CHAPTER XII

"FAIREST MASONS"

Billy did not take long to fetch the bread. He arrived at the wood in a somewhat breathless condition.

"I ran," he explained, "'cos I saw Mr. Frampton's car outside the inn."

Nancy was troubled. She wished Billy did not think it so necessary to avoid him. She was quite sure she would have lingered rather than hurried if she had known he was near, for after the troubles of the afternoon a grown-up friend would have been so comforting. Besides, he had evidently hoped to meet them in Barsdon. To be sure they had not promised anything definite, but Nancy was quite sure that he would be disappointed at missing them.

"Billy, _do_ say that if he comes this way we may stop him," she pleaded. "We needn't tell him about the purse."

Billy, after she had pointed out her reasons, agreed.

"He's sure _not_ to come though--that lane would be the limit for a car."

Meanwhile, tea, such as it was, awaited them. They divided up the remains of the lunch before they attacked the loaf, as they would need as much of the latter as their present hunger would allow for breakfast. Acid drops, they found, filled up corners, though everyone still owned to a dreadful thirst after the meal was finished. Further up the hill they could see the chimneys of a cottage, and the boys volunteered to go for water, while the girls were unpacking blankets ready for the night. A whole brimming, welcome pailful they brought on their return, and after they had drunk their fill and had replenished the lemonade bottle there was still a deep draught for poor little Modestine, who sighed her contentment when she had sucked up the last cool drop.

Then, after the pail had been returned, they sat round and discussed things. Wonderful what a difference a meal makes. On the other side of it there had been terror for some of them at the thought of their penniless condition; now, with bread and acid drops between them and their loss, they could turn their thoughts from it and think only of how best to overcome the difficulty.

"If we could spare a penny for tin-tacks," Montague said, "I could make some little picture-frames out of that young elm-wood over there. I used to make frames for Jocelyne and me for our cigarette cards in Suffolk, but she's too grown-up for them now. I could use a stone for a hammer."

"Oh, and I've thought of something!" Mavis cried. "I can run in a race!"

"Run in a race?" Nancy repeated.

"Yes. While you and Billy were in the sweet shop, Monty and me were reading a bill in the window about a Flower Show at Barsdon. It's to-morrow, and there's a race for little girl visitors, _an' the prize is seven and sixpence_!"

Seven and sixpence! Why, it was a fortune! But would Mavis mind running? Of course she would get the prize.

"Yes, I'll do it," Mavis replied. "But can we spare sixpence for the entrance fee?"

Certainly they could. The loaf had cost fourpence and that left them with sixpence-halfpenny. Mavis should have the sixpence, and the halfpenny--well, one _could_ not ask for a halfpennyworth of tin-tacks; they must be bought after the race; nevertheless, the halfpenny must not be despised; it was something, they felt, to have at least that to face the world with.

Everybody's spirits rose considerably. With the almost certain prospect of seven-and-sixpence in view what was there to worry about now? Seven-and-sixpence, carefully spent, would last a long time, especially if they gave up all idea of sleeping in cottages. Was not a blanket in a wood or near a haystack good enough for anybody? Would you not be robbing yourselves of many adventurous hours if you slept under a stuffy roof when the big night-world awaited you?

Montague returned to the subject of the frames. He would prepare them, he said, in the morning; it would take very little time to tack them together later in the day.

"Someday," he added, looking at Mavis, "I'll make you some for your dolls' house. Would you like them?"

For her dolls' house? Indeed she would. With the mention of the dolls' house a shadow crossed the little girl's mind. It suddenly seemed so long since she had played with it; since she had touched any of her dear toys. It would be so nice--but, with a little sigh, she pushed the regret away from her.

Nancy began to think of sleeping arrangements.

"Shall we just sleep on the ground?" she asked. "Nicolette, you remember, builded herself a lodge of leaves and branches."

"Who's Nicolette?" Montague enquired.

