CHAPTER XV

An Excursion with a Donkey

Sylvia looked forward so much to the expedition that she could scarcely sleep for excitement when she got into the large spare bed with Linda and the candle was blown out. She lay awake for quite a long time, listening to an owl hooting in the trees, and the soft rippling sound of a stream which flowed at the bottom of the garden; then at last they both merged into a confused dream, and she remembered nothing more till she woke with the sun pouring in through the window, and Linda's voice proclaiming that it was a particularly fine, warm morning, and the very day in all the year which she would have chosen to scale the heights of Pen y Gaer.

Directly breakfast was over, the children started off first to a neighbouring farm to borrow the donkey, a shaggy little creature called Teddie, which was chiefly used by his owner to fetch sacks of flour from the mill. He was not accustomed to either saddle or bridle, but the boys led him home by a halter, and tied a cushion on to his back with a piece of rope. They slung their lunch baskets and two enamelled tin mugs on either side, like saddle-bags, then, giving Sylvia the first ride, they helped her to mount, and set off towards the mountains with Scamp and Bute racing in wild excitement around them.

It was a very hot day, so it was pleasant to think that they would soon be out of the close woods, and away on the breezy moors. The country was at its best; the fields were blue with wild hyacinths, and the hedgerows yellow with gorse and broom, while everywhere the tender shoots of the young bracken were unfolding, and showing delicate golden-green fronds. It was a little late for birds'-nesting, yet Oswald and Artie, boylike, could not resist hunting in each likely-looking spot, though a blackbird's second brood, a deserted linnet's nest, and a last year's yellow-hammer's were the sole result of their search.

"I wish we could make the donkey trot!" said Sylvia, who had dismounted to spare poor Teddie's legs for the hardest part of the hill, but had taken her seat again on reaching a level piece of road.

"We'll try what we can do," said Artie, producing his penknife and cutting a stick carefully from a hazel tree. "I'll give him a switch, but I advise you to hold on tight, in case he kicks."

This time it was really off and away. The donkey took to his heels, and cantered along the road in fine style, with the boys and Linda racing after him, encouraging Sylvia, who was laughing and trying to hold on her hat and to keep the lunch from falling, while Scamp and Bute barked themselves hoarse. The enamelled mugs bumped against poor Teddie's sides, and alarmed him so much that perhaps he thought somebody was switching him in front, and intended him to run backwards, for he stopped quite suddenly, and lowered his head, with the result that Sylvia shot over his neck, and found herself sitting in the dusty road.

"It serves me right!" she laughed. "No, I'm not hurt in the least. It's too bad to make him trot when he's carrying both me and the lunch. I'll walk now, and give him a rest, and then it will be Linda's turn to ride him."

The road, after winding uphill for several miles between woods and high banks, led at last on to the moors, where there was a kind of tableland flanked on two sides by chains of mountains.

"We're not such a very long way from the Druids' circle," said Linda. "It's only over that peak, I believe."

"It's farther than you'd imagine," said Oswald. "Hilda and I went to it once, and we thought we should never get there. It's a much easier way from Aberglyn. Things look so very plain in this clear air that you often think you're quite close when really you're several miles off, and you walk and walk, and never seem to get any nearer."

"I hope that won't happen with Pen y Gaer; we can see it so well now," said Linda, gazing at the round green top that did not show its full height from the plateau, though it looked imposing enough from the valley below.

"It's quite far enough to make me want lunch before I go any farther," said Oswald. "There's a stream down here where we can get some water to drink. Suppose we fasten Teddie to the gate, and camp out on the stones."

The others agreed. The donkey had already satisfied its thirst at a brooklet that crossed the road, so they tied it to the rail of the gate with a piece of rope long enough to allow it to crop the grass at the edge of the path, and, descending themselves to the bed of the river, spread out their lunch on a large flat boulder. Mrs. Marshall had experience in the matter of picnics. First there were ham sandwiches, sufficiently thick to take the keen edge off their appetites, but not enough to spoil the hard-boiled eggs and bread and butter which followed; then came marmalade sandwiches and seed cake; and last of all some delicious little turnovers, made with tops like mince pies, and with strawberry jam inside. Everybody was hungry, and everybody did such ample justice to the good fare that there was nothing but a solitary turnover left, which they decided to divide between the dogs, which had already had their share of the meal.

"It's not enough to keep for tea," said Oswald. "I expect we can get some bread and butter at the farm, as well as the milk and hot water. Look! there are trout in this stream. I saw a big fellow just then swimming across the pool."

"So did I," said Artie. "He went under that rock. I'm going to wade and see if I can get him out."

Both boys pulled off their shoes and stockings, and, plunging into the river, began to engage in the very unsportsmanlike pastime of tickling trout. They paddled cautiously upstream, putting their hands under every likely stone till they felt a fish, then, very gently moving their fingers along until they had him by the gills, would manage with a quick jerk to toss him out of the water on to the bank. Linda and Sylvia followed along the side, much excited at this new form of fishing, and gathering up the trout placed them in one of the lunch baskets. The boys had succeeded in catching five or six, which lay shining and silvery, gasping their last, and they were both trying for a particularly big one which they could see lying in the cranny of a rock.

"He'll be a tough subject," said Oswald. "I'll do my best, but you be ready to make a grab if I miss him!"

Oswald stealthily put forward his hand, but the trout was on the alert, and long before he could reach its gills it had darted into the pool, escaping Artie also, who nearly fell into the water in his efforts to secure it.

"Missed him! What a shame! And he was such a beauty!" cried the disconsolate boys.

"Now then, what are you doing there, you young poachers?" shouted a voice from the opposite bank, and, looking up, the children saw a tall man, in a corduroy velveteen suit and a soft round hat, frowning at them with a most unamiable expression of countenance.

They were so astonished that none of them knew what to say.

"Come out of that stream this minute!" he commanded the boys, who obeyed, but naturally on the side where Linda and Sylvia were standing looking rather frightened at such an unexpected and angry visitor. The man, who had the appearance of a gamekeeper, crossed the river easily by jumping from stone to stone, and striding up to the little girls, peeped inside their basket.

"As I thought!" he remarked. "Now, you young rascals, do you know that I can take you all up and send you to prison for poaching?"

"Why," gasped Oswald, "we were only catching some trout!"

