Nobody Part 76

Mr. and Mrs. Lenox looked at each other.

"Do you mean to say," said the latter, "that the hymn-writers do not use the minor key? They write in it, or they sing in it, more properly, altogether!"

"Yes," said Lois, into whose cheeks a slight colour was mounting; "yes, perhaps; but it is with the blast of the trumpet and the clash of the cymbals of triumph. There may be the confession of pain, but the cry of victory is there too!"

"Victory--over what?" said Mrs. Lenox rather scornfully,

"Over pain, for one thing," said Lois; "and over loss, and weariness, and disappointment."

"You will have to confirm your words by examples again, Lois," said Mrs. Barclay. "We do not all know hymn literature as well as you do."

"I never saw anything of all that in hymns," said Mrs. Lenox. "They always sound a little, to me, like dirges."

Lois hesitated. The cart was plodding along through the smooth lanes at the rate of less than a mile an hour, the oxen swaying from side to side with their slow, patient steps. The level country around lay sleepily still under the hot afternoon sun; it was rarely that any human stir was to be seen, save only the ox driver walking beside the cart. He walked beside the _cart_, not the oxen; evidently lending a curious ear to what was spoken in the company; on which account also the progress of the vehicle was a little less lively than it might have been.

"My Cynthy's writ a lot o' hymns," he remarked just here. "I never heerd no trumpets in 'em, though. I don' know what them other things is."

"Cymbals?" said Lois. "They are round, thin plates of metal, Mr. Sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes them together, at certain parts of the music--as you would slap the palms of your hands."

"Doos, hey? I want to know! And what doos they sound like?"

"I can't tell," said Lois. "They sound shrill, and sweet, and gay."

"But that's cur'ous sort o' church music!" said the farmer.

"Now, Miss Lothrop,--you must let us hear the figurative cymbals," Mr.

Lenox reminded her.

"Do!" said Mrs. Barclay.

"There cannot be much of it," opined Mrs. Lenox.

"On the contrary," said Lois; "there is so much of it that I am at a loss where to begin.

'I love yon pale blue sky; it is the floor Of that glad home where I shall shortly be; A home from which I shall go out no more, From toil and grief and vanity set free.

'I gaze upon yon everlasting arch, Up which the bright stars wander as they shine; And, as I mark them in their nightly march, I think how soon that journey shall be mine!

'Yon silver drift of silent cloud, far up In the still heaven--through you my pathway lies: Yon rugged mountain peak--how soon your top Shall I behold beneath me, as I rise!

'Not many more of life's slow-pacing hours, Shaded with sorrow's melancholy hue; Oh what a glad ascending shall be ours, Oh what a pathway up yon starry blue!

'A journey like Elijah's, swift and bright, Caught gently upward to an early crown, In heaven's own chariot of all-blazing light, With death untasted and the grave unknown.'"

"That's not like any hymn I ever heard," remarked Mrs. Lenox, after a pause had followed the last words.

"That is a hymn of Dr. Bonar's," said Lois. "I took it merely because it came first into my head. Long ago somebody else wrote something very like it--

'Ye stars are but the shining dust Of my divine abode; The pavement of those heavenly courts Where I shall see my G.o.d.

'The Father of unnumbered lights Shall there his beams display; _And not one moment's darkness mix With that unvaried day_.'

Do you hear the cymbals, Mrs. Lenox?"

There came here a long breath, it sounded like a breath of satisfaction or rest; it was breathed by Mrs. Armadale. In the stillness of their progress, the slowly revolving wheels making no noise on the smooth road, and the feet of the oxen falling almost soundlessly, they all heard it; and they all felt it. It was nothing less than an echo of what Lois had been repeating; a mute "Even so!"--probably unconscious, and certainly undesigned. Mrs. Lenox glanced that way. There was a far-off look on the old worn face, and lines of peace all about the lips and the brow and the quiet folded hands. Mrs. Lenox did not know that a sigh came from herself as her eyes turned away.

Her husband eyed the three women curiously. They were a study to him, albeit he hardly knew the grammar of the language in which so many things seemed to be written on their faces. Mrs. Armadale's features, if strong, were of the homeliest kind; work-worn and weather-worn, to boot; yet the young man was filled with reverence as he looked from the hands in their cotton gloves, folded on her lap, to the hard features shaded and framed by the white sun-bonnet. The absolute, profound calm was imposing to him; the still peace of the spirit was attractive. He looked at his wife; and the contrast struck even him. Her face was murky. It was impatience, in part, he guessed, which made it so; _but_ why was she impatient? It was cloudy with unhappiness; and she ought to be very happy, Mr. Lenox thought; had she not everything in the world that she cared about? How could there be a cloud of unrest and discontent on her brow, and those displeased lines about her lips? His eye turned to Lois, and lingered as long as it dared. There was peace too, very sunny, and a look of lofty thought, and a brightness that seemed to know no shadow; though at the moment she was not smiling.

"Are you not going on, Miss Lothrop?" he said gently; for he felt Mrs.

Barclay's eye upon him. And, besides, he wanted to provoke the girl to speak more.

"I could go on till I tired you," said Lois.

"I do not think you could," he returned pleasantly. "What can we do better? We are in a most pastoral frame of mind, with pastoral surroundings; poetry could not be better accompanied."

"When one gets excited in talking, perhaps one had better stop," Lois said modestly.

"On the contrary! Then the truth will come out best."

Lois smiled and shook her head. "We shall soon be at the sh.o.r.e.

Look,--this way we turn down to go to it, and leave the high road."

"Then make haste!" said Mr. Lenox. "It will sound nowhere better than here."

"Yes, go on," said his wife now, raising her heavy eyelids.

"Well," said Lois. "Do you remember Bryant's 'Thanatopsis'?"

"Of course. _That_ is bright enough at any rate," said the lady.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes! What is the matter with it?"

"Dark--and earthly."

"I don't think so at all!" cried Mrs. Lenox, now becoming excited in her turn. "What would you have? I think it is beautiful! And elevated; and hopeful."

"Can you repeat the last lines?"

"No; but I dare say you can. You seem to me to have a library of poets in your head."