“Three fishers went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west as the sun went down;
Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town.”
Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without an
accompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, the
hour, and the pathos of Kingsley’s verses, tears rushed into my eyes, and
Bill Marks’ words came back to me—“Two-and-twenty men drowned; that’s
what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown.”
Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret.
Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed past
him like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim,
had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozen
deliberate sieges.
It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come to
the Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before the
blaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire.
When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accept
her statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no other
purpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleading
for utterance.
I didn’t help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib
so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude of
things,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to
Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the
church, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard.
“We went inside,” said Egeria, “and I copied the inscription on the
bronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: ‘Her grateful and
affectionate husband’s last and proudest wish will be that whenever
Divine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on the
same tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness as
could adorn human nature.’” Then she went on, with apparent lack of
sequence: “Penelope, don’t you think it is always perfectly safe to obey
a Scriptural command, because I have done it?”
“Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?”
“The Old.”
“I should say that if you found some remarks about breaking the bones of
your enemy, and have twisted it out of its connection, it would be
particularly bad advice to follow.”
“It is nothing of that sort.”
“What is it, then?”
She took out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an
absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and
fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce
covetousness, but one couldn’t be envious of Egeria. She charmed one by
her lack of consciousness.
“The happy lot
Be his to follow
Those threads through lovely curve and hollow,
And muse a lifetime how they got
Into that wild, mysterious knot,”—
quoted I, as I gave her head an insinuating pat. “Come, Egeria, stand
and deliver! What is the Scriptural command, that having first obeyed,
you ask my advice about afterwards?”
“Have you a Bible?”
“You might not think it, but I have, and it is here on my table.”
“Then I am going into my room, to lock the door, and call the verse
through the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to me till
to-morrow morning.”
I was not in a position to dictate terms, so I promised. The door
closed, the bolt shot into the socket, and Egeria’s voice came so faintly
through the keyhole that I had to stoop to catch the words:—
“Deuteronomy, 10:19.”
I flew to my Bible.
Genesis—Exodus—Leviticus—Numbers—Deuteronomy—Deut-er-on-omy—Ten—Nineteen—
“_Love ye therefore the stranger_—”
V
PENELOPE AT HOME
“’Tis good when you have crossed the sea and back
To find the sit-fast acres where you left them.”