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

while I go and speak to cook. Olly, how do you think we're going to get any meat for you and Milly here? There are no shops on the mountains."

"Then we'll eat fisses, little fisses like those!" cried Olly, pointing to a plate of tiny red-spotted fish that father and mother had been having for breakfast.

"Thank you, Olly," said Mr. Norton, laughing; "it would cost a good deal to keep you in trout, sir. I think we'll try for some plain mutton for you, even if we have to catch the sheep on the mountains ourselves. But now come along till mother is ready, and I'll show you the river where those little fishes lived."

Out ran the children, ready to go anywhere and see anything in this beautiful new place, which seemed to them a palace of wonders. And presently they were skipping over the soft green grass, each holding one of father's hands, and chattering away to him as if their little tongues would never stop. What a hot day it was going to be! The sky overhead was deep blue, with scarcely a cloud, they could hear nothing in the still air but the sleepy cooing of the doves in the trees by the gate, and the trees and flowers all looked as if they were going to sleep in the heat.

"Father, why did that old gentleman at Willingham last week tell mother that it always rained in the mountains?" asked Milly, looking up at the blue sky.

"Well, Milly, I'm afraid you'll find out before you go home that it does know how to rain here. Sometimes it rains and rains as if the sky were coming down and all the world were going to turn into water. But never mind about that now--it isn't going to rain to-day."

Down they went through the garden, across the road, and into a field on the other side of it, a beautiful hay-field full of flowers, with just a narrow little path through it where the children and Mr. Norton could walk one behind another. And at the end of the path what do you think they found? Why, a chattering sparkling river, running along over hundreds and thousands of brown and green pebbles, so fast that it seemed to be trying to catch the birds as they skimmed across it. The children had never seen a river like this before, where you could see right to the very bottom, and count the stones there if you liked, and which behaved like a river at play, scrambling and dancing and rushing along as if it were out for a holiday, like the children themselves.

"What do you think of that for a river, children?" said Mr. Norton. "Very early this morning, when you little sleepyheads were in bed, I got up and came down here, and had my bath over there, look--in that nice brown pool under the tree."

"Oh, father!" cried both children, dancing round him. "Let us have our baths in the river too. Do ask Nana--do, father! We can have our bathing things on that we had at the sea, and you can come too and teach us to swim."

"Well, just once perhaps, if mother says yes, and it's very warm weather, and you get up very _very_ early. But you won't like it quite as much as you think. Rivers are very cold to bathe in, and those pretty stones at the bottom won't feel at all nice to your little toes."

"Oh, but, father," interrupted Milly, "we could put on our sand shoes."

"And wouldn't we splash!" said Olly. "Nurse won't let us splash in our bath, father, she says it makes a mess. I'm sure it doesn't make a _great_ mess."

"What do you know about it, shrimp?" said Mr. Norton, "you don't have to tidy up. Hush, isn't that mother calling? Let's go and fetch her, and then we'll go and see Uncle Richard's farm, where the milk you had for breakfast came from. There are three children there, Milly, besides cows and pigs, and ducks and chickens."

Back ran Milly and Olly, and there was mother watching for them with a basket on her arm which had already got some roses lying in it.

"Oh, mother! where did you get those roses?" cried Milly.

"Wheeler, the gardener, gave them to me. And now suppose we go first of all to see Mrs. Wheeler, and gardener's two little children. They live in that cottage over there, across the brook, and the two little ones have just been peeping over the wall to try and get a look at you."

Up clambered Milly and Olly along a steep path that seemed to take them up into the mountain, when suddenly they turned, and there was another river, but such a tiny river, Milly could almost jump across it, and it was tumbling and leaping down the rocks on its way to the big river which they had just seen, as if it were a little child hurrying to its mother.

"Why, mother, what a lot of rivers," said Olly, running on to a little bridge that had been built across the little stream, and looking over.

"Just to begin with," said Mrs. Norton. "You'll see plenty more before you've done. But I can't have you calling this a river, Olly. These baby rivers are called becks in Westmoreland--some of the big ones, too, indeed."

On the other side of the little bridge was the gardener's cottage, and in front of the door stood two funny fair-haired little children with their fingers in their mouths, staring at Milly and Olly. One was a little girl who was really about Milly's age, though she looked much younger, and the other was a very shy small boy, with blue eyes and straggling yellow hair, and a face that might have been pretty if you could have seen it properly. But Charlie seemed to have made up his mind that nobody ever should see it properly. However often his mother might wash him, and she was a tidy woman, who liked to see her children look clean and nice, Charlie was always black. His face was black, his hands were black, his pinafore was sure to be covered with black marks ten minutes after he had put it on. Do what you would to him, it was no use, Charlie always looked as if he had just come out of the coal-hole.

