“She stood on a rock in the sunlight.”
YOUNG
PEGGY McQUEEN
BY
GORDON STABLES, M.D., R.N.
With Original Illustrations
LONDON AND GLASGOW
COLLINS’ CLEAR-TYPE PRESS
CONTENTS.
Young Peggy McQueen.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
On a Sweet May Morning.
PEGGY MCQUEEN was all alone on this beautiful morning in early spring. Only a child in years, for not a month over twelve was Peggy. She stood there, leaning on the half-door of her own little caravan, and gazing dreamily out and away across the sea, the sunshine on her shapely arms—bare to her well-rounded shoulders were they, for she was not yet quite dressed—sunshine on her rosy cheeks and lips, and sunshine trying to hide itself in the floating masses of her auburn hair.
Calm and lovely though the sea was to-day, with its blues and its opals and its patches of silver—silver borrowed from the sun—this little lass was not at this moment thinking of the sea at all, much though she loved it at most times.
Peggy was wondering if she might venture.
“What do you think, Ralph?” she said, kneeling down to throw her arms round the neck of a great blood-hound who lay on a goat-skin on the floor, his long, silken ears trailing down at each side of his noble head like some fair lady’s tresses, his eyes turned up to his mistress’s face.
Ralph gave his strong tail an almost imperceptible waggle.
“I think,” he seemed to say, “it is folly to be out of bed for three hours yet. Better go back.”
Peggy glanced at a companionable little clock that ticked on her morsel of a dressing-table, beneath the dimity-bedecked looking-glass. The hands were pointing to half-past four. Very early, surely, for a little maiden to be out of bed!
But Peggy McQueen knew right well what she was about. This was the first day of May, and all around the camp the green grass was bespangled with dew. Is it not a fact, that if a young girl dips her face in the dews of this merry morning, she will be sweet and beautiful all the glad year?
Nobody in his senses would think of denying this.
But Peggy wanted to have pretty arms and pretty feet and legs as well, and this was the reason she was astir so early. She put on her sandals now, and placed a very roguish and bewitching Tam o’ Shanter on the back of her head. It was a tartan-rimmed Tammy, with a crimson feather in it which had been dropped from the tail of her favourite parrot. Then she stepped lightly over Ralph, cautiously opened the back door a few inches, and peeped out.
Not a soul stirring in the camp: the large caravan stood not far off, but the blinds were still drawn. The white tent in which the giant slept was not yet opened. Under the caravan was a bundle of straw, and in a blanket-lined sack thereon was wee Willie Randolph, the dwarf, nothing out but his small white face and one arm, the latter placed affectionately round Dan, the lurcher dog. Dan was a person of some importance to the camp, for many a hare and rabbit, and many a fat hedgehog did he supply for the larder.
Behind, and stretching away and away to the wooded hills on the horizon, was a forest of oak and beech and pine trees, with clumps of larch, now clad in the tender greens of spring, and o’erhung with crimson tassels. Making sure, first, that no one was astir, and that Willie was as sound asleep as everybody else, Peggy closed the door carefully behind her, and tripped lightly and gaily down the back steps. She wanted to sing to herself, but dared not just yet. She would do so, however, as soon as she got well into the shadow of the woods, because every bird therein was singing its matinée, and adding its quota to swell the sylvan music of this lovely May morning.
Now and then there would come a strange panic in the wild bird medley, presently to be broken by the melodious fluting of the blackbird or the joy notes of a nightingale, then at once and in all its strength the feathered choir commenced again. So bright was the sunshine, so dark the shadows under the trees, that Peggy could not see a single songster, nor even tell to a certainty the direction from which any particular bird-note rang out. The music was all about and around her, and she was fain now to lift up her happy treble voice and join the chorus.
She went wandering on for a while, unheeding and unheeded. No one had seen the girl leave the camp except the ancient, warty-faced rook who came very early every morning to seek for his breakfast near the tent. He had not flown away when she appeared. He just said “Caw—caw—caw!” in a very hoarse voice, which meant “Good-morning, Peggy, and happy I am to see you!” A dormouse had peeped drowsily out from a hole among the grass when he heard her footsteps, but, seeing who it was, he had merely rubbed his nose and gone on eating his earth-worm.
But presently Peggy came to a green glade or clearing, quite surrounded by spruce trees, with, in the centre, a pool fed by the water of a tiny purling brook, with crimson wildflowers growing here and there on its banks. The water in the pool was not deep, and so clear was it that Peggy could easily see the sandy bottom, where strange, black, glittering beetles played at hide-and-seek, and where the caddis-worm rolled in its jacket of many-coloured gravel.
This was just the secluded glade that Peggy had come to seek. She seated herself on the bank, and taking off her sandals, plunged her legs up to the knees into the cool water. Then she laved her face, her shoulders, and her arms. These were all of the same colour—a light Italian tan—but the rose-tints shimmered through this tan on her innocent and sweetly pretty face. Taking from her pocket a dainty little towel, she now carefully dried herself.
Then, laughing in her healthful glee, she skipped playfully over to a spot where the grass was long and tender and green, and threw herself boldly among it. The dewy blades brushed cheeks and neck, her arms and legs, and dimpled hands and knees.
She felt as fresh now as the clear-skinned, speckled trout in the streamlet, and as happy as the rose-linnet that sang on a golden furze bush near her. She must not wipe the dew off, though. Oh, no, that would have broken the spell and spoiled the charm. In the sun she stood, therefore, and danced and sang till dry.
Then a spirit of revelry came over her. It would still be a long time till six o’clock. She would have time to rehearse for her night’s performance—a dance and a song. Happy thought! She would introduce an innovation. Back she ran now into the forest and commenced gathering an armful of the tenderest and prettiest fern-fronds and wild crimson silené flowers.
Peggy, like the thoughtful and handy little maid she was, never went anywhere without her ditty-bag. No girl who leads a wandering life should. It was hanging to her waist, and contained as many knick-knacks as you might find in an ordinary small work-box. Here were tape and a pair of scissors too, and these were about all she needed at present.
Standing in the glade close by the pool in which her shapely form was mirrored, she quickly and deftly adorned her hair with the wild-flowers; then she just as speedily made herself a tippet of fern-fronds, which she fastened around her shoulders, encircling her knees with fringes of the same. She glanced once more into the pool. She was satisfied, for she was really beautiful, and would remain so all the year round. Oh, the gladsome thought!
If I were merely romancing, I would say that the birds of the forest ceased to sing, and listened enraptured to the merry May maiden’s song, and that they gazed entranced to witness her dance, waving her arms and pirouetting to her own sweet lilt.
