Read Ebook: Two Little Travellers A Story for Girls by Arthur Frances Browne

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 131 lines and 12088 words, and 3 pages

ut up within themselves, whence it should well forth in an atmosphere of obedience, love, duty--the chief elements which go to make a truly happy land.

BAMBO'S FRIEND.

"After the night comes the morning, After the winter the spring; We can begin again, Dolly, And be sorry for everything.

"We love, and so we are happy; No beautiful thing ever ends; 'Tis good to cry and be sorry, But better to kiss and be friends."

E. COXHEAD.

This evening the sisters were pacing arm in arm up and down the long, wide gravel walk between the front door and the gate. Miss Turner looked pinched and worn, with pale cheeks and great hollows about her eyes, which were dim and dry as if from want of sleep. Her head was bent, her step was slow like the step of an old person; and indeed she seemed old--ten years older than the brisk and vigorous Aunt Catharine who had trodden the same path with such a stately air only a week ago.

Miss Alice's gentle face also was thin and white. Her eyes, which were big and gray like Darby's, and usually soft and calm in their glance, were alert, bright, and restless, as if always on the watch for something they could not see, while in her nut-brown hair there were nearly twice as many silver streaks as had been visible when Darby and Joan went away.

They had been speaking of the lost little ones, but now a silence had fallen upon them which neither showed any desire to break. There was nothing more to say except what had already been said over and over again. Everything had been done that they and wise, kind neighbours could do or suggest; and on the morrow Dr. King and Mr. Grey would put the case into the hands of the Barchester police--more to satisfy Miss Turner than from any faith in the result on their own part. The Firdale men had done their best and failed; what cleverer would they be in Barchester?

The air had grown chilly, although the sun was not yet set, and Miss Turner shivered, as much from nervousness as from cold. Her sister was drawing her within doors, when the latch of the gate clicked sharply, and both ladies turned round to look in its direction.

Miss Turner drew herself up in astonishment and annoyance at the ill-timed intrusion of the three little tramps. A something in the boy's eyes, however, arrested the words of rebuke and dismissal which hung ready to fall from her lips, and she looked at them again before stepping forward to shut the gate in their faces.

But Miss Alice's sight was quicker than her sister's, her instincts truer, her faith stronger, and with a low, glad cry of "My dears! my dears!" she sprang, swift as a girl, toward the children, bent down, and Darby and Joan felt themselves gathered close and tight within Auntie Alice's loving arms; while from Aunt Catharine's eyes the thankful tears rained thick and fast, mingled with a shower of kisses, upon their smiling, upturned faces.

"We's comed home again, Aunt Catharine," announced Joan cheerfully and easily, as if the pair of them had just returned from church. "Is you glad to see us?" she asked, smiling sweetly into her aunt's swimming eyes.

"Joan!" exclaimed Darby in a shocked undertone, as if mere creature comforts like cake and cold pudding were not to be thought of at such a time. Then he addressed his aunt.

"Joan's quite correc'," he said, standing right in front of her, bravely bent on confession of his naughtiness and getting it over as quickly as possible, so that he could start fair with a clean sheet. "I was mad because you punished me, and we made up a plan--at least I did--to run away and find the Happy Land, and I coaxed Joan to come with me. It's all my fault, Aunt Catharine; so whatever putting to bed or catechism there is I'll take it, for I was the naughty one. But we found out that there's no Happy Land at all--at least not like what I thought. Our Happy Land's here at Firgrove, and oh, but we're glad to get back to it!--Aren't we, Joan?"

"Yes, werry, werry glad," agreed Joan readily.

"And I'm never going to be disobedient or troublesome, never, never any more, if you'll forgive me this time, Aunt Catharine, and let me begin over again," begged the boy, slipping a grimy little paw into Aunt Catharine's spotless hand.

"Forgive you, child!" cried Aunt Catharine, in a broken voice. "Why, of course I'll forgive you, and we'll both begin over again, Darby," she whispered.

"That's right," he replied cheerily. "And I'm going to try to make a Happy Land all about me wherever I am. Mr. Bambo 'splained it to me ever so nicely. He's very clever, you know. This is he," said Darby, pointing to the dwarf, who still leaned, as if for support, against the pillar of the gate.

Bambo advanced a step, tried to speak, but his voice was too hoarse to be intelligible.

