CHAPTER V.FORSAKEN.
The moment Nurse’s footsteps died away Flower sprang to her feet, snatched up a white wool shawl, which lay over the baby’s cot, wrapped it round her, and flew downstairs with the little creature in her arms.
Out through a side door which stood open ran Flower, down by the shrubbery, over the stile, and in a few moments she was out again on the wide, wild, lonely moor with Polly’s pet pressed close to her beating heart. Long before Nurse had returned to the nursery Flower had reached the moor, and when poor, distracted Nurse discovered her loss, Flower had wriggled herself into the middle of a clump of young oak-trees, and was fondling and petting little Pearl, who sat upright on her knee. From her hiding-place Flower could presently hear footsteps and voices, but none of them came near her, and for the present baby was contented, and did not cry. After a time the footsteps moved further off, and Flower peeped from her shelter.
“Now, baby, come on,” she said. She wrapped the shawl again firmly round the little one, and started with a kind of trotting motion over the outskirts of the moor. She was intensely excited, and her cheeks were flushed with the first delicious glow of victory. Oh, how sorry Polly would be now for having attempted to oppose her. Yes, Polly would know now that Flower Dalrymple was not a person to be trifled with.
She was really a strong girl, though she had a peculiarly fragile look. The weight of the three months’ old baby was not very great, and for a time she made quite rapid progress. After she had walked about a mile she stood still to consider and to make her plans. No more ignorant girl in all England could perhaps be found than this same poor silly, revengeful Flower; but even she, with all her ideas Australian, and her knowledge of English life and ways simply null and void, even she knew that the baby could not live for a long time without food and shelter on the wide common land which lay around. She did not mean to steal baby for always, but she thought she would keep her for a month or two, until Polly was well frightened and repentant, and then she would send her back by some kind, motherly woman whom she was sure to come across. As to herself, she hadfully made up her mind never again to enter the doors of Sleepy Hollow, for it would be impossible for her, she felt, to associate with any people who had sat down to dinner with the kitchen-maid. Holding the baby firmly in her arms, Flower stood and hesitated. The warm fleecy white shawl sheltered little Pearl from all cold, and for the present she slept peacefully.
“I must try and find some town,” thought Flower. “I must walk to some town—the nearest, I suppose—with baby. Then I will sell one of my rings, and try to get a nice woman to give me a lodging. If she is a motherly person—and I shall certainly look out for some one that is—I can give her little Pearl when I get tired of her, and she can take her back to Sleepy Hollow. But I won’t give Pearl up for the present; for, in the first place she amuses me, and in the next I wish Polly to be well punished. Now I wonder which is the nearest way to the town? If I were at Ballarat, I should know quickly enough by the sign-posts placed at intervals all over the country, but they don’t seem to have anything of the sort here in barbarous England. Now, how shall I get to the nearest town without meeting any one who would be likely to tell Dr. Maybright?”
Flower had scarcely expressed herself in this fashion before once again the rough-looking man crossed her path. She greeted him quite joyfully.
“Oh! you’re just the person I want,” she exclaimed. “I’ve got my purse now, and a little money in it. Would you like to earn a shilling?”
“Sure-ly,” said the man. “But I’d a sight rather ’arn two,” he added.
“I’ll give you two. I have not got much money, but I’ll certainly give you two shillings if you’ll help me now. I have got a little baby here—a dear little baby, but she’s rather heavy. I am running away with her to revenge myself on somebody. I don’t mind telling you that, for you look like an outlaw yourself, and you’ll sympathize with me. I want you to carry baby for me, and to take us both to the nearest town. Do you hear? Will you do it?”
“Sure-ly,” said the man, favoring Flower with a long, peculiar glance.
“Well, here’s baby; you must be very careful of her. I’ll give youthreeshillings after you have taken her and me to the nearest town; and if you are really kind, and walk quickly, and take us to a nice restaurant where I can have a good dinner—for I am awfully hungry—you shall have something to eat yourself as well. Now walk on in front of me, please, and don’t waste any more time, for it would be dreadful if we were discovered.”
The man shambled on at once in front of Flower; his strong arms supported little Pearl comfortably, and she slumbered on in an unbroken dream.
The bright sunlight had now faded, the short October daywas drawing in, the glory and heat of the morning had long departed, and Flower, whose green cloth dress was very light in texture, felt herself shivering in the sudden cold.
“Are you certain you are going to the nearest town?” she called out to the man.
“Sure-ly,” he responded back to her. He was stepping along at a swinging pace, and Flower was very tired, and found it difficult to keep up with him. Having begged of him so emphatically to hurry, she did not like to ask him now to moderate his steps. To keep up with him at all she had almost to run; and she was now not only hungry, cold, and tired, but the constant quick motion took her breath away. They had left the border of the moor, and were now in the middle of a most desolate piece of country. As Flower looked around her she shivered with the first real sensation of loneliness she had ever known. The moor seemed to fill the whole horizon. Desolate moor and lowering sky—there seemed to be nothing else in all the world.
“Where is the nearest town?” she gasped at last. “Oh, what a long, long way off it is!”
“It’s miles away!” said the man, suddenly stopping and turning round fiercely upon her; “but ef you’re hungry, there’s a hut yer to the left where my mother lives. She’ll give you a bit of supper and a rest, ef so be as you can pay her well.”
“Oh, yes, I can pay her,” responded Flower. The thought of any shelter or any food was grateful to the fastidious girl now.
“I am very hungry and very tired,” she said. “I will gladly rest in your mother’s cottage. Where is it?”
“I said as it wor a hut. There are two dawgs there: be you afeard?”
