Two little travellers

by Frances Browne Arthur

Joan still sobbed.

"Hush, Joan! don't cry any more, like a good girl," said the little lad soothingly. "We shall be sure to find the way out very soon now. We left the basket at the edge of the wood; I don't think any one will have taken it away. And when we get it, we shan't be hardly any time going down the hill. We'll slip in softly, softly, and find Auntie Alice first. We'll ask her to coax Aunt Catharine not to be too angry; and perhaps, if we tell her we're sorry, she'll not punish us very badly. I think we had better not say anything about forgetting this time; we'll just be sorry right off."

Joan ceased crying. She dabbed her eyes with the corner of her soiled pinafore until they smiled like violets new washed with dew; she wiped the trickling tear-drops from her smudgy China rose cheeks until they bloomed afresh.

Thus the brave boy soothed his small sister's terror, although his own heart was heavy with fear; for the farther they walked the deeper they seemed to go into the depths of the dark pine wood. And night was coming on. In daytime, even, Copsley Wood was a shadowy place; but now, when above the trees and beyond their margin twilight had fallen, it was indeed a dark and lonesome spot. All around the pines rose straight and tall, like gaunt giant forms flinging out long, skeleton arms eager to infold them in a cruel clasp. Strange and stealthy sounds from bird and beast came to their ears at intervals, while the unfamiliar music of rustling branches and whispering leaves filled the souls of these two little travellers with a feeling of awe and vague alarm. Nevertheless they kept moving on, on; now stumbling over a fallen branch, again shrinking in terror as a great soft owl flitted slowly by, or hooted solemnly right above their heads.

At length Joan cried out that she could not walk another step. A sharp stone had cut her poor little shoeless foot, and she was limping painfully. She sank down on a smooth tree-stump, and Darby sat beside her, allowing her to lean her drooping head against his shoulder.

"Are we lost, Darby?" she asked piteously. "Are we goin' to die here like the babes in the wood? And will the robins come in the mornin' and cover us up wif leaves?"

"No, no," answered Darby, shivering at the mere thought of such a hurried burial, yet trying to speak cheerfully in spite of the tears in his eyes, the lump in his throat. "When you are rested a bit we will go on again. If you can't walk, perhaps I could carry you—a short distance, anyway. Surely we shall soon find the path, or some one will come to look for us," he added, feeling as if at that moment any one, even Aunt Catharine herself, would be welcome.

"It's gettin' awful dark," sobbed Joan, in a choked, weak voice. "Why, we can't see even a single star."

"We'd be all right if we could see anything," replied the boy ruefully. "Maybe the moon will shine soon; then we'll find our way," he added, still trying to cheer his little chum as best he could.

For a while they were silent. Joan was almost asleep, with her head still resting on Darby's breast. None but the creatures of the wild were near them; only the sounds of the night were in the air—those soft, mysterious voices that whisper to the listening soul of the spirit world which wraps so closely round the pure in heart.