CHAPTER VI.

SUMMER MORNING ON A NORFOLK BROAD.

"The coot was swimming in the reedy pond, Beside the water-hen so soon affrighted; And in the weedy moat the heron, fond Of solitude, alighted.

"The moping heron, motionless and stiff, That on a stone as silently and stilly Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if To guard the water lily."--TOM HOOD.

Our little hero, Tom, was early astir next morning. In fact he was up with the lark. High up, too; for his first act, after sluicing his sleepy face in a bucket of water, and drying off with a rough brown towel, was to swarm up into the crow's nest and have a look around.

The morning was bright and clear, and the beach was swarming with country people; but there was no sign of the government vessel or of the yawl she had gone in pursuit of. Not content with scanning the horizon from the crow's nest, Tom must needs climb up as high as the cross-trees, and take observations from that coign of vantage.

The wind had gone down to the gentlest breeze, but a heavy sea still rolled over the sands, and broke in white surging waves upon the beach. From where he stood, or rather hung, Tom could easily hear the boom or roar of each mountain breaker, keeping up a kind of deep bass to the screaming of the sea birds that floated near him.

The sun had only just risen, and was flooding the ocean with a strange yellow light, while bars of silvery and crimson clouds lay parallel with the horizon, even far away to the west.

It was indeed a lovely morning, one to make a person feel as light and happy as the birds that sang in every bush or thicket. But nevertheless a wave of sadness passed over the boy's heart as he thought of the drowned men who lay so quiet and still upon the sands out yonder, and of their friends and relations who were left to mourn.

It somehow seemed to Tom unnatural that so much of sorrow should mingle with the gladsomeness of this sunny summer's day. He had yet to learn that all the world and all our lives are made up of light and shade, and that even in the midst of life we are in death.

But as he walked homeward now over the rustic bridge, he checked the song that rose to his lips. He would not sing, with dead men lying unburied on the sands of Yare.

* * * * *

It seemed to Tom that this morning would take a long, long time to pass by. He got his books, and went with Meg to the little summer-house by the lake, and tried hard to settle down to the tasks Mr. Curtiss, his kindly tutor, had set him to perform. But all in vain; so he left the books on the garden seat, putting a stone over them lest a spiteful puff of wind might blow the leaves about. Then "Come on, Meg," he cried, "we'll go for a row."

"Wouff--ff," barked Meg, and away they went.

For a boy of his years Tom was wonderfully well developed, and when he stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, the white forearm he showed seemed as hard and round as the backstay of a gun-brig.

Meg sat forward in the bows of the little boat, with her forelegs leaning over the gunwale that she might bark at the fish and the birds, and make brave pretence that she meant to jump over and catch them.

By-and-by Tom came to a winding worm of a stream or lead that he had some difficulty in navigating his craft through, but he managed at last, and soon found himself afloat in one of the most beautiful of all the Norfolk broads.

The lake was a deep one, and not only plentifully encircled with tall, reedy bulrushes, but in many places lined with "wild woods thickening green," and banks whereon grew the most lovely of wild flowers. Tom paused often that he might inhale the early-morning perfume of these wildlings of nature, and watch the movements of the numerous birds that had their homes on this peaceful broad.

And not a bird is there among them all that seems very much afraid of the boy in his little boat or of Meg either. Perhaps the birds know Tom, for wild creatures are very observant, and know too that neither he nor that gentle-faced collie will do them any harm. Indeed Meg has dropped her bonnie head upon her paws, and appears to have gone fast asleep.

The sky above is very blue, albeit a fleece-white cloud is floating here and there, and the waters of this still lake are very dark, yet clear. How richly, softly green is the foliage on yon cloudland of trees, how tender the tints of verdure on the rustling, whispering reeds. Look at the pink on that flowering rush, to which a reed-warbler is clinging as it sings its low, sweet lilt. Only for a few moments does it cling there, however. It is far too busy to spend all the morning in song, for the pretty thing has a grass hammock of a nest swung between some reeds close to the bank. No boy in the neighbourhood knows where that nest is save Tom, and he won't touch it, but he marvels while he admires the freak of nature that has almost surrounded the birdie's hammock with the bells of the pink convolvulus.

