Putting his arm closer about her, he pressed her to his side, and they sat in silence while the wind whistled in the tree-tops above them.  From their shelter they could see the empty chimneys of Jordan’s Journey, and a blurred and attenuated figure on the lawn, which was that of the old negro, who passed back and forth spreading manure.  Some swallows with slate grey wings were flying over the roof, and they appeared from a distance to whirl as helplessly as the dead leaves.

“You do love me as much as ever, don’t you, Jonathan?” she asked suddenly.

He frowned, staring at the moving figure of the old negro.  Again she had blundered, for he was disinclined by temperament to do or say the thing that was expected of him.

“Why, of course I do,” he answered after a pause.

She sighed and nestled against him, while his hand which had been on her shoulder, slipped to her waist.  Her heart had turned to lead in her breast, and, like Judy, she could have wept because the reality of love was different from her virgin dreams.

CHAPTER III

ABEL HEARS GOSSIP AND SEES A VISION

Two nights before the wedding a corn shucking was held in the barn at Bottom’s Ordinary—­a usually successful form of entertainment, by which the strenuous labours of a score of able-bodied men were secured at the cost of a keg of cider and a kettle of squirrel stew.  In the centre of the barn, which was dimly lighted by a row of smoky, strong-smelling kerosene-oil lanterns, suspended on pegs from the wall, there was a huge wooden bin, into which the golden ears were tossed, as they were stripped of the husks, by a circle of guests, ranging in years from old Adam at the head to the youngest son of Tim Mallory, an inquisitive urchin of nine, who made himself useful by passing the diminishing pitcher of cider.  It was a frosty night, and the faces of the huskers showed very red above the knitted woollen comforters which wrapped their throats.  Before each man there was a small pile of corn, still in the blade, and this was replenished when it began to dwindle by a band of workers in the moonlight beyond the open windows.  In his effort to keep warm somebody had started a hymn, which was vigorously accompanied by a beating of numbed feet on the scattered husks on the floor.  Above the volume of sound old Adam’s quavering falsetto could be heard piping on like a cracked and discordant flute.

“O-ver thar, O-ver thar,
Th-ar’s a la-nd of pure de-light. 
O-ver th-ar,
We will la-y our bur-den do-wn. 
An’ re-ceive our gol-den cro-wn. 
In that la-nd of pure de-light
O-ver th-ar.”

“That’s a cold hymn, an’ unsuitable to the weather,” remarked Tim Mallory at the end of the verse.  “If you ask me, I’d say thar was mo’ immediate comfort in singin’ about the redness of hell-fire, an’ how mortal close we’re comin’ to it.”