The early days of January were shadowed by Lady Chantrey's illness.
I fancy that over all hung the presentiment that it would bear her away
from our midst, and there was no home in Camslove or Becklington, nor a
heart in any of the far-scattered farms around them, but would be the
sadder for the loss.
And on a January afternoon she kissed Madge for the last time.
To Madge it seemed that heaven and earth alike had become black and
desolate, for ever, as she sobbed upon the bed-clothes, and besought her
mother to come back.
The household was too overwhelmed, and itself too sorrow-stricken to
take much notice at first of the child, and for an hour or more she lay
with her arms about her mother's neck.
Then, at last, she slipped from the bed and stole out into the dusk. A
thin rain was falling over the country-side, but she hardly noticed it
as she crossed the barren fields and stumbled through the naked hedges.
At the ploughing she stopped.
Something in the long, relentless furrows seemed to speak to her of the
finality of it all, and it was only when she flung herself down upon the
upturned earth that, as to all in sorrow, the great mother put forth her
words of cheer to her, as who should say:
"See, now, the plough is set, the furrow drawn, and the old life hidden
away; and who can make it any more the same? But Spring, little girl, is
surely coming, and even, after long months, harvest."
Down the path, across the fields, came Tommy, dangling a contented
catapult, and ruminating on the day's successes.
As he passed the ploughing he stopped, and gave a low whistle of
surprise--then guessed quickly enough what had happened. Madge lay
stretched out, face downwards, upon the black loam, and for a moment
Tommy stood perplexed.
Then he called, in a low voice, almost as he would have spoken in a
church:
"Madge, Madge."
But she did not move.
He knelt beside her, and some strange instinct bade him doff his cap.
Then he touched her shoulder and her black hair, with shy fingers.
"Madge," he called, again.
The child jumped to her feet, and tossing back her hair, looked at him
with half-frightened eyes.
He noticed that her cheeks were stained with the soft earth, and he saw
tears upon them.
Tommy had never willingly kissed anyone in his life--he had not known a
mother--but now, without thought or hesitation--almost without
consciousness, for he was still very much a child--he laid his arms
about her neck and kissed her cheek--once, twice.
But what he said to her only the great night, and the old plough, know.