CHAPTER I.The Unforeseen The road was steep, and Christopher, descending from the big, lumbering cart, left the oxen to crawl slowly up the incline.It was a windy afternoon in March, and he was returning from a trip to Farrar's mill, which was reached by a lane that branched off a half-mile or so from the cross-roads.A blue sky shone brightly through the leafless boughs above him, and along the little wayside path tufts of dandelion were blooming in the red dust.
The wind, which blew straight toward him from the opening beyond the strip of wood in which he walked, brought the fresh scent of the upturned fields and of the swelling buds putting out with the warm sunshine.In his own veins he felt also that the blood had stirred, and that strange, quickening impulse, which comes with the rising sap alike to a man and to a tree, worked restlessly in his limbs at the touch of spring.Nature was alive again, and he felt vaguely that in the resurrection surrounding him he must have his part--that in him as well as in the earth the spirit of life must move and put forth in gladness.A flock of swallows passed suddenly like a streak of smoke on the blue sky overhead, and as his eyes followed them the old roving instinct pulled at his heart.To be up and away, to drink life to its dregs and come home for rest, were among the impulses which awoke with the return of spring.
The oxen moved behind him at a leisurely pace, and outstripping them in a little while, he had turned at a sudden opening in the trees into the main road, when, to his surprise, he saw a woman in black, followed by a small yellow dog, walking in front of him along the grassy path.As he caught sight of her a strong gust of wind swept down the road, wrapping her skirt closely about her and whirling a last year's leaf into her face.For a moment she paused and, throwing back her head, drank the air like water;then, holding firmly to her hat, she started on again at her rapid pace.In the ease with which she moved against the wind, in the self-possession of her carriage, and most of all in the grace with which she lifted her long black skirt, made, he could see, after the fashion of the outside world, he realised at once that she was a stranger to the neighbourhood.No woman whom he had known--not even Lila--had this same light yet energetic walk--a walk in which every line in her body moved in accord with the buoyant impulse that controlled her step.As he watched her he recalled instantly the flight of a swallow in the air, for her passage over the ground was as direct and beautiful as a bird's.
When he neared her she turned suddenly, and, as she flung back her short veil, he saw to his amazement that he faced Maria Fletcher.
"So you have forgotten me?" she said, with a smile."Or have Ichanged so greatly that my old friends do not know me?"She held out her hand, and while a tremor ran through him, he kept her bared palm for an instant in his own.
"You dropped from the sky," he answered, steadying his voice with an effort."You have taken my breath away and I cannot speak."Then letting her hand fall, he stood looking at her in a wonder that shone in his face, for to the Maria whom he had known the woman before him now bore only the resemblance that the finished portrait bears to the charcoal sketch; and the years which had so changed and softened her had given her girlish figure a nobility that belonged to the maturity she had not reached.It was not that she had grown beautiful--when he sought for physical changes he found only that her cheek was rounder, her bosom fuller; but if she still lacked the ruddy attraction of mere flesh-and-blood loveliness, she had gained the deeper fascination which is the outward accompaniment of a fervent spirit.Her eyes, her voice, her gestures were all attuned to the inner harmony which he recognised also in the smile with which she met his words; and the charm that she irradiated was that rarest of all physical gifts, the power of the flesh to express the soul that it envelops.
The wind or the meeting with himself had brought a faint flush to her cheek, but without lowering her eyes she stood regarding him with her warm, grave smile.The pale oval of her face, framed in the loosened waves of her black hair, had for him all the remoteness that surrounded her memory; and yet, though he knew it not, the appeal she made to him now, and had made long ago, was that he recognised in her, however dumbly, a creature born, like himself, with the power to experience the fulness of joy or grief.
"So I have taken your breath away," she said; "and you have forgotten Agag.""Agag?" he turned with a question and followed her glance in the direction of the dog."It is the brute you saved?""Only he is not a brute--I have seen many men who were more of one.Look! He recognises you.He has followed me everywhere, but he doesn't like Europe, and if you could have seen his joy when we got out at the cross-roads and he smelt the familiar country!
It was almost as great as mine."
"As yours? Then you no longer hate it?"
"I have learned to love it in the last six years," she answered, "as I have learned to love many things that I once hated.Oh, this wind is good when it blows over the ploughed fields, and yet between city streets it would bring only dust and discomfort."She threw back her head, looking up into the sky, where a bird passed.
"Will you get into the cart now?" he asked after a moment, vaguely troubled by the silence and by the gentleness of her upward look, "or do you wish to walk to the top of the hill?"She turned and moved quickly on again.
