For, suddenly, and with the clarity that the great king saw the writing on the wall, again he seemed to behold, and comprehend fully now, the significance of the strange fantasy which had appeared to him in the detachment the previous night.
The dreary whistle ceased, and with her chin resting in her hands she began to idly croon to herself an old-fashioned time-worn ballad, which he vaguely recognized as Whittier’s “Maud Muller.” Lord! what a time it seemed since he’d heard that! he reflected. It took him right back to the scenes of his boyhood again at Shrewsbury—peaceful, gray-spired old-world Shrewsbury. Verse by verse, came the monotonous refrain of the antiquated poem to his ears—just as a little girl will sometimes drone to herself as she sits plaiting her hair in the sun:
Maud Muller looked and sighed. “Ah me!
That I the Judge’s bride might be!
He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.”
How the air of a long-forgotten song, a chance phrase in a book, the scent of new-mown hay and of certain flowers, the splendor of a tropical sunrise, the glory of a flaming crimson and gold sunset, or the calm beauty of a moonlight night will ofttimes awaken in us strange old longing memories of other—and, perchance—happier days. Harking back now through all the years came to him, dimly, the recollection that the very last time he had heard that was at a gathering of young hearts held in his old school town, when he was a bright-eyed young sinner of thirteen or thereabouts—“soirees,” as they were called then. Yes, it was at Dr. Pennington’s, and saucy, yet tender-eyed, little Darthea Pennington had recited it. She had cried, too, at its conclusion, he remembered; which spectacle of girlish emotion had prompted him to start in tormenting her with some youthful nonsense, in a well-meant effort to revive her natural gaiety. True, she’d slapped his face as the reward for his impudence, but didn’t she relent later to the extent of allowing him to kiss “friends,” and afterwards take her in to supper?
“And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door.”
The Judge looked back at he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
With bowed head the listener stood there motionless, whilst a wave of emotion surged through his heart, awakening all the sentiment which, through long years of iron self-repression, had lain dormant in his deep nature.
Whatever had possessed her to hark back to this memory of her girlhood? he mused. Under ordinary circumstances he would no doubt have resorted as heretofore, to his customary badinage—chaffed her about “grinding out Whittier by the yard,” or mimicked her in a mincing falsetto. But now—as he heard it now—the element of absurdity was distinctly lacking ... nay! it was pitiful—almost tragic ... how like a simple child again she seemed, in her unhappiness?
With pathetic, monotonous regularity—as if she were seeking to distract her thoughts from her trouble by repeating some orison—the interminable stanzas rose and fell, with a quavering cadence:
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only. “It might have been.”
Choking back a lump in his throat, Ellis now dropped his horse’s lines and stepped forward.