The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coa.r.s.e weed was a fretwork of beauty.
"Bells on their toes" they had, this morning, a.s.suredly; each footfall made a music on the sod.
Over the slippery bridge--out across a stretch of open meadow, and then along a track that skirted the border of a spa.r.s.e growth of trees, projecting itself like a promontory upon the level land--round its abrupt angle into a sweep of meadow again, on whose farther verge rose the Pasture Rocks.
Behind these rocks swelled up gently a slope, half pasture, half woodland--neither open ground nor forest; but, although clear enough for comfortable walking, studded pretty closely with trees that often interlaced their branches overhead, and made great, pillared aisles, among whose shade, in summer, wound delicious little footpaths that all came out together, midway up, into--what you shall be told of presently.
Here, among and beyond the rocks, were oaks, and pines, and savins--each needle-like leaf a shimmering lance--each cl.u.s.tering branch a spray of gems--and the stout, spreading limbs of the oaks delineating themselves against the sky above in Gothic frost-work.
Suddenly--before they thought it could be so near--they came up and out into a broader opening. Between two rocks that made, as it were, a gateway, and around whose bases were grouped sentinel evergreens, they came into this wider s.p.a.ce, floored with flat rock, the surface of a hidden ledge, carpeted with crisp mosses in the summer, whose every cup and hollow held a jewel now--and inclosed with lofty oaks and pines, while, straight beyond, where the woods shut in again far closer than below, rose a bold crag, over whose brow hung pendent birches that in their icy robing drooped like glittering wings of cherubim above an altar.
All around and underneath, this strange magnificence. Overhead, the everlasting Blue, that roofed it in with sapphire. In front, the rough, gigantic shrine.
"It is like a cathedral!" said Faith, solemnly and low.
"See!" whispered Glory, catching her companion hastily by the arm--"there is the minister!"
A little way beyond them, at the right, out from among the clumps of evergreen where some other of the little wood walks opened, a figure advanced without perceiving them. It was Roger Armstrong, the new minister. He held his hat in his hand. He walked, uncovered, as he would have into a church, into this forest temple, where G.o.d"s finger had just been writing on the walls.
When he turned, slowly, his eye fell on the other two who stood there.
It lighted up with a quick joy of sympathy. He came forward. Faith bowed. Glory stood back, shyly. Neither party seemed astonished at the meeting. It was so plain _why_ they came, that if they had wondered at all, it would have been that the whole village should not be pouring out hither, also.
Mr. Armstrong led them to the center of the rocky s.p.a.ce. "This is the best point," said he. And then was silent. There was no need of words. A greatness of thought made itself felt from one to the other.
Only, between still pauses, words came that almost spoke themselves.
""Eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, that which G.o.d hath prepared for them that love him." What a commentary upon His promise is a glory like this!
""And they shall all shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father!""
Faith stood by the minister"s side, and glanced, when he spoke, from the wonderful beauty before her to a face whose look interpreted it all.
There was something in the very presence of this man that drew others who approached him into the felt presence of G.o.d. Because he stood therein in the spirit. These are the true apostles whom Christ sends forth.
Glory could have sobbed with an oppression of reverence, enthusiasm, and joy.
"It is only a glimpse," said Mr. Armstrong, by and by. "It is going, already."
A drip--drip--was beginning to be heard.
"You ought to get away from under the trees before the thaw comes fully on," continued he. "A branch breaks, now and then, and the ice will be falling constantly. I can show you a more open way than the one you came by, I think."
And he gave his arm to Faith over the slope that even now was growing wet and slippery in the sun. Faith touched it with a reverence, and dropped it again, modestly, when they reached a safer foothold.
Glory kept behind. Mr. Armstrong turned now and then, with a kindly word, and a thought for her safety. Once he took her hand, and helped her down a sudden descent in the path, where the water had run over and made a smooth, dangerous glare.
"I shall call soon to see your father and mother, Miss Gartney," said he, when they reached the road again beyond the brook, and their ways home lay in different directions. "This meeting, to-day, has given me pleasure."