But the birds did nothing of the sort. Birds are sometimes a trifle prosaic and selfish, and even the chaffinch will not cease its bickering lilt to listen to the nightingale.
While Peggy was dancing, she was, I fear, thinking of nothing else except the effect she expected to produce that evening on the minds of the rustic lads and lasses who would gather round to see the performance of “The Forest Maiden,” at the camp of the Wandering Minstrels.
The girl’s head was well thrown back as she sang and danced, else surely she would have noticed the stealthy approach of two figures that had emerged from the forest at its darkest side, and were now almost within five yards of her.
They were both of the medium height, and though dressed in the cow-gowns of English rustics, were undoubtedly foreigners. They were handsome men, but very dark, with shaven faces and an unmistakable look of the stage about them.
As soon as Peggy saw them, she screamed in terror, and attempted to fly, but it was too
“What wouldst thou with me?”
late. One of them had already seized her by the wrist, firmly, yet not cruelly.
“Nay, nay, my little fallow deer,” he said, in tones that were meant to be soothing, “nay, my beautiful ring-dove, you must not be alarmed. There! do not flutter so, pretty bird. We would but speak with you for one short minute. We have seen you dance and heard you sing many evenings when the pretty flower did not observe us. We are charmed with the flower’s performance, and have come to offer her an engagement. The Wandering Minstrels is not a good enough show for your talent. No, you must try to get away for one little minute. We offer you a big, big salary. We will take you to France, and place you before a large and admiring audience in a splendid concert-room. You will have dresses more beautiful than you can now even dream of, besides gold and jewels, and you will become a rich lady, before whom the gayest knights in fair France will bow. It is a splendid offer for one so young as you.”
“Do not fear us,” said the other man, advancing a step nearer to the frightened and shrinking girl. “We do not wish your answer now. Only promise, and we shall meet you again, and only of your own free will must you come with us.”
He extended his arms beseechingly. But at this moment, with a sudden and painful effort, she wrenched herself free, and fled towards the forest, shrieking for help.
And help was at hand, and came in the very nick of time to save this child, the joy of whose May-day morning had been so suddenly changed to grief and terror.
CHAPTER II.
The Minstrels at Home.
THOUGH it wanted a good hour of the time at which Ralph, the splendid blood-hound, was in the habit of awaking, stretching himself, and yawning aloud by way of hinting to his little mistress that it was six o’clock, and that all good girls who live in the woods and wilds should be opening their eyes, the honest dog did not go to sleep again. He kept watching the door and wondering.
“Where could Peggy have gone at such an early hour?” he thought to himself.
Had she been intending to stay away a long while, she would have dressed herself and said, “Good-bye, Ralph, and be good till I come back.” She only just put on her Tammy, and went gliding out and away.
A whole half-hour passed, and then Ralph waxed very uneasy indeed.
He got up and stood for some time behind the door, sniffing and listening, his noble head a trifle on one side. There were no signs of Peggy in that direction. Then he stood at one of the windows for fully five minutes, gazing sideways out at the sea. For his mistress had a little tent she could easily carry, and often went to the beach to bathe. But he could not see her now, and his anxiety increased. It would not have been becoming in so noble a specimen of the race canine to lie down and cry. Leave such conduct for tiny dogs, he thought.
Yet she was staying so long. What could be the matter? He walked up to Kammie’s cage with outstretched neck, as if to ask him the question. Kammie was a good specimen of that strange, weird-looking, and old-world lizard called the chameleon, who stalks flies and little grubs when you place him on the grass in the sunshine, or even in your bedroom; who crawls about with marvellous slowness and deliberation, just one leg at a time; who changes colour to match his surroundings; who has two large, circular eyelids, a bright bead of an eye in the very centre of each, and possesses the power of looking in two different directions at one and the same time.
But Kammie was still exactly in the same position in which he had gone to sleep at sunset on the previous evening. No use expecting an answer from Kammie, so Ralph marched to the back door once again, and examined the fastenings. He even shook them, but all in vain.
With a deep dog-sigh he lay down now; but presently on his listening ear, from out the silent depths of the forest, fell a scream so pitiful and so agonising that Ralph started to his feet, all of a tremble with excitement.
Yes, yes; it was the voice of his dear little mistress! She must be in danger, and he not there to protect her!
Once again it rose and died away in terror, like the half-smothered shriek of one in a nightmare.
The dog hesitated no longer.
With a yelp which was half a bark, and which said plainly enough, “I am coming,” he dashed his fore-paws against a window. The glass was shivered into flinders, and Ralph sprang through, escaping with only a cut or two, which he minded no more than my brave young reader would mind the scratch of a pin or a thorn.
He ran hither and thither for a few seconds, uncertain.
But, see! the noble beast has found the trail, and with nose to the earth, his long ears touching it, goes speedily onwards in the direction Peggy had taken. On and on, and he is soon swallowed up in the woodland depths. In less than five minutes he is out of the gloom and in the open glade. He meets Peggy, frightened and fleeing. He dashes past her—no time at present for even congratulations.
Now woe is me for the foremost of his mistress’s pursuers! Ralph bounds at him, straight for his chest. Down rolls the Frenchman as if struck by a war-rocket, and the blood-hound already has him by the throat. It is a gurgling scream the man emits—a half-stifled cry for help. Then all is over. No; the fellow is not killed, for brave little Peggy McQueen, knowing well what would happen, has retraced her steps, and seized Ralph by the collar. And this splendid hound lets Peggy haul him off, and the villain slowly and timorously struggles to his feet, his shirt-front stained with blood.
“Merci, merci,” he mutters, meaning “thanks, thanks.” “Merci, my little forest flower. I meant not to harm you. Non, ma petite!”
But little Peggy looked quite the sylvan queen now, standing there erect on the heath, her hand still on Ralph’s collar, her tippet of fern-green slightly disarranged, the heightened tints upon her cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, with sun-rays playing hide-and-seek amidst the wealth of her wavy auburn hair. She seemed for a moment to fancy herself on the stage acting in the play. One long brown arm was outstretched towards the bush into which the other Frenchman had fled.
“Go at once,” she cried, in the voice of a tragedienne. “Go! The forest around us holds no meaner reptile than thou. Go, and thank Heaven that my faithful hound has not torn you limb from limb.”
She turned as she spoke, and walked slowly back towards the forest, while the Frenchman slunk away to join his more fortunate companion.
As he turned to look back at the retreating figure of poor Peggy, he shook his fist. “Sacré! maiden!” he muttered to himself, “you have now the best of it, but—Jules Furet’s time will come. Jules can afford to wait.”
