HOW DEBORAH HEARD THE NEWS.
It was Sabbath on the moors—on the moors where it was always Sabbath.
Old Mr. Morell used to say, ‘For rest, commend me to these eternal hills;’ and so Matt Heap thought as he threw open his chamber casement and looked on their outline in the light of morning glory. Their majesty and strength were so passionless, their repose so undisturbed. How often he wondered to himself why they always slept—not the sleep of weariness, but of strength! And how often, when vexed and jaded, had he shared their calm as his eyes rested on them, or as his feet sought their solitudes! How they stirred the inarticulate poetry of his soul! At times he found himself wondering if their sweeping lines were broken arcs of a circle drawn by an infinite hand; and anon, he would ask if their mighty mounds marked the graves of some primeval age—mounds raised by the gods to the memory of forces long since extinct.
As Matt looked at these hills, there rolled along their summits snowy cumuli—billowy masses swept from distant cloud tempests, and now spending their force in flecks of white across the blue sky-sea that lay peaceful over awakening Rehoboth. A fresh wind travelled from the gates of the sun, laden with upland sweets, and mellowing moment by moment under the directer rays of the eastern king; while the sycamores in the garden, as if in playful protest, bent before the touch of its caress, only to rise and rustle as, for the moment, they escaped the haunting and besetting breeze, lending to their protest the dreamy play of light and shade from newly-unsheathed leaves. There was a strange silence, too—a silence that made mystic music in Matt's heart—a silence all the more profound because of the distant low of oxen, and the strain of an old Puritan hymn sung by a shepherd in a neighbouring field. Matt's heart was full, and, though he knew it not, he was a worshipper—he was in the spirit on the Lord's Day.
‘Is that thee, Matt?’
‘Yi, lass, for sure it is. Who else should it be, thinksto?’
‘Nay, I knew it were noabry but thee; but one mun say summat, thaa knows. What arto doin' at th' winder? Has th' hens getten in th' garden agen?’
‘Nowe, not as aw con see.’
‘Then what arto lookin' at? Thaa seems fair gloppened (surprised).’
‘I'm nobbud lookin' aat a bit. It's a bonny seet and o', I can tell thee.’