On this particular morning Master Harry4 Murray hearing the ominous5 splashing, tumbled out of bed and flattened6 his gloomy little face against the pane7.
“Is it raining?” called Nan, in a most woe-begone voice, from her bed in her own room.
“Raining? I should think so!” Harry called back. “It's raining cats and dogs, and it is not going to stop for a minute all day. Besides, there's an awful fog. It's pretty hard lines, it strikes me, to study all the week with the sun shining bright, and then have it rain on your only holiday. I just wish I could have the managing of things in this old world for a while.”
“I don't, then,” called Nan; “it would be an awful hard world for girls. You wouldn't think of a thing but just what would please the boys.”
Harry did not hear all of this, for he had flounced back into bed, drawing the blanket tight over his head, as though he meant to stay there for the rest of the day at any rate. Soon certain familiar odours, suggestive of a favourite breakfast, began to steal through his room, and his head gradually appeared above the covers, as though he were debating in his mind whether on the whole it would not be better to get up. A moment later the debate came to an end, for he heard his father's voice, and pricking8 up his ears it was easy enough to hear what he was saying.
“Look here, mother!” were the words that reached him, “the next time Harry is so late to breakfast he must go without it; I mean it, mother. The boy seems to be losing all regard for discipline. You can't manage a boy without discipline, no more'n a crew.”
So it was not strange that Harry no longer questioned the advisability of getting up, but springing out of bed and dressing9 in a jiffy managed to put in an appearance at the table just as everyone else had finished. Mrs. Murray dropped some cakes on the griddle especially for him, and the lazy little fellow fared much better than he deserved. Mrs. Murray had a very soft spot in her heart for this only boy of hers, and Captain Murray's threat that another time Harry should go fasting set that soft spot to aching, and made her anxious to fortify10 him against such an emergency by heaping his plate high on this particular morning.
“Now I propose,” said Sister Julia, after breakfast, when the children were moping and growling11 in the sitting-room12, “that we have regular lessons to-day, and then you can take the first clear day as a holiday instead.”
“No, sir-ree,” answered Harry, decidedly. “You don't catch me studying on Saturday for nobody.”
He felt rather ashamed of this speech as soon as it was uttered, but this was not a day when he was going to ask any one's pardon, not he—not even Sister Julia's, though he was very fond of her.
“You ought to be made to study every moment till you learn enough grammar to know that you ought never to use two negatives in one sentence,” said Regie, indignant at the way in which Harry had spoken.
“What do you say to that proposition yourself, Regie?” asked Sister Julia. .
“Well, to tell the truth, I don't feel much like it,” said Regie; “my head aches a little.”
“And mine aches like everything,” and Nan threw herself on to the lounge and plunged14 her face into the sofa pillow, as though smothering15 itself were preferable to life on a rainy Saturday.
“Oh, dear me! what a disconsolate16 little trio,” cried Sister Julia; “the wisest thing doubtless for me to do will be to take refuge in my own room and write some letters. When your troubles grow insupportable, come up, and we'll all try to be as miserable17 as possible together.”
In their hearts that little trio must have felt very much ashamed of themselves, but they continued to mope and fret3 for another hour. By this time Mrs. Murray had gotten through with her morning work, and notwithstanding the rain, had gone in the buggy with Captain Murray to take some milk and fresh eggs to a sick woman down at the Branch.
“Oh, look here!” called Harry, wandering into the kitchen, and discovering that he was monarch18 of all he surveyed, “we've got everything to ourselves, we ought to have a regular good time, and do something unusual.”
“Let's play tag through the doors,” cried Nan, proposing a game they were seldom allowed to indulge in because of the general disturbance19 and racket.
“No,” said his little Royal Highness, in an authoritative20 way, “we'll have private theatricals21. We'll act out a play,” he added, when he saw by Nan's puzzled frown that she did not quite take in his idea.
“Good for you!” cried Harry, “that'll be the greatest fun. But oh! what do you suppose?” he exclaimed, suddenly lowering his voice to an excited whisper,—“crouch22! crouch down, both of you; this way, close to the window.”
