Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

"All right," answered Puck, whose mouth was watering for a ride on the pony, or a drive behind him; "she shall go first. But I suppose when she comes back we might have a turn?"

"Well, we will if they offer it us; but don't let's ask. We mustn't be greedy, you know; and we mustn't pretend we've ever done such a mighty lot of driving and riding, because you know we haven't – only just a little now and then. Crump was always saying we must have ponies and learn properly; but we never did."

Puck colored up a little, for he had been rehearsing in his head some of the things he meant to tell Esther about his prowess in the saddle and as a whip. But he remembered that he had resolved not to romance so much, just as Pickle was keeping in mind that he must not always expect to be the leader, and have the best place in everything. So they ran away to the house together to get the sugar; and Esther, after looking round a little uncertainly, let herself be handed into the carriage by Mr. Earle.

"I thought perhaps the boys would like the first turn," she said.

"Ladies first is the right motto," said Mr. Trelawny. "Now let us see how you hold your reins and whip. You won't want much whip for this fellow, so you can leave that in its socket for the present. – Now, Earle, in with you, and let us see how the little lady can drive you. – You are not afraid, my dear?"

Esther looked up with candid eyes.

"No – at least, hardly at all. I'm not afraid, now Mr. Earle is here to help me. I like it very much, but I haven't driven for a very long time. I might do something wrong if there was nobody here to help me."

Then she drew up her reins and chirruped to Punch, who threw up his head and started at a brisk trot; and Esther felt her heart beating with excitement and delight, just dashed with a nervous tremor, for Punch went very fast, and there were several corners to turn in the winding road.

But the pony was a well-trained little fellow, and knew his business, and there was nothing in his way. He dashed along in fine style, Mr. Earle encouraging both him and his driver; and then Esther had the delight of drawing up at the rectory gate to show her new accomplishment to the little Polperrans, who came flocking out to admire and exclaim.

It was a very enchanting half-hour that Esther spent taking her first lesson; but she was in rather a hurry to get back, for she wanted the boys to enjoy the new pleasure also.

So Mr. Earle took them each a turn, looking rather sharp after them; but they had a very fair notion of driving, and were perfectly fearless, yet at the same time they were fond of animals, and had no desire to use the whip unreasonably, or otherwise to harass the pony.

Punch gave the greatest satisfaction to all, and was declared to be a "perfect darling" by Esther, and "a jolly little brick" by the boys.

"Mr. Earle will take you out every day for a week, Esther," said her mother, when the carriage had gone, "and after that he thinks you will be able to drive me out."

Esther's face glowed with pleasure, and Pickle cried out, —

"We can drive you too, Aunt Saint!"

But to his surprise his aunt shook her head, smiling the while, and said, —

"I think, dear, I should feel safer with Esther, thank you."

"Well, that's funny," said Puck; "I thought women always felt so much safer when they had a man driving them."

Then Mrs. St. Aiden laughed and kissed him, and said he should drive her out some day, when he was a man.

Nice things seemed to happen often now. For after the pony and carriage had been a few weeks in use, and Esther had grown to be quite an experienced little whip, the children heard that Mr. Trelawny was going to keep his birthday, and that it was to be celebrated by an excursion to an old ruin, and that little people as well as their parents were to be allowed to go.

Esther clasped her hands in ecstasy when she heard this. She had never seen a ruin yet, though she had so often heard of them; and as her knowledge of history had greatly enlarged during the past few months, she was quite delighted to think of seeing any place which had played a part in the strange doings of olden times.

Mr. Trelawny's house had done that; but Esther could never quite conquer her fears of that place. She did not go very often even now, though the boys scrambled up the steep path as often as they dared, when she was out driving.

But a real old castle would be delightful; and Mr. Earle gave them a whole history of the things that had happened there, and showed them pictures of the kind of old windows and arches they would see, and taught Esther the names of the different moldings, so that she might know them when she saw them.

She was to drive herself in the pony carriage, and have one companion, either grown-up or not as she liked, and Puck had leave to go in the tiny back seat, which had been added in order that the three children might go out together.

