CHAPTER II.
"Say where
In upper air
Dost hope to find fulfilment of thy dream?
On what far peak seest thou a morning gleam?
Why shall the stars still blind thee unaware?
Why needst thou mount to sing?
Why seek the sun's fierce-tempered glow and glare?
Why shall a soulless impulse prompt thy wing?"
The next day Andrew Cutler went to complete the sowing of the clearing. It was somewhat chill, and he wore an old velveteen coat whose ribbed surface was sadly rubbed and faded to a dingy russet. More than that, it was burnt through in several round spots by ashes from his pipes and cigars. As usual, Rufus followed him, and a very picturesque pair the two made.
The air was very clear, the smoke from the village curling bluely up high to the clouds, no shred of it lingering about the roof trees. He could see some white pigeons flying about the church spire; and off to the right, where the river ran, he could see lines of white flashing a moment in the sun, then falling beyond the trees, and these he knew were flashes from the shining breasts and wings of the gulls. The ground had not yet lost the elasticity of spring, and the new grass had not yet quite overcome the dead growth of the year before.
It was a buoyant day, and Andrew was in a buoyant mood. He had not come out without the expectation of hearing more singing, and he promised himself he would not wait so long before beginning his search for the singer, whom he took to be the boarder at the Morris house. However, it seemed as if he was to be disappointed, for the sun grew strong, the air warm, and no music came to him.
His sowing was done, and he was just about leaving, when, sweet, clear, full, the voice of yesterday shook out a few high notes, and then taking up the words of a song began to sing it in such fashion that Andrew (who knew the song well) could hardly believe that the sound issued from mortal lips—it was so flute-like, so liquid.
Now, Andrew's life had not been one of much dissipation; still, there were hours in it he did not care to dwell upon, and the memory of every one of these unworthy hours suddenly smote him with shame. They say that at death's approach one sees in a second all the sins of his soul stand forth in crimson blazonry, and perhaps, in that moment, Andrew's old self died.
The singer's voice had taken up another song, one he did not know—
"Out from yourself!
For your broken heart's vest;
For the peace which you crave;
For the end of your quest;
For the love which can save;
Come! Come to me!"
In springing over the fence and making towards where the sound came from, Andrew hardly seemed as if acting upon his own volition. He had been summoned: he went.
After all, there is not much mystery about a girl singing among the trees, yet Andrew's heart throbbed with something of that hushed tumult with which we approach some sacred shrine of feeling, or enter upon some new intense delight.
He soon saw her, standing with her back against a rough shell-bark hickory. The cloudy greyness of its rugged stem seemed to intensify the pallor and accentuate the delicacy of her face. For she was a very pale-faced, fragile-looking woman who stood there singing: her eyes were wide and wistful, but not unhappy-looking, only pitiable from the intense eagerness that seemed to have consumed her. And, in fact, she was like an overtuned instrument whose tense strings quiver continually.
She was clad in a dull red gown made in one of the quaint fashions which la mode has revived of late years. It had many bizarre broideries of blues and black, touched here and there with gold—Russian embroidery, its wearer would have called it. As she sang she made little dramatic gestures with slender hands, and at the last words of her song's refrain, she stretched forth her arms with a gesture expressing the infinitude of yearning.
Her face, so mobile as to be in itself speech, seconded her words by an inarticulate but powerful plea. It was as though she pleaded with Fate to manifest its decree at once, and not hold her longer in suspense. And it was for singing such as this, and for acting such as this, that the world had crowned her great—Fools who could not see that the head they crowned was already drooping beneath its lonely burden. Blind fools who could not see it was the passion of an empty heart, the yearning of a solitary soul, the unutterable longing of a woman's nature for love, that rendered her marvellous voice so passionately and painfully sweet. She herself never suspected it; only she believed what the doctors had told her manager and teacher, the good man who wore such big diamonds and used such bad language, that she must have rest, quiet, complete and absolute change. So she and this man had come to Canada, and had driven on and on into the heart of the country till they came to this village in the valley, and there she had elected to stay—a caprice not nearly so extravagant, and certainly more sweet and wholesome than the freaks indulged in by some others of her ilk. So here she was, lying perdu, whilst her picture was in every paper in the country, with marvellous tales of her triumphs abroad and whispers of the wonderful treat in store for the music-lovers of America. And her little, good-hearted manager flashed out his biggest diamonds, swore his worst oaths, hoped the child was getting strong, and never dreamed he was killing her.
