Why still delay?"

Suddenly Darby sat up in bed in his excitement. A brilliant thought had struck him. Why had it not occurred to him sooner? The Happy Land!

that's where they would go. It was far, far away, certainly; but they should take some food with them, and ask the road from time to time.

Joan was soon weary of nursing Miss Carolina. She had slipped out of her crib and trotted over to the window, where she was occupying herself happily in catching and shutting up in an empty pill-box the flies that buzzed drowsily in the warm, bright sunshine.

She paused for an instant in the act of conveying with her nimble little fingers another captive to its dungeon, when she noticed Darby's flushed cheeks and shining eyes.

"What's the matter, dear?" inquired the tiny, white-robed maiden, in quite a motherly manner. "Has you got a pain, Darby? or was you dreamin'

about somefin' werry nice? You does look awful funny, I fink."

"I'm not sick, and I haven't been dreaming," answered her brother, in earnest a.s.surance. "But I've been thinking, and I've made up my mind.

We're not going to stay here any longer. I've 'cided where we'll go.

We'll go to the Happy Land--that place nurse is often singing about, where we shall always be good, and never be naughty, or sick, or punished, or put to bed any more. It'll never be dark or raining either, but always fine, and bright, bright as day!"

"How lovely!" cried Joan, clapping her hands in ecstasy, at the same time dropping the pill-box, from which the autumn flies crawled lazily, as if too indolent or too stupid to enjoy their newly-regained liberty.

"Just wouldn't it!" said Darby, with quivering lips and sparkling eyes, for he was terribly excited over his scheme. "And you'll come, Joan, won't you, lovey?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Joan, without the slightest hesitation, giving a decisive nod of her golden head that set all her curls bobbing up and down like daffodils in a March breeze--"yes, I'm comin' wif you, Darby dear. When's we goin'?" she inquired anxiously, as if in haste to be off.

Darby drew her into bed beside him, tucked up her cold pink toes in the blankets, and in earnest, subdued tones the two discussed the how and the when of their projected pilgrimage.

They could not set off that day, for they were prisoners. The next day was Sunday. They would be sure to be out; but then Sunday was not a suitable day on which to start on a lengthy journey. Monday would be a more fitting time, and Darby remembered with a thrill of thankfulness that early on Monday morning the aunts were going away to spend a couple of nights at Denescroft, as grannie's charming, China-rose-trimmed cottage was called. That would be their chance! Nurse would be almost entirely occupied with Eric, and they two should be left to do pretty much as they pleased. By the time their aunts returned on Wednesday evening the little travellers would be far away, or perhaps they should be safe within the boundaries of the Happy Land.

Before breakfast the following morning Darby repeated his appointed task, proofs and all, without so much as a single blunder. The children went with their aunts to church as usual. In the evening Auntie Alice remarked to her sister how very quiet the little ones had been all day.

Aunt Catharine also had noticed their subdued demeanour. She set it down to the chastening effect of penitence for their recent disobedience, and hoped that it might continue during the days of their absence at least.

"Good-bye, pets," said Auntie Alice to the children the next day, as they hung about the basket-carriage and Billy, waiting to take his mistresses to the station. "Cheer up, Darby," she whispered. "Be a good brother, and take care of Joan; and see and be happy until we come back."

"Yes, Auntie Alice, I'll take care of her, sure. And we're going to be very, very happy," he added, with a look of exultation in his eyes that haunted his aunt until she saw him again.--"Aren't we, Joan?"

"Yes, werry, werry happy!" murmured Joan out of a tousle of sunny hair.

"Good-bye, Auntie Alice. Kiss Joan again."

"There, that will do. Stand clear of the wheel, both of you," said Aunt Catharine, settling her ample figure comfortably into the little basket-chaise. "Don't dirty that nice clean pinafore, Joan; and Darby, see that you wash your hands properly before dinner."

The aunts departed, and by the time they had reached the first stage on their journey, two little travellers stepped bravely out at the front door, down the gravelled drive, through the wide gate, and there they halted to hold a hurried council as to which way they should go.

