In the Mist of the Mountains Part 31

"Oh, no," said Hugh innocently, "there are only five of them."

"Five separate wires,--Hugh Kinross, you want a keeper!"

"Well," said Hugh, "I _was_ only going to send one to Miss Bibby, but then it struck me how pleased a kid would be to get a telegram. I know I never did or I'd have burst with pride in my promising youth."

"Twelve wires at--at? How many words, sir?"

"Well," said Hugh, "they wouldn't have cost so much only I took a fancy to drop into poetry with them. And in spite of precedents the operator declined to do it as a friend."

"Just a minute," said Kate, "half of those wires are doomed to be wasted. Your executive ability is a thing to marvel at, I grant you, but you overlooked the little fact that Lomax-_c.u.m_-Whooping-Cough may not foregather round a tablecloth with Gowan-_plus_-Perfect-Health."

Hugh certainly looked nonplussed at this.

"It would be a moral impossibility for one of the parties unaided by the other to eat all this," pursued Kate.

"My good woman," said Hugh, "go and put the perishables in the ice-chest. My master mind will soon deal with the difficulty."

So Kate moved backwards and forwards between the kitchen and the verandah and Hugh tilted his chair and took out a cigar to help meet the situation.

"Well?" said Kate when only a heap of fine ash remained.

"Quite well," said Hugh. "Both parties shall attend and not the ghost of a whoop shall be exchanged. I ordered two large sociables,--the drivers will have instructions not to approach nearer than thirty feet within each other. A whoop microbe would hardly travel thirty feet."

"Well," said Kate, "as far as that is concerned I don't see that Edith need have any anxiety. She might pa.s.s a wagonette with scarlet fever convalescents herself any day. But what about the actual picnic? m.u.f.fie defines this word as eating nice things down a gully. Could we comfortably pa.s.s sandwiches to each other there at a distance of thirty feet?"

"Knowing what a fidget Edith is I propose to make the distance several hundred feet," said Hugh. "See here, it is plain I've got to have two picnics now to-morrow. At the head of the Falls I disembark my first contingent,--say the 'Greenways' one. I give them instructions to go straight down to the bottom of the second Fall,--they are all good climbers. When they've got a good start,--say twenty minutes, I call up the second contingent, the little pets and Edith's youngsters and start them down. You will go with these as chaperone and camp at the foot of the first Fall. We must explain to Miss Bibby that your wing extends over both Falls and that she as well as the little pets are brooded beneath it. I've already bespoken two caddies from the links to carry the hampers, and they will have plenty of exercise going up and down the steps. As host I shall endeavour to divide myself equally between my two divisions of guests. And probably the exercise between the two tables will rid me of any superfluous flesh I may have about me."

"Well," laughed Kate, "it is one way out of the difficulty. I certainly should not have thought of anything myself but of postponing one party until another day."

"No," said Hugh complacently, "it takes the strategy of a general or a genius to fix up little things like this."

Four breathless figures came das.h.i.+ng over the road and through the "Tenby" gate round to the side verandah.

"Oh, oh," said Lynn imploringly, "you have finished your tea, haven't you? Miss Bibby wouldn't let us 'sturb you before."

"We counted up to a thousand to give you time," said Pauline, "and _we_ could eat enough tea in a hundred and fifty--unless there were drop cakes."

"We've got to go to bed in ten minutes," said m.u.f.fie tragically.

"We're coming," shouted Max, and he flourished the rhymed blue telegram that he had carried about all day.

"Did you get our answers?" cried Lynn.

"We paid for them ourselves," said Pauline. "Miss Bibby just wanted to send one answer and say 'All accept with pleasure'! But we just _wouldn't_, and we all went to the post and we told the woman just what to put, and it would have been a lot better only we didn't have much time to think, only while we walked up the hill, and Lynn did the most, 'cause she can always think of the rhymingest words, and we'd have made them much longer only we could only afford ninepence each, and we had to lend Max threepence, 'cause he'd only got sixpence left."

She stopped for sheer lack of breath.

"Ninepence each!" cried Kate, "and you once thought of writing some articles on teaching Thrift to young Australia, Hugh!"

"But that was before I was really acquainted with young Australia," said Hugh.

"Did you like them?" asked Lynn anxiously, "I was 'fraid you wouldn't like grin, but nothing else would rhyme."

"Like them!" said Hugh, "I shall keep them in my desk among my Correspondence from Celebrated Persons. As a special and particular favour I will allow Kate to see them," and he drew out the budget of telegraph forms.

"Your friend Pauline Will be glad to be seen,"

was the uniquely _apropos_ answer to his invitation to the eldest daughter of the Judge.

"Max will come quick To your nice picnic"

was effort number two. There had been a variant reading of this--

"Max a plate will lick At your nice picnic,"

and the matter had been fought out before entering the post office, Lynn liking the first and Pauline and Max himself inclining to the second.

But Miss Bibby being made umpire declared against the second as not very "nice." So Hugh knew only the fact that Max would come quick.

"Please take enough To the picnic. From m.u.f.f"

would a.s.suredly not have been allowed by Miss Bibby one little month since, to be sent as an acceptance to the invitation of a person nearly eight times her own age. The fact that it was handed across the counter--and with a smile, too--was a sign that the foundations of a liberal education may be successfully laid even at thirty-six.

"Your loving friend Lynn With much joy doth grin,"

in no way satisfied Lynn's ideas either of composition or beauty, but she had been so occupied helping with the couplets of the others that she was forced to compose hers standing on the door step of the post office. The word "grin" vexed her; yet "thin" would not allow itself to be worked in and no other "ryum" that would make sense would suggest itself, so she quite mournfully sent on the information that with joy she did grin.

Pauline pounced on the formal telegram from Miss Bibby--"Will bring my charges. Many thanks for thinking of them."

"We did a _much_ better one for her," she said, "only she wouldn't send it. I liked it best of all."

"What was it?" asked Hugh, and learnt that the "rejected address" was--

"Won't it be nibby?

Yours truly, Miss Bibby."

But at this point Miss Bibby's slender figure in its pale grey muslin was seen crossing the road, so the presents were hastily distributed, and four pairs of young eyes tried to outrival in brightness the just peeping stars of the early evening.

Miss Bibby shook hands with Kate, then with Hugh, on whom she bent a curious glance: she had half expected to see him turn aside and dive through the doorway at the sight of herself, yet there he stood as calm and unashamed as possible.

He took her hand and held it in a pleasant grasp. He looked down at her in the half-fatherly, bantering fas.h.i.+on he adopted to the "ducky little girls."

"Well," he said, "and how is the poor little pen?"

Miss Bibby shot one keen glance at him.

He decided that she did not like the slighting reference to that pen and strove to rectify his mistake. "You know, however good an instrument it is, I don't like to see it in a woman's hand," he went on, "it's an edged weapon and cuts into even the hard hand that holds it; your little hand would bleed if you grasped it perpetually. I better like to think of it smoothing these little heads."

He looked--he knew not why himself--half sadly at the eager children.