"No, David. This is the end. I have finished with Hempfield."
I wish I could convey the air of resigned determination that was in his words; also the cynicism. Pooh! If Hempfield didn"t want him, Hempfield could go hang. He was at the age when he thought he could get away from life. He had not learned that the only way to get on with life is not to get out of it, but to get into it.
He told me that he had wired for money to go home; he drew his brows down in a hard scowl and stared out over the river.
"I"ve stopped fooling with life," said he tragically.
I could have laughed at him, and yet, somehow, I loved him. It was a great moment in his life. I sat down by him under the beech.
"I"m going to be free," said Nort. "I"m going to do things yet in this world."
"Free of what, Nort?" I asked.
"Ed Smith--for one thing."
"Have you thought that wherever you go you will be meeting Ed Smiths?"
He did not reply.
"I"m sorry," I said, "that you"ve surrendered."
"Surrendered?" He winced as though I had cut him.
"Yes, surrendered. Haven"t you sent for money? Haven"t you given up?
Aren"t you trying to run away?"
Nort jumped from his place.
"No!" he shouted. "Ed Smith discharged me. I would rather cut off my right hand than work in the same county with him again."
"So you have balked at the first hurdle--and are going to run away!"
I have thought often since then of that perilous moment, of how much in Nort"s future life turned upon it.
Nort"s eyes, usually so blue and smiling, grew as black as night.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean just what I said"--I looked him in the eye--"you are running away before the battle begins."
For a moment I thought I had lost him, and my heart began to sink within me, and then--it was beautiful--he stepped impulsively toward me:
"Well, what do you think I should do, anyway?"
"Nort," I said, "only yesterday you were enthusiastic over the idea of getting the truth about Hempfield, of publishing a really great country newspaper."
"What an a.s.s I was!"
"Wrong!" I said.
"David," he cut in petulantly, "I don"t get what you mean."
"I"ll tell you, Nort: The greatest joy in this world to a man like you is the joy of new ideas, of wonderful plans---- Now, isn"t it?"
"Yes. I certainly thought for a few days last week that I had found the pot at the end of the rainbow."
"It was only the rainbow, Nort: if you want the pot you"ve got to dig for it."
"What do you mean?"
"You think that you can stop with enthusiastic dreams and vast ideas.
But no vision and no idea is worth a copper cent unless it is brought down to earth, patiently harnessed, painfully trained, and set to work.
There is a beautiful a.n.a.logy that comes often to my mind. We conceive an idea, as a child is conceived, in a transport of joy; but after that there are long months of growth in the close dark warmth of the soul, to which every part of one"s personality must contribute, and then there is the painful hour of travail when at last the idea is given to the world.
It is a process that cannot be hurried nor borne without suffering. And the punishment of those who stop with the joy of conception, thinking they can skim the delight of life and avoid its pain, is the same in the intellectual and spiritual spheres as it is in the physical--barrenness, Nort, and finally a terrible sense of failure and of loneliness."
I said it with all my soul, as I believe it. When I stopped, Nort did not at once respond, but stood looking off across the river, winding a twig of alder about his finger. Suddenly he looked around at me, smiling:
"I"m every kind of a fool there is, David."
I confess it, my heart gave a bound of triumph. And it seemed to me at that moment that I loved Nort like a son, the son I have never had. I could not help slipping my arm through his, and thus we walked slowly together down the road.
"But Ed Smith----" he expostulated presently.
"Nort," I said, "you aren"t the only person in this world, although you are inclined to think so. There are Ed Smiths everywhere--and old Captains and David Graysons--and you may travel where you like and you"ll find just about such people as you find at Hempfield, and they"ll treat you just about as you deserve. Ed Smith is the test of you, Nort, and of your enthusiasms. You"ve got to reconcile your ideas with corned beef and cabbage, Nort, for corned beef and cabbage _is_."
I have been ashamed sometimes since when I think how vaingloriously I preached to Nort that day (after having got him down), for I have never believed much in preaching. It usually grows so serious that I want to laugh--but I could not have helped it that November afternoon.
I see two men, just at evening of a dull day, walking slowly along the road toward Hempfield, two gray figures, half indistinguishable against the barren hillsides. All about them the dead fields and the hedges, and above them the wintry gray of the sky, and crows lifting and calling.
Knowing well what is in the hot hearts of those two men--the visions, the love, the pain, the hope, yes, and the evil--I swear I shall never again think of any life as common or unclean. I shall never look to the exceptional events of life for the truth of life.
The two men I see are friend and friend, very near together, father and son almost; and you would scarcely think it, but if you look closely and with that Eye which is within the eye you will see that they have just been called to the colours and are going forth to the Great War. You will catch the glint on the scabbards of the swords they carry; you will see the look of courage on the face of the young recruit, and the look, too, on the face of the old reservist. In the distance they see the fortress of Hempfield with its redoubts and entanglements. They are setting forth to take Hempfield, at any cost--their Captain commands it.
Near the town of Hempfield, as you approach it from the west, the road skirts a little hill. As we drew nearer I saw some one walking upon the road. A woman. She was stepping forth firmly, her figure cut in strong and simple lines against the sky, her head thrown back, showing the clear contour of her throat and the firm chin. A light scarf, caught in the wind, floated behind. Suddenly I felt Nort seize my arm, and exclaim in low, tense voice:
"Anthy!"
I thought his hand trembled a little, but it may have been my own arm. I remember hearing our steps ring cold on the iron earth, and I had a strange sense of the high things of life.
She had not seen us. She was walking with one hand lifted to her breast, the fingers just touching her dress, in a way she sometimes had. I shall not forget the swift, half-startled glance from her dark and glowing eyes when she saw us, nor the smile which suddenly lighted her face.
I suppose all of us were charged at that moment with a high voltage of emotion. I know that Anthy, walking thus with her hand raised, was deep in the troubled problems of the _Star_. I know well what was in the heart of Nort, and I know the vain thoughts I was thinking; and yet we three stood there in the gray of the evening looking at one another and exchanging at first only a few commonplace words.
Presently Anthy turned to Nort with the direct way she had, and said to him lightly, smiling a little:
"I hope you will not desert the _Star_. We must make it go--all of us together."