Young Musgrave

“Hush, Lilias, you do not know what you are speaking of. What can Nello’s troubles be? Perhaps the people will not pet him as he has been petted; that will do him no harm whatever—it will be better for him. My dear, you are too little to know. Hush, and let me listen. I must be ready when I am called for. Nothing that can happen to Nello can be of so much importance as this is now.”

And the Vicar went to the door to look out and listen. Lilias followed him with her anxious eyes. She was awed, but she was not afraid for the old gentleman. Would God hurt him? but anybody that was strong could hurt Nello. She made one more appeal when the Vicar had returned, hearing nothing and leaving the door ajar.

“Mr. Pen! oh, please, please, think of Nello a little! What am I to do? Papa said, ‘Lily, I trust him to you—you are to take care of him.’ What shall I say to papa if he comes home and asks me, ‘Where is my little Nello?’ Papa may come any day. That is his way, he never writes to tell us, but when he can, he comes. He might come to-day,” cried Lilias. “Mr. Pen, oh, send somebody for Nello. Will you not listen to me? What should I say to papa if he came home to-day?”

“My dear little Lilias,” said Mr. Pen, shaking his head mournfully, “your papa will not come to-day. Heaven knows if he will ever be able to come. You must not think it is such an easy matter. There are things which make it very difficult for him to come home; things of which you don’t know—— ”

“Yes,” said Lilias eagerly, “about the man who was killed; but papa did not do it, Mr. Pen.”

Mr. Pen shook his head again. “Who has told the child?” he said. “I hope not—I hope not, Lilias; but that is what nobody knows.”

“Yes,” she cried, “Mr. Geoff knows; he told me. He says it was another man, and that papa went away to save him. Mr. Pen, papa may come any day.”

“Who is Mr. Geoff?” said the Vicar; but he did not pay any attention to what the child was saying. There seemed to be a sound on the stairs of some one coming down. “Oh, run away, my dear! run away! Run and play, or do whatever you like. I have not time to attend to you now.”

Lilias did not say a word more, or even look at him again, but walked away with a stately tread, not condescending even to turn her head towards him. In this solemn way she went back to the hall, expecting to find ’Lizabeth; but when she found that even the old woman was gone, in whom she put a certain trust as the one person who knew everything, Lilias had a moment of black despair. What was she to do? She stood and gazed out into vacancy—her eyes intent, her mind passionately at work. It was to her after all, and not to Mary, that Nello had been intrusted, and if nobody would think of him, or attend to him, it was she who must interfere for her brother. She stood for a minute or two fixed—then turned hastily, paying no attention to Martuccia, and went to her room. Lilias, too, had a sovereign, which Mary had given her, and something more besides. She took her money out of its repository, and put on her hat and jacket. A great resolution was in her face. She had seen at last what was the only thing to do.

“I think, ma’am, there is a change,” the nurse said, as Mary noiselessly but swiftly, as long nursing teaches women to move, came into the room. The nurse was an experienced person. When Miss Brown, and even Mary herself, had seen “a change,” or fancied they had seen it, before, nurse had never said so. It was the first time she had called any one to the Squire’s room, or made the slightest movement of alarm. She led the way now to the bedside. The patient was lying in much the same attitude as before, but he was moving his hands restlessly, his lips were moving, and his head on the pillow. “He is saying something, but I cannot make out what it is,” the nurse said. Mary put her ear close to the inarticulate mouth. How dreadful was that living prison of flesh!—living, yet dead—the spirit pent up and denied all its usual modes of utterance. Mary wrung her hands with a sense of the intolerable as she tried in vain to distinguish the words, which seemed to be repeated over and over again, though they could make nothing of them. “Cannot you help us?—can you make it out? Is there nothing we can do?” she cried; “no cordial to give him strength?” but the nurse could only shake her head, and the doctor when he came was equally helpless. He told Mary it was a sign of returning consciousness—which, indeed, was evident enough—but could not even say whether this promised for or against recovery. The nurse, it was clear, did not think it a good sign. He might even recover his speech at the end, she said. And hours passed while they waited, watching closely lest any faint beginning of sound should struggle through. The whole night was passed in this way. Mary never left the bedside. It was not that he could say anything of great importance to any one but himself. The Squire was helpless as respected his estate. It was entailed, and went to his eldest son, whether he liked it or not; and his will was made long ago, and all his affairs settled. What he had to say could not much affect any one; but of all pitiful sights, it seemed to his daughter the most pitiful, to see this old man, always so entirely master of himself, trying to make some communication which all their anxiety could not decipher. Could he be himself aware of how it was that no response was made to him?—could he realise the horror of the position?—something urgent to say, and no way of getting to the ears of those concerned, notwithstanding their most anxious attention? “No, no,” the nurse said; “he’s all in a maze; he maybe don’t even know what he’s saying;” and the constant movement and evident repetition gave favour to this idea. Mary stood by him, and looked at him, however, with a pain as great as if he had been consciously labouring on one side to express himself as she was on the other to understand him, instead of lying, as was most probable, in a feverish dream, through which some broken gleam of fancy or memory struggled. When the chilly dawn broke upon the long night, that dreariest and coldest moment of a vigil, worn out with the long strain, she dropped asleep in the chair by her father’s bedside. But when she woke hurriedly, a short time after, while yet it was scarcely full day, the nurse was standing by her with a hand upon her shoulder. The woman had grasped at her to wake her. “Listen, ma’am! he says—‘the little boy,’” she said; Mary sprang up, shaking off her drowsiness in a moment. The old man’s face had recovered a little intelligence—a faint flush seemed to waver about his ashy cheeks. It was some time before, even now, she could make any meaning out of the babble that came from his lips. Then by degrees she gleaned, now one word, now another. “Little boy—little Johnny; bring the little boy.” She could scarcely imagine even now that there was meaning in the desire. Most likely it was but some pale reflection, through the dim awakening of the old man’s mind, of the last idea that was in it. It went on, however, in one long strain of mumbled repetition—“Little Johnny—little boy.” There seemed nothing else in his mind to say. The nurse laid her hand once more on Mary’s arm, as she stood by her, listening. “If you can humour the poor gentleman, ma’am, you ought to do it,” said the woman. She was a stranger, and did not know the story of the house.

