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JUDITH MOORE;

OR,

FASHIONING A PIPE.

" He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river.

" Hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of n he leaf, indeed,
To prove it fresh from the river.
He out it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river ! )
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man.
Steadily from the outside ring.
And notched the poor, dry, empty thing
In holes as he sat by the river.
' This is the way, ' laughed the great god Pan,
. . . * The only way since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
. . . Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the ri^ 3r,
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain.
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river. "

— Mrs. Barrett Browning.

UDITH MOORE;

ent reed,
ndeed,

OR,

FASHIONING A PIPE.

a man,

ling

;od Pan,
egan
ceed.'
god Pan,

tain,

I again

»>

Browning. J

JOANNA E. WOOD.

Author of "The UiUempered Wind,*^ etc.

TORONTO:

The Ontario publishing Co., Limited.

1898.

LD.

ooa,S.S

) - '

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year r melai
thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by The Ontario Pvbii- ^^n\
iNO Co.» Limited, at the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. »WlitJ

)rni

JUDITH MOORE.

iii

CHAPTER I.

"BeJ;oltl ft dower went forth to sow."

Andrew Cutler, with his graceful and
la. in the year c ittflaiicholy red Irish setter at his heels, walked

I Ontario Pmi« oMmif^}.. i • n ^^ »'='=ia, wtiiiteu

re, Ottawa. ^"^J across his fields to the " clearing " one
naming late in spring.

*He was clad in the traditional blue jeans of
countryman, and wore neither coat nor vest;
leathern belt was drawn about his middle'
i shirt, open a bit at the throat, and guiltless
collar and tie, displayed a neck .ch as we
modelled in old bronzes, and of much the
^e colour; for Andrew Cutler was tanned to
% pomt of being swart. His h«nd had a
^^ewhat backward pose, expressive of an
iBfependence almost over-accentuated,
^is hair was cropped short, and was of a sun-
l«jmt brown, like his long moustache. His eyes
^re blue-grey, that softened to hazel or hard-

JUDITH MOOKE.

>
if-

a
r

Urn]

had

oned to the hue ot' steel. His nose was a(iuiliiie
with the little flattened plateau on tlie brid;'
that we call *' Spanish." His chin was stronj,'
the chin of a man who " manlike, would liav
his way."

Mother Nature must laugh in her sleeve
the descriptive names we tack to her modi
This man so completely satisfied the appellatii |^ti
" aristocratic," that, with the stubbornness ot % w
much-humoured word, it persists in suggest!: deai
itself as the best vehicle to describe this you: cine
farmer, and indeed the combination would aeeir
entirely to the advantage of the adjective, wlii ston(
is often seen in poor company. A veritai off ^
rustic Antinous he was, with broad chest, sli bitw
lithe loins, and muL^cles strong ae steel. Shi tliat
athwart his shoulder was a sack of coarse bro' gdod
canvas that bulged with a heavy load ; but haid
strode on, his balance undisturbed, and preseii Pi
he stood upon the verge of the clearing. T nifec
was simply a part of the woodland that Andr Ula
was taking under cultivation. A some^rl ytairg
unpromising piece it looked, with its stubl
stumps standing irregularly amid the broliO]^
furrows — (for it had been ploughed, in 8[W0uI(
fashion as ploughing may be done when one seed -
to twist around stumps, over stones, and t w«b i
through long strong roots). thpy

JUDITH MOORE.

ran a»iuiliiit
I the bri'l-
ms stron^-

WOUUI luiv

icr sleeve i
her uiodi'l
e appelliitk
bornness uf
in suggestii

"^ An<h*e\v ivinenihcnMl the i)loii*:fhin<j;, as he

l^alkod across to ]M>^in his sowin<jj, like tlie good

Ipriner tliat he was, at the einl-rig;^. Here was

fKe stump tliat had reHiste<l j^unpowder, leverage

d lire, and that now was heing tortured by

Itpetre, charge<l in a dtiep augur liole. Well, it

d been a right brave old tree, but the salt-

tre wouhl win to the stout oaken heart yet.

was perliaps a step in the riglit direction, this

fearing of the woodland, but all progress seems

)e this yoiii Ciuel at first. Here — as he passed over what

on would seemed a particularly smooth bit — the great

iiective, whi stone lay hidden that had broken his ploughshare

A verital off with a crash, and sent him flying from

[d chest, sli between the plough-stilts. He would remember

steel. Sill that stone for some time ! So doubtless would

coarse bro' gdod old Bess, whose patient brown shoulders

load • but hiid borne the brunt of the shock.

and preseii Ploughing a field is like ploughing the sea — one

»learinff. i lAds must have a chart of each to steer safely.

d that Andr TSat more formidable sea, " whose waves are

A some^vl jArs," has no chart. Next winter would see

h its stubl> t^ uprooting of all these stumps, and the felling

id the brolo%i™ore trees beyond. Next spring the plough

trhed in s would pass straight from end to end, and the

^ when one seid-drill would sow the space which now he

ones and t^ie about to sow in the old classic fashion — as

th|y sowed, in intervals of stormy peace, the

:(f

JUDITH MOORE.

grain after tlie vvocxleii ploughs on the Swins hill
sides ; as Ulysses sowed the salt upon the sea
shore ; as the sowers sowed the seed in tli^
far-ott' East, as has been handed down to us in
matchless allegory. (ji^]{

He began his task, hand and foot niovin<f i ||jj.,
rhythm, and cadenced by the sharp swish, swi^ ^^
of the grain as it left his hand, spreading fai >^ 1
wise over the soil. It takes a strong wrist aii m^i
a peculiar " knack " to sow grain well by Iuuk nest
he had both. horn

The dog followed him for a couple of ridg^ patii
but, besides the ploughed ground being distant robb
ful to him (for he was a dainty dog and fa inth
tidious), the buckwheat hit him in the eyes, ai the (
his master paid no heed to him, a combinatii gran
of circumstances not be borne ; hence, he short abov
betook himself to the woodland, where he raist ing
a beautiful little wild rabbit and coursed after who."
until with a final kick of its furry heels it land aild
safe beneath a great pile of black walnut lo; mom
built up criss-cross fashion to mellow for i the s
market. Rufus (named from " William tlie Et in t
surnamed Rufus ") returned to his master, i w|y,
dejectedly, but with a melancholy cont'^mpt
rcbbits that would not "run it out," but to

shelter in a sneaking way where they could :
be come at.

it:

1 1

ii :

JUDITH MOORE.

B Swiss
)on the sea
leed in ih
jn to viH int

it moving i;
swish, swisi
reading t'ai
ig wrist an
rell by haiic

pie of rid

leing distasl

dog and fa

I the eyes, ai

combinatii
ice, he shon
lere he vm
ursed after
heels it laml
c walnut lo,
ellow for t
lliam the l^
is master, i

cont'^mpt
3ut," but ti

hey couUl

^ By tliis time Andrew was well on with his
llork. The sack beneath his arm was growing
%np, he himself was warm. He paused as a

Srd flew up from a turned sod at his feet, and
little search showed the simple nest of a grey-
Urd — open to the sun and rain, built guilelessly,
liithout defence of strategy or strength.

■There is something cmiss with the man or
woman whose heart is not touclied by a bird's
nifest — the daintiest possible epitome of love, and
home, and honest work, and self-sacrificing
patience. Andrew had thrashed many a boy for
robbing birds' nests, and had discharged a man
in the stress of haying because he knocked down
the clay nests of the swallows from beneath the
f^ranary eaves with a long pole. Now he bent
above this nest with curious tender eyes, touch-
ing the spotted eggs lightly whilst the bird,
whose breast had left them warm, flittec to
lUftd fro upon the furrows. He remained bui i
moment (the bird's anxiety was cruel), then, fixing
the spot in his memory that he might avoid it
iaithe hari-owing, he was about to go on his
wi^y, when his ears were assailed by a succession
o^bhe sweetest sounds he had ever heard — note
a^r note of purest melody, Jlung forth unsyl-
lafiled, full-throated to the air, inarticulate but
eJ^uent Again and again it came, liquid, rich,

JUDITH MOORE.

'■I ^

^'!!i

ilii

and with that pathos which perfection always
touches. flu*

At first he could not fix the direction from Ivf^
whence it came. It was as if the heavens abovi ij^-:
had opened and showered down music upon hi rdb
heart as he had flung forth the seed upon tin n^t
ei -th ; and indeed there were two sowings tliai bi^
morning and from each harvests were garneiol
— first the bloom and then the fruit there(jt b^i
But as he listened longer he knew it issiui v^c
from the wood before him. At the first not' ^A
some impulse made him snatch oft* his old iVIi Ii
hat, and he stood there, bareheaded in the sun gJS^i
shine, as one might stand to whom had come tli tiiro
pang of inspiration. ^ - fron

The singer was voicing no composition, onli 9^0]
uttering isolated notes, or short cresceudos, ter <^0
minating in notes of excjuisite beauty, but leaving
a sense of incompleteness that was so intens
as to be almost e physical pain to him — only for
gotten when the next utterance robbed him c
retrospect and filled him with hope. Any on i
who has heard a perfect singer practising
knows the sensation. In such fashion the unsec
sirens sang, and men willingly risked death i *m| ^^
touch the iips that had been parted by sue ^'•fS i
melodious breath. ^^ '"

Andrew still stood, and at last silence fei^*s<

JUDITH MOORE.

jtioii always

rection from
ea veils above
isic upon lii<
sed upon tin
sowings thai
ere garneid
Tuit theiiMjf
ew it issiU'i:
he first not-
r his old tVl-
I ill the sun
had come tli

►osition, o'.il
escendos, ter
y, but leaviii.
IS so intens
m — only for
bbed him c
)e. Any on
practising
)n the unset
ked death!
ed by sue

; silence IV

-—«, silence lie hardly comprehended at first, so
filled was it with the dream of sound that
lutid passed, so instinct with expectation ; but
ij|- forced itself upon him, and then suddenly
round him there sounded all the commonplace
nOBses of life — the croaking of a tree toad, the
bljzzing of a chance fly, the far-off shouting of
men, and the sounds of birds— all that •had
b#en deadened to his ear by the magic of that
vmce.

A voice — then whence ?

In two strides he was over the ploughed
ground and in the woods. He sea»*ched
through and through it in vain. He looked
frpm its borders at his own far-off farm-house
among its trees, at the gables of the village
of Ovid clustering together, at the tin on the
Baptist Church spire glistening in the midst, at
t^ long low Morris homestead that nestled in a
li|fcle hollow beyond his wood ; but all was as
m^al, nothing new, nothing strange. No angel's
glj^tening wing was to be seen anywhere.

Andrew's grain was spent, but the clearing
was not yet all sown. So he went home leaving
hip task unfinished. From one thing to another
w|s the rule of his busy life. He gave a cheery
Wf rd or two to his aunt, Miss Myers, who kept
ItCpse for him, and then he was off to town with

,,,E

I
i I

i:';i

!!i

'HI''

:il

JUDITH MOORE.

a waggon load of implements to be mended i:
time for the summer work.

That night a group of typical Ovidians wei
gathered in the kitchen of old Sam Syninioiif
house.

Sam Symmons lived in a frame house, just a
the foot of the incline which led into thevillai'
from the north. Like many of the houses (
O /id, his was distinctly typical of its owner,
new house was such a rare thing in Ovid, tli
the old ones had time to assimilate the charactc
of their possessors, and to assume an individ
ality denied to the factors of a more rapid!
growing place.

Old Sam's house was a tumble-down, rakis
brave-looking old house, with shutters erstwlii
painted green. They had once given the win
house quite an air, but their painful lapses in tl
way of broken slats, and uneven or lost hin<,^
now superimposed upon it a look of indecisio
One of the weather-boards at the south com
was loose and, freed from the nails' restraii
bent outward, as though beckoning the gazer i
It was a hospitable old house, but wary, too, tt
ornate tin tops of the rain troughs round tl
roof giving it a knowing look.

The native clematis grew better over tt
weather-beaten gable than anywhere else

eage
deep

JUDITH MOOUE.

e mended

vidians wer
in Syninioiis

house, just a
to thevillai'
he houses (
ts owner,
in Ovid, tliii
ihe characte:
an individi
more rapid

down, rakis
ters erstwlii
ren the who
I lapses int!
)r lost hingf
of indecisio
south com
lils' restraii
; the gazer i
wary, too, tl
hs round tl

,ter over tt
'^here else

id, and the Provence roses, without any care
latever, bloomed better.

i was as if the house and its environs were
king a gallant but losing fight against
icroaching time and adverse circumstances.
Si) it was with old Sam.

He was an old man. Lonsf before, when
nada's farmers were more than prosperous,
when foreign wars kept the price of food grains
hi^li, when the soil was virgin and unexhausted,
when the military spirit still animated the
country, when regulara were in barracks at the
n^rest town, when every able man was an
eager volunteer, when to drink heavily and swear
d^ply upon all occasions marked the man of
ease, when the ladies danced in buckled shoes
apd chene taffetas, and were wonshipped with
cli^valrous courtesy and high-flown sobriquets —
i^L those days old Sam Symmons had been
kiown as "Gallant Sam Symmons," and had
l^n welcomed by many high in the land.
He had ever been first in a fight, the last
ight at the table, a gay dancer and a courtly
t. But now he was glad to get an audience of
rant villagei-s to listen to his old tales. For
ead of garnering his money he spent it freely,
ing ever a generous heart and open hand, and
te years he had fallen upon evil times, and

JUDITH MOORE.

gone steadily down hill. Now he had only a
strip of barren acres heavily mortgaged. Hf
married late in life the daughter of a country
doctor.

They had one child, a girl, whose mother died
when she was four years old. Sam christened
his daughter Susanna Matilda.

In the days of his youth — oh, the halcyon
time — these two names had been the names of
the hour. The Mabels, Lilys and Rubys of
to-day were yet unborn.

Susanna Waring had been the belle of tlw
county, and her lovers were willing to stab
their honour upon her pre-eminence.

Matilda Buchanan had been called " The Rosi
of Canada," and when the Consul, her father
returned to England, she footed it bravely at th
Court of St. James. She married a nobleman
there.

They were long dead, these two beauties
Matilda Buchanan had left all her pomp, aiic
Susanna Waring had passed away from all liei
unhappiness, for she married an oflficer who
treated her brutally. Well, well, old Satii
Symmons, gallant Sam Symmons then, hai
danced with both of them, had kissed MisJ
Waring's hand in a minuet, and knocked a man
down for saying Matilda Buchanan rouged.

Ih(

JUDITH MOORE.

liad only a
Taged. He
: a countiv

mother diel
christenci

he halcyo
e names ot
Rubys 0!

►elle of tilt
g to stake

" The Res

her father
.vely at tht
b noblem

beauties
pomp, aiic
rom all hei
)fficer wli
old Sam
then, ha'
:issed Mis?
;ked a im
mged.

he did — they all did in those days — but it

not for the profane lips of man to say

Thus Sam christened his daughter Susanna

ilda, and felt he had done his duty by her.

fter his wife's death, her cousin, a good

ugh woman in a negative sort of way, kept

se for him, and brought up the little girl.

en Susanna was eighteen, this woman died ;

and his daughter were left alone.

til

s has been said, quite a crowd was gathered
iofold Sam s kitchen that night in the last week
o||May. Tliere was Sam himself, Jack Mac-
l^non (a neighbour's hired man and the most
n<^d liar in Ovid), Kiram Green, Oscar Randall,
an^ Susanna. It may be said here that through-
o^ Ovid and its environs Susanna's proper name
a dead letter. She was "Sam Symmons'
" to all and sundry. The Ovidian mind
not prone to poetry ; still, this alliterative
iu|liie seemed to have charms for it, and perhaps
t|^ poetical element in Ovid only required devel-
QJ|ng; and it may be that the sibilant triune
x^|ne found favour because it chimed to some
mant vein of poesy, unsuspected even by its
essors.

he occasion calling forth the conclave in

mons' kitchen was simply^ that his old

e vas very sick ; in fact, dying, as all s&ve

JUDITH MOORE.

Ill

Sam thought. As every man in Ovid prid jj^
himself upon his knowledge of veterinar ^^
science, the whole community stirred when q|||
was spread abroad that there was an eduit ht J m
patient to practise upon. Hf^

Oscar Randall took the dim lantern from t old
table and went out. He returned, and siioi
awaited his opinion. Am

" Well, Os ? ' said Jack Mackinnon. «i

" If that was my horse — which she ain't, Qsei
course — I'd shoot her," said Oscar, deliberate •*;

" Shoot her ! " said Jack Mackinnon ; " sli triec
her ! Don't you do it, Mister Symmons. Wland
there was old Mr. Pierson wot I worked foifoefcii
Essex, he had an old mare, most dreadful miw
and most terrible sick — sick for months, (i
day we drawed her out in a field, to die wi
and so's she'd be easy to bury. Well, by Geoi
she got up, and old Mr Pen — him wot I woiijro||
for as has the dairy farm — he came along, & ^
he says to Mr. Pierson, says he, * Wot' 11 you ts ^
for the mare ?' 'Twenty-five dollars,' says ^
old man. 'She's my mare, then,' says Mr 13i
' I'll give you my note for her.' So Mr. Pen t
her home and drove her in his milk-cart ; *
that spring he sold her two colts for a huii'i
dollars apiece, and in the fall he got two huiid
dollars for a little black one ; and Mr. Ellis

lull
lil;

I '

JUDITH MOORE.

1 Ovid pri<l
of veterinar
birred when
jva.8 an equitf

itern from ti(
irned, and

tavern, he bought another pair of 'em in

jr, and gave a sorrel horse and a double

ir for 'em. I tell you, she was a good old

that, and we drug her out to die at old

Pierson's, wot I worked for in Essex, and

[Mr. Pen, wot keeps the dairy farm, he came

\g, and says, ' Wot'll you take for the mare ? '

mon.

3h she ain't,

ar, deliberate

ph, shut up ! Draw it mild, Jack," said
r, irascibly.
MSam," said Hiram Green, slowly, " have you
kinnon ; " «li'tl^p Epsom salts ^ and ginger ? and saltpetre ?
mmona. \Mai|p sweet spirits of nitre ? and rye ? and asa-
worked torfoeiJ|da ? and bled her ^ and given her a bran-
►st dreadful iiu^ ? and tried turpentine and salt ? "
; months. ^Yes," said Sam, " I have, and she's no
eld, to die wbe||Br."

kVell, by Geov, ,^»J^ow, Sam," said Green, impressively, " did
n wot I woiiy<]||give her a * Black's Condition Powder' ?"
ame along, a ^^o, I didn't," said Sam.
Wot'll you t;i ^1 thought so," said Green, significantly,
ollars,' says ^o you keep them in the store ? " queried

r Randall, aggressively. He felt aggrieved
Hiram, having himself intended to ask
t the sweet nitre and turpentine,
o you keep them i " he asked again,
es, I do," admitted Hiram, "and I've
ht one along in case Sam should like to
t."

,' says Mr lOi
So Mr. Pen tw:
milk-cart *
for a huml
yot two hund!^
id Mr. Ellis, V

■!iMlll!t

JUDITH MOORE.

This rather crushed Oscar's insinuation as
Hiram's business policy in suggestinf^ tli
remedy, so he sat silent, while old Sam ai
Hiram Green went out to administer the powd^

Jack Mackinnon, to whom silence was i
possible, with the freedom of ecfuality previilt mgt

in Ovid, turned to where Susfe sat mak
rick -rack.

" Wot are you making, Miss Suse ? " he be*;;
and without waiting for a reply, contimn
" Tliere was Adah Harris, daughter of old m
Harris, wot was a carpenter and had a niai
garden, wot I worked for in Essex, and she
always a-doing things. She was busy ev tion
blessed minute, and I tell you she ivas sina ad^i]
she married Henry Haynes wot kept a bla( 6,
smith's shop, wot I worked for : and when I i
there, I left my clothes be, till I got a job, i
when I went back after 'em, there was a b
shirt, and two paper collars in a box, and i
mother's picture gone. Now I knowed prei
clost to where them things went — and I'll hi
'em back if I have to steal 'em. Why I thoui
no end of mother's picture, it was took standi|
I wouldn't have lost that picture for a fifty
piece, and there 'twas gone and my new s!
and two collars I'd only had two months. I
them at Henry Haynes' wot married A ^B lr

e
k

JUDITH MOOUE.

se ? " he begj

»ly, continiii

,er of old m

had a mail

imation as "^Mrris. Old man Harris went carpentering and
ggesting til flB)t a market garden, but, pshaw ! Talk about
old Sam ai aBashes, why we growed one squash there took
er the powii flree men to get it into the waggon, and then
ence was ii ^ rolled it up a board — why squashes — " but
ility prevalt jt^t then Hiram md old Sam came in. Old Sam
fe sat maki: bklw the long-lit lantern out.
•* Well, father i " Suse asked.
" She's dead," said Sam.
" Dead's a door naii," added Hiram.
*• No!" said Jack, with exaggerated incredulit3\
** You don't say ! " said Oscar, in a tone which
!X, and she v betrayed a distinct conflict between self-satisfac-
as busy e\> ticii and proper sympathy. He could not resist
she ivas sina a^ing in a lower key, " I seen as much."
b kept a blai Soon the trio of visitors departed. Old
and when I Sto was smoking a last pipe when a knock
got a job, f caiiie to the door. He opened it to find Andrew
ere was a i O^ler without.

a box, and ** What's this I hear about your mare ? " he
,ed. " Is she dead ? "

Yos — couldn't seem to do anything for her,"
old Sam, and brave as he was, his tone was
what disheartened.

Well, it's too bad, she was a good beast,
r have my little bay till you look about
another," said Andrew.
Id Sam's face lightened. " I'll be glad to,"

knowed pre
l-and I'll b
Why I tho
took stand
for a fifty
I my new si
months. I
married A

JUDITH MOORE.

'•i|ii

iiilili

he answered. "There's the orchard field I
plougli and I'm behindhand ah-eady, but-
his old pride forbidding him to accept to
eagerly — " don't you need him ? "

*• No, not a bit," said Andrew. " Indeed, I
be glad if you take him awhile. He's gettin
above himself."

" Well, I'll come along for him in the moruiiu 1
then," said Sam, relieved. " What have yo|
been doing to-day ? " ^

" Sowing buckwheat in the clearing, and wi qmr
to town with some mending," replied Andiv *]
" I'm just getting home." of it

" How does the clearing look ? ' asked S.i!
" Free of water ? "

" Yes, it's in good condition."

" Hiram Green says that there's a boarder
to the Morris place. Did you see anythint^'
it?"

"Man or womati?" asked Andrew, vifl
sudden interest.

" Hiram didn't say. I took it was a mar
(Andrew's heart sank.) " Suse, did Hiram Giv I
say 'twas a man or a woman had come to boii|
with old Mrs. Morris ? "

"He didn't say," called Suse from an inr
room.

" Well, it's a lonely place to choose, isn't it
said Andrew. " Good-night, Mr. Symmons. "

'li

iluird field t
•eady, but"-
bo accept tc

JUDITH MOORE.

^Goo(U«J^ht, good-night. Thank you kindly,"
n old Sam. ^

•he old mare was buried next day in one of
1 s barren field.s.

Did you get the shoes off her ? " Mr Home
:ed as he encountered old Sam returning from
obserjuies with an earthy spade over his
ding shoulders.
No, I didn't," said Sam.

Bid you save her tail to make a fly brush ? "
(ned Mr. Home.

^^ ^No," answered old Sam. "I never thought

' ''^"'^ ^\^ ^"" ^^'" ''''''' -«ked his questioner
^^>^^mg over. " Did you skin her ? "

u 1 m^\. f ''^ ^''"'' *^^«*-oughly humiliated.
. a boarderi^elV said M,^ Horne with exubemnt sar-
.anythmgm as he shook his reins over his team of

I 1 m ^ T^f!' "^*'' '^'^^' ^^" ^^» afford such

Andrew, w- wp;e. I couldn't."

" Indeed, \\
He's gettinl

1 the morniii!
hat have y

ring, and wti
plied Andrer

i was a iiiai
I Hiram Gi>
come to boii,|

trom an inn

x)se, isn't it
Symmons," ^ 3

ipw

CHAPTER II.

th»h:

"Say where
In upper air
Dost hope to find fiilfihnent of thy dream ?
On what far peak seest thou a nioniing gleam ?
Why shall the stars still blind thee unaware ?
Why needst thou mount to sing 'i ^

Why seek the sun's fierce-tempered glow and gl,ii'* ® *^
Why shall a soulless impulse prompt thy wing '." HcWlrf

The next clay Andrew Cutler went to conipl
the sowing of the clearing. It was somewl
chill, and he wore an old velveteen coat wli
ribbed surface was sadly rubbed antl faded t/,
dingy russet. More than that, it was bual^o
through in several round spots })y ashes fin (iqc
his pipes and cigars. As usual, Rufus follovoi
him, and a very picturescjue pair the two nmssQed

The air was very clear, the smoke from {quid,
village curling bluely up high to the clouds,
shred of it lingering about the roof trees.
could see some white pigeons flying about
church spire ; and off to the right, where i
river ran, he could see lines of white flashiiij
moment in the sun, then falling beyond n^ b

JUDITH MOOllE.

ream 1
ing gloaui '.

jnaware

and those he knew were flashes from the

ling broasts and wings of the giills. The

nd ha ' not yet lost the elasticity of spring,

the new grass had not yet quite overcome

ttiif dead growth of the year before.

It was a l)Uoyant day, and Andrew was in a

buoyant mood. He had not come out without

the expectation of hearing more singing, and he

proinised himself he would not wait so long

before beginning his search for the singer, whom

I > aiul ylar'*® tiDok to be the boarder at the Morris house.

,t thy wing ? However, it seemed as if he was to be dis-

ippdinted, for^ the sun gi'ew strong, the air

ent to complwartaa, and no nmsic came to him.

was somewl Bgs sowing was done, and he was just about

en coat wliea'l^ng, when, sweet, clear, full, the voice of

and faded t7eflibrday shook out a few high notes, and then

it was bualdlig up the wonls of a song began to sing it

by ashes fin i^ch fashion that Andrew (who knew the

ufus follow ong well) could hardly believe tiiat the sound

the two iniseaed from mortal lips — it was so flute-like, so

loke from iqi^.

the clouds ^w, Andrew's life had not been one of much

ation ; still, there were hours in it he did

re to dwell upon, and the memory of

one of these unworthy hours suddenly

him with shame. They say that at

's approach one sees in a second all the

•oof trees.

ing about

ht, where'

^rhite flashin

1(1- beyond \

■''/■"f^^mim -v

JUDITH MOORE.

sins of his soul stand fortJi in crimson blazonr^l
and perhaps, in that moment, Andrew's old selj
died.

The singer's voice had taken up another soiijl
one he did not know —

" Out from yourself !
l^"'or your broken heart's rest ;
For the peace which you crave ;
For the end of your quest ;
For the love which can save ;

Come I Come to me I "

In springino; over the fence and makiij
towards where the sound came from, Andrei
hardly seemed as if acting upon his oi
volition. He had been summoned ; he went.

After all, there is not much mystery about!
girl singing among the trees, yet Andrei
heart throbbed with something of that hiislij
tumult with which we approach some sad
shrine of feeling, or enter upon some m
intense delight.

He soon saw her, standing with her
against a rough shell-bark hickory. The cloiij
greyness of its rugged stem seemed to inteiis]
the pallor and accentuate the delicacy of
face. For she was a very pale-faced, frag|
lookinc; woman who stood there singino

JUDITH MOORE.

res were wide and wistful, but not unhappy-
)king, only pitiable from the intense eagerness
^t seemed to have consumed her. And, in fact,
ie was like an overtuned instrument whose
ise strings quiver continually.
i She was clad in a dull red gown made in one
the quaint fashions which la mode has revived
late years. It had many hizaiTe broideries
blues and black, touched here and there with
-Russian embroidery, its wearer would
called it. As she sang she made little
imatic gestures with slender hands, and at the
words of her song's refrain, she stretched
rth her arms with a gesture expressing the
initude of yearning.
IHer face, so mobile as to be in itself speech,
mded her words by an inarticulate but power-
plea. It was as though she pleaded with
^te to manifest its decree at once, and not hold
longer in suspense. And it was for singing
5h as this, and for acting such as this, that
world had crowned her great — Fools who
id not see that the head they crowned was
jady drooping beneath its lonely burden,
id fools who could not see it was the passion
[an empty heart, the yearning of a solitary
|il, the unutterable longing of a woman's nature
love, that rendered her marvellous voice so

JUDITH MOORE.

Hill !

i i

passionately and painfully sweet. She herseli:
never suspected it ; only she believed what
doctors had told her manager and teacher, tli3

good

man who wore such bicf diamonds

used such bad language that she i^iust have rtM
quiet, complete and absolute change. So slfl
and this man had come to Canada, and ha
driven on and on into the heart of the counti
till they came to this village in the valley, ar:
there she had elected to stay — a caprice n
nearly so extravagant, and certainly more swe
and wholesome than the freaks indulged in
some others of her ilk. So here she was, lyii^
■perdit whilst her picture was in every paper
the country, with marvellous tales of her tii
umphs abroad and whispers of the wonderfj
treat in store for the music-lovers of Ameritl
And her little, good-hearted manager flashed o|
his biggest diamonds, swore his worst oat|
hoped the child was getting strong, and nei|
dreamed he was killing her.

TliQ " Great God Pan " was all unconscious'
his cruelty, was he not, when he fashioned
pipe out of a river reed ? And as he bl|
through it the music of the gods, doubts
had good reason for thinking that ntver ix|
had been honoured like unto this reed.

There are moments in real life, so exotic |

liiiiilim
liipililii

JUDITH MOORE.

She hersei
^ed what tli

teacher, tli|
iamonds an-
ast have re^
nge. So si
,da, and ha
t the countr
e valley, ar
a caprice ii
iy more swo
idulged ill!
he was, lyii
very paper
58 of her t:
,he wonder!
:s of Amerit
grer flashed
worst oat;

ig, and lie

unconscious
fashioned
i as he m
;ods, doubtlt
at never r
is reed,
e, so exotic

ie lives into which they have entered, that one

jrdly realizes the verity of them till long after,

len the meaning of his own actions struggles

)ugh the mists and confronts him with their

isequences. In such moments the most ab-

rd things in the world seem quite in order,

the commonplace actions of life assume

)tesque importance. So it is in dreams,

lich reconcile with magnificent disregard of

abilities, the most wonderful conditions of

[•son, place and time. Well —

** Dreams are true whilst they last
And do we not live in dreams ? "

iThis is Andrew's only excuse for accepting so
mptly the musical invitation extended with
ih feeling !

* I have come," he said, half dreamily — step-
g out from the shelter of the trees,
he pale-faced singing siion changed to a
Prtleu, blushing girl, and in swift sequence
^drew's rapt gaze altered to one not altogether
hout daring.

Oh, so I see," she half gasped, tiien laughed

right, looking at him with shy eyes, but

tinously curving lips. The laugh robbed the

e of its last illusion of mysterj'.

ndrew advanced, raising his old felt hat

rrr«f"

'"Mill)/:

I inii

v\"'

JUDITH MOORE.

with an instinct of deference that made tli
commonplace courtesy charming.

" I hope I didn't scare you," he said ; " but
was working in a field near here yesterday uu
heard you singing. To-day I made up m
mind to find you. Do you mind ? "

" Do you know who I am ? " she asked.

" No," he answered ; " but I suspect you ai
the * Boarder up at old Mis' Morris's.' "

"Oh, so a rumour has gone abroad in ik
land ? Yes, I am the boarder ; one would thini;
a boarder was a kind of animal."

" Yes," assented Andrew. " Old Sam Synnnon
said he wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman

" I won't be called an 'It'; my name is Jiulit
Moore."

"How do you do, Miss Judith Moore. )l
name is Andrew Cutler."

He had come close to her by this time, ai
as he looked down upon her he began to feel i
irritating sense of shyness creep over him. f?l
was s\jch a fantastic little figure in his eye
And what a queer frock she had on ! Siirei
on any one else it would be horrid. It didi
look so bad on her, though ; and what a belt t
her to wear, this great burden of metal-
flexible band of silver with, it seemed to Im
dozens of silver ornaments hanging to it

JUDITH MOORE.

Lt made tli*

said; "but'
esterdav .111
[lade up 111

asked,
pect you ill

S. ^^

>road in tli
1 would thiiii

>am Sy 111111011
or a woman
ame is Judit

Moore. \

his time, ai
ran to feel ;i
er him. ISl
in his evt",
on ! Surel*
d. It didii
hat a belt f(
of metals
imed to hill
ing to it t 1

ins of varying lengths ! What nonsense !

seemed to weigh her down. (Andrew was
up in chatelaines.) Then her feet! But

e his masculine hoi"se sense and the instinct

protection which had awakened in him at

first startled look from her big. wide eyes,

e him overstep all polite bounds and render

self odious to Miss Moore.

