CHAPTER VII

A WINTER PICNIC

PUGGY was summoned back to school before the Christmas holidays, and Christina missed him more than she had thought possible. Dawn and his father were soon going back to London, and one Saturday morning Dawn appeared in Christina's schoolroom before she had finished her breakfast.

"Good-morning, Miss Loder. Please—we know it's a holiday, and may we borrow Tina for the day? It's going to be fine and dad is going to paint out of doors, and we're going to camp out and boil our kettle, and drive in a trap, and there's just room for Tina between dad's knees!"

Christina clapped her hands with delight. Miss Loder considered.

"How late will you be out?"

"We'll be back before dark."

"I expect Mrs. Maclahan will not object. I must ask her first."

She left the room. Christina began to ask eager questions.

"Are you going into a wood? Is your Aunt Rachael going? What have you got for dinner?"

And when her governess came back with the required permission, Christina dashed off to get into her hat and cloak with a radiant face.

"I will be good," she assured Miss Loder. "I do love going with Dawn and his father. They're so funny, and they're so happy."

She tore down the avenue breathlessly with Dawn, and came to his house as Mr. O'Flagherty was harnessing an old grey mare to a very shabby-looking trap, a loan from some neighbouring farmer.

"Ah!" he said, looking up. "It's a pity John Bull isn't here, the United Kingdom isn't complete without him, but we mean to enjoy ourselves."

"A winter picnic is much better fun than a summer one!" said Dawn. "Have you got the rabbit pie, dad? We're going to boil some eggs, Tina, and eat them scalding hot, and we'll roast some potatoes in the ashes. I'm going to look for a hedgehog and roast him, like the gipsies do. When he's cooked, his prickles come off, and he's like a little chicken!"

Christina shuddered.

"I wish," she said, "nobody or nothing need ever be killed. It's so dreadful to think of!"

"Then don't think of it. Come on, climb up, Tina; and dad is going to let me drive part of the way; and won't I drive at a thundering pace!"

Aunt Rachael came out with plenty of wraps, which she tucked round Christina.

"What would your old nurse say to your spending a whole day out of doors at this time of year?" she said with a smile.

Christina looked grave.

"I hope I'm not forgetting Nurse," she said. "I told her I never would, but I don't think of her quite so often as I ought!"

"Oh, you little Puritan with your 'oughts!'" said Mr. O'Flagherty. "Leave them alone to-day. We won't take one of them with us. We're going to be as free as the air, and do as we please!"

He got into the trap as he spoke, and they drove off, Christina wedged in between Dawn and his father and feeling very light-hearted.

It was a bright sunny morning, and wonderfully soft and mild for a December day.

Through the village, up and down rather muddy lanes, and at last they came upon a long stretch of pine woods by the side of a grey rushing river.

This was their goal. Mr. O'Flagherty wanted to complete a picture of his which he had painted from the interior of these woods, with just a glimpse of hills and farmsteads between the tall slender pines.

They drove through a soft track covered with brown pine needles and cones, and at last came to a small clearing, where they stopped. Mr. O'Flagherty unharnessed the mare, produced a feed for her, then promptly put up his easel and set to work.

"I shall have one clear hour before dinner," he said; "and don't you dare to disturb me. Make your fire, boil the kettle and cook the 'taties, and get some water from the river without tumbling in."

All this Dawn and Christina did. Their tongues never stopped, though they kept a considerable distance from the artist, so that they should not disturb him.

"It is so nice," said Christina, as she and Dawn having made a fire and put the kettle on began to unpack the basket and arrange the luncheon, "not to have grown-up people telling us how to do things."

"They never tell me!" said Dawn, tossing back his curls. "Dad says every young thing ought to be as free as air. He won't have our puppy chained up; he says a bottled-up boy or dog explodes and does more harm when they're big than if they'd been allowed to do mischief when they're small. Dad is first-rate to live with, I can tell you!"

Christina assented heartily.

When Dawn deluged her with water as he was filling the kettle from the river, she was thankful that no grown-up person was there to see it. Later on she knelt on a burning stick that flew out from the fire, and burnt a hole in the front of her woollen frock. It seemed delightful to her to have no one to scold her for having done it. The potatoes were burnt, the eggs smashed in their shells, and the tea that was brewed tasted smoky; but never had Christina enjoyed such a meal. Mr. O'Flagherty laughed at her shining eyes.

"Ah!" he said. "Your stepmother is a wise woman; she has altered your nursery regime to success, but you want more of this sort of thing to keep you in health! If I was to shut up my bit of quicksilver in the way that good nurse of yours did you, he'd be as flabby and useless as a limpet at the end of a week!"

They all made a hearty meal; then Mr. O'Flagherty hurried back to work, and Dawn and Christina carried down the plates and cups to the river to wash them.

