The horse was escorted to the barn-yard, to be subjected to such a course of scrubbing as never fell to the lot of an Ovidian horse before; but aniline dyes are hard to eradicate. That day, and for many days after, the horse went about contentedly in a pale purple coat.
There was no direct evidence to convict any one of the prank; but Hiram had refused to give the Slick family any further credit at his store, and from the clothes-line of the Slick house, some garments, dipped in purple dye, flaunted derisively in the breeze. Tommy Slick and Nip went about looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths; and all Mrs. Slick was ever heard to say about the matter was:
"Let 'em come to me and just as much as hint that Tommy done it! I'll—but just let 'em once, that's all."
And whilst nobody showed a disposition to hinder any one else from making the accusation, still no one volunteered to voice the general opinion regarding the matter to Mrs. Slick. Besides, secretly, every one felt a sort of sneaking satisfaction over the matter.
Andrew and Judith, to confess the truth, thought it a huge joke, and at Judith's instigation, they made a long journey across the fields to Hiram's pasture lot, to see the horse; and when they beheld him placidly purple, munching away in supreme content, they laughed till their voices rang out through the wood.
Judith recalled the purple smears on Tommy's pail the day she had met him, and felt an unholy joy of participation in the plot. Judith didn't like the Greens. As she and Mrs. Morris passed them going to Andrew's, one sentence had rung out clearly to Judith's ears: "My! Ain't she pinched!" That was enough. The Greens never found favour in the eyes of Judith.
Andrew, as he had promised to do, went to see Judith's bird's nest the day after her visit to his farm. At that meeting, and in many more such sweet hours which followed, Judith and Andrew lived in the joy of the moment. Their hearts were young, the world was fresh and fair; the one loved deeply, and the other—well—for the time she had forgotten her ambition, forgotten the marvellous gift that made holy the air she breathed, or only remembered it for the pleasure it gave this young countryman; she had forgotten that her name was famous, whispered from lip to lip throughout the musical world; she had forgotten the intoxication of success, the wine of applause; she had forgotten the great debt she owed the man who had made her what she was, a debt that she could only requite in one way, by singing. So surely she must have sipped some Nepenthe of present happiness or future hope! Lotos lands are very sweet, but rarely so satisfying as these two found them.
It seems to outrage our sense of proportion, to think of a young farmer aspiring to the hand of one who showed every promise of being the world's prima donna. To us it seems grotesque almost, and Andrew seems ridiculously egotistical in hoping that this song-bird would abide in his love-woven cage of rushes, when the doors of so many golden nets were open to her. But Andrew's daring was perhaps excusable.
It is true, her voice had led him to her first, and he always heard it as a devotee might hear the voices of angels strike through his prayers; but after that first meeting, Andrew had always seen the woman in her, not the songstress. He did not love her for her singing, her beauty, nor her gentle breeding. He loved her for herself—the truest love of all. For a love founded upon any gift is a frail thing, a banner hung upon a reed. The reed may break, and the banner no longer lifted up may not care to enwrap the broken stem which before upheld it. What does England's greatest woman poet say?
"If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only."