"Nicolette? Oh, she's in a book. She and Aucassin were in love with each other, only he's a king's son and she's poor, so they can't marry at first. We think Aucassin a bit of a muff--he weeps too much, but Nicolette was brave. She had all sorts of adventures and she lived in a wood."

"She had a much worse time than we've had," Billy interrupted. "Prisons and all sorts of things."

"Yes, she did. But she escaped and builded the lodge of saplings and made a tapestry of leaves and flowers. There's such a pretty picture of her building it in Aunt Letty's book."

"Does an aunt let you read her books--_touch_ 'em?" Montague enquired with awe.

"Why, of course she does! We all go into her room on Sunday mornings and have lots of fun. Sometimes she tells us stories, but if she's sleepy then we each have a book. You have to have _very_ clean hands 'cos it's generally her special books you like best."

Montague stared in silence. This Aunt Letty of whom they talked so much sounded so altogether different from his conception of an aunt that he found it difficult to picture her. Indeed, if she had not been an aunt he might almost have felt enough interest in her to wish to see her some day.

"An' you _like_ going into her room?" he asked presently. "Why, of course!" Mavis spoke a little impatiently. "She's our Aunt Letty!" So tiresome of Monty not to understand what that implied.

Again Montague grew silent. Would he want to go to _his_ aunt's room? Would she want him? Wouldn't she be horrified if he touched any of her possessions? And this aunt played with them--that meant there might be a noise in the house before breakfast.

"If there's a noise comes from my room before eight o'clock, well, I know it!" he growled.

Poor Montague! How different his life had been from theirs, they thought, and, until they had met him, they had simply accepted all the love and happiness that made up their days as their natural right. Now they were beginning to wonder--a little.

However, they were straying from the point; sleeping arrangements had not yet been decided. Montague voted eagerly for the lodge, or bower, for the girls; he and Billy would build them one--one as good as Nicolette's. But she and Nancy must help, too, Mavis declared; the boys could make the framework of boughs while she and Nancy wove a tapestry of leaves.

Now indeed was sleeping out of doors transformed into an adventure. Romance, with the building of that bower that was to rival fair Nicolette's, entered into the little wood; each in their different way felt it as they gathered armfuls of dry bracken or cut down slender saplings; but Montague most of all. To build a bower for Mavis! Why, it was like being a knight serving a princess. And he would guard her; he would sleep near her door presently and guard her from enemies just as a real knight would do. Not for a moment would he compare himself with Aucassin, who sat at home and wept; he was sure, however, that Nicolette was not more fairly beautiful than his little princess. "Fairest mason," Nancy said they called Nicolette in the book; well, that was what Mavis was, he thought stoutly, as he watched her artistic little fingers skilfully weaving a covering of leaves for the framework. "Very pretty it was and very dainty and well furnished, both outside and in, with a tapestry of flowers and of leaves." That, Nancy said, was Nicolette's bower. Yes, but nobody, not Nicolette herself (though she did turn out to be a princess after all) could wish for a daintier bower than this that had been "builded" by four modern children who knew how to find romance or adventure in the most trivial incident.

Time had passed rapidly during the building of the lodge. Evening was coming on, yet, though the trees shut out much of the daylight, it was still too light for them to sleep. And now that their preparations for the night were completed they all began to realize how very, very tired they were. The girls lay down in their dainty bower, and the boys sprawled together on a bed of bracken outside, yet nobody felt that bedtime had come. The evening was so warm that blankets were not needed yet; indeed, had it not been for an occasional breeze, the girls would have found their lodge almost stifling.

