always so, monsieur, when there is a storm ; he is afraid of the sea. Do not cry, Andre," she con- tinued; " your father is quite safe, and soon he will he home, and Mere Annette is cooking the pancakes, and there is to be a grand supper, and Andre shall have the biggest pancake for himself." But even the thought of the biggest pancake had no power of attraction for the little boy at that mo- ment ; he rubbed the sleeve of his blouse violently across his eyes, and he tried to stifle the sobs that cam & so thick and last, but come they would still, and at last Mr. Randall lifted him up in his strong arms, and asked him if he should carry him home. 90 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. For answer Andre wound his little arms round the artist's neck and laid his head on his shoulder con- fidingly. " Where does he live, my girl ? " " Up the hill, monsieur, close to the church; I will show you the way." So the three started off together, leaving the others on the shore to welcome the fishermen who were just coming in. Up the hill they went, Mr. Randall carry- ing his little burden, the girl clattering on before them in her wooden shoes, singing little snatches of song in a shrill piping voice. At last she stopped before a low building with a thatched roof, level with the top of the door. Two or three fowls walked out as she walked in, and beckoned to Mr. Randall to follow her. " Mere Annette is very deaf," she said; " there she is." It was a strange dwelling into which the artist was introduced ; he took it all in at a glance, and made up his mind that the very next day he would ask permission to draw it. " Such an interior is not often to be seen," he said to himself. The floor was of earth, very uneven in some places, ON FOREIGN SHORES. 91 in fact, somewhat hilly ; a few wooden benches and a wooden table formed the sole furniture of the room, only in the corner were two shutting-up bedsteads looking like cupboards ; these were half open, and the mattresses piled up upon them told the artist what they were intended for. Over the high chimney-piece hung a large iron Crucifix, and below it was a picture of St. Anne, the patron saint of Brittany. An old bent woman, with something on her head that looked like a man's nightcap, sat upon one of the wooden benches in the chimney corner ; a bundle of faggots had recently been thrown upon the hearth, and illuminated the bare room with a strange ruddy glow, and occasionally Mere Annette rose from her hard seat with some difficulty, and gave a turn to the pancakes, which were frying away merrily, and smelling remarkably good. The strange gentleman stood near her and took off his hat before she knew that he had come into the room. She looked astonished, and got up and made him a stately bow ; and he laid Andr^ gently down upon the bench, whilst the little girl jumped up there, and putting her small mouth close to Mere Annette's ear, gave an account of the boy's fright and the gentle- 92 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. man's kindness, and proceeded to say that he was the clever monsieur who drew the beautiful pictures, and who was going to give her Andre's picture the very next day. Then the old woman looked lovingly at the sleepy little boy, and again bowed to Mr. Randall, and fetch- ing a plate from a distant corner of the room she took a beautiful brown pancake from the pan and begged him to eat it, which of course he did, and expressed his approval and gratitude through little Jeannette, who was delighted to act as interpreter, he having entirely failed to make the deaf old woman hear or understand one word he said. He received a gracious permission to come the next day, and paint that strange interior ; then with a parting glance at the sleeping Andre he went back to the queer little inn where he had taken up his quarters for a few days. He heard the sound of footsteps coming from the beach, and he pictured the simlpe Breton folk sitting on the hard benches at their fete-day supper, singing their old songs and telling their strange old legendary tales. Then he turned into his room and had his first experience of one of those strange shutting-up bed- steads which he had seen in Mere Annette's cottage. ON FOREIGN SHORES. 93 It was somewhat close and stuffy, and this may have accounted for the artist's troubled dreams, in which Andre and little Nicco, and storms and ship- wrecks were mixed up in strange confusion, and when at last he awoke, the sun was streaming into his room, and he heard the chattering of little voices under his window, and the name of the English gentleman was apon every tongue. When he came down to breakfast a little party of three or four children walked into the salle d manger in the most unceremonious way, to know when Andre's likeness would be ready for Mere Annette. Andre him- self in his holiday suit, evidently dressed up for the occasion, had quite recovered from his fright, and seemed perfectly at his ease with his new friend. CHAPTER X. THE WRITING IN OLD MOTHER HUBBARD. THEY all went up together and sat on the steps of the Calvary, and Andre's likeness grew before their delighted eyes, and it was a matter of difficulty to get them to move when dinner time came. After that meal was over, there was a counter attraction of some kind on the beach, and besides this, Mr. Randall had announced his intention of going to Mere Annette's cottage and drawing her room. This the children looked upon as a great want of taste on his part, for there was really nothing pretty in that room. Now Jean Gouarhne had some beautiful pictures in his house, ships and horses, pigs and cows, which the monsieur would do well to copy, but as for the Penvraz abode, what could he see in it ? They shrugged their little shoulders in true French fashion, and Mr. Randall felt that he had fallen con- siderably in their estimation. OLD MOTHER HUB BARD. 95 He carried Andre's likeness to Mere Annette, and it was hung up beneath the Crucifix on a level with " Madame Saint Anne," as the Bretons call her, and a crowd came in to see and to admire, including about a dozen fowls and two pigs. Then the little room was cleared, Mere Annette composed herself to sleep in the chimney corner, and the artist sat on a bench and began to draw, doing a very spirited sketch of one of the pigs who had evidently taken up his position in front of the fire for the rest of the afternoon. Andre sat on one side of him, Jeannette (his little guide of the night before), on the other. I have told you Mr. Randall was a good French scholar, and knew something of the Breton patois, but those two small things talked to each other, and to him, at such a pace, that he could not understand them, and perhaps he did not take much trouble to listen to what they said. " Andre's father has gone sardine fishing at Dou- arnenez," said Jeanette, " and his mother is dead, but he never had a mother ; he is ' the child of the sea/ and Francis Penvraz picked him up and brought him home to Mere Annette, and he is a clever little boy, and very good ; he knows all about the old woman 96 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. and her dog, and has made up a story from his picture book, although he can't read it, because it's not a French book. Tell monsieur about it, Andre 1 ." Mr. Randall went on with his painting, the little girl's words ringing in his ears. " The child of the sea ; " " Fra^ois Penvraz picked him up and brought him home to Mere Annette ; " he repeated the words in French, and said, " What do you mean, Jeannette ? when, and where, and how was he picked up ? " Jeannette did not answer the question, for Andre had trotted off to a corner of the room, and out of a little wooden box had brought out a tattered book a very strange book to be found in any Breton house none other than a copy of that learned and popular work, " Old Mother Hubbard." There were the old dame and her dog on the frontispiece, just the same familiar picture upon which Mr. Randall, in common with most English- men, had gazed with delighted eyes when he was a little boy ; there were the verses so graphically describing the thrilling incidents of the tale, and there was one thing more, something on the fly leaf, where, of course, there was no picture, upon which it might have been natural that the artist would like to OLD MOTHER HUB BARD. 97 linger, and yet at which he stared in a bewildered fashion for a second or two. There were a few words written there, which Mr Randall himself would have been the first person to confess were somewhat difficult to decipher, for he was always willing to own his own deficiencies, and, strange though it may seem, it was his own hand- writing upon which he was looking, and the words he read were : " Nicco, a little lad, from his friend John Eandall." The children stood looking at him wonderiugly, evidently astonished at his want of taste in not turn- ing over the leaves of " Old Mother Hubbar 1 " more quickly. At last he took the boy on his knee and kissed the tanned forehead and the golden hair, and said, in a voice which trembled so that Jeannette said after- wards that she thought he had been crying, "Nicco, Nicco, my little lad." " Azicklezad," repeated Nicco (we must call our little hero by his right name now), "Azicklezad, that's my name ! " and a look was upon his face as though something once familiar, but long forgotten, had come to him, and he patted the artist's cheeks and pulled his long beard and said, " Nicco, Nicco, LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Azicklezad," and then he laughed merrily, evidently very well pleased with himself and his friend. No more of the interior of the cottage was drawn He took the boy on his knee, and kissed the tanned forehead, and the golden hair. that day, nor the next, nor the next. A hasty sketch was taken of it, just the very hour before Mr. Randall and Nicco left for England, a week afterwards. But before that time came there was very much to OLD MOTHER HUB BARD. do and to arrange. There had been no getting any- thing out of poor old Mere Annette, her memory was fast failing her. Mr. Randall was almost glad that it was so, for she loved Nicco very dearly, and the wrench would have been terrible, had she fully realised that he was to be taken from her. As it was, she seemed to understand that some- thing unusual had happened, and she used to watch the little boy as he trotted about the room, and when he was away from her she would go up and kiss his likeness. She little knew, poor old soul, that before many days had passed, that was all that would be left her of the little one who had come to her out of the sea. No one could quite tell when Frangois Penvraz would return from Douarnenez. Mr. Randall sent a messenger off at once, requesting him to come back as soon as he could, but the sardine boats had gone off to some distance, and it was four days after that afternoon upon which the artist had studied Mother Hubbard, that a tall black -haired Breton appeared upon the scene, and said that he was Andre's father. He was somewhat indignant at first that any one else should claim the boy, but he listened to the artist's story patiently, and was evidently very much 100 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. dazzled at the thought that his humble home had sheltered what he chose to call "an English Milord a real Sare." During the few days before Fra^ois came home, Mr. Randall had picked up the principal details of the finding of Nicco. In a raging storm on that wild Breton coast, one October night, an Italian brig had been wrecked. She fired her guns, and Fra^ois Penvraz and another brave fisherman went off to the rescue, and saved one man out of six. In that man's arms was a little boy. The poor fellow only lived two days, and during that time he told how it was that the child had been a passenger on board that ill-fated brig. She had come upon a homeward-bound steamer, cut in two in a fog. The captain had waited about near the wreck to do what he could, but the only living creature who had been rescued by him was a little boy. They had picked up a few boxes, and those were washed ashore upon the beach at Plou- gastel, and the contents divided between Penvraz and his companion. Nothing of any great value was found. A few clothes, some Indian sweatmeats, and in one little OLD MOTHER HUB BARD. 101 case a child's wardrobe underlinen most daintily made, some pretty frocks, and a tiny sailor's suit ; last, but not least, the famous " History of Mother Hubbard." The fashion of the little clothes and the marks on the linen were the same as those which the boy was wearing ; and when he saw the book he hailed it as an old friend, and proceeded to embrace the old lady and the dog rapturously. There was one more proof of identity which Mr. Randall could establish. He remembered how one day when Nicco was a baby, his father had drawn down his sleeve and shown him a strangely large mole on the fat little left arm, and there it was now, clearly and distinctly proving, if further proof were necessary, that Andre* was none other than Sir Nicholas Tremaine. Mr. Randall wrote to Messrs. Harris and Graham, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and told them the strange story, and he sent off a telegram to Mr. Carew : " Tell Lady Tremaine that Nicco is found beyond the shadow of a doubt. Both of us home within a week." The last day came, the last time for Nicco to play with his little friends, or to sit in the old house with his Father and Grandmother, as he still called Francois Penvraz and Mere Annette. 102 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. In spite of the joy Mr. Randall felt at having found the boy, his heart was very full of sadness, for last times are sad things to thoughtful minds ; they mean that what has been can never come again, quite in the same way, and Nicco's simple life in the Breton fishing-village, in another day, would be a thing of the past, and the little feet would enter into the new and yet untried path of the future. There was a supper given in his honour in the room with the hard seats and the wooden table, and the beds (shut up for the occasion), in the corner. Poor old Mere Annette made more pancakes than she had ever made in her life, and she sat at the head of the festive board, and her son sat at the foot, with Mr. Randall on one side of him, and Nicco on the other. They drank the little Baronet's health, and called him " Milord Sare Nicholas," and the poor little fellow, who was so sleepy that he could scarcely keep his eyes open, made a little speech which he had learnt by heart, in which he said : " Thank you all, my kind friends, and I love you very much, and I hope you will all come and see me in England, and I will pray to the good God to bless you all." OLD MOTHER HUBEARD. 103 For the last time he slept in the little crib, which Fran9ois Penvraz had made for him when he first came to them from the sea, and in the morning he went very early to the Church, and knelt there and said his childish prayers before the Altar, where he had often said them before, when he was only a little village boy Frangois Penvraz' and Mere Annette's " child of the sea." When the service was over the good old Cure went up to him and laid his hands upon the little golden head and blessed him, and asked God to give His Angels charge over him, and be with him always. Mr. Randall gave Nicco an envelope to put into his hand, which contained fifty pounds for the benefit of " Sir Nicholas Tremaine's kind friends during the coming winter." Then they went out to the Calvary, and standing under the shadow of tho Cross and the Saints and the Martyrs, they looked out upon the blue sea, and upon the masts of the ships in Brest harbour. And all this, too, for the last time. There was one more great event to take place before the good-byes were said, and that was the presentation of two beautiful cows to Mere Annette. They were waiting at the door now, and the old woman stood there smiling brightly, and when she 104 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. was told they were Andrews present (he was always Andre' to her), she cried for joy, and kissed the boy, and told him he was the comfort of her old life. " One cow had been her heart's desire for years ; what could she say of two ? God was too good to her." The poor old soul walked off with her treasures to the long- empty stables, at the back of the house, and when she returned to the solitary room, she went up and kissed little Nicco's likeness. It was all she could do now, for by that time Nicco himself was in the ferry-boat half way over to Brest, from whence he and Mr. Randall were to take the train for Cherbourg. All the village had gone down to the beach to see them off Nicco in his holiday suit, with a large red rose in his button-hole. They cheered the little lad lustily, and shook hands with him and kissed him, and seemed as though they could not part with him. Again the Cure blessed him, again poor Frangois Penvraz took him in his arms and bade him never forget him, nor Mere Annette, and promised in broken whispers, that he would soon come to Eng- land to see him in his grand new home. OLD MOTHER HUB BARD. 105 Poor Nicco did not quite understand what it all meant ; he cheered also, until he stood by Mr. Randall's side upon the ferry-boat, and then when he saw red and blue handkerchiefs raised to the eyes of young and old (even Monsieur le Cure's red handkerchief was very conspicuous) and when he heard the echo of loud sobs, the loudest of all pro- ceeding from little Jeannette, he took out his hand- kerchief (which was blue) and sobbed for company's sake, and Mr. Randall lifted him up, and bade him take off his fisher's cap and wave it. He waved that and the handkerchief together, and kept on doing it, until the group on the shore had turned homewards. And so it was that " Milord Sare Nicholas " looked his last look for a long, long time Upon his old home. CHAPTER XL A TELEGRAM. THE Vicar of Trecastle was at dinner when he receive^. Mr. Randall's telegram. He was an old man, and generally took an after- dinner nap, but on that evening he astonished his servants by ringing the bell more violently than he had ever been known to ring it before, and told the housemaid that he did not want anything more than the soup of which he had already par- taken, he was going up to the Cottage and he did not know when he should be back. " I beg your pardon, sir," answered Sarah, who had lived at the Vicarage for five-and-thirty years, "but I hope my Lady isn't ill?" " 111 ! what are you dreaming about, my good girl ?" (Mr. Carew always called Sarah a girl although she would be fifty on her next birthday). "Ill ! I should think not ; she has not been so well for years ; that is, when I get up there she will be better than she has A TELEGRAM. 107 been for a long time. Put some coals on my head, Sarah, and my hat and great coat in the fire, and then I shall be able to start." Sarah was alarmed ; her usually quiet gentle master was certainly not quite himself. She stood and looked at him anxiously. " I beg your pardon, sir, coals on your head, did you say?" " Don't be stupid, my good girl. I meant what I said ; but never mind, I'll get rny hat and coat myself, and I will run up to the Cottage in no time." The thought of Mr. Carew running, when he suffered so much from rheumatism that at times he could hardly walk, was to the timid Sarah a further proof that his mind was affected. He went out and shut the door, leaving her look- ing disconsolately at an uncut leg of mutton, which cook had taken particular pains "to do exactly to the dear old master's liking." In another minute he was back again ; his con- science reproached him for having spoken rather sharply to his faithful servant. " Sarah," he said, "can you keep a secret?" "You know I can, sir, I've kept a many; there was widow " 108 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Never mind about the secrets you have kept, my good girl, I only want you to keep this one for a day or two. Sarah, it's wonderful news that came inside that yellow envelope you brought me in just now. Our own little Master Nicco is alive and well. Mr. Randall has found him in some out-of-the-way French place, and he is Sir Nicholas." Sarah felt as though she ought to faint ; it was a thing she always seemed to think she ought to do if she was told any great news, whether sad or joyful ; fortunately she never managed to accomplish it, and on this occasion she only sank down upon a chair, and the good old Vicar hurried away and left her to recover as best she could. When, a few minutes afterwards, she returned to the kitchen and was questioned by the cook as to the cause of the master's extraordinary behaviour with respect to the leg of mutton, she drew herself up with dignity and said, " she hoped she knew her place better than to ask any questions." Meanwhile, Mr. Carew was walking as quickly as he could running was impossible, even under such circumstances to the Cottage. The sun had long set, but the harvest moon was rising above the heudluud, and Icavicg a track of A TELEGRAM. 