“We've got a house,” broke in Chub, suddenly. We exchanged looks furtively.
“They'll have to take the Vows,” I objected. “We've took 'em,” said Aaron. “Parson—”
“You'll have to solemn swear,” said Moses. “Will you solemn swear?”
“I guess so.”
“And if you tell, you hope you drop dead.”
The blue-jay flew up the road again, shrieking scornfully. The red squirrel trembled and chattered his teeth on the branch overhead. All else in the woods was silent while Aaron and Silvia took the Vows.
And so we brought them, in excitement and content, to the place of the abandoned gods. Baal lurked far back in his cave, the cliff looked down with lonely forehead, the distant prospect was smooth and smoky. Neither the gods nor the face of the world offered any promise or threat. But Aaron and Silvia seemed to believe in the kindness of not human things. Silvia fell to chattering, laughing, in unforeboding relief from sudden and near-by evil.
Aaron had a surprising number of silver dollars, due to Shore and the fox-skins, by means of which we should bring them supplies from Hagar; and so we left them to the whispering gossip of leaves, the lonely cliff, the lurking Baal, and the smooth, smoky prospect.
No doubt there were times to Aaron and Silvia of trembling awe, dumb delight, conversations not to the point, so that it seemed more successful merely to sit hand in hand and let the moon speak for them, pouring light down silvery gulfs out of the abundant glory within her. There could be seen, too, the dawn, as pink as Silvia's cheeks, but, after all, not so interesting. A hermit-thrush sang of things holy at dawn, far down the woodland, while the birch leaves trembled delicately and the breeze was the sigh of a world in love; and of things quietly infinite at sunset in the growth of rosy gloom.
“It's nice,” Silvia might whisper, leaning to Aaron.