THE MOOD OF THE BELLS
There were two church bells on Rockhaven, one at each village, and every
Sunday evening, year in and out, they called the piously inclined
together, always at the same time. That at Northaven sounded the sweeter
to Winn, since its call came over a mile of still water, like an echo to
the one in Rockhaven. He had noticed them, one answering the other, many
times before, each time to return in thought to the hillside home where
he was born and to the same sweet sound that came on Sunday from the
village two miles away. It had been to him what seemed long years since
he heard them, yet now, this evening, while he waited in the little
porch of Mona's home for her and her mother to join him churchward, and
this call came sweetly through the still evening air, it carried a new
peace to his vexed spirit, and the threatened upset of his mission to
Rockhaven faded away. Once more he was a boy again, and for a time
without a care.
And when Mona appeared, dressed in a simple white muslin, a white hood
of knitted wool half hiding the coiled masses of her jet black hair, her
eyes filled with tender light, Winn, in spite of his moroseness and the
bitter lessons in love he had learned, felt it a proud privilege to walk
beside her.
The usual number, mostly womankind, were emerging from the scattered
houses along the way to the church, and as Winn and Mona, together with
her mother and Mrs. Moore, followed the one plank walk which led to the
church, the last call of the bells came at longer intervals.
When the church was reached the lamps had been lighted, but the white
headstones, dotting the upward slope just back of it, still showed
faintly in the twilight.
The services were simple as usual, the few dozen who gathered all joined
in the same hymns of praise their ancestors had sung in the same church.
What the minister said was not new or eloquent; and yet the prayer he
uttered seemed to Winn to contain an unusually touching strain. It was
the mood of the bells still on him, for he had never known what church
believers call a change of heart; and while the devotions of the people
were pathetic in their very simplicity, they seemed more like a plea for
pity than an expression of thanks. When the services were ended, and
all rising joined in "The Sweet By and By," never before had it voiced
such a plaintive appeal as it did then in Winn's estimation.
When he and Mona, loitering behind the rest, reached her little dooryard
where the scent of many blooming flowers saluted him, they paused a
moment. Mrs. Moore had seated herself on the porch for a social chat
with Mrs. Hutton, the faint disk of a new moon showed in the western
sky, and in spite of the resolution taken weeks before, Winn could not
resist the temptation of longer privacy with his companion.
"Let us walk up to the top of Norse Hill," he said, "and look out over
the harbor. I feel like it to-night."
"Here is where I come to be alone," he observed when they had reached
the ancient beacon and were looking down over the village. "I wonder who
built this odd tower and for what use; do you know?"
"I have been told it was built by Leif Ericson," she replied, "ever so
many years ago, to prove he first discovered this country. Uncle Jess
says it was, and that is why this is called Norse Hill."
There was a jutting ledge around its base, and they seated themselves
upon it. Winn drew out his cigar case. "You won't mind my smoking, will
you, Mona?" he said in a familiar tone, as he lighted his cigar.
"Why, no," she answered, in the same tone, "I love to see you enjoy
yourself."
For a time they silently scanned the peaceful picture that lay before
them. The sheltered harbor across which the faint path of moonlight
quivered in the undulating ground swell that reached in from the sea;
the old mill sombre and solemn and barely outlined to the right; beyond
it Northaven with its scattered lights, and below them the few that
twinkled in Rockhaven. Not a sound reached them except the low wave-wash
at the foot of the cliff just back of where they sat. They were alone
with their hopes and troubles, their joys and heartaches. It was not a
time or place for immediate converse, and Winn quietly contemplated the
peaceful scene while Mona covertly watched him. To her he was an
unsolved enigma, and yet his earnest, honest brown eyes, his open, frank
way, and his half-tender, half-cynical speeches had been for many weeks
her daily thought. What oppressed him now was an added mystery. She had
heard that most of his men working in the quarry had been laid off, but
not for worlds would she seem so inquisitive as to ask why.
And so she watched him, half hoping, half expecting, he would confide in
her.
"I have been out of sorts, little girl," he said suddenly, with an
intuitive feeling that she expected an explanation of his silence; "and
as I told you this afternoon I took a long tramp to drive my mood away.
It did not do it, but something else has, and that was your church
bells."
"I am very glad," she responded with sudden interest, "I wish they would
ring every evening."
"Yes," he continued, not heeding her delicate sympathy, "they have
carried me back to my boyhood and the country village near where I was
born. I wish I could go back to those days and feel as I did then," he
added, a little sadly, "but one can't. Life and its ambitions sweep us
on, and youth is forgotten or returns only in thought. If one could only
feel the keen zest of youth and enjoy small pleasures as children do,
all through life, it would be worth living. I should be grateful if I
were as happy and care-free as you are, Mona."
