cecile had strange dreams that night. her faith had hitherto been very simple, very strong, very fervent. ever since that night at the meeting of the salvation army, when the earnest and longing child had given her heart to the one who knocked for admittance there, had she been faithful to her first love. she had found the guide for whom her soul longed, and not all the troubles and anxieties of her long and weary journey—not all the perils of the way—had power to shake her confidence. even in the great pain of yesterday cecile was not greatly disturbed. maurice was lost, but she had asked the good guide jesus so earnestly to bring back the little straying lamb, that she was quite sure he would soon be with them again. in this confidence she had gone to sleep. but whether it was the discomfort of her position in that sleep, or that satan was in very truth come to buffet her; in that slumber came dreams so terrible, so real, that for the first time the directness of her confidence was shaken. in her dreams she thought she heard a voice saying to her over and over again: "there is no guide—there is no lord jesus christ." she combated the wicked suggestion even in her sleep, and awoke to cast it from her with indignation.
it was daylight when the tired child opened her eyes. she was no longer lying against joe's breast in the forest; no, she was in the shelter of the little hut, and toby alone was keeping her company. joe had vanished, and no maurice had returned in the darkness as she had fondly hoped he would the night before. the candle had shed its tiny ray and burned itself out in vain. the little wanderer had not come back.
cecile sat up with a weary sigh; her head ached, she felt cold and chilly. then a queer fancy, joined to a trembling kind of hope, came over her. that farm with the english frontage; that fair child with the english face. suppose those people were really english? suppose she went to them and asked them to help her to look for maurice, and suppose, while seeking for her little brother, she obtained a clew to another and more protracted search?
cecile thought and thought, and though her temples throbbed with pain, and she trembled from cold and weariness, the longing to get as near as possible to this farm, where english people might dwell, became too great and strong to be resisted.
she rose somewhat languidly, and, calling toby, went out into the forest. here the fresher air revived her, and the exercise took off a growing sensation of heavy illness. she walked quickly, and as she did so her hopes became more defined.
the farm cecile meant to reach lay about a mile from the village of bolleau. it was situated on a pretty rise of ground to the very borders of the forest. cecile, walking quickly, reached it before long; then she stood still, leaning over the paling and looking across the enchanted ground. this paling in itself was english, and the very strut of the barn-door fowl reminded her of warren's grove. how she wished that fair child to run out! how she hoped to hear even one word of the only language she understood! no matter her french origin, cecile was all english at this moment. toby stood by her side patiently enough.
toby, too, was in great trouble and perplexity about maurice, but his present strongest instinct was to get at a very fat fowl which, unconscious of danger, was scratching up worms at its leisure within almost reach of his nose.
toby had a weakness, nay, a vice, in the direction of fowl; he liked to hunt them. he could not imagine why cecile did not go in at that low gate which stood a little open close by. where was the use of remaining still, in any case, so near temptation? the unwary fowl came close, very close. toby could stand it no longer. he made a spring, a snap, and caught at its beak.
then ensued a fuss and an uproar; every fowl in the place commenced to give voice in the cause of an injured comrade. cackle, cackle, crow, crow, from, it seemed, hundreds of throats. toby retired actually abashed, and out at the same moment, from under the rose-covered porch, came the pretty fair-haired boy. the child was instantly followed by an old woman, a regular frenchwoman, upright, straight as a dart, with coal-black eyes and snowy hair tidily put away under a tall peasant's cap.
cecile heard her utter a french exclamation, then chide pretty sharply the uproarious birds. toby lying perdu behind the hedge, the fowl were naturally chided for much ado about nothing.
just then the little boy, breaking from the restraining hand, ran gleefully into a field of waving corn.
"suzanne, suzanne!" shouted the frenchwoman in shrill tones, and then out flew a much younger woman, a woman who seemed, even to the child cecile, very young indeed. a tall, fair young woman, with a face as pink and white as the boy's, and a wealth of even more golden hair.
"ah! you naughty little lad. come here, jean," she said in english; then catching the truant child to her bosom, she ran back with him into the house.
cecile felt herself turning cold, almost faint. an impulse to run into that farmhouse, to address that fair-haired young woman, to drag her story, whatever it might be, from her lips, came over her almost too strongly to be resisted.
she might have yielded to it, she was indeed about to yield to it, when suddenly a voice at her elbow, calling her by her name, caused her to look round. there stood joe, but joe with a face so altered, so ghastly, so troubled, that cecile scarcely knew him.
"come, cecile, come back to the hut; i have some'ut to tell yer," he said slowly and in hoarse tones.
and cecile, too terrified by this fresh alarm even to remember the english folks who lived at the farm, followed him back into the forest without a word.
