The pedestrians went off in the other direction, along the brow of the hill, by a long white road that crossed a wide sweep of heathy country, brown ridges and dark hollows, distant groups of firs standing black against the moonlit sky, here and there a solitary yew that looked as if it were haunted--just such a landscape as that Scottish heath upon which Macbeth met the three weird women at set of sun, when the battle was lost and won. Vixen and Rorie led the way; the procession of school-children followed, singing hymns as they went with a vocal power that gave no token of diminution.
"Their singing is very melodious when the sharp edge is taken off by distance," said Rorie; and he and Violet walked at a pace which soon left the children a good way behind them.
Mellowed by a quarter of a mile or so of interesting s.p.a.ce, the music lent a charm to the tranquil, perfumed night.
By-and-by they came to the gate of an enclosure which covered a large extent of ground, and through which there was a near way to Beechdale and the Abbey House. They walked along a gra.s.sy track through a plantation of young pines--a track which led them down into a green and mossy bottom, where the trees were old and beautiful, and the shadows fell darker. The tall beech-trunks shone like silver, or like wonderful frozen trees in some region of eternal ice and snow. It was a wilderness in which a stranger would incontinently lose himself; but every foot of the way was familiar to Vixen and Rorie. They had followed the hounds by these green ways, and ridden and rambled here in all seasons.
For some time they walked almost in silence, enjoying the beauty of the night, the stillness only broken by the distant chorus of children singing their pious strains--old hymn-tunes that Violet had known and loved all her life.
"Doesn"t it almost seem as if our old childish days had come back?"
said Roderick by-and-by. "Don"t you feel as if you were a little girl again, Vixen, going for a ramble with me--fern-hunting or primrose-gathering?"
"No," answered Vixen firmly. "Nothing can ever bring the past back for me. I shall never forget that I had a father--the best and dearest--and that I have lost him."
"Dear Violet," Roderick began, very gently, "life cannot be made up of mourning for the dead. We may keep their images enshrined in our hearts for ever, but we must not shut our youth from the sunshine. Think how few years of youth G.o.d gives us; and if we waste those upon vain sorrow----"
"No one can say that I have wasted my youth, or shut myself from the sunshine. I go to kettle-drums and dancing-parties. My mother and I have taken pains to let the world see how happy we can be without papa."
"The dear old Squire!" said Rorie tenderly; "I think he loved me."
"I am sure he did," answered Vixen.
"Well, you and I seem to have entered upon a new life since last we rode through these woods together. I daresay you are right, and that it is not possible to fancy oneself back in the past, even for a moment.
Consciousness of the present hangs so heavily upon us."
"Yes," a.s.sented Vixen.
They had come to the end of the enclosure, and stood leaning against a gate, waiting for the arrival of the children.
"And after all, perhaps, it is better to live in the present, and look back at the past, as at an old picture which we shall sooner or later turn with its face to the wall."
"I like best to think of my old self as if it were someone else," said Violet. "I know there was a little girl whom her father called Vixen, who used to ride after the hounds, and roam about the Forest on her pony; and who was herself almost as wild as the Forest ponies. But I can"t a.s.sociate her with this present me," concluded Violet, pointing to herself with a half-scornful gesture.
"And which is the better, do you think," asked Rorie, "the wild Violet of the past, or the elegant exotic of the present?"
"I know which was the happier."
"Ah," sighed Rorie, "happiness is a habit we outgrow when we get out of our teens. But you, at nineteen, ought to have a year or so to the good."
The children came in sight, tramping along the rutty green walk, singing l.u.s.tily, Mr. Scobel walking at their head, and swinging his stick in time with the tuneful choir.
"He only is the Maker Of all things near and far; He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star."
END OF VOL. I.