The voice was nearer now. There was no sound or sight of any moving object on the bluff, but she was somewhere there and seemed coming nearer.
The tinkle of the cow-bell made an interlude. Then again the voice of singing, whether nearer or farther now he did not question. He was listening to the words:
Of that country
To which I'm going
My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light.
There is no sorrow
Nor any sighing
Nor any sin there, nor any dying.
The mysterious singer on the heights was farther away now. The voice was growing fainter as the refrain rang into the stillness, "I'm a pilgrim—and I'm a stranger—I can tarry—I can tarry——"
The youth leaned forward and listened, breathlessly. But the voice was dying and the tinkle of the bell came on the stillness, faint as a memory.
After standing a moment, the listener in the shadows made ready to go on. When he turned to pick up his ax and bundle, he found his hat in his hands. When he had removed it he did not remember. Mechanically he placed it on his head and started on his way.
The red and purple of the earlier evening showing through the trunks of the trees crowning the bluff was giving way now to the silvery green of the rising moon.
With his ax over his shoulder the figure paused a moment for a last look upward and then moved on.
But he did not feel the same. He had undergone some change. What was it? Within his breast the song had raised something intensely alive—something like hunger, fierce yet very tender; something like strange pain; something like wild joy; something like unsatisfied longing, together with unmeasured satisfaction. What was it? He did not know. Mysterious to him as was the singer, was now the effect of the singing.
Yet out of the mingled sensation of unrest and satisfaction, suddenly stirred into life, there came to the youth thoughts of his mother.