She made Martha comfortable in the old armchair, with her feet upon a stool, and a shawl about her knees, then she took down the well-worn Bible, and began to read. Her sweet voice rose and fell evenly, soothingly; for more than an hour she read on, unwearied, never faltering, selecting all the most helpful and comforting passages she could find; and by-and-by Martha Perry's face grew less drawn and anxious, her sad eyes grew tired, then the lids closed in a blessed, peaceful slumber, and Miss Rose's voice ceased, and silence fell on the little cottage.
The night sped on, the cold grew greater, the darkness deeper. Miss Rose sat quietly at the table, the open Bible before her, keeping watch over the sleeping woman and the fire, her ear always alert for a sound outside. Her hearing grew so strained that over and over again she thought she heard footsteps coming, Huldah's quick, brisk step and Dick's pat-pat patter; again and again she tip-toed to the door, and opening it wide peered out into the darkness. But no real sound broke the silence, save the hoot of an owl, and by-and-by the chirping of the waking birds.
Then at last day dawned, and streaks of light appeared in the sky, turning presently to a glorious fiery radiance, as the sun rose, flooding the sky and all the world with brightness and with hope.
Martha Perry stirred stiffly in her chair, and opened her eyes. "Oh, Miss Rose, I've been asleep, and left you keeping watch all by yourself! Oh, I am ashamed!"
"Not by myself, Martha. I had this," laying her hand on the openBible, "and I felt God nearer me than ever in my life before, Ithink. He is going to help us, I know. I feel that He has given meHis word this night!"
"She has not come?" sighed Martha, glancing round the kitchen, as though expecting to see Huldah hiding somewhere. "Oh, what a night of misery she must have endured!"
"She has not come yet, but she is coming, and brownie is very brave, Martha, and patient and hopeful. She has the blessed gift of making the best of what can't be helped, and she has a wonderful faith. Look, Martha, look at the sky, does it not already sing to us 'joy cometh with the morning'?"
Martha Perry walked to the door and looked out, and even her timid, doubting heart could not but feel calmed and comforted.
"'God's in His heaven: All's right with the world,'" quoted Miss Rose, softly, as they stood there together. And already help was on its way to Huldah.
When Bob Thorp awoke that same morning about six o'clock, his first thought was that he had six shillings in his pocket. Six shillings got without working for them, so that he had every right to look on them as an extra, and spend them on himself.
Having made up his mind on this point, he lay for a happy half-hour, thinking how he should lay it out to get most pleasure out of it. "Why, I know!" he almost exclaimed aloud, as a particularly pleasant idea struck him. "I'll go to the big football match at Crinnock. It's going to be a clipper, they say. Ain't I glad I thought of it! I shall have just enough to do it comfortably."
The idea so excited him that he jumped out of bed then and there, and, banging at his poor mother's door, he bade her get up sharp, and light the fire, and get the breakfast, because he had to be off early. Then he dressed himself in the best he'd got, and presented himself in the kitchen.
In answer to his mother's surprised looks and questionings, he explained that he had to go away on business, in search of a job, and must look his best; and his mother, rejoicing in the prospect of a day of freedom from him, cooked him the last egg she had, and gave him as big a breakfast as he could eat; and he ate it heartily, without a qualm of conscience for his deception towards her.
At the railway station he met quite a crowd, all going in the same direction as himself; neither the darkness nor the cold could affect their energy or spirits, and Bob's spirits rose too, as he followed the stream of travellers into the little gas-lit booking office for his ticket.
"Third return, Crinnock," he said, loudly, tossing a shining new florin on to the counter.
At the sound of it the booking clerk half hesitated in stamping the ticket he held in his hand, glanced sharply at the florin, and hurriedly picking it up, scanned it closely.
"Bad 'un," he said, shortly, handing it back to Bob. "Ninepence, please." Then, seeing the look of blank dismay on Bob's face, he added, "Been had?"
Bob's cheeks were white, and his hand shaking, as he dived in his pocket for the other two florins,—the only money he possessed in the world. He saw himself tricked, cheated out of a day's pleasure, made to look small in everyone's eyes.
He turned out the two other florins upon the counter, and at the first ring of them on the wood he knew the truth, and his passion blazed out fiercely against the man who had fooled him under cover of the darkness.
"I'll have the law of him!" he stammered, almost speechless with anger. "I know where he is, or pretty near, and I'll set the p'lice on him, I will. Why—why—I might have been had up myself for trying to pass bad money! Oh I'll make him sorry he ever tried his games on me, I will!"
Back through the waiting crowd Bob elbowed his way, in search of a policeman. His disappointment about the football match was swallowed up in his longing for revenge.
"Look here, bobby," he said, going up to the constable who was standing on the platform to see the crowd off peacefully. "Look at this!" thrusting the coins under his very nose. "Bad money, that's what 'tis,—passed off on me last night! But I know who done it, and where he is,—leastways where he was last night, and he can't have got so very far. He's Tom Smith, the hawker, and he'd got his van in a field nigh 'pon the top of Woodend Lane last night—put it there without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave! Trespassing, that's what he was, and that's another thing you can have him up for. He was there to kidnap a child and a dog what he said was his; but I'll bet they wasn't—and that's another thing against him. Of course he'd move on as soon as he'd got the kid, but he can't have got so very far with that old horse of his—he looked as if he'd drop dead if he was made to go another mile."
The policeman stayed to see the train depart with the crowd safely packed inside it, then turned away with Bob. He was as anxious as Bob himself to follow up the case. Policemen did not get much chance in little country places, and promotion came slowly. "What was he giving you six shillings for?" he asked, as Bob and he trudged up the hill from the station.
Bob looked foolish. "Oh—for—for showing him the way," he stammered.
The policeman looked at him sharply. "What way?" he asked.
"To—to Woodend Lane," he answered, shortly, wondering distractedly how he could avoid giving true explanations; but the policeman, to his relief, did not press the matter further, and whatever his thoughts were, he kept them to himself.
Presently he asked, casually, "Where was the child he wanted to get hold of? In Woodend Lane?"
"Yes—I mean I dunno. I don't know nothing about it."
"I only asked, 'cause we've had word to keep a look-out for a man, probably with a caravan, who has stolen a child and a dog from Wood—"
"Why, look, what's that over there?" interrupted Bob, in sudden excitement.
"That over there" was a shabby brown caravan, hung about with tins and brushes, standing beneath a high hedge in a corner of a distant field. From the road beneath it, it would not be visible to any passer-by, but looking across country as they were the glitter of the tins flashing in the rays of the morning sun caught the eye, and discovered the van in its hiding-place.
"Here goes!" cried the policeman, excitedly. "A chap don't get a chance like this every day. Come along, young fellow, and don't make a noise."
