It was only a glimpse, and then the bank of gray fog swallowed Whitey and the chaise, and it seemed to Dan that they had gone straight into the mill-pond.
"Daniel! Daniel! Come on now, and be spry about it!" called his father, as he moved toward the grindstone; and Dan obeyed, though he felt as if his feet had all at once turned to lead.
Round and round and round; his tough little hands were blistered on the handle, but he did not know it; his mouth and throat were as dry as the stone, but he did not think of it. "Crrr-crrr-crrr," rang the rough, wearisome noise, until his ears were so deafened he did not even hear it. For he was perfectly sure he had killed little Nanny Dane. What would people say? What would they do to him? Hang him, of course; and Dan felt in his heart that he deserved it, and that it would be almost a satisfaction.
"There," said his father at last, "I reckon that'll do, Daniel. You've been faithful and stiddy at your work, and now you may go fishing."
Dan never knew how he got to Long Pond, or how he passed the slow hours of that dismal day. The misery seemed intolerable, and before evening he had made up his mind that he could bear it no longer. He would go home and tell his father, he would tell everybody. They might hang him, they might do anything they pleased.
Tramping desperately home with his empty basket in his hand, he heard the sound of wheels behind him, dragging slowly through the deep sand. Perhaps that was the Sheriff coming to arrest him. Dan's heart beat harder, but he did not look around. The wheels came nearer; they stopped, and some one said:
"Hullo, Daniel! been fishin'? Fisherman's luck, hey? Well, jump in here, and I'll give ye a lift."
Before Dan knew it he was over the wheel and sitting beside Deacon Skinner in the old chaise, with Whitey switching his tail right and left as he plodded along.
"Git up, Whitey," urged the Deacon; "it's getting along toward chore-time. Whitey ain't so spry as he used to be, but he's amazin' smart. This mornin' I left little Nanny in the shay while I was making a dicker with Solomon Murray, and a keerless thing it was to do, but I'd as soon expected the meetin'-house to run away as Whitey. I reckon something must have scart him; but he just trotted off home as stiddy as if I'd been driving, and waited at the door for mother to come and get Nanny before he went to the barn."
"Oh, Deacon Skinner," burst out Dan, "it was me; I scart Whitey."