When Sidney opened his eyes next day it was upon a transfigured world
that he looked. A world golden with imaginings of happiness across whose
vistas shone a white path, like the milky way in the heavens, marking the
life road to be trodden by Vashti and himself. Cradled in a happy trance
his heart knew no apprehensions. At such a time retrospect shares the
mind almost equally with anticipation. The glorious present is made still
more glorious by comparison. As Sidney dwelt upon his past it was borne
in upon him with peculiar force that it had been but a curtain raiser
to the real drama of his life. He had been a popular man as a student
and afterwards also, but it seemed strange even to himself how few real
ties he would have to sever in adopting this new life—so radically
different in vocation from any he ever dreamed of before. The fact was
that in all his friendships he had given more than he had received. He
had given liberally of that intangible vital capital called sympathy,
and he had received but little in return. Although he had not realized
it his friendships had been only so many drains upon his vitality. He
had thought of, and for, his friends continually; they had accorded him
the tribute of uncomprehending admiration which bears the same relation
to real sympathy as bran does to the full, rich wheat. Thus it was that
in separating himself from these friendships he felt no wrench. Separate
from them he must. He knew that the keeping of his promise to Vashti
was utterly incompatible with his old life; he must “come out and be
separate” from all his old associates and associations. He felt, however,
that this would be possible; possible without sacrilege. His attitude
towards religion had always been defensive rather than offensive. He felt
deeply the pathos of the Christ drama. The figure of the Man of Sorrows
was a familiar one in the gallery of mental portraits to which this
idealist had turned in time of trial for strength.
There was one man whose verdict upon his action he longed to know, yet
dreaded to ask. A strong soul, untamed by sect, unshackled by formulated
belief. A man whose magnificent active human organism was hallowed by
the silver thread of mysticism. A man whose splendid logical mind was
transcended by a subtle sense of premonition, intuition, which led
him far beyond where his reason or his scanty learning could bear him
company. A man whose eyes looked out wistfully yet eagerly from beneath
penthouse eyebrows. A man whose toil-roughened fingers turned reverently
the pages of books he could not read; French or German books beyond
his ken. A man in whose proper person Sidney had always felt there was
symbolled forth the half blind, half perceptive struggle of the human to
comprehend the infinite.
What would this man think of his new vows? This man who would have died
for what the world called his _disbeliefs_.
Well, Sidney told himself that his first _devoir_ was to Vashti and the
promise made to her. He would not delay. These thoughts bore him company
till he was in the hall. He did not know the hour, but suddenly he was
aware of a subtle, penetrating freshness in the air. He looked out of the
hall door: the garden was dim with autumnal dew. Was it indeed so very
early?
He heard voices in the kitchen. He found there only Mr. Lansing and Miss
Tribbey.
“Is it so early?” he asked, smiling.
“For the land’s sakes! Mr. Martin!” said Temperance. “Is that you?”
Sidney laughed aloud; there was a ring in his voice which made Temperance
regard him.
“I have been awake for ages,” he said; “so here I am.”
Temperance remembered certain days in the past when she had been wont to
awaken ere the first bird sang in the dark. These were the days when
Nathan, a hobbledehoy, too bashful to woo her in daylight, used to waylay
her in the lane when she took the cows back to the field, and stand with
his arm about her in the dusk.
Temperance rubbed her eyes.
“The morning sun do dazzle,” she said, giving unsought explanation of the
moisture in her eyes.
“Better set right down and have breakfast,” said old Mr. Lansing. “The
young folks is turrible lazy, it seems to me, nowadays.”
“Oh, not all of them,” said Sidney. “Look at Temperance.”
Old Lansing chuckled delightedly.
“Nathan Peck had better look out, Temp’rins; I allus did say you had a
way with the men.”
Temperance tossed her head, well pleased.
“Will you have your eggs fried or biled?” she asked Sidney, the blush
upon her gaunt cheek giving her a sadly sweet look of girlhood.
