Читать книгу Old Farm Fairies: A Summer Campaign In Brownieland Against King Cobweaver's Pixies - Henry C. McCook - Страница 17

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MADAM BREEZE COMES TO THE RESCUE.

"Come!" cried the Captain at last. "Moping is no part of duty. If Governor Wille won't help us, we must seek allies in other quarters; and for the rest trust to our good swords."

He raised his bugle to his lips, and sounded a note or two, whereat his Adjutant appeared.

"Blythe," said the Captain, "order out my pony, and get ready to attend me to Hilltop. And you, MacWhirlie, see that every Brownie is armed and ready for work of any kind at a moment's warning. No fuss, please; keep everything quiet as possible. I don't want Spite the Spy to suspect any unusual movement. He'll give you credit for a little lack of caution when he finds you in command;" and the Captain laughed pleasantly as he said this. "But mind! it mustn't be the genuine article, now. Try for once to beat Spite at his own favorite tactics. Draw off the cavalry pickets, but see that your troopers are ready for the saddle. Look to the pioneer corps, and see that the axes are in good order. Saunter around carelessly as you like, but keep your eyes open. Come, Blythe!"

The last words were spoken to his Adjutant who already stood holding the Captain's butterfly pony Swallowtail, as well as his own. The Brownies sprang upon the creatures' backs and rode away.

MacWhirlie watched the forms of the horsemen until they were lost to view behind the gable of the house. "Heigh-ho!" he sighed, "the time was when the journey to Hilltop was a safe and pleasant ride. But it's a bold feat nowadays, with Pixies waiting at every corner, and their webs flapping on every bush. But I must e'en leave the Captain with Providence and go about my own business."

Fig. 24.—Bruce and Blythe on Their Way to Hilltop. Pixie Attus Tries to Lasso 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."

The Boy's Illustration. 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 passing 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.

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."