"Hetty, what is the meaning of this strange conduct?" she said, looking at the marks of wild weeping on the child's swollen face.

"Everybody's conduct has been bad to me," wailed Hetty.

"What has been done to you?" asked Mrs. Enderby.

"Everyone hates Scamp, and they have taken him away. And I have no one to love me but him."

"Perhaps people would love you if you were not so fierce and wild, Hetty," said Mrs. Enderby. "Now, try and listen to me while I talk to you. It was very wrong of you to get up in the night and open the door, so as to alarm the house by the noise. And it was very wrong of you to take a dog into your room and into your bed."

"It was Scamp," mourned Hetty. "Scamp loves me. And how could I leave him outside when he wanted to be with me?"

"You could have done so because it would have been right," said Mrs.

Enderby. "You knew that Mr. Enderby had refused to allow the dog to come here. You ought to have remembered his wishes. He has been very good to you, and you must learn to obey him."

"It is cruel of him not to let me have Scamp," persisted Hetty; "he never bites anyone, and he is better than the other dogs. Why can I not have him for my own?"

"I will not answer that question, Hetty; it must be enough for you that you are to obey. You must stay here by yourself till you are in a better state of mind."

Then Mrs. Enderby went away, and Hetty fell into another agony of grief, thinking about Scamp.

She forgot the breakfast which she had not yet tasted, and felt every moment a greater longing to see her dog again. Where had they taken him?

she wondered. Was he still in the stable-yard? Perhaps they would drown him to get rid of him. Possessed by this fear she seized her hat and flew out of the room, quite reckless of consequences, and as it chanced, she met no one on her way down-stairs and along all the back pa.s.sages leading towards the stable-yard.

Arrived there she was guided by his barking to the spot where Scamp was.

He was chained in a kennel in a corner of the yard, where it was intended he should remain till a new master or mistress could be found for him. Hetty watched her opportunity, and when there was no one about flew into the yard, slipped the chain off his neck, and sped out of the place again, with the dog following joyfully at her heels.

In acting thus the little girl had merely followed a wild impulse, and had formed no plan for her future conduct with regard to Scamp. Finding herself in his company now, she thought only of prolonging the pleasure and escaping with him somewhere out of the reach of unfriendly eyes. She darted through the outer gate of the stable-yard just as the great clock above the archway was striking ten; and was soon plunging through a copse on the outskirts of the village, and making for the open country.

Scamp snuffed the breeze and barked for joy, and Hetty danced along over the gra.s.s and through trees, forgetting everything but her own intense enjoyment of freedom in the open air that she loved. Over yonder lay the forge, where, as a baby of four, she had watched the great horses being shod, and the sparks flying from their feet; and further on were the fields and the bit of wood where she had roamed alone, up to her eyes in the tall flag leaves and mistaking the yellow lilies for b.u.t.terflies of a larger growth. She did not remember all that now, but some pleasant consciousness of a former free happy existence in the midst of this fresh peaceful landscape came across her mind at moments, like gales of hawthorn-scented air. Mrs. Enderby's mild lectures, Phyllis's contempt, Miss Davis's shocked propriety, even Nell's easily snubbed efforts to stand her friend, all vanished out of her memory as she went skimming along the gra.s.s like a swallow, thrilling in all her young nerves with the freshness and wildness of the breeze of heaven, and the vigour and buoyancy of the life within her veins.

Five miles into the open country went Hetty, by a road she had never seen before. She knew not, nor did she think at all of where she was going; she only had a delightful sense of exploring new worlds. However, about the middle of the day she felt very hungry. She began to remember then that she could not keep on roving for ever, and that there was probably trouble before her at Wavertree, waiting for her return.

She sat down on a bank to rest, and Scamp nestled beside her, alternately looking in her face and licking her hands. It occurred to Hetty that perhaps he was hungry too, and that if she had left him in the stable-yard he would at least have got his dinner. Remorse troubled her, and she cast about to try and discover something they two could eat. A tempting-looking bunch of berries hung from a tree near her, and she thought that if she could reach them they might be of some slight use in allaying the pangs of hunger felt by both her and her dog. She was at once on her feet, and straining all her limbs to reach the berries.

They were caught, the branch broke, and Hetty fell down the bank, twisting her foot and spraining her ankle badly.

After the first cry wrung from her by the shock she was very silent; and having gathered herself up as well as she could, she sat on the ground, unable to attempt to stand. The pain was excessive, and great tears rolled down her cheeks as she endured it. Scamp gazed at her piteously, snuffed all round her, and looked as if he would like to take her on his back and carry her home. She threw her arms round his neck and hugged him.

"No, you can't help me, Scampie, dear, and I don't know what is to become of us. I can't move, and n.o.body knows where I have gone to. Of course it is all my fault, for I know I have been very disobedient. But I didn't feel wicked, not a bit."

Scamp licked her face and huffed and snuffed all round her. Then he made several discontented remarks which Hetty understood quite well, though it is not easy to translate them here. Then he hustled round her, and scurried up and down the road looking for help; and finally sat on his tail on the top of the bank, and pointing his nose up at the unlucky tree on which the berries had hung, howled out dismally to the world in general that Hetty was in real trouble now, and somebody had better come and look to it.

