HETTY TURNS REBEL.
Hetty cried herself to sleep as she had done the night before, and her last thought was of Scamp. About the middle of the night she had a dream in which she fancied that Scamp's paws were round her neck, and that he was barking in her ear his delight at seeing her. The barking went on so long that it wakened her, for it was real barking that had caused the dream.
Hetty sat up in her bed and listened. Surely that was Scamp's bark, loud, sharp, and impatient, as if he was saying, "Where's Hetty? I want Hetty. I will not go away till I have found Hetty." In the stillness of the night it sounded to the lonely child like the voice of a dear friend longing to comfort her. She jumped out of bed, threw open the window, and listened again. Could it be that he had found the way from Amber Hill, and come so many miles to look for her? Darling old Scamp, was it possible he loved her so much? Yes, it was indeed his voice; he was outside the house, almost under her window, and she must and would go down and take him in.
She opened the door cautiously and went out into the passage. The barking was not heard so distinctly here, and she hoped that no one would hear it but herself. How dreadful if somebody should go and beat him away before she could reach him! She pattered down-stairs with her little bare feet and made her way through the darkness to the great hall door. But she had forgotten how great and heavy that door was, and had not thought of the chain that hung across it at night, and the big lock in which she could not turn the key. Scamp heard her trying to open the door, and barked more joyfully. Unable to unfasten this door she made her way to another at the back of the house, and, withdrawing a bolt, she stood in the doorway, her little white night-dress blowing in the winter's night air, and her bare feet on the stones of the threshold.
"Scamp, Scamp!" she called in a soft voice, and, wonderful to tell, he heard her and came flying round the house.
"Oh, Scampie, dear, have you come, and do you really love me still?" whispered Hetty as the dog leaped into her arms, and she clasped his paws round her neck and kissed his shaggy head.
Scamp uttered a few short rapturous exclamations and licked her face and hands all over.
"But you must be very quiet," she said, "or you will wake the house and we shall be caught. Come now, lovie, and I'll hide you in my own room."
She closed the door as quietly as possible and crept upstairs again, carrying the dog hugged in her arms.
As she stole along the passage to her room, one of the maids whispered to another who was sleeping in the room with her:
"Oh, I have heard a great noise down-stairs, and one of the dogs was barking. And just now I am sure I heard feet in the passage."
"Some one has got into the house then," said the other maid listening.
"Oh, lie still, don't get up!" said the first maid. "It must be burglars."
"I will go and waken the men," said the other courageously. And down-stairs she went and wakened the butler and footman. Soon they were all searching the house, the butler armed with a gun, the others with large pokers. No burglars were to be found, and the butler was very cross at having been called out of his bed for nothing at all.
The maids persisted that some one had been in the house, some one who must have escaped while they were giving the alarm. Mr. Enderby heard the noise and came out of his room and learned the whole story. After an hour of searching and questioning and discussion all went to bed again, everybody blaming everybody else for the silly mistake that had been made.
Next morning Hetty slept long and soundly after her midnight adventure, and when the maid who called her went into her room she was astonished to see a dog's head on the pillow by the sleeping child. Scamp put up his nose and barked at the intruder, and Hetty wakened.
"Laws, Miss Hetty, you are a strange little girl," said the maid, who was the very girl who had alarmed the house during the night. "How ever did you get a dog into your room?"
"It's only Scamp, my own Scamp, and he wouldn't hurt anybody," said Hetty; "please don't beat him away, Lucy. He came in the middle of the night trying to find me, and I took him in. Perhaps Mrs. Enderby will let me keep him now."
"That I am sure she will not," said Lucy. "You naughty little girl. And so it was you who disturbed the house last night, frightening us all out of our senses, and getting me scolded for giving an alarm. Wait till Mr. Enderby hears about it."
"You are very unkind," said Hetty; "as if I could help his coming in the night-time!"
"And I suppose you could not help letting him into the house and taking him into your bed?" said Lucy scornfully.
"No, I couldn't," said Hetty. "And you can go and tell Mr. Enderby as soon as you please."
At this Lucy flounced out of the room quite determined to complain of the enormity of Hetty's conduct.
When the little girl appeared in the school-room with Scamp following at her heels she was not in the best of tempers, and held her chin very high in the air. Miss Davis met her with a stern face.
"Hetty, what is this I hear of you? How could you dare to bring a strange dog into the house in the middle of the night?"
"It wasn't a strange dog; it was Scamp," said Hetty, putting on her most defiant air. "I don't think it was any harm to let him in."
