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Page 50
It may have been two or three hours she slept. She knew afterward that
it must have been at about three of the summer morning when a dream
came which, detailed and vivid as it was, probably filled in time only
the last minute or so before awakening. It seemed to her that glory
suddenly flooded the troubled world; the infinite, intimate joy,
impossible to put into words, was yet a defined and long first chapter
of her dream. After that she stood on the bank of a river, a river
perhaps miles wide, and with the new light-heartedness filling her she
looked and saw a mighty bridge which ran brilliant with many-colored
lights, from her to the misty further shore of the river. Over the
bridge passed a throng of radiant young men, boys, all in uniform. "How
glorious!" she seemed to cry out in delight, and with that she saw
Brock.
Very far off, among the crowd of others, she saw him, threading his way
through the throng. He came, unhurried yet swift, and on his face was an
amused, loving smile which was perhaps the look of him which she
remembered best. By his side walked old Mavourneen, the wolf-hound,
Brock's hand on the shaggy head. The two swung steadily toward her,
Brock smiling into her eyes, holding her eyes with his, and as they
were closer, she heard Mavourneen crying in wordless dumb joy, crying as
she had not done since the day when Brock came home the last time. Above
the sound Brock's voice spoke, every trick of inflection so familiar, so
sweet, that the joy of it was sharp, like pain.
"Mother, I'm coming to take Hughie's hand--to take Hughie's hand," he
repeated.
And with that Mavourneen's great cry rose above his voice. And suddenly
she was awake. Somewhere outside the house, yet near, the dog was
loudly, joyfully crying. Out of the deep stillness of the night burst
the sound of the joyful crying.
The woman shot from her bed and ran barefooted, her heart beating madly,
into the darkness of the hall to the landing on the stairway. Something
halted her. There was a broad, uncurtained pane of glass in the front
door of the house. From the landing one might look down the stone steps
outside and see clearly in the bright moonlight as far as the beginning
of the rose archway. As she stood gasping, from beneath the flowers
Brock stepped into the moonlight and began, unhurried, buoyant, as she
had but now seen him in her dream, to mount the steps. Mavourneen
pressed at his side, and his hand was on the dog's head. As he came, he
lifted his face to his mother with the accustomed, every-day smile which
she knew, as if he were coming home, as he had come home on many a
moonlit evening from a dance in town to talk the day over with her. As
she stared, standing in the dark on the landing, her pulse racing, yet
still with the stillness of infinity, an arm came around her, a hand
gripped her shoulder, and young Hugh's voice spoke.
"Mother! It's Brock!" he whispered.
At the words she fled headlong down to the door and caught at the
handle. It was fastened, and for a moment she could not think of the
bolt. Brock stood close outside; she saw the light on his brown head and
the bend in the long, strong fingers that caressed Mavourneen's fur. He
smiled at her happily--Brock--three feet away. Just as the bolt
loosened, with an inexplicable, swift impulse she was cold with terror.
For the half of a second, perhaps, she halted, possessed by some
formless fear stronger than herself--humanity dreading something not
human, something unknown, overwhelming. She halted not a whole
second--for it was Brock. Brock! Wide open she flung the door and sprang
out.
There was no one there. Only Mavourneen stood in the cold moonlight, and
cried, and looked up, puzzled, at empty air.
"Oh, Brock, Brock! Oh, dear Brock!" the woman called and flung out her
arms. "Brock--Brock--don't leave me. Don't go!"
Mavourneen sniffed about the dark hall, investigating to find the master
who had come home and gone away so swiftly. With that young Hugh was
lifting her in his arms, carrying her up the broad stairs into his room.
"You're barefooted," he spoke brokenly.
She caught his hand as he wrapped her in a rug on the sofa. "Hugh--you
saw--it was Brock?"
"Yes, dearest, it was our Brock," answered Hugh stumblingly.
"You saw--and I--and Mavourneen."
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