"Couthin Marget, dost think the ground-hog can see his shadow when he comes out of his hole to-morrow?"
"I fear it, Cecil. See how bright the west is!"
It was Candlemas Eve at St. Mary's. All day Cecil had been in the woods gathering snowdrops for the shrine of the Virgin, and binding bay-leaves into wreaths to decorate Our Lady's Chapel. Now, at sunset, he was resting with his head against Margaret Brent's knee under the great mulberry-tree on the bluff.
"Then the winter will be long?"
"So they say."
"And hard?"
"That's what all the grandames tell."
"Is it a falsehood or a truehood?"
"True as most sayings belike."
"Then, Marget."
"Well?"
"I think I'd best be up ere sunrise, and roll stones before all the holes, and I know five wherein ground-hogs live."
Margaret Brent laughed. "That's just what Giles did once when he was little."
"Wath Couthin Giles ever little—really little—like me?"
"Yes, Cecil, little like you; and he and I were wont to chase butterflies through the English meadows, and it's small thought either he or I ever had that we should end our lives here in the wilderness."
"End your lives!"
To Cecil it was as impossible to conceive of an end as of a beginning to these grown-up people who always had been, and, of course, always would be, the backbone of his world. After a pause given to meditation he resumed,—
"What makes folks die?"
"Oh! different things. They may be sick, or they may fall down stairs, or break their bones."
"I see. Then they go up to God to get mended.—Marget!"
"Ay."
"I wish Mother would get God to mend her smile."
"What's that?"
"She used to have such a pretty smile, and now she only smiles when I make her."
"Then see that thou dost make her smile often. Perchance 'tis thus that God will mend it. Come, Cecil, she will be waiting for us even now, and we shall catch the rheum if we sit longer on this damp ground."
Cecil, always glad to be in motion, jumped up, and led the way home, his yellow curls bobbing along the path, as good as a lantern in the gloaming, as Margaret Brent told herself.
At the cottage door Elinor stood bathed in the crimson light that flooded earth and sky. Her pale cheek had caught the rosy glow, and the damp February air had twisted her hair in soft clinging rings about her face. As she caught sight of Margaret and Cecil her lips parted in a welcoming smile, and she came down the path to meet them with arms outstretched.
"Look, Couthin!" cried Cecil, "God's mending her already!"
"Pray Heaven He does!" answered Margaret, under her breath. Then, after seeing the boy clasped in his mother's arms, she turned for a last look at the scene which she had left with reluctance, for it was one of the inconsistencies of Mistress Brent's practical nature to love the poetry of the twilight, and to be willing to barter all the noon-day hour for that last swift dip of the red sun behind the hills.
To-night she stood with head thrown backand chest expanded, as though she were physically breathing in the beauty around her. The rose-purple of a moment since had narrowed to a single crimson bar, stretched above the opal barrier of the hills, athwart the deep yellow of the sky.
"The walls were of jasper, and the city was of pure gold like unto clear glass!"
"Supper, Couthin Marget! and wheaten porridge. Come in with speed!"
"Peace, poppet! Who talks of porridge in the New Jerusalem!"
"But this is not the New Jerusalem, only the ragged little village of St. Mary's." It was Elinor's voice that answered, and Margaret rejoiced to catch a strain of oldtime lightness in it. Moreover, the promise of the voice was fulfilled as they sat at the supper-table, for Elinor was as one who has shaken off a burden. Her gown was of a rich red that might have been stolen from the sunset, and in her hair she had set a wing of the cardinal tanager. Around her neck hung a single ruby.
"Truth, Elinor, thou art like a flame to-night," exclaimed Margaret as Cecil drew out a stool for her at the table.
"'Tis time, Cousin. Poor Cecil hath had too much of shadow in his little life. Now, I am fain to throw some brightness into it, if 'tis but a red gown and a tanager's wing."
