“No, my son, not to-night.  To-morrow you shall go and stay all day, but not to-night, in this storm.”

Very unwillingly Grey yielded, and saw his father depart without him.

“How is my father?  How does he seem?” Mr. Jerrold asked of the boy Sam, who replied: 

“I don’t know; I have not seen him.  He would not even let me in this afternoon when Miss Hannah was gone.  He locked the door, and I heard him working at something on the floor by his bed, as if trying to tear up the plank.  He was there when Miss Hannah came home and found him.  I guess he is pretty crazy.  But here we are at the minister’s, I was to stop for him, you know.  You will have to hold the horse.  I sha’n’t be long,” and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass knocker.

The Rev. Mr. Sanford, who had for many years been rector of the little church in Allington, was taking his evening tea with his better-half, Mrs. Martha Sanford, a little, plump, red-faced woman, with light gray eyes and yellow hair, who ruled her husband with a rod of iron, and would have ruled his parish if they had not rebelled against her.  With all her faults, however, she took excellent care of her lord and master, and looked after his health as carefully as she did after his household interests; and on this particular night, because he had complained of a slight hoarseness to which he was subject, she had at once enveloped his throat with folds of red flannel, under which was a slice of salt pork, her favorite remedy for all troubles of a bronchial nature.  And, in his warmly wadded dressing-gown and padded slippers, the reverend man sat enjoying his tea and crisp slices of toast, which Mrs. Martha prepared for him herself, when the sound of the brass knocker startled them both, and made Mrs. Martha start so suddenly that the slice of bread she was toasting dropped from the fork upon the hot coals, where it was soon reduced to ashes.

“Who can be pounding like that on such a night as this?” she asked, as she hastened to open the hall-door, which admitted such a gust of wind that she came near shutting it in Sam’s face.

But the boy managed to crowd into the hall, and shaking a whole snow-bank of snow from his cap and coat, he began: 

“If you please, ma’am, old Mr. Jerrold is very bad indeed, and Miss Hannah wants the minister to come right off.  Mr. Burton Jerrold is out in the sleigh, waiting for him, and says he must hurry.”

“Mr. Sanford go out such a night as this!  It’s impossible!  He is half sick now.  What does old Mr. Jerrold want?” Mrs. Sanford said, sharply; and Sam replied, as he shook down another mass of snow upon the carpet: 

“Don’t know; the Sacrament, mebby, as I guess he’s going to die,” and the boy advanced a step or two into the warmly lighted room, where the rector, who had risen to his feet, was beginning to divest himself of his dressing-gown.