“You will soon be thinking little of our home I am afeared, May,” said Jacob with a sigh.
May protested honestly she liked home best. Jacob felt that in a few years she would think differently. He scarcely dared to allow himself to contemplate the wide gap which would be placed between them.
Day after day May went up to Downside Cottage.
“We ought not to give you the trouble to come for your little girl, Mistress Halliburt,” observed Miss Jane; “Susan can escort her if you do not think her old enough to go by herself.”
“If she were my own daughter, or any other poor person’s child, I would have let her go and come back by herself long ago, but there is one living not far off, who, for reasons of his own which I cannot fathom, would, I am afraid, like to spirit her off,” said the dame mysteriously. “I have never lost sight of her except when she has been with you or my Jacob, besides that time when near Texford Mr Harry saved her from the wild bull, and I was so frightened then that I made up my mind never to let her go by herself again. If she had come to harm I should have almost died of it, and Adam would never have forgiven me.”
“That was an accident not likely to occur again, and surely no one would injure the child,” observed Miss Jane.
“It’s no fancy of mine if I think there is,” said the dame. “He came once and tried to get her from us by fair means, but we would not give her up for all his promises. But when he finds out as he is sure to do before long, that she is with you, and coming backwards and forwards, he will be on the watch for her. He is not often here now since the war began, and Adam thinks he is about no good. He does come back sometimes for a day or two, and Satan will be helping him if he thinks of mischief.”
“No doubt about that, Mrs Halliburt,” observed Miss Jane. “But there is one more powerful than Satan who will protect the innocent.”
“True, marm, but He will protect them through the means of their friends, and it’s our business, if we suspect evil to guard against it,” said the dame.
“You are right. But who is the person of whom you speak who is likely to injure our little girl?”