Friday passed all too swiftly. Not in much _work_, so far as Faith was
concerned--unless so far as Mr. Linden gave her work. Apparently she
had been out of his sight long enough--he was not in the mood to let
her be so any more. Saturday followed close in Friday's steps until
after dinner, then came a move. For Pet and Reuben were to come in the
afternoon train; and Mr. Linden going with Jerry to the station to meet
them, summoned Faith to give "her sweet company."
So far as the station, Faith gave it; but there she drew back into the
furthest corner of the wagon, and waited, while Mr. Linden walked up
and down between the wagon and the front platform. Waited, and watched,
furtively, everything; him and the people that spoke to him; with those
strange eyes that saw everything new. Then came the whistle! the rush
and roar of the train--the moment's lull; and then Faith saw the three
she looked for coming towards her. Reuben a little in advance with Miss
Linden's travelling bag, she with one hand on her brother's shoulder
and her eyes on his face, coming rather slowly after,--talking, asking
questions, some of which Faith could almost guess from the look and
smile with which they were answered. It was a pretty picture; she felt
as if she knew them both better for seeing it. Before they had quite
reached the wagon, Pet received an answer which made her quit Mr.
Linden with a little spring and leave him to follow with Reuben. And
Faith had opened the wagon door.
"Faith! you dear child!" said Miss Linden, "what have you been doing
with yourself--or what has anybody done with you, to stow you away here
like a forgotten parcel?" She had entered the wagon no further than to
rest one knee there holding both Faith's hands and looking at her with
full, bright, loving eyes. "How came Endecott to leave you here, alone?"
"Two people must be alone--if they are not together," said Mr. Linden.
"Pet, shall I put you in or out?"
She laughed, jumping into the wagon then and twining one arm about
Faith's waist, much like a spray of woodbine.
"What do you think I have asked him?" she whispered,--"and what do you
think he has told me?"
"I don't know," said Faith;--"but I guess."
A significant clasp of the woodbine answered that--then the hand rested
in a quiet embrace.
"How well he looks!" she said, her eyes taking glad note of one figure
on the seat before them. "Faith, how are you?"
"I am well."--Nothing could be quieter in its kind. "Did he tell you
what he is going to do to-morrow, Pet?"
"No--" she said looking her quick inquiry. Faith's face might have told
her before she spoke; such a joy sat gravely on her brow and in the
depth of her eyes.
"If you go to church to-morrow, you will know."
A sudden flush, both of cheeks and eyes, bore witness to the interest
of this news. The look met Faith's for a moment--then rested on Mr.
Linden, and then with that little tide of feeling deepening its sweet
flow, the eyes fell, the unbent lips wavered and trembled. Faith
ventured only a silent act of free-masonry; a fast clasp of her fingers
round Miss Linden's hand that rested on her waist; but maybe never yet
in their short friendship had they felt their hearts beat so close
together. With one, there was perhaps some old recollection or
association--some memory of the time when such a day had been first
talked of, that made self-command a hard matter; for though the lips
presently grew still, and the eyes quiet, the gravity that remained was
easily stirred, and the voice spoke doubtfully.
There was more discussion of various things that evening than Faith
cared for, but it could not be helped. Sunday brought a lull of
discussions. But the gravity which sat on Faith's face that morning was
not the less but the more. If a guardian angel had shewn himself
bodily, his face might have worn such a pure distance from low and
trifling things and like kindred with the blue sky and the truth it
emblematizes. That day was the first of her new life to Faith. Not such
to Mr. Linden; but it was the first of her seeing him publicly take the
office to which his life was to be given, and in which hers was to be
by his side. She was a very grave "sunbeam" when she set out to walk to
church--and as clear!
There were sunbeams in plenty of the literal kind abroad; it was a
perfect day; and everybody was glad of that, though some people
remarked it would have made no difference if it had rained
cannon-balls. Never did Pattaquasset see such a coming to church! never
in the remembrance of Mr. Somers. They came from all over; the country
was gleaned; and many a fire was raked up on the hearthstone that day
which most Sundays got leave to burn and somebody to watch it. The
fishermen came from Quapaw, and the labourers from the farms all over
the country; those who did not directly know Mr. Linden, knew of him;
and knew such things of him that they would not have missed this
opportunity of hearing him speak, for a week's wages. The fathers and
mothers of the boys he had taught, _they_ knew him; and they came in
mass, with all their uncles, aunts and cousins to the remotest degree,
provided they were not geographically too remote. The upper society of
Pattaquasset lost not a man nor a woman; they were all there, some with
great love, others with great curiosity. The Stoutenburghs had plumed
themselves. Mr. Simlins was as upright as his new beaver. Miss Essie De
Staff with magnified black eyes; Judge Harrison with benevolent
anticipation. Mr. Stephens the fisherman had driven his little lame
child down to the Pattaquasset church, "for once;" Jonathan Ling was
there with his wife, having left the eldest child to keep house, and
both being in great smartness and expectation. Jonathan Fax was there
and his new wife; the one with a very grave head, the other with a very
light one, and faces accordingly. Mrs. Derrick and Pet had long ago
been quietly seated; when through that full house, after her Sunday
school duties were over, Faith came in. Her colour was very bright, and
she trembled; but it was not because many saw in her an object of
curiosity; though Faith remembered it, at that minute she did not care.