Though they could not sleep everybody was too tired to bother to talk. Nancy's imagination, scarcely ever at rest, carried her to Nestcombe and Nestley. Suddenly, a great longing for the familiar places swept over her. Their playroom, the paddock, the garden with its beloved trees, the high wall at the bottom of the garden, where they so often sat and gazed across the river--the river itself. How dear every corner of the home-place was. And yet, when they had had home all around them they had accepted it just as they accepted the love and happiness that was theirs. Why should coming to the hills awaken your heart to these things? When you were in the Land of your Desire, oh, it was curious that home should jostle that longed-for country into the background. And then there was the forest that would not let you forget it. Nancy closed her eyes, and saw it as it would be now in the twilight hour and in her imagination she listened to the great silence that was as much a part of the forest as the trees themselves. A wonderful silence that was filled with little still sounds and whispers, the stirring of night things, the breathing of sleepers, oh, a friendly, home-like silence. She seemed to hear too the sharp metallic clot-clot of the horse's hoofs ringing on the forest road--that, too, was simply part of the friendly silence.

And then again there was the smoke from the lime kilns high up in the forest, yes, and the smell of the smoke, the smell of the forest, oh, it was all home. What comfort even in the thought of those forest scents and sounds. To be sure, there was a whispering here amongst the tree-tops, yet it was not the familiar whispering of the forest; there was, indeed, almost a loneliness about it. Yes, deep in her heart Nancy owned to loneliness (Mavis, too, was feeling it, Nancy knew from the way the little fingers clung to hers), and remembering the troubles of the evening--she had forgotten the prospective seven-and-sixpence--disappointment came to keep the loneliness company. These hills that they had come out to see with hope so high in their hearts, what had they offered them more than the forest? They were lovely, oh yes; this afternoon they had seemed all laughter, but what a long, long time ago that seemed. And was there not a kind of mockery in the laughter? Would the forest, if children had come adventuring into its heart as they had come to the hills, would the forest have been so cruel? To offer so much, to pretend to take you right into its secret heart, then to thrust you out again. Ah, surely the forest would not do that!

And yet, and yet, there was Monty. What had the forest given to him? Wasn't it there, at the foot of the forest, that he had been so unhappy? Love abounded for them up and down the forest, besides in their own home, but Monty--why, wasn't it here in the hills that he was finding happiness? Wasn't there a kind of different look about him--something Nancy did not in the least know how to describe except by the word "happiness." Though his poor little body had been so battered about, some other more important part was receiving healing.

What an April girl was Nancy, what a child of moods. Disappointment and depression left her when she arrived at this stage in her reflections. She sat up suddenly and peeped out of the bower.

"Monty, tell me again what your guardian said about courage and life?" she demanded.

"He said, 'it's not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it,' an' he said he'd have to make a personal application of that sentence when he'd got Jocelyne and me living with him. _I_ dunno what he means."

"Do you think, Billy," Nancy said, "it means _us_ an' our travels? Could it mean that we mustn't mind losing our money?"

Yes, Billy replied, that certainly was his interpretation of the quotation. Not to mind things going wrong, or, at least, not to be turned from your purpose by the first difficulties that arose, that in his eyes was courage. Nevertheless, Billy was feeling somewhat uncomfortable in his mind. Ought they, he was wondering, to go on? If he had been alone he would have had no doubts or hesitations; little setbacks could not even have suggested giving in. But there were the girls. Was it fair to ask them to go on, perhaps to face worse things than had happened this afternoon? He even had a slight twinge of conscience concerning Mavis running in the race; he would have preferred to run himself, but he knew quite well that there was less certainty of him carrying off the much needed prize--besides, the race was for little girls. Yet, what ought he to do?

"I've been thinking," he blurted out presently. "If there's anyone of us doesn't want to go on, if--if anybody would rather go home, I'll send that telegram to the Prior to-morrow, or if we see Mr. Frampton ask him to take us home. If one goes then we'll all go. Let's decide now at once."

Nobody spoke a word in reply.

"Say quick if you'd like to go home. I'll not blame anybody if you do--you've been so plucky all the time, and I promise I'll never say you weren't sports not to go on. Which shall we do, Nancy?"

It was sleepy little Mavis, however, who decided. "Let's wait until after the race, an' if I don't win the prize, then we'd better go home, hadn't we?"

