"Saviour, Who Thy flock art feedingWith the shepherd's tenderest care,All the feeble gently leading,While the lambs Thy bosom share."
"Saviour, Who Thy flock art feedingWith the shepherd's tenderest care,All the feeble gently leading,While the lambs Thy bosom share."
"That was her tune, Mary's, the last she sang to Marygold. How did you know?" asked Gilbert when the hymn ended, his voice sinking unconsciously to an awed whisper.
"Idid not, but God does not forget."
Slowly and clearly Latimer read the brief service of private baptism, ending with the sentence, "If thou art not already baptized, Julia Poppea, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—Amen."
"Is that in the book?" asked Gilbert; "then if it is, there are enough other children named that 'tisn't known about where or when, so that she isn't the only one."
"No, we are none of us theonly oneseither for sorrow or joy; in that lies the love of God, which is brotherhood;" and seeing the light of the smile upon Stephen Latimer's face, the child laughed and crowed, and succeeded in wriggling from Miss Emmy's arms down to the floor, where the pup was wagging furiously, as though trying to shake hands with everybody at once, having slipped in as Mrs. Pegrim hurried out for the christening cake.
"It is not as light as it should be," she said, bustling back, "but I made it sponge, so's the children could have it (I've fruit cake coming for we-all). It was the last of the limed eggs I used, and though fresh to taste, they do act sort of discouraged when it gets spring o' the year and the responsibility o' hefting sponge cake is laid on them.
"Would you mind, Miss Emmy, seeing as you stepped so far into the family, as to cut it, I mean break it, as a knife spiles sponge cake, while I pour the coffee?"
"Hasn't the pup got any name yet?" asked Hughey, joining the pair on the floor. "Mr. Gilbert, you promised he should have a name and that I might help choose."
"The boys in the office of nights call him Mack, after that little General McClellan, 'cause he's always busy barking and running about, planning great things he never does, so I reckon that'll stick to him."
"Oh, I forgot! I've broughthera present," and Hughey tugged at a small parcel that was bulging from the pocket of his overcoat. "It's tin soldiers and a little cannon; father brought me them from Bridgeton. Aren't they fine? I'll show her how to stand them up."
"I've a whimsey name for you," said Miss Emmy, as she set down her coffee cup, a relic of grandma Gilbert's old Lowestoft with the little half Chinese flower on front and in bottom, and stooping over the child, kissed the rim of her ear that had an odd break in its curve like the blemish on the petal of a flower that has folded too tight in the bud, "a name that won't mix you up with any Mrs. Nero. You aren't to be called lady baby any more, but Poppea of the post-office!"
Poppea, however, gave no heed; she was absorbed in the ecstatic task of tasting tin soldier.
The twilight had been long for April, as though the vivid sunset colors had fairly dazzled night, but now it was fading. Oliver Gilbert sat before his desk in the workshop. He was not looking at what was before him, but out of the window across road and fields to where a pearly mist, in which floated the crescent of the new moon, hung above Moosatuck. The rush of the river over the last dam that checked it above the mills was occasionally punctuated by the cry of a little screech-owl or the call of a robin shifting its perch, while the rhythmic chorus of peeping frogs insisted upon "sleep-sleep-sleep."
That Gilbert was tired was apparent in the deepened lines of his face and droop of his shoulders, but it was wholly fatigue of mind. The adoption which had for a month filled his waking and sleeping thoughts was a thing accomplished. A week before, when the matter hung in the balance, possession of the child had seemed the finality. To-night it appeared as merely an open gate through which stretched a vista beyond ken; across this many figures passed to and fro, but with faces in shadow or averted. A question asked by Satira Pegrim at supper had given birth to the entire throng.
"Don't you calkerlate, Gilbert, it'll be best to lead her up to calling us aunty and uncle? Then byme-by, when she comes to know, as know she must, there won't be such a mess o' unravellin' to do."
Gilbert had answered hotly, chided her unreasonably, ending by saying that the child called him Daddy already, and that it could do no harm as she grew up for the two white stones on the hillside to stand for Mother and little sister. Perhaps, God helping, she might not learn the truth until she was a woman and married. Then it need not hurt so much. Thus Gilbert drugged himself reckless with hope, after the manner of us all.
Darkness fell about him as he sat, his head fallen between his hands, the side rays of the post-office lamp only seeming to draw the shadows closer. Presently he pulled himself together, lighted the other lamps in office and workshop, talking to himself in an argumentative strain as he walked about. One man came in for a paper of tobacco and another for some stamps, but seeing that the postmaster was preoccupied, they did not linger.
"That's just what I'll do," he said, as though after arguing with some one he had suddenly achieved a conclusion. Again seating himself before the desk and selecting a particular key from the chain he continued the conversation with the opponent who, being speechless, could not contradict. "When I was a boy, I always was scheming to write a book some day that should be printed out like them in Squire Oldys's study. The printing won't be compassed, but I can write out all that happens fromthat nighton concerning the child, and the village doings, so's it'll be there plain and no hearsay when she comes to read it and I'm not here perhaps. Yes, and I must not forget discretion in the doing of it. Mr. Esterbrook lent me some books of Mr. Pepys's, his remarks on his own and neighborhood doings. They were fine and edifying in parts, but lacked the discreetness and holding back I always find in Mr. Plutarch. I wonder anyhow, if in the beginning books weren't written just for the sake of talking to some one."
After searching in a cupboard under the desk, Gilbert drew out a large ledgerlike volume, bound in sheep. The cover was worn merely by lying for years side by side with its shelf mates. The pages within were of thick smooth paper, finely ruled. Gilbert tried several pens, quill and steel, and finally brought a new one from the office; then slowly and painfully he inscribed on the first page:—
As it was written—by Oliver G. Gilbert for Julia Poppea, beginning March 10, 1862.Next he took his two precious Lincoln letters from their drawer and fastened them between the first and second pages by corner strips of gummed paper. Then began the diary.
Two hours passed ere he had finished the first week, but as time went on, he would naturally grow more brief—the more action the fewer words.
By the first of May the reconstructed post-office household was accepted as a matter of course, Satira Pegrim having leased her farm for a three years' term to 'Lisha Potts, and stored her furnishings in the empty half hayloft of the post-office barn. When urged by Potts to sell her farm, she had answered: "No, Gilbert or I either one of us may feel called to marry, then what's to do? 'Cause I wouldn't be number four to Deacon Green with his white chin whiskers, and his 'it's all for the best' and other heartless sayings when number one, two, and three was took, or, I claim, clean froze to death, isn't to say I'm set against the institution. To camp 'longside of an ice pond isn't marriage. I never did like lizards, real or human, since brother Cotton Mather put one down my neck in Sunday-school the day sister Clarissy Harlow 'sperienced religion and I screeched so folks thought I had it too."
