CHAPTER IX

"Debby! Tom! Are you ready? It is time to start." Dead silence.

"Audrey, ask Mary if she knows where they are, will you, please?"

Audrey walked away reluctantly. The whole party had collected just where they could look right into the kitchen directly the door was open; and one of the last things Audrey wanted, under the circumstances, was to open the door, for she knew, only too well, the state the kitchen was in. Instead of being neat and spotless, a place of gleaming copper and silvery shining steel, of snowy wood and polished china, such as she would have loved to display, it was all a hopeless muddle and confusion, a regular 'Troy Town' of a kitchen.

Perhaps she hoped she could make Mary hear without actually opening the door; but it was a forlorn hope. Mary was generally afflicted with deep deafness if one particularly wanted her hearing to be acute. She was now. Audrey called again and again in vain.

"Open the door," suggested Mr. Carlyle, "she is probably rattling pans and dishes and can't hear anything beyond."

"Put your head in and shout," suggested Faith, and Daphne and Keith laughed.

Audrey had to do it. She knew that if she did not Faith would—and when Faith opened a door—well, all there was to see one saw. In a gust of anger she turned the handle and opened the door as little as she could. Oh how she longed for one of the exquisitely neat Dutch kitchens so often seen in pictures.

"Mary!" she called in impatiently, "wherever are you? Do you know what has become of the children?"

Mary heard at last, and hurrying forward to reply, spread the door as hospitably wide as it would go, and stood outlined against a background of dirty pots and pans, a table piled with unwashed dishes, and a litter of torn paper everywhere. She had been so busy packing the baskets for tea that her own work had got more behind than usual.

"I saw them going out of the garden carrying a basket each," she said slowly, eyeing the while with the keenest interest the visitors whom she now saw for the first time. "I thought you had sent them on ahead, perhaps, Miss Audrey."

Mr. Carlyle counted again the baskets on the table. "There are four here. Isn't that the lot?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." Mary looked puzzled. "Then I don't know what they were carrying. I didn't pay much heed, but I'm sure they were carrying some, and heavy ones too."

"Some nonsense or other that they have thought of, I suppose," sighed Audrey wearily, and hurried away. Mary would not close that door as long as they stood there, so the only thing to do was to take the guests away.

"I expect they have gone on to try and find a specially nice spot to have tea in," suggested Faith. "They are always busy about something and they love to give us surprises. Don't you think we had better follow them?"

Mr. Carlyle laughed. "As likely as not they have taken up a load of their toys to help to make a pleasant afternoon for us. Now, can you young people carry two of these baskets between you, if I carry the other two?"

"I can take both," cried Keith eagerly, "it is easier to carry two than one." But the girls would listen to no such argument.

"Oh no, no," laughed Faith, "we have some strong sticks on purpose to sling them on, then two of us will carry a basket between us. I have been longing to try it, it seems such an easy way."

But Keith, though longing to help, was not inclined for a tête-à-tête with one of his own sisters, and was shy of facing one with one of these strangers. "I know," he cried, with sudden inspiration, "I'll walk in the middle with the end of a stick in either hand and you four can take it in turns to carry the other ends." No one having anything to say against this plan they proceeded, Faith grasping one stick and Irene the other, while the baskets swung between in a fashion that would have turned the milk to butter had there been any in them to turn. Behind the trio walked Audrey and Daphne, dainty and decorous enough to give an air to any party.

Upon the moor, meanwhile, Debby and Tom sat triumphant but exhausted.

"Won't they be s'prised!" panted Debby. "Won't it be fun. Oh, Tom, I must take them out, they are crying so." The first only of her remarks applied to her family. She untied the lid of her basket and, lifting the cover, peeped in. "Oh, Tom," her voice growing shrill with alarm, "Snowdrop is stepping on Nigger's head, and—oh! Rudolph looks as though he is quite dead!" Her voice had risen to a cry of horror.

"Haul them out then," cried Tom brusquely. "What are you waiting for!" He was nearly as alarmed as Debby, but not for worlds would he have shown it. "I expect he is only asleep or shamming."

