Such a glorious new heaven and new earth! In the heaven a rain-washed sky, resplendent with armaments of fairy cloud-vessels sailing across deepest, loveliest blue. On the earth every leaf and every blade flashing light, as if it had a little sun of its own; every flower in its loveliest court dress; the very stones gay with beautiful shades of lichen; the granite kopjes in the distance, with their faces so thoroughly scrubbed, gleaming with the dazzling brightness of new-fallen snow. Dark, rich soil where the plough had been, renewed with the richness of velvet. Sullen, colourless veldt, radiant in a few short hours with the first outposts of its coming spring glory. Far, blue hills, bluer and intenser than ever in the rain-washed atmosphere. Little cock birds and male insects away off soon after sunrise about those courting affairs that had been delayed. A whole world rejoicing; a whole world singing Te Deums of praise and thanksgiving in its own dear, happy, overflowing way.
No wonder the big fellow in the well-worn khaki, with his vigorous enthusiasms and wide sympathies, thought a little regretfully of the hide-bound, clause-bound, doctrine-bound, sober-minded black cloth he had felt himself obliged to put off. Would humanity ever sing again as the sons of the morning? Ever burst into Te Deums of overflowing thanksgiving to the Giver of all good, such as echoed and re-echoed from a long-parched earth on its first rain-washed morning.
Well, he could but try to keep the long face and depressing atmosphere and thin air of superiority safely out of his own little sphere, and while he taught the natives to be active, useful members of society, try to help all the settlers about him, hard cases or otherwise, to be honest, fearless, clean-living men, whether they achieved it to the accompaniment of good round oaths and a Sunday morning spent in bed, or on their knees between consecrated walls in the accepted way. Of course, he liked them to come to his little stone tabernacle with its thatched roof, and he made his service just as attractive as ever he could on their behalf; but if they were too lazy or too busy to come—well, it didn't follow they couldn't be honest, clean-living fellows without it; so then he went to them, and sat over their camp fire, and told them a good story or two, and in the end there wasn't a camp within twelve miles where the "bloomin' sky pilot" wasn't one of the most welcome guests.
But to do them justice, they mostly liked going to his little tabernacle, for it was always a pleasant meeting-place, and men in exile, even "hard cases," like to sing a good old-fashioned hymn just once in a way; to say nothing of the big home-made cake, full of plums, which was usually ready to be handed round afterwards on the "sky pilot's" verandah, and which he teasingly informed Ailsa was her way of bribing his congregation to come to church, rather than suffer the ignominy of hearing him preach to empty benches.
But that was as it might be; anyhow, if a settler within reach chanced to be ill, he might be sure he would get a jelly or soup or milk, even if he had never put a foot inside the little wilderness church. And if Billy could not take it The Kid or Moore had to, for Ailsa ruled her little sphere with a rod of iron, and the two troopers had long been her willing slaves.
But though she had cut herself adrift from the pleasant world of her girlhood, and won a real satisfaction out of life that would be death to most women, she had never lost her sympathies with all that went on in that existence, where
Life treads on life And heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart.
And when they came back from their ramble on that joyous morning, Diana's letter caused a shadow to come over all the sunlight, and a quick anxious ache to grow up in her heart. After baldly stating the news of Meryl's engagement her cousin wrote:—
"Was it you, or was it that bearish policeman, who suggested to such a dreamer as Meryl the desirability of a martyr's crown?... She is far better suited to love in a cottage and babies, but just because that is the case and it is easy to obtain, she chooses to break her heart on some vague altar of sacrifice. I have no patience with these high-falutin ideas myself, nor with the cottage and babies either, for the matter of that; but I suppose a few people had to be practical and selfish and commonplace, to keep the world going round without violent bumps and jerks. Don't send Meryl congratulations; send her an In Memoriam card. Believe me, it is better suited to the auspicious occasion."
Ailsa showed the letter to her husband, feeling that it was the worst news she had had for many years. "What does it mean, Billy?... What can have influenced her?... My sweet Meryl! What is it?... What can it be?... that keeps Major Carew so aloof? It was easy to see how they attracted each other."