As the children acted, the old man"s anger wore off. He watched them with an interest he could not repress. When Nicholas took some hard thwacks from St. George without flinching, the old man clapped his hands; and, after the encounter between St. George and the Black Prince, he said he would not have the dogs excluded on any consideration. It was just at the end, when they were all marching round and round, holding on by each other"s swords "over the shoulder," and singing "A mumming we will go, etc.," that Nicholas suddenly brought the circle to a stand-still by stopping dead short and staring up at the wall before him.
"What are you stopping for?" said St. George, turning indignantly round.
"Look there!" cried Nicholas, pointing to a little painting which hung above the old man"s head.
Robin looked, and said, abruptly, "It"s Dora."
"Which is Dora?" asked the old man, in a strange, sharp tone.
"Here she is," said Robin and Nicholas in one breath, as they dragged her forward.
"She"s the Doctor," said Robin; "and you can"t see her face for her things. Dor, take off your cap and pull back that hood. There! Oh, it is like her!"
It was a portrait of her mother as a child; but of this the nursery mummers knew nothing.
The old man looked as the peaked cap and hood fell away from Dora"s face and fair curls and then he uttered a sharp cry and buried his head upon his hands. The boys stood stupefied, but Dora ran up to him and, putting her little hands on his arms, said, in childish, pitying tones, "Oh, I am so sorry! Have you got a headache? May Robin put the shovel in the fire for you? Mamma has hot shovels for her headaches." And, though the old man did not speak or move, she went on coaxing him and stroking his head, on which the hair was white. At this moment Pax took one of his unexpected runs and jumped on the old man"s knee, in his own particular fashion, and then yawned at the company. The old man was startled, and lifted his face suddenly.
It was wet with tears.
"Why, you"re crying!" exclaimed the children, with one breath.
"It"s very odd," said Robin, fretfully. "I can"t think what"s the matter to-night. Mamma was crying, too, when we were acting; and papa said we weren"t to tease her with questions; and he kissed her hand, and I kissed her hand, too. And papa said we must all be very kind to poor, dear mamma; and so I mean to be, she"s so good. And I think we"d better go home, or perhaps she"ll be frightened," Robin added.
"She"s so good, is she?" asked the old man. He had put Pax off his knee and taken Dora on to it.
"Oh, isn"t she!" said Nicholas, swaying his curly head from side to side as usual.
"She"s always good," said Robin, emphatically; "and so"s papa. But I"m always doing something I oughtn"t to," he added, slowly. "But then you know I don"t pretend to obey Sarah. I don"t care a fig for Sarah; and I won"t obey any woman but mamma."
"Who"s Sarah?" asked the grandfather.
"She"s our nurse," said Robin; "and she tells--I mustn"t say what she tells,--but it"s not the truth. She told one about you the other day,"
he added.
"About me?" said the old man.
"She said you were our grandpapa. So then I knew she was telling "you know what.""
"How did you know it wasn"t true?" the old man asked.
"Why, of course," said Robin, "if you were our mamma"s father, you"d know her, and be fond of her, and come and see her. And then you"d be our grandfather, too, and you"d have us to see you, and perhaps give us Christmas-boxes. I wish you were," Robin added, with a sigh; "it would be very nice."
"Would you like it?" asked the old man of Dora.
And Dora, who was half asleep and very comfortable, put her little arms about his neck as she was wont to put them round the Captain"s, and said, "Very much."
He put her down at last, very tenderly, almost unwillingly, and left the children alone. By-and-by he returned, dressed in the blue cloak, and took Dora up again.
"I will see you home," he said.
The children had not been missed. The clock had only just struck nine when there came a knock on the door of the dining-room, where the Captain and his wife sat still by the Yule-log. She said "Come in,"
wearily, thinking it was the frumenty and the Christmas cakes.
But it was her father, with her child in his arms!
VIII.
Lucy Jane Bull and her sisters were quite old enough to understand a good deal of grownup conversation when they overheard it. Thus, when a friend of Mrs. Bull"s observed, during an afternoon call, that she believed that "officers wives were very dressy," the young ladies were at once resolved to keep a sharp lookout for the Captain"s wife"s bonnet in church on Christmas day.
The Bulls had just taken their seats when the Captain"s wife came in.
They really would have hid their faces, and looked at the bonnet afterwards, but for the startling sight that met the gaze of the congregation. The old grandfather walked into the church abreast of the Captain.
"They"ve met in the porch," whispered Mr. Bull, under the shelter of his hat.
"They can"t quarrel publicly in a place of worship," said Mrs. Bull, turning pale.
"She"s gone into his seat," cried Lucy Jane, in a shrill whisper.
"And the children after her," added the other sister, incautiously aloud.
There was no doubt about the matter. The old man, in his blue cloak, stood for a few moments politely disputing the question of precedence with his handsome son-in-law. Then the Captain bowed and pa.s.sed in, and the old man followed him.
By the time that the service was ended everybody knew of the happy peace-making, and was glad. One old friend after another came up with blessings and good wishes. This was a proper Christmas, indeed, they said. There was a general rejoicing.
But only the grandfather and his children knew that it was hatched from "The Peace Egg."
_By a Bavarian Comrade._
"Over his tumbler of Gukguk he sat reading journals, sometimes contemplatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe: an agreeable phenomenon,--more especially when he opened his lips for speech."
_Carlyle._
A STORY OF NUREMBERG.
It was a Christmas eve in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and through the streets of Nuremberg came drifting a feathery snow that heaped itself in fantastic patterns on the projecting windows and fretted stone balconies of the quaint and crowded houses. It was not an honest and single-minded snow-storm, such as would seek to shroud the whole city in its delicate white mantle, but rather a tricksy and capricious sprite, that neglected one spot to hurl itself with wanton violence on another. Borne on the breath of a keen and shifting wind, it came tossing gleefully full in the face of a solitary artisan who, wrapped in a heavy cloak, was making the best of his way homeward. Truly it was not a pleasant night to be abroad, with the snow-drifts dancing in your eyes like a million of tiny arrow-points, and the sharp wind cutting like a knife; and the wayfarer was consoling himself for his present discomfort by picturing the warm fireside and the hot supper that awaited him at home, when his cheerful dreams were broken by a sharp cry that seemed to come from under his very feet.
Startled, and not a little alarmed, he checked his rapid walk and listened. There was no mistaking the sound: it was neither imp nor fairy, but a real child, from whose little lungs came forth that wail at once pitiful and querulous. As he heard it, Peter Burkgmaier"s kindly heart flew with one rapid bound to the cradle at home where slumbered his own infant daughter, and, hastily lowering his lantern, he searched under the dark archway whence the cry had come. There, sheltered by the wall and wrapped in a ragged cloak, was a baby boy, perhaps between two and three years old, but so tiny and emaciated as to seem hardly half that age. When the lantern flickered in his face he gave a frightened sob, and then lay quiet and exhausted in the strong arms that held him.
"Poor little wretch!" said the man. "Abandoned on Christmas eve to die in the snow!" And wrapping the child more closely in his own mantle, he hurried on until he reached his home, from whose latticed panes shone forth a cheerful stream of light. His wife, with her baby on her breast, met him at the door, and stared with a not unnatural amazement as her husband unrolled his cloak and showed her the boy, who, blinking painfully at the sudden light, tried to struggle down from his arms.