They walked slowly back along the pike toward the brick house. The
white-ruffed fennel reached up its dusty yellow heads to touch her
skirts as she passed, and then drooped, satisfied, against the purple
iron-weed at the roadside. In the noonday silence no cricket chirped nor
locust raised its lorn monotone; the tree shadows mottled the road with
blue, and the level fields seemed to pant out a dazzling breath, the
transparent “heat-waves” that danced above the low corn and green wheat.
He was stooping very much as they walked; he wanted to be told that
he could look at her for a thousand years. Her face was rarely and
exquisitely modelled, but, perhaps, just now the salient characteristic
of her beauty (for the salient characteristic seemed to be a different
thing at different times) was the coloring, a delicate glow under the
white skin, that bewitched him in its seeming a reflection of the rich
benediction of the noonday sun that blazed overhead.
Once he had thought the way to the Briscoe homestead rather a long walk;
but now the distance sped malignantly; and strolled they never so
slow, it was less than a “young bird's flutter from a wood.” With her
acquiescence he rolled a cigarette, and she began to hum lightly the air
of a song, a song of an ineffably gentle, slow movement.
That, and a reference of the morning, and, perhaps, the smell of his
tobacco mingling with the fragrance of her roses, awoke again the keen
reminiscence of the previous night within him. Clearly outlined before
him rose the high, green slopes and cool cliff-walls of the coast of
Maine, while his old self lazily watched the sharp little waves through
half-closed lids, the pale smoke of his cigarette blowing out under the
rail of a waxen deck where he lay cushioned. And again a woman pelted
his face with handfuls of rose-petals and cried: “Up lad and at 'em!
Yonder is Winter Harbor.” Again he sat in the oak-raftered Casino,
breathless with pleasure, and heard a young girl sing the “Angel's
Serenade,” a young girl who looked so bravely unconscious of the big,
hushed crowd that listened, looked so pure and bright and gentle and
good, that he had spoken of her as “Sir Galahad's little sister.” He
recollected he had been much taken with this child; but he had not
thought of her from that time to this, he supposed; had almost forgotten
her. No! Her face suddenly stood out to his view as though he saw
her with his physical eye--a sweet and vivacious child's face with
light-brown hair and gray eyes and a short upper lip. ... And the
voice....
He stopped short and struck his palms together. “You are Tom Meredith's
little cousin!”
“The Great Harkless!” she answered, and stretched out her hand to him.
“I remember you!”
“Isn't it time?”
“Ah, but I never forgot you,” he cried. “I thought I had. I didn't know
who it was I was remembering. I thought it was fancy, and it was memory.
I never forgot your voice, singing--and I remembered your face too;
though I thought I didn't.” He drew a deep breath. “_That_ was why----”
“Tom Meredith has not forgotten you,” she said, as he paused.
“Would you mind shaking hands once more?” he asked. She gave him her
hand again. “With all my heart. Why?”
“I'm making a record at it. Thank you.”
“They called me 'Sir Galahad's little sister' all one summer because the
Great John Harkless called me that. You danced with me in the evening.”
“Did I?”
“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “you were too busy being in love with
Mrs. Van Skuyt to remember a waltz with only me! I was allowed to meet
you as a reward for singing my very best, and you--you bowed with the
indulgence of a grandfather, and asked me to dance.”
“Like a grandfather? How young I was then! How time changes us!”
“I'm afraid my conversation did not make a great impression upon you,”
she continued.
“But it did. I am remembering very fast. If you will wait a moment, I
will tell you some of the things you said.”
The girl laughed merrily. Whenever she laughed he realized that it was
becoming terribly difficult not to tell her how adorable she was. “I
wouldn't risk it, if I were you,” she warned him, “because I didn't
speak to you at all. I shut my lips tight and trembled all over every
bit of the time I was dancing with you. I did not sleep that night,
because I was so unhappy, wondering what the Great Harkless would think
of me. I knew he thought me unutterably stupid because I couldn't
talk to him. I wanted to send him word that I knew I had bored him.
I couldn't bear for him not to know that I knew I had. But he was not
thinking of me in any way. He had gone to sea again in a big boat, the
ungrateful pirate, cruising with Mrs. Van Skuyt.”
