To the left yonder, and near to the church, was a long strip of silver – the canal. High on a wooded hill stood the lord of the manor’s house, solid, brown, and old, with the blue smoke therefrom trailing lazily along across the tree-tops.
But the house nearest to Ransey’s was some distance across the fields yonder – an old-fashioned brick farm-building with a steading behind it, every bit of it green with age.
“So ye can’t see no signs o’ father, or the barge, eh? Look again, Admiral; your neck’s a bit longer’n mine.”
“Tok – tok – tok – cray!”
“Well, I’m off down. There’s the milk to fetch yet; and if I don’t hurry up, Bob and Babs are sure to make a mess on’t afore I gets back. Mornin’ to ye, Admiral.”
And Ransey Tansey slid down that tree far more quickly even than he had swarmed up it.
Scattering the dew from the grass and the milk-white clover with his naked feet, the lad went trotting on, and very quickly reached the farm. He had to stop once or twice by the way, however. First, Towsey, the short-horned bull, put his great head over a five-barred gate, and Ransey had to pause to scratch it. Then he met the peacock, who insisted on instant recognition, and walked back with him till the two were met by Snap, the curly-coated retriever.
“I don’t like Snap,” said the peacock. “I won’t go a bit further. The ugly brute threatened to snap my head off; that’s the sort of Snap he is.”
The farmer’s wife was fat and jolly looking.
“Well, how’s all the family?”
“Oh, they’re all right, ye know; especially Babs, ’cause she’s asleep. And we kind of expect father to-day. But even the Admiral can’t see ’im, with his long neck.”
She filled his can, and took the penny. That was only business; but the kindly soul had slyly slipped two turkey’s eggs into the can before she poured in the milk.
When he got back to his home, the first thing he saw was that crane, half hopping, half flying round and round the gibbet-tree. The fact of the matter is this: the bird did not wish to go far away from the house just yet, as he generally followed his little master to the brook or stream; but, nevertheless, on this particularly fine morning he found himself possessed of an amount of energy that must be expended somehow, so he went hopping round the tree, dangling his head and long neck in the drollest and most ridiculous kind of way imaginable. Ransey Tansey had to place his milk-can on the ground in order to laugh with greater freedom. The most curious part of the business was this: crane though he was, wheeling madly round like this made him dizzy, so every now and then he stopped and danced round the other way.
The Admiral caught flies wherever he saw them; but flies, though all very well in their way, were mere tit-bits. Presently he would have a few frogs for breakfast, and the bird was just as fond of frogs as a Frenchman is.
Ransey Tansey opened the door of the little cottage very quietly, and peeped in. Bob was there by the bassinette. He agitated that fag-end of a tail of his, and looked happy.
Murrams paused in the act of washing his ears, with one paw held aloft. He began to sing, because he knew right well there was milk in that can, and that he would have a share of it.
Babs’s blue eyes had been on the smoke-grimed ceiling, but she lowered them now.
“Oh,” she said, “you’s tome back, has ’oo?”
“And Babs has been so good, hasn’t she?” said Ransey.
“Babs is dood, and Bob is dood, and Murrams is dooder. ’Ift (lift) me up twick, ’Ansey.”
Two plump little arms were extended towards her brother, and presently he was seated near the fire dressing her, as if he had been to the manner born.
There was a little face to wash presently, as well as two tiny hands and arms; but that could be done after they had all had breakfast.
“Oh, my!” cried Ransey Tansey; “look, Babs! Two turkey’s eggs in the bottom of the can!”
“Oh, my! ’Ansey,” echoed the child. “One tu’key’s egg fo’ me, and one fo’ ’oo.”
The door had been left half ajar, and presently about a yard of long neck was thrust round the edge, and the Admiral looked lovingly at the eggs, first with one roguish eye, then with the other.
This droll crane had a weakness for eggs – strange, perhaps, but true. When he found one, he tossed it high in air, and in descending caught it cleverly. Next second there was an empty egg-shell on the ground, and some kind of a lump sliding slowly down the Admiral’s extended gullet. When it was fairly landed, the bird expressed his delight by dancing a double-triple fandango, which was partly jig, partly hornpipe, and all the rest a Highland schottische.
“Get out, Admiral! – get out, I tell ye!” cried the boy. “W’y, ye stoopid, if the door slams, off goes yer head.”
The bird seemed to fully appreciate the danger, and at once withdrew.
Ransey placed the two turkey’s eggs on a shelf near the little gable window. One pane of glass was broken, and was stuffed with hay.
Well, the Admiral had been watching the boy, and as soon as his back was turned, it didn’t take the bird long to pull out that hay.
“O ’Ansey, ’ook! ’ook!” cried Babs.
It was too late, however, for looking to do any good. For the same yard of neck that had, a few minutes before, appeared round the edge of the doorway, was now thrust through the broken pane, and only one turkey’s egg was left.
Babs looked very sad. She considered for a bit, then said solemnly, —
“’Oo mus’ have the odel (other) tu’key’s egg. You is dooder nor me.”
But Ransey didn’t have it. He contented himself with bread and milk.
And so the two mitherless bairns had breakfast.
Book One – Chapter Two.
Life in the Woods
I trust that, from what he has already seen and heard of Ransey Tansey, the reader will not imagine I desire this little hero of mine to pose as a real saint. Boys should be boys while they have the chance. Alas, they shall grow up into men far too soon, and then they needn’t go long journeys to seek for sorrow; they will find it near home.
And now I think, reader, you and I understand each other, to some extent at all events. Though I believe he was always manly and never mean, yet, as his biographer, I am bound to confess that there was just as much monkey-mischief to the square inch about Ransey Tansey, as about any boy to whom I have ever had the honour of being introduced.
It was said of the immortal George Washington that when a boy at school he climbed out of a bedroom window and robbed a wall fruit tree, because the other boys were cowards and afraid to do so. But George refused to eat even a bite of one of these apples himself. I think that Ransey Tansey could have surpassed young Washington; for not only would he have taken the apples, but eaten his own share of them afterwards.
To do him justice, however, I must state that on occasions when his father went in the barge to a distant town on business, as he had been now for over a week, Ransey being left in charge of his tiny sister and the whole establishment, the sense of his great responsibility kept him entirely free from mischief.
Now a very extraordinary thing happened on this particular morning – Ransey Tansey received a letter.
The postman was sulky, to say the least of it.
“Pretty thing,” he said, as he flung the letter with