“Ofdogs? I am not afraid of anything!” said Flower, curling her short lip disdainfully.
“Youbea girl!” responded the man. He shambled on again in front, and presently they came in sight of the deserted hermit’s hut, where Polly and Maggie a few weeks before had been led captive. A woman was standing in the doorway, and by her side, sitting up on their haunches, were two ugly, lean-looking dogs.
“Down, Cinder and Flinder!” said the woman. “Down you brutes! Now, Patrick, what have you been up to? Whatever’s that in your arms, and who’s a-follering of yer?”
“This yer’s a babby,” said the man, “and this yer’s a girl. She,” pointing to Flower, “wants to be took to the nearest town, and she have money to pay, she says.”
“Oh! she have money to pay?” said the wife of Micah Jones—for it was she. “Them as has money to pay is oilers and oilers welcome. Come in, and set you down by the fire, hinney. Well, well, and so you has brought a babby with you! Give it to me, Pat. What do you know, you great hulking feller! about the tending of babbies?”
The man gladly relinquished his charge, then pointed backwards with his finger at Flower.
“She’s cold and ’ungry, and she has money to pay,” he said.
“Come in, then, Missy, come in; yer’s a good fire, and a hunk of cheese, and some brown bread, and there’ll be soup by-and-by. Yes,” winking at her son, “there’ll be good strong soup by-and-by.”
Flower, who had come up close to the threshold of the hut, now drew back a step or two. At sight of the woman her courage had revived, her feeling of extreme loneliness had vanished, and a good deal of the insolence which often marked her bearing had in consequence returned to her.
“I won’t go in,” she said. “It looks dirty in there and I hate dirt. No, I won’t go in! Bring me some food out here, please. Of course I’ll pay you.”
“Highty-tighty!” said the woman. “And is wee babby to stay out in the cold night air?”
“I forgot about the baby,” said Flower. “Give her to me. Is the night air bad for babies?” she asked, looking up inquiringly at the great rough woman who stood by her side.
Flower’s utter and fearless indifference to even the possibility of danger had much the same effect on Mrs. Jones that it had upon her son. They both owned to a latent feeling of uneasiness in her presence. Had she showed the least trace of fear; had she dreaded them, or tried in any way to soften them, they would have known how to manage her. But Flower addressed them much as she would have done menials in her kitchen at home. The mother, as well as the son, muttered under her breath—“Never see’d such a gel!” She dropped the baby into Flower’s outstretched arms, and answered her query in a less surly tone than usual.
“For sure night air is bad for babes, and this little ’un is young. Yes, werry young and purty.”
The woman pulled aside the white fluffy shawl; two soft clear brown eyes looked up at her, and a little mouth was curved to a radiant smile.
“Fore sure she’s purty,” said the woman. “Look, Patrick. She minds me o’—well, never mind. Missy, it ain’t good for a babe like that to be out in the night air. You’re best in the house, and so is the babe. The dawgs shan’t touch yer. Come into the house, and I’ll give yer what supper’s going, and the babe, pretty crittur, shall have a drink of milk.”
“I would not injure the baby,” said Flower. She held both arms firm round it, and entered the smoky, dismal hut.
The wife of Micah Jones moved a stool in front of the fire, pushed Flower rather roughly down on it, and then proceeded to cut thick hunches of sour bread and cheese. This was quite the coarsest food Flower had ever eaten, and yet she never thought anything more delicious. While she ate the woman sat down opposite her.
“I’ll take the babe now and feed it,” she said. “The pretty dear must be hungry.”
It was not little Pearl’s way to cry. It was her fashion to look tranquilly into all faces, and to take calmly every event, whether adverse or otherwise. When she looked at Flower she smiled, and she smiled again into the face of the rough woman who, in consequence, fed her tenderly with the best she had to give.
“Is the soup done?” said the rough man, suddenly coming forward. “It’s soup I’m arter. It’s soup as’ll put life into Miss, and give her a mind to walk them miles to the nearest town.”
The woman laughed back at her son.
“The soup’s in the pot,” she said. “You can give it a stir, Pat, if you will. Nathaniel will be in by-and-by, and he’ll want his share. But you can take a bowl now, if you like, and give one to Missy.”
“Ay,” said the man, “soup’s good; puts life into a body.”
He fetched two little yellow bowls filled one for Flower, stirring it first with a pewter spoon.
“This’ll put life into you, Miss,” he said.
He handed the bowl of soup to the young girl. All this time the woman was bending over the baby. Suddenly she raised her head.
“’Tis a bonny babe,” she said. “Ef I was you, Pat, I wouldn’t stir Missy’s soup. I’d give her your own bowl. I has no quarrel with Miss, and the babe is fair. Give her your own soup, Patrick.”
“It’s all right, mother, Miss wouldn’t eat as much as in my bowl. You ain’t ’ungry enough for that, be you, Miss?”
“I am very hungry,” said Flower, who was gratefully drinking the hot liquid. “I could not touch this food if I was notveryhungry. If I want more soup I suppose I can have some more from the pot where this was taken. What is the matter, woman? What are you staring at me for?”
“I think nought at all of you,” said the woman, frowning, and drawing back, for Flower’s tone was very rude. “But the babe is bonny. Here, take her back, she’s like—but never mind. You’ll be sleepy, maybe, and ’ud like to rest a bit. I meant yer no harm, but Patrick’s powerful, and he and Nat, they does what they likes. They’re the sons of Micah Jones, and he was a strong man in his day. You’d like to sleep, maybe, Missy. Here, Patrick, take the bowl from the girl’s hand.”
