“Yes, yes,” said the old man. “An’ hadn’t ye better leave the gun, sir? There’s no use luggin’ that to Dan. An’ ye’ll find it here ‘ginst you come back.”
“Why, we’re going back another route,” they told him; not dreaming what that route would be.
“You have a goodly country, parson,” said Donald, “and so near heaven one ought to find peace here.”
“It be not plentiful,” said the old man. “An’ man be born to trouble as the sparks go upward. But all be bretherin, by the grace o’ God, an’ bound alike for Canaan.”
They passed on, bearing the old man’s meaning in their hearts. All bound upon one common road for Canaan.
Oh, Israel! Israel! the wandering in the wilderness still goes on. The Promised Land still lies ahead, and wanderers in earth’s wilderness still seek it, panting and dying with none to strike a rock in Horeb.
The Promised Land! what glimpses of that glorious country are vouchsafed, mere glimpses, from those rugged heights, such as were granted him, who, weary with his wanderings, sought Pisgah’s top to die.
Sometimes, when the mists are lifted and the sun shines through the rifted clouds, what dreams, what visions, what communion with those whom the angels met upon the mountain. They thought upon it, those two, as they passed on to Dan.
To Dan, through the broad gate artistically set with palings of green and white. Under the sweet old cedars deep down into the heart of the woods, with the solemn mountains rising, grim and mysterious, in the twilight. Down the great bluff where the tinkle of falling water tells of the spring hidden in the dim wood’s shadowy heart. The golden arrows of sunset are put out one by one by the shadow-hands of the twilight hidden in the haunted hemlocks. One star rises above the tree’s and peeps down to find itself quivering in the dusky pool. A little bird flits by with an evening hymn fluttering in its throat.
They stopped at the foot of the bluff and seated themselves upon a fallen tree, the rifle resting, the stock upon the ground, the muzzle against the tree, between them.