With shaking hands Debby, awed into silence for the moment, lifted out first a tiny black kitten, then a white one, and last of all a black and white one, and laid them on the short warm grass beside her. Nigger and Snowdrop began to sprawl about at once, revelling in their freedom. The black and white Rudolph opened a pair of watery blue eyes, gazed sleepily about him, and fell asleep again with every sign of satisfaction.

"He's all right," cried Tom, relieved, yet annoyed at having been for a moment alarmed. "He's a greedy little pig; he can't keep awake because he eats so much. Now, look out, I am going to let out Nibbler."

"Oh!" gasped Debby, still busy with her pets, "won't they love it! Wait a sec., Tom, till I'm looking. Snowdrop you shall all go back into the basket this minute if you don't stop yelling! You are only doing it to annoy. Now I am ready. Don't lift him; just open the cover and let him hop out by himself. We'll see what he does. Oh-h-h, he won't eat my kittens, will he?"

"Nibbler isn't a cannibal, he's a rabbit," declared Nibbler's owner indignantly. "Now, look out!" He opened the lid slowly, and Nibbler sniffed the air rapturously.

"Oh, doesn't he love it! Look at his dear little nose wriggling with joy. Oh Tom! do look at him waggling his ears!" Debby's voice grew shrill again with excitement. Nibbler hopped out of the basket and her joy became intense.

For a moment, as though bewildered by the space, the sunshine, and the breeze, the great rabbit sat and stared about him; then suddenly old instincts came crowding back upon his rabbit brain, He saw furze and bracken, and rabbits' burrows all about him, he felt the turf under his feet, and life calling to him—and he followed the call!

When, a little later, the rest of the party arrived, they found three forlorn kittens tumbling helplessly over each other, and squealing loudly with fright, while in the distance two little blue-clad figures dashed desperately from one clump of bracken to another, and with tears running down their faces, shouting frantically "Nibbler, Nibbler, oh darling, do come here, you will be killed if you stay out here all night; Nibbler, Nibbler!"

It did not take the family long to grasp what had happened. "They will break their hearts if they lose him," cried Faith, almost as distracted as the children. "We shall never get them to go home and leave him behind. They will stay all night searching for him."

"I will go and help them," said Keith at once. "What colour is he?"

"White and tan, nothing uncommon, but we all love him."

Audrey felt very cross. "One can always count on those children to spoil every plan we make," she muttered to herself vexedly; "they deserve to be whipped and sent home to bed, tiresome little torments!"

All of the party but herself had hurried away to join in the search, and she was left standing alone by the baskets.

"Well, there is no need for me to go fagging round too, and someone ought to stay by the things, or they might be stolen. One never knows if there are tramps about."

She seated herself comfortably on the grass with her back against a basket and waited. It never occurred to her to unpack the baskets and begin to arrange the tea-table, nor to take up the frightened kittens and try to stop their cries. She just sat there revelling in the sunshine and the breeze, and the scent of the furze-blossom. It was so beautiful that she almost forgot everything unpleasant or worrying. In the distance she caught sight of a man on horseback galloping across the moor, and began to weave a story of bearers of secret tidings, plots and enemies, in which the distant horseman was the hero and she the heroine, and she had just reached, in her own mind, a village wedding and little girls strewing in the path of a noble one-armed hero and a bride, white as a lily save for her crown of burnished hair, when Irene returned, and with a little sigh of weariness dropped on the ground beside her.

"We can't find him," she sighed, "and those poor babies are breaking their hearts. What can we do?" Irene was really distressed, but Audrey, with her eyes fixed on the horseman, and her thoughts on the story she might write, had none left for sympathy with two children and a lost rabbit.

"Oh, he is quite old," she cried involuntarily. The rider was near enough now for her to see that his hair was grey and—oh, horror, that he had a beard!

Irene looked up in surprise. "Who?" she inquired, "Nibbler?" Then her eyes followed Audrey's, and with a cry of delight and surprise she sprang to her feet. "Why, it's grandfather!" and ran forward to meet him.

