“We talk of harvests,—there are no such things,
But when we leave our corn and hay.
There is no fruitful year but that which brings
The last and loved, though dreadful Day.
Oh, show Thyself to me,
Or take me up to Thee!”
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE BEASTS OF THE VILLAGE.—ABEL SICKENS.—THE GOOD SHEPHERD.—RUFUS PLAYS THE PHILANTHROPIST.—MASTER SWIFT SEES THE SUN RISE.—THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
Amid the havoc made by the fever amongst men, women, and children, the immunity of the beasts and birds had a sad strangeness.
There was a small herd of pigs which changed hands three times in ten days. The last purchaser hesitated, and was only induced by the cheapness of the bargain to suppress a feeling that they brought ill-luck. Cats mewed wistfully about desolated hearths. One dog moaned near the big grave in which his master lay, and others, with sad sagacious eyes, went to look for new friends and homes.
It was a day or two after the burial of the miller’s three children, that, as Jan sat at dinner with Abel and his two parents, he was struck by the way in which the mill cats hung about Abel, purring and rubbing themselves against his legs.
“I do think they misses the others,” he whispered to his foster-brother, and his tears fell thick and fast on to his plate.
Abel made no answer. He did not wish Jan to know that he had given all his food by bits to the cats, because he could not swallow it himself. But, later in the day, Jan found him in the round-house, lying on an empty sack, with his head against a full one.
“Don’t ’ee tell mother,” he said; “but I do feel bad.”
And as Jan sat down, and put his arms about him, on the very spot where they had so often sat together, learning the alphabet and educating their thumbs, Abel laid his head on his foster-brother’s shoulder, saying,—