What could Mary do? She sent out one of the servants to call Mr. Pen, who had stayed late on the previous night, always holding his book open with his finger at the place, but who got up now obedient at her summons, though his wife had not meant to let him be disturbed for hours. Then the feeble demand went on so continuously, that Mary in despair sent Miss Brown for Lilias, vaguely hoping that the presence of the one child, if not the other, might perhaps be of some use in the dim state of semi-consciousness in which her father seemed to be. Miss Brown went with hesitation and a doubtful look, which Mary was too much occupied to notice, but came back immediately to say that Miss Lilias had got up early and gone out. “Gone out!” Mary said, surprised; but she had no leisure to be disturbed about anything, her whole mind being pre-occupied. She went downstairs to Mr. Pen when he came. He had his prayer-book all ready. To dismiss the departing soul with all its credentials, with every solemnity that became such a departure, was what he thought of. He was altogether taken by surprise by Mary’s hasty address—

“Mr. Pen, you must go at once and bring Nello. I cannot send a servant. He would not, perhaps, be allowed to come. If you will go, you can fetch him at once—to-morrow early.”

“But, Miss Mary—— ”

“Don’t say anything against it, Mr. Pen. He is asking for the little boy, the little boy! Nello must come, and come directly. You would not cross him in perhaps the last thing he may ever ask for?” cried Mary, the tears of agitation and weariness coming in a sudden gush from her eyes.

“Let me send for your brother,” said the Vicar. “Let me send for Randolph. He will know best what to do.”

“Randolph! what has he to do with it?” she cried. “Oh go, Mr. Pen; do not vex me now.”

“I will go.” Mr. Pen closed his book with regret and put it into his pocket. He did not like the idea that the old Squire should depart out of the world like any common man, uncared for. After his long connection with the family, that such a thing should happen without him! Mr. Musgrave had not perhaps been so regardful as was to be desired of all the services of the Church, and Mr. Pen was all the more anxious, now that he could have everything his own way, that all should be done in order. But how could he resist Mary’s will and wish? He put his book in his pocket with a sigh.

“I will do what you wish, Miss Mary; but—it is a journey of many hours—and trains may not suit. Do you think he will—go on—so long?”

“He is asking for the little boy,” said Mary, hastily. “Come and see him, and it will go to your heart. How can I tell you any more? We do not know even whether he is to live or to die.”

“Ah, you must not cherish false hopes,” said the Vicar, as he followed her upstairs. The servants were peeping on the staircase and at the doors; they were half disappointed, like Mr. Pen, that the “change” was not more decided. They had hoped that all was nearly over at last.

The darkened room, where the night-light was still burning though full day broke in muffled through the half-shuttered windows, was of itself very impressive to Mr. Pen, coming out of the fresh fulness of the morning light. He followed Mary, going elaborately on tiptoe round the foot of the great heavily-curtained bed. The Squire’s head had been propped up a little. He had become even a little more conscious since Mary had left him. But his voice was so babbling and inarticulate that Mr. Pen, unused to it, and deeply touched by the condition in which he saw his old friend and patron, could not make out the words—“Bring the little boy—the little boy, not Randolph—little Johnny: bring the little boy.” Thus he went murmuring on, and there had gradually come a kind of wish into the face, and a kind of consciousness of their presence. “I wanted to bring Lilias, but Lilias they tell me has gone out; I cannot tell where she can have gone,” Mary whispered. “And he never took any notice of Lilias—it is the boy he wants—listen, Mr. Pen, always the boy.”