Avoiding every possible risk of being observed approaching, Bob Thorp, led by the constable, made his way to the field where the caravan stood. Tethered to the hedge close by was Charlie, and securely roped to the van lay poor Dick.
"That's the dog," whispered Bob Thorp, excitedly.
Dick growled slightly at the faint sounds which now reached him, and more violently when he recognised his old enemy.
"Lie down, can't you?" bellowed a hoarse voice, roughly; and walking cautiously round to the front of the van they found the very man they were in search of lying on the ground rolled in a rug, with a couple of sacks over him. At the sight of Bob Thorp and the policeman he sprang to his feet at once.
"Anything you want, gentlemen? Anything I can sell you?" he asked, impudently. "A nice scrubbing-brush or—"
"'Tis you needs the scrubbing-brush, by the looks on you," said Bob, cheekily.
"And I want you," said the constable, sharply.
"Want me? What for?" he demanded, indignantly; but his face had suddenly turned an unhealthy gray colour, and in his eyes they could plainly read his alarm.
"Passing bad money," answered the policeman, quietly.
"Who says so? Who brought that charge against me?"
"'Im," the policeman jerked his head and his thumb towards Bob.
"And who's he, that his word should be took agin mine? Who's to say he hasn't been passing it himself, and—and of course he's got to put it off on someone, when he's found out."
"Well, you can fight that out before the magistrates. You've got to come along of me now. If you can explain it, that is all right, and you will soon be back again."
"All right," said Tom, agreeing, because he saw the uselessness of holding out. His brain was busy, though, trying to think out a plan. "I must just step inside, and break it to my wife—"
"Oh yes, and empty your pockets of all the rest of the bad money you've got!" burst out Bob, unable to control himself. "Likely tale that, eh!"
The policeman stepped over and laid his hand on Tom Smith'sshoulder. "There's one or two other little matters too," he said."You're wanted for some little affair about a girl and a dog.Is that the dog?"
"She's my own niece—"
"Is she? All right; you've only got to prove it, and that you're her lawful guardian, and a fit and proper person—"
A sharp scream suddenly rent the air, and made them all start. Emma Smith, waking from her heavy sleep, had heard the sound of voices, and looking cautiously out of the window, had caught sight of the policeman grasping her husband by the arm. Day and night for years she had been fearing this, and now it had actually happened! The shock was too much for her. Scream after scream pierced their ears, as she staggered out of the van and flung herself upon her husband.
The screams, which roused Dick to a fury of barking, and startled even poor old worn-out Charlie, wakened Huldah from the deep sleep into which she had fallen, exhausted by sorrow.
Springing from her bed, she saw the policeman, and that he had his hand on her uncle, holding him securely, in spite of Aunt Emma's attack. But why was Bob Thorp there, too? Huldah recognised him with a shock of surprise and fear.
For a moment she gazed frightened yet fascinated at the group, then across her mind flashed the thought, Here was her chance of escape! Quick as thought she caught up a knife from the table, and slipping down the steps cut the rope which held Dick, then, sheltered from view by the van itself, she clambered through the hedge with the dog at her heels, and away and away as fast as her feet could cover the ground. Her aunt's screams deadened any other noise, and her aunt's furious attack took all the attention of the three men, so that escape was easy.
It never entered Huldah's head that the policeman had come on her account, and that she was safer now than ever in her life before. She did not know there had been time to communicate with the police, and the one thought that had filled her mind all these weary hours was escape, and getting back to Mrs. Perry.
At first she raced wildly, but before very long her strength gave out, her excitement died down. Her pace grew slower and slower, more and more halting, and then finally she stopped. Thoughts of her Aunt Emma would force themselves on her mind. If her uncle was taken to jail, her aunt would be left alone with the horse and van. What would she do, day and night alone? How could she manage? Could she, Huldah, go and leave her like that!—but could she live that dreadful life again! Every day going further and further from Miss Rose and Mrs. Perry, and the dear little cottage, never perhaps to see them again! Huldah sat down on a bank underneath the hedge, to try and think the matter out. Dick came back from his happy wanderings and sat beside her, staring at her with wistful eyes, for he saw that she was in trouble, but why she should be was more than he could understand,—for were they not away together, and on their way home?
He gave a little whine, and Huldah looked up at him. "Oh, Dick, what can I do? Mrs. Perry will be so frightened there alone, and she'll be troubling about us so, and—and there's Miss Rose too"—more tears trickled down Huldah's cheeks,—"yet I can't go and leave Aunt Emma all alone now, with the van and Charlie to look after, and Uncle Tom in jail. Oh, what can I do? what can I do!"
Dick was puzzled too, but at that moment a fresh burst of screams burst on her ears, terrible, noisy screams, and bitter cries and shoutings. Tom Smith was being led away by the constable, and his wife had flung herself on the ground in hysterics, real or feigned.
Huldah crept back to the hedge and peered through. Her heart was heavy as lead. Her body ached with the blows she had received the night before, and her head throbbed painfully too, but these were as nothing compared with the pain of her poor little aching disappointed heart. On the other side of the hedge she saw her aunt lying on the ground, sobbing, screaming, and beating the ground with her fists.
Huldah crept back through the hedge, and up to her side. "Aunt Emma,don't take on like that," she said, gently, trying to comfort her."He'll be back soon. They won't do anything to him, for certain."She little dreamed how black the case was against him.
But the sight of the girl seemed to change her aunt's overwhelming grief to sudden and violent anger against herself. Springing to her feet, she snatched the heavy whip from the van, and brought it down with all the force of which she was capable across Huldah's shoulders.
"It's all your fault!" she screamed, "it's all your fault! It was only to get hold of you that he offered the fellow the money, and if you hadn't run away he'd never have had to do it. 'Tis all your fault he's took, and I'll make you smart for it, my lady!" and seizing the poor shrinking, frightened child, she beat her until her arm dropped to her side exhausted.
"Stop that!" cried a stern voice, loudly. Huldah and her aunt fell back, shocked and startled by the sight of another policeman close to them. In the noise and excitement they had not heard anyone approaching. "Give me that whip."
Huldah gave one terrified glance at the man in blue, and fell fainting at his feet.
Emma Smith handed over the whip meekly enough. She was thoroughly scared now, for she never doubted that Huldah was dead, and that the policeman would declare that she had killed the child. In her terror for herself, her anxiety about her husband was forgotten. She began to wail and sob and beg forgiveness. She threw herself on the ground, calling loudly to Huldah to open her eyes and get up. She tried coaxings and all sorts of promises, but the policeman only thrust her aside.
"Go and get some cold water," he said, sternly.
She crept away meekly, and presently brought back a little drop in a broth basin. "That's all there is," she said, apologetically. It was very little, but with it the big man bathed the child's face and hands, and dabbed her lips and her brow.
