'Yes,' said Rhoda hurriedly, and bent her head: she for the first time knew her own birthday.
'Listen, Rhoda! She has aged and weakened so; the day and night of prayer and fasting she has now begun I fear may outdo her strength. Will you keep ever at hand to listen and be careful of her?'
'And you?' asked Rhoda.
'I may not stay. I cannot.'
She flashed a look of amazed indignation, for instinctively she knew that he would be leaving his mother to seek the strange-named woman, and such filial misconduct in him was hardly credible. No kind word or look would Rhoda grant him. He never felt the lack: his mother's blessing he did greatly desire, but he dared not intrude on the day of her mourning to ask it.
Short was the day and long the way, but over soon by some hours was he footing it. The singular incidence of the day encouraged belief that a special mercy of Heaven was ordering his goings for the comforting of a long sorrow. Ah! God grant her a soul from the sea, and ah! God grant it by me for a token. All his steps were taken to prayer, and the least thing he asked of his God was that, though his sins were so heavy, he might not die till he had seen that salvation. His head and his heart told him that if he failed in his high endeavour he must surely perish.
Over the wold came a harsh call, and again till he answered and stayed. He was making for waste stretches, gashed athwart by long gullies preventing any fair paths. Already, though but half a league forward, tracks had grown rough and uncertain. The voice came from a mudded hollow, where a loaded cart stuck fast, an old horse and an old man striving with it in vain. Though loath to be hindered, Christian turned aside to give help.
He was not graciously welcomed. The old man scowled, and swore under his breath. 'The Alien, deuce take it, he will not serve!'
But he stared, and words failed when Christian promptly laid hand on the load, saying, 'Here's bad balancing, Gaffer; we had best uncord first and set it right.'
'Ay, it shifted. Have it that way, if so you can and will. My two boys did the cording, and two fools they be.'