[CHAPTER XV—ESTHER GOES TO PRAYER-MEETING]
Meanwhile autumn was gliding away at the old farm. It was worth Esther Northmore’s while, as Aunt Katharine had suggested, to have seen October in her mother’s country. Even Old Timers, used to the glory that wrapped its hills in the shortening days, doubted gravely whether they had ever known a fall when the woods wore such gorgeous coloring as now, or kept their royal robes so long. All the world seemed flaming in crimson and gold, with fringes of purple at the roadsides, and Esther, walking joyously in the midst, felt her pulses beating to a rhythm she had never caught before in the swinging of the round old world. Her grandfather was no poet; but he liked to see the girl come in with her face glowing and her hands full of leaves, which always seemed to her more beautiful than any she had ever found before. Sometimes he was moved to remind her that this, too, was “vanity,” one of earth’s passing shows, but she protested against this, and told him it would never pass for her. She should keep it as long as she had life and memory.
Very often in these shining days came Mr. Philip Hadley; once to urge that pleasant invitation, then to make sure that his friends had returned from the trip in safety; once to bring her a book she had wanted, and at last to say good-by to Ruel Saxon. The Hadleys were about to leave their summer home. With the approach of November it was time to be back in the city. There had been an eager look in his eyes as he added, turning to Esther, “You will be going about the same time.” And he had kept her hand longer than usual at the door as he said, “It has been delightful to see you in this lovely old home, but we shall see each other much oftener in Boston, I hope. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are going to be there.”
“‘IT HAS BEEN DELIGHTFUL TO SEE YOU IN THIS LOVELY OLD HOME.’”
She had dropped her eyes, that easy color rising in her face as he spoke, and then he had said, “Good-by for a little while,” with a very earnest pressure of the hand in his, and ridden away.
It was late when he left, but she slipped out of the house immediately for a walk, and for once there were no leaves in her hand when she came back. “It looked like rain,” she said, when Tom remarked that she had stopped short of her favorite woods.
It did not look so much like rain but that Ruel Saxon went as usual to the prayer-meeting that night, and of course Esther went with him. It was one of the standing engagements for every week. Perhaps the girl could have spared it sometimes—there were few young people there—but she never declined to accompany her grandfather. As for him, it was a place he loved; a spot in which his own gifts shone conspicuous, and in which it must be confessed he sometimes appropriated more than his fair share of the time. Why Christian people did not all and always go to prayer-meeting was one of the things he could not understand, and it really seemed to him a surprising omission that there was not an explicit command in the Bible laying the duty upon them. However, he consoled himself with the admonition “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is,” to which favorite quotation he frequently added that he should not forsake the assembling of himself together as long as he was able to be there.
There really was some doubt in Aunt Elsie’s mind to-night as to the last point. The old gentleman seemed to have all the premonitory symptoms of a cold, but he would have scorned to stay at home for a trifle of that sort, and started in good time on the long ride to the village. He bore his part in the meeting with unusual unction, and a number of the brothers and sisters took his hand at the close to thank him impressively for his beautiful remarks. It was a form of flattery which he dearly loved.
Then, as he jogged home behind Dobbin with Esther, he fell to talking, in reminiscent mood, of his own long services in the church, and this, making all due allowance for that cheerful vanity, which he had never been at pains to conceal, was a subject on which Ruel Saxon, if any man, had some right to grow eloquent. Ministers might come and ministers might go, but, as deacon of the church in Esterly, he had gone on, if not forever, at least so long that few could remember when he had not held and magnified the office. He had sat on councils to receive and dismiss, he had contended for the faith, he had poured oil on troubled waters; in short, in all the offices of peace and war, he had stood at his post, and none could name the day when he had shirked its duties.