THE WIFE OF MICAH JONES.
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 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."
"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 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. "Maybe 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.
"Maybe 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."