CHAPTER XXAn Impossible Favour
Thesnow came down and hid the ruins of the ungathered harvest from sight. The nights were long, and on some days there seemed almost no daylight at all. It was so different from last winter, however, that Bertha was astonished at the lack of monotony in the days which, to an outsider, must have seemed so much alike. Nearly every day someone happened along, either in a sledge or on snow-shoes, and although these visitors never stayed long, it was something to see an outside face and to hear a different voice.
Just before Christmas another mysterious packing case arrived, and, like the previous one, it came in the night, but with this difference, that on the second time none of the lonely household was disturbed, or knew that anything out of the ordinary was happening. It was a bigger case than the last one had been, and there were toys for the children, which seemed to have been chosen by someone who had scanty knowledge of children and their ways. There was also a great store of good things for Christmas and the New Year, and because their neighbours had such a poor chance of anything approaching to a merry Christmas that year, Grace and Bertha put their heads together to see what they could do by way of sharing their good things with these less fortunate ones.
A Christmas party on quite a big scale was the first idea, but it had to be abandoned for several reasons. Nothing had been heard of Tom or of the expedition, and it would be impossible to get enough of a festive feeling to make a party enjoyable when, for all they knew to the contrary, the master of the house might be face to face with starvation, or suffering all sorts of hardships. Then, too, there was only one pair of hands to make all the necessary preparations, and, willing as Bertha was, Grace declared that she could not endure the thought of anything which would lay an extra burden on her shoulders.
“Why not make up a parcel of things for all the people we want to send to—I mean a parcel for each house?” said Bertha, waxing incoherent from sheer excitement. “Then I could hitch Pucker to the sledge and take them all round on Christmas Eve. I dare say Mrs. Smith would bring her children over and stay with you. If she did that, I could take Dicky and Molly with me, and the outing would be a festival to them.”
“That is a simply lovely scheme!” exclaimed Grace. “But it won’t do to put it off to Christmas Eve, for, if I know anything about prairie housekeeping, Mrs. Smith will be much too busy on that day to be willing to pay a visit of uncertain length here, and the more scanty the Christmas fare, the more careful the preparations will have to be in order to cover the gaps in the feast. We must make our arrangements for the day before that, and then if we tell Mrs. Smith that the happiness of the community depends entirely on her coming here to stay with me, I am pretty sure that she will come.”
“Then the day before Christmas Eve it shall be, and we shall just have to get to work at once to get everything arranged,” Bertha replied; then followed an eager discussion as to the things to be sent to this one and to that.
From the time the big case arrived until the day of the distribution, Bertha gave up her room as a storeplace for the things, and slept on the couch by the kitchen stove, while the children were packed as thickly as sardines in a tin in the beds in their mother’s room. But the festival feeling ran so high that week, that no one minded anything about such minor matters as overcrowding. The children lived in a continual whirl of paper and string, of carrying parcels from one room to the other, and of doing this and that towards helping forward the preparations for the great distribution, that Grace declared they would all be worn out with the dissipation.
At last the great day arrived—a fine morning, with a keen frost, and a temperature something below zero, but with a crisp quality in the air which made the youngsters positively hilarious, while Bertha darted to and fro, feeling that, in spite of very pronounced drawbacks, it was going to be a very nice Christmas indeed.
Mrs. Smith arrived in good time, a little anxious and concerned about the work which she ought to have done that day at home, but more resigned to the inevitable, because she had brought a great bundle of household mending with her, which she could get through while she talked to Grace. Her face changed, however, and a shower of tears seemed imminent, when she was told why she had been sent for, and was presented with her share of the contents of that wonderful packing case.
“There would have been no Christmas fare in our house this year,” she said, her face working pitifully. “We shall have to be in debt for necessaries later on, so we dare not have the least thing that we can by any means do without.”
“All the more reason why we should help each other,” said Grace softly, and then with infinite tact she managed to keep Mrs. Smith from dissolving into tears, which would doubtless have induced a similar shower from some of the small people; and this was no day for tears.
Dicky and Molly, wrapped up until they looked like a couple of Eskimos, were in a state of uproarious delight. They laughed, sang, and shouted at such a rate that old Pucker nearly did a bolt on the outward journey, which would have been disastrous, seeing how heavily the sledge was laden. The old horse had done so little work for weeks past, that the outing must have been quite a pleasure trip.
Bertha herself was in a jubilant mood, and this was increased, on arrival at the post office, by finding a letter of acceptance from a New York editor of one of the stories she had sent to him a couple of months before.
“Oh, it is good to be alive!” she exclaimed, as she tied Pucker fast to the post outside the door and went in to see how it fared with Eunice.
Mrs. Humphries was doing the post-office work at the present, for Eunice was too ill to rise from her bed, and the elation in the heart of Bertha turned to dismay at the sight of the suffering on the face of the sick woman.
“Don’t look like that, child,” whispered Eunice. “Your face was like a picture with happiness when you walked in at the door, and then it changed into dreary melancholy, all because I carry my woes of body writ large outside for anyone to read.”
“Oh, I had hoped to find you better, and now you look like this!” Bertha’s tone was shocked, for no one had told her of the change in Eunice, and she had not seen here for weeks.
