Hiram, grown desperate, added to his alluring gestures the blandishment of half-voiced words, which sounded like "Poor dog," "Good dog," but which meant, "You infernal brute." The dog succumbed at length, its last suspicions allayed by this specious use of the gift it did not possess, and presently the congregation was edified by seeing Hiram, flushed, but with an expression of great loving-kindness, carry the dog gently down the aisle. Slowly and softly Hiram carried him until near the door, when circumstances made him accelerate his speed, for the dog was Tommy Slick's Nip, a shiny, smooth-coated dog, and Hiram's hold was gradually slipping. He had an unpleasant but confident premonition that the dog would reach for him, as dogs are prone to do, when his fingers got to the tender spot beneath the forepaws. However, he reached and passed the baize door in safety, and in the second which followed, the congregation, with the sigh with which one relinquishes an acme of intense and pleasurable excitement, turned its attention to the preacher. At that moment there came a shrill and ear-splitting yelp. Hiram had taken the dog to the top of the steps, and applied his foot in the manner most likely to speed the parting guest. Hiram entered and took his place with a very red face. He felt dimly that the yelp was a criticism upon the smile with which he carried the dog out. To Hiram that sermon did not tend to edification.
That particular Sunday was a memorable one in Ovid. The congregation had just gathered itself together after the incident of the dog, when the preacher announced the hymn. It was one of the few really beautiful hymns, "Lead, kindly Light."
Judith rose to sing with the rest, and with the second word her voice joined with the others, dominating them as the matin song of the lark might pierce through the chatter of sparrows along the eaves. When Judith opened her lips to sing, music possessed her, and, a true artiste to her finger-tips, she never sang carelessly. Absorbed in her book—for she did not know the words—she sang on. The people looked and wondered, and one by one the voices died away, the wheezy notes of the melodeon faltered forth from beneath the second Miss Green's uncertain fingers, and Judith sang on serenely, standing erect, her head held high, her soft throat throbbing like a bird's. Outside the air was golden with yellow sunshine, within it was cool and darkened. A rift of light slanted through the closed shutters of the window near which Judith stood; thousands of little motes danced in it, specks and gleams of gold. Through the open windows there came the odour of dried grass, and every now and then a flaw of wind brought a whiff from Oscar Randall's field of white clover. Andrew had laughed in the meadow as he thought of Judith's voice electrifying the people in the church, but he had forgotten that he himself was not secure against its charm. Laughter was far from his thoughts now.
"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on."
The words, upborne upon the wings of matchless song, seemed to soar far beyond the confines of the little church, taking with them the inarticulate trust and hope and confidence of all these humble folk.
The preacher sat looking at her, pale and entranced. This singing seemed suddenly to open a long-closed door in his life, so that once more he looked down that chimerical vista from out the misty distances of which illusive hands beckoned him on to brighter things. He had once dreamed of a loftier destiny than the life of a Methodist preacher, but that was long past; still it was sweet to recall so vividly the season when his spirit had wings. He sat before his congregation, a tall, spare man, large of bone and awkward, with a countenance upon which self-denial had graven deep cruel lines, a brow that had weathered many bitter blasts. In type he was near allied to the people before him, the last man, one would fancy, whom dreams would visit. And yet, as he listened to this stranger girl, singing alone in the midst of his congregation, there fell deeply upon him the trance of dead delight; the simple panorama of his past spread itself before his eyes, blotting out the faces before him as a shimmering mist obscures an unlovely scene.
It was a very simple vision, a "homespun dream of simple folk." He saw a rosy-cheeked village girl, for whose sake he as a village lad had worked and toiled and slaved. He had fought for education and success that he might lay them at her feet. He had kept her waiting long. She was only a poor, pretty girl, and she had other lovers. One night, when her lover in a garret in the city was poring over his books, his head aching, his heart faltering, yet persevering as much for her sake as for the sake of his faith, she, driving home from a dance through dewy lanes and softly-shadowed country roads, promised to marry the farmer's son who was taking her home.
The news reached him in his garret, and something flickered out of his face which never shone there again. But with the tenacity of his race he stuck to his work. His heart was in the green fields always, and he had come from a long line of country men and women. He had no inherited capacity for learning, but he got through his course somehow, and became an accredited minister, and the day he was ordained the news of her death reached him, and that was all. He had never censured her; in his thoughts she had ever been an angel of sweetness and goodness, and as Judith sang, all these things rushed back upon his heart. It was with a very white face and a very soft voice that he rose to address his people, and he spoke home to their hearts, for he knew whereof he spake when he dealt with the pains and trials and troubles of their lives. He was only the height of his platform removed from them, and he had paid dearly for his paltry elevation, but from its height he saw, far off perhaps, but clear, the shining of a great light, and with ineloquent, slow speech he strove to translate its glory and its promise to the people before him.
Church was over; the people pressed slowly along the aisle into the palpitant warmth of the summer afternoon. Miss Myers came up to Judith when she stood for a moment at the door, and invited her to go home with them to the house on the hill, and Judith, nothing loath, consented. So presently she and Andrew, with Miss Myers, were walking through the slumberous little streets of the village.
As they drew near the house of Bill Aikins, they caught sight of him sitting on the doorstep peeling potatoes, beads of perspiration upon his brow, for he was suffering sorely from Kate's weekly infliction of a white shirt.