THE rain off, and an hour later, when she started, wild of were across the fields.
After Harney's she had returned her to its owner at Creston, and she was not sure of being able to walk all the way to the Mountain. The house was on the road; but the idea of the night there was unendurable, and she meant to try to push on to Hamblin, where she sleep under a wood-shed if her should fail her. Her had been with forethought. Before starting she had herself to a of milk and eat a piece of bread; and she had put in her a little packet of the chocolate that Harney always in his bag. She wanted above all to keep up her strength, and her without notice....
Mile by mile she the road over which she had so often to her lover. When she the turn where the wood-road off from the Creston she the Gospel tent—long since up and transplanted—and her start of terror when the had said: “Your Saviour everything. Come and your guilt.” There was no of in her now, but only a to her from eyes, and life again among people to the of the village was unknown. The did not shape itself in thought: she only she must save her baby, and herself with it where no one would come to trouble them.
She walked on and on, more heavy-footed as the day advanced. It a that her to every step of the way to the house; and when she came in of the orchard, and the silver-gray through the branches, her failed her and she sat by the road-side. She sat there a long time, trying to the to start again, and walk past the gate and the rose-bushes with hips. A of rain were falling, and she of the warm when she and Harney had sat in the room, and the noise of on the had through their kisses. At length she that if she any longer the rain might her to take in the house overnight, and she got up and walked on, her as she came of the white gate and the garden.
The hours on, and she walked more and more slowly, now and then to rest, and to eat a little and an apple up from the roadside. Her to with every of the way, and she how she would be able to her child later, if already he such a on her.... A fresh wind had up, the rain and from the mountain. Presently the clouds again, and a white her in the face: it was the over Hamblin. The of the village were only a mile ahead, and she was to push it, and try to the Mountain that night. She had no clear plan of action, that, once in the settlement, she meant to look for Liff Hyatt, and him to take her to her mother. She herself had been as her own was going to be born; and her mother's life had been, she help the past, and a who was the trouble she had known.
Suddenly the came over her once more and she sat on the bank and her against a tree-trunk. The long road and the cloudy from her eyes, and for a time she to be about in some terrible darkness. Then that too faded.
She opened her eyes, and saw a up her, and a man who had jumped from it and was at her with a puzzled face. Slowly came back, and she saw that the man was Liff Hyatt.
She was aware that he was her something, and she looked at him in silence, trying to to speak. At length her voice in her throat, and she said in a whisper: “I'm going up the Mountain.”
“Up the Mountain?” he repeated, a little; and as he moved she saw him, in the buggy, a with a familiar pink and gold on the of a Grecian nose.
“Charity! What on earth are you doing here?” Mr. Miles exclaimed, the on the horse's and from the buggy.
She her to his. “I'm going to see my mother.”
The two men at each other, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Mr. Miles said: “You look ill, my dear, and it's a long way. Do you think it's wise?”
Charity up. “I've got to go to her.”
A Liff Hyatt's face, and Mr. Miles again spoke uncertainly. “You know, then—you'd been told?”
She at him. “I don't know what you mean. I want to go to her.”
Mr. Miles was her thoughtfully. She she saw a in his expression, and the blood to her forehead. “I just want to go to her,” she repeated.
He his hand on her arm. “My child, your mother is dying. Liff Hyatt came to me.... Get in and come with us.”
He helped her up to the seat at his side, Liff Hyatt in at the back, and they off toward Hamblin. At Charity had what Mr. Miles was saying; the physical of herself seated in the buggy, and on her road to the Mountain, the of his words. But as her she to understand. She the Mountain had but the most with the valleys; she had often it said that no one up there the minister, when someone was dying. And now it was her mother who was dying... and she would herself as much alone on the Mountain as else in the world. The of was all she for the moment; then she to wonder at the of its being Mr. Miles who had to perform this errand. He did not in the least like the of man who would to go up the Mountain. But here he was at her side, the with a hand, and on her the of his spectacles, as if there were nothing in their being together in such circumstances.
For a while she it to speak, and he to this, and no attempt to question her. But presently she her and over her cheeks; and he must have them too, for he his hand on hers, and said in a low voice: “Won't you tell me what is you?”
She her head, and he did not insist: but after a while he said, in the same low tone, so that they should not be overheard: “Charity, what do you know of your childhood, you came to North Dormer?”
She herself, and answered: “Nothing only what I Mr. Royall say one day. He said he me my father to prison.”
“And you've been up there since?”
“Never.”
Mr. Miles was again, then he said: “I'm you're with me now. Perhaps we may your mother alive, and she may know that you have come.”
They had Hamblin, where the snow-flurry had left white in the on the roadside, and in the of the north. It was a village under the of the Mountain, and as soon as they left it they to climb. The road was and full of ruts, and the settled to a walk while they and mounted, the world away them in great of and field, and dark distances.
