if ever there was a girl whose mind was in a confused and complex state, that girl was polly maybright. suddenly into her life of sunshine and ease and petting, into her days of love and indulgence, came the cold shadow of would-be justice. polly had done wrong, and a very stern judge, in the shape of aunt maria cameron, was punishing her.
polly had often been naughty in her life; she was an independent, quick-tempered child; she had determination, and heaps of courage, but she was always supposed to want ballast. it was the fashion in the house to be a little more lenient to polly’s misdemeanors than to any one else’s. when a very little child, nurse had excused ungovernable fits of rage with the injudicious words, “poor lamb, she can’t help herself!” the sisters, older or younger, yielded to polly, partly because of a certain fascination which she exercised over them, for she was extremely brilliant and quick of idea, and partly because they did not want her to get into what they called her tantrums. father, too, made a pet of her, and perhaps slightly spoiled her, but during mother’s lifetime all this did not greatly matter, for mother guided the imperious, impetuous, self-willed child, with the exquisite tact of love. during mother’s lifetime, when polly was naughty, she quickly became good again; now matters were very different.
mrs. cameron was a woman who, with excellent qualities, and she had many, had not a scrap of the “mother-feel” within her. there are women who never called a child their[pg 69] own who are full of it, but mrs. cameron was not one of these. her rule with regard to the management of young people was simple and severe—she saw no difference between one child and another. “spare the rod and spoil the child,” applied equally in every case, so now, constituting herself polly’s rightful guardian in the absence of her father, she made up her mind on no account to spare the rod. until polly humbled herself to the very dust she should go unforgiven. solitary confinement was a most safe and admirable method of correction. therefore unrepentant polly remained in her room.
the effects, as far as the culprit was concerned, were not encouraging. in the first place she would not acknowledge mrs. cameron’s right to interfere in her life; in the next harshness had a very hardening effect on her.
it was dull in polly’s room. the naughtiest child cannot cry all the time, nor sulk when left quite to herself, and although, whenever mrs. cameron appeared on the scene, the sulks and temper both returned in full force, polly spent many long and miserable hours perfectly distracted with the longing to find something to do. the only books in the room were helen’s little bible, a copy of “robinson crusoe,” and the dictionary. for obvious reasons polly did not care to read the bible at present. “robinson crusoe” she knew already by heart, but found it slightly amusing trying to make something of the sentences read backwards. the dictionary was her final resource, and she managed to pass many tedious hours working straight through it page after page. she had got as far as m, and life was becoming insupportable, when about the middle of the day, on monday, she was startled by a cautious and stealthy noise, and also by a shadow falling directly on her page. she looked up quickly; there was the round and radiant face of maggie glued to the outside of the window, while her voice came in, cautious but piercing, “open the window quick, miss polly, i’m a-falling down.”
polly flew to the rescue, and in a moment maggie was standing in the room. in her delight at seeing a more genial face than aunt maria’s, polly flung her arms round maggie and kissed her.
“how good of you to come!” she exclaimed. “and you must not go away again. where will you hide when aunt maria comes to visit me? under the bed, or in this cupboard?”
“not in neither place,” responded maggie, who was still gasping and breathless, and whose brown winsey frock showed a disastrous tear from hem to waist.
“not in neither place,” she proceeded, “for i couldn’t a-bear it any longer, and you ain’t going to stay in this room no longer, miss polly; i nearly brained myself a-clinging on to the honeysuckle, and the ivy-roots, but here i be, and now we’ll both go down the ladder and run away.”[pg 70]
“run away—oh!” said polly, clasping her hands, and a great flood of rose-color lighting up her face.
she ran to the window. the housemaid’s step-ladder stood below, but polly’s window was two or three feet above.
“we’ll manage with a bit of rope and the bedroom towels,” said maggie, eagerly. “it’s nothing at all, getting down—it’s what i did was the danger. now, be quick, miss polly; let’s get away while they’re at dinner.”
it did not take an instant for polly to decide. between the delights of roaming the country with maggie, and the pleasure of continuing to read through the m’s in webster’s dictionary, there could be little choice. on the side of liberty and freedom alone could the balance fall. the bedroom towels were quickly tied on to the old rope, the rope secured firmly inside the window-sill, and the two girls let themselves swing lightly on to the step-ladder. they were both agile, and the descent did not terrify them in the least. when they reached the ground they took each other’s hands, and looked into each other’s faces.
“you might have thought of bringing a hat, miss polly.”
“oh, never mind, maggie. you do look shabby; your frock is torn right open.”
“well, miss, i got it a-coming to save you. miss polly, mrs. power’s back in the kitchen. hadn’t we better run? we’ll talk afterwards.”
so they did, not meeting any one, for mrs. cameron and the children were all at dinner, and the servants were also in the house. they ran through the kitchen garden, vaulted over the sunken fence, and found themselves in the little sheltered green lane, where polly had lain on her face and hands and caught the thrushes on the july day when her mother died. she stood almost in the same spot now, but her mind was in too great a whirl, and her feelings too excited, to cast back any glances of memory just then.
“well, maggie,” she said, pulling up short, “now, what are your plans? where are we going to? where are we to hide?”
“eh?” said maggie.
she had evidently come to the end of her resources, and the intelligent light suddenly left her face.
“i didn’t think o’ that,” she said: “there’s mother’s.”
“no, that wouldn’t do,” interrupted polly. “your mother has only two rooms. i couldn’t hide long in her house; and besides, she is poor, i would not put myself on her for anything. i’ll tell you what, maggie, we’ll go across peg-top moor, and make straight for the old hut by the belt of fir-trees. you know it, we had a picnic there once, and i made up a story of hermits living in the hut. well, you and i will be the hermits.”