“I cannot make anything of it,” said Mr. Pen, moved to tears.

“Oh listen! He says, ‘Not Randolph, the boy!’ It is the boy he wants. Look! I almost think he knows you. Oh, what is it he wants?” cried Mary.

The light which had been so nearly extinguished was leaping up in the socket. A sudden convulsion seemed to run over the old man’s frame: he made an effort to raise himself. His ashen face grew red, perspiration burst out upon his forehead. Ghost-like and rigid as he was, he moved himself upward as if to get from his bed. The nurse had put herself quietly at her post on one side and she called to Mary to go to the other, while poor Mr. Pen stood by helpless, as if he were assisting at a visible resurrection. “Don’t get excited, ma’am,” the nurse said steadily; “one moment! I hear the doctor coming upstairs.”

The steady tread of some one approaching reassured the women as they half aided, half controlled, the spasmodic force of apparent recovery. The foot came nearer and nearer, thank God. The door opened and some one came in.

It was not the doctor. It was a tall man with light hair mingled with grey and a fair complexion turned brown. He came straight into the room like one familiar with the place. Miss Brown, who stood near the door, recoiled with a quivering cry, and Mr. Pen, whom he encountered next, fell back with the same quaver of consternation in his voice. He went to where Mary stood, who alone had not looked at him, her eyes being intent on her father’s face. He put her aside tenderly, taking her place. “This is my work as much as yours,” he said.

CHAPTER XXXII.

NELLO’S RESCUE.

The house was very still in the afternoon languor—all its life suspended. Between the sick-room, in which all the interest of the family existence was absorbed, and the servants’ part of the house, in which life went on cheerfully enough under all circumstances, but without any intrusion into the still world above-stairs, there was nothing going on. Little Lilias went up into her own room, and down all the long staircases and passages, without meeting or seeing any one. Martuccia was in the old hall, tranquilly knitting and waiting for her young lady’s return; but the house was empty of all sound or presence, nobody visible. It was like the enchanted palace through which the young prince walks, meeting no one, until he reaches the one chamber in which the secret lies. This idea passed through the mind of Lilias, pre-occupied as she was. Any one might come in—might pass from room to room, finding all deserted, until he had penetrated to the dim centre of the family life where death was hovering. She went down the oak staircase with her light foot, a little tremulous, but inspired with resolution. It was the afternoon of Nello’s last day at school. He had not quite made up his mind, or been driven by childish misery, to the determination of running away when his sister set out to succour him. Had he waited, Lilias no doubt would have arrived in time to introduce a new element into the matter; but what could the little girl’s arrival have effected? Who would have given any importance to that? They would have taken Lilias in, and made a little prisoner of her, and sent her back. As it was, neither knew anything of what the other was doing. Lilias had opened her most secret place, a little old-fashioned wooden box, in which she kept some special relics, little trinkets, half toys, half ornaments, which she had brought with her, and the remains of the money which her father had given her when he sent the little party away. There had been something over when they arrived, and Lilias had guarded it carefully. She took it out now, and put the purse containing it within the bodice of her dress—the safest place. It might be wanted for Nello. He had the best right to everything; and if he was in trouble—— Lilias did not try to think what kind of trouble the little boy could be in. She took her little store, and went away with her heart beating high. This time she would herself do it; she would not trust to any one. Mr. Geoff had undertaken to deliver her father, and stopped her; but he had not done it. Already a long time had elapsed, and nothing had happened. She would not trust to Mr. Geoff or any one this time. If old ’Lizabeth had not gone away before Lilias returned to the hall, she had thoughts of asking the old woman to go with her; and even a weak inclination to take Martuccia as a companion and support had crossed her mind. Martuccia would have been useless, but she would have made all the difference between a feasible expedition and an impossible one; but perhaps it was for this very reason that Lilias rejected the idea. No; this time she would be kept back by no advice. She would go to Nello’s aid by herself. He should owe his deliverance to no one but his sister. Who could understand him so well—know so well what he must want? And it was to her that papa had intrusted Nello. She made dismal pictures to herself of her little brother in trouble. What could “in trouble” mean? She thought of him as out in the cold, out in the rain, crying, with no place to go to; lost in a strange country, or perhaps ill with a fever, and nobody to sit by him, nobody to give him a drink when he wanted it, and tell him stories. What other kind of trouble was possible? That he might not be able to learn his lessons without her to help him, and that he might perhaps be whipped—could such an atrocity be?—just gleamed across the child’s thoughts; but it made her heart beat so with rage and indignation, and her cheeks burn with such a flush, that she thrust the idea aside; but so long as he was unhappy, so long as he wanted her, was not that enough? She buttoned her little coat with a stout but trembling heart, and took a shawl over her arm (was not that how travellers always provided themselves?) and, with her sovereign in her hand for immediate expenditure, and her purse in her bosom, went down the silent stairs. How still, how deserted it seemed! Mr. Pen came out from the library door when he heard the step, to see who it was, but took no notice of her except a momentary glance of disappointment. Thus she went out of the house brave and resolute, yet with a tremor of the unknown in her breast.

