A Christmas Child Part 8

"Sunny walked quietly along the dark paths among the trees. She didn't dance and skip as usual, for she felt as if all of a sudden she had grown almost into a woman, with the thought of what she had to do for her poor neighbours. And as she looked about her, she felt as if she had never before quite noticed how dark and chill and gloomy it was. She had a good way to walk, for since the closing of the pa.s.sage the people had moved farther and farther into the forest. They had grown afraid of the giant, and were glad to get as far from him as they could, for there was no good to be got by staying near him. So Sunny walked on, past the cottages she knew, where she nodded to the people she saw, but without speaking to them, which was so unlike her usual merry way that they all looked after her in surprise and wondered what had come over the little girl. And one or two of them shook their heads and said sadly that she was getting to be like the rest of them. But Sunny walked on, farther and farther, now and then smiling quietly to herself, and her bright little head shining in the darkness almost as if the sun was lighting it up. She went a good way, but there was nothing new or different. It was always the dark forest and the gloomy trees. But at last she saw, close to her, behind the trees, the dark sides of the great mountain, and she knew that she must be near the closed-up door."

Ill.u.s.tration: "She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a little silver k.n.o.b."--P. 83.

"Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?"

"No," said Mabel, "she wasn't afraid of anything. She went quietly up to the door and stood before it. It was barred and barred with iron, and it was so long since it had been opened that the ivy and those sorts of plants had grown all over it, creeping round the iron bars. It looked as if it hadn't been opened for a hundred years, and I daresay it hadn't been. But Sunny knew what to do. She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a little silver k.n.o.b--her grandfather had told her about it; and the queer thing was that though the iron bars were quite rusted over so that you wouldn't have known what they were, the little silver k.n.o.b was still bright and shining as if it had been cleaned every day always."

"Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very learned about such matters, as he was very fond of watching the servants at their work.

"Yes," said Mabel, "just as if it had been cleaned with plate-powder.

Well, Sunny pressed this little k.n.o.b, and a minute or two after she heard a clear tinkling bell. That was just what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she stood quite still and waited. In a little while she seemed to hear a sound as of something coming along the pa.s.sage, and suddenly the top part of the door--at least it was more like a window cut in the door--opened, and a voice, though she could not see anybody, called out, 'Have you come to stay?' This too was what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she knew what to say, and she answered 'Yes.' Then the voice said again, 'At what price?'

and Sunny answered, 'Sunshine for the forest.' But her heart began to beat faster when the door slowly opened and she saw that she must enter the dark pa.s.sage. There was no one to be seen, even though the voice had sounded quite near, so Sunny just walked on, looking about her, for gradually as she went farther, either her eyes grew used to the darkness, or a slight light began to come, and in a few minutes she saw before her a very, very high staircase. It went straight up, without turnings or landings, and the steps were quite white, so she saw them plainly though the light was dim, and as there was nowhere else to go, she just went straight on. I can't tell you what a long time she seemed to keep going upstairs, but at last the steps stopped, and before her she saw another door. It wasn't a door like the one down below, it was more like a gate, for it was a sort of a grating that you could see through. Sunny pressed her face against it and peeped in. She saw a large dark room, with a rounded roof something like a church, and in one corner a very old, grim-looking man was sitting. He had a very long beard, but he didn't look so awfully big as Sunny had expected, for she knew he must be the giant. He was sitting quite still, and it seemed to Sunny that he was shivering. Any way he looked very old and very lonely and sad, and instead of feeling frightened of him the little girl felt very sorry for him. She stood there quite still, but though she didn't make the least noise he found out she was there. He waved his hand, and the barred door opened and Sunny walked in. She walked right up to the giant and made him a curtsey. Rather to her surprise he made her a bow, then he waved his hands about and moved his lips as if he were speaking, but no sound came, and Sunny stared at him in surprise. She began to wonder if he was deaf and dumb, and if so how could she explain to him what she had come for?

"'I can't understand what you are saying, sir,' she said very politely, and then, to her still greater surprise, the waving of his hands and the moving of his lips seemed to succeed, for in a very queer deep voice he answered her.

"'What do you want?' he said. 'I sent my voice downstairs to speak to you, and he has been loitering on the way, lazy fellow, all this time.

