It was the following year, and we were again at Crabb Cot. Fever had broken out at Dr. Frost’s, and the school was dismissed. The leaves were falling late that year, for November was nearly half through, and they strewed the ground. But if the leaves were late, the frost was early. The weather had come in curiously cold. Three days before the morning I am about to speak of, the warm weather suddenly changed, and it was now as freezing as January. It is not often that you see ice mingling with the dead leaves of autumn. Both the ice and the leaves have to do with what happened: and I think you often find that if the weather is particularly unseasonable, we get something by which to remember it.

At the corner of a field between our house and North Crabb, stood a small solitary dwelling, called Willow Brook Cottage: but the brook from which it took its name was dry now. The house had a lonely look, and was lonely; and perhaps that kept it empty. It had been unoccupied for more than a year, when the Squire, tired of seeing it so, happened to say in the hearing of James Hill, that new bailiff of ours, that he would let it for an almost nominal rent. Hill caught at the words and said he would be glad to rent it: for some cause or other he did not like the house he was in, and had been wanting to leave it. At least, he said so: but he was of a frightfully stingy turn, and we all thought the low rent tempted him. Hill, this working bailiff, was a steady man, but severe upon every one.

It was during this early frost that he began to move in. One morning after breakfast, I was taking the broad pathway across the fields to North Crabb, which led close by Willow Cottage, and saw Hill wheeling a small truck up with some of his household goods. He was a tall, strong man, and the cold was tolerably sharp, but the load had warmed him.

“Good morning, Master Johnny.”

“Making ready for the flitting, Hill?”

Hill wheeled the truck up to the door, and sat down on one of the handles whilst he wiped his face. It was an honest, though cross face; habitually red. The house had a good large garden at its side, enclosed by wooden palings; with a shed and some pigstys at the back. Trees overshadowed the palings: and the fallen leaves, just now, inside the garden and out were ankle-deep.

“A fine labour I shall have, getting the place in order!” cried Hill, pointing to some broken palings and the overgrown branches. “Don’t think but what the Squire has the best of the bargain, after all!”

“You’d say that, Hill, if he gave you a house rent-free.”

Hill took the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and we went in. This lower room was boarded; the kitchen was at the back; above were two fair-sized chambers. One of them looked towards Crabb Ravine; the other was only lighted by a skylight in the roof.

“You have had fires here, Hill!”

“I had ’em in every room all day yesterday, sir, and am going to light ’em again now. My wife said it must be done; and she warn’t far wrong; for a damp house plays the mischief with one’s bones. The fools that women be, to be sure!—and my wife’s the worst of ’em.”

“What has your wife done?”

“She had a bit of a accident yesterday, Master Johnny. A coming out with a few things for this place, she stepped upon some ice, and fell; it gave her ankle a twist, and she had to be helped home. I’m blest if she’s not a-saying now that it’s a bad omen! Because she can’t get about and help shift the things in here, she says we shan’t have nothing but ill-luck in the place.”

I had already heard of the accident. Hill’s wife was a little shrinking woman, mild and gentle, quite superior to him. She was a widow when he married her a short time ago, a Mrs. Garth, with one son, David. Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress at North Crab, was her sister. On the previous morning a letter had come from Worcester, saying their mother, Mrs. Timmens, was taken dangerously ill, and asking them to go over. Miss Timmens went; Hill refused for his wife. How could he get along at moving-time without her, he demanded. She cried and implored, but Hill was hard as flint. So she had to remain at home, and set about her preparations for removal; surly Hill was master and mistress too. In starting with the first lot of movables—a few things carried in her arms—the accident occurred. So that, in the helping to move, she was useless; and the neighbours, ever ready to take part in a matrimonial grievance, said it served Hill right. Any way, it did not improve his temper.

“When do you get in here, Hill?”

“To-morrow, Master Johnny, please the pigs. But for the wife’s awk’ardness we’d ha’ been in today. As to any help Davvy could give, it’s worth no more nor a rat’s; he haven’t got much more strength in him nor one neither. Drat the boy!”

Leaving Hill to his task, I went on; and in passing Mrs. Hill’s dwelling, I thought I’d give a look in to inquire after the ankle. The cottage stood alone, just as this other one did, but was less lonely, for the Crabb houses were round about. Davy’s voice called out, “Come in.”

