Chapter VIII: Willie's Fall

ONE DAY Willie and Lucy had been for one of their long rambles with Nurse. They were scrambling down a steep rough sledge-path, and Lucy had quite a bunch of pretty wild flowers in her hand, which they had been picking by the way. The two children walked in front, chattering as fast as those two little tongues very often did chatter, and Nurse came on behind them.

"It is only a fortnight now before we go home," said Willie. "Mamma told me so, and she said we had been here a month. Oh Lucy, how sorry I shall be to go! I do so like these mountains!"

"So do I," said Lucy. "But I want to see home again, and pussy, and my best dolly, Minna Anna Rosina."

"And I want to see Pepper," said Willie. "Poor dear little Pepper! How he will bark, and wag his tail, and shine up at me with his bright eyes when he sees me!—Won't he?"

"And pussy will purr and cuddle down in my arms," said Lucy. "And the flowers will have grown so. I think my rose tree will have some roses out by that time, because there were three green buds when I came away."

"And I dare say my pinks will all be out," said Willie. "I shall like to see them very much. But I am afraid a great many weeds will have grown in my garden. I do not like weeds at all. I wonder what is the good of weeds."

"I dare say a good many weeds are much more useful than you would think, Master Willie," said Nurse, from behind him.

"But do you think they are all useful, Nurse?" asked Willie, turning round.

"No, I don't know that I do, Master Willie," said Nurse. "For, you know, it was when Adam and Eve sinned that God sent thorns and briars to punish them. So I do not see it is likely that they were all meant to be of use. The wonder is that there 'are' so many good and pretty things."

"So the old gentleman in the steamer said," thought Willie.

Then Willie ran on again with Lucy—both of them scrambling and jumping along hand-in-hand, till Nurse was quite left behind.

"Oh Willie, see!—What a pretty flower!" cried Lucy, looking up at a little blue blossom which grew at the top of the left-hand bank.

"So it is," said Willie. "I'll climb up and pick it for you."

"You can't. It is too high."

"It isn't a bit. I've climbed much higher places than that. You quite forget I'm getting to be a big boy," added Willie, proudly.

"Only, please, don't hurt yourself," said Lucy, rather gravely, as Willie began his scramble.

It was not quite so easy to get to the top as he had thought, and when he reached it, he gave a great jump of delight, and cried, "I've done it—I've done it after all, Lucy."

Nurse was behind a bend in the road, but she never liked to have the children out of sight; so she walked on fast, meaning to tell them that they must not go on so far again. But just at the minute that she went round the corner and caught a glimpse of Willie on the top of the bank, Willie all at once lost his footing, and, with a loud shriek, went rolling down the other side.

Poor Nurse, in dreadful fear, tried at first to scramble up where Willie had stood, but she could not manage it at all. So she took the hand of little sobbing Lucy, and ran down the road to the next bend, which she knew would take them under the bank where they had been.

Lucy kept crying, and saying:—

"Oh Nurse! Will he be killed—will he be killed?"

But Nurse could not answer, and only hurried on as fast as she could walk. It did not take long to reach the path below, and there was Willie on the ground before them. He had rolled down so fast that he had gone right across the path, and lay stretched out, with his head hanging quite over the steep bank beyond. The wonder was that he had not gone down there as well.

"Oh Willie, Willie!" cried Lucy.

And the sound of her voice roused Willie, who had been half-stunned by his fall. He sat up and looked round him with pale cheeks and wide open eyes. And then, when Nurse lifted him to a safe place away from the edge, he burst into tears, and began to sob and cry.

"Come, Master Willie, are you much hurt?" asked Nurse, kissing and petting him, and trembling all over herself with the fright she had had. "Don't cry so, my dear. Where is the pain?"

"Oh! I don't know. I do not think I am hurt; but—but—I cannot help it," sobbed Willie, holding her tightly, yet feeling some shame at being so unlike a grown-up man. "Oh Nurse, I can't help it—and I do not want to cry!"

"Never mind; you will stop in a minute, Master Willie," said Nurse. "See if you can tell me whether you are hurt. Have you not any bruises to show me?"

Willie did not seem to know much more about the matter than Nurse herself. So she began to feel him all over, to make sure that no bones were broken, and that set Willie off laughing, and quite stopped his tears. He had scraped his forehead and hands against a rock, and they smarted a good deal, but Willie bore it bravely, and did not complain. His right foot too began to hurt him when he walked, and Nurse said he must have strained it a little; but he found he could get along pretty well by holding Nurse's arm.

"It was just like an old soldier going home after the battle," he said.

And he made Lucy laugh as much as he could, by making believe that he had been fighting, and had driven away a whole army of soldiers.

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