Audrey was glad that she did so—she was glad to be alone for one moment, in which to recover herself. Oh how thankful she was that no one could read her thoughts, how thankful that no one knew what she had been thinking. She saw the rider dismount and greet Irene, she saw Irene tuck her arm contentedly through his arm and lead him forward; and she had scarcely recovered from her confusion when Irene brought him up to her saying, "This is my grandfather, Audrey."

"Grandfather, you have heard us talk of Audrey, the girl we travelled down with the day we came to you. Mr. Carlyle and all the rest are looking for the children's rabbit. The poor dears brought him out to share the picnic and he has hopped off on his own account. Now you must stay here and talk to Audrey while I go and look for him just over there. I think we haven't looked in that clump of ferns yet."

Mr. Vivian slipped the rein from off his arm and left his horse free to crop the grass. "He will be safe," he said reassuringly, "he will not go far from me. Peter is more dependable than the rabbit Irene was speaking of."

Peter moved away a few paces, and his master seated himself on the grass near Audrey and the baskets and the kittens. "What sort of a rabbit is it?" he asked, "and which way did he go?"

"I don't know which way he went," said Audrey, "he was gone when we reached here. The children were very naughty, they started off by themselves, unknown to anyone, with a basket of kittens and a rabbit. There are the kittens. They have been making that dreadful noise ever since we came."

"Poor little creatures! they are frightened, they want to be taken up and held."

"They would spoil my clean frock," said Audrey hesitating.

Mr. Vivian picked up the three little squealing things and held them in his own arms. Their cries soon changed to a contented note. "They can't hurt my old coat," he remarked with a smile, "not that I'd mind much if they did, poor little beggars."

Audrey felt vexed and ashamed and could think of no reply to make. For a moment silence fell, broken only by the singing of the birds all around them.

Close to them and to Peter was a large clump of bracken on which Mr. Vivian's eyes rested lazily. Suddenly he deposited his three little charges on the ground again, "What was the colour of your rabbit?" he asked in a lowered tone.

"White and light brown," said Audrey, "quite a common kind. It wasn't a valuable one, but the children——"

"If you get up very gently and go round to that side of the clump of ferns," Mr. Vivian broke in hastily, "I think we shall get the gentleman. I feel pretty sure he is in there. I saw something big move when Peter stepped close. Now then, stoop down on that side and grab him if he runs out, and I will be on the look out for him here."

There was no need though for Audrey to grab, for the poor frightened creature only stared up bewildered when Mr. Vivian opened the ferns above its head, and with one sure grasp lifted it up and into his arm.

"Now," he said, as pleased almost as Debby and Tom themselves could be, "I'll pop my gentleman into his basket while I hurry on to tell the news, and relieve those poor little aching hearts."

Surprise at his presence, or awe of his rugged face and grey hairs were entirely swallowed up in the joy his news brought them. To the three Carlyle children he was a complete stranger, but they took him to their hearts then and there.

"We will give you the very, very nicest tea we can possibly give you," cried Faith enthusiastically, when each in turn and all together had poured out their thanks. "I hope you are longing for some, for we want to give you something that you want very much."

"I did not know I was," laughed the old gentleman, "but now you have mentioned it I find it is the one thing I want."

Tom and Debby ran on ahead to rejoice over their newly-recovered darling, the rest trooped back more slowly. Audrey seeing them coming got up and began to bustle around. She felt a little ashamed of herself, and very anxious to wipe out the not very pleasing impression she felt sure she had made on their visitor. She got out the table cloth and spread it on the ground.

"First of all," suggested Faith, "we had better build up the fire and put the kettle on. It takes rather long sometimes."

"I'll get some sticks," volunteered Keith. "Come along, Tom, we'll provide the wood; that shall be our job."

"I want to go too," cried Debby, "but the kittens are asleep, and I can't possibly disturb them, can I?"

"Run along," said Mr. Vivian kindly, "I will mind your kittens for you, they know me, and we will be as happy as kings together."

"I wish," Audrey remarked, "that we had some methylated spirits and a stove. It is ever so much quicker and not nearly so messy."

