“Yes,” said the boy; and in imagination the cottage dame saw this same mother, a careworn, hard-working creature like herself; while the youthful guest saw in imagination a beautiful and courtly lady; and both saw the same love, the same anxiety, the same terror, at sight of a lonely boy struggling in the moonlight through breaking ice, with no one to help him, catching at the frozen reeds, and then creeping up, shivering and benumbed, to a cottage door.
But, even as she stooped, the woman forgot her imagination, for she had taken a waistcoat into her hands, such as had never passed between them before; a gold pencil-case dropped from the pocket; and on the floor amidst a heap of mud that covered the outer garments, lay a white shirt sleeve, so white, indeed, and so fine, that she thought it could hardly be worn by a squire!
She glanced from the clothes to the owner. He had thrown down his cap, and his fair curly hair and broad forehead convinced her that he was of gentle birth; but while she hesitated to sit down, he placed a chair for her, and said with boyish frankness:
“I say, what a lonely place this is! If you had not let me in, the water would have frozen me before I reached home. Catch me duck-shooting again by myself!”
“It’s very cold sport that, sir,” said the woman.
The young gentleman assented most readily, and asked if he might stir the fire.
“And welcome, sir,” said the woman.
She felt a curiosity to know who he was, and he partly satisfied her by remarking that he was staying at Deen Hall, a house about five miles off, adding that in the morning he had broken a hole in the ice very near the decoy, but it iced over so fast, that in the dusk he had missed it, and fallen in, for it would not bear him. He had made some landmarks, and taken every proper precaution, but he supposed the sport had excited him so much that in the moonlight he had passed them by.
He then told her of his attempt to get shelter in the other cottage.
“Sir,” said the woman, “if you had said you were a gentleman——”