University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.

Meanwhile Rosalie's own causes of trouble began to press
more heavily. Thornton's letters had now ceased to come at
all,—whether because the camping-out life took more of his
time or more of his thought, his sister could only guess.
Even one of those short half sheets which were in themselves
so unsatisfying would have been most welcome, but none
came; and the papers gave her none but general tidings.
Sometimes she could almost have resolved to go and learn
for herself; but there was Hulda—how could she be either
taken or left?

It was near the close of a September afternoon when she
stood at the window turning over this question in her mind.
Not at the window which faced the dell, but one on another
side of her room, which looked askance as it were towards
the road and the open country. Everything was very still,
only for a little peal of laughter which came every now and
then from some unseen place; though the voice itself was
well known, and said that Hulda's fountain of pleasure knew
nor drought nor hindrance. Save this and a few fall crickets
the silence had no break.

The leaves were beginning to make their bright changes,
and the beautiful gay tints infringed very perceptibly upon
the summer green. Rosalie wondered to herself if changes
were once again creeping over her life,—if what had so long
been was to be no more. And yet—for the mind loves even
surface sparkles on the water rather than its cold depths—
she could hardly take up the thought in a sorrowful way.
Sober it was, as the long shadows that stretched across the
fields; but fair streaks of sunlight lay between, and in them
the fall tints looked bright and hopeful: there was even
comfort in the thought of such beauty-working cold nights
of frost. And when the sun had set, and twilight had taken
her place, then arose the rich after-glow,—as in verification
of the promise, “At evening time it shall be light.”

“I form the light and create darkness. I make peace
and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” And
the quietness of full assent fell on Rosalie's heart.

The glow was brightening now, steadily; as cloud after
cloud caught the signal and lit its own fire, or hung out its
colours of gold or purple or the ashes of sunburnt roses.
And spread over the western sky the purest rose-colour came
flushing up, a fair back-ground to the floating clouds. On
earth the glow rather pervaded than fell on anything,—it was
like looking through a golden atmosphere.

Afar off on the road, where one of its windings stretched
away into the distance, there came slowly along a large
covered wagon. The glow was about it and over it—it
moved through that yellow light—but itself loomed up brown
and dark as before. Slowly it came on,—the two brown
horses upon a quiet walk, the driver using no means to urge
them. It seemed to Rosalie as if darkness fell as they
moved on—as if the glow faded because they came. As if
the clouds could not keep their bright tinges with that wagon

beneath; and as it came on at the same slow pace and halted
before their gate, she knew it was the answer to Mrs. Hopper's
hopes and fears for her son's return. A startled bird
flew twittering past the window, touching Rosalie with its
own undefined fear, and hastily she turned away and opened
the kitchen door.

She paused on the threshold however, for in the dancing
light of the newly made-up fire Mrs. Hopper sat alone, and
for a wonder doing nothing. The room was scrupulously put
up, the very fire laid with neatness and precision, and every
chair in its place; and the mistress sat in the chimney corner
with an air of nervous listlessness which became her
strangely. At the noise of the door latch she looked up, and
instantly rose; standing still then for one moment with her
hand pressed to her side, she merely said,

`I felt it, Miss Rosalie;'—and then throwing up one of
the kitchen windows which looked towards the barn and
outhouses, she called in a voice that went through the still
evening air without the ringing effect of an ordinary loud
call,

`Jabin! Mr. Mearns!'
then shut the window and came and stood on the hearth
again, without speaking or looking at Rosalie who had not
stirred from her first position. But when there was heard a
low knock at the door, Mrs. Hopper turned and said,

`Don't stop—you can't help me. Go round the house
and keep 'em quiet.' And went forward to open the door.

Rosalie closed hers, and passing swiftly to the front of
the house glided out in the soft cool twilight, and went
round as she had been directed. There was no one to be
seen at first; and then hearing Hulda's merry laugh in the
direction of the barn she crossed the bit of meadow that lay
between, passing the two men as she went, and found Martha

and Jerusha and Hulda playing with bundles of straw and
each other upon the threshing floor. Here the men had
been at work apparently, for the fanning-mill stood out and
a heap of grain shewed duskily on the floor, overlaid with
the great wooden shovel; and threshed straw and unthreshed
grain were on either side. Through the great wide-open
doors came in a silver strip of moonlight and lay softly
upon the barn floor; and there Hulda frolicked—like a silver-winged
butterfly.

`Alie!' she cried out, and rushed up and threw her arms
round her.

`My stars alive!' Martha said,—`if Miss Rosalie don't
look just like a ghost in the moonshine!'

`Mother aint sick, is she, Miss Clyde?' said Jerusha
timidly.