"Only catching some trout! He says he was only catching some trout!" echoed the man, as if he were appealing to an imaginary companion. "I suppose he wouldn't call that poaching? Oh, no!"

"We get them like this in our own stream at home," said Artie.

"That's quite a different matter. Because you get bread and butter at home's no reason why you should walk into my house and take mine, is it? This fishing happens to be preserved, and I've got the care of it. It's a very serious offence is poaching. I've caught you red-handed. There's the trout in that basket to prove my words."

The boys looked at each other in much consternation.

"We didn't know we were doing any harm," said Oswald at last.

"That's just what folks always tell me in a little affair of this kind," said the man, producing a pencil and a notebook. "I'm getting rather tired of the story. I'll trouble you for your names and addresses, if you please."

"Why do you want them?" asked Artie cautiously.

"You'll know why when you find yourselves charged at the Llanrwst County Court," replied the man with a grin, "or your father will, to the tune of five pounds and costs, I reckon, or pretty near. It'll take all your pocket money or more."

"I'll go to prison first," said Oswald stoutly.

"And so will I," declared Artie.

"Oh, no, no!" cried Linda, thoroughly frightened, and dissolving into tears. "Please don't send them to prison! Look, I'll put the fish back into the water. We didn't know it was wrong to take them; we didn't indeed!"

The man coughed softly behind his hand.

"I wouldn't like to disoblige the young lady," he said; "but it's no use putting dead fish back into the stream. There," as Linda's tears flowed faster, "I won't be too hard on you this time. Give me the trout, and we'll say no more about it. But don't let me catch any of you poaching here again, or I can't let you go so easy. I've my orders from headquarters. Now be off with you all!"

Much relieved that the boys should escape fine or imprisonment, Linda emptied the fish from the basket on to the grass, and, seizing Sylvia's hand, ran as fast as she could up the bank to where they had left the donkey tied to the gate, followed by Oswald and Artie, who only stopped to pick up their shoes and stockings by the way. They were glad to place the stone wall between themselves and the angry gamekeeper, and as soon as the boys had put on their footgear, they loosed Teddie, and started off once more on the road towards Pen y Gaer.

"What a horrid cross man!" said Sylvia. "I peeped over the wall just now, and he was still standing there, and shook his fist at me."

"I didn't know any of the water was preserved," said Oswald, who felt sore at the remembrance. "Well, he needn't think we want to go there again after his old fish; they aren't such treasures as he supposes."

"Sour grapes!" laughed Artie.

"Oh, shut up! It was you who suggested tickling them first!" said Oswald, who was thoroughly out of temper, and ready to quarrel with anybody.

Artie, however, was a good-natured little fellow, and had the tact simply to whistle, and leave his brother to get over his ill humour. As nobody was riding the donkey, he mounted it himself, and, persuading Linda and Sylvia to try what he called "the double-smack method", indulged in a splendid gallop, which did not meet with so disastrous a termination as the last one.

They had almost reached the goal of their walk, and, taking Teddie to a farm which stood near, they asked the woman to allow them to leave him there while they scaled the summit of Pen y Gaer, and to have her kettle boiling by the time they came back. Their path now led away from the road, and over a stile on to the heather. It was a stiff climb, and made more difficult by the thick gorse through which they were obliged to push their way, but the view from the top was sufficient compensation for any trouble they had in arriving there. On one hand they could see the whole extent of the valley from Bettws y Coed to Conway, and even the houses on the promenade at Llandudno fully ten miles away; while on the other stretched the beautiful moors leading to the gloomy hollow of Lake Dulyn, behind which the mountain ridges showed purple and jagged against the sky. All around they could trace the ruins of the old British fort, great piles of stones that must have been rolled there with incredible labour, perhaps by the very tribe which had reared the Druids' circle on the slope of Tal y fan.

"Some of the Welsh people say a giant put them here," said Oswald, who had recovered his spirits; "or I'm not sure if it wasn't King Arthur himself. At any rate he took a tremendous jump down the hillside, and left his footprint on a rock in the stream below there. He must have worn a No. 15 shoe, to judge by the size."

"Uncle Frank made up a ridiculous story once," said Linda. "It was all about the black bull of Llyn Dulyn, and how it came one night to Garth Avon, and tapped at Mother's window with its horns, and said that one of the little bulls had met with an accident to its eye, and he'd heard that she had a whole bottle of bulls'-eyes, so would she please bring some, and come at once with him and cure it. The village people are always fetching Mother like that to see their children, and she's simply terrified of bulls, so he told it just on purpose to tease her."

"Talking of bulls'-eyes makes me think of tea," said Artie. "I'm sure that old woman's kettle must be boiling now. I vote we go down and see. Let us try this other part of the hill; it'll be far quicker than scrambling through the gorse again."

One side of the summit was almost as steep as the roof of a house, and covered with very short, fine grass, at present so dry and slippery that the children sat down and slid almost as if it were winter, and they were tobogganing on the snow. It was great fun, especially when Artie caught against a stone, and rolled over and over like a ball, till a convenient gorse bush made a prickly impediment in his career, and Linda left both hat and hair ribbon behind, and was obliged to scramble up the slope again to fetch them. It was certainly a much faster way back to the little whitewashed cottage.

The farmer's wife could not speak much English, but she said a great deal in Welsh which they took to be an invitation to come inside, where they found she had set a round table by the fire, nicely spread with cups and saucers and a clean cloth. The chimney was so big and wide that as they sat on the old-fashioned settle they could look right up and see a patch of sky at the top. From a large smoke-stained beam hung a chain supporting the kettle, which was boiling over on a fire of peat and dried heather that gave out a very fragrant aromatic smell, almost recalling Guy Fawkes Day, especially when it was blown by the bellows. For tea there was a large loaf of home-baked brown barley bread, and, notwithstanding the ample lunch which they had eaten by the stream, they were all hungry enough to enjoy it thoroughly, in spite of the saltness of the butter. It was so pleasant sitting in the quaint little mountain cottage, with its dim light and peaty atmosphere, and there were so many jokes to make and stories to tell, that they lingered until the tall grandfather's clock striking five reminded them that they were still a good many miles away from Craigwen, and that it was time to be taking the donkey and setting out once more on their homeward walk.

"We've had a jolly day," said Oswald, as, tired but in excellent spirits, the four at last reached the gate of Garth Avon. "Teddie's done splendidly. I'll give him a first-class report, even for galloping, and he deserves a good feed of oats. You girls go in; Artie and I'll take him back to the farm. Are you coming, Scamp? Why, I really believe it's the first time in my life I've ever seen a dog look dead beat!"

