Judith Moore; or, Fashioning a Pipe

CHAPTER VII.

"Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed,
And worthy of acceptation."

Next day the village was stirred to its depths when Hiram Green passed through the streets, bringing from his pasture his white horse, striped with purple paint, or dye, until it looked like an exotic zebra.

With this horse he brought his groceries from town; behind it many a school-teacher had driven in vainglorious ease. Hiram had gone for it that day with intent to do the little Methodist parson honour, by taking him for a drive, a plan necessarily postponed by the hilarious appearance of the horse, which looked out from a pair of artistically drawn purple spectacles upon the excitement which its appearance created.

Hiram was furious, the Misses Green were rampant, the parson piously indignant, and even meek Mrs. Green lifted up her voice in wrath.

The horse was escorted to the barn-yard, to be subjected to such a course of scrubbing as never fell to the lot of an Ovidian horse before; but aniline dyes are hard to eradicate. That day, and for many days after, the horse went about contentedly in a pale purple coat.

There was no direct evidence to convict any one of the prank; but Hiram had refused to give the Slick family any further credit at his store, and from the clothes-line of the Slick house, some garments, dipped in purple dye, flaunted derisively in the breeze. Tommy Slick and Nip went about looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths; and all Mrs. Slick was ever heard to say about the matter was:

"Let 'em come to me and just as much as hint that Tommy done it! I'll—but just let 'em once, that's all."

And whilst nobody showed a disposition to hinder any one else from making the accusation, still no one volunteered to voice the general opinion regarding the matter to Mrs. Slick. Besides, secretly, every one felt a sort of sneaking satisfaction over the matter.

Andrew and Judith, to confess the truth, thought it a huge joke, and at Judith's instigation, they made a long journey across the fields to Hiram's pasture lot, to see the horse; and when they beheld him placidly purple, munching away in supreme content, they laughed till their voices rang out through the wood.

Judith recalled the purple smears on Tommy's pail the day she had met him, and felt an unholy joy of participation in the plot. Judith didn't like the Greens. As she and Mrs. Morris passed them going to Andrew's, one sentence had rung out clearly to Judith's ears: "My! Ain't she pinched!" That was enough. The Greens never found favour in the eyes of Judith.

Andrew, as he had promised to do, went to see Judith's bird's nest the day after her visit to his farm. At that meeting, and in many more such sweet hours which followed, Judith and Andrew lived in the joy of the moment. Their hearts were young, the world was fresh and fair; the one loved deeply, and the other—well—for the time she had forgotten her ambition, forgotten the marvellous gift that made holy the air she breathed, or only remembered it for the pleasure it gave this young countryman; she had forgotten that her name was famous, whispered from lip to lip throughout the musical world; she had forgotten the intoxication of success, the wine of applause; she had forgotten the great debt she owed the man who had made her what she was, a debt that she could only requite in one way, by singing. So surely she must have sipped some Nepenthe of present happiness or future hope! Lotos lands are very sweet, but rarely so satisfying as these two found them.

It seems to outrage our sense of proportion, to think of a young farmer aspiring to the hand of one who showed every promise of being the world's prima donna. To us it seems grotesque almost, and Andrew seems ridiculously egotistical in hoping that this song-bird would abide in his love-woven cage of rushes, when the doors of so many golden nets were open to her. But Andrew's daring was perhaps excusable.

It is true, her voice had led him to her first, and he always heard it as a devotee might hear the voices of angels strike through his prayers; but after that first meeting, Andrew had always seen the woman in her, not the songstress. He did not love her for her singing, her beauty, nor her gentle breeding. He loved her for herself—the truest love of all. For a love founded upon any gift is a frail thing, a banner hung upon a reed. The reed may break, and the banner no longer lifted up may not care to enwrap the broken stem which before upheld it. What does England's greatest woman poet say?

"If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only."

"For love's sake only"—that should be the supreme reason of every passion. Love, "the fulfilling of the law," the beginning and end of all things.

And thus, inasmuch as this great justification was his, Andrew was justified.

Nor did he seek with rude hands to snatch his happiness hastily. As one pauses with hushed heart, when he comes in woodland places upon some new sweet flower, or sees through a cleft of the mountains the glory of the sun, or gathers to his breast some soul-satisfying truth, so Andrew paused ere raising the cup of this great joy to his lips. He felt he must purify his hands ere he advanced to stretch them forth for the draught. And should it be denied him?

Thought ceased there—beyond was chaos.

And Judith gathered the flowers of the hour with eager fingers, trembling with new joy, finding in their perfume complete satisfaction, looking neither before nor after, as a butterfly revels in the sunshine, forgetting the chill of by-gone days, unrecking of the bitter blasts to come.

The days became weeks, and the earth grew glad with fruits and flowers and growing grain. During all this time Judith was learning of the people about her, prying with her tender eyes into the pathos of their narrow lives, appreciating keenly the unconscious humour displayed in their processes of thought, marvelling at their stolid disregard of the Beautiful.

Rufus and the grey cat knew her well, and Miss Myers was devoted to her.

