“I am little Olive—indeed I am,” cried the terrified child.
“Are ye sure? Aweel then, dearie, dinna greet,” murmured poor Elspie, striving vainly against the delirium that she felt fast coming on. “My bairn, is it near morn? Oh, for a drink o' milk or tea.”
“Shall I go and call the maids? But that dark dark passage—I dare not.”
“It's no matter, bide ye till the daylight,” said Elspie, as she sank again into heavy sleep.
But the child could not rest. Was it not cruel to let her poor nurse lie suffering burning thirst, rather than encounter a few vague terrors? and if Elspie should have a long illness, should die—what then would the remorseful remembrance be? Without another thought the child crept out of bed and groped her way to the door.
It is easy to laugh at children's fancies about “ghosts” and “bogie,” but Dante's terrors in the haunted wood were not greater or more real than poor little Olive's, when she stood at the entrance of the long gallery, dimly peopled with the fantastic shadows of dawn. None but those who remember the fearful imaginings of their childhood, can comprehend the self-martyrdom, the heroic daring, which dwelt in that little trembling bosom, as Olive groped across the gloom.
Half-way through, she touched the cold handle of a door, and could scarce repress a scream. Her fears took no positive shape, but she felt surrounding her Things before and Things behind. No human courage could give her strength to resist such terrors. She paused, closed her eyes, and said the Lord's Prayer all through. But “Deliver us from evil” she repeated many times, feeling each time stronger and bolder. Then first there entered into her heart that mighty faith “which can remove mountains;” that fervent boldness of prayer with the very utterance of which an answer comes. And who dare say that the Angel of that child “always beholding the face of the Father in Heaven,” did not stand beside her then, and teach her in faint shadow-ings the mystery of a life to come?
Olive's awe-struck fancy became a truth—she never crept to her nurse's bosom more. By noon that day, Elspie lay in the torpor which marks the last stage of rapid inflammation. She did not even notice the child, who crept in and out of the thronged room, speaking to no one, neither weeping nor trembling, but struck with a strange awe, that made her countenance and “mien almost unearthly in their quietness.
“Take her away to her parents,” whispered the physician. But her mother had left home the day before, and Captain Rothesay had been absent a week. There were only servants in the house; they looked at her often, said “Poor child!” and left her to go where she would. Olive followed the physician downstairs.
“Will she die?”