CHAPTER XVI

The Chinese Charm

"He's a gentleman who came last summer to live at a house not very far away," answered Linda. "We only got to know him lately; but he's so nice, and the boys simply adore him!"

"Hasn't he any children of his own?"

"No. We heard they were dead, and his wife too, but he's never spoken about them even to Father and Mother. He lives quite alone, with a housekeeper to look after him. He's been in all kinds of foreign places, and his rooms are so full of funny things, it's just like going to a museum. There's a stuffed crocodile, and a mummied cat, and a horrid lizard in a bottle, and some snake skins, and a locust, and a scorpion, and a whole case of lovely butterflies. He tells us about them sometimes, and where he found them."

"I hope he'll show them to us to-day," said Sylvia, who thought the collection sounded interesting.

"I'm sure he will if we ask him," said Linda. "I should like to see them again myself, especially the crocodile. He has a big cabinet full of little drawers, and he keeps curiosities in them from every place he's been to. There's one with nothing but shells, and another for corals, and a third for coins, and the rest are each for a separate country. He's very careful over them; he won't let us take anything out ourselves, or even handle some of them, he's so afraid they might get broken. Still, it's fun to look, even if we mayn't touch."

"I expect it's a thousand times nicer than my museum at home," said Sylvia, "though I have a cabinet in the schoolroom."

"I haven't seen your museum yet, so I can't say, but I'm sure you'll enjoy Dr. Severn's. We've been to tea twice before, and each time we've had raspberry sandwich and plumcake and little crisp cocoanut biscuits. I hope the housekeeper will make them to-day. There's always the most delicious apricot jam, too, and he hands round a big jug of cream, and tells us to help ourselves. Then there's a horizontal bar in the garden that the boys love; they do some of the things on it that they learn in the gymnasium at school; and there's a tank with pink water lilies growing in it, only I don't think they'll be out just yet. I'm so glad he's asked us to-day, because I want you to go and see it all."

"What a good thing Miss Coleman managed to put that clean dress in my bag!" said Sylvia. "What should I have done without it? I got this in quite a mess yesterday."

"I should have had to lend you one of my white muslins, and I'm sure they'll be too short for me this year, so they would be far too small for you; you're an inch taller than I am, though you're so much thinner. We're both to wear our sailor hats. Mother said I couldn't put on my last year's Sunday summer one if you hadn't your best with you, and of course it isn't a party."

The invitation was for four o'clock, and by half-past three Mrs. Marshall had succeeded in getting the prospective guests into what she considered a sufficient state of tidiness for the occasion.

It was about twenty minutes' walk to Dale Side, a pretty modern bungalow which had been built by an English gentleman with a leaning towards the picturesque, and who had therefore chosen the site to secure the most beautiful views, and had made the interior as artistic as his excellent taste could devise. After living there a few years, the owner, on account of his wife's health, had gone to reside in Italy, and the little property had been on sale until the preceding summer, when it had been purchased, together with a few acres of land, by Dr. Severn, who was a newcomer to the neighbourhood. Though he was therefore only a comparative stranger, the young Marshalls already regarded the kindly doctor as a friend, and it was with very smiling faces that they rang his bell that afternoon.

"I saw you arriving," cried their host, hastening to the door himself to meet them. "I was just looking out for you, and hoping you would come soon to interrupt a tiresome letter I felt obliged to write. Now I'm justified in putting it off for an hour or two at any rate. Linda's quite shocked at me! But I didn't say I wouldn't finish it afterwards, did I? Shall we go straight through to the pine wood? I've had the table carried out there for tea. It's the coolest place we can find on a hot day."

By the time she had known him ten minutes, Sylvia had decided that she liked Dr. Severn immensely. He was a tall, rather gaunt man, with a thin, pale, clean-shaven face that bore traces of ill health or suffering in the hollow cheeks and the lines around the mouth; his hair was iron grey, rather long, and combed straight back from his broad forehead, and he had the brightest, keenest, pleasantest blue eyes that it was possible to imagine. His manner was so winning and jolly that he made everybody feel at home immediately. He seemed to know exactly the subjects about which boys and girls liked to talk, and to be able to enter into everything almost as if he were a boy himself. The four visitors soon found themselves chatting to him perfectly freely, telling him of school scrapes and adventures, of plans for the summer holidays, and asking his opinion on various disputed points, while he, in turn, was full of jokes and reminiscences of his own far-off schooldays.

"Never save the best till last!" he declared, handing round the cake long before the plates of bread and butter were finished. "I've kept to that motto ever since I was a small boy, and I had very good reason for adopting it. Once, when I was a little fellow of about seven years old, I was taken to pay a visit to an old lady who lived in the country. Children were brought up on the plainest fare in those days—porridge, and bread and milk, roast beef or mutton with potatoes, rice pudding or suet dumpling, with jam roly-poly, as a special treat on your birthday, was all that was considered good for us; so you can imagine I felt pleased when I saw a large pudding full of currants come on to the table at dinner-time. The old lady gave me a generous serving, and told me to help myself to as much sugar as I liked with it, assuring my mother that sweet things were necessary for children, a sentiment with which I cordially agreed then, whatever opinions my elders might hold. There were a great many currants in my slice of pudding, and it struck me how much nicer they would taste if I could eat them all together as a titbit at the last; so I picked them carefully out one by one, and put them to the side of my plate. I suppose it must have taken me rather a long time, or perhaps the others had smaller helpings; at any rate they had finished first, and all laid down their spoons and forks except myself. I gulped my last piece of pudding in a hurry, and was just going to enjoy my saved-up fruit, when the old lady, who had been watching me, said: "Poor boy! Isn't he fond of currants? Leave them, my dear; I would never force a child to eat what it doesn't like," adding a direction to the servant to take my plate away. I had had tremendous warnings before I came about behaving myself properly, and also I was much too shy to protest, so I was obliged to watch my cherished currants being whisked from the table before I had been able to taste a single one of them. If I had ever been inclined to be miserly, I think this incident would have cured me of hoarding up riches."

"What a shame! Didn't you get anything instead?" asked Artie.

