CHAPTER VI
THE SHORN SHEEP
"I think you ought to come home with us, Uncle Bob, after cutting off Esther's tousle like that. I expect Aunt Saint will be in a jolly old wax."
The children had finished their tea out on the terrace, and a very nice tea it had been. Esther was looking brighter than she had done at first, and a little bit of color had stolen into her face; but her eyes still had a tired look in them, and there were dark marks underneath. Mr. Trelawny paused beside her, and passed his big hands over the cropped head. The touch was kindly, and Esther tried to conquer the little thrill of fear which ran through her. She felt as though she had behaved herself badly at the wizard's house, and that he had been very indulgent to her when he might have been very angry. She could not conquer her old fears all at once; but she resolved to try and mingle some liking with them for this big, strange man, who seemed wishful to be regarded as an uncle.
"What does the shorn sheep say herself about that?" asked Mr. Trelawny, bending down to look into Esther's face.
She made herself return the glance, and said timidly, —
"I think I should be much obliged if you would, Uncle Robert. You would explain to mama better than I can."
A smile lit up the rugged features of the Cornishman.
"To be sure I will then, my dear. I'll take all the blame, which is certainly all mine. I've got a few things I want to say to your mother, so I'll come down now and say them."
So when the shadows had grown a little longer, and the sea was lit up like a sheet of gold, the little party of four started down the hill again, the boys tearing about like a pair of wild animals, Mr. Trelawny following more soberly, holding Esther's hand in his, and helping her over the bits of rough ground; though, as he remarked laughingly, it was "like helping a bit of thistle-down over a hedge."
Mr. Trelawny told Esther a great many interesting things during that walk – things about birds and insects, which she had never known before. He did not frighten her at all the whole way, and when she asked a timid question he always had a full and interesting answer ready.
Then he told her that he had a number of books full of pictures of live creatures in his library, and said she must come up another day and look at them. And though Esther could never think of the Crag without a certain shrinking and fear, yet she did want to see the pictures very much, if only they would not take her into those awful underground places, or into the rooms where all those strange things went on.
When they got home, there was a sound of voices coming from the open drawing-room windows. The boys had rushed headlong in, and now came tumbling out again.
"It's only Mrs. Poll-parrot and Pretty Polly!" cried the pair in a breath; whereupon Mr. Trelawny took the two heads, one in either hand, and knocked them pretty smartly together.
"Mind your manners, boys!" he said in his big gruff voice, and strode on, holding Esther's hand, whilst Pickle and Puck remained behind, staring after him and rubbing their heads with an air of injured innocence.
"He's rather an old beast sometimes, I think," said Puck rather ruefully. "I don't quite like him always."
"He makes us do as he says," added Pickle, "like Mr. Earle – I mean the Owl. I think it's rather interfering of them."
Meantime Mr. Trelawny had entered the window, drawing Esther after him.
"Good evening, madam," he said in his breezy way – "good evening to you all. Mrs. St. Aiden, I have come to make my peace with you. Tell me first what you think of your shorn lamb."
Then he pushed Esther forward, and the child stood before her mother, the color coming and going in her face rather too fast to please Mr. Trelawny, who looked at her from under his bushy brows and shook his head once or twice.
Mrs. St. Aiden gave a little gasp, almost a little scream. Mrs. Polperran stared, and began to laugh; while Prissy cried out in unveiled astonishment, —
"O Esther, your hair, your hair! Where has it gone?"
"Here it is," said Mr. Trelawny, producing a packet wrapped in soft paper, and laying it upon Mrs. St. Aiden's knee. "I daresay some enterprising hairdresser would give a pretty penny for it. Now, Miss Prissy, you run off with your little friend here. I want to talk a little to these good ladies."
Prissy rose, and Esther was glad to escape with her into the garden. It was delightful to have such a cool, comfortable head; but all the talk about herself made her feel hot and shy.
"O Esther!" cried Prissy, "you do look so funny. But I've often heard mother say that it is bad for you having such a great head of hair. What was it made Mr. Trelawny cut it off? Don't you think it was taking a great liberty without your mother's leave?"
"I don't know," answered Esther slowly. "I don't think mama would ever have let him."
The boys came running up now, and the four children were soon well hidden from view in the clipped yew arbor, which was Esther's especial haunt.
