Book One – Chapter One.
Two Mitherless Bairns

Ransey Tansey was up much earlier than usual on this particular morning, because father was coming home, and there was a good deal to do.

As he crawled out of his bed – a kind of big box arrangement at the farther end of the one-roomed cottage – he gave a glance towards the corner where Babs slept in an elongated kind of basket, which by courtesy might have been called a bassinette.

Yes, Babs was sound and fast, and that was something Ransey Tansey had to be thankful for. He bent over her for a few seconds, listening as if to make sure she was alive; for this wee three-year-old was usually awake long before this, her eyes as big as saucers, and carrying on an animated conversation with herself in lieu of any other listener.

The boy gave a kind of satisfied sigh, and drew the coverlet over her bare arm. Then he proceeded to dress; while Bob, a beautiful, tailless English sheep-dog, lay near the low hearth watching his every movement, with his shaggy head cocked a trifle to one side, as if he had his considering cap on.

In summer time – and it was early summer now – dressing did not take Ransey long.

When he opened the door at last to fetch some sticks to light the fire, and stood for a moment shading his brow with his hand against the red light of the newly-risen sun, and gazing eastwards over a landscape of fields and woods, he looked a strange little figure. Moreover, one could understand now why he had taken such a short few minutes to dress.

The fact is, Ransey Tansey hadn’t very much to wear just then. Barely eight years of age was Tansey, though, as far as experience of the world went, he might have been called three times as old as that; for, alas, the world had not been over-gentle with the boy.

Ransey wore no cap, just a head of towy hair, which was thick enough, however, to protect him against summer’s sun or winter’s cold. The upper part of his body was arrayed in a blue serge shirt, very much open at the neck; while below his waist, and extending to within nine inches of his bare feet, where they ended in ragged capes and promontories like a map of Norway, he wore a pair of pants. It would have been difficult, indeed, to have guessed at the original colour of these pants, but they were now a kind of tawny brindle, and that is the nearest I can get to it. They were suspended by one brace, a bright red one, so broad that it must have belonged to his father. I think the boy was rather proud than otherwise of this suspender, although it had a disagreeable trick of sliding down over his shoulder and causing some momentary disarrangement of his attire. But Ransey just hooked it back into its place again with his thumb, and all was right, till the next time.

A rough little tyke you might have called Ransey Tansey, with his sun-burnt face, neck, and bosom. Yet there was something that was rather pleasing than otherwise in his clear eyes and open countenance; and when his red and rather thin lips parted in a smile, which they very often did, he showed a set of teeth as clean and white as those of a six-months-old Saint Bernard puppy, and you cannot better that.

Had this little lad been a town boy, hands and face and feet would have been far from clean; but Ransey lived away down in the cool, green country, in a midland district of Merrie England, and being as often in the water as a duck, he was just as clean as one.

Away went Ransey Tansey now, and opened a rough old door in a rock which formed part of the hill by the side of which the humble cottage stood. The door opened into a kind of cave, which was a storehouse for all kinds of things.

He was soon back again, and in five minutes’ time had lit the fire, swept the hearth as tidily as a girl could have done it, and hung the kettle on a hook and chain. By this time another member of this small family came in, a very large and handsome tabby cat, with a white chest and vandyked face.

Murrams, as he was called, was holding his head very high indeed. In fact he had to, else the nice young leveret he carried would have trailed on the ground. Bob jumped up to meet him, with joy in his brown eyes.

Had Bob possessed a tail of any consequence, he would have wagged it. Bob’s tail, however, was a mere stump, and it was quite buried in the rough, shaggy coat that hung over his rump. But though honest Bob had only the fag-end of a tail, so to speak, he agitated this considerably when pleased.

He did so when he saw that leveret.

“Oh, you clever old Murrams!” Bob seemed to say. “What a nice drop of soup that’ll make, and all the bones for me!”

Murrams walked gingerly past him, and throwing the leveret on the hearth, proceeded to wash his face and warm his nose at the blaze.

Ransey put away the young hare, patted pussy on his broad, sleek forehead, then took down a long tin can to go for the morning’s milk. He left the door open, because he knew that if Babs should awake and scramble out of her cot, she would toddle right out to clutch at wild flowers, beetles, and other things, instead of going towards the fire.

Ransey Tansey happened to look round when he was about thirty yards from the cottage. Why, here was Bob coming softly up behind. Murrams himself couldn’t have walked more silently.

His ears disappeared backwards when he was found out, and he looked very guilty indeed.

Ransey Tansey shook his finger at him.

“Back ye goes – back ye goes to look after Babs.”

Bob lay down to plead.

“It ain’t no go, Bob, I tell ye,” continued Ransey Tansey, still shaking his finger. “Back to Babs, Bob – back to Babs. We can’t both on us leave the house at the same time.”

This latter argument was quite convincing, and back marched Bob, with drooping head and with that fag-end of a tail of his drooping earthwards also.

There grew on the top of the bank a solitary brown-stemmed pine-tree. Very, very tall it was, with not a branch all the way up save a very strong horizontal limb, which was used to hang people from in the happy days of old. The top of this tree was peculiar. It spread straight out on all sides, forming a kind of flat table of darkest green needled foliage. Had you been sketching this tree, then, after doing the stem, you could easily have rubbed in the top of it by dipping your little finger in ink and smudging the paper crosswise.

When not far from this gibbet-tree, as it was generally called, Ransey looked up and hailed, —

“Ship ahoy! Are ye on board, Admiral?”

And now a somewhat strange thing happened. No sooner had the boy hailed than down from a mass of central foliage there suddenly hung what, at first sight, one might have taken for a snake.

It was really a bird’s long neck.

“Craik – craik – crik – cr – cr – cray!”

“All right,” cried Ransey, as if he understood every word. “Ye mebbe don’t see nuthin’ o’ father, do ye?”

“Tok – tok – tok – cr – cray – ay!”

“Well, ye needn’t flop down, Admiral. I’ll come up myself.”

No lamplighter ever ran quicker up a ladder than did Ransey Tansey swarm up that pine-tree. In little over two minutes he was right out on the green roof, and beside him one of the most graceful and beautiful cranes it is possible to imagine. The boy’s father had bought the bird from a sailor somewhere down the country; and, except on very stormy nights, it preferred to roost in this tree. The neck was a greyish blue, as was also the back; the wings were dark, the legs jet black, the tail purple. Around the eyes was a broad patch of crimson; and the bill was as long as a penholder, more or less slender, and slightly curved downwards at the end. (A species of what is popularly known an the dancing crane.)

The Admiral did all he could to express the pleasure he felt at seeing the boy, by a series of movements that I find it difficult to describe. The wings were half extended and quivering with delight, the neck forming a series of beautiful curves, the head at times high in air, and next moment down under Ransey’s chin. Then he twisted his neck right round the boy’s neck, from left to right, then from right to left, the head being laid lovingly each time against his little master’s cheek.

“Now then, Admiral, when ye’re quite done cuddlin’ of me, we’ll have a look for father’s barge.”

From his elevated coign of vantage, Ransey Tansey could see for many miles all around him. On this bright, sunny summer morn, it was a landscape of infinite beauty; on undulating, well-wooded, cultivated country, green and beautiful everywhere, except in the west, where a village sheltered itself near the horizon, nestling in a cloudland of trees, from which the grey flat tower of a church looked up.

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.