Just as she was, without pausing to divest herself of a single green fern, but joyful now, and with the beautiful hound bounding on by her side, only stopping now and then to awaken the echoes of the forest with the melody of his baying, Peggy ran homewards through the dark wood, never even pausing to breathe until she reached the camp and stood for a moment to look at the sea.
That dear old sea, how she loved it! The Wandering Minstrels, with their tents and their vans, were in the habit of hugging the shores of Merrie England, only sometimes making a detour of a day or two into the interior to visit some country town, but Peggy McQueen was always happy when the sight of the ocean greeted her again on the horizon, with its ships, its boats, and maybe, away in the offing, a steamer, the gray smoke trailing snake-like far astern of it. And there were times when the sea appeared quite unexpectedly, perhaps while they were jogging quietly across some bare but beautiful heath, with no houses in sight, no life near them except the wild birds, the soaring lark or lonesome yerlin twittering on a bush of golden furze. On such occasions Peggy would clap her tiny hands, and say to whoever might happen to be near her—
“Oh, look, look! The sea, the darling sea!”
And there it would be, sure enough, though only a V-shaped patch of blue between two distant hills.
There was always music to Peggy in either the sight or the sound of the ocean, but when it was far away like this, and she could not hear its voice, nor the solemn sound of its waves breaking on rocks or sand, she always brought out her mandoline, and played to it, singing low the while in childish, yet soft, sweet treble. There really was poetry and romance too in the girl’s soul.
She did not stand long, however, on this bright May morn to look at her sea. She was still in a state of great agitation; besides, it was already six o’clock, and Giant Gourmand had opened his tent, and was standing wonderingly looking at her and Ralph as they approached.
Peggy ran quickly past him, hardly condescending to listen to his astonished exclamation of “Hoity toity, little wench!”
The giant was generally “awfully nice and good,” but on some occasions—and this was one of them—absurdly stupid, and she felt she would have liked to box his very large ears, just then, only she had no time.
She hurriedly dressed herself, and soon came down the steps, smiling, for anger had no abiding-place in Peggy’s breast. She sat down on a huge tree-top and beckoned to her audience to step forward. Gourmand threw his great bulk at her feet, and the white-faced, sad-eyed boy, Willie Randolph the dwarf, lay down on the giant’s chest, and crossed his legs like a tiny mite of a tailor.
The bloodhound also lay down, with his beautiful head upon his paws, his eyes turned up towards his mistress’s face, love in them, that deep, undying love that only dogs are capable of.
“Now, all be quiet,” said Peggy. “I have had such a fearful adventure, and I want to tell you all about it. Ralph there knows all about it already, but you don’t, Willie, nor you either, Gourmie, and Johnnie and Daddy aren’t up yet. Well, listen. This is May morning, you know, and I went away to the woods to wash my face in the dew, so that I shall be beautiful all the year through.”
“O hark at the child!” cried the gruff-voiced Giant Gourmand. “Just as if there were any need for her being more lovely than she is at present.”
“Yes,” piped the dwarf, “hark at her! And look at her at the same time, Gourmie! Look at the flowers in her hair! But what flower in all the forest could be more sweet than she? Fairer is Peggy than the anemone, that waves gently by the treefoot when spring zephyrs are blowing, or floats coyly on the broad bosoms of yonder pond. Prettier is Peggy than dog-rose on the hawthorn hedge asleep; more modest than mountain daisy—the wee, crimson-tipped flower that met the poet in that evil hour; more tender than the blossoms of the blue-eyed pimpernel, more——”
But Peggy stamped her little foot as she bade him be silent, but the glad look in her eye, and her heightened colour showed that young though she was, the maiden could appreciate a compliment as much as e’en a lady of the court of a king.
“Silence, small sir, or I shall hie me at once to my caravan, and you will sigh in vain for the story of my strange adventure in the dewy woods.”
“And yet, Miss Peggy,” the giant insisted, “hardly can I blame my little friend if he waxes both eloquent and enthusiastic in your praise on this lovely May morn.”
“Like Poppies red in the corn’s green is Peggy,” sighed the dwarf.
“Like moonlight on the ocean wave”—from the giant.
“Like music trembling o’er the sea.”
“Or elves that laugh among the ferns.”
“Like Naiads sporting in the fountain’s spray.”
“Or cloudlets sailing in the blue.”
“Like——”
“Really, gentlemen, I must curtail the exuberance of your poetic fancies, for poor Ralph and I are getting plaguey hungry.”
“Go on, sweet maid. We listen to thy voice as to a houri from paradise. Pray proceed.”
“You deserve not, sirs, to hear me speak. But—I was in the woods, and had culled a few fresh wild flowers to—to—well to make a garland for faithful doggie here. I paused for a moment at the forest’s edge to gaze upon the sighing sea, when two villains sprang from their lair and bound me in their iron embrace. Had I been anything save a poor gipsy girl, I should have fainted dead away, and been carried prisoner to some loathsome den, soon to be shipped to distant France. They offered me riches untold if I would but go willingly and join the stage somewhere abroad. My dancing they said would bring down the house, and all the world would lie at my feet.
“But I would not hear of their gold, and jewels, and their gallants gay.—What should I want with gallants gay?”
“While you have me, love,” interrupted the dwarf.
“And me,” sighed Gourmand.
“Had not honest Ralph rushed to my assistance, I should not now be here. But see, my hand is cut, and my wrist is blue and swollen!
“And that is all my little adventure,” she added.
There was silence for long wondering seconds after the child had finished. It was broken at last by Willie. He shook a hard, bony fist, which really did not appear to be much bigger than a mole’s white hand.
“Oh,” he cried, a fire seemed to scintillate in his black, black eyes, “if I had only been there, Peggy, I would have——”
It may never be known what Willie would have done, for the giant interrupted his speech in a way that was more comical than polite.
He laughed with a gruff “No, no, no!” and a deep-toned “Ha, ha, ha!” that stirred the leaves in the bushes near them, and, as he laughed, he hoisted Willie right up, and on to the sole of one of his monstrous boots, then extended the leg in the air till the dwarf looked a mere midget.
“There you are! Now we can see you. He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho,! Now we can see you, Willie. Stand there and talk down to us what you would have done.”
Nothing could have put wee Willie out of countenance. He smiled down upon Peggy, and his smile was an ineffably sweet one, for dwarf though he might be, his face and form were perfect.
“Peggy, love,” he said, “hand me up your maidenly little mandoline, and I’ll sing you a song before I come down from my perch.”
Peggy ran laughing away, and soon returned with the instrument, and, still standing there on the sole of the giant’s boot, he went through his performance without moving a muscle, and as coolly as if he had been on the platform before an audience of gaping rustics.
