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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20615-8.txt b/20615-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fda7a3c --- /dev/null +++ b/20615-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4256 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Master-Knot of Human Fate, by Ellis +Meredith + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Master-Knot of Human Fate + + +Author: Ellis Meredith + + + +Release Date: February 17, 2007 [eBook #20615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE*** + + +E-text prepared by V. L. Simpson and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) from digital +material generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich + + + + + +THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE + +by + +ELLIS MEREDITH + + + + + + + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + OMAR KHAYYÁM + + + + +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company +1901 +Copyright, 1901, +By Little, Brown, and Company. +All rights reserved. +University Press John Wilson and Son Cambridge, U. S. A. + + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + * * * * * + + Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, + Would not we shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! + + OMAR KHAYYÁM + + + + +I + + + + To-night God knows what things shall tide, + The Earth is racked and faint-- + Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; + And we, who from the Earth were made. + Thrill with our Mother's pain. + + KIPLING. + + +Along one of the most precipitous of the many Rocky Mountain trails a +man and a woman climbed slowly one spring morning. The air was cold, +and farther up the mountains little patches of snow lay here and there +in the hollows. Two or three miles below them nestled one of the most +famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as +distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the plain and +through the clear atmosphere it looked like a bird's-eye-view map +rather than an actual town. Far away to the left, gorgeous in coloring +and grotesque in outline, could be seen the odd figures of many +strangely piled rocks. + +The two pedestrians stopped now and then to rest and look away over +the matchless scene and take in its wonderful beauty. The woman was +tall and slender, with a superb carriage. Even on that steep ascent +she moved with the grace and freedom of one who has entire command of +her body. She was well gowned also for such an excursion. Her short, +green cloth skirt did not impede her movements, and high, stout shoes +gave her firm footing. She had removed her jacket, and in her bright +pink silk blouse and abbreviated petticoat, with the glow of the +morning on her usually pale face, she looked almost girlish; but her +face was not that of girlhood. It was without lines, and the heavy +masses of her golden-brown hair were quite unstreaked with silver; but +her white forehead was serene with the calmness that follows +overcoming, and her dark gray eyes saw the world shorn of its +illusions. In her there were, or had been, unrealized capacities for +life in all its height and depth and breadth. In studying her one +became vaguely aware that, having missed these things, she had found a +fourth dimension which supplied the loss. + +Her companion was younger by several years, and so much taller that +she seemed almost small in comparison. In his eyes there danced and +shone the light of truth and courage and hope, and he walked with the +buoyancy of joy and youth. Israfil, Antinous, Apollo,--he might have +stood as the model for any of them, or for a fit representation of the +words of the wise man, "Rejoice, oh, young man, in thy youth, and let +thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways +of thine heart." + +The relation between the two was problematic. Certainly there was no +question of love on either side. Equally certainly there existed +between them a rare and exquisite camaraderie, a perfect comprehension +that often made words superfluous. A look sufficed. + +They toiled up the steep, narrow path until they reached a wide trail, +a carriage road that had been laid out and abandoned. It swept around +the mountain-side, miles above the little city on the plain, and +terminated suddenly at an immense gateway of stone. Here the mountain +had been torn asunder, and two palisades of gray-green rock rose grim +and terrible for hundreds of feet, while between them, dashing over +boulders and trees and the impedimenta of ages, a little stream rushed +along in the eternal night at their base. Far away to the west, range +upon range piled themselves against the intense blue sky. Beyond a +rustic gate, standing across the path that narrowed to a few feet +before the wall of stone, a park, sparkling and green in the sunlight, +was visible. They stopped and regarded the two gateways,--one the work +of nature, the other the feeble counterfeit of man,--and then swinging +open the creaking wooden affair, passed into the peaceful valley. A +few yards away stood a small log cabin, but the chimney was smokeless, +and though the chickens clucked in the yard, and a collie lay on the +doorstep, it seemed desolate and deserted. + +Passing along an almost invisible trail, they found themselves in the +wildest and most remote part of that wild and remote region. They saw +a few stray animals, but no human beings. This was one of the few +places where mining was not a universal pursuit, and it was too early +to do much in the few mines that did exist. There are entire sections +in the Rockies that are deserted for more than half the year, and this +was one of them. That day there was no one at the signal station. The +keeper had gone down to the valley for fresh stores, and to learn +something of the terrific disturbances that were said to be +threatening the entire Eastern coast with annihilation. Perhaps the +owners of the log cabin had made a similar pilgrimage. + +The scene was flooded with moonlight when the travellers passed the +gate on their homeward way, and sat down on a boulder a few yards +without the frowning portal. The night was cold, and the woman had put +on her jacket, and sunk her numbed fingers in its pockets. In spite of +her weariness she was troubled and restless, and turning looked first +at the beetling crags back of them, then away over the plain at the +twinkling lights of the town below. They heard indistinctly the sounds +of bells ringing wildly, and overhead flocks of birds circled and +called with shrill, uncanny voices. Yet the moonlight was so bright +that they saw each other as plainly as if it were day, and its placid +radiance seemed strangely at variance with the disturbed wild-fowl, +and certain weird and fitful sounds that seemed to be sighed forth +from the bosom of the earth. + +"It is a pity," she said, "that we cannot pass through this gateway +into paradise without descending to earth again." + +"I don't believe you are half as tired of life as you say," he +answered with an impatient movement of his head. "You may not shrink +from death as I do, or enjoy life so keenly, but isn't it a good thing +to be alive to-night? Isn't it fine to be a mile or so above the rest +of humanity and the deadly conventionalities? Aren't you glad you +came?" + +She did not answer, but presently said dreamily, "Suppose that plain +was the sea." + +"It isn't hard to suppose," he answered. "I have seen the Pacific when +it looked just so." + +"Oh, no," she said quickly. "Nothing is like the sea but itself. You +will never persuade me that I love the mountains so well. And the +plains,--just imagine if all that gray green silver were gray blue, +with here and there a gathering crest of foam, racing to break in +spray about these mountains--" + +"Why, look," he said, drawing her a little to one side, "there is your +liquid blue, with its white crest moving toward us. Could the real sea +look more wonderful than that? It is blotting out everything. Now it +recedes,--was it not real?" + +She started to her feet. "This is a very strange night," she said +irrelevantly, in a rather strained voice. "Listen,--and see how many +birds are flying about us; I never saw them fly so at night. What does +it mean?" + +They stood together, looking at each other with startled faces. The +whole mountain, all the mountains, seemed to be alive and trembling +under them. Overhead thousands of birds wheeled and screamed with +terror in their mingled outcries. The little creeping things scuttled +away up the mountain. The silver-blue wave widened and spread over the +plain from north to south, and the air was full of a dull, terrible +roar, as if the fountains of the great deep had broken up, and a +thousand white-crested waves rushed toward the hapless city before +them. They covered it, and with a wild jangle of bells, faintly +audible over the tumult, it sank out of sight, all the gleaming, +dancing lights disappearing in an instant. The white crests came on +and broke about the mountains, and receded and came on again with a +deafening roar. Then the crust of the earth between the mountain range +and the spot where the city had been, seemed to crack like a bit of +dried orange peel, and the flood rushed over the abyss, and there +arose a blinding steam that hid the whole scene below, and ascending +circled the mountain peaks in mist. + +All about them on the mountain-side rose the cries of terrified wild +things, and along the narrow pathway into the park a herd of cattle +and horses rushed and disappeared among the aspens that trembled as +never before. The collie, scenting their presence, came and crouched +whining at their feet, and a bird fell exhausted into the woman's +arms. She closed her hands over it, unconsciously giving it the +protection none could give them, and in the fog moved toward the +figure of her companion. His arm closed about her convulsively. + +"Shall we go farther up the mountain?" he asked. + +"'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be +now,'" she answered, insensibly finding it easier to use another's +words than to coin phrases while holding death-watch over a continent. + +They sat down on the boulder. After what seemed like countless hours, +she said, "I wonder how long we have been here. Perhaps it is years." + +He looked at his watch. "I do not know whether we are in time or +eternity," he answered simply. "It is nearly four o'clock by this +watch." + +Through the dense vapor they saw the sun rise, red and sullen, but the +mist was so impenetrable that they dared not move about. The day and +night passed, almost without their knowledge, and the second morning +found them, as the first, by the great boulder. The wind rose with the +sun, and when it blew aside the veil of mist, far as the eye could +reach, there rolled a sea, white-capped, turbulent, fretful, as if +unwilling to leave a single peak to tower above its lordly dominion. + +The man and woman followed the collie to the cabin, and there found +some food, then they retraced their way until they could look down +over the valley where the town had slept. Nothing was left. There was +not even a prospector's cabin. The shock which had succeeded the first +wild dash had been volcanic. The very cañons looked strange, and +though they called again and again there came no answer. + +"Come," the man said imperiously. "Let us go to the Peak. There must +be some one there." + +They reached the signal station late in the afternoon; no one was +there. Looking down from that awful eminence, they saw on the other +side of the range the same desolation, the same watery waste. They +seemed to be on an island, alone on a wide, wide sea. Nowhere curled a +friendly wreath of smoke; nowhere was there sound of any human thing. + +They went wearily back. There was nowhere else to go. If the gateway +had been awful in its solitude, the Peak was still more desolate. +There was nothing living there, except themselves and the dog that +followed closely at their heels, making no excursions of its own. The +hour was wearing toward midnight when they sank down by the boulder +once more to watch the darkness disappear, and wait for they knew not +what. The man built a huge fire, so that if any other waifs had been +left by this wreck of a world they might see the beacon, and reply in +some fashion. They did not talk, except now and then, in a half +whisper, they gave monosyllabic queries and replies. The shock that +had obliterated a continent seemed to deprive them of all active use +of their senses. They moved only in circles, returning always to the +place from which they had watched the cataclysm. + +It was almost sundown when, with a superhuman effort, they again +entered the sunny, beautiful park. The air was balmy, and there all +remained quite as before. In front of the cabin stood an Alderney; as +they approached her, she lowed uneasily. The woman looked up, and then +spoke aloud with the quick sympathy that had always been her greatest +attraction. She seemed to understand so readily, whether it was a +man's head, a woman's heart, or an animal's wants. + +"She needs to be milked," she said, and pushing open the door she +entered the cabin. There were two rooms, the farther of which was +evidently a bedroom. There was a large fireplace at one end of the +main room. At one side of it was a primitive dresser, with such +utensils and china as the place afforded; on the other were some +miner's implements and a shovel. There was a small table and beside it +were placed two chairs. There was a rocker by the one window, and a +pot of geraniums on the sill; forming a kind of window seat was a long +seaman's chest. At the other end of the room there was a desk covered +with green oilcloth, and above it was a shelf containing some books +and a clock. + +The woman took off her hat and jacket and brushed back her hair, then +turning back her sleeves went outdoors again. Under the rude porch on +a slab table stood a number of buckets, and there was a stool by the +door. She took a bucket and the stool and walked away a few paces, the +Alderney following. As she began milking she looked over her shoulder +at the man watching her and said, "Won't you build a fire?" + +He gathered some wood and went into the cabin. She threw out the first +pint or so of milk, then finished milking and strained the foaming +contents of her pail into some crocks left sunning by the door, and +went into the house. She found some cornmeal and salt, and deftly +mixed the dough, and arranging the shovel in the hot ashes, set her +hoe-cake to bake. In the mean time the man had brought water from the +brook, and as the woman swung the crane over the blaze, he filled the +iron kettle hanging therefrom. There was some sour milk, and by a +mysterious process she converted it into Dutch cheese. There was some +butter and a few eggs, and she found a white cloth and spread the +table with the few poor dishes, placing the geranium in the centre. As +the water steamed and boiled, she caught up a tin canister. + +"See," she said with forced gayety; "let us eat, drink, and be merry, +for there is just enough tea in the world for two people to drink +once!" + +She made the beverage and poured it into the thick cups, and breaking +the yellow pone and piling it on a platter, they sat down to the +strangest meal they had ever known. + +The man watched her with fascinated eyes. He had never before seen her +do anything for herself, yet she presided over the simple meal she had +prepared as graciously as over the course dinners of her chef. How +should she know how to make hoe-cake? + +All through the singular feast the sparkle and play of her fancy kept +them in hysterical laughter. Afterwards, as she cleared away, the same +wild mood possessed her. The man wondered if her mind was going with +all else; but as she hung up the towel, her humor changed, and she ran +out of the cabin into the dusk as if she could not bear the simple, +homely tasks in a homeless world, the firelight and the bounds of a +dwelling when doom must be at hand. The man put a fresh log on the +fire, and covered the coals with ashes. He would have preferred to +remain there, but he knew why she was hurrying back to the +mountain-side, and he took her coat and followed her. She was standing +by the boulder, looking out over the waters with a despair on her face +that made him groan. It was so like what he felt in his heart. She +pointed weakly toward the water, but her lips formed no words. + +"Yes," he answered, "it was not a dream." + +Dawn found them still sitting by the boulder. The man shook her half +roughly. + +"Come," he said, "let us go back to the cabin." + +"No," she answered. "I cannot believe it; we are both mad. We are +dreaming the same mad dream; let us go down, and when we feel the +spray on our faces, and taste the brine, it will be time enough to +believe." + +She began the descent with reckless rapidity, and he followed, +checking and holding her back. The roar of the surf grew momentarily +louder, but though she looked at him with wild, grieved eyes, she went +on. A monster wave dashed up over the rocks and wet them to the skin. +She flung out her arms, and would have fallen headlong into the +greedy, crawling water, but he caught her and made his way back. The +hot, bitter tears on her face brought her to herself, and with one +great sob she broke down, clinging to him and crying till from sheer +exhaustion she fell asleep. + +He carried her back to the cottage and laid her gently on the bed in +the tiny room. Her hair was falling about her, and he removed her +dusty shoes, and covered her over as if she had been a child. Then he +went out into the sunlight and sat down on the doorstep and tried to +grasp the situation. + +He had been a very ambitious man, and she had been as ambitious for +him as he was for himself; that had been the main bond of union. He +was to have made a great place in the world: the applause of +listening senates was to have been his; wealth, fame, position, +all the possibilities of life were gone; nothing but barely life +itself remained. A living might be wrung from nature, but for +ambition,--what? Surely somewhere on earth there were other human +beings; the destruction, if irreparable, was not universal. Sooner or +later some hardy sailor would find the surviving peaks of this new +Atlantis. At least, if the woman within was not his world, he was +thankful that no one else was; and having looked the grim truth in the +face, he too slept. + +It was long past noon when the dog wakened him, and he started to his +feet, determined that, having lost all else, they should keep their +sound, clear brains. He walked about the park, which contained perhaps +five hundred acres. There were half a dozen cows, as many horses, some +burros, and a few chickens. There was a rude stable and a few farm +implements. There was a large tunnel in the mountain-side, and some +mining machinery lying about its entrance. The dog, seeming to realize +some of the responsibilities of life, herded the cattle and drove them +toward the cabin. When they reached it, she was standing in the +doorway. She had made her toilet, and looked fresh and calm. + +"These are our flocks and our herds," he said in greeting. "What shall +we call them?" + +She smiled rather wanly. "Wasn't it Adam who named the animals? You +shall have that honor." + +"Very well," he answered; "but if this is the garden, there is an +angel with a flaming sword at the gateway. Do not pass it again. Our +life is here, here,--do you understand? We must give ourselves time to +get used to it, time to realize that we are alive. We must be very +patient, for whatever has befallen us, whether we are in the body or +out of it, this through which we have passed is a miracle, and only +time can tell if it is more. Do not look upon the change again, at +least not now. You will stay here, and we will work together, and be +content for awhile?" + +"Content?" she said, "content? We will be happy." + + + + +II + + + There is always work, + And tools to work withal, for those who will; + And blessed are the horny hands of toil! + + LOWELL. + + +"Do you remember Gabriel Betteredge?" asked Adam, a day or so later, +as he watched her set the house in order after their breakfast. "You +know in times of great mental perturbation he always sought comfort +and counsel from the pages of 'Robinson Crusoe.' When in doubt he +waited until to-morrow, as Robinson advised; and no matter what his +perplexities, he always found just what he wanted in that infallible +book. If I remember correctly, but it's years since I read it, +Robinson goes on a voyage of discovery the first thing." + +"He built a raft to get away from the wreck first, I think," she said +reflectively. "Or did he build the raft to get to the wreck? I can't +remember. And then he built a house. Somewhere along there he wrote +down his situation in a deadly parallel; I have sometimes wondered if +he was the inventor of that style. But he offset the debit of being +cast away with gratitude for having escaped with his life. We're not, +at least I'm not, sure that belongs on the credit side." + +"We don't want to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have no +wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready to +hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I fancy, +but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in it? We +might begin our investigations here." + +"'With lamp in hand we will explore,'" she hummed, "but two rooms and +a cellar do not promise much. There is nothing to see in this room, +except what we do see, and the contents of that chest, which is +locked." + +Adam tried the lock, then shook the chest. "There's nothing in it, +anyhow," he said. + +"As to the other room," she went on, "there is a bedroom set,--a +better one than I should have expected to find in a place like +this,--and a closet with some clothes in it. The man was about your +size, but the feminine garments--well--they are all about the length +of my bicycle skirt, and on the shelf there is a pile of bedding. +There is no trap door leading into either subterranean or overhead +apartments. In fact, there is nothing else, except a chair. It's very +uninteresting." + +Adam had been moving about the room, and stopped before the bookshelf. +He wound the clock mechanically, and read the titles of the books +aloud. A chemistry, a book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of +Tennyson, the "Yankee at King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine +almanac made up the list. + +"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing +cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain, +and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to; +they look as if they might hold--" + +"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively. + +"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster more," +he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans, or +barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in +opening them." He took up a hatchet, and they went out and inspected +the boxes, which were very large and strong. + +"Let's not open them yet," she said. "There is one other treasure in +one of the bureau drawers; it is a box with seeds of almost every +kind. They ought to have known most of those things wouldn't grow up +this close to timber-line." + +"Probably they were sent by the congressman from this district," Adam +said dryly. "But I'm not so sure they won't grow. Have you noticed how +warm it is, how very unlike what it has always been? Let us go to the +stables, and see what we can find there." + +They went up a path, past a garden, fenced with woven wire, through +which the chickens looked longingly. Under some sashes forming a +primitive greenhouse, lettuce and radishes were making good headway. +Nothing else had come up, though there were many beds, with small +slips of board, like miniature tombstones, showing what had been +planted. The stables and cow-barn were all under one roof, and would +accommodate several horses and a few cows. There was hay and fodder in +a lot adjoining, and a few ordinary farm implements, a plow, a harrow, +and a cultivator in a shed addition. + +"Do you know what it is for?" she asked mischievously, as he pulled +out the plow. + +"Do you think I never remembered the granger vote in my ambitions?" he +answered. "I can plow, and I have planted and snapped corn, and cut +fodder, and dug potatoes--I wonder if there are any here?" + +"Yes," she answered; "in the cellar, at least a bushel, mostly gone to +eyes, but I forget how thick to cut them. If we were only 'The Swiss +Family Robinson,'" she went on, "we should find yams and pineapples +and oranges and sugar-cane and bananas coming up between the rocks. As +it is, I am thankful to the congressman who sent the peas and +morning-glories." + +"There is only about enough wheat and corn to plant fifteen acres," +Adam said, making a rough calculation in his mind. "I will plow a +little over that, so as to have a patch for the potatoes, and get it +ready as soon as possible." + +"I know how to plant corn and potatoes," she said eagerly. "Just as +soon as you get part of the land ready, I will begin. You didn't know +I was brought up on a ranch, did you? I never was very fond of +recalling it. It is a perpetual round of conditions unlike any theory +ever heard of." She shrugged her shoulders, and stopped at the rude +table under the porch to crumb some slices of what looked like a kind +of cornbread. + +"What is it?" he asked curiously. + +"That is to enable us to make light of our troubles," she replied +solemnly. "Or, for thy more sweet understanding it is, or at least I +hope it will be, yeast. I found a Twin Brothers yeast cake, and from +it, behold the brethren! I know that raised bread is unhealthy, and +that to get the worth of your money you ought to eat the bran also, +and that the best bread, from the hygienic standpoint, is made from +wheat-paste, and is about the consistency of sole leather; but even if +yeast does shorten our lives, I don't know that I shall give it up on +that account." + +The planting of their crops took several weeks, and was very hard +work, for neither of them was an expert farmer. When the corn and +wheat came up there were almost no weeds, and the stand was better +than usual for sod land; but they were kept busy warding off the +horses and cattle that preferred the fresh young corn and wheat to the +indifferent natural grass. + +"I thought," she said wearily, after driving away the intruders for +the third time,--"I thought fences were a sign of civilization, but +they seem to be the first necessity of the wilderness." + +She was sitting on a rock, fanning her flushed face with her sombrero, +when Adam came to her assistance. + +"You should have waited," he said. "I was coming, but I had to hitch +the team." He turned and looked at her, and laughed boyishly. "The run +hasn't hurt you," he said; "you look like a wild rose. I believe I +shall call you so; may I? I can't call you by the old name." + +She colored hotly, then turned quite pale, and there was a touch of +reserve in her voice as she answered rather too indifferently, "If you +choose, still I think, O Adam Crusoe, that Friday or Robinson would be +a better name." + +"We'll compromise on Robin," he said. "A rose by any other name is +just as sweet." + +"I wish we had a fence," she said turning the subject hastily. + +"We have," he answered. "If we were to build one ourselves, it would +have to be of rocks, but Nature has provided a magnificent stone +barrier. We have only to drive the animals we are not using through +the gateway, and fasten that little wooden concern after them. There +is good pasture outside, and if we need them we can go after them. +Lassie will look after Daisy and Lily, won't you, little dog? I will +go and open the gate and drive them through. You help Lassie keep +those two back." + +She stood undecidedly, and he turned and said gently, "I will come +back without passing through the gateway. I will never pass it without +you. I wouldn't dare. Now see how nicely Lassie will conduct this +round-up." + +As he went toward the gateway, her eyes followed him with a look he +would hardly have comprehended, it was so full of relief and +gratitude. He understood and reassured her without noticing her fears +or smiling at her weakness. Every day and many times she thanked God +that, of all the men who might have been left by this modern deluge, +it was Adam who had been with her and was with her in this terrible +experience. + + + + +III + + It might be months, or years, or days, I kept no count,--I took no + note. + + BYRON. + + + +They had been on the island nearly four months. The corn was waving in +the soft breeze, and the sun shone down hotly. Indoors sweet corn was +boiling in the same pot with new potatoes, while in an improvised +milk-boiler on coals, at one side of the fireplace, peas were +simmering. The table was spread, and there was white bread and jersey +butter and raspberries. Adam, with Lassie's puppies crawling over him, +sat in the doorway, and watched Robin put the finishing touches to +their Sunday dinner. + +His apparel was somewhat picturesque, and he had a brown and +thoroughly healthy look. Robin was dressed in a costume of blue +denims. The skirt was rather short, and the waist was a blouse, +finished at the throat with a broad collar that turned away from a +neck still white in spite of much sunlight. Their months of roughing +it had not harmed them, and only the intense sadness in Adam's eyes, +the pathetic droop of Robin's mouth, when they thought themselves +unobserved, told a story different from that of pastoral content. + +Their meal was unusually silent. Sometimes they fell into long lapses +of silence; there was so much not to say. In all the weeks of the past +they had worked, almost feverishly, allowing as little time as +possible for thought, and never speaking of what was oftenest in their +minds. Much of the time Adam seemed to be in a dream, only half +realizing the flight of time, that made hope more and more hopeless. +Robin said nothing. One would not seek to console the sky with phrases +if all the stars were wiped out. She half reproached herself at times +for the peace, the something akin to happiness, that had crept into +her life. She had long before grown very weary of the world and all it +had to offer. + +She was stung at the sight of Adam's quiet face, with the repressed +suffering that had somehow touched it with a beauty it had not +possessed, and she said impetuously, "Let us go out, Adam; let us go +quite away somewhere, and talk. There is so much I want to ask you, +but I have not dared." + +He looked up with such a hurt expression that she went on quickly, +"Not that; I mean I couldn't. I have been afraid to put things in +words. They grow so much more real then. But now I am afraid to keep +my thoughts longer." + +They went past the wheat and corn fields, through a narrow cañon that +led them to a valley they had never seen before. It was very +beautiful, and the play of the sunlight on the high walls of rock, the +murmur of the stream below them, the trembling aspens, the white peaks +in the distance, made a scene worthy their attention, but they were +blind to it. + +They sat down on a broad stone seat; presently Adam said, "Now, tell +me; tell me how it seems to you." + +"No," she answered, "you must tell me. What has happened to us, Adam? +Where are we, and why were we left?" + +"God knows," he said reverently. + +"Do you think it possible," she said slowly, "that we are dead?" + +"Oh, I don't know!" he broke out, with a return to something of his +old childlike impatience. "Sometimes I think it is all a dream, and +directly I shall wake up and find myself in my dingy old law office. +But you are not a dream. These mountains are not a dream. Lassie +barking down below there is not a dream; and these callous spots on my +hands are real enough in all conscience, and no dream could last so +long. Sometimes I think we have been hypnotized and carried off and +left on an island somewhere. Sometimes--do you remember the man who +computed the vast number of 'mysterious disappearances,' and formed a +theory that the earth was being sorted out before the opening of the +last vial, or some such stuff? Do you think we can be simply another +disappearance?" + +"I don't know," she said. "It seems easier to believe that, easier to +believe anything than that the whole world has disappeared." + +"Then I think sometimes," he went on, "that there are evil powers,--I +know this sounds as if I had lost my mind, and maybe I have, I'm not +sure of anything,--but it seems as if there might be an explanation if +we believed in genii who have power over us. Perhaps you and I, who so +often found fault with the poor old earth, are being punished by +banishment from it. Perhaps we are being prepared for some great work. +I haven't very much religion, and yet I suppose I do believe in a +divine purpose back of things, a directing power that wastes nothing. +I have tried to think why this thing should come upon us, you and me, +of all the world; and while it seems an evil thing, a terrible and +overwhelming disaster, when I realize that it might have befallen me +alone, then just the fact that you are here makes it seem almost good. +Do you understand?" + +"Yes," she said quickly. "I have felt just so. When, at first, I felt +as if I should curse God and die, I had only to remember you to fall +on my knees for thankfulness. Even if a dozen other people had been +left instead, no one would have understood as you have. Oh, I would +infinitely rather be alone with you than in the utter loneliness of +the society of a lot of men and women who would drive me mad with +their complaints and inefficiency. I don't know whether it is a dream, +or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that +if it is a punishment it has been commuted, in that you share it. And +yet how selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to +wish you were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out +your ambitions--" She stopped, and her eyes filled. + +"Don't mind," he said grimly. "If that is selfishness, I am selfish to +the core. I have gone over the whole list, and I don't know any one I +would rather sacrifice to companionship with me in this exile than +you. My parents were old; they could never have borne the shock. My +sisters would be unhappy without their families; my women friends +could none of them have met the exigencies of such an existence as you +have; and as for men, by this we would all have been barbarians +together. You have kept me sane and alive, for that matter." + +"But are we sane?" she said slowly, "I think I could stand it if I +only knew we were sane and alive. It is the feeling that I don't know +anything, that this valley, these mountains, may fade like the +baseless fabric of a dream. And sometimes I think that it may be real, +all real but you, and that I shall find myself here all alone, dead or +alive, sane or mad. God! how horrible it is!" + +"That thought has never troubled me," he said. "Whatever has put us in +this dream together will keep us together to the end. You have not +wanted me to go far away from you, so we have worked together; I have +even let you do work that was unfit for you because I knew you would +prefer it. You were more frank about it, but you didn't feel any more +strongly than I did. I couldn't, I can't bear to have you out of my +sight." + +"Have you ever thought that it may be so?" she asked hesitatingly. + +"What? That it isn't a dream, and that we are sane and alive? Yes, I +have thought of that too. If it be true, how universal is the +destruction? We know now, pretty well, from the time that has +passed,--by the way, how long is it?" He stopped with a sudden dazed +look, and turned to her. + +"It was the first of May," she said softly. "Now it is nearly the last +of August." + +"Four months!" he said in a shocked tone. "I did not realize it; I +must have been worse stunned than I thought. In that case it seems as +if there can't be anything left of this continent, unless it be +detached peaks here and there, where other mountain ranges have been. +There may be other men and women waiting as we wait for a sail, a +sign, a message, and they do not know any more than we do whence it is +to come. The alteration in the climate has convinced me that the +waters on our West are those of the Pacific; it has been so warm and +pleasant. I have tried to imagine what kind of a winter we may expect, +or will the winter of our discontent be made glorious summer--" + +"By three crops of strawberries, like California?" she interrupted. + +"Perhaps," he said, smiling. "As to the East, that may be the +Atlantic, or the Gulf; it seems more probable that it is the latter. +The St. Lawrence district was said to be the oldest section of this +continent, and it is reasonable to suppose the earth's crust thickest +there, and along the mountain ranges. I suppose the continent has gone +to make another layer, a stratum, on top of the pliocene, and after +awhile the waters will subside, or some volcanic action will raise up +a new continent. If there are any ships anywhere, on any seas, they +will search every degree of latitude and longitude. Our flag floats, +did float, all over this globe; if it still flies anywhere, we shall +see it again." + +"If I did," she said irreverently, "I should feel sure we were in +heaven. It was beautiful before, but what wouldn't it mean now, Adam? +But have you any one left on earth; if this continent is all gone, who +would look for you? There are people of my blood, or there were, but +they did not even know of my existence." + +"There is not a soul," he answered. "Indeed, in this country it would +have been one chance in ten million. You might have done it," he said, +half jestingly, "but you are here." + +"Yes," she echoed; "I am here. Adam, how long will it be before you +are satisfied that no one is left, no one in the sense of any +civilized people, with a country and means of circumnavigation?" + +"A year," he answered, "perhaps more, but a year anyhow. I shall not +give up hope until then." + + + + +IV + + + How gladly would I meet + Mortality my sentence, and be earth + Insensible! How glad would lay me down + As in my mother's lap! + + MILTON. + + +The corn hardened, and the wheat ripened, and was harvested in truly +primeval fashion. Adam cut the wheat with a scythe, and Robin followed +him, binding it as best she could. They shocked it together, and then +began hauling it to the barn with the horses and bob-sleds, their only +vehicle. The stacking was weary work and progressed slowly. Adam +watched his co-worker toil over the sheaves, and then took them from +her and pitched them on the stack haphazard. + +"You shall not bother over it any more," he said, "not if we live on +hominy all winter. Have you ever been in Mexico? Well, Hawaii was +called the land of poco tempo, but Mexico was the land of mañana. +There isn't any work there for the work's sake. I mean there wasn't, +and we can take a lesson from them. We need not hurry; the legislature +will not meet this winter, and there will be no grand opera before +spring. Daisy and Lily shall do our work for us. We will find a bit of +hard, smooth ground, and then we will not muzzle the cows that tread +out the grain." + +"Willingly," gasped Robin, climbing down from her slippery eminence on +top of the load of grain; "but do you think we are going to have any +winter?" + +"That is pre-eminently one of the things that no fellow can find out," +he answered. "In a dream you are likely to have any kind of weather, +and on a submerged planet we have no precedents at hand to tell us +what to expect. By replanting the vegetables right along we have had a +perpetual crop. As long as we have this kind of weather things will +grow, and I suppose we would better let them. Shut in as we are, it +doesn't seem likely that any very fearful winds are apt to trouble us; +and if there is a wet season, on this slope we shall have good +drainage. If the worst comes to the worst, there's the tunnel. Could +you make that cheerful and homelike?" + +Robin smiled rather sadly. "It will do to put the grain in," she said, +and they walked on silently. + +The spot finally selected for the threshing floor was brushed as clean +as twig brooms would make it, and the wheat spread out upon it. Adam +and Lassie drove the cows over it leisurely, and between times Adam +experimented on a flail. When he finally had one that answered the +purpose, and found he could use it without fracturing his skull, the +cows were released, and he went on with the work. Seated on a boulder +close by, her sombrero tipped well over her eyes, Robin fanned the +grain, and converted it into a coarse cracked wheat with a venerable +coffee-mill. + +"I will make you a Mexican mill, when I get through with this," said +Adam, "but you cannot use it, because it is too hard work; I shall +have to be the miller. It is a rather simple affair, and dates from +before the days of Noah; it is made with two stones, sandstone +preferred, the lower of which is hollowed out bowl-fashion, with a +hole in the centre; the upper stone is rounding, and fits in the bowl, +and has a hole in it about four inches from the edge, in which a stout +wooden handle is inserted, with which to turn it. The two stones are +ground together until they become smooth. Then they are placed on four +other stones as rests, and a blanket or cloth is spread underneath to +catch the meal. The grain is poured around the edge of the upper +stone, and works down. It makes a very tolerable flour." + +"How handy you are!" she said. "Isn't it a good thing we hadn't +civilized the whole world to such a degree that only patent high-grade +flour was used? Where should we be now without the simple devices of +the good people of the Stone Age, and their survivors on whom we +looked down with so much scorn?" + +The snapping of the corn was an easier matter, and it was piled in the +tunnel till they should be ready to shell it. Then Adam did what he +called his "fall plowing," and left the bare brown sod to lie fallow. + +So far as possible, they had retained the manners and customs of the +world that had left them. There was a tolerable supply of clothing, +and a good deal more household linen than could have been expected. +Robin concluded that the owners of the cabin had not been long +married, and the bride, knowing to what kind of a place she was +coming, had thought more of her house than of herself. All the +feminine garments had to be re-fashioned. Robin made her skirts short +enough for mountain climbing, and dreading the time when her one pair +of shoes should give out, she wore sandals fashioned from yucca leaves +by Adam's clever fingers. As the hair-pins lost themselves, she +braided her hair in a long queue, the curling ends of which fell far +below her waist. + +The little house was kept as neat and clean as if it were headquarters +for all the labor-saving inventions in the world, and their meals were +as well served as if a corps of servants had been in attendance. They +were simple, and often a little monotonous, as meals must be where +there is nothing save what grows on one's own plantation. They had no +tea, coffee, sugar, spices, or foreign fruits. However, the hardship +of manual labor and plain food would cure most cases of dyspepsia, and +they did not suffer. + +One day early in December, Robin woke to the consciousness of a steady +drip, drip of rain, accompanied by an indescribably mournful wind. In +the other room she heard Adam piling on the logs, and shivered. +Perhaps the winter had come. It had been hard enough when there was +plenty of work, and the free outdoor life; if they should become +prisoners, how should they, how would _he_ endure it? She dressed +quickly, and met his cheery "good-morning" in kind, and over their +breakfast they discussed the possibility of this storm being the first +of many. They decided that they must get the corn into such shape that +the tunnel would be available for the hapless cattle, or even for +themselves, if need be. + +"We will go up there and shell corn all day," said Adam. "It isn't +really cold, and you can wrap up a bit. I wish I had thought to take a +lot of stone into the tunnel to build a bin at the end to put the corn +in. I don't know how we are to manage it." + +She disappeared into the bedroom and came back presently with a few +grain sacks. When Adam opened the door he was nearly ready to abandon +his plan. + +"You will be wet through," he said; "I cannot let you go." + +"Then you cannot go either," she answered. + +"But I must," he said. She was standing by him, hardly reaching his +shoulder, the sacks over her head. Catching her up in his arms, he +banged the door behind them, and ran up the slope to the tunnel, where +he deposited her laughing, and shaking the water from her curly hair. +As he had said, it was not cold, and they sat down near the mouth of +the tunnel, turned the tops of their sacks back over corncobs, and +shelled the corn in silence. At last a little sigh from Robin made +Adam look up quickly. Her hands were bleeding. + +"Robin," he cried angrily, "how can you be so cruel! I don't want you +to do this work; there is no need. I forgot to watch you; besides, I +know you are tired. You did not sleep last night; I heard you moving +about." + +"Then you did not sleep either," she responded quickly. + +He flushed through the tan, and scooping some dry leaves together into +a bed, took off his coat and folded it for a pillow. + +"Lie down and rest a little now," he said, "while I go down to the +house and see what I can find for lunch. Then you can have a good +sleep this afternoon." + +He was gone several minutes, and when he came back with some +sandwiches in a tin bucket, and a dozen scarlet radishes dripping in +his hand, he stopped appalled. Robin was at the extreme end of the +tunnel, sitting on the ground, laughing and crying and talking +extravagant nonsense. Had she really gone mad, at last? Adam put down +the bucket, and walked toward her unsteadily. She did not stir, but +went on chattering in the same absurd way, until she saw him; then she +cried excitedly, "Oh, look! it's kittens, real little tame kittens, +though their mother won't come near me yet. She is over in that +corner." + +Adam saw her green eyes, and though distrustful she was not +unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came +back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set +down before the kittens. They lapped it eagerly, and as the two human +beings withdrew discreetly, the cat crept out of her corner and joined +in the feast. When it was over, Robin took possession of one tiny ball +of fur, and Adam of another, while they made their own meal. Then +Robin curled up among the dead leaves, and slept like a child. + +It was growing dusk when Adam awoke from his day-dreams. The tunnel +looked like a small grain elevator. On one side Robin still slept, but +the old cat was nestled contentedly at her feet, and the kittens were +playing sleepily over her. + +"What is she dreaming?" Adam asked wearily. "All day I have sat here +and dreamed dreams that can never come true. I know it; I feel it. I +told her a year, but I am as sure now as I shall be in six years, that +there is no hope. The watch-fire is out to-night,--the first night in +eight months. I shall re-light it for her sake; not that she is any +more deceived than I, but she will be happier to believe me still +hopeful. What will be the end of it all? How can it end?" + +"The same old way," came a sleepy voice from the leaves, "with the +'got married and lived happily ever after' formula." She sat up and +rubbed her eyes, and stretched lazily, to the discomfort of the +kittens, who retreated hastily. As she struggled to her feet and a +knowledge of her surroundings, her face changed pitifully, and she sat +down again and cried miserably. + +"Oh, it was so real!" she sobbed. "I can see it now. We were back in +the old house, in the library, don't you remember it? and Walter was +at the piano, and Louis had just asked me how to finish his last +story. Did I answer out loud? Oh, which is the dream, for that was as +real as this!" + +Adam stood and watched her. He tried not to think of that apropos +answer. He heard the beating, steady patter of the rain, and the +lowing of the cows, and there was not even a star in heaven to look at +him from its accustomed place with a friendly, twinkling promise for +the future. There was nothing left. So far as he was concerned, the +earth was without form and void. There was nothing to wait or hope +for. There was nothing to live for, neither cheerful yesterdays nor +confident to-morrows. What was the use in living? He looked down at +the slender creature lying outstretched almost at his feet, shaken +with the agony of long-repressed grief, and then at his long, muscular +hands. How little it would take to end it all for both of them! A mist +came over his eyes and he stooped, his hands outstretched toward her +white throat. They fell on the rounded curve of her shoulder. He +checked the caress as he checked the other impulse and shook her +instead. + +"Let us go home," he said. + +They went into the storm. + + + + +V + + + Why wilt thou take a castle on thy back + When God gave but a pack? + With gown of honest wear, why wilt thou tease + For braid and fripperies? + Learn thou with flowers to dress, with birds to feed, + And pinch thy large want to thy little need. + + FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE. + + +The next morning dawned clear and warm, and Adam, coming in with his +milk-pails, held out his hand to Robin. There were three ripe +strawberries. + +"See," he said, "they are the harbingers of spring, or a California +climate, and either way makes our gain. California without fogs and +fleas is heavenly enough for most people." + +Nevertheless, they completed the shelling of the corn, and made a bin +for it at the end of the tunnel, removing the cat family to the house, +where Lassie viewed their advent with jealous eyes. One day when they +had been hulling corn for nearly a week, Adam sat down and began +laughing. "Do you know how much corn it takes to plant an acre?" he +asked. + +"No," said Robin, blankly. "I know something about the number of +kernels to the hill,--'one for the cutworm, and one for the crow, and +one for something-or-other else, I forget what, and one to grow.' +Why?" + +"It takes eight quarts to plant an acre. We have raised about thirty +bushels to the acre, which is very well for sod. That will make over +fifteen thousand pounds of meal and hominy, and will feed us for seven +years, even if we eat six pounds daily. Unless there is a winter +season, when we must do something for the animals, there is not the +slightest use in planting more than an acre. As to the wheat, even +with a light yield, there would be fifteen hundred pounds to the acre. +We have fresh vegetables all the time, and there will be any quantity +of potatoes and cabbage and beans." + +"And yet people starved everywhere, and it seemed to me that the +farmers were the worst off of all." + +"They farmed to make money, not to live, and they had no control over +the markets. They had to sell or build barns. It is only Dives who can +afford to tear down the old ones and build greater. It was easier for +them to sell cheap to a man who took their wheat and held it until it +could be sold back to them as dear flour. They were eaten up with +mortgages and pests and interest. Have you noticed that there are +almost no insects here, not even flies and mosquitoes? They were never +so bad in the mountains, and apparently they have been wiped out with +the rest." + +"Truly, Adam," she said, "speaking just of the physical part of it, +would you regret this year?" + +He stood up and stretched out his arms, a splendid type of manhood, +smooth-shaven, with clear-cut features, bronzed, square-shouldered, +and powerful. + +"Oh, you are magnificent!" she cried involuntarily. "It has done you +good, great good. You are twice the man you were in strength and +health and resource; and if only we had been cast away on an island, +knowing we were sure to be rescued some day soon, I should not be +sorry at all." + +He colored and answered frankly: "Without the mental strain, I should +not regret this year. Sometimes, when I am sure it is a dream, and +that presently we shall waken, I can't help wondering whether we shall +not wish we had fretted less and enjoyed it more. When I come to think +of it, I believe it is the first time since I was a child that ways +and means have not troubled me. It was a good thing to work as we +have, to keep our minds employed, but now that we are sure that +starvation is five or six years away, we might as well drop the old, +headlong rush to get more than we need. That has been the trouble ever +since men began to make history. It was the same thing,--power, +conquest, riches, everything; too much to eat, too much to drink, too +much to wear--" + +"Well, you can't say that of us," said Robin ruefully, looking down at +her made-over gown. + +"Well, perhaps not, and I don't mean that there ever was a time when +there was a general surfeit, but I mean that was the tendency. There +would have been plenty for all, if part had not taken more than their +share; as for the other part who had not enough, they only longed for +the opportunity to simulate their unwise betters. When they could, +they took too much, too, if it was only to drink and forget their +misery. We could have lived so well and so easily, if we had lived +more simply, coming more directly in contact with nature, as we have +this year." + +She shook her head doubtfully. "This has not been real life at all. We +have only kept alive. We haven't read anything or done anything or +helped any one--" + +"Except each other and the animals dependent on us. On the whole, I +don't know but that we have accomplished about as much as when we were +devoting most of our attention to paying board and rent bills. We have +helped each other more than we can measure. We should have died had we +been left alone with our thoughts. All of life is not in cities, nor +even in books." + +She did not answer for some moments, and then said slowly, "If it were +a dream, and we were going back to the old life, what would you regret +most?" + +"If we were going back to the world we know, I should regret a good +many things; first, I suppose, that I did not realize sooner that we +must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed. +Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, à la +Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I +should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to +day. There is other writing I should want to do,--but there is no +paper, and I don't know how to make any." + +"There is plenty of time to do all that yet," she said. "What else +would you wish you had done?" + +He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not +understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that +we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we +used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should +have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship +when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a +dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped +and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there +had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them. + +"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly. + +She shrank a little, and her eyes looked far away, past the gateway. +"Some of the things you mention; very much that I had not encouraged +you more to go on with your work, but mainly--" + +"Well, mainly?" + +She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and answered +evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is that when +I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember all those +wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so wise. The +only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for cooking +without sugar, or spice, or fruit." + + + + +VI + + + Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it + will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still. + + SCOTT. + + +It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, was +chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room was +full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, with +an attempt at gayety. + +Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If only +I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England, +didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come +through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases +may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you +think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do, +please give me the smaller box; I am sure it has hair-pins and needles +and darning-cotton in it." + +Adam laughed. "We will give them to each other," he said, "and perhaps +you'll find some stockings in your box, if there is no box in your +stockings. We can dream of their contents all night, and--who +knows?--we may have a merry Christmas, after all." + +Robin hardly knew the place next morning. Adam had risen early and +decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly +glistened. "I wish I knew how to thank him," she said. + +"Do you like it?" he said, as he came in. "I was afraid I should waken +you putting it up." + +"Like it!" she answered, "Why, Adam, it is beautiful. You are just an +ideal Santa Claus." + +When they had finished their breakfast they went out and looked at the +boxes. + +"You must open yours first," she said; "it's so big I know it doesn't +contain anything nice, so we would better save mine till the last, and +then I can divide with you. What do you think it is? You shall have +three guesses." + +"It might be a piano from its size," he ventured. + +"No," she said decidedly. "It's not the right shape." + +"Or perhaps it's a feather-bed; I don't know of anything I want less." + +"It's too large for that; now guess, really." + +"As a matter of fact, I expect it is mining machinery, which will be +about as much use as another chimney; but here goes to find out." He +brought his hatchet down vigorously between the boards at one end, +where a slight crevice promised some leeway. + +"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but +stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute +treasures!" + +He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which he +removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as if +they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were no +more on earth to draw. When the top of the box was finally off, and a +quantity of papers removed, they gave a simultaneous cry of delight. +The box was full of books. They took them out, one at a time, with +little exclamations of pleasure, as an old friend came to light. +Sitting down on the ground they piled the books about them on the +papers, and opening favorites here and there read to each other and +themselves till long after noon. It was really a fine library, well +chosen, covering a wide range of subjects and including an +encyclopædia and an unusually fine edition of Shakespeare. + +"Isn't it the most beautiful Christmas present you can imagine, Adam?" +she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because, in the +old slang, you 'want the earth.'" + +"But we haven't even opened your box," he said. + +"I don't want to," she answered slowly. "Somehow I feel as if we would +better stop now and let well enough alone. Let us enjoy this awhile. +Perhaps the other box may spoil this one, or at least the day." + +Adam laughed with good-natured tolerance. "How absurd!" he said. "Let +us see what there is. You know you said yours would be the nicest; +besides, if it contains sawdust and last year's almanacs, I shall have +to divide with you, and we may quarrel over the Shakespeare." He +opened the box while she stood watching him with a strange +unwillingness. It had been labeled, "This Side Up," and on the very +top there was a wooden case. He put it in Robin's arms, and she opened +it with trembling fingers. She replaced the broken strings, adjusted +the bridge, tucked the violin under her chin, tuned it, and +straightway escaped from every sorry care of earth. + +Adam went on unpacking the box. It contained chiefly materials for +writing,--all the paraphernalia that the fastidious student requires. +There were many note-books, and at the bottom a large, handsomely +inlaid writing-desk. The name on the cover made him start and call +her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed +the vibrating wood with sudden feeling. + +"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's violins, +do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you open the +desk?" + +He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few +papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page +written, and read:-- + + "Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my + effects to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena + convinces me that I may have been in error, and that the + cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within + a few months I shall burn this book, and confess that I + should be written down an ass, or turn to it to prove myself + a prophet. From the eyrie I have chosen I expect to be able + to write the story of the coming deluge. It will be of great + value to posterity to have a calm, scientific account, quite + free from any tinge of superstition or religion. I have + to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies of my + calculations, with references to former inundations, and + reasons for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest + at this time. All geologists agree that--" + +Here the journal terminated abruptly. + +Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or possibly +she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if it were +the napkin over the face of the dead. + +"It is not to the wise that God has revealed himself," she said +softly. "Where is the hand that wrote this? You must finish it, Adam. +Here are the blank pages waiting for such a chapter as was never +written on earth." + +But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is all +true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked away +with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk; he +neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything, and +while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he had +never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a +rescue. + +Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its liquid +notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine, brushing +its fingers across his heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She +played for a long time, and when she ceased, in some strange way he +felt that he was comforted. + + + + +VII + + + The World is too much with us; late and soon + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; + Little we see in nature that is ours; + We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. + + * * * * * + + Great God! I'd rather be + A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-- + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; + Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; + Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. + + WORDSWORTH. + + +They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin +had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her +hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to +the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly. +The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither +had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of God +in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on earth. + +She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and she +answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend, +that the souls on other planets call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What +made it so sorrowful, Adam?" + +"Ignorance would cover it all," he answered, "but to be specific, +intemperance, sensuality, avarice, and poverty. I don't mean +drunkenness only, when I say intemperance. I have known a few +prohibitionists in my time who were as intemperate in their eating as +any one could be in the matter of drink. I think intemperance in its +widest sense was the great curse of our time anyway; drink and tobacco +and tea and coffee; and as to our eating, there was too much, of +almost everything on earth that was not food, but which could be +over-salted and over-peppered, and treated with tabasco sauce. We +over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing +all kinds of things in which there was no sense. Think of reading one +or two morning and evening papers every day. To be sure we said there +was nothing in them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a +stream of silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the +things we wore--" + +Robin laughed. "I know," she said. "The sewing-machine didn't save +work; it only made ruffles. A dressmaker once said to me, 'It's a good +thing for me that these women haven't sense enough to spend their time +and money on themselves, in making their bodies free and strong and +beautiful. But no; they would rather have a stylish dress than a +graceful body. They don't care to be beautiful themselves; all they +want is a handsome gown to cover their ugliness.' Isn't it strange +that we never seemed able to realize that the Greek fashions were +immortal because they were beautiful?" + +"Still, I don't think the dress of the Greek women would be very +convenient for housework," ventured Adam. + +Robin shook her head. "You only say that because some woman has said +it to you. The Diana of the Stag wore the first rainy-day gown. The +Greek dress was capable of ever so many modifications. If I were +making a handbook of proverbs for women, I should say, 'A good +complexion is rather to be chosen than many fine dresses, and glossy +and abundant hair turneth away wrath.' I believe in the simplification +of life. I understand just how Thoreau felt when he threw out that +specimen because it had to be dusted daily. There are very few things +beautiful enough to pay for that amount of trouble. But perhaps that +is because I don't care for specimens, and I loathe dusting." + +"You ought to have been a Jap," said Adam. "There was one in college, +in my class, and one day when I was fretting over something I could +not afford he said, in that immensely polite way of theirs, 'You I +cannot understand. With all American people it so is, even as by +Ruskin said was it; whatever you have, of it you more would get, and +where you are, you would go from. You happy are only when something +you get, and never that you yourself are.' But I think the Celestial +was wrong there. When a man is self-conscious of illy-made garments, a +mean domicile, a poor kind of half education, he is uncomfortable; he +hasn't accomplished his evolution from the conscious, the +self-conscious, to the unconscious. It was this very discomfort and +inequality that used so to enrage me, for it need not have been." + +"I wish," said Robin, "we knew how to make paper; of all the +fascinating things in Bellamy's 'Equality,' there was nothing I liked +so well as the idea of paper garments, to be burned when one got +through with them. Think of never having any washing and ironing, and +always having new clothes." + +"I wonder whether we could invent some of those things over again," +said Adam, reflectively. + +"I couldn't spare you any of my precious rags, if you could," said +Robin. + +"Most of the paper was made out of wood, anyhow," answered Adam, "and +the ash that grows here in any quantity was considered particularly +fine for that purpose." + +"'God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions,'" +quoted Robin, "and now we are going to seek them over again. I can't +imagine how anyone could ever make a lineotype, but the type and the +hand-press are easy enough, and if you can make paper, we may yet live +to read our 'published works.' You probably do not know that I used to +have a Wegg-like facility for dropping into poetry." + +"Did you? That is another of the things you never told me; but your +speaking of Thoreau," answered Adam, "recalls what he said of the +amount of work necessary to sustain life beside Walden Pond. It took +six weeks out of the year, and that was in a most forbidding country. +In such a valley as this two months ought to be sufficient to more +than feed and clothe us; but then he didn't have to make his own +clothing." + +"And out of nothing particular," interrupted Robin. + +Adam laughed and went on. "Did you ever hear of a man called Hertzka? +He was an eminent Austrian sociologist, and he figured it out, that if +five million men should work a little less than an hour and three +quarters a day they could produce all the necessities of life for the +twenty-two million people of Austria. By working two hours and twelve +minutes daily for two months beside, they could have all the luxuries +also. And that not for a few, not for the Court and the nobility, but +for all. There could have been music and pictures and books and +theatres, and sufficient food and clothing. Isn't it strange that when +we might have been so happy we preferred to be so wretched? For even +if we had all we wanted ourselves, we could not escape the sights and +sounds that told of abject misery." + +"It was always so," Robin answered moodily. "The poor we had always +with us. History always repeated itself." + +"Still, it didn't exactly repeat itself," Adam said. "Our dark age +would have done for a golden age in the past. Greece was glorious for +a little while, but her literature tells us of her ideals. The isles +of Greece, where Byron contracted his last illness, would have left +him to die among the rocks twenty-five hundred years earlier, because +he had a lame foot. We at least were kinder to animals, and that means +a great deal." + +"I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps; it seems to me I have read of +a hospital for sick animals on the island of Ceylon a long sometime B. +C. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--or was it Lady Hester Stanhope?--said +she had traveled all over the world, and had never found but two kinds +of people,--men and women. I fancy the same thing is true of all the +ages as well as all the countries." + +"No," Adam said, shaking his head; "our ideals change. The scheme of +life laid down by Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and to the Jews +a stumbling-block, and there were plenty of Greeks and Jews in our +day. By Greeks I mean people whose ideals were purely intellectual, +and by Jews those who saw no good save a material good, no God but the +God of Mammon. They would not hear either Moses or the prophets, and +the statute of limitations was as near as they could come to the +Sabbatic year. The Greek and the Jew have stood ready with their cup +of hemlock, their crown of thorns for every Christ-spirit that has +ever come to earth. Yet more people read Socrates, and believed on the +Nazarene every year. I don't mean in the church; the working-man did +not go to church, but he uncovered his head at the name of Christ, the +first lawgiver who confounded the scribes and Pharisees, and ate with +publicans and sinners." + +"But Moses was the first lawgiver to forbid taking the nether +millstone as a pledge," objected Robin. + +"True," he admitted, "and the laws of Moses would have made the world +over. He was the greatest writer on political economy this earth has +ever seen. His absolute fiat against the alienation of the land would +have done more for the common people than all Adam Smith's theories of +free competition, and Fourier's dream of a perfected communism. But +who would have known of Moses, save for Christ? The Old Testament +would have been merely the sacred book of the Hebrews, and save as a +literary and historic work, of very uncertain historic value, would +have been unread, as the Koran and other books of a similar nature +were unread." + +"And yet you do not believe in the divinity of Christ," she said +slowly. + +"No," he answered. "Is that necessary before one can believe in his +teachings? The truth is always divine. What difference does it make +whether the one who utters it be human or divine, bond or slave, Æsop +or Marcus Aurelius? the truth remains the same. A fable is only +another name of a parable. We have the story of the lost sheep; that's +a parable; and that of the lamb that muddied the stream, and that's a +fable. One is sacred, the other profane, but both are fables, both +parables. When you take them away from the context it is as easy to +feel for the lamb eaten by the wolf, as for the one that was rescued, +and has been immortalized in picture and song." + +"Probably you are right," she said. "I never thought of it in just +that way before," and saying "good night" she went to her room. + +Adam thought he heard her humming, "Away on the mountains cold and +bare." + + + + +VIII + + + When we mean to build + We first survey the plot, then draw the model, + And, then we see the figure of the house, + Then must we rate the cost of the erection. + + SHAKSPERE. + + +The discovery of the incomplete journal made a subtle change in Adam. +He had been silent and self-absorbed from the first, but he had never +quite given up hope. Even now, Robin sought to keep up the pretence, +and dreading the despair which she saw creeping over Adam, she began +artfully to seek some means of interesting him in something else. The +question of a proper place for the books gave her an opportunity, and +Adam suggested that he build an addition to the house. + +They planned it as eagerly as if it was to be a castle, and spent days +in looking for adobe, but finally decided that logs would be better, +and Adam's ax could have been heard ringing from morning till night. A +log house is not exactly a work of art, but it requires no little +skill to build one, and takes a good deal of time when the logs for +the floor must be planed and squared, so as to make a matched board +floor. Sometimes Robin went with Adam, and worked or read; sometimes +she took him his luncheon at noon, for the trees were at some little +distance from the house. The logs had to be "snaked" across the rough +ground and down the mountain, and when the floor had been laid, and +the location of the window decided upon, Robin planted morning-glory +seeds where it was to be. By dint of much pushing and hauling the logs +were finally put in place, and the roof battened down. The window was +truly worthy of a mediæval castle, for it was simply an oblong hole, +boxed in with a casement made from some scraps of boards, while a slab +shutter, swung on leather hinges, shut out the elements. + +The chinking was a simple matter, and when it was all done, including +a doorway into the main room, Robin was unfeignedly delighted. They +made rows of shelves with the packing-cases, and arranged the books +thereon. It was not an extensive library, but it occupied one side of +the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the window Robin placed the +green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's writing materials. Along +the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the fashion in miners' +cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft inner cornhusk, and +a pillow from the other room, and blankets from the one tiny closet, +the couch looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats +made from plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portière, woven +from the same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly +despised. + +Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the +room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin +was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that +they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory +blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means +unattractive. + +Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and she +scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or invented +furniture, until inside and out their little domain was as perfect as +they could make it. + +Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they +dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the +turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam +harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and +corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to +do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality. + +Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he could +sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and the +paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment, +then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How +when his friends got rich they first built a beautiful house, and then +went abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like +it?" + +The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it, and +he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the +expedition. + +Robin baked and prepared as well as she could. + +"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized, as +she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals over +it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and learned +how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and," as she +rolled out some crackers, "it is a blessed good thing I went to +cooking-school, but I wish that, instead of being so particular about +the knobs on the candlesticks, the Pentateuch had given Sarah's recipe +for making cakes with honey. Not that I have any honey, but I am sure +we shall find some on this trip." + +When they were all ready, and the burros stood waiting at the door, +with Lassie jumping wildly about them, Adam wrote a placard which he +stuck in the framework of the door. The stock had been turned loose on +the mountain-side, and the house and stables secured as well as +possible against any storms that might arise. The kittens had +possession of one of the sheds. The puppies were to accompany them. + +Robin had put on her long unused shoes, and a new gown that she had +made out of a dark blue serge found hanging in her room. Adam looked +at her approvingly from under his wide sombrero. She turned back, +after going a few paces, and read the card. + + WAIT! + + APRIL 5th. + + Back in two weeks. + + Look for smoke. + +As she passed into the cañon that hid their home from sight, Adam saw +her brush her hand across her eyes. + + + + +IX + + I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis + all barren." + + STERNE. + + +They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending +their way through dim defiles and along precipitous cañons, until they +saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time +that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide +tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved +that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They +had not looked upon the ocean before for many months. + +They picketed the burros on the rank, salt grass, and built their +camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began +her supper preparations, Adam went scouting along the coast. In less +than half an hour he came back with a quantity of clams which he threw +down before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags. +She gave a little feminine shriek of delight. + +"Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot," she said; +"bring it here, please." + +Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and stir +in the various ingredients. + +"It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted," she said, "even +if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of our +adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate." + +"They might think it a voracious tale if I did," he answered, dropping +some more butter into his mealy potato. "Do you remember how the Swiss +Family were always worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to +eat?" + +"Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast, and +a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for supper. +And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed one of +their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good to +eat?" + +They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they +were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle +was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said "good +night." It had been an exciting day. + +It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened by +Lassie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to Robin. +There was no answer, and her blankets lay tossed on the other side of +the fire. He started up and listened. At first he heard only the sound +of the sea; then there came mingled with it the clear notes of her +glorious voice. Holding Lassie in check he went down to the beach. + +Robin stood well out on the shimmering sand, the waves lapping softly +almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and caught the +words,-- + + "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove, Far away, + far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest." + +Her voice quivered when she came to the words, "In the wilderness +build me a nest," but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn +after hymn, anthem after anthem, for she sang nothing else. He heard +the bitter cry of the De Profundis, Handel's triumphant "I know that +my Redeemer liveth," and then she began, "He watching over Israel +slumbers not nor sleeps." + +His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had written +by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom, she had +put those five bars from "Elijah." Though he did not believe it, for +he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own race, and +the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had comforted him +in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an American +"non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching over Israel +had not been less merciful. + +Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year, +though she was a very perfectly trained musician. Indeed in the old +days, Adam had first sought her acquaintance because of her music. + +Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred to +keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back, and +controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him +intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh +that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows. + +Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their +melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour +was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts +and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long, +prickly vines that would be covered with raspberries, and wild grapes +and choke-cherries and currants, which they planned to transplant, for +though the Western coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more +convenient than their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley. +Already it had come to mean home. + +They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the island, +making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if anywhere, on +land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and every night +their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their vicinity. The +island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising here and +there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point, Adam said, +"We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always named +places." + +Robin looked at the bare, stone walls rising sheer above the waves +three hundred feet, and her lip curled. + +"Let us call it the Cape of Good Hope," she said. + +"In the name of wonder, why?" asked Adam, and she answered, "Because +we are past it," and then would have given anything to have recalled +the bitter words. + +The Eastern coast was wilder and more picturesque, but the traveling +was correspondingly slower. Something in the formation of the coast +caused a terrific surf, and at many places there was scarcely any +beach, and they found themselves compelled to climb along trails that +made even the burros dizzy. + +When they had been absent ten days, Robin said, "I begin to feel like +a grandmother; no, I don't mean that I feel so old, but that I begin +to long to see the chicken and cat-children, and the new calf, +and--everything." + +Adam laughed, "I have been thinking we ought to hurry; that place of +ours is growing so entrancingly lovely in memory that last night I +dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!" + +They were not to reach home without at least one adventure, however. A +day or so later, as they toiled up a painfully steep ascent, Lassie +sounded the note of alarm, and catching up the rifle, Adam ran ahead. +As he rounded a point in the rocks, he came upon a Rocky Mountain goat +engaged in combat with a cinnamon bear. The bear was hardly more than +a cub, and was carrying off one of the kids. The goat, horns down, was +fighting viciously, though weak from loss of blood. + +It would be interesting to know what one wild animal thinks when +another wild animal, from its point of view, comes to the rescue. Adam +carried a lariat over one arm. In an instant it flew through the air, +dropping over Bruin's shoulders. He released the kid, and tumbled +backward over the cliff, as much with surprise as by the force of the +jerk on the rope, taking that treasured article with him. + +It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their hurts, +and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there was a +beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as they +put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said tentatively, +"If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses and the +sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I can be back in three +hours,--I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as I +think." + +Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering +driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the +coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build +a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its +uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and +put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly. + +"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls, I +will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle +Books' by heart for nothing." + +Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought him +to the little cove and the high wall of rocks that shut them in on the +south in a little over an hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and +they raced on ahead, as he came in sight of the house. Everything +seemed to have an air of welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully +when he called them from the gateway. + +The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his hand, +and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows, and +gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the team +and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at the +south, they went on rapidly. + +Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw +her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not +been separated so long before that year, and realized the unconscious +strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however, +though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the +horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed +against her affectionately. + +She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they had +their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the kids +their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took but +a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and the +goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the +cavalcade started on its way. + + + + +X + + + Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed + Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head, + And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, + Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, + Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow + Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow; + Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide + More heart's repose than all the world beside. + + LEONIDAS. + + +"Do you know, Adam," said Robin, when they had walked a mile in +silence, "do you know that you are a fraud?" + +"Well, yes," he responded, "but I didn't know you knew it. Is the +discovery recent?" + +"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle +instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?" + +"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good +and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last +year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have +done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it +would seem like murder to slaughter the animals about us. And it's +such a little world it seems a pity to kill off any of its +inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope the bear got away all right. +This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want my hand first to bring death +on all there is left of earth. Incidentally,--there are no +cartridges." + +He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them +more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved +on. + +Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!" + +There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and asked +why, and she answered:-- + +"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is that +we shall need their fleece unless,--why, goodness gracious, Adam, +there is a baking-powder can of flax in the dresser, and I never +thought till this moment that we can plant it." + +"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do +with it?" + +"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I can't, +but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl, very near +to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded +and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own +soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, +too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and +on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, +she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor +'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound +of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when she found I +couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and during the +seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to school she +taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I have +forgotten them." + +"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam. + +She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder. + +"I have a fancy," she said, "that Nannette and her children are going +to minister to a mind diseased, and help pluck a rooted sorrow from +the brain. The world was getting too healthy. Has it ever struck you +that we have neither of us been sick for a day this year? I have had +to mother the chickens, but there has been no suffering. I'm not glad +to have pain come into the world, but it is good to be able to +alleviate it. We will put Nannette in a sling till her leg has a +chance to set, and by the time it is well she won't want to leave us. +As for the kids, I expect they will be like the plague of frogs, and +we shall find them in our beds and our ovens and our kneading troughs. +Oh, Adam, there is the house! Doesn't it look dear and homey?" + +She put the kid back on the sled, and ran on, pointing out this and +that, the growth of the corn, the afternoon radiance, till they +reached their doorway. Then there were a thousand things to do. First +Nannette was made comfortable in the stable; then the chickens were +summoned to a meal of yellow corn, and when Lassie drove the cows into +the barnyard, each was congratulated in turn upon her calf, and those +interesting, if wobbly, bovine infants were carefully inspected. After +supper they sat down before the fire, very tired, but the nearest +happy they had been in a year. The dogs were lying about them, and the +thump, thump of first one tail and then another told the story of +canine content, while the kittens walked over them impartially. + +"What a strange thing human nature is!" Adam said. "The only thing +needed to make our life perfect is that it shall not last. The moment, +if that moment ever comes, when it is real no more, it will become +ideal." + +"I know," she said dreamily. "Things in the world used to be too good +to be true. This must cease to be, to be good at all." + + + + +XI + + + Yet if Hope has flown away + In a night, or in a day, + In a vision, or in none. + Is it therefore the less gone? + All that we see or seem + Is but a dream within a dream. + + POE. + + +"It is the first of May," said Adam. "It is a year ago to-day. Shall +we pass the gateway?" + +"Not now," answered Robin. "Wait till afternoon. I am so busy this +morning." + +She was sitting at the table teaching half a dozen little chickens to +appreciate hard-boiled egg. The wounded kid was lying in her lap, one +arm was about it, and an adventurous kitten looked over her shoulder. +As she tapped on the board with one slender forefinger, the chickens, +hearing their mother's bill, began picking up the fragments of egg. +She had rounded out wonderfully in a year, and Adam realized for the +first time that she was a very beautiful woman. + +"Suppose," she went on, "you begin your book to-day. Write your +description of a year ago. It will never be so plain again. There is +plenty of time before we go. Besides, if it is a dream, we shall want +the written record to show what dreams may come." + +Adam hesitated a moment, then went to his desk. She had said truly, +the events of that day would never again be so clear, and as he began +to record them they marshaled themselves before him, until he found +himself writing with a dramatic power that fascinated and amazed him. + +It must have been some time afterward that Robin stole in and set a +glass of milk, some biscuit and strawberries, down on the desk beside +him and then went out, taking the dogs with her. He did not notice +another sound until she called him to supper. + +While he did the evening work Robin dressed herself in the garments +she had worn the year before. As soon as she could make others she had +put them aside, awaiting the awakening or the rescue. + +The heavy cloth skirt and the silk waist were put on with a strange +reluctance. Years ago the old doctor in "The Guardian Angel" said our +china became our tombstones, but surely our garments may become the +graveyards of our emotions, and hold sharp or sweet remembrances long +after they are past wearing. In spite of some tan Robin found the face +that looked back at her from her mirror infinitely more attractive +than it had been the year before. + +Adam started a little when he saw her. Then he drew her hand through +his arm, and they went to the gateway. As he opened the gate she +turned and looked back. The sun was behind the mountains, and the +shadows were long and dark. They heard the sounds of the various +creatures settling into quiet for the night, and Adam sent back all +the dogs but Lassie. They went slowly and wistfully. Robin stooped and +kissed Prince on his white forehead. As Adam closed the gate, she said +half fearfully, "Shall we ever see them again?" But he did not answer. +He took her hand and led her to the boulder. + +Far as the eye could reach they saw what they expected to see. Half a +mile away the sea rolled in on a tolerably level beach; here it +thundered and roared against a sheer cliff. Among the rocks they could +see the nests of many wild-fowl, and gulls flew by them. They sat down +on the rock and waited until midnight. Then they went home. The dogs +received them obstreperously, and the kid from its corner bleated +faintly. Robin bent over it anxiously, then warmed some milk and fed +it. When Adam came in with some fresh water she was swinging slowly to +and fro in the rocker, singing softly an absurd nursery song:-- + + "Sleep, baby, sleep. + The stars they are the sheep; + The big moon is the shepherdess; + The little stars are the lambs, I guess. + Sleep, baby, sleep." + +"It needed to be cuddled," she said in as matter-of-fact a voice as if +all lambs were sung to sleep regularly. "You know dear old Professor +Carter said there would have been no wild animals if we hadn't made +them so; but now, if you will, you can put her with Nannie." + +When he came back she had gone into her room. There was nothing more +for either of them to say. There was nothing to do, except to hope for +a sail, since they no longer hoped for an awakening. + + + + +XII + + Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken. + + GEORGE ELIOT. + + +The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to refer +to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone away, to +leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more +frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of +morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one +who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on +smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours +with her violin. + +One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and he +rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and through +the gateway to their boulder, and sat down. + +"Talk to me," said Adam. + +She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am +but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely +tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in +thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are +eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and +they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in +bloom. It is so pretty." + +"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam. + +"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to weave. +Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of it +this morning as I pulled out some weeds, and how when it was pulled up +and cut and hackled, it said: 'One cannot always have good times. One +must make one's experience, and so one comes to know something;' and +when it is woven and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If +I have suffered something, I have been made into something. I am +happiest of all. That is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use +in the world, and that is right, that is a true pleasure.'" + +"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if we +could see the justification of our suffering." + +"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of the +flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is again +tortured and beaten until it becomes paper whereon an eternal word is +written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that +I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers +of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and +wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you +remember my girls' club down on--I don't think there were any streets, +but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?" + +"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you tell +me?" + +"That was ever so long ago, ages and ages,--when you came to see--" +She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun that tells +the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as to betray +unspeakable heights of adoration or abysses of loathing. She went on +slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if +there existed anything in common between you two? That sounds +dreadful, but you know all about it so well that subterfuges are +useless." + +"To tell the truth, I never cared anything about him at all," Adam +answered quickly. "Like a good many others, I was enthusiastic over +your voice. He asked me to the house to hear you sing, and I went, and +was glad of the chance. And you have never sung for me once this +year." + +"You never asked me," she answered. "'A dumb priest loses his +benefice.' But I was speaking of my club. We studied Andersen all +winter, and got enough more out of him than a lot of us who pored over +Ibsen, guided by a literary expert. Andersen has a more beautiful, a +more inspiring philosophy. Every nation has its story of Psyche, the +lost soul of things, but none is more beautiful than the tale of Gerda +and Kay. There were children in that club who were cruel, horribly +cruel, and one day when we gave an entertainment for them, one of the +older girls recited the story of 'The Daisy and the Lark.' They cried +as I had cried over it years before." + +"I remember," he said. "It broke my heart when I was a little shaver. +I couldn't give so sad a story as that to a child." + +"Oh, yes, you could," she said, "if the child needed it. The world was +cruel, cruel, Adam; I used to wonder sometimes why God did not blot it +all out, as He has blotted it out now. Once in another club, a big, +swell affair, there was a Humane Society programme. One woman, in a +Persian lamb jacket, spoke on the evils of the overcheck; you know how +they get that wool? And women nodded the aigrettes in their bonnets, +torn from the old birds while the little ones starved to death, to +show their approval, and patted their hands gloved in the skins of +kids, sewed in cloth soon after their birth so they couldn't grow a +fleece, and tortured all their short lives, and went home to eat +pâté-de-foie gras, and broil live lobsters, thanking God they were not +as the rest of men, if only they let out their check-reins a hole or +so. It was horrible,--the cruelties men practised to gratify appetite, +and that women were guilty of for vanity. I suppose I am a monomaniac +on the subject, but we never seemed far removed from barbarians, when +we went clothed in the skins of wild animals, and decorated with their +heads and tails and feathers, like so many Sioux chiefs. The varnish +of civilization isn't dry on us yet. Why, if a ship should come here +now, do you know what they would do first, unless they happened to be +East Indians? They would say they wanted some fresh meat, and offer to +buy Lily; she is the fattest of the cows. If we wouldn't sell her, +they would probably take her anyway." + +"Kill Lily," cried Adam, angrily. "They'd have me to kill first; +nothing on this place is going to be slaughtered while I can protect +it." He went on more slowly, a little ashamed of his heat, "I feel a +sense of kinship with all these creatures that would make it +impossible to kill them. It's like the woman whose Newfoundland died, +and a friend asked if she was going to have him stuffed. 'Stuffed!' +she said; 'I'd as soon think of stuffing my husband!'" + +Robin laughed, and leaning over tweaked Lassie's ear. "If we are to be +stuffed, we prefer to have it an ante-mortem performance, don't we, +little dog?" + +The sun dropped behind the tall peaks, but its dying light still +covered sea and shore. They rose as if for the benediction, and looked +out at the waters before them. Then they looked at each other and grew +white to the lips, and Robin knelt down and flinging her arms around +Lassie sobbed and laughed. Adam never took his eyes from the coming +ship. + + + + +XIII + + + Every ship brings a word; + Well for those who have no fear, + Looking seaward well assured + That the word the vessel brings + Is the word they wish to hear. + + EMERSON. + + +The ship bore steadily toward them, but night was coming on so rapidly +that her lines were obscured. They could not even tell whether it was +a sailing vessel or propelled by steam. + +"There's one thing certain," said Adam, excitedly: "it was coming this +way, but very slowly. I suppose that is to be expected of a ship +sailing unknown waters. They have nothing to go by, though they know, +of course, just what part of the round globe they are on." + +She answered almost apathetically, as if she found it difficult to +talk, "It seems as if good sailors would lay by at night, when they do +not know their course, and there is land in sight,--land that has +never been explored." + +"It does seem strange she should come right on," he assented. "For +surely no ship has ever sailed these seas before. Perhaps--" + +"Perhaps what?" + +"Perhaps she has been clear around; perhaps this is the only bit of +land left above a world ocean." + +Robin shivered a little, and Adam turned toward the beacon, that had +glowed in vain for a year. It had been built on a high, altar-shaped +rock, across the gorge, where it could be kept up without leaving the +park. Robin went with him, and they gathered a pile of timber that +insured the brilliancy of their signal until morning. Adam piled on +the logs till the blaze leaped far up in the darkness; then they went +back to the boulder and sat down to think and wait. + +"See how the wind is rising," said Robin, breaking a silence of an +hour, during which even Lassie had been motionless. + +"But it is toward land," answered Adam. + +"But the same wind that brings us the ship may dash it to pieces on +this awful coast." + +"True, but she is far enough out to make herself secure. Oh, Robin, +suppose she sails around us and goes on!" + +"That is impossible," answered Robin. "The people on that ship are as +anxious to find us as we can be to see them, if they are civilized at +all. Noah and Mt. Ararat are not to be named in the same day with us." + +Adam crossed the gorge and added fuel to the fire. For a time the wind +increased in velocity until a stiff gale was blowing, then, as the +small hours came on, it waned, and the beacon flared straight up once +more. + +"I wonder where's she from?" said Adam. + +"I wonder where she is now," answered Robin. + +"I feel sure," he said, "when morning comes we shall see her riding +the waves out there; and think of it, Robin, we can go!" + +Robin made no reply, and her very silence made Adam repeat, but as a +self-addressed question, "Go where? Yes," he went on quickly, "go +where, Robin. Suppose the ship is all right, and that she stops, and +the crew are not pirates, and are willing to take us aboard, where are +we to go? Is there any place on earth that can mean as much to us as +this island? Suppose Asia, or Africa, or Europe are still in +existence, we should not regain our friends and relatives, and life +would be harder with strange people, under a strange government, far +more so than we have found it here, even without so many of its +luxuries." + +Robin shook her head sadly. "At first, Adam. We should learn their +language and their customs. New friends are speedily acquired, and as +for relatives,--well, in the scheme of life relatives don't count for +much. There always comes a time when they step out of our lives, +anyway." + +"But as to happiness?" + +Her face paled a little. "Have you been happy here?" she asked, +without raising her eyes to his, and then went on, not waiting for a +reply, "If you have been, it has been in the care of our little family +of dependents, who do not need you half so much as the great family of +human dependents. Rest assured if there is a continent over there +across the darkness, it is peopled with beings who need the devoted +and unselfish labors of such a man as you. You would find your work +easily enough,--the work you have been saved for, the work you must +do." + +"But if there is no continent left?" he queried. + +"In that case there must be islands; there were many mountains higher +than these, and they are peopled, no doubt. Shall we not go to these +other orphans, deserted by Mother Earth, our brothers and sisters, +through our common calamity?" + +Both were silent, engrossed in their own thoughts. A return to the +world meant going back to the uncivilized rush of civilization. It +meant the eternal question of what shall we eat, and what shall we +drink, and where-withal shall we be clothed? It meant the old +competition, the stern old law of the survival of the brawniest. Above +all, to Robin, it meant separation from Adam, for once more in Rome, +the customs of Rome must be followed. To do Adam justice, this was a +contingency which did not enter his mind. As he had said before, +whatever had put them in this dream together would keep them there, so +that when he thought of relinquishing all the comfort and ease and +quiet of his present life, all the loving animals, the cosy little +house, the tiny fields, the blooming garden, it never occurred to him +that he must relinquish more than all these things, more than the +peace and harmony, that which, unconsciously, had come to be the very +guiding star of his life. + +"I wonder if whoever is left cares for grand opera?" said Robin, +rather grimly. + +"Why?" asked Adam in so startled a voice that she laughed +hysterically. + +"It's the only thing I know well enough to make a living at it," she +said laconically. "I think the fire needs some more wood, Adam." + +As he replenished it, her words burned themselves upon his brain, and +he realized in an instant that a return to the old world meant giving +up this supreme friend, all that he had left in the world, all there +was for him in any world. The thing was impossible. He turned to go +back to her, some kind of an impetuous avowal on his lips, but she had +left the boulder and walked down almost to the edge of a precipitous +cliff which they had called "Lover's Leap," in a spirit of badinage. +She stood there quietly, watching the gray dawn, and his heart +impelled him to go to her and take her in his arms. As his love +revealed itself to him in all its power, it seemed impossible that he +should know it now for the first time. Why, why, had he been so blind? +If the ship took them away-- + +He walked unsteadily down to her, resolved to say nothing. If she +wanted to go, her wish should be sufficient. + +The dawn came slowly, but it came at last. As the darkness lifted, a +slight fog settled over the face of the waters. Instinctively they +recalled that other night when they had watched through the mist and +his hand closed over hers. The sun was well up before the east wind +dissipated it, and left only the dancing waves, brilliantly blue, +stretching away into the dawn. On all that broad expanse there was not +so much as a cockle-shell afloat. + +Robin turned and looked to right and left in bewilderment, and then at +Adam. + +His chest was heaving, and as his eyes searched her face he cried, +"Thank God," and gathered her up in his arms. She nestled there +without a word. + +They crossed the gorge and scattered the brands of their watch-fire, +and walked on down to the cove. Suddenly Lassie came bounding toward +them uttering short, excited barks. They quickened their pace, and as +they came in sight of the beach discovered the object of her alarm. +Against a small promontory, lying on one side, was the ship they had +sighted the evening before. It was a hopeless wreck, and had borne to +them no living thing. Yet it had served its purpose. It had revealed +their love for each other, and told them that they had hoped against a +second deluge in vain. + + + + +XIV + + + The truth of truths is love. + + + BAILEY. + + +As Adam went about his morning's work he was filled with a sense of +gladness, an exaltation of life he had never known before. He +stretched out his arms, as if to let all the glory of the earth meet +the profounder splendor of his soul. As he walked down the garden path +he looked with affection at the flowers they had planted together. But +for the absurdity of it, he could have woven a chaplet of them and +worn it. But the world had reached that height of civilization where +the symbol of the glad and living thing was too emotional; always and +everywhere we preferred the dead thing, the skin of the seal, the +shroud of the silkworm, the straw that was left after the flowers were +gone; and Adam was still civilized. + +He accepted his happiness without a question. It was too real, too +keen, too great a revelation for him to stop to analyze it. He knew it +in every pulsation of his heart, in every imagination of his mind, and +with the quickened senses of the lover he perceived that Robin's +feelings differed from his own. For a year he had been lost in +introspection; now they seemed to have changed places, and she grew +silent and almost reserved. + +"What is it, dear?" he said. "No, don't try to evade an answer. We +must not stop being frank with each other now." + +She did not reply at once, and when she did her voice was so low that +he had to stoop to catch the words. "Do you think you do love me as +fully as you might have loved some one else, younger and happier than +I, better fitted to you? It doesn't seem as if you could; you never +did in the old days, you never even thought of it." + +Adam laughed lightly. "I beg of you spare me, for this isn't 'so +sudden' at all." Then seeing that her mood forbade jest, he went on +seriously: "Really, I mean it. It's true I never made you pretty +speeches in the old days, nor stopped to consider whether I might have +done so had things been different; but then I never made pretty +speeches to any one. From the very beginning I have taken you as a +matter of course. It always seemed as if we had known each other from +the very first. You entered into my plans as if you had known them as +you might if we had gone to the same little red schoolhouse. I wish we +had! I'm jealous of the years when I didn't know you." + +"But a whole year," she said doubtfully. "Are you sure it isn't just +loneliness and propinquity?" + +Adam kissed her fingers one at a time. "You are going to beg my pardon +for that some day," he said. "You are not very vain, my sweetheart; +how could I help loving you?" + +"That's just what I am finding fault with," she said with a sudden +twinkle of fun in her eyes. "You have managed to keep from it so long. +But seriously, I am not the kind of a woman I should have fancied you +would care for. I am, at least I was, very weary of life; I knew too +much about it. And I am older than you." + +He looked at her critically. "You were, a year ago," he answered; "I +don't know how much, two or three years--" + +"Five," she said. + +"Well, five; but this last year you have been growing young. The very +fact that you were tired of the old life made it less of a strain for +you to give it up. The tired look is all gone, even from your eyes, +whereas lots of gray has come into my hair. You had learned to live in +yourself and your music. My whole scheme of life was wrapped up in the +social existence of our time. In a way I lost more than you did. I +have learned a good deal this past year. Five years ago, if I had +loved you, there would have been many inequalities between us that do +not exist to-day. Now it seems to me we are as absolutely mated, as +much parts of one whole as the two halves of the brain, or the right +and left ventricles of our hearts. It is no disparagement of you or of +myself to say that no boy could appreciate you. The measure of a man's +manhood is his ability to understand the highest type of womanhood. As +to your being worldly, that's all nonsense." He stroked her hair a few +minutes in silence, and then said, half quizzically, "You might +question me, if I said it, but this is what Balzac said of women like +you: 'A woman who has received a man's education possesses a faculty +which is the most fertile in happiness for herself and her husband; +but that woman is as rare as happiness itself.'" + +She looked pleased, but she did not reply, and he went on. + +"Do you still doubt me? Well, then, know that I have loved you from +the very beginning, for love, when it comes, is a retroactive law of +our being. If I had loved you less, if you had seemed less a part of +me, I might have realized it sooner." + +She shook her head. "I have known that I loved you for a long time, +months," she said. + +"Then you ought to have known I loved you," he answered quickly. +"Don't you think it is possible to love with our souls, our +subconsciousness, and realize with our slow brains, after months and +years, what our hearts knew at once? Even love has become more or less +of a mental process. We reason about things instead of feeling them, +and yet when we come to our last analyses we don't _know_ anything; we +simply feel. When the scientist says, 'The amoeba moves out of the +shade into the sunlight because it wants the sunlight,' he bases his +postulate upon what he feels, and believes that the atom feels. This +is all that he knows. We do not seek warmth because we have calculated +its effects upon us, but because we feel cold. Oh, we have starved our +feelings to feed our brains, until the mind believes it is the +immortal part of us, instead of realizing that what we know, we are +merely re-discovering, while what we feel is our apperception of the +infinite. If we had the courage to be true to our feelings, instead of +our thoughts, I believe it would be a better, as it would certainly be +a truer, world." + +"Do you really think more people are guided by thought than by +feeling?" she asked with a good deal of surprise. + +"Perhaps not in one sense," he answered. "A great many people are +carried along by their impulses, their transitory emotions, which are +not, properly speaking, feelings at all. They make what some one calls +the 'fatal error of mistaking the eddy for the current.' But among +educated people it seems to me that we think too much, especially of +our own thoughts, and feel too little. All this year I have not said +that I loved you; I don't know that I have thought it, but I have felt +and lived it. Sometimes I have not been thoughtful--" + +"You have always been too thoughtful," she interrupted. + +"No, but when I have been inconsiderate it was because you were +myself, the best self that we overlook sometimes, but return to with +unfailing loyalty. You were not bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; +that is a very low and material view of what you have been and are to +me, heart of my heart and soul of my soul. I cannot think of a life +apart from you, for you are my life. Marriage is not a matter of a +license and a ceremony and Mendelssohn and gaping crowds and a tour. +We do not need any one to tell us that what God has joined cannot be +sundered by man. All this year has been a long wedding of every +thought and feeling and desire, until I have looked into your eyes to +see my own wish. We have thought and thought, but that way madness +lies. Now I feel that all the world we have lost, lives for us in +every glorious possibility in each other. For I know that you love +me." + +"Yes," she said, "I think I have loved you all along, but it never +entered my dreams that you could love me. Even now, when you tell me, +it does not seem as if it could be so, either by the mental process, +or by that of feeling." + +He caught her in his arms and kissed her, a kiss so long and tender +that it left her clinging to him, breathless and half awakened. + +"Don't think," he said, "feel,--feel my heart and know that every beat +is for you, that every atom of me calls for you, and every drop of +blood obeys, as it would command you. I have tried to reach the ideal +of the love that says, not 'thou must be mine,' but 'I must be thine,' +but I have failed if you can doubt me." + +She flung her arms around his neck with sudden passion. + +"This is the greatest, the most perfect dream of all," she said; "I +think it must be heaven." + +"A new heaven and a new earth," he answered gently. + + + + +XV + + + Women alone know how much attraction there is in the respect which + a master shows them. + + + BALZAC. + + +The derelict did not afford them much amusement or information. The +waves soon beat her to pieces on the savage rocks. Apparently she had +been a ship plying between Western ports, probably San Francisco and +Honolulu. In the wreckage washed up there were a few pounds of rice, +and some brooms of what they believed to be sugar-cane. There was +nothing else. + +"Not even a lemon!" Robin said disconsolately. "Think of living all +one's natural life not only ten, but ten thousand miles from a lemon." + +Adam laughed sympathetically. "It's like a yachting party I remember; +we found that the boat we had engaged had been taken by somebody else, +and our set had to be divided. Later in the evening we discovered that +we had all the sugar and the other crowd all the lemons. ''Twas ever +thus from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay: I never +wanted something sour, but what molasses came my way.' Never mind, +dear. We will go and plant our sugar, and by the time it is ready to +sweeten anything, a whole cargo of lemons may have floated into harbor +right at our door." + +They crossed the ranges to the western coast, where there was lower +ground, better fitted to the supposed requirements of rice and cane, +and had a good deal of amusement out of their ignorance, neither of +them having more than a misty idea about either rice or sugar before +they reach the stage to be served together. + +It was quite late when they were through and camped for supper. +Remembering their trip of a few weeks previous, that now seemed so +long ago, Adam said, "Are you too tired to sing, dear? It is so long +since I have heard you." + +She stood up and thought for a moment, and then putting back her +loosened hair began with Bourdillon's "The night has a thousand eyes," +and sang on and on. At last, turning to Adam with a little fond +gesture, and altering the words slightly, she sang: + + "Like a laverlock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! + All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. + What's the world, my lad, my love? What can it do? + I am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new. + If the world have missed the mark, let it stand by, + For we two have gotten leave, and once more we'll try." + +"'Once more,'" Adam repeated. "Once more, my darling! Oh, life is +sweet and new for us; we can afford to lose the world! When will you +come to me, love, when?" + +She shook her head with a little wilful laugh, and all the glistening +glory of her hair fell about her like a wedding veil. + +"Wait," she said; "wait a little. The flax is not nearly ready for +spinning yet; can a bride forget her attire? Besides, how can we be--" +she paused, and let her silence fill the gap, "when I know we neither +of us know any ceremony more dignified than hopping over a +broomstick?" + +They started homeward, walking slowly through the dimly lighted +mountain gorges, talking the ineffable nonsense that lovers never +weary of. As they came to a brook that rushed noisily down the ravine, +Adam stepped across, and held out his hand to her. + +"Wait a moment," he said, "just where you are, dear, and say this with +me:-- + +"'Over running water: my love I give to you, my life I pledge to you, +my heart I take not back from you while this water runs. + +"'Over running water: every seventh year, at this time of the year, at +this hour of the night, I will meet you here to renew my troth; death +alone to relieve me of this vow.'" + +"Is that all?" she asked wonderingly. "Over running water, while this +water runs, while there is any snow in the mountains, or rivers upon +land, or waters in the seas, or clouds in the skies, when the world is +old, and the sun burned out, and time grows weary, I shall love you +still, always and forever. What is it all about, love?" He clasped her +close, and did not answer at once. "Don't you know that old Irish +troth," he said, "which would have been enough, even in that hard, +unromantic world of ours, to have made you legally my wife, if said +over any Scottish stream? I thought you knew; you are sure I would not +trick you? You know I could not?" He put her head back on his shoulder +and looked into her shining eyes. It seemed to him he could not bear +even a look of reproach. She raised her hands almost as if she were +placing an invisible crown upon his head, and let her arms fall about +his shoulders. + +"Then I am your wife while living water runs?" + +"Forever and forever," he replied. + +"Oh, wait, wait just a little," she answered. + + + + +XVI + + All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be + strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in + trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in + that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of + society. + + BURKE. + + +Adam found a note beside his plate in the morning. "I will be back +before five o'clock," it said; "I must think." He did not sit down to +the table she had spread for him, but called the dogs; Prince was +missing, and this was a relief to him. Nothing could happen to her +when Prince was with her. His first impulse was to follow her, but he +repelled it, and he too sat down to think. Lassie whined uneasily, and +he stroked her head absent-mindedly, and finally went out and tried to +work. The hours dragged away, and by four o'clock he could stand it no +longer. He went to the gateway. As he unfastened it, he saw her coming +toward him, but she stopped and he joined her, and together they +turned back to the boulder. He noticed that she was very white, and +that her eyes looked as if she had not slept, but he only said, "Have +you thought?" + +"Yes," she answered, "I have thought." + +"And decided?" + +"No," she said wearily; "we must decide together. We are not children, +Adam, nor are we in any way the prototypes of those first parents of +ours. I think sometimes that ever since their day their children have +been walking in a blind circle, eating not the fruit of knowledge, but +of the knowledge of good and evil. And what do we know, you and I, +after all these years? Are you sure what we ought to do? It is as if +God had taken us into a conspiracy to renew the old, or create a new, +scheme of existence. Possibly we are being tried, tested, to prove +whether or not we have learned our lesson. We must be brave enough to +think, not what is our will, but what is our duty. Think of the awful +responsibility, whichever way we choose." + +"I can't," said Adam. "I can't think of anything but you." + +"Nor I of aught but you," she said, moving away, "when you hold me so. +But we _must_ think." + +"I have," answered Adam, gravely. "All my life I have thought. I have +wanted the perfect companionship of the one woman in all the world who +could give it; I have always known she would come. I have wanted a +home; I have wanted to see my sons and daughters grow up about me. I +wanted to be a power for good in this world of which we are a part, +and where we live for some good purpose, if there be any purpose in +life. I have so conducted myself that I can look a good woman in the +face, and offer her my life, for whatever it is worth, without damning +recollections to come between us. My children will have a clean +heritage of blood and name. The family tree was scoffed at in America, +but, thank God, mine was an oak that had weathered many a gale. Not +very great folk, but honest, upright, fearless men and women, true to +their king or their country and their faiths; true to their ideals, +too, when their fellows were content with realities only. Any man who +gives his children such a heritage as that can say with more truth +than Napoleon said to his soldiers, 'Fifty centuries look down upon +you.' I wanted to make the world a little better for my life, and I +wanted my children brought up to feel that their lives belonged first +to their country, to live or die for her." + +"I know," said Robin, softly; "I used to think I would drape the flag +over my baby's cradle, and embroider it on his pinning blanket." + +"We are probably a pair of sentimental fools," he went on, "but I +believe in sentiment. A man could not say this out loud because +sentiment was supposed to be essentially womanish. How those old +distinctions weary one, with their scientific data to prove that men +surpass women in the senses of feeling and taste, while women have +better sight and hearing, and so on through every conceivable +maundering of the human brain, forever harping on differences and +accentuating them, forever dwelling on sex distinctions and never on a +common humanity." + +"It was a dreadfully scientific age," she assented, "a generation +fearfully and wonderfully given over to statistics; and yet how many +dreamers there were!" + +"Yes, but in the twentieth century a young man dreamed dreams and saw +visions at his own risk. While he dreamed of the brotherhood of man, +his classmate with the corporation practice distanced him in the +pursuit of position. While he led himself through the valley of the +shadow of temptation, and feared no evil because of the Madonna vision +in his soul, even the Madonnas preferred Lancelot and Tristram to +Galahad. It wasn't an easy world for a man who wanted to keep faith +with himself. It was a pinchbeck world, of pretence and pull,--that +world that lies drowned out there. And yet I believe it was infinitely +better than the lost Atlantis, better than the deluged planet of Noah, +nobler and finer than the best civilization of which we have any +trace. I never despaired of it, and yet as I grew older I wondered if +I was not foolish and mistaken in daring to hope and to dream." + +"I know," she said again. "I think I did despair, for it seemed to me +a dreadful, a terrible world. I used to wonder how conscientious men +and women could bring other human beings into it, to be and to suffer +and to faint in the frantic struggle for the unrealities that made us +miserable or happy. Consider how paltry they were. If we built a new +house, we were infinitely more concerned to see that the contractor +used pressed brick than we were to see that the construction of our +own characters was true. When we grew wealthy we moved into houses of +more stories; but how often did we say: 'Build thee more