Mrs. Morris and Miss Myers had grounded her thoroughly in the family history of the villagers, and she knew as much about them as about the others, for Miss Myers told her about Mrs. Morris, and vice versa.

And Judith had developed a keen interest in all the doings of the village people, of whom old Sam Symmons was her favourite, the redoubtable Tommy Slick being a good second. Old Sam liked her, and prophesied freely that she would soon be mistress of Andrew Cutler's house. Suse pretended not to be much impressed with Judith; it was not to be expected that any marriageable girl in the neighbourhood would particularly admire the strange woman who had led away captive the most eligible man for miles around, and, besides, Suse had a love affair of her own upon her hands. The rest of the village girls contented themselves with giggling when Andrew and Judith passed, whispering among themselves that "There didn't seem to be much sign of Miss Myers moving out, and if she was going to live with Andrew and his wife, it was as well he hadn't chosen any of them, for they wouldn't stand that"—reflections which consoled them very much evidently, and which, being entirely harmless to any one else, were quite admissible.

Judith thought this rustic life very quaint and idyllic to look at—like one of Hardy's stories, only hearing the same relation to a story that a game of chess, played as they play it sometimes in the East, with living pawns, does to the more prosaic pastime pondered over upon a table.

The village appealed to her as a skilfully set scene, begirt by a beautiful background of changing fields and sky—a stage whereon was enacted an interminable drama, in whose scenes all the constituents of humble life were blended.

It never occurred to her that she was the heroine of the story—the queen of the animated chess board, an actress in the life play. Poor Judith! She thought herself only a spectator, and, as such, deemed herself secure from all the pains and penalties of the play.

Judith always laughed, though sometimes for shame she strove to hide the laughter when Tommy Slick was before the footlights. Tommy had been making a hilarious record for himself at school. To begin with, Tommy was nearly ten years old, and had been allowed to run wild at home, hence he was utterly ignorant of the world of letters, but wide awake to the vital facts in the world of men: for Tommy's intellect was precocious and practical.

Tommy's father was wont to say of this, his youngest hope, "Tommy hain't much of a letter sharp, but he'd be good on a horse trade," and his judgment was about correct. His mother, as a preliminary to Tommy's appearance, called upon Suse, and informed her that "Tommy was a right smart young un, but delikit." Of the first fact Suse was well aware: of the truth of the latter statement she never could convince herself. Did she not, in common with the rest of the village, remember well the day when Tommy and his father furnished forth entertainment for the whole community? The fashion of it did not suggest any extreme debility upon Tommy's part. It was in this wise:

One day Tommy, having incited his irascible father even more than usual, perceived blood in his parent's eye, and concluded to run. The chase led up the village street, to the vacant lot where the old store had been burned down. The fleet and flying Tommy, turning here, had perceived his father in full pursuit, and, evidently doubting his own staying powers, had taken to a tree, shinning up a tall, slender, swaying poplar with precocious celerity. He climbed to the very top, and, undaunted by the slenderness of his perch (for the tree bent beneath his weight as a stalk of grain beneath a bird), clung comfortably there, whilst his father, unable to follow up the slender stem, stood at the foot, and alternately threatened, cajoled and cursed. When he resorted to swearing as a safety valve for his wrath, Tommy exchanged oaths genially and freely with him, until Slick, Sen., in a paroxysm of rage, shook the tree continuously and violently, so that Tommy took an earthward flight, fortunately for him landing on a pile of old straw.

His father, somewhat cooled down by the spectacle of Tommy shooting through the air, approached him, and as a preliminary, asked him if he was hurt. This gave Tommy an opportunity which he at once improved. He made no reply.

And thereupon Suse and the rest of the Ovidians were regaled by seeing Tommy's father carrying his son home tenderly, stepping carefully so as not to jar the presumably broken bones.

This progress Tommy rendered as arduous as possible, by lying perfectly limp in his father's arms; in fact, making himself dead weight, and letting his long legs dangle helplessly down, to meet his father's knee-caps, or shins, at every step, with the brass toes of his heavy boots. It was not reported that Tommy suffered much from this experience.

Tommy had a fine fund of profanity, which served as a spicy garnish to his deep sense of humour, a genial and easy self-possession, unfailing confidence in his own powers, and a dog he was willing to back against any other in the village, except Hiram Green's brindle bull pup.

The first day Tommy went to school, Suse had the "infant" class up before one of the alphabet tablets by the window, and Tommy, affable and completely at ease, came with them. Most children—Ovidian children—when they came to school for the first time, were somewhat abashed by the novelty of their surroundings, given to starting at every sound, stumbling over the legs of desks, and getting hopelessly entangled with the other pupils, in their efforts to obliterate themselves from the teacher's notice. Not so, Tommy. No teacher ever born had terrors for him; the legs outstretched to trip him on his way up the aisle, were withdrawn, tingling from the kicks of Tommy's brass toes. When he was half-way up the aisle, it occurred to him to take a short-cut, so he wriggled between two desks, and landed with a slide over the third, to find most of the class assembled. A sharp pinch of an arm, his elbow applied vigorously to a side, a vicious kick upon a shin, cleared his way of three boys. Then he planted himself at the head of the class, next Suse, and prepared to receive the seeds of knowledge.

