Milly and Olly, Mrs. Humphry Ward [ebook e reader .TXT] 📗

to the other of the carriage again, scrambling and jumping about, till he gave himself a hard knock against the seat; and that made him begin to cry--poor tired little Olly. Then mother lifted him on to her knee, and said to him, very softly, "Are you very tired, Olly? Never mind, poor little man, we shan't be very long now, and we're all tired, darling--father's tired, and I'm tired; and look at Milly there, she looks like a little white ghost. Suppose you be brave, and try a little extra hard to be good. Then mother'll love you an extra bit. And what do you think we shall see soon? such a lovely bit of blue sea with white ships on it. Just you shut your eyes a little bit till it comes, I'll be sure to tell you."

And sure enough, after Lancaster, mother gave a little cry, and Olly jumped up, and Milly came running over, and there before them lay the dancing windy blue sea, covered over with little white waves, running and tumbling over each other. And on the other side of it, what did the children see?

"Mother, mother! what is it?" cried Olly, pointing with his little brown hand far away; "is it a fairy palace, mother?"

"Perhaps it is, Olly; anyway, the hill-fairies live there. For those are the mountains, the beautiful mountains we are going to see." "But how shall we get across the sea to them?" asked Milly, with a puzzled face.

"This is only a corner of the sea, Milly--a bay. Don't you remember bays in your geography? We can't go across it, but we can go round it, and we shall find the mountains on the other side."

Oh! how fast the train seemed to go now that there was something to look at. Everywhere mountains were beginning to spring up. And when they had said good-bye to the sea, the mountains began to grow taller and taller. What had happened to the houses too? They had all turned white or gray; there was no red one left. And the fields had stone walls instead of hedges; and inside the walls there were small sheep, about as big as the lambs they had seen near Oxford in the morning.

Oxenholme, Kendal, Windermere. How glad the tired children were when the train ran slowly down into Windermere station, and they could jump out and say good-bye to it for a long, long time! They had to wait a little, till father had found all the boxes and put them in the carriage that was waiting for them, and then in they tumbled, nurse having first wrapped them up in big shawls, for it was evening now, and the wind had grown cold. That was a nice drive home among the mountains. How tall and dark and quiet they were. And what was this shining on their left hand, like a white face running beside them, and peeping from behind the trees? Why, it was a lake; a great wide lake, with tiny boats upon it, some with white sails and some without.

"Mother! mother! may we go in those boats some day?" shouted Olly, in a little sharp tired voice, and his mother smiled at him, and said--"Yes, very likely."

How happy mother looked. She knew all the mountains like old friends, she could tell all their names; and every now and then, when they came to a house, she and father would begin to talk about the people who lived in it, just as if they were talking about people they knew quite well. And now came a little town, the town of Wanwick mother called it, right among the mountains, with a river running round it, and a tall church spire. It began to get darker and darker, and the trees hung down over the road, so that the children could hardly see. On they went, and Olly was very nearly asleep again, when the carriage began to crunch over gravel, and then it stopped, and father called out--"Here we are, children, here we are at Ravensnest."

And out they all jumped. What were those bright lights shining? Olly and Milly hardly knew where they were going as nurse took them in, and one of Uncle Richard's servants showed them the way upstairs to the nursery. Such a nice nursery, with candles lit, and a little fire burning, two bowls of hot bread and milk on the table, and in the corner two little white beds, as soft and fresh as nests! In twenty minutes Olly was in one of these little white beds, and Milly in the other. And you may guess whether they were long about going to sleep.


CHAPTER III

RAVENSNEST

"Poor little souls! How late they are sleeping. They must have been tired last night."

So said nurse at eight o'clock, when she came back into the nursery from a journey to the kitchen after the breakfast things, and found the children still fast asleep; so fast that it looked as if they meant to go on sleeping till dinner-time.

"Milly!" she called softly, shaking her very gently, "Milly, it's breakfast-time, wake up!"

Milly began to move about, and muttered something about "whistles" and "hedges" in her sleep.

Then nurse gave her another little shake, and at last Milly's eyes did try very hard to open--"What is it? What do you want, Nana? Where are we?--Oh, I know!"

And up sprang Milly in a second and ran to the window, her sleepy eyes wide open at last. "Yes, there they are! Come and look, Nana! There, past those trees--don't you see the mountains? And there is father walking about; and oh! do look at those roses over there. Dress me quick, dress me quick, please, dear Nana."

