the picnic.
a vision of beauty now breaks upon the scene! this vision is tall, graceful, and commanding in figure. it has long black ringlets, piercing black eyes, a fair delicate skin, and a bewitching smile that displays a row of—of “pearls!” the vision is about sixteen years of age, and answers to the romantic name of flora macdonald. it is sister to that stalwart hector who first showed mr sudberry how to fish; and stately, sedate, and beautiful does it appear, as, leaning on its brother’s arm, it ascends the hill towards the white house, where extensive preparations are being made for a picnic.
“good-morning, mr sudberry,” cries hector, doffing his bonnet and bowing low to lucy. “allow me to introduce my sister, flora; but,” (glancing at the preparations), “i fear that my visit is inopportune.”
mr sudberry rushes forward and shakes hector and sister heartily by the hand.
“my dear sir, my dear madam, inopportune! impossible! i am charmed. we are just going on a picnic, that is all, and you will go with us. lucy, my dear, allow me to introduce you to miss macdonald—”
“flora, my good sir; pray do not let us stand upon ceremony,” interposes hector.
lucy bows with a slight air of bashful reserve; flora advances and boldly offers her hand. the blue eyes and the black meet; the former twinkle, the latter beam, and the knot is tied; they are fast friends for life!
“glorious day,” cries mr sudberry, rubbing his hands.
“magnificent,” assents hector. “you are fortunate in the weather, for, to say truth, we have little enough of sunshine here. sometimes it rains for three or four weeks, almost without cessation.”
“does it indeed?”
mr sudberry’s visage elongates a little for one moment. just then george and fred come out of the white house laden with hampers and fishing-baskets full of provisions. they start, gaze in surprise at the vision, and drop the provisions.
“these are my boys, miss macdonald—hector’s sister, lads,” cries mr sudberry. “you’ll join us i trust?” (to hector.)
hector assents “with pleasure.” he is a most amiable and accommodating man. meanwhile george and fred shake hands with flora, and express their “delight, their pleasure, etcetera, at this unexpected meeting which, etcetera, etcetera.” their eyes meet, too, as lucy’s and flora’s had met a minute before. whether the concussion of that meeting is too severe, we cannot say, but the result is, that the three pair of eyes drop to the ground, and their owners blush. george even goes the length of stammering something incoherent about “highland scenery,” when a diversion is created in his favour by jacky, who comes suddenly round the corner of the house with a north-american-indian howl, and with the nine dogs tearing after him clamorously.
jacky tumbles over a basket, of course, (a state of disaster is his normal condition), bruises his shins, and yells fearfully, to the dismay of his mother, who runs shrieking to the window in her dressing-gown, meets the gaze of hector and flora macdonald, and retires precipitately in discomfiture.
no such sensibility affects the stern bosom of mrs brown, who darts out at the front door, catches the unhappy boy by one arm, and drags him into the house by it as if it were a rope, the child a homeward-bound vessel, and she a tug-steamer of nine hundred horse-power. the sounds that proceed from the nursery thereafter are strikingly suggestive: they might be taken for loud clapping of hands, but the shrieks which follow forbid the idea of plaudits.
poor tilly, who is confused by the uproar, follows the nurse timidly, bent upon intercession, for she loves jacky dearly.
the nine dogs—easy-going, jovial creatures—at once jump to the conclusion that the ham and cold chicken have been prepared and laid out there on the green hill-side for their special entertainment. they make a prompt dash at the hampers. gentlemen and ladies alike rush to the rescue, and the dogs are obliged to retire. they do so with a surprised and injured look in their innocent eyes.
“have you one or two raw onions and a few cold boiled potatoes?” inquires hector.
“i’ll run and see,” cries george, who soon returns with the desired edibles in a tin can.
“that will do. now i shall let you taste a potato salad; meanwhile i will assist in carrying the baskets down to the boat.”
hector’s and lucy’s eyes meet as this is said. there must be some unaccountable influence in the atmosphere this morning, for the meeting of eyes, all round, seems to produce unusual results!
“will mr mcallister accompany us?” says mr sudberry.
mr mcallister permits a quiet smile to disturb the gravity of his countenance, and agrees to do so, at the same time making vague reference to the groves of arcadia, and the delight of dining alfresco, specially in wet weather,—observations which surprise mr sudberry, and cause hector and the two brothers to laugh.
mrs sudberry is ready at last! the gentlemen and hobbs load themselves, and, followed by jacky and the ladies, proceed to the margin of the loch, which sheet of water mr sudberry styles a “lock,” while his better half deliberately and obstinately calls it a “lake.” the party is a large one for so small a boat, but it holds them all easily. besides, the day is calm and the water lies like a sheet of pure glass; it seems almost a pity to break such a faithful mirror with the plashing oars as they row away.
thus, pleasantly, the picnic began!
