“Ay, dear, and I worked five years till I was well enough off to give you a good home, and please God we’ll have thirty more years together—here, or in the better world.”
Luke Ross felt that the words were meant for him, and he tried to catch Sage’s eye, but she would not raise her face, and he sat thinking that after all the farmer was right.
There was a dead silence in the room for some minutes, and then Dr Vinnicombe exclaimed—
“Come, Churchwarden, here are Michael Ross and I famishing for a game at whist.”
“To be sure,” cried the Churchwarden. “Now, girls, let’s have the card-table. My word, what a night! It’s a nipper indeed. Let’s have another log on, old lady, and—What the dickens is the matter with those dogs?”
For just then, as the flames and sparks were roaring up the chimney, the two dogs in the yard set up a furious barking, growing so excited, and tearing so at their chains, that the Churchwarden went out to the door, opened it, and a rush of cold, searching wind roared into the room as he shouted—
“Down, Don! Quiet, Rover! Who’s there?”
“Port—lock, ahoy!” came in reply, and Rue turned pale, uttered a low moan, and clung to her sister, who trembled in turn as another voice shouted—
“Call off the dogs, Mr Portlock; it is only I.”
“Sage,” whispered Rue, with her face close to her sister’s ear, “let us go away.”