A Christmas Child Part 6

"But why did you go away, dear, while Mr. Brand was here?" asked his mother. "Were you frightened of his dog?"

"No," said Ted, "Ted's never frightened of dogs."

"No, dear, I know you're not," said his mother. But she did not feel satisfied. Her little boy did not look the same as usual somehow. Still she felt it was better to ask no more--after a while Ted would perhaps tell her of himself. And she did well, for it would have been almost impossible for him to tell his mingled feelings.

"Muzzer likes that big man," he was thinking to himself. "Muzzer thinks he's kind. It's naughty and unkind of Ted to be frightened," and so the loyal little man kept silence.

And it was not for a long time--not till Ted himself had learnt to "understand" a little better, that even his mother understood the whole.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STORY OF SUNNY.

"Of course he was the giant, With beard as white as snow."

But whenever Mr. Brand, poor man, came to call, Ted was sure in some mysterious way to disappear. After a while his mother began to notice it, though, as Mr. Brand did not come very often, she did not do so all at once. She noticed, however, another thing which she was sorry for.

Ted took a dislike to the big mountain. It was a great pity, for before that he had been so fond of it--so fond of watching the different expressions, "looks" Ted called them, that it wore according to the time of day, or the time of year, or the weather. And his father and mother had been pleased to see him so "noticing," for such a little boy; they thought it showed, as indeed it did, that he was likely to grow into a happy-minded and happy-hearted man.

But now it was quite different. When he sat on his mother's knee in the drawing-room he would turn his little face to the side away from the window so that he should not see the towering mountain-head. He would never laugh at his old friend's putting on his nightcap of mist, as he used to do, and all his pretty fancies about being able to reach the dear little stars if he were up on the top peak of all, were spoilt.

"Something has frightened Ted," said his mother to his father one day.

"I wonder what it can be. I know _you_ wouldn't frighten him, dear," she added, turning to Percy who was in the room, though of course _Ted_ was not there, otherwise his mother would not have said it, "but still, has there been anything in your play that could have done so? Have you been talking about mountains, or telling stories about them?"

"No," said Percy, thoughtfully; "I'm sure there has been nothing. Shall I ask Ted about it? Perhaps he wouldn't mind telling me, not even as much as----" Percy stopped and grew a little red. He was a boy of nice feelings, not rough and knock-about in his ways like many schoolboys.

"Not even as much as telling _me_, you were going to say," said Ted's mother, smiling. "Never mind, dear. I daresay it _would_ be easier for him to tell you, and I am very glad my little boy has such a kind Percy to talk to. But I think perhaps it is better to say nothing to him. We may find it out by degrees, and if it is only a sort of fancy--he may have seen the mountain looking gloomy some evening--it may fade away of itself more quickly if we don't notice it."

That day was a very bright and lovely one. Ted's mother thought to herself she would like to do something to make Ted, and Percy too, "extra" happy, for the weeks had been running on fast--it would soon be time for Percy, not being a little fish, to go back to school. And Percy's big sister was with them too just then. She was even bigger than Percy, so of course Ted thought her _quite_ grown up, though in reality she was a good many years off being so. She was very nice any way, with a gentle pretty face and kind eyes, and though she was not very old she was very clever at telling stories, which is a most delightful thing in a big sister or cousin--is it not? And she was also able to sing very prettily, another delightful thing, or at least so Ted thought, for he _was_ so fond of singing. This big girl's name was Mabel.

And after thinking a while and talking about it to Mabel, Ted's mother thought the nicest thing would be to have tea in a lonely little nesty place in the gorge between the mountains that I have told you of. We were to go there with Ted and Cheviott some day, by the by, were we not?

Well, never mind, Cheviott shall be--that is to say he _was_--of the gipsy tea-party, so that will come to the same thing, will it not?

They all set off--Ted's father and mother, another gentleman and lady who were staying for the summer in a cottage not far off, that they might be near their friends, their daughter who was _really_ grown up, and Mabel and Percy and Ted. You can fancy the bread and b.u.t.ter there was to cut, the home-made cake, the tea and sugar and cream that must not be forgotten. And when all the baskets were ready and everybody was helping and planning how to carry them, who do you think got hold of the biggest of all and was trying to lug it along? Who but our four-years-old Ted?

"My boy, my boy," cried his mother, laughing, for he did look comical--the basket being really very nearly as big as himself and his little face already quite red with the exertion, "you cannot possibly take that basket. Why, _I_ could scarcely carry it."

"But boys is stronger than muzzers," said Ted gravely, and it was really with difficulty that they could persuade him to give it up, and only then by letting him carry another which _looked_ nearly as important but was in reality much lighter, as it only held the tablecloth and the teapot and teaspoons.

I have not told you about the gorge--not told you, I mean, how lovely it was. Nor if I talked about it for hours could I half describe its beauty. In spring time perhaps it was the prettiest of all, for then it was rich in the early blossoms and flowers that are so quickly over, and that seem to us doubly precious after the flower famine of the winter.

But not even in the early spring time, with all the beauty of primroses and violets, could the gorge look lovelier than it did this summer afternoon. For the ferns and bracken never seemed dusty and withered in this favoured place--the gra.s.s and moss too, kept their freshness through all the hot days as if tended by fairy fingers. It was thanks to the river you see--the merry beautiful little river that came dancing down the centre of this mountain-pa.s.s, at one part turning itself into a waterfall, then, as if tired, for a little flowing along more quietly through a short s.p.a.ce of less precipitous road. But always beautiful, always kindly and generous to the happy dwellers on its banks, keeping them cool in the hottest days, tossing here and there its spray of pearly drops as if in pretty fun.