"He's my own dear dwarf!" declared Joan, patting the little man's shoulder with gentle, caressing touch.

"He is called Bambo, but his real own name is Green--Jimmy Green; Green, our gardener's grandson, Aunt Catharine," explained Darby in rapid sentences. "The wicked man and woman took us to their caravan when we were on our way to look for the Happy Land, and only for Bambo we should not have known where to find it. We love him, Aunt Catharine, Auntie Alice. He is ill--very ill, I think. Won't you please be good to him, both of you?" pleaded the boy, in eager, coaxing accents.

The ladies looked from Darby to the dwarf in a bewildered way. Again he attempted to explain his presence there, and again he failed. He was about to steal quietly away--for was not his work done, his mission accomplished?--when all at once the ground seemed to slip from beneath his feet; he swayed, reeled, and with a low moan, as of a hurt animal, fell on the grass border within the gate, at the very feet of the children whose safety he had counted of so much more consequence than his own life.

Darby flung himself on the ground beside the still, pathetic little figure, and Joan, with sobs and cries, implored her dear dwarf to open his eyes, to waken up and speak to his own little missy once more. But the dwarf did not move or speak. His ears were deaf to Darby's tender tones and Joan's insistent pleading.

At this moment Nurse Perry, with Eric in her arms, popped her head out at the front door--just to get a breath of fresh air, as she would have said. For a long minute she gazed at the group by the gate; then with a loud cry, and dumping baby down upon the door mat, she flew along the gravel path, and flinging her arms around the children, she laughed and cried over them by turns.

"My precious pets!" she sobbed. "And have they come back to their poor old Perry? And us thinkin' you was both dead and drownded in the canal. Oh, did I ever!"

"There, nurse, that will do. You'd choke a fellow," declared Darby, wriggling himself out of her clinging embrace. "Of course we're not either dead or drowned. How can you be so silly?"

"Eh! and is it silly you call me for near frettin' myself into the grave about you?" cried nurse, stung by Master Darby's want of feeling.--"Miss Joan won't call nursie silly; sure you won't, lovey? And aren't you glad to get back to your own Perry, and baby, and everything?"

"Yes, werry glad," agreed Joan readily; "and I hope you've got lots and lots of jam and goodies for tea. Has you, nurse? 'cause I's as hung'y as hung'y as anythin'!" she whimpered.

"Yes, darlin', there's a seed-cake and toast, and a whole pot of beautiful strawberry jam that has never been touched. I couldn't eat hardly a mouthful these days for picterin' my pretty lyin' in the mud at the bottom of that slimy, smellin' canal," whined Perry, wiping her eyes on the corner of a much-betrimmed white apron.

"That'll do, Perry," called out Miss Turner, in her usual brisk tones. "Come here; I want you."

Bambo was carried to a pleasant top room overlooking the lawn and the cedar tree, and laid in a comfortable bed--the most comfortable in which his poor body had ever lain in all his weary life. But its softness did not soothe him; the down pillows were not restful; he paid no heed to the cool freshness of the linen: for when he recovered from the stupor into which he had sunk beside the gate, he was in the grip of an enemy which he would have a hard fight to shake off. The wet and cold to which he had been exposed without sufficient clothing, together with the fatigue he had undergone, working on a constitution already in a critical condition, had brought on pneumonia; and when Dr. King saw him, late that night, he had little hope of being able to save his life.

The next morning, after a long, sound sleep and a good breakfast of porridge and milk, Joan was as bright as a button, petted by Perry, playing with baby, and teasing the pussies. Her troubles were behind, and she did not talk much about her adventures.

But Darby was weak, wandering, and feverish. Dr. King said, however, that his illness was merely the effect of excitement and the strain upon a not over strong system. He would be all right in a few days. He chattered incessantly of the Happy Land, Bruno, Joe, Moll, and the monkey, but in broken snatches from which no reliable information could be gleaned.

Miss Turner would have liked to send the police after the Harrises without a single hour's delay. It was dreadful, she declared, to think of such a wicked pair being permitted to wander at large, working mischief without let or hindrance. But her friends advised her to wait until Darby was well enough to be questioned; or possibly the dwarf might yet be able to furnish such a clue to their haunts and habits as should enable the police to pounce upon them unawares.

