'And yet how very human it is to go away, even as human as it is to come. You see, I am catching a little of your reasonableness,' said Stella.
'That may be; but on a day like this, when the veriest little locust chirps in the sun as "though he never should be old," I maintain it is little short of felony to speak of the accidents that mar life.... You see, I am catching a little of your unreason,' he added.
They had crossed the stone bridge, and stood on a hillock clothed with elms, she-oaks, and scrub cypresses, where the breath of hidden violets came and went on the air like tremulous music. From this slight eminence they had a far-reaching view of the country round—the Messmate Ranges, with their dim gullies; the Wicked Wood, spectral in its bareness; the break in the far distance, where one became sensible of the Peeloo Plain; the flat, well-wooded country, and the contour of ridgy hills that stretched beyond Minjah Millowie. On every side lay the still wide woods, motionless as a great picture framed between heaven and earth, all clothed with the overflowing sunshine as with a garment.
And yet these two, as they stood there and looked afar and listened to the songs of birds and all the woodland sounds which filled the air—what influence was it that stirred both so deeply in the midst of this peaceful idyllic scene? Who can tell what vague outward gropings of the spirit make the heart turn on itself in some rare soft-footed hour as with a quickened sense of the sweet calm of the present, a shrinking fear of the uncertain days to come which may be clouded with futile agony, drenched with the storm-spray of life's keenest sorrows? For some moments neither spoke.
'You will never know how good it is of me not to talk like your friend Ivan Michalowicz just now,' said Stella, breaking the silence. 'I could believe the air is full of unseen presences——'
'That is a plagiarism from Mick. Go on—and unheard wails,' Langdale said, laughing.
'Yes; and souls that can find no home. But I forbear.'
'Well, I must admit that on a perfect day like this—and the only fault it has is that it keeps time to a clock—a kind of sadness creeps over me. It is the penalty for looking before and after.'
'Yes; neither a cat nor a marigold uses the sunlight as an invocation to call ghosts into a circle.'
'Ghosts? You know nothing of them!'