when lance gardley came back to the tanners' the sun was preparing the glory of its evening setting, and the mountain was robed in all its rosiest veils.
margaret was waiting for him, with the dog captain beside her, wandering back and forth in the unfenced dooryard and watching her mountain. it was a relief to her to find that the minister occupied a room on the first floor in a kind of ell on the opposite side of the house from her own room and her mountain. he had not been visible that afternoon, and with captain by her side and bud on the front-door step reading the sky pilot she felt comparatively safe. she had read to bud for an hour and a half, and he was thoroughly interested in the story; but she was sure he would keep the minister away at all costs. as for captain, he and the minister were sworn enemies by this time. he growled every time west came near or spoke to her.
she made a picture standing with her hand on captain's shaggy, noble head, the lace of her sleeve falling back from the white arm, her other hand raised to shade her face as she looked away to the glorified mountain, a slim, white figure looking wistfully off at the sunset. the young man took off his hat and rode his horse more softly, as if in the presence of the holy.
the dog lifted one ear, and a tremor passed through his frame as the rider drew near; otherwise he did not stir from his position; but it was enough. the girl turned, on the alert at once, and met him with a smile, and the young man looked at her as if an angel had deigned to smile upon him. there was a humility in his fine face that sat well with the courage written there, and smoothed away all hardness for the time, so that the girl, looking at him in the light of the revelations of the morning, could hardly believe it had been true, yet an inner fineness of perception taught her that it was.
the young man dismounted and left his horse standing quietly by the roadside. he would not stay, he said, yet lingered by her side, talking for a few minutes, watching the sunset and pointing out its changes.
she gave him the little package for mom wallis. there was a simple lace collar in a little white box, and a tiny leather-bound book done in russet suède with gold lettering.
"tell her to wear the collar and think of me whenever she dresses up."
"i'm afraid that'll never be, then," said the young man, with a pitying smile. "mom wallis never dresses up."
"tell her i said she must dress up evenings for supper, and i'll make her another one to change with that and bring it when i come."
he smiled upon her again, that wondering, almost worshipful smile, as if he wondered if she were real, after all, so different did she seem from his idea of girls.
"and the little book," she went on, apologetically; "i suppose it was foolish to send it, but something she said made me think of some of the lines in the poem. i've marked them for her. she reads, doesn't she?"
"a little, i think. i see her now and then read the papers that pop brings home with him. i don't fancy her literary range is very wide, however."
"of course, i suppose it is ridiculous! and maybe she'll not understand any of it; but tell her i sent her a message. she must see if she can find it in the poem. perhaps you can explain it to her. it's browning's 'rabbi ben ezra.' you know it, don't you?"
"i'm afraid not. i was intent on other things about the time when i was supposed to be giving my attention to browning, or i wouldn't be what i am to-day, i suppose. but i'll do my best with what wits i have. what's it about? couldn't you give me a pointer or two?"
"it's the one beginning:
"grow old along with me!
the best is yet to be,
the last of life, for which the first was made:
our times are in his hand
who saith, 'a whole i planned,
youth shows but half; trust god: see all, nor be afraid!'"
he looked down at her still with that wondering smile. "grow old along with you!" he said, gravely, and then sighed. "you don't look as if you ever would grow old."
"that's it," she said, eagerly. "that's the whole idea. we don't ever grow old and get done with it all, we just go on to bigger things, wiser and better and more beautiful, till we come to understand and be a part of the whole great plan of god!"
he did not attempt an answer, nor did he smile now, but just looked at her with that deeply quizzical, grave look as if his soul were turning over the matter seriously. she held her peace and waited, unable to find the right word to speak. then he turned and looked off, an infinite regret growing in his face.
"that makes living a different thing from the way most people take it," he said, at last, and his tone showed that he was considering it deeply.
"does it?" she said, softly, and looked with him toward the sunset, still half seeing his quiet profile against the light. at last it came to her that she must speak. half fearfully she began: "i've been thinking about what you said on the ride. you said you didn't make good. i—wish you would. i—i'm sure you could—"
she looked up wistfully and saw the gentleness come into his face as if the fountain of his soul, long sealed, had broken up, and as if he saw a possibility before him for the first time through the words she had spoken.
at last he turned to her with that wondering smile again. "why should you care?" he asked. the words would have sounded harsh if his tone had not been so gentle.
margaret hesitated for an answer. "i don't know how to tell it," she said, slowly. "there's another verse, a few lines more in that poem, perhaps you know them?—
'all i never could be, all, men ignored in me,
this i was worth to god, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.'
i want it because—well, perhaps because i feel you are worth all that to god. i would like to see you be that."
he looked down at her again, and was still so long that she felt she had failed miserably.
