Read Ebook: Young Peggy McQueen by Gordon Stables

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 915 lines and 38894 words, and 19 pages

But little Peggy looked quite the sylvan queen now, standing there erect on the heath, her hand still on Ralph's collar, her tippet of fern-green slightly disarranged, the heightened tints upon her cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, with sun-rays playing hide-and-seek amidst the wealth of her wavy auburn hair. She seemed for a moment to fancy herself on the stage acting in the play. One long brown arm was outstretched towards the bush into which the other Frenchman had fled.

"Go at once," she cried, in the voice of a tragedienne. "Go! The forest around us holds no meaner reptile than thou. Go, and thank Heaven that my faithful hound has not torn you limb from limb."

She turned as she spoke, and walked slowly back towards the forest, while the Frenchman slunk away to join his more fortunate companion.

Just as she was, without pausing to divest herself of a single green fern, but joyful now, and with the beautiful hound bounding on by her side, only stopping now and then to awaken the echoes of the forest with the melody of his baying, Peggy ran homewards through the dark wood, never even pausing to breathe until she reached the camp and stood for a moment to look at the sea.

That dear old sea, how she loved it! The Wandering Minstrels, with their tents and their vans, were in the habit of hugging the shores of Merrie England, only sometimes making a detour of a day or two into the interior to visit some country town, but Peggy McQueen was always happy when the sight of the ocean greeted her again on the horizon, with its ships, its boats, and maybe, away in the offing, a steamer, the gray smoke trailing snake-like far astern of it. And there were times when the sea appeared quite unexpectedly, perhaps while they were jogging quietly across some bare but beautiful heath, with no houses in sight, no life near them except the wild birds, the soaring lark or lonesome yerlin twittering on a bush of golden furze. On such occasions Peggy would clap her tiny hands, and say to whoever might happen to be near her--

"Oh, look, look! The sea, the darling sea!"

And there it would be, sure enough, though only a V-shaped patch of blue between two distant hills.

There was always music to Peggy in either the sight or the sound of the ocean, but when it was far away like this, and she could not hear its voice, nor the solemn sound of its waves breaking on rocks or sand, she always brought out her mandoline, and played to it, singing low the while in childish, yet soft, sweet treble. There really was poetry and romance too in the girl's soul.

She did not stand long, however, on this bright May morn to look at her sea. She was still in a state of great agitation; besides, it was already six o'clock, and Giant Gourmand had opened his tent, and was standing wonderingly looking at her and Ralph as they approached.

Peggy ran quickly past him, hardly condescending to listen to his astonished exclamation of "Hoity toity, little wench!"

The giant was generally "awfully nice and good," but on some occasions--and this was one of them--absurdly stupid, and she felt she would have liked to box his very large ears, just then, only she had no time.

She hurriedly dressed herself, and soon came down the steps, smiling, for anger had no abiding-place in Peggy's breast. She sat down on a huge tree-top and beckoned to her audience to step forward. Gourmand threw his great bulk at her feet, and the white-faced, sad-eyed boy, Willie Randolph the dwarf, lay down on the giant's chest, and crossed his legs like a tiny mite of a tailor.

The bloodhound also lay down, with his beautiful head upon his paws, his eyes turned up towards his mistress's face, love in them, that deep, undying love that only dogs are capable of.

"Now, all be quiet," said Peggy. "I have had such a fearful adventure, and I want to tell you all about it. Ralph there knows all about it already, but you don't, Willie, nor you either, Gourmie, and Johnnie and Daddy aren't up yet. Well, listen. This is May morning, you know, and I went away to the woods to wash my face in the dew, so that I shall be beautiful all the year through."

"O hark at the child!" cried the gruff-voiced Giant Gourmand. "Just as if there were any need for her being more lovely than she is at present."

But Peggy stamped her little foot as she bade him be silent, but the glad look in her eye, and her heightened colour showed that young though she was, the maiden could appreciate a compliment as much as e'en a lady of the court of a king.

"Silence, small sir, or I shall hie me at once to my caravan, and you will sigh in vain for the story of my strange adventure in the dewy woods."

"And yet, Miss Peggy," the giant insisted, "hardly can I blame my little friend if he waxes both eloquent and enthusiastic in your praise on this lovely May morn."

"Like Poppies red in the corn's green is Peggy," sighed the dwarf.

"Like moonlight on the ocean wave"--from the giant.

"Like music trembling o'er the sea."

"Or elves that laugh among the ferns."

"Like Naiads sporting in the fountain's spray."

"Or cloudlets sailing in the blue."

"Really, gentlemen, I must curtail the exuberance of your poetic fancies, for poor Ralph and I are getting plaguey hungry."

"Go on, sweet maid. We listen to thy voice as to a houri from paradise. Pray proceed."

"You deserve not, sirs, to hear me speak. But--I was in the woods, and had culled a few fresh wild flowers to--to--well to make a garland for faithful doggie here. I paused for a moment at the forest's edge to gaze upon the sighing sea, when two villains sprang from their lair and bound me in their iron embrace. Had I been anything save a poor gipsy girl, I should have fainted dead away, and been carried prisoner to some loathsome den, soon to be shipped to distant France. They offered me riches untold if I would but go willingly and join the stage somewhere abroad. My dancing they said would bring down the house, and all the world would lie at my feet.

