The Wide, Wide World

Miss Fortune was very much vexed; Ellen could see that; but she said no more, good or bad, about the matter; so the Brownie was allowed to take quiet possession of meadow and stables, to his mistress's unbounded joy.

Anybody that knew Mr. Van Brunt would have been surprised to hear what he said that morning; for he was thought to be quite as keen a looker after the main chance as Miss Fortune herself, only somehow it was never laid against him as it was against her. However that might be, it was plain he took pleasure in keeping his word about the pony. Ellen herself could not have asked more careful kindness for her favourite than the Brownie had from every man and boy about the farm.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Thou must run to him; for thou hast stayed so long that going will scarce serve the turn.

    – Shakespeare.

Captain Montgomery did not come the next week, nor the week after; and what is more, the Duck Dorleens, as his sister called the ship in which he had taken passage, was never heard of from that time. She sailed duly on the 5th of April, as they learned from the papers; but whatever became of her she never reached port. It remained a doubt whether Captain Montgomery had actually gone in her; and Ellen had many weeks of anxious watching, first for himself, and then for news of him in case he were still in France. None ever came. Anxiety gradually faded into uncertainty; and by midsummer no doubt of the truth remained in any mind. If Captain Montgomery had been alive, he would certainly have written, if not before, on learning the fate of the vessel in which he had told his friends to expect him home.

Ellen rather felt that she was an orphan than that she had lost her father. She had never learned to love him, he had never given her much cause. Comparatively a small portion of her life had been passed in his society, and she looked back to it as the least agreeable of all; and it had not been possible for her to expect with pleasure his return to America and visit to Thirlwall; she dreaded it. Life had nothing now worse for her than a separation from Alice and John Humphreys; she feared her father might take her away and put her in some dreadful boarding-school, or carry her about the world wherever he went, a wretched wanderer from everything good and pleasant. The knowledge of his death had less pain for her than the removal of this fear brought relief.

Ellen felt sometimes, soberly and sadly, that she was thrown upon the wide world now. To all intents and purposes so she had been a year and three-quarters before; but it was something to have a father and mother living even on the other side of the world. Now, Miss Fortune was her sole guardian and owner. However, she could hardly realise that, with Alice and John so near at hand. Without reasoning much about it, she felt tolerably secure that they would take care of her interests, and make good their claim to interfere if ever need were.

Ellen and her little horse grew more and more fond of each other. This friendship, no doubt, was a comfort to the Brownie; but to his mistress it made a large part of the pleasure of her everyday life. To visit him was her delight at all hours, early and late; and it is to the Brownie's credit that he always seemed as glad to see her as she was to see him. At any time Ellen's voice would bring him from the far end of the meadow where he was allowed to run. He would come trotting up at her call, and stand to have her scratch his forehead or, pat him and talk to him; and though the Brownie could not answer her speeches, he certainly seemed to hear them with pleasure. Then, throwing up his head, he would bound off, take a turn in the field, and come back again to stand as still as a lamb as long as she stayed there herself. Now and then, when she had a little more time, she would cross the fence and take a walk with him; and there, with his nose just at her elbow, wherever she went the Brownie went after her. After a while there was no need that she should call him; if he saw or heard her at a distance it was enough; he would come running up directly. Ellen loved him dearly.

She gave him more proof of it than words and caresses. Many were the apples and scraps of bread hoarded up for him; and if these failed, Ellen sometimes took him a little salt to show that he was not forgotten. There were not, certainly, many scraps left at Miss Fortune's table; nor apples to be had at home for such a purpose, except what she gathered up from the poor ones that were left under the trees for the hogs; but Ellen had other sources of supply. Once she had begged from Jenny Hitchcock a waste bit that she was going to throw away; Jenny found what she wanted to do with it, and after that many a basket of apples and many a piece of cold short-cake was set by for her. Margery, too, remembered the Brownie when disposing of her odds and ends; likewise did Mrs. Van Brunt; so that among them all Ellen seldom wanted something to give him. Mr. Marshman did not know what happiness he was bestowing when he sent her that little horse. Many, many were the hours of enjoyment she had upon his back. Ellen went nowhere but upon the Brownie. Alice made her a riding-dress of dark gingham; and it was the admiration of the country to see her trotting or cantering by, all alone, and always looking happy. Ellen soon found that if the Brownie was to do her much good she must learn to saddle and bridle him herself. This was very awkward at first, but there was no help for it. Mr. Van Brunt showed her how to manage, and after a while it became quite easy. She used to call the Brownie to the bar-place, put the bridle on, and let him out; and then he would stand motionless before her while she fastened the saddle on; looking round sometimes as if to make sure that it was she herself, and giving a little kind of satisfied neigh when he saw that it was. Ellen's heart began to dance as soon as she felt him moving under her; and once off and away on the docile and spirited little animal, over the roads, through the lanes, up and down the hills, her horse her only companion, but having the most perfect understanding with him, both Ellen and the Brownie cast care to the winds. "I do believe," said Mr. Van Brunt, "that critter would a leetle rather have Ellen on his back than not." He was the Brownie's next best friend. Miss Fortune never said anything to him or of him.

