Ipsie looked quite contented.
"'Ess,--my lady-love finks a lot, oh, a lot of me!" she said, seriously--"Allus finkin' of me!"
John smiled, and again shook old Josey's hand.
"Good-bye till Sunday!" he said.
"Good-bye, Passon!" rejoined Josey, cheerily--"Good luck t'ye! God bless ye!"
And the old man watched John's tall, slim athletic figure as long as his failing sight could follow it, murmuring to himself-"Who'd a thought it!--who'd 'a thought it! Yet mebbe I'm wrong--an' mebbe I'm right!--for the look o' love never lightens a man's eyes like that but once in his life--all the rest o' the sparkles is only imitations o' the real fire. The real fire burns once, an' only once--an' it's fierce an' hot when it kindles up in a man after the days o' his youth are gone! An' if the real fire worn't in Passon's eyes when he talked o' the lady-love, than I'm an old idgit wot never felt my heart go dunt again my side in courtin' time!"
Walden meanwhile went on his round of visits, and presently,--the circle of his poorer parishioners being completed,-he decided to call on Julian Adderley at his 'cottage in the wood' and tell him also of his intended absence. He had taken rather a liking to this eccentric off-shoot of an eccentric literary set,--he had found that despite some slight surface affectations, Julian had very straight principles, and loyal ideas of friendship, and that he was not without a certain poetic talent which, if he studied hard and to serious purpose, might develop into something of more or less worthiness. Some lines that he had recently written and read aloud to Walden, had a haunting ring which clung to the memory: Art thou afraid to live, my Heart? Look round and see What life at its best, With its strange unrest, Can mean for thee! Ceaseless sorrow and toil, Waits for each son of the soil; And the highest work seems ever unpaid By God and man, In the mystic plan;-- Think of it! Art thou afraid?
Art thou afraid to love, my Heart? Look well and see If any sweet thing, That can sigh or sing, Hath need of thee! Of Love cometh wild desire, Hungry and fierce as fire, In the souls of man and maid,-- But the fulness thereof Is the end of love,-- Think of it! Art thou afraid?
Art thou afraid of Death, my Heart? Look down and see What the corpse on the bed, So lately dead, Can teach to thee! Is it the close of the strife, Or a new beginning of Life? The secret is not betrayed;-- But Darkness makes clear That Light must be near! Think of it! Art thou afraid?