CHAPTER XVII.

ALONE IN THE FIGHT.

Nature, with all her many faces, her thousand voices has seldom a

look or a tone to help our sorrow. Her joy is too endless in its

upspringing, her tears are too fresh and sweet; even the calm

steadiness of her quiet is to bewildered thoughts like the

unflickering coast light, against which the wild birds of the ocean

dash themselves, blinded, in the storm. Wych Hazel stood still at

the foot of the steps, until not even imagination could hear so

much as an echo of the rapid trot which she was not to hear again

for so long a time. The sweet October night, its winds asleep, its

insects silenced with a slight frost, its stars wheeling their brilliant

courses without a cloud, all smote her like a pain. Then some faint

stir of air brought, distantly and sweet, the scent of the woods

where they had been chestnutting that very day. With a half cry the

girl turned and fled up the steps, locking the door behind her;

remembering then keenly what else she was shutting out. She went

back to the red room, and stood there—she and the spirit of

desolation. There was no tea tray, happily, with its cheerful

reminders; but there was the corner of the mantelpiece, and the

spot on the rug, and the fire—now slowly wearing down to

embers, and the embers to ashes. There was her foot cushion—and

the crimson bergère. But she could not touch anything,—could not

take up the tongs which he had set down, even to put the fire in

safe order for the night; some one else must do that. Slowly she

went round the room, with a glance at everything; passed on to the

door and stood looking back; then shut it and went slowly up the

stairs. Midway she sat down and leaned her head against the

banisters. Sat there she knew not how long, until she heard Mrs.

Bywank's step going the rounds below; then rose and went on

again. But as Wych Hazel's little foot passed slowly up from stair

to stair, one thing in her mind came out in clear black and white, of

one thing she was sure: she _must_ lay hold of those immutable

things after which she had striven before. Mere hoping would not

do, she must make sure. In the happiness of the last weeks, she had

said, like David in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved,"—

where was it all now? Above all other thoughts, even to-night, this

came: she could not live so. Tossed by one storm upon a roof here,

and by the next one carried out to sea. Something to hold her,

something that she could hold,—that she must have.

Intensely bitter thoughts flocked in along with this. The hand she

had clasped so lately, and the way it had clasped her; a longing

that would hardly be gainsaid for the touch of it again. Was she

forgetting that? was she trying to loosen that bond? She paused,

leaning back against the wall, holding her hands tight. But even

with the answer the other cry came up: the world was all reeling

under her feet,—she _must_ have something that would stand. For

the time everything else gave way. It was true, this trouble might

pass,—then others would come: others from which even Dane

could not shield her. Already, twice in her little life, twice in three

months, had such a crisis come. Mrs. Bywank got no sight of her

that night; only gentle answers to enquiries through the closed

door; and Hazel lighted her study lamp, and opening her Bible at

the ninety-first psalm, and setting it up before her in the great easy

chair, knelt down before it and laid her head down too. No need to

go over the printed words,—there was not one of them she did not

know. But was there anything there to help? She went them over to

herself, verse by verse, and verse after verse was not for her. It was

Dane who had taken that stand, who was leading that life; these

promises were all to him. No arrow of darkness was his fear—she

knew that well: no pestilence walking at his side could alarm _him_.

But as she went on, half triumphantly at first, with the detail of his

faith and his security, the vision of his danger come too; and a long

restless fit of pain ended all study for that time. Ended itself at last

in sleep,—and the dreams of what was about him, and thoughts of

what he was about, gave no token of their presence but a sob or a

sigh, until the few remaining hours of the night swept by, and the

morning broke.

As I said somewhere else, the new day is often good for

uncertainties. The foolish fears, the needless alarms, the whole

buzzing troop of fidgets that come out in the darkness, go back to

their swamps and hiding places when the day has fairly come.

They cannot make head against the wholesome freshness of the

morning wind. Then painted hopes and lace-winged fancies flit out

to take their place: things certainly are better, or they will be better,

or they never have been bad.

But certainties are another matter. The new burdens, laid down in

sleep, but now to be taken up, and adjusted, and borne on through

all the ins and outs of the coming day. Morning does nothing for

_them_, but fasten them on securely, with a heavy hand.

Wych Hazel roused herself up as the day came on, and looked

things in the face so long, that her own face got little attention.

