TO THE RESCUE!
“It _isn’t_ bed-time!” said a sleepy little voice. “The owls hasn’t gone
to bed, and I s’a’n’t go to seep wizout oo sings to me!”
“Oh, Bruno!” cried Sylvie. “Don’t you know the owls have only just got
up? But the _frogs_ have gone to bed, ages ago.”
“Well, _I_ aren’t a frog,” said Bruno.
“What shall I sing?” said Sylvie, skilfully avoiding the argument.
“Ask Mister Sir,” Bruno lazily replied, clasping his hands behind his
curly head, and lying back on his fern-leaf, till it almost bent over
with his weight. “This aren’t a comfable leaf, Sylvie. Find me a
comfabler—please!” he added, as an after-thought, in obedience to a
warning finger held up by Sylvie. “I doosn’t like being feet-upwards!”
It was a pretty sight to see—the motherly way in which the fairy-child
gathered up her little brother in her arms, and laid him on a stronger
leaf. She gave it just a touch to set it rocking, and it went on
vigorously by itself, as if it contained some hidden machinery. It
certainly wasn’t the wind, for the evening-breeze had quite died away
again, and not a leaf was stirring over our heads.
“Why does that one leaf rock so, without the others?” I asked Sylvie.
She only smiled sweetly and shook her head. “I don’t know _why_,” she
said. “It always does, if it’s got a fairy-child on it. It _has_ to, you
know.”
“And can people see the leaf rock, who ca’n’t see the Fairy on it?”
“Why, of course!” cried Sylvie. “A leaf’s a leaf, and everybody can see
it; but Bruno’s Bruno, and they ca’n’t see _him_, unless they’re eerie,
like you.”
Then I understood how it was that one sometimes sees—going through the
woods in a still evening—one fern-leaf rocking steadily on, all by
itself. Haven’t you ever seen that? Try if you can see the fairy-sleeper
on it, next time; but don’t _pick_ the leaf, whatever you do; let the
little one sleep on!
But all this time Bruno was getting sleepier and sleepier. “Sing, sing!”
he murmured fretfully. Sylvie looked to me for instructions. “What shall
it be?” she said.
“Could you sing him the nursery-song you once told me of?” I suggested.
“The one that had been put through the mind-mangle, you know. ‘_The
little man that had a little gun_,’ I think it was.”
“Why, that are one of the _Professor’s_ songs!” cried Bruno. “I likes
the little man; and I likes the way they spinned him——like a
teetle-totle-tum.” And he turned a loving look on the gentle old man who
was sitting at the other side of his leaf-bed, and who instantly began
to sing, accompanying himself on his Outlandish guitar, while the snail,
on which he sat, waved its horns in time to the music.
[Illustration: BRUNO’S BED-TIME]
In stature the Manlet was dwarfish——
No burly big Blunderbore he:
And he wearily gazed on the crawfish
His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.
“Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,
And hurl the old shoelet for luck:
Let me hie to the bank of the runlet,
And shoot thee a Duck!”
She has reached him his minikin gunlet:
She has hurled the old shoelet for luck:
She is busily baking a bunlet,
To welcome him home with his Duck.
On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,
Though thoughtlets cling, closely as wax,
To the spot where the beautiful birdlet
So quietly quacks.
[Illustration: ‘LONG CEREMONIOUS CALLS’]
Where the Lobsterlet lurks, and the Crablet
So slowly and sleepily crawls:
Where the Dolphin’s at home, and the Dablet
Pays long ceremonious calls:
Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:
Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:
Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet——
So runs the world’s luck!
[Illustration: THE VOICES]
He has loaded with bullet and powder:
His footfall is noiseless as air:
But the Voices grow louder and louder,
And bellow, and bluster, and blare.
They bristle before him and after,
They flutter above and below,
Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,
Weird wailings of woe!
They echo without him, within him:
They thrill through his whiskers and beard:
Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,
With sneers never hitherto sneered.
“Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet!
Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!
Let us drench him, from toplet to toelet,
With Nursery-Songs!
[Illustration: ‘HIS SOUL SHALL BE SAD FOR THE SPIDER’]
“He shall muse upon ‘Hey! Diddle! Diddle!’
On the Cow that surmounted the Moon:
He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,
And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:
And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,
When Miss Muffet was sipping her whey,
That so tenderly sat down beside her,
And scared her away!
“The music of Midsummer-madness
Shall sting him with many a bite,
Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,
He shall groan with a gloomy delight:
He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,
In platitudes luscious and limp,
Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,
The Song of the Shrimp!
“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,
We will trundle him home in a trice:
And the banquet, so plainly provided,
Shall round into rose-buds and rice:
In a blaze of pragmatic invention
He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:
But he has not a friend fit to mention,
So hit him again!”
He has shot it, the delicate darling!
