CHAPTER XI

That evening Dr. and Mrs. Wentworth dined alone. This was quite an unusual occurrence, for their circle of friends was large and they were exceedingly hospitable. As there was nobody to entertain after dinner Mrs. Wentworth went and sat in her husband's study and "relaxed her mind over a book," while he wrote some of the innumerable and inevitable letters that fall to the lot of every headmaster. The answers to parental missives were generally submitted to Mrs. Wentworth's criticism, and she insisted upon his softening the asperities occasioned by their frequent ineptness. Dr. Wentworth did not suffer fools gladly, but his wife regarded such things from the maternal standpoint; consequently the headmaster of Hamchester got credit for a sympathetic attitude he by no means deserved.

At that moment he was dealing with the case of one Pinner, an extremely stupid boy of seventeen in a low form, whose mother wrote saying she would like him to begin at once to specialise with a view to entering the Indian Civil Service later on.

Suddenly Mrs. Wentworth laid down her book and sat listening.

"Isn't that one of the children?" she asked.

Dr. Wentworth, deep in the demolition of Pinner's prospects, did not answer.

"I'm sure it's one of the children," Mrs. Wentworth repeated, and hastened upstairs.

Dismal wails smote upon her ear as she neared the night nurseries, and she found Punch sitting up in bed flushed and tearful, and not to be pacified by his devoted nurse who was standing by his cot alternately soothing and remonstrating.

"Hush, Punch! you'll wake Pris and Prue in the next room. What is the matter? Did you have a bad dream? Were you frightened?"

"No," Punch proclaimed in a muffled sort of roar, "I'm not fitened, but I can't sleep because she won't sing Kevin. I can't mimember it and I can't sleep. Oh, do sing Kevin."

"I don't know what he means, mum," nurse exclaimed distractedly. "Is it a hymn, do you think?"

"No," bawled Punch indignantly; "t'int a hymn. Oh, do sing Kevin," he wailed, standing up in his cot with his arms round his mother's neck and his hot, tear-stained little face pressed against hers.

"But, Punch, dear, what is Kevin? Of course I'll sing it if you'll only explain."

"But you can't," lamented Punch; and inconsequent as inconsolable he reiterated, "Oh, do sing Kevin."

"But who can sing this song?" Mrs. Wentworth asked. "Where have you heard it?"

"Lallie singed it. Oh, do get Lallie. Lallie knows Kevin."

"I can't get Lallie to come and sing for you in the middle of the night. You mustn't be unreasonable. You must wait until next time you see her--perhaps to-morrow--then you can ask her to sing for you."

"T'int the miggle of the night," Punch retorted scornfully, "or you'd be wearing a nighty gown. Please, dear mudger, get Lallie, ven she'll sing Kevin and I'll go to sleep."

Mrs. Wentworth and the nurse exchanged glances across the cot.

"'Tis but a step across the playground to B. House," the nurse said in a low voice. "I know the young lady would pop over. He's been goin' on like this for over an hour."

Punch had ceased to wail; now he loosed his arms from about his mother's neck, sat back on his pillow, and looked from one to the other of the anxious faces on either side of him.

"He's such a obstinate boy," she murmured. "He'll never give up wanting it, and she can sing Kevin."

Mrs. Wentworth tried hard to look stern.

"Daddie wouldn't like it; and what would Lallie think to be fetched out at this time of night to sing to a tiresome little boy who ought to have been asleep hours ago."

Punch screwed up his face and prepared to wail again, but caught his breath and stopped in the middle of the first note to listen to his adoring nurse as she suggested in a whisper:

"I'll pop over for her, mum, and she'll be here directly. I'm quite worried about him. It seems to have got on his nerves; he's so feverish."

Mrs. Wentworth felt one of the hot little hands and stroked his damp hair back from his forehead. Punch stared unblinkingly at her, and repeated mournfully:

"He's fevish, very fevish; but," more hopefully, "he won't be if Lallie's feshed, 'cos then she'll sing Kevin."

"I know Daddie would disapprove," Mrs. Wentworth said weakly; "and, Nana, imagine what people will say. What will Miss Foster think?"

