"The Farthest Lantern," she writes, as a headline, for 't is certain that Danny before reading will wish to know what it is about; and then pleased with the successful beginning she holds it up to the shaded lamp to read over, then because of the wrinkled hands shaking lays it down on the table, surely as steady as rock.
Divil a thing can she make out except blots and scratches, so that the headline is done over with more care. And only then it becomes plain that what with the rheumatism and palsy Molly has written her last, except scratches, which the most credulous could not accept at all as a message of interest, y' understand.
Now well would it be for old Mistress Regan's memory if she had put aside the message with resignation and thought no more about it. But there is no doubt that the look of solemn wonder flitted suddenly from her face, leaving it haggard and fierce, and that like a stab with a dagger she drove the splintering pen into the desk as into the breast of an enemy. So much is known, for there is little done that can be screened from mortal ken.
As for her thoughts—here no man can tell, for she held her words behind grim set lips. But the guess cannot be far amiss that when old Molly discovered she was destined to die with never a word of warning or counsel to Dan she broke into bitter revolt. Not a word of all the wisdom she had stored with this one purpose could be written or spoken to him—and it never was. Far be it from me to blackguard an old lady fallen in with disappointment but it is a fact proved by witness that her trembling hands upraised and her lips, always so faintly smiling, curled as with a curse—and whether it was launched at the fiend or heaven itself is not for me to say who have no proof that her voice was heard above the howling of the blizzard.
But this I know, that on the instant she hears a summons that breaks the spell of anger as no threat of purgatory would have done. A moment she hesitates, the old hands sink unclenching, the fierceness fades from her eyes, and once again with wondering uplifted look Molly Regan turns to the things beyond, which no one else may see.
At the wide-open welcoming door she stands, peering amid the squall of snow; and there in the center of the blur of light stands Tim the messenger, in aftertime the ruin of Dan Regan's fortunes.
The boy's hands are clasped as those of a frozen corpse, the wind whistles in his rags, but he glowers at her with narrowed brows and a gleam of teeth. Here he is, come to demand retribution for her rebellion against the will of God, and since Molly cannot live to pay it is ordained that she shall give instead into Tim Cannon's hands the means of trampling under Dan Regan and his fortune. 'T is little we know.
"Come," says Molly, "come in to the fire, and the hot coffee; you are frozen with the wind and snow. Glory be, that I am still here to make comfortable for the waif on my doorstep."
The wisp of old woman in mourning dress, with blown white hair and out-stretched hand; the crackling hearth, and coziness of the room beyond—these are hostess and haven enough to any waif of winter tempest; and Molly knowing it to be so steps aside for him, laughing with eagerness to see him at the fireside, dry and warm in Danny's old clothes, sniffing the steam of his coffee cup.
But this is no ordinary outcast, y' understand, submissive to charity, but an agent of retribution, who stands with frozen folded hands, and wind whistling in his rags, looking on with a threatening manner. And when the moment has come for him to enter, and not until then, he stalks stiffly past the outheld hand to the center of the room and turns slowly in his tracks to study the features of the place, as an agent of destiny should always do. His pinched little face is dirty, his black hair tousled by the storm, which has blown away his cap; and now the lamp-light touching his temple reveals the deep scar there. A wild and awesome waif is this, and Molly studying with startled interest his behavior feels at last that she is entertaining some veteran campaigner of regions beyond Turntable to whom the mischances of earthly wandering in cold and snow are nothing.