CHAPTER XXXIX.

MR. ADRIAN FLEMING’S EXPEDITION.

Theirs were the shout, the song, the burst of joy, Which sweet from childhood’s rosy lips resoundeth, Theirs were the eager spirit naught could cloy, And the glad heart from which all grief reboundeth. Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Like the sunbeams to the gladdened earth.

And theirs was many an art to win and bless, The cold and stern to joy and fondness warming; The coaxing smile—the frequent soft caress— The earnest, tearful prayer, all wrath disarming, Again the heart a new affection found, Nor thought that love with them had reached its bound. CAROLINE NORTON.

Adrian Fleming and his father had breakfasted privately that morning, the former apologizing for his wife’s absence from the board by saying that she was temporarily ill from the effects of excessive fatigue and excitement, though not so as to occasion anxiety.

“Then perhaps you will keep your word and drive to the station with me,” said the baronet.

“Certainly,” replied his son.

As soon as they had breakfasted they entered the carriage that was waiting at the door and set out.

Adrian Fleming not only went to the Deloraine Station with his father, but also accompanied him as far as the Deloraine Junction, where they were to separate, Sir Adrian to take the cross country train to Flemington, and Mr. Fleming to continue on to London _en route_ for Cumberland.

“Now what on earth takes you to the North at this season of the year, Adrian?” inquired the baronet, just before they reached the parting place.

“Did I not tell you? I am going to see after those children,” replied the young man.

“Ah! You will do. You are prompt. You have not said a word to your wife about it yet?” inquired the baronet.

“Not a syllable! She was still sleeping off that nervous headache when we left this morning.”

“Oh, ah, yes, to be sure! And you will act without consulting her?”

“Of course! I told you so! I will have both the children entered into the Orphan’s Home before I say a single word to her on the subject.”

“That is right. It will save a world of controversy. Now we are at the junction and I get out here. Good-bye.”

The baronet shook hands with his son, and got out as soon as the train stopped, and crossed the track to take another one.

The train stopped for only thirty seconds.

Adrian Fleming reached Paddington Station at half-past three o’clock in the afternoon, and had just time to enjoy a comfortable luncheon before starting on the four o’clock train for Cumberland.

Adrian Fleming resigned himself to sleep, and slept through the greater part of the night.

At sunrise he was aroused by the arrival of the train at the Miston Branch Station, where he had to get out.

The Miston train was ready, and he took his seat in an empty compartment of a first-class carriage, and settled himself again to sleep until the train reached Miston Station.

There he found the fly from the Dolphin, with Jack Ken on the box, waiting for a chance passenger.

He hailed the fly, engaged it, and told the boy to drive him on to the Dolphin.

There he ordered breakfast, and after partaking freely of coffee, muffins, toast, game, ham, and eggs, he ordered fresh horses put to the fly to carry him to Castle Montjoie.

The horses then being fresh, the weight light, and the roads good, Mr. Fleming made the distance in less than two hours, and reached the castle about eleven o’clock.

On being admitted by the porter he inquired for the young Countess of Altofaire.

“Her ladyship is at Cloudland on a visit to Lord Beaudevere and Miss Desparde,” answered the pompous old man.

“Ah! Well, the little children of the late Dr. Starr, who are the wards of my wife, are here, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, they are here, and in excellent health.”

“In whose charge have they been left?”

“In the care of a most respectable woman, who has been engaged as head nurse, and of a nursemaid.”

“Well, I have come to take the children away. I am sorry the countess should be absent at this crisis; but if you will show me into the library and furnish me with stationery, I will write an explanatory letter to her ladyship,” said Mr. Fleming.

“Certainly, sir,” replied the porter, himself leading the way to the library, and laying out the writing materials upon the table.

“And you will send the nurse to me, if you please.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the porter, pulling the bell.

A footman appeared in answer to it.

“Adams, go find nurse Cotton and tell her that Mr. Fleming, the gardeen of the little Starr children, have come to take them home with him,” were the instructions given.