“How time _does_ change us!” said John. “You are wrong, though; I did
think of you; I have al----”
“Yes,” she interrupted, tossing her head in airy travesty of the stage
coquette, “you think so--I mean you say so--now. Away with you and your
blarneying!”
And so they went through the warm noontide, and little he cared for the
heat that wilted the fat mullein leaves and made the barefoot boy, who
passed by, skip gingerly through the burning dust with anguished mouth
and watery eye. Little he knew of the locust that suddenly whirred his
mills of shrillness in the maple-tree, and sounded so hot, hot, hot; or
those others that railed at the country quiet from the dim shade around
the brick house; or even the rain-crow that sat on the fence and swore
to them in the face of a sunny sky that they should see rain ere the day
were done.
Little the young man recked of what he ate at Judge Briscoe's good noon
dinner: chicken wing and young roas'n'-ear; hot rolls as light as
the fluff of a summer cloudlet; and honey and milk; and apple-butter
flavored like spices of Arabia; and fragrant, flaky cherry-pie; and
cool, rich, yellow cream. Lige Willetts was a lover, yet he said he
asked no better than to Just go on eating that cherry-pie till a sweet
death overtook him; but railroad sandwiches and restaurant chops might
have been set before Harkless for all the difference it would have made
to him.
At no other time is a man's feeling of companionship with a woman
so strong as when he sits at table with her-not at a “decorated” and
becatered and bewaitered table, but at a homely, appetizing, wholesome
home table like old Judge Briscoe's. The very essence of the thing is
domesticity, and the implication is utter confidence and liking. There
are few greater dangers for a bachelor. An insinuating imp perches on
his shoulder, and, softly tickling the bachelor's ear with the feathers
of an arrow-shaft, whispers: “Pretty nice, isn't it, eh? Rather pleasant
to have that girl sitting there, don't you think? Enjoy having her
notice your butter-plate was empty? Think it exhilarating to hand her
those rolls? Looks nice, doesn't she? Says 'Thank you' rather prettily?
Makes your lonely breakfast seem mighty dull, doesn't it? How would you
like to have her pour your coffee for you to-morrow, my boy? How would
it seem to have such pleasant company all the rest of your life? Pretty
cheerful, eh?”
When Miss Sherwood passed the editor the apple-butter, the casual,
matter-of-course way she did it entranced him in a strange, exquisite
wonderment. He did not set the dish down when she put it in his hand,
but held it straight out before him, just looking at it, until Mr.
Willetts had a dangerous choking fit, for which Minnie was very proud of
Lige; no one could have suspected that it was the veil of laughter. When
Helen told John he really must squeeze a lemon into his iced tea, he
felt that his one need in life was to catch her up in his arms and run
away with her, not anywhere in particular, but just run and run and run
away.
After dinner they went out to the veranda and the gentlemen smoked. The
judge set his chair down on the ground, tilted back in it with his feet
on the steps, and blew a wavery domed city up in the air. He called it
solid comfort. He liked to sit out from under the porch roof, he said;
he wanted to see more of the sky. The others moved their chairs down to
join him in the celestial vision. There had blown across the heaven a
feathery, thin cloud or two, but save for these, there was nothing but
glorious and tender, brilliant blue. It seemed so clear and close one
marvelled the little church spire in the distance did not pierce it;
yet, at the same time, the eye ascended miles and miles into warm,
shimmering ether. Far away two buzzards swung slowly at anchor, half-way
to the sun.
“'O bright, translucent, cerulean hue,
Let my wide wings drift on in you,'”
said Harkless, pointing them out to Helen.
“You seem to get a good deal of fun out of this kind of weather,”
observed Lige, as he wiped his brow and shifted his chair out of the
sun.
“I expect you don't get such skies as this up in Rouen,” said the judge,
looking at the girl from between half-closed eyelids.
“It's the same Indiana sky, I think,” she answered.
“I guess maybe in the city you don't see as much of it, or think as much
about it. Yes, they're the Indiana skies,” the old man went on.
Skies as blue
As the eyes of children when they smile at you.'
