Fighting the Flames by Robert Michael Ballantyne (read novels website txt) 📖

of his best butter, a cut of his best bacon, and one of his best wax-candles. Willie knew nothing about relative proportion in regard to such things; he only knew that they were usually bought and consumed together.

The shopman looked at the little purchaser in surprise, but as Willie emphatically repeated his demands he gave him the required articles. On receiving the sovereign he looked twice at Willie, rung the piece of money three times on the counter, and then returned the change.

Gathering the packages in his arms, and putting the candle between his vest and bosom, he went into a baker's shop, purchased a loaf, and returned to the "subterraneous grotto" laden like the bee. To say that the fairy was surprised when he displayed these things, would be a feeble use of language. She opened her large eyes until Willie begged her in alarm not to open them wider for fear they should come out, at which sally she laughed, and then, being weak, she cried.

After that she fell in with her nurse's humour, and the two proceeded to "have a night of it." Ziza said she'd be a real fairy and tell him what to do, and Willie said he'd be a gnome or a he-fairy and do it.

At the outset Willie discovered that he had forgotten coals, but this was rectified by another five minutes' airing, and a rousing fire was quickly roaring in the chimney, while the kettle sang and spluttered on it like a sympathetic thing, as no doubt it was. Willie cleared the small table that stood at the invalid's bed side, and arranged upon it the loaf, the tea-pot, two cracked tea-cups, the butter and sugar, and the wax-candle--which latter was stuck into a quart bottle in default of a better candle-stick.

"Now, ain't that jolly?" said the nurse, sitting down and rubbing his hands.

"Very!" replied the patient, her eyes sparkling with delight.

"It's so like a scene in a play," continued Willie.

"Only much more real," suggested the fairy.

"Now, then, Ziza, have a cup o' tea, fresh from the market o' Chiny, as your dad would say, if he was sellin' it by auction. He's a knowin' codger your dad is, Ziza. There. I knowed I forgot somethin' else--the cream!"

"I don't mind it, indeed I don't," said Ziza earnestly.

Willie had started up to run out and rectify this omission, but on being assured that the fairy liked tea almost as well without as with cream, and that there was no cream to be got near at hand, he sat down again and continued to do the honours of the table. First he made the fairy sit up in bed, and commented sadly on her poor thin neck as she did it, observing that she was nothing better than a skeleton in a skin. Then he took off his own jacket and put it on her shoulders, tying the arms round her neck. Next he placed a piece of board in front of her, saying that it was a capital tray, and on this he arranged the viands neatly.

"Now, then, go at it, Ziza," he said, when all was arranged.

Ziza, who received his attentions with looks that were wonderfully gleeful for one in her weak state of health, went at it with such vigour that the bread was eaten and the tea drunk in a few minutes, and the supply had to be renewed. When she was in the middle of her second round of buttered toast (for Willie had toasted the bread), she stopped suddenly.

"Why don't you go on?" asked Willie.

"Because you have not eaten or drunk one mouthful yet."

"But I'm lookin' at you, and ain't that better? Howsever, if ye won't go on, I'll not keep you back," and with that Willie set to work, and, being uncommonly hungry, did what he styled "terrible execution among the wittles."

For some time the nurse and patient ate in comparative silence, but by degrees they began to talk, and as they became more confidential their talk became more personal.

"D'you like bein' a fairy?" said Willie, after a lull in the conversation.

"No, I don't," replied Ziza.

"Why not?"

"Because--because--I don't like the kind of things we have to do, and-- and--in short, I don't like it at all, and I often pray God to deliver me from it."

"That's strange, now," said Willie, "I would have thought it great fun to be a fairy. I'd rather be a little clown or a he-fairy myself, now, than anything else I know of, except a fireman."

"A fireman, Willie?"

"Yes, a fireman. My brother, Blaz--a--Frank, I mean, is one, and he saved the lives of some people not long since."

Of course Willie here diverged into a graphic account of the fire in Beverly Square, and, seeing that Ziza listened with intense earnestness, he dilated upon every point, and went with special minuteness into the doings of Frank.

When he concluded, Ziza heaved a very deep sigh and closed her eyes.

"I've tired you, Ziza," exclaimed Willie, jumping up, with a look of anxiety, and removing the tea-board and jacket, as the child slipped down under the clothes. He asked if she wanted to go to sleep.

"Yes, for I'm _very_ tired," she sighed languidly; then added, "but please read to me a little first."

"What book am I to read you?" said Willie, looking round the room, where no book of any kind was to be seen.

"Here, it's under the pillow."

Willie put his hand under the pillow and pulled out a small pocket-Bible.

