Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/86

82 of him under the blue light, something familiar in his face or form quickened the beating of her heart, and made her turn to look back at him; but it was too dark for her to see more than the indistinct figure of a man hurrying away in the direction of Slopperton. Wondering who could be leaving Blind Peter on such a night and at such an hour, she hastened back to carry her lover the wine.

The old woman still sat before the hearth. The sputtering candle had gone out, and the light from the miserable little fire only revealed the dark outlines of the wretched furniture and the figure of Jim's grandmother, looking, as she sat mumbling over the broken teacup, like a wicked witch performing an incantation over a portable cauldron.

The girl hurried to the bed-side—the sick man was not there.

"Grandmother! Jim—Jim! Where is he?" she asked, in an alarmed voice; for the figure she had met hurrying through the storm flashed upon her with a strange distinctness. "Jim! Grandmother! tell me where he is, or I shall go mad! Not gone—not gone out on such a night as this, and in a burning fever?"

"Yes, lass, he's gone. My precious boy, my darling boy. His dead mother was my only child, and he's gone for ever and ever, and on this dreadful night. I'm a miserable old woman."

No other explanation than this, no other words than these, chattered and muttered again and again, could the wretched girl extort from the old woman, who, half imbecile and more than half tipsy, sat grinning and grunting over the teacup till she fell asleep in a heap on the cold damp hearth, still hugging the empty teacup, and still muttering, even in her sleep,—

"His dead mother was my only child; and it's very cruel it should come to this at last, and on such a night."

morning after the storm broke bright and clear, promising a hot summer's day, but also promising a pleasant breeze to counterbalance the heat of the sun. This was the legacy of the storm, which, dying out about three o'clock, after no purposeless fury, had left behind it a better and purer air in place of the sultry atmosphere which had heralded its coming.

Mr. Joseph Peters, seated at breakfast this morning, attended by Kuppins nursing the "fondling," has a great deal to say by means of the dirty alphabet (greasy from the effects of matutinal bacon) about last night's storm. Kuppins has in nowise altered since we last saw her, and four months have made no change in