A Knocking at Nightfall
What would have befallen me if I had been left long alone in that great and evil city I know not, for I had no wits left to make any plans for myself. At nightfall, however, there came once more a knocking, and when I opened the door my father stood on the threshold. There seemed no strangeness in his presence, and I fell into his arms weeping, so that he, seeing how grievous had been my punishment, forbore to make any reproach.
The next day began our journey home, and I have never since returned to London; but when I got back to the place I had so foolishly left I found it sadder than before. Many friends were gone away or dead. Some honest lads, with whom I had jested at fair-times, hung withering on the ghastly gallows by the wayside; others lay in unknown graves; others languished in gaol or on board ship. My father's own brother, though his life was spared, had been sent away to the plantations to be sold, and to work as a slave.
It was some time before Tom Windham—that had, at considerable risk to himself, sent my father to fetch me—ventured to settle again in his old place; and for a long time after that he was shy of addressing me.
But I was changed now as much as he was. I had seen what the world was, and knew the value of an honest love in it. So that, in the end, we came to an understanding, and have been married these many years.
Girl Life in Canada
BY