The Wayfarers. Snaith John Collis

taken their repose with more singular feelings than did we upon that bank of earth. Whither we were going that night, and what was to become of us we did not know. There was the sum of twelvepence halfpenny between us and destitution, but even this could not avail us in such a solitary darkness, in the absence of a house and human aid. Happily the night was wonderfully mild, and we in our coats and stout boots were warmly clad. Otherwise we might have perished where we sat. The pains of fatigue, allied to the pangs of hunger, had bereft us of both the energy and the inclination to proceed. We must have tarried on that bank considerably beyond an hour, mutually consoling one another. For my part little Cynthia's courage almost reconciled me to these present circumstances, but you may be sure I was bitterly distressed for her. I had admitted her into my care, foolishly no doubt, and because there was scarcely an alternative; and this was the sort of provision I had to offer. Come what may, something must be done. The child could never be left to suffer thus. I must find food and a sanctuary of some sort for her.

      However, even as I pondered on our case, hunger and weariness did their worst.

      For some time I had known by Cynthia's failing answers and the heaviness with which she leant against me, that she was becoming more and more completely overborne. And I'll swear so monstrous brave she was that never a word of complaint passed her lips, nor yet a tear escaped her. And then her little head nestled up to my coat-sleeve, and the next moment she sighed and was dead asleep upon it. In spite of her resolution, the excitements, the distresses and the pains of that long day had overpowered her. Yet I dare not have her pass the night in this exposure on a moist bank of earth, with the night-wind playing on her face, and the clouds that had banked themselves over the moon for ever increasing and threatening to descend upon us in a drenching rain. Therefore, dire as my own case was, I roused myself to a desperate attempt to discover a meal and a lodging for the night.

      I had not the heart to try to arouse the poor child, as you may suppose; wherefore, disturbing her as little as I could, I gathered her in my arms, for after all her fine spirit she was but a feather of a thing, and carried her before me along the lane. It was an effort of despair, for the never-ending darkness revealed no glimpse of what I sought. Every now and then the wind brought a spatter of the expected rain; but this, when it came upon my lips, carried a kind of refreshment in it. I doggedly set my teeth and marched along with my warm burden, and I think the weight of responsibility that was in my arms, added to the one upon my heart, fostered a grim determination in me to succeed in my search at any cost. The lanes seemed interminable, and every one the same. All my limbs were one strange, numb ache; I had become so faint with hunger that I moved in a kind of delirium; and in the end every step I took became so mechanical a thing as to be an effort of the will without the co-operation of the senses.

      Heaven knows what the hour was when one of these lanes I had been eternally taking all night long ended in a partly-unhinged gate. My first instinct was to snatch an instant's rest upon it; but this I dared not do. I could never have set my paralysed limbs in motion again had I done so. Indeed it was but the presence of poor little Cynthia in my arms that prevented my sinking to the earth as I stood. But looking beyond the gate I could indistinctly define various dull masses that I believed to be the outline of haystacks or farm buildings. Brushing through the rickety gate with an accession of new strength that the idea had lent me, I had not proceeded many yards in the stubble-field beyond ere I knew that at last I had come to a farmstead. There was not a glimmer of light to be seen anywhere, nor could I make out in the total darkness which was the house itself. Approaching nearer it grew plain that these were farm buildings. Considering, however, my exhausted condition, the lateness of the hour, and the probability that the house was some distance off, I decided to make the best of what lay before me. No sooner had I taken this resolve, than the moon, as if in recognition of it, showed itself suddenly for the first time that night from out of its wrack of rain clouds. By its aid and the smell issuing from within I was made aware that I stood before the entrance to a cow-hovel.

      There was no door to it, therefore I was able to carry Cynthia straight in. The cows in their various stalls paid us hardly any attention as I groped my way past them. The place was of a somewhat considerable extent, and coming to the end of it, I discovered a space in the far corner where the clean straw was stored. Dispersing a bundle of it with my feet, I deposited my poor little one very gently into the warm bed thereby made. Careful as I had been not to disturb her, the change in her position had its effect. She gave the same sigh with which she had gone to sleep, and says:

      "Jack, Jack, where are you? I do believe I've been to sleep."

      "Then go to sleep again, my prettiness," says I.

      "But what is this?" says she. "This is surely not the bank of moist earth in the lane I went to sleep on. Where are we then? What place is this so warm and snug?" A rustle. "Straw!" A sniff. "A cow-shed! Oh dear, I am – ! Oh, could we – ! and, oh, Jack, dear, how did we get here?"

      The sound of Cynthia's voice and the knowledge that there was a roof for her head and a couch for her body at last, however mean they might be, did much to lift me out of my own sorry predicament. Faint and numb as I still was, my brain seemed to have its capacity restored. And at least I could gauge by my own sufferings those which Cynthia strove so valiantly to conceal.

      "Are you not hungry, little one?" says I.

      "Are you?" says she.

      "Most damnably so," says I.

      "Then I am too."

      Now I would have you mark that hunger is a great wit. Cynthia sniffed a second time. "Cows," says she. "Oh, what good fortune!"

      "But my dearest prettiness," says I, "hungry as we are I do not exactly see how these cows can help us. Although to be sure I will undertake to knock one down and skin it, and make the fire and such like menial offices, if you will cut it up and cook it."

      "Goose that you are," says Cynthia. "You almost deserve to perish of your emptiness. What about the milk?"

      "Odslife!" cries I, "to think that I should not have thought of that. Ye gods and little fishes, I must go find a pot, or a pail, or a pan to hold it in!"

      The happy prospect of such sustenance endowed us both with new vigour. Without more ado I began groping about in this moonlit hovel to discover these utensils. But it was no such easy matter. Look where I might, inside the place and outside of it, amongst the straw and fodder, or among the cows themselves, there was devil a pail that I could see. Yet so insistent was our case that we could not be put off by any small detail of this sort. We were both of us thoroughly awake by now and fully bent on assuaging our distresses. And Cynthia in particular showed her good resources.

      "Jack," says she, "give me your hat. It is bigger than mine."

      "To be sure," says I. "I had not thought of that. But I will go and do the milking. I do not choose that you undertake these menial offices, my pretty, like a common dairymaid."

      "I am afraid you can have no choice in the matter," says Cynthia, now thoroughly awakened and full of importance at the prospect. "You speak as though it were indeed the simplest thing in the world to milk a cow. 'Pon my word, sir, I would vastly like to see you at that exercise. It requires a mighty long apprenticeship, I would have you to know; and luckily I have had it during the time I have lived in Devonshire. Were it to be left to you, I am thinking we should come by precious little else than your good intentions."

      I bent my head in silence under this merited reproof. Our resolve was a brave one, for in the darkness and strangeness of the place it was not easy to carry it out. However, Cynthia, armed with my hat, if you please, was not the person to stick at trifles. She groped her way among the cows in a most valiant manner, and presently, having the good fortune to find one with a calf by its side, her task was made lighter than it might have been otherwise. I encumbered her with my assistance. The assistance in question consisted in holding the hat, while she performed the more delicate operation. And I could not help remarking that for a town miss, who in Saint James's Park or Bloomsbury had quite enough of airs, affectation and incapacity to pass as a person of the finest ton, she showed a degree of aptitude quite foreign to her quality.

      "It is rarely done," says I, as the hat grew weightier and weightier. "And I protest that you astonish me. It is as unmodish a performance as ever I saw. I wish some of your