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murdering times that the ballads tell of."

THE WARRIOR QUEEN.

Happily, happily, the days and weeks slipped by at Hartley Farm; and now September was half gone, and in two weeks more Hilda's parents would return. The letter had just arrived which fixed the date of their homecoming and Hildegarde had carried it upstairs to feast on it in her own room. She sat by the window in the little white rocking-chair, and read the words over and over again. In two weeks--really in two little weeks--she should see her mother again! It was too good to be true.

"Dragons, do you hear?" she cried, turning towards the wash-handstand. "You have seen my mother, Dragons, and she has washed her little blessed face in your bowl. I should think that might have stopped your ramping, if anything could. Or have you been waving your paws for joy ever since? I may have been unjust to you, Dragons."

The blue dragons, as usual, refused to commit themselves; and, as usual, the gilt cherubs round the looking-glass were shocked at their rudeness, and tried to atone for it by smiling as hard as they possibly could.

Happy thought! She would go down now and tell the farmer about it. Nurse Lucy was lying down with a bad headache, she knew; but the farmer was still in the kitchen. She heard him moving about now, though he had said he was going off to the orchard. She would steal in softly and startle him, and then--

Full of happy and loving thoughts, Hildegarde slipped quietly down the stairs and across the hall, and peeped in at the kitchen-door to see what the farmer was doing. He was at the farther end of the room, with his back turned to her, stooping down over his desk. What was he doing? What a singular attitude he was in! Then, all in a moment, Hilda's heart seemed to stop beating, and her breath came thick and short; for she saw that this man before her was not the farmer. The farmer had not long elf-locks of black hair straggling over his coat-collar; he was not round-shouldered or bow-legged; above all, he would not be picking the lock of his own desk, for this was what the man before her was doing. Silent as her own shadow, Hildegarde slipped back into the hall and stood still a moment, collecting her thoughts. What should she do? Call Dame Hartley? The "poor dear" was suffering much, and why should she be disturbed? Run to find the farmer? She might have to run all over the farm! No; she would attend to this herself. She was not in the least afraid. She knew pretty well what ugly face would look up at her when she spoke; for she felt sure that the slouching, ungainly figure was that of Simon Hartley. Her heart burned with indignation against the graceless, thankless churl who could rob the man on whose charity he had been living for two years. She made a step forward, with words of righteous wrath on her lips; then paused, as a new thought struck her. This man was an absolute ruffian; and though she believed him to be an absolute coward also, still he must know that she and Dame Hartley were alone in the house. He must know also that the farmer was at some distance, else he would not have ventured to do this. What should she do? she asked herself again. She looked round her, and her eyes fell upon the old horse-pistol which rested on a couple of hooks over the door. The farmer had taken it down only a day or two before, to show it to her and tell her its story. It was not loaded, but Simon did not know that. She stepped lightly up on a chair, and in a moment had taken the pistol down. It was a formidable-looking weapon, and Hildegarde surveyed it with much satisfaction as she turned once more to enter the kitchen. Unloaded as it was, it gave her a feeling of entire confidence; and her voice was quiet and steady as she said:

"Simon Hartley, what are you doing to your uncle's desk?"

The man started violently and turned round, his hands full of papers, which he had taken from one of the drawers. He changed color when he saw "the city gal," as he invariably termed Hilda, and he answered sullenly, "Gitt'n someth'n for Uncle."

"That is not true," said Hildegarde, quietly, "I have heard your uncle expressly forbid you to go near that desk. Put those papers back!"

The man hesitated, his little, ferret eyes shifting uneasily from her to the desk and back again. "I guess I ain't goin' to take orders from no gal!" he muttered, huskily.

"Put those papers back!" repeated Hildegarde sternly, with a sudden light in her gray eyes which made the rascal step backward and thrust the papers hurriedly into the drawer. After which he began to bluster, as is the manner of cowards. "Pooty thing, city gals comin' hectorin' round with their airs an'--"

"Shut the drawer!" said Hildegarde, quietly.

But Simon's sluggish blood was warmed by his little bluster, and he took courage as he reflected that this was only a slight girl, and that no one else was in the house except "Old Marm," and that many broad meadows intervened between him and the farmer's stout arm. He would frighten her a bit, and get the money after all.

"We'll see about that!" he said, taking a step towards Hilda, with an evil look in his red eyes. "I'll settle a little account with you fust, my fine lady. I'll teach you to come spyin' round on me this way. Ye ain't give me a civil word sence ye come here, an' I'll pay ye--"

Here Simon stopped suddenly; for without a word Hildegarde had raised the pistol , and levelled it full at his head, keeping her eyes steadily fixed on him. With a howl of terror the wretch staggered back, putting up his hands to ward off the expected shot.

