"Oh," gasped Emily, "I never saw anything so wonderful!"
She groped wildly in her bag and clutched her Jimmy-book. The post of a field-gate served as a desk... Emily licked a stubborn pencil and wrote feverishly. Ilse squatted on a stone in a fence corner and waited with ostentatious patience. She knew that when a certain look appeared on Emily's face she was not to be dragged away until she was ready to go. The sun had vanished and the rain was beginning to fall again when Emily put her Jimmy-book back into her bag, with a sigh of satisfaction.
"I HAD to get it, Ilse."
"Couldn't you have waited till you got to dry land and wrote it down from memory?" grumbled Ilse, uncoiling herself from her stone.
"No... I'd have missed some of the flavour then. I've got it all now... and in just exactly the right words. Come on... I'll race you to the house. Oh, smell that wind... there's nothing in all the world like a salt sea-wind... a savage salt sea-wind. After all, there's something delightful in a storm. There's always SOMETHING... deep down in me... that seems to rise and leap out to meet a storm... wrestle with it."
"I feel that way sometimes... but not to-night," said Ilse. "I'm tired... and that poor baby... "
"Oh!" Emily's triumph and exultation went from her in a cry of pain. "Oh... Ilse... I'd forgotten for a moment... how could I! WHERE can he be?"
"Dead," said Ilse harshly. "It's better to think so... than to think of him alive still... out to-night. Come, we've got to get in somewhere. The storm is on for good now... no more showers."
An angular woman panoplied in a white apron so stiffly starched that it could easily have stood alone, opened the door of the house on the hill and bade them enter.
"Oh, yes, you can stay here, I reckon," she said, not inhospitably, "if you'll excuse things being a bit upset. They're in sad trouble here."
"Oh... I'm sorry," stammered Emily. "We won't intrude... we'll go somewhere else."
"Oh, we don't mind YOU, if you don't mind US. There's a spare room. You're welcome. You can't go on in a storm like this... there isn't another house for some ways. I advise you to stop here. I'll get you a bit of supper... I don't live here... I'm just a neighbour come to help 'em out a bit. Hollinger's my name... Mrs. Julia Hollinger. Mrs. Bradshaw ain't good for anything... you've heard of her little boy mebbe."
"Is this where... and... he... hasn't... been found?"
"No... never will be. I'm not mentioning it to her"... with a quick glance over her shoulder along the hall... "but it's my opinion he got in the quicksands down by the bay. That's what I think. Come in and lay off your things. I s'pose you don't mind eating in the kitchen. The room is cold... we haven't the stove up in it yet. It'll have to be put up soon if there's a funeral. I s'pose there won't be if he's in the quicksand. You can't have a funeral without a body, can you?"
All this was very gruesome. Emily and Ilse would fain have gone elsewhere... but the storm had broken in full fury and darkness seemed to pour in from the sea over the changed world. They took off their drenched hats and coats and followed their hostess to the kitchen, a clean, old-fashioned spot which seemed cheerful enough in lamp-light and fire-glow.
"Sit up to the fire. I'll poke it a bit. Don't mind Grandfather Bradshaw... Grandfather, here's two young ladies that want to stay all night."
Grandfather stared stonily at them out of little, hazy, blue eyes and said not a word.
"Don't mind him"... in a pig's whisper... "he's over ninety and he never was much of a talker. Clara... Mrs. Bradshaw... is in there"... nodding towards the door of what seemed a small bedroom off the kitchen. "Her brother's with her... Dr. McIntyre from Charlottetown. We sent for him yesterday. He's the only one that can do anything with her. She's been walking the floor all day but we've got her persuaded to lie down a bit. Her husband's out looking for little Allan."
"A child CAN'T be lost in the nineteenth century," said Grandfather Bradshaw, with uncanny suddenness and positiveness.
"There, there now, Grandfather, I advise YOU not to get worked up. And this is the twentieth century now. He's still living back there. His memory stopped a few years ago. What might your names be? Burnley? Starr? From Blair Water? Oh, then you'll know the Murrays? Niece? Oh!"
Mrs. Julia Hollinger's "Oh" was subtly eloquent. She had been setting dishes and food down at a rapid rate on the clean oil-cloth on the table. Now she swept them aside, extracted a table-cloth from a drawer of the cupboard, got silver forks and spoons out of another drawer, and a handsome pair of salt and pepper shakers from the shelves.
"Don't go to any trouble for us," pleaded Emily.
"Oh, it's no trouble. If all was well here you'd find Mrs. Bradshaw real glad to have you. She's a very kind woman, poor soul. It's awful hard to see her in such trouble. Allan was all the child she had, you see."
"A child can't be LOST in the nineteenth century, I tell you," repeated Grandfather Bradshaw, with an irritable shift of emphasis.
"No... no," soothingly, "of course not, Grandfather. Little Allan'll turn up all right yet. Here's a hot cup o' tea for you. I advise you to drink it. THAT'LL keep him quiet for a bit. Not that he's ever very fussy... only everybody's a bit upset... except old Mrs. McIntyre. Nothing ever upsets HER. It's just as well, only it seems to me real unfeeling. 'Course, she isn't just right. Come, sit in and have a bite, girls. Listen to that rain, will you? The men will be soaked. They can't search much longer to-night... Will will soon be home. I sorter dread it... Clara'll go wild again when he comes home without little Allan. We had a terrible time with her last night, pore thing."
"A child can't be lost in the NINETEENTH century," said Grandfather Bradshaw... and choked over his hot drink in his indignation.
"No... nor in the twentieth neither," said Mrs. Hollinger, patting him on the back. "I advise you to go to bed, Grandfather. You're tired."
"I am NOT tired and I will go to bed when I choose, Julia Hollinger."
"Oh, very well, Grandfather. I advise you not to get worked up. I think I'll take a cup o' tea in to Clara. Perhaps she'll take it now. She hasn't eaten or drunk since Tuesday night. How can a woman stand that... I put it to you?"
Emily and Ilse ate their supper with what appetite they could summon up, while Grandfather Bradshaw watched them suspiciously, and sorrowful sounds reached them from the little inner room.
"It is wet and cold to-night... where is he... my little son?" moaned a woman's voice, with an undertone of agony that made Emily writhe as if she felt it herself.
"They'll find him soon, Clara," said Mrs. Hollinger, in a sprightly tone of artificial comfort. "Just you be patient... take a sleep, I advise you... they're bound to find him soon."
"They'll never find him." The voice was almost a scream, now. "He is dead... he is dead... he died that bitter cold Tuesday night so long ago. O God, have mercy! He was such a little fellow! And I've told him so often not to speak until he was spoken to... he'll never speak to me again. I wouldn't let him have a light after he went to bed... and he died in the dark, alone and cold. I wouldn't let him have a dog... he wanted one so much. But he wants nothing now... only a grave and a shroud."