THOMAS THE RHYMER
(1)
Elspeth was very glum as she put the little boy to bed in the delightful
room where there was no place for her.
"At ony rate," she remarked, when the operation was concluded, "A'll
no leave ye till A please, and gif ane of these madams comes A'll
e'en gar her turn me oot."
"They are very kind ladies," said Anne-Hilarion, who was excited.
"I think Mme. de Chaulnes is a beautiful old lady like a fée
marraine--yes, like the Queen of Elfland. Elspeth, say the 'Queen
of Elfland'!" he added coaxingly.
And, much more because she thought it would enable her to stay longer
in her charge's room than to please him, Elspeth embarked on the tale
of 'True Thomas,' which she had proffered in vain in London a few
nights ago. Her favourite passage was rendered with even more emphasis
than usual:
"'O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few enquires.
'And see ye not yon braid braid road,
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
'And see ye not yon bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.'"
"This is Elfland, then," put in Anne-Hilarion contentedly.
"'But, Thomas, ye sall haud yer tongue
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,
Ye'l ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'"
She paused a second. "Go on!" commanded Anne-Hilarion.
"'Syne they came to a garden green,
And she pu'd an apple----'"
"You have missed some out!" exclaimed the listener. "Do not miss
any, Elspeth! Say about the rivers abune the knee and all the blood
that's shed on the earth----"
"Fie, Maister Anne!" said Mrs. Saunders reprovingly. "Yon verses
are no' fittin' for a bairn, and A did wrang ever tae tell them tae
ye." However, to get them over as quickly as possible, she went back
and repeated them.
"'O they rade on and farther on,
And they waded rivers abune the knee;
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.'"
"I like that!" murmured the Comte de Flavigny, with a shudder.
"'It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
They waded through red blude to the knee;
For a' the blude that's shed on the earth
Rins through the springs o' that countrie.'"
"But what does that mean?" asked the child, captured by a delicious
horror. "How could----"
"It's a' silly havers, child--it's poetry, and nae sense in it,"
replied Elspeth crossly. "Noo harken aboot the apple.
'Syne they came to a garden green----'"
But at the second attempt to pluck the apple the door opened and
Mlle. Angèle came in.
"My sister desires that you will go now," she said to Elspeth.
"Mrs. Barnes is waiting to take you to her house. We shall expect
you to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."
Though she had a pleasant smile on her face there was no resisting
the quiet authority of her tone. Mrs. Saunders rose with much
reluctance, bent over her charge and gave him a kiss--by no means the
ritual of every night--and with a very high head left the room.
Mlle. de Chaulnes came over to the bed.
"Are you comfortable, little one?" she asked kindly. "You will not be
frightened? My sister sleeps next door, and if you want anything, you
have only to call her."
"Yes, thank you, Madame," said Anne-Hilarion a little shyly, and she
too kissed him and went away.
(2)
But the mere absence of alarm is not in itself sufficient to induce
sleep. M. le Comte de Flavigny had seen too much that day for ready
slumber, and now he began to see it all over again: the busy road from
Rochester, the stage-coach and its passengers--the fat traveller in
a shawl, the thin one who had, to Elspeth's intense indignation,
offered him a sip of rum--and everything in Rose Cottage, down to the
grey cat. The last object of which he thought was his goldfish, on the
dressing-table, for just as he was making up his mind to get up and
look at it, he fell fast asleep.
In his sleep he had a curious dream. He was in a little boat on the
sea, he and a lady with a crown on her head. By that he knew that
she was the Queen of Elfland, though she had not, as the ballad said,
a skirt of grass-green silk and a velvet mantle, and he wondered why
she was in a boat, and what she had done with her horse and all its
silver bells. Then suddenly she changed to Mme. de Chaulnes, and,
bending over him where he lay in the boat, shook him slightly and
said, "Anne, Anne, do you remember now the name of the place at which
the expedition was to land?" And he tried hard to remember it, while
the boat rocked under him and the water was full of goldfish, but
all that he could recall was the name of the shop where the goldfish
had been bought yesterday--Hardman. "Think!" said the Queen. "Are
you sure you cannot remember it?" Then the sea began to get very
rough and dark, and Anne saw that on it were floating feather-beds
and shoes with cork heels, as it said in 'Noroway-over-the-foam,'
and so he looked over the side of the boat, and down, very far down
at the bottom, he could see Sir Patrick Spens lying drowned on the
seaweed, with a great many other people . . . and somehow Sir
Patrick Spens was also M. le Chevalier de la Vireville. And as he
looked he became aware that in some way it was his, Anne-Hilarion's,
fault that they were all drowned--or at least that it would be his
fault if he did something or other, but the dreadful thing was that
he could not find out what that something was which he must avoid.
And the Queen--or Mme. de Chaulnes--who was still in the boat,
said, laughing:
"'Speak ye word in Elflyn-land
Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie,'"
and then he understood--he _had_ spoken, and that was why M. le
Chevalier and all the rest were down at the bottom of the sea. And
he began to cry bitterly, begging M. le Chevalier not to be drowned;
and because he was so unhappy and so sorry he said boldly to the
lady, "No, I cannot remember the name of the place, and if I could I
would not tell you!" But with that he woke, and found himself, not in
a boat, but in his own bed.
It was still dark, and the light was burning, and there was no one
in the room. But as he looked anxiously to be sure that this was the
case,--anxiously and a little dimly, for there were real tears in
his eyes,--he heard the door very gently close.
And that, joined to his dream, really terrified Anne-Hilarion, so
that he took instinctively to the natural refuge of those of tender
years oppressed with terrors in the night, and burying his head
under the clothes, lay there quaking with fear, his heart thudding
like a live thing in his small body. Who had gone out--or who . . .
what . . . had come in? What was in the room with him? . . .
