Snowflakes and Sunbeams; Or, The Young Fur-traders: A Tale of the Far North. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ sat down on the bedside.

      "Thank you, Kate; now go on."

      "Well, you see," she began—

      "Pardon me, dearest," interrupted Charley, "if you would please to look at me you would observe that my two eyes are tightly closed, so that I don't see at all."

      "Well, then, you must understand—"

      "Must I? Oh!—"

      "That after that wicked horse leaped with you over the stable fence, you were thrown high into the air, and turning completely round, fell head foremost into the snow, and your poor head went through the top of an old cask that had been buried there all winter."

      "Dear me!" ejaculated Charley; "did anyone see me, Kate?"

      "Oh yes."

      "Who?" asked Charley, somewhat anxiously; "not Mrs. Grant, I hope? for if she did she'd never let me hear the last of it."

      "No; only our father, who was chasing you at the time," replied Kate, with a merry laugh.

      "And no one else?"

      "No—oh yes, by-the-by, Tom Whyte was there too."

      "Oh, he's nobody. Go on."

      "But tell me, Charley, why do you care about Mrs. Grant seeing you?"

      "Oh! no reason at all, only she's such an abominable quiz."

      We must guard the reader here against the supposition that Mrs. Grant was a quiz of the ordinary kind. She was by no means a sprightly, clever woman, rather fond of a joke than otherwise, as the term might lead you to suppose. Her corporeal frame was very large, excessively fat, and remarkably unwieldy; being an appropriate casket in which to enshrine a mind of the heaviest and most sluggish nature. She spoke little, ate largely, and slept much—the latter recreation being very frequently enjoyed in a large arm-chair of a peculiar kind. It had been a water-butt, which her ingenious husband had cut half-way down the middle, then half-way across, and in the angle thus formed fixed a bottom, which, together with the back, he padded with tow, and covered the whole with a mantle of glaring bed-curtain chintz, whose pattern alternated in stripes of sky-blue and china roses, with broken fragments of the rainbow between. Notwithstanding her excessive slowness, however, Mrs. Grant was fond of taking a firm hold of anything or any circumstance in the character or affairs of her friends, and twitting them thereupon in a grave but persevering manner that was exceedingly irritating. No one could ever ascertain whether Mrs. Grant did this in a sly way or not, as her visage never expressed anything except unalterable good-humour. She was a good wife and an affectionate mother; had a family of ten children, and could boast of never having had more than one quarrel with her husband. This disagreement was occasioned by a rather awkward mischance. One day, not long after her last baby was born, Mrs. Grant waddled towards her tub with the intention of enjoying her accustomed siesta. A few minutes previously, her seventh child, which was just able to walk, had scrambled up into the seat and fallen fast asleep there. As has been already said, Mrs. Grant's intellect was never very bright, and at this particular time she was rather drowsy, so that she did not observe the child, and on reaching her chair, turned round preparatory to letting herself plump into it. She always plumped into her chair. Her muscles were too soft to lower her gently down into it. Invariably on reaching a certain point they ceased to act, and let her down with a crash. She had just reached this point, and her baby's hopes and prospects were on the eve of being cruelly crushed for ever, when Mr. Grant noticed the impending calamity. He had no time to warn her, for she had already passed the point at which her powers of muscular endurance terminated; so grasping the chair, he suddenly withdrew it with such force that the baby rolled off upon the floor like a hedgehog, straightened out flat, and gave vent to an outrageous roar, while its horror-struck mother came to the ground with a sound resembling the fall of an enormous sack of wool. Although the old lady could not see exactly that there was anything very blameworthy in her husband's conduct on this occasion, yet her nerves had received so severe a shock that she refused to be comforted for two entire days.

      But to return from this digression. After Charley had two or three times recommended Kate (who was a little inclined to be quizzical) to proceed, she continued,—

      "Well, then you were carried up here by father and Tom Whyte, and put to bed, and after a good deal of rubbing and rough treatment you were got round. Then Peter Mactavish nearly poisoned you, but fortunately he was such a goose that he did not think of reading the label of the phial, and so gave you a dose of tincture of rhubarb instead of laudanum as he had intended; and then father flew into a passion, and Tom Whyte was sent to fetch the doctor, and couldn't find him; but fortunately he found me, which was much better, I think, and brought me up here. And so here I am, and here I intend to remain."

      "And so that's the end of it. Well, Kate, I'm very glad it was no worse."

      "And I am very thankful" said Kate, with emphasis on the word, "that it's no worse."

      "Oh, well, you know, Kate, I meant that, of course."

      "But you did not say it," replied his sister earnestly.

      "To be sure not," said Charley gaily; "it would be absurd to be always making solemn speeches, and things of that sort, every time one has a little accident."

      "True, Charley; but when one has a very serious accident, and escapes unhurt, don't you think that then it would be—"

      "Oh yes, to be sure," interrupted Charley, who still strove to turn Kate from her serious frame of mind; "but sister dear, how could I possibly say I was thankful with my head crammed into an old cask and my feet pointing up to the blue sky, eh?"

      Kate smiled at this, and laid her hand on his arm, while she bent over the pillow and looked tenderly into his eyes.

      "O my darling Charley, you are disposed to jest about it; but I cannot tell you how my heart trembled this morning when I heard from Tom Whyte of what had happened. As we drove up to the fort, I thought how terrible it would have been if you had been killed; and then the happy days we have spent together rushed into my mind, and I thought of the willow creek where we used to fish for gold eyes, and the spot in the woods where we have so often chased the little birds, and the lake in the prairies where we used to go in spring to watch the water-fowl sporting in the sunshine. When I recalled these things, Charley, and thought of you as dead, I felt as if I should die too. And when I came here and found that my fears were needless, that you were alive and safe, and almost well, I felt thankful—yes, very, very thankful—to God for sparing your life, my dear, dear Charley." And Kate laid her head on his bosom and sobbed, when she thought of what might have been, as if her very heart would break.

      Charley's disposition to levity entirely vanished while his sister spoke; and twining his tough little arm round her neck, he pressed her fervently to his heart.

      "Bless you, Kate," he said at length. "I am indeed thankful to God, not only for sparing my life, but for giving me such a darling sister to live for. But now, Kate, tell me, what do you think of father's determination to have me placed in the office here?"

      "Indeed, I think it's very hard. Oh, I do wish so much that I could do it for you," said Kate with a sigh.

      "Do what for me?" asked Charley.

      "Why, the office work," said Kate.

      "Tuts! fiddlesticks! But isn't it, now, really a very hard case?"

      "Indeed it is; but, then, what can you do?"

      "Do?" said Charley impatiently; СКАЧАТЬ