The Hawthorns | Page 3

Then Nancy laughed at him, and David pushed him down, and Pennie covered him with hay; and it got into his eyes and down his throat and he choked and kicked, and mother said: "That will do, children!" Then tea was brought out and laid under the great oak-tree, and everyone's face was very red, and everyone was very thirsty. And then the cool evening came stealing on, and a tiny breeze blew, and the hay smelt sweet, and the shadows lengthened, and it was bed-time just as things were getting pleasant.
Each time all this happened it was equally delightful, and it seemed a pity when the field stood bare and desolate after the hay was carried, shorn of its shadowy grass and pretty flowers; yet there was consolation too in the size of the stack which the children had helped to make, and which they always thought "bigger than last year."
Soon after this autumn came and made the orchard and woods and lanes interesting with apples and nuts and blackberries; and then, after the apples and nuts had been stored away, and the blackberries made into jam, it was time to look forward to the winter.
Winter brought a great deal that was very pleasant; for sometimes he came with snow and ice, and the children would wake up to find that in the night he had quietly covered everything out-of-doors with a sparkling white garment.
Then what could be more delicious than to make a snow man or a snow palace?
Pennie, who was a great reader, and always anxious to carry out something she had read about, inclined towards the palace; but the others had less lofty minds. It quite contented them to make a snow man, to put one of Andrew's pipes in his mouth and a battered hat on his head, and stick in bits of coal for his eyes.
"Isn't he lovely?" Nancy would exclaim when all these adornments were complete.
"Zovely!" echoed Dickie, clapping red worsted mittens ecstatically.
"I think he's rather vulgar," Pennie said doubtfully on one of these occasions with an anxiously puckered brow; "and besides, there's nothing to make up about him. What can you pretend?"
The snow man certainly looked hopelessly prosaic as Ambrose tilted his hat a little more to one side.
"Guy Fawkes?" suggested David, having studied the matter solidly for some minutes.
"No," said Pennie, "not Guy Fawkes--he's so common--we've had him heaps of times. But I'll tell you what would be splendid; we'll make him a martyr in Smithfield."
The boys looked doubtful, but Nancy clapped her hands.
"That's capital," she said.
"You know," continued Pennie for the general information, "they burned them."
"Alive?" inquired Ambrose eagerly.
"Yes."
"How jolly!" murmured David.
"Jolly! jolly! jolly!" repeated Dickie, jumping up and down in the snow.
"Why were they burned?" asked Ambrose, who was never tired of asking questions, and liked to get to the bottom of a matter if possible.
"Why, I am not quite sure," answered Pennie cautiously, "because I've only just got to it; but I think it was something about the Bible. I'll ask Miss Grey."
"Oh, never mind all that," interrupted the practical Nancy impatiently; "we'll make a splendid bonfire all round him and watch him melt. Come and get the wood."
"And we'll call him `a distinguished martyr,'" added Pennie as she moved slowly away, "because I can't remember any of their real names."
Pennie was never satisfied to leave things as they were; she liked to adorn them with fancies and make up stories about them, and her busy little mind was always ready to set to work on the smallest event of the children's lives. Nothing was too common or familiar to have mysteries and romance woven round it; and this was sometimes a most useful faculty, for winter was not always kind enough to bring snow and ice with him. Very often there was nothing but rain and fog and mud, and then mother uttered those dreadful words:
"The children must not go out."
Then when lessons were over, and all the games exhausted, and it was still too early for lights, the schoolroom became full of dark corners, and the flickering fire cast mysterious shadows which changed the very furniture into something dim and awful.
Then was Pennie's time--then, watching her hearers' upturned faces by the uncertain light of the fire, she saw surprise or pity or horror on them as her story proceeded, and, waxing warmer, she half believed it true herself. And this made the tales very interesting and thrilling. Yet once Pennie's talent had an unfortunate result, as you shall hear in the next chapter.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE "GARRET."
The children all thought that Pennie's best stories were about a certain lumber-room in the vicarage which was called the "Garret." They were also the most dreadful and thrilling, for there was something about the garret which lent itself readily to tales