"Go and get a blanket," he ordered. "She oughtn't to be lying on the cold wet ground so long. She doesn't seem to be coming round." He felt Huldah's pulse, and laid his hand over her heart. "Itisbeating," he muttered, in a tone of relief. Then he lifted her on to the blanket, and wrapped her in it, then bathed her brow again, until presently a faint quiver of the body and a fluttering sigh showed that consciousness was returning.
At last Huldah opened her eyes and looked vaguely about her, wondering where she was. At sight of her aunt and the policeman the old look of terror came back to her face, and she struggled to sit up.
"Don't you hurry yourself, now," said the policeman, kindly. "And don't you be afraid of me. I've come to look after you, and take you back to your friends."
"You can't," muttered Emma Smith, sullenly. "She's mine.The child's right enough; they all want a hiding sometimes."
"Sometimes, perhaps, but not constant; and never as you lays it on. I should be taking you up for murder if you did it often in your way!"
Emma Smith only looked more sullen. "Well, she's mine, and no one else's, and I'm going to keep her."
"Look here, my woman, what's the good of going on like that? You've got to prove, first of all, that she is yours, and then that you're a fit and proper person to have her. In the meantime I've got my orders to fetch her away, and if you want her you can apply to the magistrates, and prove to them all that you've been saying. Now, then, where's her bonnet and shawl?"
"She hasn't got any," sulkily.
"Then you've got to provide her with some. Hurry up; but first of all, has she had anything to eat or drink to-day?"
"No, nor won't have. I haven't got anything for myself."
"That seems unlucky; but if you'll come along of me you shall have a good cup of tea and a bit of breakfast. Now then, missie, are you ready?"
Huldah had sat speechless all this time. She felt giddy and ill, and quite worn out. She was so dazed too, she could not think what to do, or what she ought to do. Things seemed to have got beyond her, and to be taken out of her hands.
She struggled to her feet, and let the policeman wrap her, head and all, in the old shawl. She wondered vaguely if she would feel better able to walk when once she had started; but even the standing on her feet seemed too much for her, and it was with a real sense of relief that she felt the man lift her in his arms and stride away with her.
No word of farewell was said, but in a moment or two she heard her aunt's rough voice calling after them, "You've no right to that dog, and if you takes him I'll have the law of you!"
The policeman stopped, and turned round. "Oh, by the way, I've forgot one thing now. I want to see your dog-licence."
But Emma Smith only walked away into the van muttering angrily, and banging the door after her, left them to go their way in peace.
Huldah scarcely knew how that walk passed. She was conscious now and then of a feeling of shame, for letting herself be carried. She felt she ought to walk, but before she could say so the old faintness stole over her again, and she knew that to walk was beyond her power. Now and then she heard the policeman talking in a friendly voice to Dick, who walked close beside them, and Dick's excited bark. She was wondering how much further they had to go, when they drew up, and Huldah found herself being laid on a wooden bench in a room where two or three policemen were standing round a fire.
To her surprise, she was no longer afraid of them, they were too kind and gentle for that. One of those standing by the fire, an elderly man, came over to where she lay.
"Well, young woman," he said, cheerfully, "and when did you have anything to eat last? Day before yesterday, by the look of you."
Huldah tried to remember. "It wasn't quite so long ago as that," she said, feebly. "I had some dinner—yesterday, I think. When was yesterday?"
The man laughed. "Don't you worry," he said, kindly; "you've been living two days in one, and have got muddled. You will feel better when you've had a basin of hot bread and milk. Bring her over to the fire, Harry, she's starved with the cold."
"Harry," her first friend, carried her over, and put her in a big armchair by the fire, and presently one of the others brought her a basin of hot bread and milk, and a plateful of food for Dick, and before Huldah had taken a half of it she was feeling altogether a different person.
"I didn't feel hungry, but I s'pose I was," she said, simply, looking up with grateful, friendly eyes at the old policeman. "I feel ever so much better now."
"Ay, ay; we don't always know what we want, nor what is good for us,—but here's somebody as'll be good for you, unless I'm very much mistaken!" and Huldah, following the direction of his eyes as they travelled to the door, gave one long low cry of rapturous delight, for there walking in to the police station were Mrs. Perry and Miss Rose!
Huldah was home again, and Dick too, and more free and happy than they had ever been in their lives before, for, from Huldah, at any rate, there was lifted the great dread of being traced by her uncle and taken back, a dread which had in the old days lain always like a shadow on her life. Now, the worst had happened, and was over, for the law had declared that neither Tom Smith nor Emma, his wife had the slightest claim to her, not being related at all. Nor were they fit and proper persons to have the charge of any child. And to her great delight she was handed over to the guardianship of the vicar and Miss Rose Carew, and to the care of Mrs. Perry, to be trained and brought up to be an honest, truthful, industrious woman.
Never to the end of her life would Huldah forget that home-coming, that drive back to Woodend Lane, or those days that followed.
"Was it really only yesterday that I was here, and Dick and I walked into Belmouth?" she asked, incredulously, as she lay back in the carriage. "It seems weeks and weeks ago! Oh, how lovely everything is! It seems as if I didn't notice it enough till now;" and she drew in long breaths of the fresh cold air, and the mingled scents of wet earth and pine trees. "I seem to smell vi'lets, but they can't be out yet, can they, miss?"
Miss Carew laughed. "Lots of things have happened since yesterday, brownie; but even the brownies could not make the violets spring up and open in one night."
"But God could," thought Huldah to herself.
After all that happened in the last twenty-four hours, she felt that nothing was beyond His power, but she was too shy to say so aloud. A deep sense of love and gratitude for all the goodness shown to her made her feel, a moment later, ashamed of her shyness. God had been so good to her, how could she be so bad as to feel ashamed to speak of Him? She had prayed and prayed, and prayed to Him all that long night through, and He had heard her, and sent her help.
She had been frightened, and she had been made to suffer, but it was only that all might be made better for her presently. Young though she was, she could see that if she had not had this trial to go through, she would always have had the old danger, the old fear hanging over her. She would never have felt quite safe and happy.
Miss Rose had taught her about God, and His Son, the gentle, loving Christ. She had taught her to pray to Him, and to read her Bible, and to sing hymns, but only now did He become real to Huldah, her very only loving Father, and her heart swelled with love and gratitude to Him who had stood by her and taken care of her. She knew now, too, that He would take care of her all her life through.
"Oh, it's grand!" she thought to herself, "to have a big strong Father and a Brother to watch over one!" And she felt as though no one could harm her any more.
Rob was walking in leisurely fashion up the hill now, and no sound broke the silence but the twittering of the birds in the hedge, Rob's short, sharp steps on the hard road, and the scrunching of the gravel under the wheels, when suddenly Miss Rose's voice sounded singing softly but sweetly,
"Lead Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on;The night is dark, and I am far from home,Lead Thou me on.Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene,—one step enough for me."