Hark! there is a nightingale trilling its heaven-taught song in a thicket not many yards away. How sharp and clear is every note, and yet how pathetic and mournful are the lower ones! But presently the bird ceases to sing, for he too has a mate sitting close at the foot of a bush in a nest so artfully disguised as hardly to be discerned, and this little mate needs her breakfast of succulent slugs and beetles.

"Cheeky--cheeky--chee--chee--chee," sings the sedge bird, who has far too much to say, and instead of listening reverently to the song of the nightingale, the thrush, or the blackbird, must needs put his oar in and throw harmony quite out of joint. But there are many other birds that do the same, for each and all sing for their own mates only.

Very quietly now glides Tom's little boat; very still the boy sits too, fascinated as it would seem by the beauty of his surroundings, and as if afraid to disturb the privacy of the lovely feathered creatures whose home he has invaded.

He almost holds his breath as a pair of dark-plumaged coots with white brows go quietly sailing past ahead of him, gazing at him with their expressive beads of eyes, but ready to start off at the slightest movement on his part. A little way farther on are a family of charming water-hens, that go paddling and nodding on across the deep dark water, so intent on their own business that hardly do they notice the slowly-gliding boat.

But Meg lifts her head to look about her and take her bearings, and off scurry the coots; the water-hens too take alarm, and in a moment more all have sought the shelter of the whispering reeds.

More birds take the alarm here and there among the sedges; and in the water there is plashing and whirring and diving, while, uttering a sound that is partly a croak and partly a cry, a great heron, that had previously been standing as still as a statue on the edge of a bank, goes sailing away high in air.

Tom lies on his oars now, and in a few minutes peace and repose is once more restored to the reed-bound brood.

"Meg," says Tom quietly, "you just go to sleep there please, or at least pretend to."

Meg shuts one eye and gives one little wag of her tail, and the boat forges slowly ahead. Tom pulls more in towards the edge now, where the flat round leaves of the water lilies are floating, with flowers snow-white or brilliant yellow just appearing, where the flowering ash blooms prettily, and the orange iris shows against the fresh green of young reeds.

Though it is very early in the morning, the sun is gaining power, and busy among the gnats and midges that dance over the water and over the whispering reeds, filling the air with their dreamy humming, flit and fly the swallows and martins. They even touch the surface at times, long enough to drink or have a little bath, then off and away again, like chips of lightning with the sunlight on their wings.

Tom lands at last among soft green moss, among many a budding alder, many a silvery drooping, dwarf birch-tree, and many a feathery fern. He warns Meg that she is not to follow, but only lie and watch, while he goes wading over the marsh. Oh, what beauty and loveliness on every side! Oh, what a wealth of wild flowers! Yonder is a bush of yellow furze, and a rose-linnet's nest is there. The cosy wee mother sits still on the eggs even when Tom peeps in under her scented golden roof-tree, but the cock-bird that erst sang so sweetly on that bush of sallow changes his notes to a peevish cry of alarm.

Not a nest of any kind of bird that Tom does not know where to seek and find; the titlark's and skylark's near tussocks; the yellow bunting's in the low, close thorn or bank; the sedge-bird's, with its warm wee eggs and even nests of snipe, and coot, and teal--all are known to him, but all are sacred.

The boy spends fully an hour roaming around here; but, getting very hungry, he begins to retrace his steps at last, yet not before he has culled a bouquet of the choicest wild flowers, the flowers that uncle Bob loves best.