For a few days Darby continued in a low and feeble condition; then he took a turn for the better, and soon he was strong enough to listen to Joan's merry prattle, and to be amused by baby's funny attempts at speaking. The weather was still mild and bright; so as soon as he was able to be about he was allowed out into the garden, where the kittens loved to sun themselves in the sheltered corner down by the boxwood border.

Still Bambo's life hung trembling in the balance. The actual disease had abated, but his weakness and want of vitality made his recovery seem almost impossible. One hour he would revive somewhat, and the next sink so low that Miss Turner and Miss Alice felt that at any moment the end might come. Between them they kept constant watch beside the faithful creature, feeling as if nothing that they might do could repay him for the devotion which he had displayed towards the children. Bit by bit they had gathered from Darby and Joan the story of their quest of the Happy Land, what befell them by the way, and all that the dwarf had done to deliver them from the clutches of Thieving Joe, and the captivity of life dragged out within the narrow compass of the Satellite Circus Company's old yellow caravan.

At last a day came when the poor dwarf smiled up into Miss Turner's anxious face with a world of intelligence and gratitude in the eyes whose sweet expression made the wan, pinched features look almost beautiful to the aunt of Darby and Joan. She did not regard him as an object utterly unlike other people, a bit of lumber for which the world could have no real use or fitting place. She remembered only that by this man's promptitude and courage two innocent, helpless children had been rescued from a fate infinitely worse than a peaceful death, with a green grave under the daisies, and those who loved them delivered from a lifelong sorrow. So there were real gladness and true thankfulness in Aunt Catharine's look and voice as she laid a cool hand upon the invalid's brow, saying kindly,--

"You are better, are you not, Bambo?--that is, if it is Bambo I am to call you."

"Yes, ma'am, I do feel better," answered the dwarf, in a low, quavering voice. "And, please, call me Bambo; it is the name little master and missy knows me by."

"You have been very ill, but you will soon be stronger and able to see the children. They come to the door very often to ask for you."

A flush of pleasure crept into the dwarf's hollow cheeks. He was not used to having anybody asking after his health, or interested in him in any way. Then Miss Turner held a cup of nice strong soup to his lips, and soon after he fell into a sweet, refreshing sleep, which lasted many hours.

Dr. King was standing by the bedside when he awoke.

"You've had a close shave, my lad!" he said, in his quick, direct way. "You'll pull through now though.--Plenty of nourishment and perfect rest, that's all he wants in the meantime," added the doctor to Miss Turner, as he hurried off to visit another patient, or perhaps to have a little chat with Miss Alice, who was amusing Darby in the garden, where the bees buzzed and worked about their hives along the sunny south wall.

After seeing the doctor down the stairs Miss Turner came back to the dwarf, and as she entered the room she saw him turn his face away from the window to the wall with a sigh, which filled her heart with pity for the forlorn little being.

"Now, Bambo," she began, "you have done so much for me and mine that I want you to let me be as kind to you as I know how. You have been more than a friend to my dear nephew's children. I desire above all things to be a friend to you."

"O ma'am, that is impossible," answered the dwarf in a choked voice. "You are a lady, while I am nobody--an insignificant, despised object! And don't you know who I really am? Green, your gardener's grandson--Jimmy Green the dwarf, the boy who ran away from Firgrove long ago, when you and Miss Alice were in foreign parts for your eddication!"

"I believe my sister and I were in Paris at that time," answered Miss Turner lightly. "But what difference does the fact of your being Green's grandson make, except to give you an additional claim upon our friendliness? And, Bambo, your grandfather is truly sorry he treated you harshly and unjustly in the past. He has asked me to tell you so, and to say that instead of feeling ashamed of you now, he's really proud to think what you have done for Master Darby and Miss Joan."

"'Twas nothing, nothing," murmured the dwarf in confusion, although his beaming face plainly showed the gratification he felt at his grandfather's message.

"And now," resumed Miss Turner, "if I am to be your friend, you must tell me why you sighed so sadly just now. Come; you won't refuse, I am sure," she added in a persuasive tone.

For a while there was silence in the room. Miss Turner waited for the dwarf to speak. He kept his face towards the wall, and from time to time put up a long, thin hand to wipe away the big tears that forced their way beneath his closed eyelids to trickle slowly on to the snowy pillow in which his head was half hidden.

At length he raised himself in the bed and looked straight at Miss Turner. And as he met the kindly glance of her keen, true eyes, a quick smile parted his lips and shone like a flicker of pale sunlight all over his worn features.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet