Hildegarde's Home Part 17

"Ah! yes! the miniature. I remember, there were two. I have the mate to it, Mrs. Grahame. Yes! your daughter is very like her. There was a strong attachment between Hester and myself. Then came a mistake, a misunderstanding, the puff of a feather, a breath of wind; I went away.

She was taken suddenly ill, died of a quick consumption. That was forty years ago, but it changed my life, do you see? I have lived alone.

Robert Aytoun was a disappointed man. Wealthy Bond,--you know the old story,--Agatha an invalid, Barbara a rigorous woman, strict Calvinist, and so forth. We all grew old together. The neighbours call me a recluse, a bear--I don't know what all; right enough they have been.

But now--well, first the lad, there, came--my brother's son. Duty, you know, and all the rest of it; father an unsuccessful genius, angel and saint, with an asinine quality added. That waked me up a little, but only made me growl. But that child of yours, and your own society, if you will allow me to say so--I see things with different eyes, in short.

Why, I am actually becoming fond of my milksop; a good lad, eh, Mrs.

Grahame? an honest, gentlemanly lad, I think?"

"Indeed, yes!" cried Mrs. Grahame heartily. "A most dear and good lad, Colonel Grahame! I cannot tell you how fond Hilda and I are of him."

"That's right! that's right!" said the Colonel, with great heartiness.

"You have done it all for him, between you. Holds up his head now, walks like a Christian; and, positively, I found him reading 'Henry Esmond,'

the other day; reading it of his own accord, you observe. Said his cousin Hilda said Esmond was the finest gentleman she knew, and wanted to know what he was like. When a boy takes to 'Henry Esmond,' my dear madam, he is headed in the right direction. Asked me about Lord Herbert, too, at dinner yesterday; really took an interest. Got that from his cousin, too. How many girls know anything about Lord Herbert? Tell me that, will you?"

"Hildegarde has always been a hero-wors.h.i.+pper!" said Mrs. Grahame, smiling, with the warm feeling about the heart that a mother feels when her child is praised. "You make me very happy, Colonel, with all these kind words about my dear daughter. What she is to me, of course, I cannot tell. 'The very eyes of me!' you remember Herrick's dear old song. But I think my good black auntie put it best, one day last week, when Hildegarde had a bad headache, and was in her room all day. 'Miss Hildy,' said auntie, 'she's de salt in de soup, she is. 'Tain't no good without her.' But hark! here they come back, with the water; and now, Colonel, it is time for luncheon."

The speakers were sitting under a great pine tree, one of a grove which crowned the top of a green hill. Below them lay broad, sunny meadows, here whitening into silver with daisies, there waving with the young grain. In a hollow at a little distance lay a tiny lake, as if a giantess had dropped her mirror down among the golden fields; further off, dark stretches of woodland framed the bright picture. It was a scene of perfect beauty. Mrs. Grahame sat gazing over the landscape, her heart filled with a great peace. She listened to the young voices, which were coming nearer and nearer. She was so glad that she had made the effort to come. It had been an effort, even though Colonel Ferrers's thoughtfulness had provided the most comfortable of low phaetons, drawn by the slowest and steadiest of cobs, which had brought her with as little discomfort as might be to the top of the hill. But how well worth the fatigue it was to be here!

"And do you love me, Purple Maid?" It was Hugh's clear treble that thrilled with earnestness.

"I love you very much, dear lad! What would you do if I did not, Hugh?"

"Oh! I should weep, and weep, and be a _very_ melancholy Jaques, indeed!"

"Melancholy Jaques!" muttered Colonel Ferrers. "Where on earth did he get hold of that? Extraordinary youngster!"

"He loves the Shakespeare stories," said Mrs. Grahame. "Hilda tells them to him, and reads bits here and there. Oh, I a.s.sure you, Colonel Ferrers, Hugh is a revelation. There never was a child like him, I do believe. But, hus.h.!.+ here he is!"

The boy's bright head appeared, as he came up the hill, hand in hand with Hildegarde. They were laden with ferns and flowers, while Jack Ferrers, a few steps behind, carried a pail of fresh water.

"Aha!" said the Colonel, rubbing his hands. "Here we are, eh? What! you have robbed the woods, Hildegarde? Scaramouche, how goes it, hey?"

"It goes very well!" replied Hugh soberly, but with sparkling eyes. "I am going to call him 'Bonny Dundee,' because his name is John Grahame, you see; and she says, perhaps he _may_ be a hero, too, some day; that would be _so_ nice!"

"Come, Hugh!" said Hildegarde, laughing and blus.h.i.+ng. "You must not tell our secrets. Wait till he _is_ a hero, and then he shall have the hero's name."

"What!" cried the Colonel. "You young Jacobite, are you instilling your pernicious doctrines into this child's breast? Bonny Dundee, indeed!

Marmalade is all that I want to know about Dundee. Bring the hamper, Jack! here, under this tree! You are quite comfortable here, Mrs.

