It was now late, perhaps about twelve o'clock, and the storm was at its height, when the fears of the two lonely sisters were suddenly wrought up to a horrible climax, by a loud rapping at the door, which, again, was instantly followed by the sound of a voice imploring admittance. In the first moment of alarm, the women leaped from their seats and flew to different corners of the apartment, screaming hideously, having no doubt that their fatal dream was now about to be realised. From this terror, however, they were gradually in some measure relieved by the supplicatory language and tones of the person seeking admittance.
"For God's sake, open the door!" he said—for it was the voice of a man—"or I must perish. I have already travelled fifteen miles in the storm, and am now so benumbed and exhausted that I cannot move another step. Open the door, I say, if you have the smallest spark of humanity in you, and give me shelter till daylight."
Somewhat reassured by these appeals, which had in them so little of a hostile character, and to which circumstances gave so truthful a complexion, Jane, the younger of the two sisters, asked the elder, in a low voice, what they should do. "Shall we admit him?" she said; "for it really seems to be a person in distress, and it would be cruel to refuse him shelter in such a night as this. We could never forgive ourselves, Mary, if the poor man should perish in the storm."
"It is true, Jane," replied her sister—"we could not indeed. We will admit him, and trust the result to God. He will not allow a deed of charity and benevolence to be turned into an instrument of crime." Saying this, Mary approached the door, and, placing her hand on the bar, put one other query ere she undid it. "Are you," she said, addressing the person without—"are you really in the situation you represent yourself to be?"
"Before God, I am!" replied the voice from without, emphatically. "Admit me for heaven's sake! You have nothing to fear from me."
In the next instant the bolt was withdrawn, the door flew open, and in walked a man in the garb of a soldier. The brass plate on his cap glittered in the light of the lamp held by the younger sister, who stood at some distance from the door, and from beneath the greatcoat he wore peeped the dreaded red livery of the king. One fearful and simultaneous shriek from the sisters, as they fled frantically into the interior of the house, told of this horrid realisation of their dreams. The soldier, in the meantime, walked into the kitchen; but any one who should at this instant have marked his countenance, would have seen very little in it to indicate the fell purpose for which there seemed good reason to fear he had come. He was, in truth, a young, handsome, and singularly good-looking man, with a face expressive of great good-nature and mildness of disposition. Little regarding these indications of a character so different from that which occupied their minds, the sisters continued to express their horror and alarm in wild shrieks, and in the most piteous appeals for mercy. On their bent knees they implored it; offering all they had, if their lives were only spared. The soldier, benumbed and exhausted though he was, seemed to forget his own sufferings in contemplating what he appeared to consider as a most extraordinary and unaccountable scene—the terrified sisters on their knees, imploring his mercy.
"Good women," he at length said, "what is the meaning of this? What are you afraid of? Is there anything in my appearance so dreadful as to excite this extraordinary alarm? If there be, I never knew it before; and am very sorry to find it out now. I am sure I intend you no harm—none in the world. God forbid I should! I am but too grateful to you for having opened your door to me; and but too happy to get near this cheerful fire."
Again somewhat calmed by these friendly expressions, so different from what they had expected, the sisters ceased their frantic cries for mercy; and, though yet far from being reconciled to their tremendous visiter, they became a little more composed when the soldier, perceiving the effects of his disclamations, followed them up by repeated assurances of the perfect innocence of his intentions, and of the perfectly accidental and harmless nature of his visit. These asseverations, delivered, as they were, in a mild and conciliatory tone, eventually induced the sisters not only to look with less alarm on their unwelcome guest, but to desire him to take a seat by the fire. We will not say, however, that this act of kindness was dictated by pure benevolence. We will not say that it was not done more with a view to disarm their still dreaded visiter of any hostile intentions he might entertain towards them, than from any feeling of compassion. Be this as it may, however, the soldier, after throwing off his snow-covered greatcoat, gladly availed himself of the invitation of his hostesses, and sat him down before the fire.
"Now, my good friends," he said, after having warmed himself a little, and having still further abated the terrors of the sisters by more kind and gentle words, "will you be so good as tell me why you were so much afraid of me when I first entered the house?—for I cannot understand it—seeing that you yourselves opened the door, and of your own accord, and must, therefore, have been prepared to see somebody or other. Was it my cap and red coat that frightened you so? Come, tell me now, candidly."
The sisters looked to each other with a faint smile, and an air of embarrassment; but with an expression of inquiry which said as plainly as an unspoken expression could say it—"Shall we tell him?"