“You're well provided for the kirk, at any rate,” said
Uncle Dan. “I'll have to put a little money for this wicked world in the other corner.” And he did.
When the coach next day set out—No, no, I cannot tell you all, for I hate to think of tears and would hurry over partings. It went in tearful weather, rain drizzling on Bud and Auntie Ailie, who accompanied her. They looked back on the hill-top and saw the gray slates glint under a gray sky, and following them on the miry road poor Footles, faithful heart, who did not understand. He paddled through the mud till a blast from the bugle startled him, and he seemed to realize that this was some painful new experience. And then he stood in the track of the disappearing wheels and lifted up his voice, in lamentation.
The night came on, resuming her ancient empire—for she alone, and not the day, did first possess, and finally shall possess unquestioned, this space dusty with transient stars, and the light is Lord of another universe where is no night, nay, nor terror thereof. From the western clouds were the flame and gold withdrawn, and the winds sighed from the mountains as vexed for passing days. The winds sighed from the mountains and the mists came mustering to the glens; the sea crept out on long, bird-haunted, wailing, and piping sands, naught to be seen of it, its presence obvious only in the scent of wrack and the wash on the pebbled beaches. Behind the town the woods lay black and haunted, and through them, and far upward in the valley dripping in the rain, and clamorous with hidden bums and secret wells, went the highway to the world, vacant of aught visible, but never to be wholly vacant, since whoso passes on a highway ever after leaves some wandering spirit there. Did the child, that night, think of the highway that had carried her from home? In the hoarsely crying city did she pause a moment to remember and retrace her way to the little town that now lay faintly glowing in the light of its own internal fires?
Thus Bell wondered, standing at her window looking into the solitary street. Every mile of separating highway rose before her; she walked them in the rain and dark; all the weary longing of the world came down on her that mirk night in September, and, praying that discretion should preserve and understanding keep her wanderer, she arrived at the soul's tranquility and heard without misgiving the wild geese cry.
Her brother took the Books, and the three of them—master, mistress, and maid—were one in the spirit of worship, longing, and hope. Where, then, had gone Daniel Dyce, the lawyer, the gentle ironist, on whose lips so often was kindly mockery, on whose tongue levity or its pretence—
“Never by passion quite possess'd,
And never quite benumbed by the world's sway”?
It was Bell's nightly duty to turn the lamp out in the lobby and bolt the outer door. She went this night reluctant to perform that office, but a thought possessed her of a child from home, somewhere in the darkness among strangers, and she had to call her brother.
“What is it?” said he.
“The door,” she said, ashamed of herself; “I cannot bolt it.”