Then Martha Perry's feeble voice joined in, and last of all Huldah's shy, weak treble. They were all so grateful, so full of thankfulness and faith, they could not help it. And ever after, when Huldah passed along that road, the same lines sprang spontaneously to heart and lips, "One step enough for me."
Winter ended soon, and spring came early that year. In the cottage garden the wallflowers and daffodils had sprung up and burst into bloom before anyone had quite realised that their time had come. In the field opposite the hedges were so lined with primroses that the scent greeted you across the road.
In those warm days, when school was over, and on half-holidays, Huldah took her work across to the field, and sat in the sunshine surrounded by the gold-starred hedges, where the ferns and violets and ladies' smocks fought for room, and mingled in one sweet tangle of beauty. She was very, very happy in those days, and busy from morning till night. She had her house-work, her school-work, and also her basket-making, and she worked very hard indeed at the last, for by means of it she was able to buy many little comforts for "Aunt Martha," as she had learnt to call Mrs. Perry, and was able to clothe herself, and put something by in the bank. At least, she hoped to be able to go on doing that, if the orders came in as they had done.
"When I leave school I shall have ever so much more time, too," she thought, joyfully,—for Huldah did not love school, and longed for the time when she would be freed from it.
In the middle of the field rose a high hillock, over which the young lambs loved to run and play in the spring-time, and on the top of the hillock lay the trunk of a large tree, which had lain there ever since a storm had blown it down years ago.
Huldah, at any rate, was glad of the idleness which had never put the tree to any good use, for it formed her favourite seat now. The view from it was lovely, she could look right down over the slope of the hill to the woods and stream at the foot, and then away up over the moorland beyond, and she could see the road, too, and keep watch over the cottage, and if Aunt Martha wanted her, she had only to step to the door and wave her hand.
Sometimes during that summer she got Mrs. Perry up to the fallen tree too, and more than once they had their tea there. But Mrs. Perry was not very fond of sitting out of doors, and more often Huldah was alone, save for Dick, alone with her thoughts and hopes and dreams.
That summer was a long and hot one, with frequent heavy thunderstorms. Mrs. Perry could not endure the storms, they made her feel ill, and frightened her, until all her nerves were set quivering. Huldah herself felt no fear, but she did dread the storms for her aunt's sake, and there seemed no end to them that summer.
"I do believe there's another coming up," she sighed, as, suddenly noticing that the light was going, she lifted her eyes from her work and looked about her. "I'd better go in now, in case it does come on; but it is vexing. I did so want to finish this."
It was the last day of August, and the close of the holidays, and Huldah had made up her mind to get the last of an order finished, and ready to send away before she went back to school. She glanced down hesitatingly at her unfinished work, and then at the gathering blackness of the sky around her, a blackness which had a red-brown angry glow underneath,—a glow which left no time for hesitation.
There was no doubt about it, she must go, and go quickly, or Aunt Martha would be worrying. She glanced across at the cottage, and there sure enough was Mrs. Perry standing waving her hand to call her in.
Huldah sprang to her feet at once. "Run on, Dick, and tell her I'm coming. Run home, that's a good dog!"
Dick started, hesitated, but at a sign from his mistress ran on again. Huldah collected her work and rolled it all up in her work-apron,—one with big pockets, which Miss Rose had made for her,—but before she was ready a sharp bark from Dick made her wheel round quickly. A strange, shabbily dressed woman was standing talking to Mrs. Perry. She had come so silently, so unexpectedly that Huldah had quite a shock, it seemed almost as though she had sprung up out of the ground.
"Only someone begging, I suppose," she said to herself, but there was a vague feeling of trouble at her heart that she could not account for. The new-comer looked harmless enough, a poor, shabbily dressed beggar-woman, thin, stooping, feeble-looking.
When Mrs. Perry raised her head and looked up over the field again, Huldah saw that her face was white and frightened, and in sudden alarm she took to her heels, and ran as fast as she could to the gate.
At the click of the latch the new-comer turned and looked across the road, and as she looked Huldah felt her head reel, and her heart almost stop beating, for the tramp was Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma, come to cross her path once more. Aunt Emma, shabbier and dirtier than ever, and with a pinched, starved look, which showed that things had not been going well with her.
When she caught sight of Huldah, her face lightened a little, and she hurried across the road to meet her.
"I've come to know if you can help me," she began, in the same old fretful, whining voice. "I know you don't want to see me again, nobody does, but I'm starving. I've been starving mostly ever since Tom was took away—"
"Took away," gasped Huldah faintly. "Where?"
"He's got three years. Didn't you know? And I'm left to keep myself, and I can't do it. I'll never live till he comes out, I know. I've sold the van and everything. I couldn't go round with it by meself, but the man that had it off me cheated me something crool. When Tom knows he'll—he'll—oh he'll be mad with me—"
"And Charlie?" asked Huldah, anxiously.
"Charlie! Oh, he's dead. He dropped down in the road one day.'Twas lucky I'd sold him, wasn't it? He died only two days after."
Tears sprang to Huldah's eyes. "Oh, Charlie, poor dear old Charlie!" she cried, "and—and I never said good-bye to him, or anything!"
"He's best off," said Emma Smith, coldly. "I wouldn't have been sorry if I'd dropped down dead, too."
Huldah gasped.
"I can't get anything to do. I've tried to sell laces and buttons, and cotton, but nobody don't seem to want any,—leastways not of me," and neither of her listeners wondered, when they looked at her, so dirty, so untidy, so forbidding in appearance.
"I couldn't earn enough to get food or a bed, leave alone buy a new stock."
Huldah wondered why she had come. Was it only to beg? In another moment she knew.
"I came to see if you couldn't 'elp me a bit. You've got good friends and a comfortable home, and plenty to eat and drink. You surely wouldn't let me go starving—me that brought you up, and did everything for you."
"Everything!" Huldah's thoughts flew back over her life, from the time her mother died until she made her escape, a year ago, and wondered what was meant by "everything."
"I know as you can make a good bit by your baskets, and it don't seem fair that strangers should have it all, do it?"
"Strangers don't have it all," said Huldah, warmly. "Even my best friends don't. I have what I earn, to buy what I like with. I buy my own clothes, and I give Mrs. Perry a little for keeping me—"
"Oh! a pretty fine thing that! Why, she ought to be paying you wages for being a little galley-slave to her, and doing all her work!"
"I don't!" cried Huldah, indignantly. "I don't work nearly as hard as I did for you, when I never had a penny of my own, not even from what my baskets made."