But his eyes wandered, first with a look all about, then abstractedly to the window. But the abstraction vanished, and a look of intense eagerness made his eyes bright, as they bent in absorbed interest upon one spot, where his disreputable dog, who had followed him to school, à la Mary's sheep, was harassing the life out of a fat and grunting pig, which he had, in his own proper person, surrounded: for, heading off the pig in whatever direction she turned, he seemingly converted himself into twenty disreputable dogs. Having bewildered the pig with a few lightning rushes round it, with a sharp nip at its tail, ears, or nose, as he could best get in a flying bite, he planted himself like a lion in the way, and yelped red-mouthed derision and insult at the impotent foe, who was too fat to follow, either mentally or bodily, the gyrations of its agile tormentor.

"Tommy!" said Suse. (Tommy paid no heed.) "Tommy!" repeated she, more imperatively. (No sign from Tommy.) "Tommy Slick!!" accentuating her voice by a sharp rap of her pointer on a desk. Just then the owner of the pig came along, kicked Nip, and Tommy came back to sublunary affairs.

"All right, Suse," he said obligingly, "I'm yer man."

At that Suse felt the foundations of her throne tottering.

In the afternoon, mindful of the temptations of the window, she had Tommy's class up before the blackboard, where, printing the alphabet a letter at a time, she made the class name them. Tommy kept his attention pretty closely fixed until N was reached; then he became absent-minded. He was meditating his revenge upon the pig's owner for kicking Nip. The only step he had decided upon was to try conclusions, immediately after school, with the man's son. The latter was two years older than Tommy, and a good half-head taller, but Tommy never considered such paltry details when an affront to Nip was to be wiped out.

Tommy's mind was engrossed with further plans when Suse, after elaborately executing a capital S upon the blackboard, addressed him, not without some trepidation.

"Tommy, that's S." (No response.)

"Tommy," she said with angry dignity, "you must look at the blackboard. That letter is S."

"Oh, is it?" said Tommy, in a pleasantly interested tone, "I always did wonder what the little crooked devil was." For the remainder of Tommy's first day at school Suse felt that her glory was a delusion and a snare.

Judith carefully concealed from Mrs. Morris her enjoyment of Tommy's pranks, the former having no patience with "them two imps," as she designated Tommy and Nip. For, once, Mrs. Morris had been expecting company, and the better to entertain them, had baked a batch of pumpkin pies, it being the season when such delicacies were in order. She set them out on a bench in the front porch to cool, taking the precaution to make sure that the collie and the cat were safe in the kitchen.

When Mrs. Morris returned, some half-hour later, she found a row of empty pie plates, and sitting beside them, looking at them with the dissatisfied expression of a dog still hungry, was Tommy Slick's dog Nip. Nip fled from the face of Mrs. Morris towards Andrew's woods, where Tommy was gathering hickory nuts, sped upon his way by an earthen flower pot flung with a vigorous but inaccurate hand. Ever since that day Mrs. Morris had cherished a deep hatred of Tommy and his dog.

Judith, as the days passed, was very happy; but happy in a blind, unreasoning fashion. With persistent self-delusion she put behind her the fact that this dream-like summer was but an interlude in her life. True, at first she persistently took short views, and only interested herself in matters a day or two beyond the present, but gradually she slipped into the habit of speaking and thinking as if she were to be there always.

Now and then there were times when the colder light of reason showed her plainly how factitious this evanescent happiness was. These moods came upon her like so many physical shocks, leaving her feeling much older, much quieter, robbing her life of radiance and giving her almost a distaste for the simple scenes which had created delusions which bade fair to cost her so dear. Sometimes when the clear radiance of the moon shone in upon her at night, she lay and thought of the brilliant scenes, the well-nigh certain triumphs which awaited her—for, immature as she might be in some things, she was mistress of her art and knew it, but her cheeks no longer flushed as they had wont to do, her eyes no longer kindled at the dream: instead, her face set into a cold dignity and her eyes looked out in the moonlight, out into the future with a look of prescient martyrdom—the martyrdom of lonely Genius! The look of those whose brows smooth themselves for the crown of solitary success, that coronal which has so often crushed its wearer, so often obscured the eyes it overshadowed, so that they no longer beheld peace and joy!

But at the first sound of Andrew's footsteps, always eager, hasty, hopeful as they approached her, these shadows vanished, and in their place shone the dawn of a newer light.

She had never before been considered as a woman, but always as a singer; and her womanhood recognizing the tribute paid to it, stirred into life, responded to the feeling which evoked it, and demanded right of way.

There is something dominant in the woman-heart when roused. Judith's nature held deeper depths than she herself wot of—sweet springs for the lilies of love to grow in; reservoirs of feeling, long unsuspected, but now brimming to the brink, threatening to break every barrier, and flood their way over the ruin of her life schemes, her painfully constructed temple of Art, the airy fabric of her ambition; but one obstacle could not be swept aside—the benefits received. When Judith thought of what she owed her manager, then her heart grew faint within her; but, as excessive pain at length numbs sensation, so this thought became one of the accepted facts of her life, the life she was enjoying so much.

