Hills of the Shatemuc Part 133

But the rebellion was against the words; her yielding was for the voice that brought the words to her ear. She paused awhile.

"At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got what they wanted," she observed, when the silence had lasted some little time.

"They might," said Winthrop quietly.

"I should think many might."

"Many have been," he answered.

"What then?" she asked a little abruptly.

"They _did not get what they wanted_."

Elizabeth started a little, and s.h.i.+vered, and tears began to come again.

"What's to hinder their being discouraged, Mr. Landholm?" she asked in a tone that was a little querulous.

"Believing G.o.d's word."

So sweet the words came, her tears ceased at that; the power of the truth sank for a moment with calming effect upon her rebellious feeling; but with this came also as truly the thought, "You have a marvellous beautiful way of saying things quietly!" -- However for the time her objections were silenced; and she sat still, looking out upon the water, and thinking that with the first quiet opportunity she would begin the first chapter of Matthew.

For a little while they both were motionless and silent; and then rising, Winthrop began his walk up and down the deck again. Elizabeth was left to her meditations; which sometimes roved hither and thither, and sometimes concentred themselves upon the beat of his feet, which indeed formed a sort of background of cadence to them all. It was such a soothing reminder of one strong and sure stay that she might for the present lean upon; and the knowledge that she might soon lose it, made the reminder only the more precious. She was weeping most bitter tears during some of that time; but those footsteps behind her were like quiet music through all. She listened to them sometimes, and felt them always, with a secret gratification of knowing they would not quit the deck till she did. Then she had some qualms about his getting tired; and then she said to herself that she could not put a stop to what was so much to her and which she was not to have again. So she sat and listened to them, weary and half bewildered with the changes and pain of the last few days and hours; hardly recognizing the reality of her own situation, or that the sloop, Winthrop's walk behind her, the moonlight, her lonely seat on the deck, and her truly lonely place in the world, were not all parts of a curious phantasm. Or if realizing them, with senses so tried and blunted with recent wear and tear, that they refused to act and left her to realize it quietly and almost it seemed stupidly. She called it so to herself, but she could not help it; and she was in a manner thankful for that. She would wake up again. She would have liked to sit there all night under that moonlight and with the regular fall of Winthrop's step to and fro on the vessel.

"How long can you stand this?" said he, pausing beside her.

"What?" said Elizabeth looking up.

"How long can you do without resting?"

"I am resting. -- I couldn't rest so well anywhere else."

"Couldn't you?"

"No! --" she said earnestly.

He turned away and went on walking. Elizabeth blessed him for it.

The moon shone, and the wind blew, and steadily the vessel sailed on; till higher grounds began to rise on either side of her, and hills stood back of hills, ambitious of each other's standing, and threw their deep shadows all along the margin of the river. As the sloop entered between these narrowing and lifting walls of the river channel, the draught of air became gentler, often hindered by some outstanding high point she had left behind; more slowly she made her way past hill and hill- embayed curves of the river, less stoutly her sails were filled, more gently her prow rippled over the smoother water.

Sometimes she pa.s.sed within the shadow of a lofty hill-side; and then slipped out again into the clear fair sparkling water where the moon shone.

"Are we near there?" said Elizabeth suddenly, turning her head to arrest her walking companion. He came to the back of the chair.

"Near Wut-a-qut-o?"

"Yes."

"No. Nearing it, but not near it yet."

"How soon shall we be?"

"If the wind holds, I should think in two hours."

"Where do we stop?"

"At the sloop's quarters -- the old mill --about two miles down the river from Shahweetah."

"Why wouldn't she carry us straight up to the place?"

"It would be inconvenient landing there, and would very much delay the sloop's getting to her moorings."

"I'll pay for that! --"

"We can get home as well in another way."

"But then we shall have to stay here all night."

"Here, on the sloop, you mean? The night is far gone already."

"Not half!" said Elizabeth. "It's only a little past twelve."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I suppose so, but I don't feel it."

"Don't you want to take some sleep before morning?"

"No, I can't. But you needn't walk there to take care of me, Mr. Winthrop. I shall be quite safe alone."

"No, you will not," he said; and going to some of the sloop's receptacles, he drew out an old sail and laying it on the deck by her side he placed himself upon it, in a half sitting, half reclining posture, which told of some need of rest on his part.

"_You_ are tired," she said earnestly. "Please don't stay here for me!"

"It pleases me to stay," he said lightly. "It is no hards.h.i.+p, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, to pa.s.s such a night as this out of doors."

"What is it in these circ.u.mstances?" said Elizabeth quickly.

"Not a hards.h.i.+p."

"You don't say much more than you are obliged to," thought Elizabeth bitterly. "It is 'not a hards.h.i.+p' to stay there to take care of me; -- and there is not in the world another person left to me who could say even as much." --

"There is a silent peace-speaking in such a scene as this,"

presently said Winthrop, lying on his sail and looking at the river.

"I dare say there is," Elizabeth answered sadly.

"You cannot feel it, perhaps?"

"Not a particle. I can just see that it might be."