CHAPTER XVI
“I was a stranger, and ye took me in:”
—St. Matt. XXV, 35
The long, bright May day had drawn to a close, and darkness was setting in, through which a few faint stars had begun to twinkle. Ah, here was a light at last; and a welcome sight it was to the tired girl, leading an equally tired, fat, old gray horse as, topping a rise in the trail, she beheld the visible signs of a habitation gleaming in the distance.
“Come on, Sam,” she coaxed cheerily, with a slightly impatient tug at the reins and quickening her pace. “We’ll soon be there, now, old boy, and you’ll get a good long drink and a feed!”
Plodding wearily on, they stumbled over the ruts of a well-worn trail diverging at right angles from the one they were traversing, and which the girl instinctively took, guessing that it led to the dwelling whose beacon shone brighter and brighter with every nearing step.
Suddenly she pulled up short for, through a lull in the brisk night breeze—like an Æolian harp—there came to her astonished ears the unmistakable sounds of a piano. A fresh gust of wind carried it away next minute, though, and she moved forward again. Soon the shadowy outlines of a building became visible amid the surrounding gloom, and the music became distinct and real. Dropping the horse’s reins, the girl stepped slowly and carefully towards the light, thrusting out her hands with experienced caution as she did so, fearful of encountering the customary strands of a barbed-wire fence. Meeting with no such obstacle, she drew nearer to the open window, absently humming a bar of “The Bridal Chorus” from “Lohengrin,” which air the invisible pianist had, with masterly improvisations, just drawn to a close.
Then she halted, paralyzed for the moment with astonishment—all her own musical instincts fully aroused—as a man’s deep, rich baritone voice floated forth on the night air, singing a well-remembered song, but as she had never heard it sung before. And, though not of a particularly sentimental temperament, she found it impossible to listen to the beautiful words on this occasion unmoved:
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
Entranced, she stood motionless. Whoever could this unknown vocalist with the magnificent voice be, singing “Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine” in the wilderness? The slow, deep, ineffable pathos of its last verse thrilled and touched her strangely:
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!