Her thought flew after it; she knew, that, even if her
husband heard it, he yet could not reach her in time; she saw that
while the beast listened he would not gnaw,--and this she _felt_
directly, when the rough, sharp, and multiplied stings of his tongue
retouched her arm. Again her lips opened by instinct, but the sound
that issued thence came by reason. She had heard that music charmed
wild beasts,--just this point between life and death intensified every
faculty,--and when she opened her lips the third time, it was not for
shrieking, but for singing.
A little thread of melody stole out, a rill of tremulous motion; it was
the cradle-song with which she rocked her baby;--how could she sing
that? And then she remembered the baby sleeping rosily on the long
settee before the fire,--the father cleaning his gun, with one foot on
the green wooden rundle,--the merry light from the chimney dancing out
and through the room, on the rafters of the ceiling with their tassels
of onions and herbs, on the log walls painted with lichens and
festooned with apples, on the king's-arm slung across the shelf with
the old pirate's-cutlass, on the snow-pile of the bed, and on the great
brass clock,--dancing, too, and lingering on the baby, with his fringed
gentian eyes, his chubby fists clenched on the pillow, and his fine
breezy hair fanning with the motion of his father's foot.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144