"Hurrah! Now art thou thine old self once more, as I saw thee on the morning when I was Lord of—"
Margaret saw the gayety fade out of Elinor's face as swiftly as a sunlighted sail is swallowed up by the gray mist.
"Dost thou mind, Elinor," she said, quickly, "how we were wont to make merry on Candlemas Eve at home in England?"
"Ay, right well I remember how once, when I was a girl, I went through the woods gathering wax berries for the candles." Here she paused, and added softly, with a mounting flush and a tender smile, "'Twas with Christopher Neville."
Margaret Brent looked up astonished.
"Yes, Cousin, I can speak his name, and mean to talk often of him with Cecil, to make the boy, so far as I can, in his image, so tender and true, so steadfast and faithful to death."
"Thou art a brave woman."
"Nay, I have been till now a very foolish one. Even now, as thou didst see, Cecil's words and all they called up cut to the quick like a two-edged knife; but this is wrong, and I know it. Sure, God did not give us memory to be a curse, but a joy. So far as I sinned toward Christopher I must bear the burden of sorrow; but I mean not that it shall blight all the past. We were happy together once—then sorrowswept between; but now that too has passed, and I am fain to live once again, though alone, the happiness we shared."
"Art sure it will not try thine endurance too far to dwell so on the past?"
"Nay, for I love it, and 'tis so real,—far, far more real than the present. Why, I can smell again the fragrance of the waxen berries, and I can see Christopher as he stood pulling down the bushes and smiling at my eagerness to fill my pail. I think there never was a smile quite like his. 'Twas more in the eyes than the lips, and it seemed to have actual warmth in it, like the fire yonder."
"Ay, 'twas clear wonderful to see what a change a smile could make in that stern face of his."
"Oh, but in those days there was no sternness in his face, only a great gladness and gayety. I have seen him lie under the trees and whistle beneath the hat pulled over his face, till all the birds gathered round and wondered what strange new creature it was that had learned so merry a note."
Elinor's eyes grew dark and misty as she looked across the candle-light into the darkness beyond; but the smile still curved her lips, and an expression lay on her face as of one who listens and responds.
"Mother, wilt thou sing me a song as thou dost every Candlemas?"
"Cecil, I fear my voice will not follow my resolutions; but yes,—it shall. What wilt thou have me sing?"
"Oh, the song about the lady with the green sleeves."
"Must it be that, Cecil? Surely some other would do as well."
"No, 'tis my favorite of them all."
Elinor paled a little; but she began bravely, and her courage and her voice rose together till at the end there came a triumphant burst that swelled beyond the narrow walls and could be heard out on the road, and the villagers stood still to listen, and nudged each other with wonder.
"Heard ye that? 'Tis Mistress Calvert singing,—Mistress Calvert!"
When the song was ended, Margaret took her turn at story-telling, and then Cecil must sing; and thus the time sped away so fast that they could scarce believe their ears when the curfew bell sounded for "lights out," and Cecil well-nigh forgot the answer to the bell, that he had been taught in babyhood and repeated every night since he could speak: "Christ send us the lights of Heaven!"
"Off to bed with thee, Cecil," said his mother, taking his face between her hands, as was her wont, and kissing him on both cheeks. "To bed, and sweet dreams attend thee!"
"Yet forget not to be up early," added Margaret.
"No fear, I have all the candles to light for the Candlemas blaze, and Father White hath promised I may help him in the chapel of Our Lady."
Leaning against his mother's knee he looked up into her face, exclaiming,—
"Oh, but I do love thee!"
"I wonder why."
"Why?—because thou art thou, and I am I."
"Sweet, there is no other reason for loving in all the wide world."
"I can think of other reasons too—little ones."
"What?"
"I love thee for the gold of thy hair, and for the holes at the corners of thy mouth, and for the seed cake thou didst give me, and for not beating me when I fell into the Governor's Spring in my new breeches, and for rubbing my legs that night."
Elinor threw her arms about the child with a swift hug, jealously noting that he was taller by a head than last year. The boy belongs to his mother. The man belongs to the world or to some other woman.