"I am not very happy," she answered simply. "Did you think I was?"
"You ought to be," he asserted; "you have nothing to worry about unless
it is your ambition to become a great artist, and as I have told you,
you had better put that out of your thoughts. You could be, but it
would bring you more heartaches than you can imagine. Put it away, Mona,
and live your simple life here. To struggle out of your orbit is to
court unhappiness. I was thrust out of mine by death and poverty," he
added sadly, "when an awkward and green country boy, knowing absolutely
nothing of city ways and manners, and placed among those who think all
who come from the farms must be but half civilized and stupid. It is the
shallow conceit of city-bred people always and the greatest mistake they
make. My aunt sent me to a business college, and for a year my life
there was a burden. The other fellows made game of my clothes, my
opinions, and, worse than that, a jest of all the moral ideas in which
my good mother had instructed me. Later on, when I began to get out into
the world, I found the same disposition to sneer at all that is pure and
good in life. The young men I became acquainted with called me a
goody-good because I acted according to conscience and refused to drink
or gamble. They seemed to take a pride in their ability to pour down
glass after glass of fiery liquor, and when I asserted that to visit
gambling dens and all other resorts of vice was to demean one's self,
and positively refused to follow them, they laughed me to scorn. They
seemed to take a pride in their vices in a way that was disgusting to
me. Then, as if to prove what a stupid greenhorn I was, they pointed out
men who stood well socially, attended church, had wives and families,
and yet led lives that were a shame and disgrace in my estimation. They
proved to me what they asserted in various ways, so I could not doubt
it. It was all a revelation, and for a time upset all my ideas and led
me to think my early training in the way I should walk a stupid waste of
opportunity.
"Beyond that, and perhaps the worst of all, I was made to think that
religious belief was arrant nonsense and used as a cloak for evil
doings; that none except silly old women and equally silly young girls
were sincere in pious professions; that belief in God was an index to
shallowness, and prayer a farce.
"It began to seem to me that I really had been brought up wrong and
trained in absurd ways, and that unless I threw my moral scruples to the
winds, I should be a jest and a laughing-stock to all city people. We
grow to feel, and think, and live like those we meet daily, and when I
came here, among you whose lives and morals were so unlike city folks
and so like those of the people among whom I was reared, it seemed as if
I had gone back to my boyhood home.
"I think the sound of your church bells, Mona, was an influence more
potent than all else to carry my thoughts and feelings home again."
He paused a moment to look out seaward and along the broadening path of
moonlight as if it led into a new life and a new world, while Mona
watched his half-averted face. All this was a revelation to her of his
inner self, his nature and impulses. She had thought tenderly of him
before; now he seemed the embodiment of all that was good and true and
manly--a hero she must fain worship.
"Life is a puzzle-board, dear," he said at last, as if that sparkling
roadway had been followed into a better one; "we all strive for
happiness in it and know not where or how it may be found. We wish to
please ourselves first, and to share it with those who seem akin to us.
Few really desire to annoy others or give them pain. Then again we are
selfish, and our own needs and hungers seem all important. We are a
little vain ofttimes, carnal always, unthinking, and seldom generous. We
forget that it is more blessed to give than to receive, that a clear
conscience is as necessary to happiness as good digestion is to health,
and that we cannot walk alone through life. We must depend upon others
for about all the happiness we receive, and they on us. Then again we
had best remain with those we understand and who know us best. They and
they only can or will seem near to us. Your bells have carried me back
to those with whom I am allied by nature; and among them and in the pure
and simple life they live, I feel that peace and contentment may be
found. With you it is the same, my dear, and it is to keep you here
among those akin to you that I say what I have of the great world. Do
not wish to enter it; do not imagine you will find happiness there, for
you cannot. Here you are loved and understood, here are those you know
and can trust, and here every cliff, and gorge, and grove, every flower,
and bird, and ocean voice, contains a childish memory. Were you to leave
them behind every call of the church bells at eventide would carry your
heart back to these scenes again, as it has mine to those of my youth.
No, dear, be warned in time and remain content."
He meant it for her good, but she thought only of a similar bit of
advice he had given her once before, and one that wounded her to the
heart.
For a little longer they sat and watched the moonlight scene; Winn
unconscious that beside him was a girl whose ennobling ambition and
sweet, patient nature was a prize any man might feel proud to win, and
Mona quivering with an unaccountable heartache; and then he rose to go.
"It is getting late, dear," he said in his familiar way, "and we'd best
go home. You may catch cold if we stay here longer."
And Cupid, hovering on the old stone tower, turned away in sorrow for a
wasted opportunity.
But Winn held out his hand to assist Mona, and be it said to his credit,
he retained hers in a warm clasp until her gate was reached.
"Good night, dear," he said then as he opened it for her to enter, "and
sweet dreams."