CHAPTER X

A LITTLE RUNAWAY

IT was a lovely summer morning. Harebell woke up a little before five o'clock. With a set determined face she got up and dressed herself, stepping about her room as quietly as possible. She tied up a nightgown and brush and comb and toothbrush in a bundle. Then she began to think that she might want more clothes than that. She took a few things out of her drawers, and put them into a red cotton bag which she tied round her waist.

Then on tip-toe, she stole downstairs, and softly unbolted the back-door. It was easy then to find her way to the stable. Andy had taught her how to saddle Chris, and in about half an hour's time she had got free of the house, and was cantering along the country lanes.

Then she remembered that she had not said her prayers. Her conscience began to trouble her. Was this like a child of the Kingdom? Harebell refused to let herself think. In a whisper, she gabbled over her prayers; for she felt that she wanted God to take care of her, though she did not mean to mention her plan in her prayers to Him.

The fresh air and the birds' singing did not seem as enjoyable to her, as she expected they would be. She passed through the village as quickly as she could, and took the road that the signpost said led to London.

"Everybody goes to London," she said. "But I will stop before I get there. I'll find a nice pretty farm, with apples in the garden, and they'll give me some breakfast."

But as time passed she began to feel hungry, and no pretty farm came in sight. The country was singularly desolate. She came upon two or three small cottages by the wayside, and an inn; but none of these seemed to her attractive enough for breakfast. At last she turned up a leafy lane.

"I must try and lose myself thoroughly, Chris," she said; "so that nobody can possibly find me and take me back. I feel quite frightened now, when I think of Aunt Diana finding me gone. How very angry she'll be!"

Childlike, she was living entirely in the present. Her future never troubled her. The lane wound about in a wonderful way, then suddenly ended. A white gate appeared and a high wall on either side of it.

"This must be a house," said Harebell to herself.

She found the gate open and rode up a neglected drive; nettles and rank grass flourished on either side of a mossy road. Overgrown shrubs and thick trees lined the way.

Her heart began to beat excitedly.

"It's like the palace grounds of the Sleeping Beauty. I wish I could have a real adventure."

The drive seemed an interminable distance to her, but at last, to her great delight, she saw a big grey house in the distance. It looked still and deserted.

When she came up to the big flight of steps leading up to the front door she persuaded herself that it was, indeed, the Sleeping Palace. Slipping off Chris, she let him turn aside to munch at the long grass on the lawn, and then mounted the steps with eager expectancy. Would the door open at her touch? Would she go in and find the remains of feasting in the great hall, and the servants all asleep at their posts?

Alas! the door was fast shut and barred, the windows were shuttered, and through a small peephole in a broken shutter, she saw that the inside of the house was empty and unfurnished.

Slowly and reluctantly she turned away; then, seeing a side path near the house, she ran along it, wondering if the back of the house would prove more cheerful than the front. She found a side door, and to her joy, as she turned the handle and pushed, it yielded to her touch. The next moment, she was inside a long wide passage. It was light, and looking up, she saw there was a big glass dome high up in the centre. Rather fearfully she made her way along, till she reached the centre hall. A great staircase wound up to a gallery round it. She was just mounting the stairs, when she suddenly heard a man's laugh.

Now she was frightened. Into her brain rushed stories of ogres, giants, burglars, and criminals. Panic seized her; she fled back along the passage, missed her way, got into another part of the house, and could not find an open door anywhere. Then she screamed. It seemed like some hideous nightmare. She beat and kicked against a door with her hands and feet. The horrible thought came to her that she had been purposely locked in, and that some wicked man would come and kill her.

Suddenly, from behind, a big hand laid hold of her shoulder. She screamed louder than ever in real terror, and then she turned to confront Tom Triggs, and to hear him say with a little gasp of bewilderment:

"Why, I'm blest if it ain't little missy!"

She clung to him in a tempest of sobs.

"Oh, take me out! Dear Tom, save me! Where am I?"

The next moment a door was opened and she was in the fresh air, with the sun shining and the birds singing, and Chris still calmly munching the grass a little distance off. It took some minutes to soothe and calm her, but Tom did it. He was in his working clothes, with his carpenter's apron on, and looked strangely out of place in this great empty house.

"It's the funniest thing out that you should have come straight to the very house I'm workin' at. Me and my mates were havin' our breakfast in the back yard. We are doin' repairs to the stables, and all on a sudden we heard a scream, and it seemed to come from inside the house, an' I come along to find out whether it be a ghost or a h'owl, and then I catches sight of you a-beatin' your fists against a door. Now, do you just tell me what has brought you here. Did you come to find out whether good-for-nothing Tom were keeping off the drink?"

Harebell smiled through her tears, but she kept a tight clutch of Tom's hand.

"I didn't think of you. I didn't know you were here. I was a dreadful coward, but I felt I was lost a good deal more than I meant to be. And generally when I'm frightened, I ask God to take care of me; but I couldn't, and I felt He was a million miles away from me, and wouldn't dream of coming near me. And then I knew it was because I must have run outside the Door, and wasn't safe any more!"

