We spoke of many things--of the storm raging without, of Katrine Loebeg, of Gideon Wolf, of Miser Pretzel--and wondered how they were spending the evening. Then Anna related to me a pitiful story of one New-year's night, long ago in the past, when she was a child living with her mother, who was very poor. How that they had no home, and were walking through the cold snow in grief and darkness, when they saw lights in the windows of a farm-house. How they crept to the windows, and how, although fierce dogs were chained up they did not even bark at Anna and her mother. How they peeped through the windows, and saw all the family so happy that Anna began to sob. How her sobs reached the ears of those within, and how the master came out, and after a few questions took them into his house, where they were fed and warmed and made happy. She had nearly come to the end of her story, which she related with wonderful animation, when I held up my hand.
"I thought I heard a sound at the street door," I said.
We listened in silence, but heard nothing, and I told Anna to proceed. Her story was just finished as I held up my hand again.
"I must be haunted," I said; "when I don't listen, I hear sounds like moans; when I listen, I hear nothing. I cannot rest till I satisfy myself."
I went to the street door and opened it, and the snow and the howling wind beat in upon me and almost blinded me. I called out loudly many times, and receiving no answer, nor seeing anything, was about to close the door, when Anna, who had followed me, gave a great scream, and darting past me fell upon her knees. I looked down, and beheld her busy about the form of a woman lying in the snow. I stooped to assist her; and we carried the insensible woman into my room, and laid her before the fire.
"Poor thing, poor thing!" said Anna, rubbing the woman's hands and limbs. "Ah, what a state she is in! God help us, I fear she is frozen to death."
As she spoke these words I recognized the woman.
"It is Louisa Wolf," I said, pityingly, "Gideon Wolf's mother, for whom you made some soup on the day she came to ask me to take her son as my apprentice. No wonder that you do not recognize her; she is sadly, sadly altered. She has come--I divine it to spend the New Year with her son, whom she has not seen since he was a lad. For Heaven's sake, let us do all we can to revive her!"
Anna hurried away to light the fire and get the bed ready in the room Gideon used to occupy. Before she returned, the warmth and the hot wine I succeeded in making the poor creature drink--and I have no doubt the mother's love which had sustained her in her weary journey--restored Louisa Wolf to consciousness. She opened her eyes and they fell upon me. Ah, what a state of poverty she was in! Her clothes were in rags, her boots were worn off her feet, her face was pinched with cold and hunger and suffering. My heart bled for her. Recognizing me, she pushed me feebly from her with exclamations of horror, and struggled to her feet.
"My son!" she cried, in a terrible voice; so hoarse was it, so charged with overwrought agony, that it was scarcely human. "My son!"