Towards the end of the summer following the fever, Mrs. Lake failed rapidly. She sat out of doors most of the day, the miller moving her chair from one side to another of the mill to get the shade. Master Swift brought her big nosegays from his garden, at which she would smell for hours, as if the scent soothed her. She spoke very little, but she watched the sky constantly. One evening there was a gorgeous sunset. In all its splendor, with a countless multitude of little clouds about it bright with its light, the glory of the sun seemed little less than that of the Lord Himself, coming with ten thousand of His saints, and the poor woman gazed as if her withered, wistful eyes could see her children among the radiant host. “I do think the Lord be coming to-night, Master Swift,” she said. “And He’ll bring them with Him.” She gazed on after all the glory had faded, and lingered till it grew dark, and the schoolmaster had gone home. It was not till her dress was quite wet with dew that Jan insisted upon her going indoors. They were coming round the mill in the dusk, when a cry broke from Mrs. Lake’s lips; which was only an echo of a louder one from Jan. A woman creeping round the mill in the opposite direction had just craned her neck forward so that Jan and his foster-mother saw her face for an instant before it disappeared. Why Jan was so terrified, he would have been puzzled to say, for the woman was not hideous, though she had an ugly mouth. But he was terrified, and none the less so from a conviction that she was looking intently and intentionally at him. When he got his foster-mother indoors, the miller was disposed to think the affair was a fancy; but, as if the shock had given a spur to her feeble senses, Mrs. Lake said in a loud clear voice, “Maester, it be the woman that brought our Jan hither!” But when the miller ran out, no one was to be seen. CHAPTER XXX. JAN’S PROSPECTS AND MASTER SWIFT’S PLANS.—TEA AND MILTON.—NEW PARENTS.—PARTING WITH RUFUS.—JAN IS KIDNAPPED. THIS shock seemed to give a last jar to the frail state of Mrs. Lake’s health, and the sleep into which she fell that night passed into a state of insensibility in which her sorely tried spirit was released without pain. It was said that the windmiller looked twice his age from trouble. But his wan appearance may have been partly due to the inroads of a lung disease, which comes to millers from constantly inhaling the flour-dust. His cheeks grew hollow, and his wasted hands displayed the windmiller’s coat of arms {238} with painful distinctness. The schoolmaster spent most of his evenings at the mill; but sometimes Jan went to tea with him, and by Master Lake’s own desire he went to school once more.