'The young rascal! I warrant you have near broken your back carrying him to and fro.'
'My back is not so easy to break; but, George, when will the travellers come. I have made all things ready these two days and more.'
'They may arrive any moment now,' George said, and then his bright handsome face disappeared from the window, and in another moment he had come as quietly as was possible for him, into the sunny parlour, now beautified by silken drapery, worked by Lucy's clever fingers, and sweet with the fragrance of flowers in the beau-pot on the hearth and fresh rushes on the floor.
In a large wooden cradle lay his first-born son—named in memory of one whom neither husband nor wife could ever forget—Philip. The child was small and delicate, and Lucy had tasted not only the sweets of motherhood, but its cares.
Yet little Philip was very fair to look upon. He had the refined features of his mother, and though his cheeks wanted something of the roundness and rosiness of healthful infancy, he was, in his parents' eyes, as near perfection as first-born children are ever apt to be thought!
George paused by the cradle, which was raised on high rockers, and, bending over it, said,—
'He is sound asleep now,' just touching the little hand lying outside the coverlet with his great fingers as gently as his mother could have done.
'I won't be jealous of him, eh, Lucy? He is mine as well as yours, sweetheart.'
'That is a truism,' Lucy said. 'Now, come into the window-seat and talk low—if you must talk—and let us watch for those who are, I pray God, drawing near.'
George unfastened his leather pouch which was slung over his shoulder, and put the bow and quiver against the corner of the bay window.