“The doctor says that I shall get better if I try hard enough; but I suppose it is the indolence of my nature revolting against hard work, for it seems too much trouble to struggle on trying to get better. Death looks so easy and pleasant, just getting a little weaker every day and then dropping to sleep at the last, like a child that is too tired to play any longer,” said Eunice, and she looked so white and worn, that Bertha thought she was actually dying then.
But instead of words of grief, or even of resignation, a torrent of reproaches rose to the lips of Bertha, and were uttered through an irresistible impulse, cruel though they must have sounded at the time.
“Oh, you are selfish, most dreadfully selfish, to want to die and leave us all just when we need you so much! I have no friend outside my own people except you, and I cannot do without you!” she wailed. “And think how dreadful it will be for your brother when he comes home, to find no one to give him a welcome. Oh, it is not like you to think of yourself first and not to mind what becomes of other people!”
Great tears came into the eyes of Eunice and rolled unchecked down her face. “I don’t want to be selfish,” she said meekly, “but I am so tired, that I thought other people could get on without me somehow. And you could comfort my brother, Bertha, if you would, and make him the happiest man in the world.”
“No, I couldn’t, really, I couldn’t—oh, don’t speak of it!” cried Bertha distressfully, turning very red in the face.
“Are you sure?” asked Eunice, and there was such a world of wistful entreaty in the eyes of the sick woman, that Bertha turned her head away from a fear that she might be drawn into giving promises impossible to fulfil.
“I am quite, quite sure. Oh, please dear, do not ever speak of it to me again—it is too dreadful!” burst out Bertha, with tremendous emphasis.
“Is there anyone else?” persisted Eunice.
An indignant denial rose to the lips of Bertha and stopped there, for before her eyes rose the picture of a grey heaving sea, a rising tide, cruel black rocks, and a small boat so wedged that its occupant could not get it off the rocks. But she never could recall with any vividness the face of the man she had rescued, that is, she could not see it so clearly that she could be sure of knowing it again. At the time when the wheat fired, she had felt quite sure that the man who came along with the Smiths to help fight the fire had been the man whom she had helped, but many times since then she had told herself that there was no real certainty in her mind about the matter.
Of course, if she could have got hold of him afterwards, to have asked him if he had lost a coat and anything else, it would have been different. But Mrs. Smith, who did not know his name, had said that he was leaving the firm for whom he travelled on the next week, and one would want to be very sure indeed before making enquiries.
“Is there anyone else?” asked Eunice, and this time there was undisguised anxiety in her tone.
“Oh no, of course not—it is not possible!” exclaimed Bertha, coming out of her embarrassed reverie, and speaking in a great hurry, yet without any conviction whatever.
Eunice looked pained and disappointed, but said no more, and Bertha made haste to bring the uncomfortable interview to an end. It was certainly dreadful to have to disappoint a good friend such as Eunice had been to her, but not for forty friends could she consent to make that dreadful Mr. Long happy. Not that he had ever ventured to ask her; his plan of action had seemed to consist in paying her the most embarrassing sort of attentions, which rendered him the laughing-stock of the community, and made her simply furious with indignation. If he had asked her straight out to marry him, she would have been able to say, “No, thank you”, and so have ended the miserable business. But it had never entered into Mr. Long’s calculations to do anything so sensible, and so the discomfort for Bertha had gone on.
Somehow the flavour of the trip was spoiled for Bertha now. She was so terribly upset by the change in Eunice, and the fear that the poor thing would slip out of life. But she had to thrust the trouble into the background, and be as merry as she could for the sake of the good folk to whom she was playing an amateur Santa Claus.
It was quite late in the afternoon, the sledge was empty, and she had turned Pucker’s head in the direction of Duck Flats, when she encountered the doctor. She pulled up in a great hurry then to ask him if he had been over to see Grace.
“No, not to-day. Did you want me to see her?” he asked.
“Oh no, there was no need, only, I have been away since the morning, and I did not know if you might have been coming anywhere near us, and so had dropped in,” she answered.
“Duck Flats is not near to anywhere. It is the most out-of-the-way location that any man could ever have fixed upon for his home, I think,” rejoined the doctor testily. “I can’t think how ever you manage to endure life in such a place, Miss Bertha; but, upon my word, you seem to thrive on it, and so do the youngsters. Why, they grow like weeds!”
“I am used to the loneliness now. Of course it is awkward to be so far from civilization sometimes, but if one is very busy it does not matter much in an ordinary way,” said Bertha, and then she asked anxiously, “Is Miss Long very dangerously ill? I was frightened to see her looking so badly.”
“She is starved,” said the doctor grimly.
“Oh, you cannot mean it!” cried Bertha, in a tone of protest, while her face went very white.
“I do mean it, or I should not have said it,” said the doctor bluntly.
“But surely, surely that need not have been?” cried Bertha, who was dreadfully distressed. “We are all poor, of course, and dreadfully pushed for ready money, but so far as I know no one has had to go short of food yet. Besides, we understood that Eunice had money from the bank in Winnipeg, just the same as Mrs. Ellis does.”
“Of course she has had it, and that is where the maddening part of it comes in,” said the doctor crossly. “But instead of living on the money, as a sensible person would, and leaving her brother to make good the value of the postal orders which were destroyed on that black Sunday, the silly woman goes and simply starves herself to death in order that the loss may be made good the sooner.”
