Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine
a room ornamented with foxes' heads and brushes, whips, hunting-pictures, and odds and ends of all sorts. He shut the door and passed through it into that part of the house in which was the schoolroom, and Giles' sleeping apartment. As he entered the passage, Lord Lamerton heard piercing shrieks, as from a child yelling in terror or pain.
In a moment, Lord Lamerton ran up the stairs towards the bedroom of his son. The nurse was there already, with a light, and was sitting on the bed, endeavouring to pacify the child. Giles sat up in his night-shirt, in the bed clothes, with his eyes wide open, his fair head disordered, striking out with his hands in recurring paroxysms of terror.
"What is the matter with him?" asked the father.
"My lord—he has been dreaming. He has had one or two of these fits before. Perhaps his fever and cold have had to do with it." Then hastily to Giles who began to kick and beat, and went into a fresh fit of cries, "There, there, my dear, your papa has come to see you. Have you nothing to say to him?"
But the little boy was not to be quieted. He was either still asleep, or, if awake, he saw something that bereft him of the power of regarding anything else.
"There will be no questioning him, my lord, till he is thoroughly roused," said the nurse.
"Bring me a glass of water."
Whilst the woman went for the tumbler, Lord Lamerton seated himself on the bedside, and drew the little boy up, and seated him on his lap.
"Giles, my darling, what is the matter?"
Then the little fellow clung round his father's neck, and the tears broke from his eyes, and he began to sob.
"What is the matter, my pet, tell me? Have you had bad dreams? Here, drink this draught of cold water."
"No, no, take it away," said the child. "I want papa to stay. Papa, you won't be taken off, will you? Papa, you will not leave me, will you?"
"No, my dear. What have you been thinking about?"
"I have not been thinking. I saw it."
"Saw what, Giles?"
Lord Lamerton stroked the boy's hair; it was wet with perspiration, and now his cheeks were overflowed with tears. The shrieks had ceased. He had recovered sufficient consciousness to control himself; "Papa I was at the window."
"What, in your night-shirt? After you had been put to bed? That was wrong. With your heavy cold you should not have left your bed."
The child seemed puzzled.
"Papa, I do not understand how it was. I would not have left my bed for the world, if I thought you did not wish it; and I do not remember getting out—still, I must have got out; for I was at the window."
"He has not left his bed. He has been dreaming, my lord," explained the nurse in an undertone; and Lord Lamerton nodded.
"Papa, dear."
"Yes, my pet."
"Are you listening to me?"
"I am all attention."
"Papa, I was at the window. But I am very sorry that I was there, if you are annoyed. I will not do it again, dear papa. And the moon was shining brightly on the drive. You know how white the gravel is. It was very white with the moon on it. I did not feel at all cold, papa; feel me, I am quite warm."
"Yes, my treasure, go on with your story."
"Then I watched something black come all the way up the drive, from the lodge-gates, through the park. I could not at first make out what it was, but I saw that it was something very, very black, and it came on slowly like a great beetle. But when it was near, then I saw it was a coach drawn by four black horses, and there was a man on the box, driving, and he was in black. There was no silver nor brass mounting to the harness of the horses, or I should have seen it sparkle in the moonlight. And, dear papa, the coach stole on without making any noise. I saw the horses trotting, and the wheels of the coach turning, but there was no sound at all on the gravel. Was that not strange?"
"Very strange indeed, my dear."
"But there was something much stranger. I saw that the horses had no heads, and also that the coachman had no head. His hat with the long weeper was on the top of the carriage. He could not wear it because he was without a head. Was not that queer?"
"Very queer," answered Lord Lamerton, and signed to the nurse to leave the room. His face looked grave, and he held the little boy to his heart, and kissed his forehead with lips that somewhat quivered.
"Then, papa, the carriage stopped at the entrance, and I could see through the window panes to the gravel with the moon on it, on the other side, and there was no one at all in the coach. It was quite, quite empty."
"Did you not think it was Dr. Blewett come to see you, my little man?"
"No, papa, I did not think anything about whose coach it was. But when it remained at the door, and no one got out, I saw it must be staying for some one to enter it."
"And did any one come out of the house?"
Then the little boy began to sob again, and cling round his father's neck, and kiss him.
"Well, my dear Giles?"
"Oh, papa!—you will not go away!—I saw you come out of the door, and you went away in the coach—"
"I!" Lord Lamerton drew a sigh of relief. The dream of the dear little fellow, associated with his illness, had produced an uneasy effect on his father's mind—he feared it might portend the loss of the boy, but if the carriage waited only for himself—!
"That, papa, was why I cried, and was frightened. You will not go! you must not go!" The child trembled, clasping his father, and rubbing his wet cheek against his father's face.
Then Lord Lamerton called the nurse from the next room. "Master Giles," he said, "is not thoroughly roused. The current of his thoughts must be diverted. Throw that thick shawl over him. I will carry him down into the drawing-room to my lady, and show him a picture-book. Then he will forget his dream and go to sleep. Come for him in a quarter of an hour."
The nurse did as required. Then Lord Lamerton stood up, carrying his son, who laid his head on his father's shoulders, and so he bore him through the passages and down the grand staircase to the drawing-room. The little fair face rested on the shoulder, with the fair hair hanging down over the father's back, and one hand was clutched in the collar. Lord Lamerton kissed the little hand. He was not afraid of making the child's cold worse, the evening was so warm.
Lady Lamerton was sitting on a settee with a reading lamp on a table at her side, engaged on an article in one of the contemporary magazines, on Decay of Belief in the World.
Lady Lamerton was a good woman, who on Sunday would on no account read a novel, or a book of travels, or of profane history. Her Sabbatarianism was a habit that had survived from her childish education, long after she had come to doubt its obligation or advisability. But, though she would not read a book of travels, memoirs or history, she had no scruple in reading religious polemical literature. On one Sunday she found that miracles were incredible by intelligent beings, and next Sunday she had her faith in the miraculous re-established on the massive basis of a magazine article.
For an entire fortnight she laboured under the impression that Christianity had not a leg to stand on, and then, on the strength of another article, was sure it stood on as many as a centipede. For a while she supposed that dogmas were the cast cocoons of a living religion, and then, newly instructed, harboured the belief that it was as impossible to preserve the spirit of religion without them as it is to keep essences without bottles. At one time she supposed the articles of the creed to be the shackles of faith, and then that they were the characters by which faith was decipherable.
The sun was at one time supposed to be a solid incandescent ball, but astronomers probed it with their proboscises, and found that the body was enveloped in sundry wraps, which they termed photosphere