Then the moon comes out and pierces the ceiling, which changes into night-clouds and solemnly-silent roads, through and over which they are riding peacefully home. A river, of which they had a glimpse when the sun's rays were playing on it, changes now into a white road, over which the cart is slowly passing; now into a field of waving corn, through which they are calmly wending their way without breaking a stalk; now into the stairs of her own cosy home-nest, up which she is walking, with her darling, very sleepy, in her arms. And when she has softly sung a few words of a familiar cradle-song, she points to the stars, not deeming it strange that they are shining all around her, and tells her child that heaven is there!
An amazing transformation takes place. She is alone, with blackness all around her. The rain pours down like a deluge, and a terrific explosion occurs, which shakes the earth to its foundations.
Aroused by the violent banging of the street door, Mrs. Chester starts from the bed. The rain is softly pattering in the street, and she hears the sound of uncertain footsteps groping up the stairs.
"It is the new lodger," she murmurs. "He might have made less noise with the door." Then, rubbing her eyes, she calls, "Sally, are you awake?"
Sally hears her mother's voice through a mist of softly falling rain, and murmuring some indistinct words in reply, cuddles closer to her treasure-baby, and the next moment is asleep again.
"The brute!" exclaims Mrs. Chester. "Waking the children with his row! I'll talk to him to-morrow."
Standing in the dark, she listens. The person who is ascending the stairs to the bedroom in the upper part of the house staggers and stumbles on his way. Thus much Mrs. Chester is conscious of, but she does not hear his low moans, nor see him shake and tremble, as he drags his feet along in fear and dread. When he reaches his room, he falls, dressed, upon the bed, and claws at the air, and picks at the bedclothes in ceaseless unrest, being beset by demons of every shape and form, presenting themselves in a thousand monstrously-grotesque disguises.
Mrs. Chester has heard sufficient to cause her to form a just conclusion.
"Drunk of course," she murmurs; "and Dick'll be as bad when he comes home."
Then she lights a candle, and patiently resumes her task of stitching and patching.
CHAPTER VI
Sounds of music in the air; strange and fantastic shapes and forms; blooming flowers, and grass of rarest shades of green; glittering water, for white swans and paper ships to sail on; waving branches laden with dew-diamonds; birds flying on silver threads that reach from heaven to earth; and standing in the midst of all these wonders, little Sally Chester herself, in her ragged clothes. Comes a procession from the skies, heralded by a glittering white star, which widens into an avenue of light, through which the actors move. Comes a small drummer-boy in the British army, with a drum slung round his shoulders; behind him trots a donkey, familiar to the neighbourhood, who smiles grotesquely at Sally, and asks her when she is going to faint dead away again. The entire contents of a toy and cake shop follow the eccentric donkey. First appear the royal beefeaters, represented by men cut out of rich brown gingerbread, with features formed of Dutch metal, their legs and arms also being magnificently slashed with strips of the same; their features are diabolical, but this does not lessen their attractiveness. Then come a legion of wooden dolls, with not a vestige of clothing on their bodies, their staring expressionless features testifying to their shamelessness and their indifference to public opinion; then the animals from Noah's arks, so indiscriminately coupled as to betray a disgraceful Scriptural ignorance; then tin soldiers on slides, their outstretched swords proclaiming that they are on the straight road to glory; concluding with an army of wooden grenadiers with fixed bayonets, who march without bending a joint. All these move through the avenue of light, and the drummer-boy appears arm-in-arm with a little girl with whom, until she died twelve months ago, Sally used to play at grocers' shops in dark kitchens and on back-window sills. With a grand fanfaronade of trumpets, on marches a gay troop of soldiers, followed by men carrying huge flags, the devices in which are quick with life. Upon the waving folds of silk, fish are swimming, horses are prancing, artizans are following their trades, and the lion and the unicorn are fighting for the crown. These precede more soldiers and carriages and flags, until the shouts that rend the air proclaim the approach of the principal figure in the procession. This proves to be a gilt coach of antique shape, with coachmen and footmen blazing with gold lace, and Sally jumps up and down in frantic excitement as she recognises the inmate of the coach, who is staring in wonder out of the window at the people huzzaing and waving their hats in her honour. It is her own baby-treasure, with flushed and beautiful face, and with eyes bluer and more beautiful than the brightest and bluest clouds. In the midst of this triumphant display a man suddenly appears, and with sinister looks, stands by the coach in which the child is sitting. It is the new tenant who has taken the bedroom in her mother's house, and his menacing attitude proclaims that he is bent on mischief. The child looks imploringly towards Sally for protection, and instantaneously Sally is on the donkey's back, riding full tilt at their common enemy, who goes down in great confusion before her. Upon this the crowd and the entire pageant melt away like vapour from a glass, and Sally, with her baby-treasure safe in her arms, is walking along a dark street, the houses in which are so tall that they shut out the sky. The night is cold, the rain is falling, and they are alone, walking for many hours through the dreary thoroughfares, until from an archway a shadow steals and strives to seize the child. It is the new tenant again. Sally, terror-stricken, flies from him as fast as her little legs will allow her-and flies so swiftly, and through so many streets, for seemingly-interminable hours, that her breath fails, and life is leaving her: and all through this terrible flight the pursuer is at her heels, with flashing eyes and with death in his face. Sally knows that this is expressed in him, and that he is bent on destruction, although her back is towards him. She feels his hot breath on her neck; she hears a hissing sound from remorseless lips; closer and closer he comes, and his arms are about to close around her, when she falls over a precipice, down, down, into the spreading branches of a tree, where she places her baby safely in a cradle of flowers, and watches the form of their enemy flash, like a glance of light, into the abyss, the yawning mouth of which closes upon him with a snap. As the light of the child's golden hair falls on the green branches, they become magically transformed into the likeness of Sally's playmates and acquaintances round and about Rosemary Lane. There is Jane Preedy without any boots, and Ann Taylor without any stockings, and Jimmy Platt with the hair of his head falling over his weak eyes and sticking through the peak of his cap, and Young Stumpy with bits of his shirt thrusting themselves forward from unwarrantable places, and Betsy Newbiggin selling liquorice-water for pins; and there, besides, is the sailor-beggar without legs, who lives next door to the Chesters, comfortably strapped to his little wooden platform on wheels. Then the actors in the Lord Mayor's procession loom out on other branches, conspicuous among them being the drummer-boy, standing on his head on the donkey's back, and valiantly playing the drum in that position. The cradle of flowers fades, and its place is occupied by a square piece of carpet, upon which Sally's baby-treasure is dancing. The child is now dressed in the oddest fashion, her garments being composed of stray bits of silk and ribbon, which hang about her incongruously, but with picturesque effect. As she dances, the drummer-boy, who is now, in addition to his drum, supplied with pandean pipes, beats and pipes to the admiration of the audience. Carried away by the applause, he, in an inadvertent moment, bangs so loudly on his drum that he bangs the entire assemblage into air, and Sally is again alone, sitting in the tree by the side of the empty flower cradle. As she looks disconsolately around for her baby-treasure, comes a vision in the clouds. Thousands of angels, with bright wings and faces of lustrous beauty, are clustered about a cobbler, a friend of Sally's, who occupies a stall in Rosemary Lane, and who for the nonce transferred to a heavenly sphere, now plies his awl on Olympian heights. Very busy is he, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, mending shoes for the angels, who are flying to him from every bright cloud in the heavens, with old shoes and slippers in their hands. And presently all the lustrous shapes are gazing tenderly on Sally's baby-treasure, upon whose tiny