English fiction -- 19th century; Labor unions -- Fiction
The dark forms struggled on before. They knew the ground, and soon took
her to the edge of that very stream into which Coventry had fallen.
They all three went within a yard of Mr. Coventry, and still they
pursued their way; and Grace hoped they were making for some shelter.
She now called aloud to Mr. Coventry, thinking he must be on before her.
But he had not recovered his senses.
Unfortunately, the cry startled the sheep, and they made a rush, and
she could not keep up with them: she toiled, she called, she prayed for
strength; but they left her behind, and she could see their very forms
no more. Then she cried out in agony, and still, with that power
of self-excitement, which her sex possess in an eminent degree, she
struggled on and on, beyond her strength till, at last, she fell down
from sheer exhaustion, and the snow fell fast upon her body.
But, even as she lay, she heard a tinkling. She took it for sheep-bells,
and started up once more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; and
this time he heard her, and shook off his deadly lethargy, and tried to
hobble toward her voice.
Meantime, Grace struggled toward the sound, and lo, a light was before
her, a light gleaming red and dullish in the laden atmosphere. With her
remnant of life and strength, she dashed at it, and found a wall in her
way. She got over it somehow, and saw the light quite close, and heard
the ringing of steel on steel.
She cried out for help, for she felt herself failing. She tottered along
the wall of the building, searching for a door. She found the porch. She
found the church door. But by this time she was quite spent; her senses
reeled; her cry was a moan.
She knocked once with her hands. She tried to knock again; but the
door flew suddenly open, and, in the vain endeavor to knock again, her
helpless body, like a pillar of snow, fell forward; but Henry Little
caught her directly, and then she clutched him feebly, by mere instinct.
He uttered a cry of love and alarm. She opened her filmy eyes, and
stared at him. Her cold neck and white cheek rested on his bare and
glowing arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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