Part 17 (2/2)

'Now, Nance,' said Pat, when most of the cakes and milk were disposed of, 'we're ready for your stories.'

The old woman had drawn a stool to the fire and was sitting there facing it, the reflection casting a pleasant glow on her sunburnt cheeks and keen bright eyes. She was always a nice-looking old woman, but just now she really looked quite pretty.

'How fond you are of the fire, Nance,' said Archie; 'do you have one all the year round?'

'Mostly so, Master Archie,' she replied. 'You see old folk like me grow chilly. It's not often I feel too hot, even in the midsummer days. And here on the moorside there's always a breeze more or less. Yes, I love my bit o' fire, Master Archie--you're about right there, but all the same I'd rather face cold than be choked in a town and have no fresh air, like some poor things have to bear their lives.'

'Nance,' said Miss Mouse suddenly; she had been sitting silent watching Bob's granny, 'it's so funny, it seems to me that when you stretch out your hands to the flames they give a little jump towards you and then dance up the chimney ever so much higher than before. Are you a sort of a fairy, dear Nance?'

Pat glanced at the little girl half uneasily. He knew that some of the people about called Mrs. Crag a witch, and 'uncanny,' and words like that, just because she was a stranger and different in her ways and looks from her present neighbours, and he was afraid that Nance's feelings might be hurt by little Rosamond's question.

But it was not so--on the contrary the old woman seemed pleased, and smiled brightly.

'You must have a bit of the fairy knowing yourself, missie dear, to have noticed it,' she said. 'I've been told I get it from my grandmother, who had fairy ways, there's no denying. And no harm in them either, if one doesn't think too much of them, or fancy oneself more than one is. But I've always had a kind of luck, hand-in-hand with troubles, for troubles I've had, and many of them, in my long life. More than once when I've thought they'd be too much for me there's come a turn I had little hope of. Maybe the good people aren't gone so far as we think, after all,' and old Nance smiled at the idea.

'Tell us some story of your good luck,' said Pat suddenly. 'It's always so nice to hear a story from the person it really happened to.'

Nance considered. Then she suddenly slipped her hand inside the front of her bodice and drew out a tiny little chain; it was only a steel chain, but very finely worked, so that it looked more like a silver thread, and on it hung a tiny coin with a hole in it through which a ring had been pa.s.sed. She held it out for the children to see.

'Oh what a weeny, weeny little sixpenny, or threepenny--which is it?'

exclaimed Rosamond.

'It's neither, missie dear,' the old woman replied. 'It's a lucky penny, and if you like I'll tell you the story of how I came by it.'

'Oh do, do,' said all three together; Archie adding, 'Did you really get it from the fairies, Nance?'

'You shall hear,' she replied, smiling, and then they all settled themselves to listen.

'When I was a little girl,' she began, 'you'll remember, my dears, that my home was on the edge of a moor, something like this, but wilder and far larger and farther away from any village or town--railways I needn't speak of, for such a thing hadn't even been dreamt of in these long-ago days,' and the far-away look came into the old woman's eyes as she stopped speaking for a moment.

'Is it a hundred years ago since you were a little girl?' asked Miss Mouse.

Nance smiled again.

'Not quite,' she replied, 'though none so far off it either. But long ago as it is, I remember that first part of my life so well, so clear and distinct it seems sometimes that I could fancy it much nearer than things that happened a few years back only. I was an orphan, like my poor Bob now, and I lived with my granny, same as Bob lives along wi'

me. 'My granny had come of----' here Nance hesitated, but went on again--'after all there's no shame in it,' she said--'she'd come of gipsy-folk, and when her husband died--he was a steady, settled sort of man, a gardener at some big house, but he died young--she was that lonely and lost-like, she went back to her own people with her little son, and he married among them, so I'm three parts gipsy, you may say.

Both father and mother of mine died too--there's many that dies young among our people, and some that lives on and on till you'd think death had forgotten them, and that was the way with my granny. But she wasn't so very old when the feel took her that she'd like to settle down again, she'd got into the habit of a home of her own while her husband lived.

So one time when the vans were pa.s.sing near by where had been her little place, she takes a sudden thought that she'd like to see the fam'ly again, and what did she do but she carried me in her arms and walked some miles to the big house. The Squire was dead, but his lady was living in the Dower House hard by, and the young Squire--none so young by now--was at the hall with his wife and children. And they were pleased to see her and kindly sorry for her troubles, and the Squire said she should have a cottage if there was one to be had, if she'd settle down near them. For my grandmother, for all her gipsying, was a clever, useful woman, as good as a doctor for the cures and comforts she could make with her knowledge of herbs and wild growing things, and where she once gave her faithfulness she'd never draw it back again. So it was fixed that she should make her home there again, though her own folk were none best pleased to lose her.

'At first we lived in two rooms in the village, but granny felt choked like, and she found a bit of a place on the moorside which had once been used for the gentry to eat their lunch in when they were out shooting, and the Squire was very kind and did it up for us quite tidy, and there we lived, though it was sometimes harder than any one knew; for all we had was what granny made by odd days' work here and there, and by selling her dried herbs and drinks she made of them. But as I got bigger the quality at the big house were very kind to me--it was seldom granny needed to buy clothes for me, and the housekeeper taught me nice ways about a house, so that when the time came I was ready for a good service. That's neither here nor there, though, that came afterwards; the time I got my lucky penny I was still a slip of a child, nine or ten at most.

''Twas haymaking--a beautiful dry haymaking, hot and sunny, I remember well. Granny was out with the best of them, hard at work early and late.

I went to school in the village, but there wasn't much schooling that week or two. 'Twasn't so strict as now--an hour or two in the morning and then we'd be told we might all run home, to help while the splendid weather lasted. Grandmother worked for the Squire; I was always sure to find her about the fields and have my bite of dinner with her, and then the little ladies and gentlemen would have me play with them at what _they_ called ”haymaking,” though it was a funny kind enough--more tossing and tumbling and laughing and shouting than any help to the haymakers. But we did enjoy it.

'Well there came an afternoon that my granny was off working in a field a good bit farther away than usual. She told me in the morning not to go after her, for she didn't care for me to walk so far in the hot sun--she was very careful of me, poor dear--and she'd asked the housekeeper if I might have a bit of dinner at the big house, seeing that the young ladies and gentlemen wanted me to make hay with them in what they called their own field, a paddock just outside the kitchen garden. And there I found them, and a rare good play we had that afternoon, finis.h.i.+ng up with a nice treat of cakes and milk when we were too tired and hot to play any more.'

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