Donald Morrison was now twenty-three. The promise of his boyhood had
been realized. He was well made, with sinews like steel. He had a blonde
moustache, clustering hair, a well shaped mouth, firm chin. His blue
eyes had a proud, fearless look. The schoolmarm had taught Donald the
three "R's"; he had read a little when he could spare the money for
books; and at the period we are now dealing with he was looked up to
by all in the village as a person of superior knowledge. His youth and
young manhood had been spent working upon his father's farm. Latterly he
had been working upon land which his father had given him, in the hope
that he would marry and settle down. He had become restless. The village
was beginning to look small, and he asked himself with wonderment how
he had been content in it so long. The work was hard and thankless. Was
this life? Was there nothing beyond this? Was there not not a great
world outside the forest? What was this? Was it not stagnation? The
woods--yes, the woods were beautiful, but why was it they made him sad?
Why was it that when the sun set against the background of the purple
line of trees, he felt a lump in his throat? Why, when he walked along
the roads in the summer twilight, did the sweet silence oppress him?
He could not tell. He knew that he wanted away. He longed to be in the
world of real men and women, where joy and suffering, and the extremest
force of passion had active play.
Minnie was now a schoolmarm--neat and simple, and sweet. Her figure was
slender, and her hair a deep gold, parted simply in the centre, brought
over the temples in crisp waves, and wound into a single coil behind.
Her head was small and gracefully poised; her teeth as white as
milk, because they had never experienced the destructive effects of
confectionery; her cheeks, two roses in their first fresh bloom, because
she had been reared upon simple food; her figure, slight, supple and
well proportioned. She was eighteen. Her beautiful brown eyes wore a
sweetly serious look. She had thought as a woman. She was pious, but
somehow when she wandered through the woods, and noted how the wild
flowers smiled upon her, and listened to the birds as they shook their
very throats for joy, she could only think of the love, not the anger of
God. God was good. His purpose was loving. How warm and beautiful and
sweet was the sun! The sky was blue, and was there not away beyond the
blue a place where the tears that stained the cheek down here would be
all wiped away? Sorrow! Oh, yes, there was sorrow here, and somehow, the
dearest things we yearned for were denied us. There were heavy burdens
to bear, and life's contrasts were agonizing, and faith staggered a
little; but when Minnie went to the woods with these thoughts, and
looked into the timid eye of the violet, she said to herself softly,
"God is love."
A simple creature, you see, and not at all clever. I doubt if she had
ever heard of Herbert Spencer, much less read his works. If you had told
that she had been evolved from a jelly-fish, her brown eyes would only
have looked at you wonderingly. You would have conveyed nothing to her.
I must tell you that Minnie was romantic. The woods had bred in her the
spirit of poetry. She loved during the holidays to go to the woods with
a book, and, seating herself at the foot of a tree, give herself up
to dreams--of happy, innocent love, and of calm life, without cloud,
blessed by the smile of heaven.
Love is a sudden, shy flame. Love is a blush which mounts to the cheek,
and then leaves it pale. Love is the trembling pressure of hands which,
for a delicious moment, meet by stealth. Love is sometimes the deep
drawn sigh, the languor that steeps the senses, the sudden trembling
to which no name can be given. Minnie was in love. The hero of her
childhood was the hero of her womanhood. She loved Donald modestly but
passionately; but she constantly said to herself in terror, "Oh, Minnie,
Minnie, you must take care; guard your secret; never betray yourself."