Hildegarde's Harvest Part 20

"Good old Codger! I wish he were here, skating with you, Hilda!"

"Thank you!" says Hilda. "I am sorry to incommode you, Gerald. I can skate perfectly well alone, thank you. There! Don't be absurd, Jerry!

You'll get out of step if you don't take care. Do you think we could do a figure of eight together? Let's try!"

Last of all, alone, yet in a world peopled with fantastic joys, came little Hugh. He had his tail on again, and he was skating with a high-stepping gait, rather more suggestive of trotting than was compatible with safety. He murmured to himself as he went, and his talk was far from hockey or any delights of skating.

"Yonder, dear Bellerophon! look yonder, far down below this fleecy cloud that I am just going to plunge into! Now wait till I get through it, and you will see. The cloud is all full of monsters, whales, and crocodiles, and--hairy mammoths; and we have to plunge through them, and they claw after us and try to catch us. But I switch my tail, dear Bellerophon" (here he switched the tail vigorously), "and that frightens them, so that they crawl back into their holes, the ugly things. But down on the earth there, do you see three little spires of smoke, right by the mouth of that black hole? That is the Chimaera, Bellerophon! We have come all the way, and now we are going to have the most terrible fight that any one ever had,--Samson or Hercules or any one else. Aha!

now is the time, you see, for me to say 'Aha' among the trumpets; that is why I made you bring your trumpet along. My neck is clothed with thunder, and I am pawing in the valley. See me paw!"

Alas, for the winged steed! Pawing in the valley is a dangerous pastime on smooth ice, and unsustained by hind legs. Pegasus, his head high in air, looking forward to battle and glory, paid little attention to things at his feet. His skate caught in a crack, and, checked in full speed, he came heavily to the ground, and lay motionless.

Hildegarde and Gerald heard the crash, and were at his side in a moment, raising him. The little fellow was stunned, and there was an ugly cut on his forehead.

"Hugh, dear!" cried Hildegarde. "Is it very bad, little boy? You are all right now; Jerry and I are here, and you will be feeling better in a moment."

She took the child's head in her lap, and stanched the blood with her handkerchief, rubbing his temples gently, while Gerald chafed his hands.

Presently Hugh opened his eyes. At first his look was vacant, but soon the light came back into the blue eyes, and he tried to smile.

"I pawed too hard!" he whispered. "Beloved, it wasn't the right valley to paw in."

Hildegarde and Gerald exchanged glances.

"He's a little out!" murmured Gerald. "We'd better get him home as quick as we can. Phil and I will carry him."

By this time the others, looking back, had seen that something was wrong, and came hurrying back. Colonel Ferrers turned very white when he saw Hugh lying motionless, his head pillowed on Hildegarde's lap, and the red stain on his temple.

"My little boy!" he gasped. "Jack, where are you? The child! The child is hurt!" Jack was already bending over Hugh; indeed, the anxious group pressed so close that Hildegarde motioned them to back.

"I don't think he is much hurt," she said, looking up at the Colonel, and speaking as cheerfully as she could. "He spoke to me just now, Colonel Ferrers. He was stunned by the fall. I don't think the cut amounts to anything, really."

"No," said Jack, who had been examining the cut, "this isn't anything, Uncle Tom. It's the shock that is the trouble, and he'll be over that in a minute. You're better already, aren't you, old chap?"

Hugh opened his eyes again, but slowly, as if it were an effort.

"How do you do?" he said, politely. "Yes, I am better, thank you, but not quite well yet. You did not seem to understand what I said, so I thought I would wait till I could speak better."

Seeing Jack look bewildered, Gerald whispered, "He was talking nonsense.

He takes you for me now; it was to me he was talking."

"I was not talking nonsense!" said Hugh, clearly. "I said I had been pawing in the valley, and that this was not the right valley to paw in.

It wasn't! My Beloved will understand what I mean, if she uses her mind."

"He was a horse!" cried the Colonel. "Astonis.h.i.+ng thing, that n.o.body can understand that child, when he is speaking perfectly rationally. He was a horse, I tell you! Whinnied at me, sir, when I asked him to get me a hockey-stick. Try it again, Boy! Let's hear you once more, eh?"

Hugh smiled, but could not do more than shake his head.

"Thank you for explaining, Guardian!" he said. "I was Pegasus, you see, and Bellerophon and I were just going to plunge down through the clouds and kill the Chimaera; but I forgot where I was for a minute, and began to paw in the valley, and say 'Aha!' and, of course, the cloud broke through, and down we went. I hope dear Bellerophon isn't hurt."

"Bellerophon is all right!" said Jack. "Right as a trivet. He says he thinks you'd better go home, old man; he thinks it will be better Chimaera-hunting to-morrow, anyhow."

"Yes! yes!" cried the Colonel, making a brave effort to enter into the child's idea.

"Go back to the stable, Boy,--I mean Dobbin, or whatever your name is, and--and have some hay!"

But Hugh's brow contracted.

"Pegasus didn't eat hay!" he murmured, still leaning against Hildegarde's shoulder.

"No, dear," said the girl. "The Colonel did not mean hay; he meant asphodels and amaranth and moly."

"That sounds better," said Hugh.

"I say," whispered Gerald, who was beginning to recover from his alarm, "you know, I suppose, that asphodel is a kind of pigweed?"

"Hus.h.!.+ Yes! There is no need of the child's knowing it yet. How shall we get him home, Jack?"

"But I will walk home!" cried Hugh, hearing the last words. "I will perhaps trot home, only slowly."

He tried to rise, but sank back again.

"It appears as if there were wheels in my head," he murmured. "They go round too fast."

"Of course they do," said Jack, in the most matter-of-fact way. "I'm going to harness myself into them, and take you home that way. Put him up on my back, will you, Merryweather? So! there we are!"

Delighted to find himself in the once familiar position, Hugh looked up to smile at the anxious Colonel, who stood wiping his brow, and wis.h.i.+ng for once that he were twenty and a giraffe.

"I'm all right now, Guardian!" he said. "All right, Beloved! My Jack is an ostrich again, and I am not Pegasus any more just now. I am only Hugh. Good-bye! Good hunting!"

"Only Hugh!" repeated Colonel Ferrers, gazing after the two, as they went across the field, Jack walking steadily, with long, even steps, very different from his usual hop-skip-and-jump method of progression.

"Only Hugh! Only the greater part of the world--eh? what are you saying, Hilda, my dear?"

"Only that we will go home together, dear Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde, who had already taken off her skates. "We will go back together, and the others can follow whenever they are ready. We shall find him comfortable already, with Mrs. Beadle tucking him up in bed, and talking about chicken broth and wine jelly, neither of which he will need in the least. Come, dear sir!"

"I will come!" said the Colonel. "You are a good child, Hilda! I--I am rather shaken, I believe. I will come with pleasure, my love! Be good enough to take my arm!"

CHAPTER XIII.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

HILDEGARDE awoke in the dark, with the sound of bells in the air. Her first thought was that of all women in similar case--fire! She sat up in bed and listened; but these were no fire-bells that rang so joyously, breaking through the hush of the winter morning with glad rejoicing.

"Glory to the newly born!" she said, softly, and was silent for a little. Presently she waved her hand in a comprehensive greeting to the friends on walls and shelves, whom she could not yet see.

"Merry Christmas!" she cried. "Merry Christmas, Sir Walter! Merry Christmas, Viscount, and you too, Saint William! What a pity I cannot say it in Dutch!"