Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 194 July 16 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men Artists Antiquaries Genealogists etc. by Various Bell George Editor

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"Do you keep them?" he asked again.

"Yes, I do," admitted Hiram, "and I've brought one along in case Sam should like to try it."

This rather crushed Oscar's insinuation as to Hiram's business policy in suggesting this remedy, so he sat silent, while old Sam and Hiram Green went out to administer the powder.

Jack Mackinnon, to whom silence was impossible, with the freedom of equality prevalent in Ovid, turned to where Suse sat making rick-rack.

"Well, father?" Suse asked.

"She's dead," said Sam.

"Dead's a door nail," added Hiram.

"No!" said Jack, with exaggerated incredulity.

"You don't say!" said Oscar, in a tone which betrayed a distinct conflict between self-satisfaction and proper sympathy. He could not resist adding in a lower key, "I seen as much."

Soon the trio of visitors departed. Old Sam was smoking a last pipe when a knock came to the door. He opened it to find Andrew Cutler without.

"What's this I hear about your mare?" he asked. "Is she dead?"

"Yes--couldn't seem to do anything for her," said old Sam, and brave as he was, his tone was somewhat disheartened.

"Well, it's too bad, she was a good beast. Better have my little bay till you look about for another," said Andrew.

Old Sam's face lightened. "I'll be glad to," he answered. "There's the orchard field to plough and I'm behindhand already, but"--his old pride forbidding him to accept too eagerly--"don't you need him?"

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

"Well, I'll come along for him in the morning, then," said Sam, relieved. "What have you been doing to-day?"

"Sowing buckwheat in the clearing, and went to town with some mending," replied Andrew. "I'm just getting home."

"How does the clearing look?" asked Sam. "Free of water?"

"Yes, it's in good condition."

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

"Man or woman?" asked Andrew, with sudden interest.

"Hiram didn't say. I took it was a man." "Suse, did Hiram Green say 'twas a man or a woman had come to board with old Mrs. Morris?"

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

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

"Good-night, good-night. Thank you kindly," said old Sam.

The old mare was buried next day in one of Sam's barren fields.

"Did you get the shoes off her?" Mr. Horne asked as he encountered old Sam returning from the obsequies with an earthy spade over his rounding shoulders.

"No, I didn't," said Sam.

"Did you save her tail to make a fly brush?" queried Mr. Horne.

"No," answered old Sam. "I never thought of it."

"Did you skin her?" asked his questioner bending over. "Did you skin her?"

"No," said Sam, thoroughly humiliated.

"Well," said Mr. Horne with exuberant sarcasm, as he shook his reins over his team of fat Clydesdales, "It's well you can afford such waste. I couldn't."

"Say where In upper air Dost hope to find fulfilment of thy dream? On what far peak seest thou a morning gleam? Why shall the stars still blind thee unaware? Why needst thou mount to sing? Why seek the sun's fierce-tempered glow and glare? Why shall a soulless impulse prompt thy wing?"

The next day Andrew Cutler went to complete the sowing of the clearing. It was somewhat chill, and he wore an old velveteen coat whose ribbed surface was sadly rubbed and faded to a dingy russet. More than that, it was burnt through in several round spots by ashes from his pipes and cigars. As usual, Rufus followed him, and a very picturesque pair the two made.

The air was very clear, the smoke from the village curling bluely up high to the clouds, no shred of it lingering about the roof trees. He could see some white pigeons flying about the church spire; and off to the right, where the river ran, he could see lines of white flashing a moment in the sun, then falling beyond the trees, and these he knew were flashes from the shining breasts and wings of the gulls. The ground had not yet lost the elasticity of spring, and the new grass had not yet quite overcome the dead growth of the year before.

It was a buoyant day, and Andrew was in a buoyant mood. He had not come out without the expectation of hearing more singing, and he promised himself he would not wait so long before beginning his search for the singer, whom he took to be the boarder at the Morris house. However, it seemed as if he was to be disappointed, for the sun grew strong, the air warm, and no music came to him.

His sowing was done, and he was just about leaving, when, sweet, clear, full, the voice of yesterday shook out a few high notes, and then taking up the words of a song began to sing it in such fashion that Andrew could hardly believe that the sound issued from mortal lips--it was so flute-like, so liquid.

Now, Andrew's life had not been one of much dissipation; still, there were hours in it he did not care to dwell upon, and the memory of every one of these unworthy hours suddenly smote him with shame. They say that at death's approach one sees in a second all the sins of his soul stand forth in crimson blazonry, and perhaps, in that moment, Andrew's old self died.

The singer's voice had taken up another song, one he did not know--

"Out from yourself! For your broken heart's vest; For the peace which you crave; For the end of your quest; For the love which can save; Come! Come to me!"

In springing over the fence and making towards where the sound came from, Andrew hardly seemed as if acting upon his own volition. He had been summoned: he went.

After all, there is not much mystery about a girl singing among the trees, yet Andrew's heart throbbed with something of that hushed tumult with which we approach some sacred shrine of feeling, or enter upon some new intense delight.

He soon saw her, standing with her back against a rough shell-bark hickory. The cloudy greyness of its rugged stem seemed to intensify the pallor and accentuate the delicacy of her face. For she was a very pale-faced, fragile-looking woman who stood there singing: her eyes were wide and wistful, but not unhappy-looking, only pitiable from the intense eagerness that seemed to have consumed her. And, in fact, she was like an overtuned instrument whose tense strings quiver continually.

The "Great God Pan" was all unconscious of his cruelty, was he not, when he fashioned the pipe out of a river reed? And as he blew through it the music of the gods, doubtless had good reason for thinking that never reed had been honoured like unto this reed.

There are moments in real life, so exotic to the lives into which they have entered, that one hardly realizes the verity of them till long after, when the meaning of his own actions struggles through the mists and confronts him with their consequences. In such moments the most absurd things in the world seem quite in order, and the commonplace actions of life assume grotesque importance. So it is in dreams, which reconcile with magnificent disregard of possibilities, the most wonderful conditions of person, place and time. Well--

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

This is Andrew's only excuse for accepting so promptly the musical invitation extended with such feeling!

"I have come," he said, half dreamily--stepping out from the shelter of the trees.

The pale-faced singing siren changed to a startled, blushing girl, and in swift sequence Andrew's rapt gaze altered to one not altogether without daring.

"Oh, so I see," she half gasped, then laughed outright, looking at him with shy eyes, but mutinously curving lips. The laugh robbed the scene of its last illusion of mystery.

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