"I love thee too" was all she said.
Clasping his arms close about his mother'sneck, Cecil whispered, "Godismending thee, and Iamso glad, 'cos now thou wilt have no need to die."
When the child was gone the two women drew nearer to the fire and began to rake the ashes together, but slowly, as if loath to put out the cheerful domestic spark, though the air was too soft to need warming, and the full moon blandly shining in through the window served amply for light.
With the dying of the fire Elinor's cheer seemed to die too, and she sat silent in the moonlight with hands folded before her and feet thrust out toward the warm ashes.
"Margaret!"
"Yes."
"Ralph Ingle was here yesterday."
"I thought I saw him vanishing from the door as I came."
"Yes, he was here, and he asked me again to marry him."
"And thou—"
"I told him for the fortieth time that marriage was not for me."
"Did that settle it?"
"Nay, he only smiled."
"Insolent fellow!"
"No, Cousin, there is no insolence in Ralph Ingle, but something which frights me more,—or did till to-day,—a calm biding of his time, asthough in the end, struggle against fate as I would, he must triumph and I must yield."
"Bah, Elinor! That's the talk of a woman who seeks excuse for yielding. Your will is as strong as his; use it!"
Elinor's lips shut in a proud silence. There was something in Margaret Brent's manner which did not invite, much as it justified, self-revelation. Few make confidences to those who never make mistakes. Elinor made a move as if to rise; but Margaret laid her hand upon her arm. "Cousin," said the older woman, "I have heard thy story; now listen to mine. I loved a man once—"
Elinor started.
"Ah, thou didst never think I had known what it was to love?"
"He—he was a lucky man," stammered Elinor, in surprise.
"He might have been a lucky man, though perchance it behooves not me to say it; yet I verily believe I could have made him happy, but that he was of a jealous temper—"
Elinor, who had a blessed gift for silence, used it now.
"Yes," Margaret continued; "he was jealous by nature, and therefore lent a ready ear when one dropped poison in it."
"He doubtedthee?"
"He thought he had proof."
"And the villain who traduced thee to him—"
"Was Dick Ingle, and thou dost well to call him villain. 'Twas years ago in England, and we have met but twice since; but I know the blood, and I swear to thee I'd rather see thee carried out of this room in thy coffin than as the bride of an Ingle."
"Yet Ralph—"
"Oh, I know he hath not the brutal outside of his brother, but, Elinor, I count him falser at heart. You don't always see a snake, but you trace his course by the rippling of the grass. Something always goes wrong when Ralph Ingle is about. Trust him not with thy little finger, much less thy hand in marriage."
"Listen, then, Margaret, and thou wilt rejoice with me and understand the better my lightness of spirit this night when I tell thee that yester morning Ralph Ingle renounced me, told me I was too cold for any love save for a dead man,—God help me, that is true,—then suddenly, as if carried beyond his own control, he seized me in his arms and kissed me, and then flung through the doorway. At the door he turned once more and said, 'Elinor, thy day of grace is ended!'
"I was much angered by his free manner, and I answered,—
"'If the day of grace be the day of thy company, the sooner ended the better.'
"'I am going away,' he said.
"For answer I but courtesied, with a great gladness at my heart.
"'The time may come when thou wilt beg me to wed thee.'
"I laughed.
"'Till that time comes I will never speak of marriage more,' he said. Then with one devouring glance, he bowed low and left the house, and Sheriff Ellyson told me to-day that he saw him with three men making down the river in a pinnace. Pray Heaven, he is gone forever!"
"Ay, pray Heaven; but keep thy wits at work none the less, and never believe that an Ingle means what he says. They say only what they wish thee to believe; and as for Ralph Ingle giving thee up, he has about as much intention on't as my gray cat, that withdraws into the dark and lets her victim mouse play about till she's ready for the spring."
"Cousin, thou art suspicious."
"Say rather, watchful."
"'Tis all one."