"I'm sure the young lady's not one to go talking," said Nana stoutly, "and she so fond of Master Punch and all. And he really has been frettin' something dreadful, and we none of us can sing that outlandish song; and you know how he keeps on, mum."

"Nobody knows it but Lallie," Punch repeated. "Lallie can sing Kevin. Oh, do sing Kevin."

Mrs. Wentworth nodded to the nurse, who departed hastily.

Punch sat on his pillow, wide-eyed and wakeful, with flushed round face and tired, unblinking eyes.

"Would you like to come and sit on my knee in the day nursery for a bit, Sonnie? Then perhaps you'll feel sleepy. I'll sing you anything you like."

"I'll come and sit on your knee till Lallie comes, then she'll sing Kevin. I don't want no other song."

"How do you know Lallie will come? She may be dining out; she may not be there."

"I fought you said it was the miggle of the night," Punch said sternly. "If it is she'll be back again."

"It is the middle of the night for little boys."

"But not for Lallie; I fink she'll come."

Mrs. Wentworth arrayed him in his blue dressing-gown and carried him into the big day nursery. She sat down in a low chair in front of the fire, with Punch warm and cuddlesome on her knee snuggled against her shoulder. He lay quite still in her arms, staring at the red glow through the bars of the high nursery fender.

"Do you think that little boys who wear beautiful pyjama suits just like their daddie's, ought to wake up and cry in the night?" Mrs. Wentworth inquired dreamily, her chin resting on the top of Punch's head, her eyes fixed on the fire.

"I fink I could sleep till Lallie comes," Punch announced in particularly wide-awake tones. "Hush!"

For nearly ten minutes they sat still and silent, then Punch suddenly gave a little wriggle and sat up on his mother's knee, stiff and expectant: every nerve tingling, every muscle taut.

"I fink I hear Lallie," he cried excitedly.

There was a swish and frou-frou of skirts in the passage outside as Lallie, followed by the triumphant Nana, came swiftly into the room. She flung her heavy cloak on a chair, and ran across and knelt by Mrs. Wentworth, exclaiming:

"How dear of you to send! I do so sympathise with Punch; I nearly go crazy if I half remember a tune and there's no way of getting the rest of it."

"T'int the chune; it's it all," said Punch magisterially. "Now you can sing Kevin."

"But do you know what he means?" Mrs. Wentworth asked.

"I should think I do. Oh, might I hold him? It's a longish song."

She was dressed in a little straight white silk dress embroidered with green, and her favourite green ribbon was threaded through her hair. Slender arms and neck were bare, and her cheeks flushed with her run across the playground in the cold air. She might have been Deirdre herself, product of sun and dew and woodland moss, so fresh and sparkling was she. Punch held out his arms to her.

"I knowed you'd come," he cried triumphantly; "an' you wouldn't be in bed, nor out, nor nuffin' like they said. I knowed you'd come."

Mrs. Wentworth gave Lallie her chair, and then Punch to cuddle, and forthwith Lallie burst into a rollicking tune and the legend:

    "As Saint Kevin was a wanderin' by the shores of Glendalough,
    He met one King O'Toole and he axed him for a schough;
    Says the King, 'You are a sthranger and your face I've never seen,
    But if you've got a bit of weed I'll lend you my dhudeen!"
    

To Punch the whole thing was vivid as an experience. He saw as in a vision the wind-swept shores of Glendalough. The only "lough" he had ever really seen was an ornamental lake in the town gardens, but Lallie had told him that King O'Toole's lough was a hundred times as big as that, so Punch pictured something very vast indeed. She had not explained what "schough" was and he had not asked, for he concluded it was some kind of bonfire from the context.

    "As the Saint was lighting up the fire the monarch heaved a sigh.
    'Is there anyt'ing the matter,' says the Saint, 'that makes you cry?'
    Says the King, 'I had a ghander as was left me by my mother,
    An' this mornin' he turned up his toes with some disase or other.'"
    