There are no good servants to be had nowadays, none. I've not had one worth his salt since I sent my old ones back to Ogreland when they got past work. What do you want?'

"'Sunshine for the forest people.'

"That was all Sunny said, and she looked at the grim old giant straight in the face. He looked at her, and went on shivering and rubbing his hands. Then he said, with a frown,

"'Why should they have sunshine? I can't get it myself, since I'm too old to get up to the top there. Sunshine indeed!' and then he suddenly stretched out his hand to her and made a grab at her hair, screaming out, 'Why, you've got sunshine! Come here, and let me warm my hands.

Ugh! that's the first time I've felt a little less chilly these hundred years,' and Sunny stood patiently beside him and let him stroke her golden hair up and down, and in a minute or two she said quietly,

"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, and let the poor people through to the other side?'

"The giant still kept hold of her hair. 'It would be no good cutting it off--the sunshine would go out of it,' Sunny heard him saying to himself. So she just said again quietly, 'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant?'

"And at last he said, 'I'll consider about it. Your hair's getting cold.

Go upstairs,' and he nodded his head towards a door in the corner of the room, 'go upstairs and fetch some sunshine for me, and come down again.'

"But Sunny wouldn't stir till she had got something out of him. And she said for the third time,

"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, if I go upstairs to please you?'

"And the giant gave her a push, and said to her, 'Get off with you, you tiresome child. Yes, I'll open the door if you'll go and bathe your hair well, and then come down to warm my hands.'

"So Sunny went upstairs. This stair wasn't like the other. It was a turny, screwy stair that went round and round itself, for you see it was near the top of the mountain and there wasn't so much room as down below. Sunny felt rather giddy when she got to the top, but she got all right again in a minute when she pushed open the little door she found there and came out into the sunlight. It was _so_ lovely, and remember, she hadn't seen sunshine, even though some of the brightness had stayed with her, since she was a very little girl. You have no idea how pretty it was up there, not gloomy at all, and with the beautiful warm sunshine pouring down all round. Sunny was very pleased to warm herself in it, and then when she looked down over the side of the mountain and saw the dark tops of the forest trees, she was still more pleased to think that soon her poor friends would have a chance of enjoying it too. And when she thought that her hair had caught enough sunshine to please the giant she called down through the screwy staircase, 'Have you opened the door, Mr. Giant?' And when the giant said, 'Come down and I'll tell you,' she answered, 'No, Mr. Giant, I can't come till you've opened the door.'

And then she heard him grumbling to himself, and in a minute she heard a rattling noise, and she knew the door was opened, and then she came down. She had settled with her grandfather that if she didn't come straight back, he would send some of the people to watch for the door being opened, so she knew it would be all right, for once the giant had agreed to open it, he couldn't shut it again--that was settled somehow, some magic way I suppose, the story didn't say how. So then Sunny, came downstairs again, and the giant stroked her hair up and down till his poor old hands were quite warm, and he grew quite pleased and good-natured. But he wouldn't let Sunny go away, and she had to stay, you see, because the top-door, the one like a gate, was still shut up.

And any way she didn't want to be unkind to the giant. She promised him that she would come back to see him every day if he liked if only he would let her go, but he wouldn't, so she had to stay. I don't know how long she stayed. It was a long time, for the story said she grew thin and white with being shut up in the giant's cave and having no running about. It was worse than the forest. The only thing that kept her alive was the sunshine she got every morning, for there was _always_ sunshine at the top of the mountain, and then, too, the comfort of knowing that the poor people were enjoying it too, for when she was up on the top she could hear their voices down below, as they came to the door. Day by day she heard their voices grow merrier and brighter, and after a while she could even hear the little children laughing and shouting with glee.