A long, long time passed; it was difficult to breathe under the
clothes, and he was hot and cold alternately with fear. But nothing
happened; no animal leapt on to the bed, no spectral hand shook
him by the shoulder. He remembered how Papa had told him that he
need never be frightened of anything unless he were doing wrong;
that the angels were there to take care of him, though he could not
see them. So, a little wondering whether it would penetrate through
the bedclothes, he put up a small prayer for protection to his own
guardian angel, and, finding some solace in this effort, ventured
after a while cautiously to remove some blanket and peep out. And
he found, to his inexpressible joy, that while he had been thus
concealed a miracle had happened--doubtless due to his orisons--and
that shafts of the dawn were making their way round the window-curtains.
So night was nearly over, and it would soon be the blessed day.
The next thing that happened was the sun peering in and waking him.
Anne-Hilarion got up immediately to look at his goldfish, and wondered
if it had been swimming round and round tirelessly all the time in
the dark. In these speculations he forgot the terrors of the night
and was comforted, though when Elspeth came to dress him he looked
rather pale and tired, and did not trouble her, as he sometimes did,
by skipping about during his toilet. It was against Mrs. Saunders'
principles to 'cocker' him by asking him, even on an unusual occasion,
if he had had a good night, and so she made no inquiries. Perhaps
it was as well, for already the memory of the actual dream was
beginning to fade.
The Comte de Flavigny breakfasted downstairs with the old ladies,
who had conformed in this respect to English custom, then he played
for a while in the garden with the fat grey cat, who would not,
indeed, play in the proper sense of the word, looking without any
interest at a piece of string when it was dangled before her, but
who was very willing to be stroked, and followed him round, purring
and rubbing herself against his legs. But he was uneasy in his mind
because of the goldfish, whose bowl he had caused Elspeth to hang on
the branch of a tree, tormenting her with inquiries as to whether the
cat could jump so high, or crawl out so far, till Elspeth at last
crossly said, "Why didna ye leave the fush bide in yer bedroom,
child?" To which Anne-Hilarion responded, with a sudden little
dignity that he had at times, "Because I do not wish to, and because
I mean always to have it with me, _always_, Elspeth!" But then
there came a sudden April shower, and he and his 'fush' had to be
conveyed indoors again.
When Anne got into the house, he found a gentleman talking in the
hall to the two old ladies. They all turned round at his entrance.
"Etienne, this is our little visitor," said Mme. de Chaulnes.
"Anne, this is an old friend of ours, M. du Châtel, who is an
émigré, like your father."
Anne put his hand into M. du Châtel's, thinking that he could
hardly be an old friend of the fairy godmothers; he looked so
much younger than they. M. du Châtel was neatly dressed in black,
and he had also very black hair; there was about him nothing
remarkable save his particularly light eyes, which, besides looking
strange under so dark a thatch, reminded Anne of a goat he had
once seen.
It soon appeared that the émigré had come on a visit and was staying
the night.
"Then A'd like fine tae ken," said Elspeth indignantly, when she
had gathered this piece of information, "hoo it comes that these
madams hae a room for him in their hoose and nane for me!" And she
brushed Anne-Hilarion's hair as though he were responsible for
it, while he, wincing, assured her that he did not know why.
"Mebbe," communed Mrs. Saunders, "they kenned he was comin', and
keepit the room for him. Aweel, it's nane o' ma business, nae doot,
and A canna get a worrd oot o' that auld witch in the kitchen, but
A'll see yon room, or ma name's no' Elspeth Saunders."
And see it she did, at three o'clock that afternoon, when the inmates
of Rose Cottage and their visitors were at dinner. She was in no
wise rewarded for her investigation of the small apartment--so small,
indeed, as hardly to be more than a cupboard--except by the fact,
which puzzled her, that the guest who had already occupied it for
some hours had made not the least attempt to unpack his little
valise. It stood untouched on a chair by the bed, and if Elspeth
had pursued her researches a little further she would have made a
discovery of real interest--that the bed prepared by those very
particular old ladies for M. du Châtel's repose had no sheets on it.
(3)
Downstairs, at the same time, the newcomer was being most friendly
and agreeable to Anne-Hilarion over the roast lamb and salad,
and suggesting that his little compatriot might like to see something
of Canterbury if ces dames would permit, and that, with their
approval, he would take him that afternoon to see the great Cathedral,
in whose crypt French people--though, to be sure, Huguenots--had
worshipped for over a hundred years. Anne replied, politely as
ever, but without enthusiasm, that he should be very pleased to
accompany him. He was not drawn to M. du Châtel of the goat's eyes.
Nor, as he wandered with him later in that lofty nave, was he at
all communicative, as he had been to the old ladies on the previous
evening, for, after all, M. du Châtel was no friend of his father's,
and though his dream was now so dim that he could hardly remember it
at all, it had left behind a vague discomfort. He was sorry, somehow,
that the émigré had come to Rose Cottage, and when a rather earlier
bedtime than usual was suggested to him by Mme. de Chaulnes, who
said that he looked tired, he had no objections to offer.
And, being really sleepy, he had no apprehensions as to the night,
and did not want the hot posset which Mlle. Angèle was kind enough
to bring up to him after he was in bed and Elspeth had left him,
though for politeness' sake he sat up and sipped it, while Mlle.
Angèle waited and smiled at him, encouraging him to finish it to
the last drop. It had a flavour which Anne did not much relish, but
having been taught that it was rude to make remarks on the food which
was put before him, he said nothing on this point. Yet he was glad
when he had finished, and when Mlle. Angèle, kissing him, went away
and left him, with only the night-light and his goldfish for company,
to that very sound sleep which was stretching out inviting arms to
him.