The butcher looked aside, and hastily rubbed his eyes with the corner of his blue apron.  The Attorney stood unmoved; he pulled up the head of the lamb, which had just stooped to crop a mouthful of clover.  “I have no time to waste,” he said.  “Butcher, I leave it to you.  If it’s fat—­the sooner the better.  I’ve nothing more to say.”  And he walked off, deaf to the prayers of the poor children.  As soon as the Attorney was out of sight, Susan rose from the bank where she was seated, came up to her lamb, and stooped to gather some of the fresh dewy clover, that she might feed her pet for the last time.  Poor Daisy licked the well-known hand.

“Now, let us go,” said Susan.

“I’ll wait as long as you please,” said the butcher.

Susan thanked him, but walked away quickly, without looking back.  Her little brothers begged the man to stay a few minutes, for they had gathered a handful of blue speedwell and yellow crowsfoot, and they were decking the poor animal.  As it followed the boys through the village, the children looked after them as they passed, and the butcher’s own son was among the number.  The boy remembered Susan’s firmness about the shilling, for it had saved him a beating.  He went at once to his father to beg him to spare the lamb.

“I was thinking about it myself,” said the butcher.  “It’s a sin to kill a pet lamb, I’m thinking.  Anyway, it’s what I’m not used to, and don’t fancy doing.  But I’ve a plan in my head and I’m going straightway to Attorney Case.  But he’s a hard man, so we’ll say nothing to the boys, lest nothing comes of it.  Come, lads,” he went on, turning to the crowd of children, “it is time you were going your ways home.  Turn the lamb in here, John, into the paddock for the night.”  The butcher then went to the Attorney.

“If it’s a good, fat, tender lamb you want for Sir Arthur,” he said, “I could let you have one as good or better than Susan’s and fit to eat to-morrow.”

As Mr. Case wished to give the present to Sir Arthur as soon as he could, he said he would not wait for Susan’s lamb, but would take the one offered by the butcher.  In the meantime Susan’s brothers ran home to tell her that the lamb was put into the paddock for the night.  This was all they knew, but even this was some comfort to the poor girl.  Rose was at Farmer Price’s cottage that evening, and was to have the pleasure of hearing Susan tell her father the good news that he might stay at home for one week longer.  Mrs. Price was feeling better and said that she would sit up to supper in her wicker armchair.  As Susan began to get ready the meal, little William, who was standing at the house-door watching for his father’s return, called out suddenly, “Susan, why here is our old man!”

“Yes,” said the blind harper, “I have found my way to you.  The neighbors were kind enough to show me where-abouts you lived; for, though I didn’t know your name, they guessed who I meant by what I said of you all.”