HOW THE STARS SANG OF HOPE
It took Gard some time to get his fire started, and when it did blaze
up, with fine spurts of gas from the tar, and vivid blue and green and
red flames from the salted wood, the little stone bee-hive glowed like
an oven and presently grew as hot as one. The smoke escaped but slowly
through the single hole in the roof, and at last he could stand it no
longer, and crept out into the night until his fire should have burned
down to a core of red ashes over which he could grill his dinner.
And what a night! He had seen the stars from many parts of the earth and
sea, but never, it seemed to him, had he seen such stars as these, so
close, so large, so wonderfully clean and bright. And, indeed, glory of
the heavens so supreme as that is possible only far away from man, and
all the works and habitations of man, and all his feeble efforts at the
mitigation of the darkness. Nay, for fullest perception, it may be that
it is necessary for a man to be not only alone in the profundity of
Nature’s night, but to be lifted somewhat out of himself and his natural
darkness by extremity of joy, or still more of need.
The milky way was as white as though a mighty brush dipped in glittering
star-dust had been drawn across the velvet dome. The larger stars, many
of which were old acquaintances and known to him by name, seemed to
swing so clear and close that they took on quite a new aspect of
friendliness and cheer. The smaller--I write as he thought--a mighty
host, an innumerable company quite beyond his ken, still spoke to him in
a language that he had never forgotten.
Long ago, when he was quite a little boy, he had come upon a great globe
of the heavens, a much-prized curiosity of his old schoolmaster. Upon it
appeared all the principal stars linked up into their constellations,
the shadowy linking lines forming the figures of the Imaginary Ones
associated with them in the minds of the ancients. There, on the
varnished round of the globe, ranged the Great and Little Bears, and the
Dogs, and the Archer, and the Flying Horse, the Lion, and the Crab, and
the Whale, and the Twins, and Perseus and Andromeda, and Cassiopeia. And
up there, on the dark inner side of the mighty dome, he seemed to see
them all again, and time swung back with him for a moment, and he was a
boy once more.
And, gazing up at them all, their steady shine and many-coloured
twinklings led him to wonder as to the how and the why of them. From the
stars to their Maker was but a natural step, and so he came, simply and
naturally, to thought of the greatness of Him who swung these
innumerable worlds in their courses, and, from that, to His goodness and
justice.
Memories of his mother came surging back upon him, and of all her
goodness and all she had taught him. She had had a mighty, simple trust
in the goodness of God, and had passed it on to her boy, though his
rough contact with the world had overworn it all to some extent.
Still, it was all there, and now it all came back to him through the
hopeful twinkling eyes of those innumerable stars.
“Have courage and hope!” they sang; and though all his little world,
save those two or three who knew him best, was against him, he stood
there with his face turned up to the stars, and believed in his heart
that all would yet be well.
And when at last he turned back to things of earth, he found the stars
still twinkling in the sea, as though they would not let him go even
though he gave up looking at them. They gleamed and glanced in the
smooth-rolling waves till the deep seemed sown with phosphorescence, as
on that night in Grand Grève; the night Nance came upon him so suddenly
in the dark and he went on with her to get Grannie’s medicine.
Was it possible that that blessed night, that terrible night, was barely
forty-eight hours old? So much had happened since then, such incredible
things! It seemed weeks ago. It seemed like a dream; horrid, fantastic,
wonderfully sweet.
Within that tiny span of hours he had come to the knowledge of Nance’s
love for him. Oh those sweet, frank kisses! If he had died last night;
if the hot heads in their madness had killed him to balance Tom Hamon’s
account--still he would have lived: for Nance had kissed him.
And within the half of that short span he had been judged a murderer,
had had to flee for his life, and would, without a doubt, have lost it
but for Nance.
She had undertaken a mighty risk for him--for him! And she had shown him
that she loved him, for she had kissed him with her heart in her lips.
And, grateful as he was for all the rest, it was still the recollection
of those sweet kisses that he thought of most.
So “Hope! Hope!” sang the stars, and his heart was high because his
conscience was clean and Nance had kissed him.
When at last he crawled into his burrow, his fire was only white ashes,
and he would not trouble to relight it.
He broke off a piece of bread, and ate it slowly, and thought of Nance,
and promised himself the larger breakfast. Then he rolled himself in his
cloak, and slept more soundly than an alderman after a civic feast.