Then, laughing merrily, he sprang through the air and alighted on the giant’s great head. But Gourmand’s head was a hard one, and wasn’t hurt one little bit.
* * * * *
Sweet, soft, melodious music was now heard coming from behind the alder clump. A sad and plaintive air from Gounod’s “Faust.”
“Oh,” cried Peggy, “that’s Father’s flute; he wants to play us in to breakfast.”
Ah, breakfast is a magic word to denizens of the woods and wilds; and now the giant, and the dwarf, and Ralph and Peggy, all made a somewhat unromantic rush for the tent, and were soon seated, laughing and talking, at the breakfast-table.
CHAPTER III.
A Forest Play.
THE tent was really as roomy as a small marquee, though bell-shaped. It was part and parcel of the theatrical properties of these Wandering Minstrels, and came in very handy in many ways during the performance of “The Forest Maiden,” and other short plays, all of which were composed by Reginald Fitzroy, or “Father,” as the proprietor of this show was called.
One of the duties of Giant Gourmand was to pitch the tent, for the fact is that no one else could have raised it. The canvas once hoisted, old Molly Muldoon went inside to stand by the pole and balance it until Gourmie went forth and fixed the outer and inner rows of pegs artistically.
The giant slept in the tent at night, all the year round. Indeed, he preferred to do so, for this reason—he snored louder than a big basketful of bull-frogs. He knew that he did so. He snored so loud at times that he awoke himself, and the marvel is that he didn’t swallow the pole. Snoring isn’t a poetic accomplishment, and nobody need snore if the mouth is kept shut. But then giants are—well, giants are giants, you know, and have a great many queer ways that smaller people like you and me haven’t got.
Gourmand had all one side of the table to himself, and when there was a joint of meat it was his duty to carve it; and, really, with the great knife and fork in his huge fists he put one in mind of the story of “Jack and the Bean-stalk,” the tent pole being the stalk. He sometimes looked fierce enough to frighten a motor car. “Never mind,” Peggy could have told you, “Gourmie is the kindest big lump of a giant ever anybody knew.” He was nearly always smiling. His smile was an expansive one. In fun Willie the dwarf used to jump on Gourmie’s knee sometimes with a tape to measure it. When tired of Willie’s antics the giant would lift him off his knee, as one lifts a troublesome kitten, and place him gently on the ground. But, big as he was, this giant would have stepped aside rather than crush the life out of a beetle.
Fitzroy himself was a strange kind of being, about fifty years old, smart and good-looking, with a face that was easy to make up for any character, old or young, male or female. He came of a very good family, and might have graced either the Church or the Bar, but for his love of music and wandering. Anybody was Reginald’s friend if he could play some instrument well. Reginald Fitzroy’s fad was flute-making. He was always fashioning a new flute, and, having a persuasive tongue, he generally managed to sell these well.
But come, breakfast is waiting, and old Molly has placed a splendid meal before the company to-day. That bacon is done to a turn, the bread and the butter are unexceptionable, the eggs new-laid, the coffee ever so fragrant, and, in addition to all this which the little people may partake of, Gourmand has a goose’s egg, and the half of a cold roast hedgehog to finish off with.
Peggy, after breakfast, had to tell all the story of her adventure in the forest to Father and Johnnie. Reginald Fitzroy himself would not have listened to the best story in creation until he had first satisfied the cravings of nature and worked in a good meal. And Johnnie Fitzroy took after the old man. Besides, the boy—a very handsome lad of fourteen, but tall for his years—had been far away among the rocks that morning fishing, with nothing worth mentioning on him, except a pair of brown bare legs and a sou’wester hat, from which the fair front locks of his irrepressible hair hung down and wouldn’t be controlled.
He was late for breakfast, of course, but he threw down a great string of flat fish in the corner of the tent by way of apology.
His father smiled fondly on his boy.
“Been up early, lad?”
“Ay, Dad, ’fore four o’clock. Went to bed at seven last night, you know, just on purpose.”
“Did you wash your face in the May dew, Johnnie?”
The boy looked at her, half disdainfully. He was a trifle tired, but he was very fond of sweet Peggy.
“Did I wash my face in the May dew, Johnnie!” he answered. “Just think of a boy doing anything so ridiculously silly. Humph!”
Then, seeing what looked like a tear in Peggy’s eye, he jumped off his seat, and ran round the table and kissed her.
“Never mind me, cousin Peggy. I’m ill-tempered because I’m hungry, and because a lobster grabbed my big toe and cut it. Look!”
The toe was still bleeding through the white rag old Molly had bound it up with.
“Poor cousin Johnnie!”
“Never mind, Peg. I brought him home, anyhow, and he is such a monster. He is walking about outside your caravan at this moment. Yes, Daddy, thank you. I love ham and eggs. Gourmie, do I see you well?”
“There’s plenty of me to see, anyhow,” grunted Gourmand, good-naturedly.
“Well, don’t take on about it, there’s a little dear. And I’ll have the half of that cold hoggie.”
“Have the whole of it, lad. And the whole of it is only a half, after all. Our sweet little Molly is going to cook her Gourmie another goose’s egg.”
Molly was old, like a withered dock as to colour, but she tried to smile a girlish smile as she went bustling out of the tent now to do the giant’s bidding.
Peggy’s story set Mr. Fitzroy thinking. After breakfast he threw himself prone upon the tent sofa, with his flute in his hand. This was his favourite attitude. His sofa was a very primitive one—three boxes covered with a goat-skin and with rugs for pillows—but it served the purpose very well indeed.
Fitzroy played a little, then mused a little, and kept this up for a good half-hour. He could think best when lying down, and the flute assisted his cogitations. He did not mean to build any flutes to-day, he told himself; he would take a forenoon off and be ready for afternoon rehearsal. The neighbouring village had been well billed, and the giant had walked twice through it, dressed as a little charity school-boy with a big, treacle-stained bib on, while Willie, the dwarf, walked in front of him, and pretended to be his father. “The Forest Maiden” was emblazoned on every old wall and boarding to be found, so they were sure of a bumper house. Had not this great show been patronised by all the crowned heads of Europe?—so the bills informed one; surely, then, it was good enough for Stickleton-on-the-Moor. Fitzroy, without getting out of the horizontal, played a difficult study from Wagner.
“Nothing like Wagner for clearing the cobwebs out of the brain,” he murmured.
And then he asked himself the question, What had been the meaning of the morning’s outrage upon poor Peggy?
It was a difficult one to answer, and somehow it brought back to him incidents in his past life that he would just as soon have forgotten.