“Oh, what shall I do? I have been saying the most dreadful things to her to-day, but I did not know all this!” exclaimed Bertha. “Oh, she must have thought me cruel, cruel! I would go back now and tell her how sorry I am, only I should be so late home, and Mrs. Smith will not want to stay with Mrs. Ellis much longer.”
“And pray, what was it you said that needs so much repentance?” asked the doctor, a gleam of amusement showing on his face; for he had never found Bertha addicted to cutting speeches.
“She said that she did not want to get better, and I told her that it was miserably selfish of her to want to die when she was so useful, and everyone needed her friendship and advice so much. It was horrid of me, I know, but I felt as if I had to say it, and so out it came. Poor Eunice, she looked so startled and surprised; for I don’t suppose that anyone ever dreamed of calling her selfish before.”
The doctor burst into a shout of laughter. “Well done, Miss Bertha, I should not wonder if you have half-cured my patient for me, and if so you have earned my lasting gratitude. No one can even guess what a fight I have had for her life, and all because of this mistaken idea of self-sacrifice. Why, she had better have let the Government people send her to prison for embezzling moneys entrusted to her care; for at least she would have got enough to eat then, and this illness would have been averted.”
But Bertha was almost reduced to tears by the thought of how disagreeable she had been, and was not even comforted by the doctor’s congratulations on the drastic measures she had used to bring Eunice to a more reasonable frame of mind. The thought of the things she had said haunted her all the way home, making her silent and absorbed, instead of bright and merry from the pleasure of the gifts she had been out to bestow.
Grace believed that she was tired, and so refrained from asking her any questions. But after Mrs. Smith had gone home and the children had all been put to bed, Bertha plunged into the story of her trouble, and told Grace all that she had not been able to tell the doctor, of how Eunice had asked her to be kind to the brother so that the sister might die in peace. And then Grace did what the doctor had done, she laughed and laughed until Bertha began to feel afraid that she would do herself an injury.
“I can’t see anything very funny in it myself, but that is because I lack a sense of humour, perhaps,” Bertha remarked, almost disposed to feel affronted at having provoked so much mirth.
“Oh, my dear child, do forgive me!” cried Grace. “It is too bad to make fun of you. But the fancy picture of you attempting to console that dreadful Mr. Long for the loss of his sister was too much for me. Eunice must have been a little delirious, poor dear, or she would never have suggested such a thing.”
“Then you don’t think that it was wicked of me to refuse to make her happy, to let her die in peace?” said Bertha, drawing a long breath of relief, for it had been a real trial to her to refuse Eunice anything, and the pinched white face of the sick woman haunted her still.
“Why should you throw your life away at the whim of a sick woman who doubtless does not know what she wants?” said Grace, her voice unconsciously stern. “Do you know, I have been so afraid of asking rash things myself that one day, when I was fairly capable of knowing what I was about, I got Tom to draw up a sort of statement, in which I besought my friends to take no notice of silly favours which I might ask when body and mind were alike under the influence of sickness.”
“But you have never asked for impossibilities,” said Bertha.
“And I trust that I never shall. But I am thankful to hear you speak of it as an impossibility, Bertha; for I should never have forgiven myself, nor have been able to look Anne or Hilda in the face again, if that sort of settlement had been possible to you. Oh dear! oh dear! I think that poor Eunice must have been mad!” cried Grace.
“Well, it is settled once and for all, and there is no more need for you to think about it,” Bertha replied soothingly, and then, in spite of herself, she found her thoughts back again with that stranger who had sat so helplessly in his boat, while she swam out to his rescue, and she wondered anew whether he would ever cross her path again, then grew angry with herself because her thoughts would wander so persistently in that direction.
CHAPTER XXIOut of the Silence
Thenew year was only a week old when there came a blizzard of such violence that for three days it could not be said to be light at all, and during all those hours it never ceased snowing. The little household at Duck Flats was entirely isolated, of course, and it would have gone hard with them in the matter of food if it had not been for the cow.
Fortunately, Bertha had some weeks before constructed a kind of tunnel between the house and the barn by walling up the snow on either side of the path, then laying some sticks of firewood across. On the sticks she had piled masses of the beaten, tangled straw from the ruined wheatfields, of which there was such a sad abundance everywhere, and then the snow had drifted on to the straw and completed the process of roofing in. So she was able to pass between house and barn in comfort, looking after the cow, the fowls, and old Pucker, which, with three lively pigs, made up the sum total of the livestock.
The great trouble in her mind was lest the kerosene barrel should run empty, because then they would be condemned to so many hours of doing nothing, and she wanted every moment of that mid-winter leisure for writing. It did not matter if the food was coarse and monotonous in kind, she and the children were hungry enough to eat almost anything that was eatable, and there had been sufficient saved from the big packing case of good things for Grace to have the variety of nourishment necessary for her.
The solitude of those days might well have driven anyone mad, but, strangely enough, Bertha minded it not at all this year, although last winter, when it was not nearly so bad, the isolation was almost more than she could bear. Grace was nervous and anxious on account of her husband, wondering and wondering, as she lay in her helplessness, where he was spending those blizzard days, and whether there was food to eat and fire to warm him.
