Two Little Travellers Part 19

He brought primrose roots from the glen, and planted a bank with them behind the house. He filled the rockeries with rare ferns, and covered over all the waste corners about the grounds with delicate anemones, variegated hyacinths, and the sweet, wild white bluebell, rifled from the darkest recesses of Copsley Wood.

He carved curious wooden animals and toys for Eric, attracting the little fellow so strongly to himself that often he would cry for "Bam'o," and stay quite happily with him for hours, when all poor Perry's nursery tricks had failed to divert him from brooding over a coming tooth or some other infant ailment. Nurse soon grew to count the dwarf among her blessings at Firgrove; while Miss Alice used to smile, and say to her friend Dr. King that she did not know how ever the children had amused themselves before he came.

And day by day, by his little acts of fore-thought for others and loving-kindness towards all with whom he came in contact, he showed them what a Happy Land even the humblest, the youngest can create around them, what an atmosphere of love, what a foretaste of the existence whose essence is love, because G.o.d is its centre--that heaven wherein the pure in heart shall dwell for evermore!

And what of Bambo himself? How can one picture or describe such deep happiness as his? He was well aware that he could not live long. At any time a cold or a chill might hasten the end, yet the knowledge caused him no real regret. During his years of loneliness and privation he had learned to regard death as an open door through which he should escape from drudgery, ill-treatment, desolation, into the rest, the love, the happiness that remain to the children of G.o.d in that home where there is no death, "neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain: for the former things are pa.s.sed away." Now, the wretchedness was all behind.

His daily path was hedged around by affection and watchfulness; but Bambo felt that it could not continue. His friends would by-and-by weary of their self-imposed burden. The children would grow up, go away, form new friends.h.i.+ps, find fresh interests in life, and where should he be then? No, no; life was a grand, a satisfying, a beautiful thing for the clever, the strong, the brave; but the like of him could have no continuous part, no fixed place in its keen warfare; so for him he felt that it was better to depart than to hang on a weary, sickly weakling.

Therefore, when Darby and Joan were looking forward to the coming summer and making their plans for enjoying it, in all of which they included their little friend, the dwarf would smile--his sweet, childlike smile--and say nothing. He did not want to cast a shadow upon their gladness.

The children frequently had letters from their father, for whom they longed with an eagerness that grew keener as the months went by and still the cruel warfare continued, and always the date of his return was put back from time to time. Oh, why did he not come, they cried.

They had so much to tell, so many things to show--lots of precious trifles given and gathered since he went away.

Slowly the winter seemed to pa.s.s, day by day, week after week, month in month out. Then spring came shyly creeping over the land, with snowdrops nestling in her breast, primroses and violets budding in the gra.s.sy banks beneath her feet. Later on pink and white blossoms crowned the orchard trees, balmy breezes gently stirred the opening leaves, azure skies stretched high overhead, daisies carpeted the ground under foot.

At length it was actually summer--summer in the first flush of her fresh, untarnished loveliness. And as the children looked out of the nursery window one bright May morning, they remembered with a sudden thrill of joy that at last daddy was coming home. Any day he might be with them--any hour, in fact; for even at that moment the s.h.i.+p might be lying snug and safe at anchor in Southampton Water!

That very evening he arrived--not Captain, but Major Dene, for he had been promoted while he was away. Joan flung herself wildly upon her father, hugging and kissing him with all her might for a minute or two; then she turned her attentions and her fingers towards his pockets, in search of whatever spoil she could find. Darby stood silent and shy, gazing with wide, troubled eyes upon the tall, gaunt man who carried such a cruel scar across the hollow of his bronzed cheek. Then with a low, sobbing cry of "Father! father!" the little lad clasped his arms about his father's neck, and on his father's breast wept out some of the ache, the loneliness, the longing which for many lagging months had lain in such a heavy weight upon his tender, faithful, loving heart.

"Why mayn't we go up to see Bambo this morning, Aunt Catharine?" asked Darby next day, as soon as he and Joan had eaten their breakfast. "We didn't see him at all yesterday, and I have so much to tell him about father and the Boers and Africa and--and--everything."

"And I wants to take him some marigolds," said Joan, holding up a huge bunch nearly as big as her own head.

Aunt Catharine was silent, and Darby almost dropped the rod he was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g into a stick for baby and looked up into his aunt's face. It was pale and sad, and there were tears in her eyes. "What is it, Aunt Catharine?" inquired the boy. "Has anything vexed you, or are you angry with us?" he added timidly; while Joan rubbed her rosy face up and down against her aunt's hand, for all the world like a confident kitten.

"No, dears, I'm not angry with either of you; why should I?" answered Aunt Catharine quickly. "But I have something to say that will make you both sad, and I don't like doing so."