And Sunny felt that she didn't mind for herself, she was _so_ glad to think that she had done some good to her poor friends. But she got paler and thinner and weaker--it was so very tiring to stand such a long time every day while the giant stroked the sunshine out of her golden hair to warm his withered old hands, and it was so terribly dark and dull and cold in the gloomy cavern. She would hardly have known how the days went or when was day and when was night, but for the giant sending her upstairs every morning. But one morning came when she could not go; she got up a few steps, and then her strength went away and she seemed to get half asleep, and she said to herself that she was going to die, and she did not know anything more. She seemed to be dreaming. She fancied the giant came to look for her, and that his old face grew sad and sorry when he saw her. And then she thought she heard him say, 'Poor little girl, I did not mean to hurt her. I have done harm enough. Sunny, forgive me. The giant will do you and your people no more harm. His day is over.' Then she really did sleep, for a long time I fancy, for when she woke up she could not think where she was. She thought at first she was on the top of the mountain, it seemed so beautifully bright and warm. She sat up a little and looked about her, and she _couldn't_ think where she was, for on one side close to her, she saw the dark trees of the forest that she knew so well, and on the other, smiling green fields and orchards and cottages with gardens filled with flowers, just the sort of country her grandfather had told her he remembered when he was a child on the other side of the great hill. It was just as if the mountain had melted away. And, just fancy, that _was_ what had happened! For in a little while Sunny heard voices coming near her, all talking eagerly. It was the people of the forest who had found out what had come to pa.s.s, and they were all hurrying to look for Sunny, for they were terribly afraid that the giant had taken her away to Ogreland with the mountain. But he hadn't, you see! And Sunny and all the forest people lived all their lives as happy as could be--they were happier even than in the old days the grandfather and grandmother remembered, for not only were they free to leave the dark forest and enjoy the sunlight as often as they liked, but the sunshine now found its way by all the c.h.i.n.ks and crannies among the branches into the very forest itself."

"And did they never hear anything more of the giant?" asked Percy.

"No," said Mabel, "only in hot summer days sometimes, when the sun was beating down too much on the fields and gardens, the people of that country used to notice a large soft gray cloud that often came between them and the sunshine, and would stay there till the great heat grew less. This cloud seemed always the same shape, and somehow, Sunny, remembering her vision of the giant, thought to herself that the cloud was perhaps he, and that he wanted to make up for his long cruelty. And the children of the forest having heard her story used to laugh when they saw the cloud, and say to each other, 'See, there is the giant warming his hands.' But Sunny would say softly in a whisper, 'Thank you, Mr. Giant.'

"And though it is a very, very long time since all that happened, it has never been quite forgotten, and the people of that country are noted for their healthy happy faces, and the little children for their rosy cheeks and golden hair."

Mabel stopped.

"It is a very pretty story," said Percy. "Are there more like it in the book where you read it?"

Mabel was just going to answer, when her attention was caught by Ted.

"I do believe he's asleep," she said softly, for Ted had curled himself up like a dormouse in his little nest at her side. But just then the two-legged dormouse gave a funny chuckle, which showed that whether he _had_ been asleep or not, he certainly was so no longer.

"What are you laughing at, Teddy?" said Percy.

"I were just sinking," said Ted, "what a silly boy Ted were to be afraid of mountains----Ted would like to go up to the very, very top," he went on valorously. "Ted wouldn't mind a bit--not," with a prudent reservation, "not if thoo and Mabel was wif me."

CHAPTER VI.

LITTLE NARCISSA.

"But, I think, of all new-comers Little children are the best."

From this time, I think, Ted lost his fear of mountains and giants. It was not till a long time afterwards that he explained to his mother exactly how it had been, and by that time he was of course quite big enough to understand that Mr. Brand had only been joking. But still he did not much care about seeing that gentleman again. He generally managed to be out of the way when he saw the dog-cart with the gray horse driving in at the gate, and just once, when he would not have had time to run off without actual rudeness, which little Ted _never_ was guilty of, he only waited to shake hands and say "Quite well, thank thoo," before he disappeared in so unaccountable a manner that he could not be found as long as Mr. Brand's visit lasted.

It was a good deal thanks to Mabel's story that he grew to like his old friend the mountain again. But partly too, I daresay, he forgot his fears on account of several very interesting things that happened about this time. It was a great sorrow to him when Percy had to go back to school--that was one of little Ted's lasting or rather returning sorrows, all through his childhood. Only, like many things in our lives, if we learn to look at them in the right way, it was certainly a trouble with a bright side to it, a cloud with a silver lining--a silver lining which shone indeed all the brighter for the gray outside--for was there not the delight, the _delicious_ delight, of the coming back again, the showing all the changes in the garden since Percy was last there, the new toys and other little presents that Ted had received, and listening to Percy's thrilling accounts of school-life, the relating his own adventures?

