THE HERMIT SINGS AGAIN
Then twilight falls with the touch
Of a hand that soothes and stills,
And a swamp-robin sings into light
The lone white star of the hills.
Alone in the dusk he sings,
And a burden of sorrow and wrong
Is lifted up from the earth
And carried away in song.
--BLISS CARMAN.
John McIntyre, still dressed in the fine black suit Martin had given
him for the wedding, was slowly walking up the old swamp road toward
the ravine. The festivities of the day, and the gracious manner of the
Duke, had so wrought upon Sandy McQuarry that he had, in a moment of
reckless extravagance, bidden his watchman take a rest that night,
instead of returning to the mill. So Tim and he were going off on an
important expedition. They had promised Martin that before he and
Arabella returned they would walk down past the Drowned Lands and take
a look at the fine new farm he had bought, and which they were all
three to work together. And Tim's impatience demanded that they go
this evening, for he had already laid great plans for sowing the entire
three hundred acres with prize pumpkins, to be raised for the show.
John McIntyre moved along lingeringly, watching for the little, limping
figure of his boy. He could see far up the green vista of the ravine,
where the shades of evening were gathering. He smiled as he thought of
the name the queer Englishman had given it; a Treasure Valley, indeed,
the place had proved to him, for here, after long groping in darkness,
he had found again the treasure of life.
He turned and looked back, his eyes following the course of the little
stream. It wound past his old cabin, lost itself in the green
wilderness of the Drowned Lands, and passed on again through the open
fields to that rose-colored line on the horizon, where Lake Simcoe
smiled responsive to the glow of the western heavens. He gazed at it
earnestly, and was struck with the strange feeling that he had seen it
all before, long ago. The slow music of a bell from a cow feeding far
down the corduroy road echoed musically up the wooded aisle. Far off
in a clover meadow a clear "cling-cling" floated up, where young Donald
McKitterick stood sharpening his scythe. Some subtle influence seemed
to have transported him into the past. He looked at the darkening
purple of the woods, on one side, and at the sunny undulations of the
fields on the other, and the feeling of familiarity grew stronger.
This strange spirit of peace, this sense of tender associations, what
was causing it? Then a little breeze, laden with the clean scent of
running water, came dancing through the long grass, and all at once
John McIntyre understood. In his blindness, he had not noticed it
before--it was his old home come back to him! Here at his side ran the
river that passed his farm, there was the strip of woodland; and
yonder, on the horizon, not Lake Simcoe, but the dazzling stretches of
the Bay of Fundy! And how wondrously like it all was, this evening, to
that last peaceful night he remembered so well, just before the shadows
of distress had begun to gather.
Over there, to the west, the sun was slipping down to the earth, a
great fiery ball dropping from an empty sky. It touched the earth, and
kindled the fields to a glory of color; the woods took on a deeper
purple tone, and the little river ran into its depths, a stream of
molten gold. Just at John McIntyre's feet it passed through a bronze
fretwork of reeds, and above it the swallows wheeled, flashing, up and
up into the amber light.
The man stood, with a rising mist in his eyes obscuring the dear
familiarity of the scene. Yes, he was home again truly; and up there
beyond the glowing heavens, safer and happier than they had ever been
in the home nest among the orchards; they waited for him, Mary and
their little ones.
And still he stood, waiting, in the long, scented June grass, with a
feeling of further expectancy. This was home truly, but there was
something wanting--some subtle touch, half remembered, half forgotten.
And then from the shadowy hush of the woods the answer came. Away in
the darkening depths there arose a strain of music, serene as though
the spirit of the twilight had taken voice:
"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"
John McIntyre's heart gave a leap of joy that was almost pain. The
hermit thrush! _His_ thrush, singing in the Ontario woods! The song
floated out, filling the purple valley, sweet, tender, celestial,
speaking perfect peace and tranquillity, and calling to his soul to bow
in thankfulness before his Maker. The man took off his hat, and stood
with bowed head. Perhaps it was a miracle, part of the miracle of
love, that had recreated his old home about him. And why not? For was
there anything too wonderful to happen to one who knew that his Father
ruled, and was a Being whose very name was Love? Perhaps the hermit
thrush had been sent to him, a special messenger to remind him that He
was with him still, and would be to the end--that One who had spoken to
him out of the dawn mists of the Drowned Lands, the One who would walk
with him through the lonely years till he joined Mary in the Home
above, the One from whose tender care he could never be separated,
either by sorrow or death.
A long, clear call from the hilltop behind, and Tim's little figure
came scrambling over the fence. The man did not move, for once more
the song arose, and poured forth a strain of purest melody:
"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"
It died lingeringly away. The woods were dark and silent. John
McIntyre turned and went up the hill, smiling, his face to the Light.
THE END