For a moment the five Greystanes children stood speechless with horror. Then Johnny darted to the idiot's side, he did it with the best intentions, but Betty, confused and blinded, did not distinguish him from the others, and dealt him a blow which sent him staggering back, as she howled out to him, "Ye ill-faured loon, tak' that."
"Run, Johnny, run," shrieked Maisie, which Hughie and Lill, who were twins and always kept together, had already done, not out of cowardice but in search of help. But little Annette rushed forward.
"Bad boys that you are," she shouted with her little shrill baby voice that seemed to have suddenly grown commanding, "off with you. You shall not torment my guid auld Betty." For though the children's mother was most careful that their speech should be "English," strong excitement would bring out their native tongue. And as the child uttered the last words she flung her arms round the poor woman, who, weak and feeble as soon as her fury began to lessen, tottered to the ground, where they clung together—the sorrow-crushed aged creature and the cherub-faced child—sobbing in each other's arms. For Pig-Betty had known her little friend in an instant.
"My bonny wee leddy," she murmured, "auld Betty's ain wee leddy," and with her trembling fingers she untied the knotted corners of her bundle of "pigs," and searching for the best of her treasures, the best and biggest of her "whustling polls," she stuffed it into Annette's hands.
Strange to say the ruffianly group had already dispersed and were not again seen!
It was soon after that that the children went back again for the winter to their London home. Next year saw them once more in the north, and as nurse unpacked their trunks she came upon the green parrot, which Annette would never part from.
"I wonder if Pig-Betty's still alive," she said.
Oh yes—so far as was known at Greystanes, she was rambling about as usual, but she had not been there for some weeks. Fortunately for the children, however, it was near the time for her visit, as you shall hear.