Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father’s House at last.”
Dulcibel’s hand came over the page.
“George, you are making me dreadfully melancholy. I don’t think I can hear any more. I shall have to cry outright. I’m quite sure the last verse means something about being parted, and I can’t bear to think of parting. Please stop! I’m going to dip my hands in the water: and you can read a little more to yourself if you like. I wonder if there are any fish in the river.”
[CHAPTER II.]
THE CHILD.
GEORGE did not continue reading after his wife had made her way to the water’s edge, some few yards distant. She was soon busily engaged dabbling her hands in the clear water, so much occupied as to be for the time oblivious of her fair surroundings. Yet they were very beautiful.
Leo had betaken himself to a steep, rounded bill on the other side of the valley, where he could be seen, vigorously ascending. George would have liked to perform that ascent himself; but he knew that the climb would be quite beyond Dulcie’s limited powers, and that she would not be happy to remain behind. So he kept his seat, giving himself up to a dreamy enjoyment which was after all quite as much in his line as the more active enjoyment of bodily exercise. George Rutherford was a many-sided individual.
A scene lay around well worth attention. The river-bed showed golden tintings, and green reflections from the opposite bank danced on the ripples. Facing him were three hills, rising like great rounded billows across the valley. The church, built of whitish-gray stone, with low, square tower and slated roof, stood on a low level, almost at the bottom of the valley, and quite at its centre, just between the “Castle Hill,” which Leo was climbing, and George’s own position. Other hills filled up the landscape, clothed in foliage, and trees grew abundantly all along the course of the little babbling river. Glows of sunshine came and went, with shady intervals between. The calm, soft repose of the valley might well strike home to any heart.
Dulcie was not greatly affected by aspects of nature; but the calm and sweetness sank deep into George Rutherford’s heart. She was only “a few yards off, keeping up a little chatter, something like the pretty babble of the water; and George was lost in thought, quite unconscious of what she said, or of whether she said anything. He woke up at length, to find her laughing at him.