the summer noons
With the passing of the sleeping green shores , the ceaseless slide of the quiet waters , a tender peace began to come into McElroy 's soul . With the gliding days he could think of Maren without the poignant pain which had been unbearable at the beginning , could linger in thought over each detail of her wondrous beauty , the clear dark eyes , sane and earnest and full of the hope of the dreamer , the full red mouth with its sweetness of curled corners , the black hair banded above the smooth brow , the rounded figure under the faded garment , the shoulders swinging with the free walk after the fashion of a man . Verily , the wilderness held healing as well as hurt . So followed each other the dawns and the summer noons and the marvellous twilights , with pageantry of light and colour and soft winds attuned to the songs of birds , and the two men neared the mystery of Fate . Back in De Seviere the gloom of the forest in bleak winter sat heavily on every cabin . Women went about with misty eyes and men were oddly silent . Not one of all his people who did not love the whole-hearted factor with his ready laugh , his sympathy in all the little life of the post , his unfailing justice ; not one who did not strive to keep away the haunting visions of leaping flames above fagots , and all the ugly scenes that imagination , abetted by grim reality , could conjure up .