"Not, though I tell you it was?" said Miss Davis.
"No," said Hetty.
"Then I must ask Mrs. Enderby to talk to you," said Miss Davis. "Meantime the dog cannot stay here while we are at breakfast."
And she rang the bell.
"Tell Thomas to come and fetch this dog away to the stable-yard," she said to the maid who answered the bell.
"Scamp always stayed in the room with me at Amber Hill," said Hetty, two red spots burning in her cheeks.
"You must learn to remember that you are no longer at Amber Hill," said Miss Davis.
Phyllis and Nell now came into the school-room and looked greatly surprised at sight of the dog, Hetty's angry face, and Miss Davis's looks of high displeasure. They took their places in silence at the breakfast table.
"I am not likely to forget it," retorted Hetty bitterly. "At Amber Hill everybody was kind to me. Nobody is kind here."
"You are a most ungrateful girl," said Miss Davis. "What would have become of you if Mr. and Mrs. Enderby had not been kind?"
At this moment Thomas entered.
"Take away that dog to the stable-yard," said Miss Davis.
Hetty threw her arms round Scamp's neck and clung to him.
"You shall not turn him out," she cried. "He came and found me, and I will not give him up."
"Do as I have told you, Thomas," said Miss Davis; and Thomas seized Scamp in spite of Hetty's struggles, and carried him off, howling dismally.
"Now, you naughty girl, you may go back to your own room, and stay there till you are ready to apologize to me for your conduct," said Miss Davis.
"Oh, please don't send Hetty away without her breakfast," pleaded Nell.
"I will go. I will not stay here. I will run away!" cried Hetty wildly.
"Let her go, Nell," said Phyllis, giving her sister a warning look; and Miss Davis said:
"When she is hungry she can apologize for her conduct. In the meantime she had better go away and be left alone till she recovers her senses."
Hetty fled out of the room and away to her own little chamber, where she locked herself in and flung herself in a passion of rage and grief on the floor.
"I will go away," she sobbed. "I will run away with Scamp and seek my fortune. Miss Davis is going to be as bad as Grant, reminding me that I am a charity child. Oh, why was I not born like Phyllis and Nell, with people to love me and a home to belong to? It is easy for them to be good. But I shall never be good. I know, I know I never shall!"
After half an hour had passed a knock came to the door, and Lucy demanded to be admitted.
"Go away, you cruel creature!" cried Hetty. "I will not have you here."
Lucy went away, and after some time Hetty heard Mrs. Enderby's voice at the door.
"I hope you will not refuse to let me in," she said. "I request that you will open the door."
Hetty rose from the floor very unwillingly and opened the door, and Mrs. Enderby came in.
"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 passages 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 grass 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 butterflies 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 grass 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 nobody 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 passed 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. Nobody 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.
"Oh, keep me here with you!" she cried. "I am tired of being grand. I will stay with you and learn to be a useful girl, if only you will love me."
Mrs. Kane heaved a long sigh as Hetty's arms fastened round her neck. Now she felt rewarded for all the love and care she had poured out on the child during the three years she had had her for her own. A little bit of hard ice that had always been lying at the bottom of her heart ever since Hetty had left her, now melted away, and she said, half laughing and half crying:
"Come now, deary, don't be talking nonsense. Nice and fit you'd be to bear with a cottage life after all you've been seeing. Don't you think the gentlefolks would give you up so easily as that. But whenever you want a word of love and a heart to rest your bit of a head upon like this, mind you remember where they're always waiting for you, Hetty."
Hetty sobbed and clung to her more closely, and it was some time before she could be induced to eat and drink. When she did so the homely meal set before her seemed to her the most delicious she had ever tasted.
"Oh I am so glad I have found my way back to you," she said; "I never should have done it if I hadn't got into such trouble. Oh, you don't know how proud and bad I have been! I know I've been bad, now that you are so good to me."
After about an hour John Kane came back. He had been obliged to wait to put up his horses and see to their wants for the night before he could come home. The message he brought from the Hall was that Hetty must stay where she was till her foot was better, as moving about was so bad for a sprain. Mrs. Enderby would see Mrs. Kane about her to-morrow.
The tiny whitewashed room where she slept that night was the one in which she had slept when a toddling baby, and Hetty wondered at herself as she looked round it thankfully. A patchwork quilt covered the bed, and a flower-pot in the one small window, and some coloured prints on the wall, were its only adornments. But it was extremely clean and neat, and, in spite of the pain in her foot, Hetty felt more content as she laid her head on the coarse pillow than she had felt for a great many weeks past.