The Children's Pilgrimage Part 25

OUTSIDE CAEN.

The morning after this little conversation between Joe and Cecile broke so dismally, and was so bitterly cold, that the old woman with whom the children had spent the night begged of them in her patois not to leave her. Joe, of course, alone could understand a word she said, and even Joe could not make much out of what very little resembled the _Bearnais_ of his native Pyrenees; but the Norman peasant, being both kind and intelligent, managed to convey to him that the weather looked ugly; that every symptom of a violent snowstorm was brewing in the lowering and leaden sky; that people had been lost and never heard of again in Normandy, in less severe snowstorms than the one that was likely to fall that night; that in almost a moment all landmarks would be utterly obliterated, and the four little travelers dismally perish.

Joe, however, only remembering France by what it is in the sunny south, and having from his latter life in London very little idea of what a snowstorm really meant, paid but slight heed to these warnings; and having ascertained that Cecile by no means wished to remain in the little wayside cottage, he declared himself ready to encounter the perils of the way.

The old peasant bade the children good-by with tears in her eyes.

She even caught up Maurice in her arms, and said it was a direct flying in the face of Providence to let so sweet an angel go forth to meet "certain destruction." But as her vehement words were only understood by one, and by that one very imperfectly, they had unfortunately little result.

The cottage was small, close, and very uncomfortable, and the children were glad to get on their way.

Soon after noon they reached the old town of Caen. They had walked on for two or three miles by the side of the river Orne, and found themselves in old Caen before they knew it. Following strictly Cecile's line of action, the children had hitherto avoided all towns --thus, had they but known it, making very little real progress. But now, attracted by some washer-women who, bitter as the day was, were busy was.h.i.+ng their clothes in the running waters of the Orne, they got into the picturesque town, and under the shadow of the old Cathedral.

Here, indeed, early as it was in the day, the short time of light seemed almost to have disappeared. The sky--what could be seen of it between the tall houses of the narrow street--looked almost black, and little flakes of snow began to fall noiselessly.

Here Joe, thinking of the Norman peasant, began to be a little alarmed. He proposed, as they had got into Caen, that they should run no further risk, but spend the night there.

But this proposition was met by tears of reproach by Cecile. "Oh, dear Jography! and stepmother did say, never, never to stay in the big towns--always to sleep in the little inns. Caen is much, much too big a town. We must not break my word to stepmother--we must not stay here."

Cecile's firmness, joined to her great childish ignorance, could be dangerous, but Joe only made a feeble protest.

"Do you see that old woman, and the little la.s.s by her side making lace?" he said. "That house don't look big; we might get a night's lodging as cheap as in the villages."

But though the little Norman girl of seven nodded a friendly greeting to pretty brown-eyed Maurice as he pa.s.sed, and though the making of lace on bobbins must be a delightful employment, Cecile felt there could be no tidings of Lovedy for her there; and after partaking of a little hot soup in the smallest cafe they could come across, the little pilgrims found themselves outside Caen and in the desolate and wintry country, when it was still early in the day.

Early it was, not being yet quite two o'clock; but it might have been three or four hours later to judge by the light. The snow, it is true, had for the present ceased to fall, but the blackness of the sky was so great that the ground appeared light by comparison. A wind, which sounded more like a wailing cry than any wind the children had ever heard, seemed to fill the atmosphere.

It was not a noisy wind, and it came in gusts, dying away, and then repeating itself. But for this wailing wind there was absolutely not a sound, for every bird, every living creature, except the three children and the dog, appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth. Maurice, not caring about the weather, indifferent to these signal flags of danger, was cross, for he wanted to talk 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 att.i.tude 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 circ.u.mstance.

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 m.u.f.fled 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.