Say and Seal, Volume I

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

"You sha'n't take no one but me," growled Mr. Simlins. "I'd rather see you out of my house than not—if I can't see you in it."

The bells were ringing out for the early afternoon service when they set forth; not ringing against each other, as which should give the loudest call for its own particular church, but with alternate strokes speaking the same thing—the one stepping in when the other was out of broath. The warm sunshine rested upon all—"the evil and the good," and spoke its own message though not so noisily. Along the road Mr. Simlins' little covered wagon (chosen for various reasons) went at an easy pace; with one to drive, and one to bear the motion as best he might; and a third who would almost have agreed to be a pillow or a cushion for the rest of his life, if he could have been one for that day. What there were of that sort in the wagon, or indeed in the house, were to Reuben's eyes far too thin and ineffectual. A little excitement, a very earnest desire to get home once more, did partially supply the need; and by the time the houses were empty and the churches full, the wagon stopped at Mrs. Derrick's gate.

"I guess nobody's home," said Mr. Simlins as he with great tenderness helped Mr. Linden to alight—"but anyway, here's the house all standin'. Reuben, you go ahead and see if we can get in."

But before Reuben touched the door, Mrs. Derrick had opened it from the inside, and stood there—her usually quiet manner quite subdued into silence. Not into inaction however, for her woman's hands soon made their superior powers known, and Mr. Simlins could only wonder why this and that had not occurred to him before. Quick and still and thoughtful, she had done half a dozen little things to make Mr. Linden comfortable before he had been in the house as many minutes, and assured the two others very confidently that "he shouldn't faint again, if he wanted to ever so much!"

"Well, I was sorry to let him go," said Mr. Simlins, "and now I'm glad of it. It takes a woman! Where's some-somebody else?"

"There's nobody else in the house," said Mrs. Derrick. "Faith's gone to meeting, and Cindy too, for all I know."

"I'll send Dr. Harrison word in the morning where I am," said Mr. Linden,—which Mr. Simlins rightly understood to mean that the fact need not be published to-night. He took gentle leave of this lost guest and went to church; excusing himself for it afterwards by saying he felt lonely.

If Faith had seen him there, she might have jumped at conclusions again; but she did not; and after the service walked home, slowly again, though nobody was with her. A little wearied by this time with the night and the day's work, wearied in body and mind perhaps, she paced homewards along the broad street or road, on which the yellow leaves of the trees were floating lazily down, and which was all filled from sky and wayside with golden light. It brought to mind her walk of last Sunday afternoon—and evening;—the hymn, and those other lines Mr. Linden had repeated and which had run in her head fifty times since. And Faith's step grew rather slower and less lightsome as she neared home, and when she got home she went straight up to her room without turning to the right or the left. Her mother was just then in the kitchen and heard her not, and shielded by her bonnet Faith saw not even that Mr. Linden's door stood open; but when she came out again a while after, the full stream of sunlight that came thence into the passage drew her eyes that way. And Faith did not wonder then that her mother had been startled, and unprepared by the doctor's words for the sight of what she now saw. The chintz-covered couch was drawn before the window, in the full radiance of the sunlight, and Mr. Linden lay there looking out; but the sunlight found no glow in his face, unless one as etherial as itself. The habitual sweet pure look was there—a look that reminded Faith of the one Johnny had worn in the morning; but the face was perfectly colourless. The bandaged arm was supported only by a sling, upon the other hand his cheek rested wearily. Faith looked, hesitated, then stepped lightly into the room and stood before him; with a face not indeed quite so pale as his own, but that only the sunlight hindered his seeing was utterly without its usual colour. She found nothing to say, apparently: for she did not speak, only held out her hand. He had turned at the first sound of her step and watched her—at first smiling, then grave—as she came near; and taking her hand as silently as it was given, Mr. Linden looked up at her face,—perhaps to see whether his instructions had been obeyed.

"I have had men's hands about me so long," he said, "that yours feels like—" he did not specify what, but held it a minute as if he were trying to find out. "Miss Faith, you want to be rocked to sleep."

Could he see that her lips trembled? He could feel how her hand did; but her look was as frank as ever.