"GO HOME, MY FRIENDS, IT IS ALL OVER."
The school stood quite in the suburbs of the little village--the girls'
school I mean--and there was nothing very unusual about it. Year in and
year out, with certainly no more holidays than they deserved, the
teachers--orphan girls both--laboured all day long at their duties, and
had the satisfaction of knowing that they were well beloved by their
sometimes noisy pupils, to whom their wish, however, was always law; and
the children generally made a good show when examination time came
round.
It was in here, one hard frosty day, that Shireen dropped on her way
down town, to pay her usual round of visits.
She had just left Uncle Ben's bungalow, after a long talk and song with
the sailor, and a few words to Cockie, the cockatoo, who, if he did not
say very much, was a wonderful mimic, and made many droll motions. He
never saw a boy, for example, without going through the movements of
using a whip. Perhaps Cockie believed with Solomon, that it was a pity
to "spare the rod and spoil the child."
There was a kind of general welcome to Shireen when she entered the
school-house; but, strangely enough, she went straight up to the desk,
and paid her compliments to the two teachers before doing anything else.
Then Shireen looked about her from the seat she had taken, namely, a
high three-legged stool. She could, from this elevation, see a large
number of her little friends, with whom she would hold a little
conversation presently. But there was one homely, good-natured face
that she missed, and one of the teachers, as if reading her thoughts,
stroked her back and head, as she remarked with a smile.
"Emily isn't here to-day, Pussy."
"No," said the other girl. "Emily has been a good girl, and worked
hard; and she has finished her education, and gone home to keep house
for her father."
So Shireen did not stop so long to-day in the school as was her wont,
for the chief attraction was gone. But she dispensed her favours among
her friends freely enough before she went. And they were not all girls,
either, whom Shireen regarded affectionately. For though it was a
girls' school, there were tiny, wee pests of fair-haired boys there, not
an inch bigger, presumably, than the school tongs, and of one or two of
these Shireen seemed very fond.
Down the room she trotted at last, however. She was not long in meeting
with an adventure, for round the distant corner came Danger, the
butcher's bull-terrier. There wasn't a good tree within fifty yards, so
Shireen had a race for it. She got up into the sycamore safely,
nevertheless. Danger coming in a good second, and stopping to bark
savagely up at her.
Shireen raised her back and growled defiance down at him.
Then she taunted him.
"Why don't you come up?" she cried derisively. "Why don't you climb the
tree? Because you can't, clever though you think yourself. Fuss!
Futt! Wouldn't I make the fur fly out of you if you did come up. And
wouldn't I carve my name on your nose, just. Go home! Go home, you
ugly brute. Mind, you'll catch it when Cracker meets you. Oh, he'll
give it to you properly next time."
The dog trotted off at last, and then Shireen came slowly down.
She meant to-day to pay all her other visits before going to Emily's,
because then she would have longer time to stay with her. So she went
first to see Jeannie Lynch, at her mother's tiny earthen-floored
cottage. Jeannie's mother was an invalid, and would never be better.
But she could just sit by the fire in her high-backed chair, and do
knitting, while Jeannie attended to the housewifery. Shireen found the
girl busy washing up the dinner things, and singing low to herself. But
there was a subdued, chastened kind of a look on her pretty face, which
was habitual to it, for Jeannie was lame, and, I'm sorry to say, the
village children teased her and called "Box-foot" after her. So even
when she went out to do shopping for her mother, she limped along the
street, looking fifty years of age, instead of the eleven summers that
made up the sum total of her existence hitherto. She looked, indeed, as
if she owed people an apology for her somewhat ungainly appearance.
Shireen loved her, nevertheless, and she loved Shireen, and it wasn't
for sake of the drop of milk Jeannie always put down for her, nor in the
hope of catching the mouse that nibbled paper in the cupboard, that
pussy always stopped at least an hour at this humble dwelling.
But she had to go at last, because she must see Mr Burn-the-wind, and
also little Alec Dewsbury. Alec was one of the afflicted. At school
one day, when quite a tiny lad, he had somehow injured his spine, and on
a small, stretcher-bed he had lain helpless for years. Often in summer
he lay out in the garden under the tree's green shade, where he could
hear the birds sing, and look up at the sailing clouds, with the rifts
of blue between; and higher still in imagination, far, far away beyond
the blue, where they told him God and angels dwell, though God was
everywhere. In winter his stretcher stood in a cosy corner of his
cottage home; and kind people brought him books and papers to read. But
Alec's pale face always lit up with joy when Shireen came in, for he had
no pet of his own.
"I wonder," he said to his mother one day, "if cats go to heaven? Oh,
surely they do," he added, before she could answer. "I'm certain all
good and beautiful creatures go there. Besides, mother, we know there
are cows and bees there."
"What put that in your head, lammie?"
"Because it's a land flowing with milk and honey, you know; so there
must be cows and bees there."
Alec was a very, very old boy for his years.
