HEBE'S FAREWELL TO PAN
For once the morning road was disturbed. Its happiness was feigned. The sun lay just as warm upon the field as the week before. The air was quite as soft, as scented, as full of the freshness of spring. The river was fully as beautiful as of old as it flowed lazily by with glorious sunlit waters. Yet, withal, happiness seemed to have fled.
If you had been upon a journey at this time on the way west from Oldmeadow, known as the river road, you would have met two travelers afoot following a horse and van. As you approached them it would easily be noticed that they were playfully chattering in an apparent abundance of spirits. Their greeting would have been one of marked good cheer. You would have felt singled out for their especial attention. Then, after passing, should you have turned to look at the strange, grotesque figure of the man whom you had already marked as an extraordinary person, and at the genuine easy grace and beauty of the girl, whose startled, wistful face you had seen a moment before, there would have been awakened within you a sense of pity. A picturesque group you would have said, whose air of frivolity seemed but a masque beneath the veneer of which lay sorrow. You would have been right.... The road which one stumbles and falters along in the heart is not always so smooth and alluring as the road at one's feet. For once the great highway had lost its charm.... So, as you passed from hearing, there was a distinct note of sadness in the merry-tuned song which they joined their voices in singing.
"Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,"
ran the song with the plaintive strain which seemed out of place in so jocund an air:
"My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?
As their voices dwelt upon the words, it appeared to be a bidding good-by to an old, familiar theme, well loved.
"Come to the pedler;
Money's a meddler,
That doth utter all men's ware-a."
As you rode that day, my friend, had you indeed been passing upon the highway, you, too, would have felt the spirit of grief. It would have seemed as if a cloud had for the moment obscured the sun.