The Doctor's Dilemma

by Hesba Stretton

"Perhaps he is coming all the time," I answered, "and he'll find us when we want him worst."

We plodded on after that, looking for the convent, or for any dwelling where we could stay till morning. But none came in sight, or any person from whom we could learn where we were wandering. I was growing frightened, dismayed. What would become of us both, if we could find no shelter from the cold of a February night?

There were unshed tears in my eyes—for I would not let Minima know my fears—when I saw dimly, through the mist, a high cross standing in the midst of a small grove of yews and cypresses, planted formally about it. There were three tiers of steps at its foot, the lowest partly screened from the gathering rain by the trees. The shaft of the cross, with a serpent twining about its base, rose high above the cypresses; and the image of the Christ hanging upon its crossbeams fronted the east, which was now heavy with clouds. The half-closed eyes seemed to be gazing over the vast wintry plain, lying in the brown desolateness of a February evening. The face was full of an unutterable and complete agony, and there was the helpless languor of dying in the limbs. The rain was beating against it, and the wind sobbing in the trees surrounding it. It seemed so sad, so forsaken, that it drew us to it. Without speaking the child and I crept to the shelter at its foot, and sat down to rest there, as if we were companions to it in its loneliness.

There was no sound to listen to save the sighing of the east wind through the fine needle-like leaflets of the yew-trees; and the mist was rapidly shutting out every sight but the awful, pathetic form above us. Evening had closed in, night was coming gradually, yet swiftly. Every minute was drawing the darkness more densely about us. If we did not bestir ourselves soon, and hasten along, it would overtake us, and find us without resource. Yet I felt as if I had no heart to abandon that gray figure, with the rain-drops beating heavily against it. I forgot myself, forgot Minima, forgot all the world, while looking up to the face, growing more dim to me through my own tears.

"Hush! hush!" cried Minima, though I was neither moving nor speaking, and the stillness was profound; "hark! I hear something coming along the road, only very far off."

I listened for a minute or two, and there reached my ears a faint tinkling, which drew nearer and nearer every moment. At last it was plainly the sound of bells on a horse's collar; and presently I could distinguish the beat of a horse's hoofs coming slowly along the road. In a few minutes some person would be passing by, who would be able to help us; and no one could be so inhuman as to leave us in our distress.

It was too dark now to see far along the road, but as we waited and watched there came into sight a rude sort of covered carriage, like a market-cart, drawn by a horse with a blue sheep-skin hanging round his neck. The pace at which he was going was not above a jog-trot, and he came almost to a stand-still opposite the cross, as if it was customary to pause there.

This was the instant to appeal for aid. I darted forward in front of the char à bancs, and stretched out my hands to the driver.

"Help us," I cried; we have lost our way, and the night is come. "Help us, for the love of Christ!" I could see now that the driver was a burly, red-faced, cleanshaven Norman peasant, wearing a white cotton cap, with a tassel over his forehead, who stared at me, and at Minima dragging herself weariedly to my side, as if we had both dropped from the clouds. He crossed himself hurriedly, and glanced at the grove of dark, solemn trees from which we had come. But by his side sat a priest, in his cassock and broad-brimmed hat fastened up at the sides, who alighted almost before I had finished speaking, and stood before us bareheaded, and bowing profoundly.

"Madame," he said, in a bland tone, "to what town are you going?"