Free Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery

the
lost
sound of his own voice in the great night.
    But he went on, one had to go on when Mother was going to die. Once he fell and bruised and skinned his knee badly on a stone. Once he heard a buggy coming along behind him and hid behind a tree till it passed, terrified lest Dr Parker had discovered he had gone and was coming after him. Once he stopped in sheer terror of something black and furry sitting on the side of the road. He could not pass it… he could
not
… but he did. It was a big black dog…
was
it a dog?… but he was past it. He dared not run lest it chase him… he stole a desperate glance over his shoulder… it had got up and was loping away in the opposite direction. Walter put his little brown hand up to his face and found it wet with sweat.
    A star fell in the sky before him, scattering sparks of flame. Walter remembered hearing old Aunt Kitty say that when a star fell someone died.
Was it Mother?
He had just been feeling that his legs would not carry him another step, but at the thought he marched on again. He was so cold now that he had almost ceased to feel afraid. Would he never get home? It must be hours and hours since he had left Lowbridge.
    It
was
three hours. He had stolen out of the Parker house at eleven and it was now two. When Walter found himself on the road that dipped down into the Glen he gave a sob of relief. But as he stumbled through the village the sleeping houses seemed remote and far away. They had forgotten him. A cow suddenly bawled at him over a fence and Walter remembered that Mr Alec Reese kept a savage bull. He broke into a run of sheer panic that carried him up the hill to the gate of Ingleside. He was home… oh, he was home!
    Then he stopped short, trembling, overcome by a dreadful feeling of desolation. He had been expecting to see the warm, friendly lights of home. And there was not a light at Ingleside!
    There really was a light if he could have seen it, in a back bedroom where the nurse slept with the baby’s basket beside her bed. But to all intents and purposes it was as dark as a deserted house and it broke Walter’s spirit. He had never seen, never imagined, Ingleside dark at night.
    It meant that Mother was dead!
    Walter stumbled up the drive, across the grim black shadow of the house on the lawn, to the front door. It was locked. He gave a feeble knock… he could not reach to the knocker… but there was no response, nor did he expect any. He listened… there was not a sound of
living
in the house. He knew Mother was dead and everybody had gone away.
    He was by now too chilled and exhausted to cry; but he crept around the barn and climbed the ladder to the hay-mow. He was past being frightened: he only wanted to get somewhere out of that wind and lie down till morning. Perhaps somebody would come back then after they had buried Mother.
    A sleek little tiger kitten someone had given the doctor purred up to him, smelling nicely of clover hay. Walter clutched it gladly, it was warm and
alive
. But it heard the little mice scampering over the floor and would not stay. The moon looked at him through the cobwebby window, but there was no comfort in that far, cold, unsympathetic moon. A light burning in a house down in the Glen was more like a friend. As long as that light shone he could bear up.
    He could not sleep. His knee hurt too much and he was cold… with such a funny feeling in his stomach. Perhaps he was dying, too. He hoped he was, since everyone else was dead or gone away. Did nights ever end? Other nights had always ended, but maybe this one wouldn’t. He remembered a dreadful story he had heard to the effect that Captain Jack Flagg at the Harbour Mouth had said he wouldn’t let the sun come up some morning when he got real mad. Suppose Captain Jack had got real mad at last.
    Then the Glen light went out… and he couldn’t bear it. But as the little cry of despair left his lips he realized that it was day.

10
    Walter climbed down the ladder and