Little Peter: A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age

by Lucas Malet

  CHAPTER X.

  WHICH ENDS THE STORY.

  'Something has gone very wrong,' said Cincinnatus to himself in the catlanguage. 'I don't pretend to understand it. This, is one of those manymatters that I should be glad to take my cousin the Sacristan's cat'sopinion upon. Dear me! what a misfortune it is to live here in thecountry, away from the centre of social intercourse and civilisation.'

  Then Cincinnatus fell to washing his face with his paws, for hehad lately had his five o'clock saucer of milk, you see; and it isetiquette in cat-land always to wash after meals, not before them as wedo.

  The yellow earthenware stove was lighted in the bedroom, andCincinnatus sat opposite to the open door of it, and blinked at theheart of crimson wood embers, set in a fringe of flaky, grey ashes.It was very warm there, but Cincinnatus blinked and washed his faceslowly. As to the heat, it soothed him, and inclined him to make anumber of reflections.

  'At the risk of repeating myself, I must observe that men are poor,improvident, thoughtless creatures,' he went on presently; 'subject toillness and accidents of all kinds. However, a thoughtful cat will notbe hard upon them. _Noblesse oblige._ Those who have the advantage canafford to be generous. Fancy coming into this world, now, where theweather is so extremely uncertain, all pink and bare as they do, poorthings, without any comfortable fur to cover them; and having to makeup for it by enclosing themselves in all sorts of shapeless, foreignsubstances, prepared from sheep's wool or vegetables. And no taileither! Imagine being deprived of that most dignified and expressivemember. Yet, you must give them their due. Necessity has certainlymade them very ingenious.'

  Cincinnatus stretched himself lazily in the hot glow of the stove fire.

  'But with all their ingenuity only one life,' he said yawning. 'Andthat one, as I observed just now, subject to all manner of illness andaccident. We have nine lives! Who would be one of them if he could helpit? Poor things, no wonder if they envy us.'

  Then Cincinnatus went across the boarded floor with his noiselesstread, and jumped up on to little Peter's bed, and began purring inthe most amiable and engaging manner, sticking out all his claws andthen drawing them in again and making a nice tight little fist, as hetrampled on the bed-clothes, first with one fore-foot and then with theother. He even went so far as to rub his head along against the littleboy's shoulder, which, considering his opinion of the relative positionof cats and mankind in the universal scale of being, was really verycondescending of him, to my thinking.

  But little Peter did not speak or pay any attention to Cincinnatus.He only sighed in his sleep, and turned his round, black head on thepillow. Poor little Peter had lain just like that, quite still andquiet, in bed ever since his father and the charcoal-burner had placedhim there when they had got home from that terrible walk in the snow,about four o'clock in the morning. The ice-fairies, who really arevery elegant people and not at all disagreeable when you know them,had come at sunrise and spread the most beautiful patterns--crowns andcrosses, and stars and diamonds, and ice flowers of a hundred exquisiteshapes--all over the window panes; but little Peter had been too tiredand sleepy to get up and look at them. And when, in the afternoon,not without struggle and difficulty, for the road was dangerous withsnow-drifts, the kind, old doctor, with his red nose and his snuffbox,had ridden over from Nullepart, and sat by the little boy's bed andfelt his pulse, and examined him carefully, with a face as wise as anowl's, from behind his large spectacles, Peter had been too fired andsleepy to look at him either. The old doctor had taken an extra pinchof snuff, and shaken his head quite seriously, I am sorry to say, atleaving.

  Now it was past five o'clock, and Peter still lay in his little beddozing and sleeping--dreaming too, but not of the snow and the painof the winter. He dreamed of sunshine and of pleasant places, of thesinging of birds and the sound of the cow-bells in the flowery fieldsin the spring-time. The elder boys and their father had gone to see thedoctor safe part of his way home again. And Susan Lepage had sunk downin the big chair in the kitchen, and had fallen asleep, worn out withfatigue and anxiety. And Eliza, hearing Gustavus come into the backkitchen with the milk-pans, had slipped downstairs from watching besidethe child, just to have a word with him.

