Read Ebook: The Coal Measures Amphibia of North America by Moodie Roy Lee

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Ebook has 611 lines and 32344 words, and 13 pages

Suddenly he jumped up again and screamed, "They are lions, Elsie! they are not sheep. Lions and tigers and wolves! Run, Elsie, run, faster! Come, come, come!" He caught hold of her, and bounded off the bed, dragging her with him on to the bare hard boards, where he pulled and tore at her with such a strength that Elsie could not free herself from him for many minutes. When she did, he flew across the room, coming with a terrible crash against the wall, and sinking in a heap on the floor.

Elsie groped her way after him to pick him up, but she could not move him. He lay there like a weight of lead. She knocked furiously at the wall.

Presently the door opened, and the girl came in. "I can't think what's the matter with Duncan," Elsie cried, in an agonised voice. "He's been going on dreadfully. I think he keeps on having nightmares. He says there are lions and tigers, and men with knives, and now he's jumped out of bed and hurt himself. Oh! whatever shall I do with him?"

The girl struck a match and bent over the child; then she went and fetched a scrap of candle from her own garret. She lifted him up carefully, and put him back on the bed, then took water, and poured it on his face. Elsie stood by quite helpless, watching her. After a long time he began to make a little moaning noise, but his eyes did not open, and he lay perfectly still.

"Has he hurt himself much?" Elsie asked.

"I don't know, but I think it's more the fever than the hurt," the girl replied. "Poor little lad! he ought to be with his mother. He wants a lot o' care and nursing."

"Is he very ill?" Elsie asked.

"I should just say he was. I had the fever when I was a bit bigger than you, and my head wandered. They said I chattered and screamed, and had to be held down in the bed. I should have died for certain if I hadn't been taken to the hospital, for I was awful bad; and so's he. Can't you see he is?"

Elsie began to cry and to tremble. "They must take him to the hospital," she cried. "They shall! I'll make them! If only Duncan was back home now, I wouldn't mind anything."

Elsie was beginning to think very much the same thing. Her trouble had completely driven from her mind the high hopes of future grandeur with which she had started. They scarcely even came into her head, and when they did for a moment pass through her brain, everything seemed so altered, that there was little comfort or attraction in the thought.

If she had known, she told herself again and again, she never would have done it. To-night she could not help admitting to herself that she would give anything to be back in her old home, with Duncan hearty and well, and all the old grievances about Robbie, and the fetching and carrying, and what not, into the bargain. How trifling and insignificant they seemed in comparison with her present troubles!

Suppose he should die for want of attention and comfort! That dreadful "fairy mother," as she called herself, would do very little for him. She did not care. She had pretended to be kind, and sweet, and good when any one was near at hand to see her, but when they had been alone in the train she had taken no notice of Duncan, except to scold him, and tell him he was shamming. This new mother was a poor substitute for the old one, who had nursed any of them day and night when they had been ill, with gentle, untiring care, although she was strict, and would, have them do all sorts of things that Elsie did not like when they were strong and well.

The girl Meg stayed with them for some time longer; but Duncan seemed to lie so quietly, that after a while she said she would go back, if Elsie didn't feel so timid now. The little fellow seemed better, and she did not think he would make any more disturbance that night. The poor creature was tired out with a hard day's work, and could ill spare her rest. She was ignorant, too, and did not know that this quiet that had fallen upon the child was not the healthful peace leading to recovery, but only the exhaustion after the terrible frenzy the poor little disordered brain had passed through.

Still it was a merciful peace, for Elsie's fears grew fainter as he lay there so quietly, and at last she fell asleep, thinking that he too was sleeping.

She was awakened by Meg's presence. There was a glimmering of light in the room, but so little of it that she was astonished to find how late it was--past seven o'clock.

"I don't so very well like the look o' the bairn," she said, surveying him carefully. "It strikes me you won't find it an easy matter to get him dressed. Here, Duncan, are you ready for something to eat now?" she cried, bending over him, and raising her voice.

But the child did not answer. He lay there as motionless as though he had been carved out of stone, scarcely moving an eyelid at the sound of Meg's words.

Elsie jumped up, and began dressing herself quickly.

"I'll go myself and tell them how ill he is," she said, "and ask them to send him to the hospital where they cured you, and I'll go with him."

Meg said nothing, but she knew very well that this last, at any rate, was quite out of the question.

"You'd better go straight down into the shop if you want to speak to the master," she said, as she left the room.

Elsie found her way down the long flights of dark stairs as soon as she was dressed. She pushed open the door leading into the shop, and went in boldly. The man who had received them the night before was busily sorting over heaps of papers, but no one else was near. Elsie went up to him.

