as she heard the sleet and snow beating against the window, for with the going down of the sun the storm had commenced again with redoubled fury, and the wind howled dismally as it swept past the corners of the house, bearing with it blinding sheets of snow and rain, and sounding some times like human sobbing as it died away in the distance.
"Is there some one crying outside, or is it the wind?" Mr. Jerrold asked, as the sobbing seemed like a wail of anguish, while there crept over him one of those indefinable presentiments which we have all felt at times and could not explain; a presentiment in his case of coming evil, whose shadow was already upon him.
"It is the wind," Grey said. "What an awful storm for Thanksgiving night!" and rising, he walked to the window just as outside there was the sound of a fast-coming vehicle, which stopped at the side piazza.
A few moments later the door of the drawing-room opened, and a servant appeared with a note, which she handed to Mr. Jerrold, saying:
"Sam Powley brought this from your sister. He says your father is very bad."
Mr. Jerrold was not greatly surprised. It seemed to him he had expected this, for the sobbing of the wind had sounded to him like his father's voice calling to him in the storm. Taking the note from the girl, he tore it open and read:
"DEAR BROTHER: On my return home I found our father much worse, indeed, I have never seen him so bad, and he insists upon your coming to him to-night, so I have sent Sam for you, with instructions to call on his return for our clergyman, Mr. Sanford, as he wishes particularly to see him. Come at once, and come alone."
"HANNAH."
The words "come alone" were underscored, and Burton felt intuitively that the secret he had long suspected and which had shadowed his father's life, was at last coming to him unsought. He was sure of it, and knew why Hannah had written "come alone." It meant that Grey must not come with him, and when the boy who had stood beside him and read the note with him, exclaimed, "Grandpa is worse; he is going to die; let us go at once," he said, very decidedly:
"No, my son, not to-night. To-morrow you shall go and stay all day, but not to-night, in this storm."
Very unwillingly Grey yielded, and saw his father depart without him.
"How is my father? How does he seem?" Mr. Jerrold asked of the boy Sam, who replied:
"I don't know; I have not seen him. He would not even let me in this afternoon when Miss Hannah was gone. He locked the door, and I heard him working at something on the floor by his bed, as if trying to tear up the plank. He was there when Miss Hannah came home and found him. I guess he is pretty crazy. But here we are at the minister's, I was to stop for him, you know. You will have to hold the horse. I sha'n't be long," and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass knocker.
The Rev. Mr. Sanford, who had for many years been rector of the little church in Allington, was taking his evening tea with his better-half, Mrs. Martha Sanford, a little, plump, red-faced woman, with light gray eyes and yellow hair, who ruled her husband with a rod of iron, and would have ruled his parish if they had not rebelled against her. With all her faults, however, she took excellent care of her lord and master, and looked after his health as carefully as she did after his household interests; and on this particular night, because he had complained of a slight hoarseness to which he was subject, she had at once enveloped his throat with folds of red flannel, under which was a slice of salt pork, her favorite remedy for all troubles of a bronchial nature. And, in his warmly wadded dressing-gown and padded slippers, the reverend man sat enjoying his tea and crisp slices of toast, which Mrs. Martha prepared for him herself, when the sound of the brass knocker startled them both, and made Mrs. Martha start so suddenly that the slice of bread she was toasting dropped from the fork upon the hot coals, where it was soon reduced to ashes.
"Who can be pounding like that on such a night as this?" she asked, as she hastened to open the hall-door, which admitted such a gust of wind that she came near shutting it in Sam's face.
But the boy managed to crowd into the hall, and shaking a whole snow-bank of snow from his cap and coat, he began:
"If you please, ma'am, old Mr. Jerrold is very bad indeed, and Miss Hannah wants the minister to come right off. Mr. Burton Jerrold is out in the sleigh, waiting for him, and says he must hurry."
"Mr. Sanford go out such a night as this! It's impossible! He is half sick now. What does old Mr. Jerrold want?" Mrs. Sanford said, sharply; and Sam replied, as he shook down another mass of snow upon the carpet:
"Don't know; the Sacrament, mebby, as I guess he's going to die," and the boy advanced a step or two into the warmly lighted room, where the rector, who had risen to his feet, was beginning to divest himself of his dressing-gown.
"Stay back; you have brought snow enough into the hall without spoiling the parlor carpet, too," Mrs. Martha said, angrily; then, going to her husband, whose purpose she divined, she continued; "Charles, are you crazy, to think of going out in this storm?"
"But, my dear," the rector began, meekly, "if the poor old man is dying—and Hannah would never have sent in such a storm unless she thought so—if he is dying and desires the comfort of the communion, shall I refuse it to him because of a little inconvenience to myself? No, no; I have not so learned Christ. Please bring me my coat, Martha, and my boots, and the little communion service."
"A pretty time of day to think of that, just as the candle is burned to the snuff," Mrs. Martha retorted. "Here for years you have exhorted and entreated him to be confirmed, and he has resisted all your appeals with the excuse that for him to go to the Lord's table would be a mortal sin; and now, just at the last, in such a storm, he sends for you. I consider it an insult to his Creator and to you, too."
"Will you please bring my coat and boots and things? I can never quite find them myself," was all the rector said, and knowing that further opposition was useless, Mrs. Martha went in quest of the boots and overshoes, and coat and overcoat and muffler, and fur cap and mittens, and heavy shawl, in which she enveloped her husband, lamenting that there was not ready a hot soap-stone for his feet, which were sure to suffer.
But the little man did not need the soap-stone; he had the warmest, kindest, most unselfish heart that ever beat in a human breast, and never thought of the storm, as he waded through the deep snow and took his seat beside Burton Jerrold in the sleigh, which Sam drove rapidly toward the farm-house in the pasture.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HORROR AT THE FARM-HOUSE.
When Hannah reached home the gray November afternoon was already merging into the dark night, which was made still darker by the violence of the increasing storm, and never had Hannah's home seemed so desolate and dreary as it did when the sleigh turned from the highway into the cross-road which lead to it, and she saw through the gathering gloom the low, snow-covered roof and the windows from which no welcoming light was shining. It had been so bright, and cheerful, and warm in the drawing-room at Grey's Park, and here all was cold, and cheerless, and dark, as she went into the house with a vague presentiment of the horror awaiting her.
Entering