  'Poor fellow,' she said, 'he really is so over-joyed at my beingrestored to him, that there is no saying if he won't mix this evening'smilk with this morning's, or ruin the cream by shaking it, or commitsome other folly. He is not clever, and my family will certainlyreproach me with having married beneath me; but he has a good heart,and I think he really appreciates me as he ought to, does Gustavus.'

  So it happened that little Peter was left quite alone, but for thesociety of the cat, up in the bedroom.

  John Paqualin came along the flagged path to the front of the house;and pressing his face close against the glass, for it was difficultto see through them, the panes being frosty, looked in at the kitchenwindow. Then he went to the house door, lifted the latch carefully,entered, and stood still, listening. There was no sound save thesinging of the kettle, and Eliza's chatter in the distant dairy, withthe clump of the cowherd's boots on the flags and the clink of themilk-pans. From the rows of copper kettles and saucepans, and the chinahigh on the dresser, to the red tiled floor under the charcoal-burner'sfeet, the large kitchen actually shone with exquisite cleanliness. Thelight of the lamp on the table fell upon Susan Lepage's high, whitecap, showing it and her pure, grave profile, as she leaned her headback in the arm-chair, clear cut against the ruddy dusk of the chimneycorner behind her.

  Paqualin, as he stood there silent and watchful, with his sunken eyes,ungainly figure, and dilapidated garments, seemed strangely out ofplace. He shaded his eyes with his hand, for the light dazzled him,as he looked for a minute or two at the sleeping mother. Then he wentquietly across the kitchen and up the wide, wooden staircase.

  'The house is asleep,' he murmured in his high, cracked tones:--'orwould be but for the voice of Eliza. Pah! the woman's tongue cuts likea whip. But her sweetheart, the ass, has a good thick hide of his own;he finds the lash only pleasantly tickling.'

  Paqualin went into the warm, dimly-lighted bedroom above.

  'The house is asleep,' he repeated. 'Hey-ho, Sleep's a kindly fellow,with his turban of nodding poppies. He cures the heart-ache. But he'sforgetful, sadly forgetful. He hasn't been near me these five nights;and God knows, I have had the heart-ache as badly as any of the others.'

  He knelt down by little Peter's bed, and looked closely at the child.

  THE CHARCOAL-BURNER VISITS LITTLE PETER. _Page 150._]

  'Eh! Sleep is hardly a kind friend to you, I'm afraid, though,' he saidunder his breath. 'A little too much of the smell of the drowsy poppieshere to be quite healthful.'

  As he spoke, Cincinnatus, who had been curled up comfortably in a nice,warm depression in the bed-clothes, jumped down on to the floor withglaring eyes and a great tail.

  'I won't spit though,' he said. 'It really isn't worth the trouble.No, an air of absolute indifference will be even more impressive andchilling.'

  So he walked away very stiffly, and sat down opposite the open stovedoor again.

  The charcoal-burner placed one of his lean hands on the little boy'ssoft, pudgy one, that lay palm upward on the pillow, and with the otherpatted him tenderly on the cheek.

  'Little Peter,' he said, 'wake up. Come back to us, dear, little mouse.You said you loved me--nobody ever said that to me before. Don't goaway from me, do not desert me.'

  He paused a minute, and then went on pleadingly:--

  'Think of all the stories I have told you, remember the nuts and theapples.--Eh! wake up, little lad, and come back to poor, ugly JohnPaqualin, to whom his fellow men have shown such scant mercy.'

  But the child lay quite still; his long, black eyelashes resting on hispale cheeks, and his pretty, round mouth a wee bit open as he sighedsoftly in that strange stupor of sleep.

  Tears dimmed the charcoal-burner's eyes. He bent his wild shock headand rested it down on the white coverl
et.