“I do feel very drowsy,” said Flower. “I suppose it is from being out all day. This hut is smoky and dirty, but I’ll just have a doze for five minutes. Please, Patrick, wake me at the end of five minutes, for I must, whatever happens, reach the nearest town before night.”
As Flower spoke her eyes closed, and the woman, laying her back on some straw, put the baby into her arms.
“She’ll sleep sound, pretty dear,” she said. “Ef I was you I wouldn’t harm her, just for the sake of the babe,” she concluded.
“Why, mother, what’s took you?Iwon’t hurt Missy. It’s her own fault ef she runs away, and steals the baby. That baby belongs to the doctor what lives in the Hollow; it’s nought special, and you needn’t be took up with it. Ah, here comes Nathaniel. Nat, I’ve found a lass wandering on the moor, and I brought her home, and now the mother don’t want us to share the booty.”
Nathaniel Jones was a man of very few words indeed. He had a fiercer, wilder eye than his brother, and his evidently was the dominant and ruling spirit.
“The moon’s rising,” he said; “she’ll be at her full in half an hour. Do your dooty, mother, for we must be out of this, bag and baggage, in half an hour.”
Without a word or a sigh, or even a glance of remorse, Mrs. Jones took the cap from Flower’s head, and feeling around her neck discovered the gold chain which held the little bag of valuables. Without opening this she slipped it into her pocket. Flower’s dainty shoes were then removed, and the woman looked covetously at the long, fine, cloth dress, but shook her head over it.
“I’d wake her if I took it,” she said.
“No, you wouldn’t, I drugged the soup well,” said Pat.
“Well, anyhow, I’ll leave her her dress. There’s nought more but a handkerchief with a bit of lace on it.”
“Take the baby’s shawl,” said Nathaniel, “and let us be off. If the moon goes down we won’t see the track. Here, mother, I’ll help myself to the wrap.”
“No, you won’t,” said the woman. “You don’t touch the babe with the pale face and the smile of Heaven. I’m ready; let’s go.”
The dogs were called, and the entire party strode in single file along a narrow path, which led away in a westerly direction over Peg-Top Moor.
CHAPTER VI.WITHOUT HER TREASURE.
“There is a great fuss made about it all,” said Polly.
This was her remark when her father left the pleasant picnic dinner and drove away over the moor in search of Flower.
“There is a great fuss made over it all. What is Flower more than any other girl? Why should she rule us all, and try to make things uncomfortable for us? No, David, you need not look at me like that. If Flower has got silly Australian notions in her head, she had better get rid of them as fast as possible. She is living with English people now, and English people all the world over won’t put up with nonsense.”
“It isn’t Flower’s ways I mean,” said David. “Her ways and her thoughts aren’t much, but it’s—it’s when she getsinto a passion. There’s no use talking about it—you have done it now, Polly!—but Flower’s passions are awful.”
David’s eyes filled slowly with tears.
“Oh, you are a cry-baby,” said Polly. She knew she was making herself disagreeable all round. In her heart she admired and even loved David; but nothing would induce her to say she was sorry for any part she had taken in Flower’s disappearance.
“Everything is as tiresome as possible,” she said, addressing her special ally, Maggie. “There, Mag, you need not stare at me. Your brain will get as small as ever again if you don’t take care, and I know staring in that stupid way you have is particularly weakening to the brain. You had better help George to pack up, for I suppose Nell is right, and we must all begin to think of getting home. Oh, dear, what a worry it is to have to put up with the whims of other people. Yes, I understand at last why father hesitated to allow the strangers to come here.”
“I wouldn’t grumble any more, if I were you, Polly,” said Helen. “See how miserable David looks. I do hope father will soon find Flower. I did not know that David was so very fond of her.”
“David is nervous,” retorted Polly, shortly. Then she turned to and packed in a vigorous manner, and very soon after the little party started on their return walk home. It was decidedly a dull walk. Polly’s gay spirits were fitful and forced; the rest of the party did not attempt to enjoy themselves. David lagged quite behind the others; and poor Maggie confided to George that somehow or other, she could not tell why, they were all turning their eyes reproachful-like on her. The sun had gone in now in the heavens, and the children, who had no sunshine in their hearts just then, had a vivid consciousness that it was late autumn, and that the summer was quite at an end.
As they neared the rise in the moor which hid Sleepy Hollow from view, David suddenly changed his position from the rear to the van. As they approached the house he stooped down, picked up a small piece of paper, looked at it, uttered a cry of fear and recognition, and ran off as fast as ever he could to the house.
“What a queer boy David is!” was on Polly’s lips; but she could scarcely say the words before he came out again. His face was deadly white, he shook all over, and the words he tried to say only trembled on his lips.
“What is it, David?” said the twins, running up to him.
“She’ll believe me now,” said David.
He panted violently, his teeth chattered.
“Oh! David, you frighten us! What can be the matter? Polly, come here! Nell, come and tell us what is the matter with David.”
The elder girls, and the rest of the children, collected in the porch. Polly, the tallest of all, looked over the heads ofthe others. She caught sight of David’s face, and a sudden pain, a queer sense of fear, and the awakening of a late remorse, filled her breast.
“What is it, David?” she asked, with the others; but her voice shook, and was scarcely audible.
“She’s done it!” said David. “The baby’s gone! It’s Flower! She was in one of her passions, and she has taken the baby away. I said she wasn’t like other girls. Nurse thinks perhaps the baby’ll die. What is it?—oh, Polly! what is it!” For Polly had given one short scream, and, pushing David and every one aside, rushed wildly into the house.
