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

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"Yes, father," said Pennie, very much out of breath with running and talking, "we were all frightened except Ambrose."

"And why weren't you frightened, Ambrose?"

"I was," murmured Ambrose.

"And yet you went?"

"Yes. Because of Dickie."

"Then you were a brave boy."

"A brave boy, a brave boy," repeated Dickie in a sort of sing-song, pulling her father's whiskers.

"Now I want you children to tell me," pursued the vicar, looking round at the hot little eager faces, "which would have been braver--not to be frightened at all, or to go in spite of being frightened?"

"Not to be frightened at all," answered Nancy promptly.

"Do you all think that?"

"Yes," said Pennie doubtfully, "I suppose so."

"Well," continued the vicar, "I _don't_ think so, and I will tell you why. I believe the brave man is not he who is insensible to fear, but he who is able to rise above it in doing his duty. People are sometimes called courageous who are really so unimaginative and dull that they cannot understand danger--so of course they are not afraid. They go through their lives very quietly and comfortably, as a rule, but they do not often leave great names behind them, although they may be both good and useful.

"Others, again, we are accustomed to consider cowards, because their active, lively imagination often causes them to see danger where there is none. These people do not pass such peaceable lives as the first; but there is this to be remembered: the same nature which is so alive to fear will also be easily touched by praise, or blame, or ridicule, and eager therefore to do its very best. It is what we call a `sensitive' nature, and it is of such stuff very often, that great men and heroes are made."

The children listened very attentively to what their father said, and if they did not understand it all they gathered enough to make them feel quite sure that Ambrose had been very brave about the cow. So they treated him for a little while with a certain respect, and no one said "Ambrose is afraid." As for Ambrose himself, his spirits rose very high, and he began to think he never should feel afraid of anything again, and even to wish for some great occasion to show himself in his new character of "hero." He walked about in rather a blustering manner just now, with his straw hat very much on one side, and brandished a stick the gardener had cut for him in an obtrusively warlike fashion. As he was a small thin boy, these airs looked all the more ridiculous, and his sister Nancy was secretly much provoked by them; however, she said nothing until one evening when Pennie was telling them stories.

The children were alone in the schoolroom, for it was holiday time. It was just seven o'clock. Soon Nurse would come and carry off Dickie and David to bed, but at present they were sitting one each side of Pennie on the broad window-seat, listening to her with open ears and mouths. Nancy and Ambrose were opposite on the table, with their legs swinging comfortably backwards and forwards.

All day long it had been raining, and now, although it had ceased, the shrubs and trees, overladen with moisture, kept up a constant drip, drip, drip, which was almost as bad. The wind had risen, and went sighing and moaning round the house, and shook the windows of the room where the children were sitting. Pennie had just finished a story, and in the short interval of silence which followed, these plaintive sounds were heard more plainly than ever.

"Hark," she said, holding up her finger, "how the Goblin Lady is playing her harp to-night! She has begun early."

"Why does she only play when the wind blows?" asked Ambrose.

"She comes _with_ the wind," answered Pennie, "that is how she travels, as other people use carriages and trains. The little window in the garret is blown open, and she floats in and takes one of those big music-books, and finds out the place, and then sits down to the harp and plays."

"What tune does she play?" asked David.

"By the margin of fair Zurich's waters," answered Pennie; "sometimes she sings too, but not often, because she is very sad."

"Why?" inquired Ambrose, ruffling up his hair with one hand, as he always did when he was getting interested.

Pennie paused a moment that her next remark might have full weight; then very impressively and slowly she said:

"She has not _always_ been a Goblin Lady."

This was so unexpected, and suggested so much to be unfolded, that the children gazed speechless at Pennie, who presently continued:

"Once she was a beautiful--"

"Is she ugly now?" hastily inquired David.

"Don't, Davie; let Pennie go on," said Ambrose.

"I want to know just one thing," put in Nancy; "if it's dark when she comes, how does she see to read the music?"

"She carries glowworms with her," answered Pennie; "they shine just like the lamps in father's gig at night, and light up all the garret."

"Now, go on, Pennie," said Ambrose with a deep sigh, for these interruptions were very trying to him. "Once she was a beautiful--"

"A most beautiful lady, with long golden hair. Only she was very very proud and vain. So after she died she could not rest, but has to go flying about wherever the wind will take her. The only pleasure she has is music, and so she always tries to get in where there is anything to play. That is why she goes so often to the garret and plays the harp."