The three days of storm were followed by two days of fog, so dense that the barn was not visible from the house, then came another day of heavy snow, which seemed to clear the air; for at night the barometer went up and the thermometer came down, until everything was crackling and sparkling with the frost. When the next morning came, the sun showed itself for the first time in a week, so, wrapping herself up warmly, Bertha went out for a breath of fresh air; for after a week of imprisonment between house and barn it was good to be outside once more.
What an awful desolation it was! As far as eye could reach on every side there was nothing but snow to be seen—snow, snow, snow—until sight grew dim and senses reeled before the glare of the unchanging whiteness.
She did not stay out long. It seemed better to bear the cramped confinement of the house than to face the dazzle of snow and sun outside. There was work to be done, too—the animals and the poultry had to be looked after, there was bread to be made, the house to be put tidy, and Bertha’s time went by in a whirl of business. The short winter day began to draw in, and she was just going out to the barn to milk the cow and feed the stock for the night, when, chancing to look from the window, she was amazed to see a two-horse sledge approaching the house. It was not coming very fast, and it was so piled with things, that she supposed the horses must be tired.
A wild thought flashed into her mind that it must be Tom who was returning so suddenly, and she thought that he must have got some of the other members of the expedition to bring him over on their way to their own homes, or why this mountain of luggage? But she would not raise the hopes of Grace lest they might have to be dashed again later on; so merely saying that someone was coming, but she could not see who it was, she threw a shawl round her and ran out of the house.
The horses came at an easy walk right up to the door and stopped, then, to her dismay, she saw that there was no driver. What had happened? And where was the driver?
Bertha walked up to the horses, patted their heads, and fastened them to the veranda post pending enquiries, and then, dragging at the outer rug in order to cover them from the cold, she was appalled to see that there was a man lying underneath. A dead man he looked; but of course he might be only unconscious from the extreme cold. But what was she to do? And how could she, singlehanded, get a full-grown man out of the sledge and into the house in his dead or unconscious condition?
“But I must do it somehow; for he is a stranger, and we must know why he has come,” she said to herself; then, stepping into the sledge, she took hold of the man by his shoulders and began to haul away at him with all her might.
His body was limp, and so she told herself that he could not be dead, but was probably only unconscious from the cold.
It was a matter calling for quick action, however; so she pulled and tugged with her utmost strength. It was a heavy task to get him out of the sledge, but when once that was accomplished the rest was easy enough, and in about five minutes she had flung open the door and dragged him across the threshold into the kitchen, which was so warm from the heat of the stove.
“Why, Bertha, what have you got there?” asked Grace in surprise, for she had heard nothing of the arrival, as the snow muffled all sounds.
“It is a man, and he seems in a very bad way. He is a stranger, too. Do you think I dare leave him while I go and put the horses in the barn?” asked Bertha anxiously. It did not seem right to leave the man in his unconscious condition, and yet it was downright cruel to leave the poor horses standing out in the bitter cold.
“Horses, are there? Did he come in a sledge?” asked Grace.
“A two-horse sledge, piled high with baggage of some description. I expect that I shall have a great difficulty to get the barn door open, so if I am rather long, don’t be more worried than you can help. But if the man comes round before I get in, send Dicky to shout for me, will you, please?” said Bertha.
“Don’t try to get the sledge into the barn; it won’t snow again to-night, and if it does it will not matter. And can’t you take the horses one at a time along your covered passage and into the barn by the little door?” Grace mostly saw the way out of a difficulty in a flash, and Bertha had often to be thankful for her quick grasp of a situation.
“Oh, I can do that, and it won’t take me long, either. I was going to make a great effort to get the big doors open, and then I should have taken horses and sledge in that way. I won’t be long, dear, and oh, I do hope the unknown will not bother you,” said Bertha, departing in a great hurry to unhitch the two horses, which were getting restive with standing in the bitter cold. She had a horror of strange horses, and would never venture near them if she could help it. But to-night the situation was fairly desperate, and so she had to unharness the poor beasts, or leave them there to die.
They were very gentle and quiet, very eager for food and water, but never once showing the least symptom of a desire to kick or bite, and when they reached the barn they ranged up beside the manger as if they had been used to the place all their lives. She took care to tie them securely, so that there was no danger of their falling foul of old Pucker, which worthy animal had a rather disagreeable temper where strange horses were concerned.
Then Bertha hurried indoors again to see how it fared with the unconscious man who had been thrown so strangely on their care that night. “It will be horrid to have a stranger here to-night, and a man; a woman might have been bearable. Oh, dear, how awkward things can be!” she exclaimed, with a touch of impatience; for if she had to delay very long over trying to bring the senseless man round, she would have to do the milking by lantern light.
She found him lying on the floor near the stove just as she had left him, while Dicky industriously rubbed one hand, and Molly worked away at the other.
“Is his face frost-bitten?” asked Grace, as Bertha came to kneel down by the stranger.
“No, nor yet his hands; but he appears quite unconscious still. What shall I do? Do you think that I dare leave him lying here while I go and milk? I would not be long, and then I shall not have to leave you alone with him again,” said Bertha.
