The dog trotted off at last, and then Shireen came slowly down.

She meant to-day to pay all her other visits before going to Emily's, because then she would have longer time to stay with her. So she went first to see Jeannie Lynch, at her mother's tiny earthen-floored cottage. Jeannie's mother was an invalid, and would never be better.

But she could just sit by the fire in her high-backed chair, and do knitting, while Jeannie attended to the housewifery. Shireen found the girl busy washing up the dinner things, and singing low to herself. But there was a subdued, chastened kind of a look on her pretty face, which was habitual to it, for Jeannie was lame, and, I'm sorry to say, the village children teased her and called "Box-foot" after her. So even when she went out to do shopping for her mother, she limped along the street, looking fifty years of age, instead of the eleven summers that made up the sum total of her existence hitherto. She looked, indeed, as if she owed people an apology for her somewhat ungainly appearance.

Shireen loved her, nevertheless, and she loved Shireen, and it wasn't for sake of the drop of milk Jeannie always put down for her, nor in the hope of catching the mouse that nibbled paper in the cupboard, that p.u.s.s.y always stopped at least an hour at this humble dwelling.

But she had to go at last, because she must see Mr Burn-the-wind, and also little Alec Dewsbury. Alec was one of the afflicted. At school one day, when quite a tiny lad, he had somehow injured his spine, and on a small, stretcher-bed he had lain helpless for years. Often in summer he lay out in the garden under the tree's green shade, where he could hear the birds sing, and look up at the sailing clouds, with the rifts of blue between; and higher still in imagination, far, far away beyond the blue, where they told him G.o.d and angels dwell, though G.o.d was everywhere. In winter his stretcher stood in a cosy corner of his cottage home; and kind people brought him books and papers to read. But Alec's pale face always lit up with joy when Shireen came in, for he had no pet of his own.

"I wonder," he said to his mother one day, "if cats go to heaven? Oh, surely they do," he added, before she could answer. "I'm certain all good and beautiful creatures go there. Besides, mother, we know there are cows and bees there."

"What put that in your head, lammie?"

"Because it's a land flowing with milk and honey, you know; so there must be cows and bees there."

Alec was a very, very old boy for his years.

The blacksmith, on this particular day, was in very fine form, and making the sparks fly in golden horizontal showers just as Shireen trotted in to say "good-day." He had four ragam.u.f.fins of rosy-faced children, perched high on a bench, with their legs dangling in the air, to whom he was relating an old-fashioned fairy-tale, which made them laugh at one moment, and stare with wonder and astonishment the next.

Shireen knew all four children, so she jumped up, and seated herself beside the smallest, a mite of a girl, who at once declared to the others that p.u.s.s.y loved her "bestest of all."

Then the blacksmith smoothed Shireen with the back of his hand, because it was the only unsoiled portion of that h.o.r.n.y fist of his, and then he went on with his story.

While they were all listening, Lizzie and Tom ran in. Tom had his skates slung over his shoulder; and his sister carried a basket, which contained many a dainty, and many a little luxury for the aged and the indigent sick.

Like p.u.s.s.y herself, Lizzie and Tom were always welcome, whether they had a basket or not; because, even when they did not bring little gifts of jelly, or beef-tea, or books, or snuff and tobacco, they brought smiles, and the sunshine of their innocent and winsome ways.

But to-day, neither Lizzie nor Tom stayed long with Burn-the-wind, because the former had her basket to lighten and hearts to lighten thereby, and because Tom noticed there was no horse to be shod at present, and he knew that the ice on the mill-pond was inches thick.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Lizzie, as they got nearer to the top of the street. "Something surely has happened. Look, Tom, at the lot of the people, and they are carrying somebody. Oh, Tom, it is Emily, I know and feel sure."

Yes, it was Emily.

Poor girl! Only the day before, she had returned from school for good.

She was going to settle down now, she told everyone of her intimate friends, laughing gleefully. She was going to do her father's little house-keeping; and poor old dad, as she called him, would in future have many a comfort he had missed since mother died.

And baby, too, would not be so much neglected, and could be taken out every forenoon, after father had gone back to work.

There was a bit of garden, too, behind the humble cottage, with a nice gra.s.s plot in the centre; there, in spring and summer, the daisies grew, and the yellow celandines.

Bobby, her infant brother, could roll on the gra.s.s when it was dry and fine, while she did the gardening all around. And this would be so delightful, because then she would never want a flower to place on mother's grave.

