"Mr. Wilton will be here soon; he is getting the carriage, to take your
sister home."
"I will go and help him, if you don't mind being left"; and he looked
inquiringly.
"There's no danger. I shall not fall asleep," I said.
"She's harmless now, poor child! If we can only get her back safely!"
And with these words he left me again.
Sophie came up soon, quite fearless now. She brought a variety of
comforting things, among them a pillow. Miss Axtell was too much
exhausted to open her eyes, or speak. I thought two or three times that
she had ceased to breathe. What if she should die here? They came. She
was lifted up, and borne down to the carriage, that waited outside the
graveyard. Helpless ones are carried in often: never before (it might
be) had one been taken thence. And still the village-people seemed to be
buried in rest.
Sophie and I walked on, whilst slowly the carriage proceeded to the
gable-roofed, high-chimneyed house, that arose, well defined and clear,
in the early sunlight. Smoke was rising from the kitchen-fire. Sophie
and I went in, just as the carriage stopped. She waited to receive the
invalid, whilst I went up to see if the absence had been discovered. It
was but little more than an hour since Mr. Axtell and I had gone out.
Evidently there had been no visitors. The wood that had been put on the
fire before I left had gone down into glowing coals that looked warm and
inviting. I kneeled and stirred them to a brighter glow, and put on more
wood, my fingers very stiff the while. I drew back the curtains from the
bed, smoothed the pillows, and the disorder occasioned by our hasty
exodus, and went down. Aaron and Mr. Axtell had carried the poor invalid
to the library, and laid her upon the sofa there, but it was very cold.
The fire was not yet built.
There was a sound of some one coming from the kitchen-way. Mr. Axtell
looked at me. "You know how to keep a secret," he said, and motioned me
in the direction whence came the sound, I hurried out, closing the door,
and met Katie running up to know "what had happened?"
I sent her back on some slight pretext, and followed whither she went. I
heard the cook mumblingly scolding about "noises in the night, dogs
barking and doors shutting, she knew; such a house as it was, with
people dying, getting sick, and putting every sort of a bothersome dream
into a quiet body's head, that wanted to rest, just as she worked, like
a Christian." And all the while she went on making preparations for a
future breakfast.
"What was 't now that ye heard? Kate, you're easy enough at hearing o'
noises in the broad daylight: I wish 't ye would be as harksome at
night."
"Hush, Cooky!" said Katie; "Miss Percival is here."
I went up to Cooky and soothed her, told her that I had heard the dog
barking too, and that I thought that I _did_ hear something like the
shutting of a door in the night. Cooky rewarded my efforts at sympathy
by expressing gladness "that there was one sensible person in the house
that had ears fit for Christian purposes."
"Don't mind her, Miss Percival," Katie said; "she's cross because I
wakened her too early; she'll get over it when she has had her
breakfast"
I gave Katie something to do, telling her to make coffee for Miss Axtell
as soon as possible; and with a few more words, meant to be conciliating
to Cooky, I took up the glass Katie brought me, and went back.
They had carried Miss Axtell up-stairs. Sophie was taking her wrappings
off. How carefully she had guarded herself, even in her illness, for the
walk! and now, all the nerve of fever gone, she lay as white and
strengthless as she had done in the tower. I went for Doctor Eaton, on
my own responsibility.
"He would come in a few minutes," was the message to me.