"I thought he cut it off to use it in his experiments," said Pickle. "I've read of magicians who took people's hair, and then they used to burn bits of it and make them come to them in their sleep. I expect that's what he's done it for. I expect that you'll often be walking up to the cave in your sleep now."
Esther began shaking at once, but Prissy said, with her grown-up air of reproof, —
"You are talking great nonsense, Philip." (Prissy very often called the boys Philip and Percy, to their own unspeakable disgust.) "There are no magicians now; and besides, it was all nonsense when there were any. And Mr. Trelawny gave Esther's hair back to Mrs. St. Aiden just now. I saw him."
But Pickle wasn't going to be shut up like that.
"I expect he kept some of it back for himself," he said; "and you needn't pretend to know such a mighty lot about Mr. Trelawny and what he can do. If he isn't a magician, he's something uncommonly like it. You should have seen the things he did to-day for us to see; and he'd have done some funnier ones still, only she went and flopped down in a heap on the floor, and then they had to carry her out, and they wouldn't go back any more."
"What did you do, Esther?" asked Prissy.
"I don't know. I felt funny down there, and everything seemed going round, and I didn't know anything about the rest."
"Well, she just spoiled the fun," said Puck. "They were going to show us some things – skeletons in the tanks, I expect, or jolly things like that – but when she went flop they didn't seem to think a bit about us. They hustled us away up to the house, and wouldn't show us anything more. That's always the way when there are girls. They are always sure to spoil the fun."
"I'm very sorry," said Esther penitently, "but I didn't mean to. Only I don't like underground places. They make me feel queer."
"I've heard father speak about Mr. Trelawny's cave," said Prissy. "I don't think he likes it much. Quite a little while ago I heard him say to mother that he was afraid, now Mr. Earle had come, that there might be something horrid happening there. I can't quite remember the words, but he said something like that. And mother said she was afraid he was reckless, and too fond of experiments. I wonder what he does there, and what father is afraid of."
"People always are afraid of magicians and wizards," said Pickle with a sly look of triumph at Prissy; and for a moment she was silent, feeling as though she had been somehow caught in a trap.
"Well, I think he's a very odd sort of man; and I don't think he'd any business to cut off your hair, Esther. Did you know he was going to do it?"
"No, I never thought of such a thing. I only said it made my head hot at nights, or something like that. And then he got a big pair of scissors and cut it all off in a minute."
"I think it looks rather nice like that," said Prissy, with a critical glance, "though it does stand on end rather. I should think you would enjoy not having it combed out at nights."
"I've decided now!" cried Puck, shouting out suddenly the great new idea. "I shall call you Ess now. It'll do for Esther, and for Shorn Sheep too. Old Bobby calls you that himself now, so he can't scold us. You shall be Ess. Don't you think that's a nice, easy, short name?"
Mr. Trelawny was soon seen stalking away up the path towards the Crag, and Mrs. Polperran's voice was heard calling for Prissy. Esther stole back to her mother's side, and asked timidly, —
"You're not vexed with me, mama dear? Indeed I did not know what he was going to do."
"No, dear, I suppose not. It's no use making a trouble of it now it's done. It was certainly a liberty to take; but it's never any use being angry with Mr. Trelawny – he only laughs and makes a joke of it. Besides, he always has looked upon you rather in the light of his ward. Your father did write to him before he died, asking him to give an eye to us, and to take care of us both if we wanted it. I suppose he thinks he has some rights over you; and he has been very kind to us, so we must not say too much."
Esther listened very gravely. She did not know exactly what a ward might be, but she fancied that it made her in some sort the property of the redoubtable Mr. Trelawny. It was rather an alarming notion; but Esther said nothing, for it had been her endeavor all these past months, since her father's death, never to trouble her mother needlessly.
"You should have told me about your headaches, dear," said Mrs. St. Aiden, stroking Esther's hand. "Perhaps we could have cured them then without the sacrifice of your pretty hair."
"O mama, they weren't so very bad. I didn't want to worry you. But I think I shall be much better now without my hair."
"And what made you faint in the cave, dear? You frightened Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Earle, I think."
Esther thought it had been the other way; but she only said, after a little hesitation, —
"There didn't seem any air down there, and it was all so dark and queer, it made me feel funny; but I didn't know I fainted."