Still there were times, especially now that Ted was really growing very sensible, that he wished for some other companion in his simple daily life, some one who, like the little fishes, did not have to go to school. And now and then, when, in his rare expeditions to the sea-side town not far off, he saw little groups of brothers and sisters trotting along together, or when in the stories his mother read to him he heard of happy nursery parties, Ted used to wish _he_ had a little "bruvver or sister, even a baby one would be very nice." For deep down in his loving heart there was already the true manly spirit, the longing to have something to take care of and protect; something tinier and more tender even than wee Ted himself.

And to make his child-life complete this pretty thing came to him. With the autumn days, just when Ted was beginning to feel a little sad at the summer brightness going away, and his garden work had come to be chiefly helping old David to sweep up the fast-falling leaves, there came to Ted a dear little baby sister. She was the dearest little thing--bright-eyed and merry, and looking as if she was ready for all sorts of fun. She was stronger than Ted had been, and to tell the truth I think I must say prettier. For sweet and fair and dear as was Ted's face both in baby- and boy-hood, he was not what one would call pretty. Not the sort of child whose proud nurse comes home with wonderful stories of ladies stopping her in the street to ask whose beautiful baby he was--not a splendidly vigorous, stalwart little man like a small eight-years-old of my acquaintance whose mother was lately afraid to walk about the streets of Berlin with him lest the old Emperor, as he sometimes does, should want to have him to make an officer of! No; Ted, though lithe and active as a squirrel, merry as a cricket, was not a "showy" child. He was just our own dear little Ted, our happy-hearted Christmas child.

But I suppose there never was in this world any one so happy but that it was _possible_ for him to be happier. And this "more happiness" came to Ted in the shape of his baby sister, Narcissa. Boys who despise sisters, "girls" in any shape, big or little, don't know what a great deal they lose. Ted was still a good way off the "big boy" stage, and indeed I don't think anything could have made it possible for him to look at things as too many big boys do. By the time he reached schoolboy-hood, Narcissa was a dainty maiden of five or six, and quite able to stand up for herself in a little queenly way, even had her brother been less tender and devoted. And of the years between, though I would like to tell you something, I cannot tell you half nor a quarter. They were happy sunny years, though not _quite_ without clouds of course. And the first summer of little Cissy's life was a sort of bright opening to them.

It was again a very beautiful summer. The children almost lived out-of-doors. Poor nurse found it difficult to get the work in the house that fell to her share finished in the morning before Ted was tugging at her to "tum out into the garden, baby does _so_ want to tum;" and baby soon learnt to clap her hands and chuckle with glee when her little hat was tied on and she was carried downstairs to her perambulator waiting at the door. And there was new interest for Ted in hunting for the loveliest wild flowers he could find, as baby showed, or Ted _thought_ she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets her little brother arranged for her.

"Her knows _kite_ well which is the prettiest ones, doesn't her, nurse?"

he said one day when they were all three--all four rather, for of course Chevie was one of the group--established in their favourite place under the shade of a great tree, whose waving branches little Cissy loved so much that she would cry when nurse wheeled her away from it. "I think baby knows _lots_, though she can't speak;" and baby, pleased at his evidently talking of _her_, burst into a funny crowing laugh, which seemed exactly as if she knew and approved of what he was saying.

"Baby's a darling," said nurse.

"How soon will her learn to speak?" Ted inquired gravely.

Ill.u.s.tration: "Baby showed, or Ted _thought_ she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets her little brother arranged for her."--P. 98.

"Not just yet. She hasn't got any teeth. n.o.body can speak without teeth," said nurse.

"I hope," said Ted, more gravely still, "I hope Dod hasn't forgotten them."

Nurse turned away to hide a smile.

"No fear, Master Ted," she said in a minute. "She'll have nice little teeth by and by, you'll see. They'll be wee tiny white specks at first, and then they'll grow quite big and strong enough to bite with. That's how your teeth came. Not all of a sudden, you see."