LITTLE FERGUS
"Old portraits round in order set,
Carved heavy tables, chairs, buffet
Of dark mahogany."
MRS. SOUTHEY
For there was a bright fire burning in the room, which sent red rays
flickering and dancing in all directions, lighting up the faded tints of
the ancient curtains and covers, and bringing rich crimson shades out of
the shining, old dark mahogany furniture. There were flowers too; a
bouquet of autumn leaves--bronze and copper and olive--with two or three
fragile "last roses" in the middle, on which Gratian's eyes rested with
pleasure for a moment, on their way to the small figure--the most
interesting object of all.
He was lying on a little sofa, placed so as to be within reach of the
fire's warmth, and yet near enough to the window for him to see out
into the garden, to watch the life of the birds and the plants, the
clouds and the breezes. The autumn afternoon looked later and darker now
to Gratian as he glanced at it from within than when he was himself a
part of it out-of-doors, and his eyes returned with pleasure to the
nearer warmth and colour, though after the first momentary glimpse of
the boy on the sofa a sort of shyness had made him look away.
For the child was extremely pale and thin--he looked much more ill than
Gratian had been prepared for, and this gave him a feeling of timidity
that nothing else could have caused. But the lady soon put him at his
ease.
"Fergus, dear," she said, "here is the little friend you have been
hoping for. Come over here near us, my dear boy"--for she had sat down
on a low chair beside the couch, evidently her usual place--"and I will
help you to get over the first few steps of making friends. To begin
with," she said smiling, "do you know we don't know your name? That
seems absurd, doesn't it? And you don't know ours."
"Yes--I know _his_," said Gratian, smiling too, and with a little
gesture towards the invalid, so gentle and half-timid that no one could
have called it rude; "you have just said it--Fergus. I never heard that
name before."
"It is a Scotch name," said the lady. "One can almost fancy oneself in
Scotland here. And tell us your name."
"Gratian," he replied, "Gratian Conyfer."
"What a nice name," said Fergus, speaking for the first time, "and what
a queer one! I can say the same to you as you said to me, Gratian--I
never heard that name before."
"How did you come by it?" asked Fergus's mother.
"I think it was because mother is called Grace, and there were several
baby brothers that died, that were called for father," he replied.
"And how old are you?" asked Fergus, raising himself a little on his
elbow. "I'm eight and a half. I'm not so very small for my age when I
stand up--am I, mother?"
"No, dear," she answered with a little shadow over her bright face. "And
you, Gratian?"
"I am nine," he said; "but they say at school I don't look so much. Tony
is twelve, but he is much, much bigger."
"Tony--who is Tony?" asked Fergus; "is he your brother?"
"Oh no, I have no brothers. He's the head boy at the school."
"Yes," said Fergus's mother, "I remember about him. He was the boy Mr.
Cornelius first thought of sending."
"And why didn't he come?" asked Fergus.
Gratian looked up at the lady.
"Did the master tell you?" he asked. The lady smiled, and nodded her
head.
"Yes," she said, "I know the story. You may tell it to Fergus, Gratian;
he would like to hear it. Now I am going away, for I have letters to
write. In half an hour or so you shall have your tea. Would you like it
here or in the library, Fergus?"
"Oh, in the library," he said eagerly. "I haven't been there for two
days, mother. And then Gratian can see the pictures--you told me he
liked pictures?--and best of all, you can play the organ to us, little
mother."
"Then you feel better to-day, my boy?" she said, stooping to kiss the
white forehead as she was leaving the room. "Some days I can't get him
to like to move about at all," she added to Gratian.
"Yes, I do feel better," he said. "I don't mind it hurting me when I
don't feel that horrible way as if I didn't care for _anything_. Have
you ever been ill, Gratian? Do you know how it feels?"
Gratian considered.
"I once had a sore throat," he said, "but I didn't mind very much. It
was winter, and I had a fire in my room, and I liked to see the flames
going dancing up the chimney."
"Yes," said Fergus, "I know how you mean. I'm sure we must have the same
thinkings about things, Gratian. Do you like music too, as much as
pictures? Mother says people who like pictures very much, often like
music too, and--and--there's something else that those kind of people
like too, but I forget what."
"Flowers," suggested Gratian; "flowers and trees, perhaps."
"No," said Fergus, looking a little puzzled, "these would count in with
pictures, don't you think? I'll ask mother--she said it so nicely. Don't
you like when anybody says a thing so that it seems to fit in with other
things?"
"Yes," said Gratian, "I think I do. But I think things to myself,
mostly--I've not got anybody much to talk to, except sometimes Jonas.
He's got very nice thoughts, only he'd never say them except to Watch
and me."
"Who's Watch?" asked Fergus eagerly. "Is he a dog?"
