His children were all ill at the same time; then one died, while the
others recovered, but were poor sickly things. No one dared to give
Susan any direct intelligence of her former lover; many avoided all
mention of his name in her presence; but a few spoke out either in
indifference to, or ignorance of, those bygone days. Susan heard
every word, every whisper, every sound that related to him. But her
eye never changed, nor did a muscle of her face move.
Late one November night she sat over her fire; not a human being
besides herself in the house; none but she had ever slept there since
Willie's death. The farm-labourers had foddered the cattle and gone
home hours before. There were crickets chirping all round the warm
hearth-stones; there was the clock ticking with the peculiar beat
Susan had known from her childhood, and which then and ever since she
had oddly associated within the idea of a mother and child talking
together, one loud tick, and quick--a feeble, sharp one following.
The day had been keen, and piercingly cold. The whole lift of heaven
seemed a dome of iron. Black and frost-bound was the earth under the
cruel east wind. Now the wind had dropped, and as the darkness had
gathered in, the weather-wise old labourers prophesied snow.
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