Stephen Grattans Faith | Page 9

of her little brothers, that she might get their breakfast first and then hurry away.
CHAPTER FOUR.
HELP IN THE HOUR OF NEED.
The breakfast was prepared and eaten, such as it was. Sophy made all things neat, and kept the baby while her mother dressed herself, and then she prepared for her walk to the village. But she was not to struggle through the snow that day. Just as she was bidding her good-bye, they were startled by the sound of voices quite near, and the boys rushed out in time to see a yoke of oxen plunging through the drift that rose like a wall before the door. The voice of Stephen Grattan fell like music on their ears. The things were come at last, and plenty of them. There were bags and bundles manifold, and a great round basket of Dolly Grattan's, well known to the little Morelys as capable of holding a great many good things, for it had been in their house before.
"I don't know as you would speak to me, if you knew all, mother," said Stephen at last, approaching Mrs Morely, who was sitting by the fire with her baby in her arms. "You are all alive, I see,--at least the boys are. How is baby, and my little Sophy? Why, what ails the child?"
He might well ask; for Sophy was lying limp and white across the baby's cot. Poor little Sophy! The reaction from those terrible fears--the doubt that her father had forgotten them, and the fear of what might become of them all--was too much for her, weakened as she was by anxiety and want of food. She had borne her burden well, but her strength failed her when it was lifted off. It was only for a moment. As Stephen lifted her on the bed, she opened her eyes, and smiled.
"Mother, dear, it is nothing,--only I'm so glad." Her eyes closed again wearily.
"That ain't just the way my folks show how glad they be," said Stephen, as she turned her face on her pillow to hide her happy tears.
"She's hungry," said Ned, gravely. "There wasn't much; and she didn't eat any dinner yesterday--nor much supper."
"Now I know you'll have nothing to say to me," said Stephen. "These things--the most of them, at least--might have been here, as well as not, the night your husband went away, if I had done my duty, as I promised."
"Thank God!" she murmured as she grasped Stephen's hand. "He did not forget us. The rest is as nothing."
"And," continued Stephen with a face which ought to have been radiant, but which was very far from that, "the very last word he said to me that night, when I bade him good-bye, was, `I'll hold on to the end.'"
And, having said this, Stephen seemed to have nothing more to say. He betook himself to the preparation of dinner with a zeal and skill that put all Sophy's attempts to help him quite out of the question. How the dinner was enjoyed need not be told. Breakfast the boys called it, in scornful remembrance of the gruel. There were very bright faces round the table. The only face that had a shadow on it was Stephen's; and that only came when he thought no one was looking at him. He was in a great hurry to get away, too, it seemed.
"For the roads are awful; and you may be thankful, little Sophy, that you hadn't to go to Littleton to-night. I started to bring the things on a hand-sled, but would never have got through the drifts if it hadn't a' been for Farmer Jackson and his oxen. Don't you try it yet a while. I'll be along again with Dolly one of these days."
Stephen Grattan's face might have been brighter, as he turned to nod to the group of happy children watching his departure at the door of the log cottage. The "good-byes" and the "come agains" sent after him did make him smile a little, but only for a moment. The shadow fell darker and darker on his face, as he made his way through the scarcely-open road in the direction of the village. For Stephen's heart was very heavy, and with good cause. Sad as had been his first sight of the sorrowful mother and her children, he had seen a sadder sight that day. In the dim grey of the bitter morning he had caught a glimpse of a crouching, squalid figure hurrying with uncertain yet eager steps-- whither? His heart stood still as he asked himself the question, "To the foot-bridge over Deering Brook? To the gaping hole beyond?"
Stephen Grattan had not what is called "a rapid mind." He was not bold to dare, nor strong to do. But in the single minute that passed