"But it isn't as much fun," consoled Irene, "and the tea tastes so nice when the water is boiled over sticks and furze. Don't you think so?"

"I don't know. I don't see that it can make any difference. But I think it is a dreadful bother trying to get enough for everyone. The fire always goes out or the——"

"Audrey," called out Faith, "where is the kettle? Daphne and I will go to the cottage to get it filled."

"I haven't the kettle," said Audrey. "I haven't seen it. Isn't it in the basket over by you? Don't say you have come without it?"

"I am afraid we have," said Faith reluctantly, after looking in vain in all directions. "What can we do? Do you think the woman at the cottage would lend us one?"

"If she did she would be sure to say we had damaged it. If it sprang a leak at the end of six months she would be sure to think it was our fault." Poor Audrey felt and looked thoroughly vexed. Everything so far that day had gone wrong, and she had wanted it to be so different. What she could not see was that nothing had gone wrong seriously, and a little good temper and a sense of humour could not only have carried her through triumphantly, but have turned most of the predicaments to fun.

Keith came up with a bundle of sticks in his arms and heard the tale of woe. "Oh, that's nothing," he said with a promptness that was most consoling. "I will ask grandfather to lend me Peter and we'll trot back and get a kettle in a flash."

But Mr. Vivian preferred to go himself. "And I'll take young Tom with me," he said. "He can run in and explain to the maid and get the kettle in half the time Keith or I could. We should have to explain who we were and by what right we came and demanded the family tea-kettle."

Audrey demurred, blushing at the mere idea, and she blushed again when, Peter and his two riders returning, she saw Mr. Vivian waving the old kettle triumphantly.

"Oh," she cried impatiently, "I did think Mary would have had the sense to wrap it up!"

"I wouldn't let her. I told her not to do anything more than tie a piece of paper round its smutty sides. Now, while we are mounted, don't you think it would be a good plan for us to ride over to the cottage and get the kettle filled? I like to be useful," as all protested against his taking this trouble. "You see, I feel that if I do something for it I shall be able to ask boldly for a second cup of tea." And the old gentleman rode away laughing, as full of enjoyment as any of them.

Now at last things promised to go right. In a very short time the kettle, filled with water, was hanging over a blazing fire of sticks and furze, and Mr. Vivian had ridden away to borrow a pitcherful of water in case the kettle required to be filled again, as it almost certainly would. A new site was chosen for the tea-table and the cloth was spread. Daphne brought sprigs of heather and grasses and green ferns to decorate the table with. Keith, with Tom helping him, worked like a Trojan at stoking the fire, and Audrey was glad that someone else undertook that smutty, eye-smarting business, or her hands and her dress would have been as grubby as theirs probably, before she had done.

Irene was taking cups and saucers, plates and dishes from Faith as she unpacked them, and arranging them on the table.

"But you are the guests," said Audrey presently, "you mustn't bother about helping. Faith and I ought to do all that."

"Oh, but I love to. Do you mind?" Irene looked round, a swift delicate colour mounting to her cheeks.

"Mind!" Audrey knew as well as possible that she could never have arranged such a dainty, alluring-looking tea table, as was every minute growing in attractiveness before her eyes. She knew how it should look when done, but Irene knew how to do it. Audrey did think though that she would like to be of some use. She was feeling rather snubbed and very much out of things.

Irene saw it and drew back a little. "I am afraid—I did not mean to—to be bossy," she added, colouring again more warmly. "I only wanted to help," and she pushed towards Audrey the box of cakes she had been unpacking. "I suppose it comes from being the eldest. Everyone seems to expect the eldest to do things, and—and so I have got into the way of doing them as a matter of course. I am awfully sorry, Audrey, it was a great cheek of me."

But Audrey scarcely heard what she was saying, for she was thinking that no one went to her to have things done for them. No one seemed to expect anything of her.

"I suppose they think I am not able—but, at any rate, I can take cakes out of a box and arrange them on a plate." And while trying her hardest to make the dishes look as attractive as possible she grew less unhappy and more in tune with everything.

