1. But when she came to the back door at which she had come out, Mercy
found a great trouble. She lifted the latch, but the door did not open.
2. She gave a pull, a second pull, and then a tug with all her might;
but it still held fast. "Why," she thought, "I am as badly off as the
donkey. I shall have to go into the pigsty with him!"
3. She had been out much longer than she thought. And while she had
been taking care of Brownie her father had turned the big key in the
door and gone to bed.
4. What was to be done? It would never do to wake up poor tired
father, and bring him out in the cold too. So she stood there trying to
puzzle out some plan for getting in.
5. The bright moonlight showed her a way to do it. The cottage was a
low one, and just under the window of the room where she and Nelly
slept, was a bench.
6. Standing on tiptoe upon this, Mercy found that she could reach the
branches of an old vine tree, which grew over the walls of the little
house.
7. She could climb up into this, and so get near the bedroom window. It
was easy enough to scramble up in summer time, but not so easy now.
8. The boughs were a sheet of ice, and her fingers so cold that they
could hardly take hold of them. At last, after many slips and frights,
she was safely up.
9. But what would little Nelly think of seeing her sister outside the
window, asking to be let in, as their pussy cat often did?
10. She was sound asleep too, and had to be wakened by many hard taps
at the glass. First, Nelly felt fear at seeing a face looking in at
her.
11. But she soon knew who it was. "Oh Mercy," cried Nelly, "how long
you have been! What have you been at? And why did you come back this
way?"
12. "Get into bed again, there's a dear," said Mercy, "and I will tell
you all about it." Nelly kept awake to listen, as Mercy told her the
story.
13. And she could not help clapping her hands to think of how snug poor
old Brownie was now. Mercy knelt down to say her prayers before she got
into bed.
14. She felt very thankful that she had been able to do one kindness to
a creature like that ass which once stood in the stall beside the
"new-born King."
15. Next morning, as soon as the house was tidy, Mercy ran out to see
the donkey. More snow had fallen in the night, and had filled up all
her footmarks, so that she might have thought it all a dream.
16. But just as she reached the pigsty she heard a loud bray, which was
Brownie's way of saying "A Merry Christmas" to his friends.
17. "You did quite right, my child," said her father, when Mercy told
him of her work the last night. "I think that Smith does not treat him
well.
18. "And I will tell you what, children, I am going to-morrow to see
Mr. Smith and buy our Brownie back again. I cannot get on without him,
I find.
19. "Now that your mother is well again we shall do better, and last
week I put by the money for Brownie. So you need never say good-bye to
him again."
20. You may be sure that there was a happy Christmas at the cottage for
Peter and his wife, and for the children, as well as for poor Brownie.
21. "How very glad I am that I went out to him that night!" said Mercy
to her father. "It was not much to do, only it was Christmas Eve, and I
thought--"