"Not at dinner, but afterwards the old lady, who was a very kind soul, took me into her kitchen garden, and told me to eat as many ripe gooseberries as I liked. There were various sorts, big red ones, hairy yellow ones, and smooth green ones, and I'm sure I ate enough to make up amply for what I missed at pudding time. As far as I recollect I never stopped picking the whole afternoon. Small boys can accommodate a great deal."

"I don't think gooseberries do one any harm," said Artie. "We eat simply loads. We each sit down beside a bush, and try who can make the biggest pile of skins. Mother says the blackbirds would take them if we didn't."

"I'm glad she doesn't make a fuss about it, as some people do," said Linda. "I was so angry last summer. A lady came one afternoon to see us, and brought a horrid little girl with her called Mona. Mother told me to take this child into the kitchen garden and give her some fruit, so I marched her off, and, just as we were leaving the drawing-room, her mother called out: "You may have eight strawberries and twelve gooseberries, darling, but no more." She was very stupid, and wouldn't talk to me, so I kept picking the ripest and biggest strawberries and gooseberries I could find, and handing them to her. I never thought of counting them, but she suddenly went quite red, and said she wouldn't have any more. She'd hardly look at the chickens or the rabbits or anything I tried to show her, and I was very glad indeed when it was time for her to go home. Her mother came to fetch her from the garden, and said: 'Did you eat more than I told you, dear?' and Mona said: 'No I didn't. This little girl tried very hard to make me, but I wouldn't take even one strawberry more. Wasn't I good?'

"The lady looked at me as if she thought I deserved smacking, but I couldn't explain, because she was just shaking hands with Mother and saying goodbye. I've felt cross about it ever since, and if she brings Mona again, I declare I'll run away and hide, and not take her into the garden at all. Don't you think it was too bad?"

"Much too bad!" said Dr. Severn. "I think Mona was what is called a prig. Please go on with the cocoanut biscuits. I assure you I'm not counting them!"

"I really couldn't eat another," said Linda, "though they're very delicious. Aren't you going to show us any of your curiosities in the house? You promised you would, and Sylvia does so want to see them."

"A promise is a promise," replied Dr. Severn, rising from his basket chair. "But in the meantime I think I see Mr. Richards coming through the garden in search of us. I wonder if he's had any tea."

Mr. Richards was the curate, and a great favourite with Oswald and Artie; he was an athletic young fellow, fresh from College, and always ready to go skating or boating, or to play a game of cricket with them, or carry them off with him to the golf links. He declared now that he had already had tea, but was longing for a little exercise on Dr. Severn's horizontal bar, where he thought he could show the boys a feat or two which perhaps they had not yet learnt at school. Oswald and Artie rushed away with him at once, and, flinging off their coats, were soon vying with each other in swinging, circling, hanging by their legs or feet, and various other acrobatic performances that looked exceedingly warm work for a hot day, but which seemed to afford them the most immense satisfaction. Dr. Severn stood by and encouraged them to do their best, then, after watching for a short time, left them with Mr. Richards, and took Linda and Sylvia into the house.

"You'll be getting tired of circus and would rather have museum for a change, I expect," he said. "I'll show you all my curios, and then you shall each choose something for me to tell you about."

The study was a delightful little room, with a French window opening into the garden. One side was quite filled by a large Japanese cabinet with many sliding cupboards and drawers. Linda certainly had not exaggerated the number of wonderful things which it contained. There were treasures from Egypt, from Palestine, from India, from China, and from Japan. Wherever the doctor had travelled he seemed to have picked up some object of interest, and to examine the various drawers was like taking a peep into far countries. He allowed Linda and Sylvia to dress themselves up in some of the gorgeous silk scarves and sashes, to slip on the Japanese kimonos, and put their feet into the Turkish slippers.

"I think I like the Indian things best; they smell the nicest," said Linda, snuffing at a sandalwood box, and trying the effect of some filagree ornaments on her own hair and Sylvia's. "How grand the women must look in these! No, I shouldn't like to wear the nose ring, thank you, nor the earrings, though I'd love the bangles. They must have tiny wrists. I can only just push these over my hands. Aren't they meant for a child?"

"No," replied Dr. Severn, "they are really for a grown-up woman, but the people of all Eastern nations have very small hands compared with us Westerns. If you like the scent of sandalwood, what do you think of this? It comes from the vale of Kashmir." He drew the stopper from a bottle of attar of roses as he spoke.

The odour was so deliciously sweet and overpowering that it filled the whole room.

"It's the true stuff," said the doctor, "not the wretched imitation which is often sold over here. Now if I put a drop on each of your pocket handkerchiefs it will scent all your clothes for a twelve-month. Where are they?"

"It's lucky they're clean ones," said Sylvia, rummaging in her pocket. "I shall keep mine in my drawer after this, and not send it to the wash, ever. It's lovelier even than lavender water or eau de Cologne."

"I believe it takes a thousand roses to make one drop of this," said Dr. Severn, "so you have a great deal of concentrated sweetness there. This round box comes from Damascus, and I don't think it's quite empty yet. If you have smelled true attar you ought also to taste genuine Turkish delight. Open your mouths and shut your eyes, and you'll find a surprise."

Dressed in the wonderful embroidered garments, with silver ornaments in their hair, scented with roses, and their mouths full of lumps of delight, the two little girls felt as if they had wandered into the land of the Arabian Nights, had been transformed into Eastern princesses, and had only to command a slave of the lamp to come forward and carry out their slightest desire.

"It's simply lovely," said Linda. "I never tasted anything so nice in my life before. I think you're a magician, and can carry us off to Persia, or India, or anywhere with a wave of your wand. But please, you promised to tell us each a story about something, and you haven't done so yet."

"Because you haven't chosen a 'something'," said Dr. Severn; "say what you'd like, and I'll try to wave my magic wand."

"Then I'll have this funny little tassel of blue beads."

"That's a charm against the evil eye," said the doctor. "I got it in Cairo. The Mohammedan mothers believe many people, especially strangers, to be possessed of most uncanny powers, and think that if they look very hard at their babies they can bewitch them, and cause them to catch various diseases, and even to die. To avert the evil they put charms on the children, and you may see a tiny boy with his head shaved, all except a long lock which hangs over his eyes with one of these bead talismans dangling at the end. The charms are always blue, because that is considered the magical colour. The people are very dark themselves, so they are terrified at the sight of an Englishman with eyes of the dreaded shade; they are quite sure he must be a desperately bad character, and it is safer to keep out of his path. When I have been in the East, I have often seen mothers turn their babies away lest my glance should fall on them. It is considered very unlucky also to praise a child, and its parents, even though they may be extremely rich, will sometimes let it look dirty and neglected for fear anyone might happen to admire it."

