Part 4

"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, It is not night if thou be near--"

"I will read," said the minister, "from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew."

Curtin heard read the parable of the talents. He thought: "Intercommunication. It widens and deepens and heightens perpetually. Now it gets to be wireless, independent of gesture or the vocal cords, or the handwriting." There thronged echoes of his experience of the other night. "Intercommunication becomes communion. Communion becomes identity. At last 'we know even as we are known.'"

The reading ended. They sang

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me."

All the congregation sang; men, women, and children's piping voices. They sat down. The minister took his text from the parable he had read.

It was a good, plain sermon, in which the preacher said more than he knew he said. The air came in at window, bees buzzed without, a brown butterfly passed. The congregation breathed gently, rhythmically. The sun gave life to the flowers upon the women's and the children's hats. There were young faces and old faces, dull faces and quick faces, intent faces and wandering faces. Some were rich flowers, and others little flowers not far from weeds, but all were in the garden. Curtin thought: "They are like the thoughts and moods of a man, many and various, but all in the man. One Man.... It was Balzac who said, 'There is but one animal.' One Man--his name Adam-Eve, or Humanity, as you choose--or, perhaps, when he finds himself, his name is Christ."

He looked again at Linden, sitting with that pleased and quiet light upon his face. The sermon was not extraordinary, the congregation the average village and country congregation, the church had no especial grace of interior or exterior. Linden was not habit-bound to it, he did not hug the letter of its creed. Any one of those around might say: "No, he does not belong to any church--which is a great pity! No, it isn't his church." Yet Curtin saw that Linden, sitting there, loved this place, the feel of the folk around him, the sense of what they were doing, were striving to do, and, on the whole, were slowly doing. He comprehended that to Linden it was very simply his own, as were the other two churches of Alder, and the colored church down the river, and the Greek church at Odessa. He saw that Linden's possessive was large--Linden's and Marget Land's.

Miss Darcy sat very still, her thin hands crossed in her lap. At first she had listened to the sermon, but now she was in the old church in the old city, and there was another congregation around her, and another clergyman, a kinsman, in the pulpit. At first it was like opening a potpourri jar, and then warmth and light came back to the rose leaves. "I am there, they are here! Never could I do this or feel this until now--or I did it so weakly and palely that it did not seem to count!"

The sermon ended. "Let us pray.... Let us sing." Benediction followed, then a moment's pause, and then the folk turned from the pews and moved slowly toward the doors. There were greetings for Sweet Rocket, and Sweet Rocket greeted in return. All had a grace of friendliness. Anna Darcy thought: "That is another thing that has come or is coming! What does it matter now if your name is or is not on the register of a church? It didn't use to be so. Something gracious and understanding, invisibly binding, is coming!" She thought: "Those two are the most beautiful here, but in their degree all are beautiful. And all move on to completer beauty. Oh, life is coming alive!"

They drove through Alder and by Alder highway, and at last upon that lovely forest road to Sweet Rocket. Curtin and Linden fell to talk of their student days, of such and such teachers and mates, and such and such happenings. "I had forgotten that!" said Curtin, and again, "I had forgotten that!" At last he said, abruptly, "You've got an astounding memory!"

Linden answered, "Oh, we learn how to use and deepen memory!" The smell of the forest, the voice of the forest, circled and penetrated. "I should like to know how you do it," said Curtin.

"It is like all other things. Practice makes perfect."

"It is not only remembering. You remember with a strange understanding of things. You direct later light upon the past. The line is there, the form is there, even the color and tone, but you make it understood as I am very certain we did not understand it then! I see now what we were doing! It's intelligent at last, and bigger."

"All that you have," said Linden, "isn't too much to apply to the past. The past has served you, now serve the past. Serve and redeem! Bring it up, even and great, into the present! To understand past time is to have present power. Only by understanding it can you love it, unless you wish to remain infant and love with infant's love."

The many-hued woods went on, the leafy, narrow, remote road, the scents and sounds, the miracle of many centered into sole delight. The air was so fine you could gather what the upper air must be. Daniel and Bess, the phaeton, the four, stepped and rolled through a magic world, artist world of the Ancient of Days. Here was the river and the flashing water of the ford.