"Well, Bessie," said Mrs. Norton to the little girl, "is your mother in?"

"Naw," said Bessie, without taking her fingers out of her mouth.

"Oh, I'm sorry for that. Do you know when she's likely to be in?"

"Naw," said Bessie again, beginning to eat her pinafore as well as her fingers. Meanwhile Charlie had been creeping behind Bessie to get out of Olly's way; for Olly, who always wanted to make friends, was trying to shake hands with him, and Charlie was dreadfully afraid that he wanted to kiss him too.

"What a pity," said Mrs. Norton, "I wanted to ask her a question. Come away, Olly, and don't tease Charlie if he doesn't want to shake hands. Can you remember, Bessie, to tell your mother that I came to see her?"

"Yis," said Bessie.

"And can you remember, too, to ask her if she will let you and Charlie come down to tea with Miss Milly and Master Olly, this afternoon, at five o'clock?"

"Yis," said Bessie, getting shyer and shyer, and eating up her pinafore faster than ever.

"Good-bye, then," said Mrs. Norton.

"Good-bye, Bessie," said Milly, softly, taking her hand.

Bessie stared at her, but didn't say anything.

Olly, having quite failed in shaking hands, was now trying to kiss Charlie; but Charlie wouldn't have it at all, and every time Olly came near, Charlie pushed him away with his little fists. This made Olly rather cross, and he began to try with all his strength to make Charlie kiss him, when suddenly Charlie got away from him, and running to a pile of logs of wood which was lying in the yard he climbed up the logs like a little squirrel, and was soon at the top of the heap, looking down on Olly, who was very much astonished.

"Mother, _do_ let me climb up too!" entreated Olly, as Mrs. Norton took his hand to lead him away. "I want to climb up krick like that! Oh, do let me try!"

"No, no, Olly! come along. We shall never get to the farm if you stay climbing here. And you wouldn't find it as easy as Charlie does, I can tell you."

"Why, I'm bigger than Charlie," said Olly, pouting, as they walked away.

"But you haven't got such stout legs; and, besides, Charlie is always out of doors all day long, climbing and poking about. I daresay he can do outdoor things better than you can. You're a little town boy, you know."

"Charlie's got a black face," said Olly, who was not at all pleased that Charlie, who was smaller than he was, and dirty besides, could do anything better than he could.

"Well, you see, he hasn't got a Nana always looking after him as you have."

"Hasn't he got _any_ Nana?" asked Olly, looking as if he didn't understand how there could be little children without Nanas.

"He hasn't got any nurse but his mother, and Mrs. Wheeler has a great deal else to do than looking after him. What would you be like, do you think, Olly, if I had to do all the housework, and cook the dinner, and mind the baby, and there was no nurse to wash your face and hands for you?"

"I should get just like shock-headed Peter," said Olly, shaking his head gravely at the idea. Shock-headed Peter was a dirty little boy in one of Olly's picture-books; but I am sure you must have heard about him already, and must have seen the picture of him with his bushy hair, and his terrible long nails like birds' claws. Olly was never tired of hearing about him, and about all the other children in that picture-book.

"What a funny little girl Bessie is, mother!" said Milly. "Do they always say _Naw_ and _Yis_ in this country, instead of saying No and Yes, like we do?"

"Well, most of the people that live here do," said Mrs. Norton. "Their way of talking sounds odd and queer at first, Milly, but when you get used to it you will like it as I do, because it seems like a part of the mountains."

All this time they had been climbing up a steep path behind the gardener's house, and now Mr. Norton opened a door in a high wall, and let the children into a beautiful kitchen-garden made on the mountain side, so that when they looked down from the gate they could see the chimneys of Ravensnest just below them. Inside there were all kinds of fruit and vegetables, but gooseberry bushes and the strawberries had nothing but green gooseberries and white strawberries to show, to Olly's great disappointment.

"Why aren't the strawberries red, mother?" he asked in a discontented voice, as if it must be somebody's fault that they weren't red. "Ours at home were ripe."

"Well, Olly, I suppose the strawberries know best. All I can tell you is, that things always get ripe here later than at Willingham. Their summer begins a little later than ours does, and so everything gets pushed on a little. But there will be plenty by-and-by. And suppose just now, instead of