"Read the third chapter of Saint John's Gospel," said the child, closing her eyes.

Willie read in the monotonous tones of a schoolboy's voice until he came to the sixteenth verse, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

"Stop at _that_ verse," whispered Ziza. "I'll go to sleep now."

Her deep breathing soon proclaimed that she was in the land of dreams, so Willie removed the candle a little further away from her, and then, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, began to read the Bible. He turned over a few pages without much intention of finding any particular place, for he was beginning to feel sleepy.

The first words his eyes fell upon were, "Blessed are they that consider the poor."

He roused up a little at this, and read the verse again, for he connected it with the fact that the fairy was poor. Then he pondered it for some time, and, falling asleep, dropt his head on the Bible with such force that he woke up for a little and tried to read again, but do what he would he could not get beyond that verse; finally he gave up the attempt, and, laying his forehead down upon it, quickly fell sound asleep.

In this state the couple were discovered an hour or two later by Messrs. Cattley senior and junior on their return from the theatre.

"Inscrutable mysteries! say, what is this?" exclaimed the elder clown, advancing into the room on tiptoe.

Apostrophising his eye and one Betty Martin, the younger clown said that it was a "rare go and no mistake," whereupon his father laid his hand on Willie's shoulder and gently shook him.

"Eh! another cup, Ziza?" exclaimed the self-accused nurse, as he put out his hand to seize the tea-pot. "Hallo! I thought it was the fairy," he added, looking up with a sleepy smile; "I do believe I've gone and fell asleep."

"Why, lad, where got ye all those things?" inquired the senior Cattley, laying aside his cloak and cap, and speaking in a low tone, for Ziza was still sleeping soundly.

"Well, I got 'em," replied Willie in a meditative tone, "from a friend of mine--a very partikler friend o' mine--as declines to let me mention his name, so you'll have to be satisfied with the wittles and without the name of the wirtuous giver. P'r'aps it was a dook, or a squire, or a archbishop as did it. Anyway his name warn't Walker. See now, you've bin an' woke up the fairy."

The sick child moved as he spoke, but it was only to turn, without awaking, on her side.

"Well, lad," said the clown, sitting down and looking wistfully in the face of his daughter, "you've got your own reasons for not tellin' me-- mayhap I've a pretty good guess--anyhow I say God bless him, for I do b'lieve he's saved the child's life. I've not seen her sleep like that for weeks. Look at her, Jim; ain't she like her old self?"

"Yes, father, she don't need no paint and flour to make a fairy on her just now. She's just like what she was the last time I seed her go up in a gauze cloud to heaven, with red and blue fire blazin' all round her."

"I'll bid ye good-night now," said Willie, buttoning up his jacket to the chin, and pulling his cap down on his brows with the air of a man who has a long walk before him.

"You're off, are you--eh?" said the elder clown, rising and taking Willie by the hand, "well, you're a good lad. Thank'ee for comin' here an' takin' care of Ziza. My subterranean grotto ain't much to boast of, but such as it is you're welcome to it at all times. Good-night."

"Good-night," said Willie; "good-night, Jim." Jim replied good-night heartily, and then Willie stepped into the dark passage. He glanced back at the fairy before shutting the door, but her eyes were closed, so he said good-night to her in his heart, and went home.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.


HOME LIFE.

"My dear Miss Tippet, I shall never, no never, get over it."

So said, and so undoubtedly thought, a thin little old lady with remarkably bright eyes, and a sweet old face, as she sat sipping tea at Miss Tippet's elbow.

It was in the drawing-room of Miss Deemas that she sat, and the Eagle sat opposite to her.

"It was very dreadful," responded Miss Tippet with a sigh--"very."

"It was awful. I know I shall never get over it,--never," repeated the little old lady, finishing her tea, and asking for another cup in the calmest possible voice, with the sweetest possible smile.

"Oh yes, you will, Mrs Denman," said Miss Deemas snappishly.

"No, indeed, I won't," repeated Mrs Denman; "how can I? Just think of the situation. Sitting in my chair in dishabille, when a man--a Man, Miss Dee--"

"Well, I know what a _man_ is," said the Eagle bitterly; "why don't you go on?"

"Burst himself through my bedroom-door," continued Mrs Denman, "with lime and charcoal and brick-dust and water streaming down his face-- f-fo-olded me in his arms, bore me out into the street--the _street_! Oh! I shall never, _never_ get over it; and so little, so _very_ little clothing on me--"

"How much had you on?" asked Miss Deemas in a deep voice, the calmness of which contrasted forcibly with Mrs Denman's excited tones.

"Really, Miss Deemas, I see no necessity for going into particulars. It is sufficient to know