Part 37 (2/2)

”Yes--and two horses to the funeral, with white covers and all. And silver stars all over the coffin--like the sky it was.”

The wanderer felt himself gazing helplessly into a darkness where hosts of silver stars danced before his eyes.

”You knew him, maybe?” asked the lad, watching the man's face.

”Ay, I knew him,” came the answer in a stifled voice.

”And his wife's like to follow him soon,” went on the boy. ”She's at the last gasp now, they say.”

The wanderer felt as if something were tightening about his heart.

”So there's neither man nor wife, so to speak, at Koskela now.”

The wanderer would have risen, but his limbs seemed numbed.

”There was a son, they say, was to have taken over the place, but he went away somewhere long ago, and never came back.”

The wanderer rose to his feet. ”Thanks, little man.” And he strode off.

The lad stared wonderingly at the retreating figure, whose heavy steps sounded like sighs of pain from the breast of the trodden road.

THE CUPBOARD

”Come in,” said the key invitingly.

But the weary man stood motionless, paralysed by the thought that had come to him as he reached the door.

”Come in--you've waited long enough in coming.”

And the weary man grasped the key, but stood holding it helplessly, like a child without strength to turn it.

It rattled in the lock under his trembling fingers. The noise roused him; he opened the door and went in.

It was like entering a church. A solemn, expectant silence hung over the place--it was just as it had been when, as a child, he had first been taken to church.

And now, as then, his glance sought first of all the farthest background of the place. What he saw was like and yet unlike what he had seen there. Then, it had been the figure of a young man, holding out his arms over a group of children; now, it was the figure of an old woman, worn with sickness--but with the same great gentleness in her face.

The woman's eyes lit up, as though she had seen a miracle; her glance grew keen, as if wis.h.i.+ng to be sure, and softened again, in the certainty that the miracle had come.

The trembling head was lifted, the frail body rose up like a bent bow, her mouth opened, and her lips began to move, but no sound came--she could but reach out one thin, trembling hand to the figure by the door.

He moved, and walked over to the bed. And the old woman and the weary man took each other's hands and pressed them, looked into each other's eyes and trembled with emotion, unable to speak a word.

Tears rose to the old woman's eyes, a gleam as of sunset over autumn woods lit her wrinkled face; the thin lips quivered between smiling and weeping.

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