And the Voices have ceased from their strife:
Not a whisper of sneering or snarling;
As he carries it home to his wife:
Then, cheerily champing the bunlet
His spouse was so skilful to bake,
He hies him once more to the runlet,
To fetch her the Drake!
“He’s sound asleep now,” said Sylvie, carefully tucking in the edge of a
violet-leaf, which she had been spreading over him as a sort of blanket:
“good night!”
“Good night!” I echoed.
“You may well say ‘good night’!” laughed Lady Muriel, rising and
shutting up the piano as she spoke. “When you’ve been nid—nid—nodding
all the time I’ve been singing for your benefit! What was it all about,
now?” she demanded imperiously.
“Something about a duck?” I hazarded. “Well, a bird of some kind?” I
corrected myself, perceiving at once that _that_ guess was wrong, at any
rate.
“_Something about a bird of some kind!_” Lady Muriel repeated, with as
much withering scorn as her sweet face was capable of conveying. “And
that’s the way he speaks of Shelley’s Sky-Lark, is it? When the Poet
particularly says ‘_Hail to thee, blithe spirit!_ Bird _thou never
wert_!’”
[Illustration: LORDS OF THE CREATION]
She led the way to the smoking-room, where, ignoring all the usages of
Society and all the instincts of Chivalry, the three Lords of the
Creation reposed at their ease in low rocking-chairs, and permitted the
one lady who was present to glide gracefully about among us, supplying
our wants in the form of cooling drinks, cigarettes, and lights. Nay, it
was only _one_ of the three who had the chivalry to go beyond the
common-place “thank you,” and to quote the Poet’s exquisite description
of how Geraint, when waited on by Enid, was moved
“To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb
That crossed the platter as she laid it down,”
and to suit the action to the word—an audacious liberty for which, I
feel bound to report, he was _not_ duly reprimanded.
As no topic of conversation seemed to occur to any one, and as we were,
all four, on those delightful terms with one another (the only terms, I
think, on which any friendship, that deserves the name of _intimacy_,
can be maintained) which involve no sort of necessity for _speaking_ for
mere speaking’s sake, we sat in silence for some minutes.
At length I broke the silence by asking “Is there any fresh news from
the harbour about the Fever?”
“None since this morning,” the Earl said, looking very grave. “But that
was alarming enough. The Fever is spreading fast: the London doctor has
taken fright and left the place, and the only one now available isn’t a
regular doctor at all: he is apothecary, and doctor, and dentist, and I
don’t know what other trades, all in one. It’s a bad outlook for those
poor fishermen—and a worse one for all the women and children.”
“How many are there of them altogether?” Arthur asked.
“There were nearly one hundred, a week ago.” said the Earl: “but there
have been twenty or thirty deaths since then.”
“And what religious ministrations are there to be had?”
“There are three brave men down there,” the Earl replied, his voice
trembling with emotion, “gallant heroes as ever won the Victoria Cross!
I am certain that no one of the three will ever leave the place merely
to save his own life. There’s the Curate: his wife is with him: they
have no children. Then there’s the Roman Catholic Priest. And there’s
the Wesleyan Minister. They go amongst their own flocks, mostly; but I’m
told that those who are dying like to have _any_ of the three with them.
How slight the barriers seem to be that part Christian from Christian,
when one has to deal with the great facts of Life and the reality of
Death!”
“So it must be, and so it should be——” Arthur was beginning, when the
front-door bell rang, suddenly and violently.
We heard the front-door hastily opened, and voices outside: then a knock
at the door of the smoking-room, and the old house-keeper appeared,
looking a little scared.
“Two persons, my Lord, to speak with Dr. Forester.”
Arthur stepped outside at once, and we heard his cheery “Well, my men?”
but the answer was less audible, the only words I could distinctly catch
being “ten since morning, and two more just——”
“But there _is_ a doctor there?” we heard Arthur say: and a deep voice,
that we had not heard before, replied “Dead, Sir. Died three hours ago.”
Lady Muriel shuddered, and hid her face in her hands: but at this moment
the front-door was quietly closed, and we heard no more.
For a few minutes we sat quite silent: then the Earl left the room, and
soon returned to tell us that Arthur had gone away with the two
fishermen, leaving word that he would be back in about an hour. And,
true enough, at the end of that interval—during which very little was
said, none of us seeming to have the heart to talk—the front-door once
more creaked on its rusty hinges, and a step was heard in the passage,
hardly to be recognised as Arthur’s, so slow and uncertain was it, like
a blind man feeling his way.
He came in, and stood before Lady Muriel, resting one hand heavily on
the table, and with a strange look in his eyes, as if he were walking in
his sleep.
“Muriel—my love——” he paused, and his lips quivered: but after a minute
he went on more steadily. “Muriel—my darling—they—_want_ me—down in the
harbour.”
