If I should die before I wake
Pray the Lord my soul to take—’”
The hazel bushes closed and the voices died like a ripple out of water. The light grew more golden, the shadows shorter. Late May in Georgia was more hot than a Northern midsummer, but to-day a crisp breeze made the heat of no moment. The air was very dry, life-giving. A soldier with a fishing-pole made his appearance. He came along beneath the bank and the pine tree, chose a deepish pool and a rock to sit on, placed a tin cup with bait beside the latter, and had baited his hook and cast the line before he observed his neighbours. He rose and saluted, then made a movement to take up his bait-cup and proceed downstream.
“No, no!” said Edward. “Fish ahead! But are there any fish there?”
The fisherman sat down upon the rock. “I’m not really expecting any. But catching fish is not all there is in fishing.”
“Quite true,” said Edward, and lay back upon the purple-brown carpet. Désirée sat with her hands about her knee, her eyes upon a vast castle of cloud, rising pearl-bright, into the azure sky.
The fisherman fished, but caught nothing. “I expect,” he said, “that there is good fishing in the Etowah. Looked so the day we crossed it.”
“That was a hard crossing,” said Désirée.
“Hard enough!” answered the fisherman. “But Old Joe got us across. I am not one of the grumblers.”
“There wasn’t much grumbling.”