The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

by Mrs. George Corbett

Then I walked slowly forward, feeling a leaden weight on limbs and brain alike. With quaking heart and anxious eyes I peered in the direction of Teddy’s old stall, and when I failed to see the dear little ugly companion of my happiest frolics, I only felt the mist which covered my eyes to be the outcome of a dreary conviction which had been stealing over me ever since I emerged from the house. For a moment a deadly faintness almost overpowered me, so that I had to seize the nearest available support, in order to prevent myself from falling. While I still stood, feeling half dazed with a newly added sense of misery, I once more heard the feeble imitation of a whine which had already attracted my attention. Then, looking down, I saw, painfully rolling toward me, a little round body that must be, could be, nothing but my darling Bobby. Hastily stepping forward, I stooped and lifted the object, and oh! how can I ever describe what I felt when, taking it to the light, I discovered it to be none other than my beloved pet! Poor fellow! he had recognized me, and, though almost at death’s door, had made a desperate effort to meet me once more.

I sat down with him on my lap and bent over him in an agony of grief. He, in his turn, fondly licked my fingers and looked at me with a piteous, all-adoring love shining out of the beautiful eyes which were already fast glazing over with the last dread film.

“Oh, my darling!” I moaned, as I kissed his dear little head over and over again. “What have I done that I should lose everything I love? I would give ten years of my life to see you frisk about me in the old happy way. Can’t you really get better, now that I have come?”

Did the poor thing understand me, or was he only making a supreme effort to make me comprehend how glad he was to see me? Perhaps it was both, for he always was more intelligent than some human beings I have encountered. Be this as it may, he suddenly rose to his feet, and stood looking in my face for a moment almost the picture of his old excitable self, with sparkling eyes and quivering body. Then he gave a sharp, glad bark, and dropped, lifeless, on the lap of one of the most desolate human beings on earth.

How long I sat there in my misery I do not know, but was at last interrupted by the voice of the vicar, who, perceiving what had happened, asked me no questions, but, gently lifting poor Bobby’s body into a basket which stood close by, suggested that we should bury him ourselves before we returned to the vicarage. As one in a dream, I let him lead me whither he would, and together we went down to the old orchard, where, presently, my kindly friend took upon himself the office of grave-digger. Concerning Teddy, I asked no more questions just now, for I no longer believed him to be alive.

When I had marked Bobby’s resting-place, I turned to John Page, whom, for the first time, I noticed to be standing near me. “And now,” I said, my voice still shaken with sobs, “tell me how it is that you never sent us word that my pets were ill.”

“Indeed, miss, I did,” answered John, with a sympathetic look at my grief-stricken face. “I sent the master word about everything. You had only been gone a day or two when Teddy began to fret and go off his feed. He would seek you in the yard, and in the orchard, and in all sorts of likely and unlikely places, and when he couldn’t see anything of you, he would whinny that pitifully that neither Martha nor me liked to hear him. We used to try to pet him up a bit. But it was no go, and we could see that if he went on fretting like that things would soon go wrong with him. Bobby, too, hung his head, and walked about looking the picture of misery. When you were away at my lady’s place, before, they both took on considerable. But you were not quite so long away, and it hadn’t such an effect on them as it’s had this time. It was only last week that Teddy died, and Bobby has never been out of the stable since. I have done what I could for him, but anybody could see that he wouldn’t be here long. The master knew Teddy was dead, and I’m sure I thought you knew all about it. I buried him just at the foot of the paddock, feeling that that was where you would have liked to put him, if you had been at home.”

I couldn’t speak. But I gave John a look which would show him that I exonerated him from blame and that I was grateful to him for what he had tried to do for me. Then I walked down to the paddock, to take one last look at poor old Teddy’s resting-place. And here a fresh idea seized me. My two pets had been such inseparable friends during life that I felt it cruel to part them in death, and returned to John, to ask him to bring Bobby’s body to be finally interred beside that of his friend and companion. My wish was soon accomplished, and then, without looking back at the old home even once more, I walked away toward the vicarage, followed by the vicar, and hardly knowing whether grief at my loss, or resentment at the callousness which had prevented my father from telling me the true state of the case, was predominant.

I had not walked far before I was overtaken by Mr. Garth, but there was very little said between us until we were nearly at the vicarage.

“Did you know that my pony was dead?” I asked him.