"You must excuse Joan, please," put in Darby formally. "If she says silly things sometimes, it's because she's so little. At least, that's how I 'splains her to myself," he added.

Then he went on to give Mr. Grey a clear and full account of how and why they were wandering at what was for them such an unusual hour in the mazes of Copsley Wood--frankly owning up to more than his own share in the escapade, casting not a shadow of blame upon his little sister.

"So, so!" said Mr. Grey, much amused by the lad's quaint manner and grown-up air. "But I thought I heard some kind o' singin' as I came up the hill. It was that fetched me into the wood. I had been down at Firdale seein' about some seed-wheat for sowin' to-morrow, an' I was in a hurry home."

"It was us you heard," Joan told him gravely. "We were askin' G.o.d to send a star to show us the way out of the darkness."

"I'm afraid you'll certainly think my sister very childish," said Darby, in an apologetic tone. "But you see, just when we had finished the first verse of our hymn, a light really did shine. We didn't know at the time that it was only the matches you were striking for your pipe, and Joan thought (in fact, we _both_ thought--for a moment, you know) that G.o.d had really sent a star to point us out the path, just as long ago He guided the wise men to the place where the dear little baby Jesus lay."

For a s.p.a.ce there was silence. Joan was almost asleep on her seat on the tree-stump; not a quiver of the hazel bushes betrayed the presence of the couple lurking there. And into the big farmer's eyes a sudden moisture had sprung as he heard these little ones expressing in simple speech their perfect confidence in the ability and readiness of their heavenly Father to make good His own promise: "I will guide thee with mine eye."

"That's right, my boy," spoke Mr. Grey at length, in deep, earnest tones. "Always look out for G.o.d, an' you'll find Him close beside you, in the darkest forest as well as in the starry sky. An' now we must be movin', or the ladies'll be sendin' the police to look for the pair o'

ye.--Eh! Anybody there?" he shouted, as the sudden snapping of a twig broke the stillness about them.

There was no answer, only the flutter of a belated bird as it failed to find its accustomed perch among the pines, and the sighing of the wind through the tree-tops overhead.

"Some beast, I expect, or a poacher, maybe," Mr. Grey muttered to himself. Then he turned towards the children. "I was never reckoned much o' _a star_," he said, with a chuckle of amus.e.m.e.nt, "but I guess I'll manage to steer ye straight to Firgrove."

"Do you think you could carry Joan, please, Mr. Grey? She's not _very_ heavy; I sometimes carry her myself," added Darby, as if doing so were a mere trifle instead of a feat of which he was privately proud. "She's tired, I'm afraid.--Joan! Waken up! Aren't you tired?"

"Yes, werry, werry tired," a.s.sented Joan sleepily, as the farmer cradled her comfortably in his strong arms; and with Darby holding hard by his coat-tail they started.

"The eggs, Darby! Is you forgettin' Aunt Catharine's eggs, and the bantam's too?" Joan cried, when they neared the opening in the wood.

Outside the fringe of dark trees twilight still lingered, and there, just where Darby had set it down, was the basket, safe and sound.

With a whoop of delight at the welcome sight of the basket--for its possible loss had lain heavily on his tender conscience--Darby sprang forward to seize it. But in the dusk he did not notice a long, twisted tree-root that straggled between him and his desire. His toe caught in it; he suddenly tripped, swayed, and fell flat forward, crunching right smash down into the shallow basket of smooth brown Cochin eggs.

"Whoa, there! steady, my man!" called the farmer, vainly struggling to suppress his amus.e.m.e.nt at sight of Darby's deplorable and moist condition. "You forget that you've a heavier seat on the eggs than a hen, young sir, an' you must sit down easy."

A sharp sob, however, and the smothered cry of "The bantams! we're bantams!" that burst from the little creature in his arms, indicated that what was a joke to him was a catastrophe to the children, and that his mirth was ill-timed and unseemly.

"Never mind, sonny," he added, in a soothing tone; "just tell the ladies when you get home that it was all an accident. Here, rub down your clothes wi' this wisp o' gra.s.s, an' I'll see if my missis can't coax them Cochins to lay some more eggs between this an' Christmas."

Then, with Joan cuddled cosily against his broad shoulder, and Darby's small hand clinging closely to his, the party set off down the winding road towards Firgrove.

At the same time two figures raised themselves from their cramped position behind the hazel thicket. The man stretched himself, hitched up on his shoulder a bag, from which peeped the tail of a pheasant and the paw of a rabbit, while he muttered savagely and shook his fist in the direction of the retreating farmer.