He was the handiest little fellow possible for any kind of housework—or for sewing, either; but not half strong enough or rough enough for a boy. His soft brown eyes had a shrinking look in them, his face was delicate as a girl’s, and his hair hung in curls. But he was a little bit deformed in the back—some called it only a stoop in the shoulders—and, though fourteen, might have been taken for ten. The boy’s love for his mother was something wonderful. They had lived at Worcester; she had a small income, and he had been well brought up. When she married Hill—all her friends were against it, and it was in fact a frightful mistake—of course they had to come to North Crabb; but Davy was not happy. Always a timid lad, he could not overcome his first fear of Hill. Not that the man was unkind, only rough and resolute.

Davy was washing up the breakfast-things; his mother sat near, sorting the contents of a chest: a neat little woman in a green stuff gown, with the same sweet eyes as David and the same shrinking look in them. She left off when I went in, and said her ankle was no worse.

“It’s a pity it happened just now, Mrs. Hill.”

“I’d have given a great deal for it not to, sir. They call me foolish, I know; always have done; but it just seems to me like an omen. I had a few articles in my arms, the first trifles we’d begun to move, and down I fell on going out at this door. To me it seems nothing but a warning that we ought not to move into Willow Cottage.”

David had halted in his work at the tea-cups, his brown eyes fixed on his mother. That it was not the first time he had listened to the superstition, and that he was every whit as bad as she, might plainly be seen.

“I have never liked the thought of that new place from the first, Master Johnny. It is as if something held me back from it. Hill keeps saying that it’s a convenient dwelling, and dirt-cheap; and so it is; but I don’t like the notion of it. No more does David.”

“Oh, I dare say you will like it when you get in, Mrs. Hill, and David, too.”

“It is to be hoped so, sir.”

The day went on; and its after events I can only speak of from hearsay. Hill moved in a good many of his goods, David carrying some of the lighter things, Luke Macintosh was asked to go and sleep in the house that night as a safeguard against thieves, but he flatly refused, unless some one slept there with him. Hill ridiculed his cowardice; and finally agreed that David should bear him company.

He made the bargain without his wife. She had other views for David. Her intention was to send the lad over to Worcester by the seven-o’clock evening train; not so much because his bed and bedding had been carried off and there was nothing for him to sleep on, as that his dying grandmother had expressed a wish to see him. To hear then that David was not to go, did not please Mrs. Hill.

It was David himself who carried in the news. She had tea waiting on the table when they came in: David first, for his step-father had stopped to speak to some one in the road.

“But, David, dear—you must go to Worcester,” she said, when he told her.

“He will never let me, mother,” was David’s answer. “He says the things might be stolen if nobody takes care of them: and Macintosh is afraid to be there alone.”

She paused and looked at him, a thought striking her. The boy was leaning upon her in his fond manner, his hand in hers.

“Should you be afraid, David?”

“Not—I think—with Luke. We are to be in the same room, mother.”

But Mrs. Hill noticed that his voice was hesitating; his small weak hand trembled in hers. There was not a more morally brave heart than David Garth’s; he had had a religious training; but at being alone in the dark he was a very coward, afraid of ghosts and goblins.

“Hill,” said she to her husband when he stamped in, the lad having gone to wash his hands, “I cannot let David sleep in the other house to-night. He will be too timid.”

“Timid!” repeated Hill, staring at the words. “Why, Luke Macintosh will be with him.”

“David won’t like it. Macintosh is nothing but a coward himself.”

“Don’t thee be a fool, and show it,” returned Hill, roughly. “Thee’ll keep that boy a baby for his life. Davvy would as soon sleep in the house alone, as not, but for the folly put into his head by you. And why not? He’s fourteen.”

Hill—to give him his due—only spoke as he thought. That any one in the world, grown to fourteen and upwards, could be afraid of sleeping in a house alone, was to him literally incomprehensible.

“I said he must go over to Worcester to see mother, James,” she meekly resumed; “you know I did.”

“Well, he can’t go to-night; he shall go in the morning. There! He may stop with her for a week, an’ ye like, for all the good he is to me.”

“Mother’s looking for him to-night, and he ought to go. The dying——”

“Now just you drop it, for he can’t be spared,” interrupted Hill. “The goods might be stole, with all the loose characters there is about, and that fool of a Macintosh won’t go in of himself. He’s a regular coward! Davvy must keep him company—it’s not so much he does for his keep—and he may start for Worcester by daylight.”