stately +mansions, O my soul'? I had as clean and strong a heritage as you, but +a different one. It is no use to comfort oneself with nice little +aphorisms about the needle's eye, and saws about filthy lucre, and +telling God's estimate of money from the kind of people He gives it +to; I tell you biting poverty is a terrible thing, an unspeakable +thing. It is a misfortune for a child to grow up under a sense of +injustice. I used to have times of revolt against it all, when I hated +with the blind, ferocious hate of a child, and I saw what David never +saw,--the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging, not bread, but a +chance to earn his bread, and begging for it without being able to +make just terms. I saw my home sold under the sheriff's hammer, and my +parents struggle all their lives because of the lack of money, when +they had everything else, nobility, character, truth, and education. +My girlhood was a long series of going-withouts. Finally I married a +man who promised me everything. Ah, well, when has the Apple of Sodom +failed to deceive the eye and undeceive the tongue? At least he did +care for my voice, and through that I learned that all those years I +had carried in my own throat the golden notes to have altered +everything, and I sang a little gladness into my parents' lives before +they ended, thank God." + +"How did you come to sing in opera? Do not tell me if the recollection +is unpleasant. I wondered then." + +"Because after--after things went wrong, I could not take his money. I +knew how to sing, and I loved it; but even there it was the same story +of suspicion and jealousy, till it seemed to me that hate and fear +ruled the world. I went to so many, many cities, but there was no city +beautiful, and in all the country I found no Arcady. I had money then, +it is true; but the jingle of the guinea doesn't help the artist who +sings, or paints, or writes, or plays, because God has put it into his +soul to do this thing; at least not after the very first, when it +stands as a tangible assurance of success. The cities were 'cities of +dreadful night,' and awful days; there were places that were not +hives, but styes of human beings, fighting for what they called life, +to die, never having lived. Sometimes I went into those jungles of +civilization and sang to them. It was the only thing I could give them +all. It was there I got my lesson. I had been singing 'All Tears,' +when an old woman said in her feeble, trembling voice, 'Ye mun loe us, +young leddy, to come to sic a place an' sing o' Him wha sa loed the +warld that He sent His only begotten Son ta it, for it's only great +loe that casts out fear, and this is a fearsome spot.' Since then I +haven't hated anything, except wanton cruelty, and I know love rules +when it is fearless, but that is very seldom. We were afraid to say, I +love you, to anything more sensitive than a stray kitten, though the +world has hungered and thirsted after the love we have feared to give +even to our own children. And yet just the love a man and woman may +bear each other, unconsciously, is enough to transform the earth. We +have not been cross to each other; I do not believe we have spoken +unkindly to anything this year." + +He drew her into his arms. "Is it enough to regenerate the earth?" + +"And keep it regenerated?" she echoed. "Do you know?" + +"Do you remember telling me, long ago, of a story in which the woman +said she had never seen but one man whose mother she would be willing +to be? And you said you felt so about me? I was very proud of it then, +but I am prouder of it now, since, feeling so, you cannot be unwilling +to be the mother of my children. You are not, are you?" + +She nestled a little closer to him, and put her hand about his neck. +He stooped and kissed it, and repeated his question. + +"Unwilling? No; how could I be? I never dreaded maternity except +when--and that lasted such a little while. I do not dread it now. It +seems to me it would be a blessed thing for us. But, Adam, Adam, tell +me, for I have sat here all day asking myself, whether it is a blessed +thing to be born, or a penalty that others pay." + +"I think it would be a blessing to be your son," he said steadily. + +"And I think it would be a benediction to be yours," she answered; +"but he would not be yours nor mine, but ours, plus everything in the +past, verily heir of all the ages, and the ages were full of pain and +sorrow. Oh," she said passionately, "could you and I who love him so, +this son who is only our wish, could you and I who know the weight of +this weary world, bind it upon the shoulders of our baby boy, and send +him staggering down the centuries, the new Atlas of this old earth?" + +They sat in silence for a long time. Then Adam said slowly, "I don't +know, dearest; but I do know that you are tired and hungry, and I am +going to take you home." + +They rose and disappeared through the gateway together. + + + + +XVII + + Love gives us a sort of religion of our own; we respect + another life in ourselves. + + BALZAC. + + +Robin was shelling peas. Adam was reading her the story of their +deluge. He paused, dissatisfied, and said impatiently,-- + +"I have not described it at all. I have said all I had to say in less +than a thousand words; one would think such a scene deserved a hundred +thousand." + +Robin smiled her little inscrutable smile. "I think you have done it +very well. It isn't intended to be scientific. You haven't told all +the strata that were turned skyward for a moment when that crevasse +opened between us and the town. You will find, if you turn to the +first chapter of Genesis, that there is very little detail; but I am +sure that the one line, 'He made the stars also,' is as eloquent as a +treatise on the nebular theory. If you were learned in geology and +astronomy and so on, you would load it down with an avalanche of +scientific hypotheses, about which you would really know nothing, +except by deduction, and over which future scientists would wrangle, +part of them making you a god, and the rest proving you a fool. Be +content to 'climb where Moses stood,' and produce literature." + + "'Why should an author fret about The judgment of posterity? + It is not, and it never was, And it, perhaps, may never + be,'" + +quoted Adam, cynically. "I wonder what they will call us, Robin, and +who will lecture on my mistakes in seven or eight thousand years, and +show how it never could have happened. Do you suppose there is any one +else on earth? Did the Atlantis people leave any literature behind +them?" + +Robin shook her head. "Who really knows? God has not left Himself +without a witness, at any time. In some way the story of creation has +gone on and on. Every nation has its Eden and flood and Saviour. +Esther was the first, I think, to have her wish granted 'even to the +half of my kingdom,' and all the fairy stories since have borrowed the +phrase. Cinderella is almost as old as Job; and the Irish, the +Fenians, claim that Cadmus, the Phoenician, was one of their +forebears. Wide as race distinctions were, there were strange and +almost unaccountable similarities." + +She went indoors to see to her baking, and coming back went on with +her work. Adam watched her silently for awhile, and then said +curiously, "I wonder what you have missed most this year?" + +"Pins and needles, and until Christmas, books and shoes and stockings +and sugar and a cook-stove and a piano," answered Robin, promptly. "I +can live without the opera and a telephone, but if you only knew how I +cherish my stock of pins, and with what dread I look forward to the +day when, like a poor white trash family I used to know, I shall refer +to _the_ needle. I used to think you could do anything with a pair of +pliers and a bit of wire, but I tremble lest you may not be able to +compass a needle." She looked up, and seeing Adam's troubled face said +quickly, "Forgive me for being frivolous; I am so happy, I can't help +it. What were you thinking of, Adam?" + +He got up and walked away a few yards, and cut one of the long thick +yucca leaves, and stripped it down to the central spine, while he went +on speaking to her. "I was thinking," he said, "of what Mill said +about inventions, and how they hadn't helped the laboring man; that +they had neither decreased his number of working hours, nor increased +his comforts, and wondering whether it would be better for a new race +to find an electric light plant alongside their other plants, or +whether they would better work out their own salvation, a little at a +time, by main strength and awkwardness. I was thinking how strange our +books would seem to men and women who knew nothing of the--the late +earth." He held out to her what looked something like a needle +threaded with coarse white linen thread. "Will your Majesty deign to +look at this?" + +She took it, and looked at it wonderingly, and then ran in and brought +back a torn towel, and began mending it. "Why, it sews very well," she +said; "who taught you that?" + +"The mother of inventions generally," he answered. "If you ever had +gone on the round-up, you might have had occasion for a needle and +thread when there wasn't any nearer than a hundred miles. But you +haven't answered my question." + +"About inventions and so on? It seems to me you have to consider the +_raison d'être_ of a people before you can tell the answer. What is +the use of labor-saving inventions, if the time saved isn't of some +great value? What is to be the chief end of man in a dispensation that +has no catechism as a guide-post?" + +"A very different end from the old one," answered Adam, half sternly. +"Work should not come to him as a curse, nor as his greatest boon; at +least, not hard, manual labor. There should be work enough to insure +ease and comfort, and every one should work freely and gladly. I +should educate the individual; he should be strong of body and keen of +mind, and should feel that his talents were given him for use, not for +concealment; he should use his hands, both of them, and find delight +in their work. It is a beautiful world, it always was, but I don't +know that the steam-engine brought men's souls closer together, or +that the electric light let in any more radiance upon our minds, or +that the great telescopes made heaven any nearer. It should be a +happier and a healthier world, if it was no more." + +"Adam," she said abruptly, "if we had children, in what religious +faith would you bring them up?" + +"I don't know; I never thought about it very much," he answered +honestly. "I have an ideal in my mind, but I can't explain it. I +believe in one source of life, and therefore a common divinity." + +Robin laughed quietly. "That is like the Hindoo proverb, 'That which +exists is one; sages call it variously.' That has been called +pantheism, and for that belief the Jews expelled Baruch Benedict +Spinoza from their synagogue. In our time there was a very learned +magazine published in its behalf, and I heard David Starr Jordan say +no man could tell whether it was a mere jargon of words, meaningless +and empty, or whether monism was the profoundest philosophy the world +has ever known." + +"I don't care what you call it," said Adam, stoutly. "I am not afraid +of names, and I don't know anything about any of those religions, +pantheism, Spinozaism, or monism; but I do know I would rather a child +of mine saw God in everything than that he saw God in nothing save his +own narrow creed. I would rather he was a pantheist than a Calvinist. +Spinoza never burned any one, did he, nor preached that hell was paved +with infants' skulls?" + +Robin clapped her hands and laughed again. "I beg your pardon for +laughing," she said, "but the idea of Spinoza, the 'God-intoxicated +man,' presiding over an auto-da-fé is too absurd. If you only +remembered anything about his gentle, retiring spirit and melancholy +life; I think he was better known in our time than in his own, but his +philosophy does not satisfy me. I am willing to grant the identity of +life, and its divine possibilities, but I cannot worship it as life +itself, a mere manifestation of nature. I know that there is such a +thing as living rock, and that it may be killed by a bolt of lightning +as readily as a tree; but this does not make it any more worthy of +worship than I am, and that is terribly unworthy. The rock and I are +types of life, stages in the development of life, but for my child +there must be something better. For the child I must lay hold on the +everlasting life; I must find the rock that is higher than I. I do not +know of any manifestation of that life so great, so godlike, and so +lovable as His who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'" + +"But surely you do not believe in the Immaculate Conception?" asked +Adam, incredulously. + +"I don't care anything about it, one way or the other. It's the +immaculate life that concerns me. As you said yourself a few minutes +ago, words cannot frighten me. Am I going to stand carping, 'Can any +good come out of Nazareth?' What do I care if it comes out of Sodom +and Gomorrah, if it is good?" + +"But you surely don't believe in the miracles?" he asked. + +"Surely I do, in some of them at least. I have seen a miracle or so +myself. Besides, if you remember the greatest proof He gave was that +the gospel was preached to the poor. Buddha was a prince; he whom the +Jews expected was to reign as a king. What a fall was there! the +gospel of hope and joy was brought to the children of Gibeon, the +hewers of wood and drawers of water. The love of Christ has wrought +greater miracles than He did. Look at the arena in Rome. Look at the +whole countless army of martyrs. When Mrs. Booth died, the eighty +thousand women that nightly walked the streets of London rebelled, and +for once the long aisles of brick and stone were swept clean of that +awful arraignment of civilization. That was more of a miracle than +satisfying three thousand souls with food. At least, it's enough of a +miracle for me." + +The tears came into her eyes, and she gathered up her pans and went +into the house. + + + + +XVIII + + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams? + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life: + + So careful of the type? but no. + From scarped cliff and quarried stone + She cries, "A thousand types are gone: + I care for nothing, all shall go." + + TENNYSON. + + +They were sitting in the doorway together. Robin rested her chin in +her hands and looked down the valley, the lines of perplexity +deepening in her forehead. + +"If only we had an angel with a sword, or without one, to tell us what +to do," she said. "If only we were deeply religious with the +old-fashioned orthodox religion, that would enable us to believe we +were predestined not to be drowned--" + +"Or if we believed in a personal God, without whom not a sparrow +falleth, though the waters cover the face of the earth and blot out +millions of His creatures," answered Adam. "After all, can we do +better than follow the dictates of Nature?" + +"Do you mean to look through Nature up to Nature's God?" answered +Robin. "How can we worship any God as pitiless as Nature? Nature is +strong, but is it our place to help her in her care for the single +type? Perhaps we are the trilobites of a new Silurian period; well, +trilobites were painfully common, but we need not be. Nature's laws +are immutable, so we have been told with wearying insistence, but +suppose you and I have wills as strong as Nature herself? Suppose we +ask what she has done for the humanity of which we are a part, that +she should demand fresh victims from us? Oh, I know; you will tell +me,-- + + "'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite +in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action +how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!' + +"And I should answer,-- + + "'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of + man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little + lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and + honor.' + +"David or Hamlet, it comes to the same thing. Where are the crowns +now, and how can we say Solomon was not right when he said the end of +it all was vanity? What is Nature, and on what compulsion must we obey +her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts +are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the +blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the +indomitable soul of the mocking-birds that feed their young in +captivity until they see they are prisoners for life, and then bring +them poisonous spiders that they may die rather than live under such +conditions? Shall we give hostages to Nature when she has given +nothing to us?" + +She was standing now and speaking with more vehemence than was her +wont. Adam caught her hands, as she flung them out with a gesture full +of scorn. + +"Do you really think we have nothing? How many million lovers have +envied Adam and Eve their paradise? This Nature against which you +bring so railing an accusation,--has she taken away more than she has +given us? We had ambitions, you and I, but the way of ambition is full +of weariness and disappointment and bitterness of spirit. We did not +expect peace and comfort and joy, but work and turmoil. Our slates +were set with a sum--" + +"Yes, a sum in vulgar fractions," answered Robin. + +"Perhaps; it was a sum in which the unknown and unknowable quantity +determined the result. We had seen a good deal of what is called +life,--it is a good name to distinguish it from the death it so much +resembles,--and I am half inclined to think Nature has been merciful." + +"But if she was merciful to them," said Robin, quickly, "why were we +omitted?" + +"She gave them oblivion, the hereafter, whatever comes hereafter. She +gave us each other. We were going to miss one another in the careers +we had mapped out. We might have lost each other forever, or for æons +of years. Nothing but a general breaking up of everything would ever +have flung us into each other's arms. We were too much interested in +my career, my vast influence on the political situation, to consider +any existence apart from the setting we had chosen for the play. And, +after all, what was it, that career from which we hoped so much? I +stood waiting my cue, ready to act my part in the farce or tragedy, +whichever it turned out to be." + +"I think it was more like a circus," said Robin. + +"Very like a circus," he admitted with grim appreciation. "A circus in +which no one knew whether he was to be a ringmaster or a clown. There +were the financial tight-rope walkers, and the social lion-tamers, and +snake-charmers, and the political acrobats whose falls were unsoftened +by any kind of network. There were heat and dust and discomfort, and +weary, wretched animals looking out of cages at other weary, tortured +animals, that were sometimes scarcely less pachydermatous than +themselves. I know the program we had mapped out, the triumphal entry, +the daring leaps, the cheers,--but was it worth while? After all, does +one care to be the champion bareback rider in life's hippodrome? +Nature swept away my sawdust ring, but she gave me heaven for a +canopy, earth for an arena, you for a queen. At times I am disposed to +take a fatalist view of the case, and think that God, or Nature, knew +there was no more to be done with the earth, not so much because of +its wickedness, as on account of its stupidity and cruelty. All my +plans had centered in a political career, and yet how could a man +touch politics and remain undefiled? Yes, I know there were honorable +men in politics, but they were lonely, and they hated with an +unspeakable hatred all the means that were used to keep them there. +And there were any number of men who had been honorable once. When a +man becomes possessed by the desire of place, his backbone becomes +elastic, and he stoops to things of which he had believed himself +incapable. I don't know what it is, but it weakens a man's moral +fibre, and breaks down the tissues of his will, and gives him mental +astigmatism. How dare I say I should have been any better than the +rest?" + +"Do you remember your address, a year ago Flag Day, and the old man +with the little bronze button of the Civil War veteran, who stood in +front, and shook hands with you afterwards, with tears running down +his face? And the applause? Can you honestly say that you find 'to +utter love more sweet than praise'? You have told me of your dream of +a home, but Emerson said, 'not even a home in the heart of one we love +can satisfy the awful soul that dwells in clay.' Can it satisfy you, +who hoped and expected so much?" + +He hesitated and did not reply at once. + +"Are you sure you are not making a virtue of necessity?" she asked a +little bitterly. + +"I think as much as anything," he said slowly, "I was excusing myself +for not having known all along that the real life, and the most useful +one, is the one we could have made together. Principalities and powers +and empires and republics have fallen. When God wants to regenerate +the world, He begins with the family. Now _I_," with unspeakable +scorn,--"_I_ intended to begin with a different primary law. I could +have made a good home, but I was intent on making an indifferent, +honest congressman, or senator, or perhaps president. In a way your +home always meant a good deal of what I am trying to say. You always +had some one on hand you were trying to make capable of great things +by believing in them. You made us welcome, and were ready to listen to +our troubles, our literary curiosities, our musical gems and our +aspirations. Suppose I had had sense enough to refuse the husks and +choose--" + +"Don't say it," she answered. "Don't say it, even if you mean it, for +I should have sent you away, and have felt like reviling you for +putting your hand to the plow and turning back. Your ambitions were +the most attractive thing about you then. I hadn't pinned my faith on +a primary law; I think it was government ownership that I regarded as +the great regenerator. I am glad if my home seemed homelike to any +one; it never reached my ideal; and when a woman's home isn't the hub +of her universe,--well, she takes to china painting, or gossip, or +philanthropy; a man takes to poker or politics. I took to politics, +second-hand. Personally and concretely I abhorred the whole miserable +farce, but abstractly, and as a means to an end which I greatly +desired, I found it interesting. I admired you infinitely more than I +liked you in those days, but I wouldn't have married you under any +circumstances." + +"Why?" + +"First, because I didn't want to marry any one; I didn't want to care +that much. And, secondly, because I wanted you to devote yourself to +your country, and had you possessed a family your devotion would have +been divided. I don't see," she went on reflectively, "how you, who +know so well how empty it all was, and how hopeless the endeavor to +lift it an inch,--I don't see how you can think anything would justify +us in making it go on." + +"But, on the other hand," he said, "are we justified in snuffing it +all out? There was so much that was beautiful, and the possibilities +were so glorious! Sweetheart, I shall not believe you love me if you +think the world all cold and dark. I believe now the one law it needs, +or has ever needed, is love, the fulfilling of the law." + +Robin shook her head, and there was a pathetic quiver about her +sensitive mouth. "Is it so? We have sung, ''Tis love, it makes the +world turn round,' but is it so? Would you give your world that one +great principle as the whole of its code of laws?" + +"Yes, I would," he answered sturdily. "I should not revive a single +law, not even the Ten Commandments, nor any of their variations. You +have to read the statutes provided for unnamable crimes to understand +just how bad mankind could be. I should not bother my world with +Draco, or Solon, or Justinian, or Coke, or Blackstone. I should give +it the code of Christ, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto +you, do ye even so unto them.' To love one's neighbor as +oneself,--isn't that code enough for any world? And I should make the +neighbor include every dumb creature." + +She turned to him, her face radiant with love and trust. + +"There is no difference between us in reality," she said: "you would +found your political economy on the teachings of Christ, and I my +religion. If we realize the unity of life, we must make our religion +our law, and our law our religion. Sometimes I think the hand of the +Lord is in it, for surely, surely, there never was a nobler man on +earth than you." + + + + +XIX + + For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two. + + KIPLING. + + +"Do you remember the name of that man we knew," said Adam one day, +"who wrote a book to prove the immortality of the body? He did prove +that various people had lived well on to two hundred years. If we were +sure of that, we might get the earth very fairly started." + +Robin laughed. "We are not apparently growing any older," she said; +"but we can hardly count on more than a hundred years each." + +"There is one thing you haven't taken into consideration," said Adam. +"Our children would be several thousand years ahead of the original +children of the Garden; they would be further along than you and I in +a good many ways." + +"No," she said, "I haven't forgotten, but I do not know how much of a +load they would bring with them into the world. We called it heredity, +the Hindoos called it karma, and, though that is different, educators +called it the recapitulation theory." + +Adam shook his head. "I understand heredity," he said, "but karma and +recapitulation are too much for me." + +"Karma is our heritage from former existences," she answered, "that +may have been lived here or elsewhere. It is the sum of our past, good +and bad. It is based on a belief in reincarnation, and it is the law +that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. It is justice +untempered by mercy, and it is at variance with the doctrine of +vicarious atonement, though one may believe it and worship Christ as +the highest type of love the world has ever known. Naturally, it does +not appeal to the people who are willing to let some one bear the +cross for them, and yet I have wondered whether, if we were sure we +should not gather figs from thistles, we should sow the thistles so +freely. The recapitulation theory makes the child pass through the +evolutionary stages of the nation or nations he represents. It has a +kind of seven ages of man of its own, and brings him down through all +phases,--the savage, the hunter, the explorer, the conqueror, the +builder. I don't pretend fully to understand it. I heard one of its +ablest exponents say once, 'The soul of the German nation is in the +German boy.' Heredity curses or blesses, sometimes both. Before any of +these theories prospective parents might well hesitate." + +"Which do you believe?" asked Adam, curiously. + +She reflected a moment. "A little of all three; not all of any of +them; one would have to be a profound student to understand fully what +their adherents claim for them. Heredity plays strange freaks now and +then. It is easier to account for Abraham Lincoln by the second theory +than by either of the others. His shiftless, untidy mother and +commonplace father do not explain such a soul as his; nor was there +any reversion in his childhood to the original savage instincts that +make children dismember grasshoppers--rather the reverse. I like +better to think that, like that other Deliverer, who was a man of +sorrows and acquainted with grief, he came to do the will of his and +our Father which art in heaven,--came gladly, freely, knowing the end +from the beginning." + +Adam sat up suddenly and looked at her with startled eyes. "Then you +think--you mean--you don't believe--surely you don't believe we have +anything to do with our coming here?" + +She smiled. "Surely I do. Our coming is sad enough when we do it +voluntarily. It would be quite intolerable to have existence thrust +upon us. Besides, it seems blasphemous to me to believe that God has +given to every human being the power to bestow an eternal existence. +The responsibility is great enough when it is simply a matter of so +living that noble souls may seek to be born of us, and undertaking to +give them sound minds and bodies." + +Adam looked unconvinced and troubled. "Where on earth did you get all +that?" he asked. + +"Well, it is to my mind only an elaboration of Descartes' 'I think, +therefore I am.' I am, presupposes that I have been, and will be. If +you can't destroy one drop of water, you can't destroy me. If you drop +the water on red-hot iron, it instantly becomes an imperceptible mist, +the mere ghost of itself, but it will ultimately become fluid again. +It seems to me that the scientific fact gives a sound basis for the +psychologic probability." + +"But think of all the miserable human beings born daily. Do you think +any one would choose such surroundings?" + +"You and I never wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd ourselves +under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were those who +did. We didn't want to see the parade badly enough to stand on the +street corner for hours; but you worked your way through college, and +we have both sat in the top gallery to hear 'Tannhäuser.' We were +willing to put up with the whips and scorns, which is another way of +saying the garlic and tobacco, for the sake of the music. In any event +the experiment was of brief duration. No one gets more than a fragment +in an ordinary lifetime." + +"If you think that," said Adam, "I can't see that there is any +responsibility about it. We should not thrust life on any one." + +"True," she assented. "Your position is unassailable, but still it +seems to me the responsibility remains. In the first place, granting +that my hypothesis is true, how can we tell whether to live is gain? +How do we know that the next generation would be better and stronger +than we are? Moreover, I only give this to you as my idea. I do not +say it is true; I believe it to be so, but I do not know anything +whatsoever about it. I can't prove it, and it may be transcendental +rubbish. I rather imagine you think it is." + +"Not exactly that," he said, coloring and laughing, "but certainly it +is rather amazing when one hears it for the first time. I daresay I +shall come to believe it too. So far as I can see, you are about as +unorthodox as I am." + +"I have times of relapse," she said. "Then I think we are being +tempted like the first Adam and Eve. They were commanded to multiply +and reign. You and I wouldn't ask anything better, but as a rule one's +duty is not attractive. It seems to me just as likely that we are to +prove that the lesson is learned, and a man and woman may love each +other unselfishly and nobly, foregoing their own desires to save +others. Under the old dispensation it was said, 'Greater love hath no +man than this;' is it not possible now that the greatest love is that +which lays down its life untransmitted? If Christ could pray that the +cup of suffering and death might pass from Him, dare we press the +bitter draught of being to other lips?" + +"Dare we dash the full goblet of joy and opportunity from them?" asked +Adam, gravely. + +"I wish I knew," she said. "I wish I knew!" + +"Have you ever thought what it will mean," he said, "if we adopt the +other alternative? Have you thought of the desolation and loneliness +of growing old and helpless and finally--" He stopped, and she threw +out her hands as if to ward off the thoughts he called before her. + +"Oh, yes, yes, I have thought, and it is terrible. I keep remembering +a picture I saw in the French Exhibit. It was of a man and a woman; +the woman was dead, and he had dug her grave, his broken sword lay at +his side, and he had wrapped her in his coat, and begun to cover her +over. He could not go on, and knelt, looking at her with a despair on +his face that has haunted me ever since. The name, Manon Lescaut, +meant nothing to me then, but the story of the picture was enough by +itself. All last year I kept seeing that terrible picture. Sometimes +it was you, sometimes it was I, that dug the grave and went mad +looking into it." + +"I should not bury you," said Adam, grimly. "I should carry you to the +cliff and take you in my arms and jump. The sea is deep and cruel +there." + +"Sometimes," she hesitated a moment, then went on,--"sometimes I think +that would be the best way for us now, I mean if we decide we have no +right to be happy in the old way; for I should be afraid we could not +always be strong." + +"Very well," he answered; "when we decide, it shall be literally life +or death." + + + + +XX + + The ant and the moth have cells for each of their young, + but our little ones lie in festering heaps in homes that + consume them like graves; and night by night, from the + corners of our streets, rises up the cry of the + homeless,--"I was a stranger and ye took me not in." + + RUSKIN. + + +For a time they busied themselves with different things about their +little home, worked in the garden, and held a round-up of their stock +that they might know the extent of their wealth; and because, in a +life quite apart from human beings, animals come to take their place +to a greater extent than might seem possible. + +It was a very pleasant time. Everything seemed so gentle, so willing +to be friends, and so certain of their good-will. + +"You used to be a Kipling fiend," said Adam, one morning, when they +had been salting the cattle, and were resting before going home. +"Didn't he write a Jungle tale about 'How Fear Came'? He ought to be +here now to write another to show how Fear might go." + +"It seems to me he did," Robin answered, running her fingers through +the short, curly forelock of a colt that stood placidly licking her +hand. "I wonder that they don't remember longer, or perhaps they know +that we think they are folks. Really, I think we ought to hold a +reception, a kind of salon, once a week, so as to keep acquainted with +our neighbors." + +"You are an absurd child," he said, laughing; "but does that mean that +you have really decided to go on living?" + +"I don't know," she said. "What did we determine? By the way, which +side of this question are you on?" + +"Both," he said decidedly. + +"Oh! then we can't do like those men Cooper told about, in 'The +Pioneers,' wasn't it? who argued and argued every night until at last +they convinced each other, and then started in to argue it out again." + +"No," he answered, "I rather think that we are answering ourselves +rather than each other, anyhow. Robin, where was 'the land of Nod'?" + +"That is one of the questions that I was sent to bed for asking a +preacher who was visiting at our house, when I was about seven years +old. They hurried me hence before he had a chance to answer, so I +never found out. But I know what you are thinking of, and I have +thought of it too. Perhaps there isn't any land of Nod, or any land at +all. And I have thought, also, how it would be if one of us died and +left the other with little children. You might take my body and jump +off the rock, but you couldn't take them too, and still less could you +leave them." + +"I have thought of the risk to you," he said, "and felt that not even +for the sake of a child would I let you come so near death." + +She laughed a little. "That is really funny," she said. "You must have +been reading Michelet; I never thought of that at all. I am very well +and strong, and my habits and my clothes are not such as to hamper my +life nor endanger that of another. There is next to no risk, so far as +that is concerned, certainly none I would not gladly take. But I have +dreaded afterwards, when the child might fall ill and need help that +we could not give it." + +"Because there are no doctors in the world?" said Adam, with a touch +of cynicism. "I don't know that we are not better off without them. +The greatest of them confessed that it was guess-work. The best +doctors I ever knew were always trying to make their patients live +more simply, take more exercise, and give nature a chance; they never +resorted to medicine until there was nothing else to do. If all the +germs and microbes have gone with them, the earth can stand the loss. +The main thing is to be well born, and when the body is healthy and +leads a natural life, while it may know pain, it need not be a prey to +disease. Very few children had a heritage worth having. It had been +bartered away. No wonder we were taught to say, 'There is no health in +us.'" + +"Do you remember Gannett's 'Not All There'?" she asked soberly. "I am +not sure I can recall it, but it began this way:-- + + "Something short in the making, Something lost on the way, + As the little soul was taking Its path to the break of day. + + "Only his mood or passion, + But it twitched an atom back, + And she for her gods of fashion + Filched from the pilgrim's pack. + + "The father did not mean it, + The mother did not know, + No human eye had seen it, + But the little soul needed it so. + + "Thro' the street there passed a cripple + Maimed from before its birth; + On the strange face gleamed a ripple + Like a half dawn on the earth. + + "It passed, and it awed the city + As one not alive nor dead; + Eyes looked and burned with pity. + 'He is not all there,' they said. + + "Not all! for part is behind it, + Lying dropped on the way; + That part--could two but find it, + How welcome the end of day!" + +For a long while neither spoke, then Robin went on. The colt had +wandered back to its mother, and she sat with her hands clasped, and +her eyes looking far out to sea. + +"I don't blame people for dreading the responsibility, nor even for +shirking it, when I think of all the conditions we had to face. Men +who thought they had hedged their trades about with so much skill that +they had banished competition, found that they had only succeeded in +bringing into the field the machine that banished them. And everywhere +there was such ghastly poverty,--poverty of body and brain and soul. +We had gone back to patrons and patronesses. Men or women did not do +anything of themselves any more,--they did not sing or play, or give a +reading, or exhibit a painting. They starved, or they performed or +exhibited 'under the auspices of.' It has always been the same. Given +a pure democracy, and demos reigns sooner or later. The shiftless go +to the bottom, the thrifty to the top, and then like the upper and +nether millstones, they grind everything between them. That which is +below cries, 'Alms!' and that which is above responds, 'Largesse,' and +the voice that cries, 'Justice,' is stifled between. The stone that +crushed from above and the rock that ground from below were very near, +and men dreaded them, for when the grist is ground, and flint strikes +upon flint, the conflagration is at hand. Do you think I am talking +like a Populist campaign book? I only know what I saw, and what the +poets have said. I wouldn't dare to be as radical as Lowell, nor as +bitter as Tennyson, nor as savage as Carlyle, or Ruskin, or Hugo. We +had overcome the sharpness of death, but whence could we hope for +deliverance from the sharpness of living?" + +"We have been delivered," said Adam, slowly, "but you don't seem +disposed to be the Miriam of this Israel--limited." + +"Well, no," answered Robin. "I should like to believe that you and I +were rewarded for our superhuman excellence by being saved when +Pharaoh and his multitudes went under, but a somewhat wide +acquaintance with other people forbids. On the other hand, we can't +have been left on account of our superlative badness. Truly, Adam, +don't you feel sometimes as if you would rather have died with the +rest?" + +He hesitated. The question was so unexpected, and so fraught with +possibilities. She watched the struggle in his face and honored him +for it. He put back a stray lock of hair and kissed her forehead +before he answered. + +"The streak of cowardice that we all of us have in us," he said +finally, "the distrust of myself, and the doubt of all systems of life +of which I know anything, prompts me to answer yes; for I think even +if we had died, you and I would still be together. I think sometimes +we have been, in the past, but whether we have or not, I know we shall +be in the future. So while the mental part of me,--which it seems to +me is the weakest and most contemptible part of man, because it is +always reasoning him out of what his soul tells him is true,--while +the mental part of me might find it easier to be dead than to know +what we ought to do, everything else in me rejoices. I know that in +the great plan we have a part, it seems to me a very happy and +beautiful part. In all our world there is no cause for anger or hatred +or sin. There is friendliness and content and gentleness and love all +around us; look up, dear, and see how near heaven seems." + +But though she looked up, she saw only the light in his eyes. + + + + +XXI + + "We're all for love," the violins said. + + SIDNEY LANIER. + + +Robin's music was a source of great delight to both of them. There was +such a sense of time, infinite and unlimited, that they ceased to be +the hurrying mortals of earth. The joy of life crept into their +hearts, and they grew young with the new world. + +One evening they watched the full moon come up over the mountains. She +had been playing a few desultory airs, and looking up asked,-- + +"Who is it says 'music is love in search of a word'?" + +"If you don't know, I'm sure I don't," answered Adam, laughing. "Do +you know that you quote entirely too much?" + +"Oh, yes," she said lightly. "I always knew that if I ever should +break into print, the critics, supposing they ever deigned to notice +me, would say, as they said of Lubbock's 'Beauties of Life,' that it +wasn't a book, but a compendium of useful quotations. But do you +really dislike quoting? I think it takes as much or nearly as much +originality to quote well as to invent." + +"Oh, no!" he interposed. + +"No? Well, it seems so to me. I think the thing first myself, that is +original so far as I am concerned, though it may be old as the hills, +and then it comes to me afterward, in a dozen ways, perhaps, as other +people have said it. I realize that in the kaleidoscope of life the +pattern before my mind's eye approximates that which others have seen. +We don't say a man knows too many synonyms or antonyms, and I don't +see much difference." + +"I have a misty memory that quotation is said to be a confession of +inferiority," answered Adam. + +"That's Emerson," she said, laughing; "but he also says, 'genius +borrows nobly,' and I am willing to confess inferiority to a great +many people; all that implies is that one should only quote well. If +it wasn't that I'm not sure of the words, and that I can't verify +them, I should confound you with a citation from Disraeli." + +"Go on," said Adam, lazily; "I don't mind being crushed." + +"It is to the effect that people think that where there is no +quotation there must be great originality. Then he says, 'the greater +part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original that no +one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote are seldom +quoted.' That's about it. Now are you answered?" She laughed +gleefully. "It is delicious to disagree with you. I had almost +forgotten that it was possible." + +He echoed her laugh with the carefree heartiness of a boy. "I am going +to make a riddle," he said. "Prepare yourself; this is the first +conundrum of the new world. Why is it better to disagree than to +differ?" + +She made a little grimace. "It's a wonder the Sphinx does not rise +from the other side of the world and eat you," she said with derision. +"Anybody who loved anybody could answer such a poor little excuse for +a riddle as that; besides, it sounds like an extract from somebody's +'First Easy Lessons in Rhetoric.' Don't you see that I can disagree +_with_ you, while I must differ _from_ you? That is too disgracefully +easy. Indeed, Adam, that riddle of yours brings back every doubt, for +they say--scientists and ologists and learned people, you know--that +there is hope for delinquents and defectives, but none for +degenerates, and that is an awfully degenerate joke." + +"Play for me," he said, "and don't call names." + +She lifted the bow and drew it across the strings in a series of +cadences so wildly mournful that he shuddered. She put the bow down, +and laid her hand upon the strings to still them. In the old days she +had been given to sudden changes of mood, but of late she had been +almost serene. + +"What is it?" he asked gently. + +"Oh, nothing,--everything! I was thinking of another thing which those +wise ones said," she answered, with more bitterness than she had shown +for many months. "It was that word 'degenerate' brought it back. You +know birds are a very low order of being, a branch of the reptile +family, in truth, and I have heard people say that musicians are +generally lacking in something. They either have no moral or financial +sense, and cannot be bound by ordinary rules. And I am musical to the +very tips of my fingers. It is as if I could hear the song of the +silence,--I feel its vibrations like those of a great organ." + +She walked up and down, her hands back of her head, and the moonlight +shining on her upturned, troubled face. + +"There is another scientific fact you forget," he said. + +She stopped to listen, and he went on. + +"When a race has run its course, nature cries 'habet,' and nothing can +alter its fate. It was not alone the merciless onslaughts of the white +man that exterminated the buffalo. They died, and none came to take +their places. They vanished, less on account of man's cruelty than by +reason of their own sterility. Degenerates or regenerates, can't we +leave the decision with a power that forever builds or destroys, in +accordance with a law we do not understand, a higher law that comes +from the source of all law, whatever that source may be? Don't think +any more, but play for me. In spite of my lecture, I will quote too; +my mother used to sing a hymn that went like this,-- + + 'I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings, + And vie with Gabriel while he sings,'-- + +Do you know it?" + +She began the old tune, "Ariel," and then wandered on, playing many +airs that brought back forgotten days. Adam threw himself down on the +grass to listen, half jealously, for she seemed to forget everything. +She had seated herself on a great boulder, and, leaning back against +it, her eyes looking into the blue depths above her, she played on and +on. The old tunes were merged in new ones, and the high sustained +notes of the Cavalleria, the subtle minor of Wagner, the exquisite +sweetness of Beethoven and Schubert filled the moonlit cañon, and +still she played on, melodies new to Adam, intoxicating, full of a +wild ecstasy, that filled his very soul, and thrilled through him till +he felt all power of resistance swept away. Every other desire in the +world was lost in the supreme and overwhelming longing to gather her +to his heart and hold her there forever. The very air was steeped in +melody. The full majestic chords rose and melted in unison with the +high, exquisitely sweet notes, and throbbed their life away. She held +the bow suspended a moment, then very softly, half unconsciously, +played a dreamy lullaby, and laid the violin down in her lap. + +Adam took her and it into his arms. + +"Be careful, put it down gently," she said faintly; "it is your soul +and mine. Do you not know the secret of Antonio Stradivari, of all the +great makers of violins? Ah, they solved our riddle, Love, ages ago. +Do you not remember the story of Jacob Steiner, and how he spent days +and days in the woods, selecting the trees for his violins, and how +the spirits of the trees revenged themselves by telling him of their +ruined lives till he went mad?" + +"But there was no madness in this music," Adam answered, "except, +except--" + +"The supreme, sublime madness of love? Do you not know, surely you do, +that every perfect violin is as much man and woman as you and I? The +back of the violin is made from the timber of the female tree, the +belly of the male tree. The harmony depends on their vibrations, as +they clasp each other in an embrace as real--" + +"As this," he cried, drawing her closer, and bending his handsome head +until their lips met. "Sweet, must I envy that violin?" + +He felt her heart beating wildly against his own, their arms closed +around each other convulsively. The sweetness of the music-laden, +flower-scented air filled his senses. + +"God! how I love you!" he said. + +A frightened look came into her eyes, and she struggled, for a moment, +futilely. + +"Let me go!" she whispered; "let me go!" + +"Do you want me to?" he answered, studying her face in the moonlight. + +"No," she said. "No, never again, but, oh, Adam!" + + + + +XXII + + I'm weary of conjectures--this must end them. + + ADDISON. + + +Adam had to go to the cane-fields across the range, and one of the +calves needed Robin's ministrations, so she could not go with him. He +started before the stars were set, that he might be back before night, +and returned twice to kiss her before he finally got away. + +Left with the long day ahead of her, restless and lonely, she gave the +small house a thorough sweeping and cleaning. She had finished her +dusting, and was rearranging the furniture, when she shoved back the +long chest and struck the framework of the window with some little +violence. It was enough to jar a rusty key from its place above the +casement, and it dropped upon the chest with a kind of ominous clink +as it struck the lock, and fell upon the floor. She took it up and +looked at it curiously, and then, kneeling, fitted it in the lock. + +"I wonder," she mused, "what I shall set free if I open this box; is +it Pandora's? But there was nothing left in hers but hope, and that is +all we need. How happy we could be if we dared to hope!" + +She turned the key with a wrench, and the hasp shot from its place. +The chest was nearly empty, there being but one parcel in it. This was +done up carefully in a square of linen, pinned here and there. On the +bottom of the chest were several folds of white paper. Very slowly she +lifted out the parcel and opened it. The treasure was a gown; it was +of a heavy, satiny weave of linen, very yellow and creased. The bodice +was made without sleeves or neck, and the skirt was a kind of kilt +plaited affair; the whole effect was Greek, and, simple as it was, it +seemed beautiful to Robin after her year of dark, utilitarian +clothing. There was white underwear, and even white stockings, and a +pair of slippers. + +Robin drew a long breath of delight, and laying all her finery upon +the table placed the irons over the tripod that she might smooth the +wrinkles out, and set about making the necessary alterations at once. +She worked rapidly in spite of her excitement, but the hours slipped +away. + +"I must try it on," she said, "before Adam comes; there will be plenty +of time, and then I will put it away until--" + +Shroud or wedding-gown? She did not finish the sentence. She dressed +slowly; but when she had finished she was startled to see that the +image in the glass was so much fairer than she had ever thought +herself. Suddenly she discovered, with something like a pang, that +there was no belt, and hurried back to the chest to look again. + +As she twitched out the remaining layer of paper in her eagerness, a +long white satin ribbon dropped from it, and a little heap of fine +muslin lay on the floor of the chest. She caught up the ribbon with an +exclamation of delight and adjusted it with trembling fingers. Her +flushed cheeks and radiant eyes, the long heavy braid of hair, her +round white arms and shoulders, made her a vision of delight indeed. +When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to +inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin, +her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She had forgotten. Only +the hands of the prospective mother could have fashioned such dainty +garments as these. Everywhere the eternal question. All her +perplexities had fallen from her in the joy of dressing herself as +Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam saw her not, but the great +problem of life confronted her still. + +She put the tiny garments down on the chest, closed now, having given +up its mystery, its hope of the world, and knelt by it, touching them +with loving, reverent fingers till the tears blinded her, and she +gathered up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam, +as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears +ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then +the slumber of a child. + +She did not hear Adam, nor see him, until he passed the window and +stood in the doorway, all the sunset glow back of him. Then she +started to her feet, her arms closing instinctively over the tiny +garments she had gathered to her breast, as she stepped back, her face +flushing and paling all in a moment. + +He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart and +soul looked out of his eyes. + +"Eve," he said, "Eve!" + +She turned, and he sprang toward her with an eager cry of joy. + +"Eve," he repeated, "Eve, my love, my soul! You have decided; you are +going to be my wife. Oh, do not torture yourself or me any longer with +doubts that did not enter the mind of God Almighty when He made us +what we are. You are my world, dearer than life, more necessary than +the air we breathe. We are only one being, separated God knows how +long, but united now forever. Nothing can part us again." + +He stopped and held out his arms to her. He had taken her into their +shelter very often, but now he wanted her to come to him and nestle +against his heart of her own will. She took a single step, stretching +out her arms to him with a gesture of infinite trust and abandon. The +long sheer dress fluttered down to the floor, and lay between them. + +They stood as still as if frozen. + +"Dare you cross it?" she said, and hid her face in her hands. + +He stooped and picked it up, and looked at it as a man might look at +the soul of something of which he had never seen the body. He had a +sense of his own strength, the glory of his manhood, and a vision of +his weakness. She watched him breathlessly. He put the garment down on +the table and smoothed it out gently. There was in his face the +combined look of a man who sees the cradle and the coffin of his +firstborn. + +She went and stood beside him, touching the dress timidly. He covered +her hand with his own. + +"My wife," he said, "we know all there is to say, all there is to +risk. We must do what is right. I am going now to set everything at +liberty. It is nearly sundown; you will meet me at the rock in half an +hour. If we give each other our right hands, we will fear no evil, not +though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for the love +in our hearts is deathless, and though the sun sets, it is to rise +upon another shore. Death is only an incident, but life is eternal." + +"We could not choose differently?" And though she spoke with the +upward inflection it was not a question. + +"No, it would be quite impossible for either of us to desire what the +other did not. And much as we love each other, we will know we have +loved our race and honored God first in our decision. To live, if we +live, not for ourselves alone, but for the good of our kind; to +renounce love, the unspeakable gift, if need be, for the sake of what +seems to us right." + +"And if I give you my left hand--?" + +The sudden flash of light in his eyes half blinded her. He took both +her hands in his and looked deep in her beautiful unfathomable eyes. + +"Then the morning stars will sing together, and all the sons of God +shall shout for joy." + +The sun dropped lower and lower over the high sharp peaks at the west, +covering their white summits with a flood of golden glory. The sullen +roar of the ocean seemed hushed, and across its wide expanse the last +beams of the setting sun made radiant pathways of crimson and gold. A +lark far up in the heavens sang its few clear notes as it hastened +homeward. Far away on the mountain-side the cattle lay placidly, and a +mare whinnied to her colt. The air was soft and warm and drowsy with +the scent of many flowers, the sounds of nestling birds, the drone of +an insect here and there, the cheerful call of the crickets. + +Adam stood by the rock and waited for her. She came toward him, all +the light of the world seeming to fall upon her and circle her in a +halo that transformed her white draperies, and glistened like a +million gems in the sparse grass about her feet. + +They made each other no greeting, but stood and looked into each +other's eyes, grave and sweet with the exaltation of their purpose. +And, standing so, they clasped hands, and the word they spoke was the +same, for they by searching had found out God. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE*** + + +******* This file should be named 20615-8.txt or 20615-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/6/1/20615 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Master-Knot of Human Fate</p> +<p>Author: Ellis Meredith</p> +<p>Release Date: February 17, 2007 [eBook #20615]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by V. L. Simpson<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net/c/</a>)<br /> + from digital material generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich"> + http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full"> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>The Master-Knot of Human Fate</h1> + +<div id="title-page"> +<pre class="byline center"> +By + +Ellis Meredith +</pre> + +<pre class="poem"> +Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate +I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; +But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + +<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyám</span> +</pre> + + +<pre class="publisher"> +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company + +1901 +</pre> +</div><!-- end #title-page --> + +<pre id="verso"> +<i>Copyright</i>, <i>1901</i>, +<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company</span>. + +<i>All rights reserved.</i> + + + + + +UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON +AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. +</pre><!-- end #verso --> + +<pre class="epigram" style="margin-bottom:20%;"> +Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate +I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; +But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + +Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire +To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, + Would not we shatter it to bits—and then +Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! + +<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyám</span> +</pre> + + +<h2 class="toc-header">Table of Contents</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<ul class="toc"> +<li>Chapter I<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterI">1</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter II<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterII">29</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter III<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIII">43</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter IV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIV">59</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter V<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterV">77</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter VI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVI">89</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter VII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVII">101</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter VIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVIII">117</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter IX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIX">127</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter X<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterX">143</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXI">151</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXII">159</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIII">171</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XIV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIV">185</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXV">199</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XVI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVI">209</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XVII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVII">225</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XVIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVIII">239</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XIX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIX">255</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXX">269</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XXI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXXI">283</a></span></li> +<li>Chapter XXII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXXII">297</a></span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p class="pagenum"> [pg. 1]</p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterI"> +<h2>I</h2> +<pre class="epigram"> +To-night God knows what things shall tide, + The Earth is racked and faint— +Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; +And we, who from the Earth were made. + Thrill with our Mother's pain. + +<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span> +</pre> +</div><!-- end .chapterhead --> + + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 2]</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 3]</span></p> +<p>Along one of the most precipitous of the many Rocky Mountain trails +a man and a woman climbed slowly one spring morning. The air was cold, +and farther up the mountains little patches of snow lay here and there +in the hollows. Two or three miles below them nestled one of the most +famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as +distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the plain and +through the clear atmosphere it looked like a bird's-eye-view map +rather than an actual town. Far away to the left, gorgeous in coloring +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 4]</span>and grotesque in outline, could be +seen the odd figures of many strangely piled rocks.</p> + + +<p>The two pedestrians stopped now and then to rest and look away over +the matchless scene and take in its wonderful beauty. The woman was +tall and slender, with a superb carriage. Even on that steep ascent +she moved with the grace and freedom of one who has entire command of +her body. She was well gowned also for such an excursion. Her short, +green cloth skirt did not impede her movements, and high, stout shoes +gave her firm footing. She had removed her jacket, and in her bright +pink silk blouse and abbreviated petticoat, with the glow of the +morning on her usually pale face, she looked almost girlish; but her +face was not that of girlhood. It was without lines, and the heavy +masses of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 5]</span>her golden-brown hair +were quite unstreaked with silver; but her white forehead was serene +with the calmness that follows overcoming, and her dark gray eyes saw +the world shorn of its illusions. In her there were, or had been, +unrealized capacities for life in all its height and depth and +breadth. In studying her one became vaguely aware that, having missed +these things, she had found a fourth dimension which supplied the +loss.</p> + +<p>Her companion was younger by several years, and so much taller that +she seemed almost small in comparison. In his eyes there danced and +shone the light of truth and courage and hope, and he walked with the +buoyancy of joy and youth. Israfil, Antinous, Apollo,—he might +have stood as the model for any of them, or for a fit representation +of the words of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 6]</span>the wise man, +"Rejoice, oh, young man, in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee +in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart."</p> + +<p>The relation between the two was problematic. Certainly there was +no question of love on either side. Equally certainly there existed +between them a rare and exquisite camaraderie, a perfect comprehension +that often made words superfluous. A look sufficed.