He was afraid of meeting anybody, and he hurried out into the grounds. At first he ran very fast, supposing that some one would come after him, then finding that he was not pursued, he went at a slower pace. On reaching the woods he turned off the path and plunged into them to hide himself. First he crouched down beneath some thick bushes, thinking that no one would discover him there, but he felt too uncomfortable to stay long quiet—he must keep moving on. Slowly he made his way through the woods. He thought he heard footsteps. He tried to push deeper into the woods. On and on he went—he tore his clothes, and scratched his face and hands, he did not know where he was going, he did not care—provided he could keep out of the way of everybody. Never before had he been so miserable, his feelings at last became intolerable.
“Perhaps after all the bird is not dead,” he thought.
The idea brought him some relief. “I must go back and try and find out,” he said to himself. “If I hear Fanny crying, and making a noise, I will run off again. I could not face mamma and granny and the rest of them if they were to know that I had killed Fanny’s bird.”
To his surprise, as he went on through the woods, he suddenly saw the house directly before him. He ran towards it. He met the gardener, who, however, took no notice of him. “He at all events knows nothing about what has happened,” he thought. At a little distance off was Mrs Maclean with scissors in hand, trimming; her roses, but she only looked up for a moment, wondering why Norman should be running about without his hat.
“It’s all right, the bird cannot have been killed after all,” he thought.
He entered the house, and went into the library. There sat Fanny in the arm-chair, hiding her weeping eyes with one hand, while in the other, which rested on the table, lay poor little Pecksy. Norman, stealing up close to her, gazed at the bird. It lay on its back with its delicate little legs in the air, its feathers were ruffled, and a drop of blood was on its beak.
“It does not move, but perhaps it is sleeping,” thought Norman; “yet I never saw a bird sleep in that way. I am afraid it must be dead; and if it is, what will Fanny do to me? She will box my ears harder than she ever did, and then she will tell the laird, and he will whip me, to a certainty.”
Norman moved a little nearer. Fanny heard him, and, lifting up her head from her hand, she looked at him for a moment, and said in a low voice—
“O Norman, poor Pecksy is dead,” and then again burst into tears.