That afternoon they walked upstream as far as the overseer's house. It was shining, late afternoon. They saw, seated on the porch and the porch steps, Roger Carter and his wife, with Guy, her brother, who worked on the farm, and old Mr. and Mrs. Morrowcombe, her parents, paying their Sunday visit. A little Roger, three years old, played absorbedly with a chinquapin string and a rag doll that his grandmother had brought him.

"Let us go across to them," said Marget. "Just so did my father and mother use to sit."

Carters and Morrowcombes made them welcome. Linden and Curtin sat upon the porch steps, Tam beside them. Miss Darcy now played with the young Roger and now listened to Mrs. Morrowcombe's gentle, flowing talk of turkeys, and rag carpets, and Sam come home from the war. Mary Carter had dark eyes and wavy hair, bright color in a round cheek, a shy and tender smile--a Murillo face. She sat holding a year-old babe, and she talked shyly and listened with intent eyes. There listened, too, old Mr. Morrowcombe, with a long, white beard, and a gnarled hand resting on a stick marvelously carved by himself in prison, long ago, in the old war. Roger Carter proved a quick, dry talker, with not a little wit and power of mimicry. He had a way of throwing what he saw and heard and concluded into a homely story, both telling and amusing. He seemed to love to make Linden and Marget laugh, and they loved to draw him out. Curtin saw with what skill they opened fields to him where he might rejoice in his talent. He saw how they understood fellowship.

Presently Marget asked Mary if she might take Miss Darcy into the house and out on the back porch and to the lilac hedge. "Certainly, Miss Marget, you go right in! It's all straight. Go upstairs, too. Anywhere you like."

The two went. "This was mother's room. Here I was born. When I was a little girl I slept in this tiny room next door. The rain on the roof drummed me to sleep. This was the boys' room. This is the back porch, where we did much of the work. It is so lovely and broad! There is the old well. Yonder is the lilac clump where once, in May, I saw the Spirit of the Lilac."

When, half an hour later, they walked homeward along the river bank, there renewed itself the question of prolonging a visit. "Well, I'm going to stay, anyhow," declared Curtin. "I like it better here than at that camp. If you will keep me a month--"

"Oh, we will!"

Anna Darcy said: "I can't stay that long. But I'll stay just as long as I can."

That matter settled, they walked on, quietly, in the amber and violet hour. There was a sound of water, a smell of wood smoke. The house rose before them, richly colored in the sunset.

VIII

The weather changed. On the heel of soft sunshine and quietude came autumn storm, wind and rain, lashed trees, leaden and heavily sagging cloud. In the late afternoon Zinia appeared at the parlor door. "Miss Marget, there are two men on horseback. They've come over Rock Mountain and missed their way. They say it's getting late, and they say, could we take them in for the night?"

"I'll go see," said Linden, and left the room.

"Of course you will?"

"Yes, of course," answered Marget. "I had better go see about the room." Curtin and Miss Darcy, left alone, watched the flame. At last Curtin said, abruptly, "Had you ever thought of humanity moving on into superhumanity?"

"I think that I have been blind and deaf to a great many things! I suppose I thought that there would be slow, general improvement. But I did not think of marked betterment here. I thought of the soul at death springing alive into heaven."

"Or hell?"

"Yes, we were taught that."

"And it was going to reach heaven or hell at one stride! No degree here, no degree there!"

"It was irrational!"

"Naturally, being yet in Time, there are those ahead. Some cross the line earlier than others."

Marget returned. "They are two young men, foresters, I think, from the government purchase on Rock Mountain. They are wet through. Mancy has built them a fire and Richard is looking after them." She stood by the window. "The gray rain is chanting up and down the mountains! Queen Rain and King Wind!"

Curtin put a chair for her as she came to the hearth. She sat down, and bending herself, looked into the fire. She held her hands to the flame and appeared to gather it into them. "The fire!" said Marget, "the spirit that is fire, that is will--that are living, endless powers, the Host of the Lord!"

