look, look, Bob,” she cried the next moment, “a stlange man toming here!”
Bob started up and barked most savagely. He was quite prepared to lay down his life for his little charge. But as he rushed forward he quickly changed his tune.
It was Ransey Tansey right enough, but so transformed that it was no wonder that Babs and Bob took him for a stranger.
Even the Admiral must fly down from the gibbet-tree and dance wildly round him. Murrams, the great tom-cat, came out and purred aloud; and Babs clapped her tiny hands and screamed with delight.
“’Oo’s a zentleman now,” she cried; “and I’se a lady. Hullay!”
Ransey didn’t feel quite comfortable after all, especially with shoes on. To go racing through the woods in such a rig as this would be quite out of the question. The only occupation that suggested itself at present was culling wild flowers, and stringing them to put round Bob’s neck.
But even gathering wild flowers grew irksome at last, so Ransey got his New Testament, and turning to Revelation, read lots of nice sensational bits therefrom.
Babs was not so well pleased as she might and ought to have been; but when her brother pulled out “Jack the Giant Killer,” she set herself to listen at once, and there were many parts she made Ransey read over and over again, frequently interrupting with such questions as, —
“So Jack killed the big ziant, did he? ’Oo’s twite sure o’ zat?”
“And ze axe was all tovered wi’ blood and ziant’s hair? My! how nice!”
“Six ’oung ladies, all stlung up by ze hair o’ zer heads? Boo’ful! ’Oo’s twite sure zer was six?”
“An’ the big ziant was doin’ to kill zem all? My! how nice!”
Ransey was just describing a tragedy more ghastly than any he had yet read, when from the foot of the slope came a stentorian hail: —
“Hangman’s Hall, ahoy! Turn out the guard!” The guard would have turned out in deadly earnest – Bob, to wit – if Ransey hadn’t ordered him to lie down. Then, picking up Babs, he ran down the hill, heels first, lest he should fall, to welcome his visitors.
Miss Scragley was charmed at the change in the lad’s personal appearance, and Eedie frankly declared him to be the prettiest boy she had ever seen.
Captain Weathereye hoisted Babs and called her a beautiful little rogue. Then all sat down on the side of the hill to talk, Babs being perfectly content, for the time being, to sit on the captain’s knee and play with his watch and chain.
“And now, my lad,” said bold Weathereye, “stand up and let us have a look at you. Attention! That’s right. So, what would you like to be? Because the lady here has a heart just brimful of goodness, and if you were made of the right stuff she would help you to get on. A sailor? That’s right. The sea would make a man of you, lad. And if you were in a heavy sea-way, with your masts gone by the board, bothered if old Jack Weathereye wouldn’t pay out a hawser and give you a helping hand himself. For I like the looks of you. Glad you paid the postman out. Just what I’d have done myself. Ahem!”
Ransey felt rather shy, though, to be thus displayed as it were. It was all owing to the new clothes, I think, and especially to the shoes.
“Now, would you like to go to school?”
“What! and leave Babs? No, capting, no. I’d hate school anyhow; I’d fight the small boys, and bite the big uns, and they’d soon turn me adrift.”
“Bravo, boy! I never could endure school myself. – What I say is this, Miss Scragley, teach a youngster to read and write, with a trifle of ’rithmetick, and as he gets older he’ll choose all the knowledge himself, and tackle on to it too, that’s needed to guide his barque across the great ocean of life. There’s no good in schools, Miss Scragley, that I know of, except that the flogging hardens them. – Well, lad, you won’t go to school? There! And if you’ll get your father to allow you to come up to the Grange, just close by the village and rectory, I’ll give you a lesson myself, three times a week.”
“Oh, thank you, sir! I’m sure father’ll be pleased to let me come when I’m at home and not at sea.”
“Eh? at sea? Oh, yes, I know; you mean on the barge, ha, ha, ha! Well, you’ll live to face stormier seas yet.”
“An’ father’s comin’ to-morrow, sir, and then we’re goin’ on.”
“Going on?”
“He means along the canal,” said Miss Scragley.
“To be sure, to be sure. What an old fool I am! And now, lad, let me think what I was going to say. Oh, yes. Don’t those shoes pinch a bit?”
“Never wears shoes and stockin’s ’cept in winter, sir. I keeps ’em in dad’s locker till snow time.”
“Now, in you go to your house or hut and take them off.”
“Ha!” said Weathereye, when Ransey returned with bare feet and ankles, “that’s ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Now, lad, listen. If Miss Scragley here asks you to come and see her – and I’m sure she will, for she’s an elderly lady, and likes to be amused,” – Miss Scragley winced a little, but Weathereye held on – “when you’re invited to the ancestral home of the Scragleys, then you can wear them togs and your shoes; but when you come to the Grange, it’ll be in canvas bags, bare feet, a straw hat, and a blue sweater – and my own village tailor shall rig you out. Ahem!”
Captain Weathereye glanced at Miss Scragley as if he owed her a grudge. The look might have been interpreted thus: “There are other people who can afford to be as generous as you, and have a far better notion of a boy’s requirements.”
“And now, Babs,” he continued, kissing the child’s little brown hand, “I’ve got very fond of you all at once. Will you come and live with me?”
“Tome wiz ’oo and live! Oh, no,” she replied, shaking her yellow curls, “I’ll never leave ’Ansey till we is bof deaded. Never!”
And she slid off the captain’s knee and flew to Ransey with outstretched arms.
The boy knelt on one knee that she might reach his neck. Then he lifted her up, and she looked defiantly back at the captain, with her cheek pressed close to Ransey’s.
Weathereye glanced towards Miss Scragley once again, and his voice was a trifle husky when he spoke.
“Miss Scragley,” he said, “old people like you and me are apt to be faddy. We will both do something for these poor children, but, bless them, there’s a bond of union betwixt their little hearts that we dare not sever. The bairns must not be parted.”
Book One – Chapter Six.
Chee-Tow, the Red Chief of the Slit-Nosed Indians
During the time the memorable visit lasted no one took much notice of Ransey Tansey’s pets. Yet each one of the three of them was interested, and each showed his interest in his own peculiar way.
The Admiral had flown gracefully down from the gibbet-tree, and alighted on the ground not more than a dozen yards from the group.
“Craik – a-raik – a – r-r-r – a – cray – ay!” he said to himself, which being interpreted seemed to signify, “What do they want here, anyhow? That’s about the same gang I saw in the woods. Curr-r-r! Well, they haven’t guns anyhow, like the beastly biped called a keeper, who tried to shoot my hind-legs off because I was a strange bird. I was only tasting some partridge’s eggs, nothing else. Shouldn’t I have liked just to have gouged out his ugly eyes, thrown ’em one by one into the air, caught ’em coming down, and swallowed ’em like eggs.”
All the time the talking was going on the Admiral stood twisting his body about, sometimes crouching low to the ground, his neck stretched straight out towards them, the head on one side and listening, the next moment erect as a bear pole, and seeming to look surprised and angry at what he heard them saying.
Bob