She spoke with feverish intensity. Tom looked at her and then at Chris in a puzzled sort of way. Then he sat her down on the broad balustrade at the bottom of the steps.

"Take yer time, missy. Tell me just how you come to be so far away from home this morning!"

Then Harebell poured it all out, every bit of her trouble. She felt that she could even tell Tom about Peter's deceit, after making him promise that he would not tell any one. And Tom listened and rubbed his head, and then delivered his verdict.

"You must go back, missy; there's no help for it. You must get you back!"

Harebell began to cry. She was tired and hungry. She began to wonder how she had dared to run away in such a fashion.

"Aunt Diana will be so very, very angry."

"But she'll be in a terrible state about you now. You can't bide alone in the world, trampin' the roads without food and money. It be a stoopid thing to do—"

"I s'pose you haven't got a cottage yet? Couldn't you take me somewhere? I'm afraid of Aunt Diana now. She'll never forgive me!"

"You must get you back," Tom repeated with conviction. "It be bad you're comin' off in that fashion, but every hour you stay away, it be badder!"

Harebell looked up at him beseechingly.

"I don't know what to do. I can't go back."

"Oh yes, you can! I'll come a bit of the way with you, and if you trot your pony pretty fast, you'll get home not so very late for breakfast after all. Would you like a sip of hot tea? You wait here a minute."

He disappeared, but soon came back with a hot tin of tea, and some bread and cheese.

"'Tis mos' remarkable you comin' away in a straight line to the house which I be workin' on! How did you do it now?"

Harebell drank the tea thirstily, then she looked at Tom gravely.

"I s'pose God brought me to you, so that you would tell me how wicked I was, and send me back. I used to think when I first knew about you, Tom, that you were much wickeder than I was. Now it's me that is wicked, and you're trying to make me good. It's dreadfully wicked to run away, isn't it? Almost as bad as telling a lie."

"It's a poor thing to do—to run away," said Tom slowly; "but I don't know that I ain't just done it myself! You see, I knowed how my old pals would be gettin' over me, so I come away twelve mile off to make a fresh start where I couldn't be baited!"

"But you didn't run away from home, Tom. Your mother and sister knew you were coming."

"Bless their hearts, that they did! And I be gettin' along fine. And some day I hopes I'll come back and be able to look my fellow-creatures straight in the face. For I shan't be feared then o' nobody. An' I do allow 'tis a happy thing to feel inside the Kingdom's Door, missy. I humbly 'ope I've crawled through, and the Lord be holdin' my feet straight, and my mouth from even wanting the accursed stuff; and He have got me by His hand, so I just steps behind Him, and He goes first."

Harebell smiled for the first time.

"Oh, Tom dear, I'm so very glad. I always did know you would get through soon. When did you do it?"

"Well, I can't rightly say as to day an' hour—but I had a try in hospital, and then agen at home—an' it seemed to me as one day I was for goin' in, an' the next for comin' out, an' I didn't get much forrarder, so at last I gets down on my knees and tells the Lord He must please do it all Hisself, for I were come to the Door an' He must do the rest. Bless His name, He seemed to stoop right down an' get hold of me—a reg'lar safe grip—and there I be—very afeared of myself, but very sure o' Him!"

"And do you think I've been naughty and so He's put me outside? Oh, Tom, do you think you're inside now and I'm outside?"

Harebell's lips were quivering.

"I ain't no scholar, missy, but there be one chapter in the Bible I reads over and over and over! 'Tis the one you mentioned first about the Door. If we be inside the Door, I take it we be in the sheepfold; and if we be in the sheepfold, we be the sheep; and if we be the Lord's sheep, He has us safe, sure enough, for it says, 'Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.' You be right enough—just a slip—and you're a-goin' back now to say you're sorry—an' I'm a-comin' a bit o' the way with ye!"

"I haven't said my prayers properly this morning," Harebell confessed with shame. "I gabbled them through. I'll just speak to God here, if you go away—and tell Him I'm sorry."

Tom moved away, rolled up his apron, then caught Chris, and by the time he joined Harebell again, the cloud was off her face.

She mounted Chris, and Tom walked by her side till they reached the high-road.

"There!" he said. "Now 'tis a straight road home, and you can't miss it. Good-bye, little missy; and just put up a prayer for good-for-nothing Tom, will you?"

"I will," promised Harebell, "but p'r'aps You'll never see me again. I'm goin' to be sent to school, you know."

She conquered a rising sob.

Tom looked at her thoughtfully.

"Ay, 'twas through me, you be in this trouble! Well, p'r'aps I can help of 'ee out."

"It will be too late. I shall be gone," said Harebell.

Tom rubbed his head.

The little girl added, "And you mustn't tell about Peter, you promised not to; and I don't mean to tell."

"Well, you be doin' a fine thing, a-bearin' his fault."

Harebell rode away, waving her hand to her friend.

He looked after her in perplexity. "If I were a scholar now! But I'll venture on it!"

