– crok – cray – ay!” the Admiral would cry, and go joyfully back to his fishing-ground.
But sometimes Mr Crane would swallow a big water-beetle, and if this specimen had a will of its own, as beetles generally have, it would catch hold of the side of the gullet and hang on halfway down.
“I ain’t going another step,” the beetle would say; “it isn’t good enough. The road is too long and too dark.”
So this disobliging beetle would just stop there, making a kind of a mump in the poor Admiral’s neck.
When Ransey saw his droll pet stride out of the pool and walk solemnly towards a tree and lean his head against it, and close his eyes, the lad knew pretty well what was the matter.
There is nothing like patience and plenty of it, and presently the beetle would go to sleep, relax its hold, and slip quietly down to regions unknown. There would be no more mump now, and the crane would suddenly take leave of his senses with joy.
“Kaik – kaik – kay – ay?” he would scream, and go madly hopping and dancing round the tree, a most weird and uncanny-looking object, raising one leg at a time as high as he could, and swinging his head and neck fore and aft, low and aloft, from starboard to port, in such a droll way that Ransey Tansey felt impelled to throw himself on his back, so as to laugh without bursting that much-prized solitary suspender of his, while Bob sat up to bark, and Babs clapped her tiny hands and crowed.
Ransey got tired of fishing at last, and made up his rod. There was some sort of silent joy or happiness away down at the bottom of the boy’s heart, and for a moment he couldn’t make out what was causing it. The big haul of fish he had caught? Oh, no; that was a common exploit. Having smashed the postman with a mushy turnip? That was capital, of course, but that wasn’t it. Ah! now he has remembered – father was coming home in four days. Hurrah! he must have some fun on the head of it. Ransey loved to have a good time.
But, duty first. Babs was a good little girl – or a “dood ’ittle dirl,” as she phrased it – but even good girls get hungry sometimes. Babs must be fed. She held her arms straight out towards him.
“Babs is detting tired,” she lisped.
So he took her up, kissed her, and made much of her for a minute, then set her against a tree where the moss was green and soft. With a bit of string and a burdock leaf he made her a beautiful bib; for though Ransey himself was scantily attired, the child was really prettily dressed.
And now the boy produced a pickle bottle from the luncheon bag, likewise a small horn spoon. The pickle bottle contained a pap of bread and milk; and with this he proceeded to feed Babs somewhat after the manner of cramming turkeys, until she shook her head at last, and declared she would never eat any more – “Never, never, never!”
There was a turnip-field not far off. Now Bob was as fond of raw turnips as his master. He knew where the field was, too.
“Off ye go for a turmut, Bob; and mind ye bring a big ’un. I’ll look after Babs till ye comes back.”
Bob wasn’t long gone. He had obeyed his master’s instructions to the very letter – in fact, he had pulled more than six turnips before he found one to please him. (It is easy to teach a dog this trick, only stupid farmer folks sometimes don’t see the fun of it. Farmer folks are obtuse. – G.S.) That “turmut” made Bob and Ransey an excellent luncheon, and Babs had a slice to amuse herself with.
The day was delightfully warm, and the wind soft and balmy. The sunshine filtered down through a great beech-tree, and wherever it fell the grass was a brighter green or the dead leaves a lighter brown. Now and then a May beetle would go droning past; there were flies of all sorts and sizes, from the gnats that danced in thousands over the bushes to the great rainbow-like dragonfly that darted hither and thither across the stream; grasshoppers green and brown that alighted on a leaf one moment, gave a click the next, and hurled themselves into space; a blackbird making wild melody not far off; the bold lilt of a chaffinch; the insolent mocking notes of a thrush; and the coo-cooing of wood-pigeons sounding mournfully from a thicket beyond the stream.
High up in that beech-tree myriads of bees were humming, though they could not be seen. No wonder that under such sweet drowsy influences Babs began to wink and wink, and blink and blink, till finally her wee head fell forward on her green-bough bib.
Babs was sound asleep.
Book One – Chapter Three.
“O Eedie, I’ve Found a Child.”
Ransey Tansey took his tiny sister tenderly up and spread her, as it were, on the soft moss.
“She’s in for a regular forenooner, Bob,” said the boy, “and I’m not sure I don’t like Babs just as well when she is asleep. Seems so innercent-like, you know.”
Bob looked as if he really did understand, and tried by means of his brown eyes and that fag-end of a tail to let his master know that he too liked Babs best asleep, because then no attempts were made to gouge his eyes out with pieces of stick, or to ram the business end of a tin whistle halfway down his throat.
“Bob!” said Ransey.
“Yes, master,” said Bob, raising his ears.
“Babs is a sailor’s darter, ye know.”
Bob assented.
“Well, she ought’er sleep in a hammock.”
“To be sure. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Bob.
“I can make one in a brace o’ shakes, and that’s sailor langwidge. Now just keep your eyes on me, Bob.”
Ransey Tansey was busy enough for the next five minutes. He took that shepherd-tartan shawl, and by means of some pieces of string, which he never went abroad without, soon fashioned it into a neat little hammock. Two saplings grew near, and by bending a branch downward from each, he slung that hammock so prettily that he was obliged to stand back for a little while to smile and admire it.
When he lifted Babs and put her in it, and fastened the two sides of the hammock across her chest with some more string and a horse-shoe nail, so that she could not fall out, the whole affair was complete.
“Hush-a-bye, baby, upon the tree-top,
When the wind blown the cradle will rock.”
Well, the wind did blow, but ever so softly, and the little hammock swayed gently to and fro. And the blackbird’s voice seemed to sound more melodiously now; the thrush went farther away; only the wild pigeons continued to coo, coo, and the bees to hum, high, high up in the green beech-tree.
No wonder that the baby slept.
“Come along now, Bob. We’ve a whole hour at least.”
The boy placed his rod and bag on the branches of a tree.
“A whole hour, Bob, to do as we likes. No good me askin’ that idiot of an Admiral to watch Babs. He’d only begin scray-scrayin’ and hopping around the hammock, and Babs would wake. I’m goin’ to run wild for a bit, are you?”
And off he bounded, with Bob at his heels.
The Admiral, whose feet were getting cold now, hopped out of the stream, stretched out his three-foot neck, and looked after them.
“They
