There was a sudden pause, and turning her head the startled woman listened. Was it the wind moaning round her lonesome dwelling, or was it poor dead Harry calling to her, as in her superstitious imagination she sometimes believed he did when she was praying for Billy, reproaching her that no prayer had ever been said for him, the lost one? Again the sobbing cry, and a rustling movement by the door. It could not be the wind, for that only shook the loosened timbers or screamed through some gaping crevice, while this, whatever it might be, called: “Mother, mother, come.” Was it a warning from the other world,—a summons to follow her first-born? Annie Graham had said there were no such messages sent to us, and Annie was always right; so the frightened woman listened again until the rattling of the latch, and a feeble, timid knock told her there was more than the winter wind or spirits of the dead about her house that night. There was a human being seeking to gain entrance, and tottering to the door she asked who it was, and what they wanted there. “Mother, mother, let me in. I’m your Billy boy, come from the war.” The words were hardly uttered ere the door was opened wide, the frantic woman dragging rather than leading in the worn-out man, who, staggering forward, fell into her arms, sobbing piteously, “I’m so sick and tired. I’ve been weeks on the road, hiding everywhere; for, mother,—shut the door tight, so nobody can hear,—I’ve run away; I’ve had enough of war, and so I left one night. You know what they do to deserters. They hang them, neck and heels. Oh, mother, mother, don’t let them find me, will you? I’ve done my best in one dreadful battle. They musn’t get me now. Will they, think?” and Billy cast a searching glance around the room to see that no officer was there with power to take him back. Would they get him from her? She’d like to see them do it, she said, as she led the childish deserter to the hearth, he leaning heavily upon her, and falling, rather than sitting upon the chair she brought. Weary of a soldier’s life, and satisfied with one taste of battle, he had stolen away one night when the rain and the darkness sheltered him from observation. Greatly magnifying the value put upon himself, as well as the chances for detection, he had not dared to take the cars, lest at every station there should be one of the police waiting to secure him. So he had made the entire journey from Washington on foot, travelling by night and resting by day, sometimes in barns, but oftener in the woods, where some friendly stump or leafless tree was his only shelter. He had reached his home at last, but his haggard face, his blood-shot eyes, his blistered feet and tattered garments bore witness to his long, painful journey.