This was the period when Evadne looked out of narrow eyes at an untried
world inquiringly, and was warmed to the heart by what she saw of it.
Theoretically, people are cruel and unjust, but practically, to an
attractive young lady of good social position and just out, their manners
are most agreeable; and when Evadne returned to Fraylingay after her first
season in town, she thought less and sang more.
"A little bird in the air,
Is singing of Thyri the fair,
The sister of Svend the Dane;
And the song of the garrulous bird
In the streets of the town is heard,
And repeated again and again."
she carolled about the house, while the dust collected upon her books. She
took up one old favourite after another when she first returned, but her
attention wandered from her best beloved, and all that were solid came
somehow to be set aside and replaced, the nourishing fact by inflated
fiction, reason and logic by rhyme and rhythm, and sense by
sentimentality, so far had her strong, simple, earnest mind deteriorated
in the unwholesome atmosphere of London drawing rooms. It was only a
phase, of course, and she could have been set right at once had there been
anybody there to prescribe a strengthening tonic; but failing that, she
tried sweet stimulants that soothed and excited, but did not nourish:
tales that caused chords of pleasurable emotion to vibrate while they
fanned the higher faculties into inaction--vampire things inducing that
fatal repose which enables them to drain the soul of its life blood and
compass its destruction. But Evadne escaped without permanent injury, for,
fortunately for herself, among much that was far too sweet to be wholesome
she discovered Oliver Wendell Holmes' "The Breakfast Table Series," "Elsie
Venner," and "The Guardian Angel" and was insensibly fixed in her rightful
place and sustained by them.
The sun streaming into her room one morning at this time awoke her early
and tempted her up and out. There was a sandy space beyond the grounds, a
long level of her father's land extending to the eastern cliffs, and
considered barren by him, but rich with a certain beauty of its own, the
beauty of open spaces which rest and relieve the mind; and of immensity in
the shining sea-line beyond the cliffs, and the arching vault of the sky
overhead dipping down to encircle the earth; and of colour for all moods,
from the vividest green of grass and yellow of gorse to the amethyst ling,
and the browns with which the waning year tipped every bush and
bramble--things which, when properly appreciated, make life worth living.
It was in this direction that Evadne walked, taking it without design, but
drawn insensibly as by a magnet to the sea.
She had thought herself early up, but the whole wild world of the heath
was before her, and she began to feel belated as she went. There was a
suspicion of frost in the air which made it deliciously fresh and
exhilarating. The early morning mists still hung about, but the sun was
brightly busy dispelling them. The rabbits were tripping hither and
thither, too intent on their own business to pay much heed to Evadne. A
bird sprang up from her feet, and soared out of sight, and she paused a
moment with upturned face, dilated eyes, and lips apart, to watch him. But
a glimpse of the gorse recalled her, and she picked some yellow blooms
with delicate finger tips, and carried them in her bare hand savouring the
scent, and at the same time looking and listening with an involuntary
straining to enjoy the perception of each separate delicate delight at
once, till presently the enthusiasm of nature called forth some further
faculty, and she found herself sensible of every tint and tone, sight and
sound, distinguishing, deciphering, but yet perceiving all together as the
trained ear of a musician does the parts played by every instrument in an
orchestra, and takes cognizance of the whole effect as well.
At the end of the waste there was a little church overlooking the sea. She
saw that the door was open as she approached it, and she paused to look
in. The early weekday service was in progress. A few quiet figures sat
apart in the pews. The light was subdued. Something was being read aloud
by a voice of caressing quality and musical. She did not attend to the
words, but the tone satisfied. It seemed to her that the peace of God
invited, and she slipped into the nearest pew. She found a Bible on the
seat beside her, and opening it haphazard her eyes fell upon the words:
"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep."
The lap of the little waves on the beach below was distinctly audible, the
bird calls, and their twitterings, intermittent, incessant, persistent,
came close and departed; and the fragrance of the blossoms, crushed in her
hand, rose to remind her they were there.
"They that go down to the sea in ships."
It was a passage to be felt at the moment with the sea itself so near, and
as she paused to ponder it her mind attuned itself involuntarily to the
habit of holy thought associated with the place, while the scents and
sounds of nature streamed in upon her, forming now a soft undercurrent,
now a delicious accompaniment which filled the interval between what she
knew of this world and all that she dreamt of the next. The cycle of
sensation was complete, and in a moment her whole being blossomed into
gladness. Her intellectual activity was suspended--her senses awoke. It
was the morning of life with her, and she sank upon her knees, and lifted
up her heart to express the joy of it in one ecstatic note: "O blessed
Lord!"
Lord of the happy earth! Lord of the sun and our senses. He who comes to
us first in Love's name, and bids us rejoice and be glad; not he who would
have us mourn.