"Donald's ill; he's got the fever, and he must go to the hospital," she said, in a voice of decision.

"Ha!" said the man, not looking up from his work. "I thought he didn't seem quite the thing. Your mother'll be round by-and-by, and then you can tell her about it."

It was not said unkindly, but the complete indifference angered Elsie, who was burning with impatience for something to be done very quickly.

"She's not my mother," Elsie said, sharply, "and she is not kind to Duncan. We can't wait; we must go to the hospital directly. Meg'll show me the way, and then I'll tell the people how bad he is."

"What does Meg know about it?" the man asked, looking into Elsie's face with a searching glance.

Elsie was sharp enough. "He was very bad in the night, thinking there were bad men and beasts in the room after him, and he jumped out of bed and hurt himself. When I banged the wall, Meg came, and picked him up and put him into bed. She said he'd got the fever like she had when she went to the hospital."

The man called out, "Meg, come you here!"

The girl came shuffling along with a look of mingled stupidity and terror on her face. It was scarcely the same one that had bent over the fevered child.

"This girl called you in the night. What did she want you for? Now tell me at once," he said, in a stern voice.

Meg looked all round her in a blank, stupid sort of way, letting her eyes travel over Elsie's face in their wandering.

"What did she say?" the man asked, sharply.

Elsie was in dreadful fear. She had not dared to look at Meg, and let her know that she had said nothing that could harm her.

And so she waited, with a rapidly-beating heart.

"She called me to pick up the boy. He'd fallen on the floor, and he was wandering in his head like. She asked me who'd look after him, and I said he'd have to go to a hospital--leastways, that was where they took me when I was bad. She asked me a lot o' questions, she did: what sort of a place this was, and where her mother had gone. I did say there was lodgers in the house," she said, beginning to whimper like a terrified child.

"Stop that, you dolt!" the man cried. "Her mother'll be round presently, and you'd better not let her know you've been interfering. You were told to keep the door locked until the morning, and yet you walk in in the night."

"She made such a noise banging and kicking, I thought she'd wake up the other people," Meg said, casting a scowling glance at Elsie, which Elsie quite believed was put on to deceive her master, just in the same way as Meg had, she supposed, put on an appearance of terror, under which she had hidden all that was really important most cleverly.

Meg was then allowed to make good her retreat, and Elsie was taken by the man into a little room, where a tin coffee-pot and a loaf and butter were put ready.

She was glad to eat heartily, for she was famishing with hunger. She devoured as hastily as she could several thick slices of bread-and-butter, and then asked what she had better take to Duncan, since no one seemed to be troubling their heads about him.

"A drop of hot coffee," the man said, unconcernedly. "If he can't eat bread-and-butter he don't want anything."

"He didn't have a bit scarcely all yesterday, and he'd had next to nothing for three days before that," Elsie said indignantly. "Perhaps he'd eat some bread and milk if I could get it for him. I'd soon do it if I might go in the kitchen."

At this moment a customer began to rap on the counter, and the master of the shop hastily jumped up and went away. Elsie stood waiting impatiently, but as he did not return, she took up the milk-jug, and emptied its contents, about a table-spoonful of bluey-white milk, into the cup she had used.

Duncan was still lying motionless, with closed eyes, when she re-entered the attic. He took no notice when she spoke, so she lifted his head up, and put the cup to his lips. With great difficulty she succeeded in making him swallow a few drops at a time. The raging thirst that had consumed him in the night had passed away. He had got beyond that. While she was still holding his head on her arm, the door opened, and Mrs. Donaldson, as she had told Elsie to call her, put her head inside.

"They tell me Donald is very ill this morning," she said, in her sweetest tones. "Poor little fellow! what is the matter with him?"

"Meg says it's the fever, like she had when she was little," Elsie answered.

"Fever!" Mrs. Donaldson echoed in alarm. "Tell me quickly, is he red all over?"

"Oh no! he's quite white, except just a patch on his cheeks," Elsie replied.

"How dare that stupid idiot frighten me like that?" Mrs. Donaldson cried, angrily. "He's got no fever, only a feverish cold through being out on that moor too long."

"He was wet through, and had to sleep in his wet things. He hadn't anything dry except that canvas jacket Mrs. Ferguson gave him," Elsie cried, remorsefully. "I was wet too, but my things seemed to dry quicker. Do you think that's what made him ill?"

"Of course it is," Mrs. Donaldson replied. "And there's no one here to see to him, poor child! He wants a good hot bath, and wrapping up in blankets, but we can't get it here, nor at an hotel."

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