Why in the world do you wear shoes like

se ? " he asked. " And such stockings ! and
ding on that damp moss ! You had better

right into the house and get on decently

vy shoes."

his was too much. Miss Judith Moore

cied her own feet, and fancied open-work
hcse, and high-heeled wisps of shoes. Most
11, she liked the combination. In fact, in a

mless little way, she rather liked people to

e a chance to appreciate these beauties, and

the very moment Andrew spoke, she had

d his downward glance and felt a righteous

e settle upon her. To be well shod ^s such

al support, and, lo, this heathen, this wretch,

abominable, conceited, brazen young farmer,

actually dared to suggest a change ; more

^n that, he had spoken of "stockings" —
sting !
with a dignity that reduced Andrew to

•

liiil

llilllli"!

iiliii!

JUDITH MOORE.

despair, even whilst it roused his ire (she ws
so slight to be sach a " defiant little cat" he tol
himself), she drew hei-self up, in a manner ton
the traditional Duchess credit, and left hit
saying :

" Since you don t approve of my feet I'll tail
them out of your way."

" You mean they'll take you," said Andre"
wrathfully conscious that she was, to use a ga
old figure of speech, "turning up her nose
him."

" You are extremely rude," she called back,

"And you are a bad-tempered little thing,
answered.

So he and his siren, calling names at ea
other, parted for the first tinic. .

Miss Moore went into the little ap[
orchard behind the Morris homestead, a:
watched a tiny chipmunk gathering loai
to line its nest — at least Judith supposed
was for that. At any rate, it picked t
the dry brown leaves from beneath a iiiiij
tree near the gate, sat up on its hind legs, ii;
pleated the leaf into its mouth deftly. It k
two or three at a time, and looked very coiiiic
with the brown leaves sticking out like fans
each side of its face. She laughed so long at
loudly at this, that Mrs. Morris came to the dt
to see if she had hysterics.

|S1

ire (she v;.
e cat" he toi
manner to i
and left hit

f feet I'll ta|

JUDITH MOORE.

said Andrer
, to use a gotl

ip her noseil

called back,
ittle thiny,'!|

lames at em

little app
)mestead, aij
hering leav
1 supposed

picked 0;
eath a iiiafj
hind legs, a:
ftly. It to
i very comici
it like fans I
ed so long ai
ne to the do:

t •' I met a young man in the woods, Mrs.
)rris," said Judith, going up to lier ; " a rude,
^g-legged young man, named C/utler. Who
le ?

For the land's sake !" said Mrs. Morris. " Did
meet Andrew Cutler ? I warrant he'd be
|k down if he heard you say that. He's
bught a good deal of by some people, being
[the school board and the council, for all he's
larried and young ; but he's too big feeling
suit me ! And he don't profess religion, and is
jver sniokin' and shootin*, and he's got a crank
f books — took that off his mother ; she was a
fers. They was U. E. Loyalist stock ; got
^ir farms for nothing, of course, and hung on
bhem. Andrew owns a fine place, and he's
of cranks about college farming. Well,
ig-legged ' — that's a good one ! He is long-
red, there's no mistake about that. All the
krses are tall. There's Hannah Myers as
^ps house for Andrew, and she's tall as my
man, and — for the land's sake, that milk's
ping over ! " and Mrs. Morris departed indoors,
sently, out flew two chickens, a collie dog,
a cat, wild-eyed and spitting, from which
IS Judith diagnosed that Mrs. Morris had
le " things " fly around when she got inside
miracle she was an adept at performing.

•Hill,

i II! !!

IIBII

JUDITH MOORE.

Andrew went home to dinner, and came bad
in the afternoon to harrow down the grain li
had sowed. Mr. Morris came out to talk t
him.

" Who is the girl you've got boarding wit
you ?" asked Andrew.

" Oh," said Mr. Morris, " I don't just riglitl
know, but she's a singing woman of some kind
in the opery, she said. She and a little blacli
a- vised chap came driving up the lane one da
last week, and before I just rightly could iiuil;
out what they were, he was driving oft* and si
was there for keeps. Next day there caine
\/hole waggon load of trunks. Going to sta
all summer, she says. She's greatly took ii
with the country. She wanted to tie ribboi
on the cows' horns, and is bound to learn t
make butter. She was going to churn the otlii
day, and worked the dash about a dozen turn
and then she scolded right sharp at the buttt
for not coming Then she got a spoon and tastt
the cream, and she up and says to Mother, * Whi ^
Mrs. Morris, you've given me sour cream
churn !' and she was real huffy. She wouldD^
believe that sweet butter came off sour creaii
and she just sat, and never took her eye off tlia
churn till Mother was done with it. She wai
bound she wasn't going to be fooled. She's m

JUDITH MOORE.

lid came bad
the grain h
it to talk t

K>ardiiig wit

b just riglitl
)i' some kimJ
I little blacli
lane one da
iy could iiiut i
ig off and sli I
there came
jroing to sta
atly took ii
o tie ribboi
to learn t
lurn the otlif'
dozen time*
at the buttt
)on and taste
d^other, • Wh)
3ur cream t
She wouldn
r sour creaii
r eye off tha
it. She wa
d. She's rea

^art some ways, though, only she don't eat a

lie, and Mother's dreadful afraid her religion

(kind of heathenish. She was looking out the

)r the other day, and she says, says she, ' It's

irfect idol !' Mother never let on, but soon

[she went away Mother came out and looked

mt, and there was nothing like an idol, except

Lybe them big queer-marked stones I got down

the lime springs. What did you call 'em ?"
I" Petrifactions," said Andrew.
*"Yes. Well, Mother always had 'em set up
linst the door steps kind of tasty, but Mother
I't the one to have no sich temptations around
I any one's way, if they be given to sich, so she
at rolled 'em along and dropped 'eni into the
Item."

[r. Morris was notoriously long-winded, and

letimes Andrew was not over-eager to en-
mter him, but this day Andrew was more
in civil.

f* What's she here for, anyhow ? " asked he.
f*Her health; she's all drug down. Mother
rs, and she's full of cranks. Yesterday she
mid weed in the garden, and she started out
[th as good a pair of gloves on as you ever
Jii. Well, she stayed and stayed, and Mother
went out to see if she wanted to come in,

luse Mi*s. Home was there (them Homes are

JUDITH MOORE.

iiliiiiiiiiiil

a bad lot !) and she wanted to visit a spell. Wel!^
she'd got up about two handfuls of chick-weed
and then sat down and gone sound asleep. Al^
wore out, Mother says."

After a bit Mr. Morris departed. He haJ
detailed with great gusto all the "news" told b|
Mrs. Home, or deduced by himself from her conj
versation ; but Andrew's interest flagged, so preJ
ently Mr. Morris went on his way, if not it
joicing, at least relieved, for it was a boon tj
him to get a good listener.

Andrew went home reflectively. His lasj
conscious thought that night must have been il
some way relative to Miss Judith Moore, her feel
and her temper, for he muttered to himself, hali|
sleeping, half waking : " Her eyes didn't looi
like the eyes of a bad-tempered girl;" then "The|
were so little I could have held both of thein i|
one hand ; " later still, " I was pretty bad to \\m
about the shoes, women are such dear littl|
fools." Then this judicially-minded young maiii
slept the sleep of the just.

CHAPTER III.

" If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows that thou wouldst forget ;
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills ; no teara
Dim the sweet looks that nature wears."

'he village of Ovid lay in a valley hollowed
of an otherwise level country into a shallow
in. It called those who dwelt to the north
|it, Mountain Hayseeds; and those to the
bh of it, Swamp Angels — compliments re-
led in kind, for the youths of the sections
flattered by Ovidian attention always
kred to the villagers as Ovid Idiots,
ror the most part the houses in Ovid clus-
\d closely together. Some few of them were
^tered half way up the sloping hill-sides,

these dwellings were all built facing the
ige proper, and besides being absurdly fore-
kiiened aiwaj^s wore a deprecating look as if

;ly conscious of their invidious positionn.

ie hills of Ovid were not very formidable,

/ ' )" l , 'ff

liiiii

! il J I i 1 1 1 1 1 h

JUDITH MOOUF.

and from a short distance off, say, from And^
Cutler's clearing, one could see over their civ
the gabies of the village.

There were but two long streets in the villa
denominated the Front Street and the Ha
Street.

Upon the Front Street stood the two churcM
facing each other, being, however, only in pliyjj
cal juxtaposition, for spiritually they were us i^
as the poles apart. The one was a Metlio.
Church, and bore high above its door the
scription, Eva Methodist Church, A.D. M
This legend mast once have been very glarii
seemingly jet black upon a white surface,!
some painter, well disposed to mankind e(
dently, had swept his brush laden with wli
paint over this inscription. The result was gn
ful to the eye, even if it did give rise to sol
uncertainty as to what the words actually wtj
Great truths often come home to one intuitive!
perhaps that is how every one knew what
writ above that door.

The Baptist Church was stone, and bore oil
a date, 1854, A.D., but it rejoiced in a tin-ct
spire that glimmered gayly in the sunliglitj
shone cold and chill beneath the wintry mo

Between these two churches and the menil^
thereof there was no animosity, but there wa

JUDITH MOORE.

from Au<li>
jr their crev

in the villa
nd the Ba|

! two chui'cl

only in pliy

ley were as

8 a Method

^ door the

h, A.D. IS^

a very glari

te surface. 11

mankind t

en with w

jsult was gra

e rise to soi

actually w

ne intuitivi

new whatv

and bore oil
ll in a tin-cl
[he sunlight]
wintry mo
I the mem^
mt there wa

)ling." A " feeling " is one of those ini;anpf-
elusive things, of which no acceptable
lition can be given; but every new-comer
kid grew into that " feeling " before he had
there a week. Perhaps some perception of
peculiar condition may be gathered by con-
ing the various improvemexits which took
in the two churches during one autumn in

ley were inaugurated by Hiram Green, who
mted a stone tie-post to the Methodist
ih. Hiram kept the village grocery store,
|had accepted six stone tie-posts in lieu of
lin goods supplied to the boarding-house at
jtone quarries. The boarding-house keeper
taken them in default of cash from his
'^man boarders. Hiram erected three of
)sts before his shop door, at such short dis-
ss from each other that it precluded the
up of more than two horses at a time, and
only to the end posts and facing' each
Having adorned the path before his
with two others, he, at the instigation of
rife, presented the sixth to the Methodist
5h. This post was adorned with an iron
fct the top and a somewhat frisky damsel
ie carving on the side,
ras a matter of grave consideration whether
4

[ ' I ' l,;, ' , ' ) !—

JUDITE MOORE.

'iMi,,,,,,

this carving should be turned to the street
towards the sidewalk, it being debatable
which position she would do the most harij
She was finally turned towards the stretj
upon the reasonable supposition that persoij
driving past would pass more swiftly than pel
sons walking; hence, their exposure to ei|
would be briefer. To further mitigate tlj
demoralizing effect of this bit of stonewoij
Solomon Ware took a chisel and carefully oblij
erated the outlines of the figure, missing oii|
one foot, which, in terpsichorean fashion, point
skyward in a meaningless, disjointed way froj
a chaos of chisel marks.

The week following, the Baptists put up ti
wooden tie-posts, each surmounted by an iiv|
horse's head.

Two weeks later a block of wooden stel
appeared beside the stone tie-post, to facilit
those driving to church in alighting from,;
mounting to, their conveyances This was
Wednesday. By the Sunday following, its dup
Gate stood between the wooden tie-posts, \vi|
the additional glory of drab paint.

A month later a new fence encircled
Methodist temple, ar 1 the Baptisi/ sanctuaj
was re-shingled.

As the autumn advanced the Methdl

JUDITH MOORE.

lurch had sheds for its horses erected in the

^r of the church. Ere the first snow flew, the

)tist Church was similarly adorned, and its

rejoiced in elaborate scroll work brackets

[the dividing posts.

In November the Baptists held a series of
pval meetings, and the Methodists commenced
reekly service of song. At New Year's the
Jthodists raised their pastor's salary fifty dol-
a year. In February the Baptists held a
norial service, and had four ministers preach
m one Sunday. It is true, as Hester Green
Ik occasion to remark, that two of them were
[y students, but the Baptist Church had vindi-
jd the priority of its establishment, and
id on its laurels, — besides the spring work
coming on.

^he speech of the vidians was not in any
se a dialect peculiar to themselves. There
of course, certam words and phrases
fch were regular stand-bys, and from which
^vidian speech was free. For example, when
^vidian was out of conversational matter, he
it let the talk die away, or the argument
to pieces whilst waiting for the tardy ideas
us friends to evolve themselves. Far from it.
[simply said, in a tone suitable to the occasion,
ill, it beats all ! " Closer scrutiny will reveal

ii |i

Ilii

lliil

JUDITH MOORE.

the resources of this phrase. Did an Ovidi^
attend a funeral ? Then this expression formei
the chief staple of his conversation, and i|
enunciation ran the gamut of emotion, frorl
grief to amazement. Did an O vidian hear|
more than usually spicy piece of gossip ? Th^
he ejaculated the same phrase in a tone of scatl
dalized enjoyment. Was a subject upon whi|
he could not, or would not, give a direct opini(|
under discussion ? Then this non-commiti
formula answered ''^mirably, entailing no aft^
responsibility upon the speaker, and yet giviJ
him a pleasant sense of conversational durl
properly performed.

There were a few idioms, also, dear to ^
Ovidian mind. To be " ambitious " meant simp|
to be energetic ; to be " big feeling," " stuck uft
or "toney," meant to be proud (in the sense
despising one's neighbours); to " conjure," win
the accent strongly upon the first syllal
meant to think over a ti^m^.

Apart, however, from ii i' :on or two of the
lingual idiosyncrasies, the Ovidian speech w;
the ordinary English of Canadian rural districi ,
delivered in a peculiar drawling, nasal stj
with a clinging to the last syllable of a wo
and the last word of a sentence. The only i i
terest Ovidians had, apart from Ovid and

JUDITH MOORE.

an Ovidia
jssion fornix
bion, and is
motion, fro
idian hearj
Tossip? Ty
tone of scai|
t upon whit
direct opinio
lon-committi
iling no aft^
nd yet givii|
sational M

), dear to ti|
meant simp|
' " stuck Ml
the sensed
conjure," m
irst

r two of theij
n speech vi;
:ural district
nasal stylj
)le of a woii
The only
Ovid and

rellers therein, was in watching the progress

[the world, as shown by the trend of Cana-

politics ; and as Ovid they had always

bh them, and the world only when the weekly

jrs came in, it was natural they should know

[id best — and they did. Every one's pet hobby,

jry one's worst weakness, every one's ambition,

3ry one's circumstances, everyone's antipathies,

5ry one's preferences, every one's record and

lily record — all this was known and well

)wn, aye, even to the third generation back.

Jut of all vidians none knew so much of

fellows* history as did old Sam Symmons.

one attribute that assured Sam a welcome

[erever he went, was his knowledge of the

leration passed away, the fathers of the pres-

Ovidians ; not that his stories were flatter-

(far from it), but they were never ill-natured,

least upon Sam's part. It was true they were

[strative of the weak points of their heroes

ler than their virtues, but then Sam did not

:e history ; he only repeated it, and he was

impartial. So where a dozen Ovidians

\e gathered together, there Sam would be in

[midst.

fhere was a perilous stimulus about their
lipation. He was sure to evolve some per-
il reminiscence from the chaotic mass of his

JUDITH MOORE.

old memories, and each of the expectant aud;|
ors felt that his forebears might be the subject^
it. When Sam did choose a victim, and plung,
into some old tale about his grandfather
father, then all the others drew in their brea
with swift enjoyment of the various points
the story. There was something Druidical d
bard-like in this oral handing down of histor|
and it differed from more pretentious history |
one respect. Sam's stories might be oft-|
peated, but he never altered a syllable, iiev
deepened the shading to suit some different ell
ment in his audience, never swerved from k
first intent of the recital, never slurred the tru|
to let any one off lightly. Perliaps the res
Sam's stories preserved their identity so \v|
was because they were taci^^.y copyrighte|
no one ever tried to tell them but himself,
indeed they would not have sounded the sm
from other lips, for Sam spoke of the past|
one having authority.

The loss of his old mare was quite a serio|
one to Sam, and he went about a shade mo:
irresolute than he was before. Poor old Sat
He had had so many blows, big and little, fiv
fate, that it is not to be wondered at if he (i
become a little haphazard in his methods
work and business.

JUDITH MOORE.

pectant audi
5 the subject^
L, and plung
randfather
1 their breai
LOUS points
Druidical ai
vn of histori
ous history
ht be oft-^
yllable, nevl
e different el|
•ved from t|
irred the trul
ips the res
ntity so \^

himself, ai|
ided the m
)f the past^

juite a seriol
a shade nio|
bor old Sal
id little, frft|
d at if he d :
methods '^

It is hardly worth while making plans when
le evil chance seems to thwart them every
le ; even if one works till his stiff old limbs
trembling with fatigue, it doesn't seem to
Ike much headway against adverse circum-
Inces ; and when fate buffets down even the
)ngest guard, how can one poor old man fend
its blows ? But if his brave old heart was
iken a little within him, Sam still turned a
)lute face to the foe. The week after the
re's death, and before he had got used to the
[nd horae he had bought to replace her, he
md his way to Hiram Green's store,
'he talk turned on drinking.
I" Yes," said Sam, "there's many a way of
inking" — in a reminiscent tone — "many a way !
|hen I was young, there were three brothers
ith their three wives, doing settlement duty on
[grant of land given one of the officsrs, in
ice County. Well, they were fine big fellows,
[d their wives were big, strapping, healthy
)men. Strong, too, they were, and had good
Igment. Why, one of them went one morning
the wood-pile to get some wood, and when
came back there was a wolf, lean and hungry
)r it had been a bitter winter), standing over
|e cradle where her baby lay. Now, what did
do ? Run away and yowl ? Not she. Hit

JUDITH MOORE.

Hi!!

lijiMIt!! illji

iliiili

it a clip with a billet of wood, and killed
where it stood. Well, the lads used to drive
forty miles with an ox team for provisions, an
each would bring his keg of rye back with hiiij
but the women always drank more than thej
share, and it got to be that there was mostly
meals ready when the lads got back from fellii
the timber. So the lads hit on the plan of tyiii"
the kegs to the roof, where the women could m
get at them, and they went away well please
with themselves. But they were finely take!
down when they got back, for the women slicj
holes in the kegs, and caught the whiskey in|
washtub. Yes, yes, there's many a way
drinking. There was your wife's grand-uncll
now " — suddenly becoming personal in his Tneiii|
ory, and addressing Hiram — " 'twas when he m
running for reeve the first time, and he caiiil
into Fossil's tavern, and not seeing James I w I
son, the younger, and me, where we sat on tlij
settle by the door, he went up to the bar to gtl
a drink. He called for whiskey. He had lil
drink and laid down the five cents to pay for ii J
Now, 'twas his way to fill his glass very fill:
and Fossil, being a close man, was very groutji
at that. So, out of the five cents, he pushe|
back a penny. 'Here,' says he, 'is youi
change, Mr. Mowbray. I don't charge as muc^

JUDITH MOORE.

md killed
i to drive (
ovisions, aii
jk with hii;
'e than tin.
18 mostly t
from fellin
plan of tyiii
len could ni
well please
finely take;
I women she
whiskey iii;
Y a way
grand-uncll

in his nieiil
when he wa
ind he cam

James I ff|

3 sat on tli|

he bar to gt

He had lii
to pay forii
ss very ful

very grout;
3, he pushe^
e, * is you
,rge as mucb

iolesale as I do for single drinks.' Your

Fe's grand-uncle did not like that. *Twas just

Fore the polling day when he got overtaken in

[uor one night at old Squire Fraser's. 'Twas

)right moonlight night, and some of the lads

iiig home late, also, heard a noise at the village

np, which, coming at, they saw was your

Fe's grand-uncle, pulling at tlie pump-handle,

saying, with many oaths, 'Come home.

jk ; come home. There will be a sore broil

thee if Mrs. Mowbray see thee. Come home,

\ ; come home.' To which persuasion he put

ly threats and moral advisements to Jack to

je from liquor. Jack was his nephew, a quiet

ith, being bred to the pulpit. Well, the boys

hold of both these tales, and when the vot-

came on, they would seize at anything, a

5, a post, or the fence, when your wife's grand-

sle came by, and, straining at it manfully,

lid beseech Jack to come home, using many

ral persuasions and many oaths also, as he

done to the pump, and feigning to weep sore

^r the stubbornness of Jack's heart, Then

would say, 'Come home, Jack, and I'll buy

a di'ink wholesale at good, generous Master

ill's.' Yes, yes" — Sam's voice began to

iken — "yes, there's many a way of drinking."

?here was a pause. No one ever commented

JUDITH MOORE.

I! iLaiil

I i

upon Sam's stories ; there was no need,
deprecate them would be to stir up, who knJ
what, of oblique reflection upon one's ancestoij
For any of those not immediately interested!
interfere would be to invite Sam's attention!
their cases.

" Did you hear that the school-teacher leavj
next week ? " asked Hiram.

" No. Why ? " asked Jack Mackinnon, glad|
a chance of hearing his own voice.

" Because he says he can't afford to keep
self htre and his wife in Toronto on tlin
hundred a year."

" Then he'd better get," said old Mrs. Slick,
she took the packet of cream of tartar Hiii
was weighing. " He'd better get." She hobbll
out, giving malevolent sniffs at the thought]
the teacher's extravagant ideas.

"Yes, he's going," continued Hiram. "Bl
going, and there's a school meeting to-morro^

Andrew Cutler, Hiram Green and Ben Braddj
were school trustees, and it had occurred
each of them that Sam Symmons* Suse woi|
be sure to apply for the position. She heli|
county certificate permitting her to teach
three years.

" I wonder," Andrew said that morning to I
aunt, Miss Hannah Myers, " I wonder if Sij
will know enough to apply for the place."

JUDITH MOORE.

Not she! too empty-headed," said Miss Myers,

jkly. " I'll go down this afternoon and tell

what 1 think of her, and make her apply."

Do," said Andrew, heartily.

mdrew liked old Sam, and he was a special
^ourite of the old man's. Many a long story of
jtion fights and tricks, secrets Sam kept even
\, of how votes had been gained and lost,

ly tales of drinking bouts and more gallant
ventures, did old Sam retell for Andrew's
lefit.

indrew was not at all worried by Miss Myers*

jqueness of speech. He knew how kind she
to everybody in her own vinegary way.

I, angular, hatchet-faced and sharp- tongued,

mah Myers had a heart full of love for every
\ng creature that needed help, on % * the beg-
at her door had first abuse and then a
lling.'

Lud how well the tramps knew the way up
lat quaint old kitchen door, with the uneven

-stones set in a little court-yard round it!

ible always covered with glistening tin milk-
^s stood outside, and many a good meal had

gentlemen of the road had off that table;
^ed vigorously by Miss Myers whilst they
the tirade only interrupted by sudden
leys she made to find perhaps a pair of

''^' - ^

^}h''-

JUDITH MOORE.

:> I

^liiii

mil

socks, a shirt, or something else she saw tluj
needed ; now and then a surly tramp woull
answer her back, and she would laugh at hia
in her grim way and say, " Hear the inan|
Why, don't you see, I like to scold
much as you like to eat; so if you enjol
the one, why mayn't I the other ? " Upo
one memorable occasion an ungrateful tramjl
(and however much he may be idealized nowa
days, there are instances of the ingratitude
tramps) attempted to impose upon her, thinkin]
her alone. He had, unfortunately for hiii
reckoned without his host. Andrew suddenlj
appeared upon the scene, seized his trampshil
by the most convenient portion of his attire, aiij
dropped him with quiet, but forcible, precisioj
into a somewhat unappetizing duck pond nef^
by, giving him at the same time a picturesquJ
but somewhat profane, bit of advice. The felloj
took himself off, and Andrew turned- his atten
tion to poor Miss Hannah, who was quiverir
and trembling and crying as the meekest aD
mildest woman might do. Miss Myers' tonsil
was a deception, and, as a matter of fact, that as
her vinegary aspect were the only defences sh
had against imposition, for whilst always vaunij
ing her hard-heartedness, she was, in reality, th
most gullible of women.

'il^lli

JUDITH MOORE.

She never could resist a pedlar ; she always

)u<(ht their trashy wares. And once, she

)ver forgot it, she burdened herself with a lot

cheap brassy hairpins and extraordinary glass

jast pins. That purchase fairly haunted her.

it rid of it she couldn't. Did she try to bum

[? Some one came and caught her. Did she

tend to throw it away ? She did not dare,

le knew some one would find it. She did

mage finally to find a watery hiding-place f jr

|in the horse pond. Even then its meretricious

irkle assailed her from the mud when the

id went dry. She related this to Judith

)re, and told her with all soberness that she

)uld always pity a murderer trying to get rid

the corpse.

|As Mrs. Morris had told Judith, Miss Myers

IS of U. E. Loyalist stock. She might have

led that the Cutlers were also. Both families

been given grants of land in Canada. The

)perty in the Myers family had been divided

sub-divided amongst a big family connec-

Miss Myers had a little fifty -acre farm as

share of it ; it lay some fifteen miles from

Lndrew's farm at Ovid had descended to him
)ugh his father and grandfather, old Captain
bier, the stern old fighter whose sword, with

— i

£4

JUDITH MOORE.

II ii

iHilill

its woven crimson sash, hung in the hall
Andrew's house, with some quaint old pistoj
and a clumsy musket, relics from Canadia
battle fields. Besides the property in OviJ
Andrew owned another fine farm and a wid
stretch of woodland in Muskoka. These proi)et|
ties accrued to him through the death of some
hiL father's relatives. So Andrew was very w(
off", in a modest way. The Muskoka property l)oij
much fine timber, and an enthusiastic "prJ
spector " assailed Andrew, month in and moiitj
out, with tales of the "indications" of minerals 1
had found beneath the ferns and mosses of lii|
Muskoka woods. But Andrew was content wifi
them as they ^re, with the trees growiiij
solemnly upwi.. ^, aspiring to the blue ; tli
wandering streams, a network of silver tracenj
starred here and there by broad discs where on
widened to a little placid lake or where two i
more streams, meeting, gushed together,
sound of their soft confluence and the soughir
of the wind, that without moving the leave
seemed ever to sigh between the tree trunl
blent into a soft sensation, half sound, half stij
something perceived nowhere but in the woe
seeming indeed as if there we were very close I
Nature's sweet and beautiful breast, hearing!
this mysterious pulsation the beating of U
kindly heart.

JUDITH MOORE.

[Andrew had grown to be in very close touch
Ith Nature during many solitary weeks spent
[hunting ; in long tramps through the Muskoka
)d8, shooting the fawn-coloured deers, and the
Id fowl that nested in the tiny lakes ; and in
ly a long night when he lay perdu watching
lynx, forgetting his quest in the marvel of
stars, or in wakeful watches, seeing the
linous camp-fire die down to embers and hear-
the shrill laughing of the loon, the weird
kil of the lynx, the cry of the great owl or the
|1 of the coon Andrew was past-master of all
)dland lore. He had hunted Muskoka through
through, ^^any a wild duck's breast and
i'h mask, and many a pair of antlens proved
prowess.

Jesides, he had spent many a winter in
thern Quebec, snow-shoeing over its silent
lite wastes upon the traces of moose; the
3nse cold parching his throat, his half-breed
Ide padding* along at his side; sometimes
jing royally upon juicy steaks and birds,
)iled as only hunters can broil — not scorched,
savoured with fire ; sometimes upon a long
il with a bit of frozen bacon in one pocket

£■

»..

I" Padding " is a term applied by hunters to the silent
footed gait of Indian guides.

1 !i

""'-"llj

lli;:i''!(

'If

■ '■• lliliilili
iiiii!i;ln

illill!

! i

JUDITH MOORE.

and a lump of frozen bread in the other, gna
ing a morsel off each with care, so that he migl
not break off his moustache which was frozi
in a solid mass with the moisture of his breati

Andrew often heard people say that oi
did not feel the intense cold in these nori
em regions; he always longed to have thej
there and let them try it. He had felt preti
cold up there, only he never remembered t
time when he couldn't hold his gun wii
naked hands. That, though, as every oi
knows, is the mark of a mighty Nimrod.
soon as his half-breed guide discovered this,
grunted out a guttural prophecy that the sh
would be good.

Strange mixtures these guides were; tl
combination of French suavity and redsk
cunning being a continual wonder to A.ndrp
accustomed as he was to less complex types.

This man who slept sometimes rolled close
the same blankets with him for v^^armth, wh
woodcraft made his less intuitive knowledi
^eem absolute ignorance, whose judgment
matters of the chase was almost flawl
whose strength and agility would not ha'
shamed a Greek — this man cooked his ine
washed the dishes, waited upon him deferentiallj
and was not to be persuaded to eat at the sai

time. In the chase, a hero ; in the

camp,

slav:

JUDITH MOORE.

[What tramps those were through the silent
litudes of these untrodden woods ! What
)inents had been his, when, leaving his guide
sparing the camp for the night, Andrew had
^ned some high ridge, and pausing, looked far
)ss the peaks of graduated hills, clad in
nbre cedars weighted down with snow, white,
mt, yet instinct with that mystery which
3ses upon us pleading for elucidation, and
rer so strongly as when we are alone with
unblotted world before us, away from the
IS of man's desecration. There is something
pitiful in that mute appeal of nature to be
lerstood — like some sweet woman, smitten
a spell of suffering silence, till such time as
magic word shall release her. A word she
)ws, yet cannot, of her own power, speak,
lat magical mysteries shall not be re^^ealed
m speech is restored to her I And how her
plead and accuse at once! Of a verity,
ring ears we hear not ; truly, having eyes to
yet are we blind !

i^or there is some great open secret surely in
universe, that being deciphered will set all
jangling dreams in chime. It is about us,
md us, above us ; the tiniest leaf tells it, the
of heaven proclaim it, the water manifests
id the earth declares it, and yet we do not

t ft-

-«:

JUDITH MOORE.

see it. When we do, it will be some simple viti
principle that we have breathed with the breail
of our lips, and handled with the familiar fingej
of the flesh. We will be so unable to conceij
of the world moving on in ignorance of it, tlu
all the wisdom of the ages past will seem butj
the howling of wolves in waste places, or at be
as the babbling of children that play with dj
sand, now letting it slip through their fingej
leaving them with empty hands, now getting f
in their eyes to torture them, or treading oii|
with vague discomfort and unease.

We have all seen these childish puzzles wij
hidden faces concealed in the traceries. Hi
hard it is to find these faces, although we knd
they are there ! And yet, when found, it
impossible to see anything else in the pictiij
They obtrude themselves upon us, and what y\
formerly the picture becomes now only
background for what at first it completely cd
cealed. So everything will but subserve
show us how palpable the great Central Tn
has always been if we could but find it, and so\
one will. So let us go on bravely, each resoj
ing '* To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yielj
There is indeed within us some spark of
Divine Fire. Let it but once flame fairly
and we shall be gods indeed, moving in
glory of our own transfiguration.

JUDITH MOORE.

'here is no destiny too great for man.

'he northern stars are very clear and cold,
northern skies are very blue and chill, the
Iwy plains are places meant for thought, and
the silence of those scenes the soul awakes.
Lndrew bore away with him some reflex of
pr austerity and intensity, which tempered his
id as the steel is strengthened.
[is mother's story had been a sad one. She
Miss Myers' elder sister — Isabella Myers;
like Miss Myers yet very unlike; with
those resemblances which pronounce two near
[in, yet all those variations of the type which
ititute the difference between beauty and
ry-day flesh and blood.

ibella had been engaged to a minister's son
ie<l Harkness. He was a young man who
itied in every respect the many pleasing pro-
about ministers' sons ; yet, in spite of all,
a leal heart, a handsome form and face, a
\er touch, and a personal magnetism tluit
)led him to wring an unwilling consent out
[tern old Abraham Myers to his betrothal
his daughter Isabella.

lese two young folk worshipped each other,

[the v^edding day was set. Isabella was to

a white taffeta frock and white thread

But troublous times had come to Canada.

ill

I H

iHil

JUDITH MOORE.

Young Harkness went to the war. Isabella an
lie had a sad, sad parting, for the imaginatiil
girl was fey of her fate, and clung to him till 1
heart melted within him. And as he rode awal
with a long tress of her dark hair on his brea
it was not the sunshine alone that made
eyes so bright and his vision so uncertain.

It was but a puny affray that in the histoj
of the world's wars, but it does not take
battles to make men brave and women's heaij
ache. The dark braid had hardly warmed
its place before it was soaked with the blood |
the heart on which it lay. The real Isabel
Myers died then, too. But a pale apathej
woman in her shape and semblance still wd
wearily on her way.

Ten years later they married her to Andr
Cutler, a man considerably older than hers
and as her father said, "of the old true bl|
stock." She gave him a boy and died, well
of the world. Miss Hannah Myers came to kd
house for her brother-in-law. She brought |
the baby and took charge of the little hidec
ered chest which was full of the books (" poeil
books and such," Miss Myers called them) ti
young Harkness had given Isabella long befJ
Andrew Cutler lived on after his wife's deatlil
a good old age, being killed at last by falli

JUDITH MOORE.

rough the trap-door in his hay-loft. Then

idrew was head of his house.
|As Andrew grew up, he developed such a
mge resemblance to one long dead, that
letimes, when a movement, gesture, or ex-

jssion of his brought it more clearly to Miss

rers* eyes, she felt an eerie thrill creep over
She described the sensation as' "cold

ills." For it was not a resemblance to his
ler, or his grandfather, or even to his mother

though he resembled her, too), but he imaged
bh the brave, handsome, devil-may-care lover
his mother's girlhood, he who had died ten

irs before Andrew's birth. Surely the image

[that long-lost lover had been deeply graven

(that broken heart.

