Part 34 (2/2)

”'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'”

Vesty's voice broke.

”Sing, little one,” said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again with a sort of heavenly duplicity; ”it 's all right--sing.”

”'He left the crown and He took the cross-- Sail away to Galilee!

He left the crown and He took the cross-- Sail away to Galilee, Sail away to Galilee!

”'There 's a tree I see in Paradise----'”

”Sing, Vesty!”

”It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life-- Sail away to Galilee!

It 's the beautiful----'”

Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look upward of unspeakable recognition--he, without doubt, seeing now, beyond us blind.

XIX

THE BASIN

”What I thought first when I saw you--I never mind that now.”

Vesty's words: and ”You shall never want or suffer while I have hands to work with.” So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and afflicted may have good hope to be sustained!

There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would have married me for my wealth and name.

But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time--if all things failed her--should I even say, ”Vesty, could you marry me, for pity--for pity, Vesty?” For it was the thought of the Basins that compa.s.sion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love.

Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur--alas! so much slyer: ”My lady! My Lady of M----; there are none, even among the rich and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!”

But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait.

”For pity”--for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I cannot exalt her.

It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country.

But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may crush me. As G.o.d wills. I wait.

It is but late summer now. There is a meeting.

”It 's been a very busy time o' year,” said Elder Skates, with timid, inoffensive apology; ”and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop.”

Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar were finis.h.i.+ng a game of croquet with the one set of those implements which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the open windows:

<script>