The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice Part 1

The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice.

by E. V. Lucas.

I

Once upon a time there dwelt in a far country two children, a sister and a brother, named Tilsa and Tobene. Tilsa was twelve and Tobene was ten, and they had grown up, as it were, hand in hand. Their father died when Tobene was only a little piece of pink dimpled dough, and when their mother died too, a few years after, old Alison was told to pack up the things and journey with Tilsa and Tobene to the children's grandfather, the Liglid (or Lord Mayor) of Ule, whom they had never yet seen.

Old Alison was their nurse, and she had been their father's nurse before them. Nothing worth knowing was unknown to old Alison: she could tell them where the fairies danced by night, and the names and habits of the different people who live in the stars, and the reason why thrushes'

eggs have black spots and hedge sparrows' none, and how to make Toffee of Paradise, and a thousand useful and wonderful things beside.

Alison was old and wrinkled and bent, but there was not a warmer heart in all the world, and no tongue could say kinder words than hers, and no hands minister so lovingly to those who needed help. It was said that Alison had only to look at a sore place and it was healed again. If any one loved her more than Tilsa it was Tobene; and if any one loved her more than Tobene it was Tilsa; and old Alison's love for them was as strong.

On the day appointed, the three travellers set forth in a chariot driven by postilions, and in the course of a week's journeying through strange countries came at last to Ule.

At the southern gate they were met by the Liglid. They discovered him to be more than a mere person--a Personage!--with white hair, and little beady eyes, and a red nose, and a gold-laced hat.

'Welcome,' said he, 'welcome, Tilsa and Tobene, to the city or Ule.' And then he kissed the air an inch or two from the cheek of his grandchildren and led the way to his house.

II

Ule was a little city in the midst of a wide plain, and round about it was a stout wall. One straight, white road crossed the plain from end to end, entering the city at the northern gate and leaving it by the southern gate. The borders of the plain were blue mountains whose peaks reached the sky, and among these peaks the sun made his bed. At least, so said the good people of Ule.

Nothing could shake their faith, for did they not every morning see him rise from the eastern peaks, fresh and ready for the day's work of warming the air of Ule, and encouraging the trees of Ule to bear fruit and the buds of Ule to spread into flowers? And every evening did they not see him, tired and faint, sink to rest amid the western peaks? The rare strangers who came now and then to the city and heard this story, were apt to smile unbelievingly and ask laughingly how, after laying his head among the pillows on the western side of the plain, the sun was able to wake up on the opposite side, many miles distant?

But this question presented no difficulty to the good people of Ule.

'Why,' they would reply a little irritably, for they liked to think that the sun was theirs and theirs only, 'surely the sun can walk in his sleep as well--nay, better--than ordinary folk? A baby could see that!'

they would add with a laugh.

So it was settled that the sun spent all his time in the neighbourhood of Ule. If the citizens had ever travelled away from their native part, perhaps they would have thought otherwise; but they rarely, or never, did.

'What!' they would say, in pained astonishment, 'leave Ule! Why?'

'To see the world,' the rash stranger who had made the suggestion might reply.

'The world? This is the world,' would be the answer.

And they really believed that it was. The knowledge that thousands of other places, no whit less happy than themselves, or even more happy, were in existence would have made the Ulians quite bad-tempered. And beyond doubt they were in need of no other cause to excite their anger, for had they not the Flamp?

III

The Flamp was a monster who dwelt in a cave somewhere in the mountains that surrounded the plain. Once every year, on Christmas night, the Flamp came into the city and threw the population into a frenzy of terror. That on this night of the year, a night set apart for joyfulness and festivity, the Loathly Beast (for so he was called by orators in the City Council when they had used the word Flamp often enough) should invade their city, seeking his prey, seemed to the Ulians an act of the grossest cruelty and injustice. Almost as soon as darkness had fallen on Christmas Day, the noises in the city would cease, and the house-holders and their families would sit within barred doors, with uplifted fingers, holding their breath, and listening, listening. Then in the far distance _flob! flob!_ faint, _FLOB!! FLOB!!_ less faint, _FLOB!!! FLOB!!!_ less faint, every moment louder, coming nearer and nearer, until the earth shook, and the Flamp's flobbing, flamping feet filled the air with deafening thuds.

All keys were turned, all bolts were drawn, all blinds were down, by the time he entered the city. Not a light was visible. The Flamp was heard sniffing at this door, fumbling at the handle of that, knocking at another, while the _shuff! shuff!_ of his sides against the walls was quite audible. Now and then he would sit down in the road and sigh deeply, and the trembling listeners near by could hear the splas.h.i.+ng of his tears on the stones.

After pa.s.sing through every street, the Flamp would turn out of the gate once more, and swing off across the plain to his cave in the mountains, the earth would cease to tremble, and fainter and fainter would sound his footfalls: _FLOB!!! FLOB!!! FLOB!! FLOB!! flob!_ flob! until at last all was still again. Then with white faces and shaking limbs the citizens would crawl to bed, bemoaning their lot.

The next day the streets were examined to see if any damage had been done, but nothing was ever found except pools of water where the Flamp had sat down to sigh and weep. One strange thing was observed after every visit of the Flamp: these pools were always opposite houses where there were children.

'He comes for the children,' was the natural conclusion of the people.

'See how the Monster cries with rage and disappointment when he finds all doors barred to him.'

Measures had of course been taken to keep the Flamp out of Ule. The gates were barricaded: he broke them down as easily as you break new toys; spring guns were placed in the roads: they went off, the bullets struck his hide, and, rebounding, smashed several windows, while one even ricochetted against the statue of the Liglid in the market-place and chipped off a piece of his Excellency's nose; poisoned meat was spread about temptingly: in the morning it was found all gathered together on the doorstep of the Sanitary Inspector. Thus in time it became clear that the Flamp was not to be checked, and for many years before the time of our story no other attempts had been made.

IV

The first knowledge of the Flamp which came to Tilsa and Tobene was gained at breakfast on Christmas morning, when the Liglid warned them of the precautions necessary in the city at night, and besought them to make no noise lest the attention of the Loathly Beast should be drawn to their house.

'But what is the Flamp?' asked Tilsa.

'What!' said the Liglid. 'A monster, a dreadful monster!'

'What is it like?' Tobene asked.

'Like?' said the Liglid, 'like? Why, no one knows. No one has seen it.

But we can hear it--oh, horrible, horrible!' and the little man covered his eyes and shuddered.

'Why does it come?' Tilsa went on.

'To eat us,' said the Liglid.

'How many people has it eaten?' said Tobene.

'Eh!' the Liglid replied. 'Well, I don't--well, I can't exactly--well, I don't think it has ever eaten any one yet. But it wants to and means to.'

'Then how do you know it wants to eat you?' Tilsa persisted.

'Because,' said the Liglid, 'because it sounds like it.'

At night the Flamp came, and the city trembled and the earth shook.

Before the Liglid's house it sat down and wept and sighed for fully five minutes, while within doors the Liglid turned all the colours of the rainbow with fright. 'His face was fine,' said Tobene afterwards: 'just like those whirligig things at the end of magic-lantern shows.' From which remark you may judge that Tobene did not share his grandfather's alarm, nor did Tilsa, nor old Alison.

The next morning there was a pool outside the Liglid's house large enough to sail a boat on.