Fitzroy had married for love, or something which appeared to have been cousin-german to that tender passion. He had not married a sweet-faced doll with wooden legs, such as you can pick up for twopence in a toy-shop, but a more expensive and equally useless commodity, namely, a young girl actress of second-class parts, to whom his flute had given him an introduction. Their married life had not been all lavender, for he was shiftless, and she was thriftless. But she died when Johnnie was but a mere child, and, after this, Fitzroy began to feel around him for some work that would not only be a prop and a stay to him, but enable him to forget his sorrow. So, somehow or other, he became gradually possessed of this same show. Then, when Johnnie was only seven years of age, little Peggy came upon the scene—a child of five summers, but wise beyond conception.
Fitzroy was himself a gentleman at heart, although poverty had led him a little way apart from the path of rectitude. I don’t imagine for a single moment that because Fitzroy was one of a troupe of Wandering Minstrels, and was sometimes classed with the gipsies, that he ever robbed a hen-roost, or cleared a clothes-line, or even requisitioned turnips or potatoes from farmers’ fields. But he had for the sake of making money been something of a betting man, and the way that poor little Peggy had come into his possession was not so creditable to his sense of honour as it might have been. He never cared to think about this. But he had come to love the child quite as much as though she were his own daughter—perhaps, considering all he knew of the story of her life, a little more, because pity for Peggy was in some measure mingled with that love.
Peggy was his Peggy now, and no one should ever come between the child and him. He felt at that moment that he could strike down the man who dared—lay him dead at his feet. He was in reality too shrewd a person to do any such thing. Striking people down in this fashion is a game that does not pay. But the thought had excited him, and he was fain to appeal once more to his flute, and that never failed to soothe him. What did these two men who had accosted Peggy want or desire, anyhow? Were they the same who seven long years ago had first—but there! he must dismiss the thought.
“Avaunt!” he cried, starting up and walking away from it, as it were, out and away into the cool summer air, as if he could leave that thought, leave his care on the sofa behind him.
“No, no,” he told himself; “some idiots tried to scare the girl, that is all; some itinerant fern-gatherers wanted to have a bit of fun to themselves. That is all. Nothing more.”
He played that sweet, tender, Irish air, “The Meeting of the Waters,” then picked up his rod, and went off to fish.
There was a little heaviness at his heart all day, nevertheless, which neither sport nor anything else could altogether dislodge.
But Peggy had quite forgotten her adventure, even before the rehearsal was over.
The giant, assisted by Fitzroy, Willie, and Molly herself, was not long in getting the stage up, and the curtain too. The weather was fine. That was good luck; for nothing diminishes a house more speedily than a heavy shower, or a squall of wind and rain.
The Wandering Minstrels had to put up with all that, however, and during splendid weather they made quite a pot of money, as the caravan master, Fitzroy, termed it.
But a show or travelling theatre of this sort, with a company which was far from a powerful one, required a good deal of thought, and some skilful treatment. For the players had not only to play, but to act as the band, the carpenters, and the scene-shifters, and sometimes even take two parts in the same play.
The orchestra was down under the elevated stage, which was tented or covered with tarpaulins. The musicians were hidden from the audience by a screen, and played there before the opening of the piece, and until some of their number were required on the stage, when, laying down their instruments, they entered the tent, whence steps led on to the boards. It was all very simple and nice.
The scenery was simple too, and ferns, pine branches, and the wild-flowers of the forest were worked in most effectually and artistically.
Perhaps it was this very simplicity that had caused “The Forest Maiden” to catch on so quickly. For the bucolic mind, or, in simple language, the rustic, loves neither ambiguity nor plot. Such as these come to the theatre not to confuse his brains—if he has some—with mystery on the unravelling of a plot. He wants to see and hear what he can understand, and nothing more. This play, “The Forest Maiden,” which they were led to believe had ravished the senses of every crowned head in Europe, was precisely the play for their money. (Front seats sixpence for the élite, or for the lover and his lass; back, threepence; and if anyone kept loafing about far in the rear and tried to get a treat for nothing, Ralph the blood-hound was sent to reason with him, and this method of reasoning was always effectual.)
“The Forest Maiden” was a comedy, combined with a good slice of tragedy, and a good deal of the rough and ranting fun which the gods in the low-class theatres of London so delight in. It was in five acts, not long ones, certainly, but full of go, excitement, and strong situations, with a vein of true love running all through it like the blue thread on Government canvas. Oh, dearie me! as old Molly used to say, my memory is so bad that I cannot even describe the plot to my readers, although I was once present in the New Forest when the play was put on the boards there.
Let me see now if I can possibly recollect some little portion of it. I know, for instance, that it opened with low, sweet music of violin and flute, that came welling up from the orchestra beneath the stage, music so artfully concealed that even I, quick-eared though I be, could not tell whence it proceeded. At one time it seemed high up among the wind-stirred, whispering trees, at another it mingled with the sound of the sea-waves breaking solemnly on the shingle far in the rear, anon I could have felt certain the music was up yonder among the fleecy clouds. Now so interested was I with the simple scene before me when the curtain rose, that I soon forgot the music, and simply was content to know it was everywhere around.
The little Forest Maiden, seated by her cottage door, a rustic porchway overhung with roses yellow and red, the girl herself not less rustic, none the less sweet, Leely she is to name, and she is knitting a stocking while she sings to herself. So breathless was the audience at this moment that you might have heard a pin fall, though it would have fallen on the grass. Leely presently let that stocking drop in her lap, and looked for a minute, or more, rather listless and sad. But presently, “Hist!” she said, with the point of a perfectly shaped and tiny forefinger on her rosy lips.
The great blood-hound, who had been asleep as she sang, raised his noble head.
“That footstep! yes, ’tis he. ’Tis young Adolphus the forester!”
And enter the young forester, clad chiefly in buff leather girdled with green, bow and arrows and huge knife. Scarcely can she hide her joy, her blushes, as Adolphus does an attitude, and throws himself at her feet, one arm placed half-carelessly and half-caressingly across the dog’s massive shoulder.
“Ah! Leely, this is indeed bliss beyond compare!”
“And yet, Adolphus, though thou knewest I was alone, thou camest not near me all day long. Nay, nay, tell me not of thy wild adventures in the forest, how thou chased the deer far into its dark depths till lost, how——”
“Stay, Leely, stay! I have sweeter, better news for thee than all that.”
And Leely leaned forward now, a light in her blue eyes, that one only sees once in a lifetime.
“Leely!”
“Yes, yes. Speak, Adolphus. Why dost thou hesitate?”
“Leely, I met——”
“Oh yes, I know; some charming girl kirtled all in green and garlanded with roses. I hate her. I——”
“Leely, I met a witch, a real hag, in a cottage of turf and heather—a witch with wrinkled skin, and with forest snakes twining round her arms and chest. And Leely, she told me of thee, and bade me bring thee to her hut that she might read our fortunes.”
