The Debatable Land Part 31

"I thought they might do some b.u.t.tin'," said Mr. Paulus, as one grown used to disappointment, and went in with his mail-bags.

Sundry villagers appeared, drifting slowly to the focus of the post-office. Thaddeus took off his gla.s.ses and put them with precision into their case.

"I wonder if Pete intended a pun? Probably not. Conversation is subject to accidents. It is a pity that conversation is not--not more secure."

Gard entered the cemetery-gate and went along the shrub-bordered path.

"Every man is the dungeon of himself, but there is a key that unlocks mine."

He stepped from the path into the gra.s.s, and Helen's ap.r.o.n was full of a mess of brown, earthy roots. She started and cried out, and held up both hands to him, with the trowel in one of them.

"I don't like my life, Nellie. Won't you let me into yours?" And she dropped the trowel and said, "Oh--why, yes," in a tone that sounded like an after-climax, and Gard took ap.r.o.n, yellow head, and all into his arms, and scattered the roots beside Widow Bourn's placid grave and Simon's stone, on which was graven insistently, "Remember Me." A bluebird warbled and cooed to himself on the fence and paid no attention. The bold head of Windless Mountain glimmered in the sun, that swung low and near it. Presently the shadow of Windless would sweep over Hagar with noiseless rush, with silence, or the sleepy twittering of day-birds.

"It was a long way here, Nellie. I went nearly to the other end of everything to find the path."

"Do you really love me? How long?"

"Long before I knew it. Do you mean how long am I going to?"

"No, I don't. Look, Gard! These will be blue violets when they grow.

They come from behind the church, and mother liked them. But you belong to me now, and you mustn't stay here. It's cold under the hemlocks. You must come out in the sun."

They went back along the path to the gate. Over the fence in his garden the minister was planting peas, arranging them according to some theory of fitness, perhaps allegorically, and humming a hymn out of tune.

Knowing that a tune was a spiritual mystery which Providence did not permit him ever thoroughly to penetrate, he only sang when he thought himself alone, and in a subdued murmur. The weather-vane of the militant church pointed southwest at Windless Mountain, which meant always a benevolent opinion about the weather. The sun slipped behind the mountain, and the shadow of Windless flowed over Hagar; over Rachel standing at the lilac gate, waiting for Helen, and liking the impersonal peace of the hour; over Thaddeus stepping up the hill from the post-office, and formulating certain reflections on the use and abuse of accident in the practice of conversation; over Helen and Gard.

"You must learn all about Hagar, Gard. That's the minister. He always pats his peas on the head when he plants them. And that's Windless."

"Is that Windless? He looks like a gentleman. Let's call the minister and let him pat us on the head, show him it's a world of kisses so he'll know what the trouble is, and tell him to ring the bell to-morrow."

"Nonsense. Besides, if you're going to do that, I'd rather only Windless saw."

"You'll be famous and glorious, won't you? And I'll be proud--"

"Proud in a tower?"

"Oh, anywhere. Properly proud like Windless. But we'll like best to be in Hagar, because that will be home."

"I'll be something, or try to be, if you want it. I'm a tired soldier now, Nellie, on sick leave. I told the adjutant I was in love, too, but he wouldn't put it in the permit. Let's go home."

They went up past the militant church, and Thaddeus and Rachel waited, smiling, at the gate under the lilacs. Simon's epitaph and the fading mountain were left facing each other across the dusk. In any issue between them, the dignity of law and time seemed to be with the mountain as against the personal claim, yet one did not come to Hagar to learn among its twilights that humanity was degenerate nature, or that the instinct of its insistent ident.i.ty was lawless; it might be an amendment in the process of making.

"They're coming," said Thaddeus. "The older I grow, Mrs. Mavering, the more I perceive a certain dexterity in the--in fact, in event; a sh.e.l.l now, for instance, skilfully exploded."

Rachel only smiled and threw open the gate.

I heard a pilgrim near a temple gate Crying, "I have no fear if thou art Fate;

Morn, eve, and noon, if I look up to thee, Wilt thou at night look down, remembering me?

Nay, then, my sins so great, my service small"-- So prayed he at the gate--"forget them all;

Of claims and rights a load the while I keep, How in thy nights, O G.o.d, to smile and sleep?"

"Pilgrim," I said, "hath He, who toils the while, Bade thee, of burdens free, now sleep and smile?

Who built the hills on high and laid the sea, Set in thy heart that cry, 'Remember me.'"

From _Persian Moralities_.

THE END