The Children's Pilgrimage by L. T. Meade (novels to read in english txt) 📕

to the little lacemaker, and to learn how to manage her bobbins.

Cecile was wondering how soon they should reach a very small village, and find a night's shelter in a tiny inn. Joe, better appreciating the true danger, was full of anxious forebodings and also self-reproach, for allowing himself to be guided by a child so young and ignorant as Cecile. Still it never occurred to him to turn back.

After all, it was given to Toby to suggest, though, alas! when too late, the only sensible line of action. For some time, indeed ever since they left Caen, the dog had walked on a little ahead of his party, with his tail drooping, his whole attitude one of utter despondency.

Once or twice he had looked back reproachfully at Cecile; once or twice he had relieved his feelings with a short bark of utter discomfort. The state of the atmosphere was hateful to Toby. The leaden sky, charged with he knew not what, almost drove him mad. At last he could bear it no longer. There was death for him and his, in that terrible, sighing wind. He stood still, got on his hind legs, and, looking up at the lowering sky, gave vent to several long and unearthly howls, then darting at Cecile, he caught her dress between his teeth, and turned her sharp round in the direction of Caen.

If ever a dog said plainly, "Go back at once, and save our lives," Toby did then.

"Toby is right," said Joe in a tone of relief; "something awful is going to fall from that sky, Cecile; we must go back to Caen at once."

"Yes, we must go back," said Cecile, for even to her rather slow mind came the knowledge that a moment had arrived when a promise must yield to a circumstance.

They had left Caen about a mile behind them. Turning back, it seemed close and welcome, almost at their feet. Maurice, still thinking of his little lacemaker, laughed with glee when Joe caught him in his arms.

"Take hold of my coat-tails, Cecile," he said; "we must run, we may get back in time."

Alas! alas! Toby's warning had come too late. Suddenly the wind ceased—there was a hush—an instant's stillness, so intense that the children, as they alone moved forward, felt their feet weighted with lead. Then from the black sky came a light that was almost dazzling. It was not lightning, it was the letting out from its vast bosom of a mighty torrent of snow. Thickly, thicker, thicker—faster, faster—in great soft flakes it fell; and, behold! in an instant, all Caen was blotted out. Trees vanished, landmarks disappeared, and the children could see nothing before them or behind them but this white wall, which seemed to press them in and hem them round.

CHAPTER VI. IN THE SNOW.

So sudden was the snowstorm when it came, so complete the blinding sense of the loss of all external objects, that the children stood stunned, not fearing, because they utterly failed to realize. Maurice, it is true, hid his pretty head in Joe's breast, and Cecile clung a little tighter to her young companion. Toby, however, again seemed the only creature who had any wits about him. Now it would be impossible to get back to Caen. There was, as far as the little party of pilgrims were concerned, no Caen to return to, and yet they must not stand there, for either the violence of the storm would throw them on their faces, or the intense cold would freeze them to death. Onward must still be their motto. But where? These, perhaps, were Toby's thoughts, for certainly no one else thought at all. He set his keen wits to work. Suddenly he remembered something. The moment the memory came to him, he was an alert and active dog; in fact, he was once more in the post he loved. He was the leader of the expedition. Again he seized Cecile's thin and ragged frock; again he pulled her violently.

"No, no, Toby," she said in a muffled and sad tone; "there's no use now, dear Toby."

"Foller him, foiler him; he has more sense than we jest now," said Joe, rousing himself from his reverie.

Toby threw to the tall boy the first grateful look which had issued from his brown eyes. Again he pulled Cecile, and the children, obeying him, found themselves descending the path a little, and then the next moment they were in comparative peace and comfort. Wise Toby had led them to the sheltered side of an old wall. Here the snow did not beat, and though eventually it would drift in this direction, yet here for the next few hours the children might at least breathe and find standing room.

"Bravo, Toby!" said Joe, in a tone of rapture; "we none of us seen this old wall; why, it may save our lives. Now, if only the snow don't last too long, and if only we can keep awake, we may do even yet."

"Why mayn't we go to sleep?" asked Cecile; "not that I am sleepy at two o'clock in the day."

"Why mayn't we go to sleep?" echoed Joe. "Now, Missie, dear, I'm a werry hignorant boy, but I knows this much, I knows this much as true as gospel, and them as sleeps in the snow never, never wakes no more. We must none of us drop asleep, we must do hevery think but sleep—you and me, and Maurice and Toby. We must stay werry wide awake, and 'twill be hard, for they do say, as the cruel thing is, the snow does make you so desperate sleepy."

"Do you mean, Joe Barnes," asked Cecile, fixing her earnest little face on the tall boy, "that if we little children went to sleep now, that we'd die? Is that what you mean by never waking again?"

Joe nodded. "Yes, Missie, dear, that's about what I does mean," he said.

"To die, and never wake again," repeated Cecile, "then I'd see the Guide. Oh, Joe! I'd see Him, the lovely, lovely Jesus who I love so very much."

"Oh! don't think on it, Miss Cecile; you has got to stay awake—you has no call to think on no such thing, Missie."

Joe spoke with real and serious alarm. It seemed to him that Cecile in her earnest desire to see this Guide might lie down and court the sleep which would, alas! come so easily.