Old Lansing finished his breakfast and pushed back his chair.
“You’ll excuse me,” he said, “but I’ve been up since cock-crow, and I
hav’n’t done a blessed thing but water the cows. The men are in the barn
now waiting. Temp’rins ’ll give you breakfast. I’ll warrant the girls
will be surprised when they get down. Lazy critturs! Temp’rins, why don’t
you wake ’em up?”
“O sakes! Let ’em sleep,” said Temperance; “in a few more years they’ll
wake fast enough o’ their own accord. Laws! I kin mind when I’d have
slep’ all day if they’d let me be.”
In this homely sentence lay the secret of Temperance’s influence. This
gaunt old maid never forgot the workings of her own youth. Indeed now
that it was past she acknowledged its weaknesses very frankly, and this
reminiscence made her very lenient towards young people.
Old Mr. Lansing departed for the barn, and Sidney, filled with impatience
to see Vashti, paced up and down the kitchen.
Temperance brought the eggs and sat down beside the tray, looking at him
with a sort of pitiful sympathy in her keen eyes.
Sidney essayed to begin his breakfast; a smile twitching the corners of
his sensitive mouth.
Temperance watched him.
At length he laid down his knife and looked at her.
A subtle atmosphere of sympathy made him confident and expansive.
“I say, Temperance,” he said, “I was never so happy in all my life. You
don’t mind my talking to you about it, do you? I’m so happy that—oh,
Temperance.”
It was a boyish conclusion; he looked at the gaunt country woman; her
hands worked nervously; she looked as if she _felt_ the emotion which
made him ineloquent.
“You have seen—you are pleased?” he continued in haphazard fashion.
“Bless your soul, Sidney,” burst out Miss Tribbey, forgetting to be
formal, “I’m pleased if so be you’re happy. I ain’t very religious.
I expect I have a worldly heart. I’m like Martha in the Bible, allus
looking after cooking and sich, but I’ve said to my Nathan heaps o’
times, ‘He’s a blessing,’ I said, ‘to have in the house,’ and I mean it.
My soul! I only hope Vashti ’ll come up to your expectation.”
“Ah,” said Sidney, “there’s no doubt of that. She’s perfect.”
Miss Tribbey’s mouth half opened, then shut resolutely. She had her own
standard of perfection, but she had too much sense to deprecate the
lover’s fond extravagance.
“I’m perfectly content,” said Sidney, “perfectly.”
Miss Tribbey grew very white.
“Don’t say that,” she said earnestly, “don’t; no good ever came of sich a
boast. It’s terrible dangerous t’ say you are perfectly content. I never
knew good to come of it—never.”
“But I am,” said Sidney, feeling happy enough to challenge the powers of
evil _en masse_.
“Listen,” said Temperance gravely, “don’t say that. ’Taint meant for
mortal man to be content. ’Taint intended. What would make us work for
Heaven if we was perfectly content here? No, don’t say it. I’ve known one
or two people that thought themselves perfectly content, and how soon
they was brought down! There was Mrs. Winder. Has anyone told you about
Mrs. Winder?”
“No,” said Sidney, “but I know her by sight. She’s got a stern face.”
“Starn! You’d be starn-looking too if you’d come through what Sal Winder
has. First she married Joshua Winder; he was a bad lot if ever there was
one, and after they’d been married ten years and had four children, what
does he do but up and run away with a bound girl at Mr. Phillipses, a
red-cheeked, bold-faced critter she was. Well, Sal never said nothin’.
She was left with a mortgage and the four children and a roof that
leaked. I don’t s’pose anyone ever knowed the shifts Sal was put to to
bring up them young ones and work that place and make both ends meet and
keep the roof of the old house from falling in. Mebbe you’ve remarked the
old house? It’s got a white rosebush by the door, and blue ragged-sailors
in the yard, and the pile of bricks beyond was once a smoke house. She
had all her hams and bacon stole one year to make things easier for her.
