CHAPTER II
HOW PAUL BORE IT
Stella and Michael had finished their breakfast and were playing together. Michael was standing up in the high window-seat, grasping a long pole with a curtain hook at the end of it, with which he made frantic but futile efforts to land Stella, who was dashing about in a perfectly break-neck fashion in a box on the floor.
"We are playing at being in Norway," he shouted, when he caught sight of his elder brother. "Stella has been wrecked, and is trying to get to land in a boat, but the waves are dashing it on the rocks so hard, she will be wrecked before I can land her, if I don't take care."
Here Stella banged her box against the wall, and rebounded again. "I have got to catch her with the boat hook, and then I shall drag her boat—" But Stella had caught sight of Paul's face, and abandoning her boat to the mercy of the waves, she walked out of her apparently perilous position and caught Paul's arm.
"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "They haven't made the holidays shorter, have they?" This was always one of her greatest fears.
"Don't be silly!" snapped Paul crossly. "As if they could. Why, if they were to try to I'd refuse to go."
Stella looked awed, but anxious. "Do tell me, Paul, what is it! Is father cross with you?"
At these words a recollection of his father's gentleness and trouble came over him, and he felt a little ashamed and sorry. "No, no," he said, sinking into a chair by the table, and letting his head fall forward on his arms, "I wouldn't mind that so much if—if, oh, it's awfully hard lines, it—"
Stella waited patiently. She was a sensible little woman, and not such a baby as Paul chose to consider her. Because she had meals with Michael in the nursery, that she might be a companion for him, Paul was in the habit of looking on her as of Michael's age, and understanding. He forgot that at her age he had considered himself old enough to quit the nursery meals for the dining-room, and had done so too. Stella was four years older than her younger brother, and there was a great deal of the little mother in the way she cared for him. But Paul, boy-like, saw only that she joined in Michael's games, and was apparently quite content, so he rather despised her.
"What is it, Paul? Do tell me!" she pleaded at last. She longed to put her arms about him, and try to comfort him; but since he had been at school he had grown, as does many a boy, to object to endearments, and to think them something to be ashamed of. Her heart grew heavy with a nameless fear. Michael, too, ceased to complain of Stella's having left her boat and her game, and looked with wondering eyes at his grief-stricken elder brother. It was so unusual to see Paul cast down like this.
"We aren't going to Norway, after all," said Paul—he spoke gruffly to try to conceal the sob in his throat,—"and I call it beastly hard lines. It isn't as though it would cost so very much more than any other holiday, and father knows we have never been so far before, and how we were looking forward to it, and that I—"
"Not going to Norway!" cried Stella, in an accent almost of relief. "Oh, is that all? I was afraid something dreadful had happened." She could not help the feeling, she had been so frightened by a nameless fear she could scarcely have put into words. But when the first relief was over the disappointment came home to her keenly. Paul had painted in such glowing colours all the joys, and adventures, and wonderful things which lay in store, that that trip was no ordinary one for them. It was the great event of their lifetime. It was to have been one long experience of travel by day and night, by sea and land, and of adventure with strange and wild creatures—Vikings, wolves, reindeers, Valkyries, giants, ice-mountains, and caves, fairies and fairies' homes. Stella had never been able to make up her mind as to what Vikings and Valkyries would be like, but they were all one delightful thrilling jumble of wild animals, giants, and strange people, such as ordinary persons never set eyes on.
"Oh, Paul, it can't be really true?" she cried, in great distress.
"Oh, you don't care," snapped Paul, crossly, "so don't pretend. You can't care, so don't put it on. You said 'Is that all?' as if it were nothing. But of course one can't expect much from a girl. I believe you were really frightened at going and are glad we are not."
Stella's lip quivered. "I was not frightened," she said stoutly, "and I am not glad; but I thought at first something dreadful had happened to father or mother—I didn't know what, but something dreadful."
Paul snorted contemptuously. "I wouldn't have minded anything else as much as this," he said loftily, putting on a very superior air.
"If you had your leg cut off you couldn't never go to fight wolves," said Michael soberly. He had been standing, boat-hook in hand, listening to the conversation. To him to have a leg cut off seemed the most dreadful thing that could happen.
"But, Paul, why can't we go?" asked Stella, her brother's injustice fading at once from her mind. "Do you know?"
"Yes, I know. Father told me all about it. He has lost a heap of money, and we've got to get rid of most of the horses and the servants, and—" He stopped suddenly in alarm; he was already abusing that confidence his father had placed in him. Nurse was in the adjoining room and the door between was open. Supposing she had heard, what should he do? He could never undo his foolish speech! He peeped at her in a state of great alarm. No, she was dusting under the bed, and could not have heard,—at least he thought not. Stella and Michael must be bound over to secrecy. "Don't you ever dare to tell any one what I have told you!" he said sternly. "Promise, honour bright. Mind Mike, if you do, I'll—I'll— well, you'll soon find out who comes after sneaks!"