"It is about Bambo, I am certain," said Darby slowly, throwing down the rod he was whittling, shutting up his precious knife and putting it into his pocket, while a shadow fell upon his face, and clouded the gladness in his eyes. "He's not up yet, and when we were going to his room after we were dressed, nurse dragged us downstairs again; and she looked so funny, as if something had frightened her."

"Please let me go to my dear dwarf, Aunt Catharine," coaxed Joan. "One of Topsy's legs is comin' off, and n.o.body knows how to mend it 'cept Bambo."

"Bam'o! Bam'o!" cried Eric, at the top of his voice. "Bam'o! tum an' div baby swing--high, high!"

"There, Alice, you tell them, for upon my word I can't," whispered Miss Turner to her sister, who had come into the breakfast-room just behind the children; and catching Eric up in her arms, Aunt Catharine carried him outside into the glory and promise which the beauty of the summer morning held for her saddened spirit.

"Bambo won't be able to mend your doll to-day, Joan," said Auntie Alice gently, lifting the little girl on to her lap and drawing Darby close beside her knee. "He will never talk to you, or amuse you, or do anything for any of us again; because last night, after we were all asleep except your father and Aunt Catharine, G.o.d's messenger came and whispered to him that he was wanted--that his errand on earth was done.

And early this morning, long before you were awake, when the young birds were yet nestling in the warmth of their mother's wing, ere the lambs were astir in the fields, when the world was hushed in that sweet stillness which awaits the dawn, he went away--away where he will not be weak or sickly any more, where he will no longer be Jimmy Green, the gardener's poor grandson, or Bambo, Joe Harris's musical dwarf, but a new creature, with a new name--a name that is written in the Lamb's book of life!"

Then Auntie Alice soothed and petted the little creatures, talking to them in her soft, caressing voice, telling them once again of that fair country to which their friend had gone. And when their sorrow had sobbed itself dry they stole away to find their father, going on tiptoe, as if they feared to disturb the slumber of their little comrade.

Three days later the dwarf was laid to rest in a corner of the Firdale churchyard beside his mother. Major Dene erected over the spot a rugged granite cross with his name upon it, his age, and the date of his death.

And below this he caused to be cut another name--the name by which the dwarf always seemed to know himself best, because by it he was known to those whom he had loved and served so faithfully and so well:--

BAMBO.

"_Sown in dishonour, raised in glory._"

"Now, what you all require is a thorough change," said Dr. King when he called at Firgrove a few days after Bambo's death. "The young people here have both been through a great deal.--You, my dear sir," to Major Dene, "must make the most of your time, and build up your strength as firmly as possible before you go back to Africa. The ladies, too," he continued, addressing Miss Turner and Miss Alice, "will be all the better of a little holiday, a complete change before--ah--in short, before any further changes take place." And the staid elderly doctor beamed upon Miss Alice, who held down her head, toyed with Joan's curls, and blushed in a most becoming way--the sort of blush which made her gentle face look almost like a girl's again.

"What's you's cheeks gettin' so red for--just like as if you'd got the toofache, eh?" demanded Joan, with awkward directness.

"Are you too hot, Auntie Alice? Shall I draw down the blind?" asked Darby politely. "Or would you prefer to come out into the garden?"

"Yes--no--thank you, dear--that is--" stammered Auntie Alice, in such painful confusion that, although intensely amused, Major Dene felt obliged to come to her rescue.

"Look here, kids!" he said: "I expect you're bound to know later on, so you may as well be told now. Come, and be introduced to your future new uncle--_our_ new uncle!" he added with a laugh, at the same time leading the little ones up to Dr. King.

"Oh!" exclaimed Joan, drawing a long breath and surveying the doctor with her head sideways, like a fastidious young robin eyeing a crumb.

"Is that why you was allus comin' to ask if we had headiks, or stumukiks, or if baby wanted castor-oil, and to look at our tongues? I s'pose uncles is like that. Never had none before," she added, still gazing at the stout, bald-headed gentleman in front of her, as if the honour of being her future relative had invested him with a new personality and lent him fresh interest in her eyes.

"What'll Aunt Catharine do without you?" asked Darby of Auntie Alice somewhat reproachfully, and giving but a limp, indifferent shake to the hand which Dr. King held out as a peace-offering.

Auntie Alice glanced timidly and sadly at her sister, for this was the one bitter drop in her cup of sweetness--this severing of the ties which for years and years had bound the two Misses Turner as closely together as the Siamese twins almost.

"Tus.h.!.+" cried Aunt Catharine briskly, although there were tears in her eyes. "She's not going out of the country. Beechfield is but a short walk from Firgrove; we can meet every day, if we want to. Besides, I have you children, and your father will be back and forward between this and Denescroft--for a while, anyway," added she, laying a loving hand on Darby's head.