The Cutler house on the hill," as the vil-
}rs described it, was quite a pretentious one

Jts way. Old Captain Cutler, he of the sword
sash, had not been penniless, by any means,

|en he left the United States, although he

behind him much valuable property. So

in the Canadian Government made him a

jlerous grant, he promptly spent his money in

Iding a house. Now, the forebears of this

^tain Cutler had come from England, and

ly a tale his grandfather had told him of the

farm homestead there, of the garden with

JUDITH MOORE.

brick-paven walks, and brick-built walls Ufnj
which grew the espaliered fruit, of the old su
dial beside the larch tree, and the oaken beai^
that traversed the plaster of the ceilings, of tlj
flagged kitchen, and the big fire-places,
here on the hill-top overlooking the vall^
where later Ovid was to be built. Captain Cutll
erected his house, fx big stone one with oak!
floors, stairways and doors, with heavy raft(|
of the same sturdy growth, a wide-flagg
kitchen, and a hall sheathed in wood half v;\
to the roof, with huge open fire-places. He
a brick wall about his gardens, and over|
trained the sprawling branches of cum
bushes — red ones, and white and black. Latl
on, hop vines had been planted here and th^
along the wall ; still later, a row of grape vi»
had superseded them, and clad the old brie]
with fresh festoons of leaves. This made, vvli
the grapes were ripe, a beautiful Bacchaii
arabesque of purple fruit and brov/n st«|
twisted tendril and green leaf.

He laid down narrow brick walks, too, audi
them planted horse-chestnut trees. He put]
sun-dial up, a grey stone column with a rou
top, whereon was rudely carven the symbols i
the hours and a lob-sided hour-glass; for la
of a larch tree he filched a linden from
hill-side.

I! ill

JUDITH MOORE.

The garden took in the level plateau on top
the hill, and some of the slope upon the side

krthest from Ovid. The hill-side next the vil-
re was laden with lindens, which in spring

[ere covered in blossom. Old Captain Cutler

^nt to England for English ox-heart cherry
;es, and for boxwood, and for hawthorns to
mt hedges.
The cherry trees flourished and perpetuated

lemselves in generations of younger trees, the
)x grew and multiplied, but the hawthorn

jdges were failures. All that remained of

lem was a few scattered hawthorns that had
\g outgrown the status of the hedge row, and

jcome old gnarled trees.

Miss Myers was very proud of her flower
irden, which was a mass of circular, oval and
imond-shaped flower beds, bordered by box,
iced off by narrow bricked walks. There

[ere honeysuckles growing over old-fashioned

[ooden trellises ; and roses, crown imperials and
ion lilies; huge clumps of paeonies, pink,

ihite and the common crimson ; clove pinky
iid thyme; lilies of the valley and violets,
Ith bushes of rosemary and patches of balm ;
)tted tiger lilies, and a fragrant white lily
lied the day lily ; little shrubs of the pink
nvering almond, " snow on the mountain,"

JUDlttt MOORE.

"mist on the hill" and acacia shrubs. Ad
beside these, many more old-fashioned perennij|
plants, like queen of the meadow and thrift ; an
eveiy summer Andrew brought her heliotro{
and scented geraniums, and mignonette froij
town.

The barns were away down at the foot of tlj
hill. Andrew's men usually all lived in tJ
village, unless he happened to have hired straij
gers for the stress of harvest or haying, ori
winter time when they were needed about tl|
house.

Miss Myers, as the village phrased it, " kej
help regular," and often had up old Mrs. Gre
from the village, for there was a deal of workj
be done in that house.

For the rest, Andrew was a practical farmej
it had not occurred to him that he did not ne
to work so hard, and the active life did him
harm. He was up at daylight in summer, aij
by candle-light in winter.

He ploughed, sowed, reaped and threshed
grain. And when at the threshings he sat at tlj
head of the long table, lined on each side witj
men " feeding like horses, when you hear the|
feed," he looked like some young chief amoii
his serfs, albeit he wore blue jeans and flannj
shirts as they did.

.il: :::1

iiiii; iin iiiiiiiii!!!!

JUDITH MOOUt:.

He did not know himself to be so different
)m his neighbours as he was, only he never
jmed to contemplate marrying one of their

[omen, and he pitied them. For they did not
jognize the pathos of their own narrow lives,
ley did not see their sun'oundings as he did —

|ie beauties of the skies above, and of the earth

Sneath, and the marvel and mystery of the

later.
Andrew could not have said this was what
ide him pity them, for he was one of the
irticulate ones, whose speech is shackled ; one
those, too, who know their own limitations in

[is way, and feel their fetters. At times they
jmed to weigh his spirit down.

;

J i

I t

t I li!i

llinl!!lii!i
ill!

CHAPTER IV.

Andrew was cu*^er to see Miss Moore a^aiuJ
although he felt a masculine irritation agaiiJ
her for taking umbrage at well-meant ad
thoroughly sensible advice. Perhaps at ta
bottom of this there lay a sotip^on of annoj
ance with himself, that he had spoken
abruptly to her upon the subject, mingled wii
a compassionate remembrance of what 1
Morris had told him of her delicacy. He \s\
very glad to find an excuse to go up to iJ
woods, where they stretched past the Mon]
house ; and a pretence that he was looking f|
suitable trees to cut down for foundations
his hay-stacks, justified him in his own eyes fj
strolling among his trees in very leisurely, Ij
apparently disinterested fashion. He must, hoj
ever, have been paying some attention to
house on his right, for when Mrs. Morris ran
from the old orchard behind the house to ti
barns, calling, " Father, Father, where are yotj
Come here, quick, do, hey Father ! " Andw
promptly responded, leaping o^^er the fen
and speedily reaching her side.

JUDITH MOORE.

" What's wrong ? " he anked.

" Land of love ! But I'm gla ' you've come, if

le did call you long-legged ; all the better for

[er now if you be. I hope she ain't fell by this

lino. Wonder where Father is. I never seen

ich a man ; always gone when he's wanted. I

jclare it beats me where he gets to. It's enough

drive — "

What is it, Mrs. Morris T' demanded Andrew,
Is heart misgiving him. " Can't I help ? "

" 'Deed you can ! And to think of her calling
)u long-legged, and the very next day having

depend on you for her life, may be, or to save
le of her own legs being broke — "

Mrs. Morris got no further. A little faint cry
^ruck Andrew's ears, coming from the direction

the orchard.

"For heaven's sake, come on, and show me
[hat's wrong," he cried. "Don't stand there
llavering."

" Why, sakes alive ! Don't you know ? Miss
[oore got up in a tree and — "

But by this time they were in the orchard. A

mcc explained the situation to Andrew.

High up on an apple-tree branch stood Miss
[core, clinjiinff with both arms round a limb

)ve her, her face white as death, her eyes

lated with fear. A ladder's head was within

JUDITH MOORE.

'iiiiiii.'iiiy

III! '

Pll ll'tii
Dill I!

six inches of her feet. Andrew was up it in
instant. He knew the trouble. Only last yeaj
a hired man of his had ascended a tree to picll
fruit. He was seized with this ague of dizzj
fear, and flinging himself against a stout liiiil|
had held on like grim death. It took two mej
to get him down ; his terror made him clasp tb
tree convulsively. It was days before he \v^
well again.

Miss Moore had evidently not seen him, nd
heard his coming. As he slipped his arms aboii|
her, she gave a great start, and turned to look i
him with eyes which seemed to expect son
tangible shape of horror, evolved out of U
illogical and intangible fear.

When she saw who it was, her eyes filled an
her lips trembled.

" Oh, take me down. Do take me down."

" Yes, indeed, I will," said Andrew, with quit]
assurance. " Let go of the branch."

She shuddered. The spell of the vertigo d
yet upon her. Her arms tightened upon tlj
bough.

** Do take me down," she pleaded childishlj
« I'm frightened."

"My dear, you must loose your hold,"
Andrew, steadily.

Then, with one arm about her, he reached

I !l

JUDITH MOORE.

id one by one undid the clinging fingers, gather-

tlieni into his palm as he did so. With a force

lat seemed cruel, he pulled down the slender

[rist and placed her hand upon his shoulder.

ler face expressed the agony of <lizziness. With

find instinct she put her other arm about his

jk and clasped it close. He felt her form

lax, and braced himself in time to sustain her

id weight as she fainted.

The descent of the ladder was easy enough.

idrew had carried many a bag of wheat up

id down his steep granary staii*s. The prin-

)le of balancing an inert woman is much the

lie. He carried her into the house and laid

down upon the broad home- made couch,

[vered with dark brown calico, that stood in

|e kitchen. Mrs. Morris had talked volubly

ing these proceedings, but only after he laid

^dith down, did Andrew begin to hear what

was saying.
[" She does look gashly ! " said Mrs. Morris,
'^hatever would I do if she was to be took !
id this minute she looks lit for laying out."
I" Goodness alive," said Andrew. " Can't you
anything to bring her to ? Bathe her face, or
lething ? "

Irs. Morris flew for water and brought it,
^mbling. " I say, Andrew, can't you do it ?

! i

JUDITH MOORE.

• i»ii 11 llili'iii.niMHl

;l s:-!

'¥ ' : 1 ^'liiiiiil

I mi

I'm so shook — I never could bear to touclil
corpses, and — "

Andrew gave her a venomous look, dipped hisl
handkerchief in the water, and be^an clumsily
to bathe the girl's brow. Her senses were alreadji
reasserting themselves. She put up her handsl
to her face ; they fluttered nervously. Andrew
caught one of them and held it be'. »veen his ovt|
brown ones, noting that her wrists were red
almost bruised, creased in rough outline of tbj
apple-tree's bark.

" Will you give me some water ? " she askedl

Mrs. Morris brought a blue and white cu|)[
Andrew, kneeling on the braided mat before tliJ
couch, slipped his arm under Judith and put tlit|
cup to her lips. She took a moutliful, and fel|
into a shivering fit of cold.

Mrs. Morris rose to this emergency''. Af^wi
was an old familiar friend ; " shakes " had m!
terrors for her. In a moment she had found i
thick coverlet and placed it over Judith.

*' You stay by her," she said to Andiewj
" and I'll make her a draught of hot elderbeir]]
syrup in two shakes."

Then she was off to the lean-to kitchen, aii^
they heard her rattling among her kettlesi
Andrew still knelt upon the mat holding Judith |
hand with praiseworthy absent-mindedness.

iih :::lii

,1 !

JUDITH MOOllE.

to toudj

lipped his]
cluinsihl
re alreadvi
ner handsl
Andre^tj
n bis oAMij
were retij
line oftlw

3he askcdl
irhite cup]
before thi
ad put tilt)
il, and fell

cy. AM
bad nil
bd found i
tb.

Andrew!
elderberrj

itcben, an^
er kettles^
ig Judith 1
;dness.

" Are you better now ? " he asked.

"Yes," she said, her chin quivering as she
ried to keep her teeth from cliattering. " It
f&s so good of you to take ire down. So awfully

)d. I'm very stupid, but I couldn't help U,.'* ^

*' Of course you couldn't. I had a man who
jhaved much worse than you di<l in the same
[tuation. Ever so much. Indeed, you beha\ ed
jry well."

There was silence ; then Judith began : " Mr.

itler, I — er — called you a name to Mrs. Morris
le other day."

" Did you ? What did you call me ?"

" Will you forgive me ? "
I" Tell me what you called me first."

"Oh!"

I" Forgiveness is worth that, isn't it ? "
[*'0h, yes. I called you — long-legged, and—

khink, I said you were rude."

[Andrew suppressed an inclination to laugh,

ting minded not to belittle the value of his

solution.
Well," he said, '' I'll forgive the first part of
[because you see it's so awfully true, and as for
second, well — I think you meant ' sensible ' ;
l^'how, I forgive you for it all."

yiiss Moore experienced a mental sensaticni
|e would hav'5 cuIIcmI " curling up.'" A pretty

■a&:

JUDITH MOORE.

"iiiiii)

cool specimen, this young farmer ! She ha
thought he would have fallen into falterin
excuses. She was really ill, though faint — colii|

Mrs. Morris came in with the steaming cup <
black syrup. Judith had forgotten till thai
moment that Andrew held her hand ; of cour
Andrew had been unconscious of it all aloi
But as Mrs. Morris appeared in the door a swifl
intuition of the state of affairs came to Judii
She gave a little gesture of withdrawal, anj
Andrew released her fingers slowly, rising witi
praiseworthy calmness to get himself a chair.

While Judith tried to drink the hot syrujj
Mrs. Morris explained that Miss Moore had nevJ
seen a bird's nest with eggs in it, and there beii^
an oriole's nest in the apple-tree, " Father " ha
put up the ladder for her to see it, and — Andrej
knew the rest.

" Tree fright is a lot worse than stage fright]
said Miss Moore"; oracularly, but this was a d
saying to both her listeners. Mrs. Morris talkt|
and talked. Miss Moore had long sin» i
back on the big brown pillow; her face
flushed, her eyes sleepy. Andrew would l.
listened to Mrs. Morris forever, provided he coi
have watched Miss Moore at the same in
But at length Mrs. Morris rose and mov^
towards her summer kitchen, intimating th

JUDITH MOORE.

3r chores needed tending to, so Andrew per-
^rce had to take his leave.
" Good-bye, just now," he said. " May I come
;k and take you to see some birds' nests nearer
[e ground ? "

Oh, do," she said. " And I haven't thanked
\n half enough for helping me to-day."
r Indeed yru have. Good-bye, just now."
[" Good-bye," she said softly,
[e was just at the door, when a soft but
irrogative " Ahem " from the couch attracted
attention. He turned. Miss Judith Moore
not look at him, but with cautious precision
drew the dark blue coverlet up a tiny bit.
eyes became riveted upon the point of a
ize slipper that gradually grew from the
low of the covering until a whole foot was
jaled — a foot at a defiant pose and wearing
^ttle bronze slipper with an exaggeratedly
heel. Andrew's eyes grew daring, and he
turLod.
liss Moore seemed to telescope, for head and
disappeared beneath the coverlet at once,
[paused a moment, and then departed.
he went across the fields he thought of the
scene he had left, and, more shame to him,
^lioughts were not concerned wholly with the
effects of wearing high heels, nor yet of the

JUDITH MOORE.

ill,,,.,,,.

■-:r:ili'i!;!lil
ij

I
h'iI

f'i'iii'i

impropriety of Miss Moore's retaliation for
high and mighty granting of forgiveness,
deed, as he sat for a moment kicking his he
on the top bar of the first fence, he was spe
lating solely as to whether " they " were op
work or not ! He was thinking he would hi|
given his best gun to be able to tell, and sumi)
up his reflections with a dissatisfied little groJ
" Of all the mean, miserable, stingy glimpses 1

As he walked along, his face changed. A|
climbing the hill-side to his garden wall,
passed an apple-tree in full bloom at the
He paused beneath it. His face was pales
serious, his eyes tender. He thought of Judiij
russet head as it had leaned upon his shouW
he looked down at his old velvet coat, wliei^
had rested, and fancied some vague perfume i
from it to his face. He remembered he had i
her in his arms, and recalled the red marks iii
her delicate wrists. Those wrists had been cun
about his neck.

He could not realize the full height and
of what had come to him, but his whole
groped for the truth even as he stood bene
the tree.

As he walked slowly up the narrow bricl
walk to the house, he noticed how the chesj
roots and the frost together had heaved up

r;f:":llllil

JUDITH i»*^^RE.

►ricks and rendered the walk irregular. He
rendered anxiously if she could walk over it in
jose shoes, and as he reached his door, which
)d open under its old-fashioned porch, reveal-
\^ a dusky cool vista beyond, he suddenly saw,
in a vision woman's shape stand between
\e lintels, waii ..^ for him ! — a woman with
mder hands outstretched in welcome, grave
iy eyes, soft hair, tender lips ; the woman he
^ved ; his own. As this last thought, the sweet-
tliought man's heart holds, formulated itself
liis mind, Andrew knew the truth. He turned
iwn the path, past the apple-tree, through the
idens again, and across his fields, until once
)re he looked upon the hoijse wherein she
sted. He looked at it long from the shelter
his trees, his whole existence resolved into
[chaas of uncertain self-communings, until a
}ice like an angel's seemed to whisper of

ifort and to sing of hope.
[Then he went home, and at four o'clock betook
iself to the school-house to attend the meet-
in regard to appointing a new teacher.
'he village school-house stood at the end of
street farthest away from the Cutler home-
jad. It was a bleak, stone building, with a
den porch — a gaunt, bare, uninviting-looking
[ilding, with none of those picturesque adjuncts

JUDITH MOORE.

of climbing vines and overarching trees, ass
ated so often with thoughts of a country scha

It had a perky, self-satisfied little bell-hon
on top, and its date, 1865, was rudely carved «
a big stone in the peak of the north gable,
had eight windows — three at each side, twoj
one end. In winter, the wood for the box st
was always piled up outside before these. Thfj
were always complaints of the school-hoi
being dark in winter, yet it never occurred |
any one to select a different site for the wo
pile.

The interior of the school-house correspon(|
in dinginess to the outside. The plaster av^
were sadly soiled, particularly beneath the b
window seats, where the children sat kicli
their heels whilst they ate their lunches at no
for the scholars were drawn principally U
the outlying farm-houses. A long length]
irregularly jointed pipes led the smoke from I
box stove at the end to an exit over the teaclij
desk. Little tin pails were hung at intervj
along this, to catch the black liquid disti
from the soot. The other adornments ofi
room consisted of a long blackboard, a gl(i|
and some big lettered tablets, round which i
teacher was wont to gather the infant class i
teach them their letters.

JUDITH MOORE.

[in the politics of a little village like Ovid, the
illest public measures became magnified to
)tesque importance. The usual custom was
the school trustees to sit in private session
jt, when any particular business was to be
mged, say, the selection of a teacher, an<i
|ien this was arranged the doors were flung
le and the meeting was " open." These open
^ool meetings were always well attended.
5y were the classes in which embryotic states-
|n acquired the political alphabet, the ABC
[political procedure, the manner of putting a
bion, taking a vote, making a nomination,
the correct order of precedence governing
motions and amendments. There too, was
lired the first great requisite of a politician,
le art of saying non-committal things in a
Jt convincing tone of voice, and of treating
much politeness those whom one held in
)t abhorrence.

here were two oflfices, those of school trustee

pathmaster, and these two were equal in

rer and glory. True, they were barren

)urs, but they ofttimes led to better

igs. The school trustee had the higher

itioii in one respect ; he was chosen by the

)le at first hand. The pathmaster, upon the

rary, was appointed by the Council. It is

; }

I i !

JUDITH MOOHE.

m
i iiii

Hiii|llliiiii

needless to say the school trustee smiled in culij
superiority at the pathmaster, and the latter
turn felt the making of the roads wherein i\
whole community walked, was as holy an offij
as the task of guidinpf the juvenile wandereij
into the school, and seeing that when there, thej
trod the common road to knowledge, it beiii
well known that there is no royal road theietj

When Andrew arrived at the school-houa
the other two trustees, Hiram Green who keJ
the village store, and Hen Braddon, wei|
present. They immediately entered upon a di
cussion of the teacher question. The applicaticj
of Sam Symmons' Suse lay upon the tab!
written out upon foolscap paper, in big rouij
hand, with many flourishing capitals, rejoiciij
in " shaded " heads and beautifully involvj
tails.

" I tell you Suse is a good fist with a piij
said Hen Braddon, with conviction, and t|
other two agreed. " She ain't no slouch
spelling either," said Hiram Green. The oth
two agreed with this also. Then Andrew to
up his pai*able.

" Yes," he said, " Suse is quite smart, and Imi
bred right here in Ovid seems to give herj
claim to the school. I suggest we just appoij
her."

Hi ill

i" i !

JUDITH MOORE.

[" Well, it's as well to be cautious," said Hiram

3en.
I" It'll save advertising," said Hen Braddon.
"Suppose we just decide on it then," said
idrew.
I" Well," said Hiram Green, " well, I ain't got

objections to Suse as Suse, but what I think

two hundred and fifty is enough to pay a
)man for what a man got three hundred."
[Andrew sneered. He didn't have a sweet

)ression when he did that,
p* Don't you think," he said, gravely — "don't
|u think Suse might include cleaning the

lool-house and lighting the fires in winter for

two-fifty, being she's a woman ? "
f' No," said Hiram, reflectively ; " old Mrs.
Ick has done it so long."
^'But it would save twenty-five dollars,"

fued Andrew, with meek persuasion.
Well," said Hiram, " Mrs. Slick needs that.
Je's owin' already, and she might's well draw
money off the school taxes as off the

moil."

Oh, Mrs. Slick is owing, is she i " queried
hew, with solicitude. " I hope she pays you
I' right. Well, about Suse. Being she's a
pman, don't you think you could fix it so's

j'd chop the wood for winter ? That would

re twelve dollars."

.V.

JUDITH MOORE.

iii'iiiiiin

' ' 111!

Ill H! I

iiKll!ll!'I!ini;!

A nasty red flickered up to Hiram's facel
He had thought Andrew's proposition about the]
taking care of tlie school thoroughly genuine.

" Oh," he said, " I ain't particular whether shtl
gets the three hundred or the two-fifty, thougtl
I hope you won't deny when nomination comesl
round that you deliberately threw away t
dollars of the people's money."

" You may be quite sure I won't deny anyl
thing that's true," said Andrew, hotly. " And!
as for throwing away the people's money, well-
some of the teachers, so far as I can recollect]
got their salaries raided pretty frequently. 01
course, I wasn't on the School Board then, sol
only heard why it was done. I can't say of rajj
own knowledge."

The fact was that Mr. Hiram Green ha<i|
several unappetizing daughters, and, as he ha
been school trustee almost ever since any onJ
remembered, it seemed good in his sight thai
the teachers, over whom he wielded such pa]
ternal authority in such a parental way, sliouli
return the compliment by adopting a filial rm
and become sons not only in spirit but in namel
But, alas, for the vanity of human wishes ! tlia
perfidious tea'^hers had accepted all Hirauii
kindness, had slept in the best bedroom aul
partaken of his best fruit, had ridden by him tij

•JUDITH >fOORE.

)wii and accompanied the Misses Green to tea-

leetings and festivals, had abode in the Green

|o"sehold over Sundays, liad gone with them to

lurch, and at choir practice had faithfully served

lein, and then, with the extra money they had

jen able to save through Hiram's hospitality

id the fortuitous " raise " in their salaries, they

id shaken the dust of Ovid from oft' their feet,

id departed to frewh fields and pastures new, to

larry the girls they had been engaged to all

long or to study for one of the higher profes-

ms. Never a one of them all left a love gauge

[ith a Miss Green, and in the bosom of the

(reen family many were the revilings cast upon

|iose teachera, who, with a goodly countenance

id a better appetite, ha<^ devoured Mrs. Green's

^er cak< s and preserves, feasted upon Hiram's

iches and driven his hoi*8es upon the false

)tences of " intentions." However, in fairness

tlie teachers, one must remember that "some

^ve greatness thrust upon them. " t'oolish,

lead, would be the man who deliberately

jfended his trustees, and Hiram's hospitality

iH usually somewhat pressingly proffered.

[This last teacher — bad luck to Mm ! — had

scribed hnnself in his application as a single

ui, when at the beginning of the summer

lation he sent in his certificates for consid-

JUDITH MOORE.

ipiii

if iii

III)!
Illlllll

eration in response to Hiram's advertisement
and before these holidays had passed lip
married and came alone to Ovid to take upl
school in the antumn, and had eaten five
teas and two dinners at Hiram Green's before
he asked the eldest daughter, with whom he
frequently found himself alone, where she!
thought he could rent a suitable house for him
self and wife.

"This is very sudden," murmured MissGieeal

*' Well, I don't know," he said, in a practicall
tone of voice, "I've been nearly two weeks awayl
from her now, and I can't stand it much lonf^er."

Miss Green gathered his meaning then, and!
never another tea did that teacher sit down t«|
in Hiram Green's, and indeed the atmosphere oti
Ovid had been made so frigid for the littlj
smooth-haired, blue-eyed girl he had marrie
that he soon sent her away, and finding he couWl
not do without her, finally sent in his own resigj
nation. The Greens had a big family coniiec
tion, and Ovid was made a cold place for
whom they did not like. The Cutler house
the hill and poor old Sam's stubborn tloorl
were about the only portals in Ovid that
enemy of the Greens might pass.

Henry Braddon acted as a soft, efi:ective buft'eij
between Hiram and Andrew, who both alwayj]
wanted their own way, and wanted it at once.

JUDITH MOORE.

Best let Suae have the three hundred," said
^e ; " old Reilly will be foreclosing on Sam soon

he don't raise the money somehow." Now,

.'illy was the local usurer, the one hard-hearted,
lose-tisted old Shylock so often found in rural
liHtricts ; the one man within a radius of twenty
lil ; who had made a fortune. He was re-
itedly worth seventy or eighty thousand dol-
irs ; possibly he was worth fifty thousand. But
rlien that is divided into mortgages, ranging

)in two or three hundred dollars up to, per-
ips, one or two of five thousand, one can realize
rhat a power he was in the country side ; how
lany heart-strings he had tangled in his grasp-
\g fingers ; from how many couches his
ladowy outstretched hand banished sleep ; at
)w many tables his hollow, gaping palm was
jen, as the children put out their hands for

)d ; before how many hearths his spectral
pesence ever sat with a look of anticipatory
roprietorship. He was as cruel as the grave,
id as relentless as time. Not one ten minutes

grace did ever any one get from old Reilly.

le children looked at him with awe as he
rove past in his old-fashioned buggy, a hatchet-

led old man, thin, cold-blooded, with big
|iuckly hands holding the reins. Hen Braddon
lew what he was doinir when he referred to

ii'

^ 'I'

JUDITH MOORE.

him. The week before, Hiram Green's brotlier|
had been turned neck and crop out of his farm
by this same Reilly. No fear that Hiram woul(J
let him get another "haul" off old Sam if he I
could help it.

" That's so," said Hiram, with alacrity. " An-
drew, you just make out the appointment, will
you ? and you post it. Hen, when you go home.

Andrew having gained his point, was gener-
ously sorry that he had twitted Hiram about |
the salary matter, so in the subsetjuent open
meeting he let Hiram do all the talking, looking;
the while at a dark stain on the ceiling, which a
coat of whitewash, put on yearl^'^ since he was a
boy, had failed to obliterate, He would never
forget how that ink went \ip, and that mi;^ht be
the very same old box stove over in the corner,
the one upon which he set that tightly corked
bottle of frozen ink to thaw, taking precaution
at the same time to be oat of the road when it
exploded. It had been a particularly brilliant]
"go off'" that — straight up to the ceiling and
down in a shower of black spatters. Andrew I
could see the fun of it yet, and found himself
involuntarily looking at his palms, as thougli
some traces of the blisters the teacher's rawhide
had raised might still be there. Andrew recalled
many other such like exploits, and looked at hid

fUDITH MOORE.

[smooth, brown palms, thiiikiiiir how many thor-
lough thrashings he had liad, when suddenly a
[line of poetry he had read some days before,
Icame into his head :

"Lay thy sweet hands in mine, and trust to nie."

He sat through the meeting quite oblivious of
hat was g >ing on, missing what was one of the
nest oratorical flights of Hiram Green's career.
e was speaking of the departing teacher, and
e made many scathing remarks anent the
egends and pictures upon the walls, which, as
e brilliantly put it, " in<licated an entire and
dplorable lack of discipline upon the part of the
resent teacher." The said teacher smiled and
id nothing. Had Hiram looked closely at the
ictures he would have found that a good many
if the drawings were caricatures of himself and
lis family. In one rude picture the four Misses
reen were represented as having hold of a
an, wlio struggled in the midst. By means
cei'tain facial peculiarities, exaggerate<l as
Jily a genius or a school-boy would dare ex-
gerate, any one in Ovid could have i<lentiHed
e Misses Green and their victim, a former
acher. One of the ladies held a coat sleeve she
<1 rent oif another a oortion of a coat-tail ; and
er this group the artist had printed in fair

: \

JUDITH MOORE.

mukf

1 m

llrlllM!
ii

1 :::"!'

h '

round script, " For his garment they cast lots,'!
Under the circumstances the applicability of thi«j
would have been a credit to Du Maurier, and
it said in defence of the school-boy artist, it wa
probably written with no thought of beiiis
impious. Your school -boy caricaturist catck
the spirit of the times.

The participants in the school meeting wen
just departing from the school-house doors, wliej
to them came old Sam KSyramons. He hadjuij
been told by Suse of her application, and
almost stifling eagerness was filling his hean
If she got it, it meant so much; but he pr
sented his usual suave, smiling old face to Hei
Braddon and Hiram Green, and said nothin
As Andrew passed the old man looked at hiiij
That look of age to green manhood, how pitifij
it is ! Andrew paused a moment. " We're goii^
to have an Ovid teacher this time," he saiJ
" You'll tell Suse, won't you, Mr. Symmons, tlii|
her appointment is in the mails ? "

Poor old Sam! It was harder for him
carry off good fortune with nonchalance thanj
was to remain impassive in the face of bad.
had had so much more practice in the latt^
form of self-control. He drew his breath deepll
and his lips quivere 1 a little. Andrew saw th|

" Don't forget to tell her, Mr. Symmons, "
added, and went on his way.

JUDITH MOORE.

•ew saw t
rmmons,"

Forget !

" Meeting over, Mr. Braddon ? Meeting over ?"
ISain queried, falling into the irregular ranks of
[the moving men. " Well, well I remember the
kiine your grandfather and I were school trus-
tees, and he was a shoemaker, and a better
nan with lasts tlian letters. In his young days
le used to go about from house to house making
the shoes. He had regular places for calling ;
two pairs a year was the allowance — well, that
justoin has long gone by. Anyhow, we were
jth trustees, and one day we went out to the
Jeechwood School, section No. 6 now. Well,
the minister was there, too, and 8(|uire Hark-
less — both long dead now — brotliers they were.
>ne of the children handed up her slate for
rour grandfather to look at, and he, holding it
front of him at arm's length, said, with con-
sideration seemingly to its merits, ' Fair, very
lir,' which wp*s right enough truly ; but when
rour gi'andfather held it over to the rest of us,
twas plain to be seen 1 . had had the slate
ipside down. Yes, he was ambitious, too, your
[•andfather w^as, and got on well in the world ;
ieeven bought him a big silver w^atch. Watches
reren't so plentiful in those days. You didn't
it a watch in the pocket of every suit of
lothes you bought then, as the papers would

JUmiH MDOUE.

show you »lo now. And when We asked yomj
grandf'atUcv what time it w as, as we would tVel
quently do, being minded to jdease him, y
would take out his watch, look at it with conj
sideration, and hold it out to us saying, ' Whoa
ha' thought 'twas that time o' day,' in surprisj
seemingly, which was right smart, for he nevis
learned to read time, your grandfather didml
But a good business man he was, and a gmiJ
neighbour, as many a poor body knew."

Old Sam and his following straggled in twosl
and threes up the street, past Bill Aikins' houtj
where Bill stood in the doorway smoking, havj
ing just helped his wife Kate, nee Home, haiij
up the day's washing, school meetings being itl
his wife's opinion too provocative of idlenes
the idleness which the devil improves, to
indulged in by Bill.

Bill's house, albeit small, had a particularli]
aggressive look. It had a door in *^^he centrel
and a window with red-painted sash on eitliel
side. These windows always shone efFulgentli
clean. Whether this brilliancy of pane or tliJ
vermilion paint produced the effect, it is diffij
cult to say, but certain it is that Bill's hous
always looked as though it were about to spriiil
on the road, which was, figuratively, much tlil
same as the attitude of Bill's wife towards hio

JUDITH iMOORE.

Bill Aikins had originally been a boy brought
)ut by one of the benevolent English societies,
liich gather up the scum of their own cities
Hid trust to the more sparkling atmosphere of
le New World to aerate it into "respectable
i\\(\ usiful citizens." Bill Aikins had taken
^enca leave of the minister with whom the
loiiie had placed him. A plenitude of prayers
^)i(l a paucity of what Bill had called "hot
rittlcH," decided him upon this step. He wan-
ned to Ovi<l, and for many years had been
[hired man " to the various farmers within ten
is of the village. He was a good worker,
it lacked ballast, and was rapidly degenerating
|ito a sot when Kate Home married him, and,
the boys expressc ) it, "brought him up

The men greeted Bill pleasantly, fidil Bill
jponded genially, trying to lo(ik as if fe
iH unconscious <jf Kate's critifiMna upon thB
m passing — -a somewhat difficult tfttnj( Uf
jomplish, as Kate s[:>oke so loudly from the
)iii behind that bf^r remarknj ^ere oe^'^'ectly
Idible to the subjects of them.
[One by one the crowd dwindled away, and
5n old Sam " putting his best foot foremost,"
he would have said, hurried home and told
ise of her good fortune. She was very olatort/

Hiaiiiiii;iii!i:!i;i

JUDITH MOORE.

%.,^ irainiiiiw.

' I i

lilli"" llllflll!'

'' ■lir"

Hi!

