Even when they
were in the lonely lane leading homewards, and she was talking and
sobbing herself out of breath, he walked on without a word passing his
lips, though his heart was sending up ceaseless prayers to God for help
to bear this trial with patience. Poor old home! There was all the
well-used household furniture carried out and heaped together on the
turf,--chairs and tables and beds,--looking so differently to what they
did when arranged in their proper order. The old man, with his grey head
uncovered, was wandering to and fro in sore bewilderment; and little Nan
had fallen asleep beside the furniture, with the trace of tears upon her
rosy cheeks. But the house was almost gone. The door-sill, where Stephen
had so often seen the sun go down as he rested himself from his labours,
was already taken up; the old grate, round which they had sat all the
winter nights that he had ever known, was pulled out of the rock; and all
the floor was open to the mocking sunshine. It is a mournful thing to see
one's own home in ruins; and a tear or two made a white channel down the
coal-dust on Stephen's cheeks; but he subdued himself, and spoke out to
the labourers like a man.
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