That night, as latterly had been his custom, he sallied forth about eight o'clock, leaving his home and family without food or money. The children crowded round their mother's knee to repeat their simple prayers, and retired, cold and hungry, to bed. It was near midnight ere her task was finished; and then she stole softly into her chamber, having first looked upon and blessed her treasures. Her sleep was of that restless heavy kind which yields no refreshment. Once she was awakened by hearing her husband shut the cottage-door; again she slept, but started from a horrid dream--or was it indeed reality! and had her husband and her son Abel quitted the dwelling together? She sprang from her bed, and felt on the pallet--Gerald was there; again she felt--she called--she passed into the next room--"Abel, Abel, my child! as you value your mother's blessing speak!" There was no reply. A dizzy sickness almost overpowered her senses. Was her husband's horrid threat indeed fulfilled? and had he so soon taken their child as his participator in unequivocal sin? She opened the door, and looked out upon the night; it was cold and misty, and her sight could not penetrate the gloom. The chill fog rested upon her face like the damps of the grave. She attempted to call again upon her son, but her powers of utterance were palsied--her tongue quivered--her lips separated yet there came forth no voice, no sound to break the silence of oppressed nature. Her eyes moved mechanically towards the heavens--they were dark as the earth; had God deserted her?--would he deny one ray, one little ray of light, to lead her to her child? Why did the moon cease to shine, and the stars withhold their brightness? Should she never again behold her boy, her first-born? Her heart swelled, and beat within her bosom. She shivered with intense agony, and leaned her throbbing brow against the door-post, to which she had clung for support. Her husband's words rang in her ears--"One by one shall your children be taken from you to serve my purposes!" Through the dense fog she fancied that he glared upon her in bitter hatred--his deep-set eyes flashing with demoniac fire, and his smile, now extending, now contracting, into all the varied expressions of triumphant malignity! She pressed her hand on her eyes to shut out the horrid vision, and, a prayer, a simple prayer, rose to her lips. Like oil upon the troubled waters, it soothed and composed her spirit. She could not arrange, or even remember, a form of words; but she repeated, again and again, the emphatic appeal, "Lord, save me, I perish!" until she felt sufficient strength to enable her to look again into the night. As if hope had set its beacon in the sky, calmly and brightly the moon was now shining upon her cottage. With the sudden change, at once the curse and blessing of our climate, a sharp east wind had set in, and was rolling the mist from the canopy of heaven. Numerous stars were visible, where, but five minutes before, all had been darkness and gloom. The shadow passed from her soul; she gazed steadily upwards; her mind regained its firmness; her resolve was taken. She returned to her bed-room, dressed, and, wrapping her cloak closely to her bosom, was quickly on her way to the Smiths' dwelling, on Craythorpe Common.