Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/289

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
CAPTAIN CHRISTY
275

morning session. Even when he returned to the cottage, which he and Zwinglius now kept together by strict rule of shipboard, his unshared thought still enfolded him as clouds about a mountain castle.

Though all the village noticed this change, none grieved so heartily as Joyce. On Sundays, from the tiny organ-loft of the church, she looked down with ineffectual pity on the tall figure below, the broad, spare shoulders slightly bent, the great white head, anointed with a wine-red stain from a window-shaft of sunlight. And when at her touch "St. Ann's" quavered from the doddering organ, she listened for the brave old bass that vibrated beneath the other voices, strong as a deep-sea current:—

"Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its sons away:
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
"God, our help in ages past.
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast.
And our eternal home."

Yes, thought the girl as she played, he was