On May Day itself, Poppea emerged from the hands of Satira Pegrim clad in the first attempts for many a year of that good woman in fashioning clothes for a child. The result was a sunbonnet of brown-and-white-checked gingham, a sack-shaped slip of the same material, reenforced by the species of extension-legged underwear called pantalets, below which came a glimpse of sturdy ankles and feet shod in stout ties. This being the universal garb of children of her age and station all over Newfield County, the color of the gingham being diversified.
Miss Emmy Felton had protested and begged to be allowed to keep the child in dainty nainsook and dimities, ribbons, and flowery hats, but Gilbert had stood firm that in clothing at least she must be like the neighborhood children, as he expressed it. Thus Poppea began life at Harley's Mills without pretence, having for guardian Mack, who was fast developing into a brown-and-white hound of medium size, a trace of setter blood showing in the grain of his hair, and having the forethought and human intelligence that is more often found in dogs of unknown parentage than in pampered thoroughbreds.
The parapet that made a barrier between the Angus garden and Gilbert's home acres was finished. A series of massive stone urns, filled with foliage plants that topped it, seemed in the half light of night and morning like seneschals in plumed helmets, keeping watch over the doings of those humbly encamped below, whom they suspected, but might not displace. Yet what does Nature care for such distinctions and boundaries? She does not even stop to snap her fingers at them, but simply keeps on surrounding, overlapping, or undermining all barriers that oppose her plans.
The wash of earth and water from Windy Hill was toward Gilbert's orchard, with its trees of mossed-branch crannies and knot holes, beloved of robins, bluebirds, and woodpeckers, where the ample red cow flavored her cud with apple blossoms, meadow mint, or nips of the sweet corn in the vegetable patch, according to season and the location and length of her tether.
Down through the ground gaps in the parapet, a combination of architectural design and necessity, came the spirit of that other garden that the roseleaf wife had created, tended, and left to outlive her. From the bank presently there sprang a bunch of tulips here, a crimson peony there, a musk rose-bush in the débris put forth new branches reaching toward the light, then came the matted green of violets, tufts of velvet sweet william, a wand of madonna lilies. All through this season and others some deep-sleeping seed or bulb put forth, Johnny-jump-ups, prim quilled asters, and, with June, there swayed a flock of butterfly-winged poppies that in still other seasons would wander from their earth bank and alight among the plumes of orchard grass to colonize all the sunny spaces. This was the child's playground, where she first rolled among the daisies, while Mack, led by his nose, made quest of ground-hog and cottontail; there she sucked clover honey, was stung by jealous bees, solved the first mystery of the nest and eggs, told time by puff-ball clocks, and by and by, through playing make-believe, approached the real. Like the good fairy of a story who always comes to the christening to mend with her gift any evil that others have wrought, so at Poppea's naming, Nature the mother was the invisible sponsor, who gave her three gifts: love of the beautiful through eye and ear, love of the best through a warm heart, and the precious gift of the tears that cleanse the spirit.
As soon as the wind-flowers starred the lowlands and the red bells of the columbine swung from their many shrines in the rocky banks, Oliver Gilbert once more resumed his Sunday habit of taking a posy to Mary and Marygold in God's-acre on the hillside. When the afternoon was right, Poppea went with him, riding in the old chaise safe in the grasp of Daddy's left arm. It was on one of the first of these visits that Gilbert began to train the five-fingered woodbine, that, creeping through the half-wild grass, clung to the two white stones and would not be denied. Heretofore he had always pulled it away ruthlessly, but now he plucked a leaf here, a tendril there, coaxing it gently to make a living frame about the names and date of day and month, but praying it to overgrow theyearthat filled a sunken oval near the base of both the stones.
While he worked, he prattled unceasingly, as a child might, to the little one crawling in the mossy grass to gather the light-hued, short-stemmed violets and soft-pawed "pussy-toes." She neither paused nor seemed to heed, yet two sounds heard week after week lingered in her brain until her tongue should one day release them, and these words were "Mother" and "Ma'gold."
There was no Fourth of July celebration at Harley's Mills that year,—no picnics, no speeches. The depressing summer of McClellan's fruitless meanderings, as well as lack of money, forbade crackers or fireworks, so that the return of John Angus with his bride, the second week of the month, was an event that helped to relieve the general tension.
Mr. Binks, who saw Mrs. Angus on her arrival as she crossed the platform of the little station, reported:—
"She's good-lookin', middlin' young 'n' dark haired with pale skin. She's a high stepper 'at knows which way she wants to go, 'n' mark my words, if John Angus's goin' to foller like she 'spects him to, he'll have to act freer and more quick'n he ever did for t'other one."
Next day the village had a shock almost as great as if Lee had suddenly entered Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Angus appeared, walking in the village street, he holding her sunshade to the best advantage, while she let her flounced, fresh organdie gown brush the ground that she might clasp both her hands over her husband's arm, the white roses on her wide chip hat tickling his ear the while as she moved her head in talking.
In and out of the half dozen shops they went marketing (John Angus had habitually marketed in Bridgeton), she chatting gayly. Presently, as they reached the post-office, there was a pause. Then she was heard to say, by a loiterer who sat upon the steps:—
"Don't be tiresome, Jack; you mustn't expect me to help keep afloat senseless old grudges. Please open the door, it hurts my hand. Oh, what a lovely child!" For though Angus did not actually enter with her, he held the door back without further opposition.
"I will take box fifteen," she said to Gilbert with decision. "I see that it is vacant. Is that your little grandchild? No, your daughter? You must let your wife bring her up to see me some day. I'm devoted to little children."
"I thought that he looked red and was getting mad," the witness said, "but when she come out, she stuck a big yaller rose she was wearing in her belt right under his chin, and says she, 'Jack, do you love butter?' Oh, Lordy, I thought I'd die, her callin' John Angus Jack, and ticklin' of his chin!"
Quality Hill called immediately, both those who had previously known Mrs. Angus in New York as Miss Duane and those who had not. Meanwhile the stern mansion on Windy Hill relaxed and bade fair to become a factor in the town, drawing its social life westward.
There was much discussion among the village people as to Mrs. Angus's age; at one of the Feltons' piazza days at home, Miss Emmy, by a process of calculation all her own, said thirty-six, but Mr. Esterbrook gallantly declared that as looks should be the only way of reckoning such matters, the lady could be barely twenty-five.