Lilias knew what to do: to walk to Pennington, where the railway station was, and then to take a ticket, and to get into a railway carriage. The walk along the highroad was long, but it was not so overwhelming as that early expedition she had made all alone up into the hills when she had met Geoff. How glad she had been to meet him, and to hear from him that she need go no further! Lilias had not ceased to believe in Mr. Geoff, but nothing had been done, and her heart was sick of the waiting. She did not want to meet him now; her little heart gave a jump when she saw any one riding towards her; but it was certain she did not want to meet Geoff, to have her mission again taken out of her hands. Nothing was more likely than that she should meet him, and her eyes travelled along the dusty line of road, somewhat wistfully looking out—in hopes not to see him—which much resembled the hope of seeing him, though it was differently expressed. And now and then a cloud of dust would rise—now and then a horseman would appear far off, skimming lightly over the long line of road, which it took Lilias so much time to get over. Once a beautiful carriage dashed past her, with the beautiful lady in it whom she had once seen, and who had kissed and cried over Nello without taking much notice of Lilias. Could it be that the beautiful lady had heard too that he was in trouble? Lilias mended her pace and pushed on. What fancies she met with as she plodded along the road! It was a long dusty highway, running for a little while in sight of the lake, then turning through the village, then striking across the country up and down, as even a highroad is obliged to do in the north country, where there is nothing but heights and hollows. It seemed to stretch into infinity before Lilias, mounting one brae after another, showing in a long level line here and there; appearing on the other side of that clump of trees, beyond that far-off farmhouse, looking as if it led without pause back to the end of the world. Lilias wove one dream after another as she went along from landmark to landmark. How vivid they were! So real, that the child seemed to enact every scene in them as they floated through her mind; far more real than the actual events of her life. She saw herself arriving at a great spacious place, which was Nello’s school—undefined, yet lofty and wide and splendid, with marble pillars, and great colonnades and halls. She saw people coming to gaze and wonder at the little girl—the little wandering princess—who had come to seek her brother. “The girl looked at them all, and said, ‘Take me to Nello.’ The girl turned round upon them, and her lip curled with scorn.” (Lilias suited the action to the word; and her innocent lip did curl, with what version of fine disdain it could execute.) “What did she care for all they could do for her? ‘It is my brother I want,’ she said.” This was how she carried on her parable. Perhaps her own little figure was too much in the front of all these visions. Perhaps her own fine indifference to all blandishments and devotion to Nello was the chief principle made apparent. This was how it ran on, however, accompanying and shortening the way. She made long dialogues between herself and the master, between herself and Nello. How he clung to her; how glad he was that she had come. “It is Lily; I knew Lily would come,” she made him say. He would not be surprised; he would know that this was the most natural thing. If they had locked her up in prison to keep her away from him, what would it have mattered? Lilias would have found a way to go to him when Nello was in trouble; and Nello knew that as well as she.

She was very tired, however, and it was dark when she arrived at Pennington. Lilias put on her grand air, but it was rather difficult to impose upon the station-master and porters. They all wanted to be very kind, to take care of her, and arrange everything for the little traveller. The station-master called her “my dear,” and wanted Lilias to go to his house, where his wife would take care of her till the morning. “You are too little to travel by the night train,” he said; and the porters were eloquent on the wickedness of sending a little lady like this by herself. “I am going to my brother, who is ill,” Lilias said, with dignity. “And have you no mamma to go to him, my little miss?” said the porter, friendly, yet respectful. They were all very kind. No one knew her, and they asked many questions to find out who she was. They said to each other it was well seen she had no mother, and made Lilias’s heart swell so, that she forgave them for treating her as a child, rather than as the little princess she had dreamed of being. Finally, they arranged for her that she should travel to the great junction where Nello had met Bampfylde at once—and that the guard should take care of her, and put her in the night train, which arrived at a very early hour in the morning at the station she wanted to go to. All this was arranged for her with the kindest care by these rough men. They installed her in the little waiting-room till the train should go. They came and fetched her when it was going, and placed her in her corner. “Poor little lady!” they said. Lilias was half-humiliated, half-pleased by all these attentions. She submitted to them, not able to be anything but grateful to the men who were so kind to her, yet feeling uneasily that it was not in this homely way that she meant them to be kind. They did not look up to her, but looked down upon her with compassionate tenderness, as upon a motherless little girl—a child who recalled children of their own. Just so the good woman looked upon her who got into the train along with her. “All that way, and all alone, my poor little thing?” the woman said. It hurt Lilias’s pride to be called a poor little thing, but yet it was pleasant to have some one to creep close to. The world did not seem to be as it is represented in books, for nobody was unkind. Lilias was very glad to sit close to her new acquaintance, feeling comfort unspeakable in the breadth of the honest shoulder against which she leant as she travelled on in the dark. Those breadths of country which Nello had watched flying past the window were almost invisible now. Now and then a darker gloom in the air showed where the hills were high over the railway in a deep cutting. Sometimes there would be gleams of light visible here and there, which showed a village. Her companion dropped into a doze, but Lilias, leaning against her, was far too much excited for sleep. She watched the moon come out and shine over the breadth of country, reflecting itself in the little streams, and turning the houses to silver. It was late then, quite late, for the moon was on the wane. And the train was slow, stopping at every station, creeping (though when it was in motion it seemed to fly) across the plains and valleys. It was midnight when they got to the junction, and Lilias, with her great eyes more wide awake than ever, was handed out. There were only a few lights burning, and the place looked miserable and deserted, the cold wind sweeping through it, and the two or three people who got out, and the two porters who received them, looking like ghosts in the imperfect light. The guard, who lived there, was very kind to the little girl before he went off to his house. He wanted to take her with him to make her comfortable till the morning, but Lilias could not be persuaded to wait. At last he established her in a corner, the least chilly possible, wrapping her shawl round her feet.