"I don't like water," said Christina reflectively, as she stood on the edge of a strip of gravel and took the wet plates from Dawn and dried them with her cloth. "I think it's because I'm frightened of it. Do you remember in the Pilgrim's Progress, Dawn, where Christian has to go through the river? It makes me shiver to think of it! I should die of fright if I had to go through this river!"

Dawn leant across to her mysteriously, and his blue eyes flashed with eagerness.

"I'll tell you something. When we've done this, we won't go through the river, but we'll go over it. I've found out something! It'll be scrumptious!"

"What do you mean?"

"There's a boat tied to the bushes here. It's only a few yards away. I rowed dad across one day when he was fishing. It's always much nicer the other side of a thing! Make haste, Tina, there! That's the last plate, and we'll put them in a heap here and take them up to the trap later on. Now, you follow me, and we'll be Red Indians in a canoe, and go sailing down the river, and then land in a strange country. Come on!"

He danced off, and Christina, feeling a sinking of heart, followed him. When she saw the boat she protested:

"I'm sure we oughtn't to, Dawn; it isn't ours. Don't touch it, you'll be drowned."

Dawn laughed merrily.

"It doesn't matter whose it is, we shan't hurt it, and we'll put it back. It's kept here to use, I know it is."

He was busy untying the rope as he spoke. Christina was suddenly beset by an agony of fear.

"I'm sure it isn't right, we oughtn't to do it."

"Dad said you were to leave your oughts behind to-day, and we're to do as we like. I believe you're funking it!"

Christina's cheeks grew scarlet.

"I've never been in a boat," she confessed hurriedly; "but it isn't only that, Dawn, I feel we oughtn't to do it. Shall I go and ask your dad?"

"No, he said we weren't to come near him till he whistled for us. Don't be a coward, Tina. I shall write and tell Puggy if you are. Give me your hand, I'll help you in."

Dawn's will always had sway over Christina. She stepped into the boat without another word, and sat where she was told, with heaving breath and terror-stricken eyes.

"Oh!" she gasped as Dawn pushed off. "There's nothing but water underneath us!"

Dawn, handling his oars with some difficulty, stopped to laugh.

"There are fishes," he said. "Do play up, Tina, and don't spoil it all by staring at me so!"

Christina hastily shut her eyes. The time on the strange horse's back seemed comfortable and safe compared with this. The boat she thought was too thin, too frail to keep her from the angry water. A hole might come in it, then they would sink at once; it would most likely upset; what would it feel like to be plunged into the cold rushing water? Oh, if only what was going to happen, would happen quickly! It was the waiting for it that was so dreadful.

The little girl thought of her brave ancestors; she repeated the family motto, but it was all in vain. Then she said her text.

"'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.'"

And then miserably she added to herself:

"But I'm sure we're being naughty, and if we are, God won't have anything to do with me."

Suddenly there was a bump, Christina gave a little scream and opened her eyes. She found that they had arrived at the opposite bank and Dawn was already on shore tugging at the rope.

[Illustration: She found that they had arrived at the opposite bank.]

"You're such a silly!" he said contemptuously. "If you'd been game, we would have gone for a long row. Now, come on out! Here, I'll catch hold of you!"

Poor Christina could hardly believe she was safe on land again. Her cheeks were white, and she was trembling from head to foot. Dawn looked at her curiously.

"I believe you've been seasick," he said. "That's how Aunt Rachael looks when she goes on the sea."

They found the other shore not so pleasant as it looked in the distance. The ground was marshy and covered with bramble bushes. It looked like a rough common and stretched away out of sight, with no house or building to break its monotony.

"I think," said Dawn meditatively, "if we go up to that signpost, we shall find which is the nearest village. We could go and buy some sweets in a shop. That would be first-rate!"

They set off across the common, and Christina began to cheer up. By the time they reached the signpost she was quite ready for any adventure that might befall them, and Dawn's fertile brain was inventing rapidly a hundred possibilities.

"Here is the first one!" said Dawn, waving his hand impressively. "A gipsy, who has run away with a little girl! He is asleep, and it is our duty to deliver her."

For a moment Christina thought it might be truth. There, lying face downwards on the grass, was the figure of a burly man. A little girl was sitting by his side, and a few yards off an old horse was grazing. He had been unharnessed from a small cart, which seemed full of tinware and crockery.

Christina looked at the little girl with the deepest interest. She had a clean face, and her hair was plaited in two tails down her back, but a red handkerchief was tied round her head instead of a hat, and her dress was very patched and ragged.

Dawn looked up at the signpost, then at the man lying underneath it.

"Is he your father, or has he stolen you?" he asked the little girl bluntly.