On each side of the water ran a little footpath, and here and there roughly-made rustic bridges across it tempted you to see if the other side was as pretty as this, though when you had stood still to consider about it you found it impossible to say! The paths were here and there almost completely hidden, for they were so little trodden that the moss had it all its own way with them, and sometimes too it took a scramble and a climb to fight one's way through the tangled knots and fallen fragments of rock which enc.u.mbered them. But now and then there came a bit of level ground where the gorge widened slightly, and then the path stopped for a while in a sort of glade from which again it emerged on the other side. It was in one of these glades that Ted's mother arranged the gipsy tea. Can you imagine a prettier place for a summer day's treat? Overhead the bluest of blue skies and suns.h.i.+ne, tempered by the leafy screen-work of the thickly growing trees; at one side the soft rush of the silvery river, whose song was here low and gentle, though one could hear in the distance the boom of the noisy waterfall; at the other side the mountain slope, whose short brown slippery turf seemed to tempt one to a climb. And close at hand the wealth of ferns and bracken and flowers that I have told you of--a little higher up strange gleaming b.a.l.l.s of many kinds of fungus, yellow and orange, and even scarlet, flamed out as if to rival the softer tints of the trailing honeysuckle and delicate convolvulus and pink foxglove below. It was a lovely dream of fairyland, and the knowing that not far away the waves of the broad blue sea were gently lapping the sandy sh.o.r.e seemed somehow to make it feel all the lovelier.

The tea of course was a great success--when was a gipsy tea, unless people are _very_ cross-tempered and fidgety and difficult to please, anything else? The kettle did its duty well, for the water boiled in it beautifully on the fire of dry sticks and leaves which Percy and Mabel, and busy Ted _of course_, had collected. The tea tasted very good--"not 'moky at all," said Ted; the slices of bread and b.u.t.ter and cake disappeared in a wonderful way, till at last everybody said "No, thank you, not any more," when the boys handed round the few disconsolate-looking pieces that remained.

And after this there was the fun of was.h.i.+ng up and packing away, in which Ted greatly distinguished himself. He would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about, for the fairies would be angry, he said, if their pretty house wasn't left "kite tidy." And Percy and Mabel were amused at his fancy, and naturally enough it set them talking about fairies and such like. For the children were by themselves now--the ladies had gone on a little farther to a place where Ted's mother wanted to sketch, and the gentlemen had set off to climb to the nearest peak, from whence there was a beautiful view of the sea. It would have been too much for Ted, and indeed when his father had asked him if he would like to go part of the way with them, both his mother and Percy noticed that a troubled look came over his happy face, as he said he would rather stay where he was, which was strange for him, for though such a little boy, he was always eager for a climb and anxious to do whatever he saw any one else doing. So kind Percy, mindful of Ted's mother's words, said he would not go either, and stayed with the others, helping them to tidy up the fairies' house.

"Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the gra.s.s at Mabel's feet, "now I _sink_ the fairies will be p'eased. It's all kite tidy. Fairies is always angry if peoples is untidy."

"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't know they were ever angry."

"Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are angry with people who are dirty or untidy. Don't you remember a story about them coming to work in a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at night? And they never would come to the next house because it was always in a mess."

"P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.

"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied.

"Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying on the ground staring up at the sky and the bit of brown mountain peak that could be seen from where he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little boy that fell asleep on the top of a mountain, and the fairies spirited him away, and took him down to their country, down inside the mountain? And he thought he had only been away--when he came home again, I mean, for they had to let him out again after a while--he thought he had only been away a day or two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the children had grown big, and the young people middle-aged, and the middle-aged people quite old, and none of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood.

Wasn't it sad?"

"Yes, _very_" said Mabel; "I remember the story."

"I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like mountains, and I don't like diants. I'll never go up a mountain, never."

"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't giants, it was fairies."

"I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I don't like zem. Mr.

Brand is a diant," he added mysteriously, in a low voice.

Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother had said. Now he felt sure that it was something to do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the little fellow. But Mabel did not know about it.

"I like mountains," she said. "Indeed I love them. I am always so glad to live where I can see their high peaks reaching up into the sky."

"But it wouldn't be nice to be alone, kite alone, on the top of one of zem, would it?" said Ted.

"No, it wouldn't be nice to be alone in any far-off place like that,"

said Percy, "but of course n.o.body would ever stay up on the top of a mountain alone."

"But if zem was _made_ to," said Ted doubtfully. "I wouldn't mind so much if I had Chevie," he added, putting his arm round the dear doggie's neck and leaning his little fair head on him, for of course Chevie was of the party.

"Poor Ted," said Percy, laughing. "No one would ever make _you_ live up all alone on the top of a mountain. Mabel, I wish you'd tell us a story," he said to his sister. "It's so nice here. I shall go to sleep if somebody doesn't do something to keep me awake."

He was lying at full length on the soft mossy gra.s.s, in the same place still, and gazing up at the blue sky and brown mountain peak. "Tell us a story, Mab," he repeated lazily.

"I haven't got any very nice ones just now," said Mabel. "I have been so busy with my lessons, you know, Percy, that I haven't had time for any stories."

"Can't you make them up yourself?" said Percy.

"Sometimes I do, a little," she replied. "But I can't make them all quite myself. Sometimes in our German reading-books there are funny little bits of stories, and I add on to them. There was one--oh yes, I'll tell you one about a giant who lived on the top of a mountain."

Ted drew nearer to Mabel, and nestled in to her side.

"A diant on the top of a mountain," he repeated. "Is it very f'ightening, Mabel?"