`` Perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light o ' the moon , '' thought Eric , pleasing his fancy by the vision of a lithe , girlish figure stealing with a beating heart through mingled shadow and moonshine . `` I wonder if she will possibly come this evening , or if I have frightened her away for ever . I 'll hide me behind this spruce copse and wait . '' Eric waited until dark , but no music sounded through the orchard and no one came to it . The keenness of his disappointment surprised him , nay more , it vexed him . What nonsense to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear ! Where was his common sense , his `` gumption , '' as old Robert Williamson would have said ? Naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face . But was that any reason why he should feel as if life were flat , stale , and unprofitable simply because he could not look at it ? He called himself a fool and went home in a petulant mood . Arriving there , he plunged fiercely into solving algebraical equations and working out geometry exercises , determined to put out of his head forthwith all vain imaginings of an enchanted orchard , white in the moonshine , with lilts of elfin music echoing down its long arcades . The next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice . The Williamson pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its occupants practically faced the congregation . Eric looked at every girl and woman in the audience , but he saw nothing of the face which , setting will power and common sense flatly at defiance , haunted his memory like a star . Thomas Gordon was there , sitting alone in his long , empty pew near the top of the building ; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied the front pew of the gallery . He had a powerful and melodious , though untrained voice , which dominated the singing and took the colour out of the weaker , more commonplace tones of the other singers . He was well-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge , with a white collar and tie . But Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the working clothes in which he had first seen him . He was too obviously dressed up , and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his surroundings . For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard .
Monday evening he went cod-fishing , and Tuesday XXXXX he went up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy .
Eric Gordon Williamson evening first lilts minutes moonshine pew stealing