Linnets and Valerians. Elizabeth Goudge

were sitting round the fire.

      ‘The Vicarage bees, I reckon they saved my life,’ said Ezra. ‘There’s always been bees at the Vicarage an’ from a boy I’ve loved ’em, an’ so they saved my life. I were a shepherd once an’ one spring I was up on the moor with my sheep an’ a lamb strayed. It was evenin’ when I found it, caught in a thorn tree an’ bleatin’ somethin’ pitiful. I ran towards it an’ sudden I felt the ground give way beneath I an’ I fell. It was one o’ the workin’s of an old tin mine, all overgrown with brambles, so that runnin’ quick I didn’t see it. I fell a long ways down and I knew when I got to the bottom as I’d ’urt meself real bad, for I couldn’t get up, not nohow. I was scared as I’d never be found, an’ I never would ’ave been but for the Vicarage bees. They swarmed that mornin’ an’ your uncle ’e ran after with a spare skep in ’is ’and, and they led ’im on till they brought ’im where the lamb an’ I was, and then they settled theirselves ’angin’ from the bough of a tree just on the near side o’ the pit, bringin’ the Vicar up sharp. I was near a goner, but I ’ollered an’ ’e ’eard me. ’E fetched ’elp from the village and I was took to ’orspital. They took me leg off, but they saved me life, an’ when I come back to the village again the Vicar took me to be ’is man, for I be too lame now to be a shepherd. I was that grateful to the bees that I carved a bee on me wooden leg and painted it ever so pretty. Do you say now, young uns, as bees don’t take care o’ you? If you’re good to the bees the bees they’ll be good to you. But you must mind your manners with ’em. They like a bit o’ courtesy.’

      ‘Is it dangerous in the wood and on the hill that you asked the bees to take care of us there?’ asked Nan.

      ‘There’s dangers if you don’t keep your wits about you,’ said Ezra. ‘But if you want to go there you won’t come to no real ’arm now I’ve told the bees to look after you.’

      Timothy’s head was already nodding, and the others were feeling sleepy too, but Robert had enough wits left to put his hand in his pocket and bring out one of the bags of sweets that they had bought from Emma Cobley. He peeped inside. It was what was left of the pennyworth of bee-striped round peppermints, and feeling them to be appropriate to the occasion he offered them to Ezra. He did not want to, for he liked them himself, but courtesy had been stressed and he felt he ought. The effect on Ezra was alarming. He shot up out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box and roared out, ‘Where did you get them sweets?’

      ‘From the shop on the green,’ said Robert.

      ‘Emma Cobley’s.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Robert.

      Then don’t you never go there no more,’ thundered Ezra. ‘I don’t buy nothin’ at Emma Cobley’s. The Vicar, ’e buys ’is stamps from Emma, that bein’ ’is duty bein’ Vicar, but I wouldn’t get so much as a bootlace there not to save me life. I gets our groceries in the town. When you want sweets you tell me and I’ll buy ’em in town for ee. But don’t ee get ’em from Emma.’

      He was so angry that for a few moments no one dared speak and then Nan said gently, ‘But she seems a very nice old lady.’

      ‘’Andsome is as ’andsome does,’ said Ezra.

      ‘But what does she do?’ asked Timothy.

      ‘Never you mind,’ said Ezra. ‘An’ as for that cat of ’ers, that Frederick, you can ask ’Ector an’ Andromache about Frederick. They’ll tell ee.’

      His mouth set like a trap and it was obvious that he was not going to tell them any more, and since they did not know how to converse intelligibly with Hector or Andromache, there seemed no way of acquiring further information. Discouraged, they went to bed. But they did not stay discouraged, for when they slept they dreamed of bees, thousands of bees rustling all about them in a murmurous, musical, protecting cloud.

Lady Alicia

      BREAKFAST WAS AT eight o’clock in the kitchen, and Ezra told them that at nine o’clock punctually they were to go in the library to be educated. Nan had feared as much and had put them into clean clothes and seen to it that their hands were clean and their hair well brushed.

      ‘Come in,’ said Uncle Ambrose in a terrible voice when they knocked at the library door. They entered timidly and found him standing with his back to the fireplace. His hands were clasped under his coat tails and his eyebrows beetled. Hector was perched on the clock behind him. The writing table had been cleared and was out in the middle of the room, with the big high-backed chair at one end and four smaller chairs, two on each side of the table. There was one cushion on Timothy’s and two on Betsy’s.

      ‘Girls to the right, boys to the left,’ thundered Uncle Ambrose and when they had taken their places he stalked forward and seated himself in his chair. Hector spread his wings and glided from the clock to its high back, where he drew himself up to his fullest height and winked at the children over Uncle Ambrose’s head. His wink was wonderfully reassuring. Evidently he liked them now and in this business of education was on their side.

      ‘I observe that you are slightly more prepossessing in appearance than I had previously supposed,’ said Uncle Ambrose, his glance resting with stern pleasure upon their clean clothes and sleek hands. ‘You are not bad-looking children. If I can succeed in inserting a little knowledge into your vacant heads you may yet bring honour upon the name of Linnet. An old and honoured name and a charming bird. Linnets and nightingales sang in the enchanted groves that clothed the lower slopes of Mount Hymettus, that sacred mountain above Athens that in the summer season is as purple with heather and as musical with bees as our own Lion Tor above Linden Wood. Where’s Athens?’

      The question shot out at Robert as though from a pistol and Uncle Ambrose’s terrible bright glance seemed to reach right down into his head like a hook. It groped about there and came up with something.

      ‘In Greece, sir,’ gasped Robert.

      ‘Where’s Greece?’ Uncle Ambrose shot at Timothy.

      ‘In the Mediterranean,’ was hooked out of Timothy. He stumbled over the long word, but he remembered Father using it on the ship that brought them home.

      ‘Do you, child, know anything whatever about Greece?’ Uncle Ambrose asked Nan.

      ‘It has a wine-dark sea,’ said Nan. It was a phrase she had heard once and forgotten. It had needed Uncle Ambrose’s brilliant hooking glance to make her remember it again.