*CHAPTER VI.*
_*AWAY TO THE HILLS.*_
"Can you ever love me again, mamma?" asked Kathleen when Mrs. Desboroughleft the tent on the lawn for the first time, whilst the ayah took herplace by baby Horace, who was slowly but surely recovering.
For three whole days, whilst Kathleen was left to herself, she had neverceased crying. The servants found her continually by the window of thebathroom through which the wolf had entered, leaning her burning headagainst one of the huge red pitchers which contained the supply of waterfor the day's use. Let no one say cold water, for there was nothingcold to be found anywhere. The bath towels were as hot to the touch asif they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire. The air was thickwith tawny dust. The oppression was frightful. The excessive drynessmade every breath feel like the blast of a furnace. Insect wings beganto drop off all over the rooms, and were wafted into drifts by thewaving fans from the ceiling, and their wretched little owners, who hadlost them, were wriggling about the floor. The thousands of poor whiteants had already done so much mischief that no one had any pity left fortheir forlorn condition. The bhisti, the coolie who does housemaid'swork, came and swept them away. Wasps, crickets, and enormous hornedspiders abounded, but were worse in the night than the day. Not one ofthe numerous families of birds which made their homes in the verandawould sing a note.
Sailor lay at his young mistress's feet, and followed her everywherewith a pertinacity that said very plainly, "She is all that is left tome."
The ayah had done her utmost to divert the child. Her dolls andplaythings strewed the veranda.
Bene Madho brought her cakes and sweetmeats when he returned from thebazaar, which he visited daily. Four or five in the morning is the hourfor marketing in India, and therefore the busiest time in all the day.He virtually kept his mistress's purse, and bought everything shewanted. His purchases that morning were numerous, for the preparationsfor the removal to the hills were hurried on by Mr. Desborough. Hewanted to take Kathleen away, for in her great sorrow she would not eator speak, and was always slipping off unseen, even from him. Children inIndia who are left to the black servants so often grow troublesome.
"See that she eats; mind and send her to sleep," he charged the ayah.But the ayah told him in her despair Kathleen would do neither.
The gentle touch of her mother's hand, and the fond, sad kiss on herparching lips, at last lifted the lead-like load which to Kathleenseemed breaking her heart, and she whispered tearfully, "Can you everlove me again, mamma?"
"Love you, my darling!" repeated Mrs. Desborough, in surprise at such aquestion. "Mamma must love her little daughter more than ever now, forshe may soon have no one else to love."
"No, no, mamma, you do not know. I let the wolf in," lamented Kathleenunder her breath.
"The wolf!" exclaimed Mrs. Desborough. "My child, the wolf that killeddear little Carly!"
"It did not kill him, mamma!" cried Kathleen vehemently. "The strangerboy said so. O mamma, could not God, who took care of Daniel in thelions' den, take care of our Carly in the wolf's mouth?"
The bhisti, who was coming in with his water-skin to fill up the greatred pitchers against which Kathleen was leaning, ran to his mistress asshe sank on the edge of the bath, overcome with the thoughts whichKathleen's wild words had suggested. It was the first hint which hadreached her that there was any uncertainty about her poor little child'sfate.
She could not in her motherly love take away from Kathleen the hope thatCarly was still alive, the poor little sister's distress of mind was sogreat. But she saw Mr. Desborough's strong motive for hurrying them offto the hills. If the wolf which had seized one child was still prowlingabout the place, it might seize another in some unguarded moment.
"Let us take them away to-night," she said to him; and the effort to getready, which had appeared so overwhelming when he proposed it, seemednow as nothing compared to the fear of the wolf's return. Beds werepacked up. But beds in India are a simple affair. A thick quiltedcotton _resais_, as they call it, serves for sheets, blanket, andmattress all in one. A supply of pillows is all that is necessary;bolsters are unused in India. They must also take calico for punkahs,and plenty of palm-leaf matting, which is so cheap it can be used foranything. Bene Madho had bought abundance of all these things, whichthe servants were packing in huge bundles, to be carried on polesbetween men's shoulders.
How they all worked throughout the day, despite the heat, and Mr.Desborough harder than anybody! An adventurous kite carried off a forkfrom the dinner-table, and a monkey sprang down from the roof of theveranda and snapped up Kathleen's doll, which it carried to the tallesttamarind tree in the garden. There it sat on one of the topmostbranches, cuddling the doll in its olive-green paws, as if it were agreat treasure. Kathleen did not mind it much. The gardener assuredher he should find it, as he had found the fork, dropped among theflowers; and then it seemed so easy to Kathleen to think Carly might befound in the same sort of way. She never lost the hope which Oliver'swords had put into her heart.
But to hear her say so was an added grief to Mr. Desborough.
In the evening, when they were dressed for the journey, papa took her onhis knee and told her not to talk about the wolves to mamma any more.Then he bade her remember no one must believe all the servants weresaying, for they were idolaters. They thought that monkeys were betterthan men, and that some of them were sacred, and they really worshippedthem. They did not know any better. No one could be sure whether thetales they told about the wolves were true or not, so he wished her notto repeat them; it would frighten Horace.
Yes, Horace was better--going with them.
"There he is," said papa, pointing to the ayah, who was carrying him upand down the veranda, before the windows of the drawing-room where theywere talking. Away flew Kathleen, holding out her arms to take him, andcovering him with kisses.
"She will soon be herself again, with change of scene, and Horace for aplayfellow," Mr. Desborough continued, turning to his wife. "Thank God,my dear, if the one child has been taken from us, the other is left."
By the close of that busy day everything was ready for departure. Thelong procession passed through the gates of the compound just as theglorious sun was sinking in its bed of ebony and gold; for deep blackbars of cloud were crossing the flood of light which covered the westernsky.
