He tried to answer, but no sound would come from his dry throat—then the door closed, and he went back across the moonlit field.
CHAPTER XXI
It was the day before Elizabeth’s wedding. For three days a gale of wind had been tearing across the country, shrieking through empty houses, rattling loose doors, beating with blasts of sharp raindrops like stones upon unprotected windows—seeming, in a way, to rejoice in its fierce work of changing the enchanted lane past Andy’s house, which had been thick with autumn foliage only three days ago, into something equally beautiful but quite different.
For now it was all over, and the little world rested, tired and lovely, after all the buffeting; there was an exquisite delicacy in the cool sunshine on the fallen leaves, and in the tracery of fine branches on a pale-blue sky, which Andy could not help noticing though Elizabeth was going to be married to-morrow. And it comforted him a little, even in that great sorrow, because there is no grief in life to which such dear sights will not bring a little comfort, when once you learn to really love them.
Andy had been working hard in the wrecked garden for an hour before breakfast, and as he turned to go in he saw the two Simpson children, Sally leading, Jimmy dragging reluctantly, come round the turn towards his gate. So he invited them to walk in and partake of oranges while he ate his bacon; and after awhile, having disposed of her orange, Sally came across to his side with her anxious look on her small face, and said hesitatingly—
“Mr. Deane, I came for something.”
“All right. Go ahead,” said Andy, drinking his tea thirstily and looking as if he had not slept.
“Something partickler,” said Sally. She seemed to find expression a difficulty, but at last continued: “Mother says you earn your living by making people be good. I asked her what you did for a living, and she told me that.”
Andy stared at his small visitor, then glanced out of the window towards the place, beyond the churchyard hedge, where Brother Gulielmus slept in faith: then he sighed and returned to Sally.