THE MOOD OF THE BELLS
There were two church bells on Rockhaven, one at each village, and every Sunday evening, year in and out, they called the piously inclined together, always at the same time. That at Northaven sounded the sweeter to Winn, since its call came over a mile of still water, like an echo to the one in Rockhaven. He had noticed them, one answering the other, many times before, each time to return in thought to the hillside home where he was born and to the same sweet sound that came on Sunday from the village two miles away. It had been to him what seemed long years since he heard them, yet now, this evening, while he waited in the little porch of Mona's home for her and her mother to join him churchward, and this call came sweetly through the still evening air, it carried a new peace to his vexed spirit, and the threatened upset of his mission to Rockhaven faded away. Once more he was a boy again, and for a time without a care.
And when Mona appeared, dressed in a simple white muslin, a white hood of knitted wool half hiding the coiled masses of her jet black hair, her eyes filled with tender light, Winn, in spite of his moroseness and the bitter lessons in love he had learned, felt it a proud privilege to walk beside her.
The usual number, mostly womankind, were emerging from the scattered houses along the way to the church, and as Winn and Mona, together with her mother and Mrs. Moore, followed the one plank walk which led to the church, the last call of the bells came at longer intervals.
When the church was reached the lamps had been lighted, but the white headstones, dotting the upward slope just back of it, still showed faintly in the twilight.
The services were simple as usual, the few dozen who gathered all joined in the same hymns of praise their ancestors had sung in the same church. What the minister said was not new or eloquent; and yet the prayer he uttered seemed to Winn to contain an unusually touching strain. It was the mood of the bells still on him, for he had never known what church believers call a change of heart; and while the devotions of the people were pathetic in their very simplicity, they seemed more like a plea for pity than an expression of thanks. When the services were ended, and all rising joined in "The Sweet By and By," never before had it voiced such a plaintive appeal as it did then in Winn's estimation.
When he and Mona, loitering behind the rest, reached her little dooryard where the scent of many blooming flowers saluted him, they paused a moment. Mrs. Moore had seated herself on the porch for a social chat with Mrs. Hutton, the faint disk of a new moon showed in the western sky, and in spite of the resolution taken weeks before, Winn could not resist the temptation of longer privacy with his companion.
"Let us walk up to the top of Norse Hill," he said, "and look out over the harbor. I feel like it to-night."
"Here is where I come to be alone," he observed when they had reached the ancient beacon and were looking down over the village. "I wonder who built this odd tower and for what use; do you know?"
"I have been told it was built by Leif Ericson," she replied, "ever so many years ago, to prove he first discovered this country. Uncle Jess says it was, and that is why this is called Norse Hill."