"Please, sir, he doesn't know that butcher Page didn't take away Johnny's lamb in the cart," said Polly, rushing to the rescue, "because we kept it in the little croft, and drove Charley's lamb out instead, for little Johnny had been crying so all day that it made us all sorry to see it."
"I felt sure you had had a finger in the pie, Polly," said the farmer, looking kindly on his little maid, and well knowing how fond she was of his dear children. "And now, sir," continued the farmer, looking at Charley as sternly as he could, while a pleasant smile played about his mouth, plainly showing that the knitted brows were but drawn down in make-believe anger, "this is the way I shall punish you." Polly saw the smile, and knew it was all right, and that there would be no punishment at all, though little Charley looked rather frightened. "As you have given one of your lambs away to please yourself, you must give the other away to please me. Drive it into Mr. Giles's little croft to-morrow morning, and, as it might miss its mother, let her go with it; then, when the lamb grows to be a sheep, Johnny's father will have two sheep again besides his pet lamb. Now kiss me, and say your prayers to Polly, and be off to bed." "O, I'm so glad!" exclaimed Polly, clapping her hands, while the tears stood in her eyes, as she came up to take Charley away from his father.
"I'm sure you are, Polly, for you've a kind heart," said the farmer, kissing the little maid as well, "and now be off with you;" and five minutes after he was busy examining his stock-book, and seeing how many fat bullocks, heifers, calves, sheep, and lambs he had ready for market, and thinking no more of the value of the ewe he had ordered to be driven to the little croft of the lamed laborer, than he did of the second jug of ale he had sent one of his servants to draw from the cask.
Now Polly, though but a poor cottager's daughter, and having only, as she had said, "a shilling a week and her victuals" as wages at the rich farmer's was a thoughtful little maid; and fearing that Johnny's father and mother might be unhappy when they found that Charley's lamb had been sold instead of their own, she set off full run to Mr. Giles's cottage, before she went to bed, to tell them all about the sheep and the other lamb which she and Charley were to drive into the close in the morning, and how pleased her good master was at what Charley had done.
Johnny was seated, fast asleep, on a little rush hassock, with his head on his mother's knee, and one arm round the neck of the pet lamb, which was coiled up before the fire; and when she had made known the good tidings, and kissed both Johnny and his lamb, she started off back as fast as she came, for the bats were already flying about, snapping at the insects, and she heard an owl hooting from the trees that overhung the road she was running along.
No one lay down to sleep in the beautiful village of Greenham on that calm, sweet night, when spring was treading close on the flowery border of summer, with a more peaceful mind or happier heart than Polly; for she felt that her pity for Johnny's sorrow, caused by the thought of his so soon losing his pet lamb, had also been carried to the heart of little Charley, and that but for the words she had spoken the pet lamb would then have been shut up at the end of the slaughter-house, where, no doubt, poor lambs were hanging up that had been killed. Pretty thing! How could butcher Page find in his heart to kill them, so kind a man as he was? And Polly fell asleep while trying to puzzle out whether it was not as sinful to kill a sheep as a little lamb, and wishing that roasted lamb was not so nice to eat as it was, with mint sauce.
THE GREEDY DUCKLING.