“What—what is it, Harry?” Nan asked, frightened at this strange performance, and regarding Harry in much the same dazed, sympathetic fashion as she had watched her little kitten endure the horrors of a fit the day before.
“Drop, drop, both of you!” was Harry's hoarse23 answer. “Don't you see? the Croxsons are coming.”
Oh! that was it, the Croxsons were coming! Regie and Nan quickly obeyed Harry's order.
“How many of 'em?” asked Nan, from her prostrate24 position.
“The whole five,” Harry answered, hopelessly; “but I don't believe they can see any of us, and if Sister Julia only does not hear them knock, and come down, they'll go away again and think no one's at home. Now, don't let's say a word.”
There was the patter of two pairs of little feet without, and the scuffle of three pairs of others, and then there came a vigorous knocking at the kitchen door, again repeated after an interval25 of a few moments. The children held their breath.
“Guess they're all out,” they heard Joe Croxson say, disconsolately26.
“I think it's kind of mean to keep them out in the pouring rain,” Nan whispered.
“And I know it is,” answered Regie. “I say, let 'em in,” and it was no sooner said than done.
Immediately the Croxsons crowded in after the manner of a rubber ball which may be forced through a very small aperture27. They all contrived28 somehow or other to get through the door at once, but straightway spread out into so large a company that one could but wonder how they had managed it. None of them spoke13 a word till they were safely within doors, evidently deeming conversation of no importance in comparison with simply “getting in.”
“We made up our minds you were all out,” said Joe Croxson, at last, while the family were in the process of removing damp-smelling outer garments.
“We thought we'd fool you a while,” Harry answered, with a nonchalant air.
The Croxsons were too glad to have gained entrance to take such treatment much to heart. “We've c-c-come to spend the morning, and stay to d-d-dinner, if you want us,” said little Madge, who stuttered dreadfully.
“I'm pretty sure it won't be convenient to have you stay to dinner,” said Nan, who no sooner beheld30 the shabby little Croxsons disposing themselves about the room with a permanent air, than with charming inconsistency she straightway regretted her noble impulse to let them all in. That they were a shabby little company no one could for a moment deny. The three girls, the youngest little more than a baby, each wore a ragged31 dress, and for an out-of-door wrap a faded and colourless strip, which collectively had once formed a shawl of their mother's.
The mother herself had died five years ago, and since then the children had managed for themselves as best they could. Their father was fireman on one of the engines belonging to the local road that ran through Moorlow, and the children were alone from morning till night. A poor woman came in every morning to cook their oatmeal and “tidy up,” but being poorly paid, the tidying up was always hasty, and never thorough. They were rather a stupid-looking set of children, and no wonder! You would hardly expect to find much that was bright in their faces, with so little brightness in their lives; besides, none of them had ever been to school, and Joe, who was the oldest of them all, knew little more than his letters, although he had passed his eleventh birthday. Everyone felt sorry for the Croxsons; and no doubt they would have fared better in one of the large cities, where they would have been reached by some of the organised charities, than in a little place like Moorlow. The rich people, who came in the summer in search of rest and refreshment32, did not interest themselves in the villagers, and the villagers themselves were mostly hard-working fishermen with little time or money to devote to others. Had it not been for the Murrays the Croxsons would surely have fared much worse. Mrs. Murray did them many a kind turn, and when Madge had a fever the winter before, Harry or Nan had trudged33 backward and forward every day with beef tea or some other nourishing food. So there was one bright spot in their lives after all. Indeed, there was more than one, for born by the sea they loved it dearly, and in warm sunshiny weather they romped34 on the beach the whole day long, keenly enjoying their perfect freedom, and pitying the children obliged to go to school. Nan always spoke of them as the “poor little Croxsons,” and it was this pathetic side of their history which made her second Regie's motion to open the door.
“Of course we can't play that game now, and all our fun is spoiled,” said Harry, seeming to utterly35 disregard the feelings of the Croxsons. Fortunately they were not sensitive, and their stolid36 little faces showed no signs either of pain or
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