"He's our sheep-dog, and Jonas is the shepherd," replied Gratian.
"They're sometimes alone with the sheep for days and days--out on the
moors. It's so strange--I've been with them sometimes--it's like another
world--to see the moors all round, ever so far, like the sea, I
suppose--only I've never seen the sea--and not a creature anywhere,
except some wild birds sometimes."
"Stop," said Fergus, closing his eyes; "yes, I can see it now. Go on,
Gratian--is the sky gray, or blue with little white clouds?"
"Gray just now," said the boy, "and there's no wind that you can feel
blowing. But it's coming--you know it's coming--now and then Watch
pricks up his ears, for he can tell it much farther off than we can, and
old Jonas pats him a little. Jonas has an old blue round cap--a
shepherd's cap--and his face is browny-red, but his hair is nearly
white, and his eyes are very blue. Can you see him, Fergus? And the
sheep keep on browsing--they make a little scrumping noise when you are
quite, quite close to them. And just before the wind really comes a
great bird gives a cry--up, very high up--and it swoops down for a
moment and then goes up again, till it looks just a little black speck
against the sky. And all the time you know the wind is coming. Can you
see it all, Fergus?"
"All," said the boy; "it's beautiful. You must tell me pictures often,
Gratian, till I can go out again. I never had any one who could make
them come so, except mother's music--they come with that. Haven't you
noticed that they come with music?"
"I don't know," said Gratian. "I've never seen any real
pictures--painted ones in big gold frames."
"There are some here," said Fergus; "not very many, but some. I like a
few of them--perhaps you will too. But I like the pictures that come and
go in one's fancy best. That's the kind that mother's music brings me."
"Yes," said Gratian, his eyes sparkling, "I understand."
"I was sure you would," said Fergus, with a tiny touch of patronising in
his tone, which Gratian was too entirely single-minded to see, or rather
perhaps to object to if he did see it. "I knew the minute I saw you,
you'd suit me. I'm very glad that other fellow didn't come instead of
you. But, by the bye, you haven't told me about that--mother said you'd
tell me."
Gratian related the story of his satchel of stones. Fergus was boy
enough to laugh a little, though he called it a mean trick; but when
Gratian told of having found his books again, he looked puzzled.
"How could you find them?" he asked. "It was nearly dark, didn't you
say?"
"I don't quite know," replied Gratian, and he spoke the truth. It was
always difficult for him to distinguish between real and fancy, dreaming
and waking, in all concerning his four friends, and in some curious way
this difficulty increased so much if he ever thought of talking about
them, that he felt he was not meant to do so. "I have fancies
sometimes--like dreams, perhaps--that I can't explain. And they help me
often--when I am in any trouble they help me."
"I don't see how fancies can help you to find things that are lost,"
said Fergus, who, except in his own particular way, was more practical
than Gratian, "unless you mean that you dream things, and your dreams
come true."
"It's a little like that," Gratian replied. "I think I had a sort of
dream about coming here. I did so want to come--most of all since I
heard the lady play in church."
"Yes," said Fergus, "isn't mother's playing beautiful? I've not heard
her play in church for ever so long, but I'm so glad there's an organ
here. She plays to me every day. I like music best of everything in the
world--don't you?"
To which Gratian gave his old answer--"I don't know yet."
Then they began talking of more commonplace things. Each told the other
of his daily life and all his childish interests. Fergus was greatly
struck by the account of Gratian's home--the old house with the queer
name.
"How I should like to see it," he said, "and to feel the wind blow."
"The winds," corrected Gratian, "the four winds."
"The _four_ winds," repeated Fergus. "North, south, east, and west. They
don't blow all together, do they?"
"I think they do sometimes. Yes, I know they do--at night I'm sure I've
heard them all four together, like tones in music."
Fergus looked delighted.
"Ah, you have to come back to music, you see," he said. "There's nothing
tells everything and explains everything as well as music."
"You must have thought about it a great deal," said Gratian admiringly.
"I've only just begun to think about things, and I think it's very
puzzling, though I'm older than you. I don't know if music would explain
things to me."
"Perhaps not as much as to me," said Fergus. "You see it's been my best
thing--ever since I was five years old I've been lying like this. At
home the others are very kind, but they can't quite understand," he
added, shaking his head a little sadly; "they can all run about and jump
and play. And when children can do all that, they don't need to think
much. Still it is very dull without them--that is why I begged mother to
try to get me somebody to play with. But I think you're better than
that, Gratian. I think you understand more--how is it? You've never been
ill or had to lie still."
"No," said the boy, "but I've had no brothers and sisters to play with
me. And perhaps it's with being born at Four Winds--mother says so
herself."
"I daresay it is," said Fergus gravely.