And the days were so long, and so sweet, that it seemed impossible that the end would ever come. But it was already midsummer, the harvest fields were brightening beneath the sun, the little school-house was closed for the summer holidays; from the orchards came the odour of ripe harvest apples, and the sun-bonneted women gathered wild raspberries from the fences, or picked currants in the garden.

And Judith had herself grown infinitely charming; for she was not letting all the sunshine slip from her. As the ruby crystal holds the rays which gives it its roseate charm, so Judith was absorbing the beauties about her, and giving them forth in a gentle radiation of womanly graces.

When one part of a nature is nurtured to the exclusion of the rest, it is not strange that the whole suffers somewhat. Judith, taught only to sing, to look well, to win applause by merit, or clever finesse, had known perhaps too little of real womanliness, save the intuitional impulses of her strong, sweet nature. She was wont to be a little petulant, a little self-absorbed, and a little, just a little, arrogant. These blemishes had been chastened into a sweet womanliness, capricious perhaps, but charming. Not but what there were tempests in her summer. As the summer showers swept across the fields, so tears crossed her happy dream.

The interest she took in every detail of his daily occupation amused and touched Andrew very much, but now and then he, in a measure, misunderstood her, which was not wonderful, considering how widely severed their modes of life and methods of thought had been. Once he laughed at some views she was expressing, grave conclusions she had arrived at after long thought and minute observation. Andrew laughed outright. Her remarks related to one of the simplest facts of outdoor life, always so well known to Andrew that he hardly apprehended the marvel of it. At his laugh the colour flooded her face, tears sprang to her eyes, she was wounded to the quick. She tried to disguise her feelings as bravely as possible, fighting off a burst of hysteric tears, making commonplace remarks in a tone strained and muffled by reason of the lump in her throat. Andrew's heart ached with regret. He wanted to take her in his arms, and holding her to his breast win from her a silent pardon, offer her a mute but eloquent apology. He dare not yet. A quick sense of her childishness in some matters came to him, a knowledge that if ever he won her, he must be prepared to be patient, prepared to learn much, to teach her many things. Judith saw that he had noticed her distress, knew he was sorry, and tried in an unselfish woman's way, to make him think that she had not minded. The very tenderness which Andrew's voice and manner assumed, pressed home the sting of that laugh. As they parted that night, the tears were heavy beneath Judith's lids. For a fleeting moment as they said good-night, she looked at him. She was standing within the shadow of the porch, but the star-shine revealed those tears.

"My poor little girl, I'm so sorry," said Andrew, his dark face pale in the dusk.

"It doesn't matter, really. I think my head aches—I mean—good night," she said.

"You are not angry?" Andrew's voice was chill with despair, regret.

"No, no—oh, I'm not angry, not a bit, I—" He caught her hands, her composure was failing her.

"Oh, do let me go," she half whispered, "you are bad to me." Then she fled. Andrew turned away, white to the lips.

When they met again, the joy of seeing each other made them happy. Judith was so lovingly eager to make him forget her last words to him, he was so tenderly anxious not to wound her, and each was a little in awe of the other. For they had learned one of the most sacred lessons of love, learned what a terrible power to inflict suffering each held over the other. But their love was sanctified by this dual illumination, and as their eyes met, a little shyly, now and then, there seemed to pass between them a two-fold message, a promise and a plea.

And they parted again, with definite words of love still unspoken.

But the time was not far off. Andrew's arms were yearning for their birthright, and Judith's head was weary for his breast.

Yet fears assailed her, too. One's head may be sore aweary for the pillow, yet the thought of frightsome dreams may make one tremble on the verge of rest, and hesitate ere yielding to the sweetest slumber.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Ho, ye who seek saving,
Go no further. Come hither, for have we not found it?
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
Here is the Cup with the roses around it,
The world's wound well healed, and the balm that
        hath bound it."

"I'm going to church next Sunday," said Judith to Andrew, as they walked through the chestnut woods. It was evening. Far away beyond the level fields an after-glow opulent in gold was streaming up over the sky—a radiance, living, like the memory of love, long after its source had vanished from the view. The day had been intensely warm, and the wood was full of the pungent odours of leaves, mingled with the sweeter scent of dying wild roses.

Coming to them faintly from far-off fields they could hear the lowing of thirsty cows, eager to be let out of their pastures to the ponds. And from the grass meadow which bordered the chestnut woods came the crop, cropping of Andrew's horses grazing greedily, now that the heat of the day had declined.

Judith wore a white frock, and had a bunch of somewhat limp-looking ferns in her hand. It was impossible for her to leave the woods without some spoil. Andrew walked by her side, tall and brown, his cap pushed far back upon his head, a measureless content within his eyes. Rufus followed sedately, keeping a wary lookout from the corner of his eye for squirrels and rabbits.

Sleepy, white-winged moths were fluttering aimlessly hither and thither amid the grasses, and now and then a bird's call rang through the trees.

"Going to church?" said Andrew. "Isn't that a new idea?"

