He went along swiftly, holding her to him in the blanket. And a fine commotion they all made when he got her indoors.
The silly little thing, unable to get over her shyness, had taken the opportunity, when the back-door was open, to steal out of it, with the view of running home to her mother. Confused, perhaps, by the bare white plain; or it may be by her own timidity; or probably confounding the back-door and its approaches with the front, by which she had entered, she went straight across the field, unconscious that this was taking her in just the opposite direction to her home. It was she whom Luke Mackintosh had met—the great idiot!—and he frightened her with his rough appearance and the bellow of fear he gave, just as much as she had frightened him. Onwards she went, blindly terrified, was stopped by the hedge, fell into the ditch, and lay buried in the snow. Whether she could be brought back to life, or whether death had really taken her, was a momentous question.
I went off for Cole, flying all the way. He sent me back again, saying he’d be there as soon as I—and that Nettie Trewin must be a born simpleton.
“Master Johnny!—Mr. Ludlow!—Is it you?”
The words greeted me in a weak panting voice, just as I reached the corner by the store barn, and I recognized Mrs. Trewin. Alarmed at Nettie’s prolonged stay, she had come out, all bruised as she was, and extorted the fact—that the child was missing—from Maria Lease. I told her that the child was found—and where.
“Dead or alive, sir?”
I stammered in my answer. Cole would be up directly, I said, and we must hope for the best. But she drew a worse conclusion.
“It was all I had,” she murmured. “My one little ewe lamb.”
“Don’t cry, Mrs. Trewin. It may turn out to be all right, you know.”
“If I could only have laid her poor little face on my bosom to die, and said good-bye to her!” she wailed, the tears falling. “I have had so much trouble in the world, Master Johnny!—and she was all of comfort left to me in it.”