In the corner, which they used to occupy, their eldest son, and his wife, were seated. A babe lay in the cradle, and two other little ones, breathed quietly from their trundle-bed, in the sweet sleep of childhood. A strong blast, with snow, shook the casement.
"I always think," said John Williams, "about my poor brother, in stormy nights, especially in winter. So many years have past, since we have heard from him, and his way of life is so full of danger, that I fear he must be numbered with the dead."
"Husband, did I hear a faint knock! or was it the wind among the trees?" said his wife. The farmer opened the door, and a traveller entered, leaning heavily on a crutch. His garments were old and thin, and his countenance haggard.
He sank into a chair, and gazed earnestly around on every article of furniture, as on some recollected friend. Then, extending a withered hand, he uttered in a tone scarcely audible, "Brother! brother!"
That word, opened the tender memories of other years. They hastened to welcome the wanderer, and to mingle their tears with his. "Sister, brother, I have come home to die." They found him too much exhausted to converse, and after giving him comfortable food, induced him to retire to rest.
The next morning, he was unable to rise. They sat by his bedside, and soothed his worn heart with kindness, and told him the simple narrative of the changes in the neighbourhood, and what had befallen them, in their quiet abode.
"I have had many troubles," said he, "but none have bowed me down, like the sin of leaving home to be a soldier, without the knowledge of my parents, and against their will. I have felt the pain of wounds, but there is nothing like the sting of conscience.
"I have endured hunger, and thirst, and imprisonment, and the misery of sickness in an enemy's land; and then the image of my home, and my disobedience and ingratitude, were with me when I lay down, and when I rose up, and when I was sleepless and sick in the neglected hospitals.
"In broken visions, I would see my dear mother bending tenderly over me, as she used to do, when I had only a headache; and my father with the great Bible in his hand, reading as he used to do before prayer; but when I cried out in agony. 'I am no more worthy to be called thy son,' I awoke, and it was all a dream."
His brother assured him of the perfect forgivenness of his parents, and that duly, at morn and eve, he was borne upon their supplications at the family altar, as the son, erring, yet beloved. "Ah, yes, and those prayers followed me. But for them I should have been a reprobate, forsaken both of God and man."