There she was left alone, with one lamp to bear her company, the long lines running into darkness at either side of her, blackness taking refuge in the high roof of the station, above the watchlight of that one lamp. How strange it was to sit all alone, with the chill of the air and gloom of midnight all around her! Nobody was stirring in the deserted place. The one porter had withdrawn to some warm refuge, to re-appear when the train came. But little Lilias sat alone in her corner, sole inhabitant of the big, chilly, desolate place. How her heart jumped to her mouth! What tremors and terrors at first every sigh of the wind, every creak of the lamp, gave her. But at last she perceived that nothing was going to happen, and sat still, and did not trouble except when imagination suggested to her a stealthy step, or some one behind in the darkness. How dreary it was! The night wind sang a dismal cadence in the telegraph wires, the air coursed over the deserted platforms, the dark lines of way, and blew the flames of gas about even within the inclosure of the lamp. Just then Nello was creeping, stumbling, out of the window, making his way through the prickling hedge, standing alone eyeing the moon in the potato-field. Lilias could not even see the moon in her corner. Nothing was before her but the waning gleam of that solitary lamp.

At last the train came lumbering up through the darkness, and the porters re-appeared from corners where they had been attendant. One of them came, for Lily, kind as everybody had been, and put her into a carriage by herself, and showed her how she could lie down and make herself comfortable. “You’ll be there at five o’clock,” the porter said. “Lie down, little miss, and get a sleep.” Never in her life had Lilias been more wide awake, and there was no kind woman here with broad shoulders to lean upon and feel safe. The train swept through the night while she sat upright and gazed out with big, round, unslumbering eyes.

Lilias watched and waked through the night, counting out the hours of darkness, saying her prayers over and over, feeling herself lost in the long whirl of distance and gloom and confusing sound; but as the night began to tremble towards the dawning, she began to doze unawares, her eyes closing in spite of herself, and much against her will; and it was with a shiver that she woke up very wide awake, but feeling wretched, in consequence of her doze, at the little roadside station, one small house placed on the edge of a wide expanse of fields, chiefly pasture land, and with no character at all. A great belt of wood stretched to the right hand, to the left there was nothing but fields, and a long endless road dividing them, visible for miles with a little turn in it here and there, but nothing beside to break its monotony. Lilias clambered out of the carriage when she felt the jar and clang of the stoppage, and heard the name of the station drowsily called out. The man in charge of it gazed at her as though she had dropped from the clouds; he did not even see her till the train was in motion again, creaking and swinging away into the distance. To see her standing there with her great eyes gave him a thrill of strange sensation, almost of terror. Fatigue and excitement had made her face paler than usual, and had drawn great circles round her eyes. She looked like a ghost standing there in the faint grey of the dawn, cold and trembling, yet courageous as ever. “Mr. Swan’s? Oh yes, I can tell you the way to Mr. Swan’s; but you should have spoken sooner. They’ve been and carried off your luggage.” Lilias had not strength of mind to confess that she had no luggage, and indeed was too much confused and upset by her snatch of sleep to be sure what he was saying, and stumbled forth on the road, when he showed her how to go, half-dazed, and scarcely more than half-conscious. But the pinch of the keen morning air, and the sensation of strange stillness and loneliness, soon restored her to the use of her faculties. The benevolent railway man was loth to let her go. “It’s very early, and you’re very small,” he said. “You’re welcome to wait here, my little lady, till they send for you. Perhaps they did not expect you so early?” “Oh, it does not matter,” said Lilias. “Thank you; I am quite able to walk.” The man stood and watched her as she made her way in the faint light along the road. He dared not leave his post, or he would have gone with her out of sheer compassion. So young, and with such a pale little beautiful face, and all alone at such an hour of the morning, while it was still night! “It will be one of them boyses sisters,” he said to himself with singular discrimination. And then he recollected the pale little boy who had gone to Mr. Swan’s so short a time before. This gave clue to the mysterious little passenger, which set his mind at rest.

