The Miller Of Old Church Part 50

"I told you the first time I ever saw you that I didn't care for kissing."

"Well, even if you don't care, can't you occasionally be generous?

You've got a colour in your cheeks like red flowers."

"Oh, have I?"

"The trouble is, I've gone and fallen in love with you and it's turning my head."

"I don't think it will hurt you, Jonathan."

She broke away from him before he could detain her, and while a protest was still on his lips, ran up the walk and under the grape arbour into the back door of the house.

Left to himself, Gay wheeled about and pa.s.sed into the side-garden, where he found Kesiah snipping off withered roses with a pair of pruning shears.

At his approach, she paused in her task and stood waiting for him, with the expression of interested, if automatic, attention, which appeared on her face, as in answer to some secret spring, whenever she was invited to perform the delicate part of a listener. She had attained at last that battered yet smiling acquiescence in the will of Providence which has been eloquently praised, under different names, by both theologians and philosophers. From a long and uncomplaining submission to boredom, she had arrived at a point of blessedness where she was unable to be bored at all. Out of the furnace of a too ardent youth, her soul had escaped into the agreeable, if foggy, atmosphere of middle age. Peace had been provided for her--if not by generously presenting her with the things that she desired, still quite as effectually by crippling the energy of her desires, until they were content to sun themselves quietly in a row, like aged, enfeebled paupers along the south wall of the poorhouse.

"Aunt Kesiah," said Gay, stopping beside her, "do you think any of us understand Molly's character? Is she happy with us or not?"

It is a pleasant thing to be at the time of life, and in the possession of the outward advantages, which compel other persons to stop in the midst of their own interesting affairs and begin to inquire if they understand one's character. As Kesiah lifted a caterpillar on a leaf, and carefully laid it in the centre of the gra.s.sy walk, she thought quite cheerfully that n.o.body had ever wondered about her character, and that it must be rather nice to have some one do so.

"I don't know, Jonathan; you will tread on that caterpillar if you aren't careful."

"Hang the caterpillar! I sometimes suspect that she isn't quite so happy as she ought to be."

"She didn't get over Reuben's death easily, if that is what you mean."

"I don't know whether it is what I mean or not."

"Perhaps her development has surprised you, in a way. The first touch of sorrow changed her from a child into a woman. No one ever realized, I suppose, the strength that was in her all the time."

Turning away from her, he stared moodily at Uncle Boaz, who was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the lawn beyond the miniature box hedges of the garden. Furrows of mown gra.s.s lay like golden green wind-drifts behind the swinging pa.s.sage of the scythe, and the face of the old negro showed scarred and wistful under the dappled suns.h.i.+ne. June beetles, coloured like emeralds, spun loudly through the stillness, which had in it an almost human quality of hushed and expectant waiting. All Nature seemed to be breathing softly, lest she should awake from her illusion and find the world dissolved into s.p.a.ce.

"I wonder if it is really the miller?" said Gay suddenly. "The truth is her life seems empty of something."

"I beg your pardon?" returned Kesiah, startled, for she had been thinking not of Molly's life, but of her own. It was not much of a life, to be sure, but it was all she had, so she felt it was only natural that she should think about it.

"I said I wondered if it were the miller," repeated Gay a little impatiently. Like his mother he found Kesiah's attacks of inattention very trying--and if she were to get deaf the only position she had ever filled with credit would be necessarily closed to her. What on earth did she have to occupy her anyway if not other people's affairs?

"I can hardly believe that," she answered. "Of course he's a very admirable young man, but it's out of the question that Molly should worry her mind about him after he has gone and married another woman."

Her logic seemed rather feeble to Gay, but as he had told himself often before, Kesiah never could argue.

"I hear the fellow's come out quite surprisingly. Mr. Chamberlayne tells me he is speaking now around the neighbourhood, and he has a pretty command of rough and ready oratory."

"I suppose that is why Molly is so anxious to hear him. She has ordered her horse to ride over to a meeting at Piping Tree this afternoon."

"What?" He stared in amazement.

"Young Revercomb is going to speak at an open air meeting of some kind--political, I imagine--and Molly is going to hear him."

His answer was a low whistle. "At what time?" he asked presently.

"She ordered her horse at three--the very hottest part of the day."

"Well, she'll probably have sunstroke," Gay replied, "but at any rate, I'll not let her have it alone."

CHAPTER XI

THE RIDE TO PIPING TREE

A look of surprise came into Molly's face when she found Gay waiting for her, but it pa.s.sed quickly, and she allowed him to mount her without a word of protest or inquiry. She had been a good rider ever since the days when she galloped bareback on Reuben's plough horses to the pasture, and Gay's eyes warmed to her as she rode ahead of him down the circular drive, checkered with sunlight. Yet in spite of her prettiness, which he had never dignified by the name of beauty, he knew that it was no superficial accident of colour or of feature that had first caught his fancy and finally ripened his casual interest into love. The charm was deeper still, and resulted from something far subtler than the attraction of her girlish freshness--from something vivid yet soft in her look, which seemed to burn always with a tempered warmth. For need of a better word he called this something her "soul," though he knew that he meant, in reality, certain latent possibilities of pa.s.sion which appeared at moments to pervade not only her sensitive features, but her whole body with a flamelike glow and mobility. While he watched her he remembered his meeting with Blossom, and the marriage to which in some perfectly inexplicable manner it had led him, but it was not in his power, even if he had willed it, to conjure up the violence of past emotions as he could summon back the outlines of the landscape which had served as their objective background.

"Molly," he said, riding closer to her as they pa.s.sed into the turnpike, "I wish I knew why we are going on this wild goose chase after the miller?"

"I'm not going after him--it's only that I want to hear him speak. I don't see why that should surprise you."

"I didn't know that you were interested in politics?"

"I'm not--in politics."

"In the miller then?"

"Why shouldn't I be interested in him? I've known him all my life."

"The fact remains that you're in a different position now and can't afford a free rein to your sportive fancies."

"He'd be the last to admit what you say about position--if you mean cla.s.s. He doesn't believe in any such thing, nor do I."

"Money, my dear, is the only solid barrier--but he's got a wife, anyway."

"Judy and I are friends. That's another reason for my wanting to hear him."

"But to ride six miles at three o'clock on a scorching day to listen to a stump speech by a rustic agitator, seems to me a bit ridiculous."

"There was no reason for your coming, Jonathan. I didn't ask you."

"I accept the reproof, and I am silent--but I can't resist returning it by telling you that you need a man's strong hand as much as any woman I ever saw."

"I don't need yours anyway."

"By Jove, that's just whose, my pretty. You needn't think that because I haven't made you love me, I couldn't."

"I doubt it very much--but you may think so if you choose."

"Suppose I were to dress in corduroy and run a grist mill."