</p> + +<p>They toiled up the steep, narrow path until they reached a wide +trail, a carriage road that had been laid out and abandoned. It swept +around the mountain-side, miles above the little city on the plain, +and terminated suddenly at an immense gateway of stone. Here the +mountain had been torn asunder, and two palisades of gray-green rock +rose grim and terrible for <span class="pagenum">[pg. +7]</span>hundreds of feet, while between them, dashing over boulders +and trees and the impedimenta of ages, a little stream rushed along in +the eternal night at their base. Far away to the west, range upon +range piled themselves against the intense blue sky. Beyond a rustic +gate, standing across the path that narrowed to a few feet before the +wall of stone, a park, sparkling and green in the sunlight, was +visible. They stopped and regarded the two gateways,—one the +work of nature, the other the feeble counterfeit of man,—and +then swinging open the creaking wooden affair, passed into the +peaceful valley. A few yards away stood a small log cabin, but the +chimney was smokeless, and though the chickens clucked in the yard, +and a collie lay on the doorstep, it seemed desolate and deserted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 8]</span>Passing along an almost +invisible trail, they found themselves in the wildest and most remote +part of that wild and remote region. They saw a few stray animals, but +no human beings. This was one of the few places where mining was not a +universal pursuit, and it was too early to do much in the few mines +that did exist. There are entire sections in the Rockies that are +deserted for more than half the year, and this was one of them. That +day there was no one at the signal station. The keeper had gone down +to the valley for fresh stores, and to learn something of the terrific +disturbances that were said to be threatening the entire Eastern coast +with annihilation. Perhaps the owners of the log cabin had made a +similar pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>The scene was flooded with moonlight when the travellers passed the +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 9]</span>gate on their homeward way, and +sat down on a boulder a few yards without the frowning portal. The +night was cold, and the woman had put on her jacket, and sunk her +numbed fingers in its pockets. In spite of her weariness she was +troubled and restless, and turning looked first at the beetling crags +back of them, then away over the plain at the twinkling lights of the +town below. They heard indistinctly the sounds of bells ringing +wildly, and overhead flocks of birds circled and called with shrill, +uncanny voices. Yet the moonlight was so bright that they saw each +other as plainly as if it were day, and its placid radiance seemed +strangely at variance with the disturbed wild-fowl, and certain weird +and fitful sounds that seemed to be sighed forth from the bosom of the +earth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 10]</span>"It is a pity," she said, +"that we cannot pass through this gateway into paradise without +descending to earth again."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you are half as tired of life as you say," he +answered with an impatient movement of his head. "You may not shrink +from death as I do, or enjoy life so keenly, but isn't it a good thing +to be alive to-night? Isn't it fine to be a mile or so above the rest +of humanity and the deadly conventionalities? Aren't you glad you +came?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but presently said dreamily, "Suppose that +plain was the sea."</p> + +<p>"It isn't hard to suppose," he answered. "I have seen the Pacific +when it looked just so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she said quickly. "Nothing is like the sea but itself. +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 11]</span>You will never persuade me that I +love the mountains so well. And the plains,—just imagine if all +that gray green silver were gray blue, with here and there a gathering +crest of foam, racing to break in spray about these +mountains—"</p> + +<p>"Why, look," he said, drawing her a little to one side, "there is +your liquid blue, with its white crest moving toward us. Could the +real sea look more wonderful than that? It is blotting out everything. +Now it recedes,—was it not real?"</p> + +<p>She started to her feet. "This is a very strange night," she said +irrelevantly, in a rather strained voice. "Listen,—and see how +many birds are flying about us; I never saw them fly so at night. What +does it mean?"</p> + +<p>They stood together, looking at each other with startled faces. The +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 12]</span>whole mountain, all the +mountains, seemed to be alive and trembling under them. Overhead +thousands of birds wheeled and screamed with terror in their mingled +outcries. The little creeping things scuttled away up the mountain. +The silver-blue wave widened and spread over the plain from north to +south, and the air was full of a dull, terrible roar, as if the +fountains of the great deep had broken up, and a thousand +white-crested waves rushed toward the hapless city before them. They +covered it, and with a wild jangle of bells, faintly audible over the +tumult, it sank out of sight, all the gleaming, dancing lights +disappearing in an instant. The white crests came on and broke about +the mountains, and receded and came on again with a deafening roar. +Then the crust of the earth between the <span class="pagenum">[pg. +13]</span>mountain range and the spot where the city had been, seemed +to crack like a bit of dried orange peel, and the flood rushed over +the abyss, and there arose a blinding steam that hid the whole scene +below, and ascending circled the mountain peaks in mist.</p> + +<p>All about them on the mountain-side rose the cries of terrified +wild things, and along the narrow pathway into the park a herd of +cattle and horses rushed and disappeared among the aspens that +trembled as never before. The collie, scenting their presence, came +and crouched whining at their feet, and a bird fell exhausted into the +woman's arms. She closed her hands over it, unconsciously giving it +the protection none could give them, and in the fog moved toward the +figure of her companion. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 14]</span>His arm +closed about her convulsively.</p> + +<p>"Shall we go farther up the mountain?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be +now,'" she answered, insensibly finding it easier to use another's +words than to coin phrases while holding death-watch over a +continent.</p> + +<p>They sat down on the boulder. After what seemed like countless +hours, she said, "I wonder how long we have been here. Perhaps it is +years."</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch. "I do not know whether we are in time or +eternity," he answered simply. "It is nearly four o'clock by this +watch."</p> + +<p>Through the dense vapor they saw the sun rise, red and sullen, but +the mist was so impenetrable that they dared not move about. The day +and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 15]</span>night passed, almost without +their knowledge, and the second morning found them, as the first, by +the great boulder. The wind rose with the sun, and when it blew aside +the veil of mist, far as the eye could reach, there rolled a sea, +white-capped, turbulent, fretful, as if unwilling to leave a single +peak to tower above its lordly dominion.</p> + +<p>The man and woman followed the collie to the cabin, and there found +some food, then they retraced their way until they could look down +over the valley where the town had slept. Nothing was left. There was +not even a prospector's cabin. The shock which had succeeded the first +wild dash had been volcanic. The very cañons looked strange, and +though they called again and again there came no answer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 16]</span>"Come," the man said +imperiously. "Let us go to the Peak. There must be some one +there."</p> + +<p>They reached the signal station late in the afternoon; no one was +there. Looking down from that awful eminence, they saw on the other +side of the range the same desolation, the same watery waste. They +seemed to be on an island, alone on a wide, wide sea. Nowhere curled a +friendly wreath of smoke; nowhere was there sound of any human +thing.</p> + +<p>They went wearily back. There was nowhere else to go. If the +gateway had been awful in its solitude, the Peak was still more +desolate. There was nothing living there, except themselves and the +dog that followed closely at their heels, making no excursions of its +own. The hour was wearing toward midnight when they sank +down <span class="pagenum">[pg. 17]</span>by the boulder once more to +watch the darkness disappear, and wait for they knew not what. The man +built a huge fire, so that if any other waifs had been left by this +wreck of a world they might see the beacon, and reply in some fashion. +They did not talk, except now and then, in a half whisper, they gave +monosyllabic queries and replies. The shock that had obliterated a +continent seemed to deprive them of all active use of their senses. +They moved only in circles, returning always to the place from which +they had watched the cataclysm.</p> + +<p>It was almost sundown when, with a superhuman effort, they again +entered the sunny, beautiful park. The air was balmy, and there all +remained quite as before. In front of the cabin stood an Alderney; as +they approached her, she lowed uneasily. The +woman <span class="pagenum">[pg. 18]</span>looked up, and then spoke +aloud with the quick sympathy that had always been her greatest +attraction. She seemed to understand so readily, whether it was a +man's head, a woman's heart, or an animal's wants.</p> + +<p>"She needs to be milked," she said, and pushing open the door she +entered the cabin. There were two rooms, the farther of which was +evidently a bedroom. There was a large fireplace at one end of the +main room. At one side of it was a primitive dresser, with such +utensils and china as the place afforded; on the other were some +miner's implements and a shovel. There was a small table and beside it +were placed two chairs. There was a rocker by the one window, and a +pot of geraniums on the sill; forming a kind of window seat was a long +seaman's chest. At the other end of the <span class="pagenum">[pg. +19]</span>room there was a desk covered with green oilcloth, and above +it was a shelf containing some books and a clock.</p> + +<p>The woman took off her hat and jacket and brushed back her hair, +then turning back her sleeves went outdoors again. Under the rude +porch on a slab table stood a number of buckets, and there was a stool +by the door. She took a bucket and the stool and walked away a few +paces, the Alderney following. As she began milking she looked over +her shoulder at the man watching her and said, "Won't you build a +fire?"</p> + +<p>He gathered some wood and went into the cabin. She threw out the +first pint or so of milk, then finished milking and strained the +foaming contents of her pail into some crocks left sunning by the +door, and went into the house. She found some +corn<span class="pagenum">[pg. 20]</span>meal and salt, and deftly +mixed the dough, and arranging the shovel in the hot ashes, set her +hoe-cake to bake. In the mean time the man had brought water from the +brook, and as the woman swung the crane over the blaze, he filled the +iron kettle hanging therefrom. There was some sour milk, and by a +mysterious process she converted it into Dutch cheese. There was some +butter and a few eggs, and she found a white cloth and spread the +table with the few poor dishes, placing the geranium in the centre. As +the water steamed and boiled, she caught up a tin canister.</p> + +<p>"See," she said with forced gayety; "let us eat, drink, and be +merry, for there is just enough tea in the world for two people to +drink once!"</p> + +<p>She made the beverage and poured it into the thick cups, and +breaking the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 21]</span>yellow pone and +piling it on a platter, they sat down to the strangest meal they had +ever known.</p> + +<p>The man watched her with fascinated eyes. He had never before seen +her do anything for herself, yet she presided over the simple meal she +had prepared as graciously as over the course dinners of her chef. How +should she know how to make hoe-cake?</p> + +<p>All through the singular feast the sparkle and play of her fancy +kept them in hysterical laughter. Afterwards, as she cleared away, the +same wild mood possessed her. The man wondered if her mind was going +with all else; but as she hung up the towel, her humor changed, and +she ran out of the cabin into the dusk as if she could not bear the +simple, homely tasks in a homeless world, the firelight and the bounds +of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 22]</span>a dwelling when doom must be +at hand. The man put a fresh log on the fire, and covered the coals +with ashes. He would have preferred to remain there, but he knew why +she was hurrying back to the mountain-side, and he took her coat and +followed her. She was standing by the boulder, looking out over the +waters with a despair on her face that made him groan. It was so like +what he felt in his heart. She pointed weakly toward the water, but +her lips formed no words.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, "it was not a dream."</p> + +<p>Dawn found them still sitting by the boulder. The man shook her +half roughly.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, "let us go back to the cabin."</p> + +<p>"No," she answered. "I cannot <span class="pagenum">[pg. +23]</span>believe it; we are both mad. We are dreaming the same mad +dream; let us go down, and when we feel the spray on our faces, and +taste the brine, it will be time enough to believe."</p> + +<p>She began the descent with reckless rapidity, and he followed, +checking and holding her back. The roar of the surf grew momentarily +louder, but though she looked at him with wild, grieved eyes, she went +on. A monster wave dashed up over the rocks and wet them to the skin. +She flung out her arms, and would have fallen headlong into the +greedy, crawling water, but he caught her and made his way back. The +hot, bitter tears on her face brought her to herself, and with one +great sob she broke down, clinging to him and crying till from sheer +exhaustion she fell asleep.</p> + +<p>He carried her back to the cottage and <span class="pagenum">[pg. +24]</span>laid her gently on the bed in the tiny room. Her hair was +falling about her, and he removed her dusty shoes, and covered her +over as if she had been a child. Then he went out into the sunlight +and sat down on the doorstep and tried to grasp the situation.</p> + +<p>He had been a very ambitious man, and she had been as ambitious for +him as he was for himself; that had been the main bond of union. He +was to have made a great place in the world: the applause of listening +senates was to have been his; wealth, fame, position, all the +possibilities of life were gone; nothing but barely life itself +remained. A living might be wrung from nature, but for +ambition,—what? Surely somewhere on earth there were other human +beings; the destruction, if irreparable, was not universal. Sooner or +later some hardy sailor would find <span class="pagenum">[pg. +25]</span>the surviving peaks of this new Atlantis. At least, if the +woman within was not his world, he was thankful that no one else was; +and having looked the grim truth in the face, he too slept.</p> + +<p>It was long past noon when the dog wakened him, and he started to +his feet, determined that, having lost all else, they should keep +their sound, clear brains. He walked about the park, which contained +perhaps five hundred acres. There were half a dozen cows, as many +horses, some burros, and a few chickens. There was a rude stable and a +few farm implements. There was a large tunnel in the mountain-side, +and some mining machinery lying about its entrance. The dog, seeming +to realize some of the responsibilities of life, herded the cattle and +drove them toward the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 26]</span>cabin. When +they reached it, she was standing in the doorway. She had made her +toilet, and looked fresh and calm.</p> + +<p>"These are our flocks and our herds," he said in greeting. "What +shall we call them?"</p> + +<p>She smiled rather wanly. "Wasn't it Adam who named the animals? You +shall have that honor."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he answered; "but if this is the garden, there is an +angel with a flaming sword at the gateway. Do not pass it again. Our +life is here, here,—do you understand? We must give ourselves +time to get used to it, time to realize that we are alive. We must be +very patient, for whatever has befallen us, whether we are in the body +or out of it, this through which we have passed is a miracle, and only +time can tell if it is more. Do not <span class="pagenum">[pg. +27]</span>look upon the change again, at least not now. You will stay +here, and we will work together, and be content for awhile?"</p> + +<p>"Content?" she said, "content? We will be happy."</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 28]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 29]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterII"> +<h2>II</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> + There is always work, +And tools to work withal, for those who will; +And blessed are the horny hands of toil! + +<span class="smcap right">Lowell.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 30]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 31]</span></p> +<p>"Do you remember Gabriel Betteredge?" asked Adam, a day or so +later, as he watched her set the house in order after their breakfast. +"You know in times of great mental perturbation he always sought +comfort and counsel from the pages of 'Robinson Crusoe.' When in doubt +he waited until to-morrow, as Robinson advised; and no matter what his +perplexities, he always found just what he wanted in that infallible +book. If I remember correctly, but it's years since I read it, +Robinson goes on a voyage of discovery the first thing."</p> + +<p>"He built a raft to get away from the wreck first, I think," she +said reflectively. "Or did he build the <span class="pagenum">[pg. +32]</span>raft to get to the wreck? I can't remember. And then he +built a house. Somewhere along there he wrote down his situation in a +deadly parallel; I have sometimes wondered if he was the inventor of +that style. But he offset the debit of being cast away with gratitude +for having escaped with his life. We're not, at least I'm not, sure +that belongs on the credit side."</p> + +<p>"We don't want to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have +no wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready +to hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I +fancy, but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in +it? We might begin our investigations here."</p> + +<p>"'With lamp in hand we will explore,'" she hummed, "but two rooms +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 33]</span>and a cellar do not promise much. +There is nothing to see in this room, except what we do see, and the +contents of that chest, which is locked."</p> + +<p>Adam tried the lock, then shook the chest. "There's nothing in it, +anyhow," he said.</p> + +<p>"As to the other room," she went on, "there is a bedroom +set,—a better one than I should have expected to find in a place +like this,—and a closet with some clothes in it. The man was +about your size, but the feminine garments—well—they are +all about the length of my bicycle skirt, and on the shelf there is a +pile of bedding. There is no trap door leading into either +subterranean or overhead apartments. In fact, there is nothing else, +except a chair. It's very uninteresting."</p> + +<p>Adam had been moving about the room, and stopped before the +book<span class="pagenum">[pg. 34]</span>shelf. He wound the clock +mechanically, and read the titles of the books aloud. A chemistry, a +book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of Tennyson, the "Yankee at +King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine almanac made up the +list.</p> + +<p>"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing +cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain, +and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to; +they look as if they might hold—"</p> + +<p>"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster +more," he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans, +or barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in +opening them." <span class="pagenum">[pg. 35]</span>He took up a +hatchet, and they went out and inspected the boxes, which were very +large and strong.</p> + +<p>"Let's not open them yet," she said. "There is one other treasure +in one of the bureau drawers; it is a box with seeds of almost every +kind. They ought to have known most of those things wouldn't grow up +this close to timber-line."</p> + +<p>"Probably they were sent by the congressman from this district," +Adam said dryly. "But I'm not so sure they won't grow. Have you +noticed how warm it is, how very unlike what it has always been? Let +us go to the stables, and see what we can find there."</p> + +<p>They went up a path, past a garden, fenced with woven wire, through +which the chickens looked longingly. Under some sashes forming a +primitive <span class="pagenum">[pg. 36]</span>greenhouse, lettuce and +radishes were making good headway. Nothing else had come up, though +there were many beds, with small slips of board, like miniature +tombstones, showing what had been planted. The stables and cow-barn +were all under one roof, and would accommodate several horses and a +few cows. There was hay and fodder in a lot adjoining, and a few +ordinary farm implements, a plow, a harrow, and a cultivator in a shed +addition.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what it is for?" she asked mischievously, as he pulled +out the plow.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I never remembered the granger vote in my ambitions?" +he answered. "I can plow, and I have planted and snapped corn, and cut +fodder, and dug potatoes—I wonder if there are any here?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 37]</span>"Yes," she answered; "in the +cellar, at least a bushel, mostly gone to eyes, but I forget how thick +to cut them. If we were only 'The Swiss Family Robinson,'" she went +on, "we should find yams and pineapples and oranges and sugar-cane and +bananas coming up between the rocks. As it is, I am thankful to the +congressman who sent the peas and morning-glories."</p> + +<p>"There is only about enough wheat and corn to plant fifteen acres," +Adam said, making a rough calculation in his mind. "I will plow a +little over that, so as to have a patch for the potatoes, and get it +ready as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"I know how to plant corn and potatoes," she said eagerly. "Just as +soon as you get part of the land ready, I will begin. You didn't know +I was brought up on a ranch, did you? <span class="pagenum">[pg. +38]</span>I never was very fond of recalling it. It is a perpetual +round of conditions unlike any theory ever heard of." She shrugged her +shoulders, and stopped at the rude table under the porch to crumb some +slices of what looked like a kind of cornbread.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked curiously.</p> + +<p>"That is to enable us to make light of our troubles," she replied +solemnly. "Or, for thy more sweet understanding it is, or at least I +hope it will be, yeast. I found a Twin Brothers yeast cake, and from +it, behold the brethren! I know that raised bread is unhealthy, and +that to get the worth of your money you ought to eat the bran also, +and that the best bread, from the hygienic standpoint, is made from +wheat-paste, and is about the consistency of sole leather; but even if +yeast does shorten our lives, I don't <span class="pagenum">[pg. +39]</span>know that I shall give it up on that account."</p> + +<p>The planting of their crops took several weeks, and was very hard +work, for neither of them was an expert farmer. When the corn and +wheat came up there were almost no weeds, and the stand was better +than usual for sod land; but they were kept busy warding off the +horses and cattle that preferred the fresh young corn and wheat to the +indifferent natural grass.</p> + +<p>"I thought," she said wearily, after driving away the intruders for +the third time,—"I thought fences were a sign of civilization, +but they seem to be the first necessity of the wilderness."</p> + +<p>She was sitting on a rock, fanning her flushed face with her +sombrero, when Adam came to her assistance.</p> + +<p>"You should have waited," he said. "I was coming, but I had to +hitch the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 40]</span>team." He turned and +looked at her, and laughed boyishly. "The run hasn't hurt you," he +said; "you look like a wild rose. I believe I shall call you so; may +I? I can't call you by the old name."</p> + +<p>She colored hotly, then turned quite pale, and there was a touch of +reserve in her voice as she answered rather too indifferently, "If you +choose, still I think, O Adam Crusoe, that Friday or Robinson would be +a better name."</p> + +<p>"We'll compromise on Robin," he said. "A rose by any other name is +just as sweet."</p> + +<p>"I wish we had a fence," she said turning the subject hastily.</p> + +<p>"We have," he answered. "If we were to build one ourselves, it +would have to be of rocks, but Nature has provided a magnificent stone +barrier. We have only to drive the animals +we <span class="pagenum">[pg. 41]</span>are not using through the +gateway, and fasten that little wooden concern after them. There is +good pasture outside, and if we need them we can go after them. Lassie +will look after Daisy and Lily, won't you, little dog? I will go and +open the gate and drive them through. You help Lassie keep those two +back."</p> + +<p>She stood undecidedly, and he turned and said gently, "I will come +back without passing through the gateway. I will never pass it without +you. I wouldn't dare. Now see how nicely Lassie will conduct this +round-up."</p> + +<p>As he went toward the gateway, her eyes followed him with a look he +would hardly have comprehended, it was so full of relief and +gratitude. He understood and reassured her without noticing her fears +or smiling at <span class="pagenum">[pg. 42]</span>her weakness. Every +day and many times she thanked God that, of all the men who might have +been left by this modern deluge, it was Adam who had been with her and +was with her in this terrible experience.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 43]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIII"> +<h2>III</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +It might be months, or years, or days, +I kept no count,—I took no note. + +<span class="smcap">Byron.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 44]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 45]</span></p> +<p>They had been on the island nearly four months. The corn was waving +in the soft breeze, and the sun shone down hotly. Indoors sweet corn +was boiling in the same pot with new potatoes, while in an improvised +milk-boiler on coals, at one side of the fireplace, peas were +simmering. The table was spread, and there was white bread and jersey +butter and raspberries. Adam, with Lassie's puppies crawling over him, +sat in the doorway, and watched Robin put the finishing touches to +their Sunday dinner.</p> + +<p>His apparel was somewhat picturesque, and he had a brown and +thoroughly healthy look. Robin was dressed in a costume of blue +denims. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 46]</span>The skirt was rather +short, and the waist was a blouse, finished at the throat with a broad +collar that turned away from a neck still white in spite of much +sunlight. Their months of roughing it had not harmed them, and only +the intense sadness in Adam's eyes, the pathetic droop of Robin's +mouth, when they thought themselves unobserved, told a story different +from that of pastoral content.</p> + +<p>Their meal was unusually silent. Sometimes they fell into long +lapses of silence; there was so much not to say. In all the weeks of +the past they had worked, almost feverishly, allowing as little time +as possible for thought, and never speaking of what was oftenest in +their minds. Much of the time Adam seemed to be in a dream, only half +realizing the flight of time, that made hope more and more hopeless. +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 47]</span>Robin said nothing. One would not +seek to console the sky with phrases if all the stars were wiped out. +She half reproached herself at times for the peace, the something akin +to happiness, that had crept into her life. She had long before grown +very weary of the world and all it had to offer.</p> + +<p>She was stung at the sight of Adam's quiet face, with the repressed +suffering that had somehow touched it with a beauty it had not +possessed, and she said impetuously, "Let us go out, Adam; let us go +quite away somewhere, and talk. There is so much I want to ask you, +but I have not dared."</p> + +<p>He looked up with such a hurt expression that she went on quickly, +"Not that; I mean I couldn't. I have been afraid to put things in +words. They grow so much more real then. <span class="pagenum">[pg. +48]</span>But now I am afraid to keep my thoughts longer."</p> + +<p>They went past the wheat and corn fields, through a narrow cañon +that led them to a valley they had never seen before. It was very +beautiful, and the play of the sunlight on the high walls of rock, the +murmur of the stream below them, the trembling aspens, the white peaks +in the distance, made a scene worthy their attention, but they were +blind to it.</p> + +<p>They sat down on a broad stone seat; presently Adam said, "Now, +tell me; tell me how it seems to you."</p> + +<p>"No," she answered, "you must tell me. What has happened to us, +Adam? Where are we, and why were we left?"</p> + +<p>"God knows," he said reverently.</p> + +<p>"Do you think it possible," she said slowly, "that we are +dead?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 49]</span>"Oh, I don't know!" he broke +out, with a return to something of his old childlike impatience. +"Sometimes I think it is all a dream, and directly I shall wake up and +find myself in my dingy old law office. But you are not a dream. These +mountains are not a dream. Lassie barking down below there is not a +dream; and these callous spots on my hands are real enough in all +conscience, and no dream could last so long. Sometimes I think we have +been hypnotized and carried off and left on an island somewhere. +Sometimes—do you remember the man who computed the vast number +of 'mysterious disappearances,' and formed a theory that the earth was +being sorted out before the opening of the last vial, or some such +stuff? Do you think we can be simply another disappearance?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 50]</span>"I don't know," she said. "It +seems easier to believe that, easier to believe anything than that the +whole world has disappeared."</p> + +<p>"Then I think sometimes," he went on, "that there are evil +powers,—I know this sounds as if I had lost my mind, and maybe I +have, I'm not sure of anything,—but it seems as if there might +be an explanation if we believed in genii who have power over us. +Perhaps you and I, who so often found fault with the poor old earth, +are being punished by banishment from it. Perhaps we are being +prepared for some great work. I haven't very much religion, and yet I +suppose I do believe in a divine purpose back of things, a directing +power that wastes nothing. I have tried to think why this thing should +come upon us, you and me, of all the world; and while +it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 51]</span>seems an evil thing, a +terrible and overwhelming disaster, when I realize that it might have +befallen me alone, then just the fact that you are here makes it seem +almost good. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said quickly. "I have felt just so. When, at first, I +felt as if I should curse God and die, I had only to remember you to +fall on my knees for thankfulness. Even if a dozen other people had +been left instead, no one would have understood as you have. Oh, I +would infinitely rather be alone with you than in the utter loneliness +of the society of a lot of men and women who would drive me mad with +their complaints and inefficiency. I don't know whether it is a dream, +or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that +if it is a punishment it has been commuted, +in <span class="pagenum">[pg. 52]</span>that you share it. And yet how +selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to wish you +were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out your +ambitions—" She stopped, and her eyes filled.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind," he said grimly. "If that is selfishness, I am selfish +to the core. I have gone over the whole list, and I don't know any one +I would rather sacrifice to companionship with me in this exile than +you. My parents were old; they could never have borne the shock. My +sisters would be unhappy without their families; my women friends +could none of them have met the exigencies of such an existence as you +have; and as for men, by this we would all have been barbarians +together. You have kept me sane and alive, for that matter."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 53]</span>"But are we sane?" she said +slowly, "I think I could stand it if I only knew we were sane and +alive. It is the feeling that I don't know anything, that this valley, +these mountains, may fade like the baseless fabric of a dream. And +sometimes I think that it may be real, all real but you, and that I +shall find myself here all alone, dead or alive, sane or mad. God! how +horrible it is!"</p> + +<p>"That thought has never troubled me," he said. "Whatever has put us +in this dream together will keep us together to the end. You have not +wanted me to go far away from you, so we have worked together; I have +even let you do work that was unfit for you because I knew you would +prefer it. You were more frank about it, but you didn't feel any more +strongly than I did. I couldn't, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +54]</span>I can't bear to have you out of my sight."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever thought that it may be so?" she asked +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"What? That it isn't a dream, and that we are sane and alive? Yes, +I have thought of that too. If it be true, how universal is the +destruction? We know now, pretty well, from the time that has +passed,—by the way, how long is it?" He stopped with a sudden +dazed look, and turned to her.</p> + +<p>"It was the first of May," she said softly. "Now it is nearly the +last of August."</p> + +<p>"Four months!" he said in a shocked tone. "I did not realize it; I +must have been worse stunned than I thought. In that case it seems as +if there can't be anything left of this continent, unless it be +detached peaks here and there, where other +mountain <span class="pagenum">[pg. 55]</span>ranges have been. There +may be other men and women waiting as we wait for a sail, a sign, a +message, and they do not know any more than we do whence it is to +come. The alteration in the climate has convinced me that the waters +on our West are those of the Pacific; it has been so warm and +pleasant. I have tried to imagine what kind of a winter we may expect, +or will the winter of our discontent be made glorious +summer—"</p> + +<p>"By three crops of strawberries, like California?" she +interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he said, smiling. "As to the East, that may be the +Atlantic, or the Gulf; it seems more probable that it is the latter. +The St. Lawrence district was said to be the oldest section of this +continent, and it is reasonable to suppose the earth's crust thickest +there, and along the mountain ranges. <span class="pagenum">[pg. +56]</span>I suppose the continent has gone to make another layer, a +stratum, on top of the pliocene, and after awhile the waters will +subside, or some volcanic action will raise up a new continent. If +there are any ships anywhere, on any seas, they will search every +degree of latitude and longitude. Our flag floats, did float, all over +this globe; if it still flies anywhere, we shall see it again."</p> + +<p>"If I did," she said irreverently, "I should feel sure we were in +heaven. It was beautiful before, but what wouldn't it mean now, Adam? +But have you any one left on earth; if this continent is all gone, who +would look for you? There are people of my blood, or there were, but +they did not even know of my existence."</p> + +<p>"There is not a soul," he answered. "Indeed, in this country it +would have <span class="pagenum">[pg. 57]</span>been one chance in ten +million. You might have done it," he said, half jestingly, "but you +are here."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she echoed; "I am here. Adam, how long will it be before you +are satisfied that no one is left, no one in the sense of any +civilized people, with a country and means of circumnavigation?"</p> + +<p>"A year," he answered, "perhaps more, but a year anyhow. I shall +not give up hope until then."</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 58]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 59]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIV"> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> + How gladly would I meet +Mortality my sentence, and be earth +Insensible! How glad would lay me down +As in my mother's lap! + +<span class="smcap">Milton.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 60]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 61]</span></p> +<p>The corn hardened, and the wheat ripened, and was harvested in +truly primeval fashion. Adam cut the wheat with a scythe, and Robin +followed him, binding it as best she could. They shocked it together, +and then began hauling it to the barn with the horses and bob-sleds, +their only vehicle. The stacking was weary work and progressed slowly. +Adam watched his co-worker toil over the sheaves, and then took them +from her and pitched them on the stack haphazard.</p> + +<p>"You shall not bother over it any more," he said, "not if we live +on hominy all winter. Have you ever been in Mexico? Well, Hawaii was +called the land of poco tempo, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +62]</span>but Mexico was the land of mañana. There isn't any work +there for the work's sake. I mean there wasn't, and we can take a +lesson from them. We need not hurry; the legislature will not meet +this winter, and there will be no grand opera before spring. Daisy and +Lily shall do our work for us. We will find a bit of hard, smooth +ground, and then we will not muzzle the cows that tread out the +grain."</p> + +<p>"Willingly," gasped Robin, climbing down from her slippery eminence +on top of the load of grain; "but do you think we are going to have +any winter?"</p> + +<p>"That is pre-eminently one of the things that no fellow can find +out," he answered. "In a dream you are likely to have any kind of +weather, and on a submerged planet we have no precedents at hand to +tell us what to expect.<span class="pagenum">[pg. 63]</span> By +replanting the vegetables right along we have had a perpetual crop. As +long as we have this kind of weather things will grow, and I suppose +we would better let them. Shut in as we are, it doesn't seem likely +that any very fearful winds are apt to trouble us; and if there is a +wet season, on this slope we shall have good drainage. If the worst +comes to the worst, there's the tunnel. Could you make that cheerful +and homelike?"</p> + +<p>Robin smiled rather sadly. "It will do to put the grain in," she +said, and they walked on silently.</p> + +<p>The spot finally selected for the threshing floor was brushed as +clean as twig brooms would make it, and the wheat spread out upon it. +Adam and Lassie drove the cows over it leisurely, and between times +Adam <span class="pagenum">[pg. 64]</span>experimented on a flail. +When he finally had one that answered the purpose, and found he could +use it without fracturing his skull, the cows were released, and he +went on with the work. Seated on a boulder close by, her sombrero +tipped well over her eyes, Robin fanned the grain, and converted it +into a coarse cracked wheat with a venerable coffee-mill.</p> + +<p>"I will make you a Mexican mill, when I get through with this," +said Adam, "but you cannot use it, because it is too hard work; I +shall have to be the miller. It is a rather simple affair, and dates +from before the days of Noah; it is made with two stones, sandstone +preferred, the lower of which is hollowed out bowl-fashion, with a +hole in the centre; the upper stone is rounding, and fits in the bowl, +and has a hole in it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 65]</span>about four +inches from the edge, in which a stout wooden handle is inserted, with +which to turn it. The two stones are ground together until they become +smooth. Then they are placed on four other stones as rests, and a +blanket or cloth is spread underneath to catch the meal. The grain is +poured around the edge of the upper stone, and works down. It makes a +very tolerable flour."</p> + +<p>"How handy you are!" she said. "Isn't it a good thing we hadn't +civilized the whole world to such a degree that only patent high-grade +flour was used? Where should we be now without the simple devices of +the good people of the Stone Age, and their survivors on whom we +looked down with so much scorn?"</p> + +<p>The snapping of the corn was an easier matter, and it was piled in +the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 66]</span>tunnel till they should be +ready to shell it. Then Adam did what he called his "fall plowing," +and left the bare brown sod to lie fallow.</p> + +<p>So far as possible, they had retained the manners and customs of +the world that had left them. There was a tolerable supply of +clothing, and a good deal more household linen than could have been +expected. Robin concluded that the owners of the cabin had not been +long married, and the bride, knowing to what kind of a place she was +coming, had thought more of her house than of herself. All the +feminine garments had to be re-fashioned. Robin made her skirts short +enough for mountain climbing, and dreading the time when her one pair +of shoes should give out, she wore sandals fashioned from yucca leaves +by Adam's clever fingers. As the hair-pins<span class="pagenum">[pg. +67]</span> lost themselves, she braided her hair in a long queue, the +curling ends of which fell far below her waist.</p> + +<p>The little house was kept as neat and clean as if it were +headquarters for all the labor-saving inventions in the world, and +their meals were as well served as if a corps of servants had been in +attendance. They were simple, and often a little monotonous, as meals +must be where there is nothing save what grows on one's own +plantation. They had no tea, coffee, sugar, spices, or foreign fruits. +However, the hardship of manual labor and plain food would cure most +cases of dyspepsia, and they did not suffer.</p> + +<p>One day early in December, Robin woke to the consciousness of a +steady drip, drip of rain, accompanied by an indescribably mournful +wind. In the other room she heard Adam piling +on <span class="pagenum">[pg. 68]</span>the logs, and shivered. +Perhaps the winter had come. It had been hard enough when there was +plenty of work, and the free outdoor life; if they should become +prisoners, how should they, how would <i>he</i> endure it? She dressed +quickly, and met his cheery "good-morning" in kind, and over their +breakfast they discussed the possibility of this storm being the first +of many. They decided that they must get the corn into such shape that +the tunnel would be available for the hapless cattle, or even for +themselves, if need be.</p> + +<p>"We will go up there and shell corn all day," said Adam. "It isn't +really cold, and you can wrap up a bit. I wish I had thought to take a +lot of stone into the tunnel to build a bin at the end to put the corn +in. I don't know how we are to manage it."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 69]</span>She disappeared into the +bedroom and came back presently with a few grain sacks. When Adam +opened the door he was nearly ready to abandon his plan.</p> + +<p>"You will be wet through," he said; "I cannot let you go."</p> + +<p>"Then you cannot go either," she answered.</p> + +<p>"But I must," he said. She was standing by him, hardly reaching his +shoulder, the sacks over her head. Catching her up in his arms, he +banged the door behind them, and ran up the slope to the tunnel, where +he deposited her laughing, and shaking the water from her curly hair. +As he had said, it was not cold, and they sat down near the mouth of +the tunnel, turned the tops of their sacks back over corncobs, and +shelled the corn in silence. At last a little sigh from Robin made +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 70]</span>Adam look up quickly. Her hands +were bleeding.</p> + +<p>"Robin," he cried angrily, "how can you be so cruel! I don't want +you to do this work; there is no need. I forgot to watch you; besides, +I know you are tired. You did not sleep last night; I heard you moving +about."</p> + +<p>"Then you did not sleep either," she responded quickly.</p> + +<p>He flushed through the tan, and scooping some dry leaves together +into a bed, took off his coat and folded it for a pillow.</p> + +<p>"Lie down and rest a little now," he said, "while I go down to the +house and see what I can find for lunch. Then you can have a good +sleep this afternoon."</p> + +<p>He was gone several minutes, and when he came back with some +sandwiches in a tin bucket, and a dozen <span class="pagenum">[pg. +71]</span>scarlet radishes dripping in his hand, he stopped appalled. +Robin was at the extreme end of the tunnel, sitting on the ground, +laughing and crying and talking extravagant nonsense. Had she really +gone mad, at last? Adam put down the bucket, and walked toward her +unsteadily. She did not stir, but went on chattering in the same +absurd way, until she saw him; then she cried excitedly, "Oh, look! +it's kittens, real little tame kittens, though their mother won't come +near me yet. She is over in that corner."</p> + +<p>Adam saw her green eyes, and though distrustful she was not +unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came +back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set +down before the kittens. They lapped it <span class="pagenum">[pg. +72]</span>eagerly, and as the two human beings withdrew discreetly, +the cat crept out of her corner and joined in the feast. When it was +over, Robin took possession of one tiny ball of fur, and Adam of +another, while they made their own meal. Then Robin curled up among +the dead leaves, and slept like a child.</p> + +<p>It was growing dusk when Adam awoke from his day-dreams. The tunnel +looked like a small grain elevator. On one side Robin still slept, but +the old cat was nestled contentedly at her feet, and the kittens were +playing sleepily over her.</p> + +<p>"What is she dreaming?" Adam asked wearily. "All day I have sat +here and dreamed dreams that can never come true. I know it; I feel +it. I told her a year, but I am as sure now as I shall be in six +years, that there is no hope. The watch-fire +is <span class="pagenum">[pg. 73]</span>out to-night,—the first +night in eight months. I shall re-light it for her sake; not that she +is any more deceived than I, but she will be happier to believe me +still hopeful. What will be the end of it all? How can it end?"</p> + +<p>"The same old way," came a sleepy voice from the leaves, "with the +'got married and lived happily ever after' formula." She sat up and +rubbed her eyes, and stretched lazily, to the discomfort of the +kittens, who retreated hastily. As she struggled to her feet and a +knowledge of her surroundings, her face changed pitifully, and she sat +down again and cried miserably.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was so real!" she sobbed. "I can see it now. We were back +in the old house, in the library, don't you remember it? and Walter +was at <span class="pagenum">[pg. 74]</span>the piano, and Louis had +just asked me how to finish his last story. Did I answer out loud? Oh, +which is the dream, for that was as real as this!"</p> + +<p>Adam stood and watched her. He tried not to think of that apropos +answer. He heard the beating, steady patter of the rain, and the +lowing of the cows, and there was not even a star in heaven to look at +him from its accustomed place with a friendly, twinkling promise for +the future. There was nothing left. So far as he was concerned, the +earth was without form and void. There was nothing to wait or hope +for. There was nothing to live for, neither cheerful yesterdays nor +confident to-morrows. What was the use in living? He looked down at +the slender creature lying outstretched almost at his feet, shaken +with the agony of long-repressed<span class="pagenum">[pg. 75]</span> +grief, and then at his long, muscular hands. How little it would take +to end it all for both of them! A mist came over his eyes and he +stooped, his hands outstretched toward her white throat. They fell on +the rounded curve of her shoulder. He checked the caress as he checked +the other impulse and shook her instead.</p> + +<p>"Let us go home," he said.</p> + +<p>They went into the storm.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 76]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 77]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterV"> +<h2>V</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Why wilt thou take a castle on thy back +When God gave but a pack? +With gown of honest wear, why wilt thou tease +For braid and fripperies? +Learn thou with flowers to dress, with birds to feed, +And pinch thy large want to thy little need. + +<span class="smcap">Frederick Langbridge.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 78]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 79]</span></p> +<p>The next morning dawned clear and warm, and Adam, coming in with +his milk-pails, held out his hand to Robin. There were three ripe +strawberries.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, "they are the harbingers of spring, or a California +climate, and either way makes our gain. California without fogs and +fleas is heavenly enough for most people."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, they completed the shelling of the corn, and made a +bin for it at the end of the tunnel, removing the cat family to the +house, where Lassie viewed their advent with jealous eyes. One day +when they had been hulling corn for nearly a week, Adam sat down and +began laughing. "Do you know how much corn it takes to plant an acre?" +he asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 80]</span>"No," said Robin, blankly. "I +know something about the number of kernels to the hill,—'one for +the cutworm, and one for the crow, and one for something-or-other +else, I forget what, and one to grow.' Why?"</p> + +<p>"It takes eight quarts to plant an acre. We have raised about +thirty bushels to the acre, which is very well for sod. That will make +over fifteen thousand pounds of meal and hominy, and will feed us for +seven years, even if we eat six pounds daily. Unless there is a winter +season, when we must do something for the animals, there is not the +slightest use in planting more than an acre. As to the wheat, even +with a light yield, there would be fifteen hundred pounds to the acre. +We have fresh vegetables all the time, and there will be any quantity +of potatoes and cabbage and beans."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 81]</span>"And yet people starved +everywhere, and it seemed to me that the farmers were the worst off of +all."</p> + +<p>"They farmed to make money, not to live, and they had no control +over the markets. They had to sell or build barns. It is only Dives +who can afford to tear down the old ones and build greater. It was +easier for them to sell cheap to a man who took their wheat and held +it until it could be sold back to them as dear flour. They were eaten +up with mortgages and pests and interest. Have you noticed that there +are almost no insects here, not even flies and mosquitoes? They were +never so bad in the mountains, and apparently they have been wiped out +with the rest."</p> + +<p>"Truly, Adam," she said, "speaking just of the physical part of it, +would you regret this year?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 82]</span>He stood up and stretched out +his arms, a splendid type of manhood, smooth-shaven, with clear-cut +features, bronzed, square-shouldered, and powerful.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are magnificent!" she cried involuntarily. "It has done +you good, great good. You are twice the man you were in strength and +health and resource; and if only we had been cast away on an island, +knowing we were sure to be rescued some day soon, I should not be +sorry at all."</p> + +<p>He colored and answered frankly: "Without the mental strain, I +should not regret this year. Sometimes, when I am sure it is a dream, +and that presently we shall waken, I can't help wondering whether we +shall not wish we had fretted less and enjoyed it more. When I come to +think of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 83]</span>it, I believe it is the +first time since I was a child that ways and means have not troubled +me. It was a good thing to work as we have, to keep our minds +employed, but now that we are sure that starvation is five or six +years away, we might as well drop the old, headlong rush to get more +than we need. That has been the trouble ever since men began to make +history. It was the same thing,—power, conquest, riches, +everything; too much to eat, too much to drink, too much to +wear—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't say that of us," said Robin ruefully, looking down +at her made-over gown.</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps not, and I don't mean that there ever was a time +when there was a general surfeit, but I mean that was the tendency. +There would have been plenty for all, if part +had <span class="pagenum">[pg. 84]</span>not taken more than their +share; as for the other part who had not enough, they only longed for +the opportunity to simulate their unwise betters. When they could, +they took too much, too, if it was only to drink and forget their +misery. We could have lived so well and so easily, if we had lived +more simply, coming more directly in contact with nature, as we have +this year."</p> + +<p>She shook her head doubtfully. "This has not been real life at all. +We have only kept alive. We haven't read anything or done anything or +helped any one—"</p> + +<p>"Except each other and the animals dependent on us. On the whole, I +don't know but that we have accomplished about as much as when we were +devoting most of our attention to paying board and rent bills. We have +helped each other more than we <span class="pagenum">[pg. +85]</span>can measure. We should have died had we been left alone with +our thoughts. All of life is not in cities, nor even in books."</p> + +<p>She did not answer for some moments, and then said slowly, "If it +were a dream, and we were going back to the old life, what would you +regret most?"</p> + +<p>"If we were going back to the world we know, I should regret a good +many things; first, I suppose, that I did not realize sooner that we +must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed. +Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, à la +Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I +should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to +day. There is other writing I should want to do,—but there is no +paper, and I don't know how to make any."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 86]</span>"There is plenty of time to do +all that yet," she said. "What else would you wish you had done?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not +understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that +we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we +used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should +have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship +when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a +dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped +and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there +had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them.</p> + +<p>"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 87]</span>She shrank a little, and her +eyes looked far away, past the gateway. "Some of the things you +mention; very much that I had not encouraged you more to go on with +your work, but mainly—"</p> + +<p>"Well, mainly?"</p> + +<p>She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and +answered evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is +that when I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember +all those wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so +wise. The only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for +cooking without sugar, or spice, or fruit."</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 88]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 89]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVI"> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill; +But let it whistle as it will, +We'll keep our Christmas merry still. + +<span class="smcap">Scott.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 90]</span></p> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 91]</span></p> +<p>It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, +was chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room +was full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, +with an attempt at gayety.</p> + +<p>Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If +only I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England, +didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come +through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases +may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you +think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do, +please give me the smaller box; I am sure <span class="pagenum">[pg. +92]</span>it has hair-pins and needles and darning-cotton in it."</p> + +<p>Adam laughed. "We will give them to each other," he said, "and +perhaps you'll find some stockings in your box, if there is no box in +your stockings. We can dream of their contents all night, +and—who knows?—we may have a merry Christmas, after +all."</p> + +<p>Robin hardly knew the place next morning. Adam had risen early and +decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly +glistened. "I wish I knew how to thank him," she said.</p> + +<p>"Do you like it?" he said, as he came in. "I was afraid I should +waken you putting it up."</p> + +<p>"Like it!" she answered, "Why, Adam, it is beautiful. You are just +an ideal Santa Claus."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 93]</span>When they had finished their +breakfast they went out and looked at the boxes.</p> + +<p>"You must open yours first," she said; "it's so big I know it +doesn't contain anything nice, so we would better save mine till the +last, and then I can divide with you. What do you think it is? You +shall have three guesses."</p> + +<p>"It might be a piano from its size," he ventured.</p> + +<p>"No," she said decidedly. "It's not the right shape."</p> + +<p>"Or perhaps it's a feather-bed; I don't know of anything I want +less."</p> + +<p>"It's too large for that; now guess, really."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I expect it is mining machinery, which will +be about as much use as another chimney; but here goes to find out." +He brought <span class="pagenum">[pg. 94]</span>his hatchet down +vigorously between the boards at one end, where a slight crevice +promised some leeway.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but +stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute +treasures!"</p> + +<p>He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which +he removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as +if they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were +no more on earth to draw. When the top of the box was finally off, and +a quantity of papers removed, they gave a simultaneous cry of delight. +The box was full of books. They took them out, one at a time, with +little exclamations of pleasure, as an old friend came to light. +Sitting down on the ground they piled the +books <span class="pagenum">[pg. 95]</span>about them on the papers, +and opening favorites here and there read to each other and themselves +till long after noon. It was really a fine library, well chosen, +covering a wide range of subjects and including an encyclopædia and an +unusually fine edition of Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it the most beautiful Christmas present you can imagine, +Adam?" she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because, +in the old slang, you 'want the earth.'"</p> + +<p>"But we haven't even opened your box," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to," she answered slowly. "Somehow I feel as if we +would better stop now and let well enough alone. Let us enjoy this +awhile. Perhaps the other box may spoil this one, or at least the +day."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 96]</span>Adam laughed with good-natured +tolerance. "How absurd!" he said. "Let us see what there is. You know +you said yours would be the nicest; besides, if it contains sawdust +and last year's almanacs, I shall have to divide with you, and we may +quarrel over the Shakespeare." He opened the box while she stood +watching him with a strange unwillingness. It had been labeled, "This +Side Up," and on the very top there was a wooden case. He put it in +Robin's arms, and she opened it with trembling fingers. She replaced +the broken strings, adjusted the bridge, tucked the violin under her +chin, tuned it, and straightway escaped from every sorry care of +earth.</p> + +<p>Adam went on unpacking the box. It contained chiefly materials for +writing,—all the paraphernalia that +the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 97]</span>fastidious student requires. +There were many note-books, and at the bottom a large, handsomely +inlaid writing-desk. The name on the cover made him start and call +her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed +the vibrating wood with sudden feeling.</p> + +<p>"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's +violins, do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you +open the desk?"</p> + +<p>He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few +papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page +written, and read:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my effects +to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena convinces me that I +may have been in error, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 98]</span>and that +the cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within a few +months I shall burn this book, and confess that I should be written +down an ass, or turn to it to prove myself a prophet. From the eyrie I +have chosen I expect to be able to write the story of the coming +deluge. It will be of great value to posterity to have a calm, +scientific account, quite free from any tinge of superstition or +religion. I have to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies +of my calculations, with references to former inundations, and reasons +for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest at this time. All +geologists agree that—"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Here the journal terminated abruptly.</p> + +<p>Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or +possibly she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if +it were the napkin over the face of the dead.</p> + +<p>"It is not to the wise that God has <span class="pagenum">[pg. +99]</span>revealed himself," she said softly. "Where is the hand that +wrote this? You must finish it, Adam. Here are the blank pages waiting +for such a chapter as was never written on earth."</p> + +<p>But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is +all true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked +away with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk; +he neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything, +and while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he +had never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a +rescue.</p> + +<p>Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its +liquid notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine, +brushing its <span class="pagenum">[pg. 100]</span>fingers across his +heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She played for a long time, and +when she ceased, in some strange way he felt that he was +comforted.