"He's my father, and wot's that to yer!" the child answered shrilly.

Christina shrank back frightened at her tone, but Dawn laughed.

"I expect you're having a picnic like us. My dad has got a horse and cart over in those woods. Have you had your dinner?"

"No."

The little girl's face changed. Tears gathered in her eyes, and she sprang to her feet.

"I be mortal hungry, but I can't move dad; he be taken bad, and he have laid there for hours. Do 'ee try and wake of him up, will yer?"

Dawn willingly agreed to try. He took hold of him by the shoulder and shouted in his ear; the man groaned and moved his head, but he did not seem able to raise himself.

"I think he wants a doctor," he said at length. "Shall I fetch my dad to him?"

"No," said the little girl quickly; "he don't want no doctors nor gents, 'tis his drink: he will have it, and 'tis no good my tryin' to keep him off it. Mother didn't know as 'twould be so awful hard!"

Such a sad look came into her dark eyes that Christina moved nearer her. In a few moments both little girls were talking confidentially together. The child's name was Susy, she told Christina, her father was a hawker, and her mother had died only a few months before, from a blow her husband gave her when he was the worse for drink.

"We has no home," Susy said; "we goes all over the country. Dad is very rough at times, but when he's off the drink he's awful kind. It's a deal better to have him stupid like this than when he knocks me about. I s'pect I shall go like mother did. I've been to 'ospital twice, but 'e don't mean nothin' by it!"

Christina was shocked and terrified.

Susy added:

"I think dad be real bad too this time, for he pitched out o' the cart on his 'ead; but he never wants no doctors!"

"Aren't you very, very frightened of him?" Christina asked.

And Susy laughed.

"Frightened o' dad? Sakes, no! But I be mortal hungry, an' we ought to be movin' on."

Dawn at this moment caught sight of a man in the distance. He shouted to him, and when he came up, he soon got Susy's father in a sitting position.

"Dead drunk!" he remarked. "Not much else the matter with him. Here, my lass, I can lift him in the cart if you can drive him on to the next town. Can you do it?"

Susy nodded.

The man called to a mate of his who was approaching, and together they hoisted the hawker into his cart. The old pony was put in, and Susy clambered up.

Dawn and Christina watched the proceedings with the greatest interest. Then Christina went up to the cart.

"Susy, if you ever come to Hatherbrook village, you must come and see me, will you? I'm sure father or mother would buy some of your things."

Susy nodded knowingly.

"I knows yer name, an' I won't forget. We went to Hatherbrook las' year, and I s'pect we'll be comin' around there soon."

Christina looked upon her with the greatest admiration as she drove away, and Dawn exclaimed ecstatically:

"That's how I should like to drive through the world with dad!"

"She's a very brave girl," said Christina, with a little sigh, "and she's only one year older than I am! She would have made a better Maclahan than I do!"

"Well, that adventure is not very exciting; let's come back to our wood, Tina."

Christina followed him silently down to the river again. Her fears returned, and when Dawn excitedly pointed out to her a man rowing along in the very boat in which they had come over, she was more glad than sorry. Dawn hailed the man, but he only turned and shook his fist at him, and rowed on faster than ever.

"I'm afraid it belongs to him, Tina. Whatever shall we do? How can we get across?"

"I expect there's a bridge somewhere," said Christina cheerfully.

"There mayn't be a bridge for miles. Well, this fun; I shall have to swim across."

"But you won't leave me?"

"Can't you swim? What a pity. I know! There's sure to be a ford somewhere: we'll wade across. It won't be very deep."

This was worse than a boat to poor Christina. She felt inclined to cry, and had to battle with her tears.

"It's all coming like the 'Pilgrim's Progress,'" she thought miserably to herself; "and if I have to go through the water, I know I shall die!"

Her little face was the picture of woe, as she stumbled through the long grass after Dawn.

"Oh, I wish, I wish we hadn't come, and it's getting dark already!"

"I believe it is. It gets dark at four o'clock now, and dad will be waiting for us. I wish those men hadn't gone off. Look there, Tina! Isn't that a cottage? We'll go over to it and ask how we can get across."

Dawn spoke gravely, and when he was grave, Christina knew the case must be bad indeed.

"Oh," she said to herself, "I must ask God to help us; Miss Bertha would tell me to. He will keep us safe, I'm sure He will."

So when they finally arrived at the cottage, Christina let Dawn go inside, whilst she knelt down by a hedge, and asked God to forgive them for having used a boat that was not theirs, and help them to find a bridge close by.

"For, please God, I'm so frightened of a boat," she added; "and if you could make a bridge, it would be so nice; and help me to be brave, and don't let me have to go through the river like Christian did!"

Then she repeated her text, and found comfort at once from it, as she generally did.