"But you know you'll win it. You always do!"

"Well then, if we've got seven-and-sixpence we'll be rich, and it'll be all right."

Billy sighed with relief, and again silence fell between them. And again their thoughts went wandering. To the hills and the big open world? No, not when the night is pushing loneliness towards you.

"When the young eyes of the day Open on the dusk, and see All the shadows fade away Till the sun shines merrily, Then I leave my bed and run Out to frolic in the sun. Through the sunny hours I play Where the grass is warm and long; I pluck the daisies, and the gay Buttercups, or join the song Of the birds that here and there Sing upon the sunny air. But when night comes, cold and slow. When the sad moon climbs the sky, When the whispering wind says, 'Boh, Little Boy,' and makes me cry, By my mother I am led To my home and to my bed."

The daylight called them to the Unknown, but the night sounds whispered in each little adventurer's heart the one word "Mother." Just to see her, how comforting it would be. Yet, though they longed for her, none of them, not even Nancy, had yet awakened to _her_ point of view--that awakening was to come later.

In Montague's heart, too, there must have been loneliness, for, presently, the other three heard a small voice speaking:

"I wish I had a mother."

He voiced his need so simply that the children's hearts ached for him. He should share their mother, Mavis said kindly, and never go back to that horrid aunt.

"There's three of you," Montague replied sadly; "she wouldn't have room for me."

Well, there was Aunt Letty. Now that she wasn't going to be married she would have lots of room for him. He could be her little boy.

"If she wasn't an _aunt_," Montague murmured doubtfully.

"She can't help being an aunt, you know, Monty dear," Nancy replied gently.

"No, an' I'd _like_ you to love her," Mavis added.

"If I could think of her as not an aunt p'raps I might like her a little." Could he, even for Mavis, overcome his prejudice? Well, if she wished it he must certainly try.

Silence again and then, at last, the gentle breathing of four sleeping children.

For an hour perhaps they slept. Suddenly, their dreams were disturbed by a terrific sobbing sound--the sobbing of giants, it seemed. They awoke with a start to find that Modestine, who was used to either a comfortable stable or roaming at large in the paddock, was voicing her disapproval of her night-quarters, voicing it as only a donkey knows how. Billy sleepily admonished her.

"Come over here if you're feeling as bad as all that, but for goodness' sake don't make that row again," he said.

Sleep did not come again immediately, and while they were still lying awake the sound of a car in the lane broke on their ears. Then such a honking of a horn as they had never heard before! Honk, honk, honk, honk! The Barsdon people must have heard it and wondered, but the children did not wonder for they knew!

"Mr. Frampton! It's him!" they cried in one voice, and, being now wide awake, they sprang up and ran along the cart-track to the road.

Honk, honk, honk, honk!

Slowly, very slowly the car drew near.

"It's us he's honking for!" Nancy cried, and there was relief in her voice. "'Spect he heard Modestine, so knew where we were."

They stood where Dick could not fail to see them and waited breathlessly for the creeping car. At last it was here!

"Mr. Frampton! Oh, Mr. Frampton, we're so glad to see you," Nancy cried. "Have you been looking for us?"

Now, Dick was feeling both worried and annoyed. Worried because he had searched the country for miles, and could find no trace of the children until he heard Modestine's voice; annoyed because they had not waited for him in Barsdon. Even if they had decided to sleep out of doors after all, they might have let him know, he argued with himself, knowing nothing of the lost purse. To be sure they had not promised, yet in the afternoon they had seemed so friendly, so glad of his company that he could not understand their action. And he was quite prepared when he sighted his elusive charges to show his annoyance, but the reproach that was on his lips was checked by something in the children's voices. He was quite sure there was relief in their eager, welcoming shout; something in their attitude, too, as they stood there in the moonlight seemed to suggest forlornness. What could have happened? As he sprang from the car he noticed the boys' puffy, battered faces. Ah, there had been a fight, that was it; the details he would find out diplomatically later on.

