Old Farm Fairies Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 24.--Bruce and Blythe on Their Way to Hilltop. Pixie Attus Tries to La.s.so Them.]

The afternoon was well advanced when Bruce and Blythe halted their jaded ponies under the shade of a laurel bush, a little way from the Lone Aspen on Hilltop. "Poor fellow!" said the Captain as he stroked Swallowtail's drooping wings. "It was too bad to bring you on such a service, with plenty of stouter nags in the stable! But we had to run the gauntlet of the Pixies, you know, and those big fellows would never have got through unnoticed. Think they can carry us back?" he asked anxiously.

"I doubt it, Cap'n," was the answer. "But rest and a hearty meal may bring 'em around all right."

"Very well; then do you care for them while I go to the Lone Aspen."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOY'S ILl.u.s.tRATION.

FIG. 25.--Bruce Whistling for Madam Breeze.]

The Lone Aspen stood on the summit of the hill. It was an old tree, with wide spreading branches, and great girth of trunk. The trunk was hollow, and covered with warts. One of these was quite near the roots, and was pierced in the centre with a hole which exposed the hollow within. Bruce stopped at the foot of the tree beneath this opening, and blew a peculiar note upon a whistle which hung by a chain about his neck. There was no answer. He whistled again. Still no response. Along the rough scales and ridges of bark running up and down the trunk, a stairway had been made like the rounds of a ladder. Upon this the Captain climbed towards the opening. He stepped out upon a bulging wart and peeped within the tree. It was empty. Again he blew his whistle. The echoes rolled up and down the hollow trunk and died away far above toward the branches, where a faint streak of light shone through an opening like the one in which the Brownie stood.

"This is strange!" exclaimed the Captain. He turned, and looked up at the Sun through branches of the tree. "Surely, Madam Breeze should be at the Lone Aspen at this time of day! However, I must climb to the window and wait." He sat down on the window ledge, and as he was tired out by long journeys, hard labors and sleepless nights, in spite of himself he fell into a doze.

"Ooo--oo--oo!"

A sound like the tones of a distant bell awoke him.

"Ha, she has come!" he cried, and jumped to his feet. Madam Breeze was pa.s.sing with her attendants through the door. Her voice sounded through the hollow trunk as she swept into it. In a moment the Captain felt her breath upon his cheek, and presently stood face to face with her at the window.

She kissed him heartily, brushed the hair back caressingly from his forehead, and addressed him in a sprightly, kindly way. Madam Breeze was an Elf of pleasing appearance; plump to the verge of stoutness, but singularly graceful and airy in all her movements. She was troubled with an asthma which interrupted her speech with frequent attacks of coughing and wheezing, much to her discomfort and the disturbance of her temper.

She had an odd fashion of expanding and contracting in size either suddenly or gradually. This occurred oftenest during her attacks of asthma, and to those who first saw this, the sight was a startling one.

"So my brave little Captain," said the Elf, "you've been whistling for the Breeze at last, have you? Ah! I thought you would come to it some day. But you always were such an independent little body--hoogh! And you have come to the little fat lady at last, hey? Well, I'm heartily glad to see you--hoogh!--and you'd have been welcome long ago--wheeze!

Sit down and tell me your errand." She bustled about all the while and kept everything and everybody around her in a whirl of excitement.

"There, now, I've composed myself to listen--wheeze! But I suspect that I know without being told--hoogh! However, say on, while I sit here and rock myself." The merry lady twisted together a couple of boughs into the shape of a rude swing, and seating herself among the leaves, swayed back and forth, wheezing, coughing, oh-ing and ah-ing, while Bruce told the story of his troubles.

"And now," he concluded, "I appeal to you for help." He took the whistle from his neck and laid it in the Elf's hand. "This talisman has always opened a way for Brownies to the heart and help of you and yours."

"Tut, tut!" said Madam, throwing the chain around the Captain's neck again, "Put up your whistle--hoogh! No need to remind Madam Breeze by that of the claim of the fairies upon her and hers. And so these horrid Pixies have worried the life out of you? And you tarried all this time before coming to me?--Wheeze, wheeze! Confound this cough! And you didn't go to my gentle Lady Zephyr this time, hey? Her balmy breath wouldn't quite suit your present purpose? Ho, ho, ho! Good stout Madam Breeze for you, hey?--Hoogh! Aha, I see that Brownies, like other folk, when they get into trouble prefer the useful to the ornamental. Well, well, you're right enough."

Whereupon the jolly, kind hearted Elf swung and rolled herself about and made the leaves of the Lone Aspen fairly dance with the voice of her laughter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.--Captain Bruce Appeals to Madame Breeze.]

"Now to business!" Madam Breeze sobered down just one moment as she spoke. "How did you come here? On the ponies, hey? Call Blythe."

Bruce blew his bugle. Presently Blythe clambered up the ladder and saluted the Elf.

"How are the ponies, Blythe? Pretty well done out, hey? Not fit for the journey back? In a pinch are you? So I thought. Well, you Brownies do miss it sometimes, you must confess." Madam ran on asking and answering her own questions without giving Blythe a chance to speak a word.