109 light upon the sea, and as he stood waiting for admission at the door, he took off his hat and thanked God for his goodness, and murmured : " The sea has given up her dead." " Robinson," he said, as he stood in the hall taking off his great coat, " Robinson, my good fellow, shake hands." Robinson's fears for the Vicar's sanity were roused, as Sarah's had been, at this very peculiar greeting. Mr. Carew was known for miles round as being the most pleasant gentleman that ever was, but he was not in the habit of shaking hands with the butler, except on Christmas Day, and then he did it in a quiet, clerical kind of way, not at all with the excitement of this evening. "You'll stay outside the door if you please, Robin- son, in case I want you. I should like you to be within call ; I think it just possible your mistress may faint, though of course I'll do it as gently as I can." " Yes, sir," answered Robinson respectfully, trying to conceal his astonishment, then as the door of Lady Tremaine's sitting-room closed behind the Vicar, he said to himself, " Quo would think he was a-going to draw a tooth Q 110 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. for her ladyship. I hope he hasn't had a stroke of parallils or anything like that. I've heard as it often begins by the parties as is took not knowing what they are saying of." Mr. Carew need have been under no apprehension as to the way in which the gentle old lady might take the news he had brought her. She was sitting near the window, looking at the moon upon the sea ; she had told Robinson not to draw down the blinds, and only the soft light of a shaded lamp was upon the table under Nicco's likeness, throwing a glow upon the bright little face. " I was looking at the wondrous sea," she said, after she had greeted him in her usual courteous way. And he laying, his hand upon her arm, and looking straight up at the picture said, " Wondrous, indeed, Lady Tremaine, so wondrous, that she sometimes gives up her dead ! " Something in his face and in the tone of his voice told her what it was he had come to say. "You have brought me news," she said, "news of our little Nicco. Tell it me please at once ; I can bear it" He handed her the telegram, and she went to the A TELEGRAM. Ill lamp to read it ; and so under Nicco's picture she read of his safety. " Thank God," was all she said. " Oh, what would his dear grandfather not give to know it ! " Lady Tremaine reads of Nicco's safety under his portrait. " Don't you think he does know it, dear lady ; don't you think he has seen with clearer, more perfect intelligence than ours, all that has come ay, all 112 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. that will come to those he loved so well on earth, whom he loves with a better love now ? " For answer she bowed her head upon her hands, and the Vicar heard her murmur, " Poor little Gerald, it will be hard for him." Up to that moment the good Vicar had not given the poor little (supposed) Baronet a thought; there had been no room for any one but Nicco in his loving old heart; he had been his father's and his uncle's tutor, he had baptized them and prepared them for Confirmation, and Walter's boy must necessarily be very dear to him. When the thought of Gerald did come to him, he was very sorry for the boy, and wondered what would become of him and of his mother and sister. " I have only one request to make," said Lady Tremaine ; " when we know a little more, I should like to tell Mrs. Tremaine and Gerald about it myself. I should like to make it as easy for them as possible, for it will be very hard." " I am sure you will do it better than any one else. Of course it must be a terrible disappointment to them, but still they ought to be glad that Nitfco is found." " I think Gerald will be ; he is a brave, generous little fellow ; he has been very good to me and has A TELEGRAM. 113 brightened my lonely old life for the last three months ; and now my little Nicco is coming, my own little sailor lad, to bring me still greater brightness." Poor Kobinson stood for a long time outside his mistress' door, until at last the Vicar came out and told him that her ladyship wished to speak to him. He, poor old fellow, behaved more foolishly than any one ; when he was told the news he sobbed like a baby, and could hardly be persuaded from going down to the village to blazon it abroad. "It must be a secret until we hear more particu- lars," Lady Tremaine said. " I hope I can trust you, Robinson." Thus put upon his metal, of course the old man felt that he must not tell any one the joy that had come to the village with the light of the harvest moon, only he explained to his friends afterwards, " that those two days had nearly proved fatal to him, had it not been for an occasional dose of peppermint water, which, he always maintained, was the finest medicine out, he felt sure he should have died of combustion of the heart." Two days afterwards, another visitor arrived for Lady Tremaine, and spent most of the day in her 114 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. sitting room, the Vicar being called in in the after- noon to assist at the council. The visitor was the senior partner of the firm of Messrs. Harris and Graham, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There was a great deal of talk in that usually quiet little room, a great deal of dry law detail which it would be rather wearisome to write about, still more wearisome perhaps to read. Lady Tremaine was for the present, Mr. Harris assured her, until she appointed any one else, the natural guardian of her dead son's boy. The estate was absolutely Nicco's, subject only to the payment of his Grandmother's dower ; apart from this she was a rich woman, having inherited a large fortune from her mother, and with her own she could do as she liked, without in any way wronging Nicco. What she liked to do, and what she did do, was to settle a large sum of money then and there upon Gerald, and a smaller sum upon his mother and sister. " It is but just," she said, " and I am fond of tho boy." Neither Mr. Harris nor the Vicar attempted to oppose her wishes ; they knew they had no right whatever to do so ; they could but say and think that A TELEGRAM. U5 it was hard upon "those other Trenuaines," as the villagers called them, to be so suddenly deprived of their newly acquired riches, and they felt it was a most kind and noble act, if not necessarily a just one, which the old lady did that day. She had another wish to lay before them : she told them that she felt she was getting an old woman, not fit to have a child with her constantly ; " and children need companionship," she said. " I know how lonely Walter was, when Nicholas went to sea, so I have thought it over, and my wish is that Mrs. Tre- maine and her children should stay at the House, and make a home for Nicco, and I will live the rest of my old life here in the shade, and those young lives will be an occasional, indeed, a constant brightness to me ; but I should like to stay here and not move again until I am carried a little farther off, the first step to the Shore where my dear ones are waiting for me." It was all arranged. Mr. Harris went back to Lon- don the very next morning, and by that time all Tre- castle knew that their own little Baronet was alive, and was coming home. For the evening before, when the lawyer had gone off to dine with the Vicar, Lady Tremaine sent for Gerald and his mother and told them the joy that LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. had come to her ; the loss to them. Poor Mrs. Tre- maine, who was a good little woman, was really glad for the friend who had been so kind to her boy ; what it all meant to Gerald she had hardly time to think, for the kind old lady was sitting with her hand in hers, telling all that she had done, and how glad and thankful she had been to do it. As for Gerald himself, he had a vague idea that everything would go on just as it had done before, only that he would have, what he was always longing for, a companion of his own age, some one better than the fisher boys, who were the only lads in Trecastle. Lady Tremaine put her arm round him and kissed him, and said, " You don't mind about it do you, Gerald?" " Not a bit, Granny ; I'm awfully glad ; I'll be Sir Gerald, and he'll be Sir Nicholas, and I will ride Dandy, and he will ride Peterkin, and won't we have fun ? " " Yes, dear, I hope you will be great friends, and have great fun ; only, Gerald, you will not be Sir Gerald any more, although everything else will be just the same." " And will he, Nicco, be Sir Nicholas ? " " Yes, dear, because, you see, Sir Nicholas, my hus A TELEGRAM. 117 band, was his grandfather, and his uncle Nicholas and his father died, and so the little boy, our little Nicco, is the rightful heir; it was only because we thought he was dead, Gerald, that you came to us, but I am glad you did come, rny boy, and in all else, but that you will not be Sir Gerald, everything will be just as it has been." "And you will be my Granny still," said the boy, "and you will love me best." " I will aways love you very much, dear." " Better than Nicco ; you have never seen him, and you may not like him a bit." " Gerald, my boy, Nicco must always be dearest to me for the sake of those who are gone, but for your own sake I must always love you very dearly," then she kissed him more lovingly than she had ever kissed him before, and he went away with his Mother with something of the old scowl upon his handsome little face. " Mother," he said, " if she doesn't always love me better than she loves Nicco, I will hate him." " Hush, darling, you must not say such things as that ; Nicco is her own little grandson." Gerald did not answer, for they were in the vil- lage by this time, and there every one was astir ; the R 118 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. first tidings of the great news had oozed out and every man, woman, and child in the place talked as fast and loud as he or she could, and in their pleasure and excitement they all greeted Mrs. Tremaine and Gerald with great respect, and even cordiality. Tom Austen himself, the centre, as he usually was, of the youngsters, took off his cap and made quite a low bow, and said "Good evening, sir; a fine evening, ain't it?" " Poor little chap, I'm sorry for him, for he'll never be nothing more than a Dutchman now," he said to his companions. At which piece of wit the others of course laughed, but in their hearts they were all rather sorry for the manly little fellow. Human nature is better than we generally give it credit for being ; no one except a coward likes to hit a man, or a boy either, when he's down, and poor Gerald was down now. To have been a Baronet, and then to be by common consent sentenced never to rise above being a Dutchman (although none of the Trecastle children could have quite defined what a Dutchman meant), was of course a position which called forth some pity. The boy and his mother went home to tell the great news to Margaret. A TELEGRAM. 119 " I'm not to be Sir Gerald any more, and I don't care a bit, for I shall have Dandy, and I shall have Nicco to play with, and Granny will always love me better than she loves him.'' " Oh, Gerald, Nicco is her very own little boy." " Hold your tongue, will you ; I tell you she has promised to love me best, and if she doesn't I will hate him." Margaret knew that it was no use arguing with the child, but she felt very unhappy ; the shadow of some nameless fear was upon the little heart whicli had for so long known what it was to be anxious about something or somebody ; she was anxious now, she did not quite know about what, but when she said her prayers that night, she asked God to make Gerald love Nicco, and be kind to him. The next morning when lessons were over she asked leave to walk down to the village ; she wanted to see what old Nolan said about it all ; he was so wise about most things, and always told her something which "him in Heliotrope Gardens" had said, which helped her out of her difficulties. She did not tell him what Gerald said about hating Nicco : she was too true and loyal ever to speak of tha faults of those she loved; only after the wonderful 120 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. news had been duly discussed, and Nolan, who knew everything, and had had friends in Brittany once upon a time, had given his opinion as to the length of time the journey would take, she said timidly, " Mr. Nolan, I want Gerald to love Nicco ; do you think he will ? " This was a point upon which the old shoemaker's usual oracle could not of course be said to have given any opinion. All he could do was to scratch his head, an experiment to which he always resorted when he was puzzled, and to say, " I hope he will, little Miss, I'm sure ; I think as how he ought to." " And if he doesn't, Mr. Nolan, what am I to do ? " " I expects, little Miss, him in Heliotrope Gardens would say, ' Just bear it and be patient,' it's just one of them things where doing won't do nothing, and bearing will do a lot, and you can get along the track by bearing, just as much as by doing ; and perhaps if I may make so bold as to say it, if you'll just put it into your prayers that you're a bit anxious about it, I'll put it into mine, and God will answer them prayers in the way He thinks best, and it will be all right, little Miss, as him in Heliotrope Gardens says, although sometimes it may seem a bit rough and crooked like." CHAPTER XII. THE DEPOSED MONARCH AND THE REIGNING MONARCH. JUST one week had passed away since that evening when the Vicar had received the yellow envelope, the contents of which were to make so much difference in the lives of so many of our friends. And now a second yellow envelope had come to the village post office, not this time addressed to the Vicar but to Lady Tremaine herself. The message came from Plymouth, and said : " All well ; home by the five o'clock train." Five minutes after its receipt at the Cottage, Robinson stood upon the village green and read it in loud tones to the assembled crowd. And the crowd cheered as only Englishmen can cheer, and the white goose and the grey donkey respectively cackled and brayed, and the other geese and the ducks, and the old brown donkey (who was gener- 122 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. ally supposed to be too old and too stupid to do anything) followed their leaders, and cackled and brayed also, and the noise altogether was so deafening that Robinson was obliged to beg them to be quiet, as " her ladyship was sitting at her window, and it might disturb her. Her nerve * was a bit upset that morning, as was but natural like." Of course, the clamour at once ceased. No one in all Trecastle would think of disturbing " their own lady " no one but the brown donkey, who showed his stupidity by braying loudly until every one had gone away; then he stopped and ate his dinner. It seemed the longest afternoon that any of the good people of Trecastle had ever known. They had nothing to do but to wait, for all the preparations had been made. There was an arch, gay with flowers, at the entrance of the village ; there were flags hanging from every cottage window, and every mast of every boat was decorated in some way or another. And there were more " Welcomes " and " Loner O Lives " than you could count, in all imaginable places, the most original being suspended upon cards of different sizes round the necks of the donkeys and the geese and the ducks, who all seemed to rise to DEPOSED AND REIGNING MONARCHS. 123 the dignity of the occasion, and to wear their novel decorations at least with patience. Outside the paddock was nailed a very large piece of cardboard, on which was written, in red and blue and gold letters, "Welcome to my noble little rider." The original destination of this work of art had been Peterkin's neck, but I am sorry to have to record the fact that he would not allow it to stay there. He behaved as he had never been known to behave before. He kicked and plunged and reared, and would not be pacified until what he evidently looked upon as either an instrument of torture, or a mark of disgrace, was transferred to the paddock palings. Its position there might have led any one who was not aware of the fact that on the other side of those palings there lived the beautiful Peterkin, to suppose that " the noble little rider " was to mount the palings themselves ; but there are many things in this world that cannot be explained in a few words, and this was one of them. Old Nolan's little cottage stood at the extreme corner of the green, just opposite the turning to the lodge gates of the Dower House, where it had been arranged that the little Baronet was to drive first, so 124 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. he had taken very particular pains with his window. Amidst several vases of flowers (or rather, what were supposed to represent vases, some being ginger-beer bottles and others milk-jugs), stood a pair of shiny Wellington boots, ornamented with two red paper wreaths, and suspended above them was a card, bearing the following inscription : "WELCOME AND LONG LIFE TO SIR NICKLIS, FROM TIMOTHY NOLAN, Once Bootmaker to the fust Cv^sin of the Rite Wusshipfull THE LORD MARE OF LONDON." It may be well to remark here that " Sir Nicklis " was much struck with these boots and pointed them out to Mr. Randall as they drove past. Of course, he did not understand English, so could not read the writing ; doubtless in his little mind he thought it looked very well, although he said nothing about it. The hours of that September afternoon passed away as all hours do pass away, whether they bring joy or sorrow with them. The sun shone brightly, as it had done all through the day, and at five o'clock the church bells began to chime out their glad welcome to the little boy who was coming to the home of his ancestors. DEPOSED AND REIGNING MONARCHS. 125 And as the bells began to ring, the wind began to rise, borne in upon the waves with a low moaning sound, which portended a coming storm. But no one heeded the portent very much, for there was not one single Trecastle boat at sea. No fisherman amongst them all would have been absent from the village on that day, even had they known that a shoal of pilchards was waiting for them outside. Through the clang of the bells, and the moaning waves, and the whistling wind, another sound was heard the rumble of carriage wheels, and soon the horses' heads were seen turning the corner of the road, and two old fiddlers struck up " See, the conquering hero comes ! " and a rush was made at the old-fashioned landau, where the Baronet sat by the side of Mr. Randall, looking very shy and very tired. At Cherbourg, a little over-coat had been bought for him, and he had worn it during the voyage to Plymouth, in fact, until he and his friend found themselves the sole occupants of the first-class car- riage by which they were to travel to St. Petrocks Station. Then the artist bethought himself of making the little lad look as tidy and as picturesque as possible, s 126 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. so he took off the over-coat, and smoothed the rather crumpled shirt frills, and put a rose into the little button-hole, and then he looked at him and thought what a sweet little fellow he was, and how they had all loved him at Plougastel, and then he sighed and wondered what this new life might be to the child. Nicco's dress was what it had been on the fete day, when he first saw him, only a pair of blue and red striped trousers had been substituted for the white ones, which rather added to the already brilliant colouring of the other parts of his attire ; and so it was in this strange un-English dress that Sir Nicholas Tremaine made his triumphal entry into the village. The carriage stopped at the paddock gates, for a bright idea had struck some one, which was, that just under the words of welcome to "My noble little Rider," Peterkin should be in waiting, bridled and saddled, with Tom Austen standing at his head. The effect was grand ; Peterkin held up his head bravely, and Nicco clapped his little hands with delight when he saw him, and was told by Mr. Ran- dall that he was his very own pony. Every one wanted a shake of the hand, poor Nicco was thoroughly bewildered before it was all over, but he bore it very DEPOSED AND REIGNING MONARCHS. 127 well, and spoke the only English words he could speak, in a strange un-English way. "How do you do ? How do you do ? " How many times he said it, it would be impossible to tell, and when it was all over he lifted his fisher's cap from his head, and with a little timid " Sank you," said at Mr. Randall's dictation, the carriage drove off. " He's a Tremaine every inch of him," said Jack Austen; "when we gets him into proper clothes, instead of them outlandish things, he'll look the very image of his picture, bless his little heart ! " And every one agreed with Jack ; the grandson of Sir Nicholas, the son of " the Capting," would have been pronounced " a Tremaine every inch of him," had he resembled a monkey. A few minutes more of quick driving and the other side of the green was reached, but the crowd had been at the paddock ; no one had dared to ven- ture to the lodge gates, Robinson had been so very peremptory in his orders that her ladyship was not to be disturbed. But strange to say, it was just at this point that the two donkeys, and the geese and the ducks, with the cards of welcome hanging round their necks, pre- 128 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. sented themselves to the Baronet, who, at the sight of them, went off into a merry laugh, and somehow looked upon them as old friends, for donkeys and geese and ducks are much the same all the world over, and at Plougastel there were a great many of them. Another minute or two, and the carriage was driving slowly up the steep drive which led to the Cottage, and for the first time Nicco looked upon Trecastle Bay and saw the great waves dashing against the rocks. A boat from the other side was trying to make its way across, one moment rising above the billows, the next moment hidden beneath them. And, as he looked, Nicco drew nearer to his friend, and put his little hand in his and said : " Oh, Monsieur, they will be drowned, indeed they will." " No, my little lad, they are quite safe ; this is nothing of a storm, Nicco." " Oh yes, it is a storm, the waves are high. I wish the little boat would come to shore." By this time they were at the door of the Cottage, and on the steps stood the Vicar and Robinson. Mr. Randall got out first, and lifted the little fellow ill his arms. DEPOSED AND REIGNING MOXARCHS. 