The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence until they returned.
The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A venerable building—grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An ancient sundial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the snowdrift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the melancholy night.
A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, they came to a stand again.
The village street—if street that could be called which was an irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the path—was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.
His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that unseasonable hour, wanting him.
“ ’Tis hard weather this,” he grumbled, “and not a night to call me up in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this season. What do you want?”
“I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,” said Kit.
“Old!” repeated the other peevishly. “How do you know I am old? Not so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find many young people in worse case than I am. More’s the pity that it should be so—not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon though,” said the old man, “if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes are not good at night—that’s neither age nor illness; they never were—and I didn’t see you were a stranger.”
“I am sorry to call you from your bed,” said Kit, “but those gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can direct us?”
“I should be able to,” answered the old man, in a trembling voice, “for come next summer I have been sexton here good fifty years. The right-hand path, friend, is the road.—There is no ill news for our good gentleman, I hope?”
Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.
“What is that?” cried the child, earnestly. “Has my dream come true? Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.”
“Poor boy!” said the sexton, before Kit could answer, “how goes it, darling?”
“Has my dream come true?” exclaimed the child again, in a voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. “But no, that can never be. How could it be—Oh! how could it!”
“I guess his meaning,” said the sexton. “To thy bed again, dear boy!”
“Ay!” cried the child, in a burst of despair, “I knew it could never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked. But all tonight, and last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.”
“Try to sleep again,” said the old man, soothingly. “It will go, in time.”
“No no, I would rather that it stayed—cruel as it is, I would rather that it stayed,” rejoined the child. “I am not afraid to have it in my sleep, but I am so sad—so very, very, sad.”
The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit was again alone.
He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.
It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a star. Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.
“What light is that!” exclaimed the younger brother.
“It is surely,” said Mr. Garland, “in the ruin where they live. I see no other ruin hereabouts.”
“They cannot,” returned the brother hastily, “be waking at this late hour—”
Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was shining and try to ascertain if any