“Yes, go and milk; he is quite harmless and inoffensive lying like that, but I shall want to have you here when he comes round again. Were the horses much trouble to you, dear?” asked Grace, as Bertha rapidly wound herself into her milking pinafore.
“None at all; they behaved like lambs, and walked to their places as if they were quite at home,” Bertha replied.
“Did they? What colour are they?” asked Grace, with sudden interest.
“Oh, about the ordinary. They reminded me very much in build of the horses Tom sold in the summer, after we were hailed out, only they are not skittish, as our horses were, and they are so encrusted with frost that it is not easy to say what they are like.” Bertha was moving off as she spoke, for she was in desperate haste to get her work done and reach the house again before the helpless man came to his senses.
The milking was put through at a rapid rate that night, and then, with a last look round to see that all the live creatures were comfortable for the night, she took up her pail of milk and went back to the house.
“Oh, Bertha, I am thankful that you have come!” exclaimed Grace, with a hysterical note in her voice. “That poor fellow gets on my nerves lying there, with no one but those children to look after him. I am so afraid that he will slip through our fingers.”
“No fear of that,” said Bertha cheerily, as she set the pail of milk aside and proceeded to give her very best attention to the stranger. “He is better than he was, there is more life and colour in his face; but oh, Grace, what an awful nuisance he will be, and what a pity it is that we cannot put him out in the barn to sleep with his horses!”
“I know, dear, but we must try to feel towards him as we should like anyone to feel towards Tom under like circumstances,” said Grace softly, and then she went on, with a catch in her breath, “Do you know, when you came in at the door dragging that poor fellow with you, I really thought that it was Tom, and my heart came right up into my mouth; indeed, it was all that I could do to keep from screaming.”
“I thought that it was Tom, too, when I saw the sledge come up to the door; but when I got outside I could see no driver at all, and then I was dreadfully frightened, for I thought that he must have fallen off. Then I pulled at the rug to cover the horses, and found that the man had fallen down in the sledge, and the rug had hid him from my sight.”
Bertha was busy with the stranger while she talked. He was drawing deep, sobbing breaths, as if he were coming round, and the two children had got up, moving a little away, because they were rather shy and frightened, while the twins and Noll had fled to cover under their mother’s couch, their three small heads peeping out from underneath like chickens looking out from under their mother’s wing.
“Gee-up, and get along, can’t you; gee-up, I say!” The man on the floor was plainly coming round, and his first thought was about his horses.
“Lie still for a little while, and then you will soon be better,” said Bertha soothingly. She was relieved to find that the unknown spoke with the intonation of a man of education, and it was an unspeakable comfort to find that his voice was gentle and refined.
“I can’t lie still. I’m to be paid according to the time it takes to get there, you know, and I have touched my last dollar; besides, the people at Pentland Broads are in sight of actual starvation—there was hardly any flour left in the place three days ago—and it was because no one else would face the journey that I got the job.” As he spoke, the stranger tried to sit up, but he was so weak that he fell back on his pillows, which Bertha had piled under his head, and looked into her face with such a desperate eagerness, that she felt she must help him if she could.
“You can’t get to Pentland Broads to-night, that is certain,” she said briskly, “but you can start off at daybreak if you are well enough. I have put your horses in the barn and fed them, so though they are very worn out to-night, they will be quite rested by the morning.”
“They must be hitched up again to-night, I tell you,” said the stranger, with an imperative wave of his hand. “You have no idea how serious the need is over there. It is one of the places that were hailed out last harvest, and the poor things have been living from hand to mouth all the winter. Now their cupboards are bare—there is neither food nor fire nor light there by this time. I tell you I know, for there was a plucky chap—a doctor he was—got through to Hartley on snow-shoes to beg for supplies three days ago; but he was so near done that it is doubtful if he will recover. And I must go on; I tell you I must!”
The poor fellow’s voice rose to a wavering shout, as he again made a frantic but ineffectual effort to rise. Dicky and Molly fled to cover in their mother’s bedroom, and the three juniors under the couch burst into a united howl of terror.
“What is that noise?” asked the stranger, with a bewildered look coming into his eyes.
“There are little children here, and you have frightened them rather badly because you shouted so. I don’t think that you are quite yourself yet,” said Bertha. She was trembling so badly that she could hardly keep her voice steady, but for the sake of the others she must appear as brave and courageous as possible.
“Did I frighten the children? Oh, I am sorry, for I am downright fond of kiddies; but something has gone wrong in my head, I think; and, please, would you mind telling me whether there is one of you or whether sometimes you are two?”
Bertha gave a little jump of dismay. She really could not help it, for plainly the poor man was delirious, and whatever would she do if he became violent? She had heard that delirious people had very often the most tremendous strength, and whatever would happen if this man insisted on starting off for Pentland Broads in his present condition? But she need not have been afraid of any outburst of violence, for when her hand was off him and he attempted to rise, he dropped back again with a groan, and lay still, looking as if he were going to die.
“Give him some more milk, Bertha, quick, or he will faint!” said Grace urgently,
Bertha lifted up his head and managed to make him swallow some of the hot milk, and then he seemed to drop into a sleep of exhaustion.
“Is it not dreadful? Whatever shall we do?” asked Bertha, looking towards Grace, and feeling as if the situation were quite beyond her.
