Silas was a Wesleyan, and a very devout adherent of that religious body. He went twice every Sunday to the little Wesleyan chapel in the village close by, and on more than one occasion had himself been induced to deliver a prayer at the revival meetings.
Silas had a stentorian pair of lungs, and he could sing the old-fashioned Methodist hymns to the old tunes with immense effect. He was fond of giving way to his fancy on these occasions, and would supplement the tune with many additional twists and turns. He scorned to sing anything but a high and harsh treble, considering that the one and only quality necessary for rendering hearty praise to the Creator was noise.
Silas liked singing in the chapel, he liked praying aloud, he would not have at all objected to addressing his “fellow-worms,” as he called them, Sunday after Sunday. Above all things, he liked laboriously spelling out verse by verse a chapter of his mother’s Bible at night. He was not a fluent reader; perhaps because he only practised this art to the extent of that one chapter nightly. He liked to ponder over the words, and to move his big thumb slowly from word to word as he came to it. He never skipped a verse or a chapter, but read straight on, beginning the next night exactly where he had left off the night before. He was going through the Book of the Proverbs now, and he made shrewd comments as he read.
“Ha, ha,” he said to himself, “don’t never tell me as there’s a man living now wot beats the great King Solomon for wisdom. Take him on any subjec’, and he’s up on it, with all the newest lights too. Natrel history, for instance! hark to him on the conies and ants. Listen to him ’bout bees—why it’s quite wonderful. Then, again, take gardening—seems to me Solomon was a born gardener. Don’t Holy Writ say of him that he knew the names of all the flowers, and could he do that if he worn’t about among ’em—a-tying of ’em up, and digging at their roots, and watering ’em, and taking cuttin’s from the choicest of ’em? Folks tell of King Solomon in all his glory, but I seem to see him most often out among the flowers, a-petting and a-tending of ’em, and learning all those store of names by heart. But take Solomon all round, and his knowledge of the ways of women beats everything. Hark to the verse in this chapter: ‘Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That were my mother’s sort—no beauty in her, and no favour—a downright woman, plain in her way, and a bit primity in her notions; but, oh, the goodness of her, and the fear o’ God that shone round about her, making a sort of savour all round her like a sweet-smelling flower! Jill minded me o’ her, but not in looks, for the poor gel has them things spoken so strongly agin by King Solomon. But for all that there was a sweetness in her that seemed to me this morning when I looked into her eyes to be more’n skin-deep. Most like I’m wrong. I’ve the Bible agin me, anyhow, and I ought to be thankin’ the Lord on my knees for having saved me from the enticing wiles of that poor gel.”
As a rule, Silas spent his short night without a dream, but the events of the past day had disturbed his somewhat slow nature. His brain had received an impression of a girl’s grace, freshness and beauty, which had penetrated straight from the brain to the heart.
Silas fully believed that by Monday morning he should have forgotten Jill; that her image would fade from his mental sight, her voice cease to sound on his mental ears. He did not know that he was never to forget her—that from henceforth to his dying day he would carry her image tenderly, sacredly in the inner shrine of his heart.
The little rosy god of love had come and touched Silas, and he could no more resist his influence than the flowers in his own garden could refrain from growing and expanding in the sunshine. So, quite contrary to his wont, Silas Lynn spent his night in dreams. Jill figured in each of these visions. Sometimes she was angry with him, sometimes appealing, sometimes indifferent. She was in danger, and he was the one to save her. She was surrounded by prosperity, and he was the benefactor who brought these good things to her feet.
All the time, however, through all the happenings of these queer distorted dreams, he and Jill were together. It did not surprise Silas, therefore, when early on that Sunday morning he awoke, to hear some one knocking at his door.
“Yes, I’m coming,” he said, still believing that he was in a dream.
“I want you very badly, Silas Lynn,” called Jill from the other side of the door.