They returned to the wagon without speaking, and drove slowly over the hill; very slowly, for that empty house had filled them with painful forebodings.
From the butternut tree they got a first sight of the old homestead. From the sitting room window a steady light was burning, which fell upon a great snowball bush, turning the huge white blossoms that covered it into globes of gold. "They are alive; they are at home!" said Thrasher. "God be thanked!"
CHAPTER LXXVII.
THE CONVICT'S RETURN.
Old Mr. Thrasher and his wife sat together that night in the very room in which they had been blessed by the first return of their son. He had been away weary, weary years now, and not a word of tidings had ever reached them. But the old hope was there. The faith which nothing but a certainty of his death could destroy. There they sat, as on that night, waiting for him, not with absolute hope, but from that tender unbelief which will not give up a loved one.
This evening they were not alone. An old woman, very thin and withered, but with a certain hard stateliness hanging around her, sat near the hearth. A hood and shawl, lying on the table near the door, proved that she had only come in for a brief visit. There was not much conversation among them. Mrs. Allen had just received a letter from her son, who had shipped in the India trade from Liverpool, and had not been home for years. Now he was on a return voyage, and having saved money enough, was resolved to leave the sea and take to farming with his mother.
It was a kind letter, and spoke most affectionately of the young sister who was, as he thought, pining to death in the prison mines at Simsbury.
The old man put on his spectacles and read the letter aloud. Mrs. Allen listened with interest, as if she had not already got the contents by heart. Old Mrs. Thrasher stopped short in her knitting, and sighed heavily. What a comfort it was to get a letter from one's son! Would she ever see another from Nelson? Just then the sound of wagon wheels coming over the hill reached them. He stopped reading and listened; why, no one could tell, for wagons passed that road every half hour in the twenty-four. As the wagon approached, these three old people looked at each other with vague bewilderment, and listened like persons in expectation. It stopped before the house. The gate opened. Mrs. Thrasher leaned forward, listening. "It is his step!"
That good woman had said exactly these same words years before, when some brown threads darkened her hair, which was white as snow now.
The old man now arose, so did Mrs. Allen, for she heard a step beyond that which sounded on the gravel walk—something so light that it could have reached no intelligence save the ever-watchful love of a mother.