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 101]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVII"> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +The World is too much with us; late and soon + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; + Little we see in nature that is ours; +We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. + + + Great God! I'd rather be + A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,— +So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; +Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; + Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. + +<span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 102]</span></p> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 103]</span></p> +<p>They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin +had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her +hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to +the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly. +The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither +had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of God +in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on +earth.</p> + +<p>She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and +she answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend, +that <span class="pagenum">[pg. 104]</span>the souls on other planets +call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What made it so sorrowful, Adam?"</p> + +<p>"Ignorance would cover it all," he answered, "but to be specific, +intemperance, sensuality, avarice, and poverty. I don't mean +drunkenness only, when I say intemperance. I have known a few +prohibitionists in my time who were as intemperate in their eating as +any one could be in the matter of drink. I think intemperance in its +widest sense was the great curse of our time anyway; drink and tobacco +and tea and coffee; and as to our eating, there was too much, of +almost everything on earth that was not food, but which could be +over-salted and over-peppered, and treated with tabasco sauce. We +over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing +all kinds of things in which <span class="pagenum">[pg. +105]</span>there was no sense. Think of reading one or two morning and +evening papers every day. To be sure we said there was nothing in +them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a stream of +silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the things we +wore—"</p> + +<p>Robin laughed. "I know," she said. "The sewing-machine didn't save +work; it only made ruffles. A dressmaker once said to me, 'It's a good +thing for me that these women haven't sense enough to spend their time +and money on themselves, in making their bodies free and strong and +beautiful. But no; they would rather have a stylish dress than a +graceful body. They don't care to be beautiful themselves; all they +want is a handsome gown to cover their ugliness.' Isn't it strange +that we <span class="pagenum">[pg. 106]</span>never seemed able to +realize that the Greek fashions were immortal because they were +beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"Still, I don't think the dress of the Greek women would be very +convenient for housework," ventured Adam.</p> + +<p>Robin shook her head. "You only say that because some woman has +said it to you. The Diana of the Stag wore the first rainy-day gown. +The Greek dress was capable of ever so many modifications. If I were +making a handbook of proverbs for women, I should say, 'A good +complexion is rather to be chosen than many fine dresses, and glossy +and abundant hair turneth away wrath.' I believe in the simplification +of life. I understand just how Thoreau felt when he threw out that +specimen because it had to be dusted daily. There are very few things +beautiful enough <span class="pagenum">[pg. 107]</span>to pay for that +amount of trouble. But perhaps that is because I don't care for +specimens, and I loathe dusting."</p> + +<p>"You ought to have been a Jap," said Adam. "There was one in +college, in my class, and one day when I was fretting over something I +could not afford he said, in that immensely polite way of theirs, 'You +I cannot understand. With all American people it so is, even as by +Ruskin said was it; whatever you have, of it you more would get, and +where you are, you would go from. You happy are only when something +you get, and never that you yourself are.' But I think the Celestial +was wrong there. When a man is self-conscious of illy-made garments, a +mean domicile, a poor kind of half education, he is uncomfortable; he +hasn't accomplished his <span class="pagenum">[pg. +108]</span>evolution from the conscious, the self-conscious, to the +unconscious. It was this very discomfort and inequality that used so +to enrage me, for it need not have been."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Robin, "we knew how to make paper; of all the +fascinating things in Bellamy's 'Equality,' there was nothing I liked +so well as the idea of paper garments, to be burned when one got +through with them. Think of never having any washing and ironing, and +always having new clothes."</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether we could invent some of those things over again," +said Adam, reflectively.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't spare you any of my precious rags, if you could," said +Robin.</p> + +<p>"Most of the paper was made out of wood, anyhow," answered Adam, +"and the ash that grows here in any <span class="pagenum">[pg. +109]</span>quantity was considered particularly fine for that +purpose."</p> + +<p>"'God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions,'" +quoted Robin, "and now we are going to seek them over again. I can't +imagine how anyone could ever make a lineotype, but the type and the +hand-press are easy enough, and if you can make paper, we may yet live +to read our 'published works.' You probably do not know that I used to +have a Wegg-like facility for dropping into poetry."</p> + +<p>"Did you? That is another of the things you never told me; but your +speaking of Thoreau," answered Adam, "recalls what he said of the +amount of work necessary to sustain life beside Walden Pond. It took +six weeks out of the year, and that was in a most forbidding country. +In such a valley <span class="pagenum">[pg. 110]</span>as this two +months ought to be sufficient to more than feed and clothe us; but +then he didn't have to make his own clothing."</p> + +<p>"And out of nothing particular," interrupted Robin.</p> + +<p>Adam laughed and went on. "Did you ever hear of a man called +Hertzka? He was an eminent Austrian sociologist, and he figured it +out, that if five million men should work a little less than an hour +and three quarters a day they could produce all the necessities of +life for the twenty-two million people of Austria. By working two +hours and twelve minutes daily for two months beside, they could have +all the luxuries also. And that not for a few, not for the Court and +the nobility, but for all. There could have been music and pictures +and books and theatres, and sufficient <span class="pagenum">[pg. +111]</span>food and clothing. Isn't it strange that when we might have +been so happy we preferred to be so wretched? For even if we had all +we wanted ourselves, we could not escape the sights and sounds that +told of abject misery."</p> + +<p>"It was always so," Robin answered moodily. "The poor we had always +with us. History always repeated itself."</p> + +<p>"Still, it didn't exactly repeat itself," Adam said. "Our dark age +would have done for a golden age in the past. Greece was glorious for +a little while, but her literature tells us of her ideals. The isles +of Greece, where Byron contracted his last illness, would have left +him to die among the rocks twenty-five hundred years earlier, because +he had a lame foot. We at least were kinder to animals, and that means +a great deal."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 112]</span>"I don't know," she answered. +"Perhaps; it seems to me I have read of a hospital for sick animals on +the island of Ceylon a long sometime B. C. Lady Mary Wortley +Montagu—or was it Lady Hester Stanhope?—said she had +traveled all over the world, and had never found but two kinds of +people,—men and women. I fancy the same thing is true of all the +ages as well as all the countries."</p> + +<p>"No," Adam said, shaking his head; "our ideals change. The scheme +of life laid down by Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and to the +Jews a stumbling-block, and there were plenty of Greeks and Jews in +our day. By Greeks I mean people whose ideals were purely +intellectual, and by Jews those who saw no good save a material good, +no God but the God of Mammon. They would not +hear <span class="pagenum">[pg. 113]</span>either Moses or the +prophets, and the statute of limitations was as near as they could +come to the Sabbatic year. The Greek and the Jew have stood ready with +their cup of hemlock, their crown of thorns for every Christ-spirit +that has ever come to earth. Yet more people read Socrates, and +believed on the Nazarene every year. I don't mean in the church; the +working-man did not go to church, but he uncovered his head at the +name of Christ, the first lawgiver who confounded the scribes and +Pharisees, and ate with publicans and sinners."</p> + +<p>"But Moses was the first lawgiver to forbid taking the nether +millstone as a pledge," objected Robin.</p> + +<p>"True," he admitted, "and the laws of Moses would have made the +world over. He was the greatest writer on political economy this earth +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 114]</span>has ever seen. His absolute fiat +against the alienation of the land would have done more for the common +people than all Adam Smith's theories of free competition, and +Fourier's dream of a perfected communism. But who would have known of +Moses, save for Christ? The Old Testament would have been merely the +sacred book of the Hebrews, and save as a literary and historic work, +of very uncertain historic value, would have been unread, as the Koran +and other books of a similar nature were unread."</p> + +<p>"And yet you do not believe in the divinity of Christ," she said +slowly.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered. "Is that necessary before one can believe in his +teachings? The truth is always divine. What difference does it make +whether the one who utters it be human or <span class="pagenum">[pg. +115]</span>divine, bond or slave, Æsop or Marcus Aurelius? the truth +remains the same. A fable is only another name of a parable. We have +the story of the lost sheep; that's a parable; and that of the lamb +that muddied the stream, and that's a fable. One is sacred, the other +profane, but both are fables, both parables. When you take them away +from the context it is as easy to feel for the lamb eaten by the wolf, +as for the one that was rescued, and has been immortalized in picture +and song."</p> + +<p>"Probably you are right," she said. "I never thought of it in just +that way before," and saying "good night" she went to her room.</p> + +<p>Adam thought he heard her humming, "Away on the mountains cold and +bare."</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 116]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 117]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVIII"> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +When we mean to build +We first survey the plot, then draw the model, +And, then we see the figure of the house, +Then must we rate the cost of the erection. + +<span class="smcap">Shakspere.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 118]</span></p> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 119]</span></p> + +<p>The discovery of the incomplete journal made a subtle change in +Adam. He had been silent and self-absorbed from the first, but he had +never quite given up hope. Even now, Robin sought to keep up the +pretence, and dreading the despair which she saw creeping over Adam, +she began artfully to seek some means of interesting him in something +else. The question of a proper place for the books gave her an +opportunity, and Adam suggested that he build an addition to the +house.</p> + +<p>They planned it as eagerly as if it was to be a castle, and spent +days in looking for adobe, but finally decided that logs would be +better, and Adam's <span class="pagenum">[pg. 120]</span>ax could have +been heard ringing from morning till night. A log house is not exactly +a work of art, but it requires no little skill to build one, and takes +a good deal of time when the logs for the floor must be planed and +squared, so as to make a matched board floor. Sometimes Robin went +with Adam, and worked or read; sometimes she took him his luncheon at +noon, for the trees were at some little distance from the house. The +logs had to be "snaked" across the rough ground and down the mountain, +and when the floor had been laid, and the location of the window +decided upon, Robin planted morning-glory seeds where it was to be. By +dint of much pushing and hauling the logs were finally put in place, +and the roof battened down. The window was truly worthy of a mediæval +castle, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 121]</span>for it was simply an +oblong hole, boxed in with a casement made from some scraps of boards, +while a slab shutter, swung on leather hinges, shut out the +elements.</p> + +<p>The chinking was a simple matter, and when it was all done, +including a doorway into the main room, Robin was unfeignedly +delighted. They made rows of shelves with the packing-cases, and +arranged the books thereon. It was not an extensive library, but it +occupied one side of the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the +window Robin placed the green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's +writing materials. Along the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the +fashion in miners' cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft +inner cornhusk, and a pillow from the other room, and blankets from +the one tiny <span class="pagenum">[pg. 122]</span>closet, the couch +looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats made from +plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portière, woven from the +same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly +despised.</p> + +<p>Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the +room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin +was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that +they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory +blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means +unattractive.</p> + +<p>Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and +she scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or +invented furniture, until inside and out their +little <span class="pagenum">[pg. 123]</span>domain was as perfect as +they could make it.</p> + +<p>Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they +dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the +turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam +harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and +corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to +do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality.</p> + +<p>Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he +could sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and +the paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment, +then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How +when his friends got rich they first built a +beautiful <span class="pagenum">[pg. 124]</span>house, and then went +abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like +it?"</p> + +<p>The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it, +and he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the +expedition.</p> + +<p>Robin baked and prepared as well as she could.</p> + +<p>"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized, +as she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals +over it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and +learned how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and," as +she rolled out some crackers, "it is a blessed good thing I went to +cooking-school, but I wish that, instead of being so particular about +the knobs on the candlesticks, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +125]</span>the Pentateuch had given Sarah's recipe for making cakes +with honey. Not that I have any honey, but I am sure we shall find +some on this trip."</p> + +<p>When they were all ready, and the burros stood waiting at the door, +with Lassie jumping wildly about them, Adam wrote a placard which he +stuck in the framework of the door. The stock had been turned loose on +the mountain-side, and the house and stables secured as well as +possible against any storms that might arise. The kittens had +possession of one of the sheds. The puppies were to accompany +them.</p> + +<p>Robin had put on her long unused shoes, and a new gown that she had +made out of a dark blue serge found hanging in her room. Adam looked +at her approvingly from under his wide sombrero. She turned back, +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 126]</span>after going a few paces, and +read the card.</p> + +<div class="center" style="text-align:center;"> +<p>WAIT!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">April</span> 5th.</p> + +<p><i>Back in two weeks.</i></p> + +<p><i>Look for smoke.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>As she passed into the cañon that hid their home from sight, Adam +saw her brush her hand across her eyes.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 127]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIX"> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all +barren." + +<span class="smcap">Sterne.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 128]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 129]</span></p> +<p> +They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending +their way through dim defiles and along precipitous cañons, until they +saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time +that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide +tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved +that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They +had not looked upon the ocean before for many months.</p> + +<p>They picketed the burros on the rank, salt grass, and built their +camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began +her supper preparations, Adam went scouting +along <span class="pagenum">[pg. 130]</span>the coast. In less than +half an hour he came back with a quantity of clams which he threw down +before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags. She +gave a little feminine shriek of delight.</p> + +<p>"Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot," she said; +"bring it here, please."</p> + +<p>Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and +stir in the various ingredients.</p> + +<p>"It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted," she said, +"even if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of +our adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate."</p> + +<p>"They might think it a voracious tale if I did," he answered, +dropping some more butter into his mealy potato. "Do you remember how +the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 131]</span>Swiss Family were always +worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to eat?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast, +and a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for +supper. And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed +one of their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good +to eat?"</p> + +<p>They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they +were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle +was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said "good +night." It had been an exciting day.</p> + +<p>It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened +by Lassie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to +Robin. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 132]</span>There was no answer, and +her blankets lay tossed on the other side of the fire. He started up +and listened. At first he heard only the sound of the sea; then there +came mingled with it the clear notes of her glorious voice. Holding +Lassie in check he went down to the beach.</p> + +<p>Robin stood well out on the shimmering sand, the waves lapping +softly almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and +caught the words,—</p> + +<pre> + "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove, + Far away, far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest." +</pre> + +<p>Her voice quivered when she came to the words, "In the wilderness +build me a nest," but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn +after hymn, anthem after anthem, for <span class="pagenum">[pg. +133]</span>she sang nothing else. He heard the bitter cry of the De +Profundis, Handel's triumphant "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and +then she began, "He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps."</p> + +<p>His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had +written by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom, +she had put those five bars from "Elijah." Though he did not believe +it, for he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own +race, and the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had +comforted him in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an +American "non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching +over Israel had not been less merciful.</p> + +<p>Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year, +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 134]</span>though she was a very perfectly +trained musician. Indeed in the old days, Adam had first sought her +acquaintance because of her music.</p> + +<p>Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred +to keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back, +and controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him +intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh +that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows.</p> + +<p>Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their +melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour +was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts +and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long, +prickly vines <span class="pagenum">[pg. 135]</span>that would be +covered with raspberries, and wild grapes and choke-cherries and +currants, which they planned to transplant, for though the Western +coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more convenient than +their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley. Already it had come +to mean home.</p> + +<p>They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the +island, making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if +anywhere, on land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and +every night their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their +vicinity. The island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising +here and there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point, +Adam said, "We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always +named places."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 136]</span>Robin looked at the bare, +stone walls rising sheer above the waves three hundred feet, and her +lip curled.</p> + +<p>"Let us call it the Cape of Good Hope," she said.</p> + +<p>"In the name of wonder, why?" asked Adam, and she answered, +"Because we are past it," and then would have given anything to have +recalled the bitter words.</p> + +<p>The Eastern coast was wilder and more picturesque, but the +traveling was correspondingly slower. Something in the formation of +the coast caused a terrific surf, and at many places there was +scarcely any beach, and they found themselves compelled to climb along +trails that made even the burros dizzy.</p> + +<p>When they had been absent ten days, Robin said, "I begin to feel +like a grandmother; no, I don't mean that <span class="pagenum">[pg. +137]</span>I feel so old, but that I begin to long to see the chicken +and cat-children, and the new calf, and—everything."</p> + +<p>Adam laughed, "I have been thinking we ought to hurry; that place +of ours is growing so entrancingly lovely in memory that last night I +dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!"</p> + +<p>They were not to reach home without at least one adventure, +however. A day or so later, as they toiled up a painfully steep +ascent, Lassie sounded the note of alarm, and catching up the rifle, +Adam ran ahead. As he rounded a point in the rocks, he came upon a +Rocky Mountain goat engaged in combat with a cinnamon bear. The bear +was hardly more than a cub, and was carrying off one of the kids. The +goat, horns down, was fighting viciously, though weak from loss of +blood.</p> + +<p>It would be interesting to know <span class="pagenum">[pg. +138]</span>what one wild animal thinks when another wild animal, from +its point of view, comes to the rescue. Adam carried a lariat over one +arm. In an instant it flew through the air, dropping over Bruin's +shoulders. He released the kid, and tumbled backward over the cliff, +as much with surprise as by the force of the jerk on the rope, taking +that treasured article with him.</p> + +<p>It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their +hurts, and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there +was a beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as +they put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said +tentatively, "If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses +and the sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I +can <span class="pagenum">[pg. 139]</span>be back in three +hours,—I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as +I think."</p> + +<p>Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering +driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the +coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build +a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its +uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and +put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls, +I will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle +Books' by heart for nothing."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought +him to the little cove and the high wall of <span class="pagenum">[pg. +140]</span>rocks that shut them in on the south in a little over an +hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and they raced on ahead, as +he came in sight of the house. Everything seemed to have an air of +welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully when he called them from the +gateway.</p> + +<p>The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his +hand, and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows, +and gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the +team and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at +the south, they went on rapidly.</p> + +<p>Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw +her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not +been separated so long before that year, +and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 141]</span>realized the unconscious +strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however, +though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the +horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed +against her affectionately.</p> + +<p>She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they +had their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the +kids their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took +but a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and +the goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the +cavalcade started on its way.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 142]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 143]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterX"> +<h2>X</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed +Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head, +And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, +Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, +Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow +Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow; +Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide +More heart's repose than all the world beside. + +<span class="smcap">Leonidas.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 144]</span></p> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 145]</span></p> +<p>"Do you know, Adam," said Robin, when they had walked a mile in +silence, "do you know that you are a fraud?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," he responded, "but I didn't know you knew it. Is the +discovery recent?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle +instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?"</p> + +<p>"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good +and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last +year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have +done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it +would seem <span class="pagenum">[pg. 146]</span>like murder to +slaughter the animals about us. And it's such a little world it seems +a pity to kill off any of its inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope +the bear got away all right. This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want +my hand first to bring death on all there is left of earth. +Incidentally,—there are no cartridges."</p> + +<p>He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them +more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved +on.</p> + +<p>Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!"</p> + +<p>There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and +asked why, and she answered:—</p> + +<p>"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is +that we shall need their fleece unless,—why, goodness gracious, +Adam, there <span class="pagenum">[pg. 147]</span>is a baking-powder +can of flax in the dresser, and I never thought till this moment that +we can plant it."</p> + +<p>"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do +with it?"</p> + +<p>"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I +can't, but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl, +very near to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. +She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She +made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had +eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to +go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful +amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the +women were poor 'doless' creatures, who +couldn't <span class="pagenum">[pg. 148]</span>spin a hank of yarn, or +gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when +she found I couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and +during the seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to +school she taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I +have forgotten them."</p> + +<p>"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam.</p> + +<p>She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I have a fancy," she said, "that Nannette and her children are +going to minister to a mind diseased, and help pluck a rooted sorrow +from the brain. The world was getting too healthy. Has it ever struck +you that we have neither of us been sick for a day this year? I have +had to mother the chickens, but there has been +no <span class="pagenum">[pg. 149]</span>suffering. I'm not glad to +have pain come into the world, but it is good to be able to alleviate +it. We will put Nannette in a sling till her leg has a chance to set, +and by the time it is well she won't want to leave us. As for the +kids, I expect they will be like the plague of frogs, and we shall +find them in our beds and our ovens and our kneading troughs. Oh, +Adam, there is the house! Doesn't it look dear and homey?"</p> + +<p>She put the kid back on the sled, and ran on, pointing out this and +that, the growth of the corn, the afternoon radiance, till they +reached their doorway. Then there were a thousand things to do. First +Nannette was made comfortable in the stable; then the chickens were +summoned to a meal of yellow corn, and when Lassie drove the cows into +the barnyard, each <span class="pagenum">[pg. 150]</span>was +congratulated in turn upon her calf, and those interesting, if wobbly, +bovine infants were carefully inspected. After supper they sat down +before the fire, very tired, but the nearest happy they had been in a +year. The dogs were lying about them, and the thump, thump of first +one tail and then another told the story of canine content, while the +kittens walked over them impartially.</p> + +<p>"What a strange thing human nature is!" Adam said. "The only thing +needed to make our life perfect is that it shall not last. The moment, +if that moment ever comes, when it is real no more, it will become +ideal."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said dreamily. "Things in the world used to be too +good to be true. This must cease to be, to be good at all."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 151]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXI"> +<h2>XI</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Yet if Hope has flown away +In a night, or in a day, +In a vision, or in none. +Is it therefore the less gone? +All that we see or seem +Is but a dream within a dream. + +<span class="smcap">Poe.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 152]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 153]</span></p> +<p>"It is the first of May," said Adam. "It is a year ago to-day. +Shall we pass the gateway?"</p> + +<p>"Not now," answered Robin. "Wait till afternoon. I am so busy this +morning."</p> + +<p>She was sitting at the table teaching half a dozen little chickens +to appreciate hard-boiled egg. The wounded kid was lying in her lap, +one arm was about it, and an adventurous kitten looked over her +shoulder. As she tapped on the board with one slender forefinger, the +chickens, hearing their mother's bill, began picking up the fragments +of egg. She had rounded out wonderfully in a year, and Adam realized +for the first time that she was a very beautiful woman.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 154]</span>"Suppose," she went on, "you +begin your book to-day. Write your description of a year ago. It will +never be so plain again. There is plenty of time before we go. +Besides, if it is a dream, we shall want the written record to show +what dreams may come."</p> + +<p>Adam hesitated a moment, then went to his desk. She had said truly, +the events of that day would never again be so clear, and as he began +to record them they marshaled themselves before him, until he found +himself writing with a dramatic power that fascinated and amazed +him.</p> + +<p>It must have been some time afterward that Robin stole in and set a +glass of milk, some biscuit and strawberries, down on the desk beside +him and then went out, taking the dogs with her. He did not notice +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 155]</span>another sound until she called +him to supper.</p> + +<p>While he did the evening work Robin dressed herself in the garments +she had worn the year before. As soon as she could make others she had +put them aside, awaiting the awakening or the rescue.</p> + +<p>The heavy cloth skirt and the silk waist were put on with a strange +reluctance. Years ago the old doctor in "The Guardian Angel" said our +china became our tombstones, but surely our garments may become the +graveyards of our emotions, and hold sharp or sweet remembrances long +after they are past wearing. In spite of some tan Robin found the face +that looked back at her from her mirror infinitely more attractive +than it had been the year before.</p> + +<p>Adam started a little when he saw <span class="pagenum">[pg. +156]</span>her. Then he drew her hand through his arm, and they went +to the gateway. As he opened the gate she turned and looked back. The +sun was behind the mountains, and the shadows were long and dark. They +heard the sounds of the various creatures settling into quiet for the +night, and Adam sent back all the dogs but Lassie. They went slowly +and wistfully. Robin stooped and kissed Prince on his white forehead. +As Adam closed the gate, she said half fearfully, "Shall we ever see +them again?" But he did not answer. He took her hand and led her to +the boulder.</p> + +<p>Far as the eye could reach they saw what they expected to see. Half +a mile away the sea rolled in on a tolerably level beach; here it +thundered and roared against a sheer cliff. Among the rocks they could +see the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 157]</span>nests of many wild-fowl, +and gulls flew by them. They sat down on the rock and waited until +midnight. Then they went home. The dogs received them obstreperously, +and the kid from its corner bleated faintly. Robin bent over it +anxiously, then warmed some milk and fed it. When Adam came in with +some fresh water she was swinging slowly to and fro in the rocker, +singing softly an absurd nursery song:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<pre> + "Sleep, baby, sleep. + The stars they are the sheep; + The big moon is the shepherdess; + The little stars are the lambs, I guess. + Sleep, baby, sleep." +</pre> +</div> + +<p>"It needed to be cuddled," she said in as matter-of-fact a voice as +if all lambs were sung to sleep regularly. "You know dear old +Professor Carter said there would have been no +wild <span class="pagenum">[pg. 158]</span>animals if we hadn't made +them so; but now, if you will, you can put her with Nannie."</p> + +<p>When he came back she had gone into her room. There was nothing +more for either of them to say. There was nothing to do, except to +hope for a sail, since they no longer hoped for an awakening.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 159]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXII"> +<h2>XII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken. + +<span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 160]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 161]</span></p> +<p>The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to +refer to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone +away, to leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more +frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of +morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one +who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on +smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours +with her violin.</p> + +<p>One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and +he rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and +through <span class="pagenum">[pg. 162]</span>the gateway to their +boulder, and sat down.</p> + +<p>"Talk to me," said Adam.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am +but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely +tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in +thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are +eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and +they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in +bloom. It is so pretty."</p> + +<p>"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to +weave. Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of +it this <span class="pagenum">[pg. 163]</span>morning as I pulled out +some weeds, and how when it was pulled up and cut and hackled, it +said: 'One cannot always have good times. One must make one's +experience, and so one comes to know something;' and when it is woven +and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If I have suffered +something, I have been made into something. I am happiest of all. That +is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use in the world, and that +is right, that is a true pleasure.'"</p> + +<p>"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if +we could see the justification of our suffering."</p> + +<p>"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of +the flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is +again tortured and beaten until it becomes +paper <span class="pagenum">[pg. 164]</span>whereon an eternal word is +written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that +I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers +of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and +wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you +remember my girls' club down on—I don't think there were any +streets, but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you +tell me?"</p> + +<p>"That was ever so long ago, ages and ages,—when you came to +see—" She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun +that tells the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as +to betray unspeakable heights of adoration +or <span class="pagenum">[pg. 165]</span>abysses of loathing. She went +on slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if +there existed anything in common between you two? That sounds +dreadful, but you know all about it so well that subterfuges are +useless."</p> + +<p>"To tell the truth, I never cared anything about him at all," Adam +answered quickly. "Like a good many others, I was enthusiastic over +your voice. He asked me to the house to hear you sing, and I went, and +was glad of the chance. And you have never sung for me once this +year."</p> + +<p>"You never asked me," she answered. "'A dumb priest loses his +benefice.' But I was speaking of my club. We studied Andersen all +winter, and got enough more out of him than a lot of us who pored over +Ibsen, guided by a literary expert. +Andersen <span class="pagenum">[pg. 166]</span>has a more beautiful, a +more inspiring philosophy. Every nation has its story of Psyche, the +lost soul of things, but none is more beautiful than the tale of Gerda +and Kay. There were children in that club who were cruel, horribly +cruel, and one day when we gave an entertainment for them, one of the +older girls recited the story of 'The Daisy and the Lark.' They cried +as I had cried over it years before."</p> + +<p>"I remember," he said. "It broke my heart when I was a little +shaver. I couldn't give so sad a story as that to a child."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you could," she said, "if the child needed it. The world +was cruel, cruel, Adam; I used to wonder sometimes why God did not +blot it all out, as He has blotted it out now. Once in another club, a +big, swell affair, there was a Humane +Society <span class="pagenum">[pg. 167]</span>programme. One woman, in +a Persian lamb jacket, spoke on the evils of the overcheck; you know +how they get that wool? And women nodded the aigrettes in their +bonnets, torn from the old birds while the little ones starved to +death, to show their approval, and patted their hands gloved in the +skins of kids, sewed in cloth soon after their birth so they couldn't +grow a fleece, and tortured all their short lives, and went home to +eat pâté-de-foie gras, and broil live lobsters, thanking God they were +not as the rest of men, if only they let out their check-reins a hole +or so. It was horrible,—the cruelties men practised to gratify +appetite, and that women were guilty of for vanity. I suppose I am a +monomaniac on the subject, but we never seemed far removed from +barbarians, when we went clothed in the skins +of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 168]</span>wild animals, and decorated +with their heads and tails and feathers, like so many Sioux chiefs. +The varnish of civilization isn't dry on us yet. Why, if a ship should +come here now, do you know what they would do first, unless they +happened to be East Indians? They would say they wanted some fresh +meat, and offer to buy Lily; she is the fattest of the cows. If we +wouldn't sell her, they would probably take her anyway."</p> + +<p>"Kill Lily," cried Adam, angrily. "They'd have me to kill first; +nothing on this place is going to be slaughtered while I can protect +it." He went on more slowly, a little ashamed of his heat, "I feel a +sense of kinship with all these creatures that would make it +impossible to kill them. It's like the woman whose Newfoundland died, +and a friend asked <span class="pagenum">[pg. 169]</span>if she was +going to have him stuffed. 'Stuffed!' she said; 'I'd as soon think of +stuffing my husband!'"</p> + +<p>Robin laughed, and leaning over tweaked Lassie's ear. "If we are to +be stuffed, we prefer to have it an ante-mortem performance, don't we, +little dog?"</p> + +<p>The sun dropped behind the tall peaks, but its dying light still +covered sea and shore. They rose as if for the benediction, and looked +out at the waters before them. Then they looked at each other and grew +white to the lips, and Robin knelt down and flinging her arms around +Lassie sobbed and laughed. Adam never took his eyes from the coming +ship.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 170]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 171]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIII"> +<h2>XIII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Every ship brings a word; +Well for those who have no fear, +Looking seaward well assured +That the word the vessel brings +Is the word they wish to hear. + +<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 172]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 173]</span></p> +<p>The ship bore steadily toward them, but night was coming on so +rapidly that her lines were obscured. They could not even tell whether +it was a sailing vessel or propelled by steam.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing certain," said Adam, excitedly: "it was coming +this way, but very slowly. I suppose that is to be expected of a ship +sailing unknown waters. They have nothing to go by, though they know, +of course, just what part of the round globe they are on."</p> + +<p>She answered almost apathetically, as if she found it difficult to +talk, "It seems as if good sailors would lay by at night, when they do +not know their course, and there is land in sight,—land that has +never been explored."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 174]</span>"It does seem strange she +should come right on," he assented. "For surely no ship has ever +sailed these seas before. Perhaps—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps what?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she has been clear around; perhaps this is the only bit of +land left above a world ocean."</p> + +<p>Robin shivered a little, and Adam turned toward the beacon, that +had glowed in vain for a year. It had been built on a high, +altar-shaped rock, across the gorge, where it could be kept up without +leaving the park. Robin went with him, and they gathered a pile of +timber that insured the brilliancy of their signal until morning. Adam +piled on the logs till the blaze leaped far up in the darkness; then +they went back to the boulder and sat down to think and wait.</p> + +<p>"See how the wind is rising," said <span class="pagenum">[pg. +175]</span>Robin, breaking a silence of an hour, during which even +Lassie had been motionless.</p> + +<p>"But it is toward land," answered Adam.</p> + +<p>"But the same wind that brings us the ship may dash it to pieces on +this awful coast."</p> + +<p>"True, but she is far enough out to make herself secure. Oh, Robin, +suppose she sails around us and goes on!"</p> + +<p>"That is impossible," answered Robin. "The people on that ship are +as anxious to find us as we can be to see them, if they are civilized +at all. Noah and Mt. Ararat are not to be named in the same day with +us."</p> + +<p>Adam crossed the gorge and added fuel to the fire. For a time the +wind increased in velocity until a stiff gale was blowing, then, as +the small hours <span class="pagenum">[pg. 176]</span>came on, it +waned, and the beacon flared straight up once more.</p> + +<p>"I wonder where's she from?" said Adam.</p> + +<p>"I wonder where she is now," answered Robin.</p> + +<p>"I feel sure," he said, "when morning comes we shall see her riding +the waves out there; and think of it, Robin, we can go!"</p> + +<p>Robin made no reply, and her very silence made Adam repeat, but as +a self-addressed question, "Go where? Yes," he went on quickly, "go +where, Robin. Suppose the ship is all right, and that she stops, and +the crew are not pirates, and are willing to take us aboard, where are +we to go? Is there any place on earth that can mean as much to us as +this island? Suppose Asia, or Africa, or Europe are still in +existence, we should not regain our <span class="pagenum">[pg. +177]</span>friends and relatives, and life would be harder with +strange people, under a strange government, far more so than we have +found it here, even without so many of its luxuries."</p> + +<p>Robin shook her head sadly. "At first, Adam. We should learn their +language and their customs. New friends are speedily acquired, and as +for relatives,—well, in the scheme of life relatives don't count +for much. There always comes a time when they step out of our lives, +anyway."</p> + +<p>"But as to happiness?"</p> + +<p>Her face paled a little. "Have you been happy here?" she asked, +without raising her eyes to his, and then went on, not waiting for a +reply, "If you have been, it has been in the care of our little family +of dependents, who do not need you half so much as the great family of +human dependents. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 178]</span>Rest assured +if there is a continent over there across the darkness, it is peopled +with beings who need the devoted and unselfish labors of such a man as +you. You would find your work easily enough,—the work you have +been saved for, the work you must do."</p> + +<p>"But if there is no continent left?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"In that case there must be islands; there were many mountains +higher than these, and they are peopled, no doubt. Shall we not go to +these other orphans, deserted by Mother Earth, our brothers and +sisters, through our common calamity?"</p> + +<p>Both were silent, engrossed in their own thoughts. A return to the +world meant going back to the uncivilized rush of civilization. It +meant the eternal question of what shall we eat, and what shall we +drink, and where-withal <span class="pagenum">[pg. 179]</span>shall we +be clothed? It meant the old competition, the stern old law of the +survival of the brawniest. Above all, to Robin, it meant separation +from Adam, for once more in Rome, the customs of Rome must be +followed. To do Adam justice, this was a contingency which did not +enter his mind. As he had said before, whatever had put them in this +dream together would keep them there, so that when he thought of +relinquishing all the comfort and ease and quiet of his present life, +all the loving animals, the cosy little house, the tiny fields, the +blooming garden, it never occurred to him that he must relinquish more +than all these things, more than the peace and harmony, that which, +unconsciously, had come to be the very guiding star of his life.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if whoever is left cares <span class="pagenum">[pg. +180]</span>for grand opera?" said Robin, rather grimly.</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Adam in so startled a voice that she laughed +hysterically.</p> + +<p>"It's the only thing I know well enough to make a living at it," +she said laconically. "I think the fire needs some more wood, +Adam."</p> + +<p>As he replenished it, her words burned themselves upon his brain, +and he realized in an instant that a return to the old world meant +giving up this supreme friend, all that he had left in the world, all +there was for him in any world. The thing was impossible. He turned to +go back to her, some kind of an impetuous avowal on his lips, but she +had left the boulder and walked down almost to the edge of a +precipitous cliff which they had called "Lover's Leap," in a spirit of +badinage. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 181]</span>She stood there +quietly, watching the gray dawn, and his heart impelled him to go to +her and take her in his arms. As his love revealed itself to him in +all its power, it seemed impossible that he should know it now for the +first time. Why, why, had he been so blind? If the ship took them +away—</p> + +<p>He walked unsteadily down to her, resolved to say nothing. If she +wanted to go, her wish should be sufficient.</p> + +<p>The dawn came slowly, but it came at last. As the darkness lifted, +a slight fog settled over the face of the waters. Instinctively they +recalled that other night when they had watched through the mist and +his hand closed over hers. The sun was well up before the east wind +dissipated it, and left only the dancing waves, brilliantly blue, +stretching away into the dawn. On all that <span class="pagenum">[pg. +182]</span>broad expanse there was not so much as a cockle-shell +afloat.</p> + +<p>Robin turned and looked to right and left in bewilderment, and then +at Adam.</p> + +<p>His chest was heaving, and as his eyes searched her face he cried, +"Thank God," and gathered her up in his arms. She nestled there +without a word.</p> + +<p>They crossed the gorge and scattered the brands of their +watch-fire, and walked on down to the cove. Suddenly Lassie came +bounding toward them uttering short, excited barks. They quickened +their pace, and as they came in sight of the beach discovered the +object of her alarm. Against a small promontory, lying on one side, +was the ship they had sighted the evening before. It was a hopeless +wreck, and had borne to them no living <span class="pagenum">[pg. +183]</span>thing. Yet it had served its purpose. It had revealed their +love for each other, and told them that they had hoped against a +second deluge in vain.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 184]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 185]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIV"> +<h2>XIV</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +The truth of truths is love. + +<span class="smcap">Bailey.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 186]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 187]</span></p> +<p>As Adam went about his morning's work he was filled with a sense of +gladness, an exaltation of life he had never known before. He +stretched out his arms, as if to let all the glory of the earth meet +the profounder splendor of his soul. As he walked down the garden path +he looked with affection at the flowers they had planted together. But +for the absurdity of it, he could have woven a chaplet of them and +worn it. But the world had reached that height of civilization where +the symbol of the glad and living thing was too emotional; always and +everywhere we preferred the dead thing, the skin of the seal, the +shroud of the silkworm, the straw that was left after +the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 188]</span>flowers were gone; and Adam +was still civilized.</p> + +<p>He accepted his happiness without a question. It was too real, too +keen, too great a revelation for him to stop to analyze it. He knew it +in every pulsation of his heart, in every imagination of his mind, and +with the quickened senses of the lover he perceived that Robin's +feelings differed from his own. For a year he had been lost in +introspection; now they seemed to have changed places, and she grew +silent and almost reserved.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" he said. "No, don't try to evade an answer. We +must not stop being frank with each other now."</p> + +<p>She did not reply at once, and when she did her voice was so low +that he had to stoop to catch the words. "Do you think you do love me +as fully as <span class="pagenum">[pg. 189]</span>you might have loved +some one else, younger and happier than I, better fitted to you? It +doesn't seem as if you could; you never did in the old days, you never +even thought of it."</p> + +<p>Adam laughed lightly. "I beg of you spare me, for this isn't 'so +sudden' at all." Then seeing that her mood forbade jest, he went on +seriously: "Really, I mean it. It's true I never made you pretty +speeches in the old days, nor stopped to consider whether I might have +done so had things been different; but then I never made pretty +speeches to any one. From the very beginning I have taken you as a +matter of course. It always seemed as if we had known each other from +the very first. You entered into my plans as if you had known them as +you might if we had gone to the same little red schoolhouse. I wish we +had! <span class="pagenum">[pg. 190]</span>I'm jealous of the years +when I didn't know you."</p> + +<p>"But a whole year," she said doubtfully. "Are you sure it isn't +just loneliness and propinquity?"</p> + +<p>Adam kissed her fingers one at a time. "You are going to beg my +pardon for that some day," he said. "You are not very vain, my +sweetheart; how could I help loving you?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what I am finding fault with," she said with a sudden +twinkle of fun in her eyes. "You have managed to keep from it so long. +But seriously, I am not the kind of a woman I should have fancied you +would care for. I am, at least I was, very weary of life; I knew too +much about it. And I am older than you."</p> + +<p>He looked at her critically. "You were, a year ago," he answered; +"I don't know how much, two or three years—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 191]</span>"Five," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, five; but this last year you have been growing young. The +very fact that you were tired of the old life made it less of a strain +for you to give it up. The tired look is all gone, even from your +eyes, whereas lots of gray has come into my hair. You had learned to +live in yourself and your music. My whole scheme of life was wrapped +up in the social existence of our time. In a way I lost more than you +did. I have learned a good deal this past year. Five years ago, if I +had loved you, there would have been many inequalities between us that +do not exist to-day. Now it seems to me we are as absolutely mated, as +much parts of one whole as the two halves of the brain, or the right +and left ventricles of our hearts. It is no disparagement of you or of +myself to say that no boy could <span class="pagenum">[pg. +192]</span>appreciate you. The measure of a man's manhood is his +ability to understand the highest type of womanhood. As to your being +worldly, that's all nonsense." He stroked her hair a few minutes in +silence, and then said, half quizzically, "You might question me, if I +said it, but this is what Balzac said of women like you: 'A woman who +has received a man's education possesses a faculty which is the most +fertile in happiness for herself and her husband; but that woman is as +rare as happiness itself.'"</p> + +<p>She looked pleased, but she did not reply, and he went on.</p> + +<p>"Do you still doubt me? Well, then, know that I have loved you from +the very beginning, for love, when it comes, is a retroactive law of +our being. If I had loved you less, if you had seemed less a part of +me, I might have realized it sooner."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 193]</span>She shook her head. "I have +known that I loved you for a long time, months," she said.</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to have known I loved you," he answered quickly. +"Don't you think it is possible to love with our souls, our +subconsciousness, and realize with our slow brains, after months and +years, what our hearts knew at once? Even love has become more or less +of a mental process. We reason about things instead of feeling them, +and yet when we come to our last analyses we don't <i>know</i> +anything; we simply feel. When the scientist says, 'The amœba +moves out of the shade into the sunlight because it wants the +sunlight,' he bases his postulate upon what he feels, and believes +that the atom feels. This is all that he knows. We do not seek warmth +because we have calculated its effects <span class="pagenum">[pg. +194]</span>upon us, but because we feel cold. Oh, we have starved our +feelings to feed our brains, until the mind believes it is the +immortal part of us, instead of realizing that what we know, we are +merely re-discovering, while what we feel is our apperception of the +infinite. If we had the courage to be true to our feelings, instead of +our thoughts, I believe it would be a better, as it would certainly be +a truer, world."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think more people are guided by thought than by +feeling?" she asked with a good deal of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not in one sense," he answered. "A great many people are +carried along by their impulses, their transitory emotions, which are +not, properly speaking, feelings at all. They make what some one calls +the 'fatal <span class="pagenum">[pg. 195]</span>error of mistaking +the eddy for the current.' But among educated people it seems to me +that we think too much, especially of our own thoughts, and feel too +little. All this year I have not said that I loved you; I don't know +that I have thought it, but I have felt and lived it. Sometimes I have +not been thoughtful—"</p> + +<p>"You have always been too thoughtful," she interrupted.</p> + +<p>"No, but when I have been inconsiderate it was because you were +myself, the best self that we overlook sometimes, but return to with +unfailing loyalty. You were not bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; +that is a very low and material view of what you have been and are to +me, heart of my heart and soul of my soul. I cannot think of a life +apart from you, for you are my life. +Marriage <span class="pagenum">[pg. 196]</span>is not a matter of a +license and a ceremony and Mendelssohn and gaping crowds and a tour. +We do not need any one to tell us that what God has joined cannot be +sundered by man. All this year has been a long wedding of every +thought and feeling and desire, until I have looked into your eyes to +see my own wish. We have thought and thought, but that way madness +lies. Now I feel that all the world we have lost, lives for us in +every glorious possibility in each other. For I know that you love +me."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "I think I have loved you all along, but it never +entered my dreams that you could love me. Even now, when you tell me, +it does not seem as if it could be so, either by the mental process, +or by that of feeling."</p> + +<p>He caught her in his arms and <span class="pagenum">[pg. +197]</span>kissed her, a kiss so long and tender that it left her +clinging to him, breathless and half awakened.</p> + +<p>"Don't think," he said, "feel,—feel my heart and know that +every beat is for you, that every atom of me calls for you, and every +drop of blood obeys, as it would command you. I have tried to reach +the ideal of the love that says, not 'thou must be mine,' but 'I must +be thine,' but I have failed if you can doubt me."</p> + +<p>She flung her arms around his neck with sudden passion.</p> + +<p>"This is the greatest, the most perfect dream of all," she said; "I +think it must be heaven."</p> + +<p>"A new heaven and a new earth," he answered gently.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 198]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 199]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXV"> +<h2>XV</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Women alone know how much attraction there is in the respect +which a master shows them. + +<span class="smcap">Balzac.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 200]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 201]</span></p> +<p>The derelict did not afford them much amusement or information. The +waves soon beat her to pieces on the savage rocks. Apparently she had +been a ship plying between Western ports, probably San Francisco and +Honolulu. In the wreckage washed up there were a few pounds of rice, +and some brooms of what they believed to be sugar-cane. There was +nothing else.