University of Virginia Library

THE LITTLE COMPANIONS.

Even as a child, I spent many days in a darkened chamber; but I was happy, for one that I loved was there.

In the afternoon of winter we played together, in the warm hearth-light, long silent games that did not disturb those who sat around.

And as the evening darkened we grew still more quiet: we hoped that they might perhaps forget to tell us it was time for bed.

Intent and breathless, we built up mighty cities, or marshalled the tread of endless caravans; we knew not whether we played or dreamed while we sailed together over boundless seas, or traversed the desert's interminable sands—yet felt around us, like the grasp of a strong, protecting arm, the steadfast light of the warm parlour, the

crimson glow of the carpet on which we played, the curtains shutting out the night.

Then, in a low and earnest voice, I would tell my companion the stories I used to read. Of Moorish Princesses in their enchanted sleep; of treasure hid by pirates, locked and guarded by spells of terror in islands of the Spanish main.

While he would talk to me about his tasks and sports; of school and his friends and comrades there.

My companion was a bold and merry boy; he played at games which I only knew by name. He had been to places I had only heard of; he had seen the minster at the distant town.

He knew every bend of the little river, the dark pools where the trout lay quiet, and the minnows flashed and gleamed.

He could tell me all about the dwellers at each lonely farm upon the hill-side, and had been upon the dark moors beyond.

Yet through the summer we played still together, under the old sycamore that grew upon the little sunny hill.

We played in the garden, and in the farm-yard;

we looked together down the grass-grown lane. Together we hung upon the swinging gate; we waited to hear the carts come creaking home; to see the horses stepping slowly through the mellow sunlight; the men that walked beside them slowly, and sung out from time to time—

“Gee hup!” “Gee Whoa! Dobbin!”—we clapped our hands at the welcome sound.

We knew they would not refuse us anything: they held us on the horses' broad slippery backs, as we rode them without saddle home.

When they built up the stacks they let us stand beside them, lifting us, as they mounted higher, in their strong, steady arms.

There came a day in Autumn when the nuts hung thick and ripe in the little woody glens that ran between the hills, and the hazels that overhung the stream;

And all the children went out to gather them; the day had been talked of long.

They sought out their oldest clothes to scramble through bush and brier.

And one little girl, the prettiest and merriest of all, had patched herself a pocket of many colours.

This she wore outside to be the readier filled with nuts.

The children were long in starting; like bees that are about to swarm.

They hung and murmured in a cluster; there was always something either remembered or forgot.

At last they set forth in triumph; I went with them as far as the gate.

I looked after them till they were hid by the bending of the lane: they turned to shout me a loud good-bye.

The little girl waved her handkerchief, but my companion did not look round.

I climbed on the gate to watch them; they were speedily across the brook.

I saw them spread and scatter over the hill-side; every now and then they were lost to view.

When they dipped within the coppices of birch and alder, that were purpled in spring with the hyacinths' tender and misty bloom.

At last they reached the great oak-wood. I saw them pass one by one within it; their voices died one by one away.

On my way home I went into the garden. All within it was still and dream-like.

The sun-flowers held up their broad, flashing shields; the hollyhocks stood erect like guards and warders. The bright asters, the red verbenas, the dark tawny marigold, blazed in the heat of noon: the garden looked gay yet desolate, as if the heart within it, even while it slumbered, ached.

A ripe peach had dropped from the wall, and rolled into the bed of mignonette beneath. I did not stoop to pick it up.

And as I passed the little border I called my own, I saw that the clove-carnation had burst its sheath.

I thought it would be less solitary in the farmyard; there would be the cooing and fluttering of the pigeons, and I should hear the whirl of the thresher's flail.

It too was broad and sunny in the noonday, full of yellow, floating light, and the warm pleasant scent of the straw.

Yet I thought it looked more lonely, even than the garden; when suddenly from behind the biggest stack, my little companion jumped out

and stood before me, saying, with a merry laugh,

“Aha! I have given you a fine surprise! and did you think I had really gone?”

We played together till the rest came back; the summer day was not long.