"i hope you will excuse my speaking," she added. "i—it seems there are so many grand possibilities in life, and for you—i couldn't bear to have you say you hadn't made good, as if it were all over."
"i'm glad you spoke," he said, quickly. "i guess perhaps i have been all kinds of a fool. you have made me feel how many kinds i have been."
"oh no!" she protested.
"you don't know what i have been," he said, sadly, and then with sudden conviction, as if he read her thoughts: "you do know! that prig of a parson has told you! well, it's just as well you should know. it's right!"
a wave of misery passed over his face and erased all its brightness and hope. even the gentleness was gone. he looked haggard and drawn with hopelessness all in a moment.
"do you think it would matter to me—anything that man would say?" she protested, all her woman's heart going out in pity.
"but it was true, all he said, probably, and more—"
"it doesn't matter," she said, eagerly. "the other is true, too. just as the poem says, 'all that man ignores in you, just that you are worth to god!' and you can be what he meant you to be. i have been praying all the afternoon that he would help you to be."
"have you?" he said, and his eyes lit up again as if the altar-fires of hope were burning once more. "have you? i thank you."
"you came to me when i was lost in the wilderness," she said, shyly. "i wanted to help you back—if—i might."
"you will help—you have!" he said, earnestly. "and i was far enough off the trail, too, but if there's any way to get back i'll get there." he grasped her hand and held it for a second. "keep up that praying," he said. "i'll see what can be done."
margaret looked up. "oh, i'm so glad, so glad!"
he looked reverently into her eyes, all the manhood in him stirred to higher, better things. then, suddenly, as they stood together, a sound smote their ears as from another world.
"um! ah!—"
the minister stood within the doorway, barred by bud in scowling defiance, and guarded by cap, who gave an answering growl.
gardley and margaret looked at each other and smiled, then turned and walked slowly down to where the pony stood. they did not wish to talk here in that alien presence. indeed, it seemed that more words were not needed—they would be a desecration.
so he rode away into the sunset once more with just another look and a hand-clasp, and she turned, strangely happy at heart, to go back to her dull surroundings and her uncongenial company.
"come, william, let's have a praise service," she said, brightly, pausing at the doorway, but ignoring the scowling minister.
"a praise service! what's a praise service?" asked the wondering bud, shoving over to let her sit down beside him.
she sat with her back to west, and cap came and lay at her feet with the white of one eye on the minister and a growl ready to gleam between his teeth any minute. there was just no way for the minister to get out unless he jumped over them or went out the back door; but the people in the doorway had the advantage of not having to look at him, and he couldn't very well dominate the conversation standing so behind them.
"why, a praise service is a service of song and gladness, of course. you sing, don't you? of course. well, what shall we sing? do you know this?" and she broke softly into song:
"when peace like a river attendeth my way;
when sorrows like sea-billows roll;
whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say,
it is well, it is well with my soul."
bud did not know the song, but he did not intend to be balked with the minister standing right behind him, ready, no doubt, to jump in and take the precedence; so he growled away at a note in the bass, turning it over and over and trying to make it fit, like a dog gnawing at a bare bone; but he managed to keep time and make it sound a little like singing.
the dusk was falling fast as they finished the last verse, margaret singing the words clear and distinct, bud growling unintelligibly and snatching at words he had never heard before. once more margaret sang:
"abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; lord, with me abide!
when other refuge fails and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!"
out on the lonely trail wending his way toward the purple mountain—the silent way to the bunk-house at the camp—in that clear air where sound travels a long distance the traveler heard the song, and something thrilled his soul. a chord that never had been touched in him before was vibrating, and its echoes would be heard through all his life.
on and on sang margaret, just because she could not bear to stop and hear the commonplace talk which would be about her. song after song thrilled through the night's wideness. the stars came out in thick clusters. father tanner had long ago dropped his weekly paper and tilted his chair back against the wall, with his eyes half closed to listen, and his wife had settled down comfortably on the carpet sofa, with her hands nicely folded in her lap, as if she were at church. the minister, after silently surveying the situation for a song or two, attempted to join his voice to the chorus. he had a voice like a cross-cut saw, but he didn't do much harm in the background that way, though cap did growl now and then, as if it put his nerves on edge. and by and by mr. tanner quavered in with a note or two.
finally margaret sang:
"sun of my soul, thou saviour dear,
it is not night if thou art near,
oh, may no earth-born cloud arise
to hide thee from thy servant's eyes."
during this hymn the minister had slipped out the back door and gone around to the front of the house. he could not stand being in the background any longer; but as the last note died away margaret arose and, bidding bud good night, slipped up to her room.
there, presently, beside her darkened window, with her face toward the mountain, she knelt to pray for the wanderer who was trying to find his way out of the wilderness.
