Harebell looked up at him beseechingly.
"I don't know what to do. I can't go back."
"Oh yes, you can! I'll come a bit of the way with you, and if you trot your pony pretty fast, you'll get home not so very late for breakfast after all. Would you like a sip of hot tea? You wait here a minute."
He disappeared, but soon came back with a hot tin of tea, and some bread and cheese.
"'Tis mos' remarkable you comin' away in a straight line to the house which I be workin' on! How did you do it now?"
Harebell drank the tea thirstily, then she looked at Tom gravely.
"I s'pose God brought me to you, so that you would tell me how wicked I was, and send me back. I used to think when I first knew about you, Tom, that you were much wickeder than I was. Now it's me that is wicked, and you're trying to make me good. It's dreadfully wicked to run away, isn't it? Almost as bad as telling a lie."
"It's a poor thing to do—to run away," said Tom slowly; "but I don't know that I ain't just done it myself! You see, I knowed how my old pals would be gettin' over me, so I come away twelve mile off to make a fresh start where I couldn't be baited!"
"But you didn't run away from home, Tom. Your mother and sister knew you were coming."
"Bless their hearts, that they did! And I be gettin' along fine. And some day I hopes I'll come back and be able to look my fellow-creatures straight in the face. For I shan't be feared then o' nobody. An' I do allow 'tis a happy thing to feel inside the Kingdom's Door, missy. I humbly 'ope I've crawled through, and the Lord be holdin' my feet straight, and my mouth from even wanting the accursed stuff; and He have got me by His hand, so I just steps behind Him, and He goes first."