129 " My little lad, God bless you," said the Vicar, the tears in his old eyes. "Welcome home, Sir Nicholas," said Robinson in a shaky voice ; " I'm glad to see you, sir." For answer, Nicco held out his little hand and said " How do you do ? " to each of them ; then he lifted his little red cap and bowed, and added his last new word, " Sank you." When he had done this he clung very closely to Mr. Randall, as though he were afraid of what would happen next. The good man had made somewhat of a mistake ; he was devoted to children, to Nicco in particular, but this only made him over anxious that the boy should please his Grandmother. He had, truth to tell, resented the old lady's evident affection for Gerald, and he wanted the first impressions of his little friend to be good ; con- sequently, he had tried hard to school him into proper behaviour, and, as a matter course, had over- done it. The little lad had not been prepared for the villagers' ovation, and he had taken it quite naturally, and did his part well, but he knew now that he was going to be introduced to a grandmother who was not Mere Annette, and his courage failed 130 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. him, and Mr. Randall had to carry him upstairs and push him gently into the room. An old lady, tall, and graceful, and dignified, as unlike the old woman sitting in the chimney corner of the poor old house at Plougastel as can possibly be imagined, advanced to meet him, and then knelt down and put her arms round him, and sobbed little gentle sobs, and said " Nicco, Nicco, thank God you have come home." And all poor Nicco did was to wriggle, and try and get away from those loving arms. "Nicco, speak to your Grandmother," said Mr. Randall. " How do you do, Madame ? " "Not Madame, Nicco darling, Granny." Of course Nicco did not understand what was expected of him, and looked at his friend for an explanation. It was given in French, a language of which poor Lady Treinaine did not understand one word. She had learnt to read it when she was at school, but it was all forgotten now. " You are to say Granny, Nicco," said Mr. Randall, getting impatient. But Nicco either could not or would not obey ; he began to cry and to say he wanted to go back to DEPOSED AND REIGNING MONARCHS. 131 Mere Annette. His friend w?.s at that moment very thankful that her ladyship's French education had been neglected, for even as it was, she looked pained and disappointed, and said in a low, sad voice : "Gerald took to me at once, and told me he loved me." " You must allow for the difference of language, Lady Tremaine, also of circumstances ; I don't suppose Nicco ever saw a carpet or a looking-glass in his life before. I must show you my sketch of his Breton home." " Yes, I know all that, but still, I had hoped it might have been different," and she looked up sadly at the picture of the tiny sailor boy in his cocked hat, and then at the little Breton peasant in his quaint costume. " He will be all right to-morrow," said the poor disappointed artist ; " you don't know how they all loved him at Plougastel." Just at that moment the wind howled dismally, and in the distance you could hear the raging of the sea. Then Nicco went and hid his face in Mr. Randall's hands, and sobbed out something about the poor little ship." " What is it ?" asked his Grandmother. 132 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " I think he is afraid of the storm ; he always was, they tell me, at PlougasteL" This time Lady Tremaine smiled, but it was a grave, sorrowful smile ; " He has changed his mind since the days when he resolved to be a sailor," she said. " There is time enough for him to change it again within the next few years ; I am quite sure he will never be a coward." " I hope not ; no Tremaine ever was one. Perhaps he is tired, poor little man, and he had better go home at once. Mrs. Tremaine has your room ready ; we hope you will stay as long as you can, until Nicco has made friends with us all." So Nicco was told to wish his Grandmother good-bye, which he did by holding up his little face for a kiss, and saying, " Sank you," and then he once more put his hand in his friend's, and trotted off joyfully. He was not so frightened at the thought of his next visit; he knew he was to see a little boy not much older than himself, with whom he was to play, and there was a girl also, bigger than Jeannette, but just as kind and good as she was, and the boy would be his brother, and the girl his sister. They stood hi the hall np he jumped out of the DEPOSED AND REIGNING MONARCHS. carriage, and Gerald in his black velvet suit with lace collar and cuffs, a manly, handsome little fellow, went forward to meet him as he had been told to "I am very glad to see you." do, and shook hands with him, and said, " I am very glad to bee you." And Nicco this time did not say the usual " How T 134 LITTLE S7A' NICHOLAS. do you do," but by some happy inspiration he took off his cap, and stood for a minute looking round him, on the doorstep, then he smiled, and made a little bow, and said, " Sank you." And thus it was that the deposed monarch and the reigning monarch met on the threshold of the old House on the CliE CHAPTER XIII. NEVER A MAN, NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. MR. RANDALL stayed at Trecastle for ten days ; not at the House on the Cliff, but at his lodging in Nolan's cottage ; he thought it wiser to leave Nicco to get on as best he could without him, especially when he found that a nurse had been engaged for him who could speak French fluently, and so the child would have an interpreter and not feel as utterly lonely as he might have done had no one been able to under- stand him. Then the artist went away to Rome with rather a heavy heart, for with one person at least Nicco had so far proved a decided failure, and that person was the one of all others with whom his friend wished him to stand highest ; the worst of it was, it was all the boy's own fault. Lady Tremaine was all that was loving and gentle to him, and tried to please him in every way; he 136 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. had been shy enough on that first evening, he shrank from her more and more as the days went on. As soon as he got into her pretty sitting-room, he was anxious to get away ; he was always very still, very quiet, standing and looking at her with the wistful blue eyes which reminded her of her own dead boys ; but they had only looked wistful sometimes, when they had done wrong perhaps, and were asking forgiveness ; at other times they used to light up with frolic and fun, and looked very much as Nicco's looked in the picture Mr. Randall had painted. The artist had often seen that expression in them since; the village people said that, "the sparkle of his blue eyes would mark him out anywhere for a Tremaine"; but the poor loving old Grandmother never saw it. He used to go to see her every day with Gerald ; and the boy who was really as nothing to her, was always bright and pleasant and loving, whilst the little one who ought to have been everything to her, would hardly let her as much as caress him. It was easily to be accounted for at first ; of course all was so new and strange to him that it might have been expected he would not be quite at NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 137 his ease with any one, but in a very few days, in spite of his natural shyness, the bright childish nature asserted itself, and Nicco's laugh sounded through the old rooms at the House on the Cliff, just as merrily as Gerald's did ; and when he Avent down to the village he won all hearts by his funny little foreign ways ; and his delight and courage the first time he mounted Peterkin made Tom Austen his most devoted slave. The old Breton costume was put away, and the boy appeared in a sailor's dress and hat, and in the evening he looked a sweet little gentleman in a King Charles suit of black velvet like Gerald's. He and his little cousin were very good friends, but all Nicco's childish devotion was given to Margaret ; he followed her about the house like a dog, and it was very pretty, when he had learnt to put a few English words together, to hear him say, " Margazet, take care of Nicco Azicklezad." His nurse, Clementine by name, who had been born in England of French parents, did not take very much notice of him ; perhaps she thought it better policy to make much of Gerald and so to please Gerald's mother. She used to laugh at Nicco's strange ways, and tell him " he was not a bit of a gentleman ; 138 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. it was no wonder that her Ladyship liked Master Gerald so much better than she liked him ; no won- der that she was sorry that he had come back from the dirty old woman in Brittany." The blue eyes used to do more than sparkle then; they used to glitter with just such a light as had shone in the eyes of some of those old Tremaines who had stood face to face with the foe by land and sea, and the little foot would come down with a stamp, and the angry little voice would say, " Mere Annette is not dirty " (which, by the way, Nicco, was hardly the truth), "she is my dear, dear grandmere, and I want to go back to her." Unfortunately, Margaret did not understand one word of these conversations ; she only saw that Nicco was angry ; whether rightly or wrongly of course she could not judge. She asked him what was wrong, and his explana- tion was given in voluble French ; then she appealed to Clementine, who answered, " Oh, it's nothing at all, Miss, but his ways are not like the ways of a little gentleman, not like Master Gerald's ways, and I was only trying to teach him better, and, law, haven't he got a temper ! " "Mother," Margaret said to her mother that evening NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 139 when the boys had gone to bed, " Mother, I don't think Clementine is kind to Nicco." " Why not, my dear ? What can be your reason for thinking such a thing ? such an excellent char- acter as I had with her ! " Margaret told her story, and gentle Mrs. Tremaine, whose one wish was to do her duty to the little Baronet, and to make him happy, answered " I am afraid, dear, he must be corrected some- times, for, you see, his bringing up has been so extra- ordinary, and of course we want him to behave as Sir Nicholas Tremaine ought to behave ; I think Cle- mentine must be allowed to manage him in her own way, for, you see, she is the only one amongst us who can make him understand what he ought to do, or ought not to do." So poor Margaret had to see what she did not like, and to bear it all, for she could do nothing, and her only comfort was that old Nolan had said, " Just bear and be patient." So she asked God to take care of Nicco, and to make him happy. One day the child went with Clementine to see his Grandmother. There had been a fearful storm during the night, and it was raging still. Nicco had shrunk from the biting wind as he walked down the hill to 140 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. the cottage, and Clementine had jeered at him, and told him he would never be a sailor, never anything but a coward. The poor little fellow had cried, and said " No, no, I cannot be a sailor ; I am afraid of the sea." She only laughed at him and went back to the old story of Lady Tremaine's love for Gerald, and added, " It was no wonder her Ladyship liked the brave little boy, who feared nothing, better than a little coward." She did not mean quite all she said ; she was a heedless, thoughtless girl, and Gerald was very much more independent, and gave her much less trouble than Nicco did, and as she was rather inclined to be lazy she really liked him the better of the two. The day came when she was sorry for all her thoughtless words, and would, when it was too late, have done a great deal to recall them. But we can none of us recall anything we have either said or done ; we can only repent, and with God's help amend. The traces of tears were upon Nicco's face when he paid his visit to the Cottage, and Clementine was asked to explain what it all meant. She told Lady Tremaine that it was only because he was afraid of the wind, and that he had said he would never be a sailor. NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 141 " You don't mean that, do you, Nicco?" said Lady Tremaine. Clementine interpreted the question, also the an- swer, which was, " No, never, never ; oh, please, never send me to sea to be drowned in the big waves." Lady Tremaine did not speak, she only looked very sad and very disappointed. Nicco went away, and then his grandmother got down the old blue book from the shelf and unclasped the silver clasps, and she put her pen through the record of " Nicholas Tremaine, a little lad who would have been a sailor had God spared his life," which was written in her husband's handwriting. Of course it really had no right there, but when she had heard that the boy was safe, she had written these words, " The sea has given up her dead, and our boy is coming home." She had pleased herself by thinking, poor old lady, that some day in the far distance some one else would write the story of Sir Nicholas Tremaine's brave deeds, and that what was there already might stand as a sort of preface to Avhat would come afterwards. She sighed as she drew the big black marks across the page, and wondered from whom the boy inherited his cowardice. And yet she loved him so; if u 142 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. only he could have been as hrave and manly as Gerald was. Poor Nicco went home unconscious of the black marks against his name in the blue book. Probably had he known that they stood there he would not have taken it much to heart, for he did not in the least understand the contents of the bulky volume which Granny (he had learnt to call her Granny now) used to read to Gerald as he sat at her feet listening eagerly. It was very like one of the books in the old Cure's study at Plougastel, which he knew was all about the Saints, written in Latin, and he supposed the blue book was also about the Saints, only written in English, and he made up his mind that as soon as he could understand English, he would ask Granny if she would read to him about Madame St. Anne r whose picture stood side by side with his own, in the old Breton home. All through the afternoon the storm raged, and the waves roared, and Nicco sat near the fire and studied Mother Hubbard. He would not be induced to play. He said his head ached, and Clementine told him "that he was a stupid little boy, and that he -would never be a man, nothing but a coward " ; all in NEVER ANYTHING BIT A COWARD. 14 U French, of course, only she translated the last sentence into English, " never a man, only a coward." " Nicco, darling, will you come to me ? " That night when Margaret went up to bed, she 144 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. heard a little sob proceeding from Nicco's room. Clementine had gone down to her supper, so the girl opened the door and went in, to find the poor little fellow crying and trembling, and yet trying with all his might not to make a noise. " Nicco, darling," she said, " will you come to me?" He held out his little arms, and she went and fetched a warm shawl from her own room, which was only next door, and took him in there and sang to him in a low, gentle voice which sounded very sweet through the howling wind and the rain, which was beating so fast against the window. She asked him what was the matter, but, of course, he did not understand what she meant; only he stroked her cheek, and said, " Good Margazet good to Azicklezad." And all she could do was to sing on, and to murmur from time to time "poor little Nicco, poor little man." " No, no ; Nicco no man. Clementine say no man, one cow " " Not a cow, darling. Clementine could not have said that." "No man, one cow," repeated Nicco dolefully, twining his little arms more closely round Margaret's neck. NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 145 She held him up to look at her little picture, and then a smile came upon the tearful face, for that picture was an old friend. One like it, only ever so much larger, hung upon the wall of a little side Chapel in the Church at Plougastel, and now when Nicco saw it, he bowed his head and made the sign of the Cross, as he had been taught to do in his old home, and he said a little French prayer, and he pointed to the Holy Child, and said " L'Enfant Jesus." Margaret knew just enough French to know that " enfant " meant child, so she answered, " Yes, Nicco, darling ; Jesus was a little child, and He loves little children." He seemed to understand that she was saying something about the picture, for he nodded his head approvingly, and then the long lashes closed over the tired eyes, and Nicco was asleep. Margaret carried him back to his little bed, and left him there, and when she said her own prayers, she asked more earnestly than she had ever asked before, " that God would take care of the boy, and make every one good to him, Clementine and all." The next morning Nicco returned to the subject which had evidently troubled him so much as he lay awake in the storm the night before. 146 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. <: Nicco no man, only one cow," he said looking up into Margaret's face wistfully. Margaret shook her head as though she could not understand, so the little boy proceeded to explain his meaning in French, " Clementine dit que je ne serais jamais un homme, jamais rien qu'un poltron." * The last word was the only one the girl was able to grasp. " Poltron," she repeated, " Poltron, Nicco ? " " Oui, yeez, Margaret, rien quun poltron. No man, one cow." Margaret went to the schoolroom and got out the French and English dictionary, and looked out for the word poltron. There it stood poltron, a coward. Clementine had called him a coward, and made him unhappy. It was too bad of her, too cruel ; and Mar- garet went off to her mother to tell her the tale, and to ask that the nurse might be rebuked. But Mrs. Tremaine stood somewhat in awe of the smart French maid, who had once said " that in her former situation she had been allowed to manage her nursery and her children in her own way," and had intimated "Clementine says that I shall never be a man, never anything but a coward." NEVER ANYTHING BUT A COWARD. 147 unless this liberty was granted her now, she should feel obliged, though with much reluctance, to give notice to quit. " My dear Margaret, I cannot but think you are mistaken. Anyhow, it would never do for me to speak to Clementine on the subject. It is so difficult to find a nurse who understands both French and English, and what should we do without one who does ? Besides, dear, as I have already told you, I had a most excellent character with her." So there was nothing left for poor Margaret but to bear it all patiently, and to watch over Nicco as tenderly as she could, and help him to be brave. CHAPTER XIV. SIR NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. THOSE months that followed Nicco's arrival were amongst the most stormy that the sailors on the wild Cornish coast ever remembered to have experienced. It seemed as though the wind was always blowing, the sea always roaring. The boy was constantly hearing tales of shipwreck from Clementine, who evidently thought these recitals good for her charge, and the poor little fellow used to lie in his bed alone and trembling, yet trying with all his might to fight against his fears. Margaret used to go into his room every night as she went to bed, and speak to him lovingly, and try to soothe him ; he did not understand half she said at first, but in the quick way in which children pick up a language, he picked up a great many new words each day, and two or three nights after that one when she had held him in her arms and shown him the SSX NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. 