“but what are we to eat?” said maggie, whose ideas were all practical, and her appetite capacious.
polly’s bright eyes, however, were dancing, and her whole[pg 71] face was radiant. the delight of being a real hermit, and living in a real hut, far surpassed any desire for food.
“we’ll eat berries from the trees,” she said, “and we’ll drink water from the spring. i know there’s a spring of delicious water not far from the hut. oh! come along, maggie, do; this is delightful!”
an old pony, who went in the family by the stately name of sultan, had been wont to help the children in their long rambles over the moor. they were never allowed to wander far alone, and had not made one expedition since their mother’s death. it was really two years since polly had been to the hut at the far end of peg-top moor. this moor was particularly lonely, it was interspersed at intervals with thickets of rank undergrowth and belts of trees, and was much frequented on that account by gipsies and other lawless people. polly, who went last over the moor, carried the greater part of the way on sultan’s friendly back, had very little idea how far the distance was. it was september now, but the sun shone on the heather and fern with great power, and as polly had no hat on her head, having refused to take maggie’s from her; she was glad to take shelter under friendly trees whenever they came across her path.
at first the little girls walked very quickly, for they were afraid of being overtaken and brought back; but after a time their steps grew slow, their movement decidedly languid, and maggie at least began to feel that berries from the trees and water from the spring, particularly when neither was to be found anywhere, was by no means a substantial or agreeable diet to dwell upon.
“i don’t think i like being a hermit,” she began. “i don’t know nought what it means, but i fancy it must be very thinning and running down to the constitootion.”
polly looked at her, and burst out laughing.
“it is,” she said, “that’s what the life was meant for, to subdue the flesh in all possible ways; you’ll get as thin as a whipping-post, mag.”
“i don’t like it,” retorted maggie. “may-be we’d best be returning home, now, miss polly.”
polly’s eyes flashed. she caught maggie by the shoulder.
“you are a mean girl,” she said. “you got me into this scrape, and now you mean to desert me. i was sitting quietly in my room, reading through the m’s in webster’s dictionary, and you came and asked me to run away; it was your doing, maggie, you know that.”
“yes, miss! yes, miss!”
maggie began to sob. “but i never, never thought it meant berries and spring-water; no, that i didn’t. oh, i be so hungry!”
at this moment all angry recriminations were frozen on the lips of both little girls, for rising suddenly, almost as it seemed from the ground at their feet, appeared a gaunt woman of gigantic make.[pg 72]
“may-be you’ll be hungrier,” she said in a menacing voice. “what business have you to go through deadman’s copse without leave?”
maggie was much too alarmed to make any reply, but polly, after a moment or two of startled silence, came boldly to the rescue.
“who are you?” she said. “maggie and i know nothing of deadman’s copse; this is a wood, and we are going through it; we have got business on the other side of peg-top-moor.”
“that’s as it may be,” replied the woman, “this wood belongs to me and to my sons, nathaniel and patrick, and to our dogs, cinder and flinder, and those what goes through deadman’s copse must pay toll to me, the wife of micah jones. my husband is dead, and he left the wood to me, and them as go through it must pay toll.”
the woman’s voice was very menacing; she was of enormous size, and going up to the little girls, attempted to place one of her brawny arms on polly’s shoulder. but polly with all her faults possessed a great deal of courage; her eyes flashed, and she sprang aside from the woman’s touch.
“you are talking nonsense,” she said. “father has over and over told me that the moor belongs to the queen, so this little bit couldn’t have been given to your husband, micah jones, and we are just as free to walk here as you are. come on, maggie, we’ll be late for our business if we idle any longer.”
but the woman with a loud and angry word detained her.
“highty-tighty!” she said. “here’s spirit for you, and who may your respected papa be, my dear? he seems to be mighty wise. and the wife of micah jones would much like to know his name.”
“you’re a very rude unpleasant woman,” said polly. “don’t hold me, i won’t be touched by you. my father is dr. maybright, of sleepy hollow, you must know his name quite well.”
the wife of micah jones dropped a supercilious curtsey.
“will you tell dr. maybright, my pretty little dear,” she said, “that in these parts might is right, and that when the queen wants deadman’s copse, she can come and have a talk with me, and my two sons, and the dogs, cinder and flinder. but, there, what am i idling for with a chit like you? you and that other girl there have got to pay toll. you have both of you got to give me your clothes. there’s no way out of it, so you needn’t think to try words, nor blarney, nor nothing else with me, i have a sack dress each for you, and what you have on is mine. that’s the toll, you will have to pay it. my hut is just beyond at the other side of the wood, my sons are away, but cinder and flinder will take care of you until i come back, at nine o’clock. here, follow me, we’re close to the hut. no words, or it will be the worse for you. on in front, the two of you, or you, little miss,” shaking her hand angrily at polly, “will know what it means to bandy words with the wife of micah jones.”
the woman’s face became now very fierce and terrible, and even polly was sufficiently impressed to walk quietly before her, clutching hold of poor terrified maggie’s hand.
the hut to which the woman took the little girls was the very hermit’s hut to which their own steps had been bent. it was a very dirty place, consisting of one room, which was now filled with smoke from a fire made of broken faggots, fir-cones, and withered fern. two ugly, lean-looking dogs guarded the entrance to the hut. when they saw the woman coming, they jumped up and began to bark savagely; poor maggie began to scream, and polly for the first time discovered that there could be a worse state of things than solitary confinement in her room, with webster’s dictionary for company.
“sit you there,” said the woman, pushing the little girls into the hut. “i’ll be back at nine o’clock. i’m off now on some business of my own. when i come back i’ll take your clothes, and give you a sack each to wear. cinder and flinder will take care of you; they’re very savage dogs, and can bite awful, but they won’t touch you if you sit very quiet, and don’t attempt to run away.”