"Of course you'll take me," cried Pickle, dancing round Esther in his excited fashion.

She hesitated a little, and then said, —

"Pickle dear, I should like you best; but I feel as though I ought to ask Prissy Polperran. I'm afraid she sometimes thinks I am unkind to her. We used to be a good deal together, but I haven't time now that I have so many more things to do."

"Oh, bother that young poll-parrot!" cried Pickle; "I don't see why you should be bothered by her. She's a regular kill-joy. You know she is."

"It would be kind," said Esther gently; "she would like it very much. But you may drive her, Pickle, if mama and Mr. Earle don't mind."

"Not I, thank you!" answered Pickle scornfully. "I can't abide the stuck-up minx. She's a little prig. She's – "

Pickle suddenly stopped short. The Sunday class in the arbor still went on, and the children discussed with interest each week how they were "getting on with their sins," and how many dragons they had killed. They also had a little book now, and Esther wrote down in it what good resolutions they made week by week. It was rather like a "Sunday game" to the little people; nevertheless it was not without its effect upon them. Pickle's sudden stop was due to the remembrance that they had last Sunday resolved to try and be kind to other people, and always do as they would be done by; so that saying all these things about Prissy was not quite according to their rule.

"Oh, bother!" he said, and looked at Esther, and then began to laugh. In a minute he spoke again, —

"All right, Ess. Take Pretty Polly. I suppose she will like it, and they don't have half the fun we do. I'll try to be civil to her all day too, if I can; but she is such a precious – "

Another stop and another laugh.

"I say, Essie, I think we make too many resolutions. I'm always tripping over some of them. Don't let's have any new ones till we've learned how to keep these."

"I'll let Bertie have the dicky behind," said Puck suddenly – "he'd like it; and I don't care so very much, if Pretty Polly is going instead of Pickle."

"Thank you, boys," said Esther; "it is very nice of you. I should like to have you best, but I think we ought to try and be kind."

The young folks did not enjoy themselves any the less for the small sacrifice they had made. The delight of the Polperrans at being driven in Esther's little carriage made amends to her for the loss of the boys; and Prissy was quite nice and merry, and never once put on her grown-up airs of superiority.

Pickle and Puck occupied the box seat of a big wagonette, and were permitted by the driver to hold the reins now and then up the hill, or along the level, so they had nothing left to wish for; and it was a very merry and happy party that arrived by midday at the old ruined castle perched commandingly on the summit of a crag, not so very unlike the one where Mr. Trelawny lived.

Prissy had been there once before, and showed Esther a great many of the wonders it contained – the great banqueting hall, with a part of its beautiful vaulted roof still standing; the old chapel, where the tracery of the windows was wonderful in its graceful beauty; and the ancient keep, with the thick walls, in which little passages could run without interfering with them.

Mr. Trelawny was a capital host, and knew how to make people enjoy themselves. There was plenty to eat, and plenty to do; but he seemed fondest of getting all the little people about him, and telling them the wonderful stories of battles and sieges and escapes which had taken place around these very walls.

"Show us the prisons!" cried Pickle. "Aren't there some dungeons underneath? And isn't there a block or an ax or something like that? I like those jolly old underground places. I'd soon have got out though, if I'd been a prisoner."

"I'll show you one prison, anyhow," answered Mr. Trelawny; "but I think you'd be puzzled how to get out of it, if once you were shut in."

Esther felt her breath coming and going. She did so hope there were no underground places here. The old feeling of horror came back directly she heard this talk. She felt as though everything had suddenly been spoiled.

She didn't want to think about poor wretched prisoners, shut out from the light of day, lying in chains down in those terrible places. She couldn't think how all the children seemed to want to go and look. It made her feel sick and miserable; and yet she did not like to hang back when everybody else was moving.

She thought of her resolution not to be frightened of fancied terrors; but this was not fancy. These were real prisons, and real people had been shut up there; and perhaps she would hear of horrid things that were done to them, which would make her feel all creepy at night, and not let her go to sleep.

