Loud and boisterous were the congratulations with which the crowd had greeted Holden on his escape from the clutches of the constable, but he waved them off with a dignity which repressed their advances, and gave some offence.
"If I'd known the old fellow was so proud," said one, "I guess Basset might have taken him for all I cared."
"I sort o' sprained my wrist in that last jam agin the constable," said another, laughing, "and it's een about as good as thrown away."
"Perhaps," cried a third, "when he's took agin, I'll be there to help, and perhaps I won't."
While these various speeches were being made, the young men with the ladies, had gathered around Holden, and were expressing their mortification at the annoyance he had experienced, and their pleasure at his escape.
"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" cried the enthusiast. "Surely their devices shall be brought to naught, and their counsels to no effect. He that sitteth on the circle of the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and spurn them in His displeasure. Because for Thy sake, I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children."
He waited for no remark; he looked at no one; but taking up the pile of baskets which were tied together, threw them upon his back, and stalked over the ice in the direction of his cabin.
On their way home the young people discussed the events of the afternoon, dwelling on the meeting with Holden as on that which most occupied their minds.
"It is with a painful interest," said Pownal, "that I meet the old man, nor can I think of him without a feeling of more than common regard. I am sure it is not merely because he was lately of so great service to me, that I cannot listen to the tones of his voice without emotion. There is in them a wild melancholy, like the sighing of the wind through pine trees, that affects me more than I can describe."
"I know the feeling," said Faith. "There is to me also a strange pathos in his voice that brings the tears sometimes into my eyes before I am aware. What is the cause, I do not know. I never heard it spoken of till now, and did not suppose there was another affected like myself."