Tom laughed again, but he had little cause to laugh at words that expressed more true courage than all the idle vaunts that he had ever uttered. He might have remembered that his sister had just ventured upon what an older and wiser companion than himself would never have suffered her to have attempted. But having no fear of a night walk in a lonely wood himself, he now, as was ever the case with him, had no consideration for the feelings of another.
The brother and sister parted in the darkness and rain; Minnie, trembling half with fear and half with cold, went cautiously along the gloomy way. Every few steps she paused, and softly called, “Johnny!” but her listening ear caught no sound but the pattering of the rain. Many, many times she stopped, and almost resolved to go back, when the thought of her little rosy-cheeked friend, out in the darkness and rain, frightened, cold, and wet, encouraged her to pursue her journey. For more than an hour the young girl wandered on, when at last the wood came to an end, and she found herself alone on a dark wide heath, dotted over here and there by furze-bushes.
“Johnny!” once more she cried, almost in despair, a sickening feeling of disappointment coming over her heart. Weary and sad, she could have sat down and cried. She saw, a little on her left hand, one lonely light, which appeared to proceed from some cottage. Here at least she might beg for shelter, and towards it she slowly walked. The light shone steady and bright from a little window; and before she ventured to knock at the door, Minnie Wingfield cautiously peeped in.
An aged man sat with his back to the window, and a large book open on the table before him, the very sight of which gave hope and confidence to Minnie. His wife, in her arm-chair, was listening opposite—a mild, calm expression in her venerable face; and in the corner crouched poor silly Sally, her brow no longer bound with her chaplet of wild flowers; she had wreathed it round the lost Johnny, whom, with a delight which repaid all her fears, Minnie beheld slumbering in the arms of the idiot!
FOUND.
It was this poor helpless creature who had found the little boy clinging in terror to the bough! There was still a woman’s instinct left in her breast, an instinct of tenderness towards a child. Terrified at first to behold the dreaded Sally, it was only the necessity of his case that made poor Johnny suffer her to touch him; but kindness soon finds its way to the heart—she fondled him, stroked his curly locks, decked him out with her favourite flowers, and then carried him away, through the still greenwood, to her own little home on the common, pleased as a child that has found a new toy. Strange that the life which had been endangered by the thoughtlessness of a companion, should be guarded by the tenderness of one bereft of reason.
Minnie Wingfield soon entered the cottage, and was received with Christian hospitality. She was placed by the fire, her dress dried, and food placed before her; and her mind was relieved by hearing that a messenger had been sent to her village to bear tidings to Mrs. Bright that her Johnny was safe and under shelter. What a joyful end to all Minnie’s anxieties; how sweet the reward of all the painful efforts that she had made!