Whenever Hill came down upon her with this resolute decision, it struck her timid forthwith. The allusion to the boy’s keep was an additional thrust, for it was beginning to be rather a sore subject. An uncle at Worcester, who had no family and was well to do, had partly offered to adopt the lad; but it was not yet settled. Davy was a great favourite with all the relatives; Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress, doted on him. Mrs. Hill, not venturing on further remonstrance, made the best of the situation.

“Davy, you are to go to Worcester the first thing in the morning,” she said, when he came back from washing his hands. “So as soon as you’ve been home and had a bit o’ breakfast, you shall run off to the train.”

Tea over, Hill went out on some business, saying he should be in at eight, or thereabouts, to go with Davy to the cottage. As the hour drew near, David, sitting over the fire with his mother in pleasant talk, as they loved to do, asked if he should read before he went: for her habit was to read the Bible to him, or cause him to read to her, the last thing.

“Yes, dear,” she said. “Read the ninety-first Psalm.”

So David read it. Closing the book when it was over, he sat with it on his knee, thoughtfully.

“If we could only see the angels, mother! It is so difficult to remember always that they are close around, taking care of us.”

“So it is, Davy. Most of us forget it.”

“When life’s over it will be so pleasant for them to carry us away to heaven! I wish you and I could go together, mother.”

“We shall each go when God pleases, David.”

“Oh yes, I know that.”

Mrs. Hill, remembering this little bit of conversation, word for word, repeated it afterwards to me and others, with how they had sat, and David’s looks. I say this for fear people might think I had invented it.

Hill came in, and they prepared to go to the other house. David, his arms full—for, of course, with things to be carried, they did not go out empty-handed—came suddenly back from the door in going out, flung his load down, and clasped his mother. She bent to kiss him.

“Good night, my dear one! Don’t you and Luke get chattering all night. Go to sleep betimes.”

He burst into tears, clinging to her with sobs. It was as if his heart were breaking.

“Are you afraid to go?” she whispered.

“I must go,” was his sobbing answer.

“Now then, Davvy!” called back Hill’s rough tones. “What the plague are you lagging for?”

“Say good-bye to me, mother! Say good-bye!”

“Good-bye, and God bless you, David! Remember the angels are around you!”

“I know; I know!”

Taking up his bundles, he departed, keeping some paces behind Hill all the way; partly to hide his face, down which the tears were raining; partly in his usual awe of that formidable functionary who stood to him as a step-father.

Arrived at the house, Hill was fumbling for the key, when some one came darting out from the shadow of its eaves. It proved to be Luke Macintosh.

“I was a-looking round for you,” said crusty Hill. “I began to think you’d forgot the time o’ meeting.”

“No, I’d not forgot it; but I be come to say that I can’t oblige you by sleeping there,” was Luke’s reply. “The master have ordered me off with the waggon afore dawn, and so—I’m a-going to sleep at home.”

Had I been there, I could have said the master had not ordered Luke off before dawn; but after his breakfast. It was just a ruse of his, to avoid doing what he had never relished, sleeping in the house. Hill suspected as much, and went on at him, mockingly asking if he was afraid of hobgoblins. Luke dodged away in the midst of it, and Hill relieved his anger by a little hot language.

“Come along, Davvy,” said he at last; “we must put these here things inside.”

Unlocking the door, he went in; and, the first thing, fell against something or other in the dark. Hill swore a little at that, and struck a light, the fire having gone out. This lower room was full of articles, thrown down out of hand; the putting things straight had been left to the morrow.

“Carry the match afore me, Davvy. These blankets must go upstairs.”

By some oversight no candles had been taken to the house; only the box of matches. David lighted one match after the other, while Hill arranged the blankets on the mattress for sleeping. This room—the one with the skylight—was to be David’s.

“There,” said Hill, taking the box of matches from him, “you’ll be comfortable here till morning. If you find it cold, you might keep on your trousers.”

David Garth stood speechless, a look of horror struggling to his face. In that first moment he dared not remonstrate; his awe of Hill was too great.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Hill, striking another match. “What ails you?”

“You’ll not leave me here, all by myself?” whispered the unhappy boy, in desperate courage.

“Not leave you here by yourself! Why, what d’ye think is to harm you? Don’t you try on your nonsense and your games with me, Master Davvy. I’m not soft, like your mother. Say your prayers and get to sleep, and I’ll come and let you out in the morning.”

