Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories Part 16

The little tarn-cap I, of course, left on the stone. As I wandered homeward through the woods, I thought, with a certain fierce triumph, that now the beauty of Mabel's face should no more deceive me.

"Now, Mabel," I murmured, "now I shall see you as you are."

III.

At three o'clock in the afternoon I knocked at the door of the professor's study.

"Come in," said the professor.

"Is--is Mabel at home?" asked I, when I had shaken hands with the professor and seated myself in one of his hard, straight-backed chairs.

"She will be down presently," answered he "There is _The Nation_. You may amuse yourself with that until she comes."

I took up the paper; but the spectacles seemed to be burning in my breast-pocket, and although I stared intently at the print, I could hardly distinguish a word. What if I tried the power of the spectacles on the professor? The idea appeared to me a happy one, and I immediately proceeded to put it into practice. With a loudly beating heart, I pulled the silver case from my pocket, rubbed the gla.s.ses with my handkerchief, put them on my nose, adjusted the bows behind my ears, and cast a stealthy glance at the professor over the edge of my paper. But what was my horror! It was no longer the professor at all.

It was a huge parrot, a veritable parrot in slippers and dressing-gown! I dared hardly believe my senses. Was the professor _really_ not a man, but a parrot? My dear trusted and honored teacher, whom I had always looked upon as the wisest and most learned of living men, could it be possible that _he_ was a parrot? And still there he sat, grave and sedate, a pair of horn spectacles on his large, crooked beak, a few stiff feathers bristling around his bald crown, and his small eyes blinking with a sort of meaningless air of confidence, as I often had seen a parrot's eyes doing.

"My gnome has been playing a trick on me," I thought. "This is certainly not to see things as they are. If I only had his tarn-cap once more, he should not recover it so cheaply."

"Well, my boy," began the professor, as he wheeled round in his chair, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the polished andirons which adorned the empty fire-place. "How is the world using you? Getting over your German whims, eh?"

Surely the spectacles must in some mysterious way have affected my ears too. The professor's voice certainly did sound very curious--very much like the croak of some bird that had learned human language, but had no notion of what he was saying. The case was really getting serious. I threw the paper away, stared my teacher full in the face, but was so covered with confusion that I could hardly utter two coherent words.

"Yes, yes,--certainly,--professor," I stammered. "German whims?--I mean things as they are--and--and not as they seem--_das Ding an sich_--beg your pardon--I am not sure, I--I comprehended your meaning--beg your pardon?"

"My dear boy," croaked the professor, opening his beak in great bewilderment, and showing a little thick red tongue, which curved upward like that of a parrot, "you are certainly not well. Mabel!

Mabel! Come down! James is ill! Yes, you certainly look wretchedly.

Let me feel your pulse."

I suppose my face must have been very much flushed, for the blood had mounted to my head and throbbed feverishly in my temples. As I heard the patter of Mabel's feet in the hall, a great dread came over me.

What if she too should turn out to be somebody else--a strange bird or beast? No, not for all the world would I see Mabel--the dear, blessed Mabel--any differently from what she had always seemed to me. So I tore the spectacles from my nose, and crammed them into the case, which again I thrust into my pocket. In the same instant Mabel's sweet face appeared in the door.

"Did you call me, papa?" she said; then, as she saw me reclining on the sofa, where her father (now no longer a parrot) had forced me to lie down, there came a sudden fright into her beautiful eyes, and she sprang to my side and seized my hand in hers.

"Are you ill, Jamie?" she asked, in a voice of unfeigned anxiety, which went straight to my heart. "Has anything happened to you?"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+" said the professor. "Don't make him speak. It might have proved a serious attack. Too much studying, my dear--too much studying. To be sure, the ambition of young men nowadays is past belief. It was different in my youth. Then, every young man was satisfied if he could only make a living--found a home for himself, and bring up his family in the fear of G.o.d. But now, dear me, such things are mere nursery ambitions."

I felt wretched and guilty in my heart! To be thus imposing upon two good people, who loved me and were willing to make every sacrifice for my comfort! Mabel had brought a pillow, and put it under my head; and now she took out some sort of crochet-work, and seated herself on a chair close by me. The professor stood looking at his watch and counting my pulse-beats.

"One hundred and five," he muttered, and shook his bald head. "Yes, he has fever. I saw it at once, as he entered the room."

"Professor," I cried out, in an agony of remorse, "really I meant nothing by it. I know very well that you are not a parrot--that you are--"

"I--I--a parrot!" he exclaimed, smiling knowingly at Mabel. "No, I should think not. He is raving, my dear. High fever. Just what I said.

Won't you go out and send Maggie for the doctor? No, stop, I shall go myself. Then he will be sure to come without delay. It is high time."

The professor b.u.t.toned his coat up to his chin, fixed his hat at the proper angle on the back of his head, and departed in haste.

"How do you feel now, Jamie dear?" said Mabel, after awhile.

"I am very well, I thank you, Mabel," answered I. "In fact, it is all nonsense. I am not sick at all."

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ you must not talk so much," demanded she, and put her hand over my mouth.

My excitement was now gradually subsiding, and my blood was returning to its usual speed.

"If you don't object, Mabel," said I, "I'll get up and go home.

There's nothing whatever the matter with me."

"Will you be a good boy and keep quiet," rejoined she, emphasizing each word by a gentle tap on my head with her crochet-needle.

"Well, if it can amuse you to have me lying here and playing sick,"

muttered I, "then, of course, I will do anything to please you."

"That is right," said she, and gave me a friendly nod.

So I lay still for a long while, until I came once more to think of my wonderful spectacles, which had turned the venerable professor into a parrot. I thought I owed Mabel an apology for what I had done to her father, and I determined to ease my mind by confiding the whole story to her.

"Mabel," I began, raising myself on my elbow, "I want to tell you something, but you must promise me beforehand that you will not be angry with me."

"Angry with you, Jamie?" repeated she, opening her bright eyes wide in astonishment. "I never was angry with you in my life."

"Very well, then. But I have done something very bad, and I shall never have peace until I have confided it all to you. You are so very good, Mabel. I wish I could be as good as you are."

Mabel was about to interrupt me, but I prevented her, and continued:

"Last night, as I was going home from your house, the moonlight was so strangely airy and beautiful, and without quite intending to do it, I found myself taking a walk through the gorge. There I saw some curious little lights dancing over the ground, and I remembered the story of the peasant who had caught the gnome. And do you know what I did?"

Mabel was beginning to look apprehensive.

"No, I can't imagine what you did," she whispered.

"Well, I lifted my cane, struck at one of the lights, and, before I knew it, there lay a live gnome on the ground, kicking with his small legs."

"Jamie! Jamie!" cried Mabel, springing up and gazing at me, as if she thought I had gone mad.

Then there was an unwelcome shuffling of feet in the hall, the door was opened, and the professor entered with the doctor.

"Papa, papa!" exclaimed Mabel, turning to her father. "Do you know what Jamie says? He says he saw a gnome last night in the gorge, and that--"

"Yes, I did!" cried I, excitedly, and sprang up to seize my hat. "If n.o.body will believe me, I needn't stay here any longer. And if you doubt what I have been saying, I can show you--"

"My dear sir," said the doctor.

"My dear boy," chimed in the professor, and seized me round the waist to prevent me from escaping.