“There aren't any others anywhere that ever seemed much like them to
me. They've been company for me all my life. I don't think there are any
others half as beautiful, and I know there aren't any as sociable. They
were always so.” He sighed gently, and Miss Sherwood fancied his wife
must have found the Indiana skies as lovely as he had, in the days of
long ago. “Seems to me they _are_ the softest and bluest and kindest in
the world.”
“I think they are,” said Helen, “and they are more beautiful than the
'Italian skies,' though I doubt if many of us Hoosiers realize it;
and--certainly no one else does.”
The old man leaned over and patted her hand. Harkless gasped. “'Us
Hoosiers!'” chuckled the judge. “You're a great Hoosier, young lady! How
much of your life have you spent in the State? 'Us Hoosiers!'”
“But I'm going to be a good one,” she answered, gaily, “and if I'm good
enough, when I grow up maybe I'll be a great one.”
The buckboard had been brought around, and the four young people climbed
in, Harkless driving. Before they started, the judge, standing on the
horse-block in front of the gate, leaned over and patted Miss Sherwood's
hand again. Harkless gathered up the reins.
“You'll make a great Hoosier, all right,” said the old man, beaming upon
the girl. “You needn't worry about that, I guess, my dear.”
When he said “my dear,” Harkless spoke to the horses.
“Wait,” said the judge, still holding the girl's hand. “You'll make a
great Hoosier, some day; don't fret. You're already a very beautiful
one.” Then he bent his white head and kissed her, gallantly. John said:
“Good afternoon, judge”; the whip cracked like a pistol-shot, and the
buckboard dashed off in a cloud of dust.
“Every once in a while, Harkless,” the old fellow called after them,
“you must remember to look at the team.”
The enormous white tent was filled with a hazy yellow light, the warm,
dusty, mellow light that thrills the rejoicing heart because it is
found nowhere in the world except in the tents of a circus--the
canvas-filtered sunshine and sawdust atmosphere of show day. Through the
entrance the crowd poured steadily, coming from the absorptions of
the wild-animal tent to feast upon greater wonders; passing around the
sawdust ellipse that contained two soul-cloying rings, to find seats
whence they might behold the splendors so soon to be unfolded. Every one
who was not buying the eternal lemonade was eating something; and the
faces of children shone with gourmand rapture; indeed, very often the
eyes of them were all you saw, half-closed in palate-gloating over a
huge apple, or a bulky oblong of popcorn, partly unwrapped from its
blue tissue-paper cover; or else it might be a luscious pink crescent of
watermelon, that left its ravisher stained and dripping to the brow.
Here, as in the morning, the hawkers raised their cries in
unintermittent shrillness, offering to the musically inclined the Happy
Evenings Song-book, alleged to contain those treasures, all the latest
songs of the day, or presented for the consideration of the humorous
the Lawrence Lapearl Joke-book, setting forth in full the art of comical
entertainment and repartee. (Schofields' Henry bought two of
these--no doubt on the principle that two were twice as instructive as
one--intending to bury himself in study and do battle with Tom Martin on
his own ground.)
Here swayed the myriad palm-leaf fans; here paraded blushing youth and
rosy maiden, more relentlessly arm-in-arm than ever; here crept
the octogenarian, Mr. Bodeffer, shaking on cane and the shoulder of
posterity; here waddled Mr. Snoddy, who had hurried through the animal
tent for fear of meeting the elephant; here marched sturdy yeomen and
stout wives; here came William Todd and his Anna Belle, the good William
hushed with the embarrassments of love, but looking out warily with
the white of his eye for Mr. Martin, and determined not to sit within a
hundred yards of him; here rolled in the orbit of habit the bacchanal,
Mr. Wilkerson, who politely answered in kind all the uncouth roarings
and guttural ejaculations of jungle and fen that came from the animal
tent; in brief, here came with lightest hearts the population of Carlow
and part of Amo.
Helen had found a true word: it was a big family. Jim Bardlock, broadly
smiling and rejuvenated, shorn of depression, paused in front of the
“reserve” seats, with Mrs. Bardlock on his arm, and called loudly to a
gentleman on a tier about the level of Jim's head: “How are ye? I reckon
we were a _little_ too smart fer 'em, this morning, huh?” Five or six
hundred people--every one within hearing--fumed to look at Jim; but the
gentleman addressed was engaged in conversation with a lady and did not
notice.