' '''''ililll

was Suse, and kept iiiurnmiing to herself, " 1'
just show them Greens what's what."

• •••••••a,

Long after the last light had twinkled outiii
the village, a shaft of light streamed across tlie
old garden of the house on the liill. For all the
calm of Andrew's heart was gone. The peace
of the first acceptance of the fact that he loved
this stranger .^irl had vanished. He got do^vD|
on his knees, reached under the bed and pulled
out an old, old-fashioned little chest, coveredl
with untanned cowhide, whose brown and wliitel
patches were studded with rows of big brassl
nails. It held the books over which his mothenl
pretty dark head had bent so often, close bjl
that other proud one, which soon lay huiiibljj
enough in its kindred dust. It was no unusua
thing for Andrew to spend half the night poriiij
over these books. There was a fat little copj]
of Shakespeare, with ruinously small print;
quaint little leather volume of Francis Quarles]
George Herbert's poetry ; Suckling's and a suit
scription copy of the Queen's Wake, " dedicate
to the Princess Charlotte by a shepherd in tlitj
Highlands of Scotland." These, with a m
others, had formed his mother's library. Getf
ting them out, he looked for certain passages
knew well — passages that iiad wrung his heaij

JUDITH M<)(>RE.

l)eforc this with their description of iiiiattain-
nble sweetness and love — passages that had
almost made him despair, and yet, not wholly, for
lie had dreamed a dream of one day going forth
I to seek and find a Beatrice, a Juliet, a Desde-
linona, a Rosalind — all in one divine combina-
tion of womanhood, worthy to have been
addressed in the immortal sonnets. And, lo !
[tlie spring had brought her — would the summer
rive her to him ? The kindlv summer that
rives the flower to the bee, the sun to the flower,
yie blue sky to the sun, and all the earth to joy.
jurely— .and but a mile away Judith slept,
Ireaining, but not of song. And over the
raters that quickened with insect life, through
he air all astir with the scents and savours of
)iing, athwart the earth that was quivering
rith the growth of all things green — summer
line one day nearer.

CHAPTER V.

" Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and rosea,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My Musick shows ye have your closes,
And all must die."

Judith Moore, the operatic singer, was not|
an ailing woman UHually. In fact, slie had veryj
sweet and wtdl Italaneed health, but in her|
make-up the mental and pliyHicnl balanced
each otner so well, and were ho closely allit'U
that any joy or grief — in short, any emotion-
reacted stronjnrly upon her physical organiaiii
Heart and brain, sense anil H|)irit were |i|ii
knit. IVlientei) strung as an y1^]olian liur|i,|
she vibrated too strongly to ihe winds iJiiill
swept over her. As strings grow lax or snapl
from being over-taut, so her nerves ha<l I'ailHll
under the tension of excitement, and ettbrl, nm
triumph Two 3^ears before she had made herl
(lehiU upon the operatic stage in Gerinanyl
stepping from the strictest tutelage to an instantl
and un{{uestioned success. Even yet when sliel
thought of that night her cheeks would liiisli

JUDITH MOORE.

her eyes dilate, her liead poise itself more
proudly. She recalled it so well. Her mana-
,ger's eagerness, that made his dark face almost
livid ; her own fright ; the mascot thrust hastily
into her hand by an old attache of the play-
house^. She remembered all the details of this
performance better than any other — the orches-
tra and the people ; the peculiai*, loving droop of
the shoulder with which one of the 'cello
players bent above his sonorous instrument.
I Then came her effort, and it seemed the next
[moment the thunderous applause, the flowers,
the deep-throated Hoch ! Hoch ! and the joyous
juraing of her manager behind the scenes.
Yes, that was life.

And as she lived her triumphs over again,
|i« fnlt the supreme exaltation of a genius in a
\ymi 1(1 ft, the God-like thrill of mastery, the
lorlnljH uifllMJtity of capacity, tli4^ birth pang
if r'H'ation. There is no gift so marvellous, so
laddening, so divine as tint gift of song — none
L) evanescent, none so sad.

Tliis woman inhaled the connnon fther of a

^roMaic world, mi/igled it with her breath and

jnt it forth glorified as sound- — soujid sueh as

Nothing made with men's hands in all the world

m produce. She cre»t«4/3 sonmthing divine,

rhich dip.d even as it was htj/rn, and passed intii

JUDITH MOORE.

the silence— silence that has absorbed so inanv
sweet and terrible things. She sang; she sent!
forth her heart, her being, her soul front hal
lips, like a beautiful unseen dove seeking a sirrn;
and there returned to her — silence. Fronrall the I
glorious " choir invisible" that had gone before!
there came back no word. And the wonder
and triumph, and pity of it grew upon her, sol
that she be<;:an to eat her heart out with loneli-
ness.

Her voice lifted her up to the gods; when
she 3turned to earth, there was no loving
breast for her to rest upon, no strong hands to
sustain her, no lips to kiss the pani of music
from her own, none to seal the bliss of singing'
into abiding joy.

Two years of this, and Judith Moore left it I
all, and came, in the summer preceding her
American debitt, to this little Canadian villa<:e
She had lold her manager, the only person she
knew well enough to write to, that he was not
to write. He knew where she was ; she would
let him know if she needed him. Let her restj
for just a little, she pleaded. And he agreed.

She owed everything she was to this manJ
who had been a friend of her father's. Pass-
ing through the little tow^n where they were,
he had come to visit them. He found his oUl

JUDITH MOOUP.

frieiKl's funeral leaving the house. He came
back to see the desolate girl. Then followed the
discovery of her voice, and his invesbnent in
her as a good speculation. It was going to
prove one, too, though the anxiety of it had
given hiui a grey hair or two in his black
head. Yes, it had been a good speculation
already, for the two years' ringing abroad had
recouped him for all his outlay of money. The
American season would repay his patience, and
the South American tour, and the winter in
Russia — the ivipresario's plans stretched far
into the future through golden vistas of profit.
That Judith might have other dreams he never
considered.

She herself had no ^v ell-defined thought but
to excel in her art. She did not in the least
understand what was amiss with her. Not but
what in many dreams by night, and visions by
day, she had thought of a passion that was to
transfigure her life ; but so used was she to
passing from the reality of life to the dream on
the stage, that the visions and the verities
became sadly confused, and so she grew day by
day more eager to attain, more anxious to
[achieve the highest in her art, more unsparing
of her own efforts, always trembling just on the
threshold of the unknown, ahvays feeling one

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23 WIST MAIN STRIIT

WlkSTM.N.Y. 145M

(716) S72-4S03

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JOniTii Mo'^Rti.

more upward effort of her wings would take
her to the very pinnacle of song. There surely
grew the balm of sweet content, of satisfaction,
of peace. Poor Judith ! For her the real con-
tent lay in a green valley, far, far below these
perilous peaks upon which she tottered ; whereon
no v/oman may safely stand, it seems, with-
out a stronger soul beside her to sustain in time
of need. Her happiness lay in a valley where
love springs and Ijappiness flows in streams
about the feet, and as she aspired higher and
higher, and rose farther and farther into tlir
rarefied air which solitary success breathes, she i
left the Happy Valley farther and farther!
behind.

Had she been less evenly balanced, had her I
soul been less true, her heart less tender, she I
might in time have frozen the woman complete!),
and crystallized into the artiste only — or — but I
to think of Judith Moore sullying her wings is
sacrilege.

She was full of womanly tenderness and I
womanly vanities. She had a thousand little
tricks of coquetry and as many balms to eare|
their smart. She took a good deal of satis fac
tion out of her pretty gowns and her finger j
nails, and the contemplation of her little feet
becomingly shod had been known to dry her

.tumTII MOORE.

cars. She was essentially the woman of the

ist, the woman who created a *' type " distinct

)m man; the womanly woman, rot the hybrid

feature of modern cultivation ; the woman of

3niancc. To balance this (for nowadays this

)ubtles8 needs excuse) she had a fund of sym-

itliy great enough to endow eveiy living thing

^at suffered with pity. She had certainly that

Parity without which all other virtues are as

junding brass." She sent away those who

ime in contact witli her the better for their

jeting, and from her eyes their shone a purity

soul that had abashed some men whose eyes

long forgotten shame.

iuch was Judith Moore.

[When Andrew p.pproached the Morris house,

next day after the apple-tree episode, he saw

afar a figure in white sitting perched

)n the weather-beaten rail fence which sepa-

jd his woodland from the Morris farm. He

bened his steps, his heart beating hotly.

iith was in a repentant and somewhat shame-

8(1 mood. Upon reflection it had occurred to

that her behaviour the day before had

little less than bold. Judith had felt

|ly over it, and had even cried a bit, as

Ush women will. She was, of course, pre-

Jd to make Andrew suffer for her misdeeds

t: .:

JUDITH MOOUE.

if lie in any way showed a recollection of ti
incident, and had decided to assume a vr
haughty mien if he dared say " feet."

Andrew's intuitions were not slow, even if
was only a farmer, and when he greeted lier,
she suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed &%
looked up at him half inijuiringly, he iny
preted it aright. He had been amused, perlig|j
aroused, by her impertinence; he was tore!
by her unexpressed penitence.

Miss Judith had on an artful frock ; inosiil
her frocks were artful and well put on,
which is the great thing. Judith never d
sidered time thrown away tliat was spent adoij
ing her "perishing person," This particiii
frock was of sheer white wool, and because!
had a waist of the unhygienic type (and rejoifj
thereat exceedingly, be it told, for she
thoroughly unregenerate), she had it girdi
with a ribbon, wound round and round her
had huge loose sleeves of a kind not known!
Ovid. " Sort of night-gowny looking," Aiidn
said afterwards, in describing her appearance!
his aunt. How Miss Moore would have rai
at that ! Paquin, no less, had made tlij
sleeves.

She was careful to keep her very toes outl
sight this morning, and when she thouif

JUDITH MOORE.

idrew was not looking, she ;;ave anxious little
Igs at her skirt to cover them yet more
jurely. Every one of these tu^s Andrew saw,
id tliey raised within him a spirit of deep indi<^-
Ltion. " I wish that skirt would come off in
ir hand— serve her ri^ht if it did," he said to

iself, aggrievedly, whilst apparently listen-
to Miss Moore's prophecies regarding the

itlier.

["Going to rain in three days?" he said. "How
jyou know ? "

Oh," said Miss Moore, with an indescril)able
^k of wisdom, " there was a big ring round the

)n last night, enclosing three stars. That

ms in three days it will atorm — of course,
—you'd hardly expect snow, would you ? "
Moore spoke a little resentfully as she con-

ied, for Andrew did not look impressed.

Well,iiO," agreed Andrew. "Did Mr. Morris

you that ? "

Yes ; we're going to shear sheep to-morrow."

What ? " Andrew was amused at the " we."

That" said Judith, who in spite of her air of

>wledge was somewhat nervous and not (juite

lin whether she had put it rightly or not.

fhear sheep " did sound queer.)

toll, you are. What else ? "

rl'm going to learn to make butter. Mrs.

100

JUDITH MOORE.

Morris says I liave real ' butter hands.' Tlitv
so cool. Feel." She laid her hand on his.

" Yes, lovely," said Andrew, f ervently : " tj
don't you think you ought to get wel' btfos
you do all this ? Stick to prophesying fur|
while. It's easier."

" Oh, if you're going to laugh at nie — "

"No, indeed." (Miss Moore's brows wa
knitted.) " I'm not really, honestly ; nevi
thought of such a thing." The i, persuasive]
" Don't you want to come and see a bir
nest ? "

'■ Miss Moore's attempt at bad temper col laps
^ " I should think I did," she said.
n " Come on, then," said he.

" Oh, is it on that side ? How do I getover|

" Let me lift you."

" No, indeed ! Turn your back, and I'll juinj

" Let—"

"No!"

Andrew wheeled on his heel. There \\u\
soft thud and a scramble. He turned like a ilai
but Miss Moore had regained her feet, and sto|
waiting with an expression of exagger
patience on her face.

"Are you ready ?" he asked.

" Oh, waiting," she answered, with emphasi

That walk was the first they ever hadi

iiliniiiil.:

JUIMTH MOORE.

101

ither. Neitlier of them ever forgot it. At

moment, it seemed to pass in li<^ht-hearted
liter ; but beneath all this there was a sub-
itum of eagerness — Judith trying to get in
ich with this new creature at her side, this
)ng, unconventional, natural soul, so different
^m the artificial creatures she had, known ;

Andrew feeling his heart going out beyond
itrol to this girl who walked so unsteadily at

side, stumbling e^-'ery now and then fron> the

jcustomed roughness of the way. 'J'hese little
had evidently ha:l all paths smoothed to
\m. (He could not guess how^ chill those
[ven pathways were.) How tender her eyes
Jw over the wild flowers, and how sweet her

when, for a moment, a serious thought came

ler !

he wild flowers were in full luxuriance, and
|lith gathered an armful. They passed a dog-

d tree that stood sheeted in its white blos-

3, their petals of the texture of white kid.

hew got her some great branches of it, and
Jinsisted upon carrying it herself, holding all

spoil against her breast with one hand, using
[other to lift her gown now and then, or to

Ijk more flowers.

ler face looked out from the flowers with

ntl of rapt eagerness upon it that illumined

102

.lUDITIT MOORE.

nil

I !i

iii like n li^lit. Ht^r enjoyment wan so inti
}i8 to be almost pMinl'nl. Tluy ha<l gone qnij
a distance from the Morris house, half the "n-iitftl
of Andrew s woods, when they came to a littij
hollow. A stnnim ran through it, but so Mockij
was its way by the buirows of moles thati
zigzagoe(] across and across the hollow, seoiiiii
almost to form loops at some points. All nk
its course graw the tall, pale-mauve watei-fl
its spikes of l)loom rising from clumps of swon
like leaves that grew in the stream's ed^e.
the farther side of the hollow a mass of wi
crab-apple trees were covered with their fra^
pink blooms, and heaped up at one end of
hollow was a great mass of loose stones, pilj
there as thev had been gathered from the fiel^
Dog-tooth violets, which love moisture,
thickly about their feet, th.^ir yellow and bd
blossoms springing from between pairs of spotM
leaves. Where the leaves grew singly, tliij
were no flowers. Here and there could be
a blossom of the rarer white variety, the bactl
its recurved petals delicately tinged with piJ
Close bj'^ the roots of some stumps there n
velvety cushions of the thick green moss so ofj
found in Canadian woods ; bryony vines strai
over these, making a rich brocade in tonesj
green. Tufts of coai'se ferns grew in the m

JUDITH MOOKK.

ion

tho stumps, their last years froiuls withering

jsirle them, the fresli ones just be<rinning to

icurl. And framing all this in, there was tho

irtaiu of trees in the fii*st freshness of foliage.

[For a moment, in Judith's mind dream and

ility became confused. The little glade so

ictly simulated a well-set scene. There was

nothing artificial in the piled-up stones ; in the

jam which made so much of itself in going

ill a short distance. It was so usual for her

stand before the footlights with her arms

ll of flowers. And the man at her side — she

\ked at hin), ami in a moment realized how

i))letely and artistically he was in accord with

environment. His strong, bronzed face, his

16, tall form, his expression, his dress, the look

itter comprehension w^ith which his eyes took

ithe scene, over which her eyes lingered in

lil— all this was apparent to her at once.

was well used to considering the " vr ' e "

his or that upon the scene, and she told

self the unities were surely satisfied now.

I Are you pleased ? " he asked.

[I'm simply charmed," she said. " It is too

itiful to be real."

di," he said, "that's where you make a
ike. It is only beautiful enough to be

104

JUDITH MOORE.

I 'II

1*11)

Slio looked at liim. -

. " You are tired," he went on, without waitin
for an answer. " I've brought you too far. WiJ
you sit down ?" ^ -^ -'.u: : '■> \;'r.r^-f.' :■

" Yes, I think so. I really am awfully stronj]
only I soon ^et tired."

" Exactly ; one of the signs of j^reat strcn-t
Oh, come, don't get cross."

"I hate being lauglied at; you're bad to wA
she said pettishly.

Andrew was smitten to the heart. He b('{,'ai
to think he'd been a brute.

He took off his coat, making no apoloj
therefor. It did not occur to him that there wil
anything wrong in shirt sleeves. He spread
at the foot of a stump.

"You sit down there ana rest," he said, "ail
I'll go get you some more floweis."

" Don't you want to rest ? " she iii«]uin
solicitously.

" No, I'm not tired," he answered gravel}',
wouldn't laugh at her again in a hurry !

" Well, hurry back."

So she watched him pick his way across
little hollow to the twisted and gnarled crabtro
And as she watched there stole over her eagi
spirit the first whift' of that peace which n
soon to settle so sweetly upon her heart-

JUDITH MOORE.

105

jstful recognition of the joy of calm ; and
ill was blended with the bitter sweet scent of
Lhe crab blossoms and the ineffable savour of
Ipring woods.

Andrew was soon back at her side with a sheaf

^f flag lilies and big branches of apple blooms ;

id Judith for the first tini** held real crab-

Ipple blossoms in her hands, with their perfume,

lat mingling of Marah and myrrh, rising to her

incense from a censer. She had long known

le distilled perfume ; how different this living

igrance was. Something of this she told

idrew.

" Yes," he said, " I understand you exactly,
[ou won't like the manufactured stuff any more,
[never could eat canned salmon after eating the
il article fresh from the stream where I'd
jkught it."

Miss Moore looked at him.
He laughed outright at her expression of
fsgust.

I" Was it very awful to liken crab blooms to
hnon ? They're much of the same colour."
I" Don't dare say another word," said Miss

)re. " You're horrid."
[Andrew reddened and looked a little stiff.
Miss Moore eyed him furtively. " Mr. Cutler ? "
r Yes."

I '

106

JUDITH MOORE.

" Would you like me to siii^ to you ? "

Like a child Miss Moore proffered her l)i|,'gest|
bribe first.

"Rather," said Andrew, with eiuphasis, forget |
ting his dignity. " I should think I would."

Seeing him so eager, Miss Moore was minddl
to postpone his pleasure a bit. " What shall 1
sing ? " .she asked.

"Anything — your favourite, anything yo«
like, only sing," And she sang a song Ijij
Rosetti, beginning —

"A little while, a little love

The hour yet bears for thee and me
Who have not drawn the veil to see
• ' "^ If still our heaven be lit above."

And which ends —

'* Not yet the end ; be our lips dumb
In smiles a little season yet,
I'll tell thee, when the end is come,
How we may best forget."

When it was over he turned and looked
her as at a marvel. What manner of woiiiai
was this ? The one moment a curious child, tlij
next, a proud woman ; again, a poor, little tir
girl, i*nd then — how should he name this sId
ing angel.

Miss Moore was used to homage and applausi

jrniTH MOOUE.

107

laiul wont to HOC people moved by her Hinging,
Ibut never a tribute had been more sweet to her
[than the look in this countryman's eyes.

" I will sing again," she said, and began a little
|Scotch song.

Afterwards Miss Moore was sorry about this,
md thought bitterly that she could not, even for
in hour, put aside the rdle ot* the opera singer
;king to play upon her public. For she had
mn taught the value of appealing to sentiment
a factor towards success, and many a night,
fcfter singing the most intricate operas, she had
ssponded to the encore by singing " Home,
Jweet Home " or " Annie Laurie," or .some other
jiniple peasant ballad that touches the heart.
is a trick prima donnas all have.
The song she sang Andrew was " Jock o' Hazel -
lean "; the story of the high-born girl who lo' ed
;k o' Hazeldean. Who was he, we wonder.
lis fascinating Jock, of Hazeldean, smacks more
the Merrie Greenwood than of broad domains.
|ut at any rate he must have been right worthy
be loved, else sucli a leal, brave-hearted, beauti-
|1 girl had not loved him. Torn, too, she was
stween two thoughts — her family, her plighted
)th, riches and — Jock — so that

" Whene'er she loot
The tears doon fa'
For Jock o' Hazeldean."

108

JUDITH MOORE.

For she had made up lier mind evidently to
give him up, but these treacherous tears betrayed
themselves whenever slie bent her head, and
when a woman's heart is breaking she cannot
always hold her head high. And in the end
they nearly married her to the " Lord of Erring j
ton." But—

"The kirk was decked at morning tide,

The tapers glimmered fair.
Both priest and bridegroom wait the bride,

And dame and knight were there.
They sought her then by bower and ha' ;

The lady wasna seen —
She's ower the border, and awa

With Jock o' Hazeldean."

Well Judith Moore sang the words of M
song, but she did more. Her vibrant voice eij
pressed all the pathos, the romance, the tender]
ness, that lives between the words ; and in tin
last two lines there was a sort of timoroii
triumph, as of one who has gained victory ova
the world, her family, her own fears, and m
to her lover's breast, and yet trembles in lit]
triumph. Women do not give themselves ev(^
to their best beloved without tears.

This was in reality the great charm of Juditlij
singing — a charm no perfection of method, l^
quality of tone could have produced. She fe!

JUDITH MOORE.

109

the lull significance of everything she sang, and
had that sympathetic magnetism which creates
[its own moods in others. That is fascination,
^hat is i/he secret of these women at whose
)wer the world has wondered, v/hose loves
lave been the passions of history, whose whims
lave legislated the affairs of kingdoms.

"Don't sing any more," Andrew said when
^he finished. "I've had eno^igh for one day.

fi' r f

" You feel my music as I do myself," she said
)ftly. " It is almost pain."

Presently they went back through the woods,
lore silently than they had come, and yet

ippier. Judith looked up at him once or twice
rith no veil of laughter on her eyes. He was
irilled with the expression he found there ;

nv it seemed a steadfast ray of unselfish reso-
|ltion, again a yearning so poignant that it

lost unnerved him. He showed her the nest
the furrows.

* In a little while there will be birds in the

it," he said.

" Oh, I'll come and watch it every day."

"You must not come too often or stay too

ig," he said, " or the bird will get frightened
forsake her nest — fly away and never come

;k."

110

JUDITH MOORE.

'hu

" Oh, surely not fly away from that nest, i
Judith cried. To her that rough little wisp of |
coiled gra38 and horsehair represiiiited the per-
fection of bird architecture.

"If you would only come to the house —my i
house over there on the hill," said Andrew,
flushing a little and very eager; "my auiitl
would like you to so much, and I would sliowj
you a lot of nests. We have more birds there'
(suddenly feeling very proud of this fact) " thaD|
anywhere else in the county."

" Oh, I'd like to ever so much," said Juditk]
" Youi aunt ? "

" Suppose I send ray aunt over to see you
said Andrew, quite ignorant of the etiquette oil
calls, but hitting it off* well in his ignorancel
"She'll come to visit Mrs. Morris, and then,of|
course, if you care to see her, she'll be so glad
ask you to come over."

" Does your aunt /isit the Morrises ? " askeii|
Judith, with some surprise.

" Why, of course ; we only live a mile awajj
said Andrew, entirely oblivious of the complij
ment to himself.

"Oh, yes, of couKie," said Judith, hastily]
feeling mean.

Finally they said " Good-bye." Andrew ha
gone but a few steps when she called him.

JUDITH MOORE.

Ill

" Wait a moment. When do you think your
jaunt will come ? "

"Soon; not to-morrow, she's going to town,
[perhaps next day. Why ? "

" Oh, 1 want to put on a pretty frock," she
[said candidly.

" Well," said Andrew, with conviction, " j'ou
m't beat that one."

Miss Moore went back to the house. A weather-
)eaten frame house it was, with a weather-vane
the shape of a horse on top. When the horse's
lose pointed over Judith's window, the wind was
ist ; when it seemed to gallop in the direction
)f the kitchen, it was west ; when it made for
^e village, it was south, and when it looked with
longing eye, apparently, at the stables, it was
)rth. Mr. Morris explained this to Judith on
average once a day, but she always got it
lixed.

Mrs. Morris was vigorously making pies when
fudith entered.
" Baking ? " said Judith.

"Yes," said Mrs. Morris, breaking the crisp
ilks of rhubarb into little pieces. " Yes, I'm
ire I'm going to have company " (she broke the
3t piece of rhubarb with a snap and commenced
)lling out her paste with soft thuds). "Yes,
nnpany's coming sure. I dropped my dishcloth

p. ^ I

112

JUDtTH MoOftE.

%m'

three times this morning, and then the oil
brahma, lie just stood on that doorstep and
crowed for all he was worth. I never knowed
that bird to crow on that doorstep without
strange feet soon stood on it."

Mrs. Morris covered her pie, and then holding
the pie plate upon the fingers of one hand, dex
terously ran a knife around the edge, trimming
off a ring of paste that fell on her arm ; then
she dabbed it with a fork and put it in the oven

"I want something to put my flowers in
said Judith. " May I take some of those big
earthen jars out there ? " pointing to the opeo
door of the pantry, within which stood soiw
old-fashioned, rough, grey crocks.

" Yes," said Mrs. Morris, absent-mindedly, as
she carefully " tried ' a cake with a straw from
the broom to see if it was done ; " ves " — theo
coming back to sublunary matters as she shut
the oven door, " But sake's alive, child, you dent
want them things to put them in ! I'll get you
the scissora and some string so you can cut the
blows off^ them apple branches and make good
round bunches, and there's some posy pots I
bought in town one day. I'll get them to pui
them in."

Judith's heart sank. She was too afraid oi
hurting Mrs. Morris' feelings to say anythinj

JUDITH MOORE.

113

)ut when that busy woman appeared with some
lideous blue and green and gilt atrocities, a
)right thought struck her.

"Oh, Mrs. Morris," she said, "those are too
lice altogether. Just let me use the jars : those
light get broken."

" Well," said Mrs. Morris, pausing in the

iooY of th sitting-room, " they be only wild

[rabs and dogwood blows. It would be a pity

risk it, maybe." So she took back the vases

[nd replaced the bouquets of everlastings in

iem, feeling she had done her duty to her

)arder, but glad that matters had arranged

loraselves as they had.

So Judith got out the jars and tilled them
^ith great bunches of the dogwood, which gives
ich a Japanesque effect of blossom on bare
ranch, and with the apple blossoms, the wild
Ks mingling its dainty mauve equally well
fith each. 'Flien she leaned back against the
)r jamb (she was sitting on the doorstep), and
family listened to Mrs. Morris.
What a strange medley of criticism, informa-
)n, prophecy and humour the talk of such a
)man is, all given forth with no coherence, no
[uence of ideas, the disjecta 'iiiemhra of a
)usand gossipy stories, the flotsam and jetsam
the slow-flowing stream of country life ; now

I.!

114

JUDITH MOORE.

and then hitting off, as if by chance, a word or
two which is a complete characterization of i
person or place ; now and then piercintj^ to tlie
heart of some vital human truth ; now and thei
sowing a seed of scandal to bring forth bitter-
ness ; now and then by a pause, a sigh or a
word revealing the griefs of a homely heart, anii
always perpetuating a hundred harmless conceit«
of fancy, signs, warnings, and what Mrs. Mom
called, " omings that mean something."

Mis. Morris was popularly considered tlifj
most talkative woman in Ovid, always except-
ing Bill Aikins' wife who had so far distanceii
the others as to fairly outclass them. Somfrl
times Mrs. Morris wearied Judith to death witll
her tongue, but out of the resources of
generous heart, which always could furuislj
excuse? for everybody, Judith found palliatioi
for Mrs. Morris' fault. There was a certaii]
plot in the unkempt little graveyard in
wherein were live tiny graves ; over eacl!
was a coverlet of straggly clove pinks, and
each of the little sleepers had been bori
away from the farm-house by the woods. Noi|
and then, but rarely, Mrs. Morris spoke of
these babies. Their united ages would
have numbered half a dozen years; but Mri|
Morris, with the strange divination of mother

JUDITH MOORE.

115

lood, had seen in their infantile ways the

Indications of distinctive character, so that each

if tliese dead children had as individual a place

|n her memory as though it had worked and

rept and wearied itself into old age. And to

fudith this seemed excuse enough for poor

Shattering Mrs. Morris. All the breath other

lotliers use in speaking to their children, all

|he time they spend in silent thought about

leni and for them, was barren to this lonely

Id woman. " Who could wonder then that

10 wants to talk a bit ? " Judith one day said

Andrew, v istfully, when he was laughing

Mrs. Morris' tongue. Indeed, Judith's tender

res pierced deep down into the depths

these people's hearts. The ugly gossip, the

leering spite, the malignant whisperings she

sard, filled her with a pity divine enough to

)wn the dis;^ust which their backbiting and

wanness awakened. The pity of it ! she

lought, looking at the miracle of the sum-

ir fields beneath the summer sky ; the upward

)iration of every blade of grass, of every tiny

rig, of every little Morning Glory seedling,

riving to lift itself up, stretching forth its

idrils towards anything that would bear it

jher ; everything reaching towards the light.

d these people, surrounded by the strong

116

JUDITH MOOKE.

silent stimulus of nature, goin^ with their » v ,,
fixed upon the clods, or at most raised but tj
the level of their own heads, striving to j^'iaJ
some puny self-glorification, letting the m
gold of life run through their fingers like sah I
whilst with eager palms they snatched at tl ^^
base alloys which corroded their hands !

When Judith heard one woman say of anotli
" She's a most terrible nice woman. She woH
like a horse," she did not feel as much liU
laughing at the narrowness of the vision wliicll
pronounced such judgment, as weeping, that lif^
had ways which people trod wherein briui
physical exertion seemed the highest good.
will be seen that Judith had a tender and M
cerning eye to penetrate the pains and soiro^v!|
of others, but she could not decipher her om|
heart yet. It is hard to get one's self in i
perspective. It would indeed be a gift froiiitli(|
gods if we could see ourselves.

CHAPTER VI.

"He who sinj^s
To fill the highest purpose, need not soar
Above the lintel of the peasant's door."

Before the Morris house there stretched a

ice of unkempt grass, broken by three or

|>ur irregular flower beds, upon which the grass

iroached, from which the flowers sometimes

rayed afield. In these beds were clumps of

iquils — "yeller petticoats," Mrs. Morris called

^em— and there were heavy headed daffodils,

jhich, to Judith's delight, she dubbed dafF'down-

lies. There were patches of purple iris, too,

(id through one of the beds the sturdy roseate

jms of the common paeony wore pushing their

ly. A big bush of flowering currant was

[vered with its yellow flowers, murmurous

[th hundreds of bees, for they are very sweet.

le stems of the florets are bitten off" by children

get a drop of honey in each, just as in the

rets of a clover bloom.

|Up and down the sanded pathway leading to

p. Morris' front door paced Judith Moore,

' fi

118

JUDITH MOORE.

two (lays after Andrew's visit. She had on a
brown frock, girdled with a filigreed belt of
silver gilt ; a bunch of jonquils at her bosom
caught together the folds of some soft old lace;
her heels added a good two inches to her stature,
and she felt herself to be very well turned out,

It was warm ; the robins were building nesk
Presently one ttew by with a scrap of brilliant
red wool, and in a moment or two flew down
from the gable of the house, and regaled itself
with a long worm which it had spied from afar
It despatched its lunch with gusto, cocked its
head on one side, preened the feathers of its
wings with its foot, as ono would run the hand
through the hair, and then started in on it«
house-building again. " From labour to refresh-
ment," thought Judith.

She herself was in a state of tremulous happi-
ness; her being, freed from all artificial restraints,
released from all conventional bonds, was unfold-
ing, as naturally as the flower buds to the sun-
shine; her thoughts, no longer bent exclusively
upon her art, no longer dwelling upon the next|
triumph, found for themselves new and un-
expected pathways. For the firat time she gavel
herself up to the perilous pleasure of intix)-!
spection. In " sessions of sweet silent thought'
her fragmentary dreams and ideals of life, lovel

.irniTH MOORE.

119

and nature, wore attunin|^ theinsclves to a true
and eager aspiration to be worthy the best gift
of each. Her heart — well, her heart had not
been awakened yet. Like the great white lilies
Miss Myers' garden, it was yet half asleep,

but stirring within it was the sweetness of
spring, of springing life, and love, and the first
poignant sweetness of self -consciousness. The
lilies were yet only putting forth feeble leaves,
as if to test what manner of upper world wooed
them to put forth a blossom. So the little
tender impulses of Judith's heart were yet
very timorous. But the lilies would bloom in
good time — and the heart ?

Judith was still pacing back and forth when a

tall, angular figure, in a black cashmere gown and

a broad black shade hat, appeared in the gateway,

followed decorously by a melancholy red setter,

whose melancholy and good manners vanished

simultaneously as a cat, walking speculatively

round the corner of the house, caught his eye.

Rufus vanished, with the cat in a good lead.

jRufus' acceptance of the possibilities of the

jBituation had been so prompt, the cat's transition

[from a dreamer to a fugitive had been so sudden

[that Judith forgot the propitiatory smile with

^hich she had intended to greet Miss Myera,

md gave a regular peal of laughter.

120

JUDITH M<X)UE.

Miss Myei'H had come to call, or, as she herself
put it, ha<l " come to visit a spell with Mrs.
Morris."

" Oh, the pool cat ! " said Judith, not knowing
very well what to say, and getting rather red.

"Is it your cat? I'm real sorry. Rufus is
always hard on cats. There's one cat in the
village though — but there, you must be tlie
boarder. I'm real glad to see you."

" Yes," said Judith, " I'm Judith Moore, and
you must be Miss Myers; I know you by the dog.