"How?" Faith wondered silently, as she kept on to the Cross Corners. She had hardly spoken a word. But, then, she might have remembered that the minister"s own words had been few, yet her very speechlessness before him had come from the deep pleasure that his presence had given to her.
The recognition of souls cares little for words. Faith"s soul had been in her face to-day, as Roger Armstrong had seen it each Sunday, also, in the sweet, listening look she uplifted before him in the church. He bent toward this young, pure life, with a joy in its gentle purity; the joy of an elder over a younger angel in the school of G.o.d.
And Glory? she laid up in her own heart a beautiful remembrance of something she had never known before. Of a near approach to something great and high, yet gentle and beneficent. Of a kindly, helping touch, a gracious smile, a glance that spoke straight to the mute aspiration within her.
The minister had not failed, through all her humbleness and shyness, to read some syllables of that large, unuttered life of hers that lay beneath. He whose labor it is to save souls, learns always the insight that discerns souls.
"I have seen the Winter!" cried Faith, glowing and joyous, as she came in from her walk.
"It has been a beautiful time!" said Glory to her shadow sister, when she went to hang away hood and shawl. "It has been a beautiful time--and I"ve been really in it--partly!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
OUT IN THE SNOW.
"Sydnaein showers Of sweet discourse, whose powers Can crown old winter"s head with flowers."
CRASHAW.
Winter had not exhausted her repertory, however. She had more wonders to unfold.
There came a long snowstorm.
"Faithie," said her father, coming in, wrapped up in furs from a visit to the stable, "put your comfortables on, and we"ll go and see the snow.
We"ll make tracks, literally, for the hills. There isn"t a road fairly broken between here and Grover"s Peak. The snow lies beautifully, though; and there isn"t a breath of wind. It will be a sight to see."
Faith brought, quickly, sontag, jacket, and cloak--hood and veil, and long, warm snow boots, and in ten minutes was ready, as she averred, for a sledge ride to Hudson"s Bay.
Luther drove the sleigh close to the kitchen door, that Faith might not have to cross the yard to reach it, and she stepped directly from the threshold into the warm nest of buffalo robes; while Mis" Battis put a great stone jug of hot water in beside her feet, a.s.serting that it was "a real comfortin" thing on a sleigh ride, and that they needn"t be afraid of its leakin", for the cork was druv in as tight as an eye tooth!"
So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited expectation.
A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable distance. Away in, under the trees, the stillness and the whiteness and the wonderful multiplication of snow shapes were like enchantment. Each bush had an att.i.tude and drapery and expression of its own, as if some weird life had suddenly been spellbound in these depths. Cherubs, and old women, and tall statue shapes like images of G.o.ds, hovered, and bent, and stood majestic, in a motionless poise. Over all, the bent boughs made marble and silver arches in shadow and light, and, far down between, the vistas lengthened endlessly, still crowded with mystic figures, haunting the long galleries with their awful beauty.
They went on, penetrating a lifeless silence; their horse"s feet making the first prints since early morning in the unbroken smoothness of the way, and the only sound the gentle tinkle of their own bells, as they moved pleasantly, but not fleetly, along.
So, up the ascent, where the land lay higher, toward the hills.
"I feel," said Faith, "as if I had been hurried through the Louvre, or the Vatican, or both, and hadn"t half seen anything. Was there ever anything so strange and beautiful?"
"We shall find more Louvres presently," said her father. "We"ll keep the road round Grover"s Peak, and turn off, as we come back, down Garland Lane."
"That lovely, wild, shady road we took last summer so often, where the grapevines grow so, all over the trees?"
"Exactly," replied Mr. Gartney. "But you mustn"t scream if we thump about a little, in the drifts up there. It"s pretty rough, at the best of times, and the snow will have filled in the narrow s.p.a.ces between the rocks and ridges, like a freshet. Shall you be afraid?"
"Afraid! Oh, no, indeed! It"s glorious! I think I should like to go everywhere!"