Well, her oldest boy was the most remarkable young one that Dole ever
see. Joshua his name was, after his father, but that’s all the likeness
there was between the two of them. That boy was jist grit and goodness
clean through! And the way he helped his mother! There wasn’t a foot of
that old place they didn’t work, and prices were good then, and in about
six years Sal got the mortgage paid. She gave a dollar to the plate in
church the next Sunday. Some held ’twas done to show off, but Sal wasn’t
that stripe of woman. ’Twas a thank-offering, that’s what it was.
“Well, next year Sal built a barn, and the year after the new house
was begun. The house went on slowly, for Sal wanted to pay as she went
along. Well, at last the house was built and painted real tasty, and one
day I was over there to visit a spell, and Sal says, ‘Joshua has gone
to pay the painter for the house painting,’ she says; ‘it’s a sort of
celebration for us and we’re having ducks for supper. I hope you’ll stay
and help us celebrate.’ Then she went on to say how good Joshua had been,
which she didn’t need to tell me, for all Dole knowed he was perfect
if ever there was a perfect son. So jest after the lamps was lighted,
in come Joshua. He was tall and slim; he favoured Sal in his looks;
he had worked so hard ever since he was little that his hands had a
turrible knotty look like an old man’s, and he had a sort of responsible
expression to his face. Well, we was all setting at supper and Joshua
had cut up the ducks and we was all helped, and Sal says, ‘Now make your
supper all of ye. We’ve had a hard row to hoe, Joshua and me, but we’ve
kep’ it clear o’ weeds, and I guess we’re goin’ to have a harvest o’
peace and quiet after the grubbin’.’ Joshua looked up at his mother, and
I never seen two people more happy to look at. Sal was real talkative
that night, and she says:
“‘Well, Temperance, I’m right glad you’re here to-night. _I’m perfectly
content this night_,’ she says. The words wasn’t out of her mouth till I
saw Joshua give a shiver—like a person with a chill in his back.
“‘Have you got a chill, Joshua?’ I says, and he laughed quite
unconsarned, and he says, ‘Yes, I seem to have the shivers.’
“Four days after that Joshua Winder lay dead in the new house.... My!
I mind how his hands looked in his coffin. His face was young, but his
hands looked as if he’d done his heft o’ work. No, never say you are
perfectly content. It’s turrible dangerous.”
Sidney’s sensitive heart was wrung by the homely story.
“Oh, Temperance,” he said, “why did you tell me that?” She looked at him
as a surgeon might regard one whom his healing lancet had pained.
“Because,” said Temperance, “because it’s a tempting o’ Providence to say
or to think you are content. I ain’t superstitious, but I’d rather hear
the bitterest complainings as to hear anyone say that.”
“And yet,” said Sidney, “I should think the Lord would be pleased to see
people happy, each in his own way.”
“Well,” said Temperance, modestly, “I ain’t much on religion, Mr. Martin.
I can’t argue and praise and testify the way some can, but my experience
has been that when folks begin to think themselves and their lives
perfect and to mix up earth with heaven, and forget which one they’re
livin’ in, they’re apt to be brought up sudden. It seems to me heaven’s
a good deal like a bit o’ sugar held in front of a tired horse to make
him pull. I guess there’s a good many of us would lie down in the harness
if it wasn’t for that same bit of sugar; we may look past the sugar for
a while, but when we get to a bit of stiff clay or run up against a rock
we’re mighty glad to have the sugar in front o’ us again; but, sakes!
you ain’t made no breakfast, and there’s the girls! You’ll breakfast
with—her—after all.”
Temperance gave him an arch look and departed, and Mabella had hardly
crossed the threshold before the sympathetic Miss Tribbey called her;
when she arrived in the back kitchen Temperance took her by the shoulders
and whispered energetically in her ear:
“Sakes, M’bella! Don’t go where you ain’t wanted.”
Mabella’s eyes lighted with sympathy.