When Mrs. Angus returned her calls, a trim footman in white tops seated by the coachman on the box of the barouche, the first ever brought to Harley's Mills, the good folks stared and raised their hands. When she took a pew at St. Luke's church, her husband escorting her to the door each Sunday, they lost their breaths completely. But when she invited all to a garden party to see a new lawn game calledcroquetthat had been sent her direct from London by a married sister, they found their tongues again to wonder if the mastering of its fascinating mysteries would in any way impeach their loyalty to the Declaration of Independence; then straightway succumbed as to an epidemic, grace hoops, battledore and shuttlecock, and even archery having to yield it place.
If Marcia Angus handled her husband somewhat dramatically, his satisfaction seemed complete as it was deep. Only two in the place, Gilbert and Miss Emmy, ever whispered even to themselves that she was playing the sort of comedy that is only possible to a woman when some motive of ambition rather than her affections has sway. So that it was a relief to both when, on the Anguses' return from town late the next spring, the touch of nature that makes all women kin colored the village gossip, and it was known that at last there would be a child born in the great house on Windy Hill. Satira Pegrim, who chatted often with the gardener's wife, though her brother had never let her take Poppea for the oft-requested visit to the hill, repeated wild tales of the fineness of the cambric needlework and lace upon the little wardrobe; of the blue silk draperies of the south room now fitted for a nursery; of the gilt bassinet, with its pillow and spread of real lace, and bed, they said, of swan's-down.
Finally a new rumor was whispered and then took visible shape. Harley's Mills, with its staff of competent women, single and widowed, who were ready and willing to "accommodate," was overlooked; an English head nurse of the brand accustomed to rear an infant from its birth and chosen by Mrs. Angus's sister, who had sent croquet, appeared in the stalwart person of a Mrs. Shandy.
Then the village pursed its lips, folded its hands, and waited.
Some random extracts from Oliver Gilbert's book, 1863, Jan. 1.—Three million slaves were freed to-day according to the promise of September. It had to be, but now I'm wondering what will become of them. Poppea may see the working out of this, though I shall not. Having her, there's somebody ahead to hand out hopes and fears to. Without somebody ahead to keep up with, old feet must stumble and get tired on the march.
July the 3.—Meade is in command and they're at it again hot and heavy around Gettysburg. Morse's boy is there and his grandson, or they were when it began. We've all been living around the station for the last three days, just gasping for news like stranded fish for water, but half the time the operator can't get the wire, and then it's only that they're at it still, with Lee to the better last night.
My head is on fire and seem's as if my hands can't feel. What if they should win—but theycan't while Lincoln's above ground.
July 4.—We've won Gettysburg; but now the fight's over, the fields yonder are just seeded down with bodies, blue and gray together. The Union's safe, and all the town boys, big and little, are firing cannons and muskets, there not being a store that's charging for powder! There's been hallelujahs in the meeting-house, bell-ringings and speeches on the green. I've run up both the flags, one atop of t'other, and yet now it's night and I've come in out of the crowd, it seems like I must put a bit of black out somewhere forthose others! The picture of them in the glass looks darkly, but byme-by, when Poppea comes to read this, mebbe it'll shine up clear and be seen face to face. Joy and sorrow, there's always the two around; the matter iswhich of us gets which.
July 5.—It's just come in by 'Lisha Potts that plucky Grant, who's been meandering down-stream and in the marshes this long time, got safe down the river past the fort and in back of Pemberton's men, and through battering and starving, Vicksburg has given in!Hallelujah for victory!say I with the rest, yet I can't get the thought out of my head of those famished women and children living in ground-holes and caves to keep out of shot range. Maybe when Poppea is grown, there'll be some way of keeping peace and rightwithout this murder. Perhaps it might come about even through women themselves! Who knows?
July 7.—Joy and sorrow! Both amongst us in this village. John Angus's wife has borne him his long-wished-for son, but she is dead!
Oh, God! what has he done to be so dealt with? He bent his will considerable through love of her, or maybe it was pride. Must it be altogether broke? Or is it because he withered little Roseleaf? I hauled my victory flags down just so soon as Dr. Morewood told me. Then I run the little one back, halfway up. I wouldn't want Angus to think that I bear malice or was aught but sorry; though if I told him so, he'd likely read it as a taunt. Mrs. Angus was pleasant spoken to the child and me; mebbe some day Poppea can pass those kind words backto the little boy.
July 10.—To-day they buried her up in God's-acre on the hill. The flowers and singing were beautiful,—'specially the little boys from Mr. Latimer's church that he teaches music. Hughey Oldys sang one piece all alone about flying away on the wings of a dove to find rest. It took me straight up after it and set me down far away, wondering where little Roseleaf lies and if any bedded her with flowers and singing.
The women folks brought home satisfaction from the funeral anyhow, for there on a graven silver plate was the age out plain—"In her thirty-seventh year."
1864, July 13.—Early tried to get into Washington yesterday, but he didn't. What a terrible year it's been so far, and only half over. Blood it seems everywhere, in earth and sky and sea. Our boys dropping down at more'n a thousand a day, week in and week out. Can we hold out? Yes, to the end, with patience; for Lincoln says, "Victory will come, but it comes slowly."
There's nobody else left to go soldiering from this town. 'Lisha Potts was the last likely one and went yesterday. His mother has come down to widow Baker's and they've sold most of their stock,—fodder and labor both being so high. Three dollars a day for a man at haying. Tough bull beef at thirty cents the pound; sack flour taken over from the Mills is at the rate of seventeen dollars a barrel, and taxes up to eight mills from five, they say, to help pay the war debt; things look pretty blue in my purse. Did I do wrong in keeping the child from those who could do better by her?
Sister Satira is all shook up by 'Lisha's going. I never suspicioned before that they were courting. But she claims ever since he hired her farm it sort of seems as if she belonged with it, and he claims ever since she left and shut the door more'n half the place is missing. Satira isn't in any hurry, even if 'Lisha hadn't enlisted, for she says she had less than a month's courting before and poor quality at that, so now she means to make it last.
I pray she does. What would become of us?
Nov. 12.—The Union is safe for Lincoln is reëlected!
1865, Feb. 10.—Lincoln wanted to pay the owners something for the slaves set free, but the cabinet would not lethim! Others wanted to hang the chief Rebel leaders, but he would not letthem. So it goes. I want the child by and by to think of this every time she sees those letters that he wrote her Daddy, so's she'll remember what times and doings she came into to make her loyal to the land and the folks that stand next her.
This month the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed that cuts out slavery from every State and Territory. So help us, God! that every soul of us on this soil may be free forever more, black or white, man, woman, or child. Keep us from bondage to ourselves, for slavery isn't only the body being bought and sold.