“We cannot do anything until morning, and then we shall have to be guided by circumstances,” said Grace, who was thinking busily. “I am very much afraid that the poor fellow will not be fit to sit in the sledge and drive, so, unless it is blowing a blizzard, you will have to track out to Pentland Broads with the sledge; for it is too dreadful to think of the poor things being without food in this bitter weather.”
“But that would mean that I should have to leave you alone,” said Bertha, “and worse than alone, if I have to leave the man here also.”
“It cannot be helped, and it will be daylight, although I would bear it all night, if necessary, rather than that those poor wretches should be without food. It is too awful to think of, and, of course, they do not know where it has gone astray,” said Grace.
“You don’t mean that you want me to go to-night, do you?” asked Bertha, with some alarm in her tone, for very much she doubted her ability to find her way across the waste of untrodden snow with only the stars for a guide.
“No, certainly you must not go to-night, but be ready to set off with the first gleam of daylight, and do not worry about me or the children while you are away. Divine Providence always takes care of those who cannot help themselves, and I am not afraid,” replied Grace.
“He seems to have fallen asleep now,” said Bertha. “Oh, Grace, whatever shall we do if the poor fellow is going to be ill on our hands?” and she bent over the figure on the floor with a keen anxiety in her heart.
“Don’t worry about it yet, dear. After all, the worst troubles are often those that never come, you know. Get the children off to bed early to-night, so that you can have some sleep yourself, and then you will be more fit for whatever to-morrow may bring in the shape of care and toil.”
Bertha sighed impatiently. She lacked the cheerful courage of Grace just then, and the condition of the man on the floor worried her dreadfully.
“THERE WAS A MAN LYING UNDERNEATH”
“THERE WAS A MAN LYING UNDERNEATH”
CHAPTER XXIIThe Errand is Done
Berthahad no chance of going to bed that night, and very little opportunity for lying down either. The stranger was very ill, and, although there was little that she could do to relieve him, she could not leave him tossing wildly to and fro; for he was only lying on a rug by the stove, and the night was so bitterly cold, that she was afraid that he would freeze if he became uncovered from his wrappings and the fire went down. So she stayed in the kitchen the long night through, sitting in the rocking chair and dozing fitfully, waking with a start each time the sick man’s moans rose to cries of pain, and doing her best to soothe him by such ministrations as were possible.
She was very, very tired, and the cares of the morrow rose like an armed host to menace her peace, even when, but for disquieting thoughts, she might have slept. When she did fall into troubled slumber she would fall to dreaming of the hunger-stricken community at Pentland Broads, and then would wake in a perspiration of trouble and pray that morning might come quickly; so that she might set off to relieve the suffering by driving the load of foodstuff to the store.
There was no fear of her oversleeping when morning came. Long before daylight stole tardily over the white wastes, she was out in the barn with her lantern, feeding the horses and milking the cow; then, coming indoors, she gave the children their breakfast, made a pretence of a meal herself, and, attending to Grace, who could manage the business of putting the food in her mouth herself now, if it were only put quite ready for her, and stood within reach of her hand.
The sick man had sunk into a deeper slumber, and seemed to be out of pain. Bertha lifted his head and contrived to make him swallow half a cupful of hot milk, but when she put his head back on the pillow he seemed faster asleep than ever, and she could only hope that he would remain in that condition until she returned from Pentland Broads. Then she made up the fire, so that it would last without being touched, and fitted a wire guard right round the stove, so that there might be no danger of accidents. It was an awful trouble to her to go away and leave that helpless household of invalids and infants alone with a fire in the stove; but it would have been far worse to have left them without a fire in such severe weather, and so she had to face the risk and not worry about it more than she could help. Then she brought out the horses, hitched them to the sledge, put a saddle on Pucker and tied the old horse to the back of the sledge, slipped on a big coat, and, stepping into the sledge, set off on her journey.
There had been no more snow in the night, and for a while she followed the marks of the sledge which had been made when the horses brought their load to Duck Flats on the previous night. She did not have to break away from them until she was halfway to the end of her journey, and could see right away on the edge of the horizon a few hummocks and mounds in the snow, which stood for the cluster of houses at Pentland Broads.
“It is funny that he should have turned off here,” she said to herself, as she left the trail made by the sledge runners and took a bee-line across the snow for the houses. “It really looks as if the theory of Grace must be right, and these are our horses which were sold in the summer. Oh, dear, I wish that I were not so stupid about recognizing things, and then I should have known whether these were the horses or not.”
It was fine going this morning: the snow was frozen so hard, that the sledge skimmed the surface; the horses seemed very fresh, and galloped along at such a pace that ever so many times Bertha wondered whether they thought that they were doing a bolt; but it did not seem worth while to check them, as she was in such hot haste to get her journey done.
There was no chance of judging distance across that dazzling field of snow. The houses looked so close, that it seemed to Bertha as if she must be within shouting distance, while she was still some miles away.
Her coming had been observed, too, and she saw two men coming out to meet her, and then it was that she took a sudden resolve: “I need not go the whole distance; even ten minutes’ gain is important in my case,” she muttered, and, when the two men were within speaking distance, she tugged and tugged at the lines until she brought the horses to a standstill.
