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d his situation she had flown down the road, reached the two figures, and enveloped Frank in her embrace, Darvell standing by meanwhile with a broad smile on his fair and foolish countenance.
The neighbours gathered round the group, and all the dogs, and pigs, and chickens belonging to the settlement also drew near. Jack Gunn's donkey looked over the hedge, his furry ears showing a pointed interest in the affair, and in the distance the vicar surveyed the scene from the cottage door, still holding Mrs Darvell's pattens.
So Frank had got home again; and after all his wanderings he found that:
"From east to west At home is best."
FAITHFUL MOSES--A SHORT STORY.
Those of you who live near any of the great high-roads that lead to London may remember to have been awake sometimes in the middle of the night, and to have heard the sound of horses' feet, and of cart wheels rumbling slowly and heavily along.
If it be winter, frosty and dry, you hear them very sharply and distinctly; and perhaps you wonder, drowsily, who it is that has business so late, and whither they are bound. "How cold it must be outside!" you think, and it is quite a pleasure to snuggle cosily down in your comfortable bed and feel how warm you are.
Gradually, as the sounds grow less and less, and die away mysteriously in the distance, your eyes close; soon you are fast asleep again, and that is all you know about the cold, dark night outside.
But Tim, the van-boy, knew a great deal more about it than this, for he had now been "on the road" between Roydon and London for more than a year. The carrier's cart started at eleven o'clock in the morning, and having distributed and received parcels on the way the driver put up his horses at an inn called "The Magpie and Stump," in a part of London named the Borough. So far it was all very well, and not at all hard work; but then came the return journey at night, which began just at the moment when a boy, after a good warm supper, naturally thinks of going to bed. This was trying, and at first Tim felt it a good deal, for he never got home until three o'clock in the morning; he was so anxious, too, to do his duty and fill his post well, that he would not have closed his eyes for the world, though he might well have taken a nap without anyone's knowledge. His "mate" as he called him, whose name was Joshua, sat in front driving his two strong black horses, and Tim's place was at the other open end of the van, so that he might keep his eye on the parcels and prevent their being stolen or lost.
It was a responsible situation he felt for a boy of thirteen, and he meant to do his very best to keep it now that he had been lucky enough to get it; in the far-off future, too, he saw himself no longer the van-boy, but in the proud position now occupied by Joshua as driver, and this he considered, though a lofty, was by no means an unreasonable ambition.
When Tim first began his work it was summertime, and the nights were so balmy, and soft, and light that it was not so very difficult to keep awake--there seemed so many other thing's awake too. After they were well out of London, and the horses no longer clattered noisily over the stones, it was like getting into another world. The stars looked brightly down from the clear smokeless sky. Soft little winds blew a thousand flowery scents from over the fields, and sometimes, singing quite close to the road, Tim heard the nightingale. Even Joshua, a gruff man, was affected by the sweet influence of the season, for Tim noticed that he always sang one particular song on fine nights in summer. Joshua's voice was hoarse from much exposure to weather, but Tim thought he sang with great expression. The words were not easy to follow, because the middle of the verse always became inaudible; but by degrees the boy made out that it was the description of a letter received by a rustic from his sweetheart. It began:
Then came some lines impossible to hear, and then each verse ended with:
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