'I'VE PLENTY OF STORIES IN MY HEAD,' SHE SAID.
'I've plenty of stories in my head,' she said. 'The one I was going to tell you the other day was an old one of my grandmother's. It was about a moor, though I can't say for certain if it was the one I remember best myself. It was told her by the one that was best able to tell it, and that was the very man it had happened to many years before, when he was a boy. They were poor folk, very poor folk, and they had hard work to keep the wolf from the door. The father was dead, and there were several little ones. This boy, Robin was his name, was the eldest, and the only one fit for regular work, and he was but twelve. He must have been a right-down good boy, though he didn't say so of himself, for he worked early and late and brought every penny home to his mother. Well, one night, 'twas the beginning of winter too, like it is now, he was going home from the farm where he worked, right across the moor. It was a good long way to the farm, for it was a lonely place where his home was, but there was no rent to pay for the bit of a place, so they stayed there, lonesome as it was, and worse than that sometimes, for the children were delicate, from want of good food most likely, and more than once the poor mother had had a sad fright, thinking the baby, the frailest of them all, would have died before the doctor could come to them. In the summer-time they got on better, and, putting one thing with another, they'd have been sorry to move.
'This winter promised to be a very hard one—all the wise folk had said so, and they weren't often mistaken. There were signs they could read better than people can nowadays, and Robin's heart was heavy. For if the snow came his work might stop, or it might be almost impossible to go backwards and forwards to it. There had been times when for days together the moor could not be crossed. The boy was tired too, and hungry, and he knew well there was not much of a meal waiting for him at home. But at least there would be shelter and warmth, for there was no lack of fuel ready to hand—same as we have it here. The wind whistled and moaned, and felt as if it cut him. More than once he put his hands up to his ears, just to feel like if they were still there and to shut out the dreary sound for a moment. And one time after doing so, it seemed to him that he heard a new sound mixing with the wind's wail. A cry, with more in it than the wind was telling: for it sounded like the cry of a living being. He hurried on, feeling a little frightened as well as troubled——'
'Were there wolves about that place then, do you think, Nance?' Archie interrupted eagerly. 'I have read in stories that they make a sort of a cry—a baying cry. Perhaps the boy thought it was wolves?'
Nance shook her head.
'There's been no wolves in this country, Master Archie, since much farther back than my grandmother's time. No, it wasn't that sort of a cry. He heard it again and again. And each time it grew plainer and plainer to him that it was some creature in trouble, and bit by bit it came stronger upon him that he must seek it out whatever it was; that he would be a cruel boy if he didn't. So he stood quite still to listen, and through and above the wind he heard it still clearer, and then he turned to the side where it seemed to come from, though it was hard to make his way. But strange to say he hadn't gone many steps before he felt he was on a path, and, stranger still, all of a sudden the moon came out from behind the clouds, and he heard the cry almost at his feet, though before then it had seemed a good way off. He went on a few steps, peering at the ground, and soon he saw a little white shape lying huddled up among the withered heather, and sobbing fit to break your heart to hear. It was a little girl; she seemed about two years old, and when she felt him trying to lift her up, she stopped crying and wound her tiny arms about his neck, so that, if he had wanted to set her down again, he could scarce have done so. And before he knew where he was there she had settled herself in his arms as content as could be. He spoke to her, thinking she might understand.
'"Who are you, baby?" he said, "and where have you come from? And what am I to do with you?"
'It was half like speaking to himself, and no answer did he get, except that she cuddled herself closer into his arms, and it came over him that take her home he must, whatever came of it, and in less than a minute she seemed to have fallen asleep. He drew what he could of his coat over her, for it was bitter cold, and it was hard work fighting against the wind, tired as he was too, and misdoubting him sorely as to what his poor mother would say, and small blame to her, when she saw what he had brought with him. But queer things happened during that walk; whenever his heart went down the most, he'd feel her little hand patting at his cheek, or one of her fair curls would blow across his lips, as if it was kissing him, and with that he'd cheer up again and his feet would feel new spring in them. So they came at last to his home, and there was his mother peeping out, wild night though it was, and listening for his coming, for she had been getting very frightened.