And so on, and so forth—a pretty scene, and rather pretty the language. Then, with promise to meet in the moonlight to visit the witch, they part just as the thunder (stage) begins to rattle over their heads and the lightning plays around them. Curtain.
There is more appropriate music, and, in due time, the scene changes.
I need not say that Leely is Peggy herself, nor that Adolphus the forester is bold, handsome Johnnie Fitzroy.
The scene changes. It is the witch’s hut we now see, the interior of—but I suppose I must not tell you any more, reader. You say I must.
Very well, I’ll take my breath and open a new chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
So Ends the Play.
THE curtain rises next on the interior of the witch’s hut in the darkest woodland depths. The witch (who is none other than old Molly herself, with a few more wrinkles, put in with kohl, and bushy eyebrows, beneath which fierce, cruel eyes glare like those of the basilisk. N.B.—I have never seen a basilisk, but I am told its eyes do shine fearfully and ferociously!) the witch has snakes around her arms that raise their heads now and then to hiss vengefully. They do so now as the Forest Maiden enters, hand in hand with Adolphus, and followed by the blood-hound. The witch raises her head also—she has been spinning—and smooths back her elfin locks. The young lovers play their parts well, Leely looking timid and sweet, Adolphus bold and handsome.
“What wouldst thou with me, young sir?”
“I would, mother, have my fortune told me, and that of this fair maiden by my side.”
There is a sort of pandemonium scene here—thunder, blue lightning, red fire, a terrible smell of burning brimstone, and, in one corner of the hut, half-hidden by smoke, is a black demon with red ochre eyes, long forked tail, and all the rest of it. I have strong reason to believe that the demon in this scene is none other than the dear little dwarf, Willie Randolph.
But the witch reads the girl’s fortune well enough, apparently. Leely would be captured by a fearful giant who dwelt far off in a mountain recess, and borne away to his castle. This monster lived upon the flesh of human beings, and that alone. The flesh of men and women was his ordinary or daily food, but his special treat was that of a maiden young and fair, whom he first tortured to make her tender, and afterwards slew.
It is just at this part of the witch’s hideous story that a louder clap of thunder than any which had yet been heard rolled forth, a gleam of red light is noticed at the back of the stage, with a great cloud of smoke which presently cleared away to reveal the head and chest of the giant himself, flaming eyes, and teeth as large as tenpenny nails.
In the next two acts, adventure follows adventure thick and fast, boar-hunting, and battles between gipsies and the forest rangers, smuggling raids, everything, indeed, calculated to create a sensation, the whole mingled and mixed with pretty little love scenes at Leely’s cottage door.
The fifth act opens with a view of the giant’s donjon keep, and there, lo, and behold! Leely is to be seen tied up by the hair of the head. There are other maidens there also, but they appear to be dead.
Giant and demon enter and pinch the Forest Maiden’s arms, to see if she is yet tender enough for the table. The other dead figures are probably dummies, but Leely is life-like and natural.
But even now a horn is heard outside the castle walls. Exit the demon, coming back almost immediately to tell the terrible giant that his castle is surrounded, and that he is called upon to surrender.
He seizes a knife, and is apparently about to plunge it into Leely’s breast when the demon interferes. A curtain is dropped and the scene is changed. The stage seems very much enlarged somehow, and well it need be, for here is the whole strength of the company engaged in deadly combat, to say nothing of hired supernumeraries.
The giant lays about him with his club, and a man falls at every blow. The witch herself is here, there, and everywhere, offering incantations; there are thunderings and lightnings, and the excitement of the audience is wound up to the highest pitch. It culminates in a wild burst of applause, when an archer in buff and green fires an arrow which pierces the giant’s heart, and brings him to the ground with a thud which shakes the stage. Meanwhile the fierce blood-hound has seized the demon, and carried him shrieking into the forest. Adolphus steps as lightly as a bantam on to the giant’s chest, and, drawing his sword, cuts off his head. When he advances to the front of the stage with the dripping head in his hand, he receives the greatest ovation of this exciting evening.
Well, the curtain drops at last on the happy meeting of Leely and Adolphus, who rush into each other’s arms; while the witch, with her crutch held over their heads, seems to be blessing both, though what the precise value of a witch’s blessing is I have yet to learn.
The heroes are called before the curtain. The giant is hissed, and smiles a ten-inch smile. The hound is cheered, and so is even with the demon, but when Adolphus leads the charming Leely out, the shouting is deafening, and the pretty actress is almost smothered with garlands and bouquets of forest flowers.
So ends the play.
But not the evening, for the giant afterwards goes through some wonderful performance with the dwarf. And Johnnie, the youthful athlete, gives ample evidence of his prowess in swinging dumb-bells and Indian clubs, all to suitable music. He even lifts the giant off the stage with one hand, while Willie stands on his shoulder.
“But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!
Or like the snowfall in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place.”
The time is up; the end has come; the curtain drops and the band plays “God Save the King!”
CHAPTER V.
A Nymph of the Wave.
“WHAT I says is this, my dear,” said old Molly to Peggy McQueen, when she found her up and dressed next morning at a little past six, “it ain’t nateral, and if you take old Molly’s advice you’ll go back to bed again, as fast as you likes.”
“But you are up yourself, Molly!”
“I be’s an old crittur, Miss Peggy, and old critturs doesn’t get so much sleep as the young. ’Sides, Miss Peggy, they doesn’t need it.”
“But I’m going to the rocks, Molly, to fish. Don’t tell Johnnie, because I want to be first to-day.”
Old Molly laughed.
“Oh, indeed, my dear; Johnnie’s been up this hour and more forbye.”
The tide was far back this morning, and there was not a breath of air to stir the surface of the sleeping sea. It was one vast sheet of leaden gray, with a haze on the horizon, through which a ship or two was looming. Long strips of blackest rock, shaped like needles, jutted out seawards, and on their extreme points the waves broke lazily. Great stretches of yellow sand lay between. At the very end of one of these rocky capes a figure no larger a pigeon could be seen moving about, very actively indeed.
“Yonder’s Johnnie,” said Molly.
“I’m going to him, Molly. Come, Ralph.”
The dog bayed, and went bounding round his little mistress. Even Johnnie on the rock point could hear that deep-mouthed sound and knew that his cousin Peggy was coming, and next minute both she and the hound were seen feathering across the sands in his direction. The boy’s handsome face brightened when he saw his child companion.
“I somehow knew you would come this morning, Peggy.”
“Yes?” said the girl, inquiringly.