She did not hear the others calling after her; she heard nothing but a surging as of great waves in her ears, and David’s words echoing along the passages and up the stairs “Perhaps the baby will die!” She did not see her father, who held out his arms to detain her. She pushed Alice aside without knowing that she touched her. In a twinkling she was at the nursery door; in a twinkling she was kneeling by the empty cot, and clasping the little frilled pillow on which baby’s head used to rest passionately to her lips.
“It’s true, then!” she gasped, at last. “I know now what David meant; I know now why he warned me. Oh Nursie! Nursie! it’s my fault!”
“No, no, my darling!” said Nurse; “it’s that dreadful young lady. But she’ll bring her back. Sure, what else could she do, lovey? She’ll bring the little one back, and, by the blessing of the good God, she’ll be none the worse for this. Don’t take on so, Miss Polly! Don’t look like that, dear! Why, your looks fairly scare me.”
“I’ll be better in a minute,” said Polly. “This is no time for feelings. I’ll be quiet in a minute. Have you got any cold water? There’s such a horrid loud noise in my ears.”
She rushed across the room, poured a quantity of water into a basin, and laved her face and head.
“Now I can think,” she said. “What did Flower do, Nurse? Tell me everything; tell me in very few words, please, for there isn’t a moment—there isn’t half a moment—to lose.”
“It was this way, dear: she came into the room, and took baby into her arms, and asked for some dinner. She didn’t seem no way taken with baby at first, but when I told her how much you loved our little Miss Pearl, she asked me to give her to her quite greedy-like, and ordered me to fetch some dinner for herself, for she was starving, she said. I offered that Alice should bring it; but no, she was all that I should choose something as would tempt her appetite, and she coaxed with that pretty way she have, and I went down to the kitchen myself to please her. I’ll never forgive myself, never, to the longest day I live. I wasn’t ten minutes gone, but when I come back with a nice little tray of curry, and some custard pie, Miss Flower and the baby were away. That’s all—they hasn’t been seen since.”
“How long ago is that, Nurse?”
“I couldn’t rightly tell you, dearie—maybe two hours back. I ran all round the moor anywhere near, and so did every servant in the house, but since the Doctor come in they has done the thing properly. Now where are you going, Miss Polly, love?”
“To my father. I wish this horrid noise wouldn’t go on in my head. Don’t worry me, Nurse. I know it was my fault. I wouldn’t listen to the warning, and I would provoke her, but don’t scold me now until I have done my work.”
Polly rushed downstairs.
“Where’s father?” she asked of Bunny, who was sobbing violently, and clinging in a frantic manner to Firefly’s skirts.
“I—I don’t know. He’s out.”
“He’s away on the moor,” said Fly. “Polly, are you really anxious about baby Pearl?”
“I have no time to be anxious,” said Polly. “I must find her first. I’ll tell you then if I’m anxious. Where’s Nell, where are the twins?”
“On the moor; they all went out with father.”
“Which moor, the South or Peg-Top?”
“I think the South moor.”
“All right, I’m going out too. What’s the matter, Fly? Oh, you’re not to come.”
“Please, please, it’s so horrid in the house, and Bunny does make my dress so soppy with crying into it.”
“You’re not to come. You are to stay here and do your best, your very best, for father and the others when they come home. If they don’t meet me, say I’ve gone to look for baby and for Flower. I’ll come back when I’ve found them. Iftheyfind baby and Flower, they might ask to have the church bells rung, then I’ll know. Don’t stare at me like that, Fly; it was my fault, so I must search until I find them.”
Polly ran out of the house and down the lawn. Once again she was out on the moor. The great solitary commons stretched to right and left; they were everywhere, they filled the whole horizon, except just where Sleepy Hollow lay, with its belt of trees, its cultivated gardens, and just beyond the little village and the church with the square, gray tower. There was a great lump in Polly’s throat, and a mist before her eyes. The dreadful beating was still going on in her heart, and the surging, ceaseless waves of sound in her ears.
Suddenly she fell on her knees.
“Please, God, give me back little Pearl. Please, God, save little Pearl. I don’t want anything else; I don’t even want father to forgive me, if You will save little Pearl.”
Most earnest prayers bring a sense of comfort, and Polly did not feel quite so lonely when she stood again on her feet, with the bracken and the fern all round her.
She tried hard now to collect her thoughts; she made a valiant effort to feel calm and reasonable.
“I can do nothing if I get so excited,” she said to herself. “I must just fight with my anxious spirit. My heart must stay quiet, for my brain has got to work now. Let me see! where has Flower taken baby? Father and Nell and the others are all searching the South moor, so I will go on to Peg-Top. I will walk slowly, and I will look behind every clump of trees, and I will call Flower’s name now and then; for I am sure, I am quite, quite sure that, however dreadful her passion may have been, if Flower is the least like me, she will be dreadfully sorry by now—dreadfully sorry and dreadfully frightened—so if she hears me calling she will be sure to answer. Oh, dear! oh, dear! here is my heart speaking again, and my head is in a whirl, and the noises are coming back into my ears. Oh! how fearfully I hate Flower! How could she, how could she have taken our darling little baby away? And yet—and yet I think I’d forgive Flower; I think I’d try to love her; I think I’d even tell her that I was the one who had done most wrong; I think I’d even go on my knees and beg Flower’s pardon, if only I could hold baby to my heart again!”
By this time Polly was crying bitterly. These tears did the poor child good, relieving the pressure on her brain, and enabling her to think calmly and coherently. While this tempest of grief, however, effected these good results, it certainly did not improve her powers of observation; the fast-flowing tears blinded her eyes, and she stumbled along, completely forgetting the dangerous and uneven character of the ground over which she walked.