  'Ah, great God!' he murmured, 'Thou who art all powerful, listen to me.See here, can't we make an exchange?--Take my poor, battered, weary,old soul instead of his fresh, innocent, white one. Let me give himmy life for his mother's sake, the sweetest and most compassionateof women. She will grieve if she loses him, her darling, her baby;and kind as she is, she won't miss me very much. Why should she?--anoutcast of nature, a shameful, misshapen mistake; one sorry sight theless in the world when I'm gone, that's all.--Death's dreadful, theysay--yes, I know I am afraid of it. But, after all, it can't be so verymuch worse than life--at least for some of us.'

  He threw back his head, and clasped his hard hands together.

  'Here, take me,' he cried. 'I will come. A trifle of suffering, more orless, what does it matter? Spare the little lamb, O Lord, and take me,John Paqualin, as ransom.'

  Now the charcoal-burner was not quite right in his head, you see, andthat accounts for his eccentric prayer and very original behaviour. Youhad better bear this in mind. I won't tell you why; you will probablyfind out for yourselves when you have seen more of the world and grownrather older.

  Paqualin knelt on there for some time, looking up as though he expecteda direct and visible answer to his singular petition. But nothinghappened save that Eliza came upstairs on the tips of her toes--a wayof stepping which she intended to be particularly quiet, but whichwas, in fact, particularly noisy--and peeped into the room. Seeing thecharcoal-burner kneeling by the bed-side, she gave a fearful gasp, andsank down into the nearest chair.

  'The saints help and preserve us!' she exclaimed in a loud whisper,holding her side, 'what next? Ah! how it startled me. The helpless,sick child in the arms of that ogre! Go away, John Paqualin, go away.How on earth did you get here? I've only been downstairs three minutesgiving some necessary instructions to Gustavus.--He really is besidehimself with joy, poor fellow.--Go away, I say; if Peter woke upsuddenly he would have a fit at seeing you. Look at yourself in thelooking-glass, and you'll understand why, fast enough. A rush of bloodto the head from fright and the child would be dead. And if half thestories one hears of you are true, there is enough down on the wrongside of your account already without adding wilful murder. Go alongwith you.--Ah! I am so weak--my poor heart, how it beats.'

  Eliza advanced, creaking across the boarded floor, towards thecharcoal-burner. He had risen to his feet.

  'There is no answer,' he said, in a low voice. 'You fool, learn yourlesson. God doesn't want your wretched, worthless soul, John Paqualin.Who are you, indeed, that you should try to strike a bargain with theAlmighty, and offer such miserable refuse and offscourings as your lifein place of that of the pure and sinless child there?'

  He looked back towards the bed.

  'Good-bye,' he said, 'dear, little Peter. When you are gone there willbe nothing left on earth to love me; and in heaven it's clear they cando very well without me yet awhile.'

  Then, as Eliza came close to him, whispering, pointing towards thedoor, and signing to him, he turned upon her with a terrible face.

  'Woman, leave me alone,' he said. 'Have not I enough to bear already,without the maddening gnat-bites of your spiteful ignorance and cruelfolly?'

  And the grasshopper man went out of the room, and down the stairs, andinto the dark frosty night.

  Eliza leant up against the bottom of the bed, with her eyes half shut.

  'Are you gone yet,' she murmured, 'you savage, wild animal?--If thechild had woke up and screamed there would have been a fine fuss, andall the blame would have been laid on me, of course. It isn't fairthat crazy men like that should be allowed to persecute respectable,young servant-women. I'll get Gustavus to lay an information againsthim at the police station at Nullepart for using threatening languageto me. Of course it is all jealousy; but I can't help my good looks.'

  Eliza opened her eyes again, arranged the mauve silk handkerchief abouther neck, and smiled complacently.

  'It is a comfort to know that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourface--or of your disposition, for that matter, either,' she added.

  Now this all happened on Monday evening, as no doubt you have made outalready. Very early, before it was light on Wednesday morning, littlePeter, who all that long time had lain sleeping unconscious of whatwent on around him, suddenly seemed to find himself very wide awakeindeed. There was a strange light in the room, bright and yet soft likean early summer dawn. And as the little boy opened his eyes, he sawthat at his bedside there stood a young man, with a calm, beautifulface and shining hair. He was clothed down to the feet in a long,white, linen garment.