"Well, I have told Mr. Trelawny not to take you there again. I have always had that sort of dislike to caves and underground places myself. Men don't understand that sort of thing; but you had better never go there again, Esther."
"Oh, thank you, mama!" cried Esther earnestly.
It was an immense relief to feel that she need never go back to the cave, and that Mr. Trelawny had been told not to take her there. She could almost face the idea of going up to the Crag to see the books, if she were safe from that terrible place. Things seemed suddenly to be brighter and happier altogether. Esther was quite lively that evening; and as Genefer brushed the shorn head at night she remarked, —
"Well, Miss Esther, it's made a good bit of difference to your looks; but I always did say to the missus that it was a pity to let you grow such a mane of hair now. Very likely you would have had it grow thin and poor as you grew up; but if you keep it cropped short for a few years, you'll have a nice head of hair when you're a young lady and want it again."
On Sunday afternoon Milly and Bertie Polperran came to the Hermitage to spend the time with their little friends there, as on Saturday they had not met.
Prissy taught a little class in the Sunday school; but Milly and Bertie were free, only that they had some little verses and part of a hymn to learn, and they had leave to say them to Esther to-day.
Esther had been rather exercised in her mind about the fashion in which Pickle and Puck spent their Sundays. They went to church in the morning with her, and kept her pretty much on tenter-hooks all the time, although they had never done anything very outrageous so far. But their eyes always seemed everywhere, and nothing escaped their observation; and they would giggle in a subdued yet sufficiently audible fashion, if anything amused them, and sometimes try to make Esther or their little friends opposite join them in their ill-timed hilarity.
After having been to church, they seemed to consider that for them Sunday had ended, and they played about and amused themselves just as they pleased.
"Crump always played with us on Sunday afternoons," they would say when Esther suggested something more quiet and decorous, according to her ideas. They did not seem to understand why they should be more quiet on Sunday than on any other day, and it was not quite easy for Esther to explain.
"They must have been badly brought up," Prissy would say in her prim, grown-up fashion. "I think their father must be a very strange sort of man." But when Esther spoke to Genefer, she was a little comforted by hearing her say, —
"You see, Miss Esther, the poor little boys have had no mother to teach them, and gentlemen don't think of things quite like mothers. I don't think they mean to be naughty a bit, but they've not been taught as you have. Perhaps they'll get into better ways living here for a spell. But it's no good preaching at them. That'll never do it. You only get at children by making them love you. Then they like the things you like, and they learn different ways. They're getting fond of you, Miss Esther, my dear. They'll begin to copy you by and by, whether they know it or not."
Esther did not think Pickle and Puck had much notion of copying anybody; but she thought they were growing fond of her in a fashion, and she was certainly growing fond of them. If they brought new anxiety into her life, they brought a considerable amount of pleasure and variety too. She did not at all regret the arrangement, although she wished the boys had been just a little younger, so that she might have had more influence over them.
"We're going to have a Sunday school, and you're to teach!" cried Milly, running up to Esther as she sat in the yew arbor, thinking that the four little ones would rather be alone together. "We've learned our lessons, and Pickle and Puck have learned something, too; and now we're going to come and be a class, and you're to teach us."
There was plenty of room in the summer-house for the class; and a chair was set for Esther, whilst her four scholars occupied the fixed bench that ran round the arbor. They came in with looks of decorous gravity, and the boys pulled their forelocks, and Milly made a courtesy, whilst Esther felt half-embarrassed at so much respect and deference.
The little Polperrans repeated their lessons with the readiness of those accustomed to such tasks. Pickle followed with a fair show of fluency; and Puck said a short text with great deliberation, prompted from time to time by Milly, who had evidently "coached" him up in it.
At the close he looked up into Esther's face and asked with due solemnity, evidently put up to the right phraseology by either Bertie or Milly, —
"Please, teacher, what is the sin that so easily besets us?"
There was a faint giggle from Bertie; but Puck had thrown himself into his part, and was as solemn as a judge. Esther was a little embarrassed at the position in which she found herself, but she strove to find a suitable answer.
"I think it's different things with different people," she said after a pause. "You know some people are naughty in some ways, and some in others. We don't all sin alike."
Pickle here broke in eagerly, —
"Let's think of the naughty things people do. Mr. Trelawny cut off your hair yesterday without asking leave. Wasn't that a sort of sin?"