He was therefore surprised when she said to him in a quiet and reproachful tone, "Do you think I would lie down and go to sleep and die, Jography? I should like to die, but I must not die just yet. I'm a very, very anxious little girl, and I have a great, great deal to do; it would not be right for me even to think of dying yet. Not until I have found Lovedy, and given Lovedy the purse of gold, and told Lovedy all about her mother, then after that I should like to die."

"That's right, Missie; we won't think on no dying to-night. Now let's do all we can to keep awake; let's walk up and down this little sheltered bit under the wall; let's teach Toby to dance a bit; let's jump about a bit."

If there was one thing in all the world poor Toby hated more than another, it was these same dancing lessons. The fact was the poor dog was too old to learn, and would never be much good as a dancing dog.

Already he so much dreaded this new accomplishment which was being forced upon him, that at the very word dancing he would try and hide, and always at least tuck his tail between his legs.

But now, what had transformed him? He heard what was intended distinctly, but instead of shrinking away, he came forward at once, and going close to Maurice's side, sat up with considerable skill, and then bending forward took the little boy's hat off his head, and held it between his teeth.

Toby had an object. He wanted to draw the attention of the others to Maurice. And, in truth, he had not a moment to lose, for what they dreaded had almost come to little Maurice—already the little child was nearly asleep.

"This will never do," said Joe with energy. He took Maurice up roughly, and shook him, and then drawing his attention to Toby, succeeded in rousing him a little.

The next two hours were devoted by Cecile and Joe to Maurice, whom they tickled, shouted to, played with, and when everything else failed, Joe would even hold him up by his legs in the air.

Maurice did not quite go to sleep, but the cold was so intense that the poor little fellow cried with pain.

At the end of about two hours the snow ceased. The dark clouds rolled away from the sky, which shone down deep blue, peaceful, and star-bespangled on the children. The wind, also, had gone down, and the night was calm, though most bitterly cold.

It had, however, been a very terrible snowstorm, and the snow, quite dazzling white, lay already more than a foot deep on the ground.

"Why, Cecile," said Joe, "I can see Caen again."

"Do you think we could walk back to Caen now, Joe?"

"I don't know. I'll jest try a little bit first. I wish we could. You keep Maurice awake, Cecile, and I'll be back in a minute."

Cecile took her little brother in her arms, and Joe disappeared round the corner of the old wall.

"Stay with the children, Toby," he said to the dog, and Toby stayed.

"Cecile," said Maurice, nestling up close to his sister, "'tisn't half so cold now."

He spoke in a tone of great content and comfort, but his sweet baby voice sounded thin and weak.

"Oh, yes! Maurice, darling, it's much colder. I'm in dreadful pain from the cold."

"I was, Cecile, but 'tis gone. I'm not cold at all; I'm ever so comfortable. You'll be like me when the pain goes."

"Maurice, I think we had better keep walking up and down."

"No, no, Cecile, I won't walk no more. I'm so tired, and I'm so comfortable. Cecile, do they sing away in the South?"

"I don't know, darling. I suppose they do."

"Well, I know they sing in heaven. Mammie Moseley said so. Cecile, I'd much rather go to heaven than to the South. Would not you?"

"Yes, I think so. Maurice, you must not go to sleep."

"I'm not going to sleep. Cecile, will you sing that pretty song about glory? Mrs. Moseley used to sing it."

"That one about 'thousands of children?'" said Cecile.

"Yes—singing, 'Glory, glory, glory.'"

Cecile began. She sang a line or two, then she stopped. Maurice had fallen a little away from her. His mouth was partly open, his pretty eyes were closed fast and tight. Cecile called him, she shook him, she even cried over him, but all to no effect, he was fast asleep.

Yes, Maurice was asleep, and Cecile was holding him in her arms.

Joe was away? and Toby?—Cecile was not very sure where Toby was.

She and her little brother were alone, half buried in the snow. What a dreadful position! What a terrible danger!

Cecile kept repeating to herself, "Maurice is asleep, Maurice will never wake again. If I sleep I shall never wake again."

But the strange thing was that, realizing the danger, Cecile did not care. She was not anxious about Joe. She had no disposition to call to Toby. Even the purse of gold and the sacred promise became affairs of little moment. Everything grew dim to her—everything indifferent. She was only conscious of a sense of intense relief, only sure that the dreadful, dreadful pain from the cold in her legs was leaving her—that she, too, no longer felt the cold of the night. Jesus the Guide seemed very, very near, and she fancied that she heard "thousands of children" singing, "Glory, glory, glory."

Then she remembered no more.

CHAPTER VII. TOBY AGAIN TO THE RESCUE.

Meanwhile Joe was struggling in a snowdrift. Not ten paces away he had suddenly sunk down up to his waist. Notwithstanding his rough hard life, his want of food, his many and countless privations, he was a strong lad. Life was fresh and full within him. He would not, he could not let it go cheaply. He struggled and tried hard to gain a firmer footing, but although his struggles certainly kept him alive, they were hitherto unavailing. Suddenly he heard a cry, and was conscious that something heavy was springing in the air. This something was Toby, who, in agony at the condition of Cecile and Maurice, had gone in search of Joe. He now leaped on to the lad's shoulder, thus by no means assisting his efforts to free himself.

"Hi, Toby lad! off! off!" he shouted; "back to the firm ground,