As soon as all was set right, Price took the bills, and said he would go round to the neighbours, and collect the money himself; for that he should be very proud to have it to say to them, that it was all earned by his own little daughter.
Susan resolved to keep the pleasure of telling him of his week’s reprieve till he should come home to sup, as he had promised to do, in her mother’s room. She was not sorry to hear him sigh as he passed the knapsack, which she had been packing up for his journey. “How delighted he will be when he hears the good news!” said she, to herself; “but I know he will be a little sorry too for my poor lamb.”
As Susan had now settled all her business, she thought she could have time to go down to the meadow by the river side to see her favourite; but just as she had tied on her straw hat the village clock struck four, and this was the hour at which she always went to fetch her little brothers home from a dame-school near the village. She knew that they would be disappointed, if she was later than usual, and she did not like to keep them waiting, because they were very patient, good boys; so she put off the visit to her lamb, and went immediately for her brothers.
CHAPTER II.
Ev’n in the spring and playtime of the year,
That calls th’ unwonted villager abroad,
With all her little ones, a sportive train,
To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,
And prink their heads with daisies.Cowper.
The dame-school, which was about a mile from the hamlet, was not a showy edifice; but it was reverenced as much by the young race of village scholars as if it had been the most stately mansion in the land; it was a low roofed, long, thatched tenement, sheltered by a few reverend oaks, under which many generations of hopeful children had gambolled in their turn.
The close shaven green, which sloped down from the hatch-door of the schoolroom, was paled round with a rude paling, which, though decayed in some parts by time, was not in any place broken by violence.
The place bespoke order and peace. The dame who governed was well obeyed, because she was just and well beloved, and because she was ever glad to give well earned praise and pleasure to her little subjects.
Susan had once been under her gentle dominion, and had been deservedly her favourite scholar. The dame often cited her as the best example to the succeeding tribe of emulous youngsters. She had scarcely opened the wicket which separated the green before the schoolroom door from the lane, when she heard the merry voices of the children, and saw the little troup issuing from the hatchway, and spreading over the green.
“Oh, there’s Susan!” cried her two little brothers, running, leaping, and bounding up to her; and many of the other rosy girls and boys crowded round her, to talk of their plays; for Susan was easily interested in all that made others happy; but she could not make them comprehend, that, if they all spoke at once it was not possible that she could hear what was said.