george and fred rowed, hector steered, and the ladies sang,—mr sudberry assisting with a bass. his voice, being a strong baritone, was overwhelmingly loud in the middle notes, and sank into a muffled ineffective rumble in the deep tones. having a bad ear for tune, he disconcerted the ladies—also the rowers. but what did that matter? he was overflowing with delight, and apologised for his awkwardness by laughing loudly and begging the ladies to begin again. this they always did, with immense good humour. mrs sudberry had two engrossing subjects of contemplation. the one was the boat, which, she was firmly persuaded, was on the point of upsetting when any one moved ever so little; the other was jacky, who, owing to some strange impulse natural to his impish character, strove to stretch as much of his person beyond the side of the boat as was possible without absolutely throwing himself overboard.
the loch was upwards of three miles in length; before the party had gone half the distance mr sudberry senior had sung himself quite hoarse, and master sudberry junior had leaped three-quarters of his length out of the boat six times, and in various other ways had terrified his poor mother almost into fits, and imperilled the lives of the party more than once.
“by the way,” said fred, when his father concluded a fine old boat-song with a magnificent flourish worthy of an operatic artiste, “can any one tell me any thing about the strange old woman that lives down in the hut near the bridge?”
“ha! ha!” laughed george, “i can tell you that she’s an old witch, and a very fierce one too.”
a slight frown gathered on flora’s white forehead, and a flash shot from her dark eyes, as george said this, but george saw it not. lucy did, however, and became observant, while george continued—
“but methinks, fred, that the long visit you paid her lately must have been sadly misapplied if you have not pumped her history out of her.”
“i went to paint, not to pump. perhaps mr macdonald can tell me about her.”
“not i,” said hector, lighting a cigar. “i only know that she lost her grandson about six years ago, and that she’s been mad ever since, poor thing.”
“for shame, hector,” said flora; “you know that poor old moggy is no more mad than yourself.”
“possibly not, sweet sister, but as you often tell me that i am mad, and as i never deny the charge, it seems to me that you have said nothing to vindicate the old woman’s character for sanity.”
“poor thing,” said flora, turning from her brother, and speaking with warmth to fred; “if you knew how much that unhappy old creature has suffered, you would not be surprised to find her somewhat cross at times. she is one of my people, and i’m very glad to find that you take an interest in her.”
“‘my people!’ flora then takes an interest in the poor,” thought the observant lucy. another link was added to the chain of friendship.
“do tell us about her, please,” cried george. “there is nothing that i love so much as a story—especially a horrible one, with two or three dreadful murders to chill one’s blood, and a deal of retributive justice to warm it up again. i’m dying to know about old moggy.”
“are you?” said flora saucily. “i’m glad to hear that, because i mean to keep you in a dying state. i will tell the story as a dead secret to lucy, when i take her to see my poor people, and you sha’n’t hear it for weeks to come.”
george cast up his eyes in affected despair, and said with a groan, that he “would endeavour to exist notwithstanding.”
“oh! i know all about old moggy,” cried jacky with energy.
everyone looked at the boy in surprise. in the midst of the foregoing dialogue he had suddenly ceased to tempt his fate, and sat down quietly with a hand on each knee and his eyes fixed intently on flora macdonald—to the surprise and secret joy of his mother, who, being thus relieved from anxiety on his account, had leisure to transfer the agony of her attention to the boat.
“what do you know about her, child?” asked flora.
“she’s jolly,” replied the boy with prompt vivacity.
“most genuine testimony in her favour,” laughed hector, “though the word is scarcely appropriate to one whose temper is sour.”
“why do you think her jolly, my boy?” said flora.
“’cause i do. she’s a old brick!”
“jacky, darling,” said mrs sudberry, “do try to give up those ugly slang words—they’re so naughty—that is to say—at least—they are very ugly if they’re not positively naughty.”
“she’s a jolly old brick,” retorted jacky, with a look at his mother that was the concentrated essence of defiance.
“dear child!”
lucy snickered and coughed somewhat violently into her handkerchief; while flora, repressing a smile, said—
“but why does jacky like old moggy so much?”
“hallo! don’t run us ashore,” shouted mr sudberry, starting up with a sudden impetuosity which shook the boat and sent a pang to the heart of his wife, the sharpness of which no words can convey. a piercing shriek, however, betrayed the state of her feelings as the boat was swept violently round by george to avoid a point of rock. as they were now drawing near to the spot where it was proposed that they should picnic, jacky suddenly became alive to the fact that in his interest about old moggy he had been betrayed into a forgetfulness of his opportunities. no time was to be lost. turning round with a cheer, he made a desperate plunge at the water and went much farther over than he had intended, insomuch that he would certainly have taken a “header” into its depths, had not mcallister grasped him by the baggy region of his trousers and gravely lifted him into his mother’s lap. next moment the boat’s keel grated sharply on the gravel, to the horror of mrs sudberry, who, having buried her face in the bosom of her saved son, saw not what had occurred, and regarded the shock as her death-warrant.
thus agreeably the picnic continued!