"Spoiled yer little game, did he?" and the dark-eyed woman laughed wickedly as she rearranged the faded scarlet shawl more closely round her shoulders. "Well, better luck next time, Joe my dear," she added airily.

"Shut up!" said the gentleman called Joe, with a heavy scowl. "It's kids like they I've been lookin' out for this many a day, an' I'll have them yet," he growled, "as sure as yer name's Moll! See if I don't! Come on!"

And in another moment they were not to be seen, they had plunged into the heart of Copsley Wood.

At the gate of Firgrove Mr. Grey set Joan down, and watched until she and Darby reached the front door. There a curious group had collected--Auntie Alice, who was softly sobbing; Aunt Catharine, wearing her garden-hat and strongest boots; Nurse Perry, Mary the cook; and Green the gardener, armed with a stout staff and the stable lantern. It was the search-party in the act of setting out to explore the recesses of Copsley Wood in quest of the missing children.

Mr. Grey thought it would be in better taste to retire. He knew Miss Turner, and he guessed that probably the next scene in the drama would be purely private. Well, the youngsters had unquestionably disobeyed orders, and on their own showing. They must be punished, if by no other means they could be taught obedience, which is the first if not the chief lesson of life. Still, it was a pity, thought the big, soft-hearted man; and the confiding eyes of the children followed him as he sauntered up the hill, forgetting that he was in a hurry home. The words that had floated from their pure lips through the gloom of the pines rang in his ears, and as he went along he hummed softly to himself, in his deep, ba.s.s voice,--

"Ever journeying onward, Guided by a star."

"Aunt Catharine's real angry this time, and no mistake," Darby thought, as in almost perfect silence she gave him and Joan their supper, then helped Perry to undress, bath, and put them to bed. "She's sure to punish us somehow to-morrow though she's saying nothing about it to-night. Oh dear! if she would not look so cold and cross, but just give me enough spanking for us both and get it over, I'd much rather."

But Aunt Catharine had decided not to administer any bodily chastis.e.m.e.nt to her nephew's children, although she considered that a smart whipping now and again was almost as necessary to the well-being of young people as cooling medicine in the spring. She had talked the matter over with Auntie Alice, who could not bear the idea of either Darby or Joan being put to any avoidable pain. They had been very disobedient certainly, she was obliged to admit, and must be taught somehow to do as they were told--Darby especially, who should have been so much wiser than Joan.

She would herself have cheerfully borne the penalty of all their misdemeanours if she could. That was impossible, however; but she succeeded in impressing upon her sister that perhaps Captain Dene might not like his motherless children to be subjected to such old-fashioned discipline. Aunt Catharine, consequently, had laid her plans for a different course of action.

Next morning Darby slept quite late--for him--being tired out from the fatigue of the previous evening. He awoke refreshed and brisk, however, and was about to spring out of bed and dress himself in readiness for the fun, frolic, and mischief of a new day, when the nursery door was thrown wide open, and Aunt Catharine sailed into the room, arrayed in all the glory of a Paisley-pattern morning-gown and black crochet breakfast-cap. Now, Miss Turner was one of those people sometimes to be met with whose moods usually match their clothes. Darby understood this peculiarity of his aunt's in a vague sort of way, so that the moment he set eyes on the many-coloured wrapper and sombre headgear he knew that now they were in for it and no mistake.

"Well, what have you to say for yourselves?" she demanded in a loud voice, seating herself solemnly in a chair between the two cribs, and looking from one child to the other with her severest expression. "You can answer me, Guy; Doris is hardly awake yet."

She addressed them as Guy and Doris; and knowing what that meant as well as what was indicated by her awful attire, Darby discreetly held his peace.

Joan sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes with her dimpled knuckles, nodded her tangled curls towards her aunt, and, sweetly smiling, murmured, "Mornin'!" to which cheery greeting her aunt did not respond.

There was a prophetic pause for a while; then Miss Turner spoke.

"I am pleased that at least you have the grace to be silent, to make no excuses; because there is nothing you could say that would make your sin appear any less heinous in my eyes--and in G.o.d's eyes," she added as an after-thought.

"Where's the 'henas,' Aunt Catharine?" cried Joan, peeping in the direction of the door. "I'd love to see a 'hena!' There's a picter of some in Darby's Nat'ral Hist'ry book. They's just like wolves."

"Hush, Joan!" said Darby, in a frightened undertone; "there's no hyenas here. Aunt Catharine means 'heenyus,' and that's a thing in the Catechism--far on! It's only me that has come to it yet."

