she would be glad to have it gone because it belonged to the hated man who had run away from their daughter, and left her and her little red-haired child to be a burden.
She hesitated about lighting a candle, finally deciding not to risk it, and crept softly into the eaves-closet on her hands and knees in the dark, going by her sense of feeling straight to the little hair trunk, and finding the overcoat at the very bottom. She put the other things carefully away, and got back quietly to her room again with the coat, hugging it like a treasure. She laid her cheek for an instant against the worn collar and had a fleeting thrill of affection for the wanderer who had deserted his family, just because the coat was his and was helping her to help Allan.
People were "early to bed and early to rise" in those days. Mr. and Mrs. Heath had retired to their slumber at nine o'clock that night. It was ten before Miranda left her window to stir about the room. The old clock in the kitchen had struck eleven before she found the overcoat and had put everything back in the trunk.
She waited until she had counted out the slow strokes of twelve from the clock before she dared steal down stairs and softly take the key from its nail by the clock. The cold iron of the key bit into her trembling fingers as if it had been alive, and she almost dropped it. She stood shaking with cold and fright, for it seemed as if every board in the floor that she stepped upon creaked. Once she fell over her grandmother's rocking chair and the rockers dug into her ankles as if they had a grudge against her. Her nerves were so keyed up that the hurt brought tears to her Spartan eyes, and she had to sit down for a minute to bear the pain.
She had carefully canvassed the idea of going out of the door downstairs and had given it up. There was too much risk. First the door opened noisily, and the bar that was put across it at night fitted tightly. It was liable to make a loud grating sound when it was moved. Also, the snow was deep enough that foot-prints by the door would be noticeable in the morning unless it snowed harder than it was doing now and the wind blew to cover them up. Besides, it would be terrible if any one should see her coming out the door and it should come to her Grandfather's ears that she had done this thing. He would never forgive her and she would have to run away. But worst of all, she dreaded being seen and stopped before she had accomplished her purpose, for the downstairs door was just under her grandmother's window. Therefore, the key secure, she slipped softly into the pantry, found half a loaf of bread, two turnovers and some cookies, and with her booty crept back upstairs again.
When she was at last safely back in her room she drew a long sigh of relief and sat down for a moment to listen and be sure that she had not disturbed the sleepers, then she tied the key on a strong string and hung it around her neck. Next, she wrapped the bread, turnovers and cookies in some clean pieces of white cloth that were given her for the quilt she was piecing, stuffed them carefully into the pockets of the old overcoat, and put on the coat.
It was entirely dark in her room, and she dared not light her candle lest some neighbor should see the light in the window and ask her grandmother next morning who was sick.
Cautiously, with one of her strange upliftings of soul that she called prayer, Miranda opened her window and crept out upon the sill. The roof below her was covered with snow, three or four inches deep, but the window and roof were at the back of the house and no one could see her from there. It was not going to be an easy job getting back with all that snow on the roof, but Miranda wasn't thinking about getting back.
Clinging close to the house she stepped slowly along the shed roof to the edge, trying not to disturb the snow any more than she could help. She had taken the precaution to slip on a pair of stockings over her shoes so that their dampness in the morning might not call forth any comments from her grandmother. At last she reached the cherry tree that grew close to the woodshed roof, and could take hold of its branches and swing herself into it Then she breathed more freely. The rest was comparatively easy.
Carefully she balanced in the tree, making her way nimbly down, her strong young body swinging lithely from limb to limb unmindful of the snow, and dropped to the snowy ground beneath. She took a few cautious steps as far apart as she could spring, but once out from under the tree she saw that if it continued to snow thick and fast and fine as it was doing now there would be little danger that her footsteps would be discovered in the morning. However, she took the precaution to reach the smoke-house by a detour through the corn-patch where tracks in the snow would not be so noticeable. Then, suddenly, she faced a new difficulty. The great old rusty padlock was reinforced by a heavy beam firmly fixed across the door, and it was all the girl could do, snow-covered as it was, to move it from the great iron clamp that held it in place. However, a big will and a loving heart can work miracles, and the great beam moved at last, with a creak that set Miranda's heart thumping wildly. But the still night was deadened with its blanket of snow, and the sound seemed shut in with her in a small area. She held her breath for a minute to listen, then thankfully fitted the key into the pad-lock, her trembling fingers stiff with cold and fright.
The lock was set high in the door and it was all the girl could do to reach it and turn the key, but at last the big door swung open, creaking noisily as it swung, and giving her another fright.
With her hand on her heart, and her eyes straining through the darkness, Miranda stepped inside, her pulses throbbing wildly now, and her breath coming short and quick. There was something awfully gruesome about this dark silent place; it was like a tomb.
Chapter VI
There was no sound nor movement inside, and at first the girl began to think her quest had been in vain; or perhaps the prisoner had already escaped. If there was a way of escape she made sure Allan would find it; but after a second her senses cleared and she heard soft breathing over in the corner. She crept toward it, and made out a dark form lying in the shadow. She knelt beside it, put her hand out and touched his hair, his heavy beautiful hair that she had admired so many times in school when his head was bent over his book and the light from the window showed purple shadows in its dark depths. It thrilled her now strangely with a sense of privilege and almost of awe to feel how soft it was. Then her hand touched the smoothness of his boy-face, and she bent her head quite close, so that she felt his breath on her cheek.
"Allan!" she whispered, "Allan!" But it was some minutes before she could get him awake with her quiet efforts, for she dared not make a noise, and he was dead with fatigue and anxiety, besides being almost numb with the cold. His head was pillowed on his arm and he had wrapped around him some old sacking that had been given him for his bed. Grandfather Heath as constable did not believe in making the way of the transgressor easy, and he had gone contented to his warm comfortable bed leaving only a few yards of old sacking and a hard clay floor for the supposed criminal to lie upon. This was not cruelty in Grandfather Heath. He called it Justice.
At last Miranda's whispered cries in his ear, and her gentle shakings aroused the boy to a sense of his surroundings. Her arms were about his neck, trying tenderly to bring him to a sitting posture, and her cheek was against his as though her soul could reach his attention by drawing nearer. Her little freckled saucy face, all grave and sorrowful now in the darkness, brought to him a conviction of sympathy he had not known in all his lonely boyhood days, and with his first waking sense the comfort of her presence touched him warmly. He held himself utterly quiet just to be sure that she was there touching him and it was not a dream, somebody caring and calling to him with almost a sob in her breath. For an instant a wild thought of his own mother whom he had never known came to him and then almost immediately he knew that it was Miranda. All the hideous truth of his situation came back to him, as life tragedies will on sudden waking, yet the strong young arms, that with their efforts were warm, and the soft breath and exquisitely soft cheek were there.
"Yes," he said very softly but quite