"We did so hope you would come this way," Nancy said.

"But why didn't you wait for me in Barsdon?"

"We--couldn't," Billy replied awkwardly. "But we were awfully sorry not to."

Dick noticed his confusion but let the subject drop for the time being. Well, never mind, he said, but now could they tell him how to dispose of the car; clearly it could not be left in the road all night. They showed him the gate leading into the cart-track and he backed the car through it.

"Aren't you going to sleep at the inn?" Nancy asked, as he followed them into the wood.

"I'm not!" Dick replied decidedly. Lose sight of them now that, after his long search, he had found them? Not if he could help it! "I'm sleeping here. Besides, the inn is closed--it's nearly half-past eleven, and, do you know, I'm hungry, dreadfully hungry. I've had nothing to eat since that excellent lunch you gave me, and I shall have to ask you to take pity on me again."

The children flushed uncomfortably. The thought of offering dry bread to someone who had evidently gone without his dinner, in order to keep what he had considered an appointment with them, who had apparently spent hours searching for them, was humiliating. And it was all they had for breakfast! Well, they would have to go without any, for a Warden who was so conscientious in looking after travellers must certainly be fed.

"I--I'm sorry we've nothing to go with it," Nancy faltered, as she handed him the portion of loaf that was left. "We ate everything else up."

Dick smiled to himself at what he supposed was simply a happy-go-lucky kind of housekeeping and wondered whether they had even given a thought to breakfast. He accepted the bread gratefully, however; he was too hungry, he assured them, to need luxuries, in fact, never had anything tasted more delicious, and his enjoyment as he munched steadily through the loaf was apparent to the children.

"I am indebted to you little people for two meals," he laughed apologetically as he dug his teeth into the last crust. "To-morrow, please, it's _my_ turn, and if you don't let me be responsible for the catering for the whole day I shall be more than hurt. Is it a bargain?"

How could they refuse such an offer? In making it Dick had not the remotest idea that otherwise they would have been foodless, that he himself had eaten their very last crust. Yet, for a moment Billy eyed him suspiciously. Could he possibly know that they were penniless? In the ordinary course of events he would simply have accepted Dick's offer without further thought, but poverty, unfortunately, has a way of making you think. Sixpence-halfpenny between you and charity was a miserable sum to a proud young person like Billy, and his thoughts of the lad who had stolen their money were by no means gentle. That Dick might have helped them recover the lost purse, had they confided in him, never occurred to him. The purse was gone, and that was the end of the matter.

Dick, meanwhile, had finished the last crumb and was feeling in his pocket for his pipe.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "what an ass I am! Your Prior has sent you some chocolates--I'd forgotten them!"

He produced four huge packets of chocolate. The children were glad of it, for being awake, they found, made you hungry. And how nice to be able to offer Mr. Frampton something more than dry bread! How grateful they were to the Prior.

And while they all munched, Dick told them how overwhelmed the Prior had been at the thought behind their gift. An unrepayable and unforgettable gift, he had said, and Nancy could just picture him saying it. She wanted to question Dick further about their kind friend, but seeing Mavis' sleepy little face he insisted on bed for them all immediately.

"We can talk to-morrow," he said, "so now good-night!"

And now they really settled down finally for the night. How comforting, Nancy thought, as she snuggled down with Mavis in the bower, how comforting to have a grown-up person near at hand (Dick was sleeping in the car); what a difference it made to the night-sounds! Somehow, all the loneliness vanished and Nancy was aware only of the beauty of the stars in the blue vaulted sky. Stars seen through tree-tops and you a little atom in the arms of Mother Earth! What a discovery, what an adventure in an unknown world of beauty for an imaginative child.

"Thank you, God," she murmured drowsily, "for the lovely star-world." And the Prior, I think, would not have called _that_ little prayer "the gabbling of empty words."