When Polly had replied in the negative to Helen's question, she lingered for a moment in the pa.s.sage outside the morning-room, then started off to find Nurse and little Pearl. Flower, however, waited with a feeling of curiosity, or perhaps something more, to hear what the others would say. She was witness, therefore, through the open door, of Firefly's curious mixture of avowal and denial, and when Mrs. Cameron went away to consult the doctor who attended Dr. Maybright, she coolly waited in an adjoining room, and when the good woman returned, once more placed herself within earshot. No Maybright would dream of eavesdropping, but Flower's upbringing had been decidedly lax with regard to this and other matters.

In full possession, therefore, of the facts of the catastrophe which was to overpower poor little Fly and injure Dr. Maybright, she rushed off to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into the room. Nurse, who had not yet forgiven Flower, turned her back upon the young lady, and hummed audibly. Flower, however, was far too much absorbed to heed her.

"Listen, Polly! you have got to come with me at once. Give baby back to Nurse. You must come with me directly."

"If it is anything more about Scorpion, I refuse to stir," answered Polly. "If there is a creature in this world whom I absolutely loathe, it's that detestable little animal!"

"You don't hate him more than I do," said Flower. "My news is about him.

Still, you must come, for it also means Firefly and your father. They'll both get into awful trouble--I know they will--if we don't save them."

"What?" said Polly; "what? Take baby, please, Nurse. Now, what is it, Flower?" pulling her outside the nursery door. "What _has_ that horrid Scorpion to do with Fly and father?"

"Only this: Fly has confessed that she knows what has become of him, but she's a dear little brick and won't tell. She says she's a Maybright, and they don't tell lies. Three cheers for the Maybrights, if they are all like Fly, say I! Well, the little love won't tell, and Mrs. Cameron is fit to dance, and what does she do but gets leave from Dr. Strong to see your father, and she's going to drag Fly before him at three o'clock to-day, and make a fine story of what happened. She holds it over Fly that your father will be made very ill again. Very likely he will, if _we_ don't prevent it."

"It's horrible!" said Polly; "but _how_ can we prevent it, Flower?"

"Oh, easily enough. _You_ must guard your father's room. Let no one in under any pretense whatever until I have found David."

"What do you mean by finding David? What can David have to say to it?"

"Oh! has he not? Poor Fly! David has got her into his toils. David is at the bottom of all this, I am convinced. I guessed it the moment I saw him go up so boldly to Mrs. Cameron and pretend to be sorry about the dog. _He_ sorry about Scorpion! He hates him more than any of us."

"But then--I don't understand; if that is so, David told a deliberate lie, Flower."

Flower colored.

"We have not been brought up like the Maybrights," she said. "Oh, yes, _we_ could tell a lie; we were not brought up to be particular about good things, or to avoid bad things. We were brought up--well, just anyhow."

Polly stole up to Flower and kissed her.

"I am glad you have come to learn of my father," she said. "Now do tell me what we are to do for poor, poor Fly. Do you think David is guilty, and that he has got Fly to promise not to tell?"

"Yes, that is what I think. David must be found, and got to confess, and so release Fly of her promise before three o'clock. David is a dreadful boy to find when he takes it into his head to hide on purpose; but I must look for him, and in the meantime will you guard your father, Polly?"

"As a dragon," said Polly. "You may trust me about that at least. I will go to his room at once to make all things safe, for there is really no trusting Aunt Maria when she has a scheme of vengeance with regard to _that dog_ in her head. Good-by, Flower; I'm off to father."

Polly turned away, and Flower ran quickly downstairs. She knew she had not a moment to lose, for David, as she expressed it, was a very difficult boy to find when he took it into his head to hide himself.

Flower had not been on the moor since that dreadful day when she had taken the baby away. So much had happened since then, so many dreadful things had come to pa.s.s, that she shuddered at the bare thought of the great and desolate moorland. Nevertheless she guessed that David would hide there, and without a moment's hesitation turned her steps in the direction of Peg-Top Moor. She had walked for nearly half an hour, and had reached rather a broad extent of table-land, when she saw--their little figures plainly visible against the sky--two children, nearly a quarter of a mile away, eagerly talking together. There was not the least doubt as to their ident.i.ty; the children--a boy and a girl--were David and Fly. Fly was holding David's arm, and gesticulating and talking eagerly; David's head was turned away. Flower quickened her steps almost into a run. If only she could reach the two before they parted; above all things, if she could reach them before David saw her!

Alas and alas! she was too late for this. David suddenly pushed his little companion a couple of feet away from him, and to all appearance vanished into the solid ground.

Fly, crying bitterly, began to run to meet Flower. Flower held out her arms as the little girl approached.

"What is it, Firefly? Tell me, has David confessed?"

"Oh, what do you know about it, Flower? Oh, what am I to do, what am I to do?"

"You are to go quietly home," said Flower, speaking in a voice of authority. "You are to go quietly home, and leave this matter in my hands. I know all about it, and just what David has done. He has bound you by a sort of oath, you poor little thing--you dear, brave little thing! Never mind, Fly; you leave David to me. I expect I shall find him now--that is, if you don't keep me too long talking. Go home, and leave matters to me."

"But Flower--Flower, you do comfort me a little; but Flower, it will soon be three o'clock, and then--and then--oh, dear father! Oh, it is so dreadful!"