149 little picture, he had looked up at her and smiled and said : 'Nicco not one cow no more, one man now." Afterwards, when he really could speak English very fairly, he told her, in his simple, childish way, how all through his little life he had been afraid of the wind and the big waves. It seemed that he either remembered that night when Fra^ois Penvraz had brought him ashore out of the raging sea, or he had heard the Breton people tell the story so often that it was always in his mind, a living, startling reality. Christmas was very near when Nicco confided his fears and troubles to Margaret, and she had tried to tell him how God was always near him, and the holy Angels had charge over him. He used to like her to talk to him ; it seemed to take some of the fears away. The old Cure at Plougastel had told him the same thing, and if he said it, it must be right, and Margaret must be right also, although she was only a little girl, and, of course, not as wise as Monsieur k Cure. " Margaret," he said ono day, " why does Granny " (Nicco rolled the r in Granny wonderfully) " want me to be one sailor boy ?" Margaret answered by telling him all about the x 150 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. brave Tremaines who had been sailors, whose names had been Nicholas, and she ended up by saying, " and it is because of all this, Nicco, dear, that your Granny is so disappointed that you will not be a sailor." '' Does she cry because of it." "I don't know, but perhaps she does sometimes; 1 think it makes her sad." Then there came upon Nicco's face a look Margaret had never seen there before, a look that was almost stern in its evident determination. " Margaret, Nicco will be one sailor ; he will ask God to make him one brave sailor boy, and Granny will not be, what you call that tmste sad, no more, and Nicco will jump into the big wave, and not have no fear, for the Angels will hold him up." And the boy looked out upon the troubled sea, and the stern look upon the little face changed into a smile. But neither big folks, nor little folks, get rid of their fears at once, even though they struggle against them, and pray to God to help them. The help mil come, but it comes in God's own good time, and in His own way. So many and many a time after that day, poor NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. Wl Nicco trembled at the sound of the wind and the waves, many and many a time he said to himself " I can never be one sailor boy." He had as yet said nothing of his new resolve to Lady Tremaine ; he was still very shy with her ; even now that he was able to talk to her, there was some- thing that would come up and frighten him. He was bright and cheery at home, "a jolly little fellow," most people said ; of course not like other boys because of his foreign ways, but still quite meriting that most appreciative (although perhaps slangy) English term of approbation "jolly." He was allowed to do pretty much as he liked during those autumn days ; an hour's lessons in the morning with the governess wes considered quite enough for him until Christmas ; and then a change was to be made. Mr. Carew had been obliged to get a Curate to help him in his work ; and the Curate was to teach the boys every morning, and Margaret was to go to a boarding-school in London. She was an old-fashioned, unchild-like child. There were no girls of her own age or station at Trecastle, and Lady Tremaine had advised her mother to send her where she would have companionship as well as instruction. 152 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. She did not like the idea of it at all ; she could not bear the thought of leaving her mother, and Gerald, and Nicco ; in fact, she did not quite know how they would get on without her ; she had been so accus- tomed to think for others, that she could not live without it ; she made opportunities for herself, and in the new luxurious life she was as helpful and useful as she had been in the poor room amongst the chimney-pots. She had found out there were other ways besides eating dry bread, in which she could give up her own will, and forgot herself. She was most anxious, perhaps, about Nicco ; Gerald was his mother's first thought, but the poor little Baronet had no one to turn to in his troubles, or to talk to about his fears. Gerald was, on the whole, good to him, that was one comfort ; the fear that it might have been other- wise had almost passed away, but there was still a shadow of anxiety about it in the little maiden's heart, and she put it into her prayers, as old Nolan had advised her to do, and he put it into his, and so she tried to trust and not to worry. Things went on very quietly during the weeks before Christmas. Nicco used to walk down by himself now to the Cottage, and sit with his Grandmother and ,577? NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. 153 talk to her in his little shy way : and then Gerald would come in after lessons were over, bright and merry, and affectionate, and when he appeared the other was very silent. He was learning to admire his cousin very much, to look upon him as a kind of hero whom he would much like to imitate. He really wanted to please " Granny," and the way to please her was to be like Gerald ; for did she not love him best, and was she not sorry that he had come away from Mere Annette, and robbed yes, that was the word Clementine had used robbed the handsome little fellow of his rights ? It was this that was always in his mind when he sat in the little sitting-room looking over the sea, this that made him so shy and so frightened ; for he felt that he was not wanted there, that Mr. Randall had brought him away from his own home to take away what ought to have been Gerald's. Of course he was altogether in the wrong, poor little fellow ; of course he stood then, and always, first and foremost in Lady Tremaine's affections ; she loved him so dearly that she wanted him to be all she had imagined he would be, the bright brave little lad of the picture ; and Gerald was all this, she thought ; so she could not help wishing that Nicco were more like 154 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. his cousin, more like her own two fearless little sons had been when they were his age. And yet Nicco was fearless enough in some ways ; put aside that nervous dread of wind and sea, and he was every bit as brave as Gerald. He rode just as well as the other boy did ; in fact Tom Austen said " his seat was every bit as good as that of the master of the hounds, himself; whilst Master Gerald, well, he did well enough, but he couldn't hold a candle to Sir Nicholas, no more than Dandy could hold a candle to Peterkin ; and see him amongst the animals at the farm ; horses and dogs and pigs and bulls and cows ; why he was just as much at home with them as the farmer himself." It h.ad been said on the authority of Tom Austen, who was a truthful boy, that upon one occasion when the two boys were walking in a narrow lane, Gerald had run away from a somewhat fierce-looking bull, whilst the little Baronet had stood his ground like a man, and walked quietly on as though " he was pass- ing a mouse." This of course has nothing to do with our story ; but Tom being a reliable authority it is as well to know his ideas upon the subject in this true chronicle of the life of Sir Nicholas. SIX NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. 155 One morning, as Mrs. Tremaine sat in the study and Margaret and Gerald were in the schoolroom with the governess, a loud noise was heard proceeding from the dining-room. Robert called Clementine at the very pitch of his voice ; there was a tramping, and a grunting, and an overturning of furniture, and poor little Mrs. Tremaine, who was very nervous and timid, rushed down the passage calling out " fire, fire ! " then the schoolroom party followed, and they all, including Clementine burst into the dining-room, where a merry shout of childish laughter burst upon their bewildered ears. There were no flames, however, that at least was a comfort, but there was something to be seen in that room to speak more correctly there were several things to be seen in that room which had never been seen there before, which probably would never be seen there again. This is the scene upon which the eyes of the spec- tators fell. The window which led out upon the terrace was open, had been opened by somebody, and that somebody was the master of the house, Sir Nicholas himself. There, on the rug were two pigs, one white and one black, with extremely curly tails ; there was a 156 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. very ugly terrier ensconced on one of the oak chairs, and there were cocks and hens innumerable pecking at the Turkey carpet, and amongst this extraordinary gathering stood Nicco, laughing and talking to his guests, alternately in French and English. Then the storm burst. Mrs. Tremaine was as angry as it was in her gentle nature to be, Clementine looked unutterable things, and thundered out torrents of French adjectives, which no one but Nicco understood, and he, poor little fellow, was not laughing now ; on the contrary, very big tears started to his blue eyes, and ran down his cheeks. Margaret and Gerald looked on, hardly knowing whether it was expected of them to laugh or cry. " Nicco," said Mrs. Tremaine, " how dare you be- have like this ! " Poor Nicco's English vocabulary failed him entirely now. " S'il i'ous plait, Madame," he began. ' " Tell him I can't understand what he says, Clem- entine ; ask him to tell you what it all means. " " Explain yourself, you naughtiest of all most naughty little boys," said Clementine in French. And hi French the explanation was given and duly translated by the furious Clementine. " He says, ma'am, that he was out playing on the Sk Nicholas's Guests. Y SIX NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. 159 terrace, and he thinks the farm-house gate was open, must have been left open, and these creatures " (and oh ! the expression of Clementine's face as she waved her hand majestically towards the pigs) " came up to him, and he opened the window and let them in, and he's not in the least sorry, although he is crying, because you spoke angrily to him ; he says, if you can believe it, ma'am, he actually says there was no harm in it, that it was quite the right thing to do ; Mere Annette always allowed the creatures to go into her room, and he sees no reason why they should not come here. Didn't I always say he does not know the manners of a gentleman ? would Master Gerald have ever bemeaned himself like this ? " " Clementine," and Mrs. Tremaine's voice had never sounded so authoritative, "Sir Nicholas has been very naughty, but I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself and to remember that he is your master ; go and put on his great-coat and hat at once. I am going to take him down to the Cottage." Robert chased away the intruders; pigs, and dog, and cocks, and hens, all beat a retreat before his avenging stick, and the peacock stood outside the window and watched their departure, and then strutted off after them, probably to see them safely 160 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. off the premises, which he looked upon as his own peculiar right. It was a silent walk which Mrs. Tremaine and Nicco had to the Cottage ; he knew he was in disgrace, and it began to dawn upon him that he had been naughty, that he ought to have remembered that it was not English custom to allow animals to make themselves at home in English rooms, as they used to do in Mere Annette's cabin, and in his secret heart he thought English customs unfriendly and inhospitable, infinitely inferior to the free and easy life of the good people of Plougastel. " I ought to have remembered," he said to him- self, " I know I ought. Granny will be very angry ; she will say what Clementine says, that Gerald would not have done it, and she will love me ever so little ; I daresay she will not love me any more at all." When they reached the Cottage Mrs. Tremaine went straight up-stairs and told Nicco to wait until she called him, so he sat down in the hall and talked as best he could to Kobinson, who was always delighted to see him. "I hope you are quite well, Sir Nicholas," he said. "Yees, sank you, Robinsone, but naughty." SIR NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. IGt '' No, no, sir, I don't believe that." "Yees, naughty about pigs, and cocks, and dining- room." All this of course was as so much Hebrew and Greek to Eobinson, who could only repeat that he was quite sure Sir Nicholas was not naughty, and at this moment Mrs. Tremaine's voice was heard calling to Nicco to come up-stairs. There sat Lady Tremaine and the Vicar, and the poor little lad turned very red, as he stood before them holding his sailor's hat in his hand, and twist- ing it about in a nervous kind of fashion. " Nicco," said Lady Tremaine, very slowly, " you have not been good." " No, Granny." " Don't you know that you should not have opened the window and let the pigs into the dining-room?" " Yees, Granny." " Why did you do it then ?" "To Plougastel, to the house of Mere Annette, les cochons, the pigs, always come." " Yes," said Mrs. Tremaine, " I dare say he was allowed to do these kind of things in Mere Annette's house. Clementine says that the Bretons are a very dirty set of people, she 162 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Mere Annette no dirty, Mere Annette good," cried Nicco, who had only taken in three words of what Mrs. Tremaine had said. "Mere Annette no dirty, Clementine no good." The boy threw his hat upon the ground and clenched his little fist and repeated, "Mere Annette good, Clementine no good, pigs nice." At this last piece of information, Mr. Carew laughed audibly, and Lady Tremaine, strange to say, did not seem to be in the least bit angry ; she put her arm round Nicco, and took him on her knee, and then the long pent up sobs burst out, and the little fellow dropped his head upon her shoulder, and let it rest there. "You will not do it again, will you, Nicco?" she asked gently. "No, nevare more, nevare more, but Mere Annette good." "Yes, we all know she is very good, dear; we know that Nicco loves her." For answer Nicco lifted up his little face, all bright with smiles, for a kiss, and when Lady Tremaine had given it very warmly, she turned to the Vicar and said, cheerfully : SIX NICHOLAS'S GUESTS. 163 " After all, there is some spirit in the boy. I am so glad to see it." " I always told you the right stuff was there, Lady Tremaine ; only what can you make of any one who can't understand old English ? Nicco, my little lad, always be loyal to your friends, and then you will be a true Tremaine, and God bless you always, and give His Angels charge over you," and the old clergyman laid his hand upon the child's head. Nicco said, "Sank you, mon Pere," for although he did not understand all that the Vicar said, he knew he was asking God to take care of him, as Monsieur le Cure used to do; then he and Mrs. Tremaine went home, talking cheerfully all the way. CHAPTER XV. IN THE DUCK POND. CLEMENTINE had a great deal of work to do during the early part of December; the usual Christmas- tree was to take place on Holy Innocents' Day in the old hall, and Sir Nicholas Tremaine had already issued invitations "requesting the pleasure of the company of his village friends at an evening party." That is to say, the invitations had been sent out by Mrs. Tremaine in his name ; he only looked at the cards, and seemed very much amused and excited a the thought of giving a party of his very own, and he requested that there should be a great many pancakes made for the occasion ; but when he was told that English boys and girls very much preferred plum pudding, he was quite satisfied, only he said " that every one must have a very good supper like Mere Annette's suppers." Clementine's work in those days was to dress IN THE DUCK POND. 165 dolls of all kinds and sizes for the tree; she had a French girl's taste for millinery and dressmaking, and very much preferred sitting in her own room, making fashionable little bonnets and gowns, to walking along the muddy roads with Nicco. i The village was so quiet, so much a part of the grounds of the House on the Cliff, that the little Baronet was allowed, on those December mornings, after his hour's lessons were over, to roam about pretty much as he pleased, and to amuse himself as best he could. Sometimes Gerald would join him when his work was done, and the only restriction laid on the boys was that they were not to go near the beach, nor attempt to climb the rocks. There was another boy who joined them some- times, but Nicco did not care for him as a companion. He was a great strong fellow of ten years old, Joe Snell by name, the son of a butcher who had lately come to Trecastle from Truro. Mrs. Tremaine, who was very particular about her son's companions, did not know of the acquaintance which had sprung up between Gerald and Joe, and the former had made Nicco understand that he was to say nothing about it. The little fellow obeyed him in this as he did in z 166 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. all things, for Gerald was his ideal of everything that was brave and manly ; whatever he did was right in his eyes ; if Gerald liked Joe Snell, Nicco felt that it was his duty to like him also, so he tried with all his might to think that Joe was a very nice boy, but he couldn't quite bring himself to see it. And one day, in spite of his respect for his cousin's better judgment, he came to the conclusion that Joe was " a bad boy, a bad cruel boy." It all happened on this wise : Nicco was standing at one end of the green talking to the white goose, who always seemed pleased to see him, and to understand what he said ; the donkeys on that day were at the other end of the green, and looking at them was Joe Snell. Had he contented himself with looking at them, or even talking to them, it would have been all right ; he had as much right to look at and talk to the donkeys as Nicco himself had to interview the white goose ; but in a minute or two he proceeded to pick up some large stones which were lying in a heap at the side of the path and to pelt the unfortunate animals vigorously. The grey donkey was young and active, and instantly trotted off at full speed, but the poor old brown fellow was rather stiff in the IN THE DUCK POND. 167 legs, and hobbled off slowly in the direction of the duck pond. Joe, stones in hand, chased him to the very edge of the pond, and Nicco, seeing what was going on, Sir Nicholas talking to the white goose. ran to the rescue, just in time to see that the last missile had drawn the blood from poor Brownie's leg whilst Joe was aiming another at his eye. In an instant the little boy had seized the big boy's hand, and startled him so that he lost his 168 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. balance, slipped on the slippery grass, and fell head- long into the duck pond. A merry ringing laugh echoed through the air, a pair of little hands were clapped in unrestrained amusement. Nicco had not the smallest wish to be unkind, nor to rejoice at Joe's misfortunes ; the fact was he did not consider it a misfortune at all, rather a good joke than otherwise. The small boys at Plougastel had often, of their own free will, amused themselves by wading through a dirty pond, Nicco amongst them, and they had all enjoyed it immensely, and had never been rebuked for it by their elders. Then, in this instance, there was the joy of having rid the poor old brown donkey of his tormentor, and given him time to join his companions at the end of the green, so Nicco stood and looked at Joe flounder- ing out of the pond, the mud sticking to his clothes, and his face and hair ; and again the little Baronet laughed merrily at the sorry figure he cut. Joe himself took a very different view of the matter ; he scowled fiercely at Nicco, and broke out into a torrent of angry words, which perhaps it was quite as well the other did not understand ; he saw, however, that Joe was very angry, in fact it struck him that he was beginning to cry, so the kind little heart was IN THE DUCK POND. 169 touched, and Nicco approached the fallen hero with true French politeness, and taking out his little pocket-handkerchief, he proceeded to kneel on the grass, and to rub the other's very dirty trowsers. But Joe pushed him rudely away ; he was now unmistakably blubbering (no other word will express the form his anger took), and rushed off in the direction of his home. Then Nicco walked up to the two donkeys, and seeing that the blood was really flowing fast from Brownie's leg, he tore his pocket-handkerchief into small strips, and proceeded to bind up the injured limb, just as he had seen Fra^ois Penvraz bind up his old horse's leg one day when he had stumbled up the steep Plougastel hill. There were three admiring spectators of this little scene. One was the grey donkey, who expressed his approval by going up to Nicco and rubbing his head lovingly against him. The other two were Nolan and Tom Austen, who were both standing on the steps of the old shoemaker's cottage. "Ain't our little Sir Nicco a brick?" said Tom. " Oh, and ain't that ere Joe Snell a coward ? I'll be one with him yet, I will," and shaking his fist in the direc- tion of the butcher's shop, Tom ran off to his dinner. 