“When the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out.”
So, having watched Tom till he was quite out of sight, he returned to his neglected navy on the pond, and delivered his admirable Crichton’s message to Marjory Daw on her return.
CHAPTER LXI.
THE HOUR AND THE MAN.
Supper-time came, and Tom Orange did not return. Darkness closed over the old cottage, the poplar trees and the town, and the little boy said his prayers under the superintendence of worthy Marjory, and went to his bed.
He was disturbed in his sleep by voices talking in the room. He could only keep his eyes open for a little time, and he saw Tom Orange talking with mammy. He was at one side of the little table and she at another, and his head was leaning forward so as to approach uncomfortably near to the mutton-fat with a long snuff in the middle. Mammy, as he indiscriminately called “Granny,” was sobbing bitterly into her apron, and sometimes with streaming eyes, speaking so low that he could not hear, to Tom Orange.
Interesting as was the scene, slumber stole him away, and when he next wakened, Tom was gone, and mammy was sitting on the bed, crying as if her heart would break. When he opened his eyes, she said—
“Oh, darlin’! darlin’! My man—my own, own blessed man—my darlin’!” and she hugged him to her heart.
He remembered transports similar when two years ago he was very ill of a fever.
“I’m not sick, mammy, indeed; I’m quite well,” and with these assurances and many caresses, he again fell asleep.