had played with that dead boy, romping
together under the solemn trees. The night deepened; he thought of the
boys at Johnstown. He wondered how Brown had turned out, and Carey?
And Jones,--Jones? Why, he was Jones, and he wondered what they would
all say when they knew, when they knew, in that great long dining-room
with its hundreds of merry eyes. Then as the sheen of the starlight
stole over him, he thought of the gilded ceiling of that vast concert
hall, heard stealing toward him the faint sweet music of the swan.
Hark! was it music, or the hurry and shouting of men? Yes, surely!
Clear and high the faint sweet melody rose and fluttered like a living
thing, so that the very earth trembled as with the tramp of horses and
murmur of angry men.

He leaned back and smiled toward the sea, whence rose the strange
melody, away from the dark shadows where lay the noise of horses
galloping, galloping on. With an effort he roused himself, bent
forward, and looked steadily down the pathway, softly humming the "Song
of the Bride,"--

"Freudig gefuhrt, ziehet dahin."

Amid the trees in the dim morning twilight he watched their shadows
dancing and heard their horses thundering toward him, until at last
they came sweeping like a storm, and he saw in front that haggard
white-haired man, whose eyes flashed red with fury. Oh, how he pitied
him,--pitied him,--and wondered if he had the coiling twisted rope.
Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and
turned his closed eyes toward the Sea.

And the world whistled in his ears.

XIV

Of the Sorrow Songs

I walk through the churchyard
To lay this body down;
I know moon-rise, I know star-rise;
I walk in the moonlight, I walk in the starlight;
I'll lie in the grave and stretch out my arms,
I'll go to judgment in the evening of the day,
And my soul and thy soul shall meet that day,
When I lay this body down.

NEGRO SONG.

They that walked in darkness sang songs in the olden days--Sorrow
Songs--for they were weary at heart. And so before each thought that I
have written in this book I have set a phrase, a haunting echo of these
weird old songs in which the soul of the black slave spoke to men.
Ever since I was a child these songs have stirred me strangely. They
came out of the South unknown to me, one by one, and yet at once I knew
them as of me and of mine. Then in after years when I came to
Nashville I saw th