“Yes, I’m freezing,” sobbed Winnie.  “I don’t like the country one bit.”

“This is different from the Eden of which we have been dreaming,” I thought grimly.  Then I shouted, “How much farther, Mr. Jones?”

The howling of the wind was my only answer.  I shouted again.  The increasing violence of the tempest was the only response.

“Robert,” cried my wife, “I don’t hear Mr. Jones’s voice.”

“He has only gone on a little to explore,” I replied, although my teeth chattered with cold and fear.

“Halloo—­oo!” I shouted.  The answering shriek of the wind in the trees overhead chilled my very heart.

“What has become of Mr. Jones?” asked my wife, and there was almost anguish in her tone, while Winnie and Bobsey were actually crying aloud.

“Well, my dear,” I tried to say, reassuringly, “even if he were very near to us we could neither see nor hear him.”

Moments passed which seemed like ages, and I scarcely knew what to do.  The absence of all signs of Mr. Jones filled me with a nameless and unspeakable dread.  Could anything have happened to him?  Could he have lost his way and fallen into some hole or over some steep bank?  If I drove on, we might tumble after him and perish, maimed and frozen, in the wreck of the wagon.  One imagines all sorts of horrible things when alone and helpless at night.

“Papa,” cried Merton, “I’ll get out and look for Mr. Jones.”

“You are a good, brave boy,” I replied.  “No; you hold the reins, and I’ll look for him and see what is just before us.”

At that moment there was a glimmer of light off to the left of us.

CHAPTER XIII

RESCUED AND AT HOME

All that the poets from the beginning of time have written about light could not express my joy as I saw that glimmer approaching on the left.  Before it appeared I had been awed by the tempest, benumbed with cold, shivering in my wet clothes, and a prey to many terrible fears and surmises; but now I cried, “Cheer up; here comes a light.”

Then in my gladness I shouted the greeting that met Mr. Jones everywhere, “How are you, John?”

A great guffaw of laughter mingled with the howl of the storm, and my neighbor’s voice followed from the obscurity:  “That’s famous—­ keepin’ up your courage like a soldier.”

“Oh, I won’t brag about keeping up my courage.”

“Guess you didn’t know what had become of me?”

“You’re right and we didn’t know what was to become of us.  Now aren’t we nearly home?  For we are all half frozen.”

“Just let me spy a bit with the lantern, and I’ll soon tell you everything.”  He bobbed back and forth for a moment or two like a will-o’-the-wisp.  “Now turn sharp to the left, and follow the light.”

A great hope sprung up in my heart, and I hushed Winnie’s and Bobsey’s crying by saying, “Listen, and you’ll soon hear some good news.”