Charity had often had of this of the Mountain but she had not it would so wide a country, and the of those lands away on every gave her a new of Harney's remoteness. She he must be miles and miles the last range of that to be the of things, and she how she had of going to New York to him....
As the road the country bleaker, and they across of by long months the snow. In the a white trembled, or a its clusters; but only a of the ledges. The wind was across the open slopes; the it with and flanks, and now and then the so that Charity had to its side.
Mr. Miles had not spoken again; he to that she wanted to be left alone. After a while the they were forked, and he up the horse, as if of the way. Liff Hyatt his around from the back, and against the wind: “Left——” and they into a pine-wood and to drive the other of the Mountain.
A mile or two on they came out on a where two or three low houses in fields, among the as if to themselves against the wind. They were more than sheds, of and boards, with stove-pipes out of their roofs. The sun was setting, and had already on the world, but a yellow still on the and the houses. The next moment it and left the in dark autumn twilight.
“Over there,” Liff called out, his long arm over Mr. Miles's shoulder. The to the left, across a of ground with and nettles, and stopped the most of the sheds. A stove-pipe its arm out of one window, and the of the other were with and paper.
In to such a the house in the might have for the home of plenty.
As the up two or three dogs jumped out of the with a great barking, and a man to the door and there staring. In the Charity saw that his had the same look as Bash Hyatt's, the day she had him sleeping by the stove. He no to the dogs, but in the door, as if from a lethargy, while Mr. Miles got out of the buggy.
“Is it here?” the asked Liff in a low voice; and Liff nodded.
Mr. Miles to Charity. “Just the a minute, my dear: I'll go in first,” he said, the in her hands. She took them passively, and sat ahead of her at the while Mr. Miles and Liff Hyatt up to the house. They a minutes talking with the man in the door, and then Mr. Miles came back. As he came close, Charity saw that his pink a look.
“Your mother is dead, Charity; you'd come with me,” he said.
She got and him while Liff the away. As she approached the door she said to herself: “This is where I was born... this is where I belong....” She had said it to herself often as she looked across the at the Mountain; but it had meant nothing then, and now it had a reality. Mr. Miles took her by the arm, and they entered what appeared to be the only room in the house. It was so dark that she just a group of a dozen people or about a table of across two barrels. They looked up as Mr. Miles and Charity came in, and a woman's thick voice said: “Here's the preacher.” But no one moved.
Mr. Miles paused and looked about him; then he to the man who had met them at the door.
“Is the here?” he asked.
The man, of answering, his toward the group. “Where's the candle? I to a candle,” he said with to a girl who was against the table. She did not answer, but another man got up and took from some a into a bottle.
“How'll I light it? The stove's out,” the girl grumbled.
Mr. Miles under his and out a match-box. He a match to the candle, and in a moment or two a circle of light on the that started out of the like the of animals.
“Mary's over there,” someone said; and Mr. Miles, taking the bottle in his hand, passed the table. Charity him, and they a on the in a of the room. A woman on it, but she did not look like a woman; she to have across her in a sleep, and to have been left where she fell, in her clothes. One arm was above her head, one leg up under a skirt that left the other to the knee: a leg with a rolled about the ankle. The woman on her back, her up at the that in Mr. Miles's hand.
“She jus' off,” a woman said, over the of the others; and the man added: “I jus' come in and her.”
An man with and a pushed them. “It was like this: I says to her on'y the night before: if you don't take and quit, I says to her...”
Someone him and sent him against a bench along the wall, where he his narrative.
There was a silence; then the woman who had been against the table the group, and in of Charity. She was and looking than the others, and her weather-beaten had a beauty.
“Who's the girl? Who her here?” she said, her on the man who had her for not having a ready.
Mr. Miles spoke. “I her; she is Mary Hyatt's daughter.”
“What? Her too?” the girl sneered; and the man on her with an oath. “Shut your mouth, you, or out of here,” he said; then he into his apathy, and on the bench, his against the wall.
Mr. Miles had set the on the and taken off his coat. He to Charity. “Come and help me,” he said.
He by the mattress, and pressed the over the woman's eyes. Charity, and sick, him, and to her mother's body. She the over the leg, and the skirt to the boots. As she did so, she looked at her mother's face, thin yet swollen, with in a above the teeth. There was no in it of anything human: she there like a dog in a ditch. Charity's hands cold as they touched her.
Mr. Miles the woman's arms across her and his over her. Then he her with his handkerchief, and the bottle with the in it at her head. Having done this he up.
“Is there no coffin?” he asked, to the group him.
There was a moment of silence; then the girl spoke up. “You'd it with you. Where'd we one here, I'd like know?”
Mr. Miles, looking at the others, repeated: “Is it possible you have no ready?”