"Don't shoot!" he gasped, while his color changed to a livid green. "I--I didn't mean nothin', I swar I didn't, Miss Graham. I was only--foolin'!" and he tried to smile a sickly smile; but his eyes fell before the stern glance of the gray eyes fixed so unwaveringly on him.

"Go to your room!" said Hilda, briefly. He hesitated. The lock clicked, and the girl took deliberate aim.

"I'm goin'!" shrieked the rascal, and began backing towards the door, while Hilda followed step by step, still covering him with her deadly weapon. They crossed the kitchen and the back hall in this way, and Simon stumbled against the narrow stairs which led to his garret room.

"I dassn't turn round to g' up!" he whined; "ye'll shoot me in the back." No answer; but the lock clicked again, more ominously than before. He turned and fled up the stairs, muttering curses under his breath. Hildegarde closed the door at the foot of the stairs, which generally stood open, bolted it, and pushed a heavy table against it. Then she went back into the kitchen, sat down in her own little chair, and--laughed!

Yes, laughed! The absurdity of the whole episode, the ruffian quaking and fleeing before the empty pistol, her own martial fierceness and sanguinary determination, struck her with irresistible force, and peal after peal of silvery laughter rang through the kitchen. Perhaps it was partly hysterical, for her nerves were unconsciously strung to a high pitch; but she was still laughing, and still holding the terrible pistol in her hand, when Dame Hartley entered the kitchen, looking startled and uneasy.

"Dear Hilda," said the good woman, "what has been going on? I thought surely I heard a man's voice here. And--why! good gracious, child! what are you doing with that pistol?"

Hildegarde saw that there was nothing for it but to tell the simple truth, which she did in as few words as possible, trying to make light of the whole episode. But Dame Hartley was not to be deceived, and saw at once the full significance of what had happened. She was deeply moved. "My dear, brave child," she said, kissing Hilda warmly, "to think of your facing that great villain and driving him away! The courage of you! Though to be sure, any one could see it in your eyes, and your father a soldier so many of his days too."

"Oh! it was not I who frightened him," said honest Hilda, "it was the old pistol." But Nurse Lucy only shook her head and kissed her again. The thought of Simon's ingratitude and treachery next absorbed her mind, and tears of anger stood in her kind blue eyes.

"It was a black day for my poor man," she said, "when he brought that fellow to the house. I mistrusted him from the first look at his sulky face. A man who can't look you in the eyes,--well, there! that's my opinion of him!"

"Why did the farmer bring him here?" asked Hilda. "I have often wondered."

"What was his mother like?" asked Hildegarde, trying to turn for the moment the current of painful thought.

At this moment Farmer Hartley's step was heard in the porch, and Nurse Lucy rose hurriedly. "Don't say anything to him, Hilda dear," she whispered,--"anything about Simon, I mean. I'll tell him to-morrow; but I don't want to trouble him to-night. This is our Faith's birthday,--seventeen year old she'd have been to-day; and it's been a right hard day for Jacob! I'll tell him about it in the morning."

Alas! when morning came it was too late. The kitchen door was swinging idly open; the desk was broken open and rifled; and Simon Hartley was gone, and with him the savings of ten years' patient labor.

THE OLD MILL.

It was a sad group that sat in the pleasant kitchen that bright September morning. The good farmer sat before his empty desk, seeming half stupefied by the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon him, while his wife hung about him, reproaching herself bitterly for not having put him on his guard the night before. Hildegarde moved restlessly about the kitchen, setting things to rights, as she thought, though in reality she hardly knew what she was doing, and had already carefully deposited the teapot in the coal-hod, and laid the broom on the top shelf of the dresser. Her heart was full of wrath and sorrow,--fierce anger against the miserable wretch who had robbed his benefactor; sympathy for her kind friends, brought thus suddenly from comfort to distress. For she knew now that the money which Simon had stolen had been drawn from the bank only two days before to pay off the mortgage on the farm.

"I shouldn't ha' minded the money," Farmer Hartley was saying, even now, "if I'd ha' been savin' it jest to spend or lay by. I shouldn't ha' minded, though 'twould ha' hurt jest the same to hev Simon's son take it,--my brother Simon's son, as I allus stood by. But it's hard to let the farm go. I tell ye, Marm Lucy, it's terrible hard!" and he bowed his head upon his hands in a dejection which made his wife weep anew and wring her hands.

