The first knowledge of the Flamp which came to Tilsa and Tobene was
gained at breakfast on Christmas morning, when the Liglid warned them of
the precautions necessary in the city at night, and besought them to
make no noise lest the attention of the Loathly Beast should be drawn to
their house.
'But what is the Flamp?' asked Tilsa.
'What!' said the Liglid. 'A monster, a dreadful monster!'
'What is it like?' Tobene asked.
'Like?' said the Liglid, 'like? Why, no one knows. No one has seen it.
But we can hear it--oh, horrible, horrible!' and the little man covered
his eyes and shuddered.
'Why does it come?' Tilsa went on.
'To eat us,' said the Liglid.
'How many people has it eaten?' said Tobene.
'Eh!' the Liglid replied. 'Well, I don't--well, I can't exactly--well, I
don't think it has ever eaten any one yet. But it wants to and means
to.'
'Then how do you know it wants to eat you?' Tilsa persisted.
'Because,' said the Liglid, 'because it sounds like it.'
At night the Flamp came, and the city trembled and the earth shook.
Before the Liglid's house it sat down and wept and sighed for fully five
minutes, while within doors the Liglid turned all the colours of the
rainbow with fright. 'His face was fine,' said Tobene afterwards: 'just
like those whirligig things at the end of magic-lantern shows.' From
which remark you may judge that Tobene did not share his grandfather's
alarm, nor did Tilsa, nor old Alison.
The next morning there was a pool outside the Liglid's house large
enough to sail a boat on.
V
One day not long after the Flamp's visit, Tilsa ran into old Alison's
room to ask something, and was surprised and grieved to find her nurse
rocking to and fro in her chair, with her face covered. Now and then
between her fingers trickled the tears, and Alison sighed deeply.
'What is it?' Tilsa asked, kneeling beside her. 'Can I do anything, dear
Alison?'
'Only stay here, dearie,' sobbed the old woman. 'I was remembering
happier days. Stay here, Tilsa dear. All I want is sympathy.'
So Tilsa stayed, and Alison soon was herself again. 'Thank you, dearie,'
she said as she wiped her eyes and jumped up ready to set to work again;
'you have done me a world of good. Always be sympathetic if you can. No
one knows how grateful it is.'
It was nearly bed-time, and Tilsa went downstairs to say good-night to
the Liglid. On the way her little white forehead was puckered into lines
like a railway map.
She entered her grandfather's room softly. The old man was seated on one
side of his desk; on the other was the Town Clerk of Ule. Between them
was a large sheet of paper with these words at the top:
'A BILL FOR THE CIRCUMVENTION
OF THE FLAMP.'
They were too busy to notice Tilsa's entrance.
'We must hurry it through the House,' the Liglid was saying, 'or there
won't be time. Rigmarola is a long way off.'
'How long will it take to march the troops here?' the Town Clerk asked.
'Fully six months,' said the Liglid, 'and then they must be drilled.
They don't fight Flamps every day, and they may find it difficult to fix
upon a mode of attack. What a pity it is,' he added, 'that Ule has no
army.'
'It will be expensive,' said the Town Clerk.
'Money,' the Liglid remarked, 'is no object where the circumvention of
the Flamp is concerned. The city has suffered long enough.'
'True,' said the Town Clerk.
Tilsa now ventured to interrupt. 'Grandpapa,' she said, 'I've come to
say good-night.'
'Eh!' said the old man, now seeing her for the first time. 'Good-night?
Oh yes! good-night, my dear'; and after his wont he kissed the air an
inch from her cheek.
Tilsa did not at once run out of the room as she generally did, rather
glad to have done with the ceremony; instead, she spoke again.
'Grandpapa, I think I know what the Flamp wants when he comes to the
town.'
'Eh!' cried the Liglid, who was intent on his Bill again. 'Eh! I thought
you'd gone to bed. You know what the Flamp comes for?' he continued.
'Yes,' said Tilsa, 'it's not to eat people at all, or to do any harm;
it's for sympathy.'
'Rubbish!' said the Liglid. 'Nonsense--don't meddle with things you
don't understand. Run off to bed at once.'