“That's what I say: them that has it better,” an old woman murmured. “But then she had no bed....”
“And the warn't hers,” said the lank-haired man, on the defensive.
Mr. Miles away from them and moved a steps apart. He had a book from his pocket, and after a pause he opened it and to read, the book at arm's length and low down, so that the pages the light. Charity had on her by the mattress: now that her mother's was it was to near her, and avoid the of the which too by what hers had into death.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life,” Mr. Miles began; “he that in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.... Though after my skin my body, yet in my shall I see God....”
IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD! Charity of the mouth and under the handkerchief, and of the leg over which she had the stocking....
“We nothing into this world and we shall take nothing out of it——”
There was a and a at the of the group. “I the stove,” said the man with hair, pushing his way the others. “I wen' to Creston'n it... n' I got a right to take it here... n' I'll any says I ain't....”
“Sit down, you!” the tall who had been on the bench against the wall.
“For man in a shadow, and himself in vain; he up and cannot tell who shall them....”
“Well, it ARE his,” a woman in the in a whine.
The tall to his feet. “If you don't your mouths I'll turn you all out o' here, the whole of you,” he with many oaths. “G'wan, minister... don't let 'em you....”
“Now is Christ from the and the first-fruits of them that slept.... Behold, I you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the of an eye, at the last trump.... For this must put on and this must put on immortality. So when this shall have put on incorruption, and when this shall have put on immortality, then shall be to pass the saying that is written, Death is up in Victory....”
One by one the on Charity's head, the horror, the tumult, her as they the drink-dazed at her back. Mr. Miles read to the last word, and then closed the book.
“Is the ready?” he asked.
Liff Hyatt, who had come in while he was reading, a “Yes,” and pushed to the of the mattress. The man on the bench who to some of right of with the woman, got to his again, and the of the joined him. Between them they up the mattress; but their movements were unsteady, and the to the floor, the in its misery. Charity, up the coat, her mother once more. Liff had a lantern, and the old woman who had already spoken took it up, and opened the door to let the little pass out. The wind had dropped, and the night was very dark and cold. The old woman walked ahead, the in her hand and out her a of and coarse-leaved in an of blackness.
Mr. Miles took Charity by the arm, and by they walked the mattress. At length the old woman with the stopped, and Charity saw the light on the of the and on a of earth over which they were bending. Mr. Miles her arm and approached the on the other of the ridge; and while the men down, the into the grave, he to speak again.
“Man that is of woman but a time to live and is full of misery.... He up and is cut down... he as it were a shadow.... Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O and Saviour, deliver us not into the pains of death....”
“Easy there... is she down?” the to the stove; and the man called over his shoulder: “Lift the light there, can't you?”
There was a pause, which the light over the open grave. Someone over and out Mr. Miles's coat——(“No, no—leave the handkerchief,” he interposed)—and then Liff Hyatt, with a spade, to in the earth.
“Forasmuch as it pleased Almighty God of His great to take Himself the of our dear sister here departed, we therefore her to the ground; earth to earth, to ashes, to dust...” Liff's rose and in the light as he the of earth into the grave. “God—it's a'ready,” he muttered, into his and his shirt-sleeve across his face.
“Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall our that it may be like His body, according to the working, He is able to all Himself...” The last of earth on the of Mary Hyatt, and Liff rested on his spade, his still with the effort.
“Lord, have upon us, Christ have upon us, Lord have upon us...”
Mr. Miles took the from the old woman's hand and its light across the circle of faces. “Now down, all of you,” he commanded, in a voice of authority that Charity had heard. She at the of the grave, and the others, and hesitatingly, got to their her. Mr. Miles knelt, too. “And now pray with me—you know this prayer,” he said, and he began: “Our Father which art in Heaven...” One or two of the took the up, and when he ended, the lank-haired man himself on the of the tall youth. “It was this way,” he said. “I her the night before, I says to her...” The ended in a sob.
Mr. Miles had been into his again. He came up to Charity, who had by the of earth.
“My child, you must come. It's very late.”
She her to his face: he to speak out of another world.
“I ain't coming: I'm going to here.”
“Here? Where? What do you mean?”
“These are my folks. I'm going to with them.”
Mr. Miles his voice. “But it's not possible—you don't know what you are doing. You can't among these people: you must come with me.”
She her and rose from her knees. The group about the had in the darkness, but the old woman with the waiting. Her was not unkind, and Charity up to her.
“Have you got a place where I can for the night?” she asked. Liff came up, leading the out of the night. He looked from one to the other with his smile. “She's my mother. She'll take you home,” he said; and he added, his voice to speak to the old woman: “It's the girl from lawyer Royall's—Mary's girl... you remember....”
The woman and her sad old to Charity's. When Mr. Miles and Liff into the she ahead with the to them the they were to follow; then she back, and in she and Charity walked away together through the night.
