When the children went for a country ramble, Tim frequently accompanied them, taking the greatest delight in these excursions. He would be carried until beyond danger from wandering dogs, and then being set at liberty, the fun would begin. Master Tim, all eagerness, trotting on before in search of interesting facts, the children take advantage of a moment when all his faculties are engaged with some novelty attractive to the otter mind, to vanish through a neighbouring gate or behind a haystack. The unusual quiet soon arouses Tim’s suspicions; he looks round, and finds himself alone. The situation, from its strangeness, is appalling to him; he utters a shriek of despair, and scurries back as fast as his legs can take him, squeaking loudly all the time. If he should chance, in his fright, to pass by the hiding-place of his young protectors without discovering them, great is their delight. One little face after another peers out and watches, with mischievous glee, poor Tim’s plump and anxious form trundling along as fast as is possible to it in the wrong direction! But very soon the humour of the situation is too much for some young spirit, and a smothered laugh or a half-suppressed giggle reaches the tiny sharp ears, and Tim quickly turns, and with another shriek of mingled satisfaction and indignation, gives chase to his playful tormentors. Once arrived in the open meadows, where this novel game of hide-and-seek is not possible, it is Tim’s turn. Still, he follows obediently enough, frisking and gamboling in the fresh soft grass, until one of the innumerable small streams is approached. As soon as he catches sight of the water, he is off. At a rapid trot he hurries to the brink, and with swift and noiseless dart, in a flash he has disappeared in the current, and in another reappeared some yards away. Rolling over, turning, twisting, diving, he revels in his cold bath, and it is sometimes a matter of no small difficulty to get him out of the water. A cordon of children is formed—the two biggest with bare feet and legs, to cut off his retreat up and down stream—which, gradually closing in on him, seizes him at last; and reluctantly he is compelled to dry himself in the grass preparatory to returning to the forms and ceremonies of civilised life.
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
A NOVELETTE.
CHAPTER VI.
‘How do you feel now, Margaret?’
‘Nearly over, Miss Nelly. I shall die with the morning.’
A week later, and the patient had got gradually worse. The constant exposure, the hard life, and the weeks of semi-starvation, had told its tale on the weak womanly frame. The exposure in the rain and cold on that eventful night had hastened on the consumption which had long settled in the delicate chest. All signs of mental exhaustion had passed away, and the calm hopeful waiting frame of mind had succeeded. She was waiting for death; not with any feeling of terror, but with hopefulness and expectation.
Up to the present, Eleanor had not the heart to ask for any memento or remembrance of the old life; but had nursed her patient with an unceasing watchful care, which only a true woman is capable of. All that day she had sat beside the bed, never moving, but noting, as hour after hour passed steadily away, the gradual change from feverish restlessness to quiet content, never speaking, or causing her patient to speak, though she was longing for some word or sign.
‘You have been very good to me, Miss Nelly. Had it not been for you, where should I have been now!’
‘Hush, Margaret; don’t speak like that. Remember, everything is forgiven now. Where there is great temptation, there is much forgiveness.’