There fell a silence that was voice. Then said Anna Darcy: "I have always said, 'I remember--I remember.' But since I came to Sweet Rocket I have learned far and away more of how to remember."

Marget turned toward her with a great sweetness. "When we have found a good thing we so naturally wish to share it! Now you must learn the Universal Man's present sharing--and his future sharing. You who have always said, 'I remember,' and who have been unselfish, will have little trouble."

Her look included Curtin, who sat staring into the fire. He drew a long breath. "Two weeks ago I should have said that adventure and youth had passed from my life."

"You are just beginning to find them! Henceforth you will find rest and romance, salt in life and the true wine and the uncloying honey and the bread of right wheat. You will find water of Moses's spring, and the Burning Bush."

The rain and the wind sang against the pane. The fire made shape upon shape. The high, inward vibration lowered, but it left a memory of itself. There was the Jericho rose in the sandal box to say, "When there comes moisture again to my root, then shall I bloom again!"

Linden entered the parlor with the two guests, now with dried clothing, rested and refreshed. It was growing dusk. The room looked warm and bright to them, a happy haven after a battering day. They were young men; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, forestry graduates, resuming forestry after an interlude of war. Linden presented them. "Mr. Randall--Mr. Drew."

The evening closed in stormy. They had supper, a small bright feast, with talk and laughter. Randall proved lively, good company. Drew was much the quieter of the two. Supper over, they returned to the big parlor and the generous fire. The boy Jim had brought in a great armful of wood. It was a night to heap logs, as the rain drummed against the pane. Randall was talkative. He flowed like a mountain stream, trilled like a care-free bird.

Forests and forestry came into the room. It appeared that both had had from childhood a taste, not to say a passion, for woodland life. Randall had lived in the country, so it came natural. But Drew had lived in a city. But forests were a passion with him; he had to get into them, and did so at every chance, and at last left for good a clerkship in a stockbroker's office, and scraped together enough for that course in a forestry school. This gave him surface learning, but he exhibited a deeper knowingness, gained somewhere. "Drew's like an Indian in the woods!"

"No. Not like an Indian," said Drew.

Linden asked, "Like whom, then?"

He sat in a corner of the great fireplace, Tam, who came indoors upon nights like these, lying at his feet. "Drew," said Randall, "tell them about that night in France! He's got a curious story. He won't tell it to everybody. But I don't know--somehow we're all at home here." His quick song went on. "You see, my folk and Drew's are English. We're just a generation from fields and things that we've heard about all our lives. So when England went in, we thought we'd better go over, and we did. We were in the same company, and this was before Verdun. Go on, now, Drew!"

Drew began at once, without prelude, his eyes upon the blind man. "It was something that happened to me. Sometimes I think that it was a dream, and then I know that it wasn't. I'm more and more certain as time goes on that it wasn't. I've got a kind of feeling about Reality, that we are like swallows skimming it. I suppose that now and then a swallow tumbles into it. Well, it was a big, dark wood, fairly early in the war. A detachment, sent we did not know by whom nor for what, moved through it from one station to another. I was second lieutenant. Well, there came news of a trap, and most of us turned off in a hurry, out of that wood. But--I don't to this day know how it was--as many as twenty were away from the rest, sent to find out something, somewhere. It was night, and there was no path. We got the warning, too, and we swung round and tried to get back to the main body. There came a spattering of shot. There were men besides ourselves in that wood. They rose like partridges and struck like hawks. We struck back. There was fighting. Something came down on my head like a falling tree. I remember that I thought it was a falling tree. Then everything went black, and it seemed both a long time and a short time till dawn.

