The boy's heart went out to the valley--and in the same instant he put it from him. An indescribable energy and exultation took possession of him. The tide of will for which he had been waiting all these months had risen; and for the first time he felt swelling within him the power to break with habit, to cut his way.
But what first step to take? Whom to consult? Suddenly he remembered Mr. Ancrum, first with shame, then with hope. Had he thrown away his friend? Rumour said that things were getting worse and worse at chapel, and that Mr. Ancrum was going to Manchester at once.
He ran down the slopes of heather towards home as though he would catch and question Mr. Ancrum there and then. And Louie? Patience! He would settle everything. Meanwhile, he was regretfully persuaded that if you had asked Miss Bronte what could be done with a creature like Louie she would have had a notion or two.
'Reach me that book, Louie,' said David peremptorily; 'it ull be worse for yo if yo don't.'
The brother and sister were in the smithy. Louie was squatting on the ground with her hands behind her, her lips sharply shut as though nothing should drag a word out of them, and her eyes blazing defiance at David, who had her by the shoulder, and looked to the full as fierce as she looked provoking.
'Find it!' was all she said. He had been absent for a few minutes after a sheep that had got into difficulties in the Red Brook, and when he returned, his volume of Rollin's 'Ancient History'--'Lias's latest loan--which he had imprudently forgotten to take with him, had disappeared.
David gave her an angry shake, on which she toppled over among the fallen stones with an exasperating limpness, and lay there laughing.
'Oh, very well,' said David, suddenly recovering himself; 'yo keep yor secret. I'st keep mine, that's aw.'
Louie lay quiet a minute or two, laughing artificially at intervals, while David searched the corners of the smithy, turning every now and then to give a stealthy look at his sister.
The bait took. Louie stopped laughing, sat up, put herself straight, and looked about her.
'Yo hain't got a secret,' she said coolly; 'I'm not to be took in wi snuff that way.'
'Very well,' said David indifferently, 'then I haven't.'