He returned to his work with a plan in his head.

And Harebell rode on home, feeling more and more frightened and unhappy as she drew nearer the village.

"It all seems as bad as it can be, and when I say I've seen Tom, Aunt Diana will think I went to him on purpose, and it will make her angrier still!"

Presently she met Andy at the entrance to the village. He threw up his hands.

"Ay! You naughty child, we've all turned out to catch ye! To think of your going off for a ride this very morning when you're to go to school."

"I'm sorry, Andy. I'm coming back!"

"Comin' back! High time, too. The missis an' the master be in a terrible way. What did you go to do it for?"

Harebell did not answer. Even Andy, her friend, was scolding her.

The house was reached. Andy took her pony, and when Harebell reached the front door, her aunt met her in the hall.

"Come in here," she said. "Where have you been? Did you not know a cab was coming at ten o'clock to take you to the station? It is now nearly eleven."

She drew her into the morning-room. Colonel Keith was not there. Harebell's heart sank within her. She looked up at her aunt. Somehow or other, Mrs. Keith was not looking as angry as she had expected.

"I am very sorry, Aunt Diana, but I meant to run away and never come back again; I quite meant to. And—and—I met Tom—I didn't mean to meet him—he and me think God managed it, and—and—he made me come home again."

There was silence.

"Where did you meet him?"

"At an old, old house far away. I found it by accident and—" here Harebell's love of romance seized her, and she forgot she was in disgrace—"do you know it was exactly like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. It was still and silent, and the weeds were enormous; and I quite hoped to see everybody asleep, and all that was left of the feast. And then I got into the house and found it empty and dark, and I was dreadfully frightened, and I couldn't find my way out, and I thought I was locked in; and then I screamed and screamed, and Tom heard me and came to me, and he's the carpenter who's mending the stable there!"

She paused for breath.

Her aunt was silent for a moment. She seemed to be turning over things in her mind.

Harebell put her arm out timidly and touched her aunt's arm.

"Do please forgive me, Aunt Diana. I know it was wicked of me to run away. I knew when I did it that it was, and that made it worse, didn't it!"

"What made you come back?" her aunt asked sharply.

"It was Tom. I wasn't even going to do it for him, but when he told me he was inside the Door of the Kingdom and would never drink any more, I was so glad, it made me—well, it made something different in my heart—and I knew I must come back if you—if you whipped me to death!"

She ended her sentence with desperate emphasis.

"I have never yet raised my hand against you," her aunt said gravely.

"No, but I thought you might," Harebell replied quickly. "I thought of such a lot of things you could do to me; but, you know, it was God and Tom who made me come back. I had to."

"It was exceedingly naughty of you to think of running away. If you had gone on, you might have met with accidents. We should, of course, have followed you and brought you back before the day was over. And nothing then would have prevented my sending you to school to-morrow. A little girl who acts like that wants a great deal more discipline than I can give her. But as you turned back of your own accord, I am going to forgive you. I have received a letter from Mrs. Garland this morning. If you had been here at breakfast-time, you would have heard about it. Of course, the letter has explained what you ought to have explained to me long ago—"

Harebell's eyes were open wide.

"What?" she gasped.

"It seems that Peter has been unhappy a long time, and confessed to his mother yesterday that he was the cause of your disobeying me. Why did not you tell me so before?"

"I—he—I promised him I wouldn't tell," faltered Harebell.

"You had no right to promise such a thing. It was not being frank with me, and led me to think what was not true—"

"I—I told you it was a mistake I made, and not a lie," said Harebell. "I couldn't explain properly; I really couldn't, Aunt Diana."

Tears came into her eyes. She was relieved that she was cleared of untruthfulness, but she still seemed to be in disgrace.

Then Mrs. Keith spoke more gently:

"I want to be fair with you, Harebell. I am deeply thankful to find that you did not tell me a lie, and to think that I can still trust your word. And for the present, I shall not send you to the school I intended for you. As I told you just now, if you had not come back of your own accord, I should still have done it. But as it is, Miss Forster will still continue to teach you. I am sorry to think that there is so little confidence between us that all this trouble has been the result. You ought to have told Peter at once that you could not withhold truth from me. You did not tell me an untruth, but you withheld the truth, and both are wrong. Do you understand me?"

"Not quite," said Harebell; "isn't it wrong to tell tales?"

"Not if it helps to deceive. Your not telling about Peter helped to deceive me; and I acted wrongly because of it. I want you to remember this, for people have made themselves and others very miserable because of it. If shielding one person makes another act unjustly, it is wrong. Now I shall say no more—you had better have some breakfast."

She stooped and kissed Harebell, then led her into the schoolroom, where some food was awaiting her.

Harebell began to feel much happier, and when her uncle came in presently, and told her how glad he was to hear that the mystery was all cleared up, she heaved a deep sigh and said:

"I feel as if a heavy weight has lifted out of my chest. And now that aunt has forgiven me, and I'm not going to school, may I tell you about Tom?"