"You have both been guilty of the gravest disobedience," continued Miss Turner, "and it is my duty to punish you. I have therefore decided to keep you in bed until you repent of your naughtiness."

Here Darby started up in anger. His gray eyes flashed, his cheeks were scarlet, his small fists clenched under the bedclothes.

"This is Sat.u.r.day," went on his aunt, in her relentless voice. "You shall stay where you are until to-morrow, Sabbath morning. Then, if you are in a proper frame of mind, you may both get up as usual; but for one week you shall not go beyond the garden.--And you, Guy, because you are older than Doris, and should set your sister a good example instead of leading her at your heels into every mischief you can devise--you are to have an additional punishment. I desire that while you are in bed you shall occupy yourself with your Catechism. And to-morrow, before breakfast, I will hear you repeat the fifth commandment, with the three following questions and the proofs thereto. After that perhaps you shall have a clearer conception of your duty to your parents, which means, in your case, those who are in charge of you." And having delivered herself thus, Aunt Catharine sailed away as majestically as she had come.

Darby flung himself about in his wrath.

"Parents indeed!" he cried, in pa.s.sionate scorn. "_She's_ not our parents! she's n.o.body's parent. Why, I heard Postie telling Perry the other day that the Miss Turners were both old maids when he was a kid; and people can't be old maids and parents as well! Oh, if daddy hadn't gone away, or if mother was only here!" he wailed in his dire distress.

Then he buried his head in the blankets, for his feelings were too deeply wounded to find relief in words.

For a while Joan howled l.u.s.tily, but by-and-by, when she had eaten her breakfast of porridge and milk, she tumbled off to sleep again, being still weary after her recent wanderings.

Darby, however, lay wide awake, feeling, now that his burst of anger had pa.s.sed away, very tired of things in general, and of himself in particular. It was too dreadful, he thought, to be kept in bed on a fine day when he was quite well, only stiff and aching all over. Outside the air was balmy and still. The garden was ablaze with late dahlias, hollyhocks, and asters; and down by the tool-shed Mistress p.u.s.s.y and her family would be contentedly sunning themselves beside the boxwood border--the close-clipped boxwood border, which always gave out such a strong, queer, haunting smell.

Oh dear, how tiresome it all was, and what a pity a fellow could not _sometimes_ do as he liked without being called naughty and then punished! Should life always be like that, Darby wondered. Surely not, he told himself, or else he felt that already he had had about enough of it. But he did not believe things were quite the same with other children. They were different for him and Joan, because daddy was abroad and mother dead. If they had only not been left at Firgrove with Aunt Catharine! There were plenty of pleasant places in the world besides Firgrove. Could not he and Joan go away somewhere, just themselves together, where they would want only to be good, because there should be no temptation to be naughty; where there should be no Catechism, no Aunt Catharine, and no more punishment, especially putting to bed, which was Darby's detestation? He really wished to be obedient, this little lad of seven years old, and tried very hard to remember everything he was told. But forgetting comes easy; consequently he was frequently in trouble. He was often good for days together--quite good, as Joan said.

But the difficulty with Darby, as with older folk, was not the _being_ good, but the _keeping_ good.

For a long time the boy lay pondering some of the problems of life which from the beginning have puzzled many a wiser head than his. But Darby did not know that he was only going over a well-beaten track. He just knew that he was wishful of finding some pleasant spot where, without effort or trouble, he could be happy after his own fashion, untrammelled and untroubled by restrictions or consequences.

The morning had glided on to noonday. Joan, having had her sleep out, was playing with Miss Carolina in her crib. Outside a family of lingering swallows sat on the meadow fence discussing their plans for a hurried departure on the morrow; and from the dovecot in the yard came the soft, continuous cooing of Auntie Alice's pigeons as they strutted about the flags or preened their feathers in the sun. The distant barking of Mr. Grey's collie, Scott, as he followed the sheep to the pasture, floated in through the open window; while from the next room came the soothing murmur of nurse's low, droning voice, singing baby Eric over to his midday sleep.

What was it she sang? but, indeed, she seemed always singing it. Nothing much; only a s.n.a.t.c.h here and there from that old hymn she was so fond of, or perhaps sang almost unconsciously from habit:--

"Oh, we shall happy be, When from sin and sorrow free!

"Bright in that happy land Beams every eye; Kept by a Father's hand, Love cannot die.

"Come to this happy land, Come, come away; Why will ye doubting stand?