"Well, here goes, then!" Billy resumed "Praise ye the Lord." At the fifth verse his face began to kindle—
"What is the creature's skill or force?
The sprightly man, or warlike horse?
The piercing wit, the active limb,
Are all too mean delights to Him.
But saints are lovely in His sight,
He views His children with delight;
He sees their hope, he knows their fear,
And looks and loves His image there."
"What is the creature's skill or force?
The sprightly man, or warlike horse?
The piercing wit, the active limb,
Are all too mean delights to Him.
But saints are lovely in His sight,
He views His children with delight;
He sees their hope, he knows their fear,
And looks and loves His image there."
"Ay, now," he broke out, "to think I didn' remember that verse about children when I started to sing! And 'twas of you, missy, and the young master here the dear Lord was thinkin' all the time!"
He dropped his eyes and, leaning back against the handle of the sweep, suddenly burst into prayer. "Suffer little children, O dear Jesus! suffer little children. Have mercy on these two tender lambs, and so bring them, blessed Lord, to Thy fold!"
As his fervour took hold of him he left the sweep to do its own steering, and strode up and down the raft, picking his way from balk to balk, skipping aside now and again as the water rose between them under his weight and overflowed his shoes. To Myra, unaccustomed to be prayed for aloud and by name, the whole performance was absurd and embarrassing. She blushed hotly under the eyes of the other men, and glanced at Clem, expecting him to be no less perturbed.
But Clem did not hear. The two children had taken off their boots, and he sat with the water playing over his naked insteps and his eyes turned southward to the horizon as if indeed he saw. With his blind gaze fastened there he seemed to wait patiently until Billy's prayer exhausted itself and Billy returned to the steering; and then his lips too began to move, and he broke into a curious song.
It frightened Myra, who had never heard the like of it; for it had no words, but was just a sing-song—a chant, low at first, then rising shrill and clear and strong, and reaching out as though to challenge the waters twinkling between raft and horizon. Through it there ran a note of high courage touched with tremulous yearning—yearning to escape yonder and be free.
She touched his hand. So well she loved and understood him, that even this strange outbreak she could interpret, though it caught her at unawares. For the moment he did not feel the touch; he was far away. He had forgotten her—alas!—with his blindness. She belonged to his weakness, not to his strength. For the while he dwelt in the vision of his true manhood, which only his one infirmity forbade his inheriting; and she had no place in it.
He came back to reality with a pitiful break and quaver of the voice, and turned his eyes helplessly toward her. She answered his gaze timidly, as though he could see her. She was searching his eyes for tears. But there was no trace of tears in them. He took the food she handed him from Aunt Purchase's basket; and, having eaten, laid his head in her lap and fell asleep.