Up the hill in one direction sloped the broad white road that led past Copsley Wood. No Happy Land lay in its vicinity! By another route, along which Billy and the basket-carriage had vanished, was the station; but who ever heard of any one arriving at the Happy Land by rail! Some other way still they must seek to bring them to their destination.

From the gable end of Firgrove the fields slid gradually down until they were merged in a long, level stretch of meadow ground, through which was cut a deep, straight ca.n.a.l, whose waters reached like a shining silver belt across the emerald sward of the surrounding pasture-lands. Many a time Darby and Joan had sat on the garden wall watching the dingy barge-boat come and go. They had listened curiously to the voices of the man and boy on board chatting to each other, or shouting to the patient, plodding horse that towed along the clumsy craft, laden with this and that for the villages and hamlets that dotted the landscape thickly between Firdale and the far-off range of hills, which rose so proudly up to meet the sunset and the sky.

The October day was mild, and bright as days not always are, even in midsummer. Great gold-tinged clouds floated slowly across the high, wide dome of the azure sky. The hilltops were bathed in a warm, soft glow; the placid waters of the ca.n.a.l sparkled, dimpled, and smiled beneath the caress of the pa.s.sing breeze, until they broke into tiny ripples and wavelets against their sedge-grown banks.

Along that silvery waterway they shall go, the children decide. Up there, beyond the hills, they say, rise the walls of the Beautiful City. That radiance is a.s.suredly reflected from its streets of gold.

Those big, fleecy clouds certainly curtain the approach to the portals of pearl!

Just then, emerging from behind a screening clump of trees, the _Smiling Jane_, as the dingy old boat was called, slowly hove in sight. They would run fast and coax the man to take them on board when he stopped to get his vessel through the lock; or, better still, they would slip in unnoticed when he was otherwise engaged. Without a thought of wrong, with never a qualm of fear as to failure or consequences, hand in hand they raced along in the direction of the ca.n.a.l, casting not so much as a glance behind.

And thus it came about that Darby and Joan set out to seek the Happy Land.

CHAPTER V.

GONE AMISSING!

"The old house by the lindens Stood silent in the shade, And on the gravelled pathway The light and shadow played.

"I saw the nursery windows Wide open to the air; But the faces of the children, They were no longer there."

LONGFELLOW.

When dinner-time came without bringing the children in, nurse became very cross indeed. Baby had been somewhat troublesome all the forenoon.

Auntie Alice had lately got into the habit of taking him of a morning, walking him about in her arms, crooning sweet nothings over him in her soothing voice. He was old enough to miss her, and to-day was not satisfied at being put off with only nurse. He had, besides, a new tooth coming--a tiny pearly thing, peeping like a speck of ivory from a bed of coral. Very pretty to look at, certainly, but doubtless extremely painful; at least Master Baby felt it so, for he fretted and cried in a way which set poor Perry's nerves all on edge, and made her think that the responsibilities of her position were almost too heavy to be borne on one pair of shoulders.

Then Master Darby and Miss Joan--how tiresome they were! always up to some mischief or other, said nurse to herself, as she ran between the nursery window and the front door to watch if they were not coming before their dinner should be spoiled. And such a nice dinner as it was, too! Cook had arranged it as a surprise for them, because they were all by themselves, knowing how much they enjoyed roast fowl, stewed apples and cream. Now the fowl would be dried to a cinder, the potatoes moist and sodden, the apples cold as charity!

They must have again disobeyed orders and gone away to the farm, nurse concluded, when twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock pa.s.sed, and still no sign of the little ones. They would be well stuffed up there, she was sure, and quite safe; only it was really too bad of Master Darby to steal off that way without leave, and drag his little sister along with him. He should have nothing but dry bread for his tea, Perry decided. Then with a glance at the ba.s.sinet, where baby was soundly sleeping away some of his fretfulness, and a careful adjustment of the fire-guard on the nursery grate, nurse stole downstairs to get her own dinner, which, like the children's, would be none the better for waiting so long past the usual time.