170 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Good morning, Sir Nicholas," said Nolan, with a bow. "Good morning, Sare," answered Nicco, with another bow, "may I enter?" "Certainly, Sir Nicholas, certainly, if you will do me the honour." Nicco understood that he had permission to go in, and there he sat, looking at the funny old china ornaments on the chimney-piece, and losing his heart completely to a lady made of shells, of which the shoemaker begged his acceptance. After this he went off quite happily, without giving another thought to Joe or the duck pond, but thinking a good deal about the brown donkey, and wondering whether his treatment of his leg had done him good. In the afternoon he and Gerald went out for a ride, and on their return Margaret met them, and looking very grave took Nicco up to the nursery. It was wonderful how those two understood each other ; they could carry on quite a long conversation now, on all kinds of subjects. " Nicco, darling," began the girl, " I am so sorry ; do you know that Mrs. Snell from the shop has been here about her boy Joe, and she says you were very IN THE DUCK POND. 171 naughty, Nicco, very cruel, and you pushed Joe into the pond." Nicco looked very sad and grave, for that afternoon Gerald had said to him, " If you ever say anything about Snell to any one, I shall be very angry, Nicco ; I shan't speak to you for a very long time." " I will not say nosing, Gerald, nevare nosing." And now he remembered his promise ; if he defended himself he must blame Joe, and Gerald would be very angry ; besides this he had given his word_ to his cousin, and no Tremaine had ever yet been known to break his word ; so he only hung his head and looked foolish, and Margaret could not get one single syllable of explanation out of him. " Margazet, Nicco be a good boy anoser day," was all he said, and with that she had to be satisfied. Mrs. Tremaine had been much flurried at the visit she had received from Mrs. Snell. That lady had arrived in all the glories of a bright violet silk dress, a crimson jacket, and a dark blue bonnet, and she had threatened to summon Sir Nicholas for an un- provoked assault upon her only son, whose health she feared to think might be injured for life. " I am very sorry, I am sure," the gentle litth woman had answered, "very sorry indeed, and I 172 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. cannot quite understand it, for Sir Nicholas is a most kind-hearted little fellow ; he would not willingly hurt a fly." " He has hurt my boy," said Mrs. Snell, applying a pocket-handkerchief ornamented with very deep lace to her eyes ; " hurt him so much that I tremble for the consequences." " I hope no real harm has been done, Mrs. Snell, and that your fears exaggerate the evil." " Madam," and Mrs. Snell rose from her seat with all the dignity she could command, " Madam my boy has lungs." This was a fact which poor Mrs. Tremaine was of course not prepared to dispute, so all she said was : " Sir Nicholas is out now, but directly he comes home I will of course speak to him on the subject, and I am quite certain whatever he has done he will be quite ready to apologize for it ; he is always so sorry when he knows he has been in the wrong." So Mrs. Snell took her departure with a feeling of something like satisfaction in her heart, at the pros- pect of Joe receiving an apology from a live Baronet ; for of course she knew perfectly well, that all that had suffered in the ducking were Joe's not too new clothes. IN THE DUCK POND. 173 Mrs. Tremaine deputed Margaret to inquire into the circumstances of the case, and, as we have seen, the girl took Nicco into the nursery and tried to find out how it had all happened, but it was of no use. Nicco, bound as he considered by his promise, would give no explanation whatever, and Margaret had to go back to her mother, and tell her that the boy would not speak. She was very sorry about it, poor child, still more so when she heard that Lady Tremaine would have to be told of Nicco's naughtiness, for she knew that the old lady would be dreadfully vexed at hearing that her little grandson had been rude, and in this case more than rude cruel, to any of the village children, especially perhaps to Joe Snell, who was a comparative stranger, his parents having only settled at Trecastle within the last year. "Perhaps Joe will die," she said to herself, for Mrs. Tremaine had made the most of it, and told her of his mother's fears for him, "and then, oh, then what will become of my little Nicco when I have gone to school ? " And the bearing, without the power of doing, was very hard for the girl all through that evening through which Nicco sat studying Mother Hubbard, A A 174 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. his usual solace in all his troubles, and looking very puzzled as he tried to spell out the English words. She went up to her room as usual on her way to bed and found him lying wide awake, the light of the winter's moon shining on his little fair face. " Nicco, dear," she said, " you are very sorry about Joe Snell, I am sure you are." No answer, not one single word of regret for the fault of which he was accused. " You are very sorry you pushed Joe into the pond." "No push," answered Nicco shaking his head. " But Joe was in the pond." " Yeez mais oui certainement." " How did he get there ? " Another this time a more decided shake of the head, and a look upon the child's face of mingled sorrow and determination. " You will not speak out to me, you will not tell me the truth, Nicco, darling." " No speak no tell no Joe," answered Nicco, turning his face to the wall, and closing his eyes, as much as to say he did not intend to hold any further conversation on the subject, and poor Margaret, aston- ished and unhappy, went to her own room full of the IN THE DUCK POND. 175 thought that the next morning her mother would go to the Cottage, and tell Lady Tremaine the whole sum of Nicco's iniquities. Mrs. Tremaine did go, but Margaret, had she known all that passed on that occasion, would have been able to give much more attention to her lessons, than under existing circumstances she was able to do. CHAPTER XVI. TOM AUSTEN TO THE RESCUE. FOR on the very evening of the incident of the duck- pond, there was a ring at the Cottage door, and much to Robinson's astonishment, Tom Austen, dressed in his very best, his face shining with the extra soap he had used for the occasion, requested an interview with her Ladyship. " 'Tain't her hour for seeing visitors, Tom. Not even the Vicar himself would think of calling at this time of day, except his business was something quite out of the common." " My business is quite out of the common," answered Tom, with a broad grin on his honest round face. Robinson smiled incredulously, thinking that pos- sibly it was the not uncommon business of begging from her Ladyship for the football club, of which Tom was a small, though prominent member. TOM AUSTEN TO THE RESCUE. 177 " Perhaps I could take a message for you, Tom ? " " No, you can't, Mr. Robinson. It's something very particular indeed, as Mr. Nolan and me saw, and as her Ladyship should ought to know. Mr. Nolan, he would have come hisself, but his rheu- matics is awful bad, so he's told me what to say, and I'm a-going to say it myself." Still Robinson hesitated. "It's all about our little Sir Nicco, Mr. Robin- son," continued the boy, " and oh, my eyes, ain't he a brick ! " " Come in, Tom, wipe your feet on the mat, and walk up gently." It was the first time in Tom's life that he had made a formal call upon " her Ladyship," and now he stood before her shy and awkward, and not knowing what to say. He had made up ever so many speeches, and not one of them would come into his mind. " What can I do for you, Tom ?" said Lady Tre- maine kindly, and instinctively feeling for her purse. " Nothing, my lady," answered the boy, looking up at Nicco' s likeness, and standing first on one foot, then on the other. " I hope father, and mother, and grandmother, and all the children are quite well." 178 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. "Yes, thank you, my lady, all but Benjamin, who's a-cutting of a tooth." " I expected one of the football club to come round for my usual subscription, Tom. I suppose it is to be paid to you." "No, my lady; I ain't the treasury. It's Bob Croft. Please, my lady, I've come, my lady, to say that our little Sir Nicco is a brick, and Joe Snell is a big coward." Lady Tremaine was completely mystified as to what the boy meant ; then, at last, bit by bit, it came out. The story of Joe's cruelty, of Nicco's in- tervention, of the big boy's fall into the duck-pond, and the little boy's merriment, and lastly of the " beauty of the sight of seeing the little chap, I mean the little Gent," said Tom, colouring crimson, " a-binding up old Brownie's leg, along of his little handkercher." And at the thought of it all, tears, real honest tears, stood in Tom's eyes, and Lady Tremaine turned her head away and looked into the fire. " I shouldn't have made bold to come, my lady, only Mr. Nolan seed that ere Mrs. Snell dressed, he said, like a poll parrot, a-going up to the House, and he knowed she'd a-gone to tell her tale, and says he, TOM AUSTEN TO THE RESCUE. 179 we'll tell ours, Tom ; but he couldn't come, along of his rheumatics, so I corned instead, and oh, my lady, ain't our little Sir Nicco a born brick ? and ain't we proud of him ? " " Yes, Tom, thank God, we can be proud of him for being so brave and kind, for after all he is but a little boy, and Joe Snell is a big boy." Then Tom took his departure with five shillings in his pocket for the benefit of his brothers and sisters, special mention being made of the suffering Ben- jamin. And thus it was that when Mrs. Tremaine went to the Cottage the next morning, very puzzled over Nicco, and what seemed his sulkiness, she found Nicco's Grandmother rejoicing in her little grandson's bravery and tender-heartedness. Poor Margaret would have done her lessons better had she known all that was going on in Lady Tre- maine's sitting-room, whilst she was puzzling over a sum in the rule of three ; but the morning's work came to an end, and she had done her best, in spite of the fear that would come into her poor little anxious heart about Nicco, and with her Mother's return came the reward of perseverance, for Tom Austen's story was told by Mrs. Tremaine with more 180 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. than usual animation, and Nicco, instead of being a cruel sulky little boy, was transformed into some- thing of a hero. The little fellow's face was bright with smiles when he heard that " Granny" was pleased that he had been a brave boy, and had tried to prevent Joe Snell from hurting Brownie ; but Clementine had given him a talking to about the iniquity of which he had been guilty, and the probable danger to Joe's life, and when the remembrance of this returned to him, of course he was unhappy, and it took all Margaret's powers of persuasion to make him understand that the fact of Joe falling into the duck-pond was not his fault, but was to be attributed to the slippery grass. Of course, it was very difficult to see the nice dis- tinction, for Margaret's French and his English were equally weak, and neither of them cared to enlist Clementine's services as an interpreter. On one point Nicco was very positive, and that was, he must write a note to Joe Snell, and express his regret at having caused him to spoil his clothes, and perhaps to die. Clementine had most distinctly stated that this was the only thing he could do. It was, she was sure, what Master Gerald would have done under similar circumstances, not that anyone TOM AUSTEN TO THE RESCUE. 181 could imagine that Master Gerald ever could have been placed in such circumstances, for he was a little gentleman. Nicco writes to Joe Snell. "And I shall never be a gentleman, nor a man neither, shall I, Clementine ? and will it always be a pity that I came away from Plougastel and from Mere Annette ? " B B 182 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. "Yes, always," Clementine had answered; "because your tastes are so low that you are better fitted for a peasant than for a baronet, and Master Gerald is always a gentleman." " Does Granny think so still, Clementine ? " asked the poor little tearful voice. "Yes, of course she does," answered Clementine, hardly thinking of what she was saying, and giving the whole of her attention to one of the doll's gowns ; so Nicco turned sorrowfully away and printed a little French letter, which, with the assistance of a dic- tionary, Margaret translated into English. Nicco had learnt to write a little at the village school at Plougastel, and the master had said he did wonderfully for his age, but the epistle addressed to Joe Snell was certainly a comical production ; what it may have been in the original we cannot tell. Here is Margaret's translation ; Nicco had particularly requested that all the words were to be his words. " DEA.R JOE SNELL, " I regret much that I you have pushed into the pond, but I did not do it express, and I you ask pardon, and I hope that you don't go to die'. " NICHOLAS TREMAINE." TOM AUSTEN TO THE RESCUE. 183 The letter was enclosed in one from Mrs. Tremaine, in which she said " that she thought Mrs. Snell had been misinformed as to facts, and that Sir Nicholas had only tried to prevent the brown donkey being hurt, and that it was his (Sir Nicholas's) own wish to write to Joe." And with this the Snell family were obliged to be satisfied. " Margazet," said Nicco that night before he went to bed, " Margazet, if I went back once more to Plougastel, to Mere Annette, every one very glad." " No, no, darling, every one would be very sorry." " Granny glad ; Nicco no man, no gentleman." " Yes, indeed, a gentleman and a brave little boy. Granny said so." But Nicco only shook his head, and went to bed wondering how he could get back to his old home and leave Gerald master of the situation. CHAPTER XVII. CHRISTMASTIDE. OF course as the days passed on, with all the excite- ment of the Christmas-tree, all the great boxes of toys and sweets arriving, poor Nicco forgot his troubles, or at least thought of them very seldom ; the dolls' bonnets and gowns got more and more en- grossing to Clementine, and the children amused themselves pretty much as they liked ; sometimes, it must be confessed, getting into every one's way, but generally kept in pretty good order by little, old- fashioned Margaret ; who, in her grave fashion was very happy making warm clothes for the fishermen's wives and children, and thinking how pleasant it was to be able to do something for somebody. Nicco was a good deal at the Cottage in those days before Christmas, for there was something going on there in which he took more pleasure even than in the preparations at the "House." At Granny's own suggestion a large box was going off to Plougastel, CHR1STMASTIDE. 185 presents for all Nicco's friends, from Mere Annette to the youngest of little Jeannette's sisters, who was just six months old. There were some beautiful warm gloves for the old Cure, just such a pair as Nicco had seen on Mr. Carew's hands, and had said, " Oh, if Monsieur le Cure had some gloves like that, he would always be warm and have no chilblains." The new Curate, Mr. Lyte by name, who knew French very well, heard this little speech and repeated it to the Vicar, who, in his turn, repeated it to Lady Tremaine, and when she heard it she determined that the Cure should have some gloves ; and Nicco was told this, whereupon he requested that Mere Annette and every one else might have gloves also, but this of course was not to be thought of; the Breton peasants would not have known how to put the gloves on had they received them, so all kinds of other warm things stuffs for petticoats, and shawls, and handker- chiefs, comforters, together with dolls and horses, and whips were packed into huge cases and sent off, with Sir Nicholas Tremaine' s love and kisses (he especially requested that the kisses should be put in) to all his dear friends. Christmas Day came at last, and Nicco and Gerald 186 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. stood side by side in church, and each raised his clear young voice in the sweet Nativity hymn : " O, come, let us adore Him, O, come, let us adore Him, 0, come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord." Of course Gerald sang the English words, but Nicco sang the Latin ones ; the old words he had learnt at Plougastel with the little Breton children, from the Cur himself. The tune sounded strangely familiar to the little Baronet, and the Trecastle people wondered, as they heard him join in the hymn at the top of his voice. Then the Vicar told them in his sermon that the whole Catholic Church, that is, the Church of Christ all over the world, sang that same hymn on the Birth- day of the Lord ; in many a different language, the faithful called upon all Christians to adore the Holy Child in His manger bed. Altogether, Christmas Day was a happy day to the kittle lad, who was still something of a stranger amongst his own people. Every one was very good to him, even Clementine had given him a little present, and had deigned to tell him he had been a better boy CHRISTMASTIDE. 187 than usual ; and if he thought of his Breton friends a little lovingly and regretfully, he said to himself that he loved every one at Trecastle, every one except Joe Snell. Then he remembered that the Holy Child Jesus came on Christmas Day to teach little children to be good and to love their enemies. "And Joe Snell is not my enemy," said little Nicco ; " he is only the brown donkey's enemy ; I will ask God to make him kind to the brown donkey." So on that Christmas-night, when the stars were shining brightly in the wintry sky, and the wind howled through the bare leafless trees, and the waves dashed against the shore, the boy knelt by the side of his little bed, over which hung Margaret's present to him on that day, a picture of the Holy Child in the manger, like that one which had been her one treasure in the London room amongst the chimney- pots ; only this picture was much larger and more beautiful than that one. And, kneeling there, Nicco prayed for all he loved such a strange jumble of names, Breton folk and Trecastle folk mixed up in wild confusion ; Granny and Mere Annette, Gerald and Jeannette, Old Nolan and Fran9ois Penvraz, Mr. Carew and Monsieur le 188 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Cur but the prayer was the same ; he asked God to bless them all, for the sake of the child Jesus, because it was Christmas Day. Then came another little prayer all by itself: " Please, God, make Joe Snell kind to the poor old brown donkey, for he is very old." Of course, you understand that Nicco's prayers were said in French. The wind was howling fiercely now, and some of the old fears came back to him, so he hid his face in his hands, and prayed one more little prayer : " Please, God, make me a brave sailor, and not afraid of the big waves, for that will please Granny, and she will not be ashamed of poor Nicco, a little lad." Three more days, then came the great excitement, Sir Nicholas Tremaine's party. Such a party it was ! nothing like it had been known for years ; every one had tried to make it as grand as possible, a kind of second welcome to the little Baronet ; such a Christmas-tree had never before been seen, not only because of its size, but because of the beautiful things which were on it. The little host received his guests as though he had been accustomed to give parties all through his short life, and when CHRISTMASTIDE. 189 supper was announced, and old Granny Austen, who was a martyr to rheumatism, was hobbling along with much difficulty, Sir Nicholas went forward and Sir Nicholas offers old Granny Austen his arm. offered her his arm, and the children, led by Tom Austen, gave a loud cheer. It was such a graceful little act, done so prettily and so innocently, that they could not help cheering to show their approval of it ; and the elders, Lady c 190 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Tremaine amongst them, looked as though they felt inclined to cry ; but, of course, no one could really cry at such a party as this, with such a supper, not only to look at, but to eat ! the plum puddings all of a blaze, exactly, as Nicco expressed it, "like beautiful fireworks." Old Nolan was there in a pair of new boots, the fac-simile of those he had once made for the Lord Mayor's first cousin ; indeed, there was a rumour in the village that they were the very same boots which had decorated the shoemaker's cottage on the day of Nicco's arrival at Trecastle. And Mrs. Snell was there in great grandeur, " more like a poll parrot than ever," Tom Austen remarked, and Nicco had tried to tell her that he hoped Joe had not caught cold that day in the pond. She did not understand what he said, but smiled benignly upon the little boy, who, with his own hands, had presented Joe with a beautiful red satin necktie, which, she remarked, " would exactly suit the darling's complexion." Well, the party came to an end, as all parties do, and the days passed on, very much as they had done before, except that the governess did not come any more, and Mr. Lyte came every morning, and taught CHRISTMASTIDE. 191 the two little boys, and gave both of them a very good character. Then came a day when every one was very sad, for Margaret went away to school, and she was not to come back for ever so many months, not until the primroses and daffodils had come and gone, and the roses and the sweet carnations in the garden were in full bloom. Oh ! such a long time it would be. Gerald cried very much, and Nicco looked very grave and tried to keep back his tears. " It would trouble Margaret to see me cry," he said to Mr. Lyte, as though to excuse himself for not doing what might have been expected of him, and then when the carriage drove away and the pale sad face looked out of the window, and Margaret waved her hand to the boys, Nicco went up to his room, and looked at his little picture, and said, " Please make me brave, for I don't like her to go away." Mrs. Tremaine was in London for two days ; then she came home laden with love from Margaret, whom, she said, she had left very happy, and the months would soon roll away. And so they did of course, slowly perhaps, but very surely, until the roses, and carnations, and all the 192 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. sweet garden flowers were in full bloom ; then the young school girl returned to the House on the Cliff, very much grown, very much improved in every way every one said, looking more of a child, although she was six months older; but the little heart was as loving as ever, and every one's troubles, and every one's cares came to Margaret just as though they had been her own, in the same way as they had once come to her as she sat and stitched at the shirts in the old days, and looked out upon the gilded Cross of St. Paul's Cathedral CHAPTER XVIII. ABOUT A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH. BUT those six months which had passed before Mar- garet came home again had brought some changes into Nicco's little life. Things were not quite as they had been when she went away ; the fear that had been in her heart when the little Baronet came to the House on the Cliff on that September day, and which for a time had been lulled to rest, came back to her now with redoubled force. Every day she had prayed the old prayer, and asked God to make Gerald love Nicco ; and she had added the words "although I think he does love him " ; but when she knelt once more in her own room, she left out that last clause, for she knew that her brother did not love his little cousin ; she saw it on the very first evening of her return, and each day she became more and more convinced of it, and it was the one trouble, amidst the joy of those summer holidays. 