“No,” he said, leading on in the now broadening path, “I found I could send a letter by Charley, and the men rather needed a long-legged fellow like myself up here this morning. But I see that my doing this has reacted unexpectedly upon you. Charley not being on hand to bring the dinner, our ladies have had to take his place,” and Gregory turned toward them as he spoke with regret and apology which were evidently sincere.
“Are you very tired?” he asked simply, looking at Frieda but speaking to Anna.
They both declared that it had been great fun and they were not in the least tired; and indeed the bright bloom of their cheeks, and the laughter in their eyes, and the elastic firmness of their steps were sufficient reassurance.
“I think, Mr. Gregory,” said Anna, quite at her ease now, “that Fraternia women can never know anything of that disease of civilization, nervous prostration. It will become extinct in one spot at least.”
“‘More honoured in the breach than the observance,’” quoted Gregory, “we shall hail its loss.”
Soon they reached a little clearing, where, the underbrush trampled down, the rugged steepness of the bank declining to a gentler slope, and the sun having found full entrance by reason of the removal of the larger trees, there was a possibility of finding a dry place to rest. Here they were soon joined by half a dozen men, several of whom had brought their dinner with them, and preparations were made for a fire to heat the coffee which filled one of the pails brought by Anna and Frieda. The other was solidly packed with sweet, wholesome brown bread and butter and thick slices of meat.
The fat pine chips and splinters burned readily in spite of the all-pervading dampness, and the coffee-pail, suspended over this small camp-fire from a hastily improvised tripod, was soon sending up a deliciously fragrant steam.
The men treated the two women as if they had been foreign princesses, covering a great tree-trunk with their coats for a kind of throne for them, and serving them with coffee in tin cups with much flourish of mock ceremony. This part of the proceedings John Gregory watched from a little distance, leaning against a tree, a smile of quiet pleasure in his eyes. He refused the coffee for himself, drinking always and only water, but ate the bread and meat they handed him with hearty relish and a vast appetite.
By a sort of inevitable gravitation, almost before the meal was concluded, Frieda had strayed off into the woods with Matt Taylor, son of Anna’s neighbour, whose devotion to her was one of the especial interests for Fraternia folk that spring. A certain view from the crest of the hill beyond the little clearing was by no means to be missed. Then, one after the other, the men took up their axes and returned to their work; but John Gregory kept his place, and still stood leaning against the tree, facing Anna, the smouldering embers of the fire between.
He had been speaking on a subject in which all had been interested,—the prayer test advocated by Mr. Tyndall, which had attracted the attention of the scientific and religious world of that time. The men had gone away reluctantly, leaving the conversation to these two. Heretofore Anna had hardly spoken, but now with deepening seriousness she said:—