"Yes," said Judith, a little wistfully. "Mrs. Morris wants me to, and—I wish I was good."

Andrew's face was very tender as he turned towards her. "I don't think you are such a great sinner."

She looked at him half happily, half doubtfully. "Well, I'm going anyhow; Mrs. Morris seems so anxious about it."

"I'll go, too, then."

"Oh, will you?"

"Yes."

They walked on a few moments in silence; then Andrew said:

"Will you sing in church?"

"Oh," said Judith, "they'll have singing! I hadn't thought of it. Yes, I'll sing with the rest."

Andrew chuckled.

"What is it?" demanded Miss Moore, drawing her level brows together in interrogation.

"Oh, nothing," said Andrew.

"Yes, it is something."

"No, really."

"You were laughing at me."

"No, honestly, I wasn't."

"Certain?" Miss Moore looked at him suspiciously.

"Come and look at the horses," said Andrew.

So they crossed from the path, through the narrow belt of trees to the pasture fence, and presently, in answer to Andrew's calls, the horses came trotting up one by one, standing shyly and sniffing with outstretched noses at Andrew's hand. He crossed the fence into the field and fed them with bunches of grass. Judith looked on longingly.

"Could I come over?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yes, indeed," he said. "Do."

"Turn your back, then."

Andrew obeyed promptly, and Miss Moore mounted slowly to the top rail, where she stood uncertainly a moment. It slipped, she gave a little cry, and the next instant Andrew had lifted her lightly down. He held her for a second in his arms; each felt the tremour of the other's heart, and then she was released and was standing trembling by his side. The horses pricked their ears and eyed her nervously, and Andrew gazed down at her with his heart in his eyes.

She held out one of her ferns to the horses, shrinking a little closer to Andrew as they drew near to sniff at it with their velvety muzzles. One after another lipped at the fern, but would not take it.

"They won't eat that," said Andrew, and his voice was very gentle. "Offer them this."

So Judith held out the grass he gave her, catching hold of his sleeve like a child for protection when his big Clydesdale colt stretched out his head towards her. And presently the horses left them one by one, till all were gone except Andrew's clean-limbed bay, upon whose back the wet mark of the saddle was yet visible, for Andrew had ridden into town that afternoon. And Judith grew bolder and patted its soft nose and beautiful neck, and Andrew watching her thought that nowhere, surely nowhere, in all the wide world was there a sweeter woman than this. And he longed to question the universe, if within all its realm there was anything so lovely as the fragile hands which showed so white against Rob Roy's arching neck.

The twilight deepened. A little wistful wind rippled through the long meadow-grass.

"We must go," said Andrew, "or the dew will wet you."

"Oh, it wouldn't hurt me," said Judith.

"Better not risk it," said Andrew. So they walked along within the meadow to the gate, Rob Roy following them, every now and then touching Andrew's shoulder with his outstretched nose. He stood whilst the bars were taken down, and whinnied softly as they left him. "What a dear fellow he is," said Judith.

They soon reached the Morris house, where Mr. Morris was mending a bridle on the doorstep, and Mrs. Morris in the fading light was busy carrying out a plan to frustrate the assaults of the chickens upon her flower beds: for every chicken in Mrs. Morris's possession seemed inspired with an evil desire to scratch up her seedlings so soon as she transplanted them from the boxes in the kitchen to the beds in front of the house. So between the rows of balsams and marigolds and amongst the ruby-stemmed seedlings of the prince's feather, Mrs. Morris had stuck in bits of shingles.

"There," said Mrs. Morris, straightening herself after plunging her last piece into the earth. "There! I guess them chickens has got their work cut out for them before they root out them plants. They do seem to be possessed by evil speerits, them chickens! That's the third planting of marigolds, and what prince's feather there is left is only what sowed itself last year and came up late. My sakes! wasn't it hot in town to-day, Andrew?"

"Yes," said Andrew, from where he stood leaning against the porch.

Judith was standing by Mrs. Morris, looking at the flower beds where each little seedling was surrounded by a palisade of narrow strips of shingle.

Mrs. Morris brought out some chairs, and they sat talking in the dusk while the summer moon grew out of the horizon, and slowly, slowly sailed aloft, paling as it attained its height, till from a glowing disk of yellow it changed to a shadowless silver shield.

"Won't you sing to us, Miss Moore?" asked Andrew.

"Yes, do," urged Mrs. Morris.

"What will I sing!" asked Judith, but without waiting for an answer began. She sang an Italian love-song, a masterpiece of passion and pain—sang it as perhaps no living woman could sing it, making music in such fashion that the hearts of her hearers were melted within them, voicing in it all the timorous new joy, the half-happy fears that filled her heart, with somewhat of the poignant pathos of renunciation. Some one says, "Music is the counterpart of life in spirit speech," and it would seem that in one perfect song there may be condensed all the emotion of life and love, all the pathos of pain and parting. As the song died away Andrew gave a long sigh. The pleasure of such music ofttimes prolongs itself to pain. Perhaps it was some recognition of the great value of Judith's gift of song, perhaps it was because she sang familiarly an unknown tongue that made Andrew suddenly feel the chill of a great gulf fixed between them. The arms which had held her for a moment in the pasture-field yearned with ineffable longing for a joy denied them.