"You can't bewitch me!" cried Linda. "I've got the talisman safe in my hand!"

"I didn't say I was admiring you, did I?" laughed the doctor. "Though these gorgeous robes are certainly very becoming."

"You're a true magician. I shall be frightened of you now. Is that all you can tell me about my 'something'?"

"I'm afraid I know no more."

"Then, Sylvia, it's your turn."

"May I choose exactly what I want?" asked Sylvia.

"Certainly you may," replied Dr. Severn.

"Then I'd like to hear the story of that little carved ivory locket that's hanging on your watch-chain. It looks like a charm too."

A spasm of pain crossed the doctor's face at Sylvia's words, but he recovered himself in a moment.

"That would not interest you, dear child," he said gravely. "It is not a curiosity such as the other things I have shown you."

"It's a charm, though, isn't it?" asked Sylvia. "I've been noticing it all the afternoon. It's so exactly like another I've seen."

"That could hardly be," said Dr. Severn. "This carving has no duplicate."

"But I know one that's its own twin," persisted Sylvia. "It's the same size and shape, and has the same carving on it, these little three-cornered kind of leaves round the edge, and these marks like queer letters in the middle. I couldn't possibly forget it."

"Where did you see it?" enquired Linda.

"It's the Chinese charm that they found tied round Mercy's neck when she was brought to the hospital. She showed it me one Sunday evening, and I held it in my hand and looked at it so carefully."

"Where did your friend get her charm?" asked Dr. Severn quickly.

"It was fastened round her neck when she was a baby. A Chinese woman crawled with her to the hospital, because she was so wounded she was dying. Not Mercy, I mean, but the poor woman. Mercy wasn't hurt at all. They adopted her at the hospital, and then she was brought to England, and came to Miss Kaye's, but nobody's ever found out yet who she is. Isn't it just like a storybook?" said Sylvia, who loved to bring forward the romantic side of her friend's history.

"How long ago is it since this happened?" enquired Dr. Severn with a curious strained tone in his voice which neither of the children noticed.

"About sixteen years. Mercy is nearly seventeen."

"Is that her true name?"

"No. Nobody knew her real name, so they called her Mercy Ingledew. She had on Chinese clothes, and the nurse thought the locket must be a Chinese charm too. She hadn't a single English thing that anyone could tell her by. Wasn't it a pity?"

"A great pity, if her friends are alive to claim her."

"We don't know whether they are or not," said Sylvia. "I'm always trying to find them, but Miss Kaye says I'm not to talk to Mercy about it, because it's no use to keep raising false hopes, and we must all be very kind to her, to make up for her not having a father and mother of her own. It's funny her little charm should be just the same as yours, though, isn't it? Did this one come from China too? I should have liked a story about it."

"Some other day, perhaps," said Dr. Severn, rising hastily and walking to the window. "Let us go out and find the boys. The sky looks so threatening, I'm afraid there's a thunderstorm brewing, and I had better send you home before it begins."

"We must take off our wonderful clothes, then," said Linda, beginning to untwist the scarves and put away the Turkish slippers. "Goodbye, dear sandalwood box! How I love the smell of you!"

"Keep the box if you like," said Dr. Severn briefly, "and you, Sylvia, the bottle of attar. I don't want either. Come, children, I'm sorry to hurry you, but I don't want you to be caught in the rain. Get your hats, and Mr. Richards will see you home on his way to Craigwen."

CHAPTER XVII

The Sketching Class

All the girls seemed to find it a little difficult to settle into harness again after the short holiday. The weather was warm, and in spite of open windows the schoolrooms were apt to feel close and stuffy. Miss Arkwright tried the plan of holding her class under the big hawthorn in the garden, but she found that a bird singing in the tree, a bumble bee settling on a flower, or a butterfly flitting across the lawn was enough to put dates and rivers completely out of her pupils' minds, and to wipe even their best-known facts from their memories, so she did not repeat her experiment.

"In our grandmothers' days schools always had their holidays in June," said Sylvia, yawning, as she idly picked the heads off the daisies on the lawn one afternoon. "They broke up just when the hot weather begins, and then they had all the lovely time when the evenings are so long and you can be out-of-doors until bedtime, and the strawberries are ripe, and they're cutting the hay. I think it was far nicer. We don't break up till the 31st of July."

"Yes, but remember they'd have the whole of August at school," said Marian. "Think of having to come back just at the time when everyone's going away now to the seaside. And what an enormous term it would make till Christmas!"

"They had quarters then," said Sylvia, "and a little holiday at Michaelmas, like the Easter one."

"I don't believe children went home from boarding-schools for it though. If you read old-fashioned books you will notice that the boys always talk of 'a half' as if they stayed from Midsummer to Christmas, and from Christmas to Midsummer again. It must have seemed such a long while."

"I think it must have been perfectly horrible to go to school then," said Nina Forster. "My grandmother tells me stories about when she was a little girl, and I should have hated it. They had to learn their lessons off by heart, and stand with their hands behind their backs and say them just like parrots, and if they forgot or made a mistake the governess rapped them on the head with her thimble. She called it 'thimble pie'. It used to make them too nervous to remember things."

"How nasty of her! What else did they do?" asked the girls, who liked to be told tales while they lounged.

"They had to use backboards every day, and chest expanders. Then they had much plainer food than we have, and they were obliged to finish up every morsel upon their plates; they mightn't leave anything. They always had brown bread except on Sundays, and rice puddings nearly every day. They hardly ever went picnics or excursions; they only used to go for stupid walks along the roads, two and two, with a mistress at each end. The music teacher had a silver pencil with a heavy knob at the end, and if a girl played a wrong note she used to bring it down with a thump upon her hand. Granny says it made her hate music. Then they mightn't send letters home without the headmistress seeing them, and she used to make them write the most absurd rubbish, so that they weren't their own letters at all. Granny had her twelfth birthday at school, and when she wrote to thank her father for his present the governess insisted on her putting: 'Now that I have attained to my twelfth year I feel I am no longer a child, and must put away childish things'. Wasn't it stupid? They used to write the most beautiful hand, though, far, far neater than ours, but they took a fearfully long time over it. They'd spend a week at an exercise that we do in a day. The teachers were very strict and very cross, and there seemed to be so many punishments—being sent to bed, and being kept in, and learning long columns of spelling. Granny says girls are spoilt now, but I know I'd rather go to Miss Kaye's than to the school she was at."

