"We be all fools together,"--he said to Adam Frost in hoarse accents, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand--"We ain't no stronger nor wiser than a lot o' chitterin' sparrows on a housetop! Old Josey, he be too weak an' ailin' to get out in this kind o' weather, but he sez he's prayin' 'ard, which I truly believe he is, though he ain't in church. All the village is on its knees this marnin' I reckon, whether it's workin' in fields or gardens, or barns or orchards, an' if the Lord A'mighty don't take no notice of us, He must be powerful 'ard of 'earin'!"
Adam Frost coughed warningly,--jerked his thumb in the direction of the church, and was silent.
Suddenly a lark sang. Rising from the thick moss and jgrass which quilted over the grave of 'th' owld Squire,' Maryllia's father, the bird soared hoveringly aloft into the sun-warmed February air,--and by one common impulse the villagers looked up, watching the quivering of its wings.
"Bless us! That's the first skylark of the year!" said Mrs. Frost, who, holding her blue-eyed 'Baby Hippolyta,' otherwise Ipsie, by the hand, stood near the church porch--"Ain't it singin' sweet?"
"Fine!" murmured one or two of her gossips near her,--"Seems a good sign o' smilin' weather!"
There was a silence then among the merely human company, while the bird of heaven sang on more and more exultingly, and soared higher and higher into the misty grey-blue of the sky.
All at once the clock struck with a sharp clang 'one.' Inside the church, its deep reverbation startled the watchers from their prayers with an abrupt shock--and Walden lifted his head from his folded arms, showing in the bright shaft of strong sunshine that now bathed him in its radiance, his sad eyes, heavy and swollen with restrained tears. Suddenly there was a murmur of voices outside,--a smothered cry,--and then a little flying figure, breathless, hatless, with wild sparkling eyes and dark hair streaming loose in the wind, rushed into the church. It was Cicely. "It's all over!" she cried.
Walden sprang up, sick and dizzy. Bishop Brent rose from his knees slowly, his delicate right hand clutching nervously at the altar rail. Like men in a dream, they heard and gazed, stricken by a mutual horror too paralysing for speech.
"All over!"--muttered John, feebly--"My God!--my God! All over!"
Cicely sprang to him and caught his arm.