But I never found courage to betray my lack of sympathy in all its iciness. The sight of the rector's enthusiasm filled me ever with a sense of guilt, and I used to weed quite diligently, at times.
One morning the rector had lured me out early, before breakfast, while the sun yet hung low above the shining marshes. We were working cheerfully together at the carrot-beds. The smell of the moist earth and of the dewy young carrot-plants, bruised by my hasty fingers, comes vividly upon my senses even now.
Suddenly I heard the rector cry, "Bother!" in a tone which spoke volumes. I saw he had broken his hoe short off at the handle. I stopped work with alacrity, and gazed with commiserating interest, while I began wiping my muddy little fingers on my knickerbockers in bright anticipation of some new departure which should put a pause to the weeding.
In a moment or two the vexed wrinkles smoothed themselves out of the rector's brow, and he turned to me with the proposal that we should go over to our neighbor's and repair the damage.
One end of the barn, as we knew, was used for a workshop. We crossed the road, let down the bars, put to flight a flock of pigeons that were feeding among the scattered straw, and threw open the big barn doors.
There, just inside, hung the dead body of our neighbor, his face distorted and purple. And, while I stood sobbing with horror, the rector cut him down with the draw-knife which he had come to borrow.
Soon after this tragedy, the barn was moved down to the marsh, to be used for storing hay and farm implements. And by the time the scene had faded from my mind, the rector gave up the dear delights of his garden, and took us off to a distant city parish. Not until I had reached eighteen, and the dignity of college cap and gown, did I revisit the salty breezes of South Mountain.
Then I came to see friends who were living in the old rectory. About two miles away, by the main road, dwelt certain other friends, with whom I was given to spending most of my evenings, and who possessed some strange charm which would never permit me to say good-night at anything like a seasonable hour.
The distance, as I said, to these friends was about two miles, if you followed the main road; but there was a short cut, a road across the marsh, used chiefly by the hay-makers and the fishermen, not pleasant to travel in wet weather, but good enough for me at all times in the frame of mind in which I found myself.
This road, on either hand, was bordered by a high rail fence, along which rose, here and there, the bleak spire of a ghostly and perishing Lombardy poplar. This is the tree of all least suited to those wind-beaten regions, but none other will the country people plant. Close up to the road, at one point, curved a massive sweep of red dike, and further to the right stretched the miles on miles of naked marsh, till they lost themselves in the lonely, shifting waters of the Basin.