In his way back to the boat Tom goes round by a patch of woodland, a closely-planted thicket of pines, the tasselled larch, the dark-nodding fir, and the sombre spruce, each branch of the latter bedecked with points of tenderest green. He has to pass a reedy pond, when, as he stoops to gather some pink silenes, he startles a wild duck that with outstretched wings goes whirring over the water; there is a wagtail nodding to him on the opposite bank. High in the air the skylark sings, from bushes near come the babbling notes of sedgelings, and soaring over the marsh he can just distinguish a mire-snipe, its intermittent cries sounding like bleating of a goat. He crosses a green bog that moves and heaves under his footsteps, as if ocean waves were all beneath. And now he enters the thicket, and a different kind of bird-song falls on his listening ear--the mellow notes of the blackbird, the sweet wild lilt of the chaffinch, the mocking voice of the mavis, and the low mournful love-croodle of the cushat.

Tom walks through this woodland as solemnly as if he were in church. He is almost awed by all the beauty and loveliness he sees around him, and actually sighs as he stands once more in the open, with the waters of the reedy broad spread out before him like a mirror, and only the blue unfathomable sky above. He reaches the boat at last.

The boat is there right enough, the painter tied to the alder bush just as he left it, but Meg has gone. While he is wondering what could have induced her to leave her post, he hears her glad bark in the distance, and next minute she comes bounding over the marsh towards him.

But not alone, for behind her, laden with a huge and sadly-disorganised bunch or wisp of wild flowers, comes a little blue-eyed lassie. So large are her eyes, so small her rosebud of a mouth, that, with her hair all afloat behind her as she runs, she might easily be mistaken for the good fairy of this flowery marsh.

"Oh, Tom," she cries, "I'm so glad you've come'd!"

"But, dear me, Bertha, what _are_ you doing here so early?"

One of Bertha's legs is clothed in a pure white woollen stocking, the foot encased in a buckled shoe; the other leg, which, laughing roguishly, she extends for Tom's inspection, is clad in black, slimy mud up to the knee, and the shoe is gone.

"Such fun," she says, panting a little. "You know, Tom, I'se been nearly dwownded. And I screamed, and Meg come running; but I'se lost my shoe, and perhaps ma will punish me--perhaps not, 'cause she loves Bertha--sometimes."

"But I'm lost," she added, "and where my home is _I_ don't know."

"Well, Bertha," said Tom, looking very old and serious, "I love you always, you know. And when I grow a big rich man, with a cocked-hat and a sword, I'll perhaps marry you--if you are good, that is."

Bertha shook her yellow hair rebelliously.

"Oh, I can't be always good," she said. "It wouldn't be fun at all, Tom."

"Well, jump in, Bertha, and Meg and I will take you right to your own grounds."

Bertha was happy now, and soon began to sing a little song to herself and Meg.

With the thoughts of the shipwreck on her mind, somehow the child's singing jarred on the boy's feelings.

"Bertha," he said, "there was an awful thing happened last night! A brig was knocked to pieces on the Gorton Sands, and the dead sailors are all lying on the beach."

"Well, silly Tom," cried Bertha, laughing, "it isn't my fault."

Tom didn't know what to reply to this, and Bertha commenced to sing again.

But the boy and this little light-minded maiden were very old friends indeed. For Tom was a favourite with Lady Colmore, and was frequently invited to the Hall, when her ladyship was there, which she usually was during the summer and autumn, spending most of the winter and spring in the south of England, where her son was at college.

Tom was a gentlemanly boy, and Mr. Curtiss had informed Lady Colmore that there was some strange mystery about his birth, which, however, even he was not altogether acquainted with, though it was in some way connected with a Jamaica marriage. But this was quite enough. A boy of manly bearing, and big dark eyes, evidently of gentle birth, heir, when of age--as she had heard--to a large fortune, and with a mystery, was a very interesting character indeed, despite the additional surmise that his mother might have been a Creole or half-caste.

Bertha sprang lightly on shore when the boat was rowed alongside the bank.

