Thus encouraged, Anne told the story of the day’s adventures, punctuated now and then by promptings from the others, until she had said really more than she intended, and the old woman knew that her guests had heard at least one side of the tale of her misfortune.
Then the sight of young faces around her seemed to warm her lonely heart and loosen her tongue.
“Yes,” she said presently, but with no trace of complaint in her voice, “the place was sold a month gone to pay the taxes. The same being law and justice, I’ll not complain. And I by rights would be gone as well, but for Laddie here; and as it is, I’m but a trespasser.
“I’d to deal with but the few chicks you saw out yonder, a sick pup, and an old cow that pastures behind on—the Lord forgive me!—what’s mine no longer; when the night before the day I was to go yonder,” pointing north to where the poor farm lay, “Laddie, he disappeared.
“I’d not paid his tax, and so the law was against him. Leastway, the bit I’d saved to pay it was made way with by the lad I sent it to the town clerk by, and I’d no way to earn more—the lameness being too hard for me to pick and peddle berries down the turnpike. What with that fear before me, and knowing he’d taken a chick a week agone from some one, being sore tempted to find meat, I was worried in deed and truth. If he’s dead, said I, his troubles be over; but if held in bond, and breaking loose he comes home, and me away, he’ll just pine away and starve, slow and pitiful.
“But noo,” she continued, trying to make her voice sound cheery, “he’s come, and to the favour of your loosing him I’m minded to ask another. As you know dogs’ ways, little leddie, will ye take him with ye, and give him his keep his life out? It’ll not be long, for he’s turning ten, and has’na had a full stomach these last years. Will ye, leddie? I’m sorrowful not to gi’ him free o’ the tax, but it’s the first and last favour Jane Carr asks o’ any one. Ye will. God bless you, child! Now to-morrow the old ‘Herb Witch’ will move on.”
It was all Anne could do to keep from breaking down and crying aloud. Miss Letty did not even try, and Elsa Willoughby wiped her eyes hastily, forgetting that she had used her handkerchief that morning to cleanse her paint-brushes. So interested had they all been that an hour passed unnoticed, and with it the storm.
“But,”—stammered Anne, trying to steady her voice, “where is the sick puppy? Don’t you want us to take that too?”
“You’d best take it, certy; but it’s not mine, and you may likely seek out the owner, for it’s a well-favoured little hussy, and affectionsome, though flighty, if I make no mistake. Ten days back Laddie came in barking and making signs for me to follow, for he has speech, has Laddie, or I mistake.”