The young footman “bobbed” and disappeared, and in a few moments Mrs. Cotton entered.

She was a plump, fair, pleasant-looking matron, of perhaps fifty years of age.

“You are the children’s nurse?” inquired Mr. Fleming.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, with a courtesy.

“Well, I have come to take them away. I am sorry the countess is not at home, but I will leave a note for her. Can you go with them to their new home?”

“To Delorin Park where Mrs. Fleming has gone to live, as I am told, sir? Yes, sir, I think I can,” answered the woman.

“Can you be ready to leave the castle by two o’clock?”

“Yes, sir; if the housemaids will help me to pack the children’s clothes,” said the nurse.

“The maids will _have_ to do it. They have little enough to orkkepy their hands and keep ’em out of mischief, the Lord knows,” put in the old porter.

“And now,” said Mr. Fleming, as he folded and directed the letter and handed it to the porter, “I wish you to give this, with my warm thanks, to Lady Altofaire. And, nurse, I wish you to send the children to me here that I may renew my acquaintance with them. I used to be a favorite when I was reading with their father.”

“Surely, sir, I will fetch them,” said the woman.

She went out and soon returned with the children, who broke away from her hands at the sight of Adrian and rushed to him, clasping his knees, looking up in his face, and opening the subject nearest their hearts without the slightest ceremony.

“Nurse Totton say you’s doing to tate us home to mammam, and to wide in a wailwoad tar!” began Luke.

“‘To wide in the wailwoad tar,’” echoed Ella.

“Humph! Will you like to go?” inquired Adrian, with a smile.

“Oh! Wese wike it so much!” exclaimed Luke.

“’Wike it so much!” echoed Ella.

“Wese dlad to see oo,” said Luke.

“‘’Ees, we is vezzy dlad to see oo,’” added Ella.

And both children scrambled up on his knees and hugged and kissed him.

“What is my name, now? I bet you don’t know!” said Mr. Fleming.

“Oh, ’ees we does! Oo’s name is A-dy-wan,” exclaimed Luke, in triumph.

“’Ees! Zat’s it—Ade-we-in! We luzzes Ade we-in!” added Ella, clasping the young man around the neck and giving him as strong a squeeze as her little arms could manage.

If Adrian Fleming meditated any treason against these confiding children, his heart must have been harder and blacker than his worst enemy could have conceived.

“Now, guess what I have brought you!” he exclaimed, diving his hand down in the deep pockets of his ulster, which, in the first busy hour of his arrival, he had not yet taken off.

“Nussin,” replied Luke, carelessly.

“Why do you think so?”

“’Tause you never did b’ing us nussin,” added the child, speaking positively from his own experience.

“No mens never did b’ing us nussin,” confirmed Ella, with a look of disapprobation. “Mammam b’ings us petty fings, and so does Ayel and Vivin and Kit, but no mens never does, now daddy’s gone to Heaven.”

“Did daddy bring you pretty things?” inquired Adrian, laughing.

“Ezzer so pretty!” exclaimed Luke; “but no ozer mens but daddy ezzer did.”

“Wouldn’t you like to have another daddy to bring you pretty things?” inquired Adrian.

“Oh, ’es, indeedy!” exclaimed both children.

“Very well, then, look here!” exclaimed the visitor, drawing from his pocket a parcel and opening it.

“_Oh-h-h h!_” cried the children simultaneously.

The parcel contained two automaton toys—a fiddler and a dancer.

The children had cried out with delight only on beholding the figures, without suspecting their accomplishments, for the fiddler was a gorgeous youth in blue cap, red jacket and yellow trousers, and the dancer was a beautiful damsel in a green dress spangled with gold.

But when the figures were wound up and set to fiddling and dancing, the breath of the children was momentarily suspended in ecstasy and their faces were a sight to behold!

At least Adrian Fleming thought so.