  As Peter looked up wonderingly, the young man bent over him. Therewas something very still and gentle in his glance, and the little boysmiled, for it seemed to him that the young man's face was that of anold friend, though he could not remember ever to have seen him before.

  Then the young man spoke to him, and said:--

  'Little Peter, you have been sick and tired. Will you come away with meto a far-off country where there is no more sickness and trouble, andwhere the children play all the year round among blooming flowers ingreen, sunny pastures by the river-side?'

  Peter did not feel a bit afraid; but he thought of his parents and hisbrothers, and asked:--

  'But, please, will my mother, and father, and Paul, and Antony, and mycat Cincinnatus, come too? Paul is very kind, and he makes such nicemill-wheels to turn in the brook, and weathercocks to stick up in thepear-tree and show which way the wind blows. And Cincinnatus would bedull and lonely if I left him behind. He likes to come to bed with mein the morning, and the old grey wolf might come out of the wood andcatch him, and make him into soup for little wolves when I was gone.'

  The young man smiled as he answered:--'Never fear. Your mother andfather and Paul and Antony will certainly join you some day if they aregood. Time seems very short while we wait in that happy country. Andas to Cincinnatus, who knows but that he may come also? In any case,he will be quite safe, for our Heavenly Father loves all his livingcreatures--not only angels and men, but fish, and birds, and beasts aswell. Will you come, little Peter?'

  'Ah! but there's John Paqualin,' said the boy. 'You know whom Imean--the charcoal-burner. I can't leave him very well, you see,because he is often very unhappy; and he says nobody will ever care forhim because he is rather odd and ugly-looking. And I do care for himvery much indeed.'

  Then the young man bent lower and looked into little Peter's eyes.

  'Why, why you are John Paqualin!' cried the child.

  'Yes,' said the other, and his face was radiant with the peace thatpasses understanding. 'I am John Paqualin. God be praised.'

  'But how you have changed!' little Peter said; for he was a good dealsurprised, you know, and no wonder.

  'With the Lord one day is as a thousand years,' answered the young man.'Will you come with me now, little Peter?'

  Then Peter stretched out his hands and laughed out loud with joy; hewas so very glad about quite a number of things--the thought of hisplayfellows in that fair and happy country, and of the coming of hisparents and brothers, and of Cincinnatus the cat, and most of all atthe delightful change for the better that had taken place in thepersonal appearance of his friend the charcoal-burner.

  'Yes,' he said, 'I'll come.'

  So then the young man took him up very tenderly in his strong arms, andlaid the little, tired head upon his breast and carried little Peteraway.

  Now it happened, strangely enough, that though both Susan Lepage andher husband sat watching by their child's bedside, they neither of themsaw the young man with the calm face and shining hair, or heard a wordhe said. They only saw that the little boy opened his eyes suddenlyand seemed to gaze at something with a kind of glad wonder, and thathe smiled, and that his dear, little lips moved, and then that hestretched out his hands and laughed joyfully. After that he lay verystill.

  Susan Lepage waited a moment or two, then she rose and took a candlethat stood on the oak chest near the bed's head. Shading it wi
th herhand, she stooped down and looked closely at the child.

  'Ah, my little one!' she cried.

  She put the candle back again, and coming round the foot of the bed,stood by Master Lepage, with her hand resting on his shoulder.

  'My husband,' she said, 'our child will suffer no more. The dear Lordloved him and has called for him. A child has died on earth. A child isborn in Paradise.'

  There was a long silence. Master Lepage sat bolt upright with his armshanging down at his sides--more as though he was standing before thegeneral officer on parade, than sitting in the rush-bottomed chair inhis own bedroom. The big tears ran down over his cheeks and fell fromhis moustache on to his blue blouse as thick as a summer shower.

  'My wife,' he said slowly, 'our paths have joined at last--joinedbeside an open grave, but better there than nowhere. There shall be nomore silence between us. The God whom you have served so faithfullyin time will surely heal the smart of your sorrow. And perhaps Hewill condescend to listen to the prayers of a foolish, vain-glorious,wrong-headed, old soldier, whom grief and repentance have humbled.Pardon me, my wife. I have been wrong and you right all along.'