The "Great God Pan" was all unconscious of his cruelty, was he not, when he fashioned the pipe out of a river reed? And as he blew through it the music of the gods, doubtless had good reason for thinking that never reed had been honoured like unto this reed.
There are moments in real life, so exotic to the lives into which they have entered, that one hardly realizes the verity of them till long after, when the meaning of his own actions struggles through the mists and confronts him with their consequences. In such moments the most absurd things in the world seem quite in order, and the commonplace actions of life assume grotesque importance. So it is in dreams, which reconcile with magnificent disregard of possibilities, the most wonderful conditions of person, place and time. Well—
"Dreams are true whilst they last
And do we not live in dreams?"
This is Andrew's only excuse for accepting so promptly the musical invitation extended with such feeling!
"I have come," he said, half dreamily—stepping out from the shelter of the trees.
The pale-faced singing siren changed to a startled, blushing girl, and in swift sequence Andrew's rapt gaze altered to one not altogether without daring.
"Oh, so I see," she half gasped, then laughed outright, looking at him with shy eyes, but mutinously curving lips. The laugh robbed the scene of its last illusion of mystery.
Andrew advanced, raising his old felt hat with an instinct of deference that made the commonplace courtesy charming.
"I hope I didn't scare you," he said; "but I was working in a field near here yesterday and heard you singing. To-day I made up my mind to find you. Do you mind?"
"Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"No," he answered; "but I suspect you are the 'Boarder up at old Mis' Morris's.'"
"Oh, so a rumour has gone abroad in the land? Yes, I am the boarder; one would think a boarder was a kind of animal."
"Yes," assented Andrew. "Old Sam Symmons said he wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman."
"I won't be called an 'It'; my name is Judith Moore."
"How do you do, Miss Judith Moore. My name is Andrew Cutler."
He had come close to her by this time, and as he looked down upon her he began to feel an irritating sense of shyness creep over him. She was such a fantastic little figure in his eyes. And what a queer frock she had on! Surely on any one else it would be horrid. It didn't look so bad on her, though; and what a belt for her to wear, this great burden of metal—a flexible band of silver with, it seemed to him, dozens of silver ornaments hanging to it by chains of varying lengths! What nonsense! It seemed to weigh her down. (Andrew was not up in chatelaines.) Then her feet! But here his masculine horse sense and the instinct of protection which had awakened in him at the first startled look from her big wide eyes, made him overstep all polite bounds and render himself odious to Miss Moore.
"Why in the world do you wear shoes like these?" he asked. "And such stockings! and standing on that damp moss! You had better go right into the house and get on decently heavy shoes."
This was too much. Miss Judith Moore fancied her own feet, and fancied open-work silk hose, and high-heeled wisps of shoes. Most of all, she liked the combination. In fact, in a harmless little way, she rather liked people to have a chance to appreciate these beauties, and at the very moment Andrew spoke, she had noted his downward glance and felt a righteous peace settle upon her. To be well shod is such moral support, and, lo, this heathen, this wretch, this abominable, conceited, brazen young farmer, had actually dared to suggest a change; more than that, he had spoken of "stockings"—disgusting!
So, with a dignity that reduced Andrew to despair, even whilst it roused his ire (she was so slight to be such a "defiant little cat" he told himself), she drew herself up, in a manner to do the traditional Duchess credit, and left him, saying:
"Since you don't approve of my feet I'll take them out of your way."
"You mean they'll take you," said Andrew, wrathfully conscious that she was, to use a good old figure of speech, "turning up her nose at him."
"You are extremely rude," she called back.
"And you are a bad-tempered little thing," he answered.
So he and his siren, calling names at each other, parted for the first time.
Miss Moore went into the little apple orchard behind the Morris homestead, and watched a tiny chipmunk gathering leaves to line its nest—at least Judith supposed it was for that. At any rate, it picked out the dry brown leaves from beneath a maple tree near the gate, sat up on its hind legs, and pleated the leaf into its mouth deftly. It took two or three at a time, and looked very comical with the brown leaves sticking out like fans on each side of its face. She laughed so long and loudly at this, that Mrs. Morris came to the door to see if she had hysterics.
