Then Boodles came in laughing, with a head like the rising sun. She had been washing her hair, and it was hanging down to dry, and sparkling in the strong light just as the broken granite on Dartmoor sparkles when the sun casts a beam across and seems to fill the path with diamonds.

"Oh, what a grumpy face, old man!" she cried. "Such a toothachy face for as butiful a morning as ever was! Have you been cruel and caught a wee mousie and hurt it so much that you couldn't let it go? I think I shall throw away that trap and get a benevolent p.u.s.s.ycat instead."

Lewside Cottage was infested with mice, very much as Hamelin town was once overrun with rats, and as Weevil could not pipe them into the Tavy he had invested in a humane trap which caught the little victims alive.

Then the difficulty of disposing of them arose. Weevil solved it in a simple fashion. He caught a mouse every night and let it go in the morning. In spite of these methods of extermination the creatures continued to increase and multiply.

"I was going out this afternoon," said Boodles, tugging at her hair with a comb. "But if you have got one of your umpy-umpy fits I shall stop at home. I want to go, daddy-man, 'cause my boy hasn't got much longer at home, and he says it is nice to have Boodles with him, and Boodles thinks, it is nice too."

"Boodle-oodle, my darling," quavered Weevil, "the sun may be shining outside, but it is damp and clammy in here. The Brute has got hold of me again."

"No, it isn't clamp and dammy, daddy," she laughed. "It's only a stupid old cloud going by. There are lots of b.u.t.terflies, if you will look out.

See! I can nearly tread upon my hair. Isn't it butiful?"

"You must try and grow up, little girl."

"Not till I'm twenty," said she.

"You mustn't laugh so much, my little maid."

"Why, daddy?" she cried quickly. "You mustn't say that. Oh, I don't laugh too much; I couldn't. I'm not always so very happy when I laugh, because it's not always afternoon out with me, but it does us good to make believe, and I thought it helped you to forget things. You telling me I mustn't laugh! You've been and killed a mouse."

"They say fair-haired girls don't feel it like the dark-haired ones,"

muttered Weevil.

"What are you talking about?" cried Boodles. She had stopped laughing.

The clouds were coming up all round and it was nearly snow time; and there is little laughter in a Dartmoor winter. "Is it the Brute, daddy?"

she said sympathetically.

"Yes, Boodle-oodle," said the sorrowful old man, with his nervous grin.

"It is the Brute."

"I wish you could catch him in your trap. You wouldn't let him go," said Boodles, with a little smile.

Weevil was kneeling at the table, his comic head jerking from side to side, while his fingers tried to make a paper-boat out of the "dearest Boy" sheet of note-paper.

"I want to talk to you, my little maid," he said. "I want to remind you that we cannot get away from the Brute. I came to this lonely cottage to hide from him, because he was making my life miserable. I could not go out without meeting him. But it was no good. Boodles. Doors and bolts won't keep him out. Do you know why? It is because he is a part of ourselves."

"Such nonsense," said she. "Silly old man to call yourself cruel."

"The Brute is only ourself after all. I cannot put my foot to the ground without crushing some insect. I cannot see the use of it--this prolific creation of things, this waste of life. It drives me nearly mad, tortures me, makes me a brute to myself."

"But you're such a--what do you call it?--such a whole-hogger," said the child. "Try and not worry, daddy. You only make yourself wretched, and you make me wretched too, and then you're being cruel to me--and that's how things get cold and foggy," said she. "May I laugh now?"

"No, Boodles," he said, quite sternly. "I was cruel when I picked you up that night and brought you in."

The girl winced a little. She wanted to forget all about that.

"Nature preserves only that she may destroy," he rambled on. "Take the plants--"

"I've taken them," broke in Boodles merrily.

"Be serious, Boodle-oodle," said the old man, grinning worse than ever.