  Lepage stood up, took her two hands in his, and kissed her.

  'Ah, my dear, let us talk only of love and hope, not of pardon,' SusanLepage answered gently.

  She turned and looked at little Peter, still and smiling, with hisround, black head resting so cosily on the white pillow.

  'The autumn child has brought a blessing to the house,' she murmured.

  'Ten thousand plagues!' broke out Master Lepage hoarsely. 'Twentythousand cut-throat Prussians!--but I loved the little one.'

  * * * * *

  And is that the end of the story?

  Well, yes, as far as a story can be said to have an end--most storiesgo on for ever, only we get tired or stupid and leave off readingthem--if the story has an end, I say, I suppose this is it. Still thereare just one or two little things I can mention which you might liketo know. For instance, when next day Gustavus happened to pass thecharcoal-burner's hut, he heard such a horrible barking, and yelling,that, though he was not of a very active or curious order of mind, hereally had to go and see what was the matter. And on getting to theback of the hut he found Madelon, the sow, standing up on her hind legsin her sty, with her fore-feet resting on the rough, wooden door of it,her long, black snout high in the air, her floppety ears shaking, hergreat mouth wide open as she squealed aloud, and not a single scrap offood in her trough. This seemed to Gustavus such a singular thing, thatthough he had no great fancy for the society of the charcoal-burner, hethought he would just look inside the hut door, which stood half open.The snow had drifted in at it and lay thick on the mud floor within,there was no fire on the hearth, and the place was deathly chill. YetPaqualin sat there sure enough, on a wooden bench, with his elbows onthe table in front of him, and his head resting on his hands. His backwas towards Gustavus. The cowherd did not quite like to go inside thehut somehow. He stood in the snow on the door-sill and called. Atlast he plucked up his courage, and going forward pulled at Paqualin'sragged sleeve.

  'Umph,' said Gustavus, as he stumbled out again in a desperate hurry.He took off his hat and wiped his face round, for notwithstanding thefrosty day, he felt quite uncomfortably warm.

  'Here, I'll give you something, granny,' he called out to the sow. 'Ifyou wait till your master brings it you'll wait a long time for yourbreakfast to-day. Bless me! but I shall have something to tell ourEliza this evening at supper that'll make her open her eyes!'

  Antony has gone to serve his time in the army; and when his time is upand he comes back again to the old, wooden farm-house in the forest, Ithink it is very likely that the wish he wished in the dining-room ofthe Red Horse at Nullepart, when he shared the double filbert kernelwith pretty Marie Georgeon, may really come true. Paul is apprenticedto an engineer in Paris, and lives among whirling machines in thegreat, crowded workshops; and his employers are much impressed withhis ability and talent, and prophesy that he will make a name forhimself some day. Cincinnatus is quite an old cat now, and his whiskersare almost white; but he still sits opposite the glowing wood firein the kitchen, and blinks his big, yellow eyes and reflects on thesuperiority of cats to men. And Master Lepage still reads the historyof the famous Roman Republic in the winter evenings, and takes off hisspectacles and wipes them with his red pocket-handkerchief; but herarely talks politics now, and never sits in the wine-shop, though onfine Sundays he often walks with his gentle, sweet-faced wife throughthe forest, and kneels humbly beside her in the church, and prays Godto guide and teach him, and forgive him all his sins.

  And is this a true story?

  Yes, as true as I can make it, and I have taken a good deal of pains.

  But did it all really happen?

  Ah! that is quite another question. For you will find as you growolder, that some of the very truest stories are those which, as mostpeople in this world count happening, have never happened at all.And if you can't understand how that can be, I advise you, the firstfine day, to ask your way to Nullepart and take the opinion of theSacristan's cat upon the matter. He is a scholar, you know, so he issure to be able to explain it.

  THE END.

  PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

  Transcriber's Note:

  Variations in hyphenation have been retain as in the originalpublication. Punctuation has been standardised.