Her feet lagged more and more as the party trooped on after Mr. Trelawny, laughing and asking questions; and then Esther suddenly found that she could not make up her mind to go with the rest. She turned tail, and ran in the opposite direction, and threw herself down on the warm grass, shaking all over.

"What is the matter?" asked a voice close beside her. She gave a great jump, and looked round with scared eyes. There was Mr. Earle sitting very near indeed to her, with a sketch-book in his hand. She wished then she had not come, or had seen him in time to run somewhere else.

"What is the matter?" he asked again quite kindly.

"I – I don't know. They were going down to the dungeons. I didn't want to go – that's all."

"There is nothing very pretty down there; come and look at my drawing, and tell me how you like it. Isn't that a fine bit of molding there? Do you know people come from all over the country to see it. It's one of the best bits that exist in the world – or at least in this country."

"How nicely you draw!" said Esther admiringly, feeling the cold tremors abating. "What a lot of things you can do, Mr. Earle! It must be nice to be clever."

"Very, I should think," he answered with a smile. "Would you like to learn to sketch some day?"

"Oh, very much, only there are so many things to learn. There does not seem time for them all."

"No, that's the worst of it; it is like picking up pebbles on the seashore. One can never get more than a few out of all the millions there. Still, if we make these few our own we have done something."

Mr. Earle went on with his drawing, and Esther sat watching him, feeling soothed and comforted, she did not know why. Her thoughts went off on their own wonderings, and presently she said suddenly, —

"Mr. Earle, is it wrong to be afraid of things – I mean of things that don't hurt, like dark places and cellars?"

"It is not wrong, but it is often inconvenient."

"You don't mind them, I suppose?"

"Not now. I used to be afraid of the dark once when I was a little boy."

"How did you cure yourself?"

"My mother asked me to try and get over it. So she taught me to say my prayers first, and then walk over the dark part of the house every night alone. I used to make believe that an angel came with me. After that I soon stopped being afraid."

Esther sat very still for a little while, a light coming slowly into her face.

"Do you think the angel was there really, Mr. Earle?"

"I should not be very much surprised," he answered gravely, and they sat in silence till the rest came back.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CITY OF REFUGE

It must not be supposed that the city of refuge was forgotten or neglected all this time.

Saturday afternoons had always been kept sacred to it, except when some other attraction took the children elsewhere. The changes which had taken place on the other days did not affect Saturday to any great extent.

Mr. Earle was always up at the Crag on that afternoon, shut up in the laboratory with Mr. Trelawny. He did not volunteer either drives or sails on that day, and other people were busy too. Esther always had a number of little Saturday duties to think of; Prissy was safely shut up in the lending library; and the four younger children invariably spent the leisure time together, and almost as regularly got the old fisherman's boat and took a trip across to their island.

But they had kept this a profound secret, and, so far, there had been no danger of its escaping them. Mr. Polperran had not been told about the island, but Bertie had had leave to whisper to him that they had a very nice place they went to down by the sea, and he had said it was all right, and he was glad they should play there. For Mr. Polperran was a Cornishman born and bred, and he did not wish his children to grow up timid or dependent. He would have brought them up more robustly had it not been for the fears and prejudices of his wife, who had lived almost all her previous life in London. As it was, he was quite pleased for his little son to have boy companions to teach him bolder sorts of games than he had ever learned at home, and he told Mrs. Polperran not to mind if Milly and Bertie did come back wet and dirty. They were getting good from the salt water and from their companions, and the rest mattered nothing.

So the secret of the island never transpired in that house, and Esther always thought that Pickle and Puck spent their Saturday afternoons in the rectory orchard.

Orders had been issued to the fishermen generally, and Pollard in particular, that the children were not to be permitted to go out alone in a boat; and had they attempted to embark down at the little quay in the village, they would have been quickly stopped. But Pickle had had the wits to foresee that from the first, and had made his bargain with the queer, old, half-daft man who lived at the creek, and who was very glad to let the little gentleman have the use of his boat for a few hours on Saturday, for the payment of the shilling which Pickle always gave him.

