doot it,' said Ninny dryly. 'Hoo wud you like if a muckle giant held you in the air like that?'
Peter twisted round to see his nurse's face as he said in an interested voice:
'Am I like a giant to Black Douglas? Ho, ho! Here comes Giant Cormoran. Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a--black puppy with floppy ears.'
Peter stopped with a gasp, for the small Quentin had suddenly thrown himself on his brother's prostrate form, and for a few minutes there was an inextricable tangle of boys and puppy, the Black Douglas at last emerging triumphantly on top.
Suddenly Alison, the girl, who had shown no slightest interest in the mêlée, left her berry-threading and started to run up the lawn. In a second Peter was after her, and, as he was seven and slim and Alison was five and solid, he was soon well ahead of her.
'It's Mummy,' Quentin remarked, but did nothing about the matter, being well content to remain with Ninny, who was his providence.
'Ay, it's yer mother,' she said, watching the scene with kindly eyes. 'Peter micht hae let Alison beat him, but he maun aye be first, that laddie.'
The girl whom the children ran to meet seemed absurdly young to be their mother, a wood-elf of a creature, rather small and brown, very light and graceful. Her eyes were like moss-agates at the bottom of a burn, and there were yellow lights in her brown curls. She had hardly changed at all since that day, more than nine years ago, when, as Jean Jardine, she had married Lord Bidborough, and she stood now, her hands raised to shade her eyes, smiling at the light-foot lad running so easily, and the fat little girl so earnest in her endeavour.
Peter flung himself at his mother's feet, laughing, while she held out her arms to her moist, crimson-faced little daughter who panted: 'Oh, Mummy, it was me saw you first.'
'But I reached you first,' said Peter.
'And so you should,' his mother told him; 'you're two years older and your legs are two years longer. Alison should always have a good start--that would make it fair.'
'All right,' Peter agreed. 'Come on, Alison, and I'll race you back.'
'It's much too hot for racing,' Lady Bidborough said, mopping her daughter's forehead.
Alison held up her face like a sunflower to the sun, saying gratefully, 'I do like your hankeys, Mummy. They smell like the leaves in the greenhouse that you pinch.'
'We're having tea in the Crow-Wood,' Peter announced. 'It was my turn to choose and I chose that because it's a place the Black Douglas can enjoy himself. Yesterday Alison chose the Dutch garden, and he sat on all the best flowers, and Mr. Webb was mad.'
'And he's eaten the claws off the tiger,' Alison said, making round eyes.
'The tiger?'
'She means the leopard, Mummy,' Peter explained. 'You know, in Daddy's own room--the one he shot in India or somewhere. They made him sick.'
His mother laughed. 'Puppies are like that: they want to taste everything,' and added: 'Here he comes,' as a black object was seen walloping towards them. 'Poor little fellow, he's all ears and flat feet.'
'He's beautiful,' Peter said, rushing to embrace his new possession, while Lady Bidborough, with Alison holding her hand, walked down the sloping lawn to where her youngest offspring played beside his nurse.
'And what's my baby thinking of things,' she said, sitting down with him on her knee.
'Mummy,' said Quentin, with a welcoming grin, but in a minute he had slid from her lap and made off after Peter and the puppy.
His mother looked after him rather wistfully.
'Ninny, he's quite a boy. I've no baby, now.'
'Weel,' said Ninny, with great good sense, looking critically at her seam as she spoke, 'ye surely wadna want him to bide a bairn. He's a steerin' callant, an' as gleg as a hawk; naething passes him. Speerity too, stands up to Peter. See that noo?'
Lady Bidborough laughed and sighed almost in one breath.
'It's quite true, Ninny. Of course it's mere silliness to regret the nursery days, but it's such a happy time and it's over so soon--How long have you been with us, Ninny? Seven years, isn't it?'
'Ay. I cam' when Peter was a month old. Me that kent naething about bairns, takin' charge o' the heir! I dinna ken hoo I daured!' Ninny laid down her work and looked at her mistress. 'Were ye no feared, Mem? . . . Of course your ain nurse stayed on till I kinna got into the way o' things--I was terrible handless at the stert.'
'Oh, no, Ninny, you weren't. The moment you took Peter into your arms you were just right--as I knew you would be when I saw you at Laverlaw and stole you from Mrs. Elliot.'
'Eh ay.' Ninny nodded reminiscently. 'I hed been there as laundry-maid for twae years when you cam' doon to the laundry ae day wi' Mistress Elliot. Ye crackit to me, I mind; askit aboot this an' that--sic a lassie ye lookit! I couldna believe it when they tell't me that ye were Lady Bidborough. . . . Then, a while after, the mistress sent for me to her ain room. I couldna think what she wantit wi' me; I thocht mebbe I was to get ma notice. An then she tell't me that her sister-in-law, Lady Bidborough, had got a little son, an' she wantit me to gang awa' to England an' be his nurse. Me! I near drappit on the floor, I got sic a fricht.'
'No wonder!' Lady Bidborough shook her head at her own temerity. 'It was rather calm when you come to think of it, to demand a valued laundress from one's sister-in-law, and expect her to leave all her friends, and the place where she had been brought up, and come away to England to take unfamiliar and very responsible work! But, you see, Ninny, my need was great. All the nurses I interviewed were so highly-trained, so certain that they knew everything there was to know about bringing up a baby, so condescending to me, I knew exactly what sort of nursery they would make, and it wasn't the kind I wanted. I had so often thought of you as I had seen you that day at Laverlaw, in your spotless print, ironing the clean clothes, your face so kind and contented, speaking such soft, beautiful Tweedside Scots, and I just longed to have you here to look after my baby. So I wrote to my sister-in-law and asked her to sound you and see if by any chance you would consider it, but Mrs. Elliot thought it better to wait until Peter had arrived, and then she asked you plump and plain. And you took your courage in both hands and came--and you've been everything I dreamed of and more. From the first you made the nursery the happiest, serenest place: I always felt welcome, never an intruder: you've given the children quiet nerves and good health, and you've been the greatest comfort always.'
'Weel--' Ninny seemed rather at a loss. She took up her work, smoothing it out as she said: 'I'm sure I'm gled ye're pleased. . . . Of course I ken fine I've nae manners. I ca' ye "Mem," for I canna get roond "your ladyship," an' I speak terrible broad. . . .'
'But that's one reason why I wanted you--that the children might be familiar with the Scots tongue.'
Ninny shook her head. 'They're terrible English, puir lambs. Ye see, there's his lordship, an' you, an' Elsie in the nursery, an' a' the servants inside an' oot, a' speakin' English, but I dae ma best, an' they ken what a' the auld words mean. Peter aye asks aboot it if he hears me use a new word: he's a great yin to speir----'
She was interrupted by a shriek from Quentin and sprang forward to receive and comfort her youngest nursling:
'Was Peter bad to ye, ma bonnie lamb? Wait an' I'll sort him.'
