The Happy Adventurers, Lydia Miller Middleton [mini ebook reader txt] 📗

I’ll come up too and look.”

“You may come, but you won’t see anything,” Prudence said, steadying her end of the ladder while Mollie climbed.

The Nest was certainly empty. The little blue bird must have found wings and flown, Mollie thought. She looked up and down and round about, but not a vestige of Grizzel was there to be seen. Then she called her Scouting lore to her aid, and set her wits to work.

“The basket has gone too, and there is no orange peel anywhere, but the Swiss Family Robinson is there on the book-shelf. So she did not go in a great hurry, because she tidied up first. Let us go to the Look-out and see if we can catch sight of her blue frock. She may be hiding quite near and laughing at us all the time.”

They climbed to the Look-out and anxiously scanned all the visible parts of the garden, but nowhere was there a morsel of blue pinafore or red curls to be seen.

“We had better get down,” Prudence said, “and search the garden properly; I’ll ask Bridget to come and help us. What I can’t understand is how she got down at all, and, if she was down, why she didn’t come to meet Papa. She always meets him; always, always. Whoever doesn’t meet him Grizzel always does.”

Bridget laughed at their fears, but under her laugh Mollie could detect a tone of anxiety, and when house and garden had been searched in vain, Bridget and Prudence faced each other in silence. Then Prue spoke out the fear which Mollie had not understood:

“The blacks have come to town; I saw their wurlies yesterday when we left the Gardens.”

“Away wid ye, Miss Prudence,” Bridget scoffed. “An’ what for wud the blacks be touchin’ Grizzel? Isn’t yur Pa the kindest gintleman in the whole wurrld to thim, dirrty things they be!”

“Old Sammy was angry because Mamma would not give him a new blanket last time he came,” Prudence answered, her face pale with anxiety and tears not far away. “He just goes and sells them, that’s what he does, and buys whisky. He followed me all down the road one day when I was alone, and jabbered away till his wife came and hauled him off.”

There was a troubled silence while Bridget and Prue considered the next step to take. Mollie felt that this problem was beyond her powers of solving. Then a sudden thought struck her:

“Where’s Laddie? We haven’t seen him either.”

“Praise be!” exclaimed Bridget. “The dog’ll be wid Grizzel, an’ that’s sure. Blessin’s on ye for the thought, Miss Mollie, for it’s scared I was an’ there’s no use denyin’.”

“Thank goodness! If the blacks had come Laddie would have barked,” Prudence said, taking a long breath of relief. “How on earth did I not miss him myself!”

“Your mind was so full of Grizzel you had no room for another thought, but now—where is she, and how did she get down?”

“We must find her before Mamma comes home. Mollie, you are clever; think some more.”

Mollie thought her hardest, but, as she explained, it was difficult to make suggestions when she knew neither Grizzel nor the surroundings very well. “She had no hat on; let us go and see if she has taken a hat. Would she be likely to go out without one?”

No, they said, going out without a hat was unheard of. So a search was instituted in the girl’s room, and to their relief Grizzel’s garden hat was missing—somehow, even to Mollie, it seemed less alarming to be missing with a hat than without one. In fact, if it had not been for the mystery of the tree—which certainly was very inexplicable—Mollie would not have disturbed herself. Grizzel had gone out, wearing her hat, carrying her basket, and accompanied by the large and capable Laddie. Most likely she would come back presently with some simple explanation to account for everything.

“I think she has gone for a walk. She got down somehow and ran off to give Hugh a fright. Let’s go and look for her along the road,” was Mollie’s next proposal.

“If she has gone for a walk she will most likely come home by the lane, unless she went over to the parklands—oh, I wish she would come back! She never goes out alone in town, because she is frightened of meeting Things. She says there are all sorts of Things in town. Once she got lost in a big crowd, and I think it made her rather nervous. Besides, Mamma will be angry if she is not home when they come in, and we’ll get such scoldings.” Prudence sighed and looked longingly towards the white gate, but there was no sign of the wanderer’s return.

“Suppose we go to the Look-out and reconnoitre, and if we see her we can go and meet her,” said Mollie.

This seemed a good idea, so they climbed the ladder once more, and, one behind the other, scrambled to the top of the tree. But twilight was already creeping over the land—the brief Australian twilight which turns to darkness so quickly. It was impossible to see any distance, and the girls were turning their backs on the flagpole when Prudence stopped with an exclamation:

“I think I will light the lantern. Grizzel will see it from a long way off. Look in the house for matches, Mollie, while I turn the red glasses both ways.”

“But red means danger,” Mollie objected, “and we aren’t dangerous.”

“Mamma is when we break rules,” Prudence replied, “and it will remind Grizzel to hurry up.”

“Good gracious!” Mollie ejaculated, as she climbed down on her errand, “I am glad we don’t hang a red lantern out of the nursery window when we see Mother coming along. How she would laugh if we did!”

“It won’t burn long,” Prue said, as she shut the lantern door, “but it will do. Now we’ll go down the lane; I am almost sure Grizzel will come that way.”