March 5.—Yesterday, Lincoln took oath again.
March 12.—'Lisha Potts came home to-day, honorably discharged and wounded some, but not past mending. He's been in three battles, and looks old enough to count out those four years that he's younger than Satira. Dave Morse came with him, but little Davy lies at Gettysburg. It seems as if we ones behind can't keep our hands from touching and feeling of the flesh of them that was there, or our eyes from searching the eyes of them that have seen!
April 5.—Yesterday, Lee surrendered and Richmond fell. This ends the war. Yet woe is still upon the land. What martyrs' blood must be shed to cleanse it?
April 15.—He is dead! Assassinated! None else would suffice!
April 24.—To-morrow we are going to see them take him home, the child and I. The Fennimans have made me free of their front porch; they have a house on Union Square, New York. He will pass that way. The neighbors think I'm crazy to take a child of four or five. She may not understand, but she will see, and byme-by, some day, it will come back to her, and she'll be glad that Daddy took her with him.
April 25.—We left at daybreak. As it was raw and threatening, the child wore a little blue cloak and cap like a soldier's that Satira made to please her last winter. It being eight years since I've seen the city, I was forced to ask my way, but Mr. Esterbrook being at the station to meet some friends, he counselled me. Carrying Poppea, for the streets were thronged, I went out to Madison Square and so down to Fifth Avenue. Black on every side, hanging from roof to street, black-banded flags, black bands on people's arms, the great clock shrouded in black. There were no public stages on the streets that I could see, so I walked down Fifth Avenue to Seventeenth Street, then eastward to Union Square, and so down to Fourteenth Street.
One large building in particular was covered with black from the dormers down to the street, with all the windows hid by black-trimmed flags. I asked a passer-by whose house it was, and he told me that it was the home of a society called the Union League, formed by the best men of this city for the upholding of the Union.
We got to the house at half after one o'clock. I don't know how long we waited, bells tolling. A groan ran up and down the street, and then a great silence. From where I stood out by the fence, the porch and verandy being crowded, I could see the black-covered horses swinging round the corner from Broadway, and after them the car. Down the street it came, from the corner seemed an hour. I lifted Poppea to the iron fence post by the walk. The groan rose once more, and then silence, with all hats off. When the car passed, it seemed as though the world was dead, and that after the minute guns would follow the last trump!
Gazing before her at the car, the child pulled her little soldier cap off, then whispered to me, drawing my head down, "I don't see him, Daddy. Is he going to heaven in that bed asleep?" "Yes, yes," I said. "'N' when he wakes up, will he see muvver and Ma'gold and tell 'em we was here?"
A band struck up a dirge, so I didn't have to answer. I can't but think perhaps he'll findhermother, and tell her that there's an old fellow who couldn't fight, that just lives to right her wrongs.
After the car a stream of faces followed, men and more men of high-up societies and committees. I was looking at them without seeing, until one man passed and looked back as he went, at us I thought. It was John Angus! My suz, but he's aged or something. His face was drawn as if by pain or anger, I can't judge which.
Poppea saw him too, and as he passed she waved her hand, she's such an eye for faces. Then she turned her mind to some cakes the ladies gave her, with pink tops. It's wonderful how nature eases things for children.
May 10.—The Anguses are back, and folks say that Philip is not well, does not keep his footing as a boy should who is turning three. Satira saw him yesterday, sitting in his little coach behind the parapet, and she says he looks old and tired across the eyes.
Some doctors are coming from New York to-night to see him. Morewood only shakes his head when asked, as much as saying,I know, but he will not believeme.
May 12.—Mrs. Shandy came down to Satira last evening crying, and blurted out that Philip has a twist or something in his backbone,—Pott's disease they call it. He will be a hunchback. "An' when he looks at me so lovin' with those big gray eyes of his, it seems that I can't bear it," she sobbed right on Satira's shoulder.
"What did his father say?" asked she.
"Mr. Angus? Well he was hard struck and stayed above stairs all yesterday. But this morning he came down and says to us help standing by, 'Do all the doctors say, but never mention to my son or to me that he is different from other boys. Who breaks my order—goes.' Ah! Mrs. Pegrim, but he's got an awful pride and will; I have mydoubts if God himself could break it."
1867, May.Poppea is past six now and the Misses Felton think she should have lessons. She knows her letters from her blocks, and Hughey Oldys reads fairy books to her, but it's the hill-country speech that worries me, and also the Felton ladies. When I talk, I talk like those I live among, but when I put pen to paper, I do better, and write more like those I've met in reading.
Miss Emmy wants to learn her every day so when she's eight she can go to the Academy, and being a lady baby as she was, not shame her breeding. For manners, she's catching them already, and Stephen Latimer says she has a great ear for music, and can sing anything she hears Hugh sing in Sunday-school; not out loud, of course, but soft and strange, like a young bird that's trying.
During the week of the greenest Christmas that had been known at Harley's Mills for years, sudden and bitter cold turned a heavy rain to an ice-storm that locked village and country-side, laying low great trees by the clinging weight of icicles, freezing outright more than one veteran crow in the roost on Cedar Hill, and making prisoners of the ruffed grouse and bob-whites in their shelter of hemlock and juniper in the river woods.
In two nights Moosatuck became a vast mirror, in which the figures of the skaters by daylight and torchlight were reflected, framed by wonderful prismatic colors. Below the falls, however, the water, tempered by the breath of the sea, bedded the wild fowl, repulsed by the ice-pointed reed bayonets from their usual shelter.
From all the bordering towns the people gathered along the banks this particular Wednesday afternoon in a spirit of holiday festivity, whether they took the part of actors or spectators. Contrary to the custom of years, the Feltons and Mr. Esterbrook had returned to Quality Hill for the week, though quite against the wishes of Miss Elizabeth, who insisted that for Miss Emmy, with her sensitive lungs, the tropic atmosphere of a steam-heated New York house, with double windows to prevent even a breath of fresh air from entering unduly, was the only place. Miss Emmy, however, had rebelled, and seemed bent upon following the advice of a young practitioner, who had for two years been propounding the radical doctrine that fresh, cool air was the natural cure. The absurdity of his theory was on every tongue, even though he was backed by a few women of the progressive sort, who are always said by others to fly in the face of Providence.
