At last, in the deepening twilight, she saw the dim fronts of houses where candles, set in lanterns, were flaring gustily. She knew that the wagon had halted in the ill-smelling court of an inn. She saw the steam curl upward from the horses' flanks, and heard the snap of buckles and clatter of shafts, as the stable-lads unhitched the wagon.
"Come, little mistress!" spoke the big carrier, who had clambered on the wheel near Merrylips. "Here we be, come to the inn at Horsham and the end of our journey. Ye must light down."
"I will not!" cried Merrylips, and clung to the seat with stiffened hands. "I'll sit here forever till ye go back unto London. I'll not bide here in your loathly Sussex. I do hate your Sussex. I'll not light down. I'll not, I tell ye!"
Mawkin, half awake, spoke sharply: "Hold your peace, I pray you, mistress!"
One of the stable boys laughed, and with that laughter in her ears, Merrylips felt herself lifted bodily into the big carrier's arms and set down on her feet in the courtyard. The world was all against her, she thought, and it was a world of rain and darkness in which she felt small and weak and lonely. In sudden terror she caught at the carrier's sleeve.
"Oh, master, take me back to London!" she cried. "I'll give ye my new silver shilling. I cannot bide here—indeed, you know not! I like not your Sussex—and I be feared of mine old godmother. Oh, master, take me back wi' you to my daddy in London town!"
Then, while she pleaded, Merrylips felt two hands, eager hands but gentle, laid on her shoulders.
"Little lass!" said a woman's voice. "Thou art cold and shivering. Do thou come in out of the storm."
"I'm fain to go back!" cried Merrylips.
She turned toward this stranger who was friendly, but saw her all blurred through a mist of rain and of tears.