They crossed the garden and slipped into the lane through a narrow back gate. It seemed to Mollie that the darkness fell like a curtain, so quickly did it come dropping down. High up above the trees they could see the red lantern shining in the dusk like a glowing ruby; the air was growing chilly, and all the warm bright colours were fading into a dull uniform grey, when suddenly out of the shadowy dimness there leapt a dark form—a form with a bushy tail and a friendly bark.

“Laddie!” exclaimed Prudence, and a moment after Grizzel appeared, running along and swinging her basket.

“Am I late?” she asked breathlessly. “I didn’t mean to be so long; I stopped to look at the shop windows.”

“Oh, Grizzel, where have you been?” Prue said, catching her sister by the arm. “I have been so frightened. Come on quickly now, or we won’t be ready, and then there will be a hullabuloo and goodness knows what tomorrow.”

They hurried back to the house, and were met by an anxious Bridget with Baby in her arms. Bridget scolded, and Baby laughed, and they were all so busy “getting ready” that it was not till three white muslin frocks were spread primly over three green damask Victorian chairs that Prudence found time to ask:

“How on earth did you get down from the tree?”

“I just got down,” Grizzel answered, looking mysterious, “I invented a secret way of getting down.”

“Nonsense,” Prudence said rather crossly; “there can’t be a secret way down.”

“Well, find out for yourself,” Grizzel retorted, her face taking on an obstinate expression.

“But how did you?” Mollie asked, with an ingratiating smile.

Grizzel shook her rebellious little red curls. “It’s my secret,” she repeated; “I won’t tell.”

“When did you find out that the ladder was gone?” Prue asked, in a more amiable voice.

“I just knew. It’s part of the secret.”

“You’ll have to tell Hugh,” Prudence said firmly; “you can’t have secret ways into other people’s houses.”

“I won’t tell anyone. It’s my mysterious secret and I shall keep it.”

Prudence frowned and opened her mouth to speak again, but Mollie signed to her to be silent. Mollie was not a Patrol Leader for nothing; she had learned to be diplomatic, and now she turned the conversation:

“Where are those parcels?” she asked.

“The parcels! Goodness me, I forgot them! How could I do such a thing!” Prudence exclaimed, jumping up from the green chair and rushing into the hall, followed by Mollie; Grizzel sat on in sulky dignity, trying to look uninterested.

“Suppose Papa had come home and found we had not opened them, his feelings would have been dreadfully hurt,” Prudence said with compunction. “It would have been murder outing. He always says murder will out.” Grizzel’s dignity could not survive the sight of the brown-paper packages, and the parcels were quickly undone and the wrappings and string tidied away—“the evidences of our folly”, Prue said, as she bundled them out of sight. The contents were so charming that everybody forgot their little difference of opinion. There was a fine large kaleidoscope, the first she had ever seen, for Mollie; a charming musical box, with a long list of tunes printed inside the lid and a little gilt key to wind it up with, for Prudence; a Winsor and Newton paint-box for Grizzel; Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne, for Hugh; and a Punchinello doll on a stick for Baby.

“I must say,” Mollie remarked appreciatively, “your father is a peach. I have often wanted to see a proper kaleidoscope, but they seem to have gone out of fashion.”

The others were too busy admiring their own things to observe Mollie’s remarks. Grizzel was speechless with joy as she found all the paints she had been longing for—the crimson lake, Prussian blue, Vandyke brown, and the rest; Prue had wound up her box, and as Mollie turned her kaleidoscope towards the light, and delighted herself with the wonderful colours and designs it produced, she heard the delicate, sweet tinkle of a faintly familiar tune—an old-fashioned sort of tune….

While they were thus pleasantly occupied Professor and Mrs. Campbell and Hugh returned, and Mollie was introduced to “Mamma” who after all did not look in the least alarming. She was a fair, pretty woman, with large clear eyes like Hugh’s and a beautifully modulated voice. She kissed Mollie and looked at her with rather a sad expression in her eyes:

“You must tell me all about home this evening,” she said in her musical voice. “How nicely your hair is cut; I wonder if Prue’s would look nice like that.”

“No, no,” said Papa, laying his hand on Prue’s curls, “I can’t spare one hair off my Prue’s head. I must have my brown ringlets to play with sometimes.”

Hugh could talk of nothing but the wonderful telephone. “I believe I could make one,” he said later on. “I understood a good deal of what the man said. I shall require a new magnet and some other things. I’ll begin tomorrow.” He had forgotten all about such trifles as hidden ladders and treed sisters, and the girls did not remind him.

But when Mollie found herself alone with Grizzel she began to talk about the little house and described a beautiful plan she had concocted for a house-warming, finishing up with the remark that it was a pity that Grizzel could not come.

“Why can’t I come?” demanded Grizzel. “Of course I’ll come. I adore the little house.”

“It’s Hugh’s house, and I don’t think he will let you come if you have a mysterious secret way of getting up and down. He won’t like it.”

Grizzel was silent. “It’s nothing very