Be this as it may, a quaint old push-sled that had belonged to Madam Harley, and been many years in the loft at the Mills, presently appeared on the ice, propelled by Patrick, somewhat indignant at his descent from the thronelike box of the carriage. When above a mass of fur robes Miss Emmy's eager face appeared, framed in a chinchilla hood tied with wide rose-colored ribbons, she was quickly surrounded, even before she had time to shrug her shoulders free and draw one hand from the depths of her great muff, extending it toward a young girl who had come toward her with the grace of a swallow skimming the air, bending to kiss her almost before she had paused, saying in the same breath: "Oh, Miss Emmy, I'm so glad that you've come out; I was afraid that we had missed you, and I must be going soon, for I promised Daddy that I would be home by four. No, it's not cold if you keep moving, but it will never do for you to sit stock-still. Please let Hugh push and I will skate beside you, and Patrick can wait in that old shed yonder, back of the bonfire the boys have made.
"We've been pushing Philip Angus all the afternoon. His tutor is ill, and the man that brought him out only stood about stamping his feet and beating his hands. It must be hard enough not to be able to skate, for there's nothing like flying down with the wind and fighting your way back in spite of it, without having to be stuck in one spot like a snow man. So we simply made Philip fly along, until he said that he really, truly felt as if the runners were on his feet instead of on the sleigh, and his cheeks grew red and his big gray eyes shone so. He is such a dear little fellow, Miss Emmy, and so clever at making pictures and images of anything he sees. Last summer he made Mack's head out of pond clay and baked it in the sun, and it was ever so much like Mack when he holds one ear up to listen, you know. Then he tried to do a head of Aunt Satira, but it wasn't so good; the nose and bob of hair behind looked too much alike. But then he coaxed Mack up through one of the parapet holes into his garden, but he had to look over at aunty where she sits to sew or shell peas under the first apple tree. You see, Philip and I can't visit to and fro like other people, because his father is angry with Daddy about something that isn't Daddy's fault, but we love each other over the parapet just the same, so now I have two make-believe brothers, little Philip and big Hugh."
Poppea had chattered on without a break in obedience to a signal from Miss Emmy, who, putting her muff to her face, indicated that the young girl must carry on the conversation, as she did not think it wise to talk in the face of the wind. Then looking about for Hugh Oldys, Poppea saw that he was evidently searching for her in the zigzag line of skaters near the opposite bank, and as a wave of her scarlet muffler did not attract his attention, she started in pursuit, still with the grace of birdlike flight that makes of motion an embodied thought rather than a muscular action.
As she glanced after the girl, Miss Emmy seemed to see as a panorama all the years between the time that she had first found the lady baby in the post-office house, with Hughey Oldys giving her his beloved tin soldier and the present, nearly thirteen years. Poppea, now at the crisis of her girlhood, Hugh in his first college year. Did she realize the lapse of time? In some ways not at all. Mr. Esterbrook was as courteous and precise as ever; if his morning walk was a little shorter and his before-dinner nap a little longer, the change was imperceptible to any outsider.
But it was through her interest in Poppea that Miss Emmy knew that time was passing, and yet the same interest kept middle age from laying hold upon her, either physically or mentally; Poppea, whom Miss Felton had from the beginning called Julia as a matter of principle, the second name having too theatrical a flavor to suit her. At first it had been the little child of five, coming to take her lesson in needlework on squares of dainty patchwork, one white, the alternate sprigged with blue forget-me-nots. The tiny silver thimble and work-box as a reward when the doll's bed-quilt was completed. With this came almost unconscious teaching of pretty manners, rising when some one enters the room, standing until all are seated.
Next came the discovery that Poppea was all music and rhythmic motion to her toe tips. At one of the summer afternoon concerts for which Felton Manor was famous, Louis Moreau Gottschalk had been the soloist, playing some of his Cuban dances, when to the surprise of all, the child of seven, who had been sitting on the porch steps listening intently, got up and, creeping inside the window of the music room, began to dance, suiting her steps to the music, now slow, now rapid, perfectly unconscious that any one was present, until the great emotional pianist, glancing up, finished abruptly, pausing to applaud, and Poppea, brought suddenly to herself and covered with confusion, fled out into the shrubbery, where, her face hidden in Mack's soft neck, she cried out her excitement. Then followed the music lessons, Poppea's legs dangling from the high piano-stool as Miss Emmy leaned over her, repeating the ceaseless, "one-two-three (thumb under) four-five-six-seven-eight" of the scale of C for the right hand.
Now, born of the last Christmas, a small upright piano stood in the foreroom of the post-office house, the room being further transformed by frilled draperies, flowery paper, and a few good prints, while in another year, Poppea would, if Oliver Gilbert could bring his mind to allow it, go away to school to have the necessary companionship of girls of her own age; not that she had the slightest feeling of aloofness or did not mingle with the village young people in the simplest way. It was the village people themselves, not Poppea, who seemed to hold aloof, as if they did not know how to place the girl, who, though belonging at the post-office, had the freedom of the Felton home, calling the ladies "aunt." Gilbert could not realize this, and a possible parting put him in a state of panic, not only for himself, but for her. What questions might be asked her? What doubts raised?
The Misses Felton and Mr. Esterbrook, on this topic being united, said, "Farmington, of course!" Yet they had to confess that there were certain difficulties in the way, and were oftentimes inclined to agree with Hugh Oldys's mother, who said in her gentle way, "You may be right, cousins Felton, but my feeling would be to keep the dear child here close amongst us, Stephen Latimer helping, so that when the time comes when she must realize her natural loneliness, she need never otherwise feel alone."
Miss Emmy's momentary fit of retrospection was broken by the return of Poppea and Hugh, skating "cross-hands," and in a moment Miss Emmy was whirling over the ice until she began to feel, like Philip Angus, that the runners were on her own feet.
After a mile of this exhilaration, Hugh pushed the sled into a little cove, to the shelter of the high bank and a hemlock tree combined, that he might ease his numb hands and give Poppea a chance to collect her straggling hair.
"How do you like that, cousin Emmy?" he cried. "If it wasn't that gripping that confounded handle bar paralyzes my hands, I could push you clear up to Kirby; the mischief of it would be coming down again. Face the wind, Poppy, then your hair will blow back so you can grab it."
Hugh, of man's strength and stature, was still a boy in the joy of life that was stamped in every line of his frank, well-featured, dark face. His hair, tousled by a fur cap, had a wave above the forehead; his almost black eyes looked straight at you without boldness. The corners of both nostrils and mouth had a firmness of curve that might either develop to a keen expression of humor or the power of holding his emotions in check.
As he looked at Poppea who, having taken off her red woollen hood, was struggling to rebraid her long hair that had escaped from its ribbon, his expression was of the affectionate regard of a boy for his sister, who is also his chum, and so much a part of his normal life that it never occurs to him to analyze their relations.
"Here's your ribbon," he said, tossing it to her at the moment she reached the end of the strand. "It blew into my hands a quarter of a mile back. You tie and I'll hold; I never could manage a bow."