"I should think so," said the others; "I don't believe any other could be really nicer than this."

"I sometimes wish I'd gone to a different one, though," said Jessie Ellis.

"Why?"

"Because my three cousins were here, and they're so tremendously clever. It's rather hard when you're not very bright yourself, and the teachers keep saying: 'You mean to tell me you can't learn this, and you an Ellis!' I think they must have taken my share of the brains in the family. At any rate it's not quite fair to blame me because I can't do everything they did. Ethel won a scholarship for Newnham, and I never even scrape through the easiest class exam as a rule. I don't care much. Mother says I must be a home girl and like sewing. I'm glad I don't get my pocket money by my marks."

"Oh, but does anybody?"

"Yes, I knew a girl who did. Her father gave her sixpence every week she was top, and nothing at all if she was lower than halfway in the class. He said it was to make her work."

"Before I came to school I used to get my pocket money for doing things," said Brenda. "I had a penny for every hour I practised, so if I wanted to save up I used to do a little extra at the piano; then there was a penny a week for wearing my gloves, and another penny for using the back stairs, and a halfpenny for eating salt, and another halfpenny if I remembered to wipe my boots. I rather liked it."

"I don't think it was nice at all," declared Marian. "It was bribing you to do what you ought to have done in any case."

"Yes, so it was," echoed Gwennie. "We always wipe our boots."

"Oh, you two are perfect, of course!" said Brenda. "You never do anything wrong! What about that French book which was lost last week?"

"It wasn't my fault or Gwennie's either," said Marian, rising and putting an end to a conversation which threatened to become too personal. "Somebody must have borrowed it without asking us. I'm going in now to learn my verbs." And she departed, leaving the others laughing, for poor Marian did not always succeed in living entirely according to her excellent precepts and "Practice what you preach" is a motto held in high estimation by schoolgirls.

Though ordinary lessons in the garden had proved a failure, Miss Kaye made a new departure by arranging that Mr. Dawson, the drawing master, should organize a sketching class, to include those of his pupils whom he considered sufficiently advanced to benefit by outdoor instruction. It was mostly composed of girls from the first and second classes, but Marian, Linda, and Sylvia had done such good work in the studio that Mr. Dawson decided he would allow them to commence drawing from nature, and to their great delight they were permitted to join the party. They felt almost like artists as they set off with camp stools, sketching blocks, pencils, indiarubbers, paintboxes and water tins, and were installed under their master's direction beneath the shade of a hedge to make a valiant attempt at reproducing a picturesque gate and a gnarled oak tree which overhung it. It was a great deal more difficult than they had at first imagined. The bars of the gate were puzzling, and the oak tree somehow refused to turn out a tree at all, and was inclined to bear more resemblance to a lamp-post or a telegraph pole.

"We can't expect to do very much the first time, I suppose," said Marian. "My tree looks like a cabbage on a broomstick. I can lend you my indiarubber if you want it to clean up with. It's a softer one than yours. I want to get to the painting part and yet I'm afraid to begin."

"So am I," said Linda. "I don't know what Mr. Dawson will say when he sees the muddle I've made of this gate. Here he comes now."

The master must certainly have found the little girl's work far from talented, but, taking her seat, he made a patient effort to correct the mistakes in her drawing, adding a clever line or two of his own to show her how it ought to be done, then with a word of encouragement to Marian and Sylvia he passed on to some of his elder pupils.

The painting did not prove such a redeeming feature as Sylvia had anticipated. Her sky refused to go on smoothly, and, as she was in too great a hurry to let it dry properly before she commenced her tree, the edges ran into each other hopelessly, producing an effect that was perhaps too impressionistic for most tastes. The trunk of the tree would not appear round, and the branches had an uncomfortable suggestion of signposts, and she could not get the right colour for the grass, and found the shadows absolutely baffling.

"It's a perfect daub," she cried, flinging down her brush as Mercy came round presently to see how they were getting on.

"So's mine, I'm afraid," said Mercy. "You may see it if you like, but it's hardly worth looking at. I'm letting it dry before I touch it any more. It was getting into such a dreadful mess. Sketching from nature isn't at all easy. I think Mr. Dawson's extremely clever to paint such lovely things. You should see the sweet little bit he put in for Trissie Knowles. It seems no trouble to him."

"I wish you'd do a piece for me, Mercy," said Linda.

"Oh, I daren't! Mr. Dawson would find it out directly, and perhaps he mightn't like it. May Spencer's sketch is far the best of anybody's. She just dashed it off, and it looks so nice. Helen Ward let her sky dry in patches, and Mr. Dawson had to take her board to the stream and dip it in the water to wash it off again. We're doing the cottage, you know, round the corner, and when Sybil Lake had painted all the front of hers she discovered she'd left out one of the windows."

"Who's this coming along the road?" interrupted Marian. "He's smiling at one of us, I'm sure. I don't know him. Do you?"

"Dr. Severn!" cried Linda and Sylvia, and, springing up, they put their sketching materials on the grass and hurried to meet him.

"Good afternoon! This is quite a surprise to me," said the doctor. "I didn't expect to find my two little friends suddenly blossoming into full-blown artists. I hope I'm not interrupting a lesson."

"Oh, no! We're all waiting for Mr. Dawson to come round and tell us what to do next," said Linda. "Where are you going, Doctor? Won't you sit down and talk for a minute? Please have my camp stool."

"It's a big surprise to us," added Sylvia. "We didn't know you ever came to Aberglyn."

"I find myself here to-day," said Dr. Severn. "Thank you, Linda, but I'm afraid I should break down your little seat if I were to put my weight on it. There's a convenient stump here which will do very well. Now you can imagine I'm an art critic, and show me some of the masterpieces. I see both your friends are painting, also," he continued, smiling at Mercy and Marian. "Will they let me look at their pictures too?"

Dr. Severn was always at his ease with young people; his pleasant blue eyes and genial manner seemed to attract them at once; and he had soon added Mercy and Marian to the list of his admirers.