194 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. It was a long time before she heard, bit by bit, of much that had happened during those six months, to which we must go back now, and take a peep behind the scenes. You must not think too hardly of Gerald, for per- haps in all that had passed, and in all that was to come, those about him were more to blame than he was. He had had his own way always ; he could brook no contradiction now, and when it came, he fought against it, as a great many older people do, and in the fight he fell, as we all must fall, sooner or later, if we fight for what is wrong ; for our Guardian Angel who battles for us when we are struggling for the right, takes his sheltering wings from us when our battle is fought, not for the right, but for our own self-will's sake. And poor Gerald had a friend who was not a good friend for him ; none other, of course you will guess, than Joe Snell. He had never been told that Joe was not to be his friend, and yet in his inmost heart he had an idea that neither Lady Tremaine nor his mother would approve of the intimacy ; for this reason it was he had bound poor Nicco to silence on the subject, and so it was that to the ski of self-will was added the sin of deceit. To do him justice, he had not been jealous of A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH 195 Nicco in the early days of his home coming. There was no real change in his life ; he was really too young to realise the difference in his fortune ; he did not in the least resent Nicco's popularity Avith the village people ; he had never cared about them, not they about him. He did love " Granny " ; if she had changed towards him he would probably have hated Nicco, as he had threatened to do on that first day when he heard that " the sea had given up her dead." But she had not changed ; she was to him all that she had been before her own little Nicco came home. Perhaps if the little lad had been less shy in her presence, the real difference between the boys might have been more apparent ; the fact that her grandson (even though she might be a little disappointed in him) held, and ever would hold, the first place in her heart, must have been seen even by Gerald himself. But the boy, in his noisy, boisterous way, which was very attractive, because it was so pefectly real and child-like, would throw his arms round the old lady's neck and even dare to pull at her capstrings, and she in her gentleness returned his affection, and laughed at his fun ; and perhaps even to the outer world it might have seemed that he was more to her than Nicco was ; anyhow, the poor little lad persuaded himself that it was 196 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. so, and Clementine and Joe Snell were always telling him that it was very evident which was her ladyship's favourite, which she would have liked to be the Baronet, but he did not seem to heed what they said ; he was kind enough to Nicco, who always gave in to him, and they were very good friends, and seemed to understand each other very well. A day came when Lady Tremaine had to choose between the boys, and when Gerald had to give up to Nicco. There lived in a village near Trecastle a poor, decrepid, paralysed man, who once had been a ship's carpenter, and who, for months past, had been employ- ing his time in making a most beautiful toy frigate, which was pronounced by every one to be quite perfect masts, sails, cannons, might all have come but of her Majesty's dockyard. And this gem of gems was warranted to be sea- worthy ; her powers had been tried by Jack Austen himself, who went out to sea in his own boac and there launched the frigate, which sailed along gracefully in sight of the admiring crowd on the beach, amongst whom stood Nicco and Gerald. " What is old Harris going to do with it ? " asked some one. A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH. 197 " I knows," answered the ever-loquacious Tom Austen ; " he'd like to make it a present to our little Sir Nieco, but you see, poor chap, he's back in his rent, and he must sell it." "What good would it be to him ? " whispered Joe Snell, who was standing near Gerald, and next to Tom when this speech was made; "why, he haven't got the pluck to sail it ; I saw him turn quite white the other day when you and he were on the rocks, Master Gerald, and a big wave came up, and washed over you both. A fine fellow to have a ship like that, wouldn't he be ? " " It will be our birthdays next week," answered Gerald ; " he'll be seven, and I shall be eight ; his is on the 9th of March, and mine is on the llth, so Granny said we were to keep them together ; and, oh, Joe, I must have tihe frigate ; do you think she'll give it to me ? " " Of course she will, Master Gerald ; she knows what a coward he is. Miss Clementine came to tea with us last Sunday, and she told my mother all about it." And at that moment, looking at the frigate dancing on the top of the crested waves, Gerald repeated the Words he hfid used all those months ago. D D 198 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Joe," he said, " if he gets it I'll hate him." And Joe grinned ; and the grin was not a pleasant one ; for he had never forgotten the episode of the duck pond. Tom's idea on the subject of the frigate turned out to be right. On the very next day three crisp five- pound notes were locked up in poor old Harris's generally empty money-box, and his rent was paid that very evening. " I am so glad to be able to help him and myself too," Lady Tremaine had said to Jack Austen ; " I want a little present for Master Gerald and he loves ships. I was only yesterday wondering how I could get a really good one for him. I have ordered what I think Sir Nicholas will like much better, from Lon- don, but of course he shall have his choice, especially as you say poor old Harris wished to give him the ship." Jack was disappointed, but of course he could riot presume to say anything more on the subject, and the dear old lady was quite happy, for the case from London had arrived that very morning. Her orders had been carried out most successfully, and both she and Robinson were almost childish in their delight at the sight of a beautiful stage-coach, drawn by the most A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH. 191 lovely horses, driven by a perfect coachman, conducted by a most fascinating-looking guard, and occupied by a number of fashionable ladies and gentlemen dressed in very good taste. Lady Tremaine's own coach-builder had superin- tended the work, and the result was " such a lovely toy as the Prince of Wales hisself," as Robinson re- marked, " would have been proud to possess." The 9th of March came, a balmy spring day such as often comes to the western counties almost in mid- winter, and the two little boys were invited to break- fast with Granny, and the breakfast was laid in the great dining-room, which was bright with flowers. The children had been asked what they would like to have for breakfast, and Nicco, true to his Breton predilections, had expressed a wish for pancakes ; Gerald had chosen sausages. Both wishes were grati- fied, although cook ventured to remark "that pancakes were not quite the correct thing for the breakfast table ; still, of course, if Sir Nicholas wanted them he must have them," and she consoled herself by telling Robinson that after all " they were very closely related to omelettes." Both pancakes and sausages proved a great success. Granny and the boys were very merry over the meal, 200 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. and when it was over, Nicco and Gerald were requested to go and visit the peacock lor a lew minutes. The room was cleared of the breakfast things and the coach and the ship were carried in and placed in the centre of the room. Then the boys were called in, and there was a shout of delight as they caught sight of the lovely toys. Lady Tremaine's eyes were fixed upon Nicco ; his, were riveted upon the coach, and were twinkling merrily, and sparkling with anticipated fun. Then he turned to the ship, and in a moment, in what seemed a most unaccountable fashion, the old wistful, timid expression came upon the little face, and Nicco turned his back deliberately upon the coach. Lady Tremaine looked puzzled, but not in the least suspecting what was coming, made a little speech. " Nicco, darling," she said (Nicco both understood and spoke English very well now), " Nicco, darling, do you remember one day when you were sitting at my window, seeing a coach pass by, and saying how much you would like a little one of your very own ? So I sent to London for this one. Poor old Harris wished to make you a present of the ship, but I have bought A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH. 201 it, and somehow I have an idea that Gerald will like it better than you would, but because Harris made it, I want you to have your choice. Which shall it be, darling, coach or ship ? " Nicco turned round and looked steadfastly at the coachman, but the sparkle in his eyes had not come back. There was a moment's pause, and then he an- swered, " If you please, Granny, I will have the ship." " You sha'n't, you young coward," shouted Gerakl, his voice trembling with passion ; " what good is a ship to you ? I'm going to be a sailor, and you never can be one because you're afraid of the waves ; you know you are." " Gerald, I'm ashamed of you," said Lady Tremaine. " I never knew until now what a naughty boy you could be." But Gerald's anger was past all control. " I tell you, I will have the ship," he said, clenching his fist. " He is a coward. He doesn't care for the sea. He only cares for pigs and dirty animals. He's only fit to live with the dirty old woman in Brittany." " Gerald," and this time it was the little Baronet who spoke, " you sha'n't call my friends by bad names. If you do, I will fight you," and he stood 202 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. with his little arms folded, and with a funny expres- sion of determination upon his face. " Nicco, darling," said Lady Tremaine, " are you quite sure you would like the ship better than the beautiful coach ? " Nicco coloured crimson, and did not answer for a minute. At last he said : "I like the beautiful coach, Granny, but I like better to have the ship, because because I have ask God to make me brave, and when I'm big I'm going to be one sailor, and wear one cocked hat ; but, if you please, could Gerald not have one other ship ? " " Certainly not. Gerald has behaved so badly that I do not think he deserves to have the coach. In any case, I should not think of getting a ship made for him." " Oh, please, please, pardon him," said Nicco, taking Granny's hand in his, and kissing it. " He is brave, and he likes much the sea, and he was disappoint, that is all. But he will sail my ship, and I will drive his coach, and that will be fine." Gerald stood looking at the frigate, but not uttering one word. It was the first time he had heard the gentle old lady speak angrily, and, truth to tell, he was frightened. " If you please, Granny, I will have the ship." A SHIP AND A STAGE-COACH. 205 " Gerald, are you sorry for having been so naughty ? " " Yes ; but I want the frigate." " You cannot have it." " Perhaps he better have it," began Nicco. " My boy, I will not allow it. It is yours, and old Harris will be very glad that you have chosen it." So it was settled, and the boys went home with their treasures, which were wheeled up the hill on a truck, and nothing more was said by either of them on that day, for Granny's manner had awed them both. In the afternoon, when the ship was taken down to the beach to be sailed upon the calm blue sea, Gerald whispered to Joe Snell, " He only did it to spite me ; he would have liked the coach ever so much better, and I hate him." And Gerald was partly right. It had cost Nicco a great effort to give up the much coveted vehicle, but he had done it because he wished to show Granny that some day he meant to be a sailor, and a sailor ought, of course, to love a ship. " It was because of that, Margaret," he told her in those summer holidays, " because Granny liked the picture when I was one baby boy and had a ship, that I wanted to have this one that old Harris made." EE CHAPTER XIX. SIR NICCO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. IT was from that day that the real troubles of poor Nicco's life began. Outwardly things went on just the same as they had done before. There were the daily lessons and the daily rides, and walks, and play, and the usual visits to Granny. The frigate was often taken to the beach for a sail ; the coach was often driven in the grounds. There were no quarrels over either, but the hatred that had come into Gerald's heart was there still, and Joe Snell would not let it die out. The two boys were greater friends than ever. When they met, which was very often, Nicco was always sure to be made unhappy. Actually cruel they dared not be, but they laughed at him, and sneered at him, and many and many a time the little Baronet heard the old story of how unfit he was for his position, how much better it would have been if S/X NIC CO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 207 he had stayed at Plougastel with Mere Annette. He could not speak of his trouble to anyone, for his promise was binding on him still. Once he had asked Gerald if he might not tell Granny that Joe played with them very often, and he was told " that if he did it, it would be the worse for him ; but of course he would do it, he was sneak enough to think nothing of a promise." The hot blood had rushed to the little fellow's cheek as he answered : " I'd rather die than break my promise ; only why are you ashamed of Joe?" " Mind your own business, will you, and let me do as I like ;" which injunction Nicco of course thought himself bound to obey. The village people worshipped their young master, as they had always done, but during that spring and summer there was an outbreak of measles amongst the children, so the boys were ordered not to go outside the grounds, unless they were riding or driving. Nicco wrote funny little letters to Margaret and she wrote long ones to him, but the letters on both sides were public property, and the little lad's troubles were not touched upon. 208 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. One June evening the boys had taken their wickets and bats to a field near the house, saying they were going to have some cricket. The wickets were no sooner put up than Joe appeared upon the scene, flushed with excitement ; a Punch and Judy show had appeared in the village, the most beautiful thing that had ever been seen, and Gerald must go to it at once. " Ah 1 right," answered the boy, " but what about him ? " and he pointed to Nicco. " He must come too, I suppose." So the matter was explained to the little Baronet, who at the first moment was delighted at the idea ; he had never seen a Punch and Judy show; he had only heard of all its glories from Gerald, who of course had often stood at the corner of a London street, and gazed upon the sight. And now Punch and Judy were really to be seen upon the village green. Nicco literally clapped his hands with delight at the thought ; the next minute he said, timidly : " Gerald, we cannot go without to ask lecve ; we must not." There was a whispered conference between the friends, who came to the conclusion that leave would SIX NICCO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 209 certainly riot be granted, for all the villagers would ba assembled upon the green, except those who were ill, and the fact of the boys mixing with the children, and so running any risk of infection, was what had been most positively forbidden. "Do you choose to come or not, Nicco?" said Gerald. "I would much like it, Gerald," and there were tears of disappointment in the blue eyes, " I would very much like to see Punch and Judy, and Toby, but we cannot go without to ask leave." "Bosh," ejaculated Joe in a loud aside; "don't listen to him, Master Gerald." "I'm not going to," said Gerald, looking, it must be confessed, very uncomfortable ; " but I must talk to him, or he'll go and tell." " I say, Nicco, you must do as you like of course ; every one knows that you are a coward, and afraid of everything ; I mean to go, and that's my business, but you must promise that you will not tell any one about it ; not Mother nor Granny, nor any one ; if you do I'll never speak to you again." Nicco hesitated. "You wouldn't be a sneak, would you?" said Gerald more kindly. 210 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " No, I no want to sneak, but " " But you will promise ; you know you say you would never break a promise." "Yes," in low timid, hesitating tones. "Yes, I promise." " Thanks, and you'll wait for me here until I come back; you must not go home without me." " Yes." The two boys walked off, and Nicco laid down upon the grass, and tried to work out a puzzle which older people than himself often try to work out, the puzzle between right and wrong, about what he ought to have done, and what he ought not to have done. Well, he was, you know, only a little boy, and he ended up by thinking that perhaps he was in the wrong ; that English boys were different from Breton boys, and that what he knew would have been wrong for the latter very wrong indeed, Monsieur le Curd would have said might not be very wrong for the former. It was not a satisfactory solution of the puzzle, of course, but somehow or other, it sent Nicco to sleep. It must have been quite an hour before the other two boys returned from the show, for the sun had NICCO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 211 been shining brightly then, and now it was sinking to its rest, and the ruddy light was upon the distant horizon. Nicco was partly roused by the sound of approach- ing footsteps, but he was very tired and did not open his eyes ; then he heard voices, Gerald and Joe Snell, talking fast and eagerly. "I have no money," said Gerald, ruefully, "at Nicco falls asleep. least, not five shillings, not even one, and mother won't give me any more; she says she will not let me be extravagant. It's an awful shame, for I do want one of these cannons so much, and she won't buy one for me ; she is afraid of my shooting myself." It is an awful shame," answered Joe, in sym 212 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. pathetic tones ; " a rare shame I call it, that little Sir Nicco should have come here when no one wanted him, and took your place ; mother and Miss Clementine was talking about it on Sunday night, and saying what a power of money you'd have had if he'd have stayed in that dirty French place, and left you to be the Baronite ; everybody would have liked it ever so much better, her Ladyship best of all. It was just a robbing you, that's what it was; it was just being a regular thief." " But I had not any more money when I was a Baronet, so that does not make a bit of differ- ence." " Oh, don't it though ? Why that was nearly a year ago; of course now you are so much bigger you'd have had whatever you liked, if he hadn't come and robbed you." "I don't care about anything if I could but have the cannon and some gunpowder, Joe," answered Gerald, who was just a> determined to have his own way as he had been in the days of the ill-fated Dobbin. " I wish you could manage to get them for me." " I'll try, Master Gerald ; I promise you I will, but I'm afraid it will take a long time." NIC CO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 213 " All right. Come on, Nicco, it's getting late ; you must not go on sleeping any longer." So Nicco jumped up and rubbed his eyes ; not because they wanted rubbing to enable him to open them, but because there were great big tears in them, which he did not mean the others to see. " Was the Punch and Judy nice ? " he said in a little trembling voice. " Oh, yes, it was all right. But you're not to say anything about it. You promised, you know." Poor Nicco drew himself up with ah 1 the dignity of his seven years. " I will keep my promise," he said; " I will not tell one story." " Come on, now. Let us run as fast as we can. Good night, Joe." So Joe went his way, and the other two started off at full speed, and found Clementine just coming to look for them. Mrs. Tremaine was at the Cottage, so no questions were asked by anybody as to how those two last hours had been spent, and soon afterwards both the boys were in bed, one of them fast asleep as soon as his brown head touched the pillow. But the little golden head tossed restlessly from side to side and F F LITTLE Sift. NICHOLAS. the fair little face was flushed with mingled fear and excitement, for life was a more complex thing to Nicco now than k had been two hours before, as he lay on the