"I don't know, dear," answered Ann Holland.
"My father never lets me go to see her when she's worst," he went on, "only Sarah goes into her room, and him. She talks and laughs often, and yet my father says she is ill. When I am a man I shall be a doctor, and learn how to make her well. But it will be a long time before I am clever enough for that, I'm afraid. My father says she's too ill for anybody to come to see us; isn't it a pity?"
"Yes, my dear," she answered.
"She can never hear me say my hymns now," he said; "and when she's not so ill that my father won't let me see her, she sits crying, crying ever so; and if I want to play with her, or read to her, she can't bear it, she says. I should think there ought to be somebody to cure her, if we could only find out. My father scarcely ever laughs now, because she's so ill; and when he plays with me he only looks sad, and he speaks in a quiet voice as if it would make her worse. Do try, Miss Holland, and ask everybody that comes to your house if they don't know of some very, very clever doctor for my mother."
"I will try," she said. "I'll do all I can. But you may run home now, Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you."
"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by, and remember, please."
She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days, for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags. How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been. These strange absences of his had at first been a severe trial to her; but of late years they had been a holiday time of rest, except for the continual anxiety she felt on his behalf. Her quaint and quiet kitchen, as she unlocked the door and entered it, seemed a haven of refuge, where she could indulge in the tears she had kept under control till now. The love she felt for Mr. Chantrey was so deep and true, that any sorrow of his must have grieved her. But she knew so well what this sorrow was! She knew through what long years it might last; and how hopeless it might grow before the end came. Looking back upon her own blighted life, she could foresee for him only a weary, miserable, ever-deepening wretchedness. The Sunday afternoon passed by slowly, and the evening came, The soft sunshine and spring showers of the morning were gone; and a sullen sweep of rain, driven by the east wind, was beating through the streets. A neighbor looked in to say she had seen the curate from the next parish pass through the town toward the church; and she thought Mr. Chantrey would very likely not be there. But Ann Holland had already decided not to go. At any moment she might hear her brother's shambling step draw near the door, and his fingers fumbling at the latch. She could not bear the neighbors to see him when he came off one of his vagabond tramps, dirty and ragged as he usually was. She must stay at home again for him; again, as she had done hundreds of times, mourning pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and without meaning beneath her eyes. Her mind was full of the thought of her unhappy brother, and Mr. Chantrey's miserable wife.
It was past her usual hour of going to bed before she made up the kitchen fire to be in readiness, lest her brother should knock her up at any hour during the night. At the last moment she opened the street-door, and stood listening for a little while, as she always did when he was not at home. The rain was still sweeping through the street, which was as silent as if the town had been deserted. The gas-lights in the lamps flickered with the wind, and lit up the pools and channels of water running down the pavements.
But just as she turned to go in, her quick ear caught the sound of distant footsteps, growing louder as they came in her direction. It was the tramp of several feet, marching slowly like those of persons bearing a heavy burden. She waited to see who and what it could be so late this Sunday night; and soon, under the flickering lamps, she caught sight of several men, carrying among them a hurdle, with a shapeless heap upon it. A sudden, vague panic seized her, and she hastily retreated inside her house, shutting and barring the door. She said to herself she did not wish to see what they were carrying past. But were they going past? She heard them still, tramping slowly on toward her house; would they pass by with their burden? She put down the light, for her hand trembled too much to hold it; and she stood listening, her ears quickened for every sound, and her white face turned toward the closed and fastened door.
A knock came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the driving rain, rested the hurdle, with the confused mass lying huddled together upon it. The men who bore it were silent, standing with their faces turned toward her; all of them strangers, except the one neighbor, who was on her threshold.