"Oh, how pretty," said Faith, coming to her with the teapot in one hand and a packet of tea in the other. "Audrey, will you measure out the tea. I don't know a bit how much to put in for such a lot of us."

Here was something expected of her, at any rate. She should have felt elated at being again appealed to, but she only looked vaguely from Faith to Irene and back again. "Neither do I," she confessed at last.

Irene counted heads on her fingers. "Nine," she reckoned, "two real kiddies, two ex-kiddies,"—fixing her eyes on Keith and Daphne. Daphne threw a tuft of heather at her, "one—two—three——"

"Flappers," interrupted Keith derisively.

"Grown-ups," finished Irene, ignoring him, "and two real grown-ups who like their tea strong. I should think half-a-dozen teaspoonsful would do. If we haven't tea enough to go round, Keith and Daphne shall drink hot water; it will be so good for their complexion."

"What gratitude! after we have slaved so over the fire and boiling the kettle and all," cried Keith indignantly.

"What is the 'all'? Don't say that you have boiled anything more than the water."

But the discussion was put an end to by the kettle, which boiled over at that moment, and the tea was made as Irene had decreed.

Then at last the whole party gathered round the table; the kittens, revived by milk, played happily together on the grass. Nibbler sulked in his basket and took sly bites at a handful of dandelion leaves when he thought that no one was noticing him; but everyone else was happy, hungry, and content. The fresh air gave them all such appetites that everything they had to eat and drink seemed to be doubly good; the same beautiful air and the sunshine sent their spirits soaring, and set everyone in the mood to laugh and joke. All stiffness and shyness had so completely vanished that the visitors already seemed like old friends rather than new ones; and Audrey was just thinking how very happy life might be, even at home in Moor End, when, in a pause in the chatter, a sharp pitiful cry floated across the stillness to them.

Debby was on her feet in a moment. "It is one of the kittens," she cried anxiously. "Oh, what has happened? I am sure one is hurt."

Everyone's eyes searched the ground around them. Snowdrop was seen at once, and Nigger was close by. Suddenly Keith started to run, Debby tore after him, the same fear possessing them both. A little way off Peter stood cropping the grass, a few paces behind him Rudolph lay on the turf bleeding and very still—his inquisitiveness had led him too far at last. In inspecting Peter's hoofs he had got under one and so ended his curiosity for ever.

Fig 3.

Keith reached him first, and by the time poor, panting, white-faced Debby drew near he had covered the little lifeless body with his handkerchief. "He is dead," he said gently, going to meet her and lead her away. "Poor little chap—he must have been killed at once. Come away, Debby dear, don't look at him." And he stood with his arm around her shaking shoulders while her first anguished sobs broke from her.

"Don't cry so, Debby," he urged her; consoling her more by his tone than his words, "be brave, old girl. He—he—poor little chap—he—won't suffer any more. He—won't have to be given away now." Keith found it very hard to find anything comforting to say. In fact, he would have been glad to have been somewhere quite alone, that he might have shed a few tears unobserved, himself. "Anyhow, he enjoyed his life—as long—as it lasted. You made him awfully happy."

"But he had only had six weeks and two days," sobbed Debby, "and I loved him best of all, he was so ugly, and people laughed at him. Oh, why couldn't he have stayed where I put him! Oh, Rudolph, you dear naughty darling, I loved you so."

Keith clasped her closer, "Never mind, old girl; don't cry, Debby." Debby's face was bowed on his other arm. Suddenly she stretched out a groping arm. "Handkerchief please, I—I lost mine."

"I—I am awfully sorry, but mine is spread over Rudolph."

"Never mind, don't take it away from him." Debby's tears flew fast again. "But I wish I knew where mine was, it's—it's rather awkward."

At that moment, though, the rest of the family came up, and Audrey, who, true to a habit taught her by her grandmother, always carried two, provided the little mourner with the much-needed handkerchief.

But though she provided for her wants Audrey was thoroughly vexed and upset with the little mourner. It seemed to her that the two children really did go out of their way to spoil everyone's enjoyment.