And Lilias went on along the darkling road. It was not possible to mistake the road—a long white streak upon the landscape, which was visible even in the dark; and it was not altogether dark now, but a ghostly, damp, autumnal glimmer of morning, before the sun-rising. The hedges had mists of gossamer over them, which would shine like rainbow webs when the sun rose. The fields glimmered colourless still, but growing every moment more perceptible in the chill dreariness of the season—not cold enough for frost, yet very cold. Everything was grey, the few shivering half-grown trees in the hedgerows, the sky all banked with clouds, the face of the half-seen landscape. There was one cottage by the roadside, and that was grey too, all shut up and asleep, the door closed, the windows all black. Little Lilias, the one moving atom in that great still landscape, felt afraid of it, and of herself, and the sound of her own steps, which seemed loud enough to wake a whole world of people. It seemed to Lilias that the kindly earth was dead, and she alone a little ghost, walking about its grave. None of her dreams, none of the poetry, nor anything out of her fairy lore could help her here. The reality was more than any dream. How still!—how very still it was!—how dark! and yet with that weird lightening which grew about her, making everything more visible moment by moment, as if by some strange magical clearing of her own tired eyes! She was so tired, so worn out; faint for want of food, though she was not hungry—and for want of rest, though she did not wish to go to sleep. Such an atom in all that great grey insensible universe, and yet the only thing alive!

No—not the only thing. Lilias’ heart contracted with a thrill, first of relief, then of fear, when she saw something else moving besides herself. It was in one of the great fields that stretched colourless and vast towards the horizon. Lilias could not tell what it was. It might be a spirit; it might be an enchanted creature bound by some spell to stay there among the ploughed furrows; it might be some mysterious wild beast, the legendary monster, of whose existence children are always ready to be convinced. She concealed herself behind a bush, and looked anxiously down the long brown furrow. It was something very little—not so big as a man—smaller even than herself; something that toiled along with difficulty, stumbling sometimes, and falling in the soft earth. By and by a faint breath of sound began to steal towards her—very faint, yet carried far on the absolute stillness of the morning. Some one who was in trouble—some one who was crying. Lilias’ bosom began to swell. She was very tired and confused herself; very lonely and frightened of the dead world, and of her own forlorn livingness in it. But the sound of the feeble crying brought her back to herself. Did she divine already who it was? She scrambled through a gap in the hedge, jumped across the ditch, and plunged too into the yielding, heavy soil of the ploughed furrow. She was not surprised. There did not seem to be anything wonderful in meeting her brother so. Had she not been sent to him because he was in trouble? It was natural that he should be here in the cold, dim morning, in the wild field, toiling along towards her, faintly crying in the last confusion and misery of childish weariness, his way lost, and his courage lost, and all his little bewildered faculties. She called out “Nello!”—cautiously, lest any one should hear—“Nello!” and then there was an outcry of amazement and joy—“Oh, Lily!” It was a half-shriek of incredulous happiness with which poor Nello, toiling through the field, weary, lost, forlorn, and afraid, heard the familiar sound of her voice. He was not so much surprised either. He did not think it was impossible, though nothing could have been more impossible to an elder mind. Children hold no such reckonings as we do with probability. He had been saying, “Oh, Lily! my Lily!” to himself—crying for her—and here she was! He had no doubt of it, made no question how she got there, but threw himself upon her with a great cry that thrilled the dim morning through and through, and made the sleep-bound world alive.

And they sat down together in the furrow, and clung to each other, and cried—for misery, but for happiness too. All seemed safe now they had found each other. The two forlorn creatures, after their sleepless, wintry night, felt a sudden beatitude creep over their little weary bodies and aching hearts. Two—how different that is from one! They held each other fast, and kissed, and were happy in the dark furrow, which seemed big enough and dark enough to furnish them both with a grave.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE BABES IN THE WOOD.

