Princess Sarah And Other Stories Part 21

However, in spite of all the very real drawbacks which she had to fight against, Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son did not die; slowly and painfully she struggled back to her own senses again, with a dim realization of how very near the gate of death she had wandered. But, alas! by the time the doctor had, with a kindly pat upon his shoulder, told Mr. d.i.c.ki'son that his wife would live if no very serious relapse took place, the fever had fastened on another victim, and little Mirry was tossing to and fro with fever-flushed face, and the same unnatural brilliancy in her bonny blue eyes as had lighted up Ada Elizabeth's dull, grey ones.

They had not taken her to the hospital; it was so full that only urgent cases were admitted now: and since the mother was on the road to recovery, there was time to attend to the child. And so she lay in the next room to her mother, whose weakened senses gradually awoke to the knowledge of what was going on about her.

"Is that Mirry crying?" she asked, on the morning when the child was at its worst.

"Now don't you fret yourself, love," returned the nurse evasively. "T'

bairn's being took care of right enough; they will cry a bit sometimes, you know"; and then she shut the door, and the mother dozed off to sleep again.

But in the evening the pitiful wail reached her ears again. "I want our Ada 'Liz'bet'," the child's fretful voice cried; "Mirry do want our Ada 'Liz'bet' so bad-a-ly--me want our Ada 'Liz'bet'."

Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son started nervously and tried to lift herself in her bed.

"I'm sure Mirry's ill," she gasped. "Mrs. Barker, don't deceive me.

Tell me, is she ill?"

"Well, my dear, I won't deceive yer," the nurse answered; "poor little Mirry's been took with the fever--yes, but don't you go and fret yourself. Mrs. Bell's waiting of her, and she wants for nought, and t'

doctor says it's only a mild attack; only children runs up and down so quick, and she's a bit more fretful than usual to-night, that's all."

"Mirry do want our Ada 'Liz'bet'," wailed the sick child in the next room.

Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son turned her head weakly from side to side and trembled in every limb.

"Why _can't_ Ada Elizabeth go to her?" she burst out at last.

The nurse coughed awkwardly. "Well, my dear," she began, "poor Ada Elizabeth isn't 'ere."

"Isn't 'ere!" repeated Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son wildly, and just then her husband walked into the room and up to the bedside.

She clutched hold of him with frantic eagerness. "Father," she cried hysterically, "is it true our Mirry's took with the fever?"

"Yes, Em'ly; but it's a very mild case," he answered, feeling that it was best in her excited and nervous condition to tell her the exact truth at once. "She's fretty to-night, but she's not so ill that you need worry about her; she's being took every care of."

"But she's crying for our Ada Elizabeth," Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son persisted.

"Hark! There she is again. Why _can't_ Ada Elizabeth be quick and go to her? Where is she? What does Mrs. Barker mean by saying she isn't 'ere?"

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son cast a wrathful glance at the nurse, but he did not attempt to hide from his wife any longer the fact that Ada Elizabeth was not in the house. "You know you was very ill, Em'ly, a bit back," he said, with an air and tone of humble apology, "and our Ada Elizabeth was taken with the fever just the day you was at the worst; and there was no one to wait on her, and the doctor would have her go to the hospital, and--what was I to do, Em'ly? It went against my very heart to let the little la.s.s go, but she was willing, and you was taking all our time. I was very near beside myself, Em'ly I was, or I'd never have consented."

Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son lay for some minutes in silence, exhausted by the violence of her agitation; then the fretful wail in the adjoining room broke the stillness again.

"I do _want_ our Ada 'Liz'bet'," the child cried piteously. Mrs.

d.i.c.ki'son burst out into pa.s.sionate sobbing. "I lie 'ere and I can't lift my finger for 'er," she gasped out, "and--and--it was just like Ada Elizabeth to go and get the fever when she was most wanted; she always was the contrariest child that I had, always."

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son drew his breath sharply, as if some one had struck him in the face, but with an effort he pulled himself together and answered her gently: "Nay, wife--Emily, don't say that. The little la.s.s held up until she couldn't hold up no longer. I'll go and quiet Mirry. She's always quiet enough with me. Keep yourself still, and I'll stop with the bairn until she's asleep"; and then he bent and kissed her forehead, and pa.s.sed softly out of the room, only whispering, "Not one word" to the nurse as he pa.s.sed her.