“_Must_ you go?” she pleaded, rising and laying her hands on his
shoulders, and looking up into his face with her great eyes brimming
over with tears. “Must _you_ go, Arthur? It may mean—death!”
He met her gaze without flinching. “It _does_ mean death,” he said, in a
husky whisper: “but—darling—I am _called_. And even my life itself——”
His voice failed him, and he said no more.
For a minute she stood quite silent, looking upwards with a helpless
gaze, as if even prayer were now useless, while her features worked and
quivered with the great agony she was enduring. Then a sudden
inspiration seemed to come upon her and light up her face with a strange
sweet smile. “_Your_ life?” she repeated. “It is not _yours_ to give!”
Arthur had recovered himself by this time, and could reply quite firmly,
“That is true,” he said. “It is not _mine_ to give. It is _yours_, now,
my—wife that is to be! And you—do _you_ forbid me to go? Will you not
spare me, my own beloved one?”
Still clinging to him, she laid her head softly on his breast. She had
never done such a thing in my presence before, and I knew how deeply she
must be moved. “I _will_ spare you,” she said, calmly and quietly, “to
God.”
“And to God’s poor,” he whispered.
“And to God’s poor,” she added. “When must it be, sweet love?”
[Illustration: ‘WILL YOU NOT SPARE ME?’]
“To-morrow morning,” he replied. “And I have much to do before then.”
And then he told us how he had spent his hour of absence. He had been to
the Vicarage, and had arranged for the wedding to take place at eight
the next morning (there was no legal obstacle, as he had, some time
before this, obtained a Special License) in the little church we knew so
well. “My old friend here,” indicating me, “will act as ‘Best Man,’ I
know: your father will be there to give you away: and—and—you will
dispense with bride’s-maids, my darling?”
She nodded: no words came.
“And then I can go with a willing heart—to do God’s work—knowing that we
are _one_—and that we are together in _spirit_, though not in bodily
presence—and are most of all together when we pray! Our _prayers_ will
go up together——”
“Yes, yes!” sobbed Lady Muriel. “But you must not stay longer now, my
darling! Go home and take some rest. You will need all your strength
to-morrow——”
“Well, I will go,” said Arthur. “We will be here in good time to-morrow.
Good night, my own own darling!”
I followed his example, and we two left the house together. As we walked
back to our lodgings, Arthur sighed deeply once or twice, and seemed
about to speak—but no words came, till we had entered the house, and had
lit our candles, and were at our bedroom-doors. Then Arthur said “Good
night, old fellow! God bless you!”
“God bless you!” I echoed, from the very depths of my heart.
We were back again at the Hall by eight in the morning, and found Lady
Muriel and the Earl, and the old Vicar, waiting for us. It was a
strangely sad and silent party that walked up to the little church and
back; and I could not help feeling that it was much more like a funeral
than a wedding: to Lady Muriel it _was_ in fact, a funeral rather than a
wedding, so heavily did the presentiment weigh upon her (as she told us
afterwards) that her newly-won husband was going forth to his death.
Then we had breakfast; and, all too soon, the vehicle was at the door,
which was to convey Arthur, first to his lodgings, to pick up the things
he was taking with him, and then as far towards the death-stricken
hamlet as it was considered safe to go. One or two of the fishermen were
to meet him on the road, to carry his things the rest of the way.
“And are you quite sure you are taking all that you will need?” Lady
Muriel asked.
“All that I shall need as a _doctor_, certainly. And my own personal
needs are few: I shall not even take any of my own wardrobe—there is a
fisherman’s suit, ready-made, that is waiting for me at my lodgings. I
shall only take my watch, and a few books, and—stay—there _is_ one book
I should like to add, a pocket-Testament—to use at the bedsides of the
sick and dying——”
“Take mine!” said Lady Muriel: and she ran upstairs to fetch it. “It has
nothing written in it but ‘Muriel,’” she said as she returned with it:
“shall I inscribe——”
“No, my own one,” said Arthur, taking it from her. “What _could_ you
inscribe better than that? Could any human name mark it more clearly as
my own individual property? Are _you_ not mine? Are you not,” (with all
the old playfulness of manner) “as Bruno would say, ‘my _very mine_’?”
He bade a long and loving adieu to the Earl and to me, and left the
room, accompanied only by his wife, who was bearing up bravely, and
was—_outwardly_, at least—less overcome than her old father. We waited
in the room a minute or two, till the sound of wheels had told us that
Arthur had driven away; and even then we waited still, for the step of
Lady Muriel, going upstairs to her room, to die away in the distance.
Her step, usually so light and joyous, now sounded slow and weary, like
one who plods on under a load of hopeless misery; and I felt almost as
hopeless, and almost as wretched, as she. “Are we four destined _ever_
to meet again, on this side the grave?” I asked myself, as I walked to
my home. And the tolling of a distant bell seemed to answer me, “No! No!
No!”