“Stay back; you have brought snow enough into the hall without spoiling the parlor carpet, too,” Mrs. Martha said, angrily; then, going to her husband, whose purpose she divined, she continued; “Charles, are you crazy, to think of going out in this storm?”

“But, my dear,” the rector began, meekly, “if the poor old man is dying—­and Hannah would never have sent in such a storm unless she thought so—­if he is dying and desires the comfort of the communion, shall I refuse it to him because of a little inconvenience to myself?  No, no; I have not so learned Christ.  Please bring me my coat, Martha, and my boots, and the little communion service.”

“A pretty time of day to think of that, just as the candle is burned to the snuff,” Mrs. Martha retorted.  “Here for years you have exhorted and entreated him to be confirmed, and he has resisted all your appeals with the excuse that for him to go to the Lord’s table would be a mortal sin; and now, just at the last, in such a storm, he sends for you.  I consider it an insult to his Creator and to you, too.”

“Will you please bring my coat and boots and things?  I can never quite find them myself,” was all the rector said, and knowing that further opposition was useless, Mrs. Martha went in quest of the boots and overshoes, and coat and overcoat and muffler, and fur cap and mittens, and heavy shawl, in which she enveloped her husband, lamenting that there was not ready a hot soap-stone for his feet, which were sure to suffer.

But the little man did not need the soap-stone; he had the warmest, kindest, most unselfish heart that ever beat in a human breast, and never thought of the storm, as he waded through the deep snow and took his seat beside Burton Jerrold in the sleigh, which Sam drove rapidly toward the farm-house in the pasture.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HORROR AT THE FARM-HOUSE.

When Hannah reached home the gray November afternoon was already merging into the dark night, which was made still darker by the violence of the increasing storm, and never had Hannah’s home seemed so desolate and dreary as it did when the sleigh turned from the highway into the cross-road which lead to it, and she saw through the gathering gloom the low, snow-covered roof and the windows from which no welcoming light was shining.  It had been so bright, and cheerful, and warm in the drawing-room at Grey’s Park, and here all was cold, and cheerless, and dark, as she went into the house with a vague presentiment of the horror awaiting her.

Entering through the wood-shed she stumbled upon Sam, who was sitting on a pile of wood, and who said to her: 

“I guess your father is mighty bad.  I didn’t go near him till I heard him groaning and praying, and taking on so, that I opened the door and asked if he wanted anything.  Then he jumped out of bed and told me to be gone, spying on him, and he locked the door on me, and I heard him as if he was under the bed trying to tear up the floor, and I ran out here, for I was afraid.”