for my part, was longing to shake Peterkin, though I felt very inclined to burst out laughing, too. But I knew it was best to leave the 'rowing' to Clem.
'Peterkin,' he began at last, 'I don't know what to say to you.'
Peterkin had got hold of Clem's hand and was holding it tight, and he was already rather out of breath, as Clem was walking fast – very fast for him – and he has always been a long-legged chap for his age, thin and wiry, too; whereas, in those days – though, thank goodness, he is growing like a house on fire now– Peterkin was as broad as he was long. So to keep up with Clement's strides he had to trot, and that sort of pace soon makes a kid breathless, of course.
'I – I never thought mamma'd be flightened,' he managed to get out at last. He had been a long time of saying his 'r's' clearly, and now they still all got into 'l's' if he was bothered or startled. 'I never thought she'd be flightened.'
'Then you were a donkey,' I burst out, and Clement interrupted me.
'How could she not have been frightened?' he went on. 'She told you to run straight home, which wouldn't have taken you five minutes, and you have been at least an hour.'
'I thought it wouldn't be no farther to come this way,' replied Peterkin, 'and I only meant to look at the pallot one minute. And it would have been very lu —rude not to speak to the old lady, and go into her house for a minute when she asked me. Mamma always says we mustn't be rude,' said Peterkin, plucking up some spirit.
'Mamma always says we must be obedient' replied Clement, severely.
Then he relapsed into silence, and his quick footsteps and Peterkin's short trotty ones were the only sounds.
'I believe,' I couldn't help murmuring, half to myself, half to Peterkin – 'I believe you've got some rubbish in your head about the parrot being a fairy. If I were mamma I'd stop your – ' but at that I stopped myself. If Clement had heard me he would have been down upon me for disrespectfulness in saying to a baby like Pete what I thought mamma should or should not do; and I didn't care to be pulled up by Clement before the little ones.
Peterkin was as sharp as needles in some ways. He guessed the end of my unfinished sentence.
'No,' he half whispered, 'mamma'd never stop me reading faily stolies – you know she wouldn't, Gilly, and it's velly unkind of you to say so.'
'I didn't say so,' I replied.
'Be quiet, both of you,' said Clem, 'and hurry on,' for we had slackened a little.
But in spite of the breathlessness of the pace, I heard another gasp from Peterkin —
'It is velly like the blue-bird,' were the words I distinguished.
And 'I knew I was right,' I thought to myself triumphantly.
CHAPTER II
FOUND
The carriage was standing waiting at our own house when we got there. And there was some bustle going on, for the front door was not shut, and we could see into the hall, which of course was brightly lighted up.
Papa was there, speaking to some one; he had his hat on, as if he was just coming out again. And – yes – it was Drew he was speaking to, and James too, I think – but behind them was poor mamma, looking so dreadfully unhappy. It did make me want to shake Peterkin again.
They did not see us as quickly as we saw them, for it was dark outside and they were all talking: papa giving directions, I fancy.
So they did jump when Clem – hurrying for once – rushed up the steps, dragging Peterkin after him.
'We've found him – we've found him!' he shouted. 'In with you, Pete: show yourself, quick.'
For mamma had got quite white, and looked as if she were going to faint or tumble down in some kind of a fit; but luckily before she had time for anything, there was that fat boy hugging and squeezing her so tight that she'd have been clever to move at all, though if she had tumbled down he would have made a good buffer.
'Oh, mamma, mamma – oh, mummy,' he said, and by this time he was howling, of course, 'I never meant to flighten you. I never did. I thought I'd been only five minutes, and I thought it was nearly as quick home that way.'
And of course mamma didn't scold him! She hugged him as if he'd been lost for a year, and as if he was the prodigal son and the good brother mixed up together.
But papa looked rather stern, and I was not altogether sorry to see it.
'Where have you been, Peterkin?' he said. And then he glanced up at us two – Clem and me – as Peterkin seemed too busy crying to speak. 'Where has he been?' papa repeated. 'It was very clever of you to find him, I must say.'
And mamma's curiosity began to awaken, now that she had got old Pete safe in her arms again. She looked up with the same question in her face.
'Where – ' she began.
And I couldn't help answering.
'It was all Clem's idea,' I said, for it really was only fair for Clem to get some praise. 'He thought of the parrot.'
'The parrot', mamma repeated, growing more puzzled instead of less.
'Yes,' said Clement. 'The parrot next door to Mrs. Wylie's. Perhaps you don't remember, mamma. It was the day Peterkin and I were out with you – Giles wasn't there – and you went in to Mrs. Wylie's and we waited outside, and the parrot was in a cage on the balcony, and we heard it talk.'
'Yes,' said Peterkin, 'he talked,' as if that was an explanation of everything.
Mamma's face cleared.
'I think I do remember something about it,' she said. 'But I have never heard you mention it since, Peterkin?'
'No,' said Peterkin, getting rather red.
'He has spoken of it a little to me,' said Clement; 'that's how I knew it was in his mind. But Peterkin often doesn't say much about what he's thinking a lot about. It's his way.'
'Yes,' said Peterkin, 'it's my way.'
'And have you been planning all these days to run off to see the parrot again?' asked mamma. I wasn't quite sure if she was vexed or not, but I was; it seemed so queer, queer as Pete often was, for him not to have confided in somebody.
But we were mistaken.
'No, no, truly, mamma,' he said, speaking in a much more determined way now, and shaking his curly head. 'I didn't ever think of it till after I'd got out of the calliage and I saw it was the corner of the big square where the little houses are at one end, and then I only meant to go for one minute. I thought it was nearly as quick that way, and I ran fast. I never meant to flighten you, mamma,' he repeated again, his voice growing plaintive. 'I wasn't planning it a bit all these days. I only kept thinking it were like the blue-bird.'
The last sentence was almost in a whisper; it was only a sort of honesty that forced him to say it. As far as Clement and I were concerned, he needn't have said it.
'I knew he'd got some fairy-story rubbish in his head,' I muttered, but I don't think Peterkin heard me, though papa and mamma did; for I saw them glance at each other, and papa said something under his breath, of which I only caught the words 'getting too fanciful,' and 'schoolboy,' which made mamma look rather unhappy again.
'I don't yet understand how old Mrs. Wylie got mixed up in it all,' said papa.
'She lives next door to the parrot,' said Clem, and we couldn't help smiling at the funny way he said it.
'And she saw me when she was coming back from the post, and she was very kind,' Peterkin went on, taking up the story again, as the smile had encouraged him. 'She 'avited me to go in, up to her drawing-room, so that I could hear him talking better. And he said lots of things.'
'Oh yes, by the bye,' I exclaimed, 'there was something about a little girl, Mrs. Wylie said. What was it, Pete?'
But Peterkin shut up at this.
'I'll tell you the next time I go there. Mummy, you will let me go to see that old