Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl, L. T. Meade [unputdownable books txt] 📗

the verge of a fit of hysterics, which might have been as terrible in its consequences as either her passion or her despair. Now trembling slightly, she sat down on the little stool which Maggie had pulled forward for her, took the baby in her arms, and partly opening the shawl which covered it, breathed on its white face.

The little one certainly was alive, and when Flower’s breath warmed it, its own breathing became stronger.

Meanwhile, Maggie bustled about. The hermit’s hut, now that she had something to do in it, seemed no longer at all terrible. After a good search round she found some sticks, and soon a bright fire blazed and crackled, and filled the tiny house with light and warmth. A pot of water was put on the fire to warm, and then Maggie looked round for a vessel to bathe the baby in. She found a little wooden tub, which she placed ready in front of the fire.

“So far, so good!” she exclaimed; “but never a sight of a towel is there to be seen. Ef you’ll give me the baby now, Miss, I’ll warm her limbs a bit afore I put her in the bath. I don’t know how I’m to dry her, I’m sure, but a hot bath she must have.”

“I have got a white petticoat on,” said Flower. “Would that be any use?”

“Off with it this minute, then, Miss; it’s better nor nought. Now, then, my lamb! my pretty! see ef Maggie don’t pull you round in a twinkling!”

She rubbed and chafed the little creature’s limbs, and soon baby opened her eyes, and gave a weak, piteous cry.

“I wish I had something to give her afore I put her in the bath,” said Maggie. “There’s sure to be sperits of some sort in a house like this. You look round you and see ef you can’t find something, Miss Flower.”

Flower obediently searched in the four corners of the hut.

“I can’t see anything!” she exclaimed. “The place seems quite empty.”

“Eh, dear!” said Maggie: “you don’t know how to search. Take the baby, and let me.”

She walked across the cabin, thrust her hand into some[Pg 120] straw which was pressed against the rafters, pulled out an old tin can and opened it.

“Eh, what’s this?” she exclaimed. “Sperits? Now we’ll do. Give me the baby back again, Miss Flower, and fetch a cup, ef you please.”

Flower did so.

“Put some hot water into it. Why, you ain’t very handy! Miss Polly’s worth a dozen of you! Now pour in a little of the sperit from the tin can—not too much. Let me taste it. That will do. Now, baby—now, Miss Polly’s darling baby!—I’ll wet your lips with this, and you’ll have your bath, and you’ll do fine!”

The mixture was rubbed on the blue lips of the infant, and Maggie even managed to get her to swallow a few drops. Then, the bath being prepared by Flower, under a shower of scathing ridicule from Maggie, who had very small respect, in any sense of the word, for her assistant, the baby was put into it, thoroughly warmed, rubbed up, and comforted, and then, with the white fleecy shawl wrapped well around her, she fell asleep in Maggie’s arms.

“She’ll do for the present,” said the kitchen-maid, leaning back and mopping a little moisture from her own brow. “She’ll do for a time, but she won’t do for long, for she’ll want milk and all kinds of comforts. And I tell you what it is, Miss Flower, that my master and Miss Polly can’t be kept a-fretting for this child until the morning. Some one must go at once, and tell ’em where she is, and put ’em out of their misery, and the thing is this: is it you, or is it me, that’s to do the job?”

“But,” said Flower—she had scarcely spoken at all until now—“cannot we both go? Cannot we both walk home, and take the baby with us?”

“No, Miss, not by no means. Not a breath of night air must touch the cheeks of this blessed lamb. Either you or me, Miss Flower, must walk back to Sleepy Hollow, and tell ’em about the baby, and bring back Nurse, and what’s wanted for the child. Will you hold her, Miss? and shall I trot off at once?—for there ain’t a minute to be lost.”

“No,” said Flower, “I won’t stay in the hut. It is dreadful to me. I will go and tell the Doctor and Polly.”

“As you please, Miss. Maybe it is best as I should stay with little Missy. You’ll find it awful lonesome out on the moor, Miss Flower, and I expect when you get near Deadman’s Glen as you’ll scream out with terror; there’s a bogey there with a head three times as big as his body, and long arms, twice as long as they ought to be, and he tears up bits of moss and fern, and flings them at yer, and if any of them, even the tiniest bit, touches yer, why you’re dead before the year is out. Then there’s the walking ghost and the shadowy maid, and the brown lady, the same color as the bracken when it’s withering up, and—and—why, what’s the matter, Miss Flower?”

“Only I respected you before you talked in that way,” said Flower. “I respected you very much, and I was awfully ashamed of not being able to eat my dinner with you. But when you talk in such an awfully silly way I don’t respect you, so you had better not go on. Please tell me, as well as you can, how I’m to get to Sleepy Hollow, and I’ll start off at once.”

“You must beware of the brown lady, all the same.”

“No, I won’t beware of her; I’ll spring right into her arms.”

“And the bogey in Deadman’s Glen. For Heaven’s sake, Miss Flower, keep to the west of Deadman’s Glen.”

“If Deadman’s Glen is a short cut to Sleepy Hollow, I’ll walk through it. Maggie, do you want Nurse to come for little Pearl, or not? I don’t mind waiting here till morning; it does not greatly matter to me. I was running away, you know.”

“You must go at once,” said Maggie, recalled to common sense by another glance at the sleeping child. “The baby’s but weakly, and there ain’t nothing here as I can give her, except the sperits and water, until Nurse comes. I’ll lay her just for a minute on the straw here, and go out with you and put you on the track. You follow the track right on until you see the lights in the village. Sleepy Hollow’s right in the village, and most likely there’ll be a light in the Doctor’s study window; be quick, for Heaven’s sake, Miss Flower?”

“Yes, I’m off. Oh, Maggie, Maggie! what do you think? That dreadful woman has stolen my shoes. I forgot all about it until this minute. What shall I do? I can’t walk far in my stockings.”

“Have my boots, Miss; they’re hob-nailed, and shaped after my foot, which is broad, as it should be, seeing as I’m only a kitchen-maid. But they’re strong, and they are sure to fit you fine.”

“I could put my two feet into one of them,” responded Flower, curling her proud lip once again disdainfully. But then she glanced at the baby, and a queer shiver passed over her; her eyes grew moist, her hands trembled.

“I will put the boots on,” she said. And she slipped her little feet, in their dainty fine silk stockings, into Maggie’s shoes.

“Good-by, Miss; come back as soon as you can,” called out the faithful waiting-maid, and Flower set off across the lonely moor.