"Put on your hood quick or you'll lose that too," laughed Miss Emmy, revelling in the youth and freshness of the pair before her. So Poppea tied tight the ample head-gear crocheted by Satira Pegrim's generous, if not artistic hands, and in so doing, hid her thick, long mane of golden brown, with the tints of copper and ash that painters love. Beautiful as her hair was, the great charm of her face lay in her eyes. These, a casual observer might say, were hazel, but at times they held slanting glints of gold and green, like the poppy's heart, shaded by dark lashes, and all the opal colors: yes, even the fire opal.
Sometimes as they looked out from under the straight, dark brows, their expression would have been wistful, almost sad, had it not been for the upward curve of the lips and tip tilt of the straight nose that separated them, the sort of a nose that in a child is termed kissable.
"Once more up to the turn," said Hugh, "and then home. I'm afraid it will snow to-night and spoil the skating."
"No, home now; that is, for me," answered Poppea, looking for a hump where she could take off her skates. "Daddy hasn't been feeling quite well for a few days and he likes me to look over the mail after he has tied up the packages. You see, he mismarked one, day before yesterday. Quarter of four already? Then I shall be late."
"Not if we take a short cut across the fields and go down the hill through the cemetery. There's no snow to speak of, and it will be easier walking that way than over the icy main roads. Yes, I'm going back with you; I've got to, anyway, for father told me to go to the express office and also buy a lot of stamps, and I forgot both this noon.
"Bah! How cold my hands are! I wonder if, by any chance, Mrs. Pegrim would give a couple of tramps a cup of tea and a doughnut."
"Not tea, Hugh, chocolate with whipped cream on top, and I'll make it. I've learned up at the Feltons'; the aunties have it every afternoon, and it's delicious."
In this mood, the girl and man tramped over the brown-and-white meadows with their tumbledown stone fences, until in the high pickets of the graveyard fence they met the first real obstruction, which they avoided by going around to the north gate that opened above Oliver Gilbert's plot.
"I hope the ice hasn't broken the young dogwoods," said Poppea; "they were growing so nicely. No, but they are bending. Stop one minute, Hugh, and help me break off the biggest icicles that are weighing down these branches until they will snap.
"Oh, look! the ice and wind have torn all the vines from Mother's stone and Daddy will feel dreadfully; he's trained it so as to make a frame and he would never let me touch even a leaf. I wonder if we can put it back? No," and she stooped to lift the vine; "the ice is too heavy."
As Poppea bent over she suddenly slipped to her knees before the stone, her eyes fixed upon it with an intensity amounting to terror. Hugh, close behind her, followed her glance. For a second, neither moved or spoke, then turning toward him, her hands outstretched and pleading, she cried:—
"Look, Hugh! look quick, and tell me if the snow has blinded me, or are those numbers 1851?"
He stooped and looked intently before he answered what he already knew, had known, these half dozen years; then said, "It is 1851, Poppea."
"But it must be a mistake then of the stone-cutters, that we've never noticed before because of the vines; it should be 1861, the year that I was born and Mother died, so that I never saw her.
"Don't you think that is the way of it, Hugh? Why don't you speak? What ails you?"
Again she turned from the stone to look him in the face. Something she saw there struck a chill into her more penetrating than the icy ground on which she continued to kneel.
Poor Hugh Oldys! What avail was his athletic strength or moral courage? If his playmate had been drowning, burning, or in any other form of physical peril, he could have dashed through anything, or even killed men to rescue her from harm, but now—He stood facing the intangible, with bent head, helplessly groping for some way of escape, not so much for himself as for Poppea. The truth lay bare before them, and he knew that it could no longer be veiled. The protective instinct of manhood told him to get her home quickly and under cover, that the blow need not seem so brutal as in the open cold. While he was trying to collect himself and form a plan, Poppea's intuition, keyed almost to second sight, was reading his mind through his eyes.
"You do not think the date is a mistake, but you don't know what to say!"
The words came out so slowly that her lips hardly seemed to form them; then Poppea faced the stone once more, her hands pressed to the sides of her face.
"If 1851 is right, then 'Mary, beloved wife of Oliver G. Gilbert' can't be my mother. Do you understand, Hugh? Not my mother. Why don't you speak? Oh, do say something, Hugh; that is, if you understand!"
Stumbling to her feet, Poppea went to the little stone and, pulling away the vine, exposed the other date, 1852!
"Then Marygold isn't my sister either! Who was my mother, Hugh? And Daddy—isn't Daddy my father? Tell me, you must!"
Grasping Hugh by the shoulders, half to steady herself, half in frenzy, she shook him as she swayed to and fro.
"Come home, Poppea, and ask Daddy himself; he is the one to tell you all about it," the lump in Hugh's throat almost stopping his voice, as he took her arm and tried, without force, to turn her homeward. But Poppea was at bay. Still holding fast and looking in his face, she gasped:—
"What were my mother's and father's names? Tell me thatnow! Where did Daddy get me? Tell me that!"
Unconsciously Hugh shook his head, at the same time his lips said, "This also you must ask Daddy."
"That means that no one knows; that I'm not anybody, not anybody," she repeated with a moan. "Did Miss Emmy and Mr. Esterbrook and 'Lisha and Aunt Satira and everybody know but me? Does little Philip know? Take your hand off my arm, Hugh. I'm not going home any more; how can I, when I haven't a home or even adeadmother or a Daddy, and every one has deceived me?"
The poor young fellow, meanwhile, was trying to lead her toward the highway gate in the hope that a team might pass so that they could beg a ride, for heavy snow clouds were hastening the dark, and even he began to feel the chill of it through his pea-jacket, while Poppea was colorless and rigid as one of the icicles that hung from the trees. Could this be the same being who, less than an hour before, joyous and radiant, was skating up the river holding Miss Emmy by the hand? If she had cried, ever so passionately, it would have reassured him.
"If you don't want to go back, you must go over to my mother or Miss Emmy," he said, as she again halted outside the gate in sight of the cross-roads. "Listen, I hear a wagon in the turnpike; wait a moment while I stop it and beg a ride down; you are trembling all over, and if you stay here any longer, you'll be very ill maybe."
Hugh ran down the side road to the turnpike in time to stop the team, a wave of relief sweeping over him when he saw that it was 'Lisha Potts taking his evening milk down to the centre. ('Lisha, who was still courting Satira Pegrim.)
To 'Lisha no explanation was needed save the fact of the discovery of the date and the need of getting Poppea home.