`No my dear. What are you all about?'

`O we're playing,' said Hulda, darting away with a flying
leap to a distant bundle of straw.

Rosalie sat down on one that lay near the door, and
looked out and looked in with strange feelings. This door
of the barn was toward the house, and she could see its dark
outline, softened here and there by the moonlight, and the
twinkling of candles from the kitchen window. That was
all—the house was too distant to see more, and no sound
crossed the space between. And within the barn there fell
the same moonlight, but upon what different types of humanity.
One little sigh, and another escaped her lips—
then somebody softly touched her hand. It was Jerusha.

`Miss Clyde, it looks lonesome to see you sit there so.
Sha'n't we go back to the house?'

`I guess I'd as good be going to get tea,' said Martha.

`We shall not want tea till I go,' said Rosalie,' and I
am not going yet. The kettle was on some time ago.'

`O yes—it 'll boil by itself,' said Hulda, with another
spring into the straw bundles.

`I am a sober kind of person at best, Jerusha,' said
Rosalie kindly. `Nothing else looks lonesome, does it?'

`No,' said the girl in a half whisper. `Only it frighted
me when mother called the men, and I've felt scared ever
since. I wanted to go right up, and Martha wouldn't let
me.'

`Martha was quite right. But why were you frightened?'

`I do' know,' said Jerusha, her voice sinking again. `I'm
always so 'fraid of—of—I didn't have but one brother, Miss
Clyde—and it's hard.'

The same shiver that she had felt before passed over
Rosalie. But she spoke quietly.

`Are you afraid to have him come home here to rest?'

`Yes—I do' know,' sobbed the girl. `It seems so
dreadful.'

`Do you remember,' said Rosalie, `what Jesus has said
—“Thy brother shall rise again.” That is as true to you
Jerusha, as it was to the sisters of Lazarus.'

`Yes,' said Jerusha in the same smothered voice, crouching
down by Rosalie and hiding her face against her.

`Poor child—' Rosalie said, and for a moment she
paused, her words suddenly cut off. Then softly she
repeated—

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of my hand.”

The sweet words found their way down to the fear as
well as the sorrow of Jerusha's heart, and with a long sigh

she dried her eyes and looked up. At the same moment her
mother's tall figure stood in the doorway, and the strip of
moonlight was cut off.

She did not speak, but stepped aside as if to let the
others pass; and when they were all out of the barn she
took Jerusha's hand and followed them slowly.

There was a large gathering in the house that night,—
friends, unneeded yet not officious, came and went and
stayed; though these last but few. Rosalie had given up
her sitting room as the best and largest in the house, and
retreated for the time to a smaller one up-stairs which she
used for a bedroom. And there with Hulda sleeping quietly
near her she sat through the long evening, nor even lit a
candle. With what feelings of pain she listened to the busy
steps that went to and fro, making ready the room, and then
to the heavy tread of the men as they brought in the unconscious
one for whom all the preparations were made.
Then everything was hushed, and the house sunk in profound
stillness; and she might sit and think it over. And the weary
thought of the afternoon had in part come back, and she questioned
with herself if such a trial might be awaiting her.

With the stifled feelings of one who breathes in imagined
sorrow, Rosalie went to the window and threw up the
sash. The night was perfectly still. A slight frost in the
air kept down all dampness, and hushed the many insect
voices that were wont to sing; and the stars shone with a
perfect light; but the moon had long since dipped her
crescent beneath the dark woods of the horizon. Rosalie
wrapped herself in a warm shawl and sat down by the open
window; and while she looked and listened the hours went by
with feet as noiseless and swift as her own thoughts.

Suddenly from the room below there came voices; and
in slow soft measure arose this hymn.

Untutored though the voices were, unsoftened by practice
according to any rules, there was a wild kind of sweetness
and force about their music which cultivation could but
have hindered. An earnest belief too, a deep seriousness
and feeling in the words gave them power. The voices
ceased for a while and then began again—this time as it
were for themselves; and though Rosalie's tears flowed as
she listened, the first gush took off all their bitterness.

The last words died away on the night air and all was
hushed; and in that hush of feeling as well as sense, the
rest of the night past to one watcher, and the first few
streaks of the morning began to appear. Rosalie looked
to the east, and in the opal unearthly light which flickered
up from the horizon the morning-star rode supreme—
O who that saw could describe it to those who had not
seen!

“`A country of joy without any alloy”—' Rosalie
thought. `Yes—where they have “no need of the sun,
neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God
doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”—Where
the bright and morning-star shall reign forever—“and
his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face,
and his name shall be in their foreheads.” Then it will
come—not here.'