"There is no one now on the island but the child, and they will be half-an-hour at supper; they will not stir for half-an-hour! Now is my chance, or never!"
Her heart throbbed painfully; she was so excited that she tottered in her walk. She was afraid to run lest she should attract the attention of people passing along Welford Road at the top of the street.
Everything depended on speed. She had been down here twice before, and found that one of the staples of a padlock securing a gate had rusted loose in the jamb. Without the floating-stage for a bridge, this discovery was useless; without the absence of her husband from the island, or unless he was sunk in profound sleep, the loose staple and the stage-bridge would be of little avail. But here, owing to some extraordinary and beneficent freak, all three combined in her interest to-night!
Not a second was to be lost. Already she was working fiercely at the loose staple. It was rusted and worn, and the wood was decayed all round it, but still it clung to the post, as a loose tooth to the gum.
She seized it with both her hands, although there was hardly room for one hand, and swayed it this way and that until her breath came short and the blood trickled from her fingers.
No doubt it was yielding, but would it come away in time? She had not hours to accomplish the task. She had only minutes, and every minute lost was stolen from the time she might bend over her darling, watching, devouring his lovely face, and listening to his innocent breathing, and feeling his sweet baby breath upon her cheek!
O, this was horrible! Break iron! break wood! break fingers! break arm! but let this poor distracted outcast mother into the presence of her child for the last time, for one parting sight, one parting kiss, in secret and fear!
At last the staple yielded and came away in her hand, and in another moment, after a few gratings and squealings, which turned her cold, lest they should be heard, the unhappy mother forced open the door and passed through.
In another moment she was across the bridge and on the land which her love for her little one had made dearer to her from afar off than ever Canaan was to the desert-withered Israelites of old.
There was light enough to walk without stumbling. She knew the lie of the place as well as it could be learned without absolutely treading the ground. She took her way rapidly round the wall of the old timber-yard and then across the little open space to the cottage. She observed no precaution now, but went on impetuously, headlong.