The Stokesley Secret. Yonge Charlotte Mary
near; if that stupid little Davy would only look round, he would be free in another moment; but he only gapes at the pursuit of Susan, and Sam will touch him without his being aware! No—here’s Hal back again. Sam’s off. What a scamper! Now’s the time—here’s Miss Fosbrook, lighter-footed than any of the children, softly stealing on tip-toe, while Hal is scaring Johnnie. Her fingers just touch Davy’s. “Freed! Freed!” is the cry; and off goes he, pounding for home! but Hal rushes across the path, he intercepts Miss Fosbrook, and, with a shout of triumph—There is the sound of a rent. Everybody stands a little aghast.
“It is only the gathers,” says Miss Fosbrook good-humouredly. “I’ll tuck them up and sew them in by and by; but really, Hal, you need not pull so furiously; I would have yielded to something short of that.”
“Gowns are such stuff!” said Hal, really meaning it for an apology, though it did not sound like one, for her good-natured face abashed him a little.
“Touch and take used to be our rule,” said Miss Fosbrook.
Bessie eagerly said that would be the best way, the boys were so rude; but all the rest with one voice cried out that it would be very stupid; and Miss Fosbrook did not press it, but only begged in a droll way that some one would take pity on her; and come to release her; and so alert was she in skipping towards her allies from behind the rose-bush, that Bessie presently succeeded in giving the rescuing touch, and she flew back quick as a bird to the safe territory, dragging Bessie with her, who otherwise would have assuredly been caught; and who, warm with the spirit of the game, felt as if she should have been quite glad to be made prisoner for her dear Christabel’s sake.
An hour after, and all the children were in bed. Susan and Annie agreeing that a governess was no such great bother after all; and Elizabeth lying awake to whisper over to herself, “Christabel Angela, Christabel Angela! That’s my secret!” in a sort of dream of pleasure that will make most people decide on her being a very silly little girl.
And Christabel Angela herself sat mending her gathers, and thinking over her first week of far greater difficulties than she had contemplated when she had left home with the understanding that she was to be entirely under Mrs. Merrifield’s direction. Poor Mrs. Merrifield had said much of regret at leaving her to such a crew of little savages, and she had only tried to set the mother’s mind at rest by being cheerful; and though she felt that it was a great undertaking to manage those great boys out of lesson-hours, she knew that when a thing cannot be helped, strength and aid is given to those who seek for it sincerely.
And on the whole, she felt thankful to the children for having behaved even as well as they had done.
CHAPTER III
“Grant to us, Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by Thy merciful guiding may perform the same,” spelt out David with some trouble and difficulty, as he stood by Miss Fosbrook on Sunday morning.
“Miss Fosbrook?”
“Well, my dear.”
“Miss Fosbrook?”
Another “Well.”
“Is wanting to buy a pig one of the ‘things that be good’?’
“Anything kind and right is good, my dear,” said Miss Fosbrook, a little vexed at a sort of snorting she heard from the other end of the room.
“Davy thinks the pig is in his Collect,” said Sam.
He was one of those who were especially proud of being downright, and in him it often amounted to utter regardlessness of people’s feelings, yet not out of ill-nature; and when Susan responded, “Don’t teaze Davy—he can’t bear it,” he was silent; but the mischief was done; and when Miss Fosbrook went on saying that the wish to help the poor woman was assuredly a good thought, which the little boy might well ask to be aided in fulfilling, David had grown ashamed, and would not listen. But the mention of the pig had set off Master Henry, who was sitting up in the window-seat with Annie, also learning the Collect, and he burst out into descriptions of the weight of money that would be found in Toby, and how he meant to go to the fair with Purday, and help him to choose the pig, and drive it home.
“More likely to hinder,” muttered Sam.
“Besides, Papa wouldn’t let you,” added Bessie; but Hal did not choose to hear, and went on as to how the pig should ran away with Purday, and jump into a stall full of parliament gingerbread (whereat Annie fell into convulsions of laughing), and Hal should be the first to stop it, and jump on its back, and ride out of the fair holding it by the ears; and then they should pop it into the sty unknown to Hannah Higgins, and all lie in wait to hear what would happen; and when it squealed, she would think it the baby crying; but there Susan burst out at the notion of any one thinking a child could scream like a pig, taking it as an affront to all babyhood; and Miss Fosbrook took the opportunity of saying,
“Hadn’t you better hatch your chickens before you count them, Henry? If you prevent everyone from learning the Collect, I fear there will be the less hope of Mr. Piggy.”
“Oh! we don’t have fines on Sundays,” said Henry.
“Mamma says that on Sundays naughtiness is not such a trifle that we can be fined for it,” said Susan.
“It is not naughtiness we are ever fined for,” added Elizabeth: “that we are punished and talked to for: but the fines are only for bad habits.”
“Oh! I hope I sha’n’t have any this week,” sighed Susan.
“You may hope,” said Sam. “You’re sure of them for everything possible except crying.”
“Yes, Bessie gets all the crying fines,” said Hal; “and I hope she’ll have lots, because she won’t help the pig.”
Bessie started up from her place and rushed out of the room; while Miss Fosbrook indignantly exclaimed,
“Really, boys, I can’t think how you can be so ill-natured!”
They looked up as though it were quite a new light to them; and Susan exclaimed,
“Oh, Miss Fosbrook! they don’t mean it: Sam and Hal never were ill-natured in their lives.”
“I don’t know what you call ill-natured,” said Miss Fosbrook, “unless it is saying the very things most likely to vex another.”
“I don’t mean to vex anybody,” said Henry, “only we always go on so, and nobody is such a baby as to mind, except Bessie.”
And Sam muttered, “One can’t be always picking one’s words.”
“I am not going to argue about it,” said Miss Fosbrook; “and it is time to get ready for church. Only I thought manliness was shown in kindness to the weak, and avoiding what can pain them.”
She went away; and Susan was the first to exclaim,
“I didn’t think she’d have been so cross!”
“Stuff, Sue!” said Sam; “it’s not being cross. I like her for having a spirit; but one can’t be finikin and mealy-mouthed to suit her London manners. I like the truth.”
It would have been well if any one had been by to tell Mr. Samuel that truth of character does not consist in disagreeable and uncalled-for personalities.
Miss Fosbrook did not wonder at little Elizabeth for her discomfort under the rude homeliness of Stokesley, where the children made a bad copy of their father’s sailor bluntness, and the difficulties of money matters kept down all indulgences. She knew that Captain Merrifield was as poor a man for an esquire as her father was for a surgeon, and that if he were to give his sons an education fit for their station, he must make his household live plainly in every way; but without thinking them right feelings, she had some pity for little Bessie’s weariness and discontent in never seeing anything pretty. The three girls came in dressed for church, in the plainest brown hats, black capes, and drab alpaca frocks, rather long and not very full; not a coloured bow nor handkerchief, not a flounce nor fringe, to relieve them; even their