So Punch pictured a bonfire that crackled like those the gardner made with rubbish in the kitchen garden. The saint agrees to cure the ghander on condition that should the bird recover, he shall receive

    "the bit o' land the ghander will fly round."

"'Faix I will and very welcome,' says the King, 'give what you ask,' and departs forthwith to the palace to fetch the "burd."

    "So the Saint then tuk the ghander from the arrums of the King,
    And first began to twig his beak and then to stretch his wing.
    He cushed the bird into the air! he flew thirty miles around,
    Says the Saint, 'I'll thank yer Majesty for that little thaste of ground!'"

But the king was in no mind to part with such a large slice of his property, and he called his "six big sons" to heave St. Kevin in a ditch.

"'Nabocklish,' says the saint, 'I'll soon finish them young urchins,' and he forthwith transformed King O'Toole and his sons into the Seven Churches of Glendalough.

Meanwhile Dr. Wentworth had finished his letter to Pinner's mother, and longed to read it to his wife, for he felt that the pill of truth was gilded with charity in quite angelic fashion, and he thirsted for her appreciation and applause. Minutes passed, and still she did not come. The house was very quiet and he felt sure she must have been mistaken about the children, and wondered what on earth she could be doing; then suddenly, into the silence, there floated a voice uplifted in most cheerful song: a melody that set the head nodding and the heels drumming.

Not for one instant did Dr. Wentworth even wonder as to the owner of the voice. No one who had heard Lallie sing once could fail to recognise her singing when he heard it again. The siren song drew him from his letters and up the stairs to the half-open door of the nursery, and there he stood watching the pretty picture by the fire.

Punch, majestic and satisfied at last, sat bolt upright on Lallie's knee. Her arms were round him; but she leant back in her chair that she might the better watch his serious baby face. Mrs. Wentworth and nurse stood on the other side of the hearth, both absorbed in adoring contemplation of the small figure in the blue dressing-gown. Neither of them saw the doctor, but Lallie did, and gave him a merry nod of greeting.

    "An' if ye go there any day at the hour of one o'clock,
    You'll see the ghander flyin' round the Lake of Glendalough."
    

The song ceased, and Punch turned himself to look earnestly in Lallie's face, demanding:

"Have you seen him?"

"Well, no, I can't say I have, but then I've never been there just at that time."

"Sing it again," Punch suggested sweetly.

"NO, NO, NO," Mrs. Wentworth cried sternly; "Punch must go to bed this instant."

"I said I would if she singed it, an' I will," said Punch. "Lallie can carry me."

"NO, NO, NO," said another voice, and Punch's father came into the room. "You're far too heavy for Miss Lallie, I'll take you; but I'd like to know what you mean by being awake at this hour, and how you manage to get young ladies to sing for you?"

"I came over," Lallie replied hastily; "I was lonely and he was awake, and worrying because no one could sing St. Kevin, so I sang it, and I have enjoyed myself so much, but I must fly back now. Good-night, you darling Punch."

Dr. Wentworth escorted Lallie back to B. House, and to this day does not know that she was "feshed." Neither did Miss Foster, for she was upstairs discussing the probability of an outbreak of chicken-pox with Matron when Lallie was "feshed"; and finding the drawing-room untenanted on her return, concluded that Lallie had gone to bed, and went herself in something of a huff. It was one thing for her to leave Lallie for the whole evening, but it was quite another matter for Lallie to retire without bidding her a ceremonious good-night. Lallie crept in at the side door--Ford had left it unbolted for her--and went upstairs by the back staircase.

Punch, warm and soft, with that indescribably delicious perfume of clean flannel and violet powder that pervades cherished infancy, had filled her heart with charity and loving-kindness towards all the world.

"I was a pig about the stairs," she said to herself; "I'll use these for the future. Perhaps if I try to be less tiresome she'll not dislike me so much. Oh, dear, why is it so easy to do what some people want? Now if Mrs. Wentworth asked me to climb up a ladder every time I went to my room I'd do it joyfully, and poor Miss Foster asks me to use a good wooden staircase when it's a dirty day and it seems utterly impossible to do it. I'll really try and be nice to her--but she won't let me. Never mind, I can but try."