He took her hand in a grasp painful in its closeness, then he turned and leaned against the mantel, and she went softly out of the room.
Winter passed. The frost-bound earth sent up faint scents and sounds of spring in fresh-plowed fields and swelling buds. 'Zeki'l wandered about his fields in idleness, striving to make up his mind to go away. It would be best, yet the sacrifice seemed cruel.
"It is more than I can bear," he cried aloud one night, and strained one of the violin-strings until it snapped asunder. He laid the instrument across his knees and leaned his head upon it. The candle burned dimly, and a bat flew in through the open door, circled around the room, at last extinguishing the feeble light with one of its outspread wings. But the unhappy man did not heed the gloom. Why should he care to have a light for his eyes when his soul was in such darkness? He groped his way to the bed, and fell down upon it. Rover came back from a nightly prowl, barked to let his master know of his presence, then lay down on the doorstep.
The sound of music vibrated through the air, and 'Zeki'l remembered that the young people of the settlement were to have a "singing" at his brother's that evening. He raised his head and listened. They were singing hymns, and many of them were associated with recollections of his own youth. A line of Tom Moore's "Come, ye disconsolate," once a special favorite when sorrow seemed far from him, was borne to his ears:
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
He lay down and slept.
At dusk the next evening, as he was heating a piece of iron in the blacksmith shop, a man stopped at the wide-open door.
"Will you give me a night's lodging? I have walked far to-day, and I'm a stranger in this part of the country."
'Zeki'l wheeled, the light from the forge shining across his face. It brought out the stranger's face and form in bold relief also. "Why, it's Zeke Morgan!" he cried, walking into the shop.
"Yes: I thought I recognized your voice, Miller," said 'Zeki'l, slowly, and without much pleasure at the recognition.