"Another milepost," he says, shaking up the reins, and in a few minutes proclaims blithely, "and another milepost! That's quick work, that last mile. What's the matter with the nag?" he cries, as the beast shies in sudden fright, "It's not a milepost. It's a woman."
The woman, who has been crouching by the roadside, rises, and walks silently into the gloom. They can see that she is in rags--a sad, poverty-stricken mortal, too numbed with cold and misery to make an appeal for charity. This thought is expressed by the young gardener, who concludes his remarks with, "Poor creature!" Nelly shudders at the words and the pitying tone in which they are uttered. White are the roads they traverse, leaving a clear-cut black gash behind them, into which the soft snow falls gently, as though to heal the wounds inflicted. White is the night, but Nelly's face bids fair to rival it. A sigh escapes her bosom, and she sinks back, insensible.
The gardener's son calls to her in alarm, but she does not reply. He sees a light in a cottage window a short distance off, and he draws up at the door. Yet even as he lifts Nelly down with gentle care, she recovers, and asks him with a frightened air why he has stopped.
"I am well now," she cries, with feverish eagerness. "Go on--go on!"
He answers, with a determination, that he will not proceed until she has taken something to sustain her strength--a cup of tea, a little brandy, anything--and she is compelled to yield. He knocks at the cottage door. A labourer opens it. The young gardener explains the nature of his errand, and produces money.
"You are in luck's way," says the labourer. "The missus has just made herself a cup of tea."
His wife turns her head, with a reproachful look, towards the door, the opening of which has brought a blast of cold air into the room. She is kneeling by a cradle at the fireside, and with common, homely words of love is singing her baby to sleep. Nelly catches her breath as the song and its meaning fall upon her ears and understanding, and in an agony of agitation she begs the young gardener to take her away. The tears stream down her cheeks, and her face is convulsed as she thus implores him. The soft sweet song of the mother has cut into her heart with the sharp keenness of cruelly-edged steel.