Holiday Tales

Willie nodded sagaciously. 'I'll keep guard over him, mamma, so that he shall behave like a mouse all dinner-time, and then papa won't be afraid to trust him. Now let me give Georgie one kiss.' His mother watched him fondly as he caressed the little brother, whose baby mind took small cognizance of such affectionate demonstrations, and then, drawing his curly head down to her, she gave him a true mother's kiss, and whispered, 'Mamma's own good boy.' Willie tripped lightly down the stairs and into the garden, where three little boys, of the respective ages of eight, six, and five, were playing at the well-known game which Charles Dickens terms 'an invasion of the imaginary domains of Mr. Thomas Tytler.'

'Here, Duncan, Seymour, Archie, I want you to come into the "desert" with me and have a game there. Mamma's going to take a nap before dinner, and she won't be able to sleep while you make this row under her window. Come along, there's good fellows.' The two little ones left off picking up gold and silver directly, and Duncan descended from the rank of a landed proprietor with great good-humour;--not that Mr. Thomas Tytler's domains were the only ground belonging to him: he had a neat little flower-plot in one corner of the garden, as had all the elder brothers except Johnnie, who had been deprived of his by his father for having neglected to cultivate it, and who from that day forward had been known in the family by the soubriquet of 'Jean-sans-terre,' otherwise 'Lackland.' Willie led the way out of the garden into a rough piece of ground covered with weeds and stones, and called by the children the 'desert,' because nothing grew there but a few stunted shrubs. He left the younger ones to play about there, while he passed on and walked along the high road to meet his two elder brothers, Honorius and John, who attended a day school in the neighbourhood, and always came home at twelve and returned in the afternoon. Willie was of an age to go to school too; but his father, who was not a rich man, could not afford to send him just then, and therefore instructed him himself, together with Duncan and Seymour, though rather in a desultory fashion, as he was a doctor, and could not command much uninterrupted time.

The Doctor's seven sons were well known in the neighbourhood, and acknowledged by every one to be 'nice, gentlemanly boys;' so Willie had to receive and return some greetings both from high and low as he passed along. But before he had gone far he descried an elder boy with some lesson-books in his hand coming towards him, whereupon he shouted 'Is that you, old fellow? What have you done with Johnnie?' and bounded to his side.

Honorius was, like his name, grave and dignified,--at least as much so as a boy of fourteen can be without affectation. He answered quietly that Johnnie had taken the path through the fields in order to hunt for sticklebats in Farmer Merryman's pond, and that he did not know when they might expect to see him again. But at that very moment a bright, mischievous face peered over the hedge at one side of the road, and then, with a warning to them to stand clear, and 'a one, two, three, and away,' Johnnie--for he it was--took a running leap, cleared the hedge, and stood beside them. Willie explained his reason for coming to meet them, and the three boys took their way to the desert, lamenting that the ground was not smooth enough there to admit of their playing cricket, as they did on the lawn.

'Do you know I've been thinking,' said Willie suddenly, 'that it would be very jolly if we could dig up the desert, and make it a nice place for mamma to walk in when she gets better? We might have paths this way and that, and then flower-beds or turf between; though, to be sure, papa did say that when he could afford to have it cultivated, he would plant some of it with potatoes.'

'Oh, plebeian notion!' said Johnnie, tossing his handsome head, 'he will propose keeping pigs next! What do you say to it, my Emperor? is not your royal mind duly horrified?' The Emperor, as his brother called him, in allusion to his imperial namesake, by no means showed the disgust expected of him: he turned up a bit of the soil with his pocket-knife, and said reflectively,

'I should think it would grow potatoes very well, but it'll want a deal in the way of preparation. I don't believe we could dig it up properly, for there are none of us strong enough for the work but myself and you, Johnnie; and you're such an idle fellow, you wouldn't work for more than ten minutes together.'

'Oh yes, he will, if it's for mamma,' cried Willie; 'and papa would be so pleased. Do let's begin, Honorius; I can dig quite well, and the little ones might pull up some of the weeds.'

'We must mark the paths first if we're to do it at all,' said Honorius in his deliberate way. 'Who's got a ball of string?'

'I have,' began Johnnie, putting his hand in his pocket; but he drew it forth again empty, and jestingly continued, 'No, "it's gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream." I have lost it, I suppose. We must advertise for it; or, considering all things, perhaps it would be cheaper to buy another.'

'You'll lose your head some day,' observed Honorius calmly. 'Run into the house, Willie, and ask cook for some string; and you might fetch the spades, Lackland,--they're in the arbour.'

The two boys darted off on their separate errands, and the Emperor walked up and down, devising how the desert might be best improved.

'Rather stupid of us not to have thought of doing something to it before,--it's more than four months since papa bought it; but, to be sure, the weather has not been fit for out-of-door work, and papa always talked as if it would take two or three men to put it in order. I don't think he'll mind our having a try at it, for at any rate we can't do much harm. I'm very glad he bought it: it would have been horrid to have had it let on a building lease, and some great house run up that would shut out the view from our windows, that mamma likes so much. It's nice that her own room does not overlook this, or she'd see what we are about, and I should like it to be a surprise to her. It's quite Willie's idea; he's a capital chap for thinking of things to please her. I wish that funny fellow Lackland had half as much sense.'