"It came at last, dawn. I sat up, and it had been a falling tree. My forehead had an aching lump and a gash, but luckily just a branch had struck me and I had rolled clear. It was a very old oak, brought down by the high wind. Upon the branch beside me was growing mistletoe. I wouldn't touch it, for I thought, 'It is not for me to touch it, but surely it saved my life!' There was gray light, and one red streak far down the forest where, after a time, would be the sun. And then I remembered that it was Lutwyn who had saved my life, crying out, and pushing me away, where I had thrown myself down for one moment's rest. I looked beyond the mistletoe and I saw that the tree had caught and pinned down a man. I crept on hands and knees, for I was dizzy yet, and I found Lutwyn. He lay pale and twitching, his leg and part of his body under the trunk of the oak. It was very still and lonely in the forest, and the first cold light made me shiver, and I was afraid of the mistletoe, so near. I got Lutwyn from under the tree, and it took all my strength to do it. The spring that we called Red Deer was hardly a spear throw away. I had on a cap of otter skin, and I filled this with water and brought it back to Lutwyn. When I had dashed it over his face and put it between his lips, he sighed, and came to himself, opening his eyes and trying to sit up. He said, 'I thought it would catch you, and I tried to thrust you out of its way--'

"I said: 'Are you badly hurt? Can you walk?'

"He tried, but he could only drag himself a little way, holding by a branch of the tree. The light had grown stronger, the red line down the forest was a red splash. We were both thinking of Guthlac and his men, who were after us because, being outlaws, we had set upon and stopped a bullock wagon and helped ourselves. We had strong belief that when they found us they would hang us. We had no great start of them.

"Lutwyn said: 'You go on, Oswy! I'll make myself at home here, by the mistletoe.'

"That couldn't be. I couldn't carry him. He was, if anything, a little taller and larger than I. He tried again to move, but it was not his leg alone; his body had been hurt, terribly hurt, I now saw. He could not make a step. It was I who drew him back to the tree. He settled down into the hollow made by the trunk and a bough, and I looked at his hurts, but could do little for them. I saw that they were filled with danger. The mistletoe grew so near him. I looked at it, and I wished it would heal. Lutwyn said: 'Now you go on, Oswy! I don't want you to be hanged.' I said, 'Save your breath!' and sat down beside him. We rested side by side against the tree, and he said that he was not in pain, but only now and then drowsy. He was very clear in his mind and wanted to talk. I listened for Guthlac and his men, and looked at the mistletoe. The sun was up now and it was growing gold--the mistletoe--a great bunch of it. I did not hear Guthlac. It was likely to be some time before they found us, having to wait till day to see our track. Now and then I felt Guthlac's rope around my neck. And then I looked at the mistletoe, and it seemed to be growing by Woden's chair. Then Lutwyn came awake again and we talked. We were twin brothers. We talked of when we were boys, and of our mother, and Lutwyn the Strong, our father, and of places we had seen and the earth we had trod. The Earth that was us, we thought, springing up in us all toward Father Sun. And all the wrong that we had done went away, and the mistletoe grew more golden. He drowsed away for longer and longer times.

"Far away I heard Guthlac's horn. It blew, and another answered. They had found our track and were drawing together. Lutwyn waked, and heard it, too. 'But there's another horn for me,' he said. 'Don't you hear that one?' He had slipped from the hollow of the oak and his head was on my knee. The horn blew louder and nearer. The mistletoe was all golden. I could feel Guthlac's rope around my neck. But I was glad they would not hang Lutwyn. He was dead.

"The horn blew louder in the wood. I heard them shouting. The mistletoe was burning gold. I said, 'Woden, Woden! we be brothers, Lutwyn and me!' They broke upon us, shouting, and all went black--"

Drew stopped speaking. He sat bent over, looking at the fire. Putting down a hand he stroked Tam. Straightening himself, he looked at Linden and Marget. "All that was actual," he said. "Just as actual, just as real, just as day and night and earthly and conscious as this room and the fire and we six and the dog!"

He made a movement toward Randall. "You tell the rest."