But Judith was singing again, "The Angels' Serenade," one of the loveliest things ever written. When she finished there was a silence. Mrs. Morris' hard-worked hands were clasped tremblingly together, tears were streaming over her face, her heart was yearning towards the little mounds in the unkempt churchyard.

"Hannah," said her grey-haired husband, laying his hand upon her shoulder. Their eyes met. That was all; but dumbly they had shared the cup of their sorrow. A bitter communion, one would say, yet good to make strong the spirit, as the bitter barks strengthen the body.

And a few minutes later Mrs. Morris slipped away into the house, perhaps to open that shrine where were hidden some tiny half-worn garments, perhaps out of sympathy for the two young people who might wish to be alone; and when Judith began to sing again, she and Andrew were alone, for Mr. Morris, with lumbering attempts at caution, had followed his wife.

Andrew's heart was aching with inexplicable pain. Judith was singing an old theme, composed long since by some frocked and cowled musician, whose rigid vows and barren life could not quite suppress the dream of music within his soul. It was a simple and austere melody, yet endued with a peculiar pathos, the yearning of a defrauded life for the joy that should have crowned it, the regret of a barren present for a fruitful past, the wail of the must be for the might have been.

And as she sang, the gulf which Andrew had perceived between them widened into a great black sea, across which her voice came to him where he stood alone forever upon the shore; and just as the pain grew too poignant to be borne, a bat darted near them, Judith gave a frightened cry and fled to his side, and the gulf was bridged in a second by a strong strand knit of a woman's foolish fear and a man's reassuring word.

And soon a light shone down from an upstairs window. Judith started up. "You must go straight away home," she said, "Mrs. Morris has gone to her room."

"Come as far as the gate with me," said Andrew, and she went. But after they had talked a moment Judith remembered the bats, so, of course, Andrew had to take her back to the porch in safety.

At length he was forced to go, so with a last "good-night," and a last long look into her eyes, he strode away to his home on the hill.

The leaves of the chestnut trees were rustling in uncertain flaws of wind; the crickets were creaking eerily from out the darkness; the fields, all pearled with dew, shimmered in the moonlight.

It was a solitary hour. But Andrew's heart was light within his breast; Judith's eyes had been very sweet when she said "Good-night."

And Judith climbed the blue-painted wooden stairs to her little corner-room, and lay long awake, forgetting the promise of her great future, forgetting the efforts of the past, forgetting the debt she owed her manager, only knowing that she loved and was beloved again, only recalling the eyes this brown young farmer had bent upon her, only remembering the tender strength of his arms, as, for a moment, they had encircled her. A simple dream this? Perhaps. But let such a vision once weave itself into the fabric of a life, and all else will seem poor and mean beside it.

It was a beautiful sunshiny Sunday as Judith stood in the porch waiting for Mrs. Morris, who presently appeared, clad in a black calico with white spots on it, black silk gloves and a bonnet with a purple flower.

Judith had dressed herself in a little frock of pale green linen, and her face bloomed like a rose above it. Her hat and parasol were of the same cool tint as her frock, and as the walk in the sunshine flushed her cheeks with unaccustomed colour, she looked much like a sweet pink flower set in green leaves; at least, so Andrew thought when he saw her entering the church beside Mrs. Morris.

The Methodist church was slowly filling with women and children. Sam Symmons' Suse had just gone in, and the Misses Green were but a few yards behind. The men in Ovid had an evil habit of standing along the sides of the churches talking whilst the first hymn was being sung; and frequently, if there was any particularly interesting topic on hand, till the first prayer was offered. In winter the sunny side was chosen; in summer they availed themselves of the scanty shade afforded by the slanting eaves, standing, their heads and shoulders in shadow, their freshly polished shoes glistening in the sun, their jaws moving rhythmically as they chewed their wads of "black strap." A remark made at one end of the row percolated slowly to the other, each man judicially revolving it in his mind and voicing his opinion in deliberate nasal tones.

"Lord, a little band and lowly,
    We have come to worship thee,
Thou art great and high and holy,
    Oh! how solemn we should be."

So the women and children sang inside, accompanied by a wheezy melodeon. They heightened the effect by emphasizing the adjectives strongly and singing "sollum" with great unanimity in the last line.

Andrew listened for Judith's voice, but evidently she had concluded not to sing. Andrew was disappointed. He had been looking forward in high glee to watching the amazement of his neighbours when they heard that marvellous voice. The truth was, Judith had not seen him where he stood beside the church, and was too busy looking about surreptitiously to see if he had fulfilled his promise about coming, to think of the singing either one way or the other. And when she saw Miss Myers sitting stiffly alone in the corner of a pew near the front, her heart sank like lead, and all her happy eagerness over the service departed. She was piqued, too, and began to feel a nasty heartache stirring within her breast.