By a dexterous movement, Hill got outside, and closed the door softly, slipping the bolt. The match in his fingers was nearly burnt out; nevertheless, it had shown a last faint vision of a boy kneeling in supplication, his hands held up, his face one of piteous agony. As Hill struck another match to light the staircase, a wailing cry mingled with the sound: entreaties to be let out; prayers not to be left alone; low moans, telling of awful terror.

“Drat the boy! This comes of his mother’s coddling. Hold your row, Davvy,” he roared out, wrathfully: “you’d not like me to come back and give you a basting.”

And Mr. James Hill, picking his way over the bundles, locked the outer door, and betook himself home. That was our respectable bailiff. What do you think of him?

“Did you leave Davy comfortable?” asked Mrs. Hill, when he got back.

“He’ll be comfortable enough when he’s asleep,” shortly answered Hill. “Of all hardened, ungrateful boys, that of yourn’s the worst.”

“Had Luke come when you got there?” she resumed, passing over the aspersion on Davy.

“He was waiting: he came right out upon us like an apparition,” was Hill’s evasive answer. And he did not tell the rest.

But now, a singular thing happened that night. Mrs. Hill was in a sound sleep, when a loud, agonized cry of “Mother” aroused her from it. She started up, wide awake instantly, and in terror so great that the perspiration began to pour off her face. In that moment the call was repeated. The voice was David’s voice; it had appeared to be in the room, close to her, and she peered into every corner in vain. Then she supposed it must have come through the window; that David, from some cause or other, had come home from Willow Brook, and was waiting to be let in. A dread crossed her of Hill’s anger, and she felt inclined to order the boy to go back again.

Opening the casement window, she called to him by name; softly at first, then louder. There was no answer. Mrs. Hill stretched out her head as far as the narrow casement allowed, but neither David nor anyone else could she see; nothing but the shadows cast by the moonlight. Just then the old church clock struck out. She counted the strokes and found it twelve. Midnight. It was bitterly cold: she closed the window at last, concluding David had gone off from fear of being punished. All she could hope was that he would have the sense, that dangerously keen night, to run off to the brick kilns, and get warm there.

But the terror lay upon her yet; she was unable to tell why or wherefore; unless from the strangely appealing agony of the cry; still less could she shake it off. It seemed odd. Hill awoke with the commotion, and found her trembling.

“What have ye got to be affrighted on?” he asked roughly, when she had told her tale. And Mrs. Hill was puzzled to say what.

“You had been a-dreaming of him, that’s what it was. You’ve got nothing else in your mind, day nor night, but that there boy.”

“It was not a dream; I am quite positive it was himself; I could not mistake his voice,” persisted Mrs. Hill. “He has come away from the cottage, for sure. Perhaps that Luke Macintosh might have got teasing him.”

Knowing what Hill knew, that the boy was locked in, he might safely have stood out that he could not have come away from it; but he said no more. Rolling himself round, he prepared to go to sleep again, resentful at having been awakened.

Hill overslept himself in the morning, possibly through the interrupted rest. When he went out it was broad daylight. David Garth’s being locked up half-an-hour more or less went for nothing with Hill, and he stayed to load the truck with some of the remainder of his goods.

“Send Davy home at once, James,” called out the wife, as he began to wheel it away. “I’ll give him his breakfast, and let him start off to the train.”

For, with daylight, and the sight of the door-key, Mrs. Hill could only reverse her opinion, and conclude unwillingly that it might have been a dream. Hill showed her the key, telling her that he had locked the door “for safety.” Therefore it appeared to be impossible that David could have got out.

The first thing Hill saw when he and his truck approached the cottage, was young Jim Batley, mounted on the roof and hammering away at the skylight with his freezing hands. Jim, a regular sailor for climbing, had climbed a tree, and thence swung himself on to the tiles. Hill treated him to some hard words, and ordered him to come down and get a licking. Down came Jim, taking care to dodge out of Hill’s reach.

“I can’t make David hear,” said Jim. “I’ve got to go to Timberdale, and I want him to go along with me.”

“That’s no reason why you should get atop of my roof,” roared Hill. “You look out for a sweet hiding, young Jim. The first time I get hold on you, you shall have it kindly.”

“He sleeps uncommon hard,” said Jim. “One ‘ud think the cold had froze him. I’ve got to take a letter to my uncle’s at Timberdale: we shall find a jolly good hot breakfast when we get there.”

Hill condescended to abate his anger so far as to inform Jim Batley that David could not go to Timberdale; adding that he was going off by train to see his grandmother at Worcester. Ordering Jim to take himself away, he unlocked the door and entered the cottage.