It was now growing dusk, and the dim light also added to poor Polly’s dangers. Peg-Top Moor had many tracks leading in all directions. Polly knew several of these, and where they led, but she had now left all the beaten paths, and the consequence was that she presently found herself uttering a sharp and frightened cry, and discovered that she had fallen down a fairly steep descent. She was slightly stunned by her fall, and for a moment or two did not attempt to move. Then a dull pain in her ankle caused her to put her hand to it, and to struggle giddily to a sitting position.
“I’ll be able to stand in a minute,” she said to herself; and she pressed her hand to her forehead, and struggled bravely against the surging, waving sounds which had returned to her head.
“I can’t sit here!” she murmured; and she tried to get to her feet.
In vain!—a sharp agony brought her, trembling and almost fainting, once more to a sitting posture. What was she to do?—how was she now to find Flower and the baby? She was alone on the moor, unable to stir. Perhaps her ankle was broken; certainly, it was sprained very badly.
CHAPTER VII.MAGGIE TO THE RESCUE.
When the Maybrights returned home from their disastrous picnic at Troublous Times Castle, Maggie and George brought up the rear. In consequence of their being some little way behind the others, Maggie did not at once know of the fact of Flower’s disappearance with the baby. She was naturally a slow girl; ideas came to her at rare intervals; she even received startling and terrible news with a certain outward stolidity and calm. Still, Maggie was not an altogether purposeless and thoughtless maiden; thoughts occasionally drifted her way; ideas, when once born in her heart, were slow to die. When affection took root there it became a very sturdy plant. If there was any one in the world whom Maggie adored, it was her dear young mistress, Miss Polly Maybright. Often at night Maggie awoke, and thought, with feelings of almost worship, of this bright, impulsive young lady. How delightful that week had been when she and Polly had cooked, and housekeeped, and made cakes and puddings together! Would any one but Polly have forgiven her for taking that pound to save her mother’s furniture? Would any one in all the world, except that dear, warm-hearted, impulsive Polly, have promised to do without a winter jacket in order to return that money to the housekeeping fund? Maggie felt that, stupid as she knew herself to be, slow as she undoubtedly was, she could really do great things for Polly. In Polly’s cause her brain could awake, the inertia which more or less characterized her could depart. For Polly she could undoubtedly become a brave and active young person.
She was delighted with herself when she assisted Miss Maybright to descend from her bed-room window, and to escape with her on to the moor, but her delight and sense of triumph had not been proof against the solitude of the sad moor, against the hunger which was only to be satisfied with berries and spring water, and, above all, against the terrible apparition of the wife of Micah Jones. What Maggie went, through in the hermit’s hut, what terrors she experienced, were only known to Maggie’s own heart. When, however, Mrs. Ricketts got back her daughter from that terrible evening’s experience, she emphatically declared that “Mag were worse nor useless; that she seemed daft-like, and a’most silly, and that never, never to her dying day, would she allow Mag to set foot on them awful lonely commons again.”
Mrs. Ricketts, however, was not a particularly obstinate character, and when Polly’s bright face peeped round her door, and Polly eagerly, and almost curtly, demanded that Maggie should that very moment accompany her on a delightful picnic to Troublous Times Castle, and Maggie herself,with sparkling eyes and burning cheeks, was all agog to go, and was now inclined to pooh-pooh the terrors she had endured in the hermit’s hut, there was nothing for Mrs. Ricketts to do but to forget her vow and send off the two young people with her blessing.
“Eh, but she’s a dear young lady,” she said, under her breath, apostrophizing Miss Maybright. “And Mag do set wonderful store by her, and no mistake. It ain’t every young lady as ’ud think of my Maggie when she’s going out pleasuring; but bless Miss Polly! she seems fairly took up with my poor gel.”
No face could look more radiant than Maggie’s when she started for the picnic, but, on the other hand, no young person could look more thoroughly sulky and downcast than she did on her return. Mrs. Ricketts was just dishing up some potatoes for supper when Maggie flung open the door of the tiny cottage, walked across the room, and flung herself on a little settle by the fire.
“You’re hungry, Mag,” said Mrs. Ricketts, without looking up.
“No, I bean’t,” replied Maggie, shortly.
“Eh, I suppose you got your fill of good things out with the young ladies and gentlemen. It ain’t your poor mother’s way to have a bit of luck like that, and you never thought, I suppose, of putting a slice or two of plum cake, or maybe the half of a chicken, in your pocket, as a bit of a relish for your mother’s supper. No, no, that ain’t your way, Mag; you’re all for self, and that I will say.”
“No, I ain’t mother. You has no call to talk so. How could I hide away chicken and plum cake, under Miss Polly’s nose, so to speak. I was setting nigh to Miss Polly, mother, jest about the very middle of the feast. I had a place of honor close up to Miss Polly, mother.”
“Eh, to be sure!” exclaimed Mrs. Ricketts.
She stopped dishing up the potatoes, wiped her brow, and turned to look at her daughter, with a slow expression of admiration in her gaze.
“Eh,” she continued, “you has a way about you, Mag, with all your contrariness. Miss Polly Maybright thinks a sight on you, Mag; seems to me as if maybe she’d adopt you, and turn you into a real lady. My word, I have read of such things in story-books.”
“You had better go on dishing up your supper, mother and not be talking nonsense like that. Miss Polly is a very good young lady, but she hasn’t no thought of folly of that sort. Eh, dear me,” continued Maggie, yawning prodigiously “I’m a bit tired, and no mistake.”