Grahame?"

"Extremely comfortable," said that lady. "Now, you gentlemen may unpack the baskets, while Hilda and I lay the cloth."

All hands went to work, and soon a most tempting repast was set out under the great pine tree. Colonel Ferrers's contribution was a triumph of Mrs. Beadle's skill, and resembled Tennyson's immortal

"Pasty costly made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and linnet lay, With golden yolks imbedded and injellied."

Indeed, the Colonel quoted these lines with great satisfaction, as he set the great pie down in the centre of the "damask napkin, wrought with horse and hound."

"That is truly magnificent!" exclaimed Mrs. Grahame. "And I can match it with 'the dusky loaf that smells of home,'" she added, taking out of her basket a loaf of graham bread and a pot of golden b.u.t.ter.

"Here is the smoked tongue," cried Hildegarde; "here is raspberry jam, and almond cake. Shall we starve, do you think, Colonel Ferrers?"

"In case of extreme hunger, I have brought a few peaches," said the Colonel; and he piled the rosy, glowing, perfect globes in a pyramid at a corner of the cloth.

"Cloth of gold shall be matched with cloth of frieze," said Mrs.

Grahame, and in the opposite corner rose a pyramid of baked potatoes, hot and hot, wafting such an inviting smell through the air that the Colonel seized the carving-knife at once.

"Are you ready?" he demanded. "Why--where is Jack? Jack, you rascal!

where have you got to?"

"Here!" cried a voice among the bushes; and Jack appeared, flushed with triumph, carrying a smoking coffee-pot. "This is my contribution," he said. "If it is only clear! I think it is."

Hildegarde held out a cup, and he poured out a clear amber stream, whose fragrance made both potatoes and peaches retire from the compet.i.tion.

"You really made this?" Colonel Ferrers asked. "You, sir?"

"I, sir," replied Jack. "Biddy taught me. I--I have been practising on you for a couple of days," he added, smiling. "You may remember that your coffee was not quite clear day before yesterday?"

"Clear!" exclaimed the Colonel, bending his brows in mock anger. "I thought Lethe and Acheron had been stirred into it. So that is the kind of trick Elizabeth Beadle plays on me, eh? Scaramouche!" addressing Hugh, "you must look after this great-aunt of yours, do you hear?"

"She made the pie," said Hugh diplomatically.

"She did! she did!" cried Hildegarde, holding out her cup. "Let no one breathe a word against her. Fill up, fill up the festal cup! drop Friends.h.i.+p's sugar therein! two lumps, my mother, if you love me!"

"Somebody should make a poem on this pie," said Mrs. Grahame. "There never was such a pie, I believe. Hilda, you seem in poetic mood. Can you not improvise something?"

Hildegarde considered for a few minutes, making meanwhile intimate acquaintance with the theme of song; then throwing back her head, she exclaimed with dramatic fervour:--

"I sing the pie!

The pie sing I!

And yet I do not sing it; why?

Because my mind Is more inclined To eat it than to glorify."

Anything will make people laugh at a picnic, especially on a day when the whole world is aglow with light and life and joy. One jest followed another, and the walls of the pie melted away to the sound of laughter, as did those of Jericho at the sound of the trumpet. Merlin, who had stayed behind to watch a woodchuck, came up just in time to consume the last fragments, which he did with right good will. Then, when they had eaten "a combination of Keats and sunset," as Mrs. Grahame called the peaches, the Colonel asked permission to light his cigar; and the soft fragrance of the Manilla mingled with odours of pine and fir, while delicate blue rings floated through the air, to the delight of Hugh and Merlin.

"This is the nose dinner," said the child. "It is almost better than the mouth dinner, isn't it?"

"Humph!" said the Colonel, puffing meditatively. "If you hadn't had the mouth dinner first, young man, I think we should hear from you shortly.

Hest--a--Hildegarde, will you give us a song?"

So Hildegarde sang one song and another, the old songs that the Colonel loved: "Ben Bolt," and "The Arethusa," and "A-hunting we will go"; and then, for her own particular pleasure and her mother's, she sang an old ballad, to a strange, lovely old air that she had found in an Elizabethan song-book.

"When shaws been sheene, and shraddes full faire, And leaves are large and long, It is merry walking in the fair forest, To hear the small birds' song.

"The woodwele sang, and would not cease, Sitting upon the spray, Soe loud, he wakened Robin Hood, In the greenwood where he lay."

It was the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne; and when she sang the second verse her mother's sweet alto chimed in; and when she sang the third verse, Jack began to whistle a soft, sweet accompaniment, the effect of which was almost magical; and when she sang the fourth verse,--wonder of wonders! here was the Colonel humming a ba.s.s, rather gruff, but in perfect tune.

When the ballad was over, there was a chorus of surprise and congratulation. "Colonel Ferrers! why didn't you tell us you sang?"