Ladybird Read Online Free Page B

moment the men might discover her absence and call for her. Then they would rush outside to hunt her down, and death itself would be better than life!
    With the awful words of the men ringing in her ears, she dropped from the window, praying that she might not make a false landing. Her head seemed dizzy, and there was a beating in her throat. For an instant her body felt too heavy to rise up, and she lay quite still where she had dropped, holding her breath and listening.
    The old dog came softly, whining and licking her face as if he understood she was in trouble, and new panic seized her. She hushed him into quiet, picked up her bag, and slung it over her shoulder by its strap, then, her hand upon the dog’s head, she moved like a small shadow across the ground, her bare feet making no sound, her heart beating so wildly that it seemed as if it could be heard a mile away.
    It was not toward the trail she directed her steps, and she did not look back to the awful pass where the precipice was, nor down the valley where they had carried her precious mother’s form. Into the wilderness where there was no trail, into the darkness, she went.
    Like a voice, there silently stole into her heart a phrase from the words she had learned for her mother, sitting morning after morning in the cabin door in the sunshine, learning her lesson out of the old Book, the only book she had, or huddled in a blanket when the weather was cold and the fire was low, learning, learning, always learning beautiful words to repeat to her mother. It was the only school she had ever known, and she loved to study and to repeat the words she had learned, pleased to be able to say them perfectly, often asking what they meant but only half comprehending what her mother tried to tell her. Now suddenly it seemed that these words had taken on new, wide meaning.
    “He knoweth the way that I take. He knoweth the way. He knoweth.”
    As she stole along cautiously—her accustomed feet finding the pathway in the dark, her heart fearful, her eyes looking back in dread—the words began to come like an accompaniment to her silent going, and their meaning beat itself into her soul.
    Suddenly, back through the clear stillness of the starlit night, came a sharp cracking sound, a snap and a sound of rending wood, then a kind of roar of evil bursting from the door of the cabin. Casting a frightened look back, she could see the light from the cabin door that was flung wide now, could hear the men’s voices calling her angrily, shouting, swearing a tumult of angry menace. It put new terror into her going, new tremblings into her limbs. She hastened her uncertain steps blindly on toward an old tree that had been her refuge before in times of alarm, her hands outstretched to feel for obstructions in her path as she fled down the side of the mountain.
    She could hear the clatter of hoofs now, ringing out on the crisp night air, as the horses crossed the slab of rock that cropped out a little way from the house. Yes, some of them, at least, were coming this way. She had hoped they would search the trail first, but it seemed they were taking no chances. They would be upon her very soon, and her limbs were trembling until she felt they would crumple under her. Her feet were so uncertain as they stepped. Her heart was beating so that it seemed as if it would choke her. Weakly she snatched at a young sapling and swung herself up to a cleft place in a great rock she knew so well. If she could only make it now and reach the foot of the old tree!
    Breathlessly on she climbed, not pausing now to look back, and at last she reached it.
    As she swung herself up in the branches, she remembered the old dog who had followed her. Where was he? Had he gone back? Much as she loved him and wanted his company on her journey, she realized now that she should have shut him in the cow shed where he could not have followed her. Now, if he lingered at the foot of the rock, he would give away her hiding