And so they went to bed.
But Robert could not sleep. He rose and dressed himself, went up to
the empty garret, looked at the stars through the skylight, knelt
and prayed for his father and for all men to the Father of all, then
softly descended the stairs, and went out into the street.
CHAPTER VI.
SHARGAR'S MOTHER.
It was a warm still night in July--moonless but not dark. There is
no night there in the summer--only a long ethereal twilight. He
walked through the sleeping town so full of memories, all quiet in
his mind now--quiet as the air that ever broods over the house where
a friend has dwelt. He left the town behind, and walked--through
the odours of grass and of clover and of the yellow flowers on the
old earthwalls that divided the fields--sweet scents to which the
darkness is friendly, and which, mingling with the smell of the
earth itself, reach the founts of memory sooner than even words or
tones--down to the brink of the river that flowed scarcely murmuring
through the night, itself dark and brown as the night from its
far-off birthplace in the peaty hills. He crossed the footbridge
and turned into the bleachfield. Its houses were desolate, for that
trade too had died away. The machinery stood rotting and rusting.
The wheel gave no answering motion to the flow of the water that
glided away beneath it. The thundering beatles were still. The
huge legs of the wauk-mill took no more seven-leagued strides
nowhither.
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