The singing was over. An interspace of quiet betokened to those outside that the prayer was in progress, and a rustling of leaves and settling of dresses proclaimed the fact that the preacher and his congregation wore ready for the serious business of the day, the proceedings up to this point being tacitly regarded as the preliminary canter before the weekly contest with Original Sin, that dark horse which, ridden by that knowing jockey, Opportunity, wins so many races for the Evil One. At this juncture the men came in one by one, each trying to look as uninterested in his neighbours as possible, to give the impression that this influx of the male element was purely accidental and not the result of concerted movement.

It is somewhat doubtful if this impression was conveyed to the preacher, as the same circumstance had occurred every Sunday since he had been there; and certainly it deluded none of the women, who, well aware of the gossiping tendencies of their men, never held themselves at the approved "attention" attitude till this stage in the proceedings, but who then waxed marvellously stiff as to posture, and marvellously meek as to expression.

When Judith looked up next time, it was to meet two eager, grey eyes looking at her from Miss Myers' pew, and all at once the incipient heartache vanished, a calm of sweet content fell upon her spirit. She looked around, and apprehended all the poignant blending of pathos and absurdity about her. Her eyes softened as they fell upon old Sam Symmons' hard-wrought hands resting on the top of his stout stick, and lighted as she saw Tommy Slick's rose and white face and impish eyes showing above the door of a centre pew. Her tender eyes sought out and read the story of the deep-lined faces about her, and a great pity for their narrow lives filled her.

The sermon was just begun when the green baize door swung back a little, and an investigating dog entered. He was one of those nosing, prying, peering dogs which seem to typify so exactly the attitude of some people towards their neighbours' affairs. He peregrinated through the pews, around the melodeon, up and down the aisle, and then turned his canine attention to the preacher's reading desk. The preacher became manifestly uneasy; all his sensitiveness slowly centred in his heels, round which the dog sniffed. Judith, whose sense of the humorous was painfully acute, gave one glance at Andrew, and then became absorbed in trying to control her laughter. The dog still lingered where he was. The preacher's face was flushed; his words faltered. Every one felt that some one else should do something.

At length, after many significant gestures and nudges from his wife, Hiram Green rose and approached the dog with outstretched hand, rubbing his fingers together in the manner which we imagine impresses a dumb animal with a deep sense of pacific intentions. The dog backed away. Hiram followed as the dog retreated. It paused, wagging its tail doubtfully. Hiram sat down on his toes and patted his knee in a wheedling manner with one hand, whilst with the other he made ready to grasp his prey. The dog came a little nearer.

Hiram grasped—but grasped short; his fingers met on empty air, and he nearly overbalanced. For the moment he had the wild feeling a person experiences when a rocking-chair goes over with him—a sort of gasping clutch at terra firma.

Judith was nearly in tears from agonies of suppressed laughter, knowing, as she did, that Andrew was waiting to catch her eye. That, she felt, would finish matters so far as she was concerned; a sense of companionship makes one's appreciation of a joke painfully intense.

Hiram was conscious that the Sunday School in the gallery was red with suppressed excitement; that his neighbours' interest in the sermon was purely perfunctory; he even had a horrible thought that the preacher himself was laughing at him. In this he was wrong; the preacher was nearly distracted, having lost the thread of his sermon, and was maundering wildly on, hoping to disentangle his argument before Hiram caught the dog.

Hiram, grown desperate, added to his alluring gestures the blandishment of half-voiced words, which sounded like "Poor dog," "Good dog," but which meant, "You infernal brute." The dog succumbed at length, its last suspicions allayed by this specious use of the gift it did not possess, and presently the congregation was edified by seeing Hiram, flushed, but with an expression of great loving-kindness, carry the dog gently down the aisle. Slowly and softly Hiram carried him until near the door, when circumstances made him accelerate his speed, for the dog was Tommy Slick's Nip, a shiny, smooth-coated dog, and Hiram's hold was gradually slipping. He had an unpleasant but confident premonition that the dog would reach for him, as dogs are prone to do, when his fingers got to the tender spot beneath the forepaws. However, he reached and passed the baize door in safety, and in the second which followed, the congregation, with the sigh with which one relinquishes an acme of intense and pleasurable excitement, turned its attention to the preacher. At that moment there came a shrill and ear-splitting yelp. Hiram had taken the dog to the top of the steps, and applied his foot in the manner most likely to speed the parting guest. Hiram entered and took his place with a very red face. He felt dimly that the yelp was a criticism upon the smile with which he carried the dog out. To Hiram that sermon did not tend to edification.

That particular Sunday was a memorable one in Ovid. The congregation had just gathered itself together after the incident of the dog, when the preacher announced the hymn. It was one of the few really beautiful hymns, "Lead, kindly Light."

Judith rose to sing with the rest, and with the second word her voice joined with the others, dominating them as the matin song of the lark might pierce through the chatter of sparrows along the eaves. When Judith opened her lips to sing, music possessed her, and, a true artiste to her finger-tips, she never sang carelessly. Absorbed in her book—for she did not know the words—she sang on. The people looked and wondered, and one by one the voices died away, the wheezy notes of the melodeon faltered forth from beneath the second Miss Green's uncertain fingers, and Judith sang on serenely, standing erect, her head held high, her soft throat throbbing like a bird's. Outside the air was golden with yellow sunshine, within it was cool and darkened. A rift of light slanted through the closed shutters of the window near which Judith stood; thousands of little motes danced in it, specks and gleams of gold. Through the open windows there came the odour of dried grass, and every now and then a flaw of wind brought a whiff from Oscar Randall's field of white clover. Andrew had laughed in the meadow as he thought of Judith's voice electrifying the people in the church, but he had forgotten that he himself was not secure against its charm. Laughter was far from his thoughts now.

