XII.

FIRELIGHT TALK.

The warmth and quietness of the library made such a bright and
pleasant contrast to the dreary scene in the Culm burying-ground that
Noll gave a great sigh of pleasure and relief as he entered the room
and found it light and cheerful with the blaze of a brisk fire on the
hearth. He sat down in one of the big arm-chairs which stood either
side of the fireplace, and held his numbed hands in the warmth, and
looked about him, thinking that the old stone house was a palace in
comparison with the other Culm habitations. Uncle Richard sat in his
usual seat by the window, with his face toward the darkening sea, and,
with the dismal scene which he had just witnessed fresh in his mind,
Noll felt a tenderer yearning toward the stern man,--feeling, somehow,
as if they could not be too near and dear to each other on this lonely
Rock, where, just now, it seemed as if there was little else than
wretchedness. Perhaps it was this feeling which led the boy to leave
his seat and stand by his uncle's chair, and, with one hand on the
grim man's shoulder, to say, "Dirk's child is dead, Uncle Richard, and
they've just buried it. Oh! what a lonely place to be buried in! I
would rather lie in the sea, it seems to me."

Trafford turned suddenly about at these words, exclaiming, "Hush,
hush! don't talk about death, boy! What have you been up to that
dreary little heap of graves for?"

"Partly to please Dirk,--partly because I wished, Uncle Richard. It's
a dismal place! I'm glad enough to get back."

"We shall both sleep there soon enough," said Trafford, who seemed to
be in one of his gloomiest moods. "Why go there till we go for the
last time?"

Noll's arm went about his uncle's neck. "Don't say such things!" he
said. "Perhaps we'll not live here always, Uncle Richard; and, if we
do have to be buried up there in the sand, heaven is just as near,
after all."

Trafford looked at the boy's face, ruddy and glowing from the long
walk in the wind, and sighed,--

"Yes, for you, Noll. But for me,--no, no!"

"Why, Uncle Richard?"

"Because--it is all dark,--dark! I have nothing, see nothing to hope
for beyond."

"Why won't you try to hope?" said Noll, softly.

"Hush! it's no use. Your Aunt Marguerite bade me follow after her long
ago. I did not try. Your father said almost the same, Noll. Yet here I
am,--I have not tried, I see no light, there is no hope for me."

The crackle of the fire