CHAPTER I. On a Sweet May Morning.

PEGGY MCQUEEN was all alone on this beautiful morning in early spring. Only a child in years, for not a month over twelve was Peggy. She stood there, leaning on the half-door of her own little caravan, and gazing dreamily out and away across the sea, the sunshine on her shapely arms—bare to her well-rounded shoulders were they, for she was not yet quite dressed—sunshine on her rosy cheeks and lips, and sunshine trying to hide itself in the floating masses of her auburn hair.

Calm and lovely though the sea was to-day, with its blues and its opals and its patches of silver—silver borrowed from the sun—this little lass was not at this moment thinking of{8} the sea at all, much though she loved it at most times.

Peggy was wondering if she might venture.

“What do you think, Ralph?” she said, kneeling down to throw her arms round the neck of a great blood-hound who lay on a goat-skin on the floor, his long, silken ears trailing down at each side of his noble head like some fair lady’s tresses, his eyes turned up to his mistress’s face.

Ralph gave his strong tail an almost imperceptible waggle.

“I think,” he seemed to say, “it is folly to be out of bed for three hours yet. Better go back.”

Peggy glanced at a companionable little clock that ticked on her morsel of a dressing-table, beneath the dimity-bedecked looking-glass. The hands were pointing to half-past four. Very early, surely, for a little maiden to be out of bed!

But Peggy McQueen knew right well what she was about. This was the first day of May, and all around the camp the green grass was bespangled with dew. Is it not a fact, that if a young girl dips her face in the dews of this merry morning,{9} she will be sweet and beautiful all the glad year?

Nobody in his senses would think of denying this.

But Peggy wanted to have pretty arms and pretty feet and legs as well, and this was the reason she was astir so early. She put on her sandals now, and placed a very roguish and bewitching Tam o’ Shanter on the back of her head. It was a tartan-rimmed Tammy, with a crimson feather in it which had been dropped from the tail of her favourite parrot. Then she stepped lightly over Ralph, cautiously opened the back door a few inches, and peeped out.

Not a soul stirring in the camp: the large caravan stood not far off, but the blinds were still drawn. The white tent in which the giant slept was not yet opened. Under the caravan was a bundle of straw, and in a blanket-lined sack thereon was wee Willie Randolph, the dwarf, nothing out but his small white face and one arm, the latter placed affectionately round Dan, the lurcher dog. Dan was a person of some importance to the camp, for many a hare and rabbit, and many a fat hedgehog did he supply for the larder.{10}

Behind, and stretching away and away to the wooded hills on the horizon, was a forest of oak and beech and pine trees, with clumps of larch, now clad in the tender greens of spring, and o’erhung with crimson tassels. Making sure, first, that no one was astir, and that Willie was as sound asleep as everybody else, Peggy closed the door carefully behind her, and tripped lightly and gaily down the back steps. She wanted to sing to herself, but dared not just yet. She would do so, however, as soon as she got well into the shadow of the woods, because every bird therein was singing its matinée, and adding its quota to swell the sylvan music of this lovely May morning.

Now and then there would come a strange panic in the wild bird medley, presently to be broken by the melodious fluting of the blackbird or the joy notes of a nightingale, then at once and in all its strength the feathered choir commenced again. So bright was the sunshine, so dark the shadows under the trees, that Peggy could not see a single songster, nor even tell to a certainty the direction from which any particular bird-note rang out. The music was all about and around her, and she was fain now to lift{11} up her happy treble voice and join the chorus.

She went wandering on for a while, unheeding and unheeded. No one had seen the girl leave the camp except the ancient, warty-faced rook who came very early every morning to seek for his breakfast near the tent. He had not flown away when she appeared. He just said “Caw—caw—caw!” in a very hoarse voice, which meant “Good-morning, Peggy, and happy I am to see you!” A dormouse had peeped drowsily out from a hole among the grass when he heard her footsteps, but, seeing who it was, he had merely rubbed his nose and gone on eating his earth-worm.

But presently Peggy came to a green glade or clearing, quite surrounded by spruce trees, with, in the centre, a pool fed by the water of a tiny purling brook, with crimson wildflowers growing here and there on its banks. The water in the pool was not deep, and so clear was it that Peggy could easily see the sandy bottom, where strange, black, glittering beetles played at hide-and-seek, and where the caddis-worm rolled in its jacket of many-coloured gravel.