Eric awoke from his sound, sweet sleep refreshed and hungry. Nurse fed him; then, as the air was mild and the sun warm, she put on his coat and cap and carried him into the garden to watch the p.u.s.s.ies at play.

The afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the sun slipped slowly to the west, baby grew weary of pulling at the p.u.s.s.ies' tails and turned peevish again, and still the others were absent. By this time nurse had grown downright angry with them for staying away so long. It was a shame of Mrs. Grey to keep them. Master Darby deserved a sound smacking, nurse said to herself; and only that she was not permitted to punish her charges in such a manner, a sound smacking Master Darby should have had--when nurse could catch him, that is to say. Now, however, she must go for them. Mrs. Grey would be thinking they were neglected in the absence of their aunts, and perhaps telling tales. So, after wrapping Eric up warmly in a big woolly shawl, she tucked him into his perambulator and set off up the glen road, past the wood and the turnip-field, to Copsley Farm, expecting at every turn to meet Darby and Joan rushing towards her on their homeward way. But no such interruption to her progress occurred.

When she reached the farm an unpleasant surprise awaited her. Neither Darby nor Joan had been there that day--not since the Friday, said Mrs.

Grey; and she was disappointed, because, having heard that the ladies were going from home without the children, she quite expected they would have lost no time in paying her a visit.

At that moment Mr. Grey came in from the barn, where he had been threshing corn all the afternoon. He was tired, heated, and hungry for his tea, and only laughed when his wife told him that the little folks from Firgrove had gone amissing.

"Well, an' what if they have?" he exclaimed, in his loud, hearty voice.

"That needn't scare you. Aren't they always gettin' into trouble o' some kind or another, the pair o' them? Why, sure it's only the other day there that I found them wandered in Copsley Wood, like two motherless lambs! They were lost, the little 'un told me, quite lost! An' there they were sittin', the two o' them, on the stump o' an old tree, wrapped in one another's arms, for all the world like the babes in the wood--an'

not more'n half a dozen yards from the highway!"

"An' that's where they are now, sure enough," said Mrs. Grey, in a tone of conviction. "They'll have gone back after them squirrels that led them such a dance on Friday! What do you think, Miss Perry?" she asked anxiously.

"I am certain of it too, now that you mention it," replied nurse, looking aghast at the thought. "Miss Joan was fair wild to get a squirrel; and Master Darby, he's that venturesome he would face anything. He doesn't know the meaning of fear for all he's so gentle and innocent-like. And Miss Joan follows him just like a dog. Dear, dear--to think of it!"

"You may well say that, for Copsley Wood's no place for them to be in by themselves," said Mrs. Grey, eyeing nurse with some disapproval in her glance.

"It's no place for decent people, let alone children," retorted Perry in her turn. "It was no further back than yesterday that the butcher's young man was telling me that a couple of gipsies or tramps have set up their tent there. He was pressing me to take a walk with him," she explained, hanging her head and playing with the fringe of baby's shawl; "and I said as how I'd never been in the wood. 'All the better,' says Jenkins, quite short, 'because that wood ain't no place for you, nor for any other nice young lady.' Oh, if they've gone and got kidnapped or murdered, what ever shall I do!" sobbed Perry, who was really a well-meaning woman, and good at heart in spite of a certain narrow-mindedness, not uncommon to her cla.s.s, which hindered her from seeing at any time much further than her own nose.

Mrs. Grey had listened to nurse's speech with ill-concealed scorn.

"Young lady indeed!" she said afterwards to Mr. Grey, giving a contemptuous sniff. "Her a lady--and young too! Why, she's eight-and-twenty if she's a day! And a lad like Jim Jenkins! Sakes alive! the conceit o' some folks is sickenin'!"

Then when Perry began to weep and lament, the older woman watched her curiously in order to make sure how little of her feeling was real, how much a.s.sumed. But such distress was undoubtedly genuine, Mrs. Grey decided, and her eyes held a kindlier expression as she said soothingly,--