"And now, my friends, it is time to begin our service. Will you take your places?" and turning to me he said, "Young man, I think ye'd better come and sit near the pulpit, where I can see that ye behave yersel'!"
In silence, and with a demure sobriety as though they were crossing the threshold of a holy place, they stepped across the dip in the amphitheatre and seated themselves upon the stones laid ready for them. I walked behind the minister towards his pulpit. A couple of paces from it he stopped and raised his right hand high above his head. On the top of the hill that faced us I saw one of the sentinels spring erect and hold his hand aloft, and turning, we saw that the sentinel on the other hill top had made a like signal. It was a sign that all was well, and that the service might safely begin.
The minister mounted his pulpit and I sat down a little below it. In a voice which rang melodiously through the silence he said: "Let us worship God by singing to His praise the 121st psalm." He read the psalm from beginning to end and then the congregation, still sitting, took up the refrain and sang slowly the confident words. It was a psalm which to these hill-folk must have been charged with many memories.
There was more of earnestness than of melody in the singing, but suddenly I was aware of one voice that sounded clear and bell-like among the jumble of raucous notes. My ears guided my eyes and I was able to pick the singer out.
CHAPTER XI
FLOWER O' THE HEATHER
She was a girl of some twenty years who sat on the slope opposite to me. Her features were regular and fine and in strange contrast to the rugged countenances that surrounded her. From underneath the kerchief that snooded her hair a wanton lock of gold strayed over the whiteness of her high forehead. I caught a glimpse of two pink ears set like wild roses among the locks that clustered round them. She sat demurely, unaware of my rapt scrutiny. Her lips were red as ripe cherries, and as she sang I saw behind them the glint of white and regular teeth. Her eyes I could not catch; they were lifted to the distant sky over the hill-tops; her soul was in her singing. One hand rested in her lap, the other hung down by her side, and almost touched the grass beside her rough seat. The open book upon her knees was open for form's sake only. She was singing from her heart and she knew the words without appeal to the printed page. I took my eyes from her with difficulty and let them wander over the little congregation of which she was a part, but I found no face there which could hold them, and quickly they turned again to look upon this winsome maid.
She had lowered her eyes now, and as I glanced across at her I met their level gaze. There was a glint of light in them such as I have seen upon a moorland tarn when the sunbeams frolic there, and as I looked at her I was aware that something within me was beating against my ribs like a wild caged bird.
When the psalm was ended the minister behind me said solemnly, "Let us pray," and over against me I saw the heads of the congregation bend reverently. Some sat with clasped hands, others buried their faces in the hollow of their palms. My devotions were divided, and before the preacher had completed his sentences of invocation I found myself peeping through my separated fingers at the girl. Her eyes were closed, her dainty hands were clasped delicately. I had never, till that moment, known that the human hand may become as subtle an instrument for expressing the feelings as the human eye. In her clasped hands I saw the rapture of a splendid faith: I saw devotion that would not shrink from death; I saw love and sacrifice.
The preacher prayed on, embracing in his petitions the furthest corners of the universe. His words fell on my ears, but I did not hear them, for at that moment my whole world centred in this alluring daughter of the Covenant.