"Nay. If thou art watchful, thou mayst find there is no cause for suspicion."
Elinor sat looking at the woman opposite her. Dead silence fell between them, till at last, with acry, Elinor threw herself on her knees at her cousin's side.
"Love me, Margaret! Try to love me! There are so few to love me now!"
It was as if the cry of Elinor's full heart broke down the barriers that had somehow raised themselves between her and Margaret Brent. A single word had laid them low, never to rise again.
"I do love thee; I do," whispered Margaret, folding her arms close about Elinor. "Poor child! Life hath been a hard school for thee."
"And I an unruly scholar," murmured Elinor, smiling through her tears.
"Perchance; most of us are. But now shalt thou give proof of thy new-found spirit of obedience by obeying me, and getting this weary body of thine into bed. Hark! the watchman is crying ten of the clock."
With a certain joy in being bidden like a little child, Elinor rose and moved to her chamber. It is, however, one thing to go to bed, and quite another to go to sleep. Strive as she would, she could not shake off the sombre shadow of Margaret's words.
At last, unable to rest quiet longer, she rose and went to Cecil's little bed. There he lay, flushed and rosy in sleep, with the coverlid thrust aside and revealing the firm curves of a sturdy leg.
"Thank God for him!" murmured his mother, and taking down a vial of holy water she sprinkled a few drops on the golden curls. Then from the shelf beneath the crucifix she took down a little brown book with worn cover and dog's-eared corners. Opening at random her eyes fell on these words:—
"Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good: by itself it makes everything that is heavy light, and it bears evenly all that is uneven. For it carries a burden which is no burden and makes everything which is bitter sweet and savory."
"Heigh ho!" sighed Elinor; but she read on.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth."
"For some," murmured Elinor, and read on.
"My child, thou art not yet a courageous lover. Because for a slight opposition thou givest over thy undertakings and too eagerly seekest consolation. A courageous lover standeth firm in temptations and giveth no credit to the crafty persuasions of the enemy—"
A tear slid down upon the hand that turned the page. Tears are crystallized confession. Elinor bowed her head.
"Alas! Alas! How the words pierce to myheart's core! It is to me surely that they were written. What a coward in love have I been! How ready at the first whisper to sink from faith into doubt! To me God gave such chance as falls to the lot of few women to hold up the hands of my love, and the chance slipped from me, and I joined the ranks of them that doubted and turned aside.
"Is it too late now to repent? No, never too late for that. What consolation, what joy, what glory to feel that perhaps ages hence, when I have worked out the penance my sin demands in Purgatory, I may rise to the presence of the saints, where, for all the churchmen say, God must make a place for souls like Christopher's! Then I shall look into his eyes and he will forgive and bless me."
The thought brought comfort, and she turned back to her couch with a calmer mind. As she passed the window she heard the watchman calling the hour of midnight, followed by the familiar cry,—
"From fire and brand and hostile handGod save our town!"
"From fire and brand and hostile handGod save our town!"
"From fire and brand and hostile handGod save our town!"
"From fire and brand and hostile hand
God save our town!"
For some time she stood still, watching, with a comfortable sense of safety, the queer figure and the twinkle of his lantern as it bobbed up and down along the street.
"Elinor, is that thou?"
"Ay, Margaret."
"Now art thou unruly, indeed,—walking the house at midnight like an uneasy ghost, when I bade thee go to bed and to sleep. To bed, I say, this instant!"
Elinor smiled, but obeyed, and drawing the coverlid over her fell into a light slumber, broken by a fitful dream in which the world seemed to be whirling around, and Ralph Ingle was pushing it to make it go faster, when suddenly Christopher Neville appeared, and all at once it stopped and she could hear his voice bidding her be of good cheer and fear nothing. Then came the unconsciousness of deeper sleep; and at last, out of that calm there swept a great noise, a rush of feet along the quiet street, a swinging of lanterns, a hurried knocking at the door, and a shout,—
"Make ready all within!Dick Ingle is at the gates!"