grass, trying to work out the puzzle. He gave it up at last. He felt he was too small a boy to unravel so great a mystery. Once, in Plougastel, a boy had been very naughty, and stolen some money from another boy, and Mon- sieur le Curd had told him what to do, and made it all right. And now he, Nicco, whom they had all loved so much in that old home of his, was a thief also. He did not quite understand how, but Joe Snell had said it quite plainly that evening, and Clementine had often said something very like it before ; but not quite so plainly. What was to be done ? How could he give Gerald back what he had taken from him ? A bright idea came into the little troubled head he would go to Plougastel and tell Monsieur le Curd all about it. He was sure he knew the way ; first, to the station that was not far off ; then to Plymouth ; then to Cherbourg ; then to Brest ; and then across in the ferry-boat to his old home ; and oh, wouldn't they be glad to see him ! They would want him NICCO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 215 there, and they did not want him at Trecastle ; and Mr. Randall would come and paint pictures as he had done before, and then ho would write and say that Nicco was with Mere Annette again, and that Gerald might have all the money, and be called Sir Gerald, and Granny would be glad. But as Nicco said this to himself he began to cry, for he loved Granny dearly, and she was so good to him ; only Gerald was brave, and he was not brave yet, only trying to be so. And Margaret was away, so it would not matter to her so much where he went, and if Tom Austen and the village people were sorry about it, it would make them kinder to Gerald, and they would soon know that he was much the better Baronet ; " for Baronets should be gentlemen," pondered poor Nicco, " and I can never be one gentleman." Then he fell asleep, but the old Breton habits had clung to him in many ways, foremost among them, that of waking very early. At five o'clock next morning the little fellow jumped out of bed, and looked out of the window at the sunshine dancing on the sea. His small mind was made up. He must instantly get ready for a start. His Breton holiday suit was kept in a ohest of 216 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. drawers in his room. He got it out, and proceeded to try to get himself into it. It was a matter of some difficulty, for he had grown considerably during those nine months, and both the jacket and waistcoat were very tight, whilst the trousers, which were intended to be long, were considerably above his ankles. However, by means of a good deal of pulling and twisting, he managed to get dressed at last, even to the red fisher's cap. He knelt down and said his little morning prayers. " God bless everybody in Trecastle," he said, " and make me one brave sailor boy." Then he added one more petition : " Please, God, make Joe Snell kind to the brown donkey when I'm gone away." He put his little purse into his pocket, and got upon his bed and took down two pictures from the wall^one, Margaret's Christmas present to him, the Holy Child in the Manger ; the other, one Mr. Randall had sent him from Rome, Jesus in the fisherman's boat bidding the rough waves be stjll. These presents he put into an old bag which Fran9ois Penvraz had given him as a parting present. Then he went quickly down-stairs into the dining- SIR NIC CO STARTS UPON A JOURNEY. 217 room, and opened the French window which led out upon the terrace. Bolts and bars were not supposed to be needed at Trecastle, and very soon he was running down the steep hill in the sweet fresh morn- ing air, his cheeks all aglow, his blue eyes dancing with merriment. Nicco starts upon his journey. CHAPTER XX. THE RETURN JOURNEY. ON the green were the two donkeys, and the geese, and the ducks, walking about in a lazy, sleepy kind of fashion, and seeming rather startled at the quaint little gentleman who intruded upon the usual solitude of the early morning hour. Nicco patted Brownie, and confided to him that he was going away, but that everybody would be very kind to him, Joe Snell and all ; then he wished the others the grey donkey and the ducks and the geese a general good-bye and walked quickly on towards the paddock. There was not a creature astir ; the fishermen had gone out two or three hours earlier, the women and children were still in bed. The paddock gate was unlocked, and the door of Peterkin's stable was open, and Peterkin himself was there looking out upon the world upon that bright June morning. THE RETURN JOURNEY. 219 At the sight of him the merriment went out of Nicco's eyes. The parting was harder than the part- ing with the group on the green had been. For was not Peterkin his very own property, bought for him by his Grandfather, and was he not the most beautiful and loving of all beautiful ponies ? Now, he seemed astonished at seeing his master dressed in that gay, many-coloured suit, but he trotted up to him as he always did, and put down his shapely head to receive Nicco's usual caress. And there came into the little boy's head an idea that it would be a nice thing to take Peterkin with him to Plou- gastel. " I am going away," he said, " because I am a tief and because I have robbed Gerald without to mean it; but it would not be to rob to take you away, because you are my very own. Would you like to come, Peter- kin, to see Monsieur le Cure and Mere Annette and everybody ? " And Peterkin rubbed his head against his little master's cheek, as though he wished to express his willingness to go with him to the end of the world. Nicco got the saddle and bridle out of the little harness room, but the saddle was an utter impossibility to him get the girths to meet he could not. That, 220 LIT! LI': SIR NICHOLAS. however, was a matter of little consequence ; he had ridden the farmer's horse at Plougastel without any attempt at a saddle ; why should he not ride Peter- kin in the same way ? The bridle was all right ; the sagacious pony helped Nicco to put the bit into his mouth as well as he could, and seemed quite to understand the urgency of the case. In a few minutes he and his " noble little rider " were on their way to the station. But as they neared it somebody was seen walking along the road carrying a large parcel. It was none other than old Nolan, taking some boots for which he had an order from Plymouth, to catch the early up train. "Good morning, Mr. Nolan," said Sir Nicholas joyously, taking oft' his fisher's cap. Nolan stood transfixed to the spot ; such a vision at such an hour was not an every -day occurrence ; in fact as the shoemaker afterwards expressed it, " It was not a sight which a man could expect to see more than once in his lifetime." He rubbed his eyes and stared, and speech failed him completely. " Shall I carry your parcel ? " said Nicco, always polite. THE RETURN JOURNEY. 221 "No, thank yon, Sir Nicholas; I'm much obliged, I'm sure; but, might I be so bold as to ask, where you are going ? " " To Plougastel, Mr. Nolan, to my old home, to see all my friends." " Excuse me, Sir Nicholas, but does her Ladyship know that you have gone away ? " Nicco coloured crimson. " No, she does not know, but she will not care ; " then, with a funny little air of would-be self-assertion, he said, "I can do as I like; I am Sir Nicholas Tre- maine." It was the first time in his little reign of nine months that Nicco had ever tried to impress any one with his dignity, and the effort was so great that the poor little fellow was completely overcome by it, and hid his face in Peterkin's mane and sobbed audibly. "You must come home along of me, sir," said Nolan, laying his rough hand tenderly upon the boy's arm. " No, no, I will not dome to that home ; I want to go to my own home, to Mere Annette's houso." "You shall go there another day, sir; I don't doubt as how her Ladyship will let you go, but not G Q 222 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. now, not this morning. Anyhow, come home along of me, and have some breakfast." "May 'I have my breakfast to your house, Mr. Nolan ? " " Yes, sir, you shall have a cup of tea, and some bread and honey ; that's the best I've got to give. " I like better honey than anything ; I will come," answered Nicco, letting the reins drop over Peterkin's neck, and allowing old Nolan to lead the pony back by the road he had travelled only a quarter of an hour before. The parcel of boots was deposited at a wayside cottage, and very soon poor Nicco, tired with all the unusual excitement, was sitting in the old shoemaker's room enjoying his breakfast. By seven o'clock Peterkin was carrying his little master up the hill to the House on the Cliff, where no one suspected what had happened during those early morning hours when every one was fast asleep. Nolan tried to explain matters to Robert, who, in his turn, tried to explain them to Mrs. Tremaine, at whose door he knocked and begged her " to come and speak to him in the morning room." He had an instinctive feeling that he would rather not consisrn o O Sir Nicholas to Clementine's tender mercies. THE RETURN JOURNEY. 223 "Anything broken, Robert?" said Mrs. Tremaine, looking anxiously into the morning-room five minutes afterwards. For it happened that, two days before, the under housemaid had thrown down a china plate which was supposed to be of untold value. "No, ma'am, nothing; it's only about Sir Nicholas." "What of him?" "If you please, ma'am, he's here, on the sofa behind the door." Yes, there was the little lad, in his old Breton dress, and his fisher's cap, fast asleep ; his head resting on his arm, his face flushed, his golden hair hanging over his forehead. " Nicco, dear little Nicco," said the poor bewildered lady, bending over the child and kissing him, "what does it all mean, what has happened?" No answer from the child, only a little grunt as he turned upon his side. Then Robert proceeded to tell old Nolan's story, and nothing more was said or done until three hours afterwards, when Nicco woke up with a start, to find Mrs. Tremaine sitting by his side. " Where's Peterkin," he asked. " In his stable, dear ; Nicco, tell me what it all means, why did you try to go away from us ? " 224 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " I want to go to Plougastel to Mere Annette. "Don't you love us, Nicco?" " Yes, oh yes." " Then why do you want to leave us ? " " Because because I'm one " " One what, darling ? " Only a sob came this time, and that determined expression which they all thought meant obstinacy and sulkiness was upon the little boy's face. Not one word more was to be got out of him ; not even when in the afternoon Granny came to see him, and took him on her knee, and tried to coax him into telling her the reason of his strange little freak. He said he loved them all, but he also wanted to go to Plougastel, and begged to be taken there. "I have the moneys," he said, "I have nine pennies in my purse, for to pay my journey, oh, please, please let me go, for I am one " Then he broke off and sobbed again, then again he asked, piteously, to be taken home. " Some day you shall go to see Mere Annette, my darling," said Lady Tremaine, " only you must promise never to run away again." " I promise, I quite promise, Granny, for some day is very soon." THE RETURN JOURNEY. 225 And with this hope he was happy, only he often asked " whether the next day would be some day," and he was always making plans for his journey, in which plans Peterkin was included. And all this went on until the end of July, when Margaret came home, and saw the change in the little boy which no one else had detected. She was more loving than ever, and he clung to her just as he had done in the days when he first came to his home, but his one thought seemed to be how to please Gerald ; there was something touching, and yet inexplicable, in the way in which he gave in to his cousin in everything, even to the length of going privately to Granny, and asking if he might make him a present of the frigate. This Granny declined to allow, at the same time she said she would see whether old Harris could make another ship for Gerald. Margaret was more and more puzzled as the days went on. Joe Snell did not seek Gerald's society during her holidays ; he had never liked her, had always felt that in the episode of the brown donkey and the duck pond, she had been the little Baronet's warmest champion ; but it never came into her head in any 226 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. way to connect Joe with Nicco, and although she felt quite sure that Gerald did not love his little cousin, he dared not show his dislike openly ; cer- tainly not enough to account for the grave troubled look which often, even when he was in his merriest moods, came upon Nicco's face. "I hope the days are good for you, little Miss," old Nolan had said to her, when she went to visit him ; " I've put that into my prayers as we agreed upon all them months agone, and if all ain't right now, you may be quite sure that the better days is a-coming." " I don't know whether it is all right, Mr. Nolan ; sometimes I don't think it is quite." " Well, little Miss, there's always clouds about, as him of Heliotrope Gardens put in a beautiful letter he wrote to me last week ; but if we only looks straight ahead, and walks straight on, the track of the dawn shines brightest where the clouds has looked darkest." And Margaret went back to school, wondering whether in the winter, when she came home again, with the clouds, and the wind, and the rain, there would be really " better days " than there had been during that time of summer sunshine, with all its outward gladness. CHAPTER XXI. THE INVISIBLE PILOT. ONE small weight was lifted from Nicco's troubled little heart as the summer days wore on. Gerald had manifested very considerable talent for carpentering, and Joe Snell had for a long time been noted in the village as very clever at making all kinds of little models, of which his mother was extremely proud. One of these little models, a small house, was taken by Clementine to exhibit to Mrs. Tremaine, and then it was settled that Joe might sometimes be allowed to come up to the House on the Cliff, and spend an hour or two with Gerald in a large room at the back of the nursery, which was dignified by the name of the workshop. So it was no longer necessary for Nicco never to mention Joe's name, but he did it cautiously and timidly, just saying what beautiful things he and 228 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. Gerald were making ; but never, like the loyal-hearted little gentleman he was, going back to that summer day, when the two boys had gone to the green to see Punch and Judy, nor alluding in any way to the accusation which he had heard Joe bring against himself. In a little book of English prayers which Mr. Carew had given him, Nicco had written on the fly- leaf in his big round hand, " Please, God, pardon mo if I was a tief without to know it, and take me to Plougastel, and make Gerald the Baronet." It was a December day, and the wind was howling fiercely, coming up to the shore in great puffs from the sea, but Nicco, although he did not like it, was not as frightened as he used to be. He had told Granny only that very morning that he quite meant to be a sailor, and she had laughed and said, " And wear a cocked hat, Nicco, darling ? " Upon which Nicco only shook his head, and looked doubtful. On his way home he said to himself, " No, I don't think I will wear one cocked hat. I think it's only the sailor officers who wear those, and I'm going to be one sailor like Francois Penvraz not in a big ship, only in a little boat to catch the fish at Dou- THE INVISIBLE PILOT. 229 arnenez, for I am going to be one sailor at Plougastel, and Gerald will go into a big ship and wear a cocked hat, and be a big Admiral. But all sailors must be brave and not frightened, and I will be one, and I will write a letter from Plougastel, and tell Granny about it, and say that I was not afraid of the big waves." That afternoon Joe Snell came to the workshop, and brought with him something that Gerald had been wanting for many months, for which he had been saving up his pocket money, and which Joe had now got him from Plymouth, where he had been the day before. It was a little cannon and some gunpowder. The two boys were looking at it and admiring it, when Nicco went into the room. "When can we let it off? " said Gerald. " I don't know, I'm sure," answered Joe. " This afternoon, perhaps, if you could come down along of me to the sands, to Puddicombe Bay, where no one will see us, for it will make an awful noise going off." " It won't hurt, will it ? " said Gerald timidly. " Hurt ! I should rather think not," and Joe laughed scornfully ; " but, of course, if you're afraid you'd best not come." "I'm not one bit frightened. Shall we go at once? H H 230 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. for Mother is out, and she said I must go down to the drawing-room at four o'clock, because somebody is coming to see us who knew my father." " All right, then ; come along," answered Joe. " Oh, Gerald, please, do not go. Do not shoot the little gun. It might blow you up, like the man in the boat was blown up, and Mother " (Nicco always called Mrs. Tremaine Mother now) " would not like it." " Be quiet, will you ? " said Gerald angrily, " and don't go and tell tales. Mind your own business. No one asks you to fire the cannon. You are too great a coward." So the two friends went off, and Nicco went back to the nursery, where Clementine sat at work. More dolls were in hand for the coming Christmas-tree, and she was very busy over them, and did not talk to him, except once to ask where Master Gerald was. He answered, " gone out with Joe Snell," but she did not seem to hear the information, and went on working, whilst the little boy amused himself with his toys. He had a slight cold, and it had been decided that he was not to go out that afternoon. Four o'clock came, and Mrs. Tremaine, who had THE INVISIBLE PILOT. 231 gone to the station to meet her friend, had not re- turned ; neither had Gerald ; and the wind was howling, and the sea was raging, and a great fear came into Nicco's heart. What if the tide had come into Puddicombe Bay, and Gerald and Joe could not get away ! There was a tale told in Trecastle of two boys who had gone there years before to look for a gull's nest, and who had been carried out to sea, and never been heard of more. " Perhaps they forget how fast the sea comes in," mused Nicco ; " perhaps the big waves will come and drown them, and oh ! what should I do if Gerald was drowned ? I wish I could help them. I wish I was one big man, but I'm only one little boy, and one coward." Clementine was called away. All in the room was quite silent. Not a sound was heard but the ticking of the old clock, and the crackling of the log which Clementine had thrown upon the fire. And then came those fearful gusts which seemed to threaten to blow in the old windows. Nicco wandered into his own room, and there above the bed was the picture of Jesus in the little ship, bidding the waves be still 232 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " I will not be one coward," said the boy ; " I will go and help them." He took up his sailor's hat, but to get into his great coat and his thick boots would take too long, for he knew that the tide was coming up fast, and he knew too that all the fishermen had gone out in their boats that morning, and would not be in until late at night, perhaps not until the next morning. For an instant he thought of appealing to Robert ; the next he remembered that he had heard him ask leave to go down to the village to see his mother ; and Clementine was afraid of the sea, and Gerald said that all women were cowards, so it was no good calling Cook or Anne or Maria or any of them to the rescue. He opened the hall door, and was almost blown down by a gust of wind ; but again he said to himself, " I will not be one coward, I will be a brave sailor boy." So on he went down a steep short path to the shore, and again up a little incline, behind which the tiny bay, which was called Puddicombe Bay, was situated. In the midst of it was a great rock where the boys used to be allowed to play whenever any one was with them, but where they were strictly forbidden to go alone. THE INVISIBLE PILOT. 233 That rock was now surrounded by water and the waves were dashing against it furiously, each minute rising higher and higher ; and in the fast gathering darkness Nicco thought he saw two little figures v/aving their arms high in the air, and it seemed to him as through the roaring wind he heard a shrill, clear voice, Gerald's voice, crying for help. And he, the brave little sailor boy, was helpless as he stood there, looking down at the pitiless waves rushing faster and faster on, towards the place where Gerald and Joe stood. He joined his little hands and said, "Oh, please, Jesus, tell the sea to be calm," and as though in answer to the simple prayer, there was a moment's lull ; the great mist of spray cleared away for an instant, and at the foot of the little cliff upon which he stood he saw a fisherman's boat made fast to the rock tossing up and down amid the restless waves. He knew whose boat it was an old one of Jack Austen's waiting till he could find time to make it seaworthy. And then a thought it must have been a heaven- sent thought came into Nicco's head : " I will take the boat out to them and I will row them back." He went down the steep path, and stood upon the 234 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. rock to which the boat was fastened. In the little Chapel on the summit of the Headland the women had put some candles to guide the sailors to the shore ; Nicco looked up at the gleam of light, then he made the sign of the Cross, as he had seen the sailors do in his old Breton home before they went to sea, then he too'k the rope into his little hands, and with a mighty effort tried to unloose it from the iron ring to which it was made fast. But no mighty effort was needed, the waves had done their work ; the continual fretting had loosened the rope, and as Nicco touched it, it gave way. Another moment and the little lad was in the boat, trying with all his might to take up the oars. It was of no use ; those poor little arms were powerless, and the brave little heart sank, as another cry, more piteous than the last, rose from the distant rock, above the fury of the waves. And the waves heard the low plaintive sob which came from the little sailor boy in his agony of de- spair ; and they passed it on to the angels who were watching as he sat in the stern of the boat, which was drifting he knew not whither. And with the little sob was mingled a prayer : " Oh, Jesus, come into the boat and tell the sea to be calm." THE INVISIBLE PILOT. 