There was no fear of her oversleeping when morning came. Long before daylight stole tardily over the white wastes, she was out in the barn with her lantern, feeding the horses and milking the cow; then, coming indoors, she gave the children their breakfast, made a pretence of a meal herself, and, attending to Grace, who could manage the business of putting the food in her mouth herself now, if it were only put quite ready for her, and stood within reach of her hand.
The sick man had sunk into a deeper slumber, and seemed to be out of pain. Bertha lifted his head and contrived to make him swallow half a cupful of hot milk, but when she put his head back on the pillow he seemed faster asleep than ever, and she could only hope that he would remain in that condition until she returned from Pentland Broads. Then she made up the fire, so that it would last without being touched, and fitted a wire guard right round the stove, so that there might be no danger of accidents. It was an awful trouble to her to go away and leave that helpless household of invalids and infants alone with a fire in the stove; but it would have been far worse to have left them without a fire in such severe weather, and so she had to face the risk and not worry about it more than she could help. Then she brought out the horses, hitched them to the sledge, put a saddle on Pucker and tied the old horse to the back of the sledge, slipped on a big coat, and, stepping into the sledge, set off on her journey.
There had been no more snow in the night, and for a while she followed the marks of the sledge which had been made when the horses brought their load to Duck Flats on the previous night. She did not have to break away from them until she was halfway to the end of her journey, and could see right away on the edge of the horizon a few hummocks and mounds in the snow, which stood for the cluster of houses at Pentland Broads.
“It is funny that he should have turned off here,” she said to herself, as she left the trail made by the sledge runners and took a bee-line across the snow for the houses. “It really looks as if the theory of Grace must be right, and these are our horses which were sold in the summer. Oh, dear, I wish that I were not so stupid about recognizing things, and then I should have known whether these were the horses or not.”
It was fine going this morning: the snow was frozen so hard, that the sledge skimmed the surface; the horses seemed very fresh, and galloped along at such a pace that ever so many times Bertha wondered whether they thought that they were doing a bolt; but it did not seem worth while to check them, as she was in such hot haste to get her journey done.
There was no chance of judging distance across that dazzling field of snow. The houses looked so close, that it seemed to Bertha as if she must be within shouting distance, while she was still some miles away.
Her coming had been observed, too, and she saw two men coming out to meet her, and then it was that she took a sudden resolve: “I need not go the whole distance; even ten minutes’ gain is important in my case,” she muttered, and, when the two men were within speaking distance, she tugged and tugged at the lines until she brought the horses to a standstill.
One of the men coming towards her was Dan Semple, the storekeeper’s son, and the other was a lad with red hair whom she did not know.
“Dan,” she called, “Dan, make haste, and help me on to my horse, will you, for you must take the sledge to your father, and I shall get back all the quicker.”
“Why, it’s our lot of goods out from Rownton that we expected last night, and Miss Doyne driving it!” exclaimed Dan, in amazement. He was not a very nimble-witted youth, and the situation was beyond him.