The lithe limbs threshed through the dew-drenched, scented undergrowth. The trees grew more openly now; clearing was at hand.
"—My true love—by and bye,"
hummed the light, sweet baritone.
Callista had petulantly refused to go to church with her mother and grandfather. For no reason which she could assign, she 62 wanted to be alone. Then when they were all gone, she wished she had accompanied them. An indefinable disquiet possessed her. She could not stay in the house. Candle in hand she sought an outside cabin where stood the loom. Climbing to the loft room of this she set her light down and began to search out some quilt pieces, which she figured to herself as the object of her present excursion. Though she would have denied it with scorn, the idea of Lance Cleaverage filled her completely; Lance, the man who was preparing to marry her, yet upon whom—of all those who had come near her, in the free, fortuitous commerce of marriageable youth in the mountains—she had, it seemed to her, been able to lay no charm, to exert no influence. He met her; he exchanged cut and thrust with her, and he went his ways after their encounters, neither more nor less than he had been before. He came back seemingly at the dictates of time and chance only, and never hotter nor colder, never hastening to nor avoiding her. A bitterness tinged all her thought... She wondered if she would have seen him had she gone to meeting . . . She reflected jealously that he was much more likely to be at the frolic at Derf's. . . . She wished she knew how to dance.
All at once, on the vague introspection of her mood, she became aware of the recurrent stroke of a soft musical note—the humming of Lance's banjo. Crouching rigidly by the little chest 63 that held her quilt scraps, she listened. It was a trick of the imagination—she had thought so much about him that she fancied him near. Then, with a sudden heavy beating of the heart, she realized that if he had been at the dance and gone home early he might be passing now on the big road. She smiled at her own folly; this tremulous low call could never be heard across two fields and the door-yard.
And it was a banjo . . . it was Lance's banjo . . . he was playing whisperingly, too, as he loved to do.
Then the strings ceased to whisper. Clearer came their voice and louder. Without thinking to extinguish her candle, she ran to the window and knelt hearkening. She looked down on the moonlit yard. All was silent and homely . . . but that was Lance's banjo. Even as she came to this decision. Lance himself broke through the greenery at the edge of the near field, vaulted a low fence, and emerged into the open. He came on in the soft light, singing a little, apparently to himself.
Spellbound she listened, gripping the window ledge hard, holding her breath, choking, wondering what this new thing was that had come to her. Above him she was set like a saint enshrined, with the moonlight to silver her rapt, shining face, and the glow of the candle behind making a nimbus of her fair hair. Yet never at 64 all (or she thought so) did Lance look up. Light footed, careless of mien, he circled the house once, still humming under his breath, and striking those odd, tentative chords on the banjo. Then, abruptly, when she had realized her position and would have hidden herself, or put out the candle which betrayed her, he stopped under her window and with upflung head was smiling straight into her eyes. She rallied her forces and prepared for the duel which always ensued when she and Lance met. She would give him as good as he sent. She would tell him that she had stayed away from church for fear she should see him. If he hinted that she had expected this visit, she would—she would say—
But this was a new Lance Cleaverage looking into her eyes—a man Callista had never seen before. Subtly she knew it, yet scarcely dared trust the knowledge. The young fellow below in the moonlight sent up no challenge to a trial of wits; he offered her no opportunity for sarcastic retort. Tossing aside his hat, making ready his banjo, he lifted his head so that the lean, dark young face with its luminous eyes was raised fully to her in the soft radiance, and struck some chords—strange, thrilling, importunate chords—then began to sing.
The serenade is a cherished courtship custom of primitive societies. Lance Cleaverage, the best banjo player in the Turkey Tracks, with a flexible, vibrant, colorful baritone voice, had 65 often gone serenading with the other boys; but this—tonight—was different. He felt like singing, and singing to Callista; for the moment it was his form of expression. What he sang was his own version of an old-world ballad, with his love's name in place of the Scottish girl's to whom it was addressed three hundred years ago in the highlands of another hemisphere. Unashamed, unafraid—would anything ever make Lance either ashamed or afraid?—he stood in the white moonlight and sent forth his passionate, masterful call of love on the wings of song.