“That’s always the way,” responded Mrs. Ricketts. “Tired and not a word to say after your pleasuring; no talking about what happened, and what Miss Helen wore, and if Miss Firefly has got on her winter worsted stockings yet, and not a mention of them foreigners as we’re all dying to hearof, and not a word of what victuals you ate, nor nothing. You’re a selfish girl, Maggie Ricketts, and that I will say, though I am your mother.”
“I’m sleepy,” responded Maggie, who seemed by no means put out by this tirade on the part of her mother. “I’ll go up to bed if you don’t mind, mother. No, I said afore as I wasn’t hungry.”
She left the room, crept up the step-ladder to the loft, where the family slept, and opening the tiny dormer window, put her elbows on the sill and gazed out on the gathering gloom which was settling on the moor.
The news of the calamity which had befallen Polly had reached Maggie’s ears. Maggie thought only of Polly in this trouble; it was Polly’s baby who was lost, it was Polly whose heart would be broken. She did not consider the others in the matter. It was Polly, the Polly whom she so devotedly loved, who filled her whole horizon. When the news was told her she scarcely said a word; a heavy, “Eh!—you don’t say!” dropped from her lips. Even George, who was her informer, wondered if she had really taken in the extent of the catastrophe; then she had turned on her heel and walked down to her mother’s cottage.
She was not all thoughtless and all indifferent, however. While she looked so stoical and heavy she was patiently working out an idea, and was nerving herself for an act of heroism.
Now as she leant her elbows on the sill by the open window, cold Fear came and stood by her side. She was awfully frightened, but her resolve did not falter. She meant to slip away in the dusk and walk across Peg-Top Moor to the hermit’s hut. An instinct, which she did not try either to explain away or prove, led her to feel sure that she should find Polly’s baby in the hermit’s hut. She would herself, unaided and alone, bring little Pearl back to her sister.
It would have been quite possible for Maggie to have imparted her ideas to George, to her mother, or to some of the neighbors. There was not a person in the village who would not go to the rescue of the Doctor’s child. Maggie might have accompanied a multitude, had she so willed it, to the hermit’s hut. But then the honor and glory would not have been hers; a little reflection of it might shine upon her, but she would not bask, as she now hoped to do, in its full rays.
She determined to go across the lonely moor which she so dreaded alone, for she alone must bring back Pearl to Polly.
Shortly before the moon arose, and long after sunset, Maggie crept down the attic stairs, unlatched the house door, and stepped out into the quiet village street. Her fear was that some neighbors would see her, and either insist on accompanying her on her errand, or bring her home. The village, however, was very quiet that night, and at nineo’clock, when Maggie started on her search, there were very few people out.
She came quickly to the top of the small street, crossed a field, squeezed through a gap in the hedge, and found herself on the borders of Peg-Top Moor. The moon was bright by this time, and there was no fear of Maggie not seeing. She stepped over the ground briskly, a solitary little figure with a long shadow ever stalking before her, and a beating, defiant heart in her breast. She had quite determined that whatever agony she went through, her fears should not conquer her; she would fight them down with a strong hand, she would go forward on her road, come what might.
Maggie was an ignorant little cottager, and there were many folk-lore tales abroad with regard to the moor which might have frightened a stouter heart than hers. She believed fully in the ghost who was to be seen when the moon was at the full, pacing slowly up and down, through that plantation of trees at her right; she had unswerving faith in the bogey who uttered terrific cries, and terrified the people who were brave enough to walk at night through Deadman’s Glen. But she believed more fully still in Polly, in Polly’s love and despair, and in the sacredness of the errand which she was now undertaking to deliver her from her trouble.
From Mrs. Ricketts’ cottage to the hermit’s hut there lay a stretch of moorland covering some miles in extent, and Maggie knew that the lonely journey she was taking could not come to a speedy end.
She knew, however, that she had got on the right track and that by putting one foot up and one foot down, as the children do who want to reach London town, she also at last would come to her destination.
The moon shone brightly, and the little maid, her shadow always going before her, stepped along bravely.
Now and then that same shadow seemed to assume gigantic and unearthly proportions, but at other times it wore a friendly aspect, and somewhat comforted the young traveler.
“It’s more or less part of me,” quoth Maggie, “and I must say as I’m glad I have it, it’s better nor nought; but oh ain’t the moon fearsome, and don’t my heart a-flutter, and a pit-a-pat! I’m quite sure now, yes, I’m quite gospel sure that ef I was to meet the wife of Micah Jones, I’d fall flat down dead at her feet. Oh, how fearsome is this moor! Well, ef I gets hold of Miss Pearl I’ll never set foot an it again. No, not even for a picnic, and the grandest seat at the feast, and the best of the victuals.”
The moon shone on, and presently the interminable walk came to a conclusion. Maggie reached the hermit’s hut, listened with painful intentness for the baying of some angry dogs, pressed her nose against the one pane of glass in the one tiny window, saw nothing, heard nothing, finally lifted the latch, and went in.
CHAPTER VIII.THE HERMIT’S HUT.
It was perfectly dark inside the hut, for the little window, through which the moon might have shone, was well shrouded with a piece of old rug. It was perfectly dark, and Maggie, although she had stumbled a good deal in lifting the latch, and having to descend a step without knowing it, had all but tumbled headlong into the tiny abode, had evoked no answering sound or stir of any sort.
