Dick and Brownie | Page 4

little Huldah, and, forgetting the coming night, her hunger and everything else, she fled from the place, shrieking to Dick to follow her.
Fortunately, Dick obeyed. Hunger and tiredness had taken most of his spirit out of him, or he could never have resisted such an opportunity for a fight; the enemy numbered six to one, too, not to speak of the farmer, who was armed with a long whip, and two or three workmen, who were well provided with sticks or pitchforks, and hungry, footsore Dick did not at that moment feel equal to facing them all, and doing himself justice. So, with an impudent flick of his tail he followed Huldah, with the air of one who would not deign to fight mere farm-dogs.
It was a very weary, dejected pair, though, that at last stopped running, and summoned courage to stand and look about them once more; and the fright had so shaken Huldah's courage that when presently she caught sight of more smoking chimneys, and a group of little grey stone houses, and other signs of life not far ahead of them, she felt almost more sorry than glad.
When she came closer, and found the village street full of people, she felt decidedly sorry, and wished wildly that she had gone any other way, and so avoided them.
After the terrible heat of the day, men, women and children had all turned out of their close, stifling cottages, and were sitting or lounging about on doorstep or pavement, enjoying the coolness of the evening air; and, having nothing to do and little to talk about, and not much to look at, they naturally took a great interest in the odd-looking pair which came suddenly into their midst. The dusty, shabby little girl and the lanky yellow dog.
Huldah did not appreciate their interest. She felt ill with nervousness, when she saw all the eyes turned towards her, and, she longed to be out on the moor again,--anywhere, lost, hungry, lonely, tired, rather than under this fire of eyes. She had wanted very much to try to sell one of her baskets, that she might be able to buy some bread, but the staring people daunted her. She felt she could not have stopped and spoken to one of them, or have offered her wares, to have saved her life. It was all she could do to drag her trembling limbs past them, and out of their sight.
The end of the street was reached at last, though the cottages grew more and more scattered, then stopped altogether, and the pair found themselves alone once more. Poor Dick was by this time past doing anything but plod wearily along, his tail down, his ears drooping, his tongue hanging out. Huldah herself was in a half-dazed state, she scarcely knew where she was, or what she was doing. She plodded on and on mechanically, every step becoming harder, every yard a greater tax on her. She had almost given up hope, and decided to lie down under a hedge for the night, when her dim eyes were attracted by a light which suddenly shone out on the darkness, down a little lane on her right.
She paused in her walk, and stood gazing at it longingly. To the exhausted, lonely, frightened child it seemed a beautiful sight. It was like a friendly smile, a kindly welcome reaching out to her in her hopelessness.
"I will go and ask them to help me," she thought, dully. "They won't kill me; perhaps they'll give me a bit of bread for one of my baskets. They won't call the p'lice so late as this."
Dick looked up at her and obediently followed. It was all one to him where he went. He had no hopes and no fears, he was better off than poor Huldah in that respect, but he roused to renewed interest and expectation when his little mistress stopped before a cottage, and walking timidly up the garden, knocked at the front door.
CHAPTER II.
A NIGHT SCARE.
Silence! Seconds passed, to Huldah they seemed endless, her heart, which at first had beat furiously, quieted down until it seemed scarcely to beat at all. Save for the good-night calls of the birds, and the sad mooing of a cow in a field not far away, the silence remained unbroken.
"Perhaps I didn't knock loud enough," thought Huldah, "or whoever's inside may be gone to sleep."
If her plight had been less desperate, she would never have had the courage to knock again, but she felt ill and exhausted and frightened, and something seemed to tell her that here she might find help. So, after waiting a little longer, she screwed up her courage again, and rapped once more, this time more loudly; and this time, at any rate, her knock called forth