So you will observe, dear reader, that it was all beautifully arranged.

Alas! and alas! If I were writing an altogether imaginary story, the somewhat sad and sombre ending to this chapter would be altered. But there is far more of truth in my story than anyone will ever know.

That day then, when Emily took her little brother out in his far from elegant perambulator, she heard the sound of a band. A wild-beast show was stationed on the village green it seemed, and there was a triumphal procession through the streets of the little town. Poor Emily stood aside to see it pa.s.s, for, despite the fact that children would be admitted to the great marquee for half-price, this procession was the only part of the show she would see. But she marvelled much at the lordly ungainliness of the elephants; at the queer, old-fashioned visages of the camels, and at the wisdom of the piebald pony, and the wit of the immortal clown who rode him, who had appeared--didn't the bills tell her so?--before every respectable crowned head in Europe.

But she stood agape with astonishment when she saw the beautiful and airily dressed "Lion Queen," perched high on top of her gilded carriage.

Then the procession pa.s.sed on, and Emily resumed her journey with the perambulator. Not far up the street she remembered that she wanted some tobacco for her father, and that she had pa.s.sed the shop. She left the perambulator where it was for a few minutes, till she should run back and make the little purchase.

As she stood at the counter she heard the quick rattle of wheels, and a noise of galloping hoofs, and then the shout of "Horse ran off!" fell upon her car.

"Oh, the baby!" cried Emily, and dashed out of the shop.

The perambulator, with the child in it, laughing and blinking in the sunshine, stood right in the track of danger.

But Emily, heedless of everything except the desire to save her brother, rushed on towards it. Nearer and nearer came the horse. People shrieked as they saw the girl at the perambulator.

One push sent it clear away from under the very hoofs of the fear-maddened horse. Next moment, Emily herself was down.

Then the sorrowful procession.

Two hours after Lizzie and Tom had seen Emily borne by kind and loving hands into the humble cottage that had been her home, the doctor came out.

He shook his head sadly.

"Go home, my friends," he said, "it is all over."

He jumped into his carriage and was driven away. But tears trickled down the cheeks of men in that little crowd; faces were buried in ap.r.o.ns, and women wept aloud.

The grief of poor Emily's father was something to see and remember for ever and a day. I am not going to attempt to describe it. He was a good man, and a Christian; yet, not that night, nor for many nights and days, was he able to see the light, and to say from his heart: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be His name."

As to Shireen--I must tell you about her. She never left the cottage while Emily's poor little body lay there; and had you entered the house the night before the funeral, you would have seen the poor father sitting by his half out fire, absorbed in grief, and Shireen upon the coffin-lid.

In the cat's face sorrow, intense sorrow, predominated; but there was also a touch of anger also. Why was her favourite here in this dark box? What had they done to her? Who had done it?

Ah! there was a mystery somewhere, which this little feline playmate and friend of the deceased girl failed to fathom. Can we, in our wisdom?

Alas, no!

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

EN VOYAGE FOR BAGDAD.

Winter had pa.s.sed and gone. It had fled far away to Norland hills, and spring reigned in its stead.

Sweet-voiced, hopeful spring! Spring, that is always so full of love and joy. Spring, with the balmy wind that whispers softly through the woods and groves, mingling its voice with the purling song of the brooklet and rill, sighing over fields of waving corn, and wooing the odours from a thousand wild flowers. Spring, with its chorus of joy-birds, whose melodies ring out from every woodland, every thicket and grove, till all the green earth seems to lift up its voice in a chorus of gladness and mirth. Sweet-voiced, hopeful spring, the poet's one season of all the seasons of the year.

The old castle lawn was beautiful again, green with verdure and starred over with daisies, and out there now Lizzie and Tom were able to play and gambol once more, where Uncle Ben, with his c.o.c.katoo, and the Colonel used to sit there in their good straw chairs, smoke their pipes, and talk together of the days of auld lang syne.

Out on this lawn on one particularly blue skied sunny afternoon, Shireen and her friends were a.s.sembled, Warlock looking as wise as ever, Vee-Vee as gentle and loving, and Cracker, with his droll, rough, kindly face, all willing to please.

"Shireen," said Cracker, "we haven't heard you speak for a long time."

Shireen paused in the middle of the operation of face-washing and sat on her mat for a moment or two, with her paw raised thoughtfully in front of her.