"How nice the horse looks! Will, I do feel we are all in luck. Such a fine day too. Do you think your top hat is necessary? Wouldn't you be more comfortable in your straw?"

"May be--but I don't think it would be the thing," said Dale. "We shall be sure to meet a lot of people we know."

"I only thought you'd get it so dusty. Is it your best or the old one?"

He did not answer, because just then Norah and Billy came rushing down the garden path.

It proved an altogether delightful excursion. There was so little in it really, and yet long years afterward Mavis sometimes thought of it as perhaps the happiest day of her life. They drove through Rodchurch, past the post office, the church, and other interesting sights; then along the broader road beneath big trees, to the railway station.

Billy sat between his parents, and did not behave too well, wriggling, contorting himself, threatening to jump out, and even grabbing for the reins.

"It's his excitement," said Norah.

"Yes, it's his excitement," said Mavis; and she and Norah talked rea.s.suringly, as if to each other, but really at Dale. "He'll be all right, Norah, when he has had his run about."

"Yes," sad Norah sagely, "children are like that. They must let off steam. As soon as they're tired they remember their manners and behave nicely."

At the Station Inn Dale put up the horse and trap, and the journey was pursued by rail.

The brightness and gaiety of Rodhaven charmed them all. They seemed to get out of the train into another climate, another world. Everything was new and strange--blazing sun with a wind that made you as cool as a cuc.u.mber; crowds and crowds of people, Salvation Army band, procession of volunteers; and the pier, the streamers, the sea--and the _sands_.

Rachel scarcely glanced at Ocean's face: the sands were enough for her. They got away from the crowd, and played on the sands. Dale was so jolly with the children, running about, sportively chasing them, hunting for sh.e.l.ls, popping the buds of seaweed; while Mavis sat on a dry bit of rock, looking large, red, overblown, and adored her family.

The little boy soon became, frankly, a nuisance, wanting his sister's sh.e.l.ls, refusing to catch daddy, wishing to paddle in his boots; and Dale, testy at last, very hot and perspiring said: "Ma lad, if you wear out my patience, you'll suffer for your conduct."

Then, almost at the same moment, Dale's top hat blew off; and a mad chase ensued. The hat, like a live thing with the devil in it, bounded and curvetted wildly, doubled away from Dale, dodged Rachel, and sprang right over Norah's head, threatening to make for the open sea. Mavis had scrambled up; and she stood on the rock, a tragic figure, with a finger to her lip, watching the hat chase distractedly.

Norah caught the hat in the end, and it was really not much the worse for its gambol.

Mavis' first words were, "Is it your best?"

"No," gasped Dale, very much out of breath; "my second-best."

"Thank goodness," said Mavis.

They made a fine solid meal at tea in a vast refreshment-hall on the sands; Mavis and Norah, with their hats on adjacent chairs and their hair untidy, helping the little ones to top and tail the first shrimps that they had ever encountered; Dale eating heaps of shrimps and drinking cup after cup of tea. The wind blew sand against the gla.s.s front of the hall--the smell of the sea mingled with the smell of the shrimps--and they were absolutely happy. But when all felt replete the boy began to cry, and soon howled. "I wis' I lived here always, yes, I do."

"O Billy, you like home best."

"No, I don't. I like this best. I hate home;" and he bellowed.

"He's getting tired," said Norah sagely.

"Yes," said Mavis. "That's all it is. He's getting tired."

He fell asleep directly they got into the lamplit train; and Norah carried him from the station, carried him all the time the horse was being put to and they were getting ready to leave. "He's too much for you," said Dale kindly. "Give him to me."

"Oh, no, sir."

And Dale whispered approvingly to Mavis, saying that he liked Norah's grit.

Then they drove home; Norah behind with the children, both of them sleeping now; and Dale and Mavis side by side in front, talking quietly as they pa.s.sed beneath the dark trees and out beneath the bright stars.

XXIII

Norah was a treasure to them, and she seemed always to be improving.

She had done with school now, but she evinced a commendable yearning for further cultivation, buying copy-books with her pocket-money, imitating Dale's clerkly hand; so that already at a pinch she was able to help in the office work. But proud as she felt when permitted to copy out accounts or circular letters, her pride did not spoil her for household labor. In fact she worked so stanchly at scrubbing, scouring, and so forth, as well as looking after the children, that for a long while Mavis did not detect how poor old Mrs. Goudie was failing, and leaving nearly all her duties to be performed by others.

