“You poor old woods! I know just how to pity you,” Edith said, looking about. “But cheer up! These are the days in which Nature tells over the sorrowful mysteries in her long rosary. Your garments are rent away, and the thorns are on your head; but after all is ended, then comes the glorious mystery of the spring resurrection. There! now I have exhorted you, you may exhort me. If you have anything to say, please to say it!”
And then the woods answered: “Child, I know my rosary all by heart, for I have said it six thousand times—six thousand times, child, and yet man will not listen. I tell of resignation and hope, and still his ears are dull. I tell him that in obedience is wisdom, and in wisdom contentment, and he does not cease to rebel. That is a sorrowful mystery over which I grew sad many a time before the cross became the sign of salvation. My very birds are wiser than the children of men; my beasts less cruel. Do not blush, little one! It was your ignorance that spoke, and not presumption. No fairer flower has bloomed in my shadow than your loving thought. Cheer up! Hearts will find the way when heads cannot; for when true love is blind, then an angel leads it.”
“I thank you!” Edith said after
having listened. “It is very true, our teachers have a hard time with us. There is you, Mother Nature, with your book full of pictures, to catch our eyes; and the church, speaking our own language, to catch our ears; and conscience, with its two words only, yes and no, to catch our thoughts, and we fight against you all. I am very, very blind! Will some good angel lead me?”
She came out into East Street, and stood a moment on the spot where she and Dick had stood to look at that exquisite bit of meadow. The violet mist that had hung over it, like a parting soul over its body, had long since dissolved, and the little incarnate song that had floated there, yellow-winged and feathered, had been loosed into the heavenly orchestra. Half-way down the hill, a footpath led off to the left of the street, passed a few back-doors of houses on High Street, and ended at the door of the house where Father Rasle was. She knew by the buggy standing in the yard that he had come. If it had not been there, the smiling face of the woman who stood in the door would have told the story.
The woman stepped out to make way, and Edith ran in through the narrow entry to the square room that was both kitchen and parlor.
“O father, father! A hundred thousand welcomes!” And then, between grief and gladness, her voice was stopped.
“Dear child!” he said affectionately. “So you needed me very much?”
Several women were in the room. Some of them had arrived before the priest came, nearly all of them had made their confession, but not one could persuade herself to go away while she was allowed to remain. They meant to stay till he should bid them go, and even then wait for a second telling. To see their beloved
pastor, to hear him speak, to repeat over and over their demonstrative welcome, was a happiness which they would fain prolong.