THE ARRIVAL.
IT was a wild, dark night. The rain was coming down in torrents, the wind blowing a perfect hurricane. Creak! Creak! How the branches of the elm trees groaned as they swayed to and fro outside the tiny cottage where Widow Wilkins and her eldest child—a delicate looking boy of twelve—crouched over a dying fire!
"Hark, mother, to the wind! Isn't it terrible?" little Dick exclaimed in awe-stricken tones.
"Yes," said the widow, "it's a dreadful night. I shudder to think of the poor sailors out at sea. Depend on it, there'll be lots of wrecks before morning, unless the wind goes down, and that pretty soon."
With this, she turned her head towards the door, beneath which she had stuffed some old matting to keep out the draught.
"I thought," she went on after a few minutes' pause, "I heard a cry, but suppose it was only my fancy. One thing's certain, it can't be from upstairs, 'cos the children are asleep."
"P'raps it's the wind in the chimney or in the branches of the trees you hear, mother," said the little boy. "It makes all kinds of sounds when there's a gale on like this. Listen! I heard a cry then—sure enough I did! 'Twas like the whine of a dog, only very low and weak. What do you say—shall we open the door and look? Something is going 'scratch, scratch,' now," he cried, jumping excitedly to his feet.
"It's late to open the door, Dick," protested his mother nervously. "Who's to tell that it isn't some drunken body playing a trick upon us. Mind we've no near neighbours to shout to if we should want help ever so bad!"
"I know, I know; but I ain't a bit afraid. And we couldn't go to bed without seeing what was outside. If it isn't a dog, why, then, maybe it's a child."
The widow looked disturbed. She rose from her chair, raked the dying embers together in the fireplace, and lit the candle; for she and Dick had been sitting the last half-hour by firelight—they always did so to save lamp oil after she had put away her sewing at nine o'clock on winter evenings.