"I used to do a little sketching myself once," he said when he had duly inspected the four studies and sympathized with their owners' difficulties, "so I know how much harder it is than it looks, particularly when one's a beginner. I found many quaint corners to paint when I was abroad, especially in China and Japan."

"China! Were you ever in China?" asked Mercy with some eagerness.

"I was stationed in Szu-chwan for more than twenty years," replied Dr. Severn.

"Do you know the Ingledew Hospital at Tsien-Lou?"

"I have heard of it, but I've never been there. I was in a different district, and the distances were great and travelling often dangerous."

"I wish you'd seen it," said Mercy wistfully. "I lived there for six years, and I still write to Dr. and Mrs. Harrison and to Sister Grace."

"Their names are well known, though I have not had the good fortune to meet them personally," answered Dr. Severn, gazing steadily at Mercy with a strange look in his blue eyes. "Can you remember much of your life in China?"

"Not a great deal. I was only seven when I left and there has been nobody to talk to me about it and remind me. I haven't forgotten the narrow streets and the crowds of people in strange dresses who used to be walking about in them, nor our garden at the hospital with the camellias, and the high wall round it. I remember the little mission church, too, where we had service on Sundays. It was all in Chinese, but I could speak it then quite easily. I couldn't understand a single word now."

"Do you know Chinese, Doctor?" asked Linda.

"Very well," replied Dr. Severn, "though it took me many years of hard study to learn it. It's the most difficult language in the world."

"Worse than French?"

"Fifty times worse!"

"I shouldn't think it was worth the trouble."

"There were reasons which made me consider it worth any amount of trouble. I wished to talk to the people, and as they couldn't understand my speech I was forced to learn theirs."

"Were they pleased?"

"Some of them were grateful, some of them didn't care, and some were very angry with me. I was like the man who sowed the seed. I had to fling it everywhere, no matter what ground it fell on."

"And can you write Chinese characters too?" asked Marian.

"A little, but not so well as I can talk. Here comes your drawing teacher. I'm afraid he'll think I'm encouraging you to be idle. Goodbye for the present! You may very likely see me again before the day is over."

"I wonder what Dr. Severn talked to the people about in China!" said Sylvia, as she watched his retreating figure walking briskly away down the road. "It must have been something very important to make him take so much trouble."

"I think I can guess," said Mercy softly, as she picked up her half-finished sketch and ran back to her easel in time for the master's criticism.

CHAPTER XVIII

Dr. Severn Explains

"I did," replied Dr. Severn. "She mentioned that her schoolfellow had shown it to her. It may, of course, be merely a coincidence, but it seems worth investigating, and I should greatly like to see it."

"What are they talking about?" Sylvia wondered, glancing from one to another to try and read the answer in their faces. She could not understand the conversation at all, nor connect it with anything that had occurred. Miss Kaye, however, soon enlightened her.

"You told Dr. Severn, Sylvia, that Mercy Ingledew had shown you a carved ivory locket which was tied round her neck when she was found at the hospital in China. I was not aware that Mercy possessed it, and I have never seen it myself. Can you describe it?"

"It was just the same as the one Dr. Severn has," answered Sylvia. "It was seeing his that made me think of Mercy's. They are both exactly alike."

"You are absolutely sure?"

"Quite! It was small and beautifully carved, with little leaves round the edge and funny letters in the middle. I thought it must be meant for a locket, only it won't open."

"As you say, it is certainly a remarkable coincidence," said Miss Kaye, turning to Dr. Severn. "I am very anxious not to distress the poor girl needlessly, but I think we are justified in looking into the matter. Sylvia, will you go and find Mercy, and tell her quietly that I wish to speak to her in the drawing-room, and ask her to bring this locket with her. Do not try to explain anything, and do not let any of the other girls hear you. I would rather they did not know about it."

Sylvia left the room in a whirl of excitement. Something was going to happen. Of that she was sure. Did Dr. Severn, who had been in China himself, know anything about Mercy's relations? The idea was so overwhelming and so delightful that it almost took her breath away. Ever since she had first heard Mercy's story she had been hoping that some clue might be found to her parentage, and that at last they were on a right track seemed absolutely too good to be true. She found her friend reading in the garden, and was able to give her message as briefly and quietly as Miss Kaye had desired. Mercy rose at once, and, asking no questions, went to her bedroom to fetch the locket, then, rejoining Sylvia, who had waited for her at the foot of the stairs, she took the child's hand and walked into the drawing-room. It was a moment of intense anxiety for all.

"Mercy dear," began Miss Kaye, after a moment's pause, as if she hardly knew how to open the subject, "we had agreed that it was wiser not to speak about the events which occurred in the first year of your life, but I am going to break through my rule to-day. Dr. Severn, whom you met this afternoon, believes that he can throw some light upon your early history, and even solve the mystery of your birth. From what he tells me a very strange chain of circumstances has led him to make enquiries, and it seems more than probable that you may learn something at last. Try and calm yourself, my dear child, and let Dr. Severn look at the locket which you have brought."

Poor Mercy was trembling with agitation. Was her long-deferred hope at length to be realized? Ever since she had been old enough to notice the difference between herself and other girls, she had looked forward to this, at first with eager expectation, but latterly as a dream never likely to be fulfilled and only leading to perpetual disappointment. All the cherished castles in the air which she had striven so bravely to put away from her, all the longing and yearning which she had so often felt for those unknown parents of her infancy, all the grief, the solitude, and the shrinking sense of her lonely position rose up in renewed force as, with shaking fingers, she laid her Chinese charm in the doctor's outstretched hand.

Dr. Severn had removed his own locket from his watch chain, and he now placed the two side by side on the table.

"You observe, Miss Kaye," he said, "that they are so exactly alike that it would be impossible to tell them apart, but when they are together you may notice that there is a slight difference in the characters which form the centre. To one unacquainted with Chinese it is perhaps hardly perceptible, but if you had any knowledge of the written language it could not fail to strike you. This, however, is only one of the minor points. I have still to make the great test."

He took his own locket in his hand and pressed a secret spring. It opened, disclosing inside a small coloured photograph of a lady with a sweet face and fair hair, at which he asked both Miss Kaye and Mercy to look carefully. He then lifted the other locket from the table.

"If, as I believe, this is the true duplicate," he said, "the spring will be here, and it will open like its fellow."