“You don’t say!” she said.
Temperance nodded like a mandarin.
“It must be catching!” said Mabella. “It was Nathan brought the infection
to the house.”
“Go ’long with you,” said Temperance, and with a very considerate
clatter of dishes she made her intended entry audible to the two people
in the kitchen.
Mabella looked at Vashti eagerly—sympathetically, but the calm, beautiful
face of her cousin was as a sealed book.
“Whatever was that noise in the night, Temperance?” asked Vashti.
“Why, I don’t know,” said Temperance, “I was sure I heard a noise, but I
couldn’t see anything when I got up. Did you hear anything, Mr. Martin?”
“Not I,” said Sidney, “but I was so busy with my own thoughts that you
might have fired a cannon at my ear and I would not have heard it.”
He looked at Vashti; her down-drooped eyes were fixed upon her plate;
suddenly he exclaimed:
“What have you done to your hand? It’s burned!”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “after I blew out my lamp last night I knocked
the chimney off. I caught it against my side with the back of my hand,
that burned it.”
“My!” said Mabella. “I would have let it break.”
Vashti smiled, and suddenly raised her eyes to Sidney.
“A little pain is good for me, I think. It makes one know things are
real.”
“But the reality is sometimes sweeter than the dream,” he said, tenderly.
She let her eyes fall in maidenly manner. It was as if she had spoken.
This woman’s most ordinary movements proclaimed the eloquence of gesture.
“You must have been up early,” said Mabella to Sidney.
“Yes,” he said, “I was in a hurry to leave the dream-world for the real.”
“And how do you like it?” asked Mabella, saucily.
Vashti spoke at the moment, some trivial speech, but in her tone there
was the echo of might and right. It was as if with a wave of her hand
she brushed aside from his consideration everything, every person, but
herself.
They rose from the table together.
“Come out,” he whispered; she nodded, and soon they were pacing together
in the morning sunshine. Mabella looked after them; turning, she saw
Temperance wiping her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked with concern.
“Nothing,” said Temperance; “nothing; I’m real low in my spirits this
morning, though why, I’m sure I can’t say. But it’s fair touching to hear
him! There he was this morning talkin’ of her being perfect, and sayin’
he was perfectly contented. It’s a tempting o’ Providence. And, Mabella,
there’s Vashti—she—well, I may misjudge,” concluded Temperance lamely.
“Sakes! look at them chickings,” with which Temperance took herself off
to regulate the ways and manners of her poultry yard. Mabella departed to
do her work light heartedly, and Vashti out in the morning sunshine with
her lover was weaving her web more and more closely about him.
* * * * *
In two nights more Sidney was leaving Dole.
It was the night of the prayer meeting.
All Dole knew of his engagement to Vashti Lansing; all knew he hoped to
be the successor of old Mr. Didymus. The old white-headed man had spoken
a few words to him telling him how happy he was to think of his place
being so filled. He spoke of it calmly, but Sidney’s lips quivered with
emotion. Mr. Didymus said, “Wait till you’re my age and you won’t think
it sad to talk of crossing over. Wife and I have been two lonely old
people for long now, hearkening for the Lord’s voice in the morning and
in the evening, and sometimes inclined to say: ‘How long, oh, Lord! How
long?’ We won’t be long separated. When folks live as long together as we
have they soon follow each other. That’s another of God’s kindnesses.”
There was in the simple old man’s speech an actual faith and trust which
brought his belief within the vivid circle of reality.
“I will do my best,” said Sidney.
“The Lord will help you,” said the old man.
The prayer meeting was animated by thought for Sidney. There was
something in the idea of his going forth to prepare to be their pastor
which caught the Dole heart and stirred its supine imagination.
When old Mr. Didymus prayed for him, that he might be kept, and
strengthened and guided, it was with all the fervour of his simple piety.
The intensity of his feelings communicated itself to his hearers. _Amens_
were breathed deeply and solemnly forth.