Then a quick senso of the vision she had just
had of Rufus, the eager outstretched nose, the
flying heels whisking past the side of the house,
the cat's hysteric spitting as she turned and fltd
— this made Judith catch her breath.

Miss Myers laughed grimly. It was her
fortune always to look grim, even when she
wept. Afterwards, Judith knew that Miss
Myers had thoroughly appreciated the humour
of the situation, and had loved Judith " from
the minute I set eyes on her/' as Miss Myei-s
said. Perhaps, out of loyalty to Andrew, Miss
Myers exaggerated a little her first feeling
toward Judith, but for that kindly exaggeration j
one could gather her in one's arms.

Great indeed must be the love of that woman I
who is willing to accept, nay, even help, to win

JUDITH MOOUE.

121

the woman who is to displace her in the aftec-
tiona of one with whom she has from babyhood
l)ee'i first. Ai I that is the doom of all women
wIk) rear cliihlren, wliether their own or not ; to
nui'se them, watch them, pray for them, pain-
fully perhaps ; keep them as pure as may be ;
make them as true as [wssible ; and then some
(lay have them brin^ a stranger, a boy or girl,
of whom they have bereft some other woman,
ami say, " Look, this is my best beloved." Is
not that a great leward for which to fast, and
thirst, and labour ? And yet that is the good
guerdon gained by many a woman whose name,
if but grante<l the right meed of praise, would
be written in letters of gold on a silver sky.

Recognizing this, what tenderness should not
be felt towards such w^omen, what gratitude
I accorded them for the good gift they have
rendered up ?

Mrs. Morris came fussily to the door. " Miss

[Myers, let me make you acquainted with Miss

[Moore. Come right in ; sit down. Won't take

)tt* your things ? Well, now, that's real mean !

quite expected you'd come for a good visit.

Whatever be these dogs a-yelping at? Well, it

)eats all ! Just look at 'em," pointing out at

|he sitting-room window, which gave a view of

he oi*chard.
9

122

JUDITH MOCRE,

In the cleft of an apple-tree, just beyond the
reach of the dogs' leaps, sat the cat, an insultinj;
indifference expressed in every line of her
crouching shape, turning a calm countenance to
her impotent foes. The collie, seduced by the
example of Rufus, had cast aside the veneer of
amity overlying his natural instinct, and now
careened round and round the tree trunk, mak-
ing futile leaps at the cat ; whilst Ru^'us stood
uttering the characteristically mournful bark of
his breed, and waving his feathery tail as if
courtesy might induce the cat to descend and
be worried. However, the cat vvas an old-
stager. Her narrowed eyes gleamed venomously,
and she thought evil thoughts, but that was all.

" Old Tab '11 tire them dogs out before thej
get througli with her," said Mrs. Morris, placidly:
and sometime later, when the ladies looked forth
again, the cat was delicately walking along the I
top of the board fence, and the two dogs were in
full cry after a squirrel. It is probable that
those dogs, before they slept that night, won-
dered many a time and oft what trees were I
created for, if not specially intended to deprive |
decent dogs of a little legitimate sport.

Mrs. Morris, when she had no company, 1
occupied her spare time in " teazing " the wool
shorn from the sheep, preparatory to sending it

JUDITH MOORE.

123

to the woollen mill ; but she did not bring this
work into the sitting-room. She brought in her
braided mat. First she sewed strips of cloth
together, and when she had three differently
coloured balls made, she braided them into a flat
strand, then she sewed that round and round,
till it grew into a mat. All the rag carpets in
Mrs. Morris' house were bestrewn with these
mats, placed at irregular inter vals, but practice
and instinct so guided Mrs. Morris' feet, that she
never^ by any chance, no matter how engrossed
she might be in other mattera, stepped upon a
space of carpet. There was something very
interesting alx)ut this. She did it so uncon-
sciously, so accurately, like an erratic automaton.
It is true this practice did not conduce to a
Delsartean evenness of step: ami indeed, Mrs.
Morris, when walking through the fields, or
along the road, carried in her gait the replica of
the floor plan of her first three rooms Through
the front room, the sitting-room, the kitchen
tliat was the course she mapped upon the road
she travelled again and again. The wily Vivien
would not have won readily the secret of Mrs.
Morris' woven paces.

Miss Myers took off her shade hat and held it
|on her lap. Judith sat prettily erect, bending
iforward now and then, as if alert to answer Miss

i^^r^f^^mm

124

JUDITH MOOllE.

Myers' commonplaces— a flattering attitude that.
Mrs. Morris braided her strands firmly, lookintf
benignantly over her spectacles, which, havinf
slipped down to the very point of her nose, by
some miracle preserved a tentative hold. Their
precarious position gave Miss A y^ers "nerves."
She clasped her thin hands tightly " to stiddy
herself up."

They talked of the every-day incidents of
their homely lives. The first question that
came up was house-cleaning, a very vital matter
to the country housewife in spring and autumn.
Of course, these two women, being notable
house-keepers, had theirs done long ago, but
there were others — well, neither of these ladies
wished to make remarks, least of all about tlieir
neighbours, still —

Then they discussed the proper time for pick-
ing the geese (that is, denuding the live geese of
the feathers they would otherwise lose), and
both had often noticed the wilful waste of tiie
Greens, in letting their geese go unplucked, so
that the village street was snowed with wasted j
feathers which floated about in the air, or sailed,
the most fragile of crafts, in the little water-
cressed stream. This led naturally to the I
mysterious disappearance of Hiram Green's
twelve geese, a story retohl for Judith's benefit

JUDITH MOOKE.

Once when Hiram Green was breakin^j in a
colt in his barn-yard, the dogs frightened it, and
between Hiram's shouts, the dogs' barks and the
colt's plunging, the geese, twelve in number,
took unto themselves wings and flew away. The
fact that they were able to do this reflected
directly upon Hiram's management, and pro-
nounced it poor, for, of course, he should have
taken the precaution of clipping the feathers of
one wing, as every one did, to prevent just such
losses. However, the geese flew away. In the
excitement of the moment the direction of their
flight was unnoted, but willing volunteers spread
the news, and defined the ownership of any stray
^'eese which might be found. The Homes live<l
in a house very near the crest of the hill upon
the south ; so near to the top was it, that it
gave the impression of wanting to sneak away
out of sight of the village. It seemed to with-
draw itself from the village gaze and had a
secretive and uncommunicative look. Perhaps
the house did not really deserve this description,
but popular opinion accorded it. The Homes
were aliens to Ovid ; no one knew much about
[them, and that in itself is a grievance in such a
Iplace as Ovid. Well, a zealous searcher for the
(cceje inquired of Mrs. Home for tidings of them.
[Mrs. Home, standing upon her doorstep, regretted

f 31

126

JUDITH MOORE.

Hiram's loss and deplored not having seen them.
The messenger departed. But " people talk ed '' as
people w ill when such coincidences occur — wlien
on the next market day Mr. Home sold twelve
fine fat geese, whilst his own ^pursued the even
tenor of their way unmolested.

There was no proof of mal-appropriation, for
a dead goose does not usually bear many dis-
tinctive marks of individuality — still, people
talked. And the next day, when Mrs. Home
bought ticking in Hiram's store, to make a couple
of pillows, Hiram felt aggrieved as he tied
it up, and vaguely wondered if this was not
" seething the kid in its mother's milk." Neither
Miss Myers nor Mrs. Morris committed herself
to any definite expression of opinion as to the
Homes' responsibility in the matter, for neither
of them wished to give the other the opportunity
of quoting her verdict, but they shook their
heads at each other, and raised their eyebrows
and pursed up their lips, and then abruptly
branched off to another question, which happened \
to be virhether or not it was advisable to soak |
carrot seeds in water before planting — thej
implied decision in the goose question amount-
ing practictilly to the "Not Proven" verdict of I
the Scotch courts, than which nothing is iuore|
damning.

JUDITH MOORE.

127

At last Mrs. Morris' spectacles did fall of, and
Miss Myers' nervous start had a good deal of
relief in it. A crisis is best over.

Old Mr. Morris came in, and began to discuss
the death of Sam Symmons' mare. Not having
been present at the consultation regarding her,
he was absolutely certain that she had not been
accorded the proper treatment. " Might have
been the right treatment for an ellef ung, but not
for a hoss, no, not for a boss, not by no means."
Then he gave a long and critical dissertation
upon the merits of each remedy used, proving
conclusively, at least to himself, that in the case
of Sam's mare they were all so much poison.
Miss Myers must come out and see his sorrel
filly. " Thpre was a filly like a filly, not such
another in the country ! " So they all strolled
out to the board fence, and looked at the clean-
limbed little sorrel, whilst Mr. Morris dilated
upon her good points. A man is always frankly
and irrepressibly egotistical upon two subjects
—his horses and his judgment.

Miss Myei's did not go back to the house, and
Mrs. Morris and Judith strolled with her to the
gate. They bade each other good-bye there,
Mias Myers sniffing at a twig of lemon balm
which she had gathered. Judith and Mi-s.
Morris were to visit Miss Myei*s two days later.

128

JUDITH MOORE.

Little had been said about Andrew, but enougli
to show Judith that he was the very apple of
Miss Myers' eye.

" Sarah Myers thinks a powerful sight of
Ar^rew Cutler," said Mrs. Morris. "It seems
sort of heathenish to be so set on any one. I
don't hold with it. Well, if you hain't got no
children to laugh with, you hain't got none to
cry over." The yearning of her empty mother-
heart had taught her this pitiable philosopliy.

It was three o'clock when Mrs. Morris and
Judith reached the Cutler house on the hill.

Mr. Morris had driven them as far as the
village in the democrat waggon. He stopped at
the blacksmith shop, and they alighted, to walk
through the village to their destination, whilst
he went on an errand to town. There were very
few people to be seen on the village streets.

Tommy Slick and his dog Nip met them.
Tommy looked very guileless, with round face,
beautifully tinted white and pink, big clear eyes
and " lips depressed, as he were meek." In his
hands he carried a horse's halter and a tin pail.
Nip followed, with limply hanging tail, lowered
nose and hunched- up shoulders, but an expres-
sion not so wholly deprecating as his attitude.
When Tommy looked meek, and Nip innocent,

JUt)lTtt MOORE.

129

it behooved the villn-ge to be wary ; there was
some mischief afoot.

"There's that Slick limb," said Mrs. Morris.
" I'll be bound he ain't up to no good ; and that
dog of his, look at it ! "

" It looks hungry," said Judith.

"Then I'll go bail there's no vittles in the
village if that dog's going empty," said Mrs.
Morris. (Some memory seemed struggling for
utterance.)

Judith changed the subject and took up
Tommj 's case.

" He looks a nice little chap, and he's got a
lovely complexion," said she.

" It don't matter how he's complected. He's a
Slick," said Mrs. Morris, with decision. " And
being a Slick ain't no recommend for a church
member ; he's got brothers that has been in
^sxA, that young one has ; there's Indian blood
in the Slicks. Did you hear any noise when
Tommy passed ? No, nor you never will. He
goes pad, pad along, regular flat-footed Indian
fashion — all the Slicks do — no good honest heel-
and-toe about them. One of his sisters, the one
I married over Kneeland way, is just like a squaw
(for all the world. They say it was the great-
[great- grandmother on the Slick side was a
Bquaw — she came from near Brantford."

, i

130

JUDITH MOORE.

'mm

-■\ \ \t

,L^.^.JA

"I thought Indians were all dark-skinned,"
ventured Judith, "and that boy certainly—"

" Well, if his face ain't complected like them,
you can depend on it his heart is," interrupted
Mrs. Morris, in a tone suggestive of rising
temper.

" There's the Slick house now," she said in a
voice which indicated that the name of Slick
was malodorous to her. She pointed to a
rickety, rough plaster house which they were
passing. In the doorway stood a frowsy woman,
her arms akimbo, her fingers and palms stained
a deep purple. •

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Slick. Been dyeing?"
said Mrs. Morris, affably, as they came abreast
of her.

" Good day. Yes," said the woman, curtly.

Upon the clothes-line at the eqd of the house
some garments, dipped in purple dye, liiingj
drying.

" Them '11 streak when they dry," said Mi's.
Morris, in the discriminating tone of one who
knows.

Judith wondered vaguely where she had seen |
that peculiar purple colour ; later she remem-
bered that the outside of the tin pail Tommy |
Slick carried, had been smeared with it.

Hiram Green greeted them from his shop!

JUDITH MOORE.

131

door as they passed, and Bill Aikins' wife gave
them a brisk salutation, without pausing in her
work of " sweeping up " her door steps They
passed the school-house ; the chiWren were out
at recess. Mrs. Morris' brow contracted, and her
voice was a little querulous when she spoke next.

" Seems to nie cnildren grow powerful noisy
these times" she said. " I disrenieniber that they
used to be so when I was little."

They turned the corner. Hiram Green's
house was the last one in the village. It was a
brick house, built flush with the street. It had
six windows in front, and these winrlows had
been considered very original and genteel,
when Hiram had them put in. For, instead of
being the ordinary oblong windows, the tops of
tliese were semicircular. Hiram had intended
at first to have the semicircle tilled with glass,
but decided, from economic reasons, to substitute
wood. These wooden tops conveyed the impres-
sion of the windows having eyebrows, and gave
a supercilious air to the whole house, which was
a very good indication of the attitude of Hiram
Green and his daughters to their neighbours,
j There was a, Mrs. Green, but she was one of those
hard-worked nonentities, never considered in
[tho polity of the household save as a labour-
[saving agent. The Misses Green were usually

.■ I 1 1 Jl^*l»»w^»«p

132

JUDITH MOOKE.

to be seen on a fine afternoon either on tlie
" stoop," or by the open parlour windows. Mrs.
Green was never visible ; she was obliteraH
beneath the burden of work she bore upon her
patient shoulders.

The Misses Green were out in force as Judith
and Mrs. Morris we^it by. Enshrined in tl?eir
midst was a sallow younj^ Methodist clergyman,
somewhat meagre-looking, but with a counten-
ance i'ull of content. He fairly gaped after
Judith. Mrs. Morris greeted the Misses (ireen
coldly. She did not like them. Their mother
and Mrs. Morris had been friends in girlhood,
and Mrs. Morris had a poor opinion of her old
friend's daughters. " Hester Green's got no spunk
or she would not stand it," she said with
asperity, and added, " Poor thing ! "

Mrs. Green's wistful eyes looked at them from
the kitchen window, where she was frying
crullers for the minister's tea. But she did not
think of her own lot as being harder than Mi-s.
Morris' — far from it.

" Poor Jane, trapesing along with a strange
girl, and me got four daughters," she said to
herself, and dropped a bit of potato into the
bubbling fat to see if it was at the proper
temperature.

Perhaps Mrs. Green's daughters as well as!

¥ m

JUDITH MOcmE.

133

their " ways " were rocks of offence to Mrs.
Morris, yet they were truly a poor possession to
covet

A short walk, an<l then Judith ami Mrs.
Morris were at the foot of the hill-side. They
entered Andrew's domain ; and found, as they
closed the gate, that Miss Myers and Andrew
had come to meet them.

Andrew had longed intensely during the four
days just gone to see Judith again. So extra va-
<,'ant had his desire for this been, that when he
saw her coming afar off, he felt almost a regret.
The anticipation had been so satisfying that he
felt a stifled fear, lest the vision be found to
surpass the real. But when she gave him her
liand, and looked at him, straight from her
honest eyes into his — well, then he knew no
dream could be so dear as the sweet realit}'.
And from that moment the \vorld put on a
different countenance to those two — the sky, the
water, the clouds, and the earth^s bloom-scented
fjxce all changed,

As they turned to follow Miss Myers and Mrs.
Morris they were a little silent. A quieting
hand seemed to have been laid in benediction
I upon their hasty pulses. An awe, not of each
other, but of the holy realm they felt they were
|entering, fell upon them. From the portals of

' »i

i*m

134

JUDITH MOORE.

that ProHiiscfl Laiul ihore Hecuied to issue a
f^entle but cc)mp(;lling voice, bidding theiu tread
gently, for the place whereon they stood Mas
holy ground. In Andrew's heart there surj^ed a
new Htreiigth, a strong tide of resolution. In
Judith's heart there sprang to life many swoet
hopes, savoured and sanctified almost to pain, by
a new sweet fear.

Their voices softened. Andrew's tones seemed
informed with a new meaning. Jurlith's accents
held a hint of appeal.

But this transfonnation was unacknowlcflfjjed
by each of them. Judith's eyes still met liis
bravely, and he constrained himself to self-
control. But what a glorified place that linden-
laden hill-side had become !

Judith laughed out happily.

"I am happy!" she said, out of sheer light-
heartedness. " Are you ? "

Andrew drew his breath in swiftly, and closed
his lips firmly a moment, as to repress some
words that strove for utterance.

" Yes, I should think I am," he said.

They passed under the apple-tree by the garden
gate. Its petals seemed almost spent— the life j
of the apple blossom is short. But how much i
sweeter the spot, and the tree, when she stood
beneath it, than ever it had been before in all

.TrniTir mooiik.

1.^5

its K^'^^y *^"^^ bloom ! They were in the garden ;
the oUl sun dial with the linden tree 'oeaide it
stood in the sunwhine. Judith's eyes filled with
happy toars, which Andrew did not see ; lie
only thouj^ht her eyes were blight It seemed
to lier that her spirit had foun<l its natal place
here on the hill. These aromatic breaths from t^ie
box. the perfume of the violets, the odour of the
cheny blossom, the sound of the birds, the rustle
of the leaves — surely these were the scents and
sounds of home. •

" Do you know what Mi*s. Browning Siiys of
such a tree ? " she asked.

"No: tell me."

" I do not know if I can remember it. I'll
try. I — " (She was nervous — she who had
sung to the Kaiser!) Then she repeated, her
voice trembling a little —

" Here a linden tree stood, bright'ning

All adown its silver rind ;
For as some trees dmw the lightning,

So this tree, unto my mind.
Drew to earth the blessdd sunshine

From the sky where it was shrined."

" I think it is you who have drawn down the
jsunshine," he said. '* Anyhow, it is always sun-
Isliine where you are."'

](f^

136

JUDITH MOOKE.

nlHfinii

She was amazed at the joy which flooded her
heart at this commonplace compliment. They
loitered about the garden until Miss Myei-s
summoned them to tea. Judith came in almost
shyly before these two country women, wlio, to
tell the truth, had felt the freei* to enjoy them-
selves in her absence.

Miss Myers took her into a bedroom to lay ott'
her hat. It was cool, quiet, large, with cornel's
already growing dusky in the fading ligiit. A
huge bed heaped liigh with feathers was covered
with a snowy coverlet. Some tall geraniums
with fragrant, forn-like leaves stood in the
windows ; a dark, polished table filled one angle.
The mirror, a little square of dim glass, was set
in a polished mahogany frame, and placed upon
a high chest of drawers of the same rich dusky
wood.

There was something pure, still, almost ascetic,
in the large bare room. Its spotlessness seemed
to diffuse a sense of restful peace. One would
have said no weary eyes had ever held vain
vigil here, that no restless heart had here
sought slumber without finding it.

Judith someliow felt like \o vering her voice,
She took off* her hat and patted her hair
solicitously as every normal woman <loes. Sin
could only see her face in the mirror, nothing

JUDITH MOORE.

137

more, not even the purple and yellow pansies in
the breast of her yellow frock. She touched
thfcm fjently. Andrew had picked them for her
in the garden.

" Am I right ? " she asked, looking at Miss
Myers.

"Couldn't be improved," said Miss Myers,
heartily, upon whom Judith's interest in the
garden and evident desire to please had made
quite an impression in the last few minutes.

So they went back to the sitting-room to-
gether, whan Miss Myers excused herself for a
few minutes whilst she went to give the finish-
ing touches to her table — to see that the girl
hud set it properly, get out the best china and
the silver teapot, the richest fru't-cake, the finest
canned peaches, and fill the cream ewer with
the thickest of cream.

Andrew was leaning against a window case-
ment as Judith entered the room. The broad
I window-sills were full of flowers ; the heavy old
[red curtains were pushed far back to the sills,
making a dusky background for Andrew's tall
figure in its rusty velveteens. Judith advanced
[toward him, h(jr yellow frock looking almost
?hite in the waning light, the purple heartsease

dark blot upon her breast.

" Isn't that plant pretty ? " she asked Mrs.
10

138

JUDITH MOORE.

Morris, feeling a nervous desire to include her
in the conversation — she felt so much alone with
Andrew.

" Which ? " asked Mrs. Morris, joining them at
the window. " The * Aaron's Beard * or the
•Jacob's Ladder' ?"

" I mean this hanging plant," said Juditli.

" Oh, the * Mother of Millions ' ; yes, it's real
handsome," said Mrs Morris, looking at the
luxuriant pot of KeniJvvo .L Ivy over which
Judith was bending.

" What a funny name ! " said Judith.

" Oh, it don't make much difference about the
names of 'em," returned Mrs. Morris. " Only so
long as you know 'em by *em."

Miss Myers entered, and they followed her to
the dining-room.

Miss Myers was reputedly the most forehanded
house-keeper in Ovid, and support d to set the
best table of anyone in the vi !*.>', "and do
thanks to her for it; she's got p*r oy to tlo
with " — ^as her neighbours often said. But in
spite of her liberal house-keeping. Miss Mym
"looked well to the ways of her household";
there were no small channels of waste permitted
under her regime.

Judith was charmed with everything— the |
chicken and ham, which Andrew deftly dis

JUDITH MOORE.

139

pensed; the huge glass dish of peaches, pre-
served whole, and with a few long green peach-
leaves put with them to flavour them; the
snowy white cream -cheese set on a bed of
parsley ; the young lettuce fresh gathered from
the garden (of which Mrs. Morris said later, " It
wtis just murdering them lettuce to pick 'em so
young"); the black fruit cake; and the bread
browned in Miss Myers' brick oven.

A cat sprang upon the sill of the open window,
and after some pretence of surprise (at which
Andrew raised his eyebrows and looked at
Judith), Miss Myei's gave it a saucer of milk on
the window-ledge. Strangely enough there
happened to be an extra saucer handy. Judith
sat demurely, feeling that there never had been
such a joke as she and Andrew perceived in
Miss Myers' poor pretence of astonishment at
the cat's daring. The cat finished her milk, and
sat washing her face industriously.

Rufus sat sedately beside his master's chair,

with a look almast of sanctity in his big hazel

eyes. Rufus never begged, but he shifted his

forepaws uneasily and swept his banner of a

tail along the floor, mutely impoiiiunate. Later

Jon Judith learned this was the regular per-

[formance of these two favourites. There were

[other dogs about the place, and barn cats in

140

JUDITH MOORE.

,1, !

plenty, but these two chosen ones had the high
seats in the synagogue.

There were antlers between the windows, and
over the side table, and above the doors; a
trophy of wild ducks and water fowl was
mounted upon a beautiful hard- wood panel;
foxes' masks grinned from the comers. And
when they passed out to the hall, theie was the
old musket, the sword with its crimson sash, a
pair of rusty spurs and a cartridge belt, all
hung upon the huge horns of the one moose
which Andrew's gun had brought down.

An incident at the table had disturbed Judith
very much. In response to a request for salt,
she had handed Andrew some, and Mrs. Morris
promptly said :

" Well, you shouldn't have done that. That's
a bad oming. * Help one to salt, help them to
sorrow.' That's terrible unlucky."

" Oh, Mr. Cutler," said Judith, " do you think
I've given you sorrow ? "

"No," said Andrew. "No, indeed; I don't |
believe any of those old sayings." Miss Myers j
was silent.

"Well," said Mrs. Morris, "I don't know;!
them things seems bore out sometimes. There
was young Henry Braddon; he keeps post-oiEce
now " (this to Judith) " and one day his mother

JUDITH MOORE.

141

gave him some salt to salt the cattle. ' Help
one to salt, help one to sorrow/ says he, and off
he went, and when he come back his mother lay
in the porch, took with the stroke she died of."

Judith's face was pale and startled.

" Seems to me," said Andrew, dryly, feeling as
if he would like to choke Mrs. Morris — " seems
to me the brunt of that bad luck fell on her."

" I wish I'd never seen salt," said Judith. " Do
you think any bad luck will come of it ? "

"Nonsense," said Andrew, and somehow his
manlike scorn did much to reassure Judith, but
when the others were not looking, she pushed
the oft'ending salt as far as possible from her.

Mr. Morris was to call for them, and he
arrived very soon, but in the meantime the
evening had grown a little chill, and Judith h&d
no wrap. She denied feeling cold, but as they
stood in the porch she shivered. Andrew ran
in and brought out a huge homespun shawl and
bundled her up in it ; her face, in contrast to its
heavy rough folds, looked very delicate and
Iwhite.

She was seated alone in the second seat of the
[democrat waggon. Andrew came to her side ;
[his eyes were nearly on a level with hers.

" You never showed me the birds' nests ! " she

lid.

142

JUDITH MOORE.

" Oh, you must come back and see those," he
said eagerly. " You will come back ? "

"As often as Miss Myers will let me," said
Judith, unaftectedly. " And " — she coloured a
little — "you'll come and see my bird's nest in
the field ? "

•* Yes, to-morrow," said Andrew.

Mr. Morris shook the reins over the old sorrel.
Judith bent over giving Andrew her hand.

"Mr. Cutler," she said hastily, "you dout
think I gave you sorrow ? "

" No," he said, some deep feeling makinfr his
voice intense in its quiet strength. " No, you
give me — " The old sorrel was eager to get back
to her slim-fetlocked daughter, and she spranj;
forward. Judith's hand seemed torn from hiin;
his sentence was left incomplete.

" Good-night," he said.

" Good-night, good-night," called Judith in
return.

CHAPTER VII.

"Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed,
And worthy of acceptation. "

Next day the village was stirred to its depths
when Hiram Green passed through the streets,
bringikg from his pasture his white horse,
striped with purple paint, or dye, until it looked
like an exotic zebra.

With this horae he brought his gi'oceries from
town ; behind it many a school-teacher had
driven in vainglorious ease. Hiram had gone
for it that day with intent to do the little
L.ethodist parson honour, by taking him for a
drive, a plan necessarily postponed by the
hilarious appearance of the horse, which looked
out from a pair of artistically drawn purple
spectacles upon the excitement which its ap-
pearance created.

Hiram was furious, the Misses Green were
rampant, the parson piously indignant, and even
meek Mrs. Green lifted up her voice in wrath

The horse was escorted to the barn-yard, to be
subjected to such a course of scrubbing as never

144

JtTDlTH MOOllfi.

fell to the lot of an Ovidian horse before ; but
aniline dyes are hard to eradicate. That day,
and for many days after, the horse went about
contentedly in a pale purple coat.

There was no direct evidence to convict any
one of the prank; but Hiram had refused to
give the Slick family any further credit at his
store, and from the clothes-line of the Slick
house, some garments, dipped in purple dye,
flaunted derisively in the breeze. Tommy Slick
and Nip went about looking as if butter wouldn't
melt in their mouths; and all Mrs. Slick was
ever heard to say about the matter was :

" Let 'em come to me and just as much as hint
that Tommy done it ! I'll — but just let 'era
once, that's all."

And whilst nobody showed a disposition to
hinder any one else from making the accusation,
still no one volunteered to voice the general
opinion regarding the matter to Mrs. Slick.
Besides, secretly, every one felt a sort of sneaking
satisfaction over the matter.

Andrew and Judith, to confess the truth,
thought it a huge joke, and at Judith's instiga-
tion, they made a long journey across the fields
to Hiram's pasture lot, to see the horse; and
when they beheld him placidly purple, munching
away in supreme content, they laughed till their
voices rang out through the wood.

JUDITH MOORE.

145

Judith recalled the purple smears on Tommy's
pail the day she had met him, and felt an
unholy joy of participation in the plot. Judith
didn't like the Greens. As she and Mrs. Morris
passed them going to Andrew's, one sentence
had rung out clearly to Judith's ears: "My!
Ain't she pinched ! " That was enough. The
Greens never found favour in the eyes of
Judith.

Andrew, as he had promised to do, went to
see Judith's bird's nest the day after her visit to
his farm. At that meeting, and in many more
such sweet hours which followed, Judith and
Andrew lived in the joy of the moment. Their
hearts were young, the world was fre i and
fair ; the one loved deeply, and the other — well
—for the time she had forgotten her ambition,
forgotten the marvellous gift that made holy
the air she breathed, or only remembered it for
the pleasure it gave this young countryman;
she had forgotten that her name was famous,
whispered from lip to lip throughout the musical
world; she had forgotten the intoxication of
iBuccess, the wine of applause ; she had forgotten
[the great debt she owed the man who had made
ler what she was, a debt that she could only
requite in one way, by singing. So surely she
lust have sipped some Nepenthe of present

146

JUDITH MOORE.

happiness or future hope ! LiOtos lands are verv
sweet, but rarely so satisfying as these two
found them.

It seems to outrage our sense of proportion,
to think of a young farmer aspiring to the hand
of one who showed every promise of being the
world's prima donna. To us it seems grotesque
almost, and Andrew seems ridiculously egotis-
tical in hoping that this song-bird would abide
in his love- woven cage of rushes, when the doore
of so many golden nets were open to her But
Andrew's daring was perhaps excusable.

It is true, her voice had led him to her first,
and he always heard it as a devotee might hear
the voices of angels strike through his prayers;
but after that first meeting, Andrew had always
. seen the woman in her, not the songstress. He
did not love her for her singing, her beauty, nor
her gentle breeding. He loved her for herself-
the truest love of all. For a love founded upon
any gift is a frail thing, a banner hung upon
reed. The reed may break, and the banner no I
longer lifted up may not. care to enwrap the
broken stem which before upheld it. What does|
England's greatest woman poet say ?

"If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. "

JUDITH MOORE.

147

"For love's sake only "—that should be the
supreme reason of every passion. Love, "the
fulfilling of the law," the beginning and end of
all things.

And thus, inasmuch as this great justification
was his, Andrew was justified.

Nor did he seek with rude hands to snatch
his happiness hastily. As one pauses with
hushed heart, when he conies in woodland
places upon some new sweet flower, or sees
through a cleft of the mountains the glory of
the sun, or gathers to his breast some soul-
satisfying truth, so Andrew paused ere raising
tlie cup of this great joy to his lips. He felt
he must purify his hands ere he advanced to
stretch them forth for the draught. And should
it be denied him ?

Thought ceased there — beyond was chaos.

And Judith gathered the flowers of the hour
with eager fingei"s, trembling with new joy,
finding in their perfume complete satisfaction,
looking neither before nor after, as a butterfly
revels in the sunshine, forgetting the chill of
by-gone days, unrecking of the bitter blasts to
come.

The days became weeks, and the earth grew
glad with fruits and flowers and growing grain,
puring all this time Judith was learning of the

148

JUDITH MOORE.

'"I

people about her, prying with her tender eyes
into the pathos of their narrow lives, appre-
ciating keenly the unconscious humour dis-
played in their processes of thought, niarvellinj;
at their stolid disregard of the Beautiful.

Rufus and the grey cat knew her well, and
Miss Myers was devoted to her.

Mrs. Morris and Miss Myers had grounded
her thoroughly in the family history of the
villagers, and she knew as much about them tif,
about the others, for Miss Myers told her alK3ut
Mrs. Morris, and vice versa.

And Judith had d< 'oped a keen interest in
all the doings of the village people, of whom
old Sam Symmons was her favourite, the re-
doubtable Tommy Slick being a good second,
Old Sam liked her, and prophesied freely that
she would soon be mistress of Andrew Cutler's
house. Suse pretended not to be much im-
pressed with Judith ; it was not to be expected
that any marriageable girl in the neighbour-
hood would particularly admire the strange
woman who had led away captive the most
eligible n^an for miles around, and, besides,
Suse had a love affair of her own upon lier
hands. The rest of the village girls contented
themselves with giggling when Andrew and
Judith passed, whispering among themselves

JUDITH MOORE.

that "There didn't seem to be much sign of
Miss Myers moving out, and if slie was going
to live with Andrew and his wife, it was as well
he hadn't chosen any of thsm, for they wouldn't
stand that " — reflections which consoled them
very much evidently, and which, being entirely
haniiless to any one else, were quite admissible.

Judith thought this rustic life very (]uaint
and idyllic to look at — like one of Hardy's
stories, only bearing the same relation to a
story that a game of chess, played as they play it
sometimes in the ast, with living pawns, does
to the more prostiic pastime pondered over upon
a table.

The village appealed to her as a skilfully set
scene, begirt by a beautiful background of
changing fields and sky— a stage whereon was
enacted an interminable drama, in whose scenes
all the constituents of humble life were blended.

It never occurred to her that she was the
heroine of the story — the queen of the animated
! chess board, an actress in the life play. Poor
[Judith! She thought herself only a spectator,
and, as such, deemed herself secure from all the
[pains and penalties of the play.

Judith always laughed, though sometimes

[for shame she strove to hide the laughter when

Pommy Slick was before the footlights. Tommy

150

JUDITH MOOR5.

■'-1

had been making a hilarious record for himself
at school. To begin with, Tommy was nearly
ten years old, and bad been allowed to run
wild at home, hence he was utterly ignorant
of the world of letters, but wide awake to the
vital facts in the world of men ; for Tommy's
intellect was precocious and practical.