Mr. Desborough's horse was prancing in its impatience, while the cooliesharnessed themselves to the curtained dandies. There was one for Mrs.Desborough, with Horace on her lap, and another for the ayah andKathleen, so that the children could sleep away the greater part of thejourney. Until the heaving of burdens and the buckling of straps wereconcluded, the ayah amused Kathleen by pointing to the setting sun, andgravely assuring her there were twelve suns, brothers, who shone byturns. This one was going away, and his elder brother, who was sostrong he could kill a man, would come in his place. The ayah was veryglad they would all be safe on the hills before the strongest of all thetwelve took his turn. The younger brothers were much weaker; theyoungest of all was so weak he could hardly melt the snow that fell onthe mountains.
Kathleen thought that this must be one of the tales papa referred to.
The syce, who ran by the horse's head with a fly-flapper in his hand,was shouting to it to be quiet until the sahib was ready to mount. "Oson of a pig!" he was crying, "O faithless, perverse one! have ye neverlearned to be still?"
Away they all went at last, the bearers keeping time with a long,monotonous, grunting sort of cry, to which the horses were too wellaccustomed to be frightened. They soon left the highroad, going at therate of four miles an hour, by narrow paths, too narrow for any cart orcarriage. Mounting wave after wave of hill, higher and higher,sometimes winding by the edge of a precipice, or climbing the steep sideof a giant cliff, then almost tumbling down some mountain valley, on, onthey went, with a slow and even swing, whilst the coolies laughed andchatted as if
they were almost enjoying the heavy burdens which Englisharms could never have lifted. Up and up once more, as the moon shoneforth with its silver radiance, bathing the stately forest trees withits soft, clear light, and making the dark shadows which rested on thedeep ravines all the blacker by contrast. They were passing thetwo-storied stone-built castle of a mountain chief, perched like agigantic bird's nest on the verge of a tree-crowned height. A brightand gurgling mountain stream was dashing and foaming by its side as itleaped from height to height. The travellers were sprinkled with itsflashing spray as they crossed the edge of the torrent, little dreamingthat news of Carl would await them there on their return. But now thescream of the night-owls, and the flap of the vultures' wings, and theever-increasing cries of the jackals, echoed all around.
"But the darkest hour of all the night, Is that which brings us day."
Oh, if Mr. and Mrs. Desborough could have understood the silent lessonthat midnight journey might have taught them, it would have soothedtheir heartache. They could see no ending to their night of sorrow;they scarcely thought the soothing touch of time would ever dull thesharpness of their grief. But every night does end.
The first pale gleam of the coming day showed Kathleen the sloping roofof a white-walled bungalow, peeping amid a forest of pine trees high upoverhead. Should they ever reach it? The flowers which covered thosesteep hillsides began to open their petals and drink in the drop of dewthat was falling for each and all.
Racy woke up with laughing eyes and outstretched hands, clamouring forthe bright, many-coloured dahlias which grew by thousands in their path.
The good-natured coolies stopped to gather them by handfuls, to Racy'sinfinite delight. The pleasure of pulling them to pieces and peltingthe black shoulders of their bearers with them, found vent in littlesqueals of merriment that brought the first faint ghost of a smile tohis mother's lips.
With the daybreak came many changes. Flocks of sheep and goats met themin the narrow path, making the crossing doubly dangerous. Some assesladen with grain were on their way to the Rana's castle, and theirdrivers drew aside to make their salaam to the English travellers, andexchange greetings with the coolie wallahs, and carry the news to theRana's castle.
A most obstreperous cawing from hundreds of cunning-looking crows arosefrom the forest, whilst a regular chorus of wild laughter echoed throughthe darkest ravines. It was the morning song of the black-facedthrushes that congregate in unimaginable multitudes in these hiddensolitudes. But sweeter than all was the lengthened flute-like note ofthe black-headed oriole.
Suddenly the path changed. They were going downhill beneath magnificenttrees, yews and oaks rising from an undergrowth of creepers and roses,checkered with multitudinous flowers that were unknown to Kathleen andher mother. On they went, swinging to the bottom of the valley, throughwhole fields covered with pale-blue foxglove, over which myriads of beeswere flitting.
Horace began to mimic the cry of the black partridges which abounded."Tie-tara! tie-tara!" rang on every side, as the footsteps of thecoolies disturbed them in their lowly nests. One more toilsome hill,and then the coolies paused on a small plateau on the verge of the darkpine wood. Before them stood the pleasant bungalow, with its hospitabledoors wide open to receive the travellers. Its white-washed roomslooked airy and clean. A few native servants who belonged to the placehurried out to welcome them; and Kathleen, who was leaning eagerlyforward, could see the graceful figure of a Hindu woman making cakes,which she flattened between her hands with astonishing celerity, andflung into a brass pan which stood near her over a quaint-lookingbrazier. The dandies were set down, and Mr. Desborough came to lift hiswife out.
"Too much cover for snakes," he said, as he cast a sharp eye at thethick, tall grass spreading from the steps of the veranda to the veryedge of the precipice. The half-made garden was more indebted to naturethan art; but that only heightened the peculiar charm that overspreadthe place. Here and there the great bauhinia creeper wreathed itselfinto delightful bowers above the moss-covered stem of a fallen pine.Its strong tendrils, like furzy brown horns, caught the overarchingboughs of the tallest trees and bound them in leafy fetters. Proudpeacocks strutted about at will. A stately old stork seemed untiring inits endeavours to find the snake Mr. Desborough dreaded to discover.But, above all, the fragrant breezes from the vast pine forest seemed anearnest of returning health.