After a long time some one did come at last. The wintry evening was just beginning to close in and the short twilight to fall on the lonely road, blotting out the red berries on the trees, when a sound of wheels and the cracking of a carter's whip struck upon Hetty's ears. Scamp had heard them first and rushed away barking joyfully in the direction of the sound, to meet the carter, whoever he might be, and to tell him to come on fast and take up Hetty in his cart and bring her safely home.

Presently Scamp came frolicking back, and soon after came a great team of powerful horses, drawing a long cart laden with trunks of trees, which John Kane, the carter, was bringing from the woods to be chopped up for firewood for the use of the Hall. At this sight a dim recollection of the past arose in Hetty's brain. Had she not seen this great cart and horses long ago, and was not the face of the man like a face she had seen in a dream? She had not had time to think of all this when John Kane pulled up his team before her and spoke to her.

"Be you hurt, little miss?" he said good-naturedly; "I thought something was wrong by the bark of your dog. He told me as plain as print that I was wanted. 'Look sharp, John Kane!' he said; and how he knows my name I can't tell. There, let me sit you in the cart, and I'll jolt you as little as may be."

Hetty was thankful to be put in the cart, and it seemed to her a very strange chance that had brought John Kane a second time in her life to rescue her. He did not know her at all, and she did not like to tell him who she was.

"Now, where can I take you to?" he said, as they neared the village.

"I came from Wavertree Hall," said Hetty, hanging her head, "and," she added with a great throb of her heart, "my name is Hetty Gray."

"Law, you don't say so!" said honest John; "our little Hetty that is turned into a lady! Well, child, it's not the first time you have got a ride in John Kane's cart. You cannot remember, but you used to be main fond of these very horses, watching them getting shod and running among their feet. However, bygones is bygones, and you won't want to hear anything of all that. Now, I can't drive you up to the door of the Hall in this lumbering big vehicle; but if you'll condescend to come to our cottage for an hour, I'll take a message to say where you are, and Mrs.

Enderby will send for you properly, no doubt."

Hetty's heart was full as she thanked John Kane for his kindness. She had almost been afraid that he would break out into raptures and want to hug her as Mrs. Kane had done; but when she found him so cold and respectful a lump rose in her throat, and something seemed to tell her that as she had pushed away from her the love of these good honest people, she deserved to be as lonely and unloved as she was.

Fortunately it was quite dark when the cart pa.s.sed through the village, so that no one noticed whom John Kane had got cowering down in his cart behind the logs of timber. When he stopped at his own door his wife came out, and he said to her in a low voice:

"Look you here, Anne, if I haven't brought you home little Hetty a second time out of trouble. Found her on the road I did, with her ankle sprained. We'll take her in for the present, and I'll go to the Hall and tell the gentlefolks."

Mrs. Kane had just been making ready her husband's tea, and the fire was burning brightly in her tidy kitchen, making it look pretty and homelike. She was greatly astonished at her husband's news, and came to the cart at once, though with a soreness at heart, remembering her last meeting with Hetty, and thinking how little pleasure the child would find in this enforced visit to her early home.

"Now hurry away to the Hall and give the message," said Mrs. Kane; "your tea will keep till you come back. Little Miss Gray will be anxious to get home to those who are expecting her."

"Oh, please let him take his tea first," cried Hetty; "there will be no hurry to get me back. I have been very naughty and everyone will be angry with me. Please, Mr. Kane, take your tea before you go."

John Kane smiled. "Thank you, little maid; but you see the horses are wanting to go home to their stable. And I'd rather finish all my work before I sit down."

He went away and Hetty was left alone in the firelight with her first foster-mother.

"Perhaps you are hungry, little miss," said Anne. "You have had a long walk, maybe, with your dog."

Scamp had curled himself up on the "settle" at Hetty's feet.

Hetty felt a pang at the words "little miss," but she knew it was her own pride that had brought this treatment upon her. Perhaps Mrs. Kane had once loved her as Scamp did now; but of course she would never love her again. At all events she was dear and good for taking Scamp in without a word of objection, and allowing him to rest himself comfortably at her fireside.

"I am _dreadfully_ hungry," said Hetty, in a low ashamed voice, and looking up at Mrs. Kane with serious eyes. "I have not eaten anything to-day. I sprained my ankle getting the berries, and they fell so far away I could not pick them up."

"Not eaten to-day? What,--no breakfast even?"

"No," said Hetty. "I was bad in the morning, or I should have got some.

At least they said I was bad, but I did not feel it."

"What did you do?"

"I took in Scamp in the night when he barked at the window, and I wanted to keep him, though Mr. Enderby would not have him about the place; and I fought to get him. And I told Mrs. Enderby that I ought to have him.

And then I took him out of the stable-yard and ran away with him."

"I'm afraid that was badness in the end," said Mrs. Kane. "It began with goodness, but it ran to badness. Deary me, it's often the same with myself. I think I'm so right that I can't go wrong. But all comes straight again when we're sorry for a fault."

"But I can't be sorry for keeping Scamp when he loves me so. n.o.body else loves me," cried Hetty, with a burst of tears.

Mrs. Kane was by her side in a minute. "Not love you! don't they, my dear? Well, there's somebody that loves you more than Scamp, _that_ I know. Come, now, dry your eyes and eat a bit. There's a nicer cup of tea than they'd give you at the Hall; for the little brown pot on the hearth makes better tea than ever comes out of silver. I was a maid in a big house once myself, and I know the difference."

In answer to this Hetty sat up as well as the pain of her foot would allow, and flung her arms round Mrs. Kane's neck.