Читать книгу Children of the Dear Cotswolds - L. Allen Harker - Страница 9
Оглавление"ESPECIALLY THOSE"
They did not know that Billy had so many friends until he lay a-dying. Then they knew.
It takes some of us more than four years to make one friend. Billy had only lived four years altogether, but every one he knew was his friend, and he knew every one in his little world.
"I want some ice for Master Billy's head!" said the parlour-maid. "He's that feverish, doctor says it's to be kept on all the time."
Mr. Stallon, the fishmonger, looked grave.
"I haven't a bit of ice on the premises. It's ordered, but it won't be here till to-morrow. Dear! dear! and to think as the little gentleman's so bad!"
Mr. Stallon was a stout, seafaring-looking man, with a short brown beard. He shook his head, and looked really sorry.
"Whatever shall we do?" cried the parlour-maid. "Whatever shall we do?"
"Do!" echoed Mr. Stallon. "Do! why, get some, to be sure. I'll go to Farenham for it myself. Tell your lady she shall have it in a' hour or so."
Mr. Stallon owned an inn as well as a fish-shop. He crossed the road to his inn yard; there he harnessed his horse to his spring cart, and he drove to Farenham for the ice. Billy's town is a very little one, but Farenham, six miles off, is big, and Mr. Stallon got the ice. I'm afraid that he drove furiously, and beat his horse. But he quite forgot to charge for the ice, and no one ever thanked him for getting it. He didn't mind, he was one of Billy's friends.
The Earl was another. The Earl is young, fresh-coloured, and chubby, and somewhat lacking in dignity. He is an M.F.H. for all that, and Billy was wont to go with him to the kennels, and knew all the old hounds by name.
The Earl and Billy held long conversations on the subject of poachers. Billy's sympathies were apt to go with the poachers; but that was the fault of the Radical curate.
As for the curate, he and Billy were dear friends. He would spend long sunny afternoons, bowling slows, and twisters, and over-hands to Billy, and he could sing such charming songs.
One of Billy's peculiarities was that he exacted songs from all his friends. Then he learnt them himself, and sang them in his turn. The curate's favourite song was "For it's My Delight, On a Shiny Night." It was this song that caused Billy's predilection for poachers.
The Earl could sing too. Of his répertoire the favourite was—
"She went and got married, that 'ard-'earted girl,
And it was not to a Wicount, and it was not to a Hearl."
Here Billy always interrupted, exclaiming delightedly, "That's you, you know!" and demanded the verse again.
There was one friend from whom Billy exacted no songs. This was old Williams, the gardener. He was a very good gardener, but deaf. Billy was the only person whom he could hear well. He really had no notion of singing, that gardener. So he told Billy tales in broad Gloucestershire instead, and Billy trotted after him, assisting in all his horticultural operations, and they loved each other.
But the fever had got a hold upon Billy, it was such a hot July.
At last a Sunday came, when those who loved him best feared that he could not last through the day. At morning service the curate gave it out that "the prayers of the congregation are desired for William Wargrave Ainger"; then he paused, and with a ring of supplication in his voice, which startled the listening people, said, "little Billy Ainger, whom we love—who lies grievously sick."
"William Wargrave Ainger" had fallen on inattentive ears, but the familiar name struck home, and the congregation prayed.
In the pause which followed the words "especially those for whom our prayers are desired," the deaf gardener's voice was heard to say "Amen"; but no one smiled at him that Sunday.
The Earl had no surplice to take off, so he reached Billy's house first; but the curate caught him at the drive gate, for the curate ran.
There was no sound in the house but the voice of Billy's mother, singing to him, over and over again, the same old nursery rhyme. It ran:
"O do not come, but go away—
Away with your eyes that peep;
O do not come to Billy's house,
For Billy is going to sleep."
It has a quaint lilting tune, and Billy loved it, but he could not sleep.
His father came down to the Earl and the curate, and silently they followed him up into the darkened nursery. Billy smiled when he saw them. He could not speak, he was so tired.
His mother knelt at the head of his bed, singing tirelessly. His father knelt down at the other side, devouring the thin, flushed, little face with loving, sorrowful eyes. The curate knelt down at the foot of the bed, and the Earl, who made no attempt to wipe the tears from off his ruddy cheeks, knelt by a chair. By the darkened window sat the pretty hospital nurse, in her white cap and apron.
"O do not come to Billy's house," the mother's voice went on. Then she sang more softly, and suddenly there was silence:
Billy had gone to sleep.
The drive gate clicked, a quick step sounded on the gravel outside. It was the doctor. He came hastily into the room, and, stepping softly over to Billy's mother, lifted her up, and set her in a chair.
He took her place, laying his hand on the child's pulse, and on his forehead. Then he said in a whisper, "He'll do, he's gone to sleep."
The three men rose from their knees, as Billy's mother fell on hers, with the first tears she had shed, in all that weary week.
They followed the doctor out of the room, and crept downstairs into the hall. The doctor pushed Billy's father into the dining-room, saying, "You must give me some lunch. I want to see the little chap again, in twenty minutes or so—what the deuce was the matter with you all? Did you think he was dead?"
"I did," said the Earl, in an awestruck whisper.
"Go away!" said the doctor testily; "go away, you long-faced lunatics, and leave us in peace!"
The two young men turned and went into the drive, where they found Williams, waiting for news. The Earl went up to the old man, and put his mouth to his ear, saying loudly, and with pauses between each word—"He—is better—he's asleep—the doctor—says—he'll do."
Williams blew his nose noisily, in a large red handkerchief; then said huskily, "The Lard be praised! your lardship, the Lard be praised!"
Then the Earl and Williams shook hands; and the curate and Williams shook hands. The two young men shut the gate softly, and went down the road.
The curate went to lunch with the Earl. They had champagne, and the Earl grew frivolous, as his manner is; he has not much dignity, and he and the curate are old friends, for they were at Eton and "the House" together.
"I say, old chap!" said the Earl confidentially, "you were jolly careful that the Almighty should make no mistake, this morning."
The curate leaned back in his chair, and with more than a reminiscence of their college tutor in his manner, remarked, "In matters of importance, it is well to be strictly accurate."