In a moment, though, she was sorry she had lost her temper. Mrs. Perry, standing at her door watching them, looked so frightened when their words rose high, and Emma Smith herself looked so weary and miserable one could not help pitying her.
"I—I've got half-a-crown in my purse. I'll give you that," said Huldah, gently. "It's all I have now, but it will get you a bed and some food."
Mrs. Perry came towards them. "Huldah," she said, kindly, "if your— if Mrs. Smith will come in and rest, I'll make her a cup of tea. She looks fit to drop."
The poor tramp turned to her gratefully. "I feels like it too. I haven't tasted anything since yesterday," she added, feebly; and, now that the eagerness and excitement had died out of her face, she looked almost like a dying woman.
They led the way into the cottage, and gave her the most comfortable chair. She dropped into it with almost a groan of relief, and then, as though the kindness overcame her, she began to weep weakly. "I couldn't help coming to Huldah," she sobbed. "I couldn't keep away. I haven't a friend or relation in the world but her, nor nowhere to go,—but the workhouse, and I can't go there. I'd rather die under a hedge. I've always been so used to the open, and my freedom, and I couldn't bear it. But I haven't got a penny, nor no means of getting one. Whatever I'm going to do I don't know. Tom's put away for three years, and I shan't ever live to see him come out, I know,—but nobody cares! It don't matter to nobody whether I'm alive or dead."
The storm had broken by this time, and the crashing of the thunder seemed to add horror to the hopeless misery of her sobs and complainings. Huldah could scarcely bear it.
"Aunt Emma, don't say such things," she cried. "I care, I do really. You shan't starve,—not while I can work. I'll work harder, and help you. I'll ask Miss Rose about it."
But the half-starved, miserable woman could not check her sobs, once they had begun. The hunger and want and loneliness had worn her health and spirit until a little kindness was more than she could bear. She broke down entirely under it.
Huldah sat with a very grave face all the time they were taking their tea. Things had suddenly become so perplexing, she did not know what to do or think.
"Oh dear," she sighed, "it all seemed so lovely only an hour ago. I thought it was going to last like it for ever and ever." She was so lost in perplexity about Aunt Emma's future, that Mrs. Perry was left to entertain their guest,—to listen, at least, to the tale of her wanderings and sufferings, and the hardships she had endured all her life.
"I've never 'ad nobody to care for me, nor no kindness from anybody, so I haven't got to thank anybody for anything—that's one thing!" the poor foolish woman kept repeating, as though, instead of being ashamed of it, it was something to be proud of.
"As we sow, we reap," thought Aunt Martha; the truth of the words had come home to her many times, since she had taken in the two friendless waifs. Dick and Huldah would have loved this woman too, if she had allowed them to. She grew a little impatient of the long complainings. "We don't get love back, if we don't give any," she said at last.
"Who'd I got? Who'd want me to love them?" she demanded, peevishly.
"Why, the child, for one, and Dick, and that poor old horse, not to speak of your husband."
Emma Smith was silent. It had never before entered her head that to be loved one must love, that the way to win it is to think of others first, and self last. She ceased her complaining, as she realised for the first time that others besides herself had something to complain of. She had always been one of those who are so full of pity for themselves that they never have time to feel pity for others.
By the time the meal was finished Huldah's mind was made up. She must talk to Miss Rose about things. The matter seemed so puzzling, so complicated, she could not sort out the right and the wrong of it at all. It was all beyond her. Aunt Martha fell in with the plan at once.
"Mrs. Smith can stay here with me till you come back," she said, hospitably; and the visitor agreed eagerly.
The storm was over by that time, but the air was oppressive, and the heat great. Huldah walked along very soberly, for there was a sense of depression weighing on her, a foreboding that an end was coming to her happy, peaceful life. There was always trouble when any part of her old life cropped up again.
She was ashamed, too, to be troubling Miss Rose again about her affairs; she felt she had done little but bring trouble to them all ever since she had walked into their lives that summer's night a year ago. She who longed to bring them nothing but pleasure!
Just then she came to the top of the little hill up which Rob had crawled that winter morning, and once again the words Miss Rose had sung came back to her, as though they still lingered on the air there,
"Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene,—one step enough for me."
Huldah sang them aloud as she descended the slope, and the load of care slipped off her heart, leaving her with a brave determination to face courageously whatever might have to be faced.
And there was very much to be faced, she found as the days came and went, for within a week of that afternoon when Emma Smith crossed her path again, much had been discussed and arranged, and another change was to come into Huldah's life.
The doctor, the vicar's own doctor, had seen and examined Emma Smith, and had given her but another year to live. He had not told her that, but he had warned her very gravely that she was in a very bad state of health, and that he would not answer for the consequences, if she did not obey him; and something in his voice or manner had stopped her peevish complainings, and set her thinking seriously.
The doctor strongly urged that she should go to the workhouse infirmary. "She will be well nursed and looked after there," he said, "and she will be provided with all she requires," but she herself showed such violent opposition that at last, in fear for her health, they ceased to press it. Had they done so, she would surely have run away. At the same time she had no other home, no means, and what powers she had had of earning any were fast failing her.
"I thought you'd be able to help me, now you'm getting on so well," she said to Huldah. "We fed and clothed and did everything for you, and now's your chance of returning some of it." Then her mood changed, and she wept and moaned, and clung to the girl passionately. "Don't you leave me!" she pleaded, hysterically; "don't you go and turn your back on me, too. You was mine before you was hers," nodding her head towards Mrs. Perry.
Her clinging to Huldah was more than a passing fancy, as they found, when they tried to get her to go into a home where she could have had rest and change and food and nursing. She sobbed and pleaded, then flatly refused to go, unless Huldah went too.
"She's the only one in the world I know," she cried. "Don't send me away with strangers, they'll all look down on me, and—and I—no, I couldn't bear it. I won't go, I won't, I won't! I'll go off on the tramp again, where none of you will ever find me, and I won't ever bother any of you any more."
At last Huldah went with tears in her eyes to Miss Carew. "I'll have to go with her, miss," she said, piteously. "She can't go away on the tramp all by herself. I can keep us both pretty well. I must go with her, Miss Rose, wherever she goes; she hasn't got anybody else."
This of course they could not allow. They could never send such a child as Huldah out into the world, with only a dying woman as companion and protector, to live where and how she could, in nobody knew what dreadful haunts. So it was decided between them that Emma Smith was to settle down amongst them, and Huldah must leave Mrs. Perry and go to live with her. No lodgings could be found for her, for in that village the houses were not big enough to hold in comfort even the families that lived in them, and there was certainly no room for a lodger. And houses were as scarce as lodgings.
At last a brilliant idea came to Miss Carew, and with her father's permission she hurried off with the good news.