The three spectators held their breath. Sylvia was white as a ghost, and Miss Kaye put her arm round Mercy to prevent her from falling. One swift pressure of the doctor's thumb, and the charm had flown open, revealing an exact facsimile of the former portrait. Dr. Severn placed the pair side by side again upon the table and turned to Mercy.

"You did not know its secret?" he asked. "How could you when there was no one to show you the tiny catch? You have seen that the pictures in the two lockets are of the same person? In mine it is of my beloved wife, and in yours it is the portrait of your mother. Yes, Mercy, you are indeed my daughter, given back, as it seems to me, from the dead, and after all these years of our separation I claim you thus through the memory of one by whom we were both held equally dear!"

"So you're really Dr. Severn's own daughter! It's almost too nice to believe!" exclaimed Sylvia a few minutes later, when Mercy, with an April face, half-smiles and half-tears, kissed her and thanked her for her share in bringing about her new-found happiness.

"It is true nevertheless," replied Dr. Severn. "The locket has removed every shadow of doubt. There is still, however, a great deal to be explained, and with Miss Kaye's permission I will relate both how I lost my child and why I had apparently made no effort to recover her. It is a long story, but for a full understanding of the facts of the case it is necessary for me to begin at the beginning.

"It is now more than twenty years ago that, having obtained my degree as a doctor of medicine, and held appointments at various hospitals in London and the provinces, I determined to devote myself to the mission field, and sailed for China. I was appointed head of the medical mission at Tsi-chin in the canton of Szu-chwan, and on arrival there I bade goodbye to Western civilization. In those days the people of China were even more ignorant and fanatical than they are now. The prejudice against Europeans was intense, and for a long time our best efforts seemed thrown away. I should have been very disappointed and down-hearted if it had not been for the cheery hopeful courage of my wife, who had given up an easy life in England to help the cause, and whose work among the Chinese women was the beginning of the ultimate success which attended our mission.

"The very first to become a Christian was a woman named Lao-ya, and through her we found access to numerous houses, the doors of which had been formerly closed against us. Our small church began to grow. Many who came to the hospital as patients would listen to our story of the Great Physician, and tell it again in their own homes.

"I wish I could describe to you our life in that strange inland Chinese city. We were hundreds of miles from Hong-Kong, which was the nearest British settlement, and travelling was so difficult and so slow that it took many weeks to reach the coast, and was both fatiguing and dangerous. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the house, half-Chinese, half-European, which had been built under my directions, and we tried to grow English seeds in our garden to remind us of the home we had left.

"Three children were born to us, a boy named Edmund, and twin girls whom we christened Mary and Una, and, though we were so far away from our own native land, we managed to be a very happy little household. The woman Lao-ya was our nurse, and as devoted to the babies as if they had been her own. She would never leave them for an instant, and no trouble seemed too great for her to take on their behalf.

"Among the more earnest members of our church was a man called Kan-Sou, who was a very clever carver of ivories, an art in which the Chinese excel. I had been able to cure his wife of a painful disease, and he was anxious to give me a present of some of his own work. One day, therefore, he brought me two small lockets which he had made specially for my two little girls. The exquisite threefold tracery of the border was intended, so he said, as a symbol of the doctrine of the Trinity; on one side was the Chinese equivalent for 'Good Luck', and on the other, also in Chinese characters, the names Mary and Una. He had contrived a secret spring by which the lockets would open, and had carved inside the date of the children's baptism, the entire Western part of the idea being copied from a trinket we possessed in the house, which Lao-ya had once shown him, though his rendering of it was wholly Eastern. As I found there was sufficient space in each to contain a portrait, I inserted two small photographs of my wife which I had taken myself, and coloured, and, to show our appreciation of his kindness, we tied his gifts round the babies' necks with pieces of ribbon. I believe poor Lao-ya must have considered them to be some kind of Christian charm, for she would never allow them to be taken off, and always treated them as if they were objects of veneration.

"All this time the people of Tsi-chin, though regarding us with extreme suspicion, had never yet proved themselves to be absolutely hostile. When the twins were nearly a year old, however, we began to notice a marked change in the demeanour of the townsfolk, both towards us and the Mission. Ugly rumours reached us of riots in other cities, and cruelties the very mention of which was enough to fill one with horror. There was an epidemic of disease among the natives, caused by their own dirt and ignorance of the common laws of health, and many of their priests had spread the report that it had been introduced by the foreigners for the purpose of reducing their numbers, and thus enabling the British to conquer their country, and that all true patriots must rise and destroy the source of the evil. This dangerous doctrine spread rapidly, and the news filled me with the greatest uneasiness. I hesitated long whether I ought to take my wife and children to the coast, but I decided that the danger among the strangers whom we should be forced to encounter on our long journey was even greater than that of remaining in the place where we had cured many sick people and could certainly count upon obtaining help from at least a few of them.

"I shall never forget one spring morning, now sixteen years ago. The town seemed quiet, and our fears had been somewhat lulled to rest. I had finished my work in the hospital, and went into our garden, where my wife was sitting sewing beside our three little ones as they played with their nurse under a blossoming tree. I stood for a moment watching the pretty picture they made, the three little rosy English faces in contrast to Lao-ya's almond eyes and smooth black tresses, the gay background of flowers, the pagodas of the temple in the city beyond standing out against the brilliant blue sky, and the bright sunshine which shone on my wife's fair hair and the children's flaxen heads and turned them all to gold. Well might the scene live in my memory; it was the last time I was ever to see them thus!

"I had just received an urgent message to attend a mandarin who lived many miles up in the hills, and who now lay seriously ill and had expressed a wish to see me. Everything appeared so tranquil that I thought I might safely leave the Mission for a short period, and I made preparations to set off at once, taking a few necessary instruments and drugs with me.

"I was able to relieve my patient, and was about to start for home when to my anger and surprise I found that I was practically a prisoner. No violence was offered me, but for several days I was confined in a room from which there was no possibility of escape, and in spite of my earnest entreaties my jailer would give me no reason for this seemingly poor return for my services. At the end of the fifth day, however, the mandarin sent for me, and, after professing himself on the road to recovery, informed me that a terrible massacre of Christians had been taking place, and if he had not afforded me the safe shelter of his house I must certainly have perished among the rest. As a mark of his gratitude for my skilled attendance he was now sending me to the coast with a strong escort which had his orders to convey me as speedily as they could to Hong-Kong.