It was a long way up the slope, and for more than half the distance it was very steep; like climbing up a ladder. Many times on the upward way the boys stopped to rest. Always when he heard Bennie’s breathing grow hard and laborious, Tom would complain of being himself tired, and they would turn about and sit for a few moments on a tie, facing down the slope.
Out at last into the quiet autumn night! Bennie breathed a long sigh of relief when he felt the yielding soil under his feet and the fresh air in his face.
Ah! could he but have seen the village lights below him, the glory of the sky and the jewelry of stars above him, and the half moon slipping up into the heavens from its hiding-place beyond the heights of Campbell’s Ledge, he would, indeed, have known how sweet and beautiful the upper earth is, even with the veil of night across it, compared with the black recesses of the mine.
It was fully a mile to the boys’ home; but, with light hearts and willing feet, they soon left the distance behind them, and reached the low-roofed cottage, where the anxious mother waited in hope and fear for the coming of her children.
“Here we are, Mommie!” shouted Tom, as he came around the corner and saw her standing on the doorstep in the moonlight watching. Out into the road she ran then, and gathered her two boys into her arms, kissed their grimy, coal-blackened faces, and listened to their oft-interrupted story, with smiles and with tears, as she led them to her house.
But Tom stopped at the door and turned back.
“I promised Sandy McCulloch,” he said, “to go over an’ tell him if I found Bennie. He said he’d wait up for me, an’ go an’ help me hunt him up if I came back without him. It’s only just over beyond the breaker; it won’t take twenty minutes, an’ Sandy’ll be expectin’ me.”
And without waiting for more words, the boy started off on a run.
It was already past ten o’clock, and he had not had a mouthful of supper, but that was nothing in consideration of the fact that Sandy had been good to him, and would have helped him, and was, even now, waiting for him. So, with a light and grateful heart, he hurried on.