“I know, dear, but we must try to feel towards him as we should like anyone to feel towards Tom under like circumstances,” said Grace softly, and then she went on, with a catch in her breath, “Do you know, when you came in at the door dragging that poor fellow with you, I really thought that it was Tom, and my heart came right up into my mouth; indeed, it was all that I could do to keep from screaming.”
“I thought that it was Tom, too, when I saw the sledge come up to the door; but when I got outside I could see no driver at all, and then I was dreadfully frightened, for I thought that he must have fallen off. Then I pulled at the rug to cover the horses, and found that the man had fallen down in the sledge, and the rug had hid him from my sight.”
Bertha was busy with the stranger while she talked. He was drawing deep, sobbing breaths, as if he were coming round, and the two children had got up, moving a little away, because they were rather shy and frightened, while the twins and Noll had fled to cover under their mother’s couch, their three small heads peeping out from underneath like chickens looking out from under their mother’s wing.
“Gee-up, and get along, can’t you; gee-up, I say!” The man on the floor was plainly coming round, and his first thought was about his horses.
“Lie still for a little while, and then you will soon be better,” said Bertha soothingly. She was relieved to find that the unknown spoke with the intonation of a man of education, and it was an unspeakable comfort to find that his voice was gentle and refined.
“I can’t lie still. I’m to be paid according to the time it takes to get there, you know, and I have touched my last dollar; besides, the people at Pentland Broads are in sight of actual starvation—there was hardly any flour left in the place three days ago—and it was because no one else would face the journey that I got the job.” As he spoke, the stranger tried to sit up, but he was so weak that he fell back on his pillows, which Bertha had piled under his head, and looked into her face with such a desperate eagerness, that she felt she must help him if she could.
“You can’t get to Pentland Broads to-night, that is certain,” she said briskly, “but you can start off at daybreak if you are well enough. I have put your horses in the barn and fed them, so though they are very worn out to-night, they will be quite rested by the morning.”
“They must be hitched up again to-night, I tell you,” said the stranger, with an imperative wave of his hand. “You have no idea how serious the need is over there. It is one of the places that were hailed out last harvest, and the poor things have been living from hand to mouth all the winter. Now their cupboards are bare—there is neither food nor fire nor light there by this time. I tell you I know, for there was a plucky chap—a doctor he was—got through to Hartley on snow-shoes to beg for supplies three days ago; but he was so near done that it is doubtful if he will recover. And I must go on; I tell you I must!”
The poor fellow’s voice rose to a wavering shout, as he again made a frantic but ineffectual effort to rise. Dicky and Molly fled to cover in their mother’s bedroom, and the three juniors under the couch burst into a united howl of terror.
“What is that noise?” asked the stranger, with a bewildered look coming into his eyes.