“CHILDE CHARITY CAME OUT AND ASKED THE OLD WOMAN TO TAKE HER SHARE OF THE SUPPER”
That day all the servants were sick after the feast, and mostly cross too—so you may judge how civil they were; when, at supper time, who should come to the back door but the old woman, again asking for broken victuals and a night’s lodging.
No one would listen to her or give her a morsel, till Childe Charity rose from her seat at the foot of the lowest table, and kindly asked her to take her supper, and sleep in her bed in the back garret. Again the old woman sat down without a word. Childe Charity scraped the pots for her supper, and slept on the sack.
In the morning the old woman was gone; but for six nights after, as sure as the supper was spread, there was she at the back door, and the little girl regularly asked her in.
Childe Charity’s aunt said she would let her get enough of beggars. Her cousins made continual game of what they called her genteel visitor. Sometimes the old woman said: “Child, why don’t you make this bed softer? and why are your blankets so thin?” but she never gave her a word of thanks, nor a civil good morning.
At last, on the ninth night from her first coming, when Childe Charity was getting used to scrape the pots and sleep on the sack, her accustomed knock came at the door, and there she stood with an ugly ashy-coloured dog, so stupid-looking and clumsy that no herd-boy would keep him.
“Good evening, my little girl,” she said when Childe Charity opened the door. “I will not have your supper and bed to-night—I am going on a long journey to see a friend. But here is a dog of mine, whom nobody in all the west country will keep for me. He is a little cross, and not very handsome; but I leave him to your care till the shortest day in all the year. Then you and I will count for his keeping.”
When the old woman had said the last word, she set off with such speed that Childe Charity lost sight of her in a minute. The ugly dog began to fawn upon her, but he snarled at everybody else. The servants said he was a disgrace to the house. The proud cousins wanted him drowned, and it was with great trouble that Childe Charity got leave to keep him in an old ruined cow-house.
Ugly and cross as the dog was, he fawned on her, and the old woman had left him to her care. So the little girl gave him part of all her meals, and when the hard frost came, took him privately to her own back garret, because the cow-house was damp and cold in the long nights. The dog lay quietly on some straw in a corner. Childe Charity slept soundly, but every morning the servants would say to her:—
“What great light and fine talking was that in your back garret?”