She stood still for a moment in the complete darkness to recover breath, and to consider what she was to do. Strange to say, she did not feel at all frightened now; the shelter of the four walls gave her confidence. There were no dogs about, and Maggie felt pretty sure that the wife of Micah Jones was also absent, for if she were in the hut, and awake, she would be sure to say, “Who’s there?” quoth Maggie, to her own heart; “and ef she’s in the hut, and asleep, why it wouldn’t be like her not to snore.”
The little girl stood still for a full minute; during this time she was collecting her faculties, and that brain, which Polly was pleased to call so small, was revolving some practical schemes.
“Ef I could only lay my hand on a match, now,” she thought.
She suddenly remembered that in her mother’s cottage the match-box was generally placed behind a certain brick near the fireplace; it was a handy spot, both safe and dry, and Maggie, since her earliest days, had known that if there was such a luxury as a box of matches in the house, it would be found in this corner. She wondered if the wife of Micah Jones could also have adopted so excellent a practice. She stepped across the little hut, felt with her hands right and left, poked about all round the open fireplace, and at last, joy of joys, not only discovered a box with a few matches in it, but an end of candle besides.
In a moment she had struck a match, had applied it to the candle, and then, holding the flickering light high, looked around the little hut.
A girl, crouched up against the wall on some straw, was gazing at her with wide-open terrified eyes; the girl was perfectly still, not a muscle in her body moved, only her big frightened eyes gazed fixedly at Maggie. She wore no hat on her head; her long yellow hair lay in confusion over her shoulders; her feet were shoeless, and one arm was laid with a certain air of protection on a wee white bundle on the straw by her side.
“Who are you?” said Flower, at last. “Are you a ghost, or are you the daughter of the dreadful woman who lives in this hut? See! I had a long sleep. She put me to sleep,I know she did; and while I was asleep she stole my purse and rings, and my hat and shoes. But that’s nothing, that’s nothing at all. While I was asleep, baby here died. I know she’s quite dead, she has not stirred nor moved for hours, at least it seems like hours. What are you staring at me in that rude way for, girl? I’m quite sure the baby, Polly’s little sister, is dead.”
Nobody could speak in a more utterly apathetic way than Flower. Her voice neither rose nor fell. She poured out her dreary words in a wailing monotone.
“I know that it’s my fault,” she added; “Polly’s little sister has died because of me.”
She still held her hand over the white bundle.
“I’m terrified, but not of you,” she added; “you may be a ghost, stealing in here in the dark; or you may be the daughter of that dreadful woman. But whoever you are, it’s all alike to me. I got into one of my passions. I promised my mother when she died that I’d never get into another, but I did, I got into one to-day. I was angry with Polly Maybright; I stole her little sister away, and now she’s dead. I am so terrified at what I have done that I never can be afraid of anything else. You need not stare so at me, girl; whoever you are I’m not afraid of you.”
Maggie had now found an old bottle to stick her candle into.
“I am Miss Polly’s little kitchen-maid, Maggie Ricketts,” she replied. “I ain’t a ghost, and I haven’t nothing to say to the wife of Micah Jones. As to the baby, let me look at it. You’re a very bad young lady, Miss Flower, but I has come to fetch away the baby, ef you please, so let me look at it this minute. Oh, my, how my legs do ache; that moor is heavy walking! Give me the baby, please, Miss Flower. It ain’t your baby, it’s Miss Polly’s.”
“So, you’re Maggie?” said Flower. There was a queer shake in her voice. “It was about you I was so angry. Yes, you may look at the baby; take it and look at it, but I don’t want to see it, not if it’s dead.”
Maggie instantly lifted the little white bundle into her arms, removed a portion of the shawl, and pressed her cheek against the cheek of the baby.
The little white cheek was cold, but not deadly cold, and some faint, faint breath still came from the slightly parted lips.
When Maggie had anything to do, no one could be less nervous and more practical.
“The baby ain’t dead at all,” she explained. “She’s took with a chill, and she’s very bad, but she ain’t dead. Mother has had heaps of babies, and I know what to do. Little Miss Pearl must have a hot bath this minute.”
“Oh, Maggie,” said Flower. “Oh, Maggie, Maggie!”
Her frozen indifference, her apathy, had departed. She rose from her recumbent position, pushed back her hairand stood beside the other young girl, with eyes that glowed, and yet brimmed over with tears.
“Oh, what a load you have taken off my heart!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a darling you are! Kiss me, Maggie, kiss me, dear, dear Maggie.”
“All right, Miss. You was angry with me afore, and now you’re a-hugging of me, and I don’t see no more sense in one than t’other. Ef you’ll hold the baby up warm to you, Miss, and breathe ag’in her cheek werry gentle-like, you’ll be a-doing more good than a-kissing of me. I must find sticks, and I must light up a fire, and I must do it this minute, or we won’t have no baby to talk about, nor fuss over.”
Maggie’s rough and practical words were perhaps the best possible tonic for Flower at this moment. She had been on the verge of a fit of hysterics, which might have been as terrible in its consequences as either her passion or her despair. Now trembling slightly, she sat down on the little stool which Maggie had pulled forward for her, took the baby in her arms, and partly opening the shawl which covered it, breathed on its white face.
The little one certainly was alive, and when Flower’s breath warmed it, its own breathing became stronger.
Meanwhile, Maggie bustled about. The hermit’s hut, now that she had something to do in it, seemed no longer at all terrible. After a good search round she found some sticks, and soon a bright fire blazed and crackled, and filled the tiny house with light and warmth. A pot of water was put on the fire to warm, and then Maggie looked round for a vessel to bathe the baby in. She found a little wooden tub, which she placed ready in front of the fire.