Ellen, however, reaped a reward for her faithful steadiness to duty while her aunt was ill. Things were never after that as they had been before. She was looked on with a different eye. To be sure, Miss Fortune tasked her as much as ever, spoke as sharply, was as ready to scold if anything went wrong; all that was just as it used to be, but beneath all that Ellen felt with great satisfaction that she was trusted and believed. She was no longer an interloper, in everybody's way; she was not watched and suspected; her aunt treated her as one of the family and a person to be depended on. It was a very great comfort to little Ellen's life. Miss Fortune even owned that "she believed she was an honest child and meant to do right," a great deal from her; Miss Fortune was never over forward to give any one the praise of honesty. Ellen now went out and came in without feeling she was an alien. And though her aunt was always bent on keeping herself and everybody else at work, she did not now show any particular desire for breaking off Ellen from her studies; and was generally willing, when the work was pretty well done up, that she should saddle the Brownie and be off to Alice or Mrs. Vawse.

Though Ellen was happy, it was a sober kind of happiness; the sun shining behind a cloud. And if others thought her so, it was not because she laughed loudly or wore a merry face.

"I can't help but think," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "that that child has something more to make her happy than what she gets in this world."

There was a quilting party gathered that afternoon at Mrs. Van Brunt's house.

"There is no doubt of that, neighbour," said Mrs. Vawse; "nobody ever found enough here to make him happy yet."

"Well, I don't want to see a prettier girl than that," said Mrs. Lowndes; "you'll never catch her, working at home or riding along on that handsome little critter of her'n, that she ha'n't a pleasant look and a smile for you, and as pretty behaved as can be. I never see her look sorrowful but once."

"Ain't that a pretty horse?" said Mimy Lawson.

"I've seen her look sorrowful though," said Sarah Lowndes; "I've been up at the house when Miss Fortune was hustling everybody round, and as sharp as vinegar, and you'd think it would take Job's patience to stand it; and for all there wouldn't be a bit of crossness in that child's face, she'd go round, and not say a word that wasn't just so; you'd ha' thought her bread was all spread with honey; and everybody knows it ain't. I don't see how she could do it, for my part. I know I couldn't."

"Ah, neighbour," said Mrs. Vawse, "Ellen looks higher than to please her aunt; she tries to please her God; and one can bear people's words or looks when one is pleasing Him. She is a dear child!"

"And there's 'Brahm," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "he thinks the hull world of her. I never see him take so to any one. There ain't an airthly thing he wouldn't do to please her. If she was his own child I've no idee he could set her up more than he does."

"Very well!" said Nancy, coming up, "good reason! Ellen don't set him up any, does she? I wish you'd just seen her once, the time when Miss Fortune was abed, the way she'd look out for him! Mr. Van Brunt's as good as at home in that house, sure enough; whoever's downstairs."

"Bless her dear little heart!" said his mother.

"A good name is better than precious ointment."

August had come, and John was daily expected home. One morning Miss Fortune was in the lower kitchen, up to the elbows in making a rich fall cheese; Ellen was busy upstairs, when her aunt shouted to her to "come and see what was all that splashing and crashing in the garden." Ellen ran out.

"Oh, Aunt Fortune," said she, "Timothy has broken down the fence and got in."

"Timothy!" said Miss Fortune, "what Timothy?"