"Won't you get better soon?" asked Gratian, looking at Fergus with
profound sympathy. For, gentle as he was, the idea of having to lie
still, not being able to run about on the moors and feel his dear winds
on his face, having even to call to others to help him before he could
get to the window and look out on the sunshine--it seemed perhaps more
dreadful to Gratian than it would have done to an ordinary, healthy
child like Tony Ferris. "Won't you too be able to walk and run
about--even if it's only a little?"
"I hope so," Fergus replied. "Mother says I mustn't expect ever to be
quite strong. But they say I'm getting better. That's why mother brought
me here. Do you know I can eat ever so much more than when I came? If I
can get well enough to play--even on a piano--I wouldn't mind so much. I
could make up all sorts of things for myself then--I could make pictures
even of the moorland and Four Winds Farm, I think, Gratian."
"I'll try to tell you them--I'll try to make some of my fancies into
stories and pictures," said Gratian; "then afterwards, when you get well
and can play, you can make them into music."
Just then the door opened, and Fergus's mother came in.
"Tea is ready," she said, "and Andrew is going to carry you into the
library, Fergus."
She looked at the boy a little anxiously as she spoke, and Gratian saw
that a slight shadow of pain or fear crept over Fergus's face.
"Mother," he said, "would it perhaps be better to stay here after all?
You could show Gratian the pictures."
The lady looked very disappointed.
"The tea is so nicely set out," she said, "and you know you can't hear
the organ well from here. And Andrew doesn't hurt you--he is very
careful."
Gratian looked on, anxious too. He understood that it must be good for
Fergus to go into another room, otherwise his mother would not wish it.
Fergus caught sight of the eagerness on Gratian's face, and it carried
the day.
"I will go," he said; "here, Andrew."
A man-servant, with a good-humoured face and a strong pair of arms, came
forward and lifted the child carefully.
"You walk beside me, Gratian, and hold my hand. If it hurts much I will
pinch you a little, but don't let mother know," he said in a whisper;
and thus the little procession moved out of the room right across the
hall and down another corridor.
"There must be a window open," said Fergus; "don't you feel the air
blowing in? Oh don't shut it, mother," as the lady started forward,
"it's such nice soft air--scented as if they were making hay. Oh, it's
delicious."
His mother seemed a little surprised.
"There is no window open, dear," she said. "It must be that you feel the
change from the warm room to the hall. Perhaps I should have covered you
up."
"Oh no, no," repeated Fergus. "I'm not the least cold. It's not a cold
wind at all. Gratian, don't _you_ feel it?"
"Yes," said Gratian, holding Fergus's hand firmly. But his eyes had a
curious look in them, as if he were smiling inwardly to himself.
"Golden-wings, you darling," he murmured, "I know you're there--thank
you so much for blowing away his pain."
In another moment Fergus was settled on a couch in the library--a lofty
room with rows and rows of books on every side, nearly up to the
ceiling. It would have looked gloomy and dull but for the cheerful fire
in one corner and the neat tea-table drawn up before it; as it was, the
sort of solemn mystery about it was very pleasing to Gratian.
"Isn't it nice here?" said Fergus. "I'm so glad I came. And do you know
it didn't hurt me a bit. The fresh air that came in seemed to blow the
pain away."
"I think you really must be getting stronger," said his mother, with a
smile of hopefulness on her face, as she busied herself with the
tea-table; "you have brought us good luck, Gratian."
"I believe he has," said Fergus. "Mother, do you know what he has been
telling me? He was born where the four winds meet--he _must_ be a lucky
child, mustn't he, mother?"
"I should say so, certainly," said the lady with a smile. "I wonder if
it is as good as being born on a Sunday."
"Oh far better, mother," said Fergus; "there are lots of children born
on Sundays, but I never heard of one before that was born at the winds'
meeting-place."
"Gratian will be able to tell you stories, I daresay," said his
mother--"stories which the winds tell him, perhaps--eh, Gratian?"
Gratian smiled.
"He has been telling me some pictures already," said Fergus; "oh, mother
I'm so happy."
"My darling," said his mother. "Now let me see what a good appetite you
have. You must be hungry too, Gratian, my boy. You have a long walk home
before you."
Gratian was hungry, but he hardly felt as if he could eat--there was so
much to look at and to think about. Everything was so dainty and pretty;
though he was well accustomed at the Farm to the most perfect
cleanliness and neatness, it was new to him to see the sparkling silver,
the tea-kettle boiling on the spirit-lamp with a cheerful sound, the
pretty china and glass, and the variety of bread and cakes to tempt poor
Fergus's appetite. And the lady herself--with her forget-me-not eyes and
sweet voice. Gratian felt as if he were in fairyland.