</p> + +<p>"Not even a lemon!" Robin said disconsolately. "Think of living all +one's natural life not only ten, but ten thousand miles from a +lemon."</p> + +<p>Adam laughed sympathetically. "It's like a yachting party I +remember; <span class="pagenum">[pg. 202]</span>we found that the boat +we had engaged had been taken by somebody else, and our set had to be +divided. Later in the evening we discovered that we had all the sugar +and the other crowd all the lemons. ''Twas ever thus from childhood's +hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay: I never wanted something sour, +but what molasses came my way.' Never mind, dear. We will go and plant +our sugar, and by the time it is ready to sweeten anything, a whole +cargo of lemons may have floated into harbor right at our door."</p> + +<p>They crossed the ranges to the western coast, where there was lower +ground, better fitted to the supposed requirements of rice and cane, +and had a good deal of amusement out of their ignorance, neither of +them having more than a misty idea about +either <span class="pagenum">[pg. 203]</span>rice or sugar before they +reach the stage to be served together.</p> + +<p>It was quite late when they were through and camped for supper. +Remembering their trip of a few weeks previous, that now seemed so +long ago, Adam said, "Are you too tired to sing, dear? It is so long +since I have heard you."</p> + +<p>She stood up and thought for a moment, and then putting back her +loosened hair began with Bourdillon's "The night has a thousand eyes," +and sang on and on. At last, turning to Adam with a little fond +gesture, and altering the words slightly, she sang:</p> + +<pre> + "Like a laverlock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! + All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. + What's the world, my lad, my love? What can it do? + I am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new. +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 204]</span> If the world have missed the mark, let it stand by, + For we two have gotten leave, and once more we'll try." +</pre> + +<p>"'Once more,'" Adam repeated. "Once more, my darling! Oh, life is +sweet and new for us; we can afford to lose the world! When will you +come to me, love, when?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head with a little wilful laugh, and all the +glistening glory of her hair fell about her like a wedding veil.</p> + +<p>"Wait," she said; "wait a little. The flax is not nearly ready for +spinning yet; can a bride forget her attire? Besides, how can we +be—" she paused, and let her silence fill the gap, "when I know +we neither of us know any ceremony more dignified than hopping over a +broomstick?"</p> + +<p>They started homeward, walking <span class="pagenum">[pg. +205]</span>slowly through the dimly lighted mountain gorges, talking +the ineffable nonsense that lovers never weary of. As they came to a +brook that rushed noisily down the ravine, Adam stepped across, and +held out his hand to her.</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," he said, "just where you are, dear, and say this +with me:—</p> + +<p>"'Over running water: my love I give to you, my life I pledge to +you, my heart I take not back from you while this water runs.</p> + +<p>"'Over running water: every seventh year, at this time of the year, +at this hour of the night, I will meet you here to renew my troth; +death alone to relieve me of this vow.'"</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" she asked wonderingly. "Over running water, while +this water runs, while there is any snow in the mountains, or rivers +upon <span class="pagenum">[pg. 206]</span>land, or waters in the +seas, or clouds in the skies, when the world is old, and the sun +burned out, and time grows weary, I shall love you still, always and +forever. What is it all about, love?" He clasped her close, and did +not answer at once. "Don't you know that old Irish troth," he said, +"which would have been enough, even in that hard, unromantic world of +ours, to have made you legally my wife, if said over any Scottish +stream? I thought you knew; you are sure I would not trick you? You +know I could not?" He put her head back on his shoulder and looked +into her shining eyes. It seemed to him he could not bear even a look +of reproach. She raised her hands almost as if she were placing an +invisible crown upon his head, and let her arms fall about his +shoulders.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 207]</span>"Then I am your wife while +living water runs?"</p> + +<p>"Forever and forever," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, wait, wait just a little," she answered.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 208]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 209]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVI"> +<h2>XVI</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be +strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in +trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in +that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of +society. + +<span class="smcap">Burke.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 210]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 211]</span></p> +<p>Adam found a note beside his plate in the morning. "I will be back +before five o'clock," it said; "I must think." He did not sit down to +the table she had spread for him, but called the dogs; Prince was +missing, and this was a relief to him. Nothing could happen to her +when Prince was with her. His first impulse was to follow her, but he +repelled it, and he too sat down to think. Lassie whined uneasily, and +he stroked her head absent-mindedly, and finally went out and tried to +work. The hours dragged away, and by four o'clock he could stand it no +longer. He went to the gateway. As he unfastened it, he saw her coming +toward him, but she <span class="pagenum">[pg. 212]</span>stopped and +he joined her, and together they turned back to the boulder. He +noticed that she was very white, and that her eyes looked as if she +had not slept, but he only said, "Have you thought?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "I have thought."</p> + +<p>"And decided?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said wearily; "we must decide together. We are not +children, Adam, nor are we in any way the prototypes of those first +parents of ours. I think sometimes that ever since their day their +children have been walking in a blind circle, eating not the fruit of +knowledge, but of the knowledge of good and evil. And what do we know, +you and I, after all these years? Are you sure what we ought to do? It +is as if God had taken us into a conspiracy to renew the old, or +create <span class="pagenum">[pg. 213]</span>a new, scheme of +existence. Possibly we are being tried, tested, to prove whether or +not we have learned our lesson. We must be brave enough to think, not +what is our will, but what is our duty. Think of the awful +responsibility, whichever way we choose."</p> + +<p>"I can't," said Adam. "I can't think of anything but you."</p> + +<p>"Nor I of aught but you," she said, moving away, "when you hold me +so. But we <i>must</i> think."</p> + +<p>"I have," answered Adam, gravely. "All my life I have thought. I +have wanted the perfect companionship of the one woman in all the +world who could give it; I have always known she would come. I have +wanted a home; I have wanted to see my sons and daughters grow up +about me. I wanted to be a power for good in this world of which we +are a part, and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 214]</span>where we live +for some good purpose, if there be any purpose in life. I have so +conducted myself that I can look a good woman in the face, and offer +her my life, for whatever it is worth, without damning recollections +to come between us. My children will have a clean heritage of blood +and name. The family tree was scoffed at in America, but, thank God, +mine was an oak that had weathered many a gale. Not very great folk, +but honest, upright, fearless men and women, true to their king or +their country and their faiths; true to their ideals, too, when their +fellows were content with realities only. Any man who gives his +children such a heritage as that can say with more truth than Napoleon +said to his soldiers, 'Fifty centuries look down upon you.' I wanted +to make the world a little better for my life, and +I <span class="pagenum">[pg. 215]</span>wanted my children brought up +to feel that their lives belonged first to their country, to live or +die for her."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Robin, softly; "I used to think I would drape the +flag over my baby's cradle, and embroider it on his pinning +blanket."</p> + +<p>"We are probably a pair of sentimental fools," he went on, "but I +believe in sentiment. A man could not say this out loud because +sentiment was supposed to be essentially womanish. How those old +distinctions weary one, with their scientific data to prove that men +surpass women in the senses of feeling and taste, while women have +better sight and hearing, and so on through every conceivable +maundering of the human brain, forever harping on differences and +accentuating them, forever dwelling on sex distinctions and never on a +common humanity."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 216]</span>"It was a dreadfully +scientific age," she assented, "a generation fearfully and wonderfully +given over to statistics; and yet how many dreamers there were!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but in the twentieth century a young man dreamed dreams and +saw visions at his own risk. While he dreamed of the brotherhood of +man, his classmate with the corporation practice distanced him in the +pursuit of position. While he led himself through the valley of the +shadow of temptation, and feared no evil because of the Madonna vision +in his soul, even the Madonnas preferred Lancelot and Tristram to +Galahad. It wasn't an easy world for a man who wanted to keep faith +with himself. It was a pinchbeck world, of pretence and +pull,—that world that lies drowned out there. And yet I believe +it was infinitely <span class="pagenum">[pg. 217]</span>better than +the lost Atlantis, better than the deluged planet of Noah, nobler and +finer than the best civilization of which we have any trace. I never +despaired of it, and yet as I grew older I wondered if I was not +foolish and mistaken in daring to hope and to dream."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said again. "I think I did despair, for it seemed to +me a dreadful, a terrible world. I used to wonder how conscientious +men and women could bring other human beings into it, to be and to +suffer and to faint in the frantic struggle for the unrealities that +made us miserable or happy. Consider how paltry they were. If we built +a new house, we were infinitely more concerned to see that the +contractor used pressed brick than we were to see that the +construction of our own characters was +true. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 218]</span>When we grew wealthy we +moved into houses of more stories; but how often did we say: 'Build +thee more stately mansions, O my soul'? I had as clean and strong a +heritage as you, but a different one. It is no use to comfort oneself +with nice little aphorisms about the needle's eye, and saws about +filthy lucre, and telling God's estimate of money from the kind of +people He gives it to; I tell you biting poverty is a terrible thing, +an unspeakable thing. It is a misfortune for a child to grow up under +a sense of injustice. I used to have times of revolt against it all, +when I hated with the blind, ferocious hate of a child, and I saw what +David never saw,—the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging, +not bread, but a chance to earn his bread, and begging for it without +being able to make just terms. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 219]</span>I +saw my home sold under the sheriff's hammer, and my parents struggle +all their lives because of the lack of money, when they had everything +else, nobility, character, truth, and education. My girlhood was a +long series of going-withouts. Finally I married a man who promised me +everything. Ah, well, when has the Apple of Sodom failed to deceive +the eye and undeceive the tongue? At least he did care for my voice, +and through that I learned that all those years I had carried in my +own throat the golden notes to have altered everything, and I sang a +little gladness into my parents' lives before they ended, thank +God."</p> + +<p>"How did you come to sing in opera? Do not tell me if the +recollection is unpleasant. I wondered then."</p> + +<p>"Because after—after things went wrong, I could not take his +money. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 220]</span>I knew how to sing, and I +loved it; but even there it was the same story of suspicion and +jealousy, till it seemed to me that hate and fear ruled the world. I +went to so many, many cities, but there was no city beautiful, and in +all the country I found no Arcady. I had money then, it is true; but +the jingle of the guinea doesn't help the artist who sings, or paints, +or writes, or plays, because God has put it into his soul to do this +thing; at least not after the very first, when it stands as a tangible +assurance of success. The cities were 'cities of dreadful night,' and +awful days; there were places that were not hives, but styes of human +beings, fighting for what they called life, to die, never having +lived. Sometimes I went into those jungles of civilization and sang to +them. It was the only thing I could give +them <span class="pagenum">[pg. 221]</span>all. It was there I got my +lesson. I had been singing 'All Tears,' when an old woman said in her +feeble, trembling voice, 'Ye mun loe us, young leddy, to come to sic a +place an' sing o' Him wha sa loed the warld that He sent His only +begotten Son ta it, for it's only great loe that casts out fear, and +this is a fearsome spot.' Since then I haven't hated anything, except +wanton cruelty, and I know love rules when it is fearless, but that is +very seldom. We were afraid to say, I love you, to anything more +sensitive than a stray kitten, though the world has hungered and +thirsted after the love we have feared to give even to our own +children. And yet just the love a man and woman may bear each other, +unconsciously, is enough to transform the earth. We have not been +cross to each other; I do not <span class="pagenum">[pg. +222]</span>believe we have spoken unkindly to anything this year."</p> + +<p>He drew her into his arms. "Is it enough to regenerate the +earth?"</p> + +<p>"And keep it regenerated?" she echoed. "Do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember telling me, long ago, of a story in which the +woman said she had never seen but one man whose mother she would be +willing to be? And you said you felt so about me? I was very proud of +it then, but I am prouder of it now, since, feeling so, you cannot be +unwilling to be the mother of my children. You are not, are you?"</p> + +<p>She nestled a little closer to him, and put her hand about his +neck. He stooped and kissed it, and repeated his question.</p> + +<p>"Unwilling? No; how could I be? I never dreaded maternity except +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 223]</span>when—and that lasted such +a little while. I do not dread it now. It seems to me it would be a +blessed thing for us. But, Adam, Adam, tell me, for I have sat here +all day asking myself, whether it is a blessed thing to be born, or a +penalty that others pay."</p> + +<p>"I think it would be a blessing to be your son," he said +steadily.</p> + +<p>"And I think it would be a benediction to be yours," she answered; +"but he would not be yours nor mine, but ours, plus everything in the +past, verily heir of all the ages, and the ages were full of pain and +sorrow. Oh," she said passionately, "could you and I who love him so, +this son who is only our wish, could you and I who know the weight of +this weary world, bind it upon the shoulders of our baby boy, and send +him staggering <span class="pagenum">[pg. 224]</span>down the +centuries, the new Atlas of this old earth?"</p> + +<p>They sat in silence for a long time. Then Adam said slowly, "I +don't know, dearest; but I do know that you are tired and hungry, and +I am going to take you home."</p> + +<p>They rose and disappeared through the gateway together.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 225]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVII"> +<h2>XVII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Love gives us a sort of religion of our own; we respect +another life in ourselves. + +<span class="smcap">Balzac.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 226]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 227]</span></p> +<p>Robin was shelling peas. Adam was reading her the story of their +deluge. He paused, dissatisfied, and said impatiently,—</p> + +<p>"I have not described it at all. I have said all I had to say in +less than a thousand words; one would think such a scene deserved a +hundred thousand."</p> + +<p>Robin smiled her little inscrutable smile. "I think you have done +it very well. It isn't intended to be scientific. You haven't told all +the strata that were turned skyward for a moment when that crevasse +opened between us and the town. You will find, if you turn to the +first chapter of Genesis, that there is very little detail; but I am +sure that the one line, 'He <span class="pagenum">[pg. 228]</span>made +the stars also,' is as eloquent as a treatise on the nebular theory. +If you were learned in geology and astronomy and so on, you would load +it down with an avalanche of scientific hypotheses, about which you +would really know nothing, except by deduction, and over which future +scientists would wrangle, part of them making you a god, and the rest +proving you a fool. Be content to 'climb where Moses stood,' and +produce literature."</p> + +<pre> + "'Why should an author fret about + The judgment of posterity? + It is not, and it never was, + And it, perhaps, may never be,'" +</pre> + +<p>quoted Adam, cynically. "I wonder what they will call us, Robin, +and who will lecture on my mistakes in seven or eight thousand years, +and show how it never could have happened. Do you suppose there is any +one else on earth? <span class="pagenum">[pg. 229]</span>Did the +Atlantis people leave any literature behind them?"</p> + +<p>Robin shook her head. "Who really knows? God has not left Himself +without a witness, at any time. In some way the story of creation has +gone on and on. Every nation has its Eden and flood and Saviour. +Esther was the first, I think, to have her wish granted 'even to the +half of my kingdom,' and all the fairy stories since have borrowed the +phrase. Cinderella is almost as old as Job; and the Irish, the +Fenians, claim that Cadmus, the Phœnician, was one of their +forebears. Wide as race distinctions were, there were strange and +almost unaccountable similarities."</p> + +<p>She went indoors to see to her baking, and coming back went on with +her work. Adam watched her silently for awhile, and then said +curiously, "I <span class="pagenum">[pg. 230]</span>wonder what you +have missed most this year?"</p> + +<p>"Pins and needles, and until Christmas, books and shoes and +stockings and sugar and a cook-stove and a piano," answered Robin, +promptly. "I can live without the opera and a telephone, but if you +only knew how I cherish my stock of pins, and with what dread I look +forward to the day when, like a poor white trash family I used to +know, I shall refer to <i>the</i> needle. I used to think you could do +anything with a pair of pliers and a bit of wire, but I tremble lest +you may not be able to compass a needle." She looked up, and seeing +Adam's troubled face said quickly, "Forgive me for being frivolous; I +am so happy, I can't help it. What were you thinking of, Adam?"</p> + +<p>He got up and walked away a few yards, and cut one of the long +thick <span class="pagenum">[pg. 231]</span>yucca leaves, and stripped +it down to the central spine, while he went on speaking to her. "I was +thinking," he said, "of what Mill said about inventions, and how they +hadn't helped the laboring man; that they had neither decreased his +number of working hours, nor increased his comforts, and wondering +whether it would be better for a new race to find an electric light +plant alongside their other plants, or whether they would better work +out their own salvation, a little at a time, by main strength and +awkwardness. I was thinking how strange our books would seem to men +and women who knew nothing of the—the late earth." He held out +to her what looked something like a needle threaded with coarse white +linen thread. "Will your Majesty deign to look at this?"</p> + +<p>She took it, and looked at it +wonderingly, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 232]</span>and then ran in and +brought back a torn towel, and began mending it. "Why, it sews very +well," she said; "who taught you that?"</p> + +<p>"The mother of inventions generally," he answered. "If you ever had +gone on the round-up, you might have had occasion for a needle and +thread when there wasn't any nearer than a hundred miles. But you +haven't answered my question."</p> + +<p>"About inventions and so on? It seems to me you have to consider +the <i>raison d'être</i> of a people before you can tell the answer. +What is the use of labor-saving inventions, if the time saved isn't of +some great value? What is to be the chief end of man in a dispensation +that has no catechism as a guide-post?"</p> + +<p>"A very different end from the old one," answered Adam, half +sternly. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 233]</span>"Work should not come +to him as a curse, nor as his greatest boon; at least, not hard, +manual labor. There should be work enough to insure ease and comfort, +and every one should work freely and gladly. I should educate the +individual; he should be strong of body and keen of mind, and should +feel that his talents were given him for use, not for concealment; he +should use his hands, both of them, and find delight in their work. It +is a beautiful world, it always was, but I don't know that the +steam-engine brought men's souls closer together, or that the electric +light let in any more radiance upon our minds, or that the great +telescopes made heaven any nearer. It should be a happier and a +healthier world, if it was no more."</p> + +<p>"Adam," she said abruptly, "if we had children, in what religious +faith would you bring them up?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 234]</span>"I don't know; I never +thought about it very much," he answered honestly. "I have an ideal in +my mind, but I can't explain it. I believe in one source of life, and +therefore a common divinity."</p> + +<p>Robin laughed quietly. "That is like the Hindoo proverb, 'That +which exists is one; sages call it variously.' That has been called +pantheism, and for that belief the Jews expelled Baruch Benedict +Spinoza from their synagogue. In our time there was a very learned +magazine published in its behalf, and I heard David Starr Jordan say +no man could tell whether it was a mere jargon of words, meaningless +and empty, or whether monism was the profoundest philosophy the world +has ever known."</p> + +<p>"I don't care what you call it," said Adam, stoutly. "I am not +afraid of names, and I don't know anything <span class="pagenum">[pg. +235]</span>about any of those religions, pantheism, Spinozaism, or +monism; but I do know I would rather a child of mine saw God in +everything than that he saw God in nothing save his own narrow creed. +I would rather he was a pantheist than a Calvinist. Spinoza never +burned any one, did he, nor preached that hell was paved with infants' +skulls?"</p> + +<p>Robin clapped her hands and laughed again. "I beg your pardon for +laughing," she said, "but the idea of Spinoza, the 'God-intoxicated +man,' presiding over an auto-da-fé is too absurd. If you only +remembered anything about his gentle, retiring spirit and melancholy +life; I think he was better known in our time than in his own, but his +philosophy does not satisfy me. I am willing to grant the identity of +life, and its divine possibilities, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +236]</span>but I cannot worship it as life itself, a mere +manifestation of nature. I know that there is such a thing as living +rock, and that it may be killed by a bolt of lightning as readily as a +tree; but this does not make it any more worthy of worship than I am, +and that is terribly unworthy. The rock and I are types of life, +stages in the development of life, but for my child there must be +something better. For the child I must lay hold on the everlasting +life; I must find the rock that is higher than I. I do not know of any +manifestation of that life so great, so godlike, and so lovable as His +who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'"</p> + +<p>"But surely you do not believe in the Immaculate Conception?" asked +Adam, incredulously.</p> + +<p>"I don't care anything about it, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +237]</span>one way or the other. It's the immaculate life that +concerns me. As you said yourself a few minutes ago, words cannot +frighten me. Am I going to stand carping, 'Can any good come out of +Nazareth?' What do I care if it comes out of Sodom and Gomorrah, if it +is good?"</p> + +<p>"But you surely don't believe in the miracles?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Surely I do, in some of them at least. I have seen a miracle or so +myself. Besides, if you remember the greatest proof He gave was that +the gospel was preached to the poor. Buddha was a prince; he whom the +Jews expected was to reign as a king. What a fall was there! the +gospel of hope and joy was brought to the children of Gibeon, the +hewers of wood and drawers of water. The love of Christ has wrought +greater miracles than <span class="pagenum">[pg. 238]</span>He did. +Look at the arena in Rome. Look at the whole countless army of +martyrs. When Mrs. Booth died, the eighty thousand women that nightly +walked the streets of London rebelled, and for once the long aisles of +brick and stone were swept clean of that awful arraignment of +civilization. That was more of a miracle than satisfying three +thousand souls with food. At least, it's enough of a miracle for +me."</p> + +<p>The tears came into her eyes, and she gathered up her pans and went +into the house.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 239]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVIII"> +<h2>XVIII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams? + So careful of the type she seems, +So careless of the single life: + +So careful of the type? but no. + From scarped cliff and quarried stone + She cries, "A thousand types are gone: +I care for nothing, all shall go." + +<span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 240]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 241]</span></p> +<p>They were sitting in the doorway together. Robin rested her chin in +her hands and looked down the valley, the lines of perplexity +deepening in her forehead.</p> + +<p>"If only we had an angel with a sword, or without one, to tell us +what to do," she said. "If only we were deeply religious with the +old-fashioned orthodox religion, that would enable us to believe we +were predestined not to be drowned—"</p> + +<p>"Or if we believed in a personal God, without whom not a sparrow +falleth, though the waters cover the face of the earth and blot out +millions of His creatures," answered Adam. <span class="pagenum">[pg. +242]</span>"After all, can we do better than follow the dictates of +Nature?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to look through Nature up to Nature's God?" answered +Robin. "How can we worship any God as pitiless as Nature? Nature is +strong, but is it our place to help her in her care for the single +type? Perhaps we are the trilobites of a new Silurian period; well, +trilobites were painfully common, but we need not be. Nature's laws +are immutable, so we have been told with wearying insistence, but +suppose you and I have wills as strong as Nature herself? Suppose we +ask what she has done for the humanity of which we are a part, that +she should demand fresh victims from us? Oh, I know; you will tell +me,—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! +how infinite in faculty! <span class="pagenum">[pg. 243]</span>in form +and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in +apprehension how like a god!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"And I should answer,—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the +son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little +lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and +honor.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"David or Hamlet, it comes to the same thing. Where are the crowns +now, and how can we say Solomon was not right when he said the end of +it all was vanity? What is Nature, and on what compulsion must we obey +her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts +are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the +blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the +indomitable <span class="pagenum">[pg. 244]</span>soul of the +mocking-birds that feed their young in captivity until they see they +are prisoners for life, and then bring them poisonous spiders that +they may die rather than live under such conditions? Shall we give +hostages to Nature when she has given nothing to us?"</p> + +<p>She was standing now and speaking with more vehemence than was her +wont. Adam caught her hands, as she flung them out with a gesture full +of scorn.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think we have nothing? How many million lovers have +envied Adam and Eve their paradise? This Nature against which you +bring so railing an accusation,—has she taken away more than she +has given us? We had ambitions, you and I, but the way of ambition is +full of weariness and disappointment and +bitterness <span class="pagenum">[pg. 245]</span>of spirit. We did not +expect peace and comfort and joy, but work and turmoil. Our slates +were set with a sum—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a sum in vulgar fractions," answered Robin.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps; it was a sum in which the unknown and unknowable quantity +determined the result. We had seen a good deal of what is called +life,—it is a good name to distinguish it from the death it so +much resembles,—and I am half inclined to think Nature has been +merciful."</p> + +<p>"But if she was merciful to them," said Robin, quickly, "why were +we omitted?"</p> + +<p>"She gave them oblivion, the hereafter, whatever comes hereafter. +She gave us each other. We were going to miss one another in the +careers we had mapped out. We might have <span class="pagenum">[pg. +246]</span>lost each other forever, or for æons of years. Nothing but +a general breaking up of everything would ever have flung us into each +other's arms. We were too much interested in my career, my vast +influence on the political situation, to consider any existence apart +from the setting we had chosen for the play. And, after all, what was +it, that career from which we hoped so much? I stood waiting my cue, +ready to act my part in the farce or tragedy, whichever it turned out +to be."</p> + +<p>"I think it was more like a circus," said Robin.</p> + +<p>"Very like a circus," he admitted with grim appreciation. "A circus +in which no one knew whether he was to be a ringmaster or a clown. +There were the financial tight-rope walkers, and the social +lion-tamers, and snake-charmers, <span class="pagenum">[pg. +247]</span>and the political acrobats whose falls were unsoftened by +any kind of network. There were heat and dust and discomfort, and +weary, wretched animals looking out of cages at other weary, tortured +animals, that were sometimes scarcely less pachydermatous than +themselves. I know the program we had mapped out, the triumphal entry, +the daring leaps, the cheers,—but was it worth while? After all, +does one care to be the champion bareback rider in life's hippodrome? +Nature swept away my sawdust ring, but she gave me heaven for a +canopy, earth for an arena, you for a queen. At times I am disposed to +take a fatalist view of the case, and think that God, or Nature, knew +there was no more to be done with the earth, not so much because of +its wickedness, as on account of its +stupidity <span class="pagenum">[pg. 248]</span>and cruelty. All my +plans had centered in a political career, and yet how could a man +touch politics and remain undefiled? Yes, I know there were honorable +men in politics, but they were lonely, and they hated with an +unspeakable hatred all the means that were used to keep them there. +And there were any number of men who had been honorable once. When a +man becomes possessed by the desire of place, his backbone becomes +elastic, and he stoops to things of which he had believed himself +incapable. I don't know what it is, but it weakens a man's moral +fibre, and breaks down the tissues of his will, and gives him mental +astigmatism. How dare I say I should have been any better than the +rest?"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember your address, a year ago Flag Day, and the old man +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 249]</span>with the little bronze button of +the Civil War veteran, who stood in front, and shook hands with you +afterwards, with tears running down his face? And the applause? Can +you honestly say that you find 'to utter love more sweet than praise'? +You have told me of your dream of a home, but Emerson said, 'not even +a home in the heart of one we love can satisfy the awful soul that +dwells in clay.' Can it satisfy you, who hoped and expected so +much?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated and did not reply at once.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you are not making a virtue of necessity?" she asked +a little bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I think as much as anything," he said slowly, "I was excusing +myself for not having known all along that the real life, and the most +useful one, is <span class="pagenum">[pg. 250]</span>the one we could +have made together. Principalities and powers and empires and +republics have fallen. When God wants to regenerate the world, He +begins with the family. Now <i>I</i>," with unspeakable +scorn,—"<i>I</i> intended to begin with a different primary law. +I could have made a good home, but I was intent on making an +indifferent, honest congressman, or senator, or perhaps president. In +a way your home always meant a good deal of what I am trying to say. +You always had some one on hand you were trying to make capable of +great things by believing in them. You made us welcome, and were ready +to listen to our troubles, our literary curiosities, our musical gems +and our aspirations. Suppose I had had sense enough to refuse the +husks and choose—"</p> + +<p>"Don't say it," she answered. <span class="pagenum">[pg. +251]</span>"Don't say it, even if you mean it, for I should have sent +you away, and have felt like reviling you for putting your hand to the +plow and turning back. Your ambitions were the most attractive thing +about you then. I hadn't pinned my faith on a primary law; I think it +was government ownership that I regarded as the great regenerator. I +am glad if my home seemed homelike to any one; it never reached my +ideal; and when a woman's home isn't the hub of her +universe,—well, she takes to china painting, or gossip, or +philanthropy; a man takes to poker or politics. I took to politics, +second-hand. Personally and concretely I abhorred the whole miserable +farce, but abstractly, and as a means to an end which I greatly +desired, I found it interesting. I admired you infinitely more +than <span class="pagenum">[pg. 252]</span>I liked you in those days, +but I wouldn't have married you under any circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"First, because I didn't want to marry any one; I didn't want to +care that much. And, secondly, because I wanted you to devote yourself +to your country, and had you possessed a family your devotion would +have been divided. I don't see," she went on reflectively, "how you, +who know so well how empty it all was, and how hopeless the endeavor +to lift it an inch,—I don't see how you can think anything would +justify us in making it go on."</p> + +<p>"But, on the other hand," he said, "are we justified in snuffing it +all out? There was so much that was beautiful, and the possibilities +were so glorious! Sweetheart, I shall not +believe <span class="pagenum">[pg. 253]</span>you love me if you think +the world all cold and dark. I believe now the one law it needs, or +has ever needed, is love, the fulfilling of the law."</p> + +<p>Robin shook her head, and there was a pathetic quiver about her +sensitive mouth. "Is it so? We have sung, ''Tis love, it makes the +world turn round,' but is it so? Would you give your world that one +great principle as the whole of its code of laws?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would," he answered sturdily. "I should not revive a single +law, not even the Ten Commandments, nor any of their variations. You +have to read the statutes provided for unnamable crimes to understand +just how bad mankind could be. I should not bother my world with +Draco, or Solon, or Justinian, or Coke, or +Blackstone. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 254]</span>I should give it the +code of Christ, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do +ye even so unto them.' To love one's neighbor as oneself,—isn't +that code enough for any world? And I should make the neighbor include +every dumb creature."</p> + +<p>She turned to him, her face radiant with love and trust.</p> + +<p>"There is no difference between us in reality," she said: "you +would found your political economy on the teachings of Christ, and I +my religion. If we realize the unity of life, we must make our +religion our law, and our law our religion. Sometimes I think the hand +of the Lord is in it, for surely, surely, there never was a nobler man +on earth than you."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 255]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIX"> +<h2>XIX</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two. + +<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 256]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 257]</span></p> +<p>"Do you remember the name of that man we knew," said Adam one day, +"who wrote a book to prove the immortality of the body? He did prove +that various people had lived well on to two hundred years. If we were +sure of that, we might get the earth very fairly started."</p> + +<p>Robin laughed. "We are not apparently growing any older," she said; +"but we can hardly count on more than a hundred years each."</p> + +<p>"There is one thing you haven't taken into consideration," said +Adam. "Our children would be several thousand years ahead of the +original children of the Garden; they would be further along than you +and I in a good many ways."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 258]</span>"No," she said, "I haven't +forgotten, but I do not know how much of a load they would bring with +them into the world. We called it heredity, the Hindoos called it +karma, and, though that is different, educators called it the +recapitulation theory."</p> + +<p>Adam shook his head. "I understand heredity," he said, "but karma +and recapitulation are too much for me."</p> + +<p>"Karma is our heritage from former existences," she answered, "that +may have been lived here or elsewhere. It is the sum of our past, good +and bad. It is based on a belief in reincarnation, and it is the law +that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. It is justice +untempered by mercy, and it is at variance with the doctrine of +vicarious atonement, though one may believe it and worship Christ as +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 259]</span>the highest type of love the +world has ever known. Naturally, it does not appeal to the people who +are willing to let some one bear the cross for them, and yet I have +wondered whether, if we were sure we should not gather figs from +thistles, we should sow the thistles so freely. The recapitulation +theory makes the child pass through the evolutionary stages of the +nation or nations he represents. It has a kind of seven ages of man of +its own, and brings him down through all phases,—the savage, the +hunter, the explorer, the conqueror, the builder. I don't pretend +fully to understand it. I heard one of its ablest exponents say once, +'The soul of the German nation is in the German boy.' Heredity curses +or blesses, sometimes both. Before any of these theories prospective +parents might well hesitate."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 260]</span>"Which do you believe?" asked +Adam, curiously.</p> + +<p>She reflected a moment. "A little of all three; not all of any of +them; one would have to be a profound student to understand fully what +their adherents claim for them. Heredity plays strange freaks now and +then. It is easier to account for Abraham Lincoln by the second theory +than by either of the others. His shiftless, untidy mother and +commonplace father do not explain such a soul as his; nor was there +any reversion in his childhood to the original savage instincts that +make children dismember grasshoppers—rather the reverse. I like +better to think that, like that other Deliverer, who was a man of +sorrows and acquainted with grief, he came to do the will of his and +our Father which art in heaven,—came <span class="pagenum">[pg. +261]</span>gladly, freely, knowing the end from the beginning."</p> + +<p>Adam sat up suddenly and looked at her with startled eyes. "Then +you think—you mean—you don't believe—surely you +don't believe we have anything to do with our coming here?"</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Surely I do. Our coming is sad enough when we do it +voluntarily. It would be quite intolerable to have existence thrust +upon us. Besides, it seems blasphemous to me to believe that God has +given to every human being the power to bestow an eternal existence. +The responsibility is great enough when it is simply a matter of so +living that noble souls may seek to be born of us, and undertaking to +give them sound minds and bodies."</p> + +<p>Adam looked unconvinced and <span class="pagenum">[pg. +262]</span>troubled. "Where on earth did you get all that?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is to my mind only an elaboration of Descartes' 'I think, +therefore I am.' I am, presupposes that I have been, and will be. If +you can't destroy one drop of water, you can't destroy me. If you drop +the water on red-hot iron, it instantly becomes an imperceptible mist, +the mere ghost of itself, but it will ultimately become fluid again. +It seems to me that the scientific fact gives a sound basis for the +psychologic probability."</p> + +<p>"But think of all the miserable human beings born daily. Do you +think any one would choose such surroundings?"</p> + +<p>"You and I never wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd +ourselves under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were +those who did. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 263]</span>We didn't want to +see the parade badly enough to stand on the street corner for hours; +but you worked your way through college, and we have both sat in the +top gallery to hear 'Tannhäuser.' We were willing to put up with the +whips and scorns, which is another way of saying the garlic and +tobacco, for the sake of the music. In any event the experiment was of +brief duration. No one gets more than a fragment in an ordinary +lifetime."</p> + +<p>"If you think that," said Adam, "I can't see that there is any +responsibility about it. We should not thrust life on any one."</p> + +<p>"True," she assented. "Your position is unassailable, but still it +seems to me the responsibility remains. In the first place, granting +that my hypothesis is true, how can we tell +whether <span class="pagenum">[pg. 264]</span>to live is gain? How do +we know that the next generation would be better and stronger than we +are? Moreover, I only give this to you as my idea. I do not say it is +true; I believe it to be so, but I do not know anything whatsoever +about it. I can't prove it, and it may be transcendental rubbish. I +rather imagine you think it is."</p> + +<p>"Not exactly that," he said, coloring and laughing, "but certainly +it is rather amazing when one hears it for the first time. I daresay I +shall come to believe it too. So far as I can see, you are about as +unorthodox as I am."</p> + +<p>"I have times of relapse," she said. "Then I think we are being +tempted like the first Adam and Eve. They were commanded to multiply +and reign. You and I wouldn't ask anything <span class="pagenum">[pg. +265]</span>better, but as a rule one's duty is not attractive. It +seems to me just as likely that we are to prove that the lesson is +learned, and a man and woman may love each other unselfishly and +nobly, foregoing their own desires to save others. Under the old +dispensation it was said, 'Greater love hath no man than this;' is it +not possible now that the greatest love is that which lays down its +life untransmitted? If Christ could pray that the cup of suffering and +death might pass from Him, dare we press the bitter draught of being +to other lips?"</p> + +<p>"Dare we dash the full goblet of joy and opportunity from them?" +asked Adam, gravely.</p> + +<p>"I wish I knew," she said. "I wish I knew!"</p> + +<p>"Have you ever thought what it will mean," he said, "if we adopt +the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 266]</span>other alternative? Have you +thought of the desolation and loneliness of growing old and helpless +and finally—" He stopped, and she threw out her hands as if to +ward off the thoughts he called before her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes, I have thought, and it is terrible. I keep +remembering a picture I saw in the French Exhibit. It was of a man and +a woman; the woman was dead, and he had dug her grave, his broken +sword lay at his side, and he had wrapped her in his coat, and begun +to cover her over. He could not go on, and knelt, looking at her with +a despair on his face that has haunted me ever since. The name, Manon +Lescaut, meant nothing to me then, but the story of the picture was +enough by itself. All last year I kept seeing that terrible picture. +Sometimes <span class="pagenum">[pg. 267]</span>it was you, sometimes +it was I, that dug the grave and went mad looking into it."</p> + +<p>"I should not bury you," said Adam, grimly. "I should carry you to +the cliff and take you in my arms and jump. The sea is deep and cruel +there."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," she hesitated a moment, then went on,—"sometimes +I think that would be the best way for us now, I mean if we decide we +have no right to be happy in the old way; for I should be afraid we +could not always be strong."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he answered; "when we decide, it shall be literally +life or death."</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 268]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 269]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXX"> +<h2>XX</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +The ant and the moth have cells for each of their young, but +our little ones lie in festering heaps in homes that consume +them like graves; and night by night, from the corners of +our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless,—"I was +a stranger and ye took me not in." + +<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 270]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 271]</span></p> +<p>For a time they busied themselves with different things about their +little home, worked in the garden, and held a round-up of their stock +that they might know the extent of their wealth; and because, in a +life quite apart from human beings, animals come to take their place +to a greater extent than might seem possible.</p> + +<p>It was a very pleasant time. Everything seemed so gentle, so +willing to be friends, and so certain of their good-will.</p> + +<p>"You used to be a Kipling fiend," said Adam, one morning, when they +had been salting the cattle, and were resting before going home. +"Didn't he write a Jungle tale about 'How <span class="pagenum">[pg. +272]</span>Fear Came'? He ought to be here now to write another to +show how Fear might go."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me he did," Robin answered, running her fingers +through the short, curly forelock of a colt that stood placidly +licking her hand. "I wonder that they don't remember longer, or +perhaps they know that we think they are folks. Really, I think we +ought to hold a reception, a kind of salon, once a week, so as to keep +acquainted with our neighbors."</p> + +<p>"You are an absurd child," he said, laughing; "but does that mean +that you have really decided to go on living?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said. "What did we determine? By the way, which +side of this question are you on?"</p> + +<p>"Both," he said decidedly.</p> + +<p>"Oh! then we can't do like those men <span class="pagenum">[pg. +273]</span>Cooper told about, in 'The Pioneers,' wasn't it? who argued +and argued every night until at last they convinced each other, and +then started in to argue it out again."</p> + +<p>"No," he answered, "I rather think that we are answering ourselves +rather than each other, anyhow. Robin, where was 'the land of +Nod'?"</p> + +<p>"That is one of the questions that I was sent to bed for asking a +preacher who was visiting at our house, when I was about seven years +old. They hurried me hence before he had a chance to answer, so I +never found out. But I know what you are thinking of, and I have +thought of it too. Perhaps there isn't any land of Nod, or any land at +all. And I have thought, also, how it would be if one of us died and +left the other with little children. You might take +my <span class="pagenum">[pg. 274]</span>body and jump off the rock, +but you couldn't take them too, and still less could you leave +them."</p> + +<p>"I have thought of the risk to you," he said, "and felt that not +even for the sake of a child would I let you come so near death."</p> + +<p>She laughed a little. "That is really funny," she said. "You must +have been reading Michelet; I never thought of that at all. I am very +well and strong, and my habits and my clothes are not such as to +hamper my life nor endanger that of another. There is next to no risk, +so far as that is concerned, certainly none I would not gladly take. +But I have dreaded afterwards, when the child might fall ill and need +help that we could not give it."</p> + +<p>"Because there are no doctors in the world?" said Adam, with a +touch <span class="pagenum">[pg. 275]</span>of cynicism. "I don't know +that we are not better off without them. The greatest of them +confessed that it was guess-work. The best doctors I ever knew were +always trying to make their patients live more simply, take more +exercise, and give nature a chance; they never resorted to medicine +until there was nothing else to do. If all the germs and microbes have +gone with them, the earth can stand the loss. The main thing is to be +well born, and when the body is healthy and leads a natural life, +while it may know pain, it need not be a prey to disease. Very few +children had a heritage worth having. It had been bartered away. No +wonder we were taught to say, 'There is no health in us.'"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember Gannett's 'Not All There'?" she asked soberly. "I +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 276]</span>am not sure I can recall it, but +it began this way:—</p> + +<pre> + "Something short in the making, + Something lost on the way, + As the little soul was taking + Its path to the break of day. + + "Only his mood or passion, + But it twitched an atom back, + And she for her gods of fashion + Filched from the pilgrim's pack. + + "The father did not mean it, + The mother did not know, + No human eye had seen it, + But the little soul needed it so. + + "Thro' the street there passed a cripple + Maimed from before its birth; + On the strange face gleamed a ripple + Like a half dawn on the earth. + + "It passed, and it awed the city + As one not alive nor dead; + Eyes looked and burned with pity. + 'He is not all there,' they said. + +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 277]</span> "Not all! for part is behind it, + Lying dropped on the way; + That part—could two but find it, + How welcome the end of day!" +</pre> + +<p>For a long while neither spoke, then Robin went on. The colt had +wandered back to its mother, and she sat with her hands clasped, and +her eyes looking far out to sea.</p> + +<p>"I don't blame people for dreading the responsibility, nor even for +shirking it, when I think of all the conditions we had to face. Men +who thought they had hedged their trades about with so much skill that +they had banished competition, found that they had only succeeded in +bringing into the field the machine that banished them. And everywhere +there was such ghastly poverty,—poverty of body and brain and +soul. We had gone back to patrons and +patronesses. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 278]</span>Men or women did +not do anything of themselves any more,—they did not sing or +play, or give a reading, or exhibit a painting. They starved, or they +performed or exhibited 'under the auspices of.' It has always been the +same. Given a pure democracy, and demos reigns sooner or later. The +shiftless go to the bottom, the thrifty to the top, and then like the +upper and nether millstones, they grind everything between them. That +which is below cries, 'Alms!' and that which is above responds, +'Largesse,' and the voice that cries, 'Justice,' is stifled between. +The stone that crushed from above and the rock that ground from below +were very near, and men dreaded them, for when the grist is ground, +and flint strikes upon flint, the conflagration is at hand. Do you +think I am talking like a Populist <span class="pagenum">[pg. +279]</span>campaign book? I only know what I saw, and what the poets +have said. I wouldn't dare to be as radical as Lowell, nor as bitter +as Tennyson, nor as savage as Carlyle, or Ruskin, or Hugo. We had +overcome the sharpness of death, but whence could we hope for +deliverance from the sharpness of living?"</p> + +<p>"We have been delivered," said Adam, slowly, "but you don't seem +disposed to be the Miriam of this Israel—limited."</p> + +<p>"Well, no," answered Robin. "I should like to believe that you and +I were rewarded for our superhuman excellence by being saved when +Pharaoh and his multitudes went under, but a somewhat wide +acquaintance with other people forbids. On the other hand, we can't +have been left on account of our superlative badness. +Truly, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 280]</span>Adam, don't you feel +sometimes as if you would rather have died with the rest?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. The question was so unexpected, and so fraught with +possibilities. She watched the struggle in his face and honored him +for it. He put back a stray lock of hair and kissed her forehead +before he answered.</p> + +<p>"The streak of cowardice that we all of us have in us," he said +finally, "the distrust of myself, and the doubt of all systems of life +of which I know anything, prompts me to answer yes; for I think even +if we had died, you and I would still be together. I think sometimes +we have been, in the past, but whether we have or not, I know we shall +be in the future. So while the mental part of me,—which it seems +to me is the weakest and most <span class="pagenum">[pg. +281]</span>contemptible part of man, because it is always reasoning +him out of what his soul tells him is true,—while the mental +part of me might find it easier to be dead than to know what we ought +to do, everything else in me rejoices. I know that in the great plan +we have a part, it seems to me a very happy and beautiful part. In all +our world there is no cause for anger or hatred or sin. There is +friendliness and content and gentleness and love all around us; look +up, dear, and see how near heaven seems."</p> + +<p>But though she looked up, she saw only the light in his eyes.</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 282]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 283]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXXI"> +<h2>XXI</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +"We're all for love," the violins said. + +<span class="smcap">Sidney Lanier.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 284]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 285]</span></p> +<p>Robin's music was a source of great delight to both of them. There +was such a sense of time, infinite and unlimited, that they ceased to +be the hurrying mortals of earth. The joy of life crept into their +hearts, and they grew young with the new world.</p> + +<p>One evening they watched the full moon come up over the mountains. +She had been playing a few desultory airs, and looking up +asked,—</p> + +<p>"Who is it says 'music is love in search of a word'?"</p> + +<p>"If you don't know, I'm sure I don't," answered Adam, laughing. "Do +you know that you quote entirely too much?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 286]</span>"Oh, yes," she said lightly. +"I always knew that if I ever should break into print, the critics, +supposing they ever deigned to notice me, would say, as they said of +Lubbock's 'Beauties of Life,' that it wasn't a book, but a compendium +of useful quotations. But do you really dislike quoting? I think it +takes as much or nearly as much originality to quote well as to +invent."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" he interposed.</p> + +<p>"No? Well, it seems so to me. I think the thing first myself, that +is original so far as I am concerned, though it may be old as the +hills, and then it comes to me afterward, in a dozen ways, perhaps, as +other people have said it. I realize that in the kaleidoscope of life +the pattern before my mind's eye approximates that which others have +seen. We don't say a man knows too many synonyms +or <span class="pagenum">[pg. 287]</span>antonyms, and I don't see +much difference."</p> + +<p>"I have a misty memory that quotation is said to be a confession of +inferiority," answered Adam.</p> + +<p>"That's Emerson," she said, laughing; "but he also says, 'genius +borrows nobly,' and I am willing to confess inferiority to a great +many people; all that implies is that one should only quote well. If +it wasn't that I'm not sure of the words, and that I can't verify +them, I should confound you with a citation from Disraeli."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Adam, lazily; "I don't mind being crushed."</p> + +<p>"It is to the effect that people think that where there is no +quotation there must be great originality. Then he says, 'the greater +part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original that no +one cares to imitate them; <span class="pagenum">[pg. 288]</span>and +those who never quote are seldom quoted.' That's about it. Now are you +answered?" She laughed gleefully. "It is delicious to disagree with +you. I had almost forgotten that it was possible."</p> + +<p>He echoed her laugh with the carefree heartiness of a boy. "I am +going to make a riddle," he said. "Prepare yourself; this is the first +conundrum of the new world. Why is it better to disagree than to +differ?"</p> + +<p>She made a little grimace. "It's a wonder the Sphinx does not rise +from the other side of the world and eat you," she said with derision. +"Anybody who loved anybody could answer such a poor little excuse for +a riddle as that; besides, it sounds like an extract from somebody's +'First Easy Lessons in Rhetoric.' Don't you see that I can +disagree <i>with</i> you, while I must <span class="pagenum">[pg. +289]</span>differ <i>from</i> you? That is too disgracefully easy. +Indeed, Adam, that riddle of yours brings back every doubt, for they +say—scientists and ologists and learned people, you +know—that there is hope for delinquents and defectives, but none +for degenerates, and that is an awfully degenerate joke."</p> + +<p>"Play for me," he said, "and don't call names."</p> + +<p>She lifted the bow and drew it across the strings in a series of +cadences so wildly mournful that he shuddered. She put the bow down, +and laid her hand upon the strings to still them. In the old days she +had been given to sudden changes of mood, but of late she had been +almost serene.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing,—everything! I was thinking of another thing +which those <span class="pagenum">[pg. 290]</span>wise ones said," she +answered, with more bitterness than she had shown for many months. "It +was that word 'degenerate' brought it back. You know birds are a very +low order of being, a branch of the reptile family, in truth, and I +have heard people say that musicians are generally lacking in +something. They either have no moral or financial sense, and cannot be +bound by ordinary rules. And I am musical to the very tips of my +fingers. It is as if I could hear the song of the silence,—I +feel its vibrations like those of a great organ."</p> + +<p>She walked up and down, her hands back of her head, and the +moonlight shining on her upturned, troubled face.</p> + +<p>"There is another scientific fact you forget," he said.</p> + +<p>She stopped to listen, and he went on.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 291]</span>"When a race has run its +course, nature cries 'habet,' and nothing can alter its fate. It was +not alone the merciless onslaughts of the white man that exterminated +the buffalo. They died, and none came to take their places. They +vanished, less on account of man's cruelty than by reason of their own +sterility. Degenerates or regenerates, can't we leave the decision +with a power that forever builds or destroys, in accordance with a law +we do not understand, a higher law that comes from the source of all +law, whatever that source may be? Don't think any more, but play for +me. In spite of my lecture, I will quote too; my mother used to sing a +hymn that went like this,—</p> + +<pre> + 'I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings, + And vie with Gabriel while he sings,'— +</pre> + +<p>Do you know it?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 292]</span>She began the old tune, +"Ariel," and then wandered on, playing many airs that brought back +forgotten days. Adam threw himself down on the grass to listen, half +jealously, for she seemed to forget everything. She had seated herself +on a great boulder, and, leaning back against it, her eyes looking +into the blue depths above her, she played on and on. The old tunes +were merged in new ones, and the high sustained notes of the +Cavalleria, the subtle minor of Wagner, the exquisite sweetness of +Beethoven and Schubert filled the moonlit cañon, and still she played +on, melodies new to Adam, intoxicating, full of a wild ecstasy, that +filled his very soul, and thrilled through him till he felt all power +of resistance swept away. Every other desire in the world was lost in +the supreme and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 293]</span>overwhelming +longing to gather her to his heart and hold her there forever. The +very air was steeped in melody. The full majestic chords rose and +melted in unison with the high, exquisitely sweet notes, and throbbed +their life away. She held the bow suspended a moment, then very +softly, half unconsciously, played a dreamy lullaby, and laid the +violin down in her lap.</p> + +<p>Adam took her and it into his arms.</p> + +<p>"Be careful, put it down gently," she said faintly; "it is your +soul and mine. Do you not know the secret of Antonio Stradivari, of +all the great makers of violins? Ah, they solved our riddle, Love, +ages ago. Do you not remember the story of Jacob Steiner, and how he +spent days and days in the woods, selecting the trees for his violins, +and how the spirits of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 294]</span>the trees +revenged themselves by telling him of their ruined lives till he went +mad?"