The Old Tobacco Shop Part 34

"I cannot," said Freddie. "I am freezing. My strength is gone. I must rest."

With these words he let the old man carefully down, and laid him on the ground. He stood there panting and rubbing his frozen hands together.

"Stupid weakling," said the old man, staring up at him, "go and search upon the mountain-side and bring me hither seeds of the fennel which you will there find, and be quick; for I perish."

Freddie and the little boy hastened away together, and at a distance on the mountain-side found, after a long search, a few plants of the fennel, with which they hurried back to the old man.

He was gone.

They looked far and near; they examined every nook and cranny; the mountain was steep at this point, and difficult for any sound man; for an old man, crippled, it seemed impossible, but he was nowhere to be found; he was gone.

Freddie and Robert turned homeward, and made hard work of it. The little boy became extremely heated with his labor; but Freddie remained as cold as ever. It is true that he perspired, but the beads upon his forehead were like the beads upon ice-cold gla.s.s. His hands were so numb that when he cut them slightly on a rock he felt no pain. His back, where the old man had clung to it with his body, was coldest of all; he was so stiff that he could scarcely bend his arms or body; many times the little boy had to help him down; the chill spread; at the foot of the mountain his legs were nearly as cold as his arms; when they pa.s.sed the Tower, his knees were as if frozen, and would not bend; the little boy put his arm about him and tried to help him walk; he began to lose knowledge of his whereabouts; he held out a stiff arm before him, like a blind man, and dragged one foot after the other like a man whose legs are made of stone. The little boy, weeping to himself, took his icy outstretched hand, and led him home.

The palace door was thrown open. The little boy rushed in with a cry, and turned around to his companion. The white-faced rigid creature which was Freddie stood in the doorway, staring vacantly, and fell slowly forward on its face upon the floor.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE KING'S TOWER

Freddie was very ill. He was so ill that after a week the King gave up all hope, and believed he would die. The Queen wept bitterly; she scarcely left his side; at night she did not sleep for weeping, and by day she sat by his bed and watched his cold white face. His friends were not allowed to see him, and of these it appeared that Mr. Hanlon had been gone for some days up the Tower.

All that the best doctors in the city could do had been done, but the Chevalier was no better. He lay under the blankets, cold as ice and motionless as stone; and his eyes, big round eyes like the eyes of a child, stared up strangely out of deep sockets. They looked up at the King, who was bending down over the bed and smiling encouragingly. The Queen and her three children, Robert, Genevieve, and James, were standing close by, but they could not smile.

"Come, Chevalier," said the King, "you will be well soon, I am sure."

A faint voice came from the pale lips; not the voice of a grown man, but the voice of a child.

"That isn't my name," it said, "my name is--Fweddie."

The King went away, and took his children with him; and after they had gone the Queen heard the childish voice again from the bed.

"I want to see Aunt Amanda."

The Queen went to him, and stood beside the bed. He looked up at her.

"You aren't Aunt Amanda," he said. "I want to see Aunt Amanda."

"I think that was my name once," said the Queen. "Will you talk to me?"

He looked at her again, and she saw that he did not know her.

"My farver sent me," he said. "Mr. Toby has gone to the barber-shop, and my farver he wants a pound of Cage-Roach Mitchner."

"Mr. Toby is here in the palace now, and I'm sure he--"

"I don't know about any palace. I can't wait long. My farver told me to hurry."

The Queen said no more, and Freddie appeared to go to sleep. The night came on, and the Queen still sat by his side. It grew very late; her children had long since gone to bed, and even the King was asleep in his own apartments. The palace was silent, and there was scarcely a light anywhere in the great place except the light of a taper on a table in Freddie's room. The Queen was bending forward, watching the face on the pillow. The eyes were closed, the lips were together, and there was no sign of breathing. She knew that it could not be much longer; she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.

A gentle tap upon the door aroused her. She rose and admitted Mr. Toby and Mr. Punch, Thomas the Inferior, and Mr. Hanlon.

"Quick, ma'am," said Mr. Hanlon. "There's not a minute to be lost. If you plase, I'll ask ye to put on yer bonnet in a hurry, ma'am. We're off on a journey, and the poor sick young lad's coming along with us. If you'll just be in a hurry with the bonnet, ma'am!"

The Queen, scarcely realizing what she was doing, left the room, and went first to the nursery, where she bent over her three sleeping children and kissed them each, and murmured a loving good-bye above them, as if she were going to leave them; and for a long, long time she gazed at each rosy face, as if to fix it in her memory forever.

