CHAPTER IX

THE ROSE-VICAR

Half-an-hour later the Prior bade his little guests a reluctant good-bye at the foot of the lane leading into the village street.

"Good-bye, my dears, remember what I told you. And, Billy, put this safely in your pocket. It's a telegram addressed to me. If you are in--well, if you happen to need me just send that off, giving the name of the village or town where I can find you, and I'll come in the car immediately." Nothing, of course, _could_ happen, he knew, with Dick there to keep watch over them. However, no harm in taking all precautions.

Hat in hand, he stood at the corner until they were out of sight, and, until they could no longer see him, the children turned frequently and waved.

Each small heart was too full for speech for a long time.

"I b'lieve," Nancy said presently, "he was just as sorry to lose us as we were to leave him."

So keen indeed was their regret at having parted with their kind and interesting friend, that for a long while their thoughts centred about him and the Priory to the exclusion of the hills. To be content to stick to one's original plans was not altogether easy, even Billy found, yes, even when they were such delightful plans. Nobody quite knew how hard it had been for him to refuse the Prior's invitation and all that it embraced.

"Wasn't it nice of him not to ask lots of questions?" Nancy said as they turned into the lane that evidently led up into the hills. "Most people would have wanted to know all about us, but _he_ treated us just as though we were grown-ups."

"If aunts were like that to you, you mightn't hate 'em so," Montague rumbled. "When I'm a man----" He broke off suddenly, for his companions were convulsed with laughter. "_Now_ what are you laughing at?" he growled. He could have wished to be treated with considerably more respect.

"It's only your voice sounds so funny, Monty, dear, when you talk about aunts or when you're a man," Mavis explained. "It sounds as though----"

"As though something inside you is fizzling," Nancy finished. "But go on, Monty. We love you to talk to us. Please go on."

"Well, _you'd_ fizzle if you were me. You'd fizzle and fizzle and _fizzle_ till you burst. My guardian," he began reminiscently, "he says----"

"Yes, Monty, what does he say?" Mavis (she was riding Modestine) leaned down towards him expectantly.

"_I_ think what he says is silly, 'cos you don't have beards till you're men. He says I mumble volcanically into my beard when I talk of aunts. _He_ thinks it's funny--_I_ don't. 'Sides, well, if he lived with her much I guess he'd mumble into his beard--he'd grow one specially to do it."

"I like your guardian," Mavis said. "Wouldn't it be nice if you could bring him to see us when we go home?"

"Guess he wouldn't come," Montague said. "I don't know why, but he never will go that way for walks. He says that side of Riversham's too painful now."

"Too painful? What does he mean?" asked Nancy.

"_I_ don't know. B'lieve he used to come down before I came to aunt; said he'd got the pain then, and it's still there, and it'd be worse if he put a foot the other side of Riversham. S'pose it's corns or something. Is the road bad your way?"

"Not particularly," Nancy replied. "But I don't think it sounds like corns. Sounds _almost_ as though he's meaning something he can't tell you plain."

The conversation came to an end abruptly. Modestine, who, refreshed by her long rest, had hitherto been in her most amiable mood, suddenly decided to give trouble. The little lane had opened out into a broad road and the children saw that, by turning to the left, they would begin to climb towards a shoulder of the hills that had had a particular fascination for them ever since they had left the Priory. Modestine, however, for some reason known only to herself, decided that she preferred the turn to the right, and, as the children very well knew, once Modestine had made a decision it was difficult to turn her from it.

"Don't give in, Mavis," Billy said. "Keep her head turned to the left. Oh, I say, are you getting giddy? You'd better jump down and I'll lead her."

Nancy helped Mavis to dismount, while Billy clung to the bridle, laughing. Round and round he and Modestine went. Round and round, each determined not to give in. They might have continued making circles there for the rest of the day had not a Good Samaritan in the shape of a clergyman come to their rescue.

"Trouble here with a donkey, eh?" he asked genially, seeing the situation. "Suppose I see what can be done."

Billy very readily allowed him to take charge of Modestine.

"She's awfully strong, you know," he explained. "And _fearfully_ obstinate."

"Most donkeys are," the clergyman replied. "I've met them before." He, however, was big and strong, and it was not very long before Modestine was conquered.

"Thank you ever so much," Billy said gratefully. "She'll be all right now; she soon gets over things, you know."

"She gets ideas and likes to carry them out, I suppose? And generally they clash with your ideas, is that it?"

"Yes, that's it!" Billy replied with a grin, as he helped Mavis to mount. "But she can't help it, of course, as she's a donkey."

