The little mother sent for the doctor. He belonged to the army, and, of course dressed like the officers in military uniform.
When he entered, the children gazed with wonder and delight upon his bright buttons, each of which had an astonishing spread-eagle engraved upon it, and thought they could never admire enough the beautiful gold lace upon his coat-sleeves. Really, he was quite a shining doctor.
He became interested with Charley at once: the sweet, patient smile of the suffering boy won his heart.
"My dear madam," said he to the little mother, "this is nothing but temporary exhaustion; with some strengthening medicine which I shall leave, and a good night's rest, our dear little friend will be as well as he was before he came up; and I am in great hopes that this bracing mountain air will soon make him much better than he was before he came."
The children now approached the door and begged leave to enter, for they wanted to hear about Charley, and have a "good look" at the "soldier doctor."
"Well, my little friends," said he, in a hearty, cheery voice, "so you've come up, I suppose, to help the fairies amuse Charley this summer."
"Fairies!" exclaimed the children; "DELIGHTFUL! Are there fairies here?"
"Lots of them," answered the doctor, laughing—"that is, if I may believe my man, Patrick O'Neal. He declares he has seen the fairy rings in the beautiful hollow at the foot of Crow Nest mountain many and many a time."
"Oh dear! how perfect!" cried the children; "only fancy the dear little fairies dancing on the parade-ground in the moonlight."
"Not exactly," said the doctor, laughing again; "fairies don't come so near the haunts of mortals; besides, the cadets want the parade-ground for their own dances and rings—not fairy rings—for those are made with sparkling dew-drops, while the cadets have to content themselves with tallow can dles stuck into scooped-out turnips and placed in a circle, and the lights throwing the shadows up, make the long legs of the cadets look like ever so many great goblin black spiders, hopping harem-scarem over each other; but the cadets call them 'Stag-dances.'"