Tommy's father was wont to say of this, his
youngest hope, " Tommy hain't much of a letter
sharp, but he'd be good on a horse trade," and
his judgment was about correct. His mother,
as a preliminary to Tommy's appearance, called
upon Suse, and informed her that " Tommy was
a right smart young un, but delikit." Of the
first fact Suse was well awure ; of the truth of
the latter statement she never could convince
herself. Did she not, in common with the rest
of the village, remember well the day when
Tommy and his father furnished forth enter-
tainment for the whole community ? The
fashion of it did not suggest any extreme de-
bility upon Tommy's part. It was in this wise:

One dajT" Tommy, having incited his irascible I
father even more than usual, perceived blool
in his parent's eye, and concluded to run. The
chase led up the village street, to the vacant |
lot where the old store had been burned down.
The fleet and flying Tommy, turning here, hi

iv"

it
'I

JUDITH MOORE.

161

perceived his father in full pursuit, and, evi-
dently doubting his own staying powers, had
taken to a tree, shinning up a tall, slender,
swaying poplar with precocious celerity. He
climljed to the very top, and, undaunted by the
slenderness of his perch (for the tree bent be-
neath his weight as a stalk of grain beneath a
bird), clung comfortably there, whilst his father,
unable to follow up the slender stem, stood at
the foot, and alternately threatened, cajoled
and cursed. When he resorted to swearing as a
safety valve for his wrath, Tommy exchanged
oaths genially and freely with him, until Slick,
Sen., in a paroxysm of rage, shook the tree
continuously and violently, so that Tommy took
an earthward flight, fortunately for him landing
on a pile of old straw.

His father, somewhat cooled down by the

[spectacle of Tommy shooting through the air,

i approached him, and as a preliminary, asked Jiim

if he was hurt. This gave Tommy an opportunity

pvliich he at once improved. He made no reply.

And thereupon Suse and the rest of the
[0 vidians were regaled by seeing Tommy's fatlier
parrying his son home tenderly, stepping care-
fully so as not to jar the presumably broken

mes-

This progress Tommy rendered as arduous as

152

JUDITH MOORE.

possible, by lying perfectly limp in his father's
arms ; in fact, making himself dead weight, and
letting his long legs dangle helplessly down, to
meet his father's knee-caps, or shins, at every
step, with the brass toes of his heavy boots. It
was not reported that Tommy suffered much
from this experience.

Tommy had a fine fund of profanity, which
served as a spicy garnish to his deep sense of
humour, a genial and easy self-possession, un-
failing confidence in his own powers, and a dog
he was willing to back against any other in the
village, except Hiram Green's brindle bull pup.

The first day Tommy went to school, Suse had
the " infant " class up before one of the alphabet
tablets by the window, and Tommy, affable and
completely at ease, came with them. Mosi
children — Ovidian children — when they came to
school for the first time, were somewhat abashed
by the novelty of their surroundings, given to
starting at every sound, stumbling over the leg8
of dbtjks, and getting hopelessly entangled with
the other pupils, in their efforts to obliterate
themselves from the teacher's notice. Not so,
Tommy. No teacher ever born had terrors for I
him ; the legs outstretched to trip him on his
way up the aisle, were withdrawn, tingling from |
the kicks of Tommy's brass toes, When he wa

JUDITH MOORE.

153

half-way up the aisle, it occun*ed to him to take
a short-cut, so he wriggled between two desks,
and landed with a slide over the third, to find
most ot the class assembled. A sharp pinch of
an arm, his elbow applied vigorously to a side,
a vicious kick upon a shin, cleared his way of
three boys. Then he planted himself at the
head of the class, next Suse, and prepared to
receive the seeds of knowledge.

But his eyes wandered, first with a look all
about, then abstractedly to the window. But
the abstraction vanished, and a look of intense
eagerness made his eyes bright, as they bent in
absorbed interest upon one spot, where his dis-
reputable dog, who had followed him to school,
a la Mary's sheep, was harassing the life out of
a fat and grunting pig, which he had, in his own
proper person, surrounded ; for, heading off" the
pig in whatever direction she turned, he seem-
ingly converted himself into twenty disreputable
(logs. Having bewildered the pig with a few
lightning rushes round it, with a sharp nip at
: its tail, ears, or nose, as he could best get in a
[flying bite, he planted himself like a lion in the
way, and yelped red-mouthed derision and insult
[at the impotent foe, who was too fat to follow,
[either mentally or bodily, the gyrations of its
igile tormentor.
11

154

JUDITH MOOKE.

" Tommy ! " said Suse. (Tommy paid no heed.)
" Tommy!" repeated she, more imperatively. (No
sign from Tommy.) " Tommy Slick ! ! " accentu-
ating her voice by a sharp rap of her pointer on
a desk. Just then the owner of the pig came
along, kicked Nip, and Tommy came back to
sublunary aiFairs.

" All right, Suse," he said obligingly, " I'm yer
man."

At that Suse felt the foundations of her
throne tottering.

In the afternoon, mindful of the temptations
of the window, she had Tommy's class up before
the blackboard, where, printing the alphabet a
letter at a time, she made the class name them,
Tommy kept his attention pretty closely fixed
until N was reached ; then he became absent-
minded. He was meditating his revenge upon
the pig's owner for kicking Nip. The only step
he had decided upon was to try conclusions,
immediately after school, with the man's son.
The latter was two years older than Tommy,
and a good half-head taller, but Tommy never
considered such paltry details when an affront
to Nip was to be wiped out.

Tommy's mind was engrossed with further
plans when Suse, after elaborately executing a
capital S upon the blackboard, addressed him,
not without some trepidation.

JUDITH MOORE.

155

" Tommy, that's S." (No response.)

" Tommy," she said with angry dignity, " you
must look at the blackboard. That letter is S."

" Oh, is it ? " said Tommy, in a pleasantly in-
terested tone, "I always did wonder what the
little crooked devil was," For the remainder of
Tommy's first day at school Suse felt that her
glory was a delusion and a snare.

Judith carefully concealed from Mrs. Morris
her enjoyment of Tommy's pranks, the former
having no patience witli " them two imps," as
she designated Tommy and Nip. For, once,
Mrs. Morris had been expecting company, and
the better to entertain them, had baked a batch
of pumpkin pies, it being the seafjon when such
delicacies were in order. She sec them out on a
bench in the front porch to cool, taking the
precaution to make sure that the collie and the
cat were safe in the kitchen.

When Mrs. Morris returned, some half- hour

later, she found a row of empty pie plates, and

sitting beside them, looking at them with the

dissatisfied expression of a dog still hungry,

was Tommy Slick's dog Nip. Nip fled from

[the face of Mrs. Morris towards Andrew's

woods, where Tommy was gathering hickory

(nuts, sped upon his way by an earthen flower

[pot flung with a vigorous but inaccurate hand.

156

JUDITH MOORE.

■r„

i I

Ever since that day Mrs. Morris had cherished a
deep hatred of Tommy and his dog.

Judith, as the days passed, was very happy;
but happy in a blind, unreasoning fashion.
With persistent self-delusion she put behind
her the fact that this dream-like summer was
but an interlude in her life. True, at first
she persistently took short views, and only
interested herself in matters a day or two
beyond the present, but gradually she slipped
into the habit of speaking and thinking as if
she were to be there always.

Now and then there were times when the
colder light of reason showed her plainly how
factitious this evanescent happiness was. These
moods came upon her like so many physical
shocks, leaving her feeling much older, much
quieter, robbing her life of radiance and giving
her almost a distaste for the simple scenes which
had created delusions v/hich bade fair to cost
her so dear. Sometimes when the clear radiance
of the moon shone in upon her at night, she lay
and thought of the brilliant scenes, the well-
nigh certain triumphs which awaited her — for,
immature as she might be in some things, she I
was mistress of her art and knew it, but her
cheeks no longer flushed as they had wont to|
do, her eyes no longer kindled at the dieaiii

JUDITH MOORE.

157

instead, lier face set into a cold dignity and her
eyes looked out in the moonlight, out into the
future with a look of prescient martyrdom — the
martyrdom of lonely Genius! The look of
those whose brows smooth themselves for the
crown of solitary success, that coronal which
has so often crushed its wearer, so often obscured
the eyes it ovei-shadowed, so that they no longer
beheld peace and joy !

But at the first sound of Andrew's footsteps,
always eager, hasty, hopeful as they approached
her, these shadows vanished, and in their place
shone the dawn of a newer light.

She had never before been considered as a
woman, but always as a singer ; and her woman-
hood recognizing the tribute paid to it, stirred
into life, responded to the feeling which evoked
it, and demanded right of way.

There is something dominant in the woman-
heart when roused. Judith's nature held deeper
depths than she herself wot of — sweet springs
for the lilies of love to grow in ; reservoira of
feeling, long unsuspected, but now brimming to
the brink, threatening to break every barrier,
and flood their way over the ruin of her life
schemes, her painfully constructed temple of
Art, the airy fabric of her ambition; but one
.obstacle could not be swept aside — the benefits

158

JUDITH MOORE.

received. When Judith thought of what she
owed her manager, then her heart grew faint
within hei' ; but, as excessive pain at length
numbs sen^^tion, so this thought became one of
the accepted facts of her life, the life she was
enjoying so much.

And the days were so long, and so sweet, that
it seemed impossible that the end would ever
come. But it was already midsummer, the
harvest fields were brightening beneath the
sun, the little school-house was closed for the
summer holidays ; from the orchards came the
odour of ripe harvest apples, and the sun-
bonneted women gathered wild raspberries from
the fences, or picked currants in the garden.

And Judith had herself grown infinitely
charming; for she was not letting all the
sunshine slip from her. As the ruby crystal
holds the rays which gives it its roseate charni,
so Judith was absorbing the beauties about her,
and giving them forth in a gentle radiation of |
womanly graces.

When one part of a nature is nurtured to the I
exclusion of the rest, it is not strange that the
whole suffers somewhat. Judith, taught only|
to sing, to look well, to win applause by merit,
or clever finesse, had known perhaps too little of I
real womanliness, save the intuitional imi

l:..;i

JUDITH MOORE.

159

of her strong, sweet nature. She was wont to
be a Httle petulant, a little self-absorbed, and a
little, just a little, arrogant. These blemishes
had been chastened into a sweet womanliness,
capricious perhaps, but charming. Not but what
there were tempests in her summer. As the
summer showers swept across the fields, so
tears crossed her happy dream.

The interest she took in every detail of
his daily occupation amused and touched
Andrew very much, but now and then he, in a
measure, misunderstood her, which was not
wonderful, considering how widely severed their
modes of life and methods of thought had been.
Once he laughed at some views she was
expressing, grave conclusions she had arrived
at after long thought and minute observation.
Andrew laughed outright. Her remarks related
to one of the simplest facts of outdoor life,
always so well known to Andrew that he hardly
apprehended the marvel of it. At his laugh the
colour flooded her face, tears sprang to her
eyes, she was wounded to the quick. She tried
to disguise her feelings as bravely as possible,
fighting off a burst of hysteric tears, making
commonplace remarks in a tone strained and
muffled by reason of the lump in her throat.
Andrew's heart ached with regret. He wanted

100

JUDITH MOORfi.

i '■'/

M
■li; 1

s- i

to lake her in his arms, and liolding her to his
breast win from her a silent pardon, offer her a
mute but eloquent apology. He dare not yet.
A quick sense of her childishness in some
matters came t'^ ' *m n ^ nowledge that if ever
lie won her, he must be prepared to be patient,
prepared to learn much, to teach her many
things. Judith saw that he had noticed her
distress, knew he was soiTy, and tried in an
unselfish woman's way, to make him think that
she had no<< minded. The very tenderness which
Andrew's voice and manner assumed, pressed
home the sting of that laugh. As they parted
that night, the teare were heavy beneath Judith's
lids. For a fleeting moment as they said good-
night, she looked at him. She was standing
within the shadow of the porch, but the star-
shine revealed those tears.

" My poor little girl, I'm so sorry," said
Andrew, his dark face pale in the dusk.

" It doesn't matter, really. I think my head
aches — I mean — ^good night," she said.

" You are not angry ? " Andrew's voice was
chill with despair, regret.

" No, no — oh, I'm not angry, not a bit, I-
He caught her hands, her composure was failing |
her.

" Oh, do let me go," she half whispered, "y(

iii

JUDITH MOORE.

161

are bad to me." Then she fled. Andrew turned
away, white to the lips.

When they met again, the joy of seeing each
other made them happy. Judith was so lovingly
eager to make him forg<it her last words to him,
he was so tenderly anxious not to wound her,
and each was a little in awe of the other. For
they had learned one of the most sacred lessons
of love, learned what a terrible power to inflict
suffering each held over the other. But their
love was sanctified by this dual illumination,
and as their eyes met, a little shyly, now and
then, there seemed to pass between them a two-
fold message, a promise and a plea.

And they parted again, with definite words of
love still unspoken.

But the time was not far oft*. Andrew's arms
were yearning for their birthright, and Judith's
head was weary for his breast.

Yet fears assailed her, too. One's head may

I be sore aweary for the pillow, yet the thought

of frightsf>me dreams may make one tremble

on the verge of rest, and hesitate ere yielding

[to the sweetest slumber.

iidiniirj'a . mi j

■ - -^-iiiii;,,,! ' M

t ilHlH

CHAPTER VIII.

' ' Ho, ye who seek saving,
Go no further. Come hither, for have we not found it!
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving ;
Here is the Cup with the roses around it.
The world's wound well healed, and the balm that
hath bound it."

"I'm going to church next Sunday,"
Judith to Andrew, as they walked through the
chestnut woods. It was evening. Far away
beyond the level fields an after-glow opulent in
gold was streaming up over the sky — a radiance,
living, like the memory of love, long after its
source had vanished from the view. The dav

•

had been intensely warm, and the wood was full
of the pungent odours of leaves, mingled with
the sweeter scent of dying wild roses.

Coming to them faintly from far-off fields
they could hear the lowing of thirsty cows,
eager to be let out of their pastures to tbej
ponds. And from the grass meadow whiclj
bordered the chestnut woods came the cronj
cropping of Andrew's horses grazing greedi
now that the heat of the day had declined.

JUDITH MOORE.

163

Judith wore a white frock, and had a bunch
of somewhat limp-looking ferns in her hand. It
was impossible for her to leave the woo<Is with-
out some spoil. Andrew walked by her side,
tall and brown, his cap pushed far back upon
his head, a measureless content within his eyes.
Rufus followed sedately, keeping a wary look-
out from the corner of his eye for squirrels and
rabbits.

Sleepy, white-winged moths were fluttering
aimlessly hither and thither amid the grasses,
and now and then a bird's call rang through the
trees.

" Going to church ? " said Andrew. " Isn't
that a new idea ? "

" Yes," said Judith, a little wistfully. " Mrs.
Morris wants me to, and — I wish I was good."

Andrew's face was very tender as he turned
towards her. "I don't think you are such a
great sinner."

She looked at him half happily, half doubt-
fully. " Well, I'm going anyhow ; Mrs. Morris
seems so anxious about it."

•• I'll go, too, then."

"Oh, will you?"

" Yes."

They walked on a few moments in silence;
^then Andrew said :

164

JUDITH MOORE.

" Will you sing in church ? " i; i?

" Oh," said Judith, " they'll have sin^injr ' I
hadn't thought of it. Yes, I'll sing with the
rest." V a

Andrew chuckled. v

" What is it ^ " demanded Miss Moore, drawinc
her level brows together in interrogation.

" Oh, nothing," said Andrew.

"Yes, it is something."

" No, really."

" You were laughing at me."

" No, honestly, I wasn't."

" Certain ? " Miss Moore looked at him sus-
piciously.

'* Come and look at the horses," said Andrew,

So they crossed from the path, through the
narrow belt of trees to the pasture fence, and
presently, in answer to Andrew's calls, thej
horses came trotting up one by one, standiugj
shyly and sniffing with outstretched noses
Andrew's hand. He crossed the fence into the I
field and fed them with bunches of s\w.\
Judith looked on longingly.

" Could I come over ? " she asked doubtfully |

" Yes, indeed," he said. " Do."

" Turn your back, then."

Andrew obeyed promptly, and Miss Moorej
mounted slowly to the top rail, where she

with the

JUDITH MvOORE.

165

•e, <lr.i\vini;

tion.

at him sus-

aid An(i^e^Y,
ihroiigh the
fence, and
|s calls, the
fie, standing
Led noses at
ince into the
|s of gras^

doubtfully.

iMiss MoortI
jre she s\d\

uncertainly a moment. It slipped, she gave a
little cry, and the next instant Andrew had
lifted her lightly down. He held her for a
second in his arms ; eacli felt the tremour of the
othf^r's heart, and then she was released and was
standing trembling by his side. The horses
pricked their ears and eyed her nervously, and
Andrew gazed down at her with his heart in his
oyes.

She held out one of her ferns to the horses,
shrinking a little closer to Andrew as tliey
drew near to sniff at it with their velvety
muzzles. One after another lipped at the fern,
but would not take it.

" They won't eat that," said Andrew, and his
voice was very gentle. " Offer them this."

So Judith held out the grass he gave her,
[catching hold of his sleeve like a child for pro-
tection when his big Clydesdale colt stretched
[out his head towards her. And presently the
[horses left them one by one, till all were gone
[except Andrew's clean-limbed bay, upon whose
[back the wet mark of the saddle was yet visible,
[for Andrew^ had ridden into town that afternoon.

And Judith grew^ bolder and patted its soft
lose and beautiful neck, and Andrew watching
ler thought that nowhere, surely nowhere, in
ill the wide world was there a sweeter woman

mm] I i;^^{. ,

166

JUDITH MOORE.

than this. And he longed to question the
universe, if within all its realm there was any-
thing so lovely as the fragile hands which
showed so white against Rob Roy's arching
neck.

The twilight deepened. A littb wistful wind
rippled through the long meadow-grass.

" We must go," said Andrew, " or the dew will
wet you."

" Oh, it wouldn't hurt me," said Judith.

" Better not risk it," said Andrew. So they
walked along within the meadow to the gate,
Rob Roy following them, every now and then
touching Andrew's shoulder with his out-
stretched nose. He stood whilst the bars were
taken down, and whinnied softly as they left
him. " What a dear fellow he is," said Judith.

They soon reached the Morris house, where
Mr. Morris was mending a bridle on the door-
step, and Mrs. Morris in the fading light was
busy carrying out a plan to frustrate the I
assaults of the chickens upon her flower beds:
for every chicken in Mrs. Morris's possession
seemed inspired with an evil desire to acratch
up her seedlings so soon as she transplanted |
them from the boxes in the kitchen to the b
in front of the house. So between the rows oil
balsams and marigolds and amongst the rui'}|

JUDITH MOORE.

167

stemmed seedlings of the prince's feather, Mrs.
Morris had stuck in bits of shingles.

" There," said Mrs. Morris, straightening her-
self after plunging her last piece into the earth.
" There ! I guess them chickens has got their
work cut out for them before they root out
them plants. They do seem to be possessed by
evil speerits, them chickens ! That's the third
planting of ms.rigolds, and what prince's feather
there is left is only what sowed itself last year
and came up late. My sakes ! wasn't it hot in
town to-day, Andrew ? "

"Yes," said Andrew, from where he stood
I leaning against the porch.

Judith was standing by Mrs. Morris, looking
[at the flower beds where each little seedling was
Isurrounded by a palisade of narrow strips of
[shingle.

Mrs. Morris brought out some chairs, and they

it talking a the dusk wliile the summer moon
rrew out of the horizon, and slowly, slowly

iled aloft, paling as it attained its height, till
a a glowing disk of yellow it changed to a
hudowless silver shield

" Won't you sing to us. Miss Moore ? " asked
Lndrew.

" Yea, do," urged Mi-s. Morris.
What will 1 sing ? " asked Judith, but with-

i(:rr^mmtmm

m,'. <

ll'/'«l-.' i'l^»

168

JUDITH MOORE.

out waiting for an answer began. She sang an
Italian love-song, a masterpiece of passion and
pain — sang it as perhaps no living woman could
sing it, making music in such fashion that the
hearts of her hearers were melted within them,
voicing in it all the timorous new joy, the half-
happy fears that filled her heart, with some-
what of the poignant pathos of renunciation.
Some one says, " Music is the counterpart of life
in spirit speech," and it would seem that in one
perfect song tliere may be condensed all the
emotion of life and love, all the pathos of pain
and parting. As the song died away Andrew
gave a long sigh. The pleasure of such music
ofttimes prolongs itself to pain. Perhaps it was
some recognition of the great value of Judith's
gift of song, perhaps it was because she sang
familiarly an unknown tongue that made
Andrew suddenly feel the chill of a great gulf
fixed between them. The arms which had held
her for a moment in the pasture-field yearned
with ineffable longing for a joy denied them.

But Judith was singing again, " The Angels
Serenade," one of the loveliest things ever writ-
ten. When she finished there was a silence.
Mrs. Morris' hard- worked hands were clasped I
tremblingly together, tears were stream in ij over
her face, her heart was yearning towards the
little mounds in the unkempt churchyard.

JUDITH MOORE.

169

" Hannah," said her grey-haired husband, lay-
ing his hand upon her shoulder. Their eyes
met. That was all; but dumbly they had
shared the cup of their sorrow. A bitter com-
munion, one wou ay, yet good to make strong
the spirit, as the . _ter barks strengthen the
body.

And a few minutes later Mrs. Morris slipped
away into the house, perhaps to open that shrine
where were hidden some tiny half-worn gar-
ments, perhaps out of sympathy for the two
young people who might wish to be alone ; and
when Judith began to sing again, she and
Andrew were alone, for Mr. Morris, with lum-
bering attempts at caution, had followed his
wife.

Andrew's heart was aching with inexplicable
[pain. Judith was singing an old theme, com-
posed long since by some f rocked and cowled
[musician, whose rigid vows and barren life
jcould not quite suppress the dream of music
[within his soul. It was a simple and austere
lelody, yet endued with a peculiar pathos, the
reaming of a defrauded life for the joy that
Bhould have crowned it, the regret of a barren
)re8ent for a fruitful past, the wail of the must
for the might have been.

And as she sang, the gulf which Andrew had
12

170

JUDITH MOORE.

iii

■as leffl

I lip

f' %

1' 'III

I, 1

perceived between them widened into a great
black sea, across which her voice came to him
where he stood alone forever upon the shore;
and just as the pain grew too poignant to be
borne, a bat darted near them, Judith gave a
frightened cry and fled to his side, and the gulf
was bridged in a second by a strong strand knit
of a woman's foolish fear and a man's reassuring
word.

And soon a light shone down from an upstain j
window. Judith started up. " You must go I
straight away home," she said, " Mrs. Morris
gone to her room."

"Come as far as the gate with me," s
Andrew, and she went. But after they I
tr'ked a moment Judith remembered the
so, of course, Andrew had to take her back toil
porch in safety.

At length he was forced to go, so with a
" good-night," and a last long look into her eyei|
he strode away to his home on the hill.

The leaves of the chestnut trees were rustlinjl
in uncertain flaws of wind; the crickets wen|
creaking eerily from out the darkness; the field
all pearled with dew, shimmered in the ffiootj
light.

It was a solitary hour. But Andrew's he
was light within his breast ; Judith's eyes hjj
been very sweet when she said " Good-night'

JUDITH MOORE.

171

And Judith climbed the blue-painted wooden
stairs to her little corner-room, and lay long
awake, forgetting the promise of her great
future, forgetting the efforts of the past, forget-
ting the debt she owed her manager, only
knowing that she loved and was beloved again,
only recalling the eyes this brown young
farmer had bent upon her, only remembering
the tender strength of his arms, as, lot a moment,
they had encircled her. A simple dream this ?
Perhaps. But let such a vision once weave
itself into the fabric of a life, and all else will
seem poor and mean beside it.

It was a beautiful sunshiny Sunday as Judith
stood in the porch waiting for Mrs. Morris, who
presently appeared, clad in a black calico with
white spots on it, black silk gloves and a bonnet
with a purple flower.

Judith had dressed herself in a-little frock of
pale green linen, and her face bloomed like a
rose above it. Her hat and parasol were of the
same cool tint as her frock, and as the walk in
the sunshine flushed her cheeks with unaccus-
tomed colour, she looked much like a sweet
pink flower set in green leaves; at least, so
Andrew thought when he saw her entering the
Ichurch beside Mrs. Morris.

The Methodist church was slowly filling with

VM^

I: tg

172

JUDITH MOORE.

■I m

women and children. Sam Symmons' Suse had
just gone in, and the Misses Green were but a
few yards behind. The men in Ovid had an
evil habit of standing along the sides of the
churches talking whilst the first hymn was
being sung; and frequently, if there was any
particularly interesting topic on hand, till the
first prayer was offered. In winter the sunny
side was chosen ; in summer they availed them-
selves of the scanty shade afforded by the slant-
ing eaves, standing, their heads and shoulders j
in shadow, their freshly polished shoes glisten-
ing in the sun, their jaws moving rhythmically I
as they chewed their wads of " black strap,'
A remark made at one end of the row perco-
lated slowly to the other, each man judicially j
revolving it in his mind and voicing his opinioDJ
in deliberate nasal tones.

** Lord, a little band and lowly,
We have come to worship thee,
Thou art great and high and holy,
Oh ! how solemn we should be."

So the women and children sang insidtl
accompanied by a wheezy melodeon. Thei
heightened the effect by emphasizing the adjei
tives strongly and singing " solium " with gr
unanimity in the last line.

JUDITH MOORE.

173

Andrew listened for Judith's voice, but
evidently she had concluded not to sing. An-
drew was disappointed. He had been looking
forward in high glee to watching the amazement
of his neighbours when they heard that marvel-
lous voice. The truth was, Judith had not seen
him where he stood beside the church, and was
too busy looking about surreptitiously to see if
he had fulfilled his promise about coming, to
think of the singing either one way or the other.
And when she saw Miss Myers sitting stiffly
I alone in the corner of a pew near the front, her
[heart sank like lead, and all her happy eagerness
over the service departed. She was piqued, too,
land began to feel a nasty heartache stirring
[within her breast.

The singing was over. An interspace of quiet

^tokened to those outside that the prayer was

progress, and a rustling of leaves and settling

)f dresses proclaimed the fact that the preacher

id his congregation were ready for the serious

|)usiress of the day, the proceedings up to this

)int being tacitly regarded as the preliminary

inter before the weekly contest with Original

In, that dark horse which, ridden by that

lowing jockey. Opportunity, wins so many

ces for the Evil One. At this juncture the

en came in one by one, each trying to look as

174

JUDITH MOORE.

Uninterested in his neighbours as possible, to
give the impression that this influx of the male
element was purely accidental and not the result
of concerted movement.

It is somewhat doubtful if this impression
was conveyed to the preacher, as the same
circumstance had occurred every Sunday since
he had been there; and certainly it deluded
none of the women, who, well aware of the
gossiping tendencies of their men, never held
themselves at the approved "attention" attitudf*
till this stage in the proceedings, but who then
\\ -xed marvellously stiff* as to posture, and
marvellously meek as to expression.

When Judith looked up next time, it was to
meet two eager, grey eyes looking at her from
Miss Myers' pew, and all at once the incipient
heartache vanished, a calm of sweet content
fell upoi? her spirit. She looked around, and
apprehended all the poignant blending of pathos
and absurdity about her. Her eyes softened as
they fell upon old Sam Symmons* hard-wrought
hands resting on the top of his stout stick, and
lighted as she saw Tommy Slick's rose and white
face and impish eyes showing above the door of
a centre pew. Her tender eyes sought out and
read the story of the deep-lined faces about her,
and a great pity for their narrow lives filled |
her.

JUDITH MOORE.

175

Tho Rermon was just begun when the green
baize door swung back a little, and an investi-
gating^ dog entered. He wjia one of those nosing,
pryiijg, peering dogs which seem to typify no
exact!)' the attitude of some people towards
their neighbours' affaiiu He peregrinated
through the pews, around the melodeon, up
and down the aisle, and then turned his canine
attention to the prencher's reading desk. The
preacher became manifestly uneasy; all his
sensitiveness slowly centred in his heels, round
which the dog sniffed. Judith, whose sense of
the humorous was painfully acute, gave one
glance at Andrew, and then became absorbed
in trying to control her laughter. The dog still
lingered where he was. The preacher's face was
flushed ; his words faltered. Every one felt that
some one else should do something.

At length, after many significant gestures
and nudges from his wife, Hiram Green rose
and approached the dog with outstretched hand,
rubbing his fingers together in the manner which
we imagine impresses a dumb animal with a
[deep sense of pacific intentions. The dog backed
away. Hiram followed as the dog retreated. It
[paused, wagging its tail doubtfully. Hiram
sat down on his toes and patted his knee in
a wheedling manner with one hand, whilst with

176

JUDITH MOOllE.

<i>»f

111

the other he made ready to grasp his prey. The
dog came a little nearer.

Hiram grasped — but grasped short ; his fingers
met on empty air, and he nearly overbalancer].
For the moment he had the wild feeling a
person experiences when a rocking-chair goes
over with him — a sort of gasping clutch at
terra fi^^ma.

Judith was nearly in tears from agonies of
suppressed laughter, knowing, as she did, that
Andrew was waiting to catch her eye. That,
she felt, would finish matters so far as she was
concerned ; a sense of companionship makes
one's appreciation of a joke painfully intense.

Hiram was conscious that the Sunday School
in the gallery was red with suppressed excite-
ment ; that his neighbours' interest in the sermon
was purely perfunctory ; ho even had a horrible
thought that the preacher himself was laughing
at him. In this he was wrong ; the preacher
was nearly distracted, having lost the thread of
his sermon, and was maundering wildly on,
hoping to disentangle his argument before
Hiram caught the dog.

Hiram, grown desperate, added to his alluring
gestures the blandishment of half-voiced words,
which sounded like "Poor dog," "Good dog,"
but which meant, " You infernal brute." The I

JUDITH MOORE.

177

dog succumbed at length, its last suspicions
allayed by this specious use of the gift it did
not possess, and presently the congregation was
edified by seeing Hiram, flushed, but with an
expression of great loving-kindness, carry the
dog gently down the aisle. Slowly and softly
Hiram carried him until near the door, when
circuindtances made him accelerate his speed,
for the dog was Tommy Slick's Nip, a shiny,
smooth -coated dog, and Hiram's hold was gradu-
ally slipping. He had an unpleasant but confi-
dent premonition that the dog would reach for
him, as dogs are prone to do, when his fingers
got to the tender spot beneath the forepaws.
However, he reached and passed the baize door
in safety, and in the second which followed,
the congregation, with the sigh with which one
relinquishes an acme of intense and pleasurable
excitement, turned its attention to the preacher.
At that moment there came a shrill and ear-
splitting yelp. Hiram had taken the dog to
the top of the steps, and applied his foot in
the manner most likely to speed the parting
I guest. Hiram entered and took his place with
a very red face. He felt dimly that the yelp
was a criticism upon the smile with which he
carried the dog out. To Hiram that sermon
[did not tend to edification.

■4

178

JUDITH MOORE.

That particular Sunday was a memorable one
in Ovid. The congregation had just gathered
itself together after the incident of the dog,
when the preacher announced the hymn. It
was one of the few really beautiful hymns,
" Lead, kindly Light."

Judith rose to sing with the rest, and with
the second word her voice joined w ith the others,
dominating them as the matin song of the lark
might pierce through the chatter of sparrows
along the eaves. When Judith opened her lips
to sing, music possessed her, and, a true artiste
to her finger-tips, she never sang carelessly.
Absorbed in her book — for she did not know
the words — she sang on. The people looked and
wondered, and one by one the voices died away
the wheezy notes of the melodeon faltered forth
from beneath the secoAd Miss Green's uncertain
fingers, and Judith sang on serenely, standing
erect, her head held high, her soft throat throb-
bing like a bird's. Outside the air was golden
with yellow sunshine, within it was cool and
darkened. A rift of light slanted through the
closed shutters of the window near which
Judith stood ; thousands of little motes danced
in it, specks and gleams of gold. Through the
open windows there came the odour of dried
grass, and every now and then a flaw of wind

JUDITH MOORE.

179

brought a whiff from Oscar Randall's field of
white clover. Andrew had laughed in the
meadow as he thought of Judith's voice elec-
trifying the people in tho church, but he had
forgotten that he himself was not secure against
its charm. Laughter was far from his thoughts
now.

"Lead, kindljr Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home ;
Lead thou me on."

The words, upborne upon the wings of
matchless song, seemed to soar far beyond the
confines of the little church, taking with them
the inarticulate trust and hope and confidence
of all these humble folk. / ^^v >.

The preacher sat looking at her, pale and
entranced. This singing seemed suddenly to
open a long-closed door in his life, so that once
more he looked down that chimerical vista from
out the misty distances of which illusive hands
beckoned him on to brighter things. He had
once dreamed of a loftier destiny than the life
of a Methodist preacher, but that was long past;
still it was sweet to recall so vividly the season
when his spirit had wings. He sat before his
congregation, a tall, spare man, large of bone
and awkward, with a countenance upon which

180

JUDITH MOORlB.

self-denial had graven deep cruel lines, a brow
that had weathered many bitter blasts. In
type he was near allied to the people before
him, the last man, one would fancy, whom
dreams would visit. And yet, as he listened to
this stranger girl, singing alone in the midst of
his congregation, there fell deeply upon him
the trance of dead delight ; the simple panorama
of his past spread itself before his eyes, blotting
out the faces before, him as a shimmering mist
obscures an unlovely scene.