"Of course not. If you are born a donkey why not live up to your reputation, eh?" He continued walking with them as they began to climb the hill, and chatted pleasantly.

Presently, he paused by the gate of a house that stood back from the road, evidently his Vicarage, for at the side of the house was a little church.

"Are you in a hurry?" he asked. "I was wondering whether you would like to see some roses--I have a few. Bring the donkey and we'll tether her to that little gate up the drive."

Mavis dismounted and they followed their new friend with ready interest; seeing somebody else's garden was always interesting, no matter how few the roses--it was something new, it was unknown territory.

As they turned into the drive a car came flying along the road. Nancy, the last of the little procession, paused with the instinct of the country-bred child to glance at it. She gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Billy," she said, "I believe that was Mr. Frampton."

Well, after all, had he not mentioned that he was coming to the hills? Such a pity though to have missed him. Nancy was almost sorry they had accepted the Vicar's invitation to see the roses.

The latter, after fastening Modestine to the gate he had mentioned, led them past a shrubbery towards his roses.

"Oh! Oh!"

All they could do was to stand still and gasp at the unexpected glory of the sight before them. A few roses, the Vicar had said! Why, there must be hundreds of them, thousands even! Roses of every shape and colour, tiny bushes simply covered with huge blossoms--beds and beds of them and, enclosing the beds, great trellised crimson roses, the sweetest and loveliest of them all.

The Vicar was delighted at their pleasure.

"You love roses?" he asked. "_I_, you know, shouldn't be happy without a few--I've more over there, but these are the best. That's a bed of cuttings through that arch. How many? Oh, about a thousand, I think. That ground," he added, with a guilty sigh, "should be growing potatoes, but--well, I'm a terror for roses, a terror, my friends tell me."

He led them round the beds.

"That's a Hugh Dickson!" Nancy exclaimed. "Isn't he a beauty?"

The Vicar caught up her enthusiasm, marking with delight her human interest. How many children would have cared enough to say "he"?

"You know him? You know something about roses?"

"Oh, no!" Nancy's tone was deprecating. "Only, we've got a few, _really_ a few, at home. We've got a little garden each, and I have 'Hugh' and Billy has 'Independence Day' and Mavis has 'Betty.'"

The Vicar looked as though he could embrace them all.

"Splendid! Splendid!" he cried.

Then he slowly pulled out a knife and stood looking first at his 'Hugh Dickson,' then at Nancy, then again at the rose.

"It's my very best, my prize 'Hugh,' but you know something about roses. Yes, you must have just one off him," and he stooped and cut off a great crimson velvet fellow and handed it as though it had been a pearl of great price to Nancy.

Nancy who could see what the gift had cost him could scarcely express her thanks. She felt indeed that it was priceless; part of the Vicar's self was surely there; so much of him must have been expended on the growing of these roses.

"And now," he said, "a bunch from some of the others!"

Here and there amongst the rose beds he went with his knife. Red and white and pink roses, lemon roses, apricot roses, sunset roses were heaped into the children's outstretched arms. How could mere words express what was in their hearts? Nancy and Mavis buried their faces in the treasures they held. The Vicar stood and looked at the picture. "The consummation of beauty!" he muttered. Then the astonished children saw him pull out a pencil and scribble on his cuff.

"A thought for my next sermon," he explained, noticing their undisguised curiosity. "Dear me, I should be writing now! Ah, these roses, these roses--they are apt to lead one astray from one's duty. I must go. Come again any time you are passing, while there are roses you shall have some."

Nancy, as she watched him walk reluctantly to the house, wondered whether their own Vicar's sermons might not be less dull if he took thoughts with him from a rose garden as this Vicar had done instead of droning uninterestingly about lifeless things one could not understand.

But now, what to do with the roses? That was their difficulty, as they took the hot road again. To have refused them would have been impossible, to let them wither in the sunshine would be wicked. They wrapped them in Mavis' cloak and the child carried them in front of her.

"I wish," said Nancy, "we could send them to the Prior and ask him to put them on Dorothy's grave."

The very nicest thing possible to do with them, the others agreed. They could buy a cardboard box when they came to a village.

So far, however, no village was in sight, nothing now but the steep hill mounting higher and higher. Curious how often their thoughts had strayed from the hills, from what they hoped to find beyond them, but if interesting things cropped up what were you to do? Now, however, as they slowly climbed, as the summit drew near, they felt again in all its intensity, that great longing that had lured them from their home. Oh, such a little while now and there would be never, never any more longing--they would have at last _seen_!