ightened and
unhappy. So she was thankful to get into the cottage again, and,
barring the door, she put the infants comfortably to bed, and allowed
the others to sit up with her until midnight, in the faint hope that
some token of their dear parents not being lost might reach them
before then. It was a wild night of wind and snow, and though the
little watchers sometimes fancied they heard voices in the stormy
blast, when the lull came, all was silence. Agnes did what she could
to keep the snow from drifting in below the door or through a chink of
the window, and also to make sure that the fire would not go out, and
then they sadly went to bed.

Next morning the snow-drifts were higher than ever! There was no
possibility of going out; but the brave little mother--for so we may
call her--still kept her family quiet and comfortable--never omitting
the morning and evening prayers, and struggling hard against her own
fears and sorrows.

At last, either on the third or fourth day, I am not sure which, the
snow-drifts had changed in such a way that Agnes thought it might be
possible to try the road to Grasmere. Her brothers went with her part
of the way, till they saw she was safe, and then went back to the
little ones, and Agnes went to the nearest cottage. When the poor
weeping child told her sad story, the good people were overcome with
astonishment, distress, and sympathy. The news spread like lightning
through Grasmere, that Mr. and Mrs. Green had not been seen by their
children since the day of the sale at Langdale. Before an hour had
passed, all the men in the parish gathered together, arranged the best
plans for a search, and then dispersed over the mountains. In the
state of the weather, it was a dangerous duty, and great was the
anxiety of their wives and mothers left at home. The men returned at
night, without any success, and this went on for several days. They
willingly gave up all other work, and morning after morning set out on
their toilsome, sorrowful pilgrimage, while the poor orphans, of
course, were most tenderly cared for now. At length some one thought
of taking sagacious dogs up the hills to help the search; and on the
fifth day, about noon, a loud shout, echoed by the rocks, and repeated
from one band of men to another, told the women in the valley that the
bodies were found. Poor John Green lay at the foot of a precipice,
over which he had fallen; his wife, whom he had wrapped in his own
greatcoat,