282 MARTIN RATTLER.

two outside seats, Martin hastened round by the road
towards the cottage. There it stood, quaint, time-
worn, and old-fashioned, as when he had last seen it
—the little garden in which he had so often played
—the bower in which, on fine weather, Aunt Dorothy
used to sit, and the door-step on which the white
kitten used to gambol. But the shutters were closed
and the door was locked, and there was an air of
desolation and a deep silence brooding over the place
that sank more poignantly into Martin’s heart than
if he had come and found every vestige of the home
of his childhood swept away. It was like the body
without the soul. The flowers and stones and well-
known forms were there; but she who had given
animation to the whole was gone. Sitting down on
the door-step, Martin buried his face in his hands
and wept.

He was quickly aroused by the bugle of the ap-
proaching coach. Springing up, he dashed the tears
away and hurried towards the high-road. In a few
minutes Barney and he were seated on the top of
the coach, and dashing, at the rate of ten miles an

hour, along the road to Liverpool.