“Hi! Hi, there! _Say_! Mr. Harkless!” bellowed Jim, informally. The
people turned to look at Harkless. His attention was arrested and his
cheek grew red.
“_What is it_?” he asked, a little confused and a good deal annoyed.
“I don't hear what ye say,” shouted Jim, putting his hand to his ear.
“_What is it_?” repeated the young man. “I'll kill that fellow
to-night,” he added to Lige Willetts. “Some one ought to have done it
long ago.”
“What?”
“I _say_, WHAT IS IT?”
“I only wanted to say me and you certainly did fool these here Hoosiers
this morning, huh? Hustled them two fellers through the court-house, and
nobody never thought to slip round to the other door and head us off.
Ha, ha! We were jest a _leetle_ too many fer 'em, huh?”
From an upper tier of seats the rusty length of Mr. Martin erected
itself joint by joint, like an extension ladder, and he peered down
over the gaping faces at the Town Marshal. “Excuse me,” he said sadly to
those behind him, but his dry voice penetrated everywhere, “I got up to
hear Jim say 'We' again.”
Mr. Bardlock joined in the laugh against himself, and proceeded with
his wife to some seats, forty or fifty feet distant. When he had settled
himself comfortably, he shouted over cheerfully to the unhappy editor:
“Them shell-men got it in fer you, Mr. Harkless.”
“Ain't that fool shet up _yit_?” snarled the aged Mr. Bodeffer,
indignantly. He was sitting near the young couple, and the expression
of his sympathy was distinctly audible to them and many others. “Got
no more regards than a brazing calf-disturbin' a feller with his
sweetheart!”
“The both of 'em says they're goin' to do fer you,” bleated Mr.
Bardlock. “Swear they'll git their evens with ye.”
Mr. Martin rose again. “Don't git scared and leave town, Mr. Harkless,”
he called out; “Jim'll protect you.”
Vastly to the young man's relief the band began to play, and the
equestrians and equestriennes capered out from the dressing-tent for the
“Grand Entrance,” and the performance commenced. Through the long
summer afternoon it went on: wonders of horsemanship and horsewomanship;
hair-raising exploits on wires, tight and slack; giddy tricks on the
high trapeze; feats of leaping and tumbling in the rings; while the
tireless musicians blatted inspiringly through it all, only pausing
long enough to allow that uproarious jester, the clown, to ask the
ring-master what he would do if a young lady came up and kissed him on
the street, and to exploit his hilarities during the short intervals of
rest for the athletes.
When it was over, John and Helen found themselves in the midst of a
densely packed crowd, and separated from Miss Briscoe and Lige. People
were pushing and shoving, and he saw her face grow pale. He realized
with a pang of sympathy how helpless he would feel if he were as small
as she, and at his utmost height could only see big, suffocating backs
and huge shoulders pressing down from above. He was keeping them from
crowding heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal feeling of
protectiveness came over him. She was so little. And yet, without the
remotest hint of hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of
poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet anything that might
come, to understand it--even to laugh at it--so Americanly capable and
sure of the event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not feel
quite so protective as he wished to feel.
He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her
back to it. Then he set one of his own hands against it over her head,
braced himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, ruggedly
letting the crowd surge against him as it would; no one should touch her
in rough carelessness.
“Thank you. It was rather trying in there,” she said, and looked up into
his eyes with a divine gratitude.
“Please don't do that,” he answered in a low voice.
“Do what?”
“Look like that.”
She not only looked like that, but more so. “Young man, young man,” she
said, “I fear you're wishful of turning a girl's head.”
The throng was thick around them, garrulous and noisy, but they two were
more richly alone together, to his appreciation, than if they stood on
some far satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, and he
kept the picture of her, as she leaned against the big blue tent-pole,
there, in his heart: the clear gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate
face with the color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave little
figure that had run so straight to him out of the night shadows. There
was something about her, and in the moment, that suddenly touched him
with a saddening sweetness too keen to be borne; the forget-me-not
finger of the flying hour that could not come again was laid on his
soul, and he felt the tears start from his heart on their journey to his
eyes. He knew that he should always remember that moment. She knew it,
too. She put her hand to her cheek and turned away from him a little
tremulously. Both were silent.
