“‘And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.’”
He rowed on steadily.
“Oh, I remember where,” she said, after a time. “They read that to us in school one winter. It’s very beautiful. But I can’t remember things like you. I wish—” She laughed somewhat bitterly. “We don’t have books in our house—”
Though strange, their situation seemed profoundly simple,—a sudden, unforeseen, yet natural welding of present to past adventure. They were afloat together, in the same wide concealment, almost as though the same obscurity, without interval, had but changed from white to black. So welcome was this conjoining magic that, for the moment, they could forget its cause.
Suddenly, however, the sound which they followed came to an end.
“They heard us,” whispered the girl.
Miles, with a like thought, stopped rowing. Still, their voices had been quiet as their oars. Surely the two men had not—yet why should they drift in mid-stream? He pondered, listening; and then first came the memory of Habakkuk’s light, seen from the high woods.