They reached the graveyard at length, and sank down exhausted on the boy’s grave. Just then, a furious shower of hail lashed out of a driving cloud, and in a few moments the whole world was white. They managed to spread the plaid over the little mound. The woman being on the windward side, held it for a while in position, and soon the hail lay thickly on it.
In a short lull between two of the worst gusts the woman managed to creep around to the other side of the grave where the man was lying huddled. She passed her arm around him in the old protective manner, and laid her cold lips against his cheek, which was like frozen marble. He was only just breathing. Then the cough seized him again, and he struggled violently. The woman closed her eyes, and held him fast. He gave a great gulp, a shudder passed over his limbs, and then he lay still.
The woman opened her eyes. The moon was shining brightly through a narrow rift between the storm-cloud that had just passed over and the one hurrying on its track. The dazzlingly white hail covered everything, and lay in heaps against the graveyard wall, the tree-trunks, and the tombstones. It half covered the man and the woman, and on the white heap against which his head was lying, was a dark stain.
The woman closed her eyes and lay with her head against the man’s body. She soon fell asleep, and dreamt a dream. She thought she was swinging in the hammock which was slung between the verandah poles of the cottage, reading to the boy his favourite story. It was a slight and simple allegory which the man had composed for him, and was based principally upon the last chapter of Revelation, the description of the Delectable Mountains, and Augustine’s City of God. The story was written in the man’s happiest vein, and was full of the loveliest fancy-play. The best passage in it was that description of the valley through which runs the River of the Water of Life. She read as far as this, and lo! in the twinkling of an eye she was in the valley. There stood the grove of those wondrous trees which bear twelve different kinds of fruit, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the suffering nations.
But she was alone in the midst of all this wonder and beauty. She wandered along in a state of disquietude, seeking something or somebody, she knew not who or what. Then she heard a halloa far away in a voice that seemed familiar, and that sent a thrill of agonising bliss through her being. Soon a well-known, pattering footstep sounded down one of the spacious avenues, and the boy rushed into her arms. After an ecstatic moment she lifted her face out of his dark curls, and saw the man hurrying towards her with shining face and outstretched arms.
Chapter Eleven.
The Return of Sobèdè.
“There is a deal of human nature in mankind.”
Josh Billings.