CHAPTER IV.

The Watcher.

IN the meantime, Widow Carey sat hour after hour in her little cottage, watching and waiting for the return of her son. She had laid the supper ready, the home-made loaf on the spotless cloth, the red herrings which she had bought that afternoon as a dainty for John after his long tiring walk. Though Mrs. Carey had had no refreshment since noon but a cup of weak tea, she would not taste the food before her, till John should be present to share it.

Many a time Widow Carey rose, went to the door, and looked down the lane, hoping to see the tall form which she knew so well ascending the hill; many a time she fancied that she heard his blithe whistle in the distance, and stirred her little fire, and put on the kettle, that John might have something warm to drink after being out so long in the damp night air.

A very long time Widow Carey waited, and it was to her all the longer from the anxious thoughts which were her companions. Hard as she tried to draw comfort from prayer, to assure herself that God would direct her and her son, and bring everything right in the end, the shadow of approaching troubles lay heavy that night on the widow. She could not help picturing to herself John at the bar of the "Jolly Ploughboys," constantly associating with a man of Brace's loose and dangerous views, and a girl who never so much as gave a thought to religion. Mrs. Carey pictured John gradually becoming more careless and worldly, more cold in his affection towards herself, more neglectful of his duty towards God. The widow dreaded her son's being exposed to temptations from which she had no power to guard him, temptations to which his easy, unsuspicious nature would especially expose him.

"Oh! If I could but have the comfort of knowing that my boy had given himself, heart and soul, to his God—I think I could bear any hardship or trial!" sighed the widow, as she sat thinking, with her hand pressed over her eyes.

"He's such a loving son, such a brave, noble, generous man, he has kept so steady, he has worked so hard, I don't wonder that he feels less than others might feel the need of a Saviour to forgive, and of the Holy Spirit to guide him. But there's only one path that leads us to Heaven, and the Lord Himself has told us that that path is a narrow one. We can't walk on it, yet go on our own way, we can't follow two guides at once who would take us in opposite directions; and oh! If we wilfully stray but ever so little from the path which God has marked out, 'tis in the nature of things that we should wander off farther and farther. There's no standing still in the journey of life; our course each day must be upward or downward, and I'm afraid, how sorely afraid, that my darling is entering upon one that will not have a blessing upon it."

Time passed on, midnight was near; Mrs. Carey grew a little alarmed. Certainly John might have been tempted to tarry for the night in London, which offered so many amusements, but she had never known him do so before. He might have been persuaded by Dick Brace to join some jovial party, and sit drinking to a late hour; the widow had never known John give way to intemperance, but the doubt which would rise in her mind, made her more uneasy and restless than ever.

At last the poor mother could no longer stop in her cottage, suspense was more than she could bear; she could not sleep, she could not rest, she lighted her little lamp and went forth into the darkness, in the faint hope of meeting her son.

Chill fell the night rain upon the slight form of the widow. Even to herself, it seemed as if she were bound on a useless errand, and yet her heart impelled her to go on. Her steps were on withered autumn leaves which the night wind blew over her path; their rustle as they fell was the only sound which reached the ear of the mother. Twice she stopped and half resolved to go back, then went on her dark dreary way.

Presently the gaze of the widow fell on a dark object indistinctly seen on the road; Mrs. Carey's heart throbbed faster, and she quickened her steps. The light of her lamp fell on something which seemed at once to stop the beating of that heart altogether, and to curdle the very blood in her veins!

Then from her lips burst a loud wild cry for help, a cry which startled and aroused sleepers in the cottage next to her own, so piercing and shrill it sounded on the still midnight air. In a few minutes, but to the mother they seemed like hours, forms were seen hurrying through the darkness, and kindly voices answered the repeated cry for aid. Widow Carey was found kneeling on the road by the senseless body of her son, supporting his head upon her knees, and, with trembling fingers, trying to staunch the blood which flowed from a deep gash in the young man's brow.