“Who air you savin' it fur?” said Maria, quietly. She sat with downcast eyes tapping her spoon idly on her saucer; she had eaten nothing.
“Fur myself,” he growled, pushing his chair back. He lit a pipe and began to smoke, his feet at the oven door.
Outside it was quite dark, snow and night falling together in a dense black pall. Over the lonely roads drifted the snow, and no footfall marred it. Through drear, silent forests it sifted, sifted down, clung to cheery evergreens, and clasped shining summer trees that had no thought for winter woes; it was heaped high over the glazed brooks that sang, deep down, songs of summer time and gladness, like happy, good old folks whose hearts are ever young and joyous. Over the wide Kennebec, in the line of blue the ferry-boat kept open, the flakes dropped, dropped and made no blurr, like the cellar builders of temples and palaces, the rank and file, the millions of good, unknown dead, unmentioned in history or the Bible. The waves seething in the confined path crackled the false ice around the edges, leaped upon it in miniature breakers, and swirled far underneath with hoarse murmur. In the dark water something dark rose and fell with the tide. Was there a human being drifting to death in the icy sea? The speck made no outcry; it battled nobly with nature's mighty force. Surely and slowly the high wharfs and the lights of Bath faded; nearer grew the woods of Corinth, the ferry landing and the tavern-keeper's lamp.
“I heered suthin' on the ferry slip,” said a little old man in the tavern, holding his hand behind his ear.
“Nawthin', night's too black,” said the tavern-keeper; “you're alius a hearin' what no one else do, Beaman.”
No star nor human eye had seen the black speck on the wild water, and no hand lent it aid to land.
In ugly silence Silas smoked his pipe, while equally still, Maria washed the dishes. She stepped to throw the dish-water outside the door and then she heard a sound. The night was so quiet a noise traveled miles. What was it, that steady smothered thud up the lane where so seldom a stranger came? Was it only the beating of her heart after all? She shut the door behind her and hurried out, wrapping her wet cold hands in her apron. Suddenly there came a long, joyful neigh!
“How on airth did that critter git home?” cried Silas, jumping to his feet.
Nearer, nearer, in a grand gallop, with tense muscles and quivering limbs, with upraised head and flying mane, with eager eyes, nearer, in great leaps thrusting time and distance far behind, came that apparition of the night.
“Oh, my God!” cried the woman wildly, “old Tige has come home—come home to this place, and there is one living thing that loves it!”