"Good-bye, Tom," she cried. "After breakfast me and Brown'll bring the strawberries to your Uncle Bob, and then we can all go and see the rows upon rows of dead men. Such fun! Good-bye."

Next minute Bertha, with her yellow hair and shoeless foot, had disappeared, and Tom, after a moment or two of thoughtfulness, made all haste back home.

In half-an-hour, or a little over, he had once more moored his boat. Then he hurried away aloft again to scan the horizon.

Yes, yonder was the sloop--the something naughty in disguise--she was tacking slowly up to windward, still about seven or eight miles off, and there was no yawl near her, so she had not won the race.

This was news to carry to Captain Merryweather, anyhow.

He found that bluff, good-natured sailor walking about on the gravel path smoking, early though it still was.

"Oh," said Tom, saluting him military fashion, "I'm so sorry to bring you bad news, sir."

"Bad news, youngster? What is it?"

"Well, your sloop, sir--if she _be_ a sloop, sir--is in sight, and she hasn't caught the yawl!"

"Ah, never mind, Tom! Better luck next."

"Yes, sir," said Tom. "I hadn't thought of that, sir."

Ruth now came blushing and smiling to call the captain to breakfast, and he gallantly took her hand and led her back to the cottage.

They breakfasted in Uncle Bob's wing, so that he might join in the conversation.

And breakfast was not long over when Bertha and her maid Brown came in with that basket of beautiful strawberries for Uncle Bob.

"What a charming little lady!" said Merryweather, who had been looking at Bertha. Like most sailors, he was fond of children. "Come hither, dear, and talk to me."

Bertha seemed used to obey, for she came at once, and stood demurely by his side. This pensiveness of hers, however, did not last long. She and the captain were soon the best of friends, and he on his part hardly knew which to admire most, her beauty or her candour.

"Do you know," he said laughing, "you are very pretty, Bertha?"

"Oh, yes!" she answered, her head a little on one side, "I know well enough, but mamma says people are not to tell me so."

"Why, dear?"

"Cause it spoils me, of course."

"Ma doesn't spoil me. No! Everybody else spoils me, though."

Then she noticed the scar on Merryweather's brow, and touched it tenderly with her little forefinger.

"Have you been fighting with the cat?" she asked innocently.

"Yes, dear; a big disagreeable old cat."

Seeing her gazing admiringly at the big bunch of seals that dangled from his fob, he pulled out his gold watch and placed the whole in her lap.

"Is all this yours?" she asked wonderingly.

"Yes, _petite_."

"Your own _own_ yours?"

"Yes, my own own."

"And your mamma doesn't take them away, and say, 'By-and-by, dear, when you're grown up'?"

"No, my mamma lets me do as I like."

"How lovely!" She was examining the seals.

"They shall be all yours," said the captain, "all your own _own_ yours, if you marry me."

"All my own own mine?" Her eyes were bigger now than ever.

"Yes, dear."

"You see," she said thoughtfully, "I'se goin' to marry Tom; and you is not so pretty as Tom."

"No, he certainly has the advantage of me in good looks; but then I have so many nice things that Tom hasn't, you know."

"Yes, and you spoil me. Tom doesn't."

"I daresay," she added after a pause, "I mustn't marry both."

"Oh, no! that wouldn't be allowed in this country; you must decide to have me or Tom."

She looked at Tom, and she looked at the jewels.

"I think," she said at last, "I must marry you, and poor Tom can marry Brown."

"Hurrah!" cried Merryweather. "What a perfect little woman it is! Tom, you're jilted. Now, Bertha, get on my back, and we'll go off out into the sunshine and spend our honeymoon."

And away they went galloping and rollicking round the garden paths, and it was evident, from the shouts of merry laughter, that Bertha thought very little of her discarded lover.

"Now," she cried at last, "let us all go and see the lovely dead men, all in rows and rows. Hoor-ay!"