Willie came back very soon with the string, and assisted his brother in fastening a stake in the ground where the path was to begin, and then, tying the string to it, drew it along in a straight line to the place where the path was to end, at which they stuck in another stake, and again fastened the string.

Johnnie did not reappear for some time, and then wore an air of rather droll vexation. 'Pity me,' he exclaimed as he gave the spades to Honorius, 'I have fallen foul of my paternal relative. I found a lot of birds in the arbour, and served them with a notice to quit by clapping my hands and hooting to them, when who should appear but papa, asking what the noise was about, and how I could be so inconsiderate as to disturb mamma?'

'No wonder,' said Honorius.

'Oh, and I promised to keep you quiet!' exclaimed Willie in great distress.

Jean-sans-terre laughed his merriest of laughs.

'Keep me quiet! you silly fellow. Did you really think it possible?'

'Yes, for mamma's sake,' said Willie stoutly. 'You can be quiet if you choose; and I told you what she said about her wanting you to sit with her this afternoon.'

'And you think paterfamilias will forbid it on account of my ill-timed sparrow-hooting?'

'I think,' said Honorius, 'you had better speak of my father by his right name, and endeavour to behave rather less like an idiot. Here, take a spade, man, and come to work.'

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, made an indescribable grimace, and began digging vigorously, humming the Jacobite ditty,

'Wha is it noo we ha'e gotten for a king, But a wee wee German lairdie? And when we went to fetch him hame, He was dibbling in his kail-yairdie.'

Honorius sketched in his pocket-book a sort of plan of what the desert was to be like when its cultivation was completed. There was to be a path crossing it each way exactly through the centre, and along each side of these paths there was to be a broad flower-border, which would partially conceal from view the potatoes and other useful vegetables which were to occupy the chief part of the ground.

'It's not too late in the spring to plant potatoes, I suppose, Honorius, is it?' said thoughtful Willie; 'and papa will give us those, I'm sure. But where shall we get the flowers? I don't think papa will buy them for us.'

'We can get some seeds of different annuals, such as nemophila and candytuft, ourselves. That won't cost very much, and I've got three shillings that I can spend on it; but then we shall want roots of other things and rose-bushes, and they cost more. Have you got any money, Johnnie?'

'No, not I. I am "sans argent" as well as "sans terre." I know one way of getting some, though. Papa said if I would translate that favourite piece of his in Caesar all through, well, he would give me half-a-crown. But then, consider the labour! I have a strong suspicion that it might prove fatal to my constitution.'

'Oh, humbug! you could do it easily if you chose,' said the elder brother. 'Besides, I'll help you, if papa doesn't mind.'

'You'll do it, I know,' pleaded Willie softly; 'and I've got a shilling that'll go towards buying some roots.'

'And Seymour and I have got sixpence between us,' cried Duncan. 'I say, Honorius, haven't we pulled up a jolly lot of weeds already?'

'Oh, famous,' cried the Emperor approvingly. 'Work away; we shall have to go in to dinner soon.'

He himself toiled with all his might, for the soil in some places was very stiff, and resisted the incision of the spade. Whenever he came to a part where it was looser, he turned that over to the younger ones; for Honorius, though occasionally sharp in speech, was almost invariably kind and considerate in his actions. 'Deeds, not words,' was his favourite motto; but it would sometimes have been well if he had remembered that we must give account for words as well as deeds, and that the law of love should govern both.

The boys worked on for some time almost in silence. Johnnie was expending his energies in hard digging, and dropped for the while his usual character of 'merry-andrew.' He was considering with himself, too, whether he should undertake the task his father had proposed to him.

'To be sure, I have a strong motive now for earning the half-crown, which I hadn't before,' thought he; 'but papa's so awfully particular, and I'm--yes, I must allow--I'm such an awful blockhead, that it's as likely as not I shall not win the money after all. However, I can but try; yes, and I will try too.'

Lackland's face was very bright when he took his place at dinner that day, but his behaviour was more quiet and guarded than usual: he conducted himself more like Willie's ideal mouse, than like the noisy, rattling fellow he usually appeared. The brothers sat, three on each side of the table; no one claimed the place at the top, where the mother was accustomed to sit when well. Dr. Campbell looked tired, and was very silent, but took care that his sons' vigorous appetites should be duly satisfied, and was always ready with a kindly 'Willie, my boy, don't you want some more?' 'Seymour, pass your plate to me,' whenever the silence of one knife and fork told that its owner had finished the portion allotted to him. Johnnie glanced at him sometimes, but did not address him till after grace had been said and they had risen from table, when, approaching him, he asked gently if he might be allowed to sit a little while with his mother that afternoon.