All listened while the wind beat upon the house and sobbed piteously in the chimney. Jane hastened to the door.
“God’s blessin’—rest—on this house!” gasped a man, stumbling in.
“Take the stranger’s cloak off,” commanded Owen, before the visitor was in, “an’ here’s my clogs dry an’ warm.”
“Tut, tut,” objected Jane, “’tis food he needs, whatever. I’ll fetch him bread an’ fill the big pint. Now, friend, this chair by the table.”
The Stranger sat down; his deep-set eyes looked out wistfully on the awakened bustle, and on the warmth and the cheer of the cottage room. But they heard him whisper drearily, “My little child, my little child!”
Tom tried to lift the silence that was settling over them all with a question here and a question there. The Stranger ate absent-mindedly and ravenously, drinking his ale in greedy draughts. Owen knocked the ashes from his pipe and stared into the fire.
“’Tis late,” he said.
The Stranger lifted his eyes, looked at the two brothers, and long at Jane.
“I shall not rest——” he began.