Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/303

Rh thing we value and love; and human hearts, recoiling, are called craven and sinful, as though a child would go willingly from the warm arms of the mother it trusts, and is used to, into the unknown embrace of a veiled and shadowy stranger, that may be more tender, more loving, more satisfying, than the earthly mother; but, oh! the child cannot see its face, cannot hear its voice; it is all strange, and it turns back trembling to the face it knows, just as we who are grown up cling to life, with its sweetness and its its love and its suffering, and hug it to our breasts, our very own, and a most familiar friend. When my time for dying comes, and I know that surely—certainly it must come some day—that I shall lie straight and still, with blank eyes and heavy-shut lids, with ears into which no common call or every-day word can enter, I hope that all my dear ones, the few that I lay in my heart, will have gone before me; then, indeed, I shall not fear to die, for where they are there will be my home.

I have fallen on sad thoughts this bright morning. Am I not, indeed, becoming somewhat sentimental? a state of mind for which I have a most hearty contempt. I will go to the kitchen garden and search for figs and pears. I have eaten three treacly-sweet figs, and am considering the Marie Louise pears, when a voice behind me says, "Good morning!" I turn round, and there stands Paul Vasher. Is he shod with the shoes of silence, or does he wear goloshes? for I never heard him coming.

"Good morning!" I say, holding out my hand. "I thought you were still in bed or out shooting!"

"Luttrell is lazy this morning," he says, "and nobody would turn out. Have you breakfasted?"

"An hour ago," I answer, looking at my watch. "It seemed a crime to stay in on such a morning as this, so I got out as quickly as I could."

"I hope you slept well?"