"Indeed!" cried the child joyfully.
"Oh yes," returned her friend. "I have been chosen as clerk and schoolmaster to a village a long way from here, and a long way from the old one, as you may suppose, at five-and-thirty pounds a year. Five-and-thirty pounds!"
"I am very glad," said the child—"so very, very glad."
"I am on my way there now," the schoolmaster went on. "They gave me the stage-coach hire—outside stage-coach hire all the way. Bless you, they grudge me nothing. But as I have plenty of time, I made up my mind to walk. How glad I am to think I did so!"
"How glad should we be!" said the child.
"Yes, yes," said the schoolmaster, "certainly—that's very true. But you—where are you going, where are you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me, what had you been doing before? Now, tell me—do tell me. I know very little of the world, but I have a reason for loving you. I have felt since the time you visited me in my home as if my love for the boy who died had been given to you."
The kindness of the honest man gave the child a great trust in him. She told him all—that they had no friends or relations; that she had fled with the old man to save him from misery; that she was flying now to save him from himself; and that she sought a home where he would not be tempted again.
For some time the schoolmaster sat deep in thought; then he said that Nell and her grandfather should go with him to the village whither he was bound; and that he would try to find them some work by which they could make a living. "We shall be sure to get on," said the schoolmaster; "the cause is too good a one to fail."
They soon found that a stage-wagon would stop at the inn the next night to change horses. When the wagon came Nell was placed inside, and in due time it rolled away, the two men walking on beside the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks of the inn shouting out their good wishes and farewells.
What a soothing, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside that slowly moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the horses' bells, the smacking of the carter's whip, the smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the harness, the cheery good-nights of passing travellers, all falling lightly upon the ear!