"I met a young man in the woods, Mrs. Morris," said Judith, going up to her; "a rude, long-legged young man, named Cutler. Who is he?"
"For the land's sake!" said Mrs. Morris. "Did you meet Andrew Cutler? I warrant he'd be took down if he heard you say that. He's thought a good deal of by some people, being on the school board and the council, for all he's unmarried and young; but he's too big feeling to suit me! And he don't profess religion, and is forever smokin' and shootin', and he's got a crank on books—took that off his mother; she was a Myers. They was U. E. Loyalist stock; got their farms for nothing, of course, and hung on to them. Andrew owns a fine place, and he's full of cranks about college farming. Well, 'long-legged'—that's a good one! He is long-legged, there's no mistake about that. All the Myerses are tall. There's Hannah Myers as keeps house for Andrew, and she's tall as my old man, and—for the land's sake, that milk's boiling over!" and Mrs. Morris departed indoors. Presently, out flew two chickens, a collie dog, and a cat, wild-eyed and spitting, from which signs Judith diagnosed that Mrs. Morris had made "things" fly around when she got inside—a miracle she was an adept at performing.
Andrew went home to dinner, and came back in the afternoon to harrow down the grain he had sowed. Mr. Morris came out to talk to him.
"Who is the girl you've got boarding with you?" asked Andrew.
"Oh," said Mr. Morris, "I don't just rightly know, but she's a singing woman of some kind: in the opery, she said. She and a little black-a-vised chap came driving up the lane one day last week, and before I just rightly could make out what they were, he was driving off and she was there for keeps. Next day there came a whole waggon load of trunks. Going to stay all summer, she says. She's greatly took up with the country. She wanted to tie ribbons on the cows' horns, and is bound to learn to make butter. She was going to churn the other day, and worked the dash about a dozen times, and then she scolded right sharp at the butter for not coming. Then she got a spoon and tasted the cream, and she up and says to Mother, 'Why, Mrs. Morris, you've given me sour cream to churn!' and she was real huffy. She wouldn't believe that sweet butter came off sour cream, and she just sat, and never took her eye off that churn till Mother was done with it. She was bound she wasn't going to be fooled. She's real smart some ways, though, only she don't eat a mite, and Mother's dreadful afraid her religion is kind of heathenish. She was looking out the door the other day, and she says, says she, 'It's a perfect idol!' Mother never let on, but soon as she went away Mother came out and looked about, and there was nothing like an idol, except maybe them big queer-marked stones I got down by the lime springs. What did you call 'em?"
"Petrifactions," said Andrew.
"Yes. Well, Mother always had 'em set up against the door steps kind of tasty, but Mother ain't the one to have no sich temptations around in any one's way, if they be given to sich, so she just rolled 'em along and dropped 'em into the cistern."
Mr. Morris was notoriously long-winded, and sometimes Andrew was not over-eager to encounter him, but this day Andrew was more than civil.
"What's she here for, anyhow?" asked he.
"Her health; she's all drug down, Mother says, and she's full of cranks. Yesterday she would weed in the garden, and she started out with as good a pair of gloves on as you ever seen. Well, she stayed and stayed, and Mother she went out to see if she wanted to come in, because Mrs. Horne was there (them Hornes are a bad lot!) and she wanted to visit a spell. Well, she'd got up about two handfuls of chick-weed, and then sat down and gone sound asleep. All wore out, Mother says."
After a bit Mr. Morris departed. He had detailed with great gusto all the "news" told by Mrs. Horne, or deduced by himself from her conversation; but Andrew's interest flagged, so presently Mr. Morris went on his way, if not rejoicing, at least relieved, for it was a boon to him to get a good listener.
Andrew went home reflectively. His last conscious thought that night must have been in some way relative to Miss Judith Moore, her feet and her temper, for he muttered to himself, half sleeping, half waking: "Her eyes didn't look like the eyes of a bad-tempered girl:" then "They were so little I could have held both of them in one hand;" later still, "I was pretty bad to her about the shoes, women are such dear little fools." Then this judicially-minded young man slept the sleep of the just.