HEARING THE TRUTH.
It was not until Dick was able to sit up, propped by cushions, in an
arm-chair, that Nelly could be persuaded by Lubin to make a little
expedition with him to buy some things needful for their mother, whose
arrival in two days was expected. Lubin liked to do nothing by himself;
he would not have taken the trouble to cross brook Bother unless a
sister had been at his side; and poor Matty had positively refused to
go, as she disliked showing herself to strangers while her hair and
eyebrows were so sadly disfigured by the fire.
"Please, Matty," said Nelly, before she set out, "see that poor Dick
wants nothing during my absence. Perhaps you would sit beside him. But,
pray, say nothing to him that can possibly vex or excite him; you know
that he is still very weak, and the fever might possibly return."
Matty agreed to play the nurse for an hour, and with a slow and
lingering step she accordingly went to the cottage in which her brother
was staying.
It was sad to see the young, bright, active boy placed like an aged man
in an arm-chair, his cheek, so lately glowing with health, almost as
pale as the pillow upon which it was resting. Dick's eye was, however,
still bright, and he had his old playfulness of manner, though his tone
was more feeble than usual, as he exclaimed, on the entrance of his
sister, "Why, Matty, you and I look for all the world as if we had been
in the wars! I with this bandage across my brow, you with your hair
cropped close, and your eyebrows all singed off; you can't think how
funny you look!"
Poor Matty hid her face with her hands, and was ready to burst into
tears.
"Oh, don't take it to heart!" cried Dick; "hair will soon grow again,
you know. I wonder that your friend Miss Folly has not helped you to an
elegant wig."
"She is no friend of mine!" exclaimed Matty, with vehemence. "Do you not
know that it was Folly who caused the explosion? She thought, like an
idiot as she is, that it would be fun to put a match to the fireworks
when all our backs were turned, and make us start with surprise. It was
her meddling that caused all this mischief and misery;" and again poor
disfigured Matty hid her face in her hands.
"Then I hope that you'll cut her from this day forth," observed Dick.
"She has cut us," replied Matty, quickly. "Have you not heard how her
flounces were all in a blaze, and how she rushed about as if mad, into a
cottage and out again, till Nelly and Lubin knocked her down just in
time to save her from being quite burned?"
"I have heard nothing," said Dick, raising himself on his chair, with an
expression of curiosity and interest; "you know that Nelly has been my
nurse, and she would hardly speak a word for fear lest she should put me
into a fever."
Matty was eager to impart all her knowledge, quite regardless of Nelly's
parting warning, and began to talk so fast that Dick could not help
being reminded of poor Miss Folly.
"Well, you shall hear everything now. Folly was knocked down, or pulled
down, as I said, and then rolled about in the mud, till you could hardly
have distinguished her head from her feet, or her peacock's plume from a
cow's tail. And very thankful and very much delighted she ought to have
been, for, if she had been quite choked with mire, it would have been
better than burning alive!"
"A painful choice," observed Dick.
"But she was _not_ choked to death," continued Matty; "she was not hurt
the least bit; and yet--would you believe it?--Miss Folly is in a most
furious rage against those who saved her. She declares that she ought to
have a lawsuit against Nelly and Lubin to recover the value of her
clothes, and another to get them punished for knocking her into the mud;
and she has promised a thousand times never to come near one of our
family again."
"I hope," said Dick, with a smile, "that for once Miss Folly may keep
her promise. But what has become of her red cockatoo?"
"Ah, there's another great grievance!" cried Matty. "The bird must have
been frightened by the explosion; and no wonder, for a terrible sight it
was, and a horrible noise it made. Parade has flown off, no one knows
whither; and though papers and placards about him have been put up in
every direction, offering no end of rewards to whoever will bring him
back, the bird is not to be found. Folly says, that poor innocent I must
have hidden him somewhere from view; but I am sure that I have not even
a guess whither the gaudy creature has fled!"
"Had you hidden him," observed Dick Desley, "Parade would soon have
betrayed you by screaming out 'Ain't I fine?' And what has become of
Pride?"
"Some say," replied Matty, "that he got a great blow on the nose at the
time of the explosion; others say that he was not at all injured by it.
He certainly did not help Duty to put out the fire. All that I know of
Pride is, that he came to our villas this morning, and walked straight
up to yours, I suppose from its being the one which he had been most
accustomed to visit. I saw him from my window, standing awhile with
folded arms, gloomily surveying the place; he then shrugged his
shoulders, said, 'What a wreck!' and instantly stalked away."
"What did he mean by exclaiming 'What a wreck?'" asked Dick, with a look
of surprise.
"He meant your poor cottage, of course," replied Matty; "all its
furniture burned and destroyed."
"How--what?" exclaimed Dick in a startled tone; "the fire was not in my
cottage at all; the explosion took place by yours."
"I know that too well," sighed poor Matty; "but Folly rushed straight
into your home, blazing away like a rocket, then rushed out again, but
not before she had set your curtains on fire."
"Do you mean that all my furniture is burned!" exclaimed Dick, striking
his fist with violence upon a table that was near him.
"Burned to a cinder," replied Matty; "there's scarcely anything left but
the grates."
"The carpet--the splendid carpet destroyed too?" cried poor Dick,
starting upright on his feet.
"Great holes burned in every part, and all the dates as black as
charcoal!"
Dick sank back on his seat with a groan.
"The beautifully papered walls," continued Matty, "not fit to be looked
at now; the fine furniture-facts mere charred wood, or little heaps of
gray ashes!"
"And mother coming back the day after to-morrow!" exclaimed Dick, with a
burst of anguish. "And doubtless Mr. Learning will come with her,
bringing the crown of Success for which I have laboured so hard! I must
go at once to the town," he cried wildly; "I must work, work hard till
they appear!" And springing from his chair he made an effort to walk;
but the limbs, once so active and strong, would no longer support his
weight, and, overcome with vexation, Dick tottered back into his seat.
"I can't do it," he cried; "I can't go! Oh, misery and disappointment!
Leave me, Matty, leave me; remain no longer with a wretched boy who has
lost everything that he valued!"
Matty was frightened at the vehement storm of passion which her
indiscretion had raised; and being quite unable to speak a word of
comfort to her brother, she crept out of the cottage, feeling more
unhappy than when she had entered it.