The wind came tearing down from, the pine forest, surging through the
hills till it became a roar. Ah, it had sounded like that at the game.
They had called "Rah, Rah Sanderson" till they were hoarse, "Sanderson,
Rah! Sander-son! Rah! Rah!" The crackling forest seemed to have
gone mad with the echo of his name. It had become the keynote of the
wind. Rah! Rah! Sanderson!
"You can't escape him even in death" something seemed to whisper in her
ear. "Ha-ha, Sanderson, San-der-son." She put her hands to her ears
to shut out the hateful sound, but she heard it, like the wail of a
lost soul; this time faint and far off: Sander-son--San-der-son. It
was above her in the groaning, creaking branches of the trees, in the
falling snow, in the whipping wind, the mockery would not be stilled.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, howled the wind, then sinking to a sigh,
San-der-son--San-der-son.
The cold had begun to strike into the marrow. She moved as if her
limbs were weighted. There was a mist gathering before her eyes, and
she put up her hand and tried to brush it away, but it remained. She
felt as if she were carrying something heavy in her arms and as she
walked it grew heavier and heavier. To her wandering mind it took a
pitifully familiar shape. Ah, yes! She knew what it was now; it was
the baby, and she must not let it get cold. She must cover it with her
cape and press it close to her bosom to keep it warm, but it was so
far, so far, and it was getting heavier every moment.
And the wind continued to wail its dirge of "San-der-son, San-der-son."
She went through the motion of covering up the baby's head; she did not
want it to waken and hear that awful cry. She lifted up her empty arms
and lowered her head to soothe the imaginary baby with a kiss, and was
shocked to feel how cold its little cheek had grown. She hurried on
and on. She would beg the Squire to let his wife take it in for just a
minute, to warm it. She would not ask to come in herself, but the
baby--no one would be so cruel as to refuse her that. It would die out
here in the cold and the storm. It was so cruel, so hard to be
wandering about on a night like this with the baby. Her eyes began to
fill with tears, and her lower lip to quiver, but she plodded on,
sometimes gaining a few steps and then retracing them, but always with
the same instinct that had spurred her on to efforts beyond her
strength, and this done, she had no further concern for herself. Her
body especially, where the cape did not protect it against the blast,
was freezing, shivering, aching all over. A latent consciousness began
to dawn as the dread presence of death drew nearer; some intuitive
effort of preservation asserted itself, and she kept repeating over and
over: "I must not give up. I must not give up."