Never perhaps since the days of his own infancy had the young man enjoyed a pastime at once so pleasant and so innocent as this of witnessing the amazement and delight of these children.

And now it struck him, rather as an _epicurean_ in pleasure than as a benefactor, that he would like to continue such a new and droll amusement by giving the children a succession of delightful surprises before finally consigning them to the Orphan’s Home he had in view.

While he was thus entertaining himself the butler entered the room and inquired at what hour, “sir,” he would like luncheon.

Mr. Fleming consulted his watch and answered:

“It is now twelve o’clock. We leave the castle at two. I shall feel obliged by a glass of wine and a biscuit at about one o’clock.”

The old servant bowed and inquired:

“If you would like to go to a dressing-room, sir, Adams will wait on you.”

“Very well, send Adams to me, and send the nurse to take the children.”

The butler bowed himself out, and was succeeded by Adams and the little nursemaid, Nelly Lacy.

But the children made a rush to grab their automaton toys—Luke to seize the fiddler and Ella the dancer—to show to the girl; but, ah! the machinery had just run down and the fiddling and dancing stopped short.

“Mate em alive adain, Misser F’emin’!” said Luke, thrusting the fiddler into one of Adrian’s hands, while Ella pushed the dancer into the other.

The young man, laughing good-humoredly, wound them up, the fiddler first and then the dancer, and set them going on the table.

Then leaving the children to the care of Nelly, with the direction to remember and have them ready for their journey at two o’clock, he followed the footman, who conducted him to a bedroom and dressing-room where he might refresh his toilet.

At one o’clock Adrian Fleming sat down to a luncheon, where the stipulated modest “glass of wine and biscuit” was amplified into oysters on the half shell, pigeon pie, Westphalia ham, quince tarts, calf-foot jelly, pale sherry and sparkling Moselle.

Adrian Fleming could always appreciate a good meal, and he did full justice to this.

At two o’clock the carriage that had brought Adrian Fleming to the castle was again at the door, and the children were all ready and eager for the journey.

Well wrapped up in their fur-lined coats, they were standing in the lower hall, while one of the grooms stood holding open the door of the carriage. They were all waiting for Mr. Fleming, who was drawing on his gloves.

Anxious as the little ones had been for this journey, at the very last they had raised some objections to leaving unless certain conditions, for which they stipulated, should be fulfilled.

Among the rest was the chief one—that P’udence should go.

“And who’s P’udence?” demanded the young man.

“Oo not know who P’udence is?” inquired Luke, in a tone of pity bordering on contempt, for the gentleman’s ignorance.

“P’udence is our tat,” exclaimed Ella.

“And wese not doe wizzout her,” said Luke.

“Quite right! Take the cat. If they don’t like her at the Orphan’s Home they can loose her or drown her. What I want to do is to get you peaceably there and be done with it.”

All but the first two words of this speech was spoken _sotto voce_, and did not reach the ears of the children.

Another stipulation was that Nelly, their nursemaid, should go; and to that also their good-natured guardian assented, with the same mental reservation.

“If they don’t want these women at the Orphan’s Home, as probably they will not, I can pay their way back here again. All _I_ want is a comfortable and pleasant journey with the little folks until I turn them over into other hands, and then let other people take all the discomfort and unpleasantness of crossing them, if they choose.”

So the old nurse, Mrs. Cotton, the maid Nelly, and the cat Prudence, who, with sundry growlings, spitting and scratching had been put into a covered basket and fastened down, became the companions of their journey.

Mr. Fleming, the children, and the cat, rode in the carriage, and the two women and the luggage in the “break” that followed it.

They reached Miston in time to take the four o’clock train.

Mr. Fleming engaged a whole compartment in a first-class carriage for himself and the children, and sent the two women and the cat into the second class, and so they started.

This journey with two intelligent, curious and inquisitive children might have been considered a troublesome one by most gentlemen, but not so by Adrian Fleming, who never permitted anything to trouble him.

