Seated at the foot of the family table was Peter Davidson. He could see the garden path through the window.
“Hallo! mother,” he exclaimed, dropping his knife and fork, “there is Little Bill or his ghost coming up the track.”
“Impossible, Peter,” said the good lady, with, however, a look of anxiety which showed she believed that, or something else, to be quite possible.
“Look for yourself, mother,” cried Peter, springing up and running out.
“It is Billie,” said Jessie, reflecting her mother’s anxiety; “what can have brought them back so soon?”
Peter re-entered at the moment with Little Bill in his arms. He set the boy down and again ran out.
Taking the widow’s trembling hand in both of his, Billie addressed her as “mother,” like the rest of the family.
“Dan has been hurt,” he said, in his soft way, “and he’s come home to get well. They will bring him up directly.”
“Is he too ill to walk?” asked the widow.
“No, not too ill—but too weak,” answered the matter-of-fact Billie. “Indeed he is not ill at all, but he has lost a heap of blood, for they shot him.”