This was just the secluded glade that{12} Peggy had come to seek. She seated herself on the bank, and taking off her sandals, plunged her legs up to the knees into the cool water. Then she laved her face, her shoulders, and her arms. These were all of the same colour—a light Italian tan—but the rose-tints shimmered through this tan on her innocent and sweetly pretty face. Taking from her pocket a dainty little towel, she now carefully dried herself.

Then, laughing in her healthful glee, she skipped playfully over to a spot where the grass was long and tender and green, and threw herself boldly among it. The dewy blades brushed cheeks and neck, her arms and legs, and dimpled hands and knees.

She felt as fresh now as the clear-skinned, speckled trout in the streamlet, and as happy as the rose-linnet that sang on a golden furze bush near her. She must not wipe the dew off, though. Oh, no, that would have broken the spell and spoiled the charm. In the sun she stood, therefore, and danced and sang till dry.

Then a spirit of revelry came over her. It would still be a long time till six o’clock. She would have time to rehearse for her night’s performance—a dance and a song.{13} Happy thought! She would introduce an innovation. Back she ran now into the forest and commenced gathering an armful of the tenderest and prettiest fern-fronds and wild crimson silené flowers.

Peggy, like the thoughtful and handy little maid she was, never went anywhere without her ditty-bag. No girl who leads a wandering life should. It was hanging to her waist, and contained as many knick-knacks as you might find in an ordinary small work-box. Here were tape and a pair of scissors too, and these were about all she needed at present.

Standing in the glade close by the pool in which her shapely form was mirrored, she quickly and deftly adorned her hair with the wild-flowers; then she just as speedily made herself a tippet of fern-fronds, which she fastened around her shoulders, encircling her knees with fringes of the same. She glanced once more into the pool. She was satisfied, for she was really beautiful, and would remain so all the year round. Oh, the gladsome thought!

If I were merely romancing, I would say that the birds of the forest ceased to sing, and listened enraptured to the merry May{14} maiden’s song, and that they gazed entranced to witness her dance, waving her arms and pirouetting to her own sweet lilt.

But the birds did nothing of the sort. Birds are sometimes a trifle prosaic and selfish, and even the chaffinch will not cease its bickering lilt to listen to the nightingale.

While Peggy was dancing, she was, I fear, thinking of nothing else except the effect she expected to produce that evening on the minds of the rustic lads and lasses who would gather round to see the performance of “The Forest Maiden,” at the camp of the Wandering Minstrels.

The girl’s head was well thrown back as she sang and danced, else surely she would have noticed the stealthy approach of two figures that had emerged from the forest at its darkest side, and were now almost within five yards of her.

They were both of the medium height, and though dressed in the cow-gowns of English rustics, were undoubtedly foreigners. They were handsome men, but very dark, with shaven faces and an unmistakable look of the stage about them.

As soon as Peggy saw them, she screamed in terror, and attempted to fly, but it was too

“What wouldst thou with me?”

Page 45.

{15}

late. One of them had already seized her by the wrist, firmly, yet not cruelly.

“Nay, nay, my little fallow deer,” he said, in tones that were meant to be soothing, “nay, my beautiful ring-dove, you must not be alarmed. There! do not flutter so, pretty bird. We would but speak with you for one short minute. We have seen you dance and heard you sing many evenings when the pretty flower did not observe us. We are charmed with the flower’s performance, and have come to offer her an engagement. The Wandering Minstrels is not a good enough show for your talent. No, you must try to get away for one little minute. We offer you a big, big salary. We will take you to France, and place you before a large and admiring audience in a splendid concert-room. You will have dresses more beautiful than you can now even dream of, besides gold and jewels, and you will become a rich lady, before whom the gayest knights in fair France will bow. It is a splendid offer for one so young as you.”

“Do not fear us,” said the other man, advancing a step nearer to the frightened and shrinking girl. “We do not wish your answer now. Only promise, and we shall{16} meet you again, and only of your own free will must you come with us.”

He extended his arms beseechingly. But at this moment, with a sudden and painful effort, she wrenched herself free, and fled towards the forest, shrieking for help.

And help was at hand, and came in the very nick of time to save this child, the joy of whose May-day morning had been so suddenly changed to grief and terror.{17}

CHAPTER II. The Minstrels at Home.