"The one and only duty of the flower is to bear seed, and when it has done that it is killed, and that it may do so Nature protects it in a number of different ways, many of which cause suffering to others. Some plants are provided with thorns, others with stinging-cells, others with poison, so that they shall not be destroyed by animals. These are generally the less common plants. Those that are common are unprotected, because they are so numerous that some are certain to survive. All the plants of the desert have thorns, because vegetation is so scarce there that any unprotected plant would soon be devoured. The rabbit is an utterly defenceless creature among animals, and almost every living thing is its enemy; but lest the animal should cease to survive Nature compels it to breed rapidly. Surely it would have been kinder to have given it the means of protecting itself. I cannot understand it, Boodles. There seems to be no fixed law, no limit to Nature's cruelty, although there is to her kindness. The world is a b.l.o.o.d.y field of battle; everything fighting for life; a pitiful drama of cowardice right through. I don't know whether I am talking nonsense, Boodles. I expect I am, but I can't speak calmly about these things, I lose control over myself, and want to hit my head against the wall."

Boodles slipped her arm about his neck and patted his white whiskers.

The paper-boat was a heap of pulp by this time.

"Now it's my turn," she said gaily. "Let Boodles preach, and let old men be silent. Dear old thing, there are lots of queer puzzles, and I'm sure it is best to leave them all alone. 'Let 'em bide,' as Mary would say.

We can't know much, and it's no use trying. You might as well worry your dear white head about the queer thing called eternity. You start, and you go round, and then you go round again faster until you begin to whirl, and you see stars, and your head aches--that's as far as you can ever get when you think about queer puzzles. And that's all I've got to say. Don't you think it rather a good sermon for a babe and suckling?"

"It's no use. She doesn't see what I'm driving at," muttered poor old Weevil.

"My hair is nearly dry. I think I'll go and do it up now," said Boodles.

"I'm going to wear my white muslin. Shan't I look nice?"

"She doesn't know why she looks nice," murmured the silly old man. "It is Nature's cruel trick to make her attract young men. Just as the flowers are given sweetness to attract the fertilising bee. There it is again--no fixed law. Every sweet flower attracts its bees, but it is not every sweet girl who may."

"What's all that about bees?" laughed Boodles. "Oh, I forgot! I'm not to laugh."

"Boodle-oodle, do try and take things seriously. Do try and remember,"

he pleaded.

"Remember--what?" she said.

"We cannot get away from the Brute."

"But I'm not going to be grumpy until I have to," she said. "It would be such nonsense. I expect there will be lots of worries later on. I must be happy while I can. Girls ought not to be told anything about unhappiness until they are twenty. There ought to be a law made to punish any one who made a little girl grumpy. If there was you would go to prison, old man."

"You must think, Boodles. We are putting it off too long--the question of your future," he said blunderingly. Now he had got at the subject! "I am getting old, I have only an annuity, and there will be nothing for you when I die. I do not know what I shall do without you, but I must send you away, and have you trained for a nurse, or something of the kind. It will be bad to be alone again, with the Brute waiting for me at every corner, but worse to think of you left unprovided for."

"My dear daddy-man," sighed Boodles, with wide-open eyes. "So that's the trouble! Aren't you worrying your dear old head about another queer puzzle? I don't think I shall have to work very dreadful hard for my living."

"Why not?" said the old man, hoping his voice was stern.

"Why?" murmured Boodles prettily. "Well, you know, dear old silly, some one says that my head is lovely, and my skin is golden, and I'm such a jolly nice little girl--and I won't repeat it all, or I might swell up with pride, and you might believe it and find out what an angel you have been keeping unawares--"

"Believe," he broke in, catching at the straw as he went down with a gurgle. "You mustn't believe too much, Boodle-oodle. You are so young.

You don't in the least know what is going to happen to you."

"Of course I know," declared Boodles; "I'm going to marry Aubrey when I'm twenty."

"But his parents--" began Weevil, clutching at the edge of the table, and wondering what made it feel so sharp.

"They are dears," said Boodles. "Such nice pretty people, and so kind.

He is just an old Aubrey, and I expect he had the same girl's face when he fell in love with his wife. She's so fragile, with beautiful big eyes. It's such a lovely house. Much too good for me."

"That's just it," he said eagerly, wishing she would not be dense. "It's much too good for you, darling."