"You shall have the two rooms over our coach-house," she cried, delightedly, for it was a real relief to her to feel that Huldah would be so near her, and under her own eye. "They are a good size, and dry and airy; and we must all pull together to get what furniture we can."
Huldah's face grew brighter and brighter with every word Miss Rose uttered, for she had begun to fear that they would have to go elsewhere.
To be near Miss Rose, too, would help to make up for the pain of leaving Aunt Martha and Dick and the cottage, a parting which had been weighing on her more heavily than she would have liked anyone to know. Dick, it was decided, was to remain with Mrs. Perry, for without him she declared she could not live on in the cottage when Huldah was gone.
As soon as the rooms had been cleaned and papered, the furnishing began, and that was really rather fun. No one was rich, and no one could give much, but what they gave they gave with a will. Miss Rose turned out some sheets and pillow-cases, a table and a chair, the vicar ordered in half a ton of coal, the doctor's wife gave them a bed, some pieces of carpet, curtains, a kettle and an old basket chair. Mrs. Perry gave a teapot, cups and saucers, and a rag-rug of her own making. The doctor sent in some pots and pans, and meat and other food to put in them, and the folks in the village, who had come to know Huldah's story, turned out something, and sent, a jug, a brush, a sack of firewood, a bar of soap, and all manner of odds and ends, every one of which came in usefully. Huldah's own little bed and looking-glass and odds and ends came from her bedroom in the cottage, and all together helped to make the two bare rooms look home-like and comfortable.
The furniture was scanty and shabby, but to anyone accustomed to rough it as Emma Smith had done, the place was beautiful, and full of comfort and rest.
When it was ready, and she was first taken into it, she dropped into the basket chair by the fire, and burst into grateful tears. It was the first time she had shown any gratitude or pleasure in what was being done for her.
"It's like 'ome," she sobbed, weakly, "and I've never had one since I got married, till now,—and now—how I'm ever going to thank everybody, I don't know. I never seem able to do any good to anybody, I don't. 'Tis all take, with me, and no give, and I'm ashamed of it."
Huldah felt some of the load slip off her spirits as she looked about her. Here really was a home for Aunt Emma,—and now it rested with herself to make it as neat and comfortable and happy as a home could be. She would keep it as clean as a new pin, and as pretty as lay in her power. She tried to conquer her sadness by hard work, to put away her sorrow at leaving Aunt Martha and Dick and their happy life together.
"Brownies always go where there's most to be done, Miss Rose says, not where they'll be most comfortable," she said to herself, bravely, but her poor little face was very wistful. A few days later, though, when, after a long day's work, she sat down and looked about her, she remarked cheerfully, "I don't think anybody can go on feeling very miserable when they've lots to do and somebody to take care of." A glow of pride warmed her heart, as she sat there drying her water-soaked hands, and glanced from the gleaming stove and fire-irons to the speckless window, and well-scrubbed table.
On the table stood a jar full of autumn flowers, and on the window-sill a box full of brown earth and little roots, double daisies, primulas, wallflowers. This last was Huldah's special joy and pride.
"We'll have a proper little garden there, when the spring comes," she remarked proudly to Aunt Emma.
Aunt Emma shook her head in melancholy fashion. "I shan't be here to see it."
"Oh yes you will. You'll be helping me with the spring cleaning," said Huldah, trying to keep cheerful,—one of the hardest of her daily tasks, for Aunt Emma's melancholy seldom left her. She never saw the bright side of anything, poor soul, nor the best, nor did she try to; and the depressingness of it told on the child's spirits more than anyone knew.
She worked very hard indeed at this time. The vicar had given them the rooms rent-free; but Huldah's basket-making had to supply almost everything else—food, clothing, lights, and many an extra—needed for Aunt Emma. Their rooms were few, and there was not much in them, but all that had to be done fell to Huldah to do. Emma Smith never put her hand to anything, not even to wash a dish, cook a meal, or make her own bed. She needed a great deal of waiting on, too, and was very fretful. She did not like to be left alone, even while Huldah went out to do the errands; and on the days when the poor child had to go to Belmouth to deliver her work, or get more raffia, Aunt Emma had always a very bad turn, and an attack of melancholy.
It was quite pathetic to see the way she clung to the little waif she had treated so cruelly when she had her in her power. She wanted no one but Huldah now, and she wanted her always. She loved her brightness and cheerfulness. When Huldah laughed and sang she was quite content, but the moment she was sad or quiet, Aunt Emma would grow peevish and uneasy.
"You'm fretting because you've got to stay here with me, I know. You'm longing to be back with that Mrs. Perry. I know it's 'ard to 'ave to live with a poor miserable creature like me, and I wonder you can bear it as well as you do."
Then she would burst into tears. It never occurred to her that she might try to make it less miserable for Huldah, by trying to be cheerful herself sometimes.
"I'm not fretting. I love taking care of you," pleaded poor Huldah. "I was only trying to think how to make a new-shaped basket that people might take a fancy to. Shall I read to you, Aunt Emma?"
Emma Smith loved being read to, and hour after hour Huldah spent over a book when she knew she ought to be at her basket-making. To try to make up the time, she got up at four or five in the morning, but in the winter that meant burning oil, and they could not afford that. Then one day it occurred to her to sing instead of reading, and after that she found things easier, for she could sing while she worked.
It was a strange medley of songs that echoed through the rooms in the thin child-like voice. "Home, sweet Home," "Father, dear Father, come Home," "God save the King," "The Old Folks at Home," were some of their favourites, and if the words and air were not always correct, they never failed to bring pleasure to both performer and audience.
Of hymns Huldah had a greater store in her brain, and by degrees these ousted the songs as favourites.
"Sing that one about the green hill without any wall round it," Aunt Emma said one day. "It does mind me so of 'ome when we were children. Our cottage was just at the foot of a hill like that, and mother used to turn us out there to play together by the hour. It was what they call a mountain. We used to dare each other to go to the top."
"Did you ever do it?" asked Huldah, plaiting away industriously.
"Never; we was so afraid. It was so high up, and the top looked so far away, and—oh, it used to frighten me! I'd dream at night that I was lost up there, and I'd call and call, and nobody ever heard me or came to save me."
"He'dhave saved, if you'd asked Him," said Huldah, gravely.
"I wonder why He didn't save Himself," said Aunt Emma. "I spose He could have, couldn't He?"
"Oh yes, He could, and He could have struck all His enemies down dead if He'd liked, only He was always one for thinking about others, never about Himself."
"And that's the sort that always gets put upon," said Aunt Emma, quickly.