Moreover, in spite of having issued from the untidy hovel of those rammucky Veales, she showed an innate love of cleanliness and order, a.s.siduously brushing her black hair and scrupulously washing her white skin.

Only very rarely she gave a little trouble, and then both Dale and his wife attributed this naughtiness to the Veale origin, finding the explanation of a certain wildness in that strain of gipsy blood which, as was popularly supposed, ran down her pedigree. She disgraced herself when the circus menagerie pa.s.sed the gates of Vine-Pits. She stood firm with the rest of them watching the great painted vans go by, and the droves of horses, and the tiny ponies; but when the elephants came she broke away. The size, the weirdness, the shuffling footsteps of these beasts made her beside herself. A lot of ragged children with great wicked-looking hobbledehoys from the Cross Roads, were trotting after the elephants; and Norah, joining this disreputable band, trotted also. She went all the way to Rodchurch, saw the immense tent set up on the Common, and probably crept inside to see the entertainment. She did not return for six hours, not till after dark.

Another thing that made Mavis anxious and angry was Norah's ineradicable love of the woods. She never deserted work, but, if allowed any time to herself, she would go stealing off into Hadleigh Wood to pick flowers or bring back birds' eggs for the children. She knew perfectly well that she was to keep to the road or the field tracks, but the sylvan depths seemed to call her and she could not resist the call.

Once when Norah had been troublesome in this respect, Mavis was so angry that she threatened her with corporal punishment.

"Look here, my la.s.s," said Mavis, unconsciously founding herself on the manner of her husband when administering rebuke, "if you can't obey what I tell you, I shall ask Mr. Dale to chastise you--yes, my la.s.s, to give you a lesson you won't forget in a hurry." Norah hung her head and pouted. Then she looked up and spoke firmly.

"He wouldn't do it. He's too kind."

"Oh, yes, he would. Don't you make a mistake about that."

"He _wouldn't_." Norah's eyes flashed; she stamped her foot, and turned on Mavis quite fiercely. "He's so good that he wouldn't hurt a fly, much less beat a girl. You've no right to say it--behind his back--what you know isn't true."

"Be off to your work this instant," said Mavis, stamping also, "or I'll whip you myself." And she pursued Norah to the kitchen. "You dare to sauce me like that again as long as you live!"

Before the evening was over, Norah, completely contrite, begged to be forgiven for her rudeness; and Mavis was only too ready both to forgive and to forget. She had felt quite shocked and upset by the girl's tantrums.

It was almost immediately after this that Norah said she wished to be a Baptist, and to go to chapel with Mr. Dale.

"Do you think," asked Dale, when informed of Norah's pet.i.tion, "that it is genuine? Or is it just curiosity?"

"I think it's genuine," said Mavis. "But no doubt she is influenced by the fact that _you_ go there. I do believe she'd wish to go anywhere--or do anything that you did."

Dale questioned Norah seriously.

"Why do you wish it? Speak to me with freedom, my dear."

"I do want to be good, sir." And Norah burst into tears. "Oh, I do want to be good."

"Then come with me," said Dale.

Henceforth they two went to worship together every Sunday, and Mavis once or twice felt a twinge of regret that she herself had not been able to abandon the established church and join the Baptists with her husband. But that she could not do. The chapel was too ugly, its eastward wall too bare, its faith too painfully simple and matter-of-fact.

She took great pains with Norah's Sunday costume, dressing her better than before, anxious that the girl should do them credit when seen with Dale in a public place; and Norah, all in her best, following after her master as he made his long strides down the road, trotted like a faithful little dog. She sat beside him in one of the front benches, breathing hard, and following the text with her finger, while Mr. Osborn read the Bible; and she blended her birdlike trills with Dale's strong ba.s.s when they both stood up to sing the hymns. Dale liked the note of her voice, took pleasure in observing her piety, and thoroughly enjoyed expounding any difficulties in the sermon while they walked home to dinner or to supper.

If Dale stood outside the chapel talking to elders of the flock, Norah modestly withdrew to a little distance; or if he met people on the road and stopped to chat, she went on ahead, waiting respectfully, and only returning to his side when he walked on again alone. He always kept his eye on her, and saw that she was not being accosted unpleasantly by any undesirable acquaintance.