This exasperated me so that in an instant the honey within me was turned
to vinegar, and I made a rush round at him, startling our old horse so
that he snorted and plunged; but I did not catch Shock, for he dived
back through the hole under the manger into the next stall. Then on
under the manger where Brother Solomon's horse was feeding, making him
start back and nearly break his halter, while Shock went on into the
third stall, disturbing a hen from the nest she had made in the manger,
and sending her cackling and screaming out into the yard, where the cock
and the other hens joined in the hubbub.
As I ran round to the third stall I was just in time to see Shock's legs
disappearing, as he climbed up the perpendicular ladder against the
wall, and shot through the trap-door into the hay-loft.
"You shall beg my pardon before I go," I said between my teeth, as I
looked up, and there was his grubby fist coming out of the hole in the
ceiling, and being shaken at me.
I rushed at the ladder, and had ascended a couple of rounds, when bang
went the trap-door, and there was a bump, which I knew meant that Shock
had seated himself on the trap, so that I could not get it up.
"Oh, all right!" I said aloud. "I sha'n't come after you, you dirty
old grub. I'm going away to-day, and you can shake your fist at
somebody else."
I had satisfied myself that Brother Solomon's horse was all right, so I
now strode up to the house and told Mrs Dodley to spread the table for
a visitor, and said that I should want my clean things as I was going
away.
"What! for a holiday?" she said.
"No; I'm going away altogether," I said.
"I know'd it," she cried angrily; "I know'd it. I always said it would
come to that with you mixing yourself up with that bye. A nasty dirty
hay-and-straw-sleeping young rascal, as is more like a monkey than a
bye. And now you're to be sent away."
"Yes," I said grimly; "now I'm to be sent away."
She stood frowning at me for a minute, and then took off her dirty apron
and put on a clean one, with a good deal of angry snatching.
"I shall just go and give Mr Brownsmith a bit of my mind," she said.
"I won't have you sent away like that, and all on account of that bye."
"No, no," I said. "I'm going away with Mr Brownsmith's brother, to
learn all about hothouses I suppose."
"Oh, my dear bye!" she exclaimed. "You mustn't do that. You'll have to
be stoking and poking all night long, and ketch your death o' cold, and
be laid up, and be ill-used, and be away from everybody who cares for
you, and and I don't want you to go."