His voice faltered as he laid his other hand for a moment on the girl's fair head; then, turning hastily away, he took up his battered straw hat and went slowly out of the house, an older man, it might have been by ten years, than he had been the night before.

Right daughterly did Hilda show herself that day, and Faith herself could hardly have been more tender and helpful. Feeling intuitively that work was the best balm for a sore heart, she begged for Nurse Lucy's help and advice in one and another item of household routine. Then she bethought her of the churning, and felt that if this thing was to befall, it could not have better befallen than on a Tuesday, when the great blue churn stood ready in the dairy, and the cream lay thick and yellow in the shining pans.

"Well, that's a fact!" sighed Nurse Lucy. "If I hadn't forgotten my butter in all this trouble! And it must be made, sorrow or smiles, as the old saying is. Come with me, Hilda dear, if you will. Your face is the only bright thing I can see this sad day."

So they went together into the cool dairy, where the light came in dimly through the screen of clematis that covered the window; Hilda bared her round white arms, and Nurse Lucy pinned back her calico sleeves from a pair that were still shapely, though brown, and each took a skimmer and set earnestly to work. The process of skimming cream is in itself a soothing, not to say an absorbing one. To push the thick, yellow ripples, piling themselves upon the skimmer, across the pan; to see it drop, like melted ivory, into the cream-bowl; to pursue floating cream islands round and round the pale and mimic sea,--who can do this long, and not be comforted in some small degree, even in the midst of heavy sorrow? Also there is joy and a never-failing sense of achievement when the butter first splashes in the churn. So Nurse Lucy took heart, and churned and pressed and moulded her butter; and though some tears fell into it, it was none the worse for that.

But here Hilda interposed, and gently hinted that there ought now to be "feeling" about getting the farmer's dinner. "We must have the things he likes best," she said; "for it will be hard enough to make him eat anything. I will make that apple-pudding that he likes so much; and there is the fowl for the pie, you know, Nurse Lucy."

The little maid was away on a vacation, so there was plenty of work to be done. Dinner-time came and went; and it was not till she had seen Dame Hartley safe established on her bed , and tucked her up under the red quilt, with a bottle of hot water at her and a bowl of cracked ice by her side,--it was not till she had done this, and sung one or two of the soothing songs that the good woman loved, that Hilda had a moment to herself. She ran out to say a parting word to the farmer, who was just starting for the village in the forlorn hope, which in his heart he knew to be vain, of getting an extension of time from Lawyer Clinch while search was being made for the wretched Simon.

When old Nancy had trotted away down the lane, Hilda went back and sat down in the porch, very tired and sad at heart. It seemed so hard, so hard that she could do nothing to save her friends from the threatening ruin. She thought of her father, with a momentary flash of hope that made her spring from her seat with a half articulate cry of joy; but the hope faded as she remembered that he had probably just started for the Yosemite Valley, and that there was no knowing when or where a despatch would reach him. She sighed, and sank back on the bench with a hopeless feeling. Presently she bethought her of her little dog, whom she had not seen all day. Jock had grown very dear to her heart, and was usually her inseparable companion, except when she was busy with household tasks, to which he had an extreme aversion. A mistress, in Jock's opinion, was a person who fed one, and took one to walk, and patted one, and who was in return to be loved desperately, and obeyed in reason. But sweeping, and knocking brooms against one's legs, and paying no attention to one's invitations to play or go for a walk, were manifest derelictions from a mistress's duty; accordingly, when Hilda was occupied in the house, Jock always sat in the back porch, with his back turned to the kitchen door, and his tail cocked very high, while one ear listened eagerly for the sound of Hilda's footsteps, and the other was thrown negligently forward, to convey the impression that he did not really care, but only waited to oblige her. And the moment the door opened, and she appeared with her hat on, oh, the rapture! the shrieks and squeaks and leaps of joy, the wrigglings of body and frantic waggings of tail that ensued!

Patiently she tried to wait. She stole up to her room, and taking up one of her best-beloved books, "The Household of Sir Thomas More," lost herself for a while in the noble sorrows of Margaret Roper. But even this could not hold her long in her restless frame of mind, so she went downstairs again, and out into the soft, golden September air, and fell to pacing up and down the gravel walk before the house like a slender, white-robed sentinel. Presently there was a rustling in the bushes, then a hasty, joyful bark, and a little dog sprang forward and greeted Hildegarde with every demonstration of affection. "Jock! my own dear little Jock!" she cried, stooping down to caress her favorite. But as she did so she saw that it was not Jock, but Will, Pink's dog, which was bounding and leaping about her. Much puzzled, she nevertheless patted the little fellow and shook paws with him, and told him she was glad to see him. "But where is your brother?" she cried. "Oh! Willy dog, where is Jock, and where is Bubble? Bubble, Will! speak!" Will "spoke" as well as he could, giving a short bark at each repetition of the well-known name. Then he jumped up on Hilda, and threw back his head with a peculiar action which at once attracted her attention. She took him up in her arms, and lo! there was a piece of paper, folded and pinned securely to his collar. Hastily setting the dog down, she opened the note and read as follows:--