Pocket-money was plentiful with the two boys, who had come with an ample store, and who received their usual amount weekly from their aunt. There was not much chance of spending it in such a quiet place. Fishing-tackle and sweet stuff from the one village shop absorbed a little, but there was always a shilling for "Jonah," as they called him, whenever they wanted the boat, and the old fellow was cunning enough not to say a word about it, so that nobody in the place knew that the children made a practise of being out on the water alone.

To be sure, there was not a great deal of risk in this. The boat was very safe and heavy; their island was not far away, and was well within shelter of the bay. They were not strong enough to care to row farther out to sea, and the weather through the summer had been exceptionally fine and calm.

"I wish we could get a nice breezy day," Pickle had often said; "then we'd hoist up the sail and have a jolly time. But it never blows on Saturday afternoon. I call it a swindle."

There was a sail to the boat, and the boys were learning more and more of the management of a sailing craft. They often went out with Mr. Earle in the Swan, and sometimes he would take the tiller and make them manage the sail, whilst sometimes he would take the sail and set them on to steer. They were growing expert now, and they had never been lacking in boldness from the first. One day Mr. Trelawny came down himself, and Puck was put in charge of the tiller and Pickle of the sheet; and between them, with only a little assistance and instruction, they managed to get the boat through the water very creditably.

"You'll make a pair of good jack-tars in time," had been Mr. Trelawny's encouraging verdict at the end of the voyage; and ever since Pickle and Puck had been burning and yearning for a chance of displaying their prowess by taking a sail quite on their own account.

They had begged to have the Swan for their experiment, but had been forbidden.

"Don't try to run before you can walk," Mr. Earle had advised. "This is a ticklish coast, and you don't know much about it yet. And though the weather has been very settled, nobody knows what may happen. Sometimes a gale of wind gets up just when one expects it least. You'd be in a nice predicament if that were to happen. You must wait till you're older and stronger before you go sailing alone."

"I call that rot," Pickle said rather loftily in private to his brother afterwards; "we could do it perfectly well now, I'm sure."

But as Pickle was really trying to cure himself of his self-will and desire to do everything his own way, he did not say anything more about having the Swan to go sailing in. Perhaps he felt that Mr. Earle's "no" was a different sort of thing from his father's, and that coaxing and teasing would be thrown away here. So the two things together kept him quiet.

Nevertheless there was a great desire in his mind to show off his prowess and skill in the art of practical navigation, and it had been quite a disappointment to him that Saturday after Saturday came and went, and there was not enough breeze in the bay to fill the sail of "Jonah's" old boat.

"It seems as if it was just to spite us," he grumbled more than once; "but it'll have to come some day, and then you'll see what you'll see."

It did not seem much like coming this breathless September afternoon. The sun shone as fiercely as if it were the height of summer. There was neither a cloud to be seen in the sky nor a breath of air to be felt.

"It'll be precious hot pulling across," said Puck rather ruefully, "but I suppose we'd better go."

"Oh yes; and then we can have a jolly bathe, and paddle about all the time in the pools. Besides, Milly and Bertie can pull a bit now; we can take turns with those old sweeps."

Bertie and Milly were always all eagerness to go across. To them the island was a veritable city of refuge. Prissy could never find them there, and that was in itself a wonderful boon on holiday afternoons. True, Prissy was generally all the time in the parish room; but there had been occasions when she had turned up unexpectedly, and had interrupted and condemned the most charming games. There was none of the delicious security from interruption at home that was one of the greatest charms of the island. And the very fact of going thither by themselves in a boat was an immense attraction to the rectory children, who were hardly ever taken out upon the water, even when Mr. Trelawny did offer them a sail in the Swan.

Mrs. Polperran could not conquer her nervous fears for them when out in a boat. She hated the water herself, and feared it for the little ones. She had an idea that Mr. Trelawny was a very headstrong, rash sort of man, and she almost always found some excuse for declining his invitations to her children. If they had known this themselves they would have been much distressed; but happily they were in ignorance, and supposed that Mr. Trelawny only cared about Pickle and Puck, who regarded him in the light of a new relation.

