Listen to him whistlin'.'
'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'
'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell ye,' and we
climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut tree, and strained our eyes
in the direction from which we expected the onset of Pegtop's vicious pack.
But it was a false alarm.
'Well, I don't think he _would_ do that, after all--_hardly_; but he is a
brute, sure!'
'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his daughter, is she?'
'Yes, that's Meg--Beauty, I christened her, when I called him Beast; but I
call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and that's the way o't.'
'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so soon as we had
dismounted from our position of security.
'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw a straight
line. My hand trembles.'
'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful and
entreating, that considering the excursion she had made for the pencils, I
could not bear to disappoint her.
'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help it.
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