MISS HILDY,

Simon Hartley he come here early this mornin and he says to me I was diggin potaters for dinner and he come and leaned on the fence and says he I've fixed your city gal up fine he says and I says what yer mean I mean what I says he says I've fixed her up fine. She thinks a heap of that dorg I know that ain't spelled right but it's the way he said it don't she says he I reckon says I Well says he you tell her to look for him in the pit of the old mill says he. And then he larf LAUGHED I was bound I'd get it Miss Hildy I don't see why they spell a thing g and say it f and went away. And I run after him to make him tell me what he d been up to and climbin over the wall I ketched my foot on a stone and the stone come down on my foot and me with it and I didn't know anything till Simon had gone and my foot swoll up so s I couldn't walk and I wouldnt a minded its hurtin Miss Hildy but it s like there wornt no bones in it Pink says I sprante it bad and I started to go over to the Farm on all fours to tell ye but I didn't know anythin g agin and Pink made me come back. We couldnt nether on us get hold of Will but now we got him I hope he l go straite, Miss Hildy Pink wanted to write this for me but I druther write myself you aint punk tuated it she says. She can punk tuate it herself better n I can I an ti cip ate I says. From

ZERUBBABEL CHIRK

P.S. I wisht I could get him out for ye Miss Hildy.

Softly the shadows fell as the sun went down. The purple twilight deepened, and the stars lighted their silver lamps, while all the soft night noises began to make themselves heard as the voices of day died away. But Hilda had ears for only one sound. At length, out of the silence she seemed to hear a faint, clicking noise. She listened intently: yes, there it was again. There was no mistaking the click of old Nancy's hoofs, and with it was a dim suggestion of a rattle, a jingle. Yes, beyond a doubt, the farmer was coming. Hildegarde flew into the house, and met Dame Hartley just coming down the stairs. "The farmer is coming," she said, hastily; "he is almost here. I am going to find Jock. I shall be back--" and she was gone before the astonished Dame could ask her a question.

Through the kitchen and out of the back porch sped the girl, only stopping to catch up a small lantern which hung on a nail, and to put some matches in her pocket. Little Will followed her, barking hopefully, and together the two ran swiftly through the barn-yard and past the cow-shed, and took the path which led to the old mill. The way was so familiar now to Hilda that she could have traversed it blindfold; and this was well for her, for in the dense shade of the beech-plantation it was now pitch dark. The feathery branches brushed her face and caught the tendrils of her hair with their slender fingers. There was something ghostly in their touch. Hilda was not generally timid, but her nerves had been strung to a high pitch all day, and she had no longer full control of them. She shivered, and bending her head low, called to the dog and hurried on.

Out from among the trees now, into the dim starlit glade; down the pine-strewn path, with the noise of falling water from out the beechwood at the right, and the ruined mill looming black before her. Now came the three broken steps. Yes, so far she had no need of the lantern. Round the corner, stepping carefully over the half-buried mill-stone. Groping her way, her hand touched the stone wall; but she drew it back hastily, so damp and cold the stones were. Darker and darker here; she must light the lantern before she ventured down the long flight of steps. The match spurted, and now the tiny yellow flame sprang up and shed a faint light on the immediate space around her. It only made the outer darkness seem more intense. But no matter, she could see two steps in front of her; and holding the lantern steadily before her, she stepped carefully down and down, until she stood on the firm greensward of the glen. Ah! how different everything was now from its usual aspect. The green and gold were turned into black upon black. The laughing, dimpling, sun-kissed water was now a black, gloomy pool, beyond which the fall shimmered white like a water-spirit . The firs stood tall and gaunt, closing like a spectral guard about the ruined mill, and pointing their long, dark fingers in silent menace at the intruder upon their evening repose. Hildegarde shivered again, and held her lantern tighter, remembering how Bubble had said that the glen was "a tormentin' spooky place after dark." She looked fearfully about her as a low wind rustled the branches. They bent towards her as if to clutch her; an angry whisper seemed to pass from one to the other; and an utterly unreasoning terror fell upon the girl. She stood for a moment as if paralyzed with fear, when suddenly the little dog gave a sharp yelp, and leaped up on her impatiently. The sound startled her into new terror; but in a moment the revulsion came, and she almost laughed aloud. Here was she, a great girl, almost a woman, cowering and shivering, while a tiny puppy, who had hardly any brains at all, was eager to go on. She patted the dog, and "taking herself by both ears," as she expressed it afterwards, walked steadily forward, pushed aside the dense tangle of vines and bushes, and stooped down to enter the black hole which led into the vault of the mill.