</p> + +<p>"But there was no madness in this music," Adam answered, "except, +except—"</p> + +<p>"The supreme, sublime madness of love? Do you not know, surely you +do, that every perfect violin is as much man and woman as you and I? +The back of the violin is made from the timber of the female tree, the +belly of the male tree. The harmony depends on their vibrations, as +they clasp each other in an embrace as real—"</p> + +<p>"As this," he cried, drawing her closer, and bending his handsome +head until their lips met. "Sweet, must I envy that violin?"</p> + +<p>He felt her heart beating wildly against his own, their arms closed +around each other convulsively. The <span class="pagenum">[pg. +295]</span>sweetness of the music-laden, flower-scented air filled his +senses.</p> + +<p>"God! how I love you!" he said.</p> + +<p>A frightened look came into her eyes, and she struggled, for a +moment, futilely.</p> + +<p>"Let me go!" she whispered; "let me go!"</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to?" he answered, studying her face in the +moonlight.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "No, never again, but, oh, Adam!"</p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 296]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 297]</span></p> + +<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXXII"> +<h2>XXII</h2> + +<pre class="epigram"> +I'm weary of conjectures—this must end them. + +<span class="smcap">Addison.</span> +</pre> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 298]</span></p> + +<p> <span class="pagenum">[pg. 299]</span></p> +<p>Adam had to go to the cane-fields across the range, and one of the +calves needed Robin's ministrations, so she could not go with him. He +started before the stars were set, that he might be back before night, +and returned twice to kiss her before he finally got away.</p> + +<p>Left with the long day ahead of her, restless and lonely, she gave +the small house a thorough sweeping and cleaning. She had finished her +dusting, and was rearranging the furniture, when she shoved back the +long chest and struck the framework of the window with some little +violence. It was enough to jar a rusty key from its place above the +casement, and it dropped upon the chest with a kind +of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 300]</span>ominous clink as it struck +the lock, and fell upon the floor. She took it up and looked at it +curiously, and then, kneeling, fitted it in the lock.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she mused, "what I shall set free if I open this box; +is it Pandora's? But there was nothing left in hers but hope, and that +is all we need. How happy we could be if we dared to hope!"</p> + +<p>She turned the key with a wrench, and the hasp shot from its place. +The chest was nearly empty, there being but one parcel in it. This was +done up carefully in a square of linen, pinned here and there. On the +bottom of the chest were several folds of white paper. Very slowly she +lifted out the parcel and opened it. The treasure was a gown; it was +of a heavy, satiny weave of linen, very yellow and creased. The bodice +was made without sleeves <span class="pagenum">[pg. 301]</span>or +neck, and the skirt was a kind of kilt plaited affair; the whole +effect was Greek, and, simple as it was, it seemed beautiful to Robin +after her year of dark, utilitarian clothing. There was white +underwear, and even white stockings, and a pair of slippers.</p> + +<p>Robin drew a long breath of delight, and laying all her finery upon +the table placed the irons over the tripod that she might smooth the +wrinkles out, and set about making the necessary alterations at once. +She worked rapidly in spite of her excitement, but the hours slipped +away.</p> + +<p>"I must try it on," she said, "before Adam comes; there will be +plenty of time, and then I will put it away until—"</p> + +<p>Shroud or wedding-gown? She did not finish the sentence. She +dressed slowly; but when she had finished +she <span class="pagenum">[pg. 302]</span>was startled to see that the +image in the glass was so much fairer than she had ever thought +herself. Suddenly she discovered, with something like a pang, that +there was no belt, and hurried back to the chest to look again.</p> + +<p>As she twitched out the remaining layer of paper in her eagerness, +a long white satin ribbon dropped from it, and a little heap of fine +muslin lay on the floor of the chest. She caught up the ribbon with an +exclamation of delight and adjusted it with trembling fingers. Her +flushed cheeks and radiant eyes, the long heavy braid of hair, her +round white arms and shoulders, made her a vision of delight indeed. +When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to +inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin, +her heart <span class="pagenum">[pg. 303]</span>seemed to stop beating +for a moment. She had forgotten. Only the hands of the prospective +mother could have fashioned such dainty garments as these. Everywhere +the eternal question. All her perplexities had fallen from her in the +joy of dressing herself as Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam +saw her not, but the great problem of life confronted her still.</p> + +<p>She put the tiny garments down on the chest, closed now, having +given up its mystery, its hope of the world, and knelt by it, touching +them with loving, reverent fingers till the tears blinded her, and she +gathered up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam, +as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears +ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then +the slumber of a child.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 304]</span>She did not hear Adam, nor +see him, until he passed the window and stood in the doorway, all the +sunset glow back of him. Then she started to her feet, her arms +closing instinctively over the tiny garments she had gathered to her +breast, as she stepped back, her face flushing and paling all in a +moment. +</p> + +<p>He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart +and soul looked out of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Eve," he said, "Eve!"</p> + +<p>She turned, and he sprang toward her with an eager cry of joy.</p> + +<p>"Eve," he repeated, "Eve, my love, my soul! You have decided; you +are going to be my wife. Oh, do not torture yourself or me any longer +with doubts that did not enter the mind of God Almighty when He made +us what we are. You are my world, dearer <span class="pagenum">[pg. +305]</span>than life, more necessary than the air we breathe. We are +only one being, separated God knows how long, but united now forever. +Nothing can part us again."</p> + +<p>He stopped and held out his arms to her. He had taken her into +their shelter very often, but now he wanted her to come to him and +nestle against his heart of her own will. She took a single step, +stretching out her arms to him with a gesture of infinite trust and +abandon. The long sheer dress fluttered down to the floor, and lay +between them.</p> + +<p>They stood as still as if frozen.</p> + +<p>"Dare you cross it?" she said, and hid her face in her hands.</p> + +<p>He stooped and picked it up, and looked at it as a man might look +at the soul of something of which he had never seen the body. He had a +<span class="pagenum">[pg. 306]</span>sense of his own strength, the +glory of his manhood, and a vision of his weakness. She watched him +breathlessly. He put the garment down on the table and smoothed it out +gently. There was in his face the combined look of a man who sees the +cradle and the coffin of his firstborn.</p> + +<p>She went and stood beside him, touching the dress timidly. He +covered her hand with his own.</p> + +<p>"My wife," he said, "we know all there is to say, all there is to +risk. We must do what is right. I am going now to set everything at +liberty. It is nearly sundown; you will meet me at the rock in half an +hour. If we give each other our right hands, we will fear no evil, not +though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for the love +in our hearts is deathless, and though the sun sets, +it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 307]</span>is to rise upon another +shore. Death is only an incident, but life is eternal."</p> + +<p>"We could not choose differently?" And though she spoke with the +upward inflection it was not a question.</p> + +<p>"No, it would be quite impossible for either of us to desire what +the other did not. And much as we love each other, we will know we +have loved our race and honored God first in our decision. To live, if +we live, not for ourselves alone, but for the good of our kind; to +renounce love, the unspeakable gift, if need be, for the sake of what +seems to us right."</p> + +<p>"And if I give you my left hand—?"</p> + +<p>The sudden flash of light in his eyes half blinded her. He took +both her hands in his and looked deep in her beautiful unfathomable +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then the morning stars will sing <span class="pagenum">[pg. +308]</span>together, and all the sons of God shall shout for joy."</p> + +<p>The sun dropped lower and lower over the high sharp peaks at the +west, covering their white summits with a flood of golden glory. The +sullen roar of the ocean seemed hushed, and across its wide expanse +the last beams of the setting sun made radiant pathways of crimson and +gold. A lark far up in the heavens sang its few clear notes as it +hastened homeward. Far away on the mountain-side the cattle lay +placidly, and a mare whinnied to her colt. The air was soft and warm +and drowsy with the scent of many flowers, the sounds of nestling +birds, the drone of an insect here and there, the cheerful call of the +crickets.</p> + +<p>Adam stood by the rock and waited for her. She came toward him, all +the light of the world seeming to fall <span class="pagenum">[pg. +309]</span>upon her and circle her in a halo that transformed her +white draperies, and glistened like a million gems in the sparse grass +about her feet.</p> + +<p>They made each other no greeting, but stood and looked into each +other's eyes, grave and sweet with the exaltation of their purpose. +And, standing so, they clasped hands, and the word they spoke was the +same, for they by searching had found out God.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full"> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 20615-h.txt or 20615-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/6/1/20615">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20615</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Master-Knot of Human Fate + + +Author: Ellis Meredith + + + +Release Date: February 17, 2007 [eBook #20615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE*** + + +E-text prepared by V. L. Simpson and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) from digital +material generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich + + + + + +THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE + +by + +ELLIS MEREDITH + + + + + + + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + OMAR KHAYYAM + + + + +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company +1901 +Copyright, 1901, +By Little, Brown, and Company. +All rights reserved. +University Press John Wilson and Son Cambridge, U. S. A. + + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + * * * * * + + Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, + Would not we shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! + + OMAR KHAYYAM + + + + +I + + + + To-night God knows what things shall tide, + The Earth is racked and faint-- + Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; + And we, who from the Earth were made. + Thrill with our Mother's pain. + + KIPLING. + + +Along one of the most precipitous of the many Rocky Mountain trails a +man and a woman climbed slowly one spring morning. The air was cold, +and farther up the mountains little patches of snow lay here and there +in the hollows. Two or three miles below them nestled one of the most +famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as +distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the plain and +through the clear atmosphere it looked like a bird's-eye-view map +rather than an actual town. Far away to the left, gorgeous in coloring +and grotesque in outline, could be seen the odd figures of many +strangely piled rocks. + +The two pedestrians stopped now and then to rest and look away over +the matchless scene and take in its wonderful beauty. The woman was +tall and slender, with a superb carriage. Even on that steep ascent +she moved with the grace and freedom of one who has entire command of +her body. She was well gowned also for such an excursion. Her short, +green cloth skirt did not impede her movements, and high, stout shoes +gave her firm footing. She had removed her jacket, and in her bright +pink silk blouse and abbreviated petticoat, with the glow of the +morning on her usually pale face, she looked almost girlish; but her +face was not that of girlhood. It was without lines, and the heavy +masses of her golden-brown hair were quite unstreaked with silver; but +her white forehead was serene with the calmness that follows +overcoming, and her dark gray eyes saw the world shorn of its +illusions. In her there were, or had been, unrealized capacities for +life in all its height and depth and breadth. In studying her one +became vaguely aware that, having missed these things, she had found a +fourth dimension which supplied the loss. + +Her companion was younger by several years, and so much taller that +she seemed almost small in comparison. In his eyes there danced and +shone the light of truth and courage and hope, and he walked with the +buoyancy of joy and youth. Israfil, Antinous, Apollo,--he might have +stood as the model for any of them, or for a fit representation of the +words of the wise man, "Rejoice, oh, young man, in thy youth, and let +thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways +of thine heart." + +The relation between the two was problematic. Certainly there was no +question of love on either side. Equally certainly there existed +between them a rare and exquisite camaraderie, a perfect comprehension +that often made words superfluous. A look sufficed. + +They toiled up the steep, narrow path until they reached a wide trail, +a carriage road that had been laid out and abandoned. It swept around +the mountain-side, miles above the little city on the plain, and +terminated suddenly at an immense gateway of stone. Here the mountain +had been torn asunder, and two palisades of gray-green rock rose grim +and terrible for hundreds of feet, while between them, dashing over +boulders and trees and the impedimenta of ages, a little stream rushed +along in the eternal night at their base. Far away to the west, range +upon range piled themselves against the intense blue sky. Beyond a +rustic gate, standing across the path that narrowed to a few feet +before the wall of stone, a park, sparkling and green in the sunlight, +was visible. They stopped and regarded the two gateways,--one the work +of nature, the other the feeble counterfeit of man,--and then swinging +open the creaking wooden affair, passed into the peaceful valley. A +few yards away stood a small log cabin, but the chimney was smokeless, +and though the chickens clucked in the yard, and a collie lay on the +doorstep, it seemed desolate and deserted. + +Passing along an almost invisible trail, they found themselves in the +wildest and most remote part of that wild and remote region. They saw +a few stray animals, but no human beings. This was one of the few +places where mining was not a universal pursuit, and it was too early +to do much in the few mines that did exist. There are entire sections +in the Rockies that are deserted for more than half the year, and this +was one of them. That day there was no one at the signal station. The +keeper had gone down to the valley for fresh stores, and to learn +something of the terrific disturbances that were said to be +threatening the entire Eastern coast with annihilation. Perhaps the +owners of the log cabin had made a similar pilgrimage. + +The scene was flooded with moonlight when the travellers passed the +gate on their homeward way, and sat down on a boulder a few yards +without the frowning portal. The night was cold, and the woman had put +on her jacket, and sunk her numbed fingers in its pockets. In spite of +her weariness she was troubled and restless, and turning looked first +at the beetling crags back of them, then away over the plain at the +twinkling lights of the town below. They heard indistinctly the sounds +of bells ringing wildly, and overhead flocks of birds circled and +called with shrill, uncanny voices. Yet the moonlight was so bright +that they saw each other as plainly as if it were day, and its placid +radiance seemed strangely at variance with the disturbed wild-fowl, +and certain weird and fitful sounds that seemed to be sighed forth +from the bosom of the earth. + +"It is a pity," she said, "that we cannot pass through this gateway +into paradise without descending to earth again." + +"I don't believe you are half as tired of life as you say," he +answered with an impatient movement of his head. "You may not shrink +from death as I do, or enjoy life so keenly, but isn't it a good thing +to be alive to-night? Isn't it fine to be a mile or so above the rest +of humanity and the deadly conventionalities? Aren't you glad you +came?" + +She did not answer, but presently said dreamily, "Suppose that plain +was the sea." + +"It isn't hard to suppose," he answered. "I have seen the Pacific when +it looked just so." + +"Oh, no," she said quickly. "Nothing is like the sea but itself. You +will never persuade me that I love the mountains so well. And the +plains,--just imagine if all that gray green silver were gray blue, +with here and there a gathering crest of foam, racing to break in +spray about these mountains--" + +"Why, look," he said, drawing her a little to one side, "there is your +liquid blue, with its white crest moving toward us. Could the real sea +look more wonderful than that? It is blotting out everything. Now it +recedes,--was it not real?" + +She started to her feet. "This is a very strange night," she said +irrelevantly, in a rather strained voice. "Listen,--and see how many +birds are flying about us; I never saw them fly so at night. What does +it mean?" + +They stood together, looking at each other with startled faces. The +whole mountain, all the mountains, seemed to be alive and trembling +under them. Overhead thousands of birds wheeled and screamed with +terror in their mingled outcries. The little creeping things scuttled +away up the mountain. The silver-blue wave widened and spread over the +plain from north to south, and the air was full of a dull, terrible +roar, as if the fountains of the great deep had broken up, and a +thousand white-crested waves rushed toward the hapless city before +them. They covered it, and with a wild jangle of bells, faintly +audible over the tumult, it sank out of sight, all the gleaming, +dancing lights disappearing in an instant. The white crests came on +and broke about the mountains, and receded and came on again with a +deafening roar. Then the crust of the earth between the mountain range +and the spot where the city had been, seemed to crack like a bit of +dried orange peel, and the flood rushed over the abyss, and there +arose a blinding steam that hid the whole scene below, and ascending +circled the mountain peaks in mist. + +All about them on the mountain-side rose the cries of terrified wild +things, and along the narrow pathway into the park a herd of cattle +and horses rushed and disappeared among the aspens that trembled as +never before. The collie, scenting their presence, came and crouched +whining at their feet, and a bird fell exhausted into the woman's +arms. She closed her hands over it, unconsciously giving it the +protection none could give them, and in the fog moved toward the +figure of her companion. His arm closed about her convulsively. + +"Shall we go farther up the mountain?" he asked. + +"'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be +now,'" she answered, insensibly finding it easier to use another's +words than to coin phrases while holding death-watch over a continent. + +They sat down on the boulder. After what seemed like countless hours, +she said, "I wonder how long we have been here. Perhaps it is years." + +He looked at his watch. "I do not know whether we are in time or +eternity," he answered simply. "It is nearly four o'clock by this +watch." + +Through the dense vapor they saw the sun rise, red and sullen, but the +mist was so impenetrable that they dared not move about. The day and +night passed, almost without their knowledge, and the second morning +found them, as the first, by the great boulder. The wind rose with the +sun, and when it blew aside the veil of mist, far as the eye could +reach, there rolled a sea, white-capped, turbulent, fretful, as if +unwilling to leave a single peak to tower above its lordly dominion. + +The man and woman followed the collie to the cabin, and there found +some food, then they retraced their way until they could look down +over the valley where the town had slept. Nothing was left. There was +not even a prospector's cabin. The shock which had succeeded the first +wild dash had been volcanic. The very canons looked strange, and +though they called again and again there came no answer. + +"Come," the man said imperiously. "Let us go to the Peak. There must +be some one there." + +They reached the signal station late in the afternoon; no one was +there. Looking down from that awful eminence, they saw on the other +side of the range the same desolation, the same watery waste. They +seemed to be on an island, alone on a wide, wide sea. Nowhere curled a +friendly wreath of smoke; nowhere was there sound of any human thing. + +They went wearily back. There was nowhere else to go. If the gateway +had been awful in its solitude, the Peak was still more desolate. +There was nothing living there, except themselves and the dog that +followed closely at their heels, making no excursions of its own. The +hour was wearing toward midnight when they sank down by the boulder +once more to watch the darkness disappear, and wait for they knew not +what. The man built a huge fire, so that if any other waifs had been +left by this wreck of a world they might see the beacon, and reply in +some fashion. They did not talk, except now and then, in a half +whisper, they gave monosyllabic queries and replies. The shock that +had obliterated a continent seemed to deprive them of all active use +of their senses. They moved only in circles, returning always to the +place from which they had watched the cataclysm. + +It was almost sundown when, with a superhuman effort, they again +entered the sunny, beautiful park. The air was balmy, and there all +remained quite as before. In front of the cabin stood an Alderney; as +they approached her, she lowed uneasily. The woman looked up, and then +spoke aloud with the quick sympathy that had always been her greatest +attraction. She seemed to understand so readily, whether it was a +man's head, a woman's heart, or an animal's wants. + +"She needs to be milked," she said, and pushing open the door she +entered the cabin. There were two rooms, the farther of which was +evidently a bedroom. There was a large fireplace at one end of the +main room. At one side of it was a primitive dresser, with such +utensils and china as the place afforded; on the other were some +miner's implements and a shovel. There was a small table and beside it +were placed two chairs. There was a rocker by the one window, and a +pot of geraniums on the sill; forming a kind of window seat was a long +seaman's chest. At the other end of the room there was a desk covered +with green oilcloth, and above it was a shelf containing some books +and a clock. + +The woman took off her hat and jacket and brushed back her hair, then +turning back her sleeves went outdoors again. Under the rude porch on +a slab table stood a number of buckets, and there was a stool by the +door. She took a bucket and the stool and walked away a few paces, the +Alderney following. As she began milking she looked over her shoulder +at the man watching her and said, "Won't you build a fire?" + +He gathered some wood and went into the cabin. She threw out the first +pint or so of milk, then finished milking and strained the foaming +contents of her pail into some crocks left sunning by the door, and +went into the house. She found some cornmeal and salt, and deftly +mixed the dough, and arranging the shovel in the hot ashes, set her +hoe-cake to bake. In the mean time the man had brought water from the +brook, and as the woman swung the crane over the blaze, he filled the +iron kettle hanging therefrom. There was some sour milk, and by a +mysterious process she converted it into Dutch cheese. There was some +butter and a few eggs, and she found a white cloth and spread the +table with the few poor dishes, placing the geranium in the centre. As +the water steamed and boiled, she caught up a tin canister. + +"See," she said with forced gayety; "let us eat, drink, and be merry, +for there is just enough tea in the world for two people to drink +once!" + +She made the beverage and poured it into the thick cups, and breaking +the yellow pone and piling it on a platter, they sat down to the +strangest meal they had ever known. + +The man watched her with fascinated eyes. He had never before seen her +do anything for herself, yet she presided over the simple meal she had +prepared as graciously as over the course dinners of her chef. How +should she know how to make hoe-cake? + +All through the singular feast the sparkle and play of her fancy kept +them in hysterical laughter. Afterwards, as she cleared away, the same +wild mood possessed her. The man wondered if her mind was going with +all else; but as she hung up the towel, her humor changed, and she ran +out of the cabin into the dusk as if she could not bear the simple, +homely tasks in a homeless world, the firelight and the bounds of a +dwelling when doom must be at hand. The man put a fresh log on the +fire, and covered the coals with ashes. He would have preferred to +remain there, but he knew why she was hurrying back to the +mountain-side, and he took her coat and followed her. She was standing +by the boulder, looking out over the waters with a despair on her face +that made him groan. It was so like what he felt in his heart. She +pointed weakly toward the water, but her lips formed no words. + +"Yes," he answered, "it was not a dream." + +Dawn found them still sitting by the boulder. The man shook her half +roughly. + +"Come," he said, "let us go back to the cabin." + +"No," she answered. "I cannot believe it; we are both mad. We are +dreaming the same mad dream; let us go down, and when we feel the +spray on our faces, and taste the brine, it will be time enough to +believe." + +She began the descent with reckless rapidity, and he followed, +checking and holding her back. The roar of the surf grew momentarily +louder, but though she looked at him with wild, grieved eyes, she went +on. A monster wave dashed up over the rocks and wet them to the skin. +She flung out her arms, and would have fallen headlong into the +greedy, crawling water, but he caught her and made his way back. The +hot, bitter tears on her face brought her to herself, and with one +great sob she broke down, clinging to him and crying till from sheer +exhaustion she fell asleep. + +He carried her back to the cottage and laid her gently on the bed in +the tiny room. Her hair was falling about her, and he removed her +dusty shoes, and covered her over as if she had been a child. Then he +went out into the sunlight and sat down on the doorstep and tried to +grasp the situation. + +He had been a very ambitious man, and she had been as ambitious for +him as he was for himself; that had been the main bond of union. He +was to have made a great place in the world: the applause of +listening senates was to have been his; wealth, fame, position, +all the possibilities of life were gone; nothing but barely life +itself remained. A living might be wrung from nature, but for +ambition,--what? Surely somewhere on earth there were other human +beings; the destruction, if irreparable, was not universal. Sooner or +later some hardy sailor would find the surviving peaks of this new +Atlantis. At least, if the woman within was not his world, he was +thankful that no one else was; and having looked the grim truth in the +face, he too slept. + +It was long past noon when the dog wakened him, and he started to his +feet, determined that, having lost all else, they should keep their +sound, clear brains. He walked about the park, which contained perhaps +five hundred acres. There were half a dozen cows, as many horses, some +burros, and a few chickens. There was a rude stable and a few farm +implements. There was a large tunnel in the mountain-side, and some +mining machinery lying about its entrance. The dog, seeming to realize +some of the responsibilities of life, herded the cattle and drove them +toward the cabin. When they reached it, she was standing in the +doorway. She had made her toilet, and looked fresh and calm. + +"These are our flocks and our herds," he said in greeting. "What shall +we call them?" + +She smiled rather wanly. "Wasn't it Adam who named the animals? You +shall have that honor." + +"Very well," he answered; "but if this is the garden, there is an +angel with a flaming sword at the gateway. Do not pass it again. Our +life is here, here,--do you understand? We must give ourselves time to +get used to it, time to realize that we are alive. We must be very +patient, for whatever has befallen us, whether we are in the body or +out of it, this through which we have passed is a miracle, and only +time can tell if it is more. Do not look upon the change again, at +least not now. You will stay here, and we will work together, and be +content for awhile?" + +"Content?" she said, "content? We will be happy." + + + + +II + + + There is always work, + And tools to work withal, for those who will; + And blessed are the horny hands of toil! + + LOWELL. + + +"Do you remember Gabriel Betteredge?" asked Adam, a day or so later, +as he watched her set the house in order after their breakfast. "You +know in times of great mental perturbation he always sought comfort +and counsel from the pages of 'Robinson Crusoe.' When in doubt he +waited until to-morrow, as Robinson advised; and no matter what his +perplexities, he always found just what he wanted in that infallible +book. If I remember correctly, but it's years since I read it, +Robinson goes on a voyage of discovery the first thing." + +"He built a raft to get away from the wreck first, I think," she said +reflectively. "Or did he build the raft to get to the wreck? I can't +remember. And then he built a house. Somewhere along there he wrote +down his situation in a deadly parallel; I have sometimes wondered if +he was the inventor of that style. But he offset the debit of being +cast away with gratitude for having escaped with his life. We're not, +at least I'm not, sure that belongs on the credit side." + +"We don't want to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have no +wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready to +hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I fancy, +but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in it? We +might begin our investigations here." + +"'With lamp in hand we will explore,'" she hummed, "but two rooms and +a cellar do not promise much. There is nothing to see in this room, +except what we do see, and the contents of that chest, which is +locked." + +Adam tried the lock, then shook the chest. "There's nothing in it, +anyhow," he said. + +"As to the other room," she went on, "there is a bedroom set,--a +better one than I should have expected to find in a place like +this,--and a closet with some clothes in it. The man was about your +size, but the feminine garments--well--they are all about the length +of my bicycle skirt, and on the shelf there is a pile of bedding. +There is no trap door leading into either subterranean or overhead +apartments. In fact, there is nothing else, except a chair. It's very +uninteresting." + +Adam had been moving about the room, and stopped before the bookshelf. +He wound the clock mechanically, and read the titles of the books +aloud. A chemistry, a book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of +Tennyson, the "Yankee at King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine +almanac made up the list. + +"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing +cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain, +and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to; +they look as if they might hold--" + +"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively. + +"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster more," +he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans, or +barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in +opening them." He took up a hatchet, and they went out and inspected +the boxes, which were very large and strong. + +"Let's not open them yet," she said. "There is one other treasure in +one of the bureau drawers; it is a box with seeds of almost every +kind. They ought to have known most of those things wouldn't grow up +this close to timber-line." + +"Probably they were sent by the congressman from this district," Adam +said dryly. "But I'm not so sure they won't grow. Have you noticed how +warm it is, how very unlike what it has always been? Let us go to the +stables, and see what we can find there." + +They went up a path, past a garden, fenced with woven wire, through +which the chickens looked longingly. Under some sashes forming a +primitive greenhouse, lettuce and radishes were making good headway. +Nothing else had come up, though there were many beds, with small +slips of board, like miniature tombstones, showing what had been +planted. The stables and cow-barn were all under one roof, and would +accommodate several horses and a few cows. There was hay and fodder in +a lot adjoining, and a few ordinary farm implements, a plow, a harrow, +and a cultivator in a shed addition. + +"Do you know what it is for?" she asked mischievously, as he pulled +out the plow. + +"Do you think I never remembered the granger vote in my ambitions?" he +answered. "I can plow, and I have planted and snapped corn, and cut +fodder, and dug potatoes--I wonder if there are any here?" + +"Yes," she answered; "in the cellar, at least a bushel, mostly gone to +eyes, but I forget how thick to cut them. If we were only 'The Swiss +Family Robinson,'" she went on, "we should find yams and pineapples +and oranges and sugar-cane and bananas coming up between the rocks. As +it is, I am thankful to the congressman who sent the peas and +morning-glories." + +"There is only about enough wheat and corn to plant fifteen acres," +Adam said, making a rough calculation in his mind. "I will plow a +little over that, so as to have a patch for the potatoes, and get it +ready as soon as possible." + +"I know how to plant corn and potatoes," she said eagerly. "Just as +soon as you get part of the land ready, I will begin. You didn't know +I was brought up on a ranch, did you? I never was very fond of +recalling it. It is a perpetual round of conditions unlike any theory +ever heard of." She shrugged her shoulders, and stopped at the rude +table under the porch to crumb some slices of what looked like a kind +of cornbread. + +"What is it?" he asked curiously. + +"That is to enable us to make light of our troubles," she replied +solemnly. "Or, for thy more sweet understanding it is, or at least I +hope it will be, yeast. I found a Twin Brothers yeast cake, and from +it, behold the brethren! I know that raised bread is unhealthy, and +that to get the worth of your money you ought to eat the bran also, +and that the best bread, from the hygienic standpoint, is made from +wheat-paste, and is about the consistency of sole leather; but even if +yeast does shorten our lives, I don't know that I shall give it up on +that account." + +The planting of their crops took several weeks, and was very hard +work, for neither of them was an expert farmer. When the corn and +wheat came up there were almost no weeds, and the stand was better +than usual for sod land; but they were kept busy warding off the +horses and cattle that preferred the fresh young corn and wheat to the +indifferent natural grass. + +"I thought," she said wearily, after driving away the intruders for +the third time,--"I thought fences were a sign of civilization, but +they seem to be the first necessity of the wilderness." + +She was sitting on a rock, fanning her flushed face with her sombrero, +when Adam came to her assistance. + +"You should have waited," he said. "I was coming, but I had to hitch +the team." He turned and looked at her, and laughed boyishly. "The run +hasn't hurt you," he said; "you look like a wild rose. I believe I +shall call you so; may I? I can't call you by the old name." + +She colored hotly, then turned quite pale, and there was a touch of +reserve in her voice as she answered rather too indifferently, "If you +choose, still I think, O Adam Crusoe, that Friday or Robinson would be +a better name." + +"We'll compromise on Robin," he said. "A rose by any other name is +just as sweet." + +"I wish we had a fence," she said turning the subject hastily. + +"We have," he answered. "If we were to build one ourselves, it would +have to be of rocks, but Nature has provided a magnificent stone +barrier. We have only to drive the animals we are not using through +the gateway, and fasten that little wooden concern after them. There +is good pasture outside, and if we need them we can go after them. +Lassie will look after Daisy and Lily, won't you, little dog? I will +go and open the gate and drive them through. You help Lassie keep +those two back." + +She stood undecidedly, and he turned and said gently, "I will come +back without passing through the gateway. I will never pass it without +you. I wouldn't dare. Now see how nicely Lassie will conduct this +round-up." + +As he went toward the gateway, her eyes followed him with a look he +would hardly have comprehended, it was so full of relief and +gratitude. He understood and reassured her without noticing her fears +or smiling at her weakness. Every day and many times she thanked God +that, of all the men who might have been left by this modern deluge, +it was Adam who had been with her and was with her in this terrible +experience. + + + + +III + + It might be months, or years, or days, I kept no count,--I took no + note. + + BYRON. + + + +They had been on the island nearly four months. The corn was waving in +the soft breeze, and the sun shone down hotly. Indoors sweet corn was +boiling in the same pot with new potatoes, while in an improvised +milk-boiler on coals, at one side of the fireplace, peas were +simmering. The table was spread, and there was white bread and jersey +butter and raspberries. Adam, with Lassie's puppies crawling over him, +sat in the doorway, and watched Robin put the finishing touches to +their Sunday dinner. + +His apparel was somewhat picturesque, and he had a brown and +thoroughly healthy look. Robin was dressed in a costume of blue +denims. The skirt was rather short, and the waist was a blouse, +finished at the throat with a broad collar that turned away from a +neck still white in spite of much sunlight. Their months of roughing +it had not harmed them, and only the intense sadness in Adam's eyes, +the pathetic droop of Robin's mouth, when they thought themselves +unobserved, told a story different from that of pastoral content. + +Their meal was unusually silent. Sometimes they fell into long lapses +of silence; there was so much not to say. In all the weeks of the past +they had worked, almost feverishly, allowing as little time as +possible for thought, and never speaking of what was oftenest in their +minds. Much of the time Adam seemed to be in a dream, only half +realizing the flight of time, that made hope more and more hopeless. +Robin said nothing. One would not seek to console the sky with phrases +if all the stars were wiped out. She half reproached herself at times +for the peace, the something akin to happiness, that had crept into +her life. She had long before grown very weary of the world and all it +had to offer. + +She was stung at the sight of Adam's quiet face, with the repressed +suffering that had somehow touched it with a beauty it had not +possessed, and she said impetuously, "Let us go out, Adam; let us go +quite away somewhere, and talk. There is so much I want to ask you, +but I have not dared." + +He looked up with such a hurt expression that she went on quickly, +"Not that; I mean I couldn't. I have been afraid to put things in +words. They grow so much more real then. But now I am afraid to keep +my thoughts longer." + +They went past the wheat and corn fields, through a narrow canon that +led them to a valley they had never seen before. It was very +beautiful, and the play of the sunlight on the high walls of rock, the +murmur of the stream below them, the trembling aspens, the white peaks +in the distance, made a scene worthy their attention, but they were +blind to it. + +They sat down on a broad stone seat; presently Adam said, "Now, tell +me; tell me how it seems to you." + +"No," she answered, "you must tell me. What has happened to us, Adam? +Where are we, and why were we left?" + +"God knows," he said reverently. + +"Do you think it possible," she said slowly, "that we are dead?" + +"Oh, I don't know!" he broke out, with a return to something of his +old childlike impatience. "Sometimes I think it is all a dream, and +directly I shall wake up and find myself in my dingy old law office. +But you are not a dream. These mountains are not a dream. Lassie +barking down below there is not a dream; and these callous spots on my +hands are real enough in all conscience, and no dream could last so +long. Sometimes I think we have been hypnotized and carried off and +left on an island somewhere. Sometimes--do you remember the man who +computed the vast number of 'mysterious disappearances,' and formed a +theory that the earth was being sorted out before the opening of the +last vial, or some such stuff? Do you think we can be simply another +disappearance?" + +"I don't know," she said. "It seems easier to believe that, easier to +believe anything than that the whole world has disappeared." + +"Then I think sometimes," he went on, "that there are evil powers,--I +know this sounds as if I had lost my mind, and maybe I have, I'm not +sure of anything,--but it seems as if there might be an explanation if +we believed in genii who have power over us. Perhaps you and I, who so +often found fault with the poor old earth, are being punished by +banishment from it. Perhaps we are being prepared for some great work. +I haven't very much religion, and yet I suppose I do believe in a +divine purpose back of things, a directing power that wastes nothing. +I have tried to think why this thing should come upon us, you and me, +of all the world; and while it seems an evil thing, a terrible and +overwhelming disaster, when I realize that it might have befallen me +alone, then just the fact that you are here makes it seem almost good. +Do you understand?" + +"Yes," she said quickly. "I have felt just so. When, at first, I felt +as if I should curse God and die, I had only to remember you to fall +on my knees for thankfulness. Even if a dozen other people had been +left instead, no one would have understood as you have. Oh, I would +infinitely rather be alone with you than in the utter loneliness of +the society of a lot of men and women who would drive me mad with +their complaints and inefficiency. I don't know whether it is a dream, +or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that +if it is a punishment it has been commuted, in that you share it. And +yet how selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to +wish you were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out +your ambitions--" She stopped, and her eyes filled. + +"Don't mind," he said grimly. "If that is selfishness, I am selfish to +the core. I have gone over the whole list, and I don't know any one I +would rather sacrifice to companionship with me in this exile than +you. My parents were old; they could never have borne the shock. My +sisters would be unhappy without their families; my women friends +could none of them have met the exigencies of such an existence as you +have; and as for men, by this we would all have been barbarians +together. You have kept me sane and alive, for that matter." + +"But are we sane?" she said slowly, "I think I could stand it if I +only knew we were sane and alive. It is the feeling that I don't know +anything, that this valley, these mountains, may fade like the +baseless fabric of a dream. And sometimes I think that it may be real, +all real but you, and that I shall find myself here all alone, dead or +alive, sane or mad. God! how horrible it is!" + +"That thought has never troubled me," he said. "Whatever has put us in +this dream together will keep us together to the end. You have not +wanted me to go far away from you, so we have worked together; I have +even let you do work that was unfit for you because I knew you would +prefer it. You were more frank about it, but you didn't feel any more +strongly than I did. I couldn't, I can't bear to have you out of my +sight." + +"Have you ever thought that it may be so?" she asked hesitatingly. + +"What? That it isn't a dream, and that we are sane and alive? Yes, I +have thought of that too. If it be true, how universal is the +destruction? We know now, pretty well, from the time that has +passed,--by the way, how long is it?" He stopped with a sudden dazed +look, and turned to her. + +"It was the first of May," she said softly. "Now it is nearly the last +of August." + +"Four months!" he said in a shocked tone. "I did not realize it; I +must have been worse stunned than I thought. In that case it seems as +if there can't be anything left of this continent, unless it be +detached peaks here and there, where other mountain ranges have been. +There may be other men and women waiting as we wait for a sail, a +sign, a message, and they do not know any more than we do whence it is +to come. The alteration in the climate has convinced me that the +waters on our West are those of the Pacific; it has been so warm and +pleasant. I have tried to imagine what kind of a winter we may expect, +or will the winter of our discontent be made glorious summer--" + +"By three crops of strawberries, like California?" she interrupted. + +"Perhaps," he said, smiling. "As to the East, that may be the +Atlantic, or the Gulf; it seems more probable that it is the latter. +The St. Lawrence district was said to be the oldest section of this +continent, and it is reasonable to suppose the earth's crust thickest +there, and along the mountain ranges. I suppose the continent has gone +to make another layer, a stratum, on top of the pliocene, and after +awhile the waters will subside, or some volcanic action will raise up +a new continent. If there are any ships anywhere, on any seas, they +will search every degree of latitude and longitude. Our flag floats, +did float, all over this globe; if it still flies anywhere, we shall +see it again." + +"If I did," she said irreverently, "I should feel sure we were in +heaven. It was beautiful before, but what wouldn't it mean now, Adam? +But have you any one left on earth; if this continent is all gone, who +would look for you? There are people of my blood, or there were, but +they did not even know of my existence." + +"There is not a soul," he answered. "Indeed, in this country it would +have been one chance in ten million. You might have done it," he said, +half jestingly, "but you are here." + +"Yes," she echoed; "I am here. Adam, how long will it be before you +are satisfied that no one is left, no one in the sense of any +civilized people, with a country and means of circumnavigation?" + +"A year," he answered, "perhaps more, but a year anyhow. I shall not +give up hope until then." + + + + +IV + + + How gladly would I meet + Mortality my sentence, and be earth + Insensible! How glad would lay me down + As in my mother's lap! + + MILTON. + + +The corn hardened, and the wheat ripened, and was harvested in truly +primeval fashion. Adam cut the wheat with a scythe, and Robin followed +him, binding it as best she could. They shocked it together, and then +began hauling it to the barn with the horses and bob-sleds, their only +vehicle. The stacking was weary work and progressed slowly. Adam +watched his co-worker toil over the sheaves, and then took them from +her and pitched them on the stack haphazard. + +"You shall not bother over it any more," he said, "not if we live on +hominy all winter. Have you ever been in Mexico? Well, Hawaii was +called the land of poco tempo, but Mexico was the land of manana. +There isn't any work there for the work's sake. I mean there wasn't, +and we can take a lesson from them. We need not hurry; the legislature +will not meet this winter, and there will be no grand opera before +spring. Daisy and Lily shall do our work for us. We will find a bit of +hard, smooth ground, and then we will not muzzle the cows that tread +out the grain." + +"Willingly," gasped Robin, climbing down from her slippery eminence on +top of the load of grain; "but do you think we are going to have any +winter?" + +"That is pre-eminently one of the things that no fellow can find out," +he answered. "In a dream you are likely to have any kind of weather, +and on a submerged planet we have no precedents at hand to tell us +what to expect. By replanting the vegetables right along we have had a +perpetual crop. As long as we have this kind of weather things will +grow, and I suppose we would better let them. Shut in as we are, it +doesn't seem likely that any very fearful winds are apt to trouble us; +and if there is a wet season, on this slope we shall have good +drainage. If the worst comes to the worst, there's the tunnel. Could +you make that cheerful and homelike?" + +Robin smiled rather sadly. "It will do to put the grain in," she said, +and they walked on silently. + +The spot finally selected for the threshing floor was brushed as clean +as twig brooms would make it, and the wheat spread out upon it. Adam +and Lassie drove the cows over it leisurely, and between times Adam +experimented on a flail. When he finally had one that answered the +purpose, and found he could use it without fracturing his skull, the +cows were released, and he went on with the work. Seated on a boulder +close by, her sombrero tipped well over her eyes, Robin fanned the +grain, and converted it into a coarse cracked wheat with a venerable +coffee-mill. + +"I will make you a Mexican mill, when I get through with this," said +Adam, "but you cannot use it, because it is too hard work; I shall +have to be the miller. It is a rather simple affair, and dates from +before the days of Noah; it is made with two stones, sandstone +preferred, the lower of which is hollowed out bowl-fashion, with a +hole in the centre; the upper stone is rounding, and fits in the bowl, +and has a hole in it about four inches from the edge, in which a stout +wooden handle is inserted, with which to turn it. The two stones are +ground together until they become smooth. Then they are placed on four +other stones as rests, and a blanket or cloth is spread underneath to +catch the meal. The grain is poured around the edge of the upper +stone, and works down. It makes a very tolerable flour." + +"How handy you are!" she said. "Isn't it a good thing we hadn't +civilized the whole world to such a degree that only patent high-grade +flour was used? Where should we be now without the simple devices of +the good people of the Stone Age, and their survivors on whom we +looked down with so much scorn?" + +The snapping of the corn was an easier matter, and it was piled in the +tunnel till they should be ready to shell it. Then Adam did what he +called his "fall plowing," and left the bare brown sod to lie fallow. + +So far as possible, they had retained the manners and customs of the +world that had left them. There was a tolerable supply of clothing, +and a good deal more household linen than could have been expected. +Robin concluded that the owners of the cabin had not been long +married, and the bride, knowing to what kind of a place she was +coming, had thought more of her house than of herself. All the +feminine garments had to be re-fashioned. Robin made her skirts short +enough for mountain climbing, and dreading the time when her one pair +of shoes should give out, she wore sandals fashioned from yucca leaves +by Adam's clever fingers. As the hair-pins lost themselves, she +braided her hair in a long queue, the curling ends of which fell far +below her waist. + +The little house was kept as neat and clean as if it were headquarters +for all the labor-saving inventions in the world, and their meals were +as well served as if a corps of servants had been in attendance. They +were simple, and often a little monotonous, as meals must be where +there is nothing save what grows on one's own plantation. They had no +tea, coffee, sugar, spices, or foreign fruits. However, the hardship +of manual labor and plain food would cure most cases of dyspepsia, and +they did not suffer. + +One day early in December, Robin woke to the consciousness of a steady +drip, drip of rain, accompanied by an indescribably mournful wind. In +the other room she heard Adam piling on the logs, and shivered. +Perhaps the winter had come. It had been hard enough when there was +plenty of work, and the free outdoor life; if they should become +prisoners, how should they, how would _he_ endure it? She dressed +quickly, and met his cheery "good-morning" in kind, and over their +breakfast they discussed the possibility of this storm being the first +of many. They decided that they must get the corn into such shape that +the tunnel would be available for the hapless cattle, or even for +themselves, if need be. + +"We will go up there and shell corn all day," said Adam. "It isn't +really cold, and you can wrap up a bit. I wish I had thought to take a +lot of stone into the tunnel to build a bin at the end to put the corn +in. I don't know how we are to manage it." + +She disappeared into the bedroom and came back presently with a few +grain sacks. When Adam opened the door he was nearly ready to abandon +his plan. + +"You will be wet through," he said; "I cannot let you go." + +"Then you cannot go either," she answered. + +"But I must," he said. She was standing by him, hardly reaching his +shoulder, the sacks over her head. Catching her up in his arms, he +banged the door behind them, and ran up the slope to the tunnel, where +he deposited her laughing, and shaking the water from her curly hair. +As he had said, it was not cold, and they sat down near the mouth of +the tunnel, turned the tops of their sacks back over corncobs, and +shelled the corn in silence. At last a little sigh from Robin made +Adam look up quickly. Her hands were bleeding. + +"Robin," he cried angrily, "how can you be so cruel! I don't want you +to do this work; there is no need. I forgot to watch you; besides, I +know you are tired. You did not sleep last night; I heard you moving +about." + +"Then you did not sleep either," she responded quickly. + +He flushed through the tan, and scooping some dry leaves together into +a bed, took off his coat and folded it for a pillow. + +"Lie down and rest a little now," he said, "while I go down to the +house and see what I can find for lunch. Then you can have a good +sleep this afternoon." + +He was gone several minutes, and when he came back with some +sandwiches in a tin bucket, and a dozen scarlet radishes dripping in +his hand, he stopped appalled. Robin was at the extreme end of the +tunnel, sitting on the ground, laughing and crying and talking +extravagant nonsense. Had she really gone mad, at last? Adam put down +the bucket, and walked toward her unsteadily. She did not stir, but +went on chattering in the same absurd way, until she saw him; then she +cried excitedly, "Oh, look! it's kittens, real little tame kittens, +though their mother won't come near me yet. She is over in that +corner." + +Adam saw her green eyes, and though distrustful she was not +unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came +back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set +down before the kittens. They lapped it eagerly, and as the two human +beings withdrew discreetly, the cat crept out of her corner and joined +in the feast. When it was over, Robin took possession of one tiny ball +of fur, and Adam of another, while they made their own meal. Then +Robin curled up among the dead leaves, and slept like a child. + +It was growing dusk when Adam awoke from his day-dreams. The tunnel +looked like a small grain elevator. On one side Robin still slept, but +the old cat was nestled contentedly at her feet, and the kittens were +playing sleepily over her. + +"What is she dreaming?" Adam asked wearily. "All day I have sat here +and dreamed dreams that can never come true. I know it; I feel it. I +told her a year, but I am as sure now as I shall be in six years, that +there is no hope. The watch-fire is out to-night,--the first night in +eight months. I shall re-light it for her sake; not that she is any +more deceived than I, but she will be happier to believe me still +hopeful. What will be the end of it all? How can it end?" + +"The same old way," came a sleepy voice from the leaves, "with the +'got married and lived happily ever after' formula." She sat up and +rubbed her eyes, and stretched lazily, to the discomfort of the +kittens, who retreated hastily. As she struggled to her feet and a +knowledge of her surroundings, her face changed pitifully, and she sat +down again and cried miserably. + +"Oh, it was so real!" she sobbed. "I can see it now. We were back in +the old house, in the library, don't you remember it? and Walter was +at the piano, and Louis had just asked me how to finish his last +story. Did I answer out loud? Oh, which is the dream, for that was as +real as this!" + +Adam stood and watched her. He tried not to think of that apropos +answer. He heard the beating, steady patter of the rain, and the +lowing of the cows, and there was not even a star in heaven to look at +him from its accustomed place with a friendly, twinkling promise for +the future. There was nothing left. So far as he was concerned, the +earth was without form and void. There was nothing to wait or hope +for. There was nothing to live for, neither cheerful yesterdays nor +confident to-morrows. What was the use in living? He looked down at +the slender creature lying outstretched almost at his feet, shaken +with the agony of long-repressed grief, and then at his long, muscular +hands. How little it would take to end it all for both of them! A mist +came over his eyes and he stooped, his hands outstretched toward her +white throat. They fell on the rounded curve of her shoulder. He +checked the caress as he checked the other impulse and shook her +instead. + +"Let us go home," he said. + +They went into the storm. + + + + +V + + + Why wilt thou take a castle on thy back + When God gave but a pack? + With gown of honest wear, why wilt thou tease + For braid and fripperies? + Learn thou with flowers to dress, with birds to feed, + And pinch thy large want to thy little need. + + FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE. + + +The next morning dawned clear and warm, and Adam, coming in with his +milk-pails, held out his hand to Robin. There were three ripe +strawberries. + +"See," he said, "they are the harbingers of spring, or a California +climate, and either way makes our gain. California without fogs and +fleas is heavenly enough for most people." + +Nevertheless, they completed the shelling of the corn, and made a bin +for it at the end of the tunnel, removing the cat family to the house, +where Lassie viewed their advent with jealous eyes. One day when they +had been hulling corn for nearly a week, Adam sat down and began +laughing. "Do you know how much corn it takes to plant an acre?" he +asked. + +"No," said Robin, blankly. "I know something about the number of +kernels to the hill,--'one for the cutworm, and one for the crow, and +one for something-or-other else, I forget what, and one to grow.' +Why?" + +"It takes eight quarts to plant an acre. We have raised about thirty +bushels to the acre, which is very well for sod. That will make over +fifteen thousand pounds of meal and hominy, and will feed us for seven +years, even if we eat six pounds daily. Unless there is a winter +season, when we must do something for the animals, there is not the +slightest use in planting more than an acre. As to the wheat, even +with a light yield, there would be fifteen hundred pounds to the acre. +We have fresh vegetables all the time, and there will be any quantity +of potatoes and cabbage and beans." + +"And yet people starved everywhere, and it seemed to me that the +farmers were the worst off of all." + +"They farmed to make money, not to live, and they had no control over +the markets. They had to sell or build barns. It is only Dives who can +afford to tear down the old ones and build greater. It was easier for +them to sell cheap to a man who took their wheat and held it until it +could be sold back to them as dear flour. They were eaten up with +mortgages and pests and interest. Have you noticed that there are +almost no insects here, not even flies and mosquitoes? They were never +so bad in the mountains, and apparently they have been wiped out with +the rest." + +"Truly, Adam," she said, "speaking just of the physical part of it, +would you regret this year?" + +He stood up and stretched out his arms, a splendid type of manhood, +smooth-shaven, with clear-cut features, bronzed, square-shouldered, +and powerful. + +"Oh, you are magnificent!" she cried involuntarily. "It has done you +good, great good. You are twice the man you were in strength and +health and resource; and if only we had been cast away on an island, +knowing we were sure to be rescued some day soon, I should not be +sorry at all." + +He colored and answered frankly: "Without the mental strain, I should +not regret this year. Sometimes, when I am sure it is a dream, and +that presently we shall waken, I can't help wondering whether we shall +not wish we had fretted less and enjoyed it more. When I come to think +of it, I believe it is the first time since I was a child that ways +and means have not troubled me. It was a good thing to work as we +have, to keep our minds employed, but now that we are sure that +starvation is five or six years away, we might as well drop the old, +headlong rush to get more than we need. That has been the trouble ever +since men began to make history. It was the same thing,--power, +conquest, riches, everything; too much to eat, too much to drink, too +much to wear--" + +"Well, you can't say that of us," said Robin ruefully, looking down at +her made-over gown. + +"Well, perhaps not, and I don't mean that there ever was a time when +there was a general surfeit, but I mean that was the tendency. There +would have been plenty for all, if part had not taken more than their +share; as for the other part who had not enough, they only longed for +the opportunity to simulate their unwise betters. When they could, +they took too much, too, if it was only to drink and forget their +misery. We could have lived so well and so easily, if we had lived +more simply, coming more directly in contact with nature, as we have +this year." + +She shook her head doubtfully. "This has not been real life at all. We +have only kept alive. We haven't read anything or done anything or +helped any one--" + +"Except each other and the animals dependent on us. On the whole, I +don't know but that we have accomplished about as much as when we were +devoting most of our attention to paying board and rent bills. We have +helped each other more than we can measure. We should have died had we +been left alone with our thoughts. All of life is not in cities, nor +even in books." + +She did not answer for some moments, and then said slowly, "If it were +a dream, and we were going back to the old life, what would you regret +most?" + +"If we were going back to the world we know, I should regret a good +many things; first, I suppose, that I did not realize sooner that we +must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed. +Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, a la +Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I +should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to +day. There is other writing I should want to do,--but there is no +paper, and I don't know how to make any." + +"There is plenty of time to do all that yet," she said. "What else +would you wish you had done?" + +He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not +understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that +we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we +used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should +have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship +when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a +dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped +and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there +had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them. + +"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly. + +She shrank a little, and her eyes looked far away, past the gateway. +"Some of the things you mention; very much that I had not encouraged +you more to go on with your work, but mainly--" + +"Well, mainly?" + +She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and answered +evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is that when +I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember all those +wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so wise. The +only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for cooking +without sugar, or spice, or fruit." + + + + +VI + + + Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it + will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still. + + SCOTT. + + +It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, was +chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room was +full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, with +an attempt at gayety. + +Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If only +I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England, +didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come +through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases +may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you +think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do, +please give me the smaller box; I am sure it has hair-pins and needles +and darning-cotton in it." + +Adam laughed. "We will give them to each other," he said, "and perhaps +you'll find some stockings in your box, if there is no box in your +stockings. We can dream of their contents all night, and--who +knows?