The Hawthorns, Amy Walton [essential books to read TXT] 📗

his eyes.

"Isn't he lovely?" Nancy would exclaim when all these adornments were complete.

"Zovely!" echoed Dickie, clapping red worsted mittens ecstatically.

"I think he's rather vulgar," Pennie said doubtfully on one of these occasions with an anxiously puckered brow; "and besides, there's nothing to make up about him. What can you pretend?"

The snow man certainly looked hopelessly prosaic as Ambrose tilted his hat a little more to one side.

"Guy Fawkes?" suggested David, having studied the matter solidly for some minutes.

"No," said Pennie, "not Guy Fawkes--he's so common--we've had him heaps of times. But I'll tell you what would be splendid; we'll make him a martyr in Smithfield."

The boys looked doubtful, but Nancy clapped her hands.

"That's capital," she said.

"You know," continued Pennie for the general information, "they burned them."

"Alive?" inquired Ambrose eagerly.

"Yes."

"How jolly!" murmured David.

"Jolly! jolly! jolly!" repeated Dickie, jumping up and down in the snow.

"Why were they burned?" asked Ambrose, who was never tired of asking questions, and liked to get to the bottom of a matter if possible.

"_Why_, I am not quite sure," answered Pennie cautiously, "because I've only just got to it; but I _think_ it was something about the Bible. I'll ask Miss Grey."

"Oh, never mind all that," interrupted the practical Nancy impatiently; "we'll make a splendid bonfire all round him and watch him melt. Come and get the wood."

"And we'll call him `a distinguished martyr,'" added Pennie as she moved slowly away, "because I can't remember any of their real names."

Pennie was never satisfied to leave things as they were; she liked to adorn them with fancies and make up stories about them, and her busy little mind was always ready to set to work on the smallest event of the children's lives. Nothing was too common or familiar to have mysteries and romance woven round it; and this was sometimes a most useful faculty, for winter was not always kind enough to bring snow and ice with him. Very often there was nothing but rain and fog and mud, and then mother uttered those dreadful words:

"The children must not go out."

Then when lessons were over, and all the games exhausted, and it was still too early for lights, the schoolroom became full of dark corners, and the flickering fire cast mysterious shadows which changed the very furniture into something dim and awful.

Then was Pennie's time--then, watching her hearers' upturned faces by the uncertain light of the fire, she saw surprise or pity or horror on them as her story proceeded, and, waxing warmer, she half believed it true herself. And this made the tales very interesting and thrilling. Yet once Pennie's talent had an unfortunate result, as you shall hear in the next chapter.


CHAPTER TWO.

THE "GARRET."

The children all thought that Pennie's best stories were about a certain lumber-room in the vicarage which was called the "Garret." They were also the most dreadful and thrilling, for there was something about the garret which lent itself readily to tales of mystery and horror. The very air there was always murky and dim, and no sunlight could steal through the tiny lattice window which came poking out from the roof like a half-shut eyelid. Dust and cobwebs had covered the small leaded panes so thickly that a dusky gloom always dwelt there, and gave an unnatural and rather awful look to the various objects. And what a strange collection it was! Broken spindle-legged chairs, rickety boxes, piles of yellow old music-books and manuscripts, and in one corner an ancient harp in a tarnished gilt frame. Poor deserted dusty old things! They had had their day in the busy world once, but that was over now, and they must stay shut up in the silent garret with no one to see them but the spiders and the children. For these last came there often; treading on tiptoe they climbed the steep stairs and unlatched the creaky door and entered, bold but breathless, and casting anxious glances over their shoulders for strange things that might be lurking in the corners. They never saw any, but still they came half hoping, half fearing; and they had, besides, another object in their visits, which was a great great secret, and only known to Pennie, Nancy, and Ambrose. It was indeed a daring adventure, scarcely to be spoken of above a whisper, and requiring a great deal of courage. This was the secret:

They had one day succeeded in forcing open the rickety lattice, which was fastened by a rusty iron hasp, and looked out. There was a steep red-tiled piece of roof covered with little lumps of lichen which ended in a gutter and a low stone balustrade; there were tall crooked chimneys, and plenty of places where cats and children could walk with pleasure and safety. Soon it was impossible to resist the temptation, and one after the other they squeezed themselves through the narrow window, and wriggled cautiously down the steep roof as far as the balustrade. It scraped the hands and knees a good deal to do this, and there was always the danger of going down too fast, but when once the feet arrived safely against the stone coping, what a proud moment it was!