A rush of cold air met her, and beat against her face like a black wing that brushed it. It had a mouldy smell. Holding up the lantern, Hildegarde crept as best she could through the narrow opening. A gruesome place it was in which she found herself. Grim enough by daylight, it was now doubly so; for the blackness seemed like something tangible, some shapeless monster which was gathering itself together, and shrinking back, inch by inch, as the little spark of light moved forward. The gaunt beams, the jagged bits of iron, bent and twisted into fantastic shapes, stretched and thrust themselves from every side, and again the girl fancied them fleshless arms reaching out to clutch her. But hark! was that a sound,--a faint sound from the farthest and darkest corner, where the great wheel raised its toothed and broken round from the dismal pit?

"Jock! my little Jock!" cried Hildegarde, "are you there?"

A feeble sound, the very ghost of a tiny bark, answered her, and a faint scratching was heard. In an instant all fear left Hilda, and she sprang forward, holding the lantern high above her head, and calling out words of encouragement and cheer. "Courage, Jock! Cheer up, little man! Missis is here; Missis will save you! Speak to him, Will! tell him you are here."

"Wow!" said Will, manfully, scuttling about in the darkness. "Wa-ow!" replied a pitiful squeak from the depths of the wheel-pit. Hilda reached the edge of the pit and looked down. In one corner was a little white bundle, which moved feebly, and wagged a piteous tail, and squeaked with faint rapture. Evidently the little creature was exhausted, perhaps badly injured. How should she reach him? She threw the ray of light--oh! how dim it was, and how heavy and close the darkness pressed!--on the side of the pit, and saw that it was a rough and jagged wall, with stones projecting at intervals. A moment's survey satisfied her. Setting the lantern carefully at a little distance, and bidding Will "charge" and be still, she began the descent, feeling the way carefully with her feet, and grasping the rough stones firmly with her hands. Down! down! while the huge wheel towered over her, and grinned with all its rusty teeth to see so strange a sight. At last her feet touched the soft earth; another instant, and she had Jock in her arms, and was fondling and caressing him, and saying all sorts of foolish things to him in her delight. But a cry of pain from the poor puppy, even in the midst of his frantic though feeble demonstrations of joy, told her that all was not right; and she found that one little leg hung limp, and was evidently broken. How should she ever get him up? For a moment she stood bewildered; and then an idea came to her, which she has always maintained was the only really clever one she ever had. In her pre-occupation of mind she had forgotten all day to take off the brown holland apron which she had worn at her work in the morning, and it was the touch of this apron which brought her inspiration. Quick as a flash she had it off, and tied round her neck, pinned up at both ends to form a bag. Then she stooped again to pick up Jock, whom she had laid carefully down while she arranged the apron. As she did so, the feeble ray from the lantern fell on a space where the ground had been scratched up, evidently by the puppy's paws; and in that space something shone with a dull glitter. Hildegarde bent lower, and found what seemed to be a small brass handle, half covered with earth. She dug the earth away with her hands, and pulled and tugged at the handle for some time without success; but at length the sullen soil yielded, and she staggered back against the wheel with a small metal box in her hands. No time now to examine the prize, be it what it might. Into the apron bag it went, and on top of it went the puppy, yelping dismally. Then slowly, carefully, clinging with hands and feet for life and limb, Hilda reascended the wall. Oh, but it was hard work! Her hands were already very sore, and the heavy bundle hung back from her neck and half choked her. Moreover the puppy was uncomfortable, and yelped piteously, and struggled in his bonds, while the sharp corner of the iron box pressed painfully against the back of her neck. The jutting stones were far apart, and several times it seemed as if she could not possibly reach the next one. But the royal blood was fully up. Queen Hildegarde set her teeth, and grasped the stones as if her slender hands were nerved with steel. At last! at last she felt the edge; and the next moment had dragged herself painfully over it, and stood once more on solid ground. She drew a long breath, and hastily untying the apron from her neck, took poor Jock tenderly in one arm, while with the other she carried the lantern and the iron box. Will was jumping frantically about, and trying to reach his brother puppy, who responded with squeaks of joy to his enraptured greeting.

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