"He died that we might go to Heaven,He died to make us good,He died that we might be forgiven—"
Aunt Emma's voice failed, and she suddenly burst into tears. "I couldn't never be good enough," she sobbed, piteously. "I haven't been good since I was a child, and now I'm going to die—I know it, I feel it, I see it in the doctor's face, and—and everybody's. I've got to die, and just when I'm happy for the first time. He says He loves everybody, but nobody ever loved me, I never gave 'em reason to, and—and I'm afraid to die, Huldah! I've been so bad, and it'll be so lonely! I wouldn't mind so much if there was somebody over—over the other side that loved me."
There had been a footstep on the stair, but neither of them had heard it, and when Miss Rose entered the room neither of them saw her, for their eyes were blinded with tears.
"Oh, Aunt Emma!" cried Huldah, springing to her bedside, "I love you! I do, I do, and—and oh, I wish someone would tell you all about it, so that you'd understand, and feel happy!"
A soft, light step crossed the room, and a gentle hand was laid onHuldah's bowed head. "Dear, shall I try? Shall we try together?"
Huldah sprang to her feet with a glad cry. "Oh, Miss Rose, I was longing for you to come. You can tell Aunt Emma."
Miss Rose sat down beside the bed, and laid her hand gently on Emma's hand. "I wish I was more clever," she said, wistfully. "I wish I could make you feel how dearly Jesus has always loved you, how He has wept for you and longed for you, how He has forgiven you all the neglect and insults you have heaped on Him, and has held out His arms, beseeching you to come to Him! At this very moment He is standing at the door, patiently waiting for you to let Him in. Will you keep Him outside, dear Emma?"
Miss Rose's voice died away, and silence reigned in the darkening room; the fire fell together and sent up a cheerful flame, Emma Smith lay thinking,—"Was it really true that He wanted her?" That she had turned her back on Him, and mocked and insulted Him, she knew, knew better than anyone else could,—and could He really love her in spite of all?
Miss Rose's voice broke the silence, singing softly,
"Knocking, knocking, who is there?Waiting, waiting, oh, how fair!'Tis a Pilgrim, strange and kingly,Never such was seen before;Ah, my soul, for such a wonderWilt thou not undo the door?Knocking, knocking—what, still there?Waiting, waiting, grand and fair,Yes, the pierced hand still knocketh,And beneath the crowned hairBeam the patient eyes, so tender,Of the Saviour, waiting there."
Low sobs broke from the poor soul on the bed, sobs of grief and joy and repentance. "If He really cares—if He is really like that!" she sobbed. "Oh, I want Him! I do want Him to love and take care of me, too!"
Miss Rose's arms were round her, her lips were on her brow. "My dear, He is all that, and more. He will take care of you always, in this world and the next. He will love you so that you cannot feel lonely any more. Put your hand in His, put all your troubles off on His shoulders, trust Him, and follow where He leads you, and nothing can harm you. Don't be afraid. He will lead you to a home, and love and happiness such as no one could know in this world, where we are all so weak and full of faults."
"Home! Will it seem like home?" she asked, timidly.
"I'll soon be at home, over there,For the end of my journey I see,Many dear to my heart over thereAre watching and waiting for me,Over there, over there,I'll soon be at home over there."
sang Huldah, softly. The flame died down, and left the room very dim, but still the three sat on, silent, thoughtful. Miss Rose sat between them, holding a hand of each.
"I expect 'twas Him as led me back to Huldah," said the weak voice, presently.
"Yes, dear. He was bringing you together, that all might be made happy between you."
"I am very glad He did. 'Twas more'n I deserved—after the way I'd treated one of His."
Huldah threw herself across the bed, her arms thrown round the dying woman. "Aunt Emma—Aunt Emma, don't! That's all forgotten. I deserved what I got. It's all over now; don't let's remember it any more!"
"Will you tell—Him you've forgiven me?"
"Yes, oh yes; but He knows, there's no need to tell Him. He knows we love each other now,—oh, Aunt Emma, if you can only get well, how happy we shall be!"
Miss Rose got up and stirred the fire to a blaze again. Her heart was glad, yet sad. Glad that this poor soul was coming to her Father, but at the same time sad, for she knew how little hope there was of Huldah's wish coming to pass. It was sweet, though, to the dying woman to hear the wish from the child she had ill-treated and neglected so long, and she clasped her to her in a paroxysm of love.
For a moment they lay thus, then Miss Rose put a handful of wood on the fire, and made the blaze grow bright and brisk.
"I am not going to talk any more now," she said, cheerily, "or let you talk, Emma, or I shall have a scolding from the doctor, but I am going to ask you and Huldah to give me a cup of tea, here in the firelight. Then, after that, I am going to tell you a little piece of news."
The bed was wheeled up to the fireplace, the tea table and two chairs were grouped about the hearth, and there they had their last meal together in happy peacefulness.
A sense of quiet rested on them all, a shade of awe, of feelings so deep that ordinary chatter would have seemed out of place. Emma Smith's thoughts were still lingering about that figure standing outside the door, "Knocking, knocking." She must have seen a picture once of that figure with the patient, tender eyes, knocking at a fast-closed door, but she had never troubled to ask who it was. Now it all seemed close, He was so real. It was ordinary, everyday life that seemed unreal now, that began to seem to her so far away.
Huldah was drawing bright pictures in her mind of days when the spring would come, and Aunt Emma would be stronger and able to walk about; they would be able to go and see Aunt Martha sometimes. Her thoughts dwelt lovingly on Aunt Martha and Dick. She saw them seldom now, the storms and the rough roads kept Aunt Martha at home, and Huldah could not leave her Aunt Emma.
So busy was she with her thoughts that she forgot all about MissRose's promised piece of news, until, when the tea was over, MissRose spoke of it again.
"You must light the lamp now, brownie. I want to talk to your aunt.There is someone wanting to see her,—someone that she wants to see,I think."
Emma Smith turned quickly, an eager light flashing over her face."Is it—Tom?" she asked, excitedly.
"Yes—your husband. He has behaved so well he got his discharge as soon as it was possible, and he has come in search of you."
Suddenly the light and eagerness died out of her face. "Charlie—and the van!" she cried, growing white to the lips. "I've got to tell him,—he'll never forgive me." Her lips quivered piteously.
"He knows," said Miss Rose, soothingly. "I told him. I thought it better to explain quickly what had happened, and not let him be expecting to find them too."
She did not tell of the scene there had been when first he had heard of the loss, nor the difficulty they had had in persuading him to see his wife, and be kind to her. "I don't want her; 'twas the horse and van I wanted," he said, cruelly.
He was not really as cruel, though, as he appeared. He seemed quite touched when he heard of his wife's starving state when she came in search of Huldah, and of her condition now, and expressed a desire to see her. "I won't say nothing to upset her," he promised, when they seemed to hesitate.
Huldah's face had turned even whiter than Emma's, when she heard who was near, and what he wanted, her fear of him had been so increased since he carried her away by force that night. But when she saw how eager her aunt was to see him, she did try to overcome her fears.