When she returned to the room, wearing a shawl over her head and shoulders, she was startled to see that the sick youth was sitting upright in a chair, thickly wrapped in blankets. His round childlike eyes were wide open, and to her surprise a faint smile seemed to hover about his lips.

She looked at the others. Each held, in his hand an empty hour-gla.s.s.

"Plase to get your hour-gla.s.s, ma'am," said Mr. Hanlon, "and Freddie's too."

Freddie's hour-gla.s.s was soon found in a drawer in the same room; the Queen's she brought in a moment from another room.

Mr. Hanlon picked up from the floor, where he had previously laid it, a small canvas bag, and placed it on the table under the candle. All of the empty hour-gla.s.ses he placed upon the table, and unscrewed the part of each by which it was designed to receive its load of sand. He lifted his bag, and out of it poured into each gla.s.s a quant.i.ty of fine white sand. "A little more or less won't matter a mite," said he, when he had filled them all. "A foine time I've had getting the sand, 'tis sure, but it's the true article, straight from the hand of the old crayture himself, and 'tis him we're going to this very minute, and the young lad with us. By the sand in the hour-gla.s.ses we'll get back to the old crayture in one-tinth the time it took me to find him without it, and by the same we'll get him to save for us the poor lad's life, or me name's not Michael."

Each now took his hour-gla.s.s in his hand. They were the same hour-gla.s.ses they had bought of Shiraz the Persian, and the sand which was now in them was the same sort of fine white sand which had been in them before their ordeal in the fire.

Mr. Punch and Mr. Toby lifted the sick youth from his chair, and carried him between them, in a sitting position, towards the door. Mr. Hanlon looked at him anxiously, and commanded haste.

In a moment the whole party were in the hall, and in a few moments more they were crossing the lawn towards King's Tower. It was a clear night, and the sky was spangled with stars.

Mr. Hanlon opened the door of the Tower, and when they were all within closed it again.

"Madam and gintlemen," said he, "we are going to the top of the Tower. I have been there meself; and there's wan at the top who can bring back our young frind to life, if he's a mind to do it."

"Oh!" gasped the Queen in terror. "I must not go to the top of this tower. Ah!" she stopped suddenly and went on in a determined voice. "I will, though. If it is to be, then it must be. Our young Chevalier came here for me, and I will go with him! If my strength holds out, I will go even to the top of the Tower, whatever evil may befall me there!"

"'Tis not strength that's needed, madam," said Mr. Hanlon, "for the old crayture that give me the sand was willing to help us up to him, and the sand will make the travellin' easy, or else the old haythen has much desayved me. 'Twas all I could do to get to the top, belave me, and ye'd niver do it without the sand in the gla.s.ses, let alone carry up the young lad in your arms besides. Now we'll be going up the stairs, and if the old crayture didn't desayve me, you're to hold your hour-gla.s.ses in your hands, and see what happens."

Mr. Hanlon went up first; then came the Queen, and after her Mr. Punch and Mr. Toby, bearing between them in an upright position the stiff cold form of the young Chevalier; and last of all came Thomas the Inferior, in his long brown gown and sandals.

Each climbed slowly, but the steps appeared to flow downward under their feet with great rapidity. They were not conscious of selecting any particular tread to step on; but while a foot was rising from one step to the next, it seemed as if a thousand steps were pa.s.sing downward, until the foot came down and found itself on a perfectly motionless tread. Undoubtedly they were mounting, without unusual exertion, a thousand steps at a time.

Even at that rate of progress, the journey upward seemed an endless one.

They paused sometimes to go into one of the rooms on a landing for a moment's rest, and at those times they looked out of a window. It was not long before they were so high that on looking out, the City's lights were no more than a glowing blur. At the last window on their upward progress they looked up at the cloud; it was immediately above their heads. After that there were no more windows. They went on upward in silence, aware in the darkness of the swift flow of steps downward under them as they raised their feet. Each observed that as he raised his foot the sand in his hour-gla.s.s flowed downward a thousand times more rapidly, as if time were suddenly running faster than it was used to running.

The walls of the tower were by this time coming closer together, and the stair was even steeper than before. They were panting for breath, and Mr. Punch and Mr. Toby seemed to be all but exhausted. "We are almost at the top," said Mr. Hanlon. "Keep on. Don't give up."

It was now, because there were no more rooms nor windows, completely dark. The face of the sick youth could not be seen, and no one knew whether he was still living. Even the sand in their hour-gla.s.ses they were now unable to see.

"We are almost there," said Mr. Hanlon. "Only another minute or two.

'Tis easy work to what I had in coming up alone."

Mr. Punch gave a groan. "Hi carn't go another step," said he. "Hi'm completely--"