"Ay, that I will, ma'am." And Jael colored all over with surprise, and such undisguised pleasure that Mrs. Little kissed her at parting.
She had been gone a considerable time, when Henry came back; he found his mother seated at the table, eying his masterpiece with stern and bitter scrutiny.
It was a picture, those two rare faces in such close opposition.
The carved face seemed alive; but the living face seemed inspired, and to explore the other to the bottom with merciless severity. At such work the great female eye is almost terrible in its power.
"It is lovely," said she. "It seems noble. I can not find what I know must be there. Oh, why does God give such a face as this to a fool?"
"Not a word against her," said Henry. "She is as wise, and as noble, and as good, as she is beautiful. She has but one fault; she loves another man. Put her sweet face away; hide it from me till I am an old man, and can bring it out to show young folks why I lived and die a bachelor. Good-by, dear mother, I must saddle Black Harry, and away to my night's work."
The days were very short now, and Henry spent two-thirds of his time in Cairnhope Church. The joyous stimulus of his labor was gone but the habit remained, and carried him on in a sort of leaden way.
Sometimes he wondered at himself for the hardships he underwent merely to make money, since money had no longer the same charm for him; but a good workman is a patient, enduring creature, and self-indulgence, our habit, is after all, his exception. Henry worked heavily on, with his sore, sad heart, as many a workman had done before him. Unfortunately his sleep began to be broken a good deal.
I am not quite clear whether it was the after-clap of the explosion, or the prolonged agitation of his young heart, but at this time, instead of the profound sleep that generally rewards the sons of toil, he had fitful slumbers, and used to dream strange dreams, in that old church, so full of gaunt sights and strange sounds. And, generally speaking, however these dreams began, the figure of Grace Carden would steal in ere he awoke. His senses, being only half asleep, colored his dreams; he heard her light footstep in the pattering rain, and her sweet voice in the musical moan of the desolate building; desolate as his heart when he awoke, and behold it was a dream.
The day after Christmas-day began brightly, but was dark and lowering toward afternoon. Mrs. Little advised Henry to stay at home. But he shook his head. "How could I get through the night?
Work is my salvation. But for my forge, I should perhaps end like--" he was going to say "my poor father." But he had the sense to stop.
Unable to keep him at home, the tender mother got his saddlebags, and filled his flask with brandy, and packed up a huge piece of Yorkshire pie, and even stuffed in a plaid shawl. And she strained her anxious eyes after him as he rode off.
When he got among the hills, he found it was snowing there very hard; and then, somehow, notwithstanding all the speed he made, it was nearly dark when he got on the moor, and the tracks he used to go by, over the dangerous ground, were effaced.
He went a snail's pace, and at last dismounted, and groped his way.
He got more than one fall in the snow, and thought himself very fortunate, when, at last, something black towered before him, and it was the old church.
The scene was truly dismal: the church was already overburdened with snow, and still the huge flakes fell fast and silently, and the little mountain stream, now swollen to a broad and foaming torrent, went roaring by, behind the churchyard wall.
Henry shivered, and made for the shelter.
The horse, to whom this church was merely a well-ventilated stable, went in and clattered up the aisle, saddle-bags and all.
Henry locked the door inside, and soon blew the coals to a white heat. The bellows seemed to pant unnaturally loud, all was so deadly still.