"Why doesn't she go into the drawing-room and play the piano?" asked Nancy bluntly. Nancy's questions were often very tiresome; she never allowed the least haze or uncertainty to hang over any subject, and Pennie was frequently checked in the full flow of her eloquence by the consciousness that Nancy's eye was upon her, and that she was preparing to put some matter-of-fact inquiry which it would be most difficult to meet.

"There you go, interrupting again," muttered Ambrose.

"Well, but why doesn't she?" insisted Nancy, "it would be so much easier."

"Why, of course she can't," resumed Pennie in rather an injured voice, "because of the lights, and the people, and, besides, she never learnt to play the piano."

"I wish I needn't either," sighed Nancy. "How nice to be like the Goblin Lady, and only play the harp when one likes!"

"I should like to see her," said Ambrose thoughtfully.

"You'd be afraid," said Nancy; "why, you wouldn't even go into the garret by daylight alone."

"That was a long time ago," said Ambrose quickly. "I wouldn't mind it now."

"In the dark?"

"Well, I don't believe you'd go," said Nancy. "You might perhaps go two or three steps, and then you'd scream out and run away; wouldn't he, Pennie?"

"Why, you know he _was_ brave about the cow," said Pennie, "braver than any of us."

"That was different. He's quite as much afraid of the dark as ever. I call it babyish."

Nancy looked defiantly at her brother, who was getting very red in the face. She was prepared to have something thrown at her, or at least to have her hair, which she wore in a plaited pig-tail, violently pulled, but nothing of the sort happened. Nurse came soon afterwards and bore away David and Dickie, and as she left the room she remarked that the wind was moaning "just like a Christian."

It certainly was making a most mournful noise that evening, but not at all like a Christian, Ambrose thought, as he listened to it--much more like Pennie's Goblin Lady and her musical performances.

Pennie had finished her stories now, and she and Nancy were deeply engaged with their dolls in a corner of the room; this being an amusement in which Ambrose took no interest, he remained seated on the table occupied with his own reflections after Nurse had left the room with the two children.

Nancy's taunt about the garret was rankling in his mind, though he had not resented it openly as was his custom, and it rankled all the more because he felt that it was true. Yes, it _was_ true. He could not possibly go into the garret alone in the dark, and yet if he really were a brave boy he ought to be able to do it. Was he brave, he wondered? Father had said so, and yet just now he certainly felt something very like fear at the very thought of the Goblin Lady.

In increasing perplexity he ruffled up his hair until it stood out wildly in all directions; boom! boom! went the wind, and then there followed a long wailing sort of sigh which seemed to come floating down from the very top of the house.

It was quite a relief to hear Nancy's matter-of-fact voice just then, as she chattered away about her dolls:

"Now, I shall brush Jemima's hair," Ambrose heard her say to Pennie, "and you can put Lady Jane Grey to bed."

"I ought to be able to go," said Ambrose to himself, "and after all I don't suppose the Goblin Lady _can_ be worse than Farmer Snow's black cow."

"But her head's almost off," put in Pennie's voice. "You did it the last time we executed her."

"If I went," thought Ambrose, continuing his reflections, "they would never, never be able to call me a coward again."

He slid off the table as he reached this point, and moved slowly towards the door. He stood still as he opened it and looked at his sisters, half hoping they would call him back, or ask where he was going, but they were bending absorbed over the body of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, so that two long flaxen pig-tails were turned towards him. They did not even notice that he had moved.

He went quickly through the long dimly-lighted passage, which led into the hall, and found that Mary was just lighting the lamp. This looked cheerful, and he lingered a little and asked her a few questions, not that he really wanted to know anything, but because light and human companionship seemed just now so very desirable. Mary went away soon, and then he strolled a few steps up the broad old staircase, and met Kittles the fluffy cat coming slowly down. Here was another excuse for putting off his journey, and he sat down on the stairs to pass a few agreeable moments with Kittles, who arched his back and butted his head against him, and purred his acknowledgments loudly. But presently, having business of his own, Kittles also passed on his way, and Ambrose was alone again, sitting solitary with his ruffled head leaning on one hand. Then the church clock struck eight. In half an hour it would be bed-time, and his plan not carried out. He must go at once, or not at all. He got up and went slowly on. Up the stairs, down a long winding passage, up some more stairs, and across a landing, on to which the nursery and the children's bedrooms opened. He stopped again here, for there was a pleasant sound