Already she had thought, “When Mrs. Hagood misses me she will think I’ve started back to the Refuge (as I’d like to), and so I must go just the other way,” and so it was in this opposite direction that she hurried. And what a strange world this was into which she had come, the world of night, of mystery, of strange quiet, of brooding peace. All the well-known objects took on a new and unfamiliar look, as though they had different faces for the day and the night. In the solemn stillness sounds unheard by day became strangely distinct—for the first time she heard the spring at the foot of the hill falling into its rocky basin; the cry of a hidden cricket, the rustle in the wind of the already fallen leaves, the crow of a rooster in a neighboring barn—sounds all that in the day she would hardly have noticed, how loud and eerie they were now!
In all the village but one light was burning, in the room of an old man who had been long sick and was near death. As Posey saw it she wondered if when people died they went out into the night alone, and felt strange and perhaps afraid. A few hours before she had almost wished she could die, but now she shivered a little at the thought as well as the chill of the night air, and the strange sensation of being out alone. Yes, she was glad to be alive, even if there did not seem to be any place anywhere for her.
Few girls of her age would have dared to do what she was doing. But Posey was not timid by nature, and much of her courage came from the tension of her feverish excitement. Still, when she had passed through the village, where all was familiar and there was a certain sense of companionship in the clustered houses and the thought of the sleeping people inside, and leaving the last house behind, from the hill-top on which she stood, she saw the open fields and dark woods stretch away till they melted in dimness, her heart beat fast and almost failed. For with the sight a sudden sense of desolation rushed over her, a realization of how alone and young, and weak and helpless she was.
For the first time, too, she began to be troubled by thoughts of the future. She had heard of runaways who had to sleep nights in old barns and under haystacks. Boys from the Refuge had sometimes run away, and when brought back had told such stories. Very likely she would have to also, and it seemed to her that it would be dreadful to sleep in an old barn, especially if there should be rats. Besides when her little store of provision was gone, how would she live unless she begged? She had often seen ragged children in the city going from door to door with baskets, but that was a degradation she had never known—one her whole nature shrank from. She would rather starve, she felt, than to beg at doors, and perhaps be turned away, as she knew beggars so often were.
As all these things rose before her Posey almost wished herself back safe in the little room she had left. Almost but not quite, for a memory of Mrs. Hagood’s face as she had last seen it, and Mrs. Hagood’s voice as it had last reached her ear stayed her wavering. “I won’t go back now, if I die,” she pledged herself, setting her teeth firmly, and bracing herself with dogged resolution. “But oh, how I do wish I could have brought Rover!”
CHAPTER VIII
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
That night’s experience was one Posey never forgot. The road she had chosen she was now on for the first time; where it led to she had no idea; all she knew about it was that it would take her away from Mrs. Hagood, and in the direction where she thought there would be least danger of her being looked for. But once fairly started she hurried on, her one thought and anxiety to put all the distance possible between herself and Horsham before her absence was discovered.
But what it cost her to do this! To her excited fancy the commonest objects—innocent stumps, wayside bushes, fence-corner shadows—took on in the weird light grotesque shapes that filled her with fear and trembling. If she had a stretch of lonely woods to pass through she ran till the beating of her own heart fairly startled her. Was she out of sight of houses, she would quicken her steps and almost fly. When a house came in sight she walked more slowly; to be near people, even if they knew nothing of her, was something, and the barking of a dog was always a welcome sound. When she heard it she knew there was something living and awake, which lessened a little her feeling that she was a sort of wandering spirit, driven on and on in a dim world where, save for the uncanny night birds, nothing was astir but herself. Yes, Posey was afraid, at times desperately afraid, but she felt that every step was taking her farther from Mrs. Hagood, and for the sake of that she was willing both to dare much and to endure much.
By and by, however, signs of the coming morning began to appear. First a faint line of light along the eastern sky, then lights were seen gleaming here and there in farmhouse windows, and curls of smoke rising from chimneys, in token that the world was rousing to the new day; once across the fields she heard a loud hearty voice calling, “Coo-boss, coo-boss,” to the cows in some out-of-sight pasture, and again she caught a distant glimpse of some boys with bags on their shoulders, evidently off for an early nutting expedition. Gradually these signs of life multiplied, the clouds grew more rosy, the trees, no longer vague, dark masses, showed their brilliant hues of red and gold; wayside objects lost their dim and spectral look; all the world was waking into the crisp brightness of a clear, fresh, autumn morning, sweet with the fruity smell of ripened orchards, and rich with the soft mellowness of the long summer time.
With everything around her new and strange Posey had no idea how far she had come. This she did know, that the bundle and basket she carried were all the time growing heavier, that her aching feet dragged more and more slowly, and that she was so tired she could go only a little way without stopping to rest.