Randall's voice came in. "The detachment drove the Germans out of the wood and chased them a good long way. It was dawn when we stopped and went back to gather up our hurt and dead. There were a dozen dead, Germans and us, and a good many hurt, all scattered through that wood that was full of big trees. We found Drew propped against a very great, old, fallen tree. He had been struck over the head in the hand-to-hand fighting and had a cut or two besides. Nothing odd in that, but what was odd was that he was cherishing a dead German--had his head lying on his knee! Of course, enemies lying as close as lovers wasn't any novelty! But Drew had crept some little way to this man, and had tried to stop his bleeding, all there in the dark, and had given him water, and then had gathered him into his arms. He said: 'Yes, he was Drew, but he was one Oswy, too. Yes, that was a German, but it was Lutwyn, too.' He said they were twin brothers. We were used to men out of their heads, so we gathered him up and took him on. He wanted us to stop and bury the German, but there wasn't time for that. The funny thing is that he certainly isn't out of his head now! Yet he still believes that story, though he won't tell it to every one...."

The rain beat, the fire burned. "I've tried to get back," said Drew, "back to Guthlac and the bullock wagon and why we were outlaws. If I could find even now what we did--if I could get farther back still, to the point where we decided to do it, and redecide, decide more wisely, having long light upon it, I think that even now I could change in some way the whole world! Changing it to Lutwyn and me would mean changing the whole texture."

"You are right," said Linden. "And seeing it that way you have begun to put your change into operation."

The fire shined, the rain beat upon the panes, the wind came with the impact of sea in storm. Pictures shifted before the inner eye. Lands and times held the earth. Now they seemed foreign pictures, now there was a faintly conscious participation. "We are Earth, to-night," said Linden. "All these are in our memory. Earth is growing conscious. A conscious Spirit. That is what we mean to-day when we say, 'There is a new world just beneath the horizon.'"

IX

In the night the storm ceased. The household woke to a high, clear, stirring morning, the clouds riding in archipelagoes with, between isles, a sea bluer than the Ægean. The shaken trees had spread a Persian carpet. All the flowers hung heavy with wet, snails marched on the paths, Sweet Rocket glistened.

Randall and Drew must ride away, so at ten o'clock Jim brought their horses.

Marget and Anna Darcy walked through the flower garden. "I am going to Mimy's house for a little. Will you come, too?"

Marget had a basket upon her arm. "It is full of silk and cotton scraps for Julia's quilts. The day I met you in Alder I begged of two or three friends and they gave me all this! It is Julia's intense industry and happiness, piecing quilts."

"Who is Julia?"

"Mimy's lame daughter. Lame in her body and just a little lame in her mind."

"Where does Just So come in?"

"Oh, he's Susan's! Susan has been away upon a visit, but she's home again. Zinia is Mimy's niece, and Jim is her grandson. Mimy and her husband, old Uncle Jack, who is dead, 'belonged,' as they call it, to the Lindens. When Richard bought Sweet Rocket she was living in Alder, and she rode over in a wagon one day and told him she wanted to come home--just like me!" said Marget, with a happy laugh. "The old cabins were tumbling down. Richard built her a real house. He said that any who came and said, 'This is home'--" Her dark eyes looked afar to the valley rim.

"Where does Mancy live?"

"Over there, behind the big field. He and Delia, his wife, and William, who is Roger Carter's right-hand man."

Mimy, in the kitchen, was singing:

"Roll, Jordan, roll! I want to go to heaven to hear Jordan roll. Oh, roll, Jordan, roll!"

Marget stopped at the door. "We're going to your house, Aunt Mimy, with quilt pieces for Julia."

Mimy interrupted her singing. "Are you gwine take company?"

"Well, she isn't company."

"You'll find a mighty mess in that house! I don't think I ought to let you go, Miss Marget! You see, Susan's been away, and Julia can't get around, and when Zinia comes from the big house she wants to _read_! instead of straightening up. I reckon you better not go."

Marget laughed. "Aunt Mimy, you know how we'll find the house!"

"Well, go along!" said Mimy, gloomily. "Julia'll be glad to get the pieces."

They left the kitchen behind them.

"And I want to go to heaven to hear Jordan roll!"

Marget's low, warm laughter sounded again. "Her house is like a pin, and she's so proud of it, and she wouldn't for anything miss having you see it! The same little rhyme is said to every guest we have. And '_read!_' Mimy's so proud to see Zinia sit at a table and read! Jim can read, too, but he doesn't like to. But Zinia is fond of books."