"Why, Timothy, the near ox," said Ellen laughing; "he has knocked down the fence over there where it was low, you know."

"The near ox!" said Miss Fortune, "I wish he warn't quite so near this time. Mercy! he'll be at the corn and over everything. Run and drive him into the barn-yard, can't you?"

But Ellen stood still and shook her head. "He wouldn't stir for me," she said; "and besides I am as afraid of that ox as can be. If it was Clover I wouldn't mind!"

"But he'll have every bit of the corn eaten up in five minutes! Where's Mr. Van Brunt?"

"I heard him say he was going home till noon," said Ellen.

"And Sam Larkens is gone to mill – and Johnny Low is laid up with the shakes. Very careless of Mr. Van Brunt!" said Miss Fortune, drawing her arms out of the cheese-tub, wringing off the whey, "I wish he'd mind his own oxen. There was no business to be a low place in the fence! Well, come along! you ain't afraid with me, I suppose?"

Ellen followed, at a respectful distance. Miss Fortune, however, feared the face of neither man nor beast; she pulled up a bean poll, and made such a show of fight that Timothy, after looking at her a little, fairly turned tail, and marched out of the breach he had made. Miss Fortune went after, and rested not till she had driven him quite into the meadow; get him into the barn-yard she could not.

"You ain't worth a straw, Ellen!" said she, when she came back; "couldn't you ha' headed him and driv' him into the barn-yard? Now that plaguy beast will just be back again by the time I get well to work. He ha'n't done much mischief yet – there's Mr. Van Brunt's salary, he's made a pretty mess of; I'm glad on't! He should ha' put potatoes, as I told him. I don't know what's to be done – I can't be leaving my cheese to run and mind the garden every minute, if it was full of Timothys; and you'd be scared if a mosquito flew at you; you had better go right off for Mr. Van Brunt and fetch him straight home – serve him right! he has no business to leave things so. Run along, and don't let the grass grow under your feet!"

Ellen wisely thought her pony's feet would do the business quicker. She ran and put on her gingham dress and saddled and bridled the Brownie in three minutes; but before setting off she had to scream to her aunt that Timothy was just coming round the corner of the barn again; and Miss Fortune rushed out to the garden as Ellen and the Brownie walked down to the gate.

The weather was fine, and Ellen thought to herself it was an ill wind that blew no good. She was getting a nice ride in the early morning, that she would not have had but for Timothy's lawless behaviour. To ride at that time was particularly pleasant and rare; and forgetting how she had left poor Miss Fortune between the ox and the cheese-tub, Ellen and the Brownie cantered on in excellent spirits.

She looked in vain as she passed his grounds to see Mr. Van Brunt in the garden or about the barn. She went on to the little gate of the courtyard, dismounted, and led the Brownie in. Here she was met by Nancy, who came running from the way of the barn-yard.

"How d'ye do, Nancy?" said Ellen; "where's Mr. Van Brunt?"

"Goodness, Ellen! what do you want?"

"I want Mr. Van Brunt, where is he?"

"Mr. Van Brunt! he's out in the barn, but he's used himself up."

"Used himself up! what do you mean?"

"Why, he's fixed himself in fine style; he's fell through the trap-door and broke his leg."

"Oh, Nancy!" screamed Ellen, "he hasn't! how could he?"

"Why, easy enough if he didn't look where he was going, there's so much hay on the floor. But it's a pretty bad place to fall."

"How do you know his leg is broken?"

"'Cause he says so, and anybody with eyes can see it must be. I'm going over to Hitchcock's to get somebody to come and help in with him; for you know me and Mrs. Van Brunt ain't Samsons."

"Where is Mrs. Van Brunt?"

"She's out there – in a terrible to do."

Nancy sped on to the Hitchcocks'; and greatly frightened and distressed, Ellen ran over to the barn, trembling like an aspen. Mr. Van Brunt was lying in the lower floor, just where he had fallen; one leg doubled under him in such a way as left no doubt it must be broken. He had lain there some time before any one found him; and on trying to change his position when he saw his mother's distress, he had fainted from pain. She sat by weeping most bitterly. Ellen could bear but one look at Mr. Van Brunt; that one sickened her. She went up to his poor mother, and getting down on her knees by her side, put both arms round her neck.