"But I would not hear of their gold, and jewels, and their gallants gay.--What should I want with gallants gay?"

"While you have me, love," interrupted the dwarf.

"And me," sighed Gourmand.

"Had not honest Ralph rushed to my assistance, I should not now be here. But see, my hand is cut, and my wrist is blue and swollen!

"And that is all my little adventure," she added.

There was silence for long wondering seconds after the child had finished. It was broken at last by Willie. He shook a hard, bony fist, which really did not appear to be much bigger than a mole's white hand.

It may never be known what Willie would have done, for the giant interrupted his speech in a way that was more comical than polite.

He laughed with a gruff "No, no, no!" and a deep-toned "Ha, ha, ha!" that stirred the leaves in the bushes near them, and, as he laughed, he hoisted Willie right up, and on to the sole of one of his monstrous boots, then extended the leg in the air till the dwarf looked a mere midget.

"There you are! Now we can see you. He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho,! Now we can see you, Willie. Stand there and talk down to us what you would have done."

Nothing could have put wee Willie out of countenance. He smiled down upon Peggy, and his smile was an ineffably sweet one, for dwarf though he might be, his face and form were perfect.

"Peggy, love," he said, "hand me up your maidenly little mandoline, and I'll sing you a song before I come down from my perch."

Peggy ran laughing away, and soon returned with the instrument, and, still standing there on the sole of the giant's boot, he went through his performance without moving a muscle, and as coolly as if he had been on the platform before an audience of gaping rustics.

Then, laughing merrily, he sprang through the air and alighted on the giant's great head. But Gourmand's head was a hard one, and wasn't hurt one little bit.

Sweet, soft, melodious music was now heard coming from behind the alder clump. A sad and plaintive air from Gounod's "Faust."

"Oh," cried Peggy, "that's Father's flute; he wants to play us in to breakfast."

Ah, breakfast is a magic word to denizens of the woods and wilds; and now the giant, and the dwarf, and Ralph and Peggy, all made a somewhat unromantic rush for the tent, and were soon seated, laughing and talking, at the breakfast-table.

A Forest Play.

The tent was really as roomy as a small marquee, though bell-shaped. It was part and parcel of the theatrical properties of these Wandering Minstrels, and came in very handy in many ways during the performance of "The Forest Maiden," and other short plays, all of which were composed by Reginald Fitzroy, or "Father," as the proprietor of this show was called.

One of the duties of Giant Gourmand was to pitch the tent, for the fact is that no one else could have raised it. The canvas once hoisted, old Molly Muldoon went inside to stand by the pole and balance it until Gourmie went forth and fixed the outer and inner rows of pegs artistically.

The giant slept in the tent at night, all the year round. Indeed, he preferred to do so, for this reason--he snored louder than a big basketful of bull-frogs. He knew that he did so. He snored so loud at times that he awoke himself, and the marvel is that he didn't swallow the pole. Snoring isn't a poetic accomplishment, and nobody need snore if the mouth is kept shut. But then giants are--well, giants are giants, you know, and have a great many queer ways that smaller people like you and me haven't got.

Gourmand had all one side of the table to himself, and when there was a joint of meat it was his duty to carve it; and, really, with the great knife and fork in his huge fists he put one in mind of the story of "Jack and the Bean-stalk," the tent pole being the stalk. He sometimes looked fierce enough to frighten a motor car. "Never mind," Peggy could have told you, "Gourmie is the kindest big lump of a giant ever anybody knew." He was nearly always smiling. His smile was an expansive one. In fun Willie the dwarf used to jump on Gourmie's knee sometimes with a tape to measure it. When tired of Willie's antics the giant would lift him off his knee, as one lifts a troublesome kitten, and place him gently on the ground. But, big as he was, this giant would have stepped aside rather than crush the life out of a beetle.

Fitzroy himself was a strange kind of being, about fifty years old, smart and good-looking, with a face that was easy to make up for any character, old or young, male or female. He came of a very good family, and might have graced either the Church or the Bar, but for his love of music and wandering. Anybody was Reginald's friend if he could play some instrument well. Reginald Fitzroy's fad was flute-making. He was always fashioning a new flute, and, having a persuasive tongue, he generally managed to sell these well.

But come, breakfast is waiting, and old Molly has placed a splendid meal before the company to-day. That bacon is done to a turn, the bread and the butter are unexceptionable, the eggs new-laid, the coffee ever so fragrant, and, in addition to all this which the little people may partake of, Gourmand has a goose's egg, and the half of a cold roast hedgehog to finish off with.

Peggy, after breakfast, had to tell all the story of her adventure in the forest to Father and Johnnie. Reginald Fitzroy himself would not have listened to the best story in creation until he had first satisfied the cravings of nature and worked in a good meal. And Johnnie Fitzroy took after the old man. Besides, the boy--a very handsome lad of fourteen, but tall for his years--had been far away among the rocks that morning fishing, with nothing worth mentioning on him, except a pair of brown bare legs and a sou'wester hat, from which the fair front locks of his irrepressible hair hung down and wouldn't be controlled.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet