Half-Past Bedtime Part 15

"Ah, yes," he said; "but you mustn't judge by those. That's the very mistake that I made. You see, I once fell down a staircase myself, two or three years after staircases were invented."

He looked at Doris and nodded his head.

"It was when I was a small boy," he said, "as small as your little brother; and that's why I grew up crooked and deformed. I was very unhappy about it. It was thousands of years ago. But I can still remember how unhappy I was. I used to watch the other children playing games, and when I grew up I watched the men go hunting. And I had to stay at home, and the women despised me; and at last I died, and then I saw how silly I had been."

"Why had you been silly?" asked Doris.

"Well, I'd wasted the whole of my life, you see, thinking about the staircase and how miserable I was; and so when the good Lord G.o.d asked me what I wanted to do next, there was hardly anything that I could turn my hand to. But I told you I was lucky, and so I was, for as it happened I had a great idea; and that was to try and save as many children as I could from being as miserable as I had been. Of course, I couldn't expect much of a job, seeing how I'd thrown away all my chances, so I asked the good Lord G.o.d if He would allow me to look after the world's staircases."

He disappeared again.

"Been to Port Jacobson," he said. "Well, the good Lord G.o.d thought that it was rather a fine idea; and so He laid His hand upon me and gave me a new name; and my new name was St Uncus."

"Shall I have a new name too?" asked Doris.

St Uncus beamed.

"Why, of course," he said. "Everybody has a new name, only it generally depends, to a certain extent, upon what they did with their old ones."

Doris thought for a moment.

"But wouldn't you rather be in Heaven," she said, "than sitting about on these silly old staircases?"

St Uncus laughed.

"But Heaven's not a place, my dear. Heaven's being employed by the good Lord G.o.d."

Then he looked at his watch.

"And now I wonder," he said, "if you'd mind doing me a good turn?"

"Oh, I should love to!" said Doris; "but how can I?"

"Well, you see," he said, "the worst of my job is that I can never get a chance of seeing my brother Bill. He's always busy by the edges of ponds and things, and I'm always stuck on somebody's staircase; and I thought perhaps, if you wouldn't mind taking my hook for a bit, I could slip off for a moment and have a talk to him."

Doris felt a little shy.

"But should I be able to use it?" she asked. "And how could I tell whether somebody wanted me?"

"Oh, that'll be all right," he said, "as soon as you catch hold of the hook; and perhaps you won't be wanted at all. The only trouble is when two children are falling at once, and then you have to decide which you'll go for. But that doesn't happen very often, considering how many children there are."

So Doris went upstairs, and he unb.u.t.toned the hook, and when she caught hold of it she felt a strange sort of thrill. She felt like Cuthbert had felt when he went into In-between Land; and indeed that was where she really was. St Uncus had vanished, and she saw Christopher Mark like a little fat ghost, with his soul shining inside him. Then she suddenly heard a cry in a strange foreign language, and she saw a dark-eyed mother at the bottom of some stone steps, and a small round baby, with an olive-coloured skin, tumbling down them one by one. She felt a hot wind, full of the odour of spices, blowing faintly against her cheek; and then she bent forward and hooked up the baby, and saw the look of terror die out of the mother's face.

Never in her life had Doris felt so pleased. She felt as if she could shout and sing with joy. No wonder, she thought, that St Uncus looked so happy. She began to understand what being in Heaven meant. And then she heard a shout, and smelt a smell of herrings, and she saw a man in a blue jersey, and a curly-headed boy, about four years old, pitching head first down a dark staircase. Through a dirty window-pane she could see the mouth of a river, full of fishing-smacks floating side by side; and she saw a woman, with rolled-up sleeves, run out of a kitchen and stand beside the man.

Then she hooked up the boy, and she heard the woman say "Thank G.o.d!" and the man say "You little rascal, you!" and then she was back again, and there was St Uncus sitting beside her and rubbing his hands.

"Ever so many thanks," he said. "I haven't seen old Bill for nearly three hundred years. He says he'd like to meet you, but of course it's only now and again that anybody like you is able to see us."

