The collie scratched again, and then gave two sharp barks. Instantly there was a quick tapping sound inside, as of a stick on the floor, the door opened in with a bang, a weak hinge giving way at the pull, while a gaunt female figure leaning on a crutch clasped the dog in her arms, hugging him and crying: “My laddie, my laddie, and I thought they had taken ye, when ye stayed agone three nights, and when I heard the shot this noon I thought they had killed ye certy.”—It was the Herb Witch herself!

A flash and crash followed by a gust of rain made Anne step forward, and as quickly as possible ask for shelter. When the woman saw the party, her face grew rigid again and, for a moment, it seemed as if she would close the door; then she changed her mind, and opening it as wide as the broken hinge would allow, said, “Walk in, leddies.”

The door opened directly into a low, square room. At first it was so dark that the girls could distinguish nothing, then as their eyes became accustomed to the dimness, a few chairs, a table, and a small stove set in the wide, open fireplace, were outlined. The room was bare and poor, but very clean.

The old woman, after feeding the dog from a pot that was on the hearth, returned, and stood by the window, the dog behind her, after motioning her guests to be seated; but she did not speak, or ask a question as to from whence they came, or whither they were bound. She might have been accustomed to have six girls come every day, for any surprise she showed. The silence became embarrassing, until Anne, partly to break it, and partly because the chairs fell short, sat down on the floor by the collie, and began to talk to him, and through him to his mistress, in her coaxing way that no one could withstand.

“Tell your missy where we found you, and how the wicked trap pinched your foot,” she crooned, scratching him under his chin until he rolled over on his back with a contentedly foolish expression.

“And did yer find him trapped, and loose him, little leddie? I didn’t mind his foot was hurt, my eyes are so poor and farsome.” Her speech was fascinating, wholly unlike the harsh country dialect; and yet only now and then did she use a Scotch phrase.

Thus encouraged, Anne told the story of the day’s adventures, punctuated now and then by promptings from the others, until she had said really more than she intended, and the old woman knew that her guests had heard at least one side of the tale of her misfortune.

Then the sight of young faces around her seemed to warm her lonely heart and loosen her tongue.“Yes,” she said presently, but with no trace of complaint in her voice, “the place was sold a month gone to pay the taxes. The same being law and justice, I’ll not complain. And I by rights would be gone as well, but for Laddie here; and as it is, I’m but a trespasser.

“I’d to deal with but the few chicks you saw out yonder, a sick pup, and an old cow that pastures behind on—the Lord forgive me!—what’s mine no longer; when the night before the day I was to go yonder,” pointing north to where the poor farm lay, “Laddie, he disappeared.

“I’d not paid his tax, and so the law was against him. Leastway, the bit I’d saved to pay it was made way with by the lad I sent it to the town clerk by, and I’d no way to earn more—the lameness being too hard for me to pick and peddle berries down the turnpike. What with that fear before me, and knowing he’d taken a chick a week agone from some one, being sore tempted to find meat, I was worried in deed and truth. If he’s dead, said I, his troubles be over; but if held in bond, and breaking loose he comes home, and me away, he’ll just pine away and starve, slow and pitiful.

“But noo,” she continued, trying to make her voice sound cheery, “he’s come, and to the favour of your loosing him I’m minded to ask another. As you know dogs’ ways, little leddie, will ye take him with ye, and give him his keep his life out? It’ll not be long, for he’s turning ten, and has’na had a full stomach these last years. Will ye, leddie? I’m sorrowful not to gi’ him free o’ the tax, but it’s the first and last favour Jane Carr asks o’ any one. Ye will. God bless you, child! Now to-morrow the old ‘Herb Witch’ will move on.”

It was all Anne could do to keep from breaking down and crying aloud. Miss Letty did not even try, and Elsa Willoughby wiped her eyes hastily, forgetting that she had used her handkerchief that morning to cleanse her paint-brushes. So interested had they all been that an hour passed unnoticed, and with it the storm.

“But,”—stammered Anne, trying to steady her voice, “where is the sick puppy? Don’t you want us to take that too?”

“You’d best take it, certy; but it’s not mine, and you may likely seek out the owner, for it’s a well-favoured little hussy, and affectionsome, though flighty, if I make no mistake. Ten days back Laddie came in barking and making signs for me to follow, for he has speech, has Laddie, or I mistake.”“So has Waddles,” said Anne, sympathetically.

“Weel, I hobbled down the lane length to where the old fence lies that’s bound with that fearsome wire.”

“We know that fence,” said the girls, so completely in chorus that a smile actually wrinkled the old woman’s features.

“A rod farther down Laddie led me, and then stood still. Before him was a little animal meshed in the wire. I thought it a rabbit; next I saw it was a pup that like had been chased by a wild cat,—oh, yes, there’s a few here yet,—and held by the barbs. I unloosed the pup, Laddie a-givin’ me orders all the while.”

“Just like Waddles,” ejaculated Anne again.

“I took the wee thing home and washed its wounds with herbs I well know the worth of, and now it hardly shows a scar. I’ve kept it close, mostly in the bedroom yonder, for fear those who bear me ill might say I stole it, and lay hands on it and keep it from its lawful owners, and work me worse ill, for it’s as fine a little she beagle as ever my eyes lit on, and I’ve seen many in the old land.”

