The dangers, misfortunes, and indignities suffered by his preferred rival were an added slur upon him, who had all the backing of propitious circumstance. Since there was nothing to gain, why humble himself in vain?
This was his logic—sound, just, approved by his judgment; and as it arranged itself in his mind with all the lucidity of pure reason, he spoke from the complex foolish dictates of his unreasoning heart.
'I hev hoped ter marry ye, D'rindy, like I hev hoped fur salvation,' he said abruptly.
He looked at her now, straight and earnestly, with his shaded, serious black eyes. Her rebuking glance slanted beyond him from under her half-lifted lashes.
'I thought ye war a good church member,' she said unexpectedly.
'I am. But that don't make me a liar ez I knows on. I'd ruther hear ye a-singin' 'roun' the house in Eskaqua Cove, an' a-callin' the chickens, an' sech, 'n ter hear all the angels in heaven a-quirin' tergether.'
'That ain't religion, Amos Jeemes,' she said, with cool disapproval.
'Waal,' he rejoined with low-spirited obstinacy, 'mebbe 'tain't.'
There was a delicate odour of ferns on the air; the cool, outgushing water tinkled on the stones like a chime of silver bells; his shadow fell athwart the portal as he leaned on his rifle, and his wandering glance mechanically swept the landscape.
The sudden storm had passed, the verge of the cloud hovering so near that they could hear the last heavy raindrops pattering on the tops of the trees in Eskaqua Cove. Vapours were rising from the ravine: the sun shone upon them, throwing a golden aureola about the opposite mountains, and all the wreathing mists that the wind whirled down the valley had elusive, opalescent effects. The thunder muttered in the distance; the sharp-bladed lightnings were sheathed; a rainbow girdled the world, that had sprung into a magic beauty as if cinctured by the zone of Venus. The arch spanned the blue sky, and on the dark mountains extended the polychromatic reflection. The freshened wind came rushing up the gorge, and the tree-tops bent.