Esther was rather taken aback at this method of treating the subject; but before she had found words in which to reply, the boy had broken out again, —
"I tell you what I think it is – the sin that so easily besets him is doing just as he likes, and being what Crump calls 'lord high everything.' Don't you think that's Uncle Bob's sin, Ess?"
Esther looked straight at Pickle, and answered with some spirit, —
"I know somebody else who always wants to do as he likes, and cares very little what other people say or think."
Pickle looked suddenly taken aback.
"My stars!" he exclaimed.
Bertie pointed one finger at Pickle and another at Puck. His square face was bubbling over with a subdued sense of humor.
"She means you," said Puck: "I know she does. It's just what you're always saying. You do what you like, and don't care what people say. If it's a sin, it's your sin too."
"Oh dear!" cried Pickle, really interested now; "I never thought of that before. Did you mean that, Ess?"
Esther's face was rosy red now; she spoke truthfully, however.
"I think I did, Pickle. You know you do like your own way. But I think we all like that. I suppose that's one of the sins that easily besets us all."
"I don't think it besets you," said Pickle loyally; "you're always doing things you don't like, to spare other people, or because they want you to."
"It besets Prissy!" cried Milly eagerly; "she always wants her own way. She likes to be 'lord high everything' too. She's been as cross as two sticks lately, because Bertie and I have kept secrets from her, and she can't do just as she likes with us."
But Esther did not think this a very profitable turn to the talk, and she said slowly and rather shyly, —
"I don't think we need bother about other people's sins. It would be better to leave these alone, I think, and just to try and find out our own. If we know what they are, perhaps we can get over them; but if we don't know them, we shall never fight against them properly."
"There's some sense in that!" cried Pickle eagerly. "There was a picture I once saw on a church window of a man fighting with a dragon. I asked the old verger what it meant, and he said it was what all of us had to do some time or other. I didn't know what he meant, but Crump told me he meant that we all had to fight against sins, only they weren't live green dragons with red eyes and crinkly wings now; and we didn't always know when one was trying to get the best of us, but we'd got to try and be ready to fight. I suppose that's the sort of thing you mean, Ess? We've got to find out what our sins are. Let's have a think about it now. I don't mind fighting, if I only know what to fight."
"I'd like it to be a green dragon with red eyes," said Puck; "there'd be some sense in that."
"Well, but if there aren't any dragons left, we have to do it the other way," cried Pickle eagerly. "Now, let's think about it. We'll all think. At least I don't think Esther needs. I don't think she's got any sins."
"O Pickle, don't say that!"
"Well, I don't think you have. You're always good. Look at the marks you get; and the Owl has never had to scold you once. I don't believe you could think of any sin that besets you."
"Yes, indeed I can," answered Esther – "ever so many. I've got one in my head this very minute."
"What's that? Do tell."
Esther's face grew red, but she answered bravely, —
"Yes, I'll tell you if you like, because, perhaps, if I tell, I shall be able to fight it better. I'm often so frightened about things nobody else is."
The children eyed her wonderingly.
"But I don't call that a sin," cried Pickle. "You can't help being frightened – you're a girl."
"Yes, but I don't think girls ought to be cowards," answered Esther, her face still flushed. "I want to learn to be brave. I think being afraid when there isn't any reason is a sort of sin." She paused and hesitated, and then added in a lower voice, "I think we ought to remember that God can always take care of us, and then we need not be afraid any more."
The children were silent for a few minutes. Something in Esther's manner impressed them, they hardly knew why. They felt that she was speaking to them out of the depths of her heart, and that she meant every word she said.
"Do you ever think about God?" asked Pickle at last.
"Yes," answered Esther in a low voice, "but not as often as I ought to. I shouldn't be so frightened often, if I thought about Him more."
"Why? What difference would it make?"
"Oh, don't you see? Suppose you were frightened by something, and felt all alone, with nobody to help you. And then suppose you remembered that your father was looking at you all the time through a window somewhere with a glass, and that he saw you though you didn't see him. And if you knew that he could send somebody to help you if you wanted it really, why, you wouldn't be afraid any more, would you?"
"No, I suppose not. It would be silly."
"I think, perhaps, it is silly; and what is silly can be a sin, I think," said Esther steadily. "I want not to be frightened so often, and I think that is the sin that most easily besets me. I am going to try and fight against it, because it makes me forget about God always seeing us and taking care of us, and that is wrong, I know."
