She rarely spoke, even to Timothy, but this was no barrier between them. All the winter Timothy lived on the thoughts of the spring, and when the arbutus and Moira came back he poured out to her the strange treasures he had found in his heart. Scarcely to her, for she only gazed silent at the stars as he talked. Rather she seemed to unlock in him the rich stores of his own understanding and emotion. He marveled that he could ever have found the valley empty. He felt within him a swelling flood, ever renewed, of significance to fill all his world with a sweet and comforting meaning.
And so his red hair grew threaded with white, and his foolish, idle heart happier and happier as the years went on. Then, one midwinter day, Father Delancey climbed the hill to say that Timothy's sister's husband was dead, and that Timothy was sent for to take his place, hold the Nebraska claim, work the land, and be a father to his sister's children. Timothy was stunned with horror, but the unbending will of the never-contradicted parish priest bore him along without question.
"Sure, Tim, go! I tell you to! 'Tis the only thing to do! And 'twill be a man's work and earn ye many hours out of purgatory. An' 'twill be grand for ye, ye that never would have a family o' your own—here's the Blessed Virgin pushin' ye into one, ready-made. 'Twill be the makin' o' ye, 'twill make ye rale human, an' ye'll have no more time for star-gazin' an' such foolishness. Ye can find out what people are in the world for, instead keepin' yerself so outside o' things. Sure, yes, man, yes, I'll tell Moira ye said good-by to her, an'—yes, I give ye my word, and promise true and true, I'll lave ye now if she moves away or if any harm comes to her."
IV
His grizzled hair was turned quite white when his sister kissed him good-by, fresh tears in her eyes, scarcely dry from the excitement of her youngest daughter's wedding. She had a moment of divination like his, and said sadly, "There's no use trying to thank ye, Timmy, words can't do it. If ye'd been anybody else, I cud ha' said ye got ye'r pay for all these long, hard years in the love the childer bear ye. That's the pay folks get for workin' an' livin' for others—but ye're not folks. Is't that ye're the seventh son? Is't that ye've second sight? Is't that—what is't that makes ye so far away? An' what is ye'r pay, Tim? Now that it's over and the children all safe and grown up, ye look yerself like a child that's done its lesson an' run out to play. Is't all just work or play with ye? Can't ye niver just live?"
In truth her brother's eagerness to be away was scarcely concealed at all from the grateful, wistful Irish eyes about him. He was breathless with haste to be off. The long trip to New England was a never-ending nightmare of delay to him, and although he had planned for years to walk up the hill, his trembling old legs dragged in a slow progress maddening to his impatience. A farmer, driving by, offered him a lift, which he accepted gratefully, sitting strained far forward on the high seat. At a turn of the road he looked back and saw that he had passed the cluster of pines where Moira had laughed at him, and where he had felt so thick about him the thronging rush of his newly awakened perceptions of the finer meaning of things, the gay, sweet crowd of gentle little people.
He stopped the farmer and, leaping down from the high seat, he took his pipes under his arm and fairly ran up the little path. His rheumatic knee creaked a little, but the color came up hard in his tired old face as the twilight of the pines and their pungent, welcoming breath fell about him. He cast him down and buried his face in the rust-red dried needles. He did not weep, but from time to time a long sigh heaved his shoulders. Then he turned over and lay on his back, looking at the sunset-yellow sky through the green, thick-clustered needles, noticing how the light made each one glisten as though dipped in molten gold. His hand strayed out to his pipes, lying beside him with mute, gaping mouths. "The Gold o' the Glamour," he murmured to himself, and as he broke the silence with the old tune faintly blown, he felt the wood peopled about him as of yore with twilight forms. Unseen bright eyes gazed at him from behind tree-trunks, and the branches were populous with invisible, kindly listeners. The very hush was symbolic of the consciousness of the wood that he was there again. There was none of the careless commonplace of rustling leaves, and snapping twigs, and indifferent, fearless bird-song. In the death-like still he felt life quivering and observant with a thousand innocent, curious, welcoming eyes.
When he had quavered through the last note he let the pipes fall and gazed about him with a smile, like a happy old child. The sun sank behind the mountain as he looked, and he pulled himself heavily up. His way to the farm lay over bare upland pastures where his feet, accustomed for years to the yielding prarie levels, stumbled and tripped among the loose stones. Twilight came on rapidly, so that he found himself several times walking blindly through fairy rings of fern. He crossed himself and bowed his head three times to the west, where the evening star now shone pale in the radiance of the glowing sky. Between two of the ridges he wandered into a bog where his feet, hot in their heavy boots, felt gratefully the oozing, cool brown water.
And then, as he stepped into the lane, dark with dense maple-trees and echoing faintly with the notes of the hermit thrush, he saw the light of the little house glimmer through the trees in so exactly the spot where his hungering eyes sought it that his heart gave a great hammering leap in his breast.
He knocked at the door, half doubtfully, for all his eagerness. It might be she lived elsewhere in the parish now. He had schooled himself to this thought so that it was no surprise, although a heavy disappointment, when the door was opened by a small dark man holding a sleeping baby on his arm. Timothy lowered his voice and the man gave a brief and hushed answer. He spoke in a strong French-Canadian accent. "Moira O'Donnell? I nevaire heard before. Go to ze house on ze hill—mebbe zey know—"