It was a very simple vision, a "homespun
dream of simple folk." He saw a rosy -cheeked
village girl, for whose sake he as a village lad
had worked and toiled and slaved. He had
fought for education and success that he might
lay them at her feet. He had kept her waiting
long. She was only a poor, pretty girl, and she
had other lovers. One night, when her lover in
a garret in the city was poring over his books,
his head aching, his heart faltering, yet perse-
vering as much for her sake as for the sake of
his faith, she, driving home from a dance througli
dewy lanes and softly-shadowed country roads,
promised to marry the farmer's son who was
taking her home.

The news reached him in his garret, and some-
thing flickered out of his face which never shone

JUDITH MOORE.

181

there again. But with the tenacity of his I'ace
he stuck to his work. His heart was in the
green fields always, and he had come from a
long line of country men and women. He had
no inherited capacity for learning, but he got
through his course somehow, and became fen
accredited minister, and the day he was ordained
the news of her death reached him, and that
was all. He had never censured her ; in his
thoughts she had ever been an angel of sweet-
ness and goodness, and as Judith sang, all these
things rushed back upon his heart. It was with
a very white face and a very soft voice that he
rose to address his people, and he spoke home
to their hearts, for he knew whereof he spake
when he dealt with the pains and trials and
troubles of their lives. He was only the height
of his platform removed from them, and he had
paid dearly for his paltry elevation, but from its
height he saw, far oflf perhaps, but clear, the
shining of a great light, and with ineloquent,
slow speech he strove to translate its glory and
its promise to the people before him. '^

Church was over ; the people pressed slowly
along the aisle into the palpitant warmth of
the summer afternoon. Miss Myers came up to
Judith when she stood for a moment at the
door, and invited her to go home with them to

182

aumxH Moone.

the house on the hill, and Judith, nothing toftlK
consented. So presently aho a\\\l Andrew, with
Miss Myei*s, were walking through the Hluuiber
ous little streets of the village.

As they drew near the house of Bill Aikins,
they caught sight of hini sitting on the door-
step peeling potatoes, beads of perspiration upon
his brow, for he was suffering sorely from Kate's
weekly infliction of a white shirt.

Bill had " a little wee face, with a little yellow
beard, a Cain-coloured beard," and usually wore
a deprecatory smile upon his countenance. He
was possessed of a perfect temper, and whatever
his lot might seem to others, to himself it was
all that could be desired. To be the husband of
such a woman, could man desire a better fate ;
And, indeed, Kate Aikins was a fine-looking
woman, tall and straight. Old Sam Symmons
often said she was a "gallant figure of a woman.

As they passed the house they heard Kate's
voice sounding shrilly from within :

: " He did what ? Weighed the paper with the
cheese ? And you stood by and never said a word '
I'll be bound ! Well, ' a fool and his nioney is soon
parted.' There's truth in them old sayings yet,
The idea of you being scared to speak to Hi
Green and him cheating you before your very
face ! Land sakes I What's he I wonder ? Next

-,%•'

JUDITH MOORE.

183

time you go to buy cheese you take paper with
you. He asks enough for the cheese without
paying for paper."

As they got beyond hearing, Judith's face
burned out of sympathy for Bill's embarrass-
ment. However, Bill was in nowise troubled.
lie knew his wife would be quite as ready to
express herself towards any one else in the
village as to himself, and a philosophy born of
that reflection entirely prevented Bill from feel-
ing in any degree abashed by strangers enjoying
his wife's eloquence.

It was only two days since she had announced
to him with much satisfaction that she had "just
told Sarah Myers what she thouglit of her," and
she had expressed a 1* 'ging desire of late to
have a five minutes' talk with A/zdr^w CvLiiht,
relative to some supposed slight he liad put
upon her. The whole vilkg/» was well aware of
many instancen of Bill's discom/ii«//^i when K«^/>
first married him and undertook his ref or million.

There was the day whe/i Bill, well on towards
being thoroughly drunk, was returning home
down the village street, walking cftreles^y
through the deep slush of early spring. Kate
met him. She, if truth be told, was on the
lookout for him, having despatched him more
than two hours before to get some starch fioj^
the store.

184

JUDITH MOORE.

Between waiting for the starch and waiting
for Bill, Kate was v/roth when she opened the
door to begin her search. By an unlucky
chance, her first step took her over the ankles in
icy slush, which, strange to say, instead of cool-
ing her wrath, raised it to white heat. There-
fore, when she, carefully picking her way up
one side of the street, beheld Bill advancing
down the other, regardless of mud and slush,
she paused in disgust, until he was nearly oppo-
site to her, and then ejaculated in a tone of
deepest disbelief in her own vision — " Bill ! is
that you V '

" No," promptly replied Bill, " nor nobody
like me either ; " with which the valiant Bill
had resumed his way, feeling proud that he
had not only dismissed certainty but even sus-
picion of his identity from Kate's mind.

Before long he was a sadder and for the
nonce, a wiser man, for Kate reached home as
soon as he did, and thereupon gave him to under-
stand in a very unmistakable way that he was
her property and she knew it.

All Ovid remembered this, and indeed could
not well forget it, for every wash-day, when
starch naturally cropped up as one of the cir-
cumstances attendant upon the event of washing,
Kate mjght have been heard by any passer-by

JUDITH MOORE.

185

giving Bill a full and dramatic account of the
occurrence, with preface upon drunkenness in
general, and appendix upon Bill's phases of the
vice in particular, and copious addenda, of con-
tempt, contumely and vituperation. Bill listened,
marvelling and admiring, for her flow of language
was a great source of pride to Bill, albeit directed
at himself.

Indeed, he sacrificed his comfort willingly to
enjoy the mental treat lier angry eloquence
afforded him. There had been times, however,
when Kate's lessons had taken a more practical
and infinitely less entertaining form. It was
one of these which effected Bill's final reforma-
tion. The memory of it brought smiles to the
Hps of Ovidians, young or old, whenever they
met Bill. ^ ^ -^

With all good managers in Ovid, it is the
custom to salt down a small barrel of herrings in
autumn. These they buy from their fisherman
neighbours for a dollar per hundred. Now Kate,
who was certainly, as even her enemies admitted,
a forehanded woman, sent Bill with a silver
dollar, to get her a hundred herrings, one day
when the proper season came around. With
this Bill duly proceeded to the fishermen, paid
his dollar and got his lierringH. As he turned to
go, Sam Turner shouted an invitation to him

iJ4

186

JUDITH MOOllE.

M'i

to come down at night and have a share of the
beer which was to be on tap at the Upper Fish-
ing Station. Bill assented and went his way.

After his six o'clock supper, he told Kate he
was going to get his saw sharpened at the
blacksmith shop, and so set out. He left the
saw at the blacksmith's, then smartened his pace
along the street, down the steep incline to the
river's edge, carefully along the river path until
he disappeared into the fisherman's little hut.

The door was closed, then Bill, Sam Turner,
and some half-dozen others gathered round the
kt»g of Hiiuiggled l»ner, and all went merry as
the traditional w«mI( ling bell.

About half-past eleven, Bill and the otlieis
emerged. The cask was em[)ty — tliuir condition
the antithesis of the cask's. Lurching, Htiiiii
bling, falling, sliding along the river |iii(li,
scrambling, crawling, oliuiblng up the ImnkHln
the l(»\'nl, {,\u\\\ along the street to Bill'H lioiiif
All this took time, and it was the hour vvhoii
ghosts do walk ere they neared Bill's door. A
dim light gleamed in the window. " Jjf^fwoii
t)ia' lights me home, boys," said Bill, who, having
passed the transitory phases of moroseness andj
pugnaciousness, to the higher state of tears and j
courage, had now reached the acme of sentim(!nt |
and drunkenness simultaneously, and was ready,

JUDITH MOORE.

187

as he expressed several times on the way up the
bank in a voice which came from different atti-
tudes, as the speaker stood upright, crept, or lay
flat, "To kish Kate and fight for the country
b'gosh." Bill and his friends approached the door.
Bill gently tried it. It was locked, so Bill said.
They each tried it in turn, and each pronounced
it locked in a voice betokening a strange and
new discovery. They each knocked in turn —
silence. Thc'^ each kicked in turn — silence.
Then Bill said in a lordly way, " Kate, open the
door ! " adding in an aside to his fellows, " I'll
for^ve her, kish her, make her happy." Then
again, " Kate, open the door ! "

K*te did open the door, with such abrupt and
unexp«»cted suddenness that Bill, standing before
It, I in I u need back on his heels and raised his out-
H|irefv«| lilMlds. His confreres were preparing to
make biudt Hl-tt^/N of themFolvcs to brace Bill
lip, whnn Kate's hand and arm reached forth,
and, with one single movomeiit, as Sara Turner
afterwards grapliically described her action,
"yiiiil^nd" Bill into the house and HJaiiimed
the door.

There was silence for a moment, followed by
a slow sliding sound. His late companions suj?#
I rounded the two uncurtained //indowa and prof
pared to wa4^,h ey^ts.

' I

188

JUDITH MOORE.

j i

Bill had slowly slid down, until he was now
in a sitting posture on the floor, with hia back
against the door. Kate had vanished ; she soon
entered from the back of the house bringing
two pails of water, with which she proceeded
deliberately to give Bill a cold bath. Bill said
several times in a weak voice, " Kish me, Kate,"
but Kate, preserving an admirable silence, con-
tinued the deluge until Bill, with some show of
sobriety and nimbleness, arose. By this time
the water was pouring out beneath the door,
and the catchers outside were shivering sym-
pathetically. As Bill rose, he certainly looked
miserable enough to excite pity, even in Kate's
heart; but the worst was not yet.

Disregarding the water streaming on the floor,
Kate proceeded to arrange two chairs, with an
accompaniment of cloths, knives, salt, and a
small keg. Lastly, she produced two baskets
of herrings. It was now evident to the horrified
watchers that her dire purpose was to make Bill
clean, wash, and salt down the hundred herrings
then and there. And such was the case. The i
watchers stayed until eyes and limbs were
weary, and then crept away awe-struck at the
terrors of matrimony, and deeply impressed by
Kate's moral supremacy.

A?^4 ^m worked and worked. IJis l^and was I

JUDITH MOORE.

189

unsteady, and his blood flowed freely from
numerous cuts to mingle with the herrings.
He scraped and scrape 1, and bedaubed himself
with scales. He salted and salted, and the salt
bit his many cuts. But Kate was mexorable.
Every herring was cleane I, scaled, washed, salted
and packed, and the Mbria thor ^ughly cleaned
up before the miserable, white-faced, repentant
Bill was allowed to rest, and durii.j^' it all
Kate talked and talked and talked. From that
night Bill was a changed man, and his admira-
tion for Kate became more than ever pro-
nounced.

Every time one of those herring appeared on
the table, Kate gave Bill a resume of the whole
affair, with variations upon her theme, which
her vivid and fertile imagination suggested.
After the herrings were finished, she revived
the subject wheno^er the names of any of those
with him that night, fish, the river, or the fishing
station were mentioned. These were the regular
cogent subjects. But any reference to salted
meats, cold water, late hours, etc., was very apt
to draw forth a like narration, so that a day
rarely passed without Bill's memory being re-
freshed thus, which was indeed a work of
supererogation, for Bill never forgot it.

Andrew and Miss Myers recited many such

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190

JUDITH MOORE.

tales for Judith's edification as they walked up
to the Cutler house, and whilst they sat at
table.

But later on, whan Miss Myers hastened off
to count the eggs which had been brought in, to
see if her chickens were properly fed, and to
generally look after the ways of her household,
the talk fell into other channels.

Andrew and Judith talked seriously, looking
into each other's eyes with no veil upon their
own, each drinking deeply of the peaceful
rapture of the hour. The scents from the old
garden filled their nostrils, the breath from the
box diffused through the other odours a thread
of fresh bitterness, savouring them from satiety.

A great clematis hung at one side of the
porch, the deep green of its leaves set dose
with purple stars. Upon the other side a Tar-
tarean honeysuckle was covered with coral-
coloured buds. Far off in one corner they could
see a blur of gold where the thorny Scotch roses
were a mass of bloom.

They sat long talking, and presently Miss
Myers came round the corner of the house
with her dress tucked up about her and thej
servant girl following with water pails; ai
soon the scent of fresh moist earth was mingled |
with the fragrance of the flowers.

'^fW •

JUDITH MOORE.

191

Rufus lay at their feet, looking \ip at them
with wistful, hazel eyes. It was a simple scene,
yet in it was being enacted a drama of delight.

There is no sweeter time in a woman's life
than the first hours of a mutual love ere speech
has profaned it. Judith was having her halcyon
hour now, and she rejoiced in it with sweet
natural happiness. The memory of her greatness
had all but faded from her memory ; now and
then from sleep's horizon it pointed a threaten-
ing finger at her; now and then in morning
dreams she recalled it vaguely, the wraith of a
not unhappy season. But she had no fear of it.
Her only apprehension was that she had mis-
read the message in Andrew's ardent eyes, and
that fear only lived when they were apart, for,
as she welcomed him upon the old weather-
beaten doorstep, where the spent petals of the
loose-leaved climbing roses lay, blots of crimson
on the grey, or bade him farewell at the gate
where the white syringas surrounded them with
the odour of orange blossoms, she found in his
eyes the strength and blessing of a deep and
perfect love.

l:,iv,?'.

. «i. ■ :' ,

, l\:

w , CHAPTER IX.

"NoWj ii this earthly love has power to make
Men's being mortal, immorcal ; to shake
Ambitions from their memories, and brim
Their measure of content : what merest whim
Seems all this poor endeavour after fame."

One day Judith, who had been in the village,
went up to see Miss Myers. It was intensely
warm. To the eye the air seemed to quiver
with heat; a brazen sun shone in a cloudless
sky; the birds were still; nature was dumb;
the only sounds which broke the stillness were
echoes of enforced toil. As Judith walked
along the lanes, now grown deep in p'^isa, the
fragrance of over-ripe clover came to her in
waves of satiating sweetness. The birds she
startled uttered no cry, but flevr heavily .0
some near perch and sat there languidly, with
feathers ruffled on their little heads, their tiny
bills apart as if they gasped for breath, their
wings drooping loosely with parted feathers at
their sides.

When she reached the house on the hill, she

JUDITH MOORE.

193

went straight through the hall to the kitchen,
for she had long ago been given the liberty of
the house.

Miss Myers bustled up with grim kindness,
took away her hat, made her sit by the window,
and brought her a great cool goblet of raspberry
syrup in water. It was very cool in this big
kitchen. The windows were heavily hung with
Virginian Creeper, and the stove was in the
summer kitchen. Rufus lay stretched in one
comer, his ears flapping as he snatched irascibly
a^ a tormenting fly.

Miss Myers had been a little upset when
Judith entered, and phe proceeded to tell Judith
her worries. She had come out to inspect the
kitclien work, and found her milk pans set out
without their bunches of grass.

"A silly notion of Sarah Myers," the Ovid
women called it, but it was a dainty one never-
theless — one Miss Myers' mother and mother's
mother had always observed, since ever the
first Myers left the meadows of Devon. This
notion was that all summer long Miss Myers
insisted that the polished milk pans, when set
out to sweeten in the sun, should each have a
bunch of fresh gresa or clover put in it, to
wither in the pan. She declared it gave sweet-
ness and flavour t<D the milk.

194

JUDITH MOORE.

if: m

Ml
t M

Miss Myers had many dainty ways in her
house-keeping. The glossy linen sheets were laid
away with clusters of sweet clover in their folds.
Her snowy blankets were packed with cedar
sprigs. Her table linen was fragrant all sum-
mer with the stolen perfume of violets or rose
leaves strewn with them in the linen drawer.
And in the winter there were twigs of lemon
thyme and lemon verbena tl»ere; carefully dried
for that purpose. "All notions," the villagers
said contemptuously, adding something about
old maids. Nevertheless, these notions savoured
the whole household with sweetness, and seemed
to add beauty to the more prosaic details of
every-day work.

Since Judith had come so frequently to the
house, there had always been flowers upon the
dining table and in the parlour, and in the big
dim bedroom.

Hot as it was. Miss Myers was ready to go
out and patrol the garden, which, subdued
beneath the sun's caresses, lay exhaling a hun-
dred varied scents. The tall white lilies were
in bloom at last, ineflkbly lovely, with golden
hearts and petals whose edges were silvery in j
the sunshine.

When Andrew returned at night from 1
fields, his strong face a little weary, his eyes]

JUDITH MOORE.

195

restless and eager, the first sight that met his
vision was Judith Moore, — Judith, in a jimple
dark blue frock, standing in the doorway of
his home, and looking — he dared hope — for
him. She looked so consonant with the old
house and the flowerful garden that Andrew
felt no other presence in the world would have
completed the picture so well.

How sweet to see a woman waiting there for
him! Even as he had dreamed. He stood
some time srxd watched her, himself unobserved.
How sweet and calm her face was — yet antici-
pative, content — ^yet eager ! He looked at her
long across the narrow space from where he
stood, and in after days recalled her untroubled
beauty very clearly.

He tried to note in detail the form of her
features, but he could only think of her faithful
eyes, the beauty of her honest smile, the promise
of her mouth, with the deep hollow between the
lower lip and the dimpled hillock of her chin,
which is, they say, the truest indication of a
woman's capacity for real love, just as heavy
eyelids denote modesty, and thin nostrils delicacy
of the senses.

Some sympathy, some suLcle mental influence,
made Judith flush and look about her. Andrew
slipped around the comer of the house, to come

r-v

196

JUDITH MOORE.

behind hei in a few minutes rid of the day's
dust. He touched her gentlj'^ on the shoulder.
She started, yet laughed. " I knew you were
coming," she said ; " I did not hear you, but I
was certain of it."

After tea, they three (for Judith felt shy of
Andrew to-night, and clung to Miss Myers, and
gently compelled her to step forth with them)
walked up and down the garden walKs.

The flowers, their fragrance freshened by
the dew, flung forth their odours royally. The
birds, revived by the coolness, were singing their
deferred songs. An oriole's liquid note was
answered from the lindens ; the robins were
flying aoout from tree to tree with happy confi-
dence ; some Phoebe birds were fluttering about
the porch ; sparrows were wrangling in the box;
a humming-bird was darting from bed to bed;
emerald-throated, ruby-crested, it vibrated from
flower to flower, itself like an animatec vagrant
blossom ; the swallows were darting in long,
graceful flights high in air, or soaring in slant-
ing circles over the barns, where their nests
were ; now and then, flying slowly homeward, a
crow crossed their vision, a shadow on the sky.

The heavy toads hopped lumberin^rly forth
from their hiding-places to search for slugs; a
tree toad gave its shrill call from a cedar tree.

JUDITH MOORE.

197

Andrew had once shown Judith one, clinging like
a lichen to the bark, and of much the same
greyish-green colour. The crickets sang shrilly
and sweetly, like boy sopranos in a vestured
choir ; the frogs, in a far-off pond, added their
unfinished notes to Nature's vespers ; bats flew
silently and weirdly overhead.

"Do you know what the frogs say ? " asked
Andrew of Judith.

"No; what?" she asked, lookmg up so
eagerly, so trustingly, that a smile twitched the
comers of his mouth, even as he longed to
gather her in his arms.

"The little frogs with the shrill voices say,
' Cut across ! cut across ! cut across ! * The wise
old frogs, the big ones, with the bass voices, say,
' Go round ! go round ! go round ! ' "

Judith listened, her eyes big with interest.
"Why, so they do," she said, anH ^ooked at him
as at a wizard revealing a mystery.

Miss Myers laughed, her grimness tempered
by a tear. " Tell her about the rxiill-pond frogs,
Andrew," she said.

"Oh, well, the frogs in the mill-pond over
beyond Ovid, used to say, * Old Andy Anderson
is a thief ! Old Andy Anderson is a thief ! ' and
no one paid any attention; but after a while
people found out he was cheating them, i^o^

4f Ha

198

JUDITH MOORE.

giving them the proper weight of flour, and so
on, for their grists. Then they found the frogs
were telling the truth."

" Mr. Cutler," said Judith, " did people know
what the frogs said before they found out that
the miller stole ? "

" Well," admitted Andrew, laughing a little,
" I don't believe they did."

In the instance of the mill-pond frogs the
oracle was fitted to the event, as it has been in
other cases.

Later the dusk fell, and the moon slowly
soared aloft ; a midsummer moon, indescribably
lovely ; such a moon as is seen once in a life-
time — pale, perfect, lustrous as frosted silver,
white as unsmirched snow, seeming to be
embossed upon the sky. Such a moon haunted
Keats, inspired Shelley, whispered a suggestion
of kinship to Philip Sidney, and long, long ago,
shone upon the Avon.

And beneath this moon, intense as white
flame, pure as a snow crystal, Judith Moore and
Andrew Cutler began their v/alk to the farm-
house by the wood. Judith held her skirts
gathered up about her from the dew ; she was
bareheaded, her broad hat hanging on her ami.

They had to pass along a path deep shadowed
in trees. Judith started nervously at some I

JIJJ)ITII MOOKE.

199

sound; that start vibrated to Andrew's heart.
He drew her arm within his, ana Judith walked
dreamily on, feeling secure against the world
and all its fears. They emerged into the moon-
light, and stopped where Andrew had constructed
a rude stile over the rail fence, for Judith's
convenience. Their eyes met in the moonlight,
each knew the hour had come, and the heart of
each leaped to its destiny.

•' Judith," said Andrew, very softly.

" Yes," she whispered.

" What is the sweetest time in all the world ?"

She paused a moment; then, as a flower bends
to the sun, as a flame follows the air, she swayed
slowly towards him. " Now," she breathed, her
heart in the word.

And the next moment she was in his arms ;
their lips had met.

From the shadows of the wood they had
passed came the silvery call of the cat-bird that
sings to the moon — and they two had drunk of
" life's great cup of wonder ; " only a sip perhaps,
but their mouths had touched the golden brim,
their lips had been dipped in its priceless nectar
I (the true nectar of the fabled gods!) and their
nostrils had known the sweets of its ineffable
[perfume.

So they stood, heart to heart. All that the

200

JUDITH MOOUE.

'.1

ItmiSi

world comprehended for Andrew was now in
the circle of his arms. And Judith ? All her
world throbbed in Andrew's breast.

And for both there was no other universe
but the heaven of their mutual love, — a heaven
shut in and hedged about by two strong tender
arms; a heaven sustained by two hands that
fluttered pleadingly upon Andrew's breast. Not
strong hands these, but strong enough to hold
in siafe-keeping the treasure-trove of a good
man's love !

And their talk ? Well, there are some sacred
old- fashioned words, tender words, such as our
fathers whispered to our mothers long ago, such
as their fathers, and their fathers' fathers,
wooed and won their wives with, such as their
wives whispered back with trembling lips— these
words passed between Andrew and Judith. We
all dream these words. Some few happy ones
hear them ; some brave true souls have spoken
them ; and from some of us even their echo has
departed, to be merged in unending silence. So
we will not write them here.

And at last they parted. Andrew strode
slowly homeward, his face glorified, Fl/oppinf[
now and then to fancy he held her once more j
against his breast, feeling again the fragrance of
lier hair, hearing in the happy throbs of liis

li^

JUDITH MOORE.

201

heart her trembling words saying that she
loved him.

Loved himi ! The mystery and magic of its
meaning wrought into his heart, until it seemed
too small to hold its store of joy. He took off
his cap in the moonlight, and looked to the
heavens a voiceless aspiration to be worthy.

And well might Andrew Cutler bare his brow,
for there had been given into his hands the
holiest chalice man's lips know, the heart of a
good woman ! Well might Judith Moore, in a
burst of happy tears, vow vows to be worthy,
resolving to be better, stronger, nobler, for she
had been given that great gift for which, we are
told, thanks should be rendered, fasting — the
gift 01 a good man's love !

" My dear Master, — After all, you seo I am
the one to write first, and I am afraid yo will
be very angry when you read my letter, h I
hope you will forgive me. I will tell you now,
at once, what it is, and while you read my
letter try to forget I am Judith Moore the opera
singer, and remember only that I am a woman
first and foremost. And a woman needs love,
and I have found it, and cannot bear to give it
up, as I must, if I come back to you — to the
|gtage. So, will you set me free ? Will you let
14

202

JUDITH MOORE.

:.']!

me stay here? Will you let me stop singiri'^
and be forgotten ? I know how dreadful this
will seem to you, how ungrateful I will appear,
how ignoble to give up my art for what you
will call 'a passion'; but oh, dear master! you
ca i-not know all this is to me, this love. It is
everything, health, happiness, hope, all. And it
is not that I have forgotten your gifts ; indeed,
indeed, no. It is that I am so sure of your great
generosity, that I want you to be still more
generous; to add one more gift, the supreme
one. For in spite of what I've said it all rests
in your hands. I know what you have spent
on me, in money alone, besides your continual
thought for me. I know how patient you have
been, letting me save my voice till it was mature
and etrong. I know you will have horrible
forfeits to pay on the lease of the opera house,
and then all the chorus on your hands, and the
terrible advertising for this American season. 1
know the horrible fiasco it will seem to the
public, and how your jealous rivals will make
capital uut of the mythical prima donna who
did not materialize. But all this is the price of
a woman's whole life, the purchase money of a
life's happiness. Will you help pay it ? ^'^r I
will do what I can. There is the money you
gave me after the Contine ital season. It is

JUDITH MOORE.

203

untouched ; take that. And there are my jewels
—all these gifts, you know — in the vault. I send
vou the order for those. And the man I love
may be richer yet, and I will say to him, * I owe
a dear friend a debt,' and you shall have, year
by year, all we can send. Does it not seem that
in time I might make it up ? And the artistic
disappointment you feel, oh, master! To lose
my art seems indeed a crucifixion to me, but in
that there is hope of resurrection. To lose my
love would be unending death.

" I know myself well now. I am a woman
full-grown within these last weeks, and even as
I write I know that I will have many bitter
regrets, many sad hours, thinking of my music ;
but what are these hours compared with an
unceasing pain such as will be mine if you
say no to my dream ? Of course, I know I am
bound to you by no contract ; but the confidence
you have shown in me binds me with a firmer
bond, and it you feel you cannot release me I
will do my best, my very best to realize your
hopes. You know I am honourable enough for
that. But one thing, dear master, I lay upon
you. If you come for me, taking me away from
my happiness, remember never to speak to me of
it, never refer to this letter, never tell me your
reasons for refusing the boon I crave from you

204

JUDITH MOORE.

1 m

i .-a!

1 -

•I 1

: i i:'U!Bili!8

on my knees. If I see you I shall know I have
asked too much, and that it has been denied me.
There is but one thing more. The man, my
man, is utterly ignorant of my monsy value.
He sees in me only a woman to love, take care
of, and work for. He does not know that I can
earn more in a week than he in years. He
realizes most keenly the beauty of music, but
he does not know what it brings in the markets
of the world. I would ask him to let me sing,
but 1 know well that such singing as mine
demands the consecration of all; when I sell
my voice, the body, the heart, the soul
goes with it, all subordinated to the voice.
That would not do. He has given all, he must
and shall have all in return, all I have to give,
or nothing. He knows me only as a woman
who came here for rest, quiet and health ; he
does not dream my name is billed about the
city on coloured posters, talked of as a common
possession by every one — does not know the
papers are full of my doings or intentions. So
you see it is myself he loves. And now, master,
this is good-bye. Good-bye to you and the old
life, which, before I knew any better, seemed the
best of all. I hope I may some time see you
again, but not till I can greet you without too
great joy in my release, without too keen pain
for my music.

JUDITH MOOR?;:.

205

" Send me a line and tell me I am free, and
believe me, ever and ever, Judith Moore, your
own grateful little girl.

" P.S. — I have said nothing of my gratitude to
you, but this letter means that or nothing.
Means that I am so sensible of what I owe to
you that I will give up ray very life showing
you that I do not forget your long-continued
kindness. J. M."

This was the letter the post took away from
Ovid next morning, a letter written not without
tears.

After the music of the gods has once been
breathed through a Pipe, it is never quite con-
tent to echo common sounds, not even ii its
heart be given back to it, and it be born again a
growing reed among its fellows; even if it echoes
back the soughing of the summer wind, and is
never torn by the tempest; even if it grows
continually in the sunshine, and never bends its
head beneath the blast ; even if it be crowned
with brown tassels, and all men call it beautiful.
It still has the hungry longing, the dissatisfied
yearning, the pain that comes of remembered
greatness, even if that greatness was bought at
bitter cost. The true gods may well

*' Sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows never more again
As a reed with the reeds in the river."

206

JUDITH MooRfi.

For that pain is poignant, and perhaps more of
us endure it than is imagined. It may be, these
inexplicable yearnings of our souls for some
vague good, these bitter times when not even
life seems sweet, these regrets for what we have
not known, for what we think we have never
been, for what is not, these may be dim memories
from ages back, from the times when the voices
of the gods spake through men, and men gave
heed to them, and, unmindful of their own
personal pain, proclaimed to man the messages
of the gods. And though this birthright brings
pain with it, yet we, growing like other reeds,
and proud as they of our brown tassels, or
sorrowing, like them, for our lack, are proud also
to know that of our kind the gods chose their
instruments for the making known of their
music to men. The yearning for the divine
breath may be better borne than the cruel
afflatus it imparts, and yet we are glad that
once we were not unworthy to be so tried, and
not all rejoiced that the keener pain, the
higher honour, is taken from us.

Sometimes before a great storm an illusive
hush holds sway, a perilous peace falls upon
the face of nature. With it, a mysterious light
iiTadiates the sky ; a solemn sunshine, prophetic

JUDITH MOORE.

207

of after rains, the forerunner of tempest — a
luminous warning of wrath to come. In some
such fashion surely the face of the angel shone
when he, as the writers of takj tell us, drove our
parents out of Paradise.

It was this illusory illumination that gilded
the lives of Judith Moore and Andrew Cutler at
th's time. How few of us read the rain behind
the radiance !

They were both happy. As a parched plant
vibrates in all its leaves, stirs and quickens
when given water that means life to it, so
Judith Moore's whole being trembled beneath
its baptism of love. For she seems to have
had no doubt that her manager — her " master,"
as she lovingly called him — would grant her
request. Already her past life, with all its
\Tork, and waiting, and triumph, seemed but
a dim dream, her present hope the only reality.
She ran about the Morris house so lightly that
it seemed to Mrs. Morris she heard the patter
of children's feet, the sweetest sound that ever
wove itself into this simple woman's dreams.

Judith's heart v» as ever across the fields with
her lover, and she " sang his name instead of
a song," and found it surpassing sweet. And
Andrew's heart and head were both busy with
loving plans for Judith.

I ■

it-

208

JUDITH MOORE.

The Muskoka woods might go, and their green
mosses be torn for minerals ! No more long,
lonely hunts for him ! He must reap golden
harvests wherever he might for Judith, now,
He knew all her insufficiencies as a housewife,
which poor Judith felt very humble in confess-
ing; and it gave Andrew great joy, in a modest
way, that he would be able to let her be quite
free of them.

And he had higher dreams. Politics offers
a wide arena for ambition. Its sands may have
been soiled by the blood of victims, trodden by
the feet of hirelings, defiled by the struggles of
mercenaries; but there are yet some godlike
gladiators left, who war for right ; there are yet
noble strifes, and few to fight them ; and Andrew,
in whose heart patriotism was as a flaming fire,
recolved to dedicate himself for the fray. To
win glory for Judith, to do something to savour
his life that it might be worthy of her accept-
ance, that it might leave some fragrance upon
the tender hands that held it — that was his aim,
and he felt he would not fail.

No inherent force can be very great and not
give its possessor a thxiU of power. Andrew
felt within him that which meant mastery of
men. And in spite of difficulties and obstacles,
Andrew at last won the wreath to which he had
aspired in the first flush of his hope and joy.

JUDITH MOORE.

209

But that was after.

One day, a week after Judith had sent the
letter, a group of Ovidians were in Hiram Green's
store. There vvas old Sam Symmons, Jack Mac-
kinnon, Oscar Randall (who, together with h*s
hopes of political preferment, aspired to the hand
of Sam Symmons' Suse), and Bill Aikins. The
latter would " catch it," as he well knew, when
he got home, for loitering in the store, and there-
fore, with some vague thought of palliating his
offence, forbore to make himself comfortable,
but stood uneasily by the door, jostled by each
person who came in, pushed by each who went
out.

Jack Mackinnon was speaking, his thin dark
face wreathed in smiles.

"How d'ye like the blind horse, Mr. Sypi-
mons ? I tell ye blind horses are smart some-
times! There was one Frank Peters, wot I
worked for in Essex, owned, and he never
would eat black oats. Critters has their likes
and dislikes same as people. I once knowed a'
clog— but that blind horse — well, he'd never eat
black oats when he had his sight — went blind
along of drawing heavy loads — doctored him all
winter — t'wasn't any use, sight gone, gone com-
plete—well, as I said, he wouldn't eat black oats

i 4 ■

4 'C

210

JUDITH MOORE.

when he had his sight, and wlien the horse was
blind, sir, he knowed the difference between
biac'r oats and wliitu, yes, just the same as
when he had his sight. You couldn't timpt that
horse tc eat black oats, then or no time, he
wouldn't so much as nose at 'em, no sir. You
couldn't fool that horse on oats. But pshaw!
blind horses ! why Henry Acres wot I worked
for in Essex — "

" Oh, shut up. Jack ! " said Hiram, and Jack
accepted his quietus good - naturedly, quite
unabashed.

