Then she left them, and they sat very still in the warm, silent kitchen; and by and by Sylvia, worn out with grief, and not having slept at all during the previous night, dropped into an uneasy slumber, while Hetty stroked her sister’s hand and Dan’s head until she also fell asleep.
The dogs, seeing that the girls were asleep, thought that they might do the same. When, therefore, Farmer Miles and his wife entered the kitchen, it was to find the two girls and the dogs sound asleep.
“Poor little lambs! Do look at ’em!” said Mrs. Miles. “They be wore out, and no mistake.”
“Let’s lay ’em on the sofa along here,” said Miles. “While they’re having their sleep out you get the dinner up, wife, and I’ll go out and put on my considering-cap.”
The farmer had no sooner said this than—whispering to the dogs, who very unwillingly accompanied him—he left the kitchen. He went into the farmyard and began to pace up and down. Mrs. Miles had told her story with some skill, the farmer having kept his attention fixed on the salient points.
Miss Betty—even he had succumbed utterly to the charms of Miss Betty—had lost a packet of great value. She had hidden it, doubtless in the grounds of Haddo Court. She had gone had gone to look for it, and it was no longer there. Some one had stolen it. Who that person could be was what the farmer wanted to “get at,” as he expressed it. “Until you can get at the thief,” he muttered under his breath, “you are nowhere at all.”
But at present he was without any clue, and, true man of business that he was, he felt altogether at a loose end. Meanwhile, as he was pacing up and down towards the farther edge of the prosperous-looking farmyard, Dan uttered a growl and sprang into the road. The next minute there was a piercing cry, and Farmer Miles, brandishing his long whip, followed the dog. Dan was holding the skirts of a very young girl and shaking them ferociously in his mouth. His eyes glared into the face of the girl, and his whole aspect was that of anger personified. Luckily, Beersheba was not present, or the girl might have had a sorry time of it. With a couple of strides the farmer advanced towards her; dealt some swift lashes with his heavy whip on the dog’s head, which drove him back; then, taking the girl’s small hand, he said to her kindly, “Don’t you be frightened, miss; his bark’s a sight worse nor his bite.”
“Oh, he did terrify me so!” was the answer; “and I’ve been running for such a long time, and I’m very, very tired.”
“Well, miss, I don’t know your name nor anything about you; but this land happens to be private property—belonging to me, and to me alone. Of course, if it weren’t for that I’d have no right to have fierce dogs about ready to molest human beings. It was a lucky thing for you, miss, that I was so close by. And whatever be your name, if I may be so bold as to ask, and where be you going now?”
“My name is Sibyl Ray, and I belong to Haddo Court.”