"Rock of Ages, cleft for me."
All the congregation sang; men, women, and children's piping voices.
They sat down. The minister took his text from the parable he had read.
It was a good, plain sermon, in which the preacher said more than he
knew he said. The air came in at window, bees buzzed without, a brown
butterfly passed. The congregation breathed gently, rhythmically. The
sun gave life to the flowers upon the women's and the children's hats.
There were young faces and old faces, dull faces and quick faces, intent
faces and wandering faces. Some were rich flowers, and others little
flowers not far from weeds, but all were in the garden. Curtin thought:
"They are like the thoughts and moods of a man, many and various, but
all in the man. One Man.... It was Balzac who said, 'There is but one
animal.' One Man--his name Adam-Eve, or Humanity, as you choose--or,
perhaps, when he finds himself, his name is Christ."
He looked again at Linden, sitting with that pleased and quiet light
upon his face. The sermon was not extraordinary, the congregation the
average village and country congregation, the church had no especial
grace of interior or exterior. Linden was not habit-bound to it, he did
not hug the letter of its creed. Any one of those around might say: "No,
he does not belong to any church--which is a great pity! No, it isn't
his church." Yet Curtin saw that Linden, sitting there, loved this
place, the feel of the folk around him, the sense of what they were
doing, were striving to do, and, on the whole, were slowly doing. He
comprehended that to Linden it was very simply his own, as were the
other two churches of Alder, and the colored church down the river, and
the Greek church at Odessa. He saw that Linden's possessive was
large--Linden's and Marget Land's.
Miss Darcy sat very still, her thin hands crossed in her lap. At first
she had listened to the sermon, but now she was in the old church in the
old city, and there was another congregation around her, and another
clergyman, a kinsman, in the pulpit. At first it was like opening a
potpourri jar, and then warmth and light came back to the rose leaves.
"I am there, they are here! Never could I do this or feel this until
now--or I did it so weakly and palely that it did not seem to count!"
The sermon ended. "Let us pray.... Let us sing." Benediction followed,
then a moment's pause, and then the folk turned from the pews and moved
slowly toward the doors. There were greetings for Sweet Rocket, and
Sweet Rocket greeted in return. All had a grace of friendliness. Anna
Darcy thought: "That is another thing that has come or is coming! What
does it matter now if your name is or is not on the register of a
church? It didn't use to be so. Something gracious and understanding,
invisibly binding, is coming!" She thought: "Those two are the most
beautiful here, but in their degree all are beautiful. And all move on
to completer beauty. Oh, life is coming alive!"
They drove through Alder and by Alder highway, and at last upon that
lovely forest road to Sweet Rocket. Curtin and Linden fell to talk of
their student days, of such and such teachers and mates, and such and
such happenings. "I had forgotten that!" said Curtin, and again, "I had
forgotten that!" At last he said, abruptly, "You've got an astounding
memory!"
Linden answered, "Oh, we learn how to use and deepen memory!" The smell
of the forest, the voice of the forest, circled and penetrated. "I
should like to know how you do it," said Curtin.
"It is like all other things. Practice makes perfect."
"It is not only remembering. You remember with a strange understanding
of things. You direct later light upon the past. The line is there, the
form is there, even the color and tone, but you make it understood as I
am very certain we did not understand it then! I see now what we were
doing! It's intelligent at last, and bigger."
"All that you have," said Linden, "isn't too much to apply to the past.
The past has served you, now serve the past. Serve and redeem! Bring it
up, even and great, into the present! To understand past time is to have
present power. Only by understanding it can you love it, unless you wish
to remain infant and love with infant's love."
The many-hued woods went on, the leafy, narrow, remote road, the scents
and sounds, the miracle of many centered into sole delight. The air was
so fine you could gather what the upper air must be. Daniel and Bess,
the phaeton, the four, stepped and rolled through a magic world, artist
world of the Ancient of Days. Here was the river and the flashing water
of the ford.
That afternoon they walked upstream as far as the overseer's house. It
was shining, late afternoon. They saw, seated on the porch and the porch
steps, Roger Carter and his wife, with Guy, her brother, who worked on
the farm, and old Mr. and Mrs. Morrowcombe, her parents, paying their
Sunday visit. A little Roger, three years old, played absorbedly with a
chinquapin string and a rag doll that his grandmother had brought him.
"Let us go across to them," said Marget. "Just so did my father and
mother use to sit."
Carters and Morrowcombes made them welcome. Linden and Curtin sat upon
the porch steps, Tam beside them. Miss Darcy now played with the young
Roger and now listened to Mrs. Morrowcombe's gentle, flowing talk of
turkeys, and rag carpets, and Sam come home from the war. Mary Carter
had dark eyes and wavy hair, bright color in a round cheek, a shy and
tender smile--a Murillo face. She sat holding a year-old babe, and she
talked shyly and listened with intent eyes. There listened, too, old
Mr. Morrowcombe, with a long, white beard, and a gnarled hand resting on
a stick marvelously carved by himself in prison, long ago, in the old
war. Roger Carter proved a quick, dry talker, with not a little wit and
power of mimicry. He had a way of throwing what he saw and heard and
concluded into a homely story, both telling and amusing. He seemed to
love to make Linden and Marget laugh, and they loved to draw him out.
Curtin saw with what skill they opened fields to him where he might
rejoice in his talent. He saw how they understood fellowship.
Presently Marget asked Mary if she might take Miss Darcy into the house
and out on the back porch and to the lilac hedge. "Certainly, Miss
Marget, you go right in! It's all straight. Go upstairs, too. Anywhere
you like."
The two went. "This was mother's room. Here I was born. When I was a
little girl I slept in this tiny room next door. The rain on the roof
drummed me to sleep. This was the boys' room. This is the back porch,
where we did much of the work. It is so lovely and broad! There is the
old well. Yonder is the lilac clump where once, in May, I saw the Spirit
of the Lilac."
When, half an hour later, they walked homeward along the river bank,
there renewed itself the question of prolonging a visit. "Well, I'm
going to stay, anyhow," declared Curtin. "I like it better here than at
that camp. If you will keep me a month--"
"Oh, we will!"
Anna Darcy said: "I can't stay that long. But I'll stay just as long as
I can."
That matter settled, they walked on, quietly, in the amber and violet
hour. There was a sound of water, a smell of wood smoke. The house rose
before them, richly colored in the sunset.