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"I couldn't help it, Mam. I was scared. Oh, don't hit me."

"I shall hit you—a stout girl like you, running away like a babe from a bit of thunder. Mus' Relph ull turn you away fur this, and we'll be sixpence a week the poorer, and flour's gone up a penny . . . take that, and that."

Susan screamed with all her might.

"I couldn't help it. I'm scared—justabout scared."

"Out you go!" cried her father. "Git back before they find you're gone."

Susan threw herself upon the floor.

"I won't go—I won't—don't make me. Oh, I tell you I'm scared. The Lord is in that field."

"The Lord!"

Both her parents stared, and her father, who had lifted his hand to strike her, dropped his arm.

"Yes, the Lord. I saw Him. He spoke to me. Oh, I'm scared."

She remembered how the cloud coming up from Dellenden had been the cloudy pillar in which the Lord had gone before Israel out of Egypt. As she remembered, it seemed as if she had really seen the Lord.

"The child has seen the Lord," said her father.

"I don't believe it," said her mother, "'tis but an idle tale she tells to save her skin."