They had been together since early morning. Plattville was proud of him.
Many a friendly glance from the folk who jostled about them favored his
suit and wished both of them well, and many lips, opening to speak to
Harkless in passing, closed when their owners (more tactful than Mr.
Bardlock) looked a second time.
Old Tom Martin, still perched alone On his high seat, saw them standing
by the tent-pole, and watched them from under his rusty hat brim. “I
reckon it's be'n three or four thousand years since I was young,” he
sighed to himself; then, pushing his hat still further down over his
eyes: “I don't believe I'd ort to rightly look on at that.” He
sighed again as he rose, and gently spoke the name of his dead wife:
“Marjie,--it's be'n lonesome, sometimes. I reckon you're mighty tired
waitin' for me, ever since sixty-four--yet maybe not; Ulysses S. Grant's
over on your side now, and perhaps you've got acquainted with him; you
always thought a good deal more of him than you did of me.”
“Do you see that tall old man up there?” said Helen, nodding her head
toward Martin. “I think I should like to know him. I'm sure I like him.”
“That is old Tom Martin.”
“I know.”
“I was sorry and ashamed about all that conspicuousness and shouting.
It must have been very unpleasant for you; it must have been so, for a
stranger. Please try to forgive me for letting you in for it.”
“But I liked it. It was 'all in the family,' and it was so jolly and
good-natured, and that dear old man was so bright. Do you know,” she
said softly, “I don't think I'm such a stranger--I--I think I love all
these people a great deal--in spite of having known them only two days.”
At that a wild exhilaration possessed him. He wanted to shake hands
with everybody in the tent, to tell them all that he loved them with
his whole heart, but, what was vastly more important, _she_ loved them a
great deal--in spite of having known them only two days!
He made the horses prance on the homeward drive, and once, when she
told him that she had read a good many of his political columns in the
“Herald,” he ran them into a fence. After this it occurred to him that
they were nearing their destination and had come at a perversely sharp
gait; so he held the roans down to a snail's pace (if it be true that a
snail's natural gait is not a trot) for the rest of the way, while they
talked of Tom Meredith and books and music, and discovered that they
differed widely about Ibsen.
They found Mr. Fisbee in the yard, talking to Judge Briscoe. As they
drove up, and before the horses had quite stopped, Helen leaped to the
ground and ran to the old scholar with both her hands outstretched to
him. He looked timidly at her, and took the hands she gave him; then
he produced from his pocket a yellow telegraph envelope, watching
her anxiously as she received it. However, she seemed to attach no
particular importance to it, and, instead of opening it, leaned toward
him, still holding one of his hands.
“These awful old men!” Harkless groaned inwardly as he handed the horses
over to the judge. “I dare say _he_'ll kiss her, too.” But, when the
editor and Mr. Willetts had gone, it was Helen who kissed Fisbee.
“They're coming out to spend the evening, aren't they?” asked Briscoe,
nodding to the young men as they set off down the road.
“Lige has to come whether he wants to or not,” Minnie laughed, rather
consciously; “It's his turn to-night to look after Mr. Harkless.”
“I guess he won't mind coming,” said the judge.
“Well,” returned his daughter, glancing at Helen, who stood apart,
reading the telegram to Fisbee, “I know if he follows Mr. Harkless
he'll get here pretty soon after supper--as soon as the moon comes up,
anyway.”
The editor of the “Herald” was late to his supper that evening. It was
dusk when he reached the hotel, and, for the first time in history, a
gentleman sat down to meat in that house of entertainment in evening
dress. There was no one in the diningroom when he went in; the other
boarders had finished, and it was Cynthia's “evening out,” but the
landlord came and attended to his guests' wants himself, and chatted
with him while he ate.