The village arithmetician had once taken the
trouble to calculate how long Jack Mackinnon
must have worked in Essex, deducing the
amount from Jack's account of the number of
years he had worked for different people there.
The result showed Jack must have spent some
hundred and sixty years in Essex if all his tales
were true; and Jack always repudiated with
scorn any question of his veracity, hoping, with
great fervour and solemnity, that he "drop
down dead in his tracks " if he was lying, a
judgment which never overtook him.

The talk turned upon politics, as it always
did if Oscar Randall was there, and old Sam
Symmons was soon holding forth.

" Yes," he said, " yes, the old elections were

JUDITH MOOtlE.

211

wont to be rare times. I do remember at one
election, near the close of the polls, beguiling
Ezra Thompson to a barn, and there two of us
held him, by main strength and bodily force, till
the polls were closed. Truly he was an angry and
profane man wiien we set him free" — here came
a reminiscent chuckle, cut short to answer Oscar
Randall's tentative question.

" Trouble ? Get us into trouble ? Yes, of a
private kind. Ezra Thompson and I fought
that question with our fists some seventeen
times, and the lad with me had much the same
number of bouts over it. But we neitlier of us
begrudged him satisfaction. In those days a
man took satisfaction out of his enemy's skin ;
he didn't sneak away to lawyers to bleed him in
his pocket. No, no.

" Yes, 'twere a great election that ! 'Twas the
time Mr. Brown ran against Mr. Salmon. Now,
it was told of Mr. Salmon, that though of good
presence, and very high and mighty towards his
neighbours, yet he was ignorant ; and when his
election came on, it was told of him how he met
an English gentleman on the train once, who,
wishing to learn of Canada, spoke at length
with Mr. Salmon, and in the course of the talk
(during which Mr. Salmon was much puffed up),
the English gentleman said to him : * And have

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>i'^\

212

JUDITH MOORE.

4--:-M

you many reptiles in Canada ? * ' No/ said Mr.
Salmon (and a pompous man he was, very)—
• No, we have very few reptiles, only a few
foxes.* It was Mr. Salmon, too, who once
refused when he was J. P. to look into the case
of a poor man whose horse's leg had been
broken in a bad culvert. And the man cried in
a gust of rage : * What ! did you not swear to
see justice done ? and now you won't consider
this ? ' * Swear,' said Mr. Salmon, * I did no such
thing. I only took my affidavit.' " Old Sam's
voice ^ied away.

Hiram spoke from behind the counter. " The
roadmasters do bring the country into terrible
expenses. Look at the bill of costs that's been
run up in that case at Jamestown."

" Yes," said Oscar Randall, as one having
authority, "the people's money is wasted in
this country with an awful disregard of the
public welfare."

" You're right there, Os." " Now you bet your
head's level." " Don't you mistake yourself, it's
level ! " "I tell you, you just hit the nail on the
head that time I "

When this chorus subsided, Mr. Home, who
had just entered, said :

"What do you think of that concession, Os.out
back of Braddon's ? "

iiii' 'm

R' ' ml

JUDITH MOORE.

213

"There is no doubt," said Oscar, promptly,
•' but that is a question which must be adjusted.
It is such internal disputes as these which
weaken and destroy the unity of the country,
and lay us open to an unexpected attack from
the States, which we, by reason of disunion and
strife, would be unable to cope with."

The house, composed of Hiram on his sugar
barrel, Sam in the one chair. Jack Mackinnon
on a cracker box, and a row of men braced
against the counters on each side, fairly rose at
this. Clearly Oscar Randall had the makings
of a great speaker in him !

But Mr. Home was a man of slow mental
methods, who always decided one point before
he left it for another. He waited till the chorus
of "That's so ; that's the ticket," " Bet your life;
that's the way to talk," " Let 'em try it; we'd be
ready for 'em " (this last from Jack Mackinnon
who was a volunteer) had died away, when he
said:

"That's right, Os; you're right there, right
enough ; but what do you think — ought it to be
closed or should it be opened ? "

" I think," said Oscar, slowly, and with confi-
dential emphasis — " I think, as every patriotic
and honest man thinks, that the rights of the
people must be preserved."

3»

214

JUniTFf MOORE.

A diverHion occurred here. A shout from the
roadway took them all out. Before the door
stood a carriage with a little black-a-viae<l man
in it ; and behind that, an express waggon, be-
side the driver of which sat a perky-locking^
woman, different from anything ever seen in
Ovid, for French maids of the real Parisian
stripe were not apt to visit this village often.

" The way to old man Morris' ? yes," said
Oscar Randall, and proceeded to give minute
directions.

The little cavalcade started again, the gen-
tleman leaning back in the carriage, murmuring
to himself :

"Now, I wonder which of these specimens
he was."

And at that moment Andrew Cutler and
Judith Moore were taking farewell, for a few
hours as they thought, beneath the shadows of
Andrew's chestnut trees.

" Darling," he whispered, holding her gently
to him, " my arms seem always aching for you
w^hen we are parted; my heart cries for you
continually. Judith, dear little girl, you won't
make me wait too long ? "

She clung to him silently, hiding her face ou
his arm. A tremour shook her; after all he

JUDITH MOORK.

215

rive minute

was a man, the dominant creature of tlie world.
True, he trembled at her voice and touch now —
but then, after?

"AuoKw," Mho whispered, "will you be good
to me i "

"Trust me, dear, and see," he whispered back.

" You know I have no one but myself," she
said, putting back her head and looking at him
with pale cheeks and tear-filled eyes. " If you
are cruel to me or harsh to me ; if you make
love a burden, not a boon, I will have no one to
turn to. I — " she stopped with quivering lips.

" My own girl," he said, " trust me. I know
I am rough compared to you, but I will be
tender. I know my man's ways frighten you,
but it shall be all my thought to make you
trust me. Give me your presence always, that's
all I ask — to see you, feel you near, hear you
about the house, have your farewells when I
go away, you/ welcome when I return, your
encouragement in what I undertake, your sym-
pathy in what I do. That means heaven to me,
but only when you are happy in it. Dearest,
you don't think I would be bad to you ? "

And Judith, in a storm of sobs that seemed to
melt away all the icy doubts and fears that had
assailed her, laid her head upon his breast, and
promised that soon, very soon, she would go to

k ■

•lff^,"

216

JUDITH MOORE.

the house on the hill never to leave it; and,
when she had grown calmer with a deeper
peace than she hd,d yet known, he left her^
there, in the shadow of the trees — to return in
a few hours.

And Judith stole into the kitchen door and
up to her room, to find her French maid packing
her trunks and be told that " Monsieur awaited
her in the salon**

Her vow had been required of her — that was
all she could think, and she prepared herself to
keep it.

The manager was clever and adroit in his way.
He kept Mrs. Morris busy with him, so that
she did not see Judith till she entered to say
she was ready; and then, as Mrs. Morris told
afterward, she got a "turn." For the Judith
who came to say "good-bye," was the saruc
Judith who greet/cd her at first, gracefully
languid, pale, self-composed, and somewhat
artificially, if charmingly, courteous.

" There was some difference," Mrs. Morris said,
" but I can't just say what."

The difference was that Judith had come a
girl, and left a woman.

So for the last time Judith crossed the little
garden, feeling strangely unfamiliar with the
homely flowers she passed. In the meantime

JUDITH MOORE.

217

had come a

the drivers of the conveyances hau conferred
with Mr. Morris, and the shorter road they took
to the railway station was directly away from
the village, away from the house on the hill.

They caught a glimpse of it as they turned
a comer, and suddenly Judith seemed to feel
the scent of white lilies, and hear an even-
ing chorus of nature's composition. Her hand
held tightly a little envelope, in which she had
hurriedly slipped something before she left her
room.

She was thinking how she could drop it
unobserved, when from the shadow of some
wild plum trees there issued a disreputable
Jog — Nip — with Tommy Slick behind him, a
hasket of wild plums in his hand.

She interrupted the manager's flow of news
to say —

" Do stop the man a minute, I want to speak
to that boy."

" I'll call him."

" No, no ; I'll get out," she said.

So without more ado he stopped the carriage ;
the whims of a prima donna must needs be
respected.

She got out and ran back to Tommy, who
greeted her with a grin.

" Tommy," she said, " you like me, don't you ?

218

JUDITH MOORE.

And you like Andrew Cutler ? Now, will you
do somethingr for me that no one else in the
world can do ? "

" I'll do it," said Tommy, with business-like
brevity.

" And you will not br*. %the it to any living
soul ? "

" I kin keep my mouth shut," said Tommy.
" Often had to."

"Then," said Judith, "I'll trust you. Give
this to Andrew Cutler; if you run you will
catch him in his chestnut woods. Try to get
there quickly, and meet him before he gets near
Morris*. Give him this, and say: 'She has
gone away ! she sends all her love and this.' "

Tommy's impish face had a look of concern
beyond his years. Tears were running down
Judith's face.

" Say, be you never coming back ? "

" Never, never, Tommy ! " said Judith. " Good-
bye."

So in due time Andrew Cutler received from
Tommy Slick's fruit-stained hand an envelope
containing one long bright lock of hair, and a
message sent with it ; and was told also of the
few other words that passed, and of Judith's tears
And Tommy having delivered his message, and
§eei^ the look on Andrew's face, dug his knuqkles

JUDITH MOORE,

219

into his eyes, and with a veritable howl of grief
fled away back as he had come ; and Andrew
suddenly looked about and found life emptied
of all joy.

Judith sf^emed so very calm as the weeks
went by, that her manager told himself he had
been a fool to worry so that night — after he
returned her letter to the post-office, and decided
to go and fetch her from Ovid. He had sent it
back, so that if she had refused to come, or —
yes ! he had thought of that, being so imbued
with stage ways — if she had hinted at killing
herself, he might declare with clean hands
that he was guiltless, that he had never had
her letter, that some one else had got it and
sent it back to the Dead Letter office. But,
after all, how foolish he was, he thought,
watching Judith smile, and reply prettily
to the courtesies of some guests whom he had
just introduced to her. But then, her letter
had seemed full of meaning ! Well, that letter
was doubtless a manifestation of the stage-cre ft
with which she was thoroughly saturated ! So
he comforted himself. And meanwhile, Judith
was learning that " Face joy's a costly mask to
wear," and asking wearily of each day that
dawned, "Is not my destiny complete? Have
I not lived ? Have I nA)t loved J What more ? "

And the time for her American d4but drew on.

•I

I-I

CHAPTER X.

*' Glory itself can be, for a woman, only a loud and
bitter cry for happmess." — Madame de Stad.

j>t,.- '. 1: !•-

Judith Mocre made a triumphant success of
her first American season.

She was lauded to the skies. An ocean of
praise was poured in libations before her; its
ripples spread across the Atlantic, to break in
an ominous wave at Patti's feet, and Patti
seeing it, perhaps feeling the chill of its en-
croachment, determined immediately upon
another American tour.

There is a picture of Judith Moore painted at
this time by one of the deftest masters of facial
portraiture. Sittings were given for this whilst
past applause was echoing in her ears, with
newer shoutt awaiting her in an hour or two;
but the woman pictured upon this canvas is
neither hearkening to past applause, nor antici-
pating new honour. She is absorbed in the
dream of some sweet past, silent in the face of
sonie uni^hieved joy, the whole ff^ce illumined

JUDITH MOORE.

221

by an after-glow from some light of other days
—a first radiance of a morn that never breaks.
It shows a woman with wide, wistful, grey eyes
—eyes which had wept, and lips that denied and
defied the tears, a brow whereon triumph and
grief had warred for mastery and merged at
length into patient endurance ; but the head is
proudly poised, as a head should be that bears
a crown. Even a thorny one confers and demands
honour. If this woman bore a cross, she did not
flaunt it in the face of men ; she bore it hidden
in her heart, and drew it out in secret places to
wash her heart s blood from it with her tears.
Tears are the salt of love that savour it to time
everlasting.

It was the fashion to say that Miss Moore
dwelt upon the heights to which her genius of
song raised her, that from the peaks of success she
looked down contemptuously upon all beneath.
Alas ! They could not tell how icy these pin-
nacles were! The roseate glow cast upon the
" eternal snows " may look very beautiful, but
the humblest hearth where love lights the fire
is warmer.

She felt, indeed, the exaltation of genius, but
upon every side she looked forth into the void.
She was possessed again by that agony of
vertigo that had seized her among the apple

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«■

222

JUDITH MOORE.

■':4

blooms ; now, as then, she stood among blos-
soms ; now, as then, her heart sickened within
her. But there was one deadly difference ; there
was no strong arm to take her down. Indeed, it
seemed to her even the ladder was eone. Could
any man forgive the perfidy of which she had
been guilty ? Many a hand was outstretched to
her, some that would have soiled her own had
she clasped them, others she might have met
honestly, palm to palm. She brushed gently
past them all; if some of them tugged at her
skirts, it only gave her some discomfort and
pity for their pleading, but no pain.

Her manager was most enthusiastic over her.
He remembered guiltily a letter he had opened
and rcLd, a letter he sent back to the post-office
with apologies — ^"he was sorry, the letter was
not for him" — a letter which even now was
slowly threading its way back through the
Dead Letter office pigeon-holes to an undreamed
destination.

He was working her too hard, though— so
musical people whispered among themselves.
She had always needed the curb and not the
spur. Of course, it was a great thing to get
such a hold upon the public in one's first aeason,
with the sure knowledge that she would have
to bid against Patti in her next one ; still, all

JUDITH MOORE.

228

these encores, and Sunday concerts and extra
musicales were felt to be too much. And one
or two men, whose souls were sensitive, ceased
going to hear Miss Moore. There was some-
thing of agony, personal agony, mingling with
the passion of her voice. One of these men
shuddered, when some one, using a hackneyed
simile, spoke of her as a human nightingale.
There came to his fanciful imagination the old
myth of the nightingale that sings with her
breast against a thorn. It seemed somehow to
hini that this woman had grown delirate with
the pain, and pressed sorer and sorer upon her
thorn. He thought, too, of the birds whose eyes
they blind that they may sing better; of the
dove that bears

. ' . . "thro* heaven a tale of woe,
Some dolorous message knit below
The wild pulsation of her wings. "

He thought of the swan's song of death, and
of the reed that the " Great God Pan" wrenched
from its river home to fashion forth a Pipe-
The American papers laughed a good deal at
this man, caricaturing him as the poet of soulful
lilies and yearning souls, hinting that he would
like to inaugurate a pre-Raphaelesque era in
America d la Burne Jones. He read these

i ' »

224

JUDITH MOORE.

things sometimes. They flushed his thin cheeks,
but did not trouble his eyes — those eyes that
mirrored forth the soul of the mystic. He was
right about Judith Moore.

She bowed her head to accept the last acco-
lade of Genius — grief. She had partaken of
pain — that chrism which, laid upon poetic lips,
sanctifies their words to immortality, but which
savours the breath they breathe with the bitter-
ness of death. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rossetti
(how many we might name !) have partaken of
that sacrament. But what matter for the Pipe,
so that the world, when it has time to listen,
may hear sweet singing? The world, in its
way, was very good to Judith Moore. It gave
her the sweet smile of its approval right royally;
it gave her all its luxuries, all its praise, and
this Judith did not pretend not to enjoy. But
she enjoyed it as one does who drinks what he
knows will kill him, yet continues the draught,
that in its intoxication he may forget the doom
it brings.

Judith was seen everywhere, for she availed
herself of all the privileges which her genius, her
beauty, her untarnished fame won for her. She
was pointed out wherever she went ; sometimes
when a crush of carriages held her own impris-
oned, she would hear a whisper from lip to lip,

JUDITH MOORE.

225

"Look! look! There is Judith Moore." Nothing
further was needed ; every one knew Judith
Moore. And Judith treated the world as it
deserved of her. She dressed herself beauti-
fully for it, and smiled and sang to it, and
exhibited herself to it everywhere. Everywhere,
for she was striving to so tire her spirit that
when she was alone it might at least be numb,
if not at rest. In vain ! That ardent, tender
spirit was yet indomitable. The body, the slen-
der, beautiful body it animated, might be sore
aweary, but so soon as Judith was alone her
spirit fled far away, back to the place of its
rejoicing; back to the village in the valley,
where it was always spring or summertide;
back to the old rail fences with the tangled
weeds about them; back to the apple blooms;
back to the brown furrows where the grey
birds nested; back to the lindens and the
chestnuts, and there, hour after hour, her spirit
held voiceless commune with that other. Her
spirit well might be comforted, but Judith
strained listening ears to hear one tender word,
wearied her eyes searching for the semblance of
a tace, stretched forth trembling hands for
comfort, and, overcome at last, let them fall,
empty.
The opera season closed, and an incident that

226

JUDITH MOOKE.

made some talk put the period to Judith's first
American season. Judith had sung as she never
sang before. Her voice seemed to transcend
the limits of human capability, and become
something independent of her lips, something
sentient, springing ever higher and higher.

The man in whose heart she was likened to
the pierced nightingale, the blinded lark, the
mourning dove, the dying swan, had come to
listen to her. At her last appearance there was
a roar of applause, a wave of laudation that
seemed as if it might carry her off' her feet.
There is something thrilling, inspiring, almost
weird in the union of human voices, something
that stirs the imagination, something that never
grows old to us, for it never becomes famiHar.
Usually they jar and jangle across each other as
children babble, each fretting for his own toy,
so that we almost forget what the power of
union is. In praise or blame it makes the world
tremble.

She made no pretence of retiring for the
encore. She made no sign to the musicians.
She did not assume the pose, familiar to them,
for any of her songs. They sat silent, spell-
bound with the audience. She stepped slowly
forward, stretched forth her arms, and sang
unaccompanied, what seemed an invocation to

JUDITH MOORE.

227

the better Ego of every soul present, a song she
had been wont to sing to Andrew :

" Out from youFHclf !
Out from the past with its wrecks and contrition,
Out from the dull discontentment of now,
Out from the future's false-speaking ambition,

Out from yourself !
For your broken heart's rest ;
For the peace which you crave ;
For the end of your quest ;
For the love which can save ;

Come ! Come to me I "

Those who heard that song never forgot it-
And one man, at least, never forgot the ex-
pression upon the woman's face as she sang.
Rapt as of a sibyl who conjures away an
evil spirit ; winning as a woman who promises
all things ; informed with the intensity of one
who bids her will go forth to accomplish her
desire — she held her last pose a moment. The
house "rose at her." Even as they cheered a
change overspread her face. It grew glorified,
exultant, tremulously eager, as of one who feels
the pinions of his soul stirring for flight — for
flight to longed-for shores. With that look
upon her face she fell.

*'■ • • • • • • • •

Far away from New York, in the silent

228

JUDITH MOORE.

spaces of a virgin forest, a man was lying on the
snow, his gun beneath his ami ready for use.
But he was keeping no lookout for game. His
eyes were fixed upon an open space amid the
tree tops, where a solitary star twinkled deso-
lately. His face was thin; his eyes burned;
the snows, the silence, nor the solitude could
calm that throbbing at his heart, could cool
the fever in his veins. He thought of Judith,
and, thinking of her, loved her. It was true
she had left him, left him with his kisses warm
upon her lips, but — he loved her. It was hard
for him to imagine a force strong enough to
constrain her to go. It was difficult, having no
clue, to conceive of circumstances that would
justify her silent desertion, but somehow
Andrew, out of the depths of his steadfast heart,
found excuses for her. Sometimes the fantastic
thought that she was bound in loveless marriage
came to him, but he put it by. He remembered
her eyes, the misgivings that had assailed her,
the tender abandon of her trust in him. No,
she was not married. Where was she ? It was
not her wish that he should know. He hoped
her little feet trod pleasant paths. Oh, Judith,
Judith ! Then, explain it as we may, or leave
it still a mystery, there came to him, faint, aery,
bodilessly, the words of a song — a song that

JUDITH M(K)RE.

229

ended in a plea, " Come ! Come to me," and when
it died away, Andrew Cutler sprang to his feet
with a cry that echoed far between the icy tree
trunks of the forest, " I come, I come." And
that same night, at the same hour, at the same
p'llse of the hour, Judith Moore, with a look of
ineffable joy upon her face, fell fainting upon
the stage.

"So may love, although 'tis understood
The mere commingling of passionate breath,
Produce more than our searching witnesseth."

Next day Andrew started back to Ovid,
arriving in a state of feverish expectancy. No
tidings of Judith there ; and he knew not where
to seek. That pleading voice still rang in his
CLTs ; by night, by day, it urged the message it
had brought to him in the depths of far-off
Muskoka, and by day and night he promised it
peace, if he could only, only know where to go.

Time passed.

The voice was dumb now. Only an acme of
surpassing love can wing the will through space,
and then only perhaps once in a lifetime does
such a supreme moment come, and the will
behind this love was shattered, for Judith Moore
la^ sicH Uftto i^eath, was tossing in the deliriuiq

230

JUDITH MOORE.

I' '1

of fever, or lying for days sunk in an apathy
which words could not pierce. The papers were
filled with accounts of her strange illness, daily
bulletins of her condition appeared, her manager
was showered with opprobrium for overworking
her. She was dying. The best doctors said
that the miracle was that she had lasted so long.
Her little dark-faced manager went about feel-
ing like a murderer, a Shylock, and a Judas, in
one. The more so, as he felt ho had given ner
the death-blow in one stroke — when he disre-
garded that letter. If he had only overworked
her, he told himself he would have had no
regrets. He would have made any reparation
he could, but how on earth was he to find the
yokel she was in love with ? And what a battle
she was having ; and yet it was not such a very
long one — from latest winter to spring.

Andrew was half crazed with love, which,
since that winter night, had V)ecome almost
unendurable through anxiety.

Now it was spring, u,nd as he walked through
his woods to the Morris house, he passed the
crab-apple-trees in full bloom. He often went
up to talk to garrulou > Mrs. Morris. The little
details she let fall about Judith were pearls of
great price to him.

This day he was hardly within the door
before Mrs. Morqs said :

JUDITH MOORE.

231

" Land sakes ! but you're just the very person
I was wanting to see. There's a gov'iment
letter come to Miss Moore yesterday, and I
thought you'd maybe know where to send it."

" Yes," said Andrew, feeling that the sign had
come at last. " Give it me, and I'll see she
gets it."

He took it, and with scarce a word went away,
leaving Mrs. Morris considerably upset by his
abruptness.

He only waited to get within the shadow of
his woods before he tore it open. One reading
of her pleading letter to her manager sufficed.
Judith was his again. He knew where to find
her. New York ! — that was not so very far off.
He knew when the trains started, and rapidly
made his plans. She was such a child ! and she
liked his old velveteen coat and the big, battered
felt hat ; he would wear them ; she would be
pleased ; and as he came within sight of the
crab-apple-trees a happy thought came to him.
He took his knife and cut a huge bundle of
flowers, taking off the branches where the
flowers were only in bud.
Theii he went home.

His aunt heard his hurried explanation, and
bound a groat roll of wet moss about i\\Q ends
of t^e branches.

232

JUDITH MOORE.

" They'll look queer, Andrew," she said.

" Never mind how they'll look," said Andrew,
happily ; " she'll like *em."

He was soon on the train, a picturesque figure
in tweed, with an old velveteen coat, a wide
shabby felt hat, and an enormous bunch of pink
flowers. Andrew was entirely oblivious of, and
indifferent to, comment. He got hold of a train-
man, gave him a dollar and got a pailful of water
from him, arran;.>ed 'is flowers in it, put it in
the baggage-car and sat by it all night. "A
queer duck," the trainmen said.

As the Canadian trains reach New York, the
morning papers come aboard. Andrew bought
one of each, and sat down turning them over
with tremulous hands to search for a sign. He
had not far to seek — " Judith Moore dying,
THE END APPROACHING." That was what he
read in big "scare head" type; that, and its
narrations in the other j u>ers, with the usual
platitudes telling of Iht phort but bright
career," and so on. With Ci^ calm of despair
he searched for definite information as to where
she was. It seemed every one knew so well
that definite detail was superfluous. But at
last, in a different part of the paper, he found:
" In the corridors of the Brittany Hotel last
jiight, Miss Moore's manager, who had just left

JUDITH MOORE.

233

tJ A

her bedside, said all liope was gone." The train
was in New York, slowing up in tlie Grand
Central station by the time he found this. He
wrapped a couple of handkerchiefs round the
steins of his flowers, got into the first carriage
lie came to, saying only " the Brittany Hotel."
He thought the cabman might know where to
go. The cabman, of course, did, and ere many
minutes he was in the office of the magnificent
hotel.

He knew nothing of conventional procedure,
and if he liad, it would not have mattered to
him then. He went straight to the desk.

" Is Miss Moore alive ? " he asked.

" Yes, I think so, but — "

" I want io go to her at once."

The clerk comprehended, and a bell-boy raced
before Andrew to a door whose handle was
muffled. He knocked very softly. " Go," said
Andrew, and he stood alone waiting for the door
to open. It would be impious to speak of the
agony which knit his soul and heart to endur-
ance, whilst he waited the word from within.

The door opened. A miserable little man
stood there. When he saw Andrew, he said
without astonishment :

" You're in time to speak to her. Go in."

Andrew advanced to an open door. The
16

■f
'ill' ■

{ -

234

JUDITH MOORE.

little man followed through the outer room.
He beckoned to two others within the sick-
room, a white-capped woman and a doctor.
They saw, understood, and Andrew went up to
the bed alone with the door closed behind him.
"Judith," he said, "my own little girl."
A long tremour shook the slight form under
the coverlets, and then — then he was on his knees
with the flowers flung all across the bed and his
arms about her. And Judith ? Poor Judith's
eyes were wide and frightened, for she thought
the change had come that she had waited for,
expected, even longed for ; she thought this was
Death, and even although the crab blooms were
there, and Andrew, still it was awesome. Yet
Death should have brought sv^ita flowers, not
apple blooms such as grew in Andrew's woods,
And were Death's arms ever so sustaining, so
tender, so warm as these ? And surely Death
did not come garbed in shabby, smoky velve-
teen, nor bend above his victims a brown
passionate face wet with tears ?

"Andrew, it's you, and you're crying," and
then followed a faint whisper of delight— from
her — for Andrew's courage and calm were gone
at last. He could not speak. And once more
she smiled at him the old womanly smile, from
the old honest eyes, and stretched forth feeble
fingers striving to reach about his neck.

CHAPTER XI.

V ENVOI.

' ' Fair love that led home. "

Judith Moore did not die. Slie had fallen
asleep that day with her fingers trembling about
Andrew's simlmrnt hair. He held her tenderly
till a deeper sleep weighted down those clinging
hands, and they fell

He watched by her, without movement, almost
without breathing, with the look on his face as
of one who battles with Death, pitting all the
splendid vitality of his being against the enemy,
casting the mantle of his brave soul, strong will
and perfect love about the trembling will and
failing heart that were so nearly vanquished.

Indeed, so completely did Andrew identify
Inmself during those silent hours with the
woman he loved, that ever after she had some
fleeting touches of his courage, and he had
•'ilways an intuitional tenderness towards a
woman's illogical weakness.

The fusion of these two natures took place

s ^1

'2HG

.JUDITH MOOllE.

not in those sweet after hours of passion, but
in tliat silent room, into wliich now and tlieii
there peeped a wliite-capped nurse or a black-
a-vised little man, who saw always a ;;reat
mass of fading pink blooms, a pair of 1)ioa(l
shoulders in shabby velveteen bent tenderly
over the shadowy outline of a little head sunk
deep in the pillow.

After this supreme crisis there came a week
or two of slow convalescence, and then a wed-
ding that no one thought much of, regardinor it
merely as one of the prescribed formalities, like
the buying of the railroad tickets, necessary
before Andrew could take her away — away
back to the village in the valley, to the old
stone farm-house, to the homely flowers, the
lindens on the hill, to Rufus and Miss M ers,
where, for a time, she was not a wife at all.
only a poor little wind-tossed song-bird blown
to their bosoms for a refuge.

But that all changed.

Andrew wooed again a charming, capricious
woman, walking by her adoringly over the oltl
bricked walks beneath the horse-chestnuts, his
very soul trembling with the love her voice and
touch awakened ; and she was playfully prouJ
of her power, until suddenly some quick sense of
the dominance of the love she aroused friiiliteuod

.lUDITlI MOOllE.

•287

her, and she turned to hide from liini in liisanns,
trembhngly afraid, no lonoer askin*;* love, but
pleading against it.

Time passes with them. The old farm-house
Iijis had some architectural additions — a tiny
conscn-vatory, a long dining-room, with quaint
porches and latticed windows ; for Andrew and
his wife appreciate too keenly the beauties of
tlieir home to mar its character by modernizing
it. Andrew lias learned to wear evening clothes
as easily as he does his old velveteens, and —
si sic omnia ! — himself often buys the little
liigh -heeled shoes in which Judith's heart de-
lights, for Judith never put off the old Eve of
her harmless vanities.

Every winter Andrew and his wife go to town
for a while, and visitors come to the farm-house
wlio fairly electrify the village with their
" cranks."

The best known of these is a little black-
a-vised man with big diamonds, a profane
tongue and a guilty but " thankful 'eart." He
che -ishes, so he says, a hopeless passion for Miss
Myers, and indeed Miss Myers likes the new
regime very well, for she was never ousted
from the house-keeping department, and if it
was a glory and a credit to manage well for
Andrew and herself, how much greater it is to

rf'' <

238

•lUDITlI MOORE.

Mil

i I

cast honour over a board wliere such fine people
as Judith's friends sit daily.

Andrew is secretly very proud that all these
fine folk should come and sec how happy Juditli
is. Only once did he have any difference witli
any of them. That was when Judith first
regained her strength and her old manager came
to see her. He had a brand-new scheme for
Juditlx's benefit in his brain. She was to siiu'
in grand concerts, and he had all her tour
inappod out. He was good enough to say
Andrew could come along. Andrew held Itrief
and bitter speech with him, and then w^eiit to
Judith. He could see how strong the old
glamour yet was. He took her in his arms, and
after a long, tender discussion she gave him the
promise he wfts pleading for, never more to sing
in public, a decision which made Andrew her
slave forever, although it wrung his heart to see
what this renunciation cost her. He felt it was
right. Poor, high-strung Judith needed a steady
hand upon the rein of her eager spirit, else it
would have soon carried her beyond her strength,
And so, ringing about an old farm-house, or
through the chestnut woods, or below the
lindens on the hill-side, there often sounds a
voice once echoed by the hravos of the world.
Perhaps the aspiration it awakens in one stronj,'
soul is better applause.

JUDITH MOORE.

239

{So Andrew and Judith live on, they two and
Miss Myers, as nearly happy as mortals may be.
Heaven would be entirely illogical if such as
they two had no heartaches.

Sometimes Judith steals away from Miss
Myers and Andrew and thinks of the old days,
the first efforts, the hopes, the fears, the strife
and the success — the glorious success that might
have been many times repeated ; that might, as
base metals might be transmuted into gold, have
Ijecome fame. A nasty heartache gnaws in her
breast, her face pales, her eyes grow wide and
eager. At such times Andrew knows well the
struggle that rends her tender heart, and he
soon searches her out : and ipon his breast,
beneath the spell of his worship her restless
spirit quiets itself to peace. What might be a
tragedy of distrust is made a bond of stronger
union by perfect confidence. But Judith's face
will always bear the traces of these times.

When a coal is carried from the Divine Fire
and laid upon mortal lips, it must be blown into
a flame to illumine the world, or it sears the lips
it touches. The gods will not have their gifts
disregarded. They care little that the mortal
breath may be too weak to sustain the flame,
though it perish in the effort. Indeed, the gods
: forgive that, and sometimes spare a little of

240

JUDITH MOOllE.

i'N

their f^lory to <^il(l a grave. But let tlio hrcatli
they demand be stolen for our own sighs or
sobs, or stifled by dear-bought kisses, and tlity
give swift recompense of pain. Judith had
borne that smart.

Andrew, too, has unfulfilled dreams, as Juditli
knows when she sees his eyes grow wistful as
they rest upon the faces of children. And
Judith goes to him then, and lays her head upon
his arm with an apology so poignant, a love so
perfect in her grey eyes, that he forgets every-
thing in the marvel that this woman is lii.s.
And thus with each of them, the little shadows
only serve to enhance the sunshine. Their lifo
is a glorious reality ; their love a poem. To-
gether they kiiow no pain from the past, no
regret for the present, no fear for the future.
They sometimes even dare to dream that their
love will bestow upon them its own immortality
— that through eternity they will be as they
are now, together and happy.

let tlic breath

own Hiji^hs or

sses, and tliuy

Juditli had

mis, as Juditli
row wistful as
lildren. And
her head upon
tiant, a love so
forgets every-
voman is his.
little shadows
lie. Their life
a poem. To-
i the past, no
3r the future.
3am that their
n imniortalitv
11 be as they

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