For a quarter of a mile he and the wheel like two comrades raced under
branches, and threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into
the Highroad and mounting his wheel rode into the world just as the sun
shot up and touched the day with wonder.
He rode into the silent sleeping village of Sabbath Valley just as the
bells from the church chimed out gently, as bells should do on a
Sabbath morning when people are at rest, "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!"
Sabbath Valley looked great as he pedalled silently down the street.
Even the old squeak of the back wheel seemed to be holding its breath
for the occasion.
He coasted past the church and down the gentle incline in front of the
parsonage and Joneses, and the Littles and Browns and Gibsons. Like a
shadow of the night passing he slid past the Fowlers and Tiptons and
Duncannons, and fastened his eyes on the little white fence with the
white pillared gate where Mrs. Carter lived. Was that a light in the
kitchen window? And the barn that Mark used for his garage when he was
at home, was the door open? He couldn't quite see for the cyringa bush
hid it from the road. With a furtive glance up and down the street he
wheeled in at the driveway, and rode up under the shadow of the green
shuttered white house.
He dismounted silently, stealthily, rested his wheel against the trunk
of a cherry tree, and with keen eyes for every window, glanced up to
the open one above which he knew belonged to Mark's room. Strong grimy
fingers went to his lips and a low cautious whistle, more like a bird
call issued forth, musical as any wild note.
The white muslin curtains wavered back and forth in the summer breeze,
and for a moment he thought a head was about to appear for a soft
stirring noise had seemed to move within the house somewhere, but the
curtains swayed on and no Mark appeared. Then he suddenly was aware of
a white face confronting him at the downstairs window directly opposite
to him, white and scared and--was it accusing? And suddenly he began to
tremble. Not all the events of the night had made him tremble, but now
he trembled, it was Mark's mother, and she had pink rims to her eyes,
and little damp crimples around her mouth and eyes for all the world
like Aunt Saxon's. She looked--she looked exactly as though she had not
slept all night. Her nose was thin and red, and her eyes had that awful
blue that eyes get that have been much washed with tears. The soft
waves of her hair drooped thinly, and the coil behind showed more
threads of silver than of brown in the morning sun that shot through
the branches of the cherry tree. She had a frightened look, as if Billy
had brought some awful news, or as if it was his fault, he could not
tell which, and he began to feel that choking sensation and that
goneness in the pit of his stomach that Aunt Saxon always gave him when
she looked frightened at something he had done or was going to do.
Added to this was that sudden premonition, and a memory of that
drooping still figure in the dark up on the mountain.