What Necessity Knows | Page 6

she stood there, large and miserable, before him.
He settled his shoulders obstinately against the wood pile, thinking to
wait till she should speak or make some further sign. Nothing but
strength of will kept him in his place, for he would gladly have fled
from her. He had now less guidance than before to what was passing in
her mind, for her face was more hidden from his sight as the light of the
sinking sun focussed more exclusively in the fields of western sky
behind her.
Then the sun went down behind the rugged hills of the lake's other
shore; and, as it sank below their sharp outlines, their sides, which had
been clear and green, became dim and purple; the blue went out of the
waters of the lake, they became the hue of steel touched with
iridescence of gold; and above the hills, vapour that had before been
almost invisible in the sky, now hung in upright layers of purple mist,
blossoming into primrose yellow on the lower edges. A few moments
more and grey bloom, such as one sees on purple fruit, was on these
vast hangings of cloud that grouped themselves more largely, and gold
flames burned on their fringes. Behind them there were great empty
reaches of lambent blue, and on the sharp edge of the shadowed hills
there was a line of fire.
It produced in Bates unthinking irritation that Nature should quietly go
on outspreading her evening magnificence in face of his discomfort. In
ordinal light or darkness one accepts the annoyances of life as coming
all in the day's work; but Nature has her sublime moments in which, if
the sensitive mind may not yield itself to her delight, it is forced into
extreme antagonism, either to her or to that which withholds from
joining in her ecstasy. Bates was a man sensitive to many forces, the
response to which within him was not openly acknowledged to himself.
He was familiar with the magnificence of sunsets in this region, but his
mind was not dulled to the marvel of the coloured glory in which the

daylight so often culminated.
He looked off at the western sky, at first chiefly conscious of the
unhappy girl who stood in front of him and irritated by that intervening
shape; but, as his vision wandered along the vast reaches of illimitable
clouds and the glorious gulfs of sky, his mind yielded itself the rather to
the beauty and light. More dusky grew the purple of the upper mists
whose upright layers, like league-long wings of softest feather held
edge downward to the earth, ever changed in form without apparent
movement. More sparkling glowed the gold upon their edges. The sky
beneath the cloud was now like emerald. The soft darkness of purple
slate was on the hills. The lake took on a darker shade, and daylight
began to fade from the upper blue.
It was only perhaps a moment--one of those moments for which time
has no measurement--that the soul of this man had gone out of him, as
it were, into the vastness of the sunset; and when he recalled it his
situation took on for him a somewhat different aspect. He experienced
something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that
moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are
unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport
himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world,
and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with
something of this sense of freedom lingering with him.
He was a good man--that is, a man whose face would have made it
clear to any true observer that he habitually did the right in
contradistinction to the wrong. He was, moreover, religious, and would
not have been likely to fall into any delusion of mere sentiment in the
region of religious emotion. But that which deludes a man commonly
comes through a safe channel. As a matter of fact, the excitement
which the delight of the eye had produced in him was a perfectly
wholesome feeling, but the largeness of heart it gave him at that
moment was unfortunate.
The girl stood just as before, ungainly and without power of expression
because undeveloped, but excitation of thought made what she might
become apparent to him in that which she was. He became more

generous towards her, more loving.
"Don't greet, that's a good lassie," he said soothingly. "There's truth in
what ye have said--that it's dull for ye here because ye have nothing to
look ahead to. Well, I'll tell ye what I didn't mean to tell ye while ye are
so young--when ye're older, if ye're a good lassie and go on