The boy pressed closely to her side; but Joan confidently clambered upon her knee, and laid her golden head against her aunt's shoulder.

"Aunt Catharine has got me," she announced, flinging her arms round that lady's neck, creasing the dainty lace collar, crumpling the delicate lilac ribbons, tumbling the neatly-banded hair. But Aunt Catharine did not seem to mind; in fact, she looked as if she rather enjoyed the feel of those soft little hands upon her face, the pressure of those clinging arms about her neck. "I'll stay wif her allus and allus. I used to like Auntie Alice best, but she's got _him_," Joan went on, pointing a small pink finger at Dr. King, who, it must be admitted, looked a trifle sheepish at being so frankly and openly sat upon in family council; "so now I's goin' to give the most of the love to Aunt Catharine," she declared, bestowing upon her aunt a shower of hearty kisses. "And I'm never goin' to leave her, never, never--unless," she added thoughtfully, "she gets a doctor man too, by-and-by. Then I'd just have to stay wif daddy."

Darby giggled behind Aunt Catharine's back, and the others laughed heartily.

"What would you say to Scotland?" asked Dr. King, well pleased to get gracefully away from a subject which he had been feeling rather personal. "That would be a change indeed--the very thing after South Africa," he added, looking with a keen professional eye at Major Dene's gaunt cheeks and too sharply outlined profile. "There are some pleasant places on the west coast--bracing, yet not too cold. In my boyhood I spent a summer in a village called St. Aidens. It was out of the way, certainly, but you could not go to a more delightful spot."

"St. Aidens!" echoed Miss Turner, with a note of pleasure in her voice.

"Why, I stayed there one year too, long ago, with my father. Yes, let us go to St. Aidens by all means," she said heartily. "Your mother could come with us," she continued, addressing her nephew.--"And you," turning to the doctor, "I daresay Alice will make you welcome if you will join us during our stay."

So there and then the question was settled, and by the second week in June to St. Aidens the family went.

It is the time of the yearly fair at St. Aidens. The buying and selling are done, and now the people who have flocked thither in crowds are free to enjoy the shows and performances which make the fair a festival to be looked forward to and back upon as the chief outing of the season.

There are many items of attraction. Here Punch and Judy make public their domestic broils for the benefit of the onlookers--old, young, and middle-aged--whom this sample pair never fail to draw around them wherever they appear. There an Indian juggler squats, the centre of a gaping circle, as without a grimace he swallows swords, scissors, knives, old nails, and sc.r.a.ps of metal that would tax the stomach of an ostrich. Farther away is an Italian basket-maker, with olive skin and oily manners; while leaning listlessly against the railing behind him is a woman--his wife, probably--with dusky hair, and sad dark eyes which hardly seem to see her green love-birds pecking knowingly at their pack of dirty cards. Along near the pier a negro minstrel with his banjo is singing one of the simple melodies of his race, its sad, sweet refrain almost drowned in the roars of laughter called forth by a chalky-faced clown, who appears to be not a compound of flesh, blood, and nerves like ordinary mortals, but just a bundle of wire springs and india-rubber b.a.l.l.s.

The hobby-horses go round and round, with their ever-changing load, in monotonous regularity. The switchback railway sways up and down to the time of its own mechanical music, amid shrieks of delight and peals of merriment; while youngsters yell aloud with excitement or fear as the gaudily-painted gondolas swing them up higher and higher than before.

The noise is deafening. Between the cries of ice-cream vendors, the high-pitched eloquence of medicine-men, peddlers, tired children, and scolding mothers, it is well-nigh maddening. Still the crowd elbows and jostles along, gradually growing noisier and denser. There they mingle shoulder to shoulder, the squalid and the well-to-do, lads and la.s.ses, boys and girls, husbands and wives, grave and gay; while friendly greetings are exchanged, light jests bandied as they move backwards and forwards, intent upon the fun of the fair, with hardly a glance for the feast of beauty which nature has spread around them with such a lavish hand.

Along the level ground above the beach the tents and caravans are drawn up in orderly array. Stretching away from the sh.o.r.e is the bay, lying calm and unruffled under the summer sky, except when its gla.s.sy surface is rippled by the dip of an oar or churned into froth by the restless pulsations of a pa.s.sing steamer. Across the bay the hills rise beautiful and purple-blue through the evening glow, throwing out encircling arms around the villages dotted thick and white along their base, as the arms of a mother are open wide to infold her nestling children.

Away to the left the bay stretches on till its waters are merged in ocean; while to the east, above the little town, with its swarming streets, its bustling railway station, its quiet cemetery, its chimneys, and its spires, rises another range of hills, seeming in their nearness like a G.o.d-built barrier between that old-world village on the Scottish coast and the steadily advancing steps of the great city which lies beyond.

CHAPTER XVII.