“There's a picture of Henry Clay,” remarked Landis, in obvious relevancy
to his companion's attire, “there's a picture of Henry Clay somewheres
about the house in a swallow-tail coat. Governor Ray spoke here in one
in early times, Bodeffer says, except it was higher built up 'n yourn
about the collar, and had brass buttons, I think. Ole man Wimby was
here to-night,” the landlord continued, changing the subject. “He
waited around fer ye a good while. He's be'n mighty wrought up sence the
trouble this morning, an' wanted to see ye bad. I don't know 'f you
seen it, but that feller 't knocked your hat off was mighty near tore
to pieces in the crowd before he got away. 'Seems some the boys
re-_cog_-nized him as one the Cross-Roads Skillets, and sicked the dogs
on him, and he had a pretty mean time of it. Wimby says the Cross-Roads
folks'll be worse 'n ever, and, says he, 'Tell him to stick close to
town,' says he. 'They'll do anything to git him now,' says he, 'and
_resk_ anything.' I told him you wouldn't take no stock in it, but, see
here, don't you put nothin' too mean fer them folks. I tell you, Mr.
Harkless, plenty of us are scared fer ye.”
The good fellow was so earnest that when the editor's meal was finished
and he would have departed, Landis detained him almost by force until
the arrival of Mr. Willetts, who, the landlord knew, was his allotted
escort' for the evening. When Lige came (wearing a new tie, a pink one
he had hastened to buy as soon as his engagements had allowed him
the opportunity), Mr. Landis hissed a savage word of reproach for his
tardiness in his ear, and whisperingly bade him not let the other out
of reach that night, to which Willetts replied with a nod implying his
trustworthiness; and the young men set off in the darkness.
Harkless wondered if his costume were not an injustice to his companion,
but he did not regret it; he would wear his best court suit, his laces
and velvets, for deference to that lady. It was a painful thing to
remember his dusty rustiness of the night before, the awful Carlow cut
of his coat, and his formless black cravat; the same felt hat he wore
again to-night, perforce, but it was brushed--brushed almost to holes in
spots, and somehow he had added a touch of shape to it. His dress-coat
was an antique; fashions had changed, no doubt; he did not know;
possibly she would recognize its vintage--but it was a dress-coat.
Lige walked along talking; Harkless answering “Yes” and “No” at random.
The woodland-spiced air was like champagne to him; the road under foot
so elastic and springy that he felt like a thoroughbred before a race;
he wanted to lift his foot knee-high at every step, he had so much
energy to spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of
the wheat he suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant,
so profound, that Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his eye
reached his companion's face, Harkless was smiling. The editor extended
his hand.
“Shake hands, Lige,” he cried.
The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern wood, and the young
men suddenly descried their long shadows stretching in front of them.
Harkless turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops and roofs
and the Methodist church spire, silvered at the edges.
“Do you see that town, Willetts?” he asked, laying his fingers on his
companion's sleeve. “That's the best town in the United States!”
“I always kind of thought you didn't much like it,” said the other,
puzzled. “Seemed to me you always sort of wished you hadn't settled
here.”
A little further on they passed Mr. Fisbee. He was walking into the
village with his head thrown back, a strange thing for him. They gave
him a friendly greeting and passed on.
“Well, it beats me!” observed Lige, when the old man was out of hearing.
“He's be'n there to supper again. He was there all day yesterday, and
with 'em at the lecture, and at the deepo day before and he looks like
another man, and dressed up--for him--to beat thunder----What do you
expect makes him so thick out there all of a sudden?”
“I hadn't thought about it. The judge and he have been friends a good
while, haven't they?”
“Yes, three or four years; but not like this. It beats _me_! He's all
upset over Miss Sherwood, I think. Old enough to be her grandfather,
too, the old----”
His companion stopped him, dropping a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen!”
They were at the corner of the Briscoe picket fence, and a sound lilted
through the stillness--a touch on the keys that Harkless knew. “Listen,”
he whispered.
It was the “Moonlight Sonata” that Helen was playing. “It's a pretty
piece,” observed Lige after a time. John could have choked him, but he
answered: “Yes, it is seraphic.”
“Who made it up?” pursued Mr. Willetts.
“Beethoven.”
“Foreigner, I expect. Yet in some way or another makes me think of
fishing down on the Wabash bend in Vigo, and camping out nights like
this; it's a mighty pretty country around there--especially at night.”
The sonata was finished, and then she sang--sang the “Angel's Serenade.”
As the soft soprano lifted and fell in the modulations of that song
there was in its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a
questing, seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand on his shoulder
tighten and then relax; and, as the song ended, he saw that his
companion's eyes were shining and moist.