She felt the stillness of expectation that filled the house, with which
the little murmur of sound now and then chimed so well; the patter of
childish feet that followed her up the aisle spoke so keenly to her
wrought up feeling of the other one of her class, who used to follow
him with such delight, that Faith felt as if the happy little spirit
long since received in at the golden gates, was even there in the
church, to hear once more his beloved teacher. Who else?--what other
angel wings stirred in the soft breeze that floated through from door
to door?--what other unseen, immortal senses waited on those dear
mortal lips?--Faith's step grew lighter, her breath more hushed; eyes
might look at her--she looked not at them.
And eyes did look, from all sorts of motives; perhaps in the whole
church there was not a person who did not try to see her, except the
one who next to herself was the most interested--Pet never moved. Her
head was bent, her hand half supporting half concealing in its
position, like any statue she sat there, nor even stirred when the stir
of every one else told who had come in. If she held her breath to bear
every one of her brother's steps as he passed by, she did not look at
him; did not raise her head till his first prayer was ended; then her
rapt gaze was as unwavering.
The service which followed could not be measured by the ordinary line
and rule of pulpit eloquence and power,--could not be described by most
of the words which buzz down the aisles after a popular sermon. There
was not the "newness of hand" of a young preacher--for almost from
boyhood Mr. Linden had been about his Master's work. To him it was as
simple a thing to deliver his message to many as to one,--many, many of
those before him had known his private ministrations, and not a few had
through them first known the truth; and now to all these assembled
faces he was just what each had seen him alone; as humble, as earnest,
as affectionate, as simply speaking not his own words,--for "Who hath
made man's mouth--have not I, the Lord?" No one who heard the
ambassador that day, doubted from what court he had received his
credentials. "In trust with the gospel!" Yes, it was that; but that
with a warm love for the truth and the people that almost outran the
trust. As the traveller in the fountain shade of the desert calls to
the caravan that passes by through the sand,--as one of the twelve of
old, when Christ "blessed and brake and gave to his disciples, and the
disciples to the multitude"; so did he speak from the words--
"Eat, O friends!--drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved!"
There were some there who would never forget that day. There were many
to whom it seemed, that not the warm summer breeze that floated in was
gentler or sweeter than the feeling that filled the place. The little
lame girl, and her older and rougher father and mother, listened alike
to their dear friend with moveless eyes; and drank such a draught of
those sweet waters as it was long, long since either of them had tasted
in a church. It was a white day for all the fishing population; and
nothing would have kept them from coming in the afternoon. Miss Essie's
black eyes lost all their fire. Farmer Simlins, unknown to himself, sat
and smiled. And the one who listened most tenderly and joyfully,
listened indeed quietly to the last word, or till her face had leave to
bow itself from sight; quietly then no longer, only that such tears
come from no broken-up fountains of unrest. They came freely, as Faith
recalled and applied the whole of her quoted sentence of Paul to the
Thessalonians--
"_For as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel_,
SO WE SPEAK."
She was very quiet when the benediction was spoken, but she drew her
veil closely as they left the church.
It was a lingering getting out, even for them, because others would
linger. Some turned to look, some stopped to speak; and if Mr. Linden
had had twenty hands they would all have found employment. Part of this
the two veiled figures saw as they made their way to the door, and
there Miss Linden paused and looked back. The broad stream of sunlight
that lay across the church, the shadowy background figures,--in that
very spot of light, Mr. Linden,--made a never-to-be-forgotten picture.
Reuben Taylor stood close behind him, a step back, looking down; little
Ency Stephens perched up on the pew cushions had one hand; Robbie
Waters--far down below the other. Phil Davids and his father, Squire
Stoutenburgh, and some of the Quapaw fishermen made up the group. Pet
gave one look, and then she went swiftly down the steps and on.
Slowly the people scattered away, up and down the road; not with the
brisk steps and busy voices that give token the church service has but
interrupted--not suspended--the current of everyday thought and
behaviour. It was a fair picture of a Sunday in a New England village;
the absolute repose of nature copied and followed by hands that other
days let nothing stand still. Before Faith and Pet got home the road
was almost empty. Mr. Linden had overtaken them, but all his greeting
was to put Faith's hand on his arm--then he walked as silent as they.
It was a little thing, and yet it touched the very feeling she had had
all day--the beginning of her new way of life, with him.
The afternoon was like the morning. Not a creature was missing of all
who from far and near had filled the house in the former part of the
day! and doubtless it was well that Mr. Somers could not hear the
spoken and unspoken wishes that would have unseated him and caused him
to relinquish for ever his charge in Pattaquasset.
The afternoon air was enticing, the afternoon walk home very lingering;
then standing in the hall to look and taste it still, the sweet peace
of everything seemed to enter every heart. Even Pet, who all day had
been unheard and almost unseen, stood with clasped hands looking out;
and only the heavy eyes spoke of the oppression that had been. But as
she looked the tears came back again, and then she turned to Mr.
Linden--wrapping her arms round his neck.
"Endy, Endy!--do you remember the first time we talked of this day?"
Mr. Linden gave back her caresses without a word, but with a look of
pain that Faith had rarely seen on his face. It was some minutes before
he spoke. "Dear Pet--she knows it now!"
Miss Linden looked up then, mastering her tears, and with a broken
"Forgive me, Endy--" she kissed him and went away up stairs. But Mr.
Linden did not look out any more. He went into the sitting-room, and
resting his face on his hand sat there alone and still, until Faith
came to call him to tea.