235 There was no one to take the oars, no one to guide the poor old bark as it tossed up and down amidst those angry billows, but there must have been an Invisible Pilot at the helm, Who steered the little boat where Nicco wanted it to go. Going to the rescue. He never knew how it got there ; he never knew how it was that it made straight for Puddicombe Rock, and that as it lay tossing there, Gerald and Joe Snell got into it, and five minutes afterwards one of the 236 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. fishing-boats which had been disabled early in the day and was on its way home, came to the rescue, and the fishermen took the three boys safe to shore. He heard it all afterwards, but on that evening they carried him up to the House on the Cliff, pale and almost lifeless, with an ugly wound on his fore- head and his little limbs stiff and rigid. Gerald and Joe were all right except for the fright and the exposure to cold, but one of those fierce waves had thrown Nicco from his seat at the helm to the bottom of the boat, and left him lying there senseless. CHAPTER XXIT. JOE SNELL'S LAST HOWL. FOR weeks Nicco hovered between life and death. Christmas came, and there was no Christmas-tree for the village children, and if there had been any amusement of any kind outside the House on the Cliff, it is not at all likely that any one would have cared to avail themselves of it, for every one's heart was in that sick-room, where Lady Tremaine and Mrs. Tremaine and Margaret sat day after day, watching and waiting. For Margaret had come home a week before the Christmas holidays began ; Nicco had asked for her in his delirium, and every one's first thought in those winter days was to do what he wished, although he, poor little man, was not conscious of what his wishes were. Gerald wandered about the house, very sad and lonely, and Joe Snell came up every morning and 1 1 238 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. evening to know the latest news. And he and Gerald used to shake hands in a quiet sort of way, without many words, and Gerald would say : " It was all our fault, Joe." And Joe would answer, in such a subdued voice that you would hardly have known it to be his, "Yes, I know it, Master Gerald; and if he gets well there's nothing as I won't do for him, for he's the best and bravest little gent as ever I knowed, and mother says so too." And Tom Austen and Joe struck up a friendship in those sad days which no one would have won- dered at more than themselves, had they had any thought for any one but Nicco. And with the Christmas Hymns of praise and with the Angels' song went up the prayer in which every man, woman, and child in the old church joined, " that it would please God to give their little master back to them once more," even as He had given him to them before, from the depths of the sea. And when the new year dawned, hope came into their hearts. A wonderful London doctor was sent for, and he 'said, "that with great care, very great care indeed, the little boy might get well." JOE SNELL'S LAST HOWL. 239 Only might, but that was something, for before that, the decree had been that he must die. There was an impatient group at the lodge gates waiting to hear the verdict ; amongst them the grey donkey and the poor old brown donkey were con- spicuous, and Peterkin had walked up from his stable, attracted by the unusual crowd, and in the background were the ducks and geese. Down the hill ran Clementine, determined to be first to tell the news. But when she got to the gate she could not speak, she could only cry as though her heart would break ; behind her was Gerald, and he it was who said : " The doctor says he may get well" ; and when he had said it he hid his face in Clementine's white apron, whilst a little cheer, very hearty, but very subdued, broke from the crowd. It was to Margaret that Nicco told the story of his troubles as soon as he got well enough to speak at all. Clementine, and Gerald, and Joe had each in turn paved the way for what he had to tell, and bit by bit she heard it all, and told it to Granny. The little book of prayers had been found during those first terrible days, and they began to under- stand what it was that had been on Nicco's mind, how the thought that he had wronged Gerald had taken 240 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. possession of the poor little tender heart. But it was all made right now. They told him that he had saved Gerald's life, and Joe's also, and he did not seem quite to understand it ; he only looked up at his little picture and said, "I think Jesus must have been in the boat although I did not see Him, because my head was hurt ; but I'm glad if I'm not one coward, and not one tief no more." One day, at Nicco's own request, Joe Snell was asked to come up to see him, and the little thin, white hand was held out, and the sweet little voice said : " Please kiss me, Joe, and I'm sorry about the pond, and you'll be kind to the brown donkey." Whereupon Joe actually howled, then he ran away, but ever afterwards, until poor Brownie died of old age, he made him his especial care. One more request Nicco made ; it was that he might be taken to Plougastel to see Mere Annette ; that was months afterwards, when he lay upon his little couch on the terrace in the spring sunshine ; Mr. Randall was at Trecastle then, come all the way from Rome to see the little lad. This wish too was granted ; the artist and Mrs. Tremaine, and Gerald and Margaret, and of course, Clementine (for of all Nicco's many slaves Clementine JOE SNELL'S LAST HOWL. 241 was the most devoted), went off with Nicco in a yacht to the old home, where Mere Annette still sat in the chimney corner, and kissed Nicco's like- ness every day, and talked to him as though he were with her still. And when he stood by her looking pale and thin, and unlike the little boy she had parted from, she did not recognise him until he said : " Mere Annette, c'est moi, c'est Azicklezad." Then she took him up in her arms, and cried over him, and proceeded to get the frying-pan and to make him some pancakes. And Monsieur le Curd took the boy into the Church, and knelt with him before the Altar, and thanked God for bringing him from death, unto life, and it almost seemed to Nicco as though those martyrs, and saints, and angels, as they looked down upon him as he sat with his little old friends upon the steps of the Calvary, smiled a welcome to him in his old home, and told him to be brave and good as they had been. There was not one of all those good Breton folks who was not happy during that week when the yacht lay at anchor in the little harbour, and when "Milord Sare Nicholas " went in and out amongst them as he had done in the old days. 242 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. And when he went away they cried as they had cried when they had parted from him before, but he told them he should come again very soon ; and he kept his promise. Each year the little lad's summer holidays were spent in the sweet Breton village. " Little Miss," said Nolan the day after the yachting party came home, " it's all right now, ain't it ? there's been clouds, but the track of the dawn has been all the clearer ; I've wrote all about it to him at Helio- trope Gardens." " Yes, Mr. Nolan, thank you," answered Margaret shyly; "and do you know I think, and so does Nicco, that you have helped us to bear things by telling us about him in Heliotrope Gardens." And Nolan made a very low bow, anct answered, " Thank you, little Miss I don't think I ever felt so proud in all my life ; not even on the day when the Lord Mayor's first cousin expressed his entire satisfaction about them boots." CHAPTER XXIII. TWO NEW NAMES IN THE OLD BLUE BOOK. ONE glimpse into the future long years afterwards. It is an October day, warm and sunny with the brightness of St. Luke's summer. The bells of Trecastle Church are once more ringing out a welcome to somebody, and flags are flying, and banners waving, and all the villagers, men, women, and children, are standing on the Green, eager, anxious, and expectant. Every house is decorated with flowers ; the boots and the card of welcome, the ginger-beer bottles and the milk jugs are once more conspicuous in old Nolan's window, looking as though they had not been moved since that day all those years ago, when Nicco first came to his home. Peterkin stands at the paddock gate, very old and fat and partially blind, but adorned with two huge blue rosettes, and holding up his head, with an air of conscious dignity. 244 LITTLE SIR NICHOLA S. Dandy is no longer alive ; report says that he one day ate too many carrots (to which vegetable he was particularly partial) and died an hour afterwards. The old brown donkey, too, is dead ; the grey one is alive and well, although not quite so active as when we last saw him. There are geese and ducks (a white goose con- spicuous amongst them) waddling about as of yore, probably the great-great-great-grandchildren of our old friends ; for of course there have been some changes at Trecastle during all these years, although time has dealt very tenderly with the good people of the little village by the sea. Old Mrs. Austen has been taken to her rest, but Jack and his wife and Tom are standing at the door of their cottage, and old Nolan is with them, and Joe Snell, the village carpenter, is there also, holding in his arms an extremely fat baby whose name is Nicho- las Gerald, for Joe is a married man now, and his wife is none other than Peggy Austen, Tom's sister. The baby is decorated with blue bows, and looks grave and important, as though he quite understood what was expected of him ; in fact, he sets up a loud crow, as a ringing, deafening cheer breaks from the assembled crowd, and a carriage drives quickly along the road. NEW NAMES IN THE OLD BLUE BOOK. 245 In the carriage are two young men, sub-lieutenants in the navy, bronzed by the hot Egyptian sun, for they had stood side by side on the deck of the good ship Trojan at the bombardment of Alexandria. One of them is a golden-haired lad (perhaps you could hardly call him a man), tall and slight, with blue eyes which generally had in them the real Tremaine "sparkle," but just now the sparkle is somewhat obscured by a mist which seems to rise before them. The other is a great broad-shouldered fellow, with brown hair and brown eyes, and such a pale, wan face although there is a bright smile upon it now, through which, however, the old women say, shaking their heads, that they can detect a great deal of suffering ; and the same mist which seems to have affected Six Nicholas rises before a great many eyes, as they fall upon a pair of crutches, which are lying upon the front seat of the carriage ; for they all know what those crutches mean, and that in all human probability Gerald will need their support all the rest of his life. For as the shells fell thick and fast upon the deck of the Trojan, in the harbour of Alexandria, Gerald threw himself before Nicco, and received the missile, which must otherwise have inevitably struck his cousin. At first the surgeon said that there was no hope of K K 246 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. the brave young sailor's life ; but God willed it other- wise ; Gerald did not die, but the hitherto bright active life was henceforward to be one of inaction, and it might be, of suffering. Gerald knew all this, and not one word of rebellion, not even of regret, had escaped his lips. " You must let me be your steward, old fellow," he said to Nicco, " and stay at the old House, and look after everything there, and take care of every one, as I know you yourself would do, and you will go and win all kinds of honours, and come home covered with laurels, the greatest Tremaine of them all, since the time of Edward III." To which speech poor Nicco, whose name had appeared in the admiral's dispatches as conspicuous for bravery, could not answer one word, but could only lay his head upon his hands, and sob as he had not sobbed since he was a little boy. " Welcome home, Sir Nicholas ; welcome home, Mr. Gerald," shouted the crowd on the green, and hands were stretched out and caps were waved, and "Nicholas Gerald Snell" was deposited in some mysterious manner into Sir Nicholas's inexperienced arms, whereupon he turned round, and patted Gerald's pale face. NEW NAMES IN THE OLD BLUE BOOK. 247 " He is a most remarkable boy, Sir Nicholas," said the proud father, "and oh, don't he love all animals, donkeys in particular ! " and Joe coloured to the roots of his hair as the memory of the brown don- key, and possibly the duck pond, rose up before him. " Nicholas Gerald " was given safely into his mother's arms, and then Nicco stood up in the carriage and took off his hat, and tried to make a little speech, of which no one, it must be confessed, heard very much. Only they saw him put his hand on Gerald's shoulder, as he said, in a tremulous voice, " If it were not for him, I should not be here to-day." Then there was another loud cheer, and another, " a special one for Mr. Gerald himself," and Gerald leant forward he could not stand, poor fellow, and said, " You all remember what he did for me all those years ago on Puddicombe Rock for me and Joe Snell." Yes, they all remembered it. Those who were children then, those who were not born on that stormy December day, had heard the oft-told tale as they sat round the fire on winter evenings, and it was fresh in every one's memory. This time the crowd did not cheer. The men took off their caps and the women curtsied, as the carriage drove on to the Uouse on the Cliff. 248 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. And there on the steps stood Granny, very old and bent, but with the same loving smile upon her face with which she always greeted both her sailor lads. And Mrs. Tremaine, looking quiet and gentle as of old, and Margaret, grown into a tall and graceful woman, were there also, and Mr. Carew leaning on his stick, and Mr. Randall, bright and cheery, only his beard was grey now instead of auburn. And a little in the background were Clementine and Robert. Only poor old Robinson was not there. " Tell Sir Nicco as how my one Avish was to see him again," he s.iid before he died, " but maybe we shall know each other in the place where God is calling me. Give him his old servant's love and duty, and tell Mr. Gerald that next to my own Sir Nicco, I think most of him." They were a quiet happy party in the old library on that first evening of the young sailors' return. If there was some sadness in the sight of Gerald, there was hope and thankfulness also, something of pride in the thought of the loyal-hearted young fellow who had been willing to lay down his life for his friend. After a time, and only at Gerald's entreaty, Nicco went out of the room. He came back very soon, and stood there for an instant in the doorway in full NEW NAMES IN THE OLD BLUE BOOK. 249 uniform, his cocked hat on his head. Then he took it off, and went up to Granny and made her a low bow, and laid it at her feet. " He has kept his word, Granny, hasn't he ? " said Gerald, smiling brightly. "He's a sailor in a cocked hat." It was too much for poor old Lady Tremaine. She had borne up bravely all through the evening, but now she could only throw her arms round her tall young grandson's neck, and sob out, " Nicco, Nicco, my little lad." He led her gently to a chair which stood near Gerald's couch, and said, " I have a cocked hat, granny, but he is to have something that no Tremaine has ever had yet. The Queen is going to give him the Victoria Cross for his distinguished courage in saving my life. We only heard about it this morning. That is something for you to write in the blue book." It was written that very night in a feeble, trem- bling hand, when Nicco went to the cottage with Granny. It was the story of a short but faithful service, that chronicle of "Gerald Tremaine, V.C.," and underneath it Granny wrote, 250 LITTLE SIR NICHOLAS. " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." She wrote, too, of Nicco's brave deeds during the bombardment of Alexandria. Then she left the re- mainder of the story, whatever it might be, to be filled up in the years that were to come, by some other hand. We know and believe that the Invisible Pilot in whom. Nicco trusted in his childhood, and whom he trusts still, will bring him through the waves of this troublesome world to the Land of Everlasting Life. And so we leave them all, with their footsteps set in the track of the dawn, which slowly, perhaps, but most surely, leads upwards and onwards out of the shadows that hang about all earthly things, to the full glory of the Sunshine, and to the light of the Smile of God. The Cocked Hat. PRINTED BY }. B. VIRTUE A>'D CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON. A FREDERICK WARNE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. FREDERICK WARNE & CO.'S NEW B00Kg Ff)P( Y0UN6 PEOPLE. READY. In medium 8vo, cloth gilt, bevelled boards, price js. & ROBINSON CRUSOE. By DANIEL DEFOE. With Notes, Life, etc., by WILLIAM Lrat With Sixteen Original Pages. Coloured Plates and numerous Engravings. In medium 8vo, cloth gilt, bevelled boards, price ^s. 6V/. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. A New and Complete Edition. Translated by MRS. H. B. PAULL. Witk Two Hundred Illustrations and Sixteen Page Plates finely printed in colours. In medium 8vo, cloth gilt, bevelled boards, price 7*. dd. GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. A New Translation by MRS. 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With Original Illustrations by EDITH SCANNELL, This b one of Mrs. Selby Lowndes' pleasant and touching stories for young people. The two brothers, alone in the world and clinging to each other, at once attract the reader, and their fortunes, full of variety and surprise keep up the interest to the very end of an amusing tale. Frederick Warm fir* Co.'s New Books for Young People. In Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, price vs. THE DANES IN ENGLAND; A Tale of the Times of King Alfred. By "A. H. ENGLEBACH." With Original Illustrations. " In this volume the author has endeavoured to present a picture of the stirring times when England was at the mercy of the bold Scandinavian sea-kings." PRICE Two SHILLINGS EACH. NEW SERIES FOR BOYS. (THE STANLEY LIBRARY.) \r crown 8vo, cloth extra, each volume illustrated by new and original engravings by first-rate artists. 1. THE KING'S BELL TOWER : A Romance of the Olden Time. By R. ANDRE. With Original Illustrations by A. W. COOPER. 2. THE TREASURE FINDER: A Story of a Lost Galleon. By W. J. GORDON. With Original Illustrations by W. S. STAGEY. 3. JACK LOCKE : A Tale of the War and the Wave. By Dr. GORDON STABLES. With Original Illustrations by F. A. FRASER. 4. ERNEST FAIRFIELD; or, Two Terms at St. Andrew's. By the Rev. A. N. M ALAN, M.A. With Original Illustrations by F. A. FRASER. The Stanley Library volumes are specially suitable for boys. They consist of healthy, stirring stories of school life, and adventure by land and sea. PRICE ONE SHILLING EACH NEW SERIES FOR BOYS. (THE GORDON LIBRARY.) In small crown 8vo, cloth extra, each volume contains 128 pages, and is illustrated by numerous full-page illustrations, and over 30 smaller engravings in the text. 1. THE WRECKING OF THE " SAMPHIRE." By HENRY FRITH. 2. THE OUTPOST. By R. ANDRE. 3. UNDER THE AVALANCHE. By W. J. GORDON. 4. THE GUN-ROOM HEROES. By ARTHUR LEE KNIGHT. 5. THE KING'S THANE. By W. J. GORDON. 6. EXPELLED : A Story of Eastcote School. By PAUL BLAKE. 7. EBB AND FLOW. By R. ANDRE. 8. THE MAJOR'S CAMPAIGN. By Capt. J. PERCY GROVES. 9. THE PURSUED. By W. J. GORDON. The Gordon Library consists of an excellent series of tales of adventure and peril, exactly fitted to delight spirited and intelligent lads. There is much originality of plot, and quite new and fresh descriptions of scenery in some of them, more especially in " Under the Avalanche " and " The Outpost." Those who love stories of the old sea- kings will be delighted with "The King's Thane," full as it is of perilous situations and bn very pr school 1 _. ,--. - - Samphire " is a record of the old smuggling days. The remaining volumes are full of exciting interest for all readers. These volumes are admirably illustrated and prettily bound, and will make valuable additions to any youth's bookshelf. LONDON AND NEW YORK: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. A 000104628 3 <- / '< t * V> Z& &*^&&&