The little colour he had receded from the vicar's face, for the looks and tones of good-natured Buddle were not to be mistaken. He was reading little Fairy's death warrant.
'I see, doctor—I see; you think he'll die,' said the vicar, staring at him. 'Oh doctor, my little Fairy!'
The doctor knew something of the poor vicar's troubles—of course in a village most things of the kind are known—and often, in his brisk, rough way, he thought as, with a nod and a word, he passed the lank cleric, under the trees or across the common, with his bright, prattling, sunny-haired little boy by the hand—or encountered them telling stories on the stile, near the castle meadow—what a gleam of sunshine was always dancing about his path, in that smiling, wayward, loving little fellow—and now a long Icelandic winter was coming, and his path was to know that light no more.
'With children, you know, I—I always say there's a chance—but you are right to look the thing in the face—and I'll be here the first call in the morning; and you know where to find me, in the meantime;' and the doctor shook hands very hard with the vicar at the hall-door, and made his way homeward—the vicar's eyes following him till he was out of sight.
Then William Wylder shut the hall-door, and turned about.
Little Fairy's drum was hanging from a peg on the hat-stand—the drum that was to sound no more in the garden, or up and down the hall, with the bright-haired little drummer's song. There would be no more interruption now—the vicar would write his sermons undisturbed; no more consolations claimed—no more broken toys to be mended—some of the innocent little rubbish lay in the study. It should never move from that—nor his drum—nor that little hat and cape, hanging on their peg, with the tiny boots underneath.
No more prattling at unseasonable times—no more crying—no more singing—no more laughing; all these interruptions were quiet now, and altogether gone—'Little man! little Fairy! Oh, was it possible!' But memory would call up the vicar from his half-written sermon. He would miss his troublesome little man, when the sun shone out that he used to welcome—when the birds hopped on the window-stone, to find the crumbs that little man used to strew there; and when his own little canary—'Birdie' he used to call him—would sing and twitter in his cage—and the time came to walk out on his lonely visits.
He must walk alone by the shop-doors—where the little man was so admired—and up the mill-road, and in the castle meadow and over the stile where they used to sit.
Poor Dolly! Her Willie would not tell her yet. He kneeled down in the study—'Little man's' top, and some cut paper nondescripts, were lying where he had left them, at his elbow—and he tried to pray, and then he remembered that his darling ought to know that he was going into the presence of his Maker.
Yes, he would tell poor Dolly first, and then his little man. He would repeat his hymn with him, and pray—and so he went up the nursery stairs.