One of the men coming towards her was Dan Semple, the storekeeper’s son, and the other was a lad with red hair whom she did not know.
“Dan,” she called, “Dan, make haste, and help me on to my horse, will you, for you must take the sledge to your father, and I shall get back all the quicker.”
“Why, it’s our lot of goods out from Rownton that we expected last night, and Miss Doyne driving it!” exclaimed Dan, in amazement. He was not a very nimble-witted youth, and the situation was beyond him.
“The horses brought the sledge to Duck Flats last night just as it was getting dark. The driver was lying under the robes unconscious, and he has not come to his senses properly yet, though he managed to tell me last night how badly you wanted the goods,” said Bertha. “So I have left Mrs. Ellis with only the children to look after her while I drove the sledge over. But I want to go back at top speed, for I am most dreadfully anxious about them.”
“I should just think that you would be,” said Dan, while the red-haired youth ran to assist Bertha in mounting on to Pucker. “It was downright good of you to come, Miss Doyne; but what will you do about the driver? You’ve got enough on your hands without having a sick man to look after.”
“Indeed I have, and I was wondering whether someone from here would drive a sledge over presently and bring him back. I would keep him if I could, for he looks shockingly ill; but what could I do with a sick man at Duck Flats, now that Mr. Ellis is away?” Bertha paused in her mounting and looked wistfully at Dan, as if mutely pleading to be spared this extra burden.
And she did not ask in vain. “We’ll be over for him in a few hours, Miss Doyne, and we’ll bring him back with us, even if he pegs out on the journey,” said Dan cheerfully.
With a nod of thanks, Bertha gave Pucker a slap on the side, just to show the old horse that she was in a hurry and that he had better be in a hurry too, and then away they went at a pelting gallop across the snow, and were very soon a vanishing speck in the distance.
She was in a wild heat of worry—a scorching anxiety on account of Grace was upon her—and she was questioning whether she had done right in leaving home to drive the sledge to Pentland Broads, even though the people there were in actual want of food. Home duties should come first, and she had a feeling that she would never be able to forgive herself if anything bad had happened in her absence.
She had reached the place almost where the trail from Rownton joined the one from Pentland Broads, when she saw a sledge with two men in it coming rapidly from the direction of Rownton, and as one of them waved his arm to her to stop, she drew rein, and waited in fuming impatience until they should overhaul her. Then she saw that they were police, and suddenly her heart gave a great throb of fear, and her thoughts flew to Tom. Something bad had happened, she told herself, and the police were coming to break the news to her. So she sat rigid, like a figure carved in stone, with all the fuming impatience dropped away from her, whilst the horses with the police sledge came nearer and nearer.
“Have you seen a man with a sledge piled high with packages that look like provisions, the sledge drawn by two powerful brown horses?” asked the man who was driving, while the man at his side lifted his helmet in respectful salutation to Bertha. “The sledge must have passed somewhere in this direction either last night or this morning, we think.”
“A sledge came to our house at Duck Flats last evening. It was drawn by two powerful brown horses, but the driver was lying unconscious in the sledge,” answered Bertha, telling the same story which she had told to Dan Semple a short time before, and explaining to the police how she herself had left her helpless household to drive the sledge to Pentland Broads because of the food famine there.
“And the man, where is he?” asked the policeman, whom, from his appearance, she judged to be an inspector.
“I left him at Duck Flats asleep. He has been very ill all night, and I am very anxious to get back,” she said, and, in spite of herself, there was a quiver of breakdown in her voice, although she was hugely relieved to find that the business of the police was with the sick driver and not with herself.
“Will you ride on, then, and we will follow, if the man is at your place? We must go there first, although it would seem as if there is some mistake, and this cannot be the sledge that we are looking for,” said the inspector.
Bertha set forward, then, at the very best pace that she could get out of old Pucker. The fact of having two other horses pounding along behind him seemed to exhilarate the old horse to an astonishing extent, and he raced across the snow at such a rate that the police sledge was some distance in the rear when the solitary little house at Duck Flats showed on the horizon.
A sob of relief came into Bertha’s throat as she drew nearer and saw that it looked all right. It was fire that she had been afraid of all through that journey out and home again, so well she knew how easily an accident might happen with only little children, a delirious sick man, and poor helpless Grace at home, and the fire going in the stove. She had been strung up to bear all sorts of things, and when she found the outside looking quite peaceful and all right, a sudden weakness assailed her, and for a few moments it was all she could do to keep her hold of the saddle to which she was blindly clinging, while old Pucker raced along as merrily as if the journey had only just begun.
That ridge in the snow was the paddock fence. She would be home in a few moments now, and already the horrible feeling of faintness was passing. She sat straight up on her saddle, and wondered what had made her so silly, when a sound reached her ears which filled her with terror. The children were screaming; she could hear them as she approached the house.
Riding right up to the door, she slid off and burst in at the door, coming upon a scene of indescribable confusion. The table, which stood in the middle of the room, and upon which she had left the children’s breakfast spread, was lying on its side, while the crockeryware and food lay more or less in ruins on the floor, where also lay the sick stranger, squirming feebly, as if he had been trying to pull himself up by the table, and found the effort too much for him.
