CHAPTER XVI.
COMING AND GOING.
"For me, my heart that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose
Who giveth His beloved—sleep."
E. B. Browning.
The winter, which proved a mild and open one, passed very pleasantly at Firgrove. By Dr. King's orders Darby and Joan were granted a long holiday, for Darby was still fragile and delicate looking. He had never quite got over the effects of the excitement and fatigue of his travels in search of the Happy Land. They now lived almost out of doors, with the dwarf as their faithful attendant and constant companion. The little ones never wearied of his company, he could entertain them in so many different ways. He showed Darby how to make whistles of the hollow bore-tree stem, and a huge kite, with a lion painted on its surface, the Union Jack flying at its head, and an old map of Africa cut into strips to form the tail. Darby considered this a masterpiece, and laid it carefully by until he could display it to his father in its full significance. He caught a squirrel in the wood for Joan, and tamed the little animal so that it would nibble a nut from her hand, or hold it in its own paws, looking at her the while with fearless, shining eyes, as much as to say,—
"Thank you, little lady. If all children were as good and kind to us wild creatures as you at Firgrove are, we should have a better time of it than many of us often have."
He brought primrose roots from the glen, and planted a bank with them behind the house. He filled the rockeries with rare ferns, and covered over all the waste corners about the grounds with delicate anemones, variegated hyacinths, and the sweet, wild white bluebell, rifled from the darkest recesses of Copsley Wood.
He carved curious wooden animals and toys for Eric, attracting the little fellow so strongly to himself that often he would cry for "Bam'o," and stay quite happily with him for hours, when all poor Perry's nursery tricks had failed to divert him from brooding over a coming tooth or some other infant ailment. Nurse soon grew to count the dwarf among her blessings at Firgrove; while Miss Alice used to smile, and say to her friend Dr. King that she did not know how ever the children had amused themselves before he came.
And day by day, by his little acts of fore-thought for others and loving-kindness towards all with whom he came in contact, he showed them what a Happy Land even the humblest, the youngest can create around them, what an atmosphere of love, what a foretaste of the existence whose essence is love, because God is its centre—that heaven wherein the pure in heart shall dwell for evermore!
And what of Bambo himself? How can one picture or describe such deep happiness as his? He was well aware that he could not live long. At any time a cold or a chill might hasten the end, yet the knowledge caused him no real regret. During his years of loneliness and privation he had learned to regard death as an open door through which he should escape from drudgery, ill-treatment, desolation, into the rest, the love, the happiness that remain to the children of God in that home where there is no death, "neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Now, the wretchedness was all behind. His daily path was hedged around by affection and watchfulness; but Bambo felt that it could not continue. His friends would by-and-by weary of their self-imposed burden. The children would grow up, go away, form new friendships, find fresh interests in life, and where should he be then? No, no; life was a grand, a satisfying, a beautiful thing for the clever, the strong, the brave; but the like of him could have no continuous part, no fixed place in its keen warfare; so for him he felt that it was better to depart than to hang on a weary, sickly weakling. Therefore, when Darby and Joan were looking forward to the coming summer and making their plans for enjoying it, in all of which they included their little friend, the dwarf would smile—his sweet, childlike smile—and say nothing. He did not want to cast a shadow upon their gladness.