Chapter XXVI.—Safe Home.
ONE fine afternoon, a few weeks after the storm of which we have given an account in the last chapter, old Mrs. Varley was seated beside her own chimney corner in the little cottage by the lake, gazing at the glowing logs with the earnest expression of one whose thoughts were far away. Her kind face was paler than usual, and her hands rested idly on her knee, grasping the knitting-wires to which hung a half-finished stocking.
On a stool near to her sat young Marston, the lad to whom, on the day of the shooting-match, Dick Varley had given his old rifle. The boy had an anxious look about him, as he lifted his eyes from time to time to the widow's face.
"Did ye say, my boy, that they were all killed?" inquired Mrs. Varley, awaking from her reverie with a sigh.
"Every one," replied Marston. "Jim Scraggs, who brought the news, said they wos all lying dead with their scalps off. They wos a party o' white men."
Mrs. Varley sighed again, and her face assumed an expression of anxious pain as she thought of her son Dick being exposed to a similar fate. Mrs. Varley was not given to nervous fears, but as she listened to the boy's recital of the slaughter of a party of white men, news of which had just reached the valley, her heart sank, and she prayed inwardly to Him who is the husband of the widow that her dear one might be protected from the ruthless hand of the savage.
After a short pause, during which young Marston fidgeted about and looked concerned, as if he had something to say which he would fain leave unsaid, Mrs. Varley continued, "Was it far off where the deed was done?"
"Yes; three weeks off, I believe. And Jim Scraggs said that he found a knife that looked like the one wot belonged to—to—" the lad hesitated.
"To whom, my boy? Why don't ye go on?"
"To your son Dick."
The widow's hands dropped by her side, and she would have fallen had not Marston caught her.
"O mother dear, don't take on!" he cried, smoothing down the widow's hair as her head rested on his breast.
