Major Hereward nodded. "Much! But Phil Linden and I seem to stand here together. Not just of the mind we were, but together! And many a foe grew to be a friend."
The bright day declined. The sun set in a coral sea, a crescent moon appeared, earth grew an amethyst, the stars came out. Brush was being burned and wood smoke clung in the air, and there was the multitudinous chirping, chirping in grass and bush of late autumn. It was almost November, and they built larger fires. The old parlor gleamed.
"It's a dear room, a dear, dear room!" said Major Hereward. "I don't believe any here can love these portraits as I do. Richard may look at them often, but—" He broke off. "I forgot that he is blind! I'm always forgetting it! Well, he may see the reality of them."
Richard entered, and a moment later Marget. "It's a night of the gods! How the fire leaps!"
They sat around it, Anna Darcy and Curtin and Drew and the two Danes and Major Hereward, Linden and Marget. Anna Darcy was saying: "I went down to Mimy's before supper. The preacher is there for the night—Brother Robinson."
Linden answered her. "Yes. He will be here presently. He always comes to us for an hour or so. He's a fine fellow."
Rising, he fetched Frances's violin. "What deep and dear pleasure you give, Frances!"
She played old music and new, into which the old glided, until there seemed neither old nor new, but a content very vast and rich. The wing of the music lifted them; music and flame blended. They sat in reverie, and the wealth of the world flowed, circularly flowed.
Without, in the night, a lantern passed the windows. "There is Brother Robinson," said Marget. Richard went out—they heard his voice in the hall—then he returned with the negro preacher and Zinia. He said, "Mr. Robinson—friends, all of us!" The circle widened. The preacher sat down between Linden and Robert Dane, and Zinia sat between Marget and Frances. "Play a little longer, Frances!"
The music blended with the flame, the wealth of the world flowed, flowed, circularly flowed. The Rev. William Robinson sat, a gaunt, dark figure, in long-preserved broadcloth, with a rugged, deep brown face. When he spoke his voice had unction—like the voices of most of his people—unction, but not too much of it. By sheer indomitableness he had gained a fair education, and he was a good man and a wise one. In her blue dress Zinia sat beside Marget Land. She kept silence, but her poise was like her poise in the dining room and pantry, or on the porch when Miss Darcy had taken her breakfasts there. The latter always thought of her standing beside the pillar, or in the clean, airy pantry, by the jar of flowers and the open Pilgrim's Progress, always heard her rich voice, saying, "I like that girl Mercy!"