"Be quiet, Paul. How dare you? You are not to frighten him like that," cried Stella indignantly. "Mikey is not a sneak, and you ought not to tell stories about bogies coming. You know there aren't any."
"Frighten!" retorted Paul; "he must be a coward if that frightens him," but he had the grace to look ashamed.
"You meant to frighten him," said Stella stoutly; "you know you did, and you are very mean."
Paul tried to turn the conversation. He felt ashamed of himself, and did not like the feeling at all. "Well, if you want to know why we are not going to Norway, you had better go and ask mother. I mustn't tell you what father told me, so it is no use to try to make me."
"Is mother—is mother unhappy about it, Paul?"
"I should just think she is, and father too."
"Did daddy cry?" asked Michael, his big eyes growing bigger with awe.
"Cry! Men don't cry; but mother did."
At which Stella's little heart overflowed with love, and her eyes filled with tears. "I'm going to see her," she said tearfully. "She mustn't be sad. I'll tell her it doesn't matter a bit, we don't mind not going. I don't want to go for a cruise. I'd quite as soon stay at home, and—I can take care of Michael, or I can dust, or—or—" The rest of her sentence was lost as she rushed out of the nursery and down to her mother's room.
"Mother!" she cried, flinging herself into her arms, and clasping her round the neck. "Mummy, dear, I am so sorry; but we don't mind the least little bit. We don't want to have any holiday at all this year, only don't you cry any more, mummy darling," and she kissed her again and again, striving all she knew to make up to her for the trouble which had befallen them.
CHAPTER III
PAUL'S HOPES RISE
A few days later Paul returned to school, and Stella and Michael settled down to lessons at home with their governess. They missed their elder brother very much, for though he domineered over them a good deal, they looked up to him as a hero, and a very splendid fellow, and they felt sad and lonely when he went back to school.
At first Paul, too, felt very miserable, and out of spirits. When it came to leaving his home he felt more real sorrow for the trouble they were in than he had at all, and real shame for having behaved so crossly and unkindly about his disappointment, and he became filled with a great desire to work well, and make up in that way for his past behaviour. So the weeks sped by; half term came and went, and early in July came a letter from Stella. They were to go away for a summer holiday, after all, she wrote excitedly, and evidently impressed with the idea that she was conveying wonderful news. They were to go to Dartmoor. Father had taken rooms in a big farmhouse on the moors, and it was lovely; there were horses and wagons, and hay-fields and orchards, and big tors where they could go for picnics.
"Dartmoor!" exclaimed Paul, as he thrust the letter into his pocket. "What a place! What is there for me to do? Just go for walks with the kids, I s'pose; I'd quite as soon stay at home." And he sniffed scornfully, and went about all day in a bad temper.
"Dartmoor is a ripping fine place!" Paul had confided his woes to his chum, Dennis Rogers, and that was the response he met with. "I only wish I was going there this summer. We were there two years ago; oh, my, it was jolly! I wonder what part you are going to, and if you'll be anywhere near the convict prison."
Paul pricked up his ears.
"The convict prison," he cried eagerly. "I'd forgotten that that was down there. Oh, I do hope we go quite close to it. I'd like awfully to see the convicts. Did you ever see any of them? Were you near them?"
"See them! I should just think so. I saw a convict's funeral once, too; the coffin was carried by the convicts all in their prison clothes, with whacking great broad arrows over them."
"What were they like? Did they look like murderers? Did you see any of those that are in Madame Tussard's?" asked Paul, full of curiosity.
"Some of them were pretty bad-looking, but the rest were just like ordinary people. You'd never think from their faces, that they were murderers, and burglars, and forgers, and all that sort of thing. I felt awfully sorry for them, but my mater hurried me away, and wouldn't let me have a good look at them. I know one thing, I would have helped them to escape if they had tried to."
"I do hope we shall be in that part," said Paul, excitedly. "I'd give anything to see the prisoners and the prison. I say, did any escape while you were there?"
"No, 'twas hard luck. One got away in the winter after we left, and wasn't caught for a day or two; it was foggy, and that helped him, of course. Then there is otter-hunting in some of the rivers," went on Dennis, tiring of the subject of the convicts. "Oh, it's an awfully fine place! There are wild cattle on the moor too, and they are no end of excitement; they go for you like anything if you rile them. You are in luck's way, old chap. I wish I was going too, instead of to some silly place in Norway where there's nothing to do when you get there but walk. I hate being shut up in a stuffy steamer too. I'm ill all the time—so are most of the people—and I don't see where the fun comes in. But my people are set on it, so I suppose I've got to go. I don't want to, a bit."
"Don't you!" said Paul sarcastically, all his old disappointment returning. "I wish we could change places then. I think Dartmoor is awfully tame compared with Norway."