However, Phoebe—and the force of habit—sent her down in the

usual daintiness, at the usual time, to receive Mr. Falkirk, who

after all did not come. But Dingee was on hand, and so Hazel

made believe over her breakfast, quite successfully, and carried on

her mental fight of questions the while with no success at all. So

on through the day, until dinner time brought Mr. Falkirk; so on,

with a semi-consciousness, through all the evening's talk; and

when at length Wych Hazel went to her room again, it was with all

the trouble of last night, and a day's worry additional. She knew

what she wanted,—she did not seem to know how to get it. Those

shining words lay up so high, above her reach: a mountain head

lifting itself out of the fogs of the valley wherein she dwelt. As for

the first verse of her psalm, it might as well have been a

description of Gabriel, for any use to her,—so she thought,

shrinking back from the words. Then for the second verse,—yes,

there was human weakness there—or had been. Some time a

refuge had been needed: but so long ago, that the years of calm

security had wiped out even the thought of defencelessness. That

was like Dane: she did not believe it ever occurred to him that he

wanted anything, or could. What was he doing now to-night, in the

darkness?—Hazel rose and went to the window. What work it

must be, going round among the shadows of the Hollow, without a

moon!—but then he would be in the houses,—darker still! She

knew; she had sat there through one evening.—She stood still at

the window, going over half mechanically to herself the next

verses. "Surely,"—yes, it was all 'surely,' for him! was there

nothing for her? She was not in all the psalm, Hazel thought.

Unless—yes, that might fit well enough: she might stand for "the

wicked" in the eighth verse. For studying the shining words that

went before, there had come to her a feeling of soil, a sense of

degradation, all new, and utterly painful.

'No use to consider that now,' she said, knotting her hands together

as she went back to her seat. 'I want help. And I begin to think how

much I want it, I shall lose my wits.'—Was there nothing for her?

Again the promises ran on as before, with new images, fresh

wording. There were angels enough keeping watch over Morton

Hollow to-night!—was there no spare one to come to

Chickaree?—Hazel put her head down and sobbed like a child in

her loneliness and desolation.

Next day she tried another plan, and began at the end of her psalm,

passing over the promise of long life as not just now of much

interest. And honour,—she did not want that; nor deliverance,

where no devil was at hand. But this!—

"I will be with him" —

"I will answer him" —

Was it for her?—To whom was it said?

"He shall call upon me,"—ah, that she had done a great many

times!—this was not the whole description. Who was it then who

should be heard?—She ran back over the words rapidly, fastening

then upon these few:

"Because he hath set his love upon me"!—and Hazel knew she had

set her love upon some one else.

It was very bitter: the struggle was sharp and long: and duty and

possibility, and wrong and right, fought each other and fired upon

their own men.

She could not take back her love: that was impossible. She might

die, but that she could not do. And now with a certain gleam of

comfort, Hazel remembered that Dane had not withdrawn his.

How had he managed then? After all, it did not touch the question

much,—he was a man, dependent of no one: she was a girl, with

nothing in the world but him. Yet she wanted more. A strength

above his, a love even more sure: "the things which cannot be

shaken."

So, slowly, she went back over the verses, laying hold still of but

that one thing in her way:

"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him."

Yes, it must be meant for her. And Hazel tried to shut her eyes to

the character that went with the promise. People like _that_, she

argued, would need nothing,—it _must_ be for her. But oh she had

called so very often!—Far back in the psalm, that is, close at the

beginning, another word flamed up before her in a sudden

illumination: a word she had read and reread, but now it stopped

her short. Another three words, that is:

"I will say."

—Something that seemed to head the long list of blessings,

something for her. But it was something for her to do. What, then?

"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God;

in him will I trust."

"I will say."—But close upon that followed "Surely."

_Could_ she say it? Was she ready for that absolute choice? The

words came to her as she had heard Dr. Maryland read them:

"You do now declare and avouch the Lord Jehovah to be your

God; and Jesus Christ to be your Saviour; and the Holy Spirit to be

your sanctifier.

"You do solemnly give yourself away, in a covenant to be revoked,

to be his willing servant forever."

She had noticed the words so often, half putting them to herself in

imagination, that now they came back to her with clear

distinctness. _This_ was what the psalm meant; nothing less. "A

willing servant?" Could she promise it? she, who hated control and

loved so dearly her own pleasure? But it all came to that:

"I will say of the Lord, He is my God."—

Back and forth, back and forth, went thoughts and will and

purpose: sometimes almost persuaded, sometimes all up in arms.

Something gentler than need was lacking, something stronger than

fear must work. Slowly and sadly she turned over the leaves, far

on and on, to the other marked point: seeing them then, those

common words of print that she had read so often, seeing them

then in letters of flashing light.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that

if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that

they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but

unto him which died for them, and rose again."—2 Cor. 5. 14, 15.

Hazel laid her face down upon the open page, and said from her

heart,

"I will."