Then he said good-bye to her, and she never saw him again, but she knew that he was there, and once she actually heard him; and that was very late on this same evening, long after everyone had gone to bed. For soon after midnight, when Auntie Kate was dreaming about clergymen and bazaars, and when Teddy and George were dreaming about bears, and Jimmy and Jocko about bathrooms, and when Christopher Mark was dreaming about rabbits, and Doris wasn't dreaming at all--soon after midnight a little red-hot cinder suddenly popped out of the kitchen grate.

It fell on a bit of matting, and burnt its way through to the floor-boards below; and presently a wisp of smoke, with a wicked pungent smell, began to twist upward and flatten against the ceiling. Fuller and fuller grew the kitchen of smoke, and Teddy and George began to dream of camp-fires, but Auntie Kate still dreamt of bazaars and pincushions marked tenpence halfpenny. Teddy and George were sleeping by themselves, and Christopher Mark slept in a little room turning out of Auntie Kate's. These rooms were above the sitting-room in the front of the house, and it was Teddy and George who slept over the kitchen; while Doris herself and Jimmy and Jocko shared a little room under the roof.

The floor of the kitchen was now blazing fiercely, with the boards crackling in the flames, and Teddy and George began to dream about guns, but still they didn't wake up. They only moved a little uneasily, and it was somebody shouting that finally woke them, just as it was a neighbour banging at the front door that roused Auntie Kate from her dreams.

"Hurry up!" cried the neighbour, "your house is on fire!" and Auntie Kate was so fl.u.s.tered that she quite forgot where she had put her clothes, and rushed downstairs in her nightdress. As for Teddy and George, their room was full of smoke, and they bolted out of it, coughing and spluttering, and met Doris coming down from the attic, pushing Jimmy and Jocko in front of her.

The kitchen door had now swung open, and the flames were darting across the hall; and clouds of smoke were rolling upstairs like a sour and suffocating fog.

"Never mind," said Doris. "Hold your breath, and run downstairs as quick as you can," and soon they were all standing together in the street, while some of the neighbours were running for the fire-engine.

It had stopped raining, but the pavement felt all cold and clammy as they stood upon it with their bare feet, and it seemed funny to be out in the dark with nothing on but their nightgowns. Auntie Kate had fled into an opposite house, because she couldn't bear that so many people should see her; but Teddy and George were rather enjoying themselves, though Jimmy and Jocko had begun to cry. Then Doris looked round, "Where's Christopher Mark?" she cried, and everybody looked at everybody else, and Doris knew that he must be still asleep in his little dressing-room upstairs. She rushed into the house, but the leaping flames had already begun to curl round the banisters; and the lady next door caught hold of her arm and told her that it would be madness to try and rescue him. But Doris shook her off and ran across the hall, and dashed blindly up the burning staircase.

"Oh, St Uncus!" she said, "come and help me; come and help me to save Christopher Mark."

The sound of the flames was like the roar of an engine, and the smoke was thicker than the blackest night. But at the top of the stairs she suddenly heard a whisper, "It's all right, my dear, I'm here."

And then she laughed, and found Christopher Mark fast asleep, hugging his white rabbit; and in another few seconds she was out in the street again, with Christopher Mark safe in her arms.

Some of the people cheered her and patted her on the back, and began to tell her how brave she had been; and she was rather pleased, of course, especially when she thought of Mummy, who would be sure to hear about it in hospital. But she wasn't conceited, because she knew that she had been helped by a little saint with a crooked back, who served G.o.d by keeping an eye on all the staircases in the world.

Never a babe in Port of Spain, Peabody Buildings, Portland Maine,

Limerick, Lima, Boston, York, Nottingham, Naples, Cairo, Cork,

Milton of Campsie, Moscow, Mull, Halifax, Hampstead, Hobart, Hull,

Never a baby climbs a stair But little St Hook is waiting there.

OLD MOTHER HUBBARD

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mother Hubbard's]

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OLD MOTHER HUBBARD