At last the evening began to get dark and Aline knew she must be getting home. “Good-bye, sweet Joan,” she said and for the last time printed a kiss on the child’s forehead. “I wish you could have said good-bye,” and she turned to the door.
As she turned Joan’s eyes half opened. “Good-bye,” she murmured, and Aline went sadly from the house.
“They are going to take her away from me and I believe I love her even more than Audry, but it is all meant for the best. Oh, I hope and I hope that that horrid old witch was not telling the truth.”
Aline lay awake for a long time that night thinking of Joan and old Moll and wondering how she would find Wilfred Johnstone; and when she slept she still dreamed of her little friend.
The next morning they carried Joan away on a litter. The journey was to be made in three stages of a day each. Aline would have liked to see her off, but unfortunately Master Richard had specially arranged to take the children with him on a long expedition and make an early start, and he did not wish any interference with his plans.
He had been so very kind in making the elaborate arrangements about Joan’s journey and future welfare that Aline did not like to say anything, though it cost her a pang.
They mounted from the old “louping on stone” in the lower courtyard and were not long reaching Middleton. Master Richard had some business in Middleton, and afterward they turned up the left bank of the Tees.
It was another grey day, but the water looked wonderfully beautiful down below them, and Holwick crags rose majestically away to the left. The bleakness of the surrounding country enhanced the richness of the river valley; but the wild spirit of the hills seemed to dominate the whole.
On the way they passed through the village of Newbiggin. It consisted almost wholly of rude stone cottages and byres. “We have a great deal of trouble here,” remarked Richard Mowbray. “They are a curiously lawless lot; it is not only their poaching but there is much thieving of other kinds. Their beasts too are a nuisance, straying, as they pretend, on our Middleton property. A murrain on them! My tenant there, Master Milnes, is very indignant about it and is sure that it is not accidental. He also makes great complaint about continual damage to the dykes. Mistress Mowbray is determined to have the whole nest of them cleared out.”