Part 35 (1/2)
She spoke dreamily and with the same look of seeing things beyond, except that now she fixed her eyes, not on the mountain top, but on his own.
”Is it in my eyes you see the long path of light? Are we together in it?
I see you always with the light about you. I saw you so first in your own home before the blazing fire--such a hearth fire as I had never seen before. You have appeared to me in my dreams with light about you ever since, and in my visions when I have been riding over these hills alone.
What are you seeing now?”
”You, as you helped me that first time, there in the snow. You looked so ill, but your way was strong, and I thought--all at once, in a flash--like it came from--”
”Go on.”
”Like it came from my father: 'One will come for you.'” She hid her face in his bosom, and her words came smothered and brokenly, ”All the ride home I put them away, but they would come back, his words: 'On the mountain top, one will come for you'; but we were in such trouble--I thought it was just the thought of my father. It's always strongest when trouble comes, like he would comfort me.”
”Don't you have it also when happiness comes to you, as on this morning while we waited together?”
”No great happiness like this ever came before. I have been glad, like when mother said I might go to Farington to school; and when I knelt and was confirmed, I was glad then. The first gladness I can remember was when my father used to carry me in his arms up and down his path and repeat strange poetry to me. When you are well, we will go there, won't we?”
”Yes, dearest; but didn't the remembrance come to you just now, when you saw the long path of light before us?”
”I think no, David. I'm afraid I forgot every one but you then, when you asked would I like to bide here with you; and the long path of light was our love--for it reaches up to heaven, doesn't it, David?”
”It reaches to heaven, Ca.s.sandra.”
Then they were silent, for there was no more to say.
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH THE SUMMER Pa.s.sES
Midsummer arrived, and David, healed of his wounds, p.r.o.nounced himself as ”strong as a cricketer.” What he meant by that Hoyle could only conjecture, and, after much pondering, decided that his strength was now so great that should he desire to do so, he could leap into the air or jump long distances after the manner of crickets.
”You reckon you could jump as fer in one jump now as from here to t'other side the water trough yandah?” he asked one day, as they sat on the porch steps together.
”No, I don't reckon so,” said David, laughing.
”Well, could you jump ovah this here house and the loom shed in one jump?”
”I don't reckon so.”
”Be sensible, honey son. You mustn't 'low him to ax ye fool questions, Doctah. You knows they hain't n.o.body kin do such as that, Hoyle,” called his mother from within.
”He has some idea in his head. What is it, brother Hoyle?”
”I heered you tellin' Ca.s.s 'at you was gettin' strong as one o' these here cricket bugs, an' I had one t'other day; he could jump as fer as cl'ar acrost the po'ch--and he was only 'bout a inch long--er less 'n a inch. I thought if brothah David was that strong, he could jump a heap.”
David had comforted Hoyle for the loss of Ca.s.sandra from the home by explaining that they were now become brothers for the rest of their lives, and in order to give this a.s.surance appreciable significance, he had taken the small chap to the circus and had treated him to pink lemonade and a toy balloon.
They had remained over until the next day, and Doctor Bartlett and David had examined him all over at the old physician's office and then had gone into a little room by themselves and stayed a long time, leaving him outside. Then, to compensate for such gross neglect, David had taken him to a clothing store and bought him a complete suit of store clothing, very neat and pretty. Hoyle would have been in the seventh heaven over all this, were it not, alas! that there the child for the first time in his life looked into a mirror that revealed him to himself from head to foot, little wry neck, hunched back and all.
David, not realizing this was a revelation to the little man, wondered, as they walked away, that all his enthusiasm and exuberance of spirits had left him, and that he walked at his side wearily and sadly silent.
His pathetic little legs spindled down from the smart new trousers, and his hands dangled weakly from his thin wrists, albeit his fingers clung tightly to his toy balloon.