Part 44 (1/2)

The Minister broke into prayer--at first in smooth, running sentences, formal thanksgivings for the feast just concluded, for the plenty of seedtime and harvest, for the kindly fruits of the earth, with invocations of blessing upon the house and the family. But by and by, as these pet.i.tions grew more intimate, his breath came in short gasps.

”O the Blood!” he began to cry; ”the precious Blood of Redemption!”

And at intervals one or other of his listeners answered ”Amen!”

”Hallelujah!” Tilda wondered what on earth it was all about; wondered too--for she knelt with her back to the great fireplace--if the shepherd had laid by his pipe and was kneeling among the ashes. Something in the Minister's voice had set her brain in a whirl, and kept it whirling.

”Glory! Glory! The Blood! Glory be for the Blood!”

And with that, of a sudden the man was shouting a prayer for _her_--for her and Arthur Miles, ”that these two lambs also might be led home with the flock, and sealed--sealed with the Blood, with the precious Blood, with the ever-flowing Blood of Redemption--”

Her brain seemed to be spinning in a sea of blood . . . Men and women, all had risen from their knees now, and stood blinking each in the other's faces half-stupidly. The Minister's powerful voice had ceased, but he had set them going as a man might twirl a teetotum; and in five or six seconds one of the men--it was Roger, the young giant--burst forth with a cry, and began to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e what he called his ”experience.” He had been tempted to commit the Sin without Pardon; had been pursued by it for weeks, months, when alone in the fields; had been driven to wrestle with it in hollows and waste places, Satan always at his ear whispering to him to say the words of blasphemy, to cross the line, to have rest of mind though it were in d.a.m.nation. To Tilda this was all mere gibberish, but to the youth and to his hearers all real and deadly earnest. His words came painfully, from a dry throat; the effort twisted him in bodily contortions pitiful to see; the sweat stood on his handsome young forehead--the brow of a tortured Apollo. And the circle of listeners bent forward to the tale, eager, absorbed, helping out his agony with groans and horrified murmurs. They held their breath, and when he reached the crisis, and in a gush of words related his deliverance--casting up both arms and drawing one long shuddering breath--they could almost see the bonds burst on the muscles of his magnificent chest, and broke afresh into exultant cries: ”Glory!”

”Hallelujah!” ”The Blood--the Blood!” while the shepherd in the ingle-nook slowly knocked out the ashes of his pipe against the heel of his boot. He was a free-thinker, an ex-Chartist, and held himself aloof from these emotions, though privileged, as an old retainer, to watch them. His face was impa.s.sive as a carved idol's.

The young giant dropped back into his chair, and doubtless a second spiritual gust was preparing to shake the company--you could feel it in the air--when G.o.dolphus intervened. That absurd animal, abashed by a series of snubbings, probably saw a chance to rehabilitate himself.

For certain during the last few minutes he had been growing excited, sitting up with bright eyes, and opening and shutting his mouth as in a dumb effort at barking. Now, to the amazement of all, including the sheep-dogs, he lifted himself upon his hind legs and began to gyrate slowly.

Everyone stared. In the tension n.o.body yet laughed, although Tilda, throwing a glance toward the chimney-corner, saw the shepherd's jaw relax in a grin. Her head yet swam. She felt a spell upon her that must be broken now or never.

”'Dolph!” she called, and wondered at the shrill sound of her own voice.

”'Dolph!” She was standing erect, crooking her arm. The dog dropped on his fore-paws, crouched, and sprang through the hoop she made for him; crouched, sprang back again, alighted, and broke into a paean of triumphant yelps.

Tilda was desperate now. With a happy inspiration she waved her hand to the ancient jack against the wall, and 'Dolph sprang for it, though he understood the command only. But he was a heavy dog, and as the rusty machine began to revolve under his weight, his wits jumped to the meaning of it, and he began to run like a turnspit demented.

”Faster! 'Dolph!”

The Minister had arisen, half-scandalised, on the point of calling for silence; but his eyes fell on Tilda, and he too dropped back into his chair. The child had raised both arms, and was bending her body back--back--until her fingers touched the hem of her skirt behind her.

Her throat even sank out of view behind her childish bust. The shepherd's pipe dropped, and was smashed on the hearthstone. There was a silence, while still G.o.dolphus continued to rotate. Someone broke it, suddenly gasping ”Hallelujah!”

”Amen! Tis working--'tis working!”

In despite of the Minister, voice after voice took up the clamour.

Farmer Tossell's louder than any. And in the height of the fervour Tilda bent her head yet lower, twisted her neck sideways, and stared up at the ring of faces from between her ankles!

CHAPTER XXI.

THE HUNTED STAG.

”_Three hundred gentlemen, able to ride, Three hundred horses as gallant and free, Beheld him escape on the evening tide Far out till he sank in the Severn Sea . . .

The stag, the runnable stag._”--JOHN DAVIDSON.

Early next morning the two children awoke in clean beds that smelt deliciously of lavender. The feeling was so new to them and so pleasant, that for a while they lay in luxurious ease, gazing out upon so much of the world as could be seen beyond the window--a green hillside scattered with gorse-bushes, sheeted with yellowing brake-fern and crossed by drifting veils of mist: all golden in the young suns.h.i.+ne, and all framed in a tangle of white-flowered solanum that clambered around the open cas.e.m.e.nt. Arthur Miles lay and drank in the mere beauty of it. How should he not? Back at the Orphanage, life--such as it was--and the day's routine had always taken care of themselves; he had accepted, suffered them, since to change them at all lay out of his power. But Tilda, after a minute, sat upright in her bed, with knees drawn up beneath the bedclothes and hands clasped over them.

”This is a good place,” she announced, and paused. ”_An'_ decent people, though rummy.” Then, as the boy did not answer, ”The best thing we can do is stay 'ere, if they'll let us.”

”Stay here?” he echoed. There was surprise in the echo and dismay.

”But why should we stay here?”

”W'y not?”

She had yet to break it to him that Sir Miles Chandon was abroad, and would (so Miss Chrissy had told her) almost certainly remain abroad for months to come. She must soften the blow.