HOW ANDREW CAME TO THE GRANGE BY NIGHT.

It was about a ten days after Mrs. Golding's death, and we were beginning to feel as if our desolation was a thing that had always been and always would be, for so I think it often seems when a grief is new. However desolate we were, we were not destitute; she who was gone had cared for that, and we found a modest dower secured to each of us, without injury to Andrew's rightful inheritance of the Grange and the lands belonging thereto; also we were to continue dwelling in the Grange till its new master should come home and make such dispositions as pleased him. But for all this we were greatly perplexed; we had been long without news of Andrew, and could not tell how to get word to him of Mrs. Golding's death.

On the day I speak of, we had been teased by a visit from Mrs. Bonithorne, who, professing great sorrow for our loss, and her own loss of one whom she called her oldest friend, soon fell to talking of Andrew, and how his unlucky doings were all owing to our good aunt's foolishness in entertaining so pestilent a heretic as James Westrop under her roof.

'I warned her of it,' quoth she; 'I said to her, "You will rue it yet, Margaret; with such an one you should have no dealings, no, not so much as to eat," and now see what has come of her perverseness!' and such-like stuff she said, which moved Grace Standfast to say disdainfully, when our visitor was gone, 'Yon woman surely owes us a little grudge, that 'twas our house and not hers which entertained so rare a monster as a wandering Quaker; she asked me twenty questions about him the day after, I remember it well; but we hardly had heart to laugh, though we were sure enough she had given no such warnings as she spake of. Althea only sighed and said, ''twas an evil day for her when she first saw that man;' and as she told me, his two appearances to us haunted her as she went to rest, and mingled themselves with her dreams. She woke at last sharply and suddenly, thinking she heard the hail rattling against the windows as it did when Mr. Truelocke preached his last sermon in our church; but it was not hail that rattled, it was some one throwing sand and pebbles up at her window to wake her, and then a voice calling on her name. She sprang up, and, hurrying on some clothes, she ran down-stairs; for, as she told me, she had no more doubt of its being Andrew who called, than if it had been broad daylight, and she could see him standing below the window; and, being too impatient to unlock any door, she undid the hasp of the nearest casement and climbed out; and at the same moment hearing a voice again calling softly, 'Althea,' she ran in the direction of the sound, and came upon a man whom in the starlight she saw to be Andrew indeed; she spoke his name, holding out both her hands, and he turning at once grasped them in both his, and so they stood gazing at each other awhile. Then she said, half sobbing,—

'You come strangely, Andrew—but you come to your own house, and I am glad that it falls to me to welcome you to it; it lacks a master sadly;' and she tried to draw him towards the door, telling him she would set it open if he would tarry a few minutes while she herself climbed in to do it.

'Alas!' he said, resisting her efforts; 'what do you mean by calling this my house? is our aunt indeed gone? I had hoped that part of the message might be a delusion.'

'What message? I sent none, for I knew not where to send, nor did any of us,' she replied; 'but it is too true that Mrs. Golding is dead these ten days; and all things are at a stand for lack of your presence. Come in; do not keep me here in the darkness and the cold.'

'I will not keep thee long,' he said sadly; 'fear it not, Althea. But I may not come under this roof which thou sayest is mine. I saw the dim light in your window,' he went on, like one talking in a dream, 'and I could not bear to pass by and make no sign, as I ought to have done. For I love thee too well, Althea Dacre, as thou knowest.'

'How can it be too well,' she answered boldly, 'if you do not love me better than I do you? and therefore come in to your own home, or I will not believe there is any love in you at all.'

'That's a foolish jest,' said he half angrily. 'I may not cross the doorstone of this house to-day, Althea; I am forbidden; so hear me say what I came to say. There is a heavy burden laid on me. For seven nights together I saw in vision a dark terrible angel, having his wings outspread and holding in his hand a half-drawn glittering sword; he was hovering over this land of England; and it was shown me that he was a messenger of wrath bidden to smite the land with a pestilence. Now there be those far holier than I who have seen the like vision; but to me came the word that I must go up to London, where this year the plague shall be very sore, and as I go I must warn all men, that they may repent and amend, before this judgment fall on them.'

There was that in his voice and words that made Althea tremble like a leaf; she did not disbelieve in his visions while she heard him; but she strove against the impression, and cried out, when she could find her voice, that this was indeed madness.

'You have no right,' she said, 'to desert your natural and lawful duties, and your poor kinswomen too, who are desolate; you will break our hearts, you will ruin yourself, and all for a delusion.'

'It is no delusion,' said he; 'your own words, Althea, have confirmed to me the truth of my mission. For it was said to me, "This shall be a sign to thee, that Margaret, the widow of thy father's brother, lies sick even to death; and thou shalt see her face no more, nor come under her roof." And is it not so? for her face is buried out of our sight,'—his voice shook,—'so dost not see, Althea, I may not come in as thou wouldst have me? Furthermore, I believe my earthly pilgrimage shall come to its end in London; I cannot be sure; but, I think, I return no more alive. That is why I hungered so for one last look at thee, Althea; also I wished as a dying man to entreat thee not to despise the Lord's poor people any more. Now I must go; farewell, dear heart, for ever;' and with these words he assayed to go; but, as she told me afterwards, she clutched at his coat, passionately protesting he should never go; and when he unlocked her hands, and besought her not to hinder him, she dropt on the ground at his feet, clasped him round the knees, and called on me with all her might.

'Help, Lucia! help, sister!' were the words that woke me, and sent me flying with breathless speed to the place whence the call came. I climbed through the window which I found open, and ran to the spot where I could discern that a struggle was going on; but as I came up Andrew had got himself loosed; and, saying low and thickly to me,—

Look to your sister, take her in instantly.

'Look to your sister, take her in instantly,' he turned and fled as a man might flee for his life, while Althea threw herself on the cold ground, moaning and sobbing like a creature mortally hurt. I took her in my arms and raised her up, asking her, all amazed, was that indeed Andrew? but she did nothing but wring her hands and implore me to follow him and fetch him back; and I had much trouble to persuade her that was useless and hopeless for us at that hour of the night. At last she was won to rise and return to the house; and we both found it a difficult matter to get in where we had got out easily enough; which Mr. Truelocke, I doubt not, would have moralized in his pleasant way into a sort of holy parable. But I have not that gift, and I suppose 'twas the hope in Althea's breast and the fear in mine which had raised our powers for a moment and made a hard thing easy.

When we had recovered a little, and had got safely to my room, Althea recollected herself and told me every word that had passed; and we both agreed that Andrew was running himself into new and strange dangers in pursuance of what he held as a Divine call. I noted it as a new thing in Althea, that she could no longer scoff at this belief of his in the inward heavenly voice that must be obeyed; but this matter was very terrible to us; and we talked of it till daylight, without coming to any conclusion as to what we were best to do about it.