“Never, Nello! but let us get on, let us get on to the railway. Quick, it is not far off. If you would only jump. Now give me your hand. I am cold too, but we must get over it, we must get over it!” said Lilias, almost crying. Poor Nello’s limbs were cramped, he was chilled to the heart. He did not feel it possible to get on, all the courage was gone out of him. He had kept up until, after scrambling through many rough places, his poor little feet had sunk in that soft, newly-ploughed furrow. This had taken all the life out of him, and perhaps his meeting with Lilias, and the tumult of joyful emotion it caused, had not increased Nello’s power of endurance. He had always had the habit of trusting to her. But Lily it was quite certain could not drag him over the ditch. He made an effort at last to jump and failed, and stuck in the mud. That accident seemed at the moment to make an end of them both in their utter weariness. They mingled their tears, Lilias hanging on upon the bank above, Nello in the heavy soil below. The cry relieved them however, and by and by, by the help of his sister’s hand, he managed to scramble up the bank, and get through the scattered bushes on to the highroad. One of his feet was wet and clogged with the mud, and oh, how tired they both were, fit for nothing but to lie down and cry themselves to sleep.

“Oh, Nello, if you were at home, should you ever—ever want to go away again?”

Nello did not make any reply. He was too tired for anything but a dull little sob now and then, involuntary, the mere breathing of his weakness. And the highway looked so long, longer even than the fields. There was always some hope at the end of a field that deliverance might come round the corner, but a long unchangeable highway, how endless it was! They went on thus together for a little way in silence; then: “Oh, Lily, I am so hungry,” said Nello. What could she do? She was hungry too, more hungry than he was, for she had eaten nothing since the afternoon of the previous day.

“I have a shilling in my pocket, but we cannot eat a shilling,” said poor Lilias.

“And I have a shilling too—more than that—I have the golden sovereign Mary gave me.”

“We must just hurry—hurry to the railway, Nello, for we cannot eat money, and the railway will soon take us home; or there is a place, a big station, where we could buy a cake. Oh!’ cried Lilias, with a gleam of eager satisfaction in her eyes.

“What is it, Lily?”

“Look, only look?” She dragged him forward by the arm in her eagerness. “Oh, a few steps further, Nello—only a few steps further—look!”

The roadside cottage which had been so blank as she passed had awoke—a woman stood by the door—but the thing that caught Lilias’ eye was a few stale cakes and opaque glasses with strange confectionery in them. It was these that gave strength to her wearied feet. She hurried forward, while the woman looked at the strange little pair in wonder. “Oh, will you give us a little breakfast,” she said, “a little milk to drink, and some bread and butter for this little boy?”

“Where have you come from, you two children, at this hour in the morning?” cried the woman in consternation.

“Oh, we are going to the train,” said Lilias. “We are obliged to go; we must get the early train, and we don’t know, we don’t quite know when it goes; and my poor little brother has fallen into the mud—see! and—he got his breakfast so very early before he came away that he is hungry again. We have plenty of money,” cried the little girl, “plenty of money! We will give you a shilling if you will give us some milk and bread.”

“A shilling—two, three shillings,” said Nello, interposing. He was so hungry; and what was the good of shillings?—you could not eat them. The woman looked at them suspiciously. They were not little tramps; they were nicely dressed children, though the little boy was so muddy. She did not see what harm it could do to take them in; likewise her heart was touched by the poor little things standing there looking up at her as though she was the arbiter of their fate.

“You may come in and sit by the fire; there’s no train for two hours yet. It’s not six o’clock. Come in, you poor little things, and rest, and I’ll give you some nice hot tea. But you must tell me all the truth, for I know you’ve run away from somewhere,” she said.

“No,” said Lilias, looking her in the face. “Oh no, I have not run away from anywhere. My little brother was not happy, and I came to fetch him, that is all. I did not run away.”

“And what sort of people was it that sent a baby like you?” said the woman. “Come in, you poor little things, and sit by the fire. What could your mother be thinking of to send you—— ”

“We have not got any mother.” Nello took no share in this conversation. He was quite lost in the delight of the hard old settle that stood by the fire. Nestling up into the corner he thought he should like to fall asleep there, and never move any more. “We have not got any mother,” Lilias said, “and who could come but me? No one. I travelled all night, and now I am going to take him home. We are children without any mother.” Lilias could not but know that these words were a sure passport to any woman’s heart.

“You poor little things!” the woman said, with the tears in her eyes. Whether it has its origin in the self-complacency of womankind, it is difficult to say, but whereas men are generally untouched by the unhappiness of being fatherless, women are without defence in most cases before a motherless child. Such a plea has instant recognition with high and low. No mother!—everything is pardoned, everything conceded to a creature with such a plea. She was not quite satisfied with the story, which seemed to her very improbable, but she could not refuse her succour to the motherless children. Her little shop, such as it was, had no visitors till much later in the day, when the village children went past her door to school. She had made her own tea, which stood keeping itself hot upon the hob, and she came in hastily and put out cups and saucers, and shared the hot and comfortable fluid, though it was very weak and would not have suited more fastidious palates than the children’s. What life it seemed to pour into their wearied little frames! The bread was coarse and stale, but it tasted like bread from heaven. Nello in his corner of the settle began to blink and nod. He was even falling asleep, when suddenly a gig rattled past the windows. The child sprang up in a moment. “Oh, Lily, Lily!” he cried in horror, “they are after me! what shall I do?”

