“More Hansfords. I should not be surprised if the old one herself appeared pretty soon,” and the man laughed a low, chuckling laugh; then changing suddenly, and still looking at Rob, he continued: “I was once a boy like you, only not half so good, I reckon. Keep good, my lad, and never do what I have done.”
“Get drunk, you mean?” Rob asked with a bluntness which startled Elithe, whose warning hush-h came too late.
The stranger did not seem in the least offended, and answered good-humoredly: “Yes, get drunk, and other things which getting drunk leads to. I have a sister,—not exactly like yours. She would never come among the miners and sit in this place with such as I am. Still she is my sister.”
Here he closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking painful thoughts, for there was a scowl on his forehead and a set look about his lips. Just then Mrs. Stokes appeared, repeating Bob’s message and saying she had come to take Elithe’s place.
“No, no. Don’t go. They’ll come back if you do,” the stranger cried, putting out his hand to restrain Elithe, who had risen to her feet, only too glad to get away. “You are really going?” he said so piteously that Elithe involuntarily took his hot hand in hers and answered soothingly: “I must go for a while. I’ll come back again.”
“You promise?” he asked, clinging to her hands as if in them lay safety for him.
“I promise,” she replied, and releasing herself from him she went with Rob to the next cabin, where her father was accustomed to hold services and where some of the miners were waiting for her and humming the Magnificat.
Sitting down to the instrument, she began to play and sing the opening sentences, the men repeating them after her and catching the tune with a wonderful quickness and accuracy. There were many fine voices among them, and as they became accustomed to the music and the air was filled with melody, the sick man sat upright with a rapt expression on his face as the strains rose louder and higher, Elithe’s voice leading clear and sweet as a bird’s. Suddenly, as the time became broken and difficult, there was a frightful discord, and the singers were startled by a loud call from Stokes’s cabin.
“Idiots, why don’t you keep with Elithe, and not make such an infernal break as that? It’s this way,” and, taking up the words, “He hath showed strength,” the stranger sang in rich, musical tones, while Elithe and the miners listened breathlessly. “That’s the way to do it. Now try it again,” he said, authoritatively.
They began as he told them and sang on, stopping when he bade them stop, repeating when he bade them repeat, until they had a pretty accurate knowledge of half the Magnificat, and knew they had been well drilled. But the driller was exhausted, and relapsed into a state of half delirium, half consciousness, calling for Elithe, who, he insisted, should sit with him instead of “that snuff-colored woman with the big bald spot on the top of her head and that terrible nasal twang,” which he imitated when he spoke of her. This was rather rough on Lizy Ann, who had tired herself out in his behalf. She was very glad, however, to give up her post to Elithe, to whom the stranger said, as she sat down beside him, “We’ve had a first-rate singing-school, haven’t we? We might go through the country giving lessons. It would be easier than digging in the dirt, or nursing either, and I believe we’d make more at it.”