FASHIONING A PIPE.
"He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river.
* * * * * *
"Hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf, indeed,
To prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor, dry, empty thing
In holes as he sat by the river.
'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan,
... 'The only way since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
... Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river."
—MRS. BARRETT BROWNING.
JUDITH MOORE;
OR,
FASHIONING A PIPE.
BY
JOANNA E. WOOD.
Author of "The Untempered Wind," etc.
TORONTO:
THE ONTARIO PUBLISHING CO., Limited
1898.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by THE ONTARIO PUBLISHING
Co., Limited, at the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.
JUDITH MOORE.
CHAPTER I.
"Behold a sower went forth to sow."
Andrew Cutler, with his graceful andmelancholy red Irish setter at his heels, walkedswiftly across his fields to the "clearing" onemorning late in spring.
He was clad in the traditional blue jeans ofthe countryman, and wore neither coat nor vest;a leathern belt was drawn about his middle.His shirt, open a bit at the throat, and guiltlessof collar and tie, displayed a neck such as wesee modelled in old bronzes, and of much thesame colour; for Andrew Cutler was tanned tothe point of being swart. His head had asomewhat backward pose, expressive of anindependence almost over-accentuated.
His hair was cropped short, and was of asun-burnt brown, like his long moustache. His eyeswere blue-grey, that softened to hazel orhardened to the hue of steel. His nose was aquiline,with the little flattened plateau on the bridgethat we call "Spanish." His chin was strong—thechin of a man who "manlike, would havehis way."
Mother Nature must laugh in her sleeve atthe descriptive names we tack to her models.This man so completely satisfied the appellation"aristocratic," that, with the stubbornness of amuch-humoured word, it persists in suggestingitself as the best vehicle to describe this youngfarmer, and indeed the combination would beentirely to the advantage of the adjective, whichis often seen in poor company. A veritablerustic Antinous he was, with broad chest, slim,lithe loins, and muscles strong as steel. Slungathwart his shoulder was a sack of coarse browncanvas that bulged with a heavy load; but hestrode on, his balance undisturbed, and presentlyhe stood upon the verge of the clearing. Thiswas simply a part of the woodland that Andrewwas taking under cultivation. A s