Within a few moments of Miss Rose's telling of her "news," he was there, in their midst. To pale, trembling Huldah, whose every nerve had been set quivering by the mere sound of his step on the stair, he threw only a cool nod, as, awkwardly enough, he made his way to his wife's bedside, and sat down beside her.
"I hear you'm bad," he said, coolly, but it was plain that her altered appearance shocked him. Every now and again, when she was not looking, he gave long wondering glances at her, and his eyes were almost troubled. "So I hear you and the kid have been living together again."
"Huldah? Oh, Tom, she's been such a comfort to me—"
"That's all right. I s'pose she isn't such a bad kid, on the whole."
"She's more'n good to me." Then quickly, feverishly she began to pour out the story of her life since he "was took away." She told him of Charlie and the van, and how she was tricked. Of her coming to Huldah, and their home together, and her own illness, until gradually her voice grew weary and fainter and fainter. The flush died out of her cheeks, the light out of her eyes. She was exhausted, but after she could not even whisper, a smile still hovered about her lips, and her hand held that of her husband. He sat on, apparently content to do so. When her voice ceased, he did not seem to notice. He appeared to be lost in thought to which no one had the clue.
Huldah sat as still as a mouse, never speaking, and hoping to escape being spoken to. Occasionally she placed a piece of coal or wood on the fire, but that was all. She could not see her aunt's face, but she thought at last she must be asleep, she was so still and quiet.
The silence, broken as it was only by the crackle of the fire, had begun to grow oppressive, when suddenly it was broken by a sound of singing, low, quivering, almost indistinct:—
"For the end—of my—journey—I see—Many dear to my heart—over thereAre watching—and waiting for me.Over—there, over—there—I'll soon be—at—home—"
Tom Smith tried to draw away his hand, but his wife's hand clung to it, her voice died away. "Kiss me—Tom, won't you?" she gasped.
He stooped and kissed her. She lifted her hand to touch his cheek, but it fell back helpless. "Hark," she gasped—"the knocking! I—am coming—" then with one long deep sigh, her voice was still for ever.
A few moments later, Tom Smith stumbled down the stairs, and out into the darkness and away, never to be seen by Huldah again. She knew and realised nothing then, but that her Aunt Emma was dead, that all her dreams had ended, all her plans for the future were fruitless, that their living together was ended, her home broken up once more.
"She's had such a hard life!" she sobbed. "And I thought I was going to make her so happy when she got about a bit again."
"But she never would have got about again, dear. She could never have got beyond these rooms, and I feel sure she would always have worried about her husband. She could never have gone about with him again, and she would have fretted at being left behind. She is happy now, brownie, and out of pain. No one who really loved her could wish her back again. Don't grieve so, Huldah dear. You made the last months of her life happier than any she had known."
"But I ran away and left her, and he beat her and Charlie for it, and—and—"
"Brownie, dear, if you want to do what would have pleased your aunt, you will forget all that. She loved him and forgave him everything, and she longed for others too to forget that he was ever anything but a kind husband."
Huldah was silent. She understood the feeling. It was what she wanted everyone to feel with regard to Aunt Emma,—to remember only what was good of her.
And she had her wish. The little group gathered in the churchyard a few days later remembered only her suffering and her sorrows, and the love which had lived through all, and many a pretty bunch of winter flowers and leaves and berries were laid on her grave by kindly, pitying hands. In the furthest corner of the little churchyard they laid her, in a corner where the sun rested, and where a hawthorn grew, in which a robin sang hopefully while they laid her to rest.
Huldah, standing by the grave-side while the beautiful words of the Burial Service were being read, thought of those other partings, so sad, so cruel,—oh, this was better than those, and not so complete. She could still feel that Aunt Emma was near her, and safe, and in the best of all keeping, at peace for ever and ever.
They thought it best that Huldah should not go back to the empty rooms again, and she was glad; so after the service was over she walked back to her old home once again, as though she had never left it, and the last few months had been but a dream. And it was all so like a dream that at the top of the lane she paused and looked about her, half bewildered. Could she be, she asked herself, the same Huldah who not so many months before had stood there a cowed, frightened, hunted thing, starving, exhausted, but minding nothing as long as—as what?
As long as she escaped from the two she had so lately parted with, with such an aching heart. She looked down over her black frock. She felt the sadness in her heart, the sense of loss. Could such changes really have come about, that now she was full of grief that she could never again see or hear the aunt she had so feared?
"Come home, dear; come home. I want you too, oh so badly!"
Aunt Martha's voice broke in on her thoughts, and brought her quickly back to the present. Aunt Martha's face was white and tired with cold and weariness. Huldah was filled with repentance.
"Oh, you're tired," she cried, remorsefully, "and chilled, and I'm keeping you standing here. Oh, Aunt Martha, I hope you haven't taken cold. We'll hurry now, and I'll make you a good fire, and some tea, and—and I am going to take care of you now, auntie, all the rest of my days, till I'm an old, old woman, and I'll never go and leave you any more, for it's plain to see, looking up at her half mischievously, you can't take care of yourself without me."
So, for the third time Huldah came back to Woodend Lane, and to Dick, who went nearly crazy with joy, and to the chickens, and garden and her basket-making; and this time she stayed, if not till she was an old woman, at any rate until someone big and strong and very fond of her, came and built a new cottage, to join Mrs. Perry's old one, and a new fowl's house on to the old one which Dick had guarded so well, that he earned for his little mistress and himself a home and friends for ever. And even then one could scarcely call it "leaving," for presently the wall which divided them was knocked down, and the two cottages were made one.
Huldah's basket-making business increased and increased, until at last she had to teach another little girl, that she might come and help her, and then another and another; and perhaps the proudest moment of her life was when she was able to buy the cottage she loved so much, and present it to her dearly-loved 'Aunt Martha' as a Christmas gift.
By that time Huldah, the little waif, who had earned for herself the name of "the Brownie," had made for herself so many friends, that when her wedding took place, so many wished to attend it, they had to borrow the field opposite for the wedding-feast. And where she had once sat and worked and dreamed of the future, there she sat now flushed, smiling and happy, cutting the wedding cake which old Dinah, with great pride, had made in the vicarage kitchen.
There she sat, with Dick close beside her, his old heart somewhat sad with fear of another parting, Aunt Martha opposite, divided between smiles and tears, and beside her her husband, who was not going to divide them, but bind them more securely together; and last, but not least, on Huldah's other hand sat Miss Rose,—no longer "Miss," but always "Miss Rose" to everyone in Woodend,—who, if Huldah had been the "brownie," had proved herself the fairy godmother, the best of guides and friends to those two who had strayed into her life that hot summer's morning years ago—those two poor loving, hungry, friendless waifs,—Dick and the Brownie.