“So far, so good!” she exclaimed; “but never a sight of a towel is there to be seen. Ef you’ll give me the baby now, Miss, I’ll warm her limbs a bit afore I put her in the bath. I don’t know how I’m to dry her, I’m sure, but a hot bath she must have.”
“I have got a white petticoat on,” said Flower. “Would that be any use?”
“Off with it this minute, then, Miss; it’s better nor nought. Now, then, my lamb! my pretty! see ef Maggie don’t pull you round in a twinkling!”
She rubbed and chafed the little creature’s limbs, and soon baby opened her eyes, and gave a weak, piteous cry.
“I wish I had something to give her afore I put her in the bath,” said Maggie. “There’s sure to be sperits of some sort in a house like this. You look round you and see ef you can’t find something, Miss Flower.”
Flower obediently searched in the four corners of the hut.
“I can’t see anything!” she exclaimed. “The place seems quite empty.”
“Eh, dear!” said Maggie: “you don’t know how to search. Take the baby, and let me.”
She walked across the cabin, thrust her hand into somestraw which was pressed against the rafters, pulled out an old tin can and opened it.
“Eh, what’s this?” she exclaimed. “Sperits? Now we’ll do. Give me the baby back again, Miss Flower, and fetch a cup, ef you please.”
Flower did so.
“Put some hot water into it. Why, you ain’t very handy! Miss Polly’s worth a dozen of you! Now pour in a little of the sperit from the tin can—not too much. Let me taste it. That will do. Now, baby—now, Miss Polly’s darling baby!—I’ll wet your lips with this, and you’ll have your bath, and you’ll do fine!”
The mixture was rubbed on the blue lips of the infant, and Maggie even managed to get her to swallow a few drops. Then, the bath being prepared by Flower, under a shower of scathing ridicule from Maggie, who had very small respect, in any sense of the word, for her assistant, the baby was put into it, thoroughly warmed, rubbed up, and comforted, and then, with the white fleecy shawl wrapped well around her, she fell asleep in Maggie’s arms.
“She’ll do for the present,” said the kitchen-maid, leaning back and mopping a little moisture from her own brow. “She’ll do for a time, but she won’t do for long, for she’ll want milk and all kinds of comforts. And I tell you what it is, Miss Flower, that my master and Miss Polly can’t be kept a-fretting for this child until the morning. Some one must go at once, and tell ’em where she is, and put ’em out of their misery, and the thing is this: is it you, or is it me, that’s to do the job?”
“But,” said Flower—she had scarcely spoken at all until now—“cannot we both go? Cannot we both walk home, and take the baby with us?”
“No, Miss, not by no means. Not a breath of night air must touch the cheeks of this blessed lamb. Either you or me, Miss Flower, must walk back to Sleepy Hollow, and tell ’em about the baby, and bring back Nurse, and what’s wanted for the child. Will you hold her, Miss? and shall I trot off at once?—for there ain’t a minute to be lost.”
“No,” said Flower, “I won’t stay in the hut. It is dreadful to me. I will go and tell the Doctor and Polly.”
“As you please, Miss. Maybe it is best as I should stay with little Missy. You’ll find it awful lonesome out on the moor, Miss Flower, and I expect when you get near Deadman’s Glen as you’ll scream out with terror; there’s a bogey there with a head three times as big as his body, and long arms, twice as long as they ought to be, and he tears up bits of moss and fern, and flings them at yer, and if any of them, even the tiniest bit, touches yer, why you’re dead before the year is out. Then there’s the walking ghost and the shadowy maid, and the brown lady, the same color as the bracken when it’s withering up, and—and—why, what’s the matter, Miss Flower?”
“Only I respected you before you talked in that way,” said Flower. “I respected you very much, and I was awfully ashamed of not being able to eat my dinner with you. But when you talk in such an awfully silly way I don’t respect you, so you had better not go on. Please tell me, as well as you can, how I’m to get to Sleepy Hollow, and I’ll start off at once.”
“You must beware of the brown lady, all the same.”
“No, I won’t beware of her; I’ll spring right into her arms.”
“And the bogey in Deadman’s Glen. For Heaven’s sake, Miss Flower, keep to the west of Deadman’s Glen.”
“If Deadman’s Glen is a short cut to Sleepy Hollow, I’ll walk through it. Maggie, do you want Nurse to come for little Pearl, or not? I don’t mind waiting here till morning; it does not greatly matter to me. I was running away, you know.”
“You must go at once,” said Maggie, recalled to common sense by another glance at the sleeping child. “The baby’s but weakly, and there ain’t nothing here as I can give her, except the sperits and water, until Nurse comes. I’ll lay her just for a minute on the straw here, and go out with you and put you on the track. You follow the track right on until you see the lights in the village. Sleepy Hollow’s right in the village, and most likely there’ll be a light in the Doctor’s study window; be quick, for Heaven’s sake, Miss Flower?”
“Yes, I’m off. Oh, Maggie, Maggie! what do you think? That dreadful woman has stolen my shoes. I forgot all about it until this minute. What shall I do? I can’t walk far in my stockings.”
“Have my boots, Miss; they’re hob-nailed, and shaped after my foot, which is broad, as it should be, seeing as I’m only a kitchen-maid. But they’re strong, and they are sure to fit you fine.”
“I could put my two feet into one of them,” responded Flower, curling her proud lip once again disdainfully. But then she glanced at the baby, and a queer shiver passed over her; her eyes grew moist, her hands trembled.
“I will put the boots on,” she said. And she slipped her little feet, in their dainty fine silk stockings, into Maggie’s shoes.
“Good-by, Miss; come back as soon as you can,” called out the faithful waiting-maid, and Flower set off across the lonely moor.