Captain Montgomery did not come the next week, nor the week after; and what is more, the Duck Dorleens, as his sister called the ship in which he had taken passage, was never heard of from that time. She sailed duly on the fifth of April, as they learnt from the papers; but whatever became of her, she never reached port. It remained a doubt whether Captain Montgomery had actually gone in her; and Ellen had many weeks of anxious watching, first for herself and then for news of him, in case he were still in France. None ever came. Anxiety gradually faded into uncertainty; and by midsummer, no doubt of the truth remained in any mind. If Captain Montgomery had been alive, he would certainly have written, if not before, on learning the fate of the vessel in which he had told his friends to expect him home.
Ellen rather felt that she was an orphan, than that she had lost her father. She had never learned to love him, he had never given her much cause. Comparatively a small portion of her life had been passed in his society, and she looked back to it as the least agreeable of all; and it had not been possible for her to expect with pleasure his return to America, and visit to Thirlwall she dreaded it. Life had nothing now worse for her than a separation from Alice and John Humphreys; she feared her father might take her away, and put her in some dreadful boarding-school, or carry her about the world wherever he went, a wretched wanderer from everything good and pleasant. The knowledge of his death had less pain for her than the removal of this fear brought relief.
Ellen felt sometimes, soberly and sadly, that she was thrown upon the wide world now. To all intents and purposes so she had been a year and three-quarters before; but it was something to have a father and mother living, even on the other side of the world. Now, Miss Fortune was her sole guardian and owner. However, she could hardly realize that, with Alice and John so near at hand. Without reasoning much about it, she felt tolerably secure that they would take care of her interests, and make good their claim to interfere if ever need were.
Ellen and her little horse grew more and more fond of each other. This friendship, no doubt, was a comfort to the Brownie; but to his mistress it made a large part of the pleasure of her every-day life. To visit him was her delight, at all hours, early and late; and it is to the Brownie's credit that he always seemed as glad to see her as she was to see him. At any time Ellen's voice would bring him from the far end of the meadow where he was allowed to run. He would come trotting up at her call, and stand to have her scratch his forehead or pat him and talk to him; and though the Brownie could not answer her speeches, he certainly seemed to hear them with pleasure. Then throwing up his head he would bound off, take a turn in the field, and come back again to stand as still as a lamb as long as she stayed there herself. Now and then, when she had a little more time, she would cross the fence and take a walk with him; and there, with his nose just at her elbow, wherever she went the Brownie went after her. After a while there was no need that she should call him; if he saw or heard her at a distance it was enough; he would come running up directly. Ellen loved him dearly.
She gave him more proof of it than words and caresses. Many were the apples and scraps of bread hoarded up for him; and if these failed, Ellen sometimes took him a little salt, to show him that he was not forgotten. There were not, certainly, many scraps left at Miss Fortune's table; nor apples to be had at home for such a purpose, except what she gathered up from the poor ones that were left under the trees for the hogs; but Ellen had other sources of supply. Once she had begged from Jenny Hitchcook a waste bit that she was going to throw away; Jenny found what she wanted to do with it, and after that, many a basket of apples and many a piece of cold short-cake was set by for her. Margery, too, remembered the Brownie when disposing of her odds and ends; likewise did Mrs. Van Brunt; so that among them all, Ellen seldom wanted something to give him. Mr. Marshman did not know what happiness he was bestowing when he sent her that little horse. Many, many were the hours of enjoyment she had upon his back. Ellen went nowhere but upon the Brownie. Alice made her a riding-dress of dark gingham; and it was the admiration of the country to see her trotting or cantering by, all alone, and always looking happy. Ellen soon found that if the Brownie was to do her much good, she must learn to saddle and bridle him herself. This was very awkward at first, but there was no help for it. Mr. Van Brunt showed her how to manage, and after a while it became quite easy. She used to call the Brownie to the bar-place, put the bridle on, and let him out; and then he would stand motionless before her while she fastened the saddle on; looking round sometimes, as if to make sure that it was herself, and giving a little kind of satisfied neigh when he saw that it was. Ellen's heart began to dance as soon as she felt him moving under her; and once off and away on the docile and spirited little animal, over the roads, through the lanes, up and down the hills, her horse her only companion, but having the most perfect understanding with him, both Ellen and the Brownie cast care to the winds. "I do believe," said Mr. Van Brunt, "that critter would a leetle rather have Ellen on his back than not." He was the Brownie's next best friend. Miss Fortune never said anything to him or of him.
Ellen, however, reaped a reward for her faithful steadiness to duty while her aunt was ill. Things were never after that as they had been before. She was looked on with a different eye. To be sure, Miss Fortune tasked her as much as ever, spoke as sharply, was as ready to scold if anything went wrong; all that was just as it used to be; but beneath all that, Ellen felt with great satisfaction that she was trusted and believed. She was no longer an interloper, in everybody's way; she was not watched and suspected; her aunt treated her as one of the family, and a person to be depended on. It was a very great comfort to little Ellen's life. Miss Fortune even owned that "she believed she was an honest child, and meant to do right" a great deal from her; Miss Fortune was never over forward to give any one the praise of honesty. Ellen now went out and came in without feeling she was an alien. And though her aunt was always bent on keeping herself and everybody else at work, she did not now show any particular desire for breaking off Ellen from her studies; and was generally willing, when the work was pretty well done up, that she should saddle the Brownie, and be off to Alice or Mrs. Vawse.
Though Ellen was happy, it was a sober kind of happiness the sun shining behind a cloud. And if others thought her so, it was not because she laughed loudly or wore a merry face.
"I can't help but think," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "that that child has something more to make her happy that what she gets in this world."
There was a quilting party gathered that afternoon at Mrs. Van
Brunt's house.
"There is no doubt of that, neighbour," said Mrs. Vawse; "nobody ever found enough here to make him happy yet."