Joan left the doctor’s office and retired to her own part of the house
with mingled thoughts and sentiments. She had persuaded the doctor to
grant her cherished wish: there was to be some one beside an old woman
to open the door for his calls, and some one, if not in livery, at
least in a tailor’s suit. But a crooked back! How was that ever going
to look?
“Weel, weel, it were a deed o’ charity at the least, and like the
doctor’s ain sel’ to see that sic a thing could be done at the same
time he waur gratifying old Joan’s pride, and doing the worthy and
respectable thing for himsel’. And who kenned but it might gie a bit o’
look o’ distinction to the house, after a’? And who could leave a bairn
like that to greet his days awa’ alane and unpitied in what the doctor
who kenned the truth o’ it a’ was pleased to call a prison. Not auld
Joan. Nane suld ever say that.”
Her reflections were hardly ended, before the black horse had sped away
over the distance from the office to the almshouse, and the doctor was
at the door again. That had long ago ceased to surprise any one; the
wonder to-day was that, instead of making his way at once to Creepy’s
corner, he remained at least ten minutes closeted with Mrs. Ganderby,
and when at last the door opened, he held it ajar long enough for Sue,
just ready to dart away from the old clock, to hear her say,
“Well, well, sir, if you have such a thought in your heart, it’s not
for me to do anything but rejoice that the Lord has shown such pity
upon him, which at the same time, there’s no one in the house but will
be sorry to miss the poor crooked thing, nor can do anything but wonder
how you can find any way to manage things for a poor little ill-favored
creature like him, much less to find him of any use to yourself; though
after the change you’ve succeeded in making already, which it often
seems to me you have done it more as the apostles used to cause the
lame to walk than as a real living man of our day could be expected, no
one can feel inclined to doubt or to wonder at anything you undertake.”
In another moment Sue had fled away just in time, and was calling upon
Enoch and all the rest to help her imagine what this mysterious speech
could mean, and amid all this excitement the doctor was at Creepy’s
side again, and darting one of the old quick inquiring looks into his
face. But it was a joyous look too, and Creepy responded with a smile;
he had learned to do that long ago, but ever since the morning the
doctor had talked to him about the Brotherhood, the blood had seemed to
flow with a fuller throb through his veins, and he could raise his head
and meet the look of any one with what it seemed to him must be the
same feeling that was making the earth blossom out into spring, green
grass and flowers once more.
“So, so, my little man! All bright and well this morning, and troubles
vanishing away like the last rags and tatters of winter that have been
hiding in the corners of the field? Well, that is as it should be; and
now, if you haven’t been taking a walk with Enoch and tiring yourself
out already, suppose you should get into that chaise of mine, and see
how life seems to me, driving about in it all day. I can’t let you
learn what exercise is all at once, and I want to get you into drill
for that fishing excursion of ours; it will be time for it now before
we can say Jack Robinson.”
Six months ago this would have made Creepy’s heart stand still, and
then beat with such a great, trembling pulse that he could hardly have
breathed, but now he only got up from his chair with a glow in his
cheeks and a great shining in his eyes, and said he was ready.
“Good! And suppose, if you shouldn’t be tired of everything before we
get there, suppose we should stop at my house a while, and see if you
can find anything to amuse yourself with? And if you should, and if I
should be busy, as I am very likely to be, suppose we should not come
back at all to-day; or if we didn’t feel in the mood of it, not even
to-morrow, and give you a chance to see if you like life anywhere else
as well as here?”
The black horse seemed to understand that something to deal tenderly
with was being lifted into the chaise. He stopped pawing the ground as
he always did when he heard the doctor’s step, and instead of dashing
off at the first touch of a loot upon the chaise floor, he stood as
if such a thing as moving had never been heard of, and only looked
over his shoulder with wondering eyes as the doctor placed Creepy
exactly where he wanted him among the cushions, and tucked the lap-robe
carefully round on that side. But it was only a moment; they were all
right then and off, but there was a touch on the rein that told him
very plainly they were not going as fast as usual, and that every
roughness in the road was to be left one side, or, if that couldn’t be,
smoothed over by the best motion possible.
“Driving isn’t quite what it might be, yet,” said the doctor; “but
things are getting better every day, and by the end of another week we
may see the dust flying, after all. Do you see that bit of green grass
showing itself over there? We had better feast our eyes while we can,
for we shall be coming to city pavements before we know it.”