THOUGH it wanted a good hour of the time at which Ralph, the splendid blood-hound, was in the habit of awaking, stretching himself, and yawning aloud by way of hinting to his little mistress that it was six o’clock, and that all good girls who live in the woods and wilds should be opening their eyes, the honest dog did not go to sleep again. He kept watching the door and wondering.

“Where could Peggy have gone at such an early hour?” he thought to himself.

Had she been intending to stay away a long while, she would have dressed herself and said, “Good-bye, Ralph, and be good till I come back.” She only just put on her Tammy, and went gliding out and away.

A whole half-hour passed, and then Ralph waxed very uneasy indeed.

He got up and stood for some time behind the door, sniffing and listening, his noble head a trifle on one side. There were no{18} signs of Peggy in that direction. Then he stood at one of the windows for fully five minutes, gazing sideways out at the sea. For his mistress had a little tent she could easily carry, and often went to the beach to bathe. But he could not see her now, and his anxiety increased. It would not have been becoming in so noble a specimen of the race canine to lie down and cry. Leave such conduct for tiny dogs, he thought.

Yet she was staying so long. What could be the matter? He walked up to Kammie’s cage with outstretched neck, as if to ask him the question. Kammie was a good specimen of that strange, weird-looking, and old-world lizard called the chameleon, who stalks flies and little grubs when you place him on the grass in the sunshine, or even in your bedroom; who crawls about with marvellous slowness and deliberation, just one leg at a time; who changes colour to match his surroundings; who has two large, circular eyelids, a bright bead of an eye in the very centre of each, and possesses the power of looking in two different directions at one and the same time.

But Kammie was still exactly in the same position in which he had gone to sleep at{19} sunset on the previous evening. No use expecting an answer from Kammie, so Ralph marched to the back door once again, and examined the fastenings. He even shook them, but all in vain.

With a deep dog-sigh he lay down now; but presently on his listening ear, from out the silent depths of the forest, fell a scream so pitiful and so agonising that Ralph started to his feet, all of a tremble with excitement.

Yes, yes; it was the voice of his dear little mistress! She must be in danger, and he not there to protect her!

Once again it rose and died away in terror, like the half-smothered shriek of one in a nightmare.

The dog hesitated no longer.

With a yelp which was half a bark, and which said plainly enough, “I am coming,” he dashed his fore-paws against a window. The glass was shivered into flinders, and Ralph sprang through, escaping with only a cut or two, which he minded no more than my brave young reader would mind the scratch of a pin or a thorn.

He ran hither and thither for a few seconds, uncertain.

But, see! the noble beast has found the{20} trail, and with nose to the earth, his long ears touching it, goes speedily onwards in the direction Peggy had taken. On and on, and he is soon swallowed up in the woodland depths. In less than five minutes he is out of the gloom and in the open glade. He meets Peggy, frightened and fleeing. He dashes past her—no time at present for even congratulations.

Now woe is me for the foremost of his mistress’s pursuers! Ralph bounds at him, straight for his chest. Down rolls the Frenchman as if struck by a war-rocket, and the blood-hound already has him by the throat. It is a gurgling scream the man emits—a half-stifled cry for help. Then all is over. No; the fellow is not killed, for brave little Peggy McQueen, knowing well what would happen, has retraced her steps, and seized Ralph by the collar. And this splendid hound lets Peggy haul him off, and the villain slowly and timorously struggles to his feet, his shirt-front stained with blood.

“Merci, merci,” he mutters, meaning “thanks, thanks.” “Merci, my little forest flower. I meant not to harm you. Non, ma petite!”

But little Peggy looked quite the sylvan{21} 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.

As he turned to look back at the retreating figure of poor Peggy, he shook his fist. “Sacré! maiden!” he muttered to himself, “you have now the best of it, but—Jules Furet’s time will come. Jules can afford to wait.”

Just as she was, without pausing to divest herself of a single green fern, but joyful now,{22} 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{23}—

“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{24} 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{25} were any need for her being more lovely than she is at present.”

“Yes,” piped the dwarf, “hark at her! And look at her at the same time, Gourmie! Look at the flowers in her hair! But what flower in all the forest could be more sweet than she? Fairer is Peggy than the anemone, that waves gently by the treefoot when spring zephyrs are blowing, or floats coyly on the broad bosoms of yonder pond. Prettier is Peggy than dog-rose on the hawthorn hedge asleep; more modest than mountain daisy—the wee, crimson-tipped flower that met the poet in that evil hour; more tender than the blossoms of the blue-eyed pimpernel, more——”

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.”