Kitty Trenire Part 23

It was unkind, perhaps, of her to laugh. Dan thought it was "beastly mean," but then he was not in a frame of mind to see the humour of the situation, for up the whole of that long steep hill he had marched at Mokus's head, tugging with all his might at the bridle with one hand, while the other held a huge carrot just beyond the obstinate creature's reach. Dan was not only hot and tired and out of patience, but he was extremely mortified.

"Where is Betty?" called Kitty, trying to check her laughter.

Betty, hearing her name, came round from the back of the cart; she was almost purple in the face, and looked quite exhausted.

"I've been pus.h.i.+ng," she gasped. "I believe it would have been easier to have been harnessed in the shafts."

"You poor little thing," cried Kitty. "You must rest now and I'll take a turn, and you shall both have our turn in the cart after lunch, and we will walk. We aren't a bit tired."

"Thank you," they said, with stern decision in their voices, "we would rather walk; it is so much easier."

Kitty felt quite sorry for them. "Anna and Tony are only a little way ahead," she said encouragingly. "We've got such a jolly place to have our lunch in, and we will have a nice rest there. Give the poor thing the carrot now, Dan."

"Give him the carrot!" cried Dan indignantly. "I should like to see myself! After his behaviour, he'll never even have a sniff of it again, if I can help it," and Dan sent the carrot flying over the hedge to show that he meant what he said.

A good lunch, though, restored both his strength and his temper, and after it was over they all managed to pack into the cart for the rest of the short distance they had to go. Anna took the reins this time, and whether it was that Mokus felt the firmness of her grip, or guessed that rest and freedom for a few hours lay awaiting him at the end of another mile, no one knew, but he started off down the next hill at quite a quick trot, which he never once slackened until he was drawn up beside the low stone hedge which in some long-past age had been erected around the foot of the tors. Dan declared it was the weight of himself and Betty on the tail-board which made him go, and having once been started he could not stop if he wanted to. In any case Mokus was forgiven, and it was with very kindly hands and many a pat that they unharnessed him from the cart and tethered him by a long rope to the stump of a stunted hawthorn bush, close to the remains of a little hut, which, with the old wall, had often caused the children much speculation as to when and why it was built there, and by whom.

Then, each carrying a basket, they started to climb to the top to find first of all a cosy, sheltered spot for a dining-room. On the tors the sun was s.h.i.+ning and the wild thyme smelling as sweetly as though it were April rather than January.

"Oh, look at the robins!" cried Tony delightedly. They were pausing in their climb, and the little bright-eyed, warm-breasted creatures were hopping about them quite boldly. "Kitty, do let me give them some crumbs, they are such darlings, and I think they are quite glad to see us. They aren't a bit afraid."

"'To see a robin in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage,'"

quoted Kitty dreamily.

Anna looked quite shocked. "O Kitty," she said, "how can you? You are quite profane."

Kitty laughed. "Am I?" she said. "What a dreadful word to use!

I didn't mean to be. I didn't make up those lines, you know. Oh, don't you think," she went on eagerly, "it would be a nice game to try how many different verses about robins we can remember?"

"Do you mean nursery verses and all?" asked Dan. Kitty nodded; her brain was already busy.

"I think it will be lovely," said Betty. "I know quite a lot."

"Go ahead then," urged Dan, "and remember to give author and book."

"Nursery verses and nursery rhymes haven't got any author," said Betty with a very superior air.

Dan was on the alert at once; he loved to torment Betty.

"No author! Oh! oh! what an appalling display of childish ignorance,"

he cried in pretended horror, "and after all the trouble I have taken with you too. My dear child, don't you know that some one must have composed them or they wouldn't be--but there, I suppose little children can't be expected to understand these things."

"But I do," cried Betty indignantly. "You don't know all I know.

I know a great deal more than you think, though you may not think so."

"Dear me! Do you really now?" said Dan, pretending to be enormously impressed. "What a genius we may have in the family without our ever suspecting it. Tell us who wrote:

"'And when they were dead, The robins so red Took strawberry leaves and over them spread,'"

"What would be the good?" said Betty, with a sigh as if of hopeless despair. "You wouldn't reckernize the name if I told you."

"No, I don't expect I should," laughed Dan derisively. "Not the way you would p.r.o.nounce it, at least."

"Stop teasing her, Dan," cried Kitty. "We all of us have to think.

Let us take it in turns. Now then, you begin."

For a moment Dan looked somewhat taken aback, then memory came suddenly to him.

"'Who killed c.o.c.k Robin?

"I," said the Spar--'"

"That is not right," said Betty; "you are not beginning at the beginning; you are missing out half."

"Of course, as if I didn't know that," retorted Dan, but he looked rather foolish; "but we are only here for the day, after all, and I am not going to spend it all in saying nursery rhymes. If we were going to stay a week it would be different."

"That's all very well, but _I_ believe you don't know it," said Betty softly but decisively.

Whereupon Dan in great wrath burst forth,--

"'It was on a merry time When Jenny Wren was young,'" etc., etc.

When he had chanted three verses, they begged him to stop. When he had reached the twelfth they all went on their knees to him and implored him to stop; but no, on he went, and on and on to the very last line.

"Next time," he said, turning to Betty when he had reached the end, "I hope you will believe me."

"If I don't I won't say so," remarked Betty softly, with a sigh of relief; "but of course I can't make myself believe you if I don't."

"Oh, can't you?" said Dan. "You try once and see. Now then, Anna, your turn."

"I don't know anything about robins," said Anna. "Mother thought nursery rhymes were foolish. So do I."

"Oh no, you don't really," cried four voices in tones of mingled amazement and disgust.

"Yes, I do. Why not?"

"What a pity," said Kitty softly. "I think they are beautiful. I am glad my mother thought so too, But it need not be a nursery rhyme, Anna.

Don't you know,

"'Little bird with bosom red, Welcome to my humble shed,'

"or any other?"

"Ye--es," said Anna doubtfully. "I had to learn that once at school, but, somehow, I didn't think that it was about a robin."

"What did you think it was about?" asked Kitty.

"Oh, I don't know. I thought it was just poetry. I never think poetry has any meaning in it. It seems to me such silly stuff, all about nothing."