Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/86

 bed. Under the bridge it had formed a dark pool and there the canoe was tied. While Derek unlocked the chain that secured it the slender girl crept in and knelt in the bow. He handed her a paddle and dropped down behind her.

Under the low bridge it was profoundly dark. The moist, velvety air seemed to envelop them; to press down upon them; even to support them, as upon a sombrous cloud. The silence was scarcely disturbed by the delicate ripple of the stream as it crept languidly across the beach and entered the lake.

Vale, taking up his paddle, said:

"Are you lonesome now, Fawnie? Is this dark enough for you?"

Her voice answered out of the blackness—"I am not lonesome—but Urn listening."

"Listening. What do you think you hear?"

"Footsteps."

"Footsteps!" he murmured. "Where? On the bridge?"

"No . . . down the road . . . a lot o' them. Listen hard. Don't you hear?"

"Not a sound. They must be your people."

"No . . . men marching."

As he strained to listen a sudden burst of music broke forth but a few hundred yards away—the cheerful, brazen music of a band. The arch of silence above them was thrown into fragments like a shattered bowl. With every heartbeat the music grew louder, more penetrating.

"I know," she said. "It's the band from Mistwell. They march up to Jerrold's once every summer—in July—that's where they're marchin' now. Mr. Jerrold he gives them lemonade and sandwiches and cake and—twenty-five dollars—every blessed year. The horns frighten me."

The bandsmen were now ascending the slope to the