"No, you silly mite; it is not dreadful at all. Polly is in charge of the Doctor. She is sitting with him now, and the door is locked, and the key is in Polly's pocket, and she has promised me not to open that door to any one--no, Fly, not to a hundred of your Aunt Marias--until I bring David home."

Fly's face underwent a transformation. Her big eyes looked full up into Flower's. A smile flitted across her quivering lips. With a sudden, pa.s.sionate gesture, she stooped down and kissed Flower's fingers, then ran obediently back in the direction of Sleepy Hollow.

"She is a perfect little darling!" said Flower to herself. "If Master David does not rue it for making her suffer, my name is not Flower Dalrymple."

She ran on swiftly. She was always very quick and light in her movements. Soon she came to the place where David had to all appearance disappeared. She did not stay there long. She ran on to where the bracken grew thick and long, then suddenly lay flat down on the ground, and pressed her ear close to Mother Earth. What she heard did not satisfy her. She rose again, repeating the same process several times.

Suddenly her eyes brightened; she raised her head, and listened attentively, then she whistled a long peculiar note. There was no answer, but Flower's face retained its watchful, intent expression. She laid her head down once more close to the ground, and began to speak, "David, David, I know you are there; there is no use in your hiding.

Come here, I want you, I, Flower. I will give you two minutes, David; if you don't come then I'll keep the threat I made when you made me angry with you at Ballarat."

A perfect silence followed Flower's words. She still lay flat on the ground. One of the minutes flew by.

"I'll keep my word, David!" she said again. "You know me; you know what my threat means. Three-quarters of a minute more, half a minute, then I'll go home, and I'll do what I said I would do when you made me angry at Ballarat."

Again there was silence, but this time quickly broken; a boy's black head appeared above the bracken, a little brown hand was held out, and David, without troubling himself to move a hair's breadth, looked full into his sister's face.

"I don't want to lose you, Flower!" he said. "You are the only person in all the world I care two-pence about. Now what's the row?"

"You're a cowardly boy, David, and I'm ashamed of you; come with me this minute."

CHAPTER XVIII.

OH, FIE! POLLY.

While these events were taking place, and the children in their various ways were preparing checkmate for Aunt Maria Cameron, that good lady was having a by no means unexciting experience of her own. After her housekeeping cares were over, after she had interviewed Mrs. Power, and made Alice thoroughly uncomfortable; after, in short, meaning it all the while for the best, she had succeeded in jarring the whole household machinery to the utmost, it was her custom morning after morning to retire with Scorpion into the seldom used drawing-room, and there, seated comfortably in an old-fashioned arm-chair, with her feet well supported on a large cushion, and the dog on her lap, to devote herself to worsted work. Not crewel work, not church embroidery, not anything which would admit of the use of modern art colors, but genuine, old-fashioned worsted work. Mrs. Cameron delighted in the flaring scarlets, pinks, greens, blues, and mauves of thirty years ago. She admired with all her soul the hard, staring flowers which these colors produced. They looked, she said, substantial and durable. They _looked_ like artificial flowers; n.o.body could mistake them for the real article, which was occasionally known to be the case with that flimsy, in her opinion, ugly, art embroidery. No, no, Mrs. Cameron would not be smitten by the art craze. "Let nature _be_ nature!" she would say, "and worsted work be worsted work, and don't let us try to clash the poor things into one, as that wretched art-school is always endeavoring to do." So each morning Mrs. Cameron plied her worsted needle, and Scorpion slumbered peacefully on her knee. She liked to sit with her back to the light, so that it should fall comfortably on her work, and her own eyes be protected from an extensive and very beautiful view of the south moor.

Mrs. Cameron hated the moor; it gave her, as she expressed it, "the creeps," and on all occasions she avoided looking at it. On this morning, as usual, she took out her large roll of worsted work, and prepared to ground a huge, impossible arum lily. Her thoughts, however, were not, as usual, with her work. Her cheeks were flushed, and her whole face expressed annoyance and anxiety.

"How I miss even his dear little playful bite!" she said aloud, a big tear falling on her empty lap. "Ah, my Scorpion! why did I love you, but to lose you? How true are the poet's words:

'I never loved a dear gazelle.'

Well, I must say it, I seldom came across more wicked, heartless children than the Maybrights and Daisy Rymple. David is really the only one of the bunch worth rearing. Ah, my poor sister! your removal has doubtless spared you many sorrows, for what could you expect of the future of such a family as yours? Now, what is that? This moor is enough to keep anybody's nerves in a state of tension. What _is_ that awful sound approaching the house?"

The noise in question was the unmistakable one of a woman's loud sobbing. It came nearer and nearer, gaining in fullness and volume as it approached the house.

Mrs. Cameron was always intensely curious. She threw open the drawing-room window; and as the sufferer approached, effectually stopped her progress with her own stout person.

"Now, my dear, good creature, what is this most unpleasant sound? Don't you know that it is frightfully bad-mannered to cry in that loud, unrestrained fashion? Pray restrain yourself. You are quite childish.

You cannot know what real affliction means. Now, if you had lost a--a---- If, my poor woman, you had lost a dear little dog!"

"Is it a dog?" gasped Mrs. Ricketts, for it was she. "Is it a dog? Oh, my word! Much you know about 'flictions and such-like! Let me go to the house, ma'am. It isn't to you as I has come to tell my tale."