The woman had gone to the back of the house with the cups they had used, and so was not near to hear this revelation.

“Who is it?” cried Lilias, peering out of the window. She was restored to herself, and the name of an enemy, a pursuer, put her on her mettle. She had never encountered such a thing before, but she knew everything about it, how to behave. “Come, Nello, come,” she said, “we will go out the back way while nobody is looking. Let us go away, let us go away before any one can come here.”

Lilias seized some of the cakes which the woman had put in paper for them; wonderful productions, which nothing but a child’s appetite could contemplate, and put down two shillings in the centre of the table. On second thoughts it seemed better to her to go out at the front and get round under cover of the hedge to the wood on the other side of the station, which appeared temptingly near, rather than incur the risk of speaking to the woman. It did not occur to her that her own presence was enough to put any one completely off the scent who was seeking Nello. She got him away out of the house successfully, and through the gap behind the hedge where was a little footpath. “Now we must run—run! We must get past, while they are asking at the station. We must not say a word to the woman or any one. Oh, Nello, run—run!” Nello, still more anxious than she was, managed to run for a little way, but only for a little way. He broke down of all places in the world opposite to the station, where Mr. Swan was standing talking to the keeper. When Nello saw him through the hedge he turned round and clasped his sister convulsively, hiding his face on her shoulder. Lilias did not dare to say a word. They were hid from view, yet any movement might betray them, or any sound. She stood with trembling limbs, bearing Nello’s weight upon her shoulder, and watched through the hawthorn bush.

“Nobody has been here, not a mouse, far less a little boy. The train is not due for two hours,” said the station-keeper.

“A bit of a little fellow,” said Mr. Swan. “I can’t think he could have got so far; more likely he’s lying behind a hedge somewhere; but I thought it best to try first here.”

“He’s not here,” the station-keeper said again. He answered curtly, his sympathies being all with the fugitive, and he could not but give the troubled schoolmaster a corner of his mind. “It’s only a month since you lost the last one,” he said. “If it was my house the boys ran away from I should not like it.”

“Talk of things you know something of,” said Mr. Swan hotly; and then he added, shaking his head; “It is not my fault. My wife and I do everything we can, but it’s those rough boys and their practical jokes.”

“Little fellows, they don’t seem to understand them kind of jokes,” said the railway man.

Mr. Swan shook his head. It was not his fault. He was sorry, and vexed, and ashamed. “I would rather have lost the money twice over,” he said. Then he turned and gave a searching glance all around. Lilias quaked, and her heart sank within her. She held her little brother close to her breast. If he should stir, if he should cry, all would be over. She knew her situation well enough. Either their enemy would go away and get bloodhounds and fierce wicked men to put on their track, during which time the fugitives would have time to get into some wonderful cave, or to be taken into some old, old house by some benevolent stranger, and so escape; or else he would come straight to the very place where they were, guided by some influence unfavourable to them. Lilias stood and held her breath. “Oh, be still, Nello, be still, he is looking!” she whispered into Nello’s ear. Her limbs were nearly giving way, but she resisted fate and held out.

The schoolmaster made long inspection of all the landscape. “He was specially commended to me, too—I was warned—I was warned,” he said. Then he turned to the station-keeper, giving him the most urgent injunctions. “If he comes here you will secure him at once,” he said, filling Lilias with dismay, who did not see the shrug of the man’s shoulders, and the look with which he turned aside. Thus their retreat was cut off, the little girl thought, with anguish indescribable; how then were they to get home? This thought was so dreadful that Lilias was not relieved as she otherwise would have been by the sound of the wheels and the horse’s hoofs as the gig turned, and their enemy drove away. He had gone in his own person, but had he not left a horrible retainer to guard the passage? And how, oh how was she to take Nello home? She did not know where the next station was. She did not know the way in this strange, desolate, unknown country. “Nello,” she cried, in a whisper of despair, “we must get into that wood, it is the only thing we can do; they will not look for us there. I don’t know why, but I feel sure they will not look for us there. And perhaps we shall meet some one who will take care of us. Oh, Nello, rouse up, come quick, come quick. Perhaps there may be a hermit living there, perhaps——. Come, Nello, can you not go a little further? Oh, try, try.”

“Oh, Lily, I am so tired—I am so sleepy”

“I am tired too,” she said, a little rush of tears coming to her eyes; and then they stumbled on together, holding each other up. The wood looked gay and bright in the early morning. The sun had come out, which warmed everything, and the bright autumn colour on the trees cheered the children as a similar hour, and the beauty of the wild creatures of the woods, cheered the poet:—