“But I’d like to. I hate hearing things without understanding. What is a curse, Mrs. Scott?”
“There are all sorts,” replied Mrs. Scott. “Once I knowed a man, and he had a curse on him, and he dwindled and dwindled, and got smaller and thinner and poorer, until nothing would nourish him, no food nor drink nor nothing, and he shrunk up ter’ble until he died. It’s my belief he haunts the churchyard now. No one likes to go there in the evening. The name of the man was Micah Sorrel. He was the most ter’ble example of a curse I ever comed acrost in my life.”
“Well, I really must be going now,” said Sibyl with a little shiver. “Good-by; tell Dan I’ll try hard to come and see him to-morrow.”
She turned the pony’s head and cantered down the lane. She did not consider Mrs. Scott a specially nice old woman.
“She’s a gloomy sort,” thought the child, “she takes a gloomy view. I like people who don’t take gloomy views best. Perhaps she is something like old Scott; having lived with him so long as his wife, perhaps they have got to think things the same way. Old Scott looked very solemn when he said that it was a terrible thing to have the curse of the poor. I wonder what Micah Sorrel did. I am sorry she told me about him, I don’t like the story. But there, why should I blame Mrs. Scott, for I asked her to ’splain what a curse was. I ’spect I’m a very queer girl, and I didn’t really keep my whole word. I said positive and plain that I would take a basket of apples to Dan, and go and sit with him. I did take the apples, but I didn’t go in and sit with him. Oh, dear, I’ll have to go back by the churchyard. I hope Micah Sorrel won’t be about. I shouldn’t like to see him, he must be shrunk up so awful by now. Come along, pony darling, we’ll soon be back home again.”
Sibyl lightly touched the pony’s ears with a tiny whip which Lord Grayleigh had given her. He whisked his head indignantly at the motion and broke into a trot, the trot became a canter, and the canter a gallop.
Sibyl laughed aloud in her enjoyment. They were now close to the churchyard. The sun was getting near the horizon, but still there was plenty of light.
“A little faster, as we are passing the churchyard, pony pet,” said Sybil, and she bent towards her steed and again touched him, nothing more than a feather touch, on his arched neck. But pony was spirited, and had endured too much stabling, and was panting for exercise; and, just at that moment, turning abruptly round a corner came a man waving a red flag. He was followed by a procession of school children, all shouting and racing. The churchyard was in full view.
Sibyl laughed with a sense of relief when she saw the procession. She would not be alone as she passed the churchyard, and doubtless Micah Sorrel would be all too wise to make his appearance, but the next instant she gave a cry of alarm, for the pony first swerved violently, and then rushed off at full gallop. The red flag had startled him, and the children’s shouts were the final straw.
“Not quite so fast, darling,” cried Sibyl; “a little slower, pet.”