"Well," said the voice of Mrs. Tom, at this instant breaking upon her reverie, as she stopped her wheel with a jerk and looked sharply into Christie's face—"I would like to know what's got into you to-night! Here I've asked you three blessed times to hand me that there gownd, an' you don't mind me any more than if I was the cat. S'pose it's the latest fashion not to answer your elders when they speak to you? What is the matter with the gal?"
"I didn't hear you," faltered Christie, turning scarlet; "my head aches. Please excuse me; I didn't mean to offend."
"Better go to bed, then, if you head aches. Time we was all in bed, for that matter. No use sittin' up a-wastin' of candles, when we can get up airly in the morning jist as well. Gemimi! how it blows!" said Mrs. Tom, as she slipped the bands off her wheel and carried it over to its accustomed corner.
Glad of the permission, Christie arose and began arranging her bed on the wooden settle in the kitchen, where she slept. And Mrs. Tom, who preferred sleeping by herself, sought her own couch, where, by the combined effects of a light heart and a clear conscience, she was soon in the land of dreams.
Relieved of the presence of the inquisitive old lady Christie wrapped herself in her mantle, tied on her hood, and softly opened the door. The storm was at its height, and the sudden entrance of a rush of wind and rain, sent all the loose articles lying about, whirling through the room.
It was awful to venture out in such a storm; but, had the tempest raged twice as wildly, the faithful, loving child-wife would have braved it all, to meet him, she loved.
Exerting all her strength, she closed the door after her without arousing the sleepers, and quitted the house she was never destined to enter more.
On—through the falling rain, the driving wind, the vivid lightning—she plunged, making her way blindly through it all. It was well she knew the road she was traversing, and could pursue her way as well at midnight as at noonday, or she would never have been able to follow that tortuous, rocky path.
But, shrinking, and blinded by the rain, at times she was forced to stop and cover her face in her mantle; and anon, at some more furious blast that would have whirled her away as though she had been a feather, she grasped some projecting rock or tree, to protect herself from being blown over the crags; but still she toiled on to her destination.
"Will he be there?" she said, wildly. "Oh, if after all he should not come! It seems madness, for me to expect him in such a storm; but, if he should, it would never do for me to be absent. Oh, saints in heaven! what lightning," she said, as pale with terror, she hid her face in her hands.