Thump! bump! and there was Olly out of bed, sitting on the floor rubbing his eyes. Olly used always to jump out of bed half asleep, and then sit a long time on the floor waking up. Nurse and Milly always left him alone till he was quite woke up. It made him cross if you began to talk to him too soon.

"Milly," said Olly presently, in a sleepy voice, "I'm going right up the mountains after breakfast. Aren't you?"

"Wait till you see them, Master Olly," said nurse, taking him up and kissing him, "perhaps your little legs won't find it quite so easy to climb up the mountains as you think."

"I can climb up three, four, six, seven mountains," said Olly stoutly; "mountains aren't a bit hard. Mother says they're meant to climb up."

"Well, I suppose it's like going up stairs a long way," said Milly, thoughtfully, pulling on her stockings. "You didn't like going up the stairs in Auntie Margaret's house, Olly."

Auntie Margaret's house was a tall London house, with ever so many stairs. The children when they were staying there were put to sleep at the top, and Olly used to sit down on the stairs and pout and grumble every time they had to go up.

But Olly shook his obstinate little head.

"I don't believe it's a bit like going up stairs."

However, as they couldn't know what it was like before they tried, nurse told them it was no good talking about it. So they hurried on with their dressing, and presently there stood as fresh a pair of morning children as anyone could wish to see, with rosy cheeks, and smooth hair, and clean print frocks--for Olly was still in frocks--though when the winter came mother said she was going to put him into knickerbockers.

And then nurse took them each by the hand and led them through some long passages, down a pretty staircase, and through a swing door, into what looked like a great nagged kitchen, only there was no fireplace in it. The real kitchen opened out of it at one side, and through the door came a smell of coffee and toast that made the children feel as hungry as little hunters. But their own room was straight in front, across the kitchen without a fireplace, a tiny room with one large window hung round with roses, and looking out on to a green lawn.

"Nana, isn't it pretty? Nana, I think it's lovely!" said Milly, looking out and clapping her hands. And it _was_ a pretty garden they could see from the window. An up-and-down garden, with beds full of bright flowers, and grass which was nearly all moss, and so soft that no cushion could be softer. In the distance they could hear a little splish-splash among the trees, which came, Milly supposed, from the river mother had told them about; while, reaching up all round the house, so that they could not see the top of it from the window, was the green wild mountain itself, the mountain of Brownholme, under which Uncle Richard's house was built.

The children hurried through their breakfast, and then nurse covered them up with garden pinafores, and took them to the dining-room to find father and mother. Mr. and Mrs. Norton were reading letters when the children's curly heads appeared at the open door, and Mrs. Norton was just saying to her husband:

"Aunt Emma sends a few lines just to welcome us, and to say that she can't come over to us to-day, but will we all come over to her to-morrow and have early dinner, and perhaps a row afterward--"

"Oh, a row, mother, a row!" shouted Olly, clambering on to his mother's knee and half-strangling her with his strong little arms; "I can row, father said I might. Are we going to-day?"

"No, to-morrow, Olly, when we've seen a little bit of Ravensnest first. Which of you remembers Aunt Emma, I wonder?"

"I remember her," said Milly, nodding her head wisely, "she had a big white cap, and she told me stories. But I don't quite remember her face, mother--not _quite_."

"I don't remember her, not one bit," said Olly. "Mother, does she keep saying, 'Don't do that;' 'Go up stairs, naughty boys,' like Jacky's aunt does?"

For the children's playfellows, Jacky and Francis, had an aunt living with them whom Milly and Olly couldn't bear. They believed that she couldn't say anything else except "Don't!" and "Go up stairs!" and they were always in dread lest they should come across an aunt like her.

"She's the dearest aunt in the whole world," said mother, "and she never says, 'Don't,' except when she's obliged, but when she does say it little boys have to mind. When I was a little girl I thought there was nobody like Aunt Emma, nobody who could make such plans or tell such splendid stories."

"And, mother, can't she cut out card dolls? asked Milly. Don't you know those beautiful card dolls you have in your drawer at home--didn't Aunt Emma make them?"

"Yes, of course she did. She made me a whole family once for my birthday, a father and a mother, and two little girls and two little boys. And each of the children had two paper dresses and two hats, one for best and one for every day--and the mother had a white evening dress trimmed with red, and a hat and a bonnet."

"I know, mother! they're all in your drawer at home, only one of the little boys has his head broken off. Do you think Aunt Emma would make me a set if I asked her?"

"I can't say, Milly. But I believe Aunt Emma's fingers are just as quick as ever they were. Now, children, father says he will take you out