But the children in their fear had flung themselves upon their mother, shrieking and screaming with terror, while Grace herself was trying to pierce the din with her voice in order to reassure them, but was in a fair way of being suffocated; for the twins had cast themselves upon her, while Noll was clinging with both chubby hands to her head, his deep boo-oo-ooing in sharp contrast to the shrill squeals of Molly.
With one bound Bertha had crossed the room, and, scattering the children to right and left, slipped her arm under the head of Grace, which she lifted up into the air. For one terrible moment she thought that the helpless woman was going to faint, and instinct told her that if Grace fainted it would be the end. But the long minute passed, and then Grace managed to say feebly: “It needs a really strong sense of humour to appreciate a scene such as we have had.”
“You poor, poor darling, how awful it must have been for you!” cried Bertha, with actual tears of pity coming into her eyes as she gently fanned Grace, taking no notice at all of the sick man, who still lay, feebly struggling to rise from among the ruins he had caused by his ill-advised efforts to pull himself up by the aid of the table.
“Dear Noll was the worst,” said Grace, and now there was a weak gurgle of laughter in her throat. “He thought that there was safety with me if he only hugged me tightly enough, poor little man; and I could not make Dicky understand that I must have air. But you came just in time, Bertha.”
Just in time! Something came up in Bertha’s throat and half-choked her, and at that moment the inspector came into the room, but paused just across the threshold as if he were fairly staggered at the scene upon which he had stumbled.
“You see, there was a need for me to ride so hard,” said Bertha to him, as she swung out her hand to call attention to the ruin of the breakfast table.
“Steady, there! What is the matter?” asked the inspector, turning his attention to the man, who was again making feeble attempts to rise, and, stooping, he lifted the poor fellow in his strong arms, then sat him gently in the rocking chair, after which he shut the door; for more cold was coming in than was good for anyone.
“I must get on. Don’t you see that I have work to do?” said the sick man urgently. “And if I don’t give satisfaction on this trip I shall get turned off, and then it will be starvation.”
“Steady, there, steady, your job is going on all right!” said the inspector soothingly, but keeping his hand on the man in order to prevent him from falling out of the chair. Then he said to Bertha, in a low tone: “We must have been at cross purposes, I think, for this is not the man we are after. There is not much of the rogue about him, I fancy. But would you mind just stepping to the door and asking my mate to come in, then we will help you to clear up a bit, while we make up our minds what is the best thing to do for you and this poor chap.”
Bertha went to the door and called the other man in, and then was amazed at the manner in which the two set to work and tidied up the disordered room, while she made coffee and broiled bacon to make them a breakfast, for they had had nothing since the previous night.
The children, their terror all gone, were making friends with the police, and Dicky was telling the inspector how useful he was at helping Bertha in the barn, now that his father was away, and then Molly chimed in with the story of her achievements; but Noll and the twins had gone to their usual cover under their mother’s couch, and were surveying the scene from that safe vantage-ground.
Bertha prepared a small cup of bread and milk and approached the stranger, asking him if he could feed himself, or whether he would like her to do it for him.
“I can manage, thank you,” he said, looking up at her with his languid eyes, and then he asked, “Will you please tell me where it is that I have seen you before?”
Bertha looked at him in surprise, and then remembering how ill he had seemed all night, she said gently, “I do not think that you have ever seen me until last night, only you were so bad then, that I expect that it seems as if it were a week or two ago.”
He shook his head a little doubtfully, then replied, “I am sure that I have seen you once or twice before, only to-day I am so stupid that I cannot remember where it was. Now, will you please ask those men if they will help me hitch my horses to, and then I will be pushing on; for I must get to Pentland Broads as soon as possible.”
“But I have driven the sledge over for you; I went at dawn, and I have only just got back,” she said gently, wondering if he were still a little off his head.
“You are very kind, but then you have always been kind, if I remember rightly,” he answered, and then he frowned as if he were trying to recall that other time of which he had twice spoken.
“I think, Miss Doyne, that our best way will be to take the man with us,” said the inspector, drawing Bertha out of earshot of the stranger. “If he is ill, we can take better care of him at our place than you can here, and I fear that it must have been very distressing to poor Mrs. Ellis to have had the worry of him here last night.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Bertha, looking up gratefully into the kindly face of the middle-aged inspector, and then she dropped her gaze suddenly, because her eyes had filled with tears of which she was ashamed.
“Oh, that is all in the way of duty, you know,” he rejoined lightly, and then, going over to the stranger, he began to explain to him the advisability of getting on to Pentland Broads as soon as possible.
“You are the police, aren’t you?” said the poor fellow, making as if he would rise to his feet, but falling back through sheer weakness. “Is it a warrant you have out for my arrest, or are you running me in on suspicion?”
“Neither; we are only trying to help you on your way, Mr.— Mr.—, by the way, you have not told us your name,” said the inspector, in a tone of kindly forbearance.
“My name is Edgar Bradgate,” replied the stranger, and again he tried to rise, but would have fallen if it had not been for the arm the inspector slipped round him.
“I think that we had better turn straight back to Rownton with Mr. Bradgate, and let the other business wait awhile,” said the inspector to his subordinate, and then the two packed the sick man into the sledge and started off again, to the huge relief of Bertha.