However, she seemed, through, some mysterious news agency of her own, to know everything without information from the Brownies.

"Need fresh horses? Just as I supposed. Here, here--Whirlit,--wheeze,--hoogh! (Confound that cough!) Blythe, call Whirlit for me. The rascal!--he's always out of the way when I want him."

Notwithstanding the bad character given him by his mistress, Whirlit was at the window in a moment.

"There, keep still now, and listen!" Madam herself was quite as restless as the frisky Whirlit while she gave her orders, bouncing back and forth all the time among the leaves. "Still, I say! Put Swallowtail and Blythe's pony in the stable, and get out my Goldtailed matches. Order all hands to be ready to leave immediately. Quick! Off with you!"

Whirlit sprang from the window, turning a score of somersaults or more on his way to the ground. He returned presently, leading a pair of Goldtailed moths. They were beautiful insects with soft downy plumage, snowy white color, and a tuft of yellow hair at the end of the tail.

"Aren't they beauties," cried Madam, casting an admiring glance at her splendid matches. "And fast, too. And thoroughly trained. And what's the strangest thing about them, they're not worth an old straw in the day time. They hang around on the bark here as spiritless as a toadstool. But the moment evening comes they spruce up, and hie--away!

they're brisk enough then. Queer, isn't it? But I keep 'em just for night work. Now we're all ready for a bout with the Pixies. Pooh! the nasty beasts! I hate to soil my breath with them and their clammy snares. But Brownies can't be left to suffer. Ready, Captain? Yes? very well, then, mount and away!"

The afternoon was nearly gone. Below Hilltop the woods, orchard, house, lawn and garden all lay in shadow. The Goldtailed matches were in fine spirits. Their energetic mistress kept close behind them buoying them up, and urging them on, and in a short time they reached the spring at the foot of the orchard back of the mansion.

"Halt!" cried Madam Breeze. "I shall wait here in the tops of the trees, while you move forward and get your Brownies ready. Be quick, now, and when you want me, remember the whistle."

CHAPTER VI.

ATTACK ON THE OLD LODGE.

Bruce put spurs to Goldtail and flew across the garden followed closely by Blythe. They reached the Lawn and crossed the Brownie camp. They stopped at the Captain's headquarters under the Rose Bush. Everything was in confusion. MacWhirlie was pacing back and forth in high excitement; a group of Brownies surrounded him, talking and gesticulating violently.

"Silence!" cried MacWhirlie, stopping suddenly, facing the excited group. "I tell you that I will not stir a hand in this thing until Captain Bruce returns, or until it is settled that he will not return this night. I love Rodney as fondly as you; he is my dearest friend, the Captain's own brother, my comrade in a thousand fights and forays. But it would bring on a battle were I to consent to follow my own heart and your wishes. That would ruin us all. I cannot; dare not, will not! I must obey my orders. Silence, I say!"

Bruce leaped from Goldtail's back and walked hastily into the midst of the group. The Brownies did not notice him until he stood by MacWhirlie's side.

A clamor of surprise, satisfaction, and grief greeted him. The Lieutenant's face brightened; then clouded again, as with sympathy and pain.

"Speak, MacWhirlie," said the Captain. "What has happened? What is wrong with Rodney? Quick, and tell the worst at once."

"He is shut up by the Pixies along with his boy Johnny."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 27.--The Old Lodge Overspun by Pixies.]

"What, Rodney captured! I never would have thought it. How did it come about?"

"It was not exactly his own fault, Sir. He had been busy about the boats all day--you know we were to have everything in order,--and I had asked him to look after his sailors. He took Johnny with him--not an hour ago, Sir,--to have a last look at matters. He did not want to take the little fellow, but the lad was bent on going; and besides he is a brisk young Brownie, and quite able to look after himself. Rodney was busy at the rivulet about some naval affairs and left the boy for a few moments on sh.o.r.e. Just then one of the b.u.t.terfly ponies flew by and strolled off toward the Pixie picket line. Johnny saw its danger and ran to bring it back. He had gone but a little way when he was seized by one of the Pixie scouts, who are always hovering around now, and clapped into one of our old lodges which they have covered with spinningwork and are using as a guard house."[S]

"But Rodney? How came he into their hands?" the Captain cried.

"I am coming to that. The Commodore heard Johnny's cries, sprang on sh.o.r.e, and rushed upon the old wretch who had captured the lad, and who was spinning a rope across the door. He cut him down with one blow of his cutla.s.s and ran into the lodge to get Johnny."

"Ha! that was well done!" exclaimed Bruce.

"Yes, Sir, but he wasn't quick enough. A squad of pickets heard the fuss, and before Rodney could repa.s.s the door they had blocked it up with their snares, double lashed and sealed it, and,--there they are!"

"How did you find out all this?"

"Why, of course, some of the sailors also heard the boy's cries and followed the Commodore; but only in time to see how things had gone.

They ran back to the camp, and here they are, clamoring, threatening, pleading to get me to order all hands to the rescue of Rodney and his boy."

"Have you done anything?"