“Beagle,” said Anne and Miss Letty together, as Jane Carr threw open the door of a small room which was nearly filled by a large bed with a blue and white spread. Upon this bed, with her head resting comfortably on the only pillow, lay Jill Waddles!

Anne fell upon Jill and hugged her, for it was a relief to feel that the little creature had not starved to death, in spite of her ungrateful behaviour. But Jill merely yawned, jumped down from the bed, ambled about prettily with her head on one side, but retired under the old woman’s skirt when Anne tried to take her up.

“She has adopted Mrs. Carr,” said Miss Letty, laughing, while the old woman stood amazed, saying, “Weel, weel, the ways and freaks o’ she animals is yet to be accounted.”

Explanations followed. “You see that I owe you two weeks’ board for her,” said Anne, gaily, “and that will pay Laddies’ license, so he will be a free gift.”

“But she sha’n’t leave, she sha’n’t lose the dog,” she added, under her breath, to Miss Letty, who answered, “Of course not, if we can only manage to keep her here a few days longer to gain time, so that we can tell Miss Jule.”

“I have it,” said Anne, and then turning she said: “Will you kindly stay here until day after to-morrow, to please me, Mrs. Carr? Then father and I will drive up in the morning and take Jill home. I know Mr. Hugh, who has bought the land, he’s a very particular friend of mine and Waddles’s, and I’ll tell him that I asked you.”

Mrs. Carr was only too glad of an honourable day’s reprieve. Then, as the sun almost at setting, shone through the window, Anne opened the door and said that they must get their wheels and go on, for she had been so excited by what had passed that she was now doubly anxious lest those at home should worry.

“Leddies, would ye—” began Mrs. Carr, hesitating, “would ye drink a cup of tea with me before ye go? It’ll not take a minute, and it’s likely the last time I’ll be offer’n it to company,” she added with grim humour.

Anne accepted the invitation promptly with her fine breeding, not giving the Willoughbys a chance to demur. A brush fire was burning in the stove, and Anne saw by the heap of faggots outside how the woods had been kept clear of underbrush.

The Herb Witch opened a narrow cupboard by the chimney and, as she did so, they caught sight of a dozen or so bits of old Lowestoft china, a tea-pot, cream pitcher, caddy, and half a dozen cups and saucers.

“How beautiful!” exclaimed Martica Willoughby, who “collected.” “Do you know that those are valuable? Why don’t you sell them?” she continued indiscreetly.

Miss Letty declared afterward that the Herb Witch suddenly grew so tall that she thought that her head would bump against the ceiling, as she answered: “Those same are my self-respect. When I’ve been tormented to beg and ask favours, I opened that door and looked at the bits that come from afar with me, and I minded those I came from, and whose will I crossed to my hurt. If ye sell your self-respect, leddy, that’s to be the real pauper,” and poor Martica forgot her college-bred sufficiency for once, and mumbled an apology.

Quickly the tea was drawn, only Anne noticing that it was the last in the caddy, and the sugar the last in the bowl, and Mrs. Carr taking a small loaf from a stone jar cut it in thin slices and spread them with wild plum jam, from the same closet where there still remained a few pots. “I’m out of butter, as it haps,” she said dryly.

The tea was delicious and every one enjoyed it heartily. Anne was standing by the door with a second “jamwich,” as she always called the combination, in her hand when wheels came up the lane, a horse stopped suddenly, and a figure sprang from the runabout, vaulted over the rickety gate that the rain had made still more difficult to open, and strode up the walk. It was Mr. Hugh, and he wore what Anne had always called his “would-like-to-break-something” expression.

It flashed through her brain that he was either vexed at finding the Herb Witch still in the house, or that he blamed her in some way for their detention. She never knew exactly why she did it, but the moment he reached the door and opened his lips to speak she thrust the bit of bread and jam between his lips, calling gaily: “You are just in time, it’s perfectly delicious, and the very last piece, too. Please, Mrs. Carr, do you think that you could coax one more cup of tea from that duck of a pot? It’s Mr. Hugh, you know, and he’s come to look for us.”

Astonished as he was and gagged with bread and jam, Mr. Hugh’s anxiety and anger disappeared at the same moment, for both he and Miss Jule, who had driven completely around the circuit without finding the party, feared they might have tried to cross the river at the disabled bridge which had disappeared altogether at the rush of the suddenly swollen stream, and his turning into the lane at all had been quite an accident.

Instantly there was a confusion of tongues, and poor Mr. Hugh’s brain whirled as he heard the words: “punctured tire,” “across the fields,” “horrid barbed wire fence,” “dead tree that kept moving,” “Laddie in trap,” “license money stolen,” “dear old china,” “such delicious tea,” “saved Jill Waddles from starving to death,” “thunder and lightning,” “chestnut tree,” etc., each sentence coming from a different person. Nor was his bewilderment lessened by the sight of the Witch herself, leaning on her crutch by the chimney closet, dignified and silent, the very reverse of the whining beggar, half lunatic, half tramp, that she had been represented.

His first idea was to relieve Miss Jule’s mind and get the girls safely home, his second was to apologize to Mrs. Carr for his evident misunderstanding and abrupt entrance.

“You can tell me all about it on the way home,” he said to the group at large. “Elsa, your mother is nearly frantic about you all; fortunately Miss Jule expected to keep Anne at the Hill Farm all night, so her mother knows nothing about the matter.