Her eye fell on Tom standing close beside her. "It all comes of your naughtiness in the first place," she said irritably, "if you hadn't brought all these animals up here we might all have had some pleasure, and Rudolph would have been alive and happy. Now you and Debby have the satisfaction of knowing that by your behaviour you have spoilt the day for everyone, and killed a poor little helpless kitten."

Audrey was not observant or she would have noticed her little brother's white face and quivering lips. If she had been sympathetic she would have understood that the sorrow which filled his heart was doubled, trebled, by the knowledge that his act—innocent little joke though it was, was at the bottom of the tragedy—but Audrey understood neither. She was annoyed and she wanted to hurt.

Mr. Carlyle, who, if he had not heard all, had seen more than Audrey was capable of seeing, went over and put his arm around his little son's shoulders protectingly. He knew what the boy was enduring—that he was learning in that hour a lesson which would remain with him all his life.

"If we could all of us foresee the consequences of what we do," he said, "we should be saved from doing many a wrong and foolish thing. If we could look ahead and see the effect of what we say, we would often bite our tongues rather than utter the words trembling on them. When I was a little boy, my mother taught me some verses which I hardly understood at the time, but they have often come back to my mind since, whenever I have felt inclined to blame other people. I will tell them to you, that you may remember too.

"'Happy are they, and only they,
Who from His precepts never stray.
Who know what's right, nor only so,
But always practice what they know.'

"But always practise what they know," Mr. Carlyle reflected thoughtfully. "I wonder which of us do that?"

Audrey coloured deeply, and found no words to say. Thoughts came crowding on her mind, remembrance of many things left undone, of many complainings of others, of duties neglected, of selfishness—known to no one but herself—and her heart grew shamed and very humble. How many times since she had come home had she not preached what she did not practise?

"But," went on Mr. Carlyle sadly, "I love better the words of a more kindly singer, one who shows us not only the mountain-top, but helps us up the steep, rough path to it:

"'If you would help to make the wrong things right,
Begin at home, there lies a life-time's toil.
Weed your own garden fair for all men's sight,
Before you plan to till another's soil.'

"Shall we try to do that, my Audrey, you, and little Tom, and I? I think we should be happier:

"'If you are sighing for a lofty work,
If great ambitions dominate your mind,
Just watch yourself, and see you do not shirk
The common little ways of being kind.'"

With his other arm around her the trio strolled away across the moor. "We all need kindness so much, and forbearance. In this world we cannot get on without them. Shall we start fresh from to-day, Audrey?"

Audrey looked at her father through tear-filled eyes, her lips were quivering. "Oh father, father, I want to—but I don't know how."

"There is only one way, dear. By constant striving against our failing, and by constant prayer. We cannot succeed by ourselves, we should only meet with certain failure. But if we place our hand in God's hand we know that though we may stumble and totter many times, we cannot fail entirely."

A few minutes later she was kneeling beside Debby, where she still lay sobbing heartbrokenly.

"Debby dear, I have picked some heath and some dear little ferns. If Keith will help me, we will make such a pretty grave for poor little Rudolph, up here on the moor. Would you like that?"

For a moment Debby looked at her in speechless surprise. "Could it be cross Audrey speaking so gently?" Then her arms were flung out and around her eldest sister's neck, "Oh, Audrey," she cried, "oh Audrey, I am so glad you care too. Though he wasn't—very pretty, he was such a darling, and I do, I want everyone to feel sorry that he is dead—but I thought you didn't."

And Audrey returned the embrace. "I do Debby dear, I do. I can't tell you how dreadfully sorry I am."

When, an hour later, the whole party turned their faces homeward, one of Debby's hands was clasped in Audrey's, the other in Keith's. Audrey carried the sleeping Snowdrop and Keith the sleeping Nigger; while up on the now desolate looking moorland, little Rudolph lay sleeping in the soft brown earth beneath a clump of waving bracken. So short a life his had been, so tragic and swift an end, but the hand-clasp of the sisters showed that his little life had not been lived in vain.