Vashti would have liked Sidney to speak.
“I cannot,” he said simply; nor was his silence ill thought of. He was
going forth; he was to be comforted; he was the one to listen to-night
whilst they encouraged him and plead for him, and again, in the name of
the Great Sacrifice, offered up petitions for him. The hour had come
for the closing of the meeting, when suddenly Mary Shinar’s clear, high
treble uttered the first words of one of the most poignantly sweet hymns
ever written.
“_God be with you till we meet again—_
_May His tender care surround you,_
_And His Loving arm uphold you,_
_God be with you till we meet again._”
Every voice in the church joined in this farewell, and then the
benediction was slowly said—the old tender, loving, apostolic
benediction, and they all streamed forth into the chill purity of the
autumn night. They shook hands with him, and he stood among them tall and
slight and pale, inexpressibly touched by their kindliness, unexpectedly
thrilled by their display of emotion. It was only their religion which
moved these people to demonstration.
The last hand clasp was given. The lights in the church were out, and the
Lansing party took its way homeward.
Temperance’s face and Mabella’s were both tear-stained. Vashti’s pale
beauty shone out of the dusk with lofty quietude in every line.
Sidney looking at her felt he realized what perfection of body and spirit
meant.
* * * * *
A new moon was rising in the clear pale sky—the wide fields, tufted here
and there with dim blossomed wild asters, lay sweet and calm, awaiting
the approach of night as a cradled child awaits its mother’s kiss. Far
away the tinkling lights of solitary farm-houses shone, only serving to
emphasize the sense of solitude, here and there a tree made a blacker
shadow against the more intangible shades of night. There was no sound of
twilight birds; no murmur of insect life.
Sidney was passing home through the heart of the silence after a farewell
visit to Lanty, who was kept at home nursing a sick horse.
It was the night before Sidney’s departure from the Lansing house. The
summer was over and gone. It had heaped the granaries of his heart high
with the golden grains of happiness. He walked swiftly on, then suddenly
conscious that he was walking upon another surface than the grass, he
paused and looked about him. Around him was the tender greenness of the
newly springing grain—above him the hunters’ moon curved its silver
crescent, very young yet and shapen like a hunter’s horn. A new sweet
night was enfolding the earth, gathering the cares of the day beneath its
wings, and bringing with it as deep a sense of hopeful peace as fell upon
the earth after the transcendent glory of the first day, and here amid
these familiar symbols of nature’s tireless beginnings he was conscious
of an exalted sense of re-birth. He too was upon the verge of a new era.
He stood silent, gazing out into the infinity of the twilight.
Afterwards when the pastoral mantle did fall upon his shoulders there was
a solemn laying on of hands, a solemn reception into the ranks of those
who fight for good; but the real consecration of Sidney’s life took place
in that lonely silent field, where the furrows had not yet merged their
identity one with the other, where the red clods were not yet hidden by
the blades. Out of the twilight a mighty finger touched him, and ever
after he bore upon his forehead almost as a visible light the spiritual
illumination which came to him then. It was, alas, no self-comforting
recognition of a personal God. It was only the sense that all was in
accord between the Purposer and the world he had made; but this was much
to Sidney. The man-made discord could be remedied, even as the harsh keys
may be attuned. For ever after this hour he would give himself up to
striving to bring his fellows into accord with the beautiful world about
them.
Suddenly he felt himself alone. A speck in the vastness of the night, a
little flame flickering unseen; but just as a sense of isolation began to
fall upon him a mellow glow gladdened his eyes—the light from the open
door of the old Lansing house. He bent his steps towards it with a humble
feeling that he had trodden upon holy ground ere he was fitly purified.
In after days when many perplexities pressed upon him, he often withdrew
in spirit to this twilight scene. Of its grey shades, its dim distances,
its silence, its serenity, its ineffable purity he built for himself a
sanctuary.
Alas! In that sanctuary the God was always veiled.