Norston's Rest

who stood at the door of his house chafing and annoyed by the disappearance of his son with the new horse that had j

ach of the poor hunter, that had found its way home and was wandering about the enclosure

ition of the lamed animal, a sudden panic seized upon him. He hurried into the house with strange pallor on his sunburned face and a tremor of the knees, which made him

s appearance, came up to

e empty," he said, in reply to her look. "I must go to the village, or

estioned the poor woman, shaking from head to foot, as she supported hersel

ll soon know"-was his

and put on his hat and went hurriedly through the door; and there she sat trembling unt

of her fears, and strengthened her for kindly exertion. "

lp to anything in distress. Taking up the lantern, which was still alight, she went toward the stable, and there limping out of the darkness met the wounded horse. An active housewife like Mrs. Storms re

here he lay down wearily; "but no bones are broken. Oh, if he could only speak now and

he pathetic and almost human appeal in the great wild eyes of the wounded horse, tears partaking of compassion as well as grief swelled into drops and ran down her face in comforting abundance. So, patting the poor beast on his soiled neck, she we

e could not sit down in her accustomed place and wait, but turned from the threshold heart-sick, and, still holding the lantern, wandered up and down a lane that ran half a mile before it reached

ice she turned her eyes drearily on a wicker basketful of work, where a sock, she had been darning before her husband came in, lay uppermost, with a threaded darning needle thrust throug

n the smouldering coals as they crumbled into ashes, starting and shiv

st. A man's footstep, slow and heavy, turned

d not breathe, but sat the

his face, and kept her eyes on the fire, shivering inwardly. He came across the room and laid his h

eing more anger than grief in the w

reckoning afore the day breaks, and one he shall remember to his dying d

nconsistency of a rough nature, he had allowed the anguish and fright that had seized upon him with the first idea of his son's danger to harden into bitterness and wra

nothing more. Tell me is

ntry up yonder as if he belonged with them; going after the hunt and almost getting his neck broke on the new horse that fel

t? Why didn't they bring him home at once?" crie

month; besides, at his best, there isn't a day's farm-work under his shining hide. The lad cheated us in the b

d hurt?" cried the woman, in a voice nat

s and whippers-in who saw him cast head over heels into

in her chair with a

, father! why could ye no

sseting a strapping grown-up loon as if he was

ly son," plea

am that we have no mo

fat

down yonder have put me about more than a bit. The lad wi

ut on the hearth, and sat watching the fire with a

nd more irritated. His hands worked restlessly in his pock

ll humor made th

t the brazen face of an old upright clock that

? As for me, I'll not quit th

on her lap. She was evidently afraid that her husband and

opping," she said, uncon

at this time of night? When Dick is mis

essup's. I am sure that pretty Ruth co

th all her soft ways, and will have a good bit of money when her god-mother dies and the old gardener has done with his. If Di

uggested the mother. "Young men do not always give it out

ned the old man's face, and his hard hand stol

wife; but no one can say I ever went by your hous

do it either," p

e young man spends half his time treating the lazy fellow

ady sighe

Why, he is training rat-terriers in the stable and game-chicken

er than her only child; "if you had only listened to me when

half than I ever had," an

much study; but we are well-to-do in the world

man. Dick never will make a good farm-h

e wife, brightening up and layin