“Yes, I knew you wouldn’t go to the forest again to-day, after yesterday.”
“Oh, but I might!” she answered, mischievously. “You know I’m always going to take Ralph with me now.”
“Well, you’d better—or—I could come.”
“A dog,” said Peggy, sententiously, “is often better than a boy. A dog is quieter, and a dog can bite.”
“Come, and we’ll fish some more, Peggy, and look at things among the pools of the rock.”
Peggy sat down and extended her bare legs in front of her.
“Take my sandals off.”
Johnnie did as he was told, and slung them over his shoulder.
Then hand in hand away they went sight-seeing over the rocks and across the pools. Ralph was in the water, splashing about and having great fun with the jelly-fishes. Sometimes he took a big mouthful of water and seemed to wonder it was so salt. Had it been fresh, he would have swallowed some; as it was, he only let it run out of his red jowls again.
But what a world of marine life was to be found among the weeds and in the little, sandy-bottomed pools! Shell-fish of every shape and colour, crimson medusa, and wee, wicked-looking crabs, like big spiders that walked sideways and had their eyes on stalks handy for looking round corners; brown crabs, blue crabs, gray and yellow crabs.
The seaweeds themselves were most beautiful to behold, specially the tiny, fern-like ones, that floated pink and sienna in the clear pools. Sometimes, when Peggy put her foot on one of the bladders which float the very large algæ, it gave a crack like a small pistol, and quite startled her.
They spent quite an hour at the seaside; but Peggy couldn’t find a mermaid, though she felt sure there were little fairy ones, and that they dwelt deep down in just such pools as these, and didn’t wear much clothes, except bits of fringy seaweed around their waists to hide their fishy tails.
“Oh!” cried Peggy, suddenly. She was some yards away from her companion.
“Now you’ve done it,” said the boy. “You want to be a mermaid yourself, Peggy, I think.”
But he fished her out of the pond at once, and tried to wring her frock.
“No good,” sighed Peggy. “I must take it off and spread it in the sun to dry.”
Johnnie helped her, and then made a tippet for her of his own merino muffler to cover her bare shoulders.
“Oh, if you are going to dress me,” said Peggy, pouting, “I must have something more than your merino wrap, though that does feel soft and warm.”
She ran away a little distance shorewards to a spot where the rocks were higher, only stopping just for a moment to wave her hand back to him.
“Go on shrimping, Jack. I’m going to the green-room to dress.”
When Peggy called Johnnie “Jack,” then Johnnie knew that Peggy meant business.
But as she stood there for a moment on the top of a boulder, with bare brown limbs and laughing face, Johnnie had to allow that she looked a very pretty and a very provoking picture. Then she dropped down behind the great boulder, and he saw her no more for a time.
“When I am a man,” said Johnnie to himself, “and have a house or a great caravan, or a ship or something of my own, I shouldn’t wonder if I married Peggy.”
He proceeded to seek for more shrimps and dabs, or whatever he could find. He had a long trident, such as Neptune, the sea-god, is supposed to carry. He lowered this almost to the bottom of a pool, and whenever he noticed the sand stir, down went the three-pronged spear and up came a flat fish. He got several thus, and one wriggley-waggley conger eel.
When he looked up, lo! there was Peggy, standing on her boulder again, but how changed! She was Peggy still in face—she could be nothing sweeter—but her whole body down to the knees, with the exception of her shapely arms, was covered with a garment of seaweeds; strings of shells were around her neck, her arms, and ankles, and her hair was adorned with sea-mosses which matched its auburn beauty. Peggy possessed the gift of “getting up,” but never before had she done anything so perfect as this.
Johnnie wasn’t often taken back, but he was now; he merely opened his eyes and said, “Oh, Peggy!”
The little minx tripped lightly down and took his trident from the boy’s hands, then, holding it with the spear-points upwards, she stood on a rock in the sunlight and began to sing.
If there were any fairy mermaids in those pools, I am sure they looked and listened too.
“Do you like my new dress, Johnnie, boy?”
“Yes; and oh, Peggy, you must sing in it to-night. You look a perfect little nymph of the wave. And now we are going to breakfast, dear cousin.”
“What! In this dress of weeds?”
“Yes, and that trident and all. You won’t catch cold, will you?”
“No, silly; this dress is ever so cool and nice.”
The dog went bounding on in front, barking and baying; the children followed, hand in hand as usual, and, as usual, singing.
They were so happy. Oh, would that happiness would ever last!
When Johnnie led his cousin into the breakfast tent, Father Fitzroy jumped up.
“By Jupiter, Peggy McQueen!” he cried, “you’re a genius. You look somewhat damp, else, ’pon my honour, I’d take you in my arms and kiss you. But, Johnnie, you may do so.”
But the saucy little sea-goddess wheeled round, lowered her trident to the defensive, and repeated some lines from one of her favourite dramas.
“Come not near me, sirrah. Advance but one step and you have looked your last on yonder sun. Seek to molest me, thou craven coward, and thy life-blood dyes the heather!”
“Sit down, my dearie, sit down,” said Molly; “are ye sure ye won’t catch cold in them cloes?”
“I’m going off to write a song. Now, at once.” This from Fitzroy. “The music and words are ringing in my head even now—‘The Seaweed Queen'—and you shall sing it to-night, my damp little darling. Molly, keep my coffee hot.”
This evening was Peggy’s benefit, and the “house” was even more crowded than ever. The same performance was gone through, and ‘The Seaweed Queen’ was voted the greatest success of the season.
* * * * *
On the morning after Peggy’s benefit the camp was struck.
Striking camp seems an easy matter, does it not? But, having travelled in caravans with tents for many a long year, I can assure my gentle and my simple reader, that it is not half so easy to get clear away out of one’s pitch as it may seem.
All hands had to be called very early to-day. It is no hardship, however, for caravan people to rise betimes. They live constantly in the open air, and are wont to consider morning the sweetest time of all the day.
In the case of the Wandering Minstrels the trouble of striking camp was minimised, because everyone had his own duties to perform, and all obeyed the orders of Father Fitzroy, while he himself worked as hard as anyone.
At four o’clock that morning Willie the dwarf shook himself clear of his sack, and with his little bugle to his lips sounded the reveille. The notes of his horn were very beautiful, as they rose and fell on the still air of what was a blue-skied and heavenly morning. They went swelling over the woods and startled the wild-birds; forest rangers still abed heard them and wondered what they were, and fishermen out at sea yonder, who had been toiling all night at their silver harvest, turned their weary eyes shorewards and wondered.