"I wonder what my sin is!" cried Pickle. "I expect I've got a lot. Esther, do you think it's a sin to call people by nicknames? Old – I mean Uncle Robert makes a great fuss about it."
"I – I don't think it's perhaps the names exactly," said Esther, with a little hesitation – "at least not amongst ourselves. But to older people it doesn't seem quite respectful, and children ought to treat older people with respect. I think it says so in the Bible somewhere. I'm sure it means it often. You know that even Jesus was obedient, and 'subject to' Joseph and Mary, though He was God's Son all the time."
"We don't mean any harm," said Puck. "Crump used only to laugh, and call us cheeky little beggars."
"Well," said Esther, with a little gentle decision in her tone, "I don't think it sounds at all nice for little boys to speak of their father as Crump."
"Don't you, really? Do you mean you would call it a sin?"
"I don't know whether I am old enough to judge about that," answered Esther, "but it doesn't seem to me like honoring our fathers and mothers to speak of them like that, and that would be disobeying one of the commandments."
"Well, I never thought of it like that," said Pickle, in the tone of one open to conviction; "but I don't mind giving that up, if it is a sort of a sin. I did sometimes think that when people were there Cr – I mean father – didn't always quite like it. But I'm sure we must have lots of sins besides that. That's only quite a little one."
"I'm greedy; that's my sin," said Bertie. "I always want the biggest egg or the nicest cake. I don't always get them, but I want them. I shall have to fight against that."
"I don't like getting up in the morning," said Milly; "and I get cross with Prissy often; and I hate my sums, and scribble on my slate instead of doing them. I think I'm lazy, for I'm always so glad when we can't do lessons, or visitors come when I'm practising. And sometimes I don't practise all my time, but run out into the garden for a little while, if nobody is about, and pretend I've been at the piano all the time. I don't mean I say so, because nobody asks me; but I pretend it to myself, and I suppose that's a sort of lie."
"I sometimes tell stories," said Puck. "I say I've done things and seen them, and I haven't really – at least not just as I say them. I like to pretend things are bigger than they are, and that we're braver, and stronger, and cleverer."
"And I like to do just as I like," said Pickle, remembering how the conversation had begun. "I don't like Mr. Earle when he interferes, and makes us do things his way; and I get in a rage sometimes because he sees through us and stops the things we want to do. I think I've got a lot of sins – more than any of the rest of you. I'm the eldest, and so I suppose I should have. At least Esther's older; but then she's good. I don't call it a sin to be afraid. Girls and women are made that way. It's much worse to be always wanting your own way, and not caring for anything or anybody so long as you get it."
Pickle had faced the flaw in his character or training with a good deal of candor, although, perhaps, there was a touch of pride in the feeling that he had a bigger sin to battle with than anybody else.
Esther's voice was now heard saying gently, —
"Then if we all know what is the sin that so easily besets us, we ought to be able to fight against it better, and to help one another to fight too. I think it would be nice to help each other when we can. There is something somewhere about bearing one another's burdens. I should think that would be the same sort of thing."
"And let's have a Sunday school rather often," said Milly, "and tell each other how we're getting on. I should like to know if Esther stops being afraid of things; and I'll tell how often I've been lazy at lessons, or have got angry with Prissy. Now and then I'm angry with mother too" – here Milly's face got very red – "and sometimes I say naughty things to her very softly, because I know she doesn't hear them. I think that's quite a sin – don't you, Esther?"
The sound of the tea-bell broke up the Sunday school at that moment, and the children trooped to the house, where Genefer had a nice tea waiting for them in the dining-room.
That night she remarked to her little charge how well-behaved they had all been that Sunday afternoon.
Esther's face grew rather rosy as she answered, —
"Yes, we are all going to try to be good, and fight our sins. But, Genefer, I wanted to tell them that we must ask Jesus to help us, and I didn't quite know how to say it, and so I didn't. I think it's very hard to be really brave."
"You'll get braver as you get older, Miss Esther," said the woman sympathetically, "and the little folks will soon find out that they want help for their bits of battles, and you can talk about how that's to be had another time."
"I – yes, I will try," said Esther earnestly. "I hope I shall grow braver, and then it will be less hard."