Jim Batley chose to stay. He was a tall, thin, obstinate fellow, of eleven, and meant to wait and speak to David. Given to following his own way whenever he could, in spite of his father and mother, it occurred to him that perhaps David might be persuaded to take Timberdale first and the train after.

He amused himself with the dead leaves while he waited. But it seemed that David took a long time dressing. The truck stood at the door; Jim stamped and whistled, and shied a few stones at the topmost article, which was Mrs. Hill’s potato saucepan. Presently Hill came out and began to unload, beginning with the saucepan.

“Where’s Davy?” demanded Jim, from a safe distance. “Ain’t he ready yet?”

“Now if you don’t get off about your business I’ll make you go,” was Hill’s answer, keeping his back turned to the boy. “You haven’t got nothing to stop here for.”

“I’m stopping to speak to Davy.”

“Davy was away out o’ here afore daylight and took the first train to Worcester. He’s a’most there by now.”

Young boys are not clever reasoners; but certain contradictory odds and ends passed through Jim’s disappointed mind. For one thing, he had seen Hill unlock the door.

“I don’t think he’s gone out yet. I see his boots.”

“What boots?” asked Hill, putting a bandbox inside the door.

“Davy’s. I see ’em through the skylight; they stood near the mattress.”

“Them was a pair of my boots as I carried here last night. I tell ye Davvy’s gone: can’t ye believe? He won’t be home for some days neither, for his grandmother’s safe to keep him.”

Jim Batley went off slowly on his way to Timberdale: there was nothing to stay for, Davy being gone. Happening to turn round, he caught Hill looking after him, and saw his face for the first time. It had turned white as death. The contrast was very remarkable, for it was usually of a deep red.

“Well, I never!” cried Jim, halting in surprise. “Mayhap the cold have took him! Serve him right.”

When Hill had got all the things inside he locked himself in, probably not to be disturbed while he arranged them. Mrs. Hill had been waiting breakfast ever so long when she heard the truck coming back.

“Whatever’s become of David?” she began. “I expected him home at once.”

“David has started for Worcester,” said Hill.

“Started for Worcester? Without his breakfast?”

“Now don’t you worry yourself about petty things,” returned Hill, crustily. “You wanted him to go, and he’s gone. He won’t starve; let him alone for that.”

The notion assumed by Mrs. Hill was, that her husband had started the boy off from the cottage direct to the train. She felt thoroughly vexed.

“He had all his old clothes on, Hill. I would not have had him go to Worcester in that plight for any money. You might have let the child come home for a bit of breakfast—and to dress himself. There was not so much as a brush and comb at the place, to make his hair tidy.”

“There’s no pleasing you,” growled Hill. “Last night you were a’most crying, cause Davvy couldn’t be let go over to see your mother; and, now that he is gone, that don’t please ye! Women be the very deuce for grumbling.”

Mrs. Hill dropped the subject—there could be no remedy—and gave her husband his breakfast in silence. Hill seemed to eat nothing, and looked very pale; at moments ghastly.

“Don’t you feel well?” she asked.

“Well?—I’m well enough. What should ail me—barring the cold? It’s as sharp a frost as ever I was out in.”

“Drink this,” she said, pouring him out another cup of hot tea. “It is cold; and I’m sorry we’ve got it so for our moving. What time shall we get in today, Hill?”

“Not at all.”

“Not at all!” repeated the wife in surprise.

“No, not at all,” was Hill’s surly confirmation. “What with you disabled, and Davvy o’ no use, things is not as forrard as they ought to be. I’ve got to be off to my work too, pretty quick, or the Squire’ll be about me. We shan’t get in till tomorrow.”

“But nearly all our things are in,” she remonstrated. “There’s as good as nothing left here.”

“I tell ye we don’t go in afore tomorrow,” said Hill, giving the table a thump. “Can’t ye be satisfied with that?”

He went off to his work. Mrs. Hill, accepting the change as inevitable, resigned herself, and borrowed a saucepan to cook the potatoes for dinner. She might have spared herself the trouble; her husband did not come in for any. He bought a penny loaf and some cheese, and made his dinner of it inside our home barn, Molly giving him some beer. He had done it before when very busy: but the work he was about that day was in no such hurry, and he might have left it if he would.

“Who is to sleep in the house to-night?” his wife asked him when he got home to tea.

“I shall,” said Hill............