But, dear Heaven! how that man's heart ached as he sat soothing his little fever-flushed child into quietness! I said but now that he drew his breath sharply as if some one had struck him in the face. Alas! it was worse than that, for the wife of his bosom, the mother of his children, had struck him, stabbed him, to the lowest depths of his heart by her querulous complaint against the child who had gone from him only a few hours before, on whose little white, plain face he had just looked for the last time, and on which his scalding tears had fallen, for he knew that, plain, and dull, and un.o.btrusive as she had always been--the b.u.t.t of her sister's sharp tongue, the trial of his wife's whole existence--he knew that with the closing of the heavy eyes the brightest light of his life had gone out.

And little Mirry, wrapped in a blanket, lay upon his breast soothed into slumber. Did something fall from his eyes upon her face, that she started and looked up at him? She must have mistaken the one plain face for the other, for she put up her little hot hand and stroked his cheek.

"You tum back, Ada 'Liz'bet'?" she murmured, as she sank off to sleep again; "Mirry did want you _so_ bad-a-ly." The sick child's tender words took away half the bitterness of the sting which his wife had thrust into his heart, and his whole soul seemed to overflow with a great gush of love as he swayed her gently to and fro. _She_ had loved the unattractive face, and missed it bitterly; _she_ had wearied for the rare, patient smile and the slow, gentle voice, and, to Mr. d.i.c.ki'son's dull mind, the child's craving had bound Ada Elizabeth's heavy brows with a crown of pure gold, with the truest proof that "affection never was wasted."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You tum back, Ada 'Liz'bet'?" she murmured.]

Halt!

"Halt! Who goes there?" cried a man's voice through the thick gloom of the dark night.

There was no answer save silence; and, after listening for a moment, Private Flinders turned, and began to tramp once more along the ten paces which extended from his sentry-box. "I could have sworn I heard a footstep," he said to himself. "It's curious how one's ears deceive one on a night like this."

Ten paces one way, ten paces the other; turn, and back again, and begin your ten paces over again. Yes, it is monotonous, there is no doubt of that; but it is the bounden duty of a sentry, unless he happens to prefer standing still in his box, getting stiff and chill, and perhaps running the risk of being caught asleep at his post--no light offence in a barrack, I can tell you. Ten paces one way, ten paces the other--a rustling, a mere movement, such as would scarcely have attracted the attention of most people, but which caught Private Flinders' sharp ears, and brought him up to a standstill again in an att.i.tude of strict watchfulness.

"Halt! Who goes there?" he cried again, and listened once more. Again silence met him, and again he stood, alert and suspicious, waiting for the reply, "Friend."

"By Gum, this is queer," he thought, as he stood listening. "I'll search to the bottom of it though. I daresay it's only some of the chaps getting at me; but I'll be even with 'em, if it is."

He groped about in rather an aimless sort of way, for the night was black as pitch; and his eyes, though they had grown used to the inky want of light, could distinguish nothing of his surroundings.

"Now, where are you, you beggar?" he remarked, beginning to lose his habitual serenity, and laying about him with his carbine. After a stroke or two the weapon touched something, though not heavily, and a howl followed--a howl which was unmistakably that of a small child. It conveyed both fear and bodily pain. Private Flinders followed up the howl by feeling cautiously in the part whence the sounds had come. His hand closed upon something soft and shrinking, and the howls were redoubled.

"Hollo! what the deuce are you?" he exclaimed, drawing the shrieking captive nearer to him. "Why, I'm blessed if it ain't a kid--and a girl, too. Well, I'm blowed! And where did you happen to come from?"

The howl by this time had developed into a faint sniffing, for Private Flinders' voice was neither harsh nor forbidding. But the creature did not venture on speech.

"Where did you come from, and what are you doing here?" he asked. "Do you belong to the barricks, and has your mammy been wollopping of you?

Or did you stray in from outside?"

"Lost my mammy," the small creature burst out, finding that she was expected to say something.

"What's your mammy's name?" Flinders asked.

"Mammy, of course," was the reply.

"And what's your name?"

"Susy."

"Susy. Aye, but Susy what?"

"Susy," repeated the little person, beginning to whimper again.

"Where do you live?"

"At home," said Susy, in an insulted tone, as if all these questions were quite superfluous.

"Well! blest if _I_ know what to do with you," said Flinders, pus.h.i.+ng his busby on one side, and scratching his head vigorously. "I don't believe you belong to the barricks--your speech haven't got the tw.a.n.g of it. And if you've strayed in from outside, Gord knows what 'll become of you. Certain it is that you won't be let to stop here."

"Susy so cold," whimpered the mite pitifully.