Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/63

56 hands and bade her go and lay it reverently on the dark unmarked mound where the snow was displaced.

Nello and Patrasche went home with broken hearts. But even of that poor, melancholy, cheerless home they were denied the consolation. There was a month's rental over-due for the little place, and when Nello had paid the last sad service to the dead he had not a coin left. He went and begged grace of the owner of the hut, a cobbler who went every Sunday night to drink his pint of wine and smoke with Baas Cogez. The cobbler would grant no mercy. He was a harsh, miserly man, and loved money. He claimed in default of his rent every stick and stone, every pot and pan, in the hut, and bade Nello and Patrasche to be out of it on the morrow.

Now, the cabin was lowly enough, and in some sense miserable enough, and yet their hearts dove to it with a great affection. They had been so happy there, and in the summer, with its clambering vine and its flowering beans, it was so pretty and bright in the midst of the sun-lighted fields! Their life in it had been full of labour and privation, and yet they had been so well content, so gay of heart, running together to meet the old man's never-failing smile of welcome!