"Ah, God in Heaven, yes!" cried the old man then, with a sudden fierce impetuosity, "I ride east, ride west, ride the wide world ovaire, but always I come back,—come back to Canaan." He stopped abruptly, as though afraid of himself, and faced Steering for a silent moment.
Up to the silence, cleaving it gently, musically, there came unexpectedly the notes of a rollicking song:
"The taters grow an' grow, they grow!"
On the instant old Bernique's face relaxed pleasantly. He half grunted, half laughed. "The potato song!" he cried, his eyes gay, his mouth twitching. "Mistaire Steering, if you will ride on a little way you will have fine company. That is the tramp-boy yondaire. He is in the woods above the gulch there. He will have emerge' to the road presently. The yong scamp is musical, sair!"
"Aye, hear that!" cried Steering appreciatively, "gloriously musical!" Out of the great green timber mounted the tenor notes, piercingly sweet, pure, true, like a bird-call:
"A tater's good 'ith 'lasses."
Bernique's horse was growing restless. The old man rode a little nearer Steering and regarded him searchingly. "Good-bye, sair," he said then, "it shall be what you say. I shall come back to you in Canaan."
"Good-bye, Mr. Bernique. I'm glad to have you decide that way." Steering clung to his notion that he and Bernique were to know each other better. They shook hands under the cross-roads sign-post with understanding.
The rain was coming on fast. All the east lay grey behind Steering, all the west grey before him as he moved away from the cross-roads. But out of the west rolled the melody of the carolling boy, the voice of one singing in the wilderness, young and undismayed.
Under the cross-roads sign-post old Bernique sat his horse motionless for a time, looking after Steering. From Steering his eyes roamed afar toward the Canaan Tigmores. A little shiver caught him. "The man that was expect'," he mused, "the man that was expect'!" Then he, too, rode away.