The blacksmith, on this particular day, was in very fine form, and
making the sparks fly in golden horizontal showers just as Shireen
trotted in to say "good-day." He had four ragamuffins of rosy-faced
children, perched high on a bench, with their legs dangling in the air,
to whom he was relating an old-fashioned fairy-tale, which made them
laugh at one moment, and stare with wonder and astonishment the next.
Shireen knew all four children, so she jumped up, and seated herself
beside the smallest, a mite of a girl, who at once declared to the
others that pussy loved her "bestest of all."
Then the blacksmith smoothed Shireen with the back of his hand, because
it was the only unsoiled portion of that horny fist of his, and then he
went on with his story.
While they were all listening, Lizzie and Tom ran in. Tom had his
skates slung over his shoulder; and his sister carried a basket, which
contained many a dainty, and many a little luxury for the aged and the
indigent sick.
Like pussy herself, Lizzie and Tom were always welcome, whether they had
a basket or not; because, even when they did not bring little gifts of
jelly, or beef-tea, or books, or snuff and tobacco, they brought smiles,
and the sunshine of their innocent and winsome ways.
But to-day, neither Lizzie nor Tom stayed long with Burn-the-wind,
because the former had her basket to lighten and hearts to lighten
thereby, and because Tom noticed there was no horse to be shod at
present, and he knew that the ice on the mill-pond was inches thick.
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"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Lizzie, as they got nearer to the top of
the street. "Something surely has happened. Look, Tom, at the lot of
the people, and they are carrying somebody. Oh, Tom, it is Emily, I
know and feel sure."
Yes, it was Emily.
Poor girl! Only the day before, she had returned from school for good.
She was going to settle down now, she told everyone of her intimate
friends, laughing gleefully. She was going to do her father's little
house-keeping; and poor old dad, as she called him, would in future have
many a comfort he had missed since mother died.
And baby, too, would not be so much neglected, and could be taken out
every forenoon, after father had gone back to work.
There was a bit of garden, too, behind the humble cottage, with a nice
grass plot in the centre; there, in spring and summer, the daisies grew,
and the yellow celandines.
Bobby, her infant brother, could roll on the grass when it was dry and
fine, while she did the gardening all around. And this would be so
delightful, because then she would never want a flower to place on
mother's grave.
So you will observe, dear reader, that it was all beautifully arranged.
Alas! and alas! If I were writing an altogether imaginary story, the
somewhat sad and sombre ending to this chapter would be altered. But
there is far more of truth in my story than anyone will ever know.
That day then, when Emily took her little brother out in his far from
elegant perambulator, she heard the sound of a band. A wild-beast show
was stationed on the village green it seemed, and there was a triumphal
procession through the streets of the little town. Poor Emily stood
aside to see it pass, for, despite the fact that children would be
admitted to the great marquee for half-price, this procession was the
only part of the show she would see. But she marvelled much at the
lordly ungainliness of the elephants; at the queer, old-fashioned
visages of the camels, and at the wisdom of the piebald pony, and the
wit of the immortal clown who rode him, who had appeared--didn't the
bills tell her so?--before every respectable crowned head in Europe.
But she stood agape with astonishment when she saw the beautiful and
airily dressed "Lion Queen," perched high on top of her gilded carriage.
Then the procession passed on, and Emily resumed her journey with the
perambulator. Not far up the street she remembered that she wanted some
tobacco for her father, and that she had passed the shop. She left the
perambulator where it was for a few minutes, till she should run back
and make the little purchase.
As she stood at the counter she heard the quick rattle of wheels, and a
noise of galloping hoofs, and then the shout of "Horse ran off!" fell
upon her car.
"Oh, the baby!" cried Emily, and dashed out of the shop.
The perambulator, with the child in it, laughing and blinking in the
sunshine, stood right in the track of danger.
But Emily, heedless of everything except the desire to save her brother,
rushed on towards it. Nearer and nearer came the horse. People
shrieked as they saw the girl at the perambulator.
One push sent it clear away from under the very hoofs of the
fear-maddened horse. Next moment, Emily herself was down.
Then the sorrowful procession.
Two hours after Lizzie and Tom had seen Emily borne by kind and loving
hands into the humble cottage that had been her home, the doctor came
out.
He shook his head sadly.
"Go home, my friends," he said, "it is all over."
He jumped into his carriage and was driven away. But tears trickled
down the cheeks of men in that little crowd; faces were buried in
aprons, and women wept aloud.
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The grief of poor Emily's father was something to see and remember for
ever and a day. I am not going to attempt to describe it. He was a
good man, and a Christian; yet, not that night, nor for many nights and
days, was he able to see the light, and to say from his heart: "The Lord
gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be His name."
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As to Shireen--I must tell you about her. She never left the cottage
while Emily's poor little body lay there; and had you entered the house
the night before the funeral, you would have seen the poor father
sitting by his half out fire, absorbed in grief, and Shireen upon the
coffin-lid.
In the cat's face sorrow, intense sorrow, predominated; but there was
also a touch of anger also. Why was her favourite here in this dark
box? What had they done to her? Who had done it?
Ah! there was a mystery somewhere, which this little feline playmate and
friend of the deceased girl failed to fathom. Can we, in our wisdom?
Alas, no!