"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
    Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
    Lead thou me on."

The words, upborne upon the wings of matchless song, seemed to soar far beyond the confines of the little church, taking with them the inarticulate trust and hope and confidence of all these humble folk.

The preacher sat looking at her, pale and entranced. This singing seemed suddenly to open a long-closed door in his life, so that once more he looked down that chimerical vista from out the misty distances of which illusive hands beckoned him on to brighter things. He had once dreamed of a loftier destiny than the life of a Methodist preacher, but that was long past; still it was sweet to recall so vividly the season when his spirit had wings. He sat before his congregation, a tall, spare man, large of bone and awkward, with a countenance upon which self-denial had graven deep cruel lines, a brow that had weathered many bitter blasts. In type he was near allied to the people before him, the last man, one would fancy, whom dreams would visit. And yet, as he listened to this stranger girl, singing alone in the midst of his congregation, there fell deeply upon him the trance of dead delight; the simple panorama of his past spread itself before his eyes, blotting out the faces before him as a shimmering mist obscures an unlovely scene.

It was a very simple vision, a "homespun dream of simple folk." He saw a rosy-cheeked village girl, for whose sake he as a village lad had worked and toiled and slaved. He had fought for education and success that he might lay them at her feet. He had kept her waiting long. She was only a poor, pretty girl, and she had other lovers. One night, when her lover in a garret in the city was poring over his books, his head aching, his heart faltering, yet persevering as much for her sake as for the sake of his faith, she, driving home from a dance through dewy lanes and softly-shadowed country roads, promised to marry the farmer's son who was taking her home.

The news reached him in his garret, and something flickered out of his face which never shone there again. But with the tenacity of his race he stuck to his work. His heart was in the green fields always, and he had come from a long line of country men and women. He had no inherited capacity for learning, but he got through his course somehow, and became an accredited minister, and the day he was ordained the news of her death reached him, and that was all. He had never censured her; in his thoughts she had ever been an angel of sweetness and goodness, and as Judith sang, all these things rushed back upon his heart. It was with a very white face and a very soft voice that he rose to address his people, and he spoke home to their hearts, for he knew whereof he spake when he dealt with the pains and trials and troubles of their lives. He was only the height of his platform removed from them, and he had paid dearly for his paltry elevation, but from its height he saw, far off perhaps, but clear, the shining of a great light, and with ineloquent, slow speech he strove to translate its glory and its promise to the people before him.

Church was over; the people pressed slowly along the aisle into the palpitant warmth of the summer afternoon. Miss Myers came up to Judith when she stood for a moment at the door, and invited her to go home with them to the house on the hill, and Judith, nothing loath, consented. So presently she and Andrew, with Miss Myers, were walking through the slumberous little streets of the village.

As they drew near the house of Bill Aikins, they caught sight of him sitting on the doorstep peeling potatoes, beads of perspiration upon his brow, for he was suffering sorely from Kate's weekly infliction of a white shirt.

Bill had "a little wee face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard," and usually wore a deprecatory smile upon his countenance. He was possessed of a perfect temper, and whatever his lot might seem to others, to himself it was all that could be desired. To be the husband of such a woman, could man desire a better fate? And, indeed, Kate Aikins was a fine-looking woman, tall and straight. Old Sam Symmons often said she was a "gallant figure of a woman."

As they passed the house they heard Kate's voice sounding shrilly from within:

"He did what! Weighed the paper with the cheese? And you stood by and never said a word? I'll be bound! Well, 'a fool and his money is soon parted.' There's truth in them old sayings yet. The idea of you being scared to speak to Hi. Green and him cheating you before your very face! Land sakes! What's he I wonder? Next time you go to buy cheese you take paper with you. He asks enough for the cheese without paying for paper."

As they got beyond hearing, Judith's face burned out of sympathy for Bill's embarrassment. However, Bill was in nowise troubled. He knew his wife would be quite as ready to express herself towards any one else in the village as to himself, and a philosophy born of that reflection entirely prevented Bill from feeling in any degree abashed by strangers enjoying his wife's eloquence.

It was only two days since she had announced to him with much satisfaction that she had "just told Sarah Myers what she thought of her," and she had expressed a longing desire of late to have a five minutes' talk with Andrew Cutler, relative to some supposed slight he had put upon her. The whole village was well aware of many instances of Bill's discomfiture when Kate first married him and undertook his reformation.

There was the day when Bill, well on towards being thoroughly drunk, was returning home down the village street, walking carelessly through the deep slush of early spring. Kate met him. She, if truth be told, was on the lookout for him, having despatched him more than two hours before to get some starch from the store.