"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would
those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break
her heart?"
Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and
expression that I had ever seen in human head.
Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the
Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet;
eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous,
beautiful glances over toward Vesty--she, patient, struggling, with her
holy look!
And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew
upward:
"Softly through the storm of life,
Clear above the whirlwind's cry"--
It all resolved itself into that at last; the human voice crying
upward, shivering, like the bird's flight; but with sure aim now!
I saw how it was at the first look at Vesty's face, when I called the
next morning.
Notely, waking once, had not known her among the group of doctors and
attendants; only stared at her as one of them, kindly, vaguely.
But, for the most part, he slept in weary bliss. Once, later, they
thought her face had awakened some old memory.
"The school-house--is growing--dark," he murmured, in indistinct,
half-recovered speech, then fell off again into his soundless slumbers.
The doctors knew. I knew. The mother read no hope.
"He has so much to leave," she sobbed, turning ever to Vesty, who, numb
with sorrow, yet tried to comfort her.
So much to leave!--but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs.
Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness.
And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of
life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir
for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so
unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending
over him.
Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown
dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the
sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as
though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking!
"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house
is very dark--I'll go home now."
* * * * * *
So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father,
or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost.
"Take me back to the Basin!"
"Yes."
She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the
dead.
"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke;
but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she
entreated me not.
But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be
sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the
best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not
because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for
gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose--we must guess--and
when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks
elsewhere."
Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard.
Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and
strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came
again into her eyes.
"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I
live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world."
"No; how could he, in God's world?"
"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there
in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will
laugh at me, and you will go back to the world."
"Vesty!"
Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me--a ghost; there was the forced,
unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman.
Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had
not seen.
"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong
enough to drive me from the Basin."