Still with the bugle over his shoulder, Willie, without waiting to note the effects of the blast he had blown, hurried away now and neatly folded up his sack, and stuck it in its place beneath the two-horse caravan. Then he took his bundle of straw away to some distance on the lee-side of the camp, and coming back, proceeded to hang up all the buckets and the field-lamp, and the oil-cans, the vegetable-baskets, and other odds and ends daintily and neatly on their hooks below the vans. He had, moreover, to see that nothing was left lying about the field. In ten minutes’ time the camp-fire was lit and the kettle was filled and hung over it.
Molly was soon busy bustling about to prepare the six o’clock breakfast. Meanwhile, all the theatrical properties were loaded on the cart, which Willie himself was permitted to drive, for dwarfs are strong for their size. By the time this cart was loaded and the quiet horse harnessed, the breakfast was ready in the tent. Though a little sorry to leave so sweet a camping-ground, everyone was more or less excited with the thought of starting off once more and through the woods in search of further adventures.
It is needless to say that the breakfast was a hearty one. If there is one thing in this world that gipsy people can do better than another, it is making a good show at table. Even Willie the tiny did ample justice to the good things Providence had placed before him. As for the giant—
“Well, my children,” he said, “I must confess I like a square meal. Given a good breakfast, a jolly dinner, and a hearty supper, no one need go hungry if he can only work in a few pints of good fruit between whiles, and maybe a few cocoa-nuts.”
Then Molly cleared away and washed up. She stowed plates and dishes in the rack of the big caravan, so neatly that they never even rattled during the journey. The mugs that did duty as cups and saucers were hung in the after-cabin, and knick-knacks placed in cupboards.
“Now, then, Molly, bear a hand,” cried the giant.
“I’se ready, Gourmie, my dear, and bless the Lord, lovie, that we’ve got a fine day and a dry tent to pack. To pack up a wet tent is——”
Gourmand seized the big pole.
“Gee-ho-up!” he shouted; “stand clear, all hands that don’t want to be smothered.”
Down came the tent!
“Honolulu!” he cried, a moment afterwards. “Where on earth is old Molly?”
And a faint voice answered him from under the canvas—a skinny leg with a boot on its foot was protruding from under it!
“I be’s a-scrambling in here, Gourmie. You’ve been and gone and lowered the tent right atop of your poor Molly. Oh, my poor old bones!”
But Gourmand soon had her clear. Then she helped him to get out the pegs and to smooth and fold the canvas, till it was all small enough to put into the sack—pegs, mallet, divided pole and all. The bag was hoisted on to the cart.
Then the harnessing of the horses began. Two horses to the great caravan, one to Peggy’s bonnie wee one, and one to Willie’s cart. While this was being done, the dwarf boy was as busy as a rag-picker. Every morsel of paper or string or stick or straw was collected and placed on the “burning-heap.”[A]
[A] A hole dug in the ground in which gipsies burn rubbish.
“Fire!” cried Fitzroy, as if he stood on a battle-deck.
Willie scratched a match, and lit his pile, after scattering oil over it, and in five minutes more it was quite consumed.
“All ready?”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Off!”
Crack went the whips; round went the wheels, and away rolled the show, leaving the beautiful sea, with its grays and greens and stretches of sand, and its wild, weedy rocks behind it.
“Good-bye!” cried Peggy, waving her little white handkerchief in the breeze; “good-bye, dear old ocean; we will meet again another day.”
Then the silent woods swallowed them up, and the rooks and starlings alone were left on the old camp pitch.
CHAPTER VI.
Peggy’s Home upon Wheels.
PEGGY’S caravan was a very pretty, though small, house upon wheels. It was her bed and dressing-room, her study and her boudoir all in one.
Peggy swung here in a dear little hammock at night. The little hair-mattress and the bed-clothes were folded and put away in a locker as soon as she got up, but the hammock was left out. It came in handy at the mid-day halt for dinner, to swing beneath the trees. To lie thus, with the blue of the sky above and the warm sunlight flittering through the greenery of branches, with a book in one’s hand, is indeed to enjoy dolce far niente, and as delightful an experience as any traveller can enjoy.
Old Molly was Peggy’s coachman; she slept on the floor of the same caravan with Ralph the blood-hound.
If you have never seen the inside of a caravan like Peggy’s you scarce could believe what a charming room it makes. It was all mirrors, brackets, lounges, tiny pictures, photos, and flowers, and at night the swing-lamp was lit, and the fairy lights shimmered through the foliage and petals of bright bouquets; it looked like the palace of an elfin princess, and pretty Peggy was its presiding genius.
She had always Kammie, when Kammie was awake and not stalking flies, and she had always Ralph, and to these she used to play and sing. But sometimes of an afternoon a gentle knock would be heard at the door, and lo! there was little Willie with his little violin.
“May I come in, Miss Peggy?”
“Oh, yes, Willie.”
Then out came the mandoline. Willie put on the mute, so that the notes of the violin might be softer, sweeter, and more thrilling. Perhaps Johnnie would now enter with his clarionet, and throw in a bar here and there when it would be most effective. I do believe our little people enjoyed these chance concerts, as Willie called them, better than anything else in their wandering lives.
The great saloon of the large caravan, with its after-cabin, was simply a villa upon wheels. This was the chief abode of Fitzroy and his son Johnnie, who took turn about in driving. But Johnnie also acted as courier, and as the show took up much time on the road, one of this sturdy lad’s principal duties was to ride far ahead, towards evening, to find a suitable field for the camp or settlement. The horses were all fed on good oats, and slumbered at night in an extempore stable composed of bamboo poles and canvas.
The caravans on that morning, after leaving their pitch and entering the forest, passed many a rustic cottage, and so early was it that the pretty rural children rushed to the door just as they had jumped out of bed, not taking time to dress.
“Hooray! Hoo-ooo-ray!” they shouted, waving brown, fat arms in the air. “Hooray, the big, big caravans.”
“Oh, look at the pretty little one!”
“And the fairy lady at the window!”
“Oh, listen to the lion a-roaring for his bekfust.”
“Oh, Maggie, Betsy, Mary, Doddie, come here! Come quick and see the giant and the dwarf!”
The giant, who was lolling on Willie’s cart, made ogre mouths at them, and the dwarf shrieked shrilly, and squeaked and squalled like Punch at the fair.
It was good fun!
But how delightful for the youngsters of a village they soon came to, when the whole show was stopped for twenty minutes in the principal street, that the horses might get water, and the giant stretch his legs!
The giant was the hero then, and the boys vied with each other as to who should get nearest to the giant. The lad who was brave enough to rub his shoulder against Gourmand’s jacket skirts was considered a hero. To rub against a real giant, was among those simple village lads deemed a feat to be remembered for ever and a day.