However, the bliss of these excursions to the island had made a wonderful difference in their lives. There was always something to look forward to all the week. And they had now the delightful sense of having a place all their own – a real city of refuge, where even Prissy could never find them; and they were gradually collecting there a miscellaneous assortment of treasures, keeping in view the possibility that they might some day really have to flee to their island home for safety from some peril, and desirous to have some useful stores laid up there in readiness.

Most Saturdays they made some additions to their supplies. They had an old tin box which Pickle had begged from Genefer, and this was hidden in a cleft of the rocks in the little creek which formed their most sheltered hiding-place. The stores were all hidden away in this box, and kept very well. They tasted the biscuits and the chocolate-sticks each time, to make sure they were keeping all right, and Milly declared that they grew "more and more delicious" with the flight of time.

The heat was very great to-day upon the water, but when they reached the island they could find all sorts of nice places to shelter themselves in. Shoes and stockings were off in a moment, and Milly's skirts were soon tucked right away, so that she could paddle with the best of them.

"Oh, I do wish we could live here always, and not have to go home at all!" she cried. "I'd like to sail away to the other side of the world, and live on a coral island, and eat bread-fruit, and have a delicious time. I wonder how long it would take to get there. I wonder why nobody does nice interesting things except in books. Why doesn't Mr. Trelawny go and see nice places like that when he has a boat of his own, instead of always living up there in a house and staring at things with an electric eye?"

"I don't believe he's got an electric eye," said Puck. "His eyes are just like everybody else's!"

"I heard father say he had," said Bertie quickly; "so he must have it, I'm sure."

"Well, I don't much believe he has," reiterated Puck. "I asked Essie if he had only the other day, and she didn't know; and Aunt Saint said she thought it was all nonsense."

"Perhaps it's Mr. Earle then," said Milly; "but somebody's got one up there, I know. I think father said they couldn't do all their experiments unless one of them had an electric eye."

"Mr. Earle's eyes are just like other people's when he takes off his spectacles," returned Puck.

"I'll tell you what that is," said Pickle, who came up at the moment; "I was telling Essie about it only last night. I think she was rather frightened. I've been asking lots of things about electricity, and it's awfully queer sort of stuff – all in volts and things. And you can switch it on and off as you like. I suppose that's what they do with their eyes – sometimes they're like other people's eyes, and sometimes they're electric. And you have to have a complete circuit, you know. I think that's what Mr. Earle uses his spectacles for. I think it completes the circuit."

"Yes, because they're round," added Puck; and the three younger ones regarded Pickle with looks of respect, as one who has been dabbling deep in the fount of knowledge.

Suddenly in the midst of their play Pickle broke into a shout of triumph.

"Look, look, look!" he cried, and pointed out to sea.

"What is it?" asked the others, staring, but seeing nothing, till Bertie suddenly realized his meaning, and clapped his hands in triumph.

"A breeze! a breeze!" he shouted. "Now we can go sailing! It's coming up beautifully!"

Milly began to caper wildly. She had been longing unspeakably to participate in the delights of which she had heard. She thought that sailing on the water must be just the most delightful thing in the whole world, and had shed a few tears in private because she had never been in the Swan, and Bertie only once.

"Oh, come along, come along!" she cried ecstatically. "Can we really have a sail?"

Her confidence in Pickle was by this time unbounded. He seemed to her almost as wise and as resourceful as a grown-up person, without all the tiresome prudence that seemed to come with the advance of years. If he took them they would be as safe as if they were with Mr. Trelawny himself, and Pickle's own confidence in his powers was little less.

Good resolutions were cast to the winds. Perhaps Pickle did not even know that this was the case. He had so longed for a breeze which would enable him to sail the fisherman's big boat, and it never occurred to him to regard this desire as a part and parcel of the self-will he had tried to get the better of.