And then a hot discussion followed, each boy sticking up, of course, for his own favourite place.
But when, three weeks later, Paul travelled homewards, his disappointment was quite forgotten, and he was in the best of spirits, for it is beyond the power of any ordinary boy to feel morose and sulky the day his school breaks up and he goes home for his summer holiday; and when the family joined him at Slewbury station,—all except his father, who was to follow later,—and they journeyed on together, he was the life of the whole merry party.
"Mother," he exclaimed with sudden recollection, after the home news had been listened to and school news told, "what is the name of the place we are going to? Shall we be near the convict prison?"
"Oh, I hope not," cried Stella, her pretty blue eyes becoming round with dismay, "I should hate to be near convicts, I should be afraid of them. Supposing any of them run away, and come to Moor Farm, whatever shall we do?"
"We are not any very great distance from the prison, I am afraid," Mrs. Anketell answered, "though it is further than either of us could walk. But you know, dear, the poor creatures are well guarded and we shall be well guarded; and I want you to feel nothing but pity for them, my Stella. You must be a brave little woman. Many of the poor creatures there are quiet and harmless, and would not hurt a little child."
"I am jolly glad we are so near," said Paul delightedly; and he talked so much about it that Stella soon began to share his excitement, and lose much of her nervousness, while Michael sat very still and quiet, listening to all that was being said. But presently they grew tired of that subject, and turned their attention to the country through which they were hurrying, and the quaint little stations at which they stopped, where the one porter shouted such odd names in so funny a voice that they could not help laughing; then on they went again through rich yellow cornfields, past streams where men were fishing, and then they saw the high hills in the distance, standing so solitary on the great browny-grey moor.
It was hard to picture a big, gloomy prison anywhere near such a lovely land, or hundreds of sinful, unhappy men shut in behind high grey walls, seeing nothing of the beauty about them.
"Mother, mother, there's Row Tor, and there's Brown Willy, and there—"
"And here is our station," said Mrs. Anketell, smiling, getting up to collect baskets and parcels, "and there is Farmer Minards himself with his car and a cart for the luggage." Then out they got, the only passengers for that little station, while the people in the train stared at them, enviously the children thought, and the people on the platform looked with curiosity and interest at them, and their big pile of luggage. Then Stella and Michael and Mrs. Anketell were shown in to the funny little car, which was called the 'pill-box,' but Paul asked if he might ride up in the front of the cart on which the luggage was piled, and was allowed to, and a few minutes later they started off in procession down the road on their way to Moor Farm.
The boy who drove the cart was shy at first, and sat very stolid and stiff beside Paul apparently absorbed in guiding his horse, but Paul was not troubled with shyness, or anything else but curiosity, and after he had looked at the horse and cart, and everything about him, his tongue refused to be silent any longer, and a stream of questions was poured into the shy boy's ears. As they were nearly all questions he could answer he did not mind, and replied very patiently, and soon grew more at ease, especially as some of Paul's questions made him laugh too, and feel how much more he knew than 'the young master,' which is always a comfortable feeling.
"And that is Cawsand Beacon, isn't it?" said Paul at last, pointing to a big, big hill, in the near distance. He spoke in an off-hand casual sort of way, and was rather proud of his knowledge until the boy laughed.
"No, sir, that there is Crockern Tor. Cawsan' Baycon be right 'way 'tother side of Dartymoor, right 'long up in the narth, Oke'ampton way."
"Is Crockern Tor as high as Cawsand Beacon?" asked Paul, more humbly.
"I reckon not, not by a brave bit," said the boy, "but it's a purty place to go to."
They were driving now along a rough road across the moor itself; the 'pill-box' had outstripped them and was out of sight. "Let's drive on the grass," said Paul suddenly, "t'would be ever so much jollier than jolting along like this. Why don't you drive across there to the farm," pointing to a stretch of smooth, green turf, "instead of going all around by this road?"
The boy laughed again. "I reckon 'twouldn't be no quicker by time us had hauled the 'orse and cart out. That there green is'n' no turf 't'all, 'tis a bog."
Paul's attention was riveted in a moment. "That isn't one of the bogs that suck people right down, and kill them, is it?" he asked excitedly.
"That's one on 'em," answered the boy; "that isn't so bad as some. Anybody small and light might get across by keeping right 'way out to the very edge if they was quick, but a horse and cart wouldn't stand no chance. Don't you never go trying of it, sur, you'd be swallowed up in no time. Gee, wug, Lion," he called to the lazy horse. "Would 'ee like to drive a bit, sur?"
But Paul's thoughts were far away. "Anybody light and small might get across," he was repeating to himself, and he made up his mind that somebody light and small would try. After all, Dartmoor wasn't such a bad place, he admitted already. He would have something, anyhow, to tell the boys when he got back. Something worth telling too. He thought there would be few with a better story than his to tell.