“Yes, Archie, I need comfort more; but mind you, brother, the day may come when you’ll want comfort of this kind too.”
Old Kate really was a queer old witch of a creature, superstitious to a degree. Here is an example: One day she came rushing – without taking time to knock even – into the breakfast parlour.
“Oh, Mistress Broadbent, what a ghast I’ve gotten!”
“Dear me!” said the Squire’s wife; “sit down and tell us. What is it, poor Kate?”
“Oh! Oh!” she sighed. “Nae wonder my puir legs ached. Oh! sirs! sirs!
“Ye ken my little pantry? Well, there’s been a board doon on the fleer for ages o’ man, and to-day it was taken out to be scrubbit, and what think ye was reveeled?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
“Words, ’oman; words, printed and painted on the timmer – ‘Sacred to the Memory of Dinah Brown, Aged 99.’ A tombstone, ’oman – a wooden gravestone, and me standin’ on’t a’ these years.”
Here the Squire was forced to burst out into a hearty laugh, for which his wife reprimanded him by a look.
There was no mistake about the “wooden tombstone,” but that this was the cause of old Kate’s rheumatism one might take the liberty to doubt.
Kate was a staunch believer in ghosts, goblins, fairies, kelpies, brownies, spunkies, and all the rest of the supernatural family; and I have something to relate in connection with this, though it is not altogether to the credit of my hero, Archie.
Old Kate and young Peter were frequent visitors to the room in the tower, for the tea Archie made, and the fires he kept on, were both most excellent in their way.
“Boys will be boys,” and Archie was a little inclined to practical joking. It made him laugh, so he said, and laughing made one fat.
It happened that, one dark winter’s evening, old Kate was invited up into the tower, and Branson with Peter came also. Archie volunteered a song, and Branson played many a fine old air on his fiddle, so that the first part of the evening passed away pleasantly and even merrily enough. Old Kate drank cup after cup of tea as she sat in that weird old chair, and, by-and-by, Archie, the naughty boy that he was, led the conversation round to ghosts. The ancient dame was in her element now; she launched forth into story after story, and each was more hair-stirring than its predecessor.
Elsie and Archie occupied their favourite place on a bear’s skin in front of the low fire; and while Kate still droned on, and Branson listened with eyes and mouth wide open, the boy might have been noticed to stoop down, and whisper something in his sister’s ear.
Almost immediately after a rattling of chains could be heard in one of the turrets. Both Kate and Branson started, and the former could not be prevailed upon to resume her story till Archie lit a candle and walked all round the room, drawing back the turret curtains to show no one was there.
Once again old Kate began, and once again chains were heard to rattle, and a still more awesome sound followed – a long, low, deep-bass groan, while at the same time, strange to say, the candle in Archie’s hand burnt blue. To add to the fearsomeness of the situation, while the chain continued to rattle, and the groaning now and then, there was a very appreciable odour of sulphur in the apartment. This was the climax. Old Kate screamed, and the big keeper, Branson, fell on his knees in terror. Even Elsie, though she had an inkling of what was to happen, began to feel afraid.
“There now, granny,” cried Archie, having carried the joke far enough, “here is the groaning ghost.” As he spoke he produced a pair of kitchen bellows, with a musical reed in the pipe, which he proceeded to sound in old Kate’s very face, looking a very mischievous imp while he did so.
“Oh,” said old Kate, “what a scare the laddie has given me. But the chain?”
Archie pulled a string, and the chain rattled again. “And the candle? That was na canny.”
“A dust of sulphur in the wick, granny.” Big Branson looked ashamed of himself, and old Kate herself began to smile once more.
“But how could ye hae the heart to scare an old wife sae, Master Archie?”
“Oh, granny, we got up the fun just to show you there were no such things as ghosts. Rupert says – and he should know, because he’s always reading – that ghosts are always rats or something.”
“Ye maunna frichten me again, laddie. Will ye promise?”
“Yes, granny, there’s my hand on it. Now sit down and have another cup of tea, and Elsie will play and sing.”
Elsie could sing now, and sweet young voice she had, that seemed to carry you to happier lands. Branson always said it made him feel a boy again, wandering through the woods in summer, or chasing the butterflies over flowery beds.
And so, albeit Archie had carried his practical joke out to his own satisfaction, if not to that of every one else, this evening, like many others that had come before it, and came after it, passed away pleasantly enough.
It was in the spring of the same year, and during the Easter holidays, that a little London boy came down to reside with his aunt, who lived in one of Archie’s father’s cottages.
Young Harry Brown had been sent to the country for the express purpose of enjoying himself, and set about this business forthwith. He made up to Archie; in fact, he took so many liberties, and talked to him so glibly, and with so little respect, that, although Archie had imbued much of his father’s principles as regards liberalism, he did not half like it.
Perhaps, after all, it was only the boy’s manner, for he had never been to the country at all before, and looked upon every one – Archie included – who did not know London, as jolly green. But Archie did not appreciate it, and, like the traditional worm, he turned, and once again his love for practical joking got the better of his common-sense.
“Teach us somefink,” said Harry one day, turning his white face up. He was older, perhaps, than Archie, but decidedly smaller. “Teach us somefink, and when you comes to Vitechapel to wisit me, I’ll teach you summut. My eye, won’t yer stare!”
The idea of this white-chafted, unwholesome-looking cad, expecting that he, Squire Broadbent’s son, would visit him in Whitechapel! But Archie managed to swallow his wrath and pocket his pride for the time being.
“What shall I teach you, eh? I suppose you know that potatoes don’t grow on trees, nor geese upon gooseberry-bushes?”
“Yes; I know that taters is dug out of the hearth. I’m pretty fly for a young un.”
“Can you ride?”
“No.”
“Well, meet me here to-morrow at the same time, and I’ll bring my ‘Duck.’”
“Look ’ere, Johnnie Raw, ye said ‘ride,’ not ‘swim.’ A duck teaches swimmin’, not ridin’. None o’ yer larks now!”
Next day Archie swept down upon the Cockney in fine form, meaning to impress him.
The Cockney was not much impressed; I fear he was not very impressionable.
“My heye, Johnnie Raw,” he roared, “vere did yer steal the moke?”
“Look you here, young Whitechapel, you’ll have to guard that tongue of yours a little, else communications will be cut. Do you see?”
“It is a donkey, ain’t it, Johnnie?”
“Come on to the field and have a ride.”
Five minutes afterwards the young Cockney on the “Eider Duck’s” back was tearing along the field at railway speed. John Gilpin’s ride was nothing to it, nor Tam O’Shanter’s on his grey mare, Meg! Both these worthies had stuck to the saddle, but this horseman rode upon the neck of the steed. Scallowa stopped short at the gate, but the boy flew over.
Archie