Standing upright, they surveyed the prospect, and mingled visions of Robinson Crusoe, Christopher Columbus, and Alexander Selkirk floated across their brains. "I am monarch of all I survey," said Pennie on the first occasion. And so she was, for everything seen from that giddy height looked strange and new to her, and it was quite like going into another country.

The old church tower with the chattering jackdaws flying round it, the pear-tree near the nursery window, the row of bee-hives in the kitchen-garden, the distant fields where the cows were no bigger than brown and white specks, all were lifted out of everyday life for a little while. No one had forbidden this performance, because no one knew of it, and the secrecy of it added to the mystery which belonged to everything in the garret.

It was not difficult to keep it hidden from the elders, for they did not go into the lumber-room from year's end to year's end; so the spiders and the children had it all to themselves, and did just as they liked there, and wove their cobwebs and their fancies undisturbed. Now, amongst Pennie's listeners when she told her tales of what went on in the garret after nightfall, Ambrose was the one who heard with the most rapt attention and the most absolute belief. He came next to Nancy in age, and formed the most perfect contrast to her in appearance and character, for Nancy was a robust blue-eyed child, bold and fearless, and Ambrose was a slender little fellow with a freckled skin and a face full of sensitive expression. He was full of fears and fancies, too, poor little Ambrose, and amongst the children he was considered not far short of a coward; it had become a habit to say, "Ambrose is afraid," on the smallest occasions, and if they had been asked who was the bravest amongst them, they would certainly have pointed out Nancy. For Nancy did not mind the dark, Nancy would climb any tree you liked, Nancy could walk along the top of a high narrow wall without being giddy, Nancy had never been known to cry when she was hurt, therefore Nancy was a brave child. Ambrose, on the contrary, _did_ mind all these things very much; his imagination pictured dangers and terrors in them which did not exist for Nancy, and what she performed with a laugh and no sense of fear, was to him often an occasion of trembling apprehension. And then he was _so_ afraid of the dark! That was a special subject of derision from the others, for even Dickie was bolder in the matter of dark passages and bed-rooms than he was. Ambrose was ashamed, bitterly ashamed of this failing, and he made up his mind a hundred times that he would get over it, but that was in the broad daylight when the sun was shining. As surely as night came, and he was asked perhaps to fetch something from the schoolroom, those wretched feelings of fear came back, for the schoolroom was at the end of a long dark passage.

Nancy, who was always good-natured, though she laughed at him, would give him a nudge on such occasions if she were near him, and say:

"Never mind, _I'll_ go;" but Ambrose never accepted the offer. He went with a shiver down his back, and a sort of distended feeling in his ears, which seemed to be unnaturally on the alert for mysterious noises.

He always made up his mind before he got to the passage to check a wild desire to run at full speed, and walk through it slowly, but this resolve was never carried out.

Before he had gone two steps in the darkness there would be a sense of something following close behind, and then all was over, and nothing to be seen but a panic-stricken little boy rushing along with his hands held over his ears. How foolish! you will say. Very foolish, indeed, and so said all the other children, adding many a taunt and jeer.

But that did not do poor Ambrose any good, and he remained just as timid as ever. Nevertheless there were moments of real danger when Ambrose had been known to come gallantly to the front, and when he seemed to change suddenly from a fearful, shrinking boy into a hero. Such was the occasion when, alone of all the children, who stood shrieking on the other side of the hedge, he had ventured back into the field to rescue Dickie, who by some accident had been left behind among a herd of cows. There she stood bewildered, holding up her little pinafore full of daisies, helpless among those large horned monsters.

"Run, Dickie," shouted the children; but Dickie was rooted to the ground with terror, and did not move.

Then Ambrose took his courage in both hands, and leaving the safe shelter of the hedge, ran back to his little sister's side. As he reached her a large black cow with crooked horns detached herself from the herd, and walked quickly up to the children lashing her tail. Ambrose did not stir. He stood in front of Dickie, took off his straw hat and waved it in the cow's face. She stood still.

"Run back to the others, Dickie," said Ambrose quietly, and, Dickie's chubby legs recovering power of movement, she toddled quickly off, strewing the ground with daisies as she went. Covering her retreat, Ambrose remained facing the cow, and walked slowly backwards still brandishing his hat; then, one quick glance over his shoulder assuring him of Dickie's safety, he too took to his heels, and scrambled through the gap.

That was certainly brave of Ambrose; for though Farmer Snow told them afterwards, "Thuccy black coo never would a touched 'ee," still she _might_ have, and for the moment Ambrose was a hero.

The children carried home an excited account of the affair to their father, penetrating into his very study, which was generally forbidden ground.

"And so it was Ambrose who went back, eh?" he said, stroking Dickie's round head as she sat on his