He was highly amused in watching the children’s delight in their first railroad ride.

And before he had time to be wearied with them they reached Miston Branch Junction, where they were to change trains.

He put the children and their cat in a compartment with the two women, and took another for himself and his cigar.

The train reached London at a late hour in the evening.

The children were fast asleep and had to be aroused in order to be taken from the carriage.

Mr. Fleming engaged rooms at the Paddington Hotel, and the little ones were conveyed thither and put to bed by the nurses.

Adrian Fleming went out and telegraphed to his wife that he had run up to London on business and would be detained there the whole of the next day, but would start for Deloraine Park the next evening and reach home on the following morning.

Having sent this dispatch he returned to the hotel and ordered dinner, and after partaking of it, went to the theatre to spend the evening.

So ended his day.

On Friday morning he arose late, breakfasted later, and then rang for the nurse and inquired for the children.

“If you please, sir,” began Mrs. Cotton, “the precious lambs have been going on like wild-cats all the morning, in their impatience to get at you.”

“Very well! Dress them up for a ride and bring them to me. I am going out with them.”

In less than fifteen minutes the children were brought to Mr. Fleming, accoutred for their drive.

They were “uproariously?” glad to see him, climbed over and over him and covered him with caresses.

“Well! Do you want to go out and ride in a carriage, and see all the beautiful shops where the walking dolls and the fiddlers and dancers come from?”

“Oh, ‘es, Misser Flemin’.”

“Look here,” said Adrian. “Didn’t you tell me that no ‘mens’ but ‘daddy’ ever gave you anything?”

“’Es, wese did,” said Luke.

“Well, then, if I give you things, you ought to call _me_ daddy.”

“Aw wight, daddy!” said Luke, while Ella burst out laughing.

He led them down stairs and put them into a carriage and took them first to Madame Taussaud’s wax-work show, at which they were in raptures.

After that he gave them a lunch at the pastry-cook’s near, and allowed them to have just whatever they liked. Then he took them to an afternoon circus, where they seemed to have lost their senses in wonder and delight.

It was late in the afternoon when they came out and re-entered the carriage.

Then Adrian took them to the Burlington Arcade, in the Strand—that paradise of toys. And here he let them run wild among the treasures and get everything they wanted; and, though the amusement cost him a considerable sum, he thought it worth the money.

“Besides, it is their last day out in the wicked world—poor little imps!—so let them make the most of it.”

Finally he took them home to the hotel to tea.

“Well, how do you like London?” he inquired, laughing, as he sat at table and watched them devouring bread and butter and jam.

“Oh, I fink wese have tomed to heaven!” cried Luke, rapturously.

Adrian laughed aloud.

“Wot oo laugh for, daddy?” inquired Ella.

“Because I think that with all this sight-seeing and gormandizing you will soon have reason to think you have come to the other place! However, we have had the fun: now let the people at the Orphan’s Home have the trouble!” said Mr. Fleming.

The children stared. They did not understand him.

And very soon they had to be prepared to resume their journey.

The hotel was but a few steps from the station, and the whole party were soon on board the train, where Adrian Fleming had put the children, nurses and cat, in one compartment to themselves and taken another for himself.

Adrian Fleming, lighted and smoked out one fine Havana and threw away the stump. Then he pulled his traveling cap down over his eyes, thrust his hands down in the deep pockets of his ulster, turned himself sideways on his double seat, drew up his feet, leaned back his head, closed his eyes and settled himself to slumber through the night journey.

Meanwhile the two women in the first-class carriage having the compartment to themselves, the children and the cat, and seeing the tired and sleepy children nod and pitch about, made up a bed of shawls and cloaks on the cushions of the opposite seat, and after loosing the clothes of the little ones, laid them there, where they slept soundly through all the noise and turmoil of travel, until the train stopped at the station nearest the Clerical Orphan’s Home selected by Adrian Fleming for their future residence.

And this was not very far from Deloraine Park.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]