"Great snakes!" he ejaculated, closing his jaw with the snap of a steel trap. "So it's come at last! At the very first I rather sided with Gilbert's keeping the thing dark from her, but Satiry had the common sense,—'It's got to come,' says she, 'so why not let her grow up with an aunty and uncle and fetch up to it drop by drop instead of gettin' the whole thing some day like a pail of cold water on the head that may jar the brain.' Now it seems the cold water's come. Go back and fetch her, Hughey man, I'll wait; but I can't turn this long wagon on a hill noway, nohow."
Hugh hurried back, calling Poppea's name as he went, but when he reached the gate, she was gone.
Rushing frantically to and fro, he looked back into the graveyard and behind the long line of stone fence opposite that the night was fast blending with its other shadows, but Poppea was nowhere to be seen.
"She would ha' passed this way if she'd gone down home," said 'Lisha, now thoroughly startled at Hugh's drawn face and hurried words of what had happened. "I can see almost all the way down the other road, and she ain't on that. 'Tain't like she'd take to the hill-country this time o' night. Anyway, it isn't no use trying to track her; the ground's froze so hard it doesn't take a hoof print. Well, come to think of it, if that isn't darned queer! It was froze jest like this the night she was left at Gilbert's! Best come down to the centre and I'll drop this milk and borrer a buggy and you and me'll do some tall searchin'. It does look some as if the Lord had meant I was to be sort of trackin' of the little gall from the beginnin'. But mebbe it's jest because I'm a good deal round about and keep my eyes open.
"You'll best tell Gilbert, but make him stay to hum, and we'll do the searchin'. It's no fit night for his lame leg; jest say 'Lisha Potts's going on the trail and he'll trust me, and mention to Satiry that the coffee-pot on the back of the stove'll make a nice picture for us when we get back."
Meanwhile, the long-legged horses were making good time toward the village, and presently, as Hugh entered the post-office, he could see Oliver Gilbert's face looking anxiously up the road through the window by the beehive, for the Binks boy had already come for the mail-bag.
"Where's Poppy? Has anything happened? Don't say she's fell through the ice and drowned!" Gilbert said almost in a whisper.
"No, no, she's safe enough," and Hugh paused, realizing that even these words might not be true.
"Sit down, Daddy" (Hugh had fallen into using Poppea's epithets). "I must tell you something."
Hugh told all as it had happened, repeating Poppea's broken sentences word for word with unconscious emphasis and pathos. Then, after giving 'Lisha's message, he stopped short and, still standing, looked at the old man, who was sitting motionless.
Gilbert arose with difficulty, steadying himself by the table corner. "Go, Hugh, and do you and 'Lisha do the best you can. She—she came to me in the night, and in the darkness she has gone from me," and hiding his face in his arm he left the office and, stumbling across the passage to the house, passed through the kitchen and entered his bedroom, where he closed and locked the door.
Hugh followed to say a few words to Satira, and remind her of the deserted post-office. She, overcoming her desire to set forth the fulfilment of her prediction in all its details, sat down suddenly in the rocker, head between her hands, until the honest tears spattered both on the floor and on the coat of old Mack, who, gray and rheumatic, still kept the place, half under the stove, that he had first chosen almost thirteen years before.
Oliver Gilbert meanwhile paced up and down the inner room, the irregular tapping of his heels telling its own story to Satira Pegrim, though she could not see the pitiful working of his face or the nervous clenching of his long, thin hands. Presently he paused by the hooded cradle that stood as of old between the bed and wall. Lighting a candle, he set it upon the chest of drawers, where its rays fell upon the cradle. Upon the white counterpane was a little bouquet of Prince's pine, wintergreen berries, and holly ferns that Poppea had placed there on Christmas eve.
Stiffly Gilbert dropped to his knees, his arms clasped about the cradle as on that first night.—"God keep her and lead her in somewhere out of the cold and harm. Oh, Lord! I've been short-sighted and selfish. I wanted her for my very own so bad that I've lived out a lie rather than have the truth come between ever so little. Now she is suffering for it when it should only be me. I was puffed up and said to myself in my pride,—'A wrong has been laid at my door because the Lord knew that I would right it,'—but instead I have added to it. Oh, Lord! have pity; keep her away from the river and the railroad and Brook's pea-brush swamp until she gets time to think."
When Hugh Oldys left Poppea by the graveyard gate, her first blind impulse was to hide somewhere, anywhere from familiar faces, this being an instinct common to all healthy young animals when either physically hurt or in trouble. Knowing as she did all the by-ways, lanes, and pent roads of the entire township, the very last thing she thought of was to follow the highway or any of its cross-roads. So when Hugh was peering among the shadows of the walls and bushes that hedged them on either side, Poppea was crossing the graveyard toward the Northeast gate by which they had entered, flitting swiftly behind the larger stones for concealment.
She had no voice to answer Hugh's call even if she had wished to; her throat was contracted and dry, and to her ears, still ringing with the rush of blood brought by the first shock, his voice sounded miles away. When finally she heard the rattle of the milk wagon going unmistakably downhill, she stopped her efforts at concealment, and walking directly to the round hill above the graveyard took such a view of the surroundings as the dusk would allow. The bitter north wind sweeping down from the hill-country turned her about when she faced in that direction, putting an end to a wild idea she had of spending the night in a rough camp the young people had made the previous summer in the hemlock woods. The Moosatuck was already being outlined by many bonfires and all the lanterns that the young folks could collect, for they meant to make the most of what might prove the only snowless skating of the winter.
The village lights began to twinkle below, and an up train, stopping at Harley's Mills Station, drew out again, taking long breaths, and, creeping through the fields like a great glow-worm, made its way toward Bridgeton. There would be a down train in a quarter of an hour; could she reach the station in time, she might gain the last car from the brook side of the track without being seen.
Then she realized that she had no money, and the Felton ladies, her only friends in what was to her the fathomless mystery of New York, were at Quality Hill. Could she have gone to Mrs. Oldys, sure of finding her alone, and begged to be hidden for a few days, that would have suited her mood and necessities the best. As she closed her eyes for a moment, she saw the peaceful picture of Mr. Oldys sitting with his evening paper by the fire in the library of endless books in their white, varnished cases, discussing the doings of the day with Hugh. Through the doorway into the dining room was a glimpse of white-clothed table, a jar of flowers, and the delicate outlines of Mrs. Oldys' sensitive face, as she bent over the great silver tray, tea-caddy in hand, watching for the first puff of steam from the kettle in order to complete the brewing of her perfect tea, and summon the father and son to table.