But he seemed to be in no hurry to come to them, or indeed to come to
anything or any place in particular. They took the first turn in the
road, it is true, the same that Creepy used to wonder at in days gone
by, and which Enoch had showed him, in the queer chair, so many times
since; but instead of keeping on after that towards the city, they
swept off into another, and then leisurely on till they came to what
seemed hardly more than a lane, overhung by sweeping branches of great
old trees.
“There,” said the doctor, “that is the way we shall take when we bring
our fishing rods along with us. Do you see those willows down there,
yellow as gold, and buds swelling on every twig. When they have fairly
burst forth, and made green leaves of themselves, that will be the
time for us to come. But this morning I don’t know that we can do
better than drive a little farther.”
Creepy did not answer a word, but that was of no consequence with the
doctor; he always understood him just as well when he could not speak.
Was this the world that he had dreamed of so long? Was this what life
had always been to other people, “all but him,” this thrill that was
filling every vein, this joy at his heart, this free fresh air, this
sunlight, this feeling that there was something more, still lying
beyond every turn? He leaned back among the cushions and drew long
deep breaths, as if in that way he could drink more deeply, and make
something more his own.
The doctor chatted on, they took one turn after another, until at last
there were no more to take, and they were coming fairly into the city.
And now the doctor watched his patient more carefully; he saw that the
great blue veins were swelling up in his forehead as he had not seen
them now for a long time. The palaces and castles, as they seemed to
Creepy’s eyes, the countless, wonderful throngs of people, the hurry
and bustle and bewildering noise, were going to be too much for him;
they must take the shortest cut home.
That brought them past the little cottage between its two brick
guardians, and Creepy caught sight of the conservatory window. In an
instant he had started up with a sudden cry, his cheeks turned pale and
then crimson, and he leaned past the side of the chaise until, for a
second, the doctor thought he had lost him.
“Wait a bit, my man,” he said, laughing, as he caught Creepy’s arm;
“they’re worth looking at, that is true enough; but I can’t quite
consent that you should break your neck for the sake of a peep at them.
Sit up now, like a sensible fellow, till I can roll up the curtain and
then we will walk past once or twice and see what we can make of it
all.”
The curtain was rolled up, and the black horse brought to a walk and
then turned to pass the window again. This time Creepy’s heart _did_
stand still! Geraniums, azaleas, roses, heliotropes, and jessamines;
and almost loveliest of all, some one standing behind the flowers, her
face as fair as any of them, and her golden hair bound back from her
forehead like rippling sunlight.
She had caught sight of Creepy too, Nellie Halliday, and though she
could not read the whole story on the quivering face and great shining
eyes, her quick glance told her enough, and when the horse had been
turned again and was passing once more for Creepy’s last look, she had
broken off a handful of the rarest flowers, thrown up one of the sashes
a little way, and stood holding them toward him with a smile.
Creepy turned one entreating look toward the doctor, and then felt the
reins put into his hand; the doctor had sprung down and was taking them
from her.
“Excuse me,” she was saying, “I thought the little fellow was an
invalid, and that perhaps they might be a pleasure to him, but I’m
afraid I am venturing too much,” and a blush like one of her own roses
spread over her face as the doctor took them from her hand.
“Quite the contrary,” said the doctor; “my little patient is indebted
to you for his first taste of one of God’s rarest gifts;” and with his
hat still in his hand he was in the chaise again, and the flowers in
Creepy’s grasp.
“Well, and what do you think of them?” he asked gently, after a few
moments as Creepy still held them reverently, scarcely pressing his
white fingers upon their stems, and turning them from side to side
before his enraptured eyes.
He turned and looked in the doctor’s face. “I think,” he said, “the
King must have made them for his princess.”
“Good!” said the doctor, “that’s it exactly--or for a princess now and
then. At least I believe that was one who stood holding these out to
you.”
But there was no time to talk about the flowers, they had stopped
before the doctor’s door. Could Creepy bear anything more?
With a word to the black horse, the doctor had lifted him gently from
the chaise, and they were going up the steps together. And this was
where the doctor lived! This had been one of the dreams over which
Creepy’s thoughts had run a thousand times, trying to imagine where
it could be, and what it could be like. And here it was, an everyday
sort of place enough to city eyes, too closely between others for any
thought of conservatory windows, a brown-stone front, and an iron
railing up the steps; but grandeur itself to Creepy’s eyes. And now
they were in the office. Books, books on every hand, and marvellous,
mysterious glittering things that he could not divine the use of; an
arm-chair or two, a lounge, and an ivy trailing over the window. But
the doctor gave him very little time to go from one to the other.
“Now, my man, or my prince,” he said, with one of his old smiles,
“I want you to remember that even you might possibly, under some
circumstances, get tired, and I’m afraid your physician may not be
pleased if it goes too far; you have done a good deal for one step
out into life, and I have some writing that hasn’t been done. Suppose
I just make you all right on that lounge a while, and you keep quiet
there half an hour or so, while I do a little work by myself. There--I
think that’s about right; now if you should by any accident fall asleep
a few moments, there would be no harm done.”
The doctor settled himself to his writing, and appeared to have
forgotten there was such a thing in existence as the throbbing little
life that lay upon his sofa; but he did not forget it, not for an
instant, and stole a look once in a while to see how things were going.
He was afraid there had been a little too much; he had planned all he
thought would do very well before the matter of the flowers came up.
But he was soon relieved by seeing the great eyelids droop, then rest
quietly, and in a few moments more he was sure his patient was asleep.
“That’s good,” he said as he took one more look to make sure he was not
mistaken; “only a child could do that, and I’m glad to see he has even
so much of it in him. Perhaps he’ll grow young enough to make up for
lost time, after all.”
When Creepy opened his eyes, everything was as he had left it; the
doctor still sat at his table, not an article in the room had moved
from its place, not a wonder had lessened, not a vision had vanished
away. He wasn’t even sure he had been asleep, and the doctor said
nothing about it as he laid down his pen and turned to look at him.
“There, that’s done,” he said, “and now, I suppose, I ought to go out.
Do you feel rested enough to amuse yourself for a while? I think I’ll
call old Joan to help you for this time. You must make friends with
Joan, for you wouldn’t have had much of a doctor if it hadn’t been for
her. I was smaller than you, and not a bit stronger, when she undertook
to make something of me.”
He rang the bell, and the gaunt form, cap, and spectacles appeared.
“Joan, this is the little man I was speaking to you of; he is going to
stay with me to-day, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps longer, if we can make
him like it. Can’t you find something to entertain him with while I
make a few calls?”
Joan’s face was a study as she looked at the tiny, crooked form, the
pale face, and the great dark eyes that still lay on the corner of
the lounge. First, amazement, then perplexity and the tender pity and
readiness to help that are somewhere in every woman’s heart, no matter
how sharp the outlines of her shoulders; and in none more warmly than
in the old Scotch nurse’s, doubtful as she had looked for a moment.
“Indeed, mon,” she said, “it’s nae sae muckle auld Joan remembers o’
the tricks that used to amuse yoursel’ in days gone by; not that the
time’s sae very lang past, either, but it’s brought its changes wi’ it,
and I’ve ta’en my share o’ them, I suppose. But I’ll do what’s in my
power for ony visitor o’ yours gladly enough, and more than a’ for a
tired little heart sic as this seems to be.”
“Well, well,” said the doctor, “I’ll venture it. Tell him some of the
marvellous stories I used to hear, or take him in your own part of the
house, if he likes, and let him see how we manage to live here all by
ourselves. Good-by, my little man; I’ll see you again before you’re
half done with Joan,” and he was gone.
It seemed a long time, and yet a short one, before the black horse’s
hoofs were heard clattering up to the pavement again. It took all
Creepy’s quick wits to follow Joan in her strange talk and make head
or tail of what she was saying, and she found something quite as new to
herself in the gentle, patient soul, the twisted form, and the “unco
sorrowfu’” look that met her out of the brown eyes.
But they both kept their difficulties to themselves, and got bravely
along with them; and, best of all to Creepy, Joan was never tired of
talking of the doctor.
“It’ll take a lang day and a lang search,” she said, “to find anither
man of nae mair years than his that can measure off against his little
finger in all that suld mak the warld the better or the happier for his
living in it. There’s mair wisdom in his head than in a hundred that
think themselves equal wi’ him; an’ sic a braw an’ winsome laddie as he
waur, an’ sae strang an’ gladsome, never dree or wearied, an’ I never
kenned him afraid to raise his head amang the proudest, nor feel that
he couldna fash himsel’ to lift up the weakest and the humblest o’ them
a’. Ye canna see it a’ yet, but maybe ye hae kenned him lang enough to
get a glimmer o’ the truth. Dinne ye think sae, bairnie?”
“I think,” said Creepy, slowly rising up from where he lay, and fixing
the great brown eyes on Joan’s face, “I think the weak and the sick
must come to him as they came to the Lord Christ when he was here.
Don’t you think He has taught him to be like Himself?”
From that moment Joan would have fought with wild beasts, if it had
been necessary, to protect and cherish her new charge.