To go there would be once more to give herself up to all the dearest things of home that she had experienced through the kindness of friends, but thought that she must forever more lack; but above all, she was held back by a bitter feeling of resentment toward those who had been kind to her, for had they not all banded to deceive her? she, who was nobody, saved from charity possibly,—so quickly did her mind travel ahead of what she knew,—from being a town charge! At this bitter moment, the conventional expression came back to her as applied to a child who was being brought up by the widow Baker, much being expected of her and little done for the girl.
Poppea did not analyze her feelings, she was too young and too miserable for any logical reasoning; it was only that impressions crowded her brain with the rapid confusion of a nightmare, and at this moment the germs of two distinct natures began to develop rapidly: one sensitive and emotional; the other stern, proud, and unflinching to the verge of stubbornness.
For a few moments she stood thus, overlooking the village, the upland, and marsh meadows that stretched to salt water, until it seemed that the winking eyes of the lights, one red and one yellow, that guarded the entrance of the shallow bay, were beckoning her to come to them. As she waited, a curtain dropped about her from the clouds, and fine, crisp snowflakes melted upon her upturned face.
Then she began to walk rapidly through the pasture, but whichever way she turned thickets of bay or huckleberry bushes caused her to go back, until, tired with groping, her feet found a worn track, one of the many cow-paths that wound about the lot. Keeping to it, no longer trying to think but walking blindly, she slipped and lost the narrow hollow worn smooth in the thick old turf; then picking it up again, stumbled on.
After she had gone many miles, as she thought, the path came to some bars; two of these were down, left so probably since the cows had made their last homeward trip in November. On the other side of the bars, the path that had previously zigzagged down a steep hillside continued on a level, and the whistle of a locomotive sounded very near.
In a few minutes more a great hayrick stopped her short, and feeling a way around it, she could see two cows, who were pulling their supper from one side of the stack that had been hollowed into a sort of shelter by many such meals. Then a lantern shone a few steps ahead, and a voice, that she recognized as belonging to an old neighbor of their own, called the cows into the shelter of the barnyard.
Poppea, finding that she had travelled only a mile and was within a few feet of the village street, and thinking that the farmer had awakened and come to protect his cattle from the storm, was tempted to crawl into the hay for warmth and rest; her feet were almost without feeling, her hood and muffler were frayed in many places; she shivered so that she had bitten her tongue until it bled, and faintness was creeping over her.
As she groped to find a place where the hay was loose enough to make a place for her body, the clock in the tower of St. Luke's struck melodiously, not counting out ten or eleven strokes as Poppea expected, but stopping short at six.
It was the joy of Stephen Latimer that both clock and bells sent forth a cheerful message of love and hope for what good time might bring forth rather than a warning of passing hours. 'Lisha Potts had once voiced this interpretation with his characteristic direct emphasis, saying one day to Miss Emmy, who had given the bells and was asking his opinion of them:—
"Yes, marm, they're real coaxin', persuasive, and comfortable; the First Church bell allers calls jerky like, 'Re-pent, re-pent, re-pent,' and the Hill Meeting House's says, 'H E L L!Hell!Hell!' plain as words, so's I don't feel called to go, though they do say bein' set against a rock has a powerful lot to do with the expression."
Be this as it may, the chimes had hardly ceased when Poppea left the haystack and found her way to the main road through another pair of bars, familiar to all the village children as the daily short cut to the Academy. Perhaps the church door might be unlocked, it often was; surely no one would look for her there.
The snow flurry was one of a series of squalls, that stopped long enough for her to see her way across the road, also that a dim light came through the chancel window. Then the snow began to fall again in large, loose flakes that quickly filled her footprints.
Her scarf caught upon one of the shrubs that lined the bit of flagged path from road to door, and when she had pulled herself free, she noticed that the outer porch door stood open; then the notes of the organ reached her.
What day was it? It took her a full minute to remember that it was Wednesday, the afternoon upon which Stephen Latimer played the organ, only it was much later than he usually stayed. Expecting that the people might come out at any moment, Poppea tried to turn away, but she was nearly spent. Pulling herself into the vestibule with great effort, she looked through the diamond panes of the inner door into the church; it was quite empty save for the figure of Latimer himself at the organ, a single lamp above his head breaking the darkness. The truth being that the skating carnival had drawn all the people toward the Moosatuck, and finding himself alone, Latimer had this day let loose his very soul, dreaming and playing on, oblivious of time or falling night.
Cautiously Poppea pushed open the felt-edged door and crept into the church, watching intently for any move on the part of the player. Once within she slipped into the first of the pair of pews, that were in the deep shadow of the loft that once held the organ before the new instrument had been placed beside the chancel. The backs and door ends were high to keep out draughts; likewise these pews were seldom used except for the infant class. Sinking upon the tufted seat, after trying in vain to sit up, she gradually took a half-crouching position, her head and shoulders supported by one of the little carpet footstools.
Oh! the unspeakable relief of it, after the hour out in the storm, this being surrounded once more by friendly walls, the sudden cessation of cold, the light, the subtle fragrance of the fir trees and pine of the Christmas greens, and the sight of a human being who was, at the same time, unconscious alike of her presence as of her misery.
Stephen Latimer, sitting upon the organ bench with the soft light of the oil lamp outlining his face, looked little, if any, older than on the day when he had baptized Poppea. It was his double vocation that kept him young, for in reality he led two separate lives: in one he was the tireless and sympathetic priest; in the other, romanticist, musician, and dreamer. To-night he was leading this second life to the full. Once he set the stops in order as though he had finished, then releasing a few of the more delicate, he began to improvise, weaving together the themes of the Christmas carols in which he had been drilling his little choir throughout the Advent season. The very joy of the strains seemed to mock the young girl listening back among the shadows, and she sat upright with a gesture almost of impatience, so far away seemed the singing and lighted tree of Christmas Eve.
Presently his mood dropped from exalted joy down into the depths of stern reality, and the little church began to tremble with the opening chords of theStabat Materof Rossini.
Poppea knew nothing of the meaning of the music or the idea that it interpreted, yet the emotion of it seized upon her, and she felt that something inexplicable had found her in the dark hiding-place, and was struggling with her body and soul. Her breath came quick and fast when Latimer began the massive splendor ofCujus Animam, and when he let the stopVox Humanasing the unpronounced words ofSancta Mater, it seemed as though she must cry out, while theAmenexalted her, but painfully, and without final relief.
Evidently, it had somewhat the same effect upon the organist, for he stopped abruptly, wiped his forehead, that was beaded by the masterly exertion, and, passing his hand wearily across his eyes, shut off the stops still quivering with passion, leaving onlyVox Humana, and then, after a moment's pause, played the hymn of childhood, as though convinced that in its simplicity alone lay peace.