--we may have a merry Christmas, after all." + +Robin hardly knew the place next morning. Adam had risen early and +decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly +glistened. "I wish I knew how to thank him," she said. + +"Do you like it?" he said, as he came in. "I was afraid I should waken +you putting it up." + +"Like it!" she answered, "Why, Adam, it is beautiful. You are just an +ideal Santa Claus." + +When they had finished their breakfast they went out and looked at the +boxes. + +"You must open yours first," she said; "it's so big I know it doesn't +contain anything nice, so we would better save mine till the last, and +then I can divide with you. What do you think it is? You shall have +three guesses." + +"It might be a piano from its size," he ventured. + +"No," she said decidedly. "It's not the right shape." + +"Or perhaps it's a feather-bed; I don't know of anything I want less." + +"It's too large for that; now guess, really." + +"As a matter of fact, I expect it is mining machinery, which will be +about as much use as another chimney; but here goes to find out." He +brought his hatchet down vigorously between the boards at one end, +where a slight crevice promised some leeway. + +"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but +stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute +treasures!" + +He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which he +removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as if +they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were no +more on earth to draw. When the top of the box was finally off, and a +quantity of papers removed, they gave a simultaneous cry of delight. +The box was full of books. They took them out, one at a time, with +little exclamations of pleasure, as an old friend came to light. +Sitting down on the ground they piled the books about them on the +papers, and opening favorites here and there read to each other and +themselves till long after noon. It was really a fine library, well +chosen, covering a wide range of subjects and including an +encyclopaedia and an unusually fine edition of Shakespeare. + +"Isn't it the most beautiful Christmas present you can imagine, Adam?" +she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because, in the +old slang, you 'want the earth.'" + +"But we haven't even opened your box," he said. + +"I don't want to," she answered slowly. "Somehow I feel as if we would +better stop now and let well enough alone. Let us enjoy this awhile. +Perhaps the other box may spoil this one, or at least the day." + +Adam laughed with good-natured tolerance. "How absurd!" he said. "Let +us see what there is. You know you said yours would be the nicest; +besides, if it contains sawdust and last year's almanacs, I shall have +to divide with you, and we may quarrel over the Shakespeare." He +opened the box while she stood watching him with a strange +unwillingness. It had been labeled, "This Side Up," and on the very +top there was a wooden case. He put it in Robin's arms, and she opened +it with trembling fingers. She replaced the broken strings, adjusted +the bridge, tucked the violin under her chin, tuned it, and +straightway escaped from every sorry care of earth. + +Adam went on unpacking the box. It contained chiefly materials for +writing,--all the paraphernalia that the fastidious student requires. +There were many note-books, and at the bottom a large, handsomely +inlaid writing-desk. The name on the cover made him start and call +her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed +the vibrating wood with sudden feeling. + +"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's violins, +do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you open the +desk?" + +He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few +papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page +written, and read:-- + + "Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my + effects to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena + convinces me that I may have been in error, and that the + cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within + a few months I shall burn this book, and confess that I + should be written down an ass, or turn to it to prove myself + a prophet. From the eyrie I have chosen I expect to be able + to write the story of the coming deluge. It will be of great + value to posterity to have a calm, scientific account, quite + free from any tinge of superstition or religion. I have + to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies of my + calculations, with references to former inundations, and + reasons for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest + at this time. All geologists agree that--" + +Here the journal terminated abruptly. + +Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or possibly +she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if it were +the napkin over the face of the dead. + +"It is not to the wise that God has revealed himself," she said +softly. "Where is the hand that wrote this? You must finish it, Adam. +Here are the blank pages waiting for such a chapter as was never +written on earth." + +But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is all +true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked away +with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk; he +neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything, and +while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he had +never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a +rescue. + +Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its liquid +notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine, brushing +its fingers across his heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She +played for a long time, and when she ceased, in some strange way he +felt that he was comforted. + + + + +VII + + + The World is too much with us; late and soon + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; + Little we see in nature that is ours; + We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. + + * * * * * + + Great God! I'd rather be + A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-- + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; + Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; + Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. + + WORDSWORTH. + + +They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin +had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her +hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to +the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly. +The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither +had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of God +in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on earth. + +She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and she +answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend, +that the souls on other planets call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What +made it so sorrowful, Adam?" + +"Ignorance would cover it all," he answered, "but to be specific, +intemperance, sensuality, avarice, and poverty. I don't mean +drunkenness only, when I say intemperance. I have known a few +prohibitionists in my time who were as intemperate in their eating as +any one could be in the matter of drink. I think intemperance in its +widest sense was the great curse of our time anyway; drink and tobacco +and tea and coffee; and as to our eating, there was too much, of +almost everything on earth that was not food, but which could be +over-salted and over-peppered, and treated with tabasco sauce. We +over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing +all kinds of things in which there was no sense. Think of reading one +or two morning and evening papers every day. To be sure we said there +was nothing in them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a +stream of silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the +things we wore--" + +Robin laughed. "I know," she said. "The sewing-machine didn't save +work; it only made ruffles. A dressmaker once said to me, 'It's a good +thing for me that these women haven't sense enough to spend their time +and money on themselves, in making their bodies free and strong and +beautiful. But no; they would rather have a stylish dress than a +graceful body. They don't care to be beautiful themselves; all they +want is a handsome gown to cover their ugliness.' Isn't it strange +that we never seemed able to realize that the Greek fashions were +immortal because they were beautiful?" + +"Still, I don't think the dress of the Greek women would be very +convenient for housework," ventured Adam. + +Robin shook her head. "You only say that because some woman has said +it to you. The Diana of the Stag wore the first rainy-day gown. The +Greek dress was capable of ever so many modifications. If I were +making a handbook of proverbs for women, I should say, 'A good +complexion is rather to be chosen than many fine dresses, and glossy +and abundant hair turneth away wrath.' I believe in the simplification +of life. I understand just how Thoreau felt when he threw out that +specimen because it had to be dusted daily. There are very few things +beautiful enough to pay for that amount of trouble. But perhaps that +is because I don't care for specimens, and I loathe dusting." + +"You ought to have been a Jap," said Adam. "There was one in college, +in my class, and one day when I was fretting over something I could +not afford he said, in that immensely polite way of theirs, 'You I +cannot understand. With all American people it so is, even as by +Ruskin said was it; whatever you have, of it you more would get, and +where you are, you would go from. You happy are only when something +you get, and never that you yourself are.' But I think the Celestial +was wrong there. When a man is self-conscious of illy-made garments, a +mean domicile, a poor kind of half education, he is uncomfortable; he +hasn't accomplished his evolution from the conscious, the +self-conscious, to the unconscious. It was this very discomfort and +inequality that used so to enrage me, for it need not have been." + +"I wish," said Robin, "we knew how to make paper; of all the +fascinating things in Bellamy's 'Equality,' there was nothing I liked +so well as the idea of paper garments, to be burned when one got +through with them. Think of never having any washing and ironing, and +always having new clothes." + +"I wonder whether we could invent some of those things over again," +said Adam, reflectively. + +"I couldn't spare you any of my precious rags, if you could," said +Robin. + +"Most of the paper was made out of wood, anyhow," answered Adam, "and +the ash that grows here in any quantity was considered particularly +fine for that purpose." + +"'God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions,'" +quoted Robin, "and now we are going to seek them over again. I can't +imagine how anyone could ever make a lineotype, but the type and the +hand-press are easy enough, and if you can make paper, we may yet live +to read our 'published works.' You probably do not know that I used to +have a Wegg-like facility for dropping into poetry." + +"Did you? That is another of the things you never told me; but your +speaking of Thoreau," answered Adam, "recalls what he said of the +amount of work necessary to sustain life beside Walden Pond. It took +six weeks out of the year, and that was in a most forbidding country. +In such a valley as this two months ought to be sufficient to more +than feed and clothe us; but then he didn't have to make his own +clothing." + +"And out of nothing particular," interrupted Robin. + +Adam laughed and went on. "Did you ever hear of a man called Hertzka? +He was an eminent Austrian sociologist, and he figured it out, that if +five million men should work a little less than an hour and three +quarters a day they could produce all the necessities of life for the +twenty-two million people of Austria. By working two hours and twelve +minutes daily for two months beside, they could have all the luxuries +also. And that not for a few, not for the Court and the nobility, but +for all. There could have been music and pictures and books and +theatres, and sufficient food and clothing. Isn't it strange that when +we might have been so happy we preferred to be so wretched? For even +if we had all we wanted ourselves, we could not escape the sights and +sounds that told of abject misery." + +"It was always so," Robin answered moodily. "The poor we had always +with us. History always repeated itself." + +"Still, it didn't exactly repeat itself," Adam said. "Our dark age +would have done for a golden age in the past. Greece was glorious for +a little while, but her literature tells us of her ideals. The isles +of Greece, where Byron contracted his last illness, would have left +him to die among the rocks twenty-five hundred years earlier, because +he had a lame foot. We at least were kinder to animals, and that means +a great deal." + +"I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps; it seems to me I have read of +a hospital for sick animals on the island of Ceylon a long sometime B. +C. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--or was it Lady Hester Stanhope?--said +she had traveled all over the world, and had never found but two kinds +of people,--men and women. I fancy the same thing is true of all the +ages as well as all the countries." + +"No," Adam said, shaking his head; "our ideals change. The scheme of +life laid down by Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and to the Jews +a stumbling-block, and there were plenty of Greeks and Jews in our +day. By Greeks I mean people whose ideals were purely intellectual, +and by Jews those who saw no good save a material good, no God but the +God of Mammon. They would not hear either Moses or the prophets, and +the statute of limitations was as near as they could come to the +Sabbatic year. The Greek and the Jew have stood ready with their cup +of hemlock, their crown of thorns for every Christ-spirit that has +ever come to earth. Yet more people read Socrates, and believed on the +Nazarene every year. I don't mean in the church; the working-man did +not go to church, but he uncovered his head at the name of Christ, the +first lawgiver who confounded the scribes and Pharisees, and ate with +publicans and sinners." + +"But Moses was the first lawgiver to forbid taking the nether +millstone as a pledge," objected Robin. + +"True," he admitted, "and the laws of Moses would have made the world +over. He was the greatest writer on political economy this earth has +ever seen. His absolute fiat against the alienation of the land would +have done more for the common people than all Adam Smith's theories of +free competition, and Fourier's dream of a perfected communism. But +who would have known of Moses, save for Christ? The Old Testament +would have been merely the sacred book of the Hebrews, and save as a +literary and historic work, of very uncertain historic value, would +have been unread, as the Koran and other books of a similar nature +were unread." + +"And yet you do not believe in the divinity of Christ," she said +slowly. + +"No," he answered. "Is that necessary before one can believe in his +teachings? The truth is always divine. What difference does it make +whether the one who utters it be human or divine, bond or slave, AEsop +or Marcus Aurelius? the truth remains the same. A fable is only +another name of a parable. We have the story of the lost sheep; that's +a parable; and that of the lamb that muddied the stream, and that's a +fable. One is sacred, the other profane, but both are fables, both +parables. When you take them away from the context it is as easy to +feel for the lamb eaten by the wolf, as for the one that was rescued, +and has been immortalized in picture and song." + +"Probably you are right," she said. "I never thought of it in just +that way before," and saying "good night" she went to her room. + +Adam thought he heard her humming, "Away on the mountains cold and +bare." + + + + +VIII + + + When we mean to build + We first survey the plot, then draw the model, + And, then we see the figure of the house, + Then must we rate the cost of the erection. + + SHAKSPERE. + + +The discovery of the incomplete journal made a subtle change in Adam. +He had been silent and self-absorbed from the first, but he had never +quite given up hope. Even now, Robin sought to keep up the pretence, +and dreading the despair which she saw creeping over Adam, she began +artfully to seek some means of interesting him in something else. The +question of a proper place for the books gave her an opportunity, and +Adam suggested that he build an addition to the house. + +They planned it as eagerly as if it was to be a castle, and spent days +in looking for adobe, but finally decided that logs would be better, +and Adam's ax could have been heard ringing from morning till night. A +log house is not exactly a work of art, but it requires no little +skill to build one, and takes a good deal of time when the logs for +the floor must be planed and squared, so as to make a matched board +floor. Sometimes Robin went with Adam, and worked or read; sometimes +she took him his luncheon at noon, for the trees were at some little +distance from the house. The logs had to be "snaked" across the rough +ground and down the mountain, and when the floor had been laid, and +the location of the window decided upon, Robin planted morning-glory +seeds where it was to be. By dint of much pushing and hauling the logs +were finally put in place, and the roof battened down. The window was +truly worthy of a mediaeval castle, for it was simply an oblong hole, +boxed in with a casement made from some scraps of boards, while a slab +shutter, swung on leather hinges, shut out the elements. + +The chinking was a simple matter, and when it was all done, including +a doorway into the main room, Robin was unfeignedly delighted. They +made rows of shelves with the packing-cases, and arranged the books +thereon. It was not an extensive library, but it occupied one side of +the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the window Robin placed the +green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's writing materials. Along +the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the fashion in miners' +cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft inner cornhusk, and +a pillow from the other room, and blankets from the one tiny closet, +the couch looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats +made from plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portiere, woven +from the same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly +despised. + +Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the +room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin +was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that +they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory +blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means +unattractive. + +Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and she +scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or invented +furniture, until inside and out their little domain was as perfect as +they could make it. + +Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they +dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the +turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam +harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and +corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to +do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality. + +Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he could +sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and the +paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment, +then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How +when his friends got rich they first built a beautiful house, and then +went abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like +it?" + +The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it, and +he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the +expedition. + +Robin baked and prepared as well as she could. + +"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized, as +she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals over +it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and learned +how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and," as she +rolled out some crackers, "it is a blessed good thing I went to +cooking-school, but I wish that, instead of being so particular about +the knobs on the candlesticks, the Pentateuch had given Sarah's recipe +for making cakes with honey. Not that I have any honey, but I am sure +we shall find some on this trip." + +When they were all ready, and the burros stood waiting at the door, +with Lassie jumping wildly about them, Adam wrote a placard which he +stuck in the framework of the door. The stock had been turned loose on +the mountain-side, and the house and stables secured as well as +possible against any storms that might arise. The kittens had +possession of one of the sheds. The puppies were to accompany them. + +Robin had put on her long unused shoes, and a new gown that she had +made out of a dark blue serge found hanging in her room. Adam looked +at her approvingly from under his wide sombrero. She turned back, +after going a few paces, and read the card. + + WAIT! + + APRIL 5th. + + Back in two weeks. + + Look for smoke. + +As she passed into the canon that hid their home from sight, Adam saw +her brush her hand across her eyes. + + + + +IX + + I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis + all barren." + + STERNE. + + +They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending +their way through dim defiles and along precipitous canons, until they +saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time +that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide +tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved +that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They +had not looked upon the ocean before for many months. + +They picketed the burros on the rank, salt grass, and built their +camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began +her supper preparations, Adam went scouting along the coast. In less +than half an hour he came back with a quantity of clams which he threw +down before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags. +She gave a little feminine shriek of delight. + +"Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot," she said; +"bring it here, please." + +Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and stir +in the various ingredients. + +"It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted," she said, "even +if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of our +adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate." + +"They might think it a voracious tale if I did," he answered, dropping +some more butter into his mealy potato. "Do you remember how the Swiss +Family were always worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to +eat?" + +"Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast, and +a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for supper. +And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed one of +their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good to +eat?" + +They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they +were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle +was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said "good +night." It had been an exciting day. + +It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened by +Lassie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to Robin. +There was no answer, and her blankets lay tossed on the other side of +the fire. He started up and listened. At first he heard only the sound +of the sea; then there came mingled with it the clear notes of her +glorious voice. Holding Lassie in check he went down to the beach. + +Robin stood well out on the shimmering sand, the waves lapping softly +almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and caught the +words,-- + + "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove, Far away, + far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest." + +Her voice quivered when she came to the words, "In the wilderness +build me a nest," but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn +after hymn, anthem after anthem, for she sang nothing else. He heard +the bitter cry of the De Profundis, Handel's triumphant "I know that +my Redeemer liveth," and then she began, "He watching over Israel +slumbers not nor sleeps." + +His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had written +by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom, she had +put those five bars from "Elijah." Though he did not believe it, for +he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own race, and +the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had comforted him +in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an American +"non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching over Israel +had not been less merciful. + +Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year, +though she was a very perfectly trained musician. Indeed in the old +days, Adam had first sought her acquaintance because of her music. + +Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred to +keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back, and +controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him +intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh +that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows. + +Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their +melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour +was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts +and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long, +prickly vines that would be covered with raspberries, and wild grapes +and choke-cherries and currants, which they planned to transplant, for +though the Western coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more +convenient than their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley. +Already it had come to mean home. + +They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the island, +making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if anywhere, on +land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and every night +their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their vicinity. The +island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising here and +there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point, Adam said, +"We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always named +places." + +Robin looked at the bare, stone walls rising sheer above the waves +three hundred feet, and her lip curled. + +"Let us call it the Cape of Good Hope," she said. + +"In the name of wonder, why?" asked Adam, and she answered, "Because +we are past it," and then would have given anything to have recalled +the bitter words. + +The Eastern coast was wilder and more picturesque, but the traveling +was correspondingly slower. Something in the formation of the coast +caused a terrific surf, and at many places there was scarcely any +beach, and they found themselves compelled to climb along trails that +made even the burros dizzy. + +When they had been absent ten days, Robin said, "I begin to feel like +a grandmother; no, I don't mean that I feel so old, but that I begin +to long to see the chicken and cat-children, and the new calf, +and--everything." + +Adam laughed, "I have been thinking we ought to hurry; that place of +ours is growing so entrancingly lovely in memory that last night I +dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!" + +They were not to reach home without at least one adventure, however. A +day or so later, as they toiled up a painfully steep ascent, Lassie +sounded the note of alarm, and catching up the rifle, Adam ran ahead. +As he rounded a point in the rocks, he came upon a Rocky Mountain goat +engaged in combat with a cinnamon bear. The bear was hardly more than +a cub, and was carrying off one of the kids. The goat, horns down, was +fighting viciously, though weak from loss of blood. + +It would be interesting to know what one wild animal thinks when +another wild animal, from its point of view, comes to the rescue. Adam +carried a lariat over one arm. In an instant it flew through the air, +dropping over Bruin's shoulders. He released the kid, and tumbled +backward over the cliff, as much with surprise as by the force of the +jerk on the rope, taking that treasured article with him. + +It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their hurts, +and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there was a +beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as they +put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said tentatively, +"If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses and the +sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I can be back in three +hours,--I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as I +think." + +Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering +driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the +coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build +a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its +uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and +put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly. + +"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls, I +will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle +Books' by heart for nothing." + +Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought him +to the little cove and the high wall of rocks that shut them in on the +south in a little over an hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and +they raced on ahead, as he came in sight of the house. Everything +seemed to have an air of welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully +when he called them from the gateway. + +The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his hand, +and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows, and +gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the team +and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at the +south, they went on rapidly. + +Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw +her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not +been separated so long before that year, and realized the unconscious +strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however, +though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the +horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed +against her affectionately. + +She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they had +their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the kids +their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took but +a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and the +goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the +cavalcade started on its way. + + + + +X + + + Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed + Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head, + And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, + Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, + Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow + Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow; + Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide + More heart's repose than all the world beside. + + LEONIDAS. + + +"Do you know, Adam," said Robin, when they had walked a mile in +silence, "do you know that you are a fraud?" + +"Well, yes," he responded, "but I didn't know you knew it. Is the +discovery recent?" + +"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle +instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?" + +"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good +and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last +year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have +done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it +would seem like murder to slaughter the animals about us. And it's +such a little world it seems a pity to kill off any of its +inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope the bear got away all right. +This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want my hand first to bring death +on all there is left of earth. Incidentally,--there are no +cartridges." + +He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them +more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved +on. + +Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!" + +There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and asked +why, and she answered:-- + +"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is that +we shall need their fleece unless,--why, goodness gracious, Adam, +there is a baking-powder can of flax in the dresser, and I never +thought till this moment that we can plant it." + +"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do +with it?" + +"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I can't, +but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl, very near +to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded +and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own +soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, +too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and +on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, +she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor +'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound +of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when she found I +couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and during the +seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to school she +taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I have +forgotten them." + +"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam. + +She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder. + +"I have a fancy," she said, "that Nannette and her children are going +to minister to a mind diseased, and help pluck a rooted sorrow from +the brain. The world was getting too healthy. Has it ever struck you +that we have neither of us been sick for a day this year? I have had +to mother the chickens, but there has been no suffering. I'm not glad +to have pain come into the world, but it is good to be able to +alleviate it. We will put Nannette in a sling till her leg has a +chance to set, and by the time it is well she won't want to leave us. +As for the kids, I expect they will be like the plague of frogs, and +we shall find them in our beds and our ovens and our kneading troughs. +Oh, Adam, there is the house! Doesn't it look dear and homey?" + +She put the kid back on the sled, and ran on, pointing out this and +that, the growth of the corn, the afternoon radiance, till they +reached their doorway. Then there were a thousand things to do. First +Nannette was made comfortable in the stable; then the chickens were +summoned to a meal of yellow corn, and when Lassie drove the cows into +the barnyard, each was congratulated in turn upon her calf, and those +interesting, if wobbly, bovine infants were carefully inspected. After +supper they sat down before the fire, very tired, but the nearest +happy they had been in a year. The dogs were lying about them, and the +thump, thump of first one tail and then another told the story of +canine content, while the kittens walked over them impartially. + +"What a strange thing human nature is!" Adam said. "The only thing +needed to make our life perfect is that it shall not last. The moment, +if that moment ever comes, when it is real no more, it will become +ideal." + +"I know," she said dreamily. "Things in the world used to be too good +to be true. This must cease to be, to be good at all." + + + + +XI + + + Yet if Hope has flown away + In a night, or in a day, + In a vision, or in none. + Is it therefore the less gone? + All that we see or seem + Is but a dream within a dream. + + POE. + + +"It is the first of May," said Adam. "It is a year ago to-day. Shall +we pass the gateway?" + +"Not now," answered Robin. "Wait till afternoon. I am so busy this +morning." + +She was sitting at the table teaching half a dozen little chickens to +appreciate hard-boiled egg. The wounded kid was lying in her lap, one +arm was about it, and an adventurous kitten looked over her shoulder. +As she tapped on the board with one slender forefinger, the chickens, +hearing their mother's bill, began picking up the fragments of egg. +She had rounded out wonderfully in a year, and Adam realized for the +first time that she was a very beautiful woman. + +"Suppose," she went on, "you begin your book to-day. Write your +description of a year ago. It will never be so plain again. There is +plenty of time before we go. Besides, if it is a dream, we shall want +the written record to show what dreams may come." + +Adam hesitated a moment, then went to his desk. She had said truly, +the events of that day would never again be so clear, and as he began +to record them they marshaled themselves before him, until he found +himself writing with a dramatic power that fascinated and amazed him. + +It must have been some time afterward that Robin stole in and set a +glass of milk, some biscuit and strawberries, down on the desk beside +him and then went out, taking the dogs with her. He did not notice +another sound until she called him to supper. + +While he did the evening work Robin dressed herself in the garments +she had worn the year before. As soon as she could make others she had +put them aside, awaiting the awakening or the rescue. + +The heavy cloth skirt and the silk waist were put on with a strange +reluctance. Years ago the old doctor in "The Guardian Angel" said our +china became our tombstones, but surely our garments may become the +graveyards of our emotions, and hold sharp or sweet remembrances long +after they are past wearing. In spite of some tan Robin found the face +that looked back at her from her mirror infinitely more attractive +than it had been the year before. + +Adam started a little when he saw her. Then he drew her hand through +his arm, and they went to the gateway. As he opened the gate she +turned and looked back. The sun was behind the mountains, and the +shadows were long and dark. They heard the sounds of the various +creatures settling into quiet for the night, and Adam sent back all +the dogs but Lassie. They went slowly and wistfully. Robin stooped and +kissed Prince on his white forehead. As Adam closed the gate, she said +half fearfully, "Shall we ever see them again?" But he did not answer. +He took her hand and led her to the boulder. + +Far as the eye could reach they saw what they expected to see. Half a +mile away the sea rolled in on a tolerably level beach; here it +thundered and roared against a sheer cliff. Among the rocks they could +see the nests of many wild-fowl, and gulls flew by them. They sat down +on the rock and waited until midnight. Then they went home. The dogs +received them obstreperously, and the kid from its corner bleated +faintly. Robin bent over it anxiously, then warmed some milk and fed +it. When Adam came in with some fresh water she was swinging slowly to +and fro in the rocker, singing softly an absurd nursery song:-- + + "Sleep, baby, sleep. + The stars they are the sheep; + The big moon is the shepherdess; + The little stars are the lambs, I guess. + Sleep, baby, sleep." + +"It needed to be cuddled," she said in as matter-of-fact a voice as if +all lambs were sung to sleep regularly. "You know dear old Professor +Carter said there would have been no wild animals if we hadn't made +them so; but now, if you will, you can put her with Nannie." + +When he came back she had gone into her room. There was nothing more +for either of them to say. There was nothing to do, except to hope for +a sail, since they no longer hoped for an awakening. + + + + +XII + + Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken. + + GEORGE ELIOT. + + +The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to refer +to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone away, to +leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more +frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of +morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one +who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on +smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours +with her violin. + +One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and he +rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and through +the gateway to their boulder, and sat down. + +"Talk to me," said Adam. + +She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am +but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely +tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in +thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are +eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and +they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in +bloom. It is so pretty." + +"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam. + +"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to weave. +Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of it +this morning as I pulled out some weeds, and how when it was pulled up +and cut and hackled, it said: 'One cannot always have good times. One +must make one's experience, and so one comes to know something;' and +when it is woven and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If +I have suffered something, I have been made into something. I am +happiest of all. That is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use +in the world, and that is right, that is a true pleasure.'" + +"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if we +could see the justification of our suffering." + +"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of the +flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is again +tortured and beaten until it becomes paper whereon an eternal word is +written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that +I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers +of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and +wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you +remember my girls' club down on--I don't think there were any streets, +but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?" + +"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you tell +me?" + +"That was ever so long ago, ages and ages,--when you came to see--" +She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun that tells +the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as to betray +unspeakable heights of adoration or abysses of loathing. She went on +slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if +there existed anything in common between you two? That sounds +dreadful, but you know all about it so well that subterfuges are +useless." + +"To tell the truth, I never cared anything about him at all," Adam +answered quickly. "Like a good many others, I was enthusiastic over +your voice. He asked me to the house to hear you sing, and I went, and +was glad of the chance. And you have never sung for me once this +year." + +"You never asked me," she answered. "'A dumb priest loses his +benefice.' But I was speaking of my club. We studied Andersen all +winter, and got enough more out of him than a lot of us who pored over +Ibsen, guided by a literary expert. Andersen has a more beautiful, a +more inspiring philosophy. Every nation has its story of Psyche, the +lost soul of things, but none is more beautiful than the tale of Gerda +and Kay. There were children in that club who were cruel, horribly +cruel, and one day when we gave an entertainment for them, one of the +older girls recited the story of 'The Daisy and the Lark.' They cried +as I had cried over it years before." + +"I remember," he said. "It broke my heart when I was a little shaver. +I couldn't give so sad a story as that to a child." + +"Oh, yes, you could," she said, "if the child needed it. The world was +cruel, cruel, Adam; I used to wonder sometimes why God did not blot it +all out, as He has blotted it out now. Once in another club, a big, +swell affair, there was a Humane Society programme. One woman, in a +Persian lamb jacket, spoke on the evils of the overcheck; you know how +they get that wool? And women nodded the aigrettes in their bonnets, +torn from the old birds while the little ones starved to death, to +show their approval, and patted their hands gloved in the skins of +kids, sewed in cloth soon after their birth so they couldn't grow a +fleece, and tortured all their short lives, and went home to eat +pate-de-foie gras, and broil live lobsters, thanking God they were not +as the rest of men, if only they let out their check-reins a hole or +so. It was horrible,--the cruelties men practised to gratify appetite, +and that women were guilty of for vanity. I suppose I am a monomaniac +on the subject, but we never seemed far removed from barbarians, when +we went clothed in the skins of wild animals, and decorated with their +heads and tails and feathers, like so many Sioux chiefs. The varnish +of civilization isn't dry on us yet. Why, if a ship should come here +now, do you know what they would do first, unless they happened to be +East Indians? They would say they wanted some fresh meat, and offer to +buy Lily; she is the fattest of the cows. If we wouldn't sell her, +they would probably take her anyway." + +"Kill Lily," cried Adam, angrily. "They'd have me to kill first; +nothing on this place is going to be slaughtered while I can protect +it." He went on more slowly, a little ashamed of his heat, "I feel a +sense of kinship with all these creatures that would make it +impossible to kill them. It's like the woman whose Newfoundland died, +and a friend asked if she was going to have him stuffed. 'Stuffed!' +she said; 'I'd as soon think of stuffing my husband!'" + +Robin laughed, and leaning over tweaked Lassie's ear. "If we are to be +stuffed, we prefer to have it an ante-mortem performance, don't we, +little dog?" + +The sun dropped behind the tall peaks, but its dying light still +covered sea and shore. They rose as if for the benediction, and looked +out at the waters before them. Then they looked at each other and grew +white to the lips, and Robin knelt down and flinging her arms around +Lassie sobbed and laughed. Adam never took his eyes from the coming +ship. + + + + +XIII + + + Every ship brings a word; + Well for those who have no fear, + Looking seaward well assured + That the word the vessel brings + Is the word they wish to hear. + + EMERSON. + + +The ship bore steadily toward them, but night was coming on so rapidly +that her lines were obscured. They could not even tell whether it was +a sailing vessel or propelled by steam. + +"There's one thing certain," said Adam, excitedly: "it was coming this +way, but very slowly. I suppose that is to be expected of a ship +sailing unknown waters. They have nothing to go by, though they know, +of course, just what part of the round globe they are on." + +She answered almost apathetically, as if she found it difficult to +talk, "It seems as if good sailors would lay by at night, when they do +not know their course, and there is land in sight,--land that has +never been explored." + +"It does seem strange she should come right on," he assented. "For +surely no ship has ever sailed these seas before. Perhaps--" + +"Perhaps what?" + +"Perhaps she has been clear around; perhaps this is the only bit of +land left above a world ocean." + +Robin shivered a little, and Adam turned toward the beacon, that had +glowed in vain for a year. It had been built on a high, altar-shaped +rock, across the gorge, where it could be kept up without leaving the +park. Robin went with him, and they gathered a pile of timber that +insured the brilliancy of their signal until morning. Adam piled on +the logs till the blaze leaped far up in the darkness; then they went +back to the boulder and sat down to think and wait. + +"See how the wind is rising," said Robin, breaking a silence of an +hour, during which even Lassie had been motionless. + +"But it is toward land," answered Adam. + +"But the same wind that brings us the ship may dash it to pieces on +this awful coast." + +"True, but she is far enough out to make herself secure. Oh, Robin, +suppose she sails around us and goes on!" + +"That is impossible," answered Robin. "The people on that ship are as +anxious to find us as we can be to see them, if they are civilized at +all. Noah and Mt. Ararat are not to be named in the same day with us." + +Adam crossed the gorge and added fuel to the fire. For a time the wind +increased in velocity until a stiff gale was blowing, then, as the +small hours came on, it waned, and the beacon flared straight up once +more. + +"I wonder where's she from?" said Adam. + +"I wonder where she is now," answered Robin. + +"I feel sure," he said, "when morning comes we shall see her riding +the waves out there; and think of it, Robin, we can go!" + +Robin made no reply, and her very silence made Adam repeat, but as a +self-addressed question, "Go where? Yes," he went on quickly, "go +where, Robin. Suppose the ship is all right, and that she stops, and +the crew are not pirates, and are willing to take us aboard, where are +we to go? Is there any place on earth that can mean as much to us as +this island? Suppose Asia, or Africa, or Europe are still in +existence, we should not regain our friends and relatives, and life +would be harder with strange people, under a strange government, far +more so than we have found it here, even without so many of its +luxuries." + +Robin shook her head sadly. "At first, Adam. We should learn their +language and their customs. New friends are speedily acquired, and as +for relatives,--well, in the scheme of life relatives don't count for +much. There always comes a time when they step out of our lives, +anyway." + +"But as to happiness?" + +Her face paled a little. "Have you been happy here?" she asked, +without raising her eyes to his, and then went on, not waiting for a +reply, "If you have been, it has been in the care of our little family +of dependents, who do not need you half so much as the great family of +human dependents. Rest assured if there is a continent over there +across the darkness, it is peopled with beings who need the devoted +and unselfish labors of such a man as you. You would find your work +easily enough,--the work you have been saved for, the work you must +do." + +"But if there is no continent left?" he queried. + +"In that case there must be islands; there were many mountains higher +than these, and they are peopled, no doubt. Shall we not go to these +other orphans, deserted by Mother Earth, our brothers and sisters, +through our common calamity?" + +Both were silent, engrossed in their own thoughts. A return to the +world meant going back to the uncivilized rush of civilization. It +meant the eternal question of what shall we eat, and what shall we +drink, and where-withal shall we be clothed? It meant the old +competition, the stern old law of the survival of the brawniest. Above +all, to Robin, it meant separation from Adam, for once more in Rome, +the customs of Rome must be followed. To do Adam justice, this was a +contingency which did not enter his mind. As he had said before, +whatever had put them in this dream together would keep them there, so +that when he thought of relinquishing all the comfort and ease and +quiet of his present life, all the loving animals, the cosy little +house, the tiny fields, the blooming garden, it never occurred to him +that he must relinquish more than all these things, more than the +peace and harmony, that which, unconsciously, had come to be the very +guiding star of his life. + +"I wonder if whoever is left cares for grand opera?" said Robin, +rather grimly. + +"Why?" asked Adam in so startled a voice that she laughed +hysterically. + +"It's the only thing I know well enough to make a living at it," she +said laconically. "I think the fire needs some more wood, Adam." + +As he replenished it, her words burned themselves upon his brain, and +he realized in an instant that a return to the old world meant giving +up this supreme friend, all that he had left in the world, all there +was for him in any world. The thing was impossible. He turned to go +back to her, some kind of an impetuous avowal on his lips, but she had +left the boulder and walked down almost to the edge of a precipitous +cliff which they had called "Lover's Leap," in a spirit of badinage. +She stood there quietly, watching the gray dawn, and his heart +impelled him to go to her and take her in his arms. As his love +revealed itself to him in all its power, it seemed impossible that he +should know it now for the first time. Why, why, had he been so blind? +If the ship took them away-- + +He walked unsteadily down to her, resolved to say nothing. If she +wanted to go, her wish should be sufficient. + +The dawn came slowly, but it came at last. As the darkness lifted, a +slight fog settled over the face of the waters. Instinctively they +recalled that other night when they had watched through the mist and +his hand closed over hers. The sun was well up before the east wind +dissipated it, and left only the dancing waves, brilliantly blue, +stretching away into the dawn. On all that broad expanse there was not +so much as a cockle-shell afloat. + +Robin turned and looked to right and left in bewilderment, and then at +Adam. + +His chest was heaving, and as his eyes searched her face he cried, +"Thank God," and gathered her up in his arms. She nestled there +without a word. + +They crossed the gorge and scattered the brands of their watch-fire, +and walked on down to the cove. Suddenly Lassie came bounding toward +them uttering short, excited barks. They quickened their pace, and as +they came in sight of the beach discovered the object of her alarm. +Against a small promontory, lying on one side, was the ship they had +sighted the evening before. It was a hopeless wreck, and had borne to +them no living thing. Yet it had served its purpose. It had revealed +their love for each other, and told them that they had hoped against a +second deluge in vain. + + + + +XIV + + + The truth of truths is love. + + + BAILEY. + + +As Adam went about his morning's work he was filled with a sense of +gladness, an exaltation of life he had never known before. He +stretched out his arms, as if to let all the glory of the earth meet +the profounder splendor of his soul. As he walked down the garden path +he looked with affection at the flowers they had planted together. But +for the absurdity of it, he could have woven a chaplet of them and +worn it. But the world had reached that height of civilization where +the symbol of the glad and living thing was too emotional; always and +everywhere we preferred the dead thing, the skin of the seal, the +shroud of the silkworm, the straw that was left after the flowers were +gone; and Adam was still civilized. + +He accepted his happiness without a question. It was too real, too +keen, too great a revelation for him to stop to analyze it. He knew it +in every pulsation of his heart, in every imagination of his mind, and +with the quickened senses of the lover he perceived that Robin's +feelings differed from his own. For a year he had been lost in +introspection; now they seemed to have changed places, and she grew +silent and almost reserved. + +"What is it, dear?" he said. "No, don't try to evade an answer. We +must not stop being frank with each other now." + +She did not reply at once, and when she did her voice was so low that +he had to stoop to catch the words. "Do you think you do love me as +fully as you might have loved some one else, younger and happier than +I, better fitted to you? It doesn't seem as if you could; you never +did in the old days, you never even thought of it." + +Adam laughed lightly. "I beg of you spare me, for this isn't 'so +sudden' at all." Then seeing that her mood forbade jest, he went on +seriously: "Really, I mean it. It's true I never made you pretty +speeches in the old days, nor stopped to consider whether I might have +done so had things been different; but then I never made pretty +speeches to any one. From the very beginning I have taken you as a +matter of course. It always seemed as if we had known each other from +the very first. You entered into my plans as if you had known them as +you might if we had gone to the same little red schoolhouse. I wish we +had! I'm jealous of the years when I didn't know you." + +"But a whole year," she said doubtfully. "Are you sure it isn't just +loneliness and propinquity?" + +Adam kissed her fingers one at a time. "You are going to beg my pardon +for that some day," he said. "You are not very vain, my sweetheart; +how could I help loving you?" + +"That's just what I am finding fault with," she said with a sudden +twinkle of fun in her eyes. "You have managed to keep from it so long. +But seriously, I am not the kind of a woman I should have fancied you +would care for. I am, at least I was, very weary of life; I knew too +much about it. And I am older than you." + +He looked at her critically. "You were, a year ago," he answered; "I +don't know how much, two or three years--" + +"Five," she said. + +"Well, five; but this last year you have been growing young. The very +fact that you were tired of the old life made it less of a strain for +you to give it up. The tired look is all gone, even from your eyes, +whereas lots of gray has come into my hair. You had learned to live in +yourself and your music. My whole scheme of life was wrapped up in the +social existence of our time. In a way I lost more than you did. I +have learned a good deal this past year. Five years ago, if I had +loved you, there would have been many inequalities between us that do +not exist to-day. Now it seems to me we are as absolutely mated, as +much parts of one whole as the two halves of the brain, or the right +and left ventricles of our hearts. It is no disparagement of you or of +myself to say that no boy could appreciate you. The measure of a man's +manhood is his ability to understand the highest type of womanhood. As +to your being worldly, that's all nonsense." He stroked her hair a few +minutes in silence, and then said, half quizzically, "You might +question me, if I said it, but this is what Balzac said of women like +you: 'A woman who has received a man's education possesses a faculty +which is the most fertile in happiness for herself and her husband; +but that woman is as rare as happiness itself.'" + +She looked pleased, but she did not reply, and he went on. + +"Do you still doubt me? Well, then, know that I have loved you from +the very beginning, for love, when it comes, is a retroactive law of +our being. If I had loved you less, if you had seemed less a part of +me, I might have realized it sooner." + +She shook her head. "I have known that I loved you for a long time, +months," she said. + +"Then you ought to have known I loved you," he answered quickly. +"Don't you think it is possible to love with our souls, our +subconsciousness, and realize with our slow brains, after months and +years, what our hearts knew at once? Even love has become more or less +of a mental process. We reason about things instead of feeling them, +and yet when we come to our last analyses we don't _know_ anything; we +simply feel. When the scientist says, 'The amoeba moves out of the +shade into the sunlight because it wants the sunlight,' he bases his +postulate upon what he feels, and believes that the atom feels. This +is all that he knows. We do not seek warmth because we have calculated +its effects upon us, but because we feel cold. Oh, we have starved our +feelings to feed our brains, until the mind believes it is the +immortal part of us, instead of realizing that what we know, we are +merely re-discovering, while what we feel is our apperception of the +infinite. If we had the courage to be true to our feelings, instead of +our thoughts, I believe it would be a better, as it would certainly be +a truer, world." + +"Do you really think more people are guided by thought than by +feeling?" she asked with a good deal of surprise. + +"Perhaps not in one sense," he answered. "A great many people are +carried along by their impulses, their transitory emotions, which are +not, properly speaking, feelings at all. They make what some one calls +the 'fatal error of mistaking the eddy for the current.' But among +educated people it seems to me that we think too much, especially of +our own thoughts, and feel too little. All this year I have not said +that I loved you; I don't know that I have thought it, but I have felt +and lived it. Sometimes I have not been thoughtful--" + +"You have always been too thoughtful," she interrupted. + +"No, but when I have been inconsiderate it was because you were +myself, the best self that we overlook sometimes, but return to with +unfailing loyalty. You were not bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; +that is a very low and material view of what you have been and are to +me, heart of my heart and soul of my soul. I cannot think of a life +apart from you, for you are my life. Marriage is not a matter of a +license and a ceremony and Mendelssohn and gaping crowds and a tour. +We do not need any one to tell us that what God has joined cannot be +sundered by man. All this year has been a long wedding of every +thought and feeling and desire, until I have looked into your eyes to +see my own wish. We have thought and thought, but that way madness +lies. Now I feel that all the world we have lost, lives for us in +every glorious possibility in each other. For I know that you love +me." + +"Yes," she said, "I think I have loved you all along, but it never +entered my dreams that you could love me. Even now, when you tell me, +it does not seem as if it could be so, either by the mental process, +or by that of feeling." + +He caught her in his arms and kissed her, a kiss so long and tender +that it left her clinging to him, breathless and half awakened. + +"Don't think," he said, "feel,--feel my heart and know that every beat +is for you, that every atom of me calls for you, and every drop of +blood obeys, as it would command you. I have tried to reach the ideal +of the love that says, not 'thou must be mine,' but 'I must be thine,' +but I have failed if you can doubt me." + +She flung her arms around his neck with sudden passion. + +"This is the greatest, the most perfect dream of all," she said; "I +think it must be heaven." + +"A new heaven and a new earth," he answered gently. + + + + +XV + + + Women alone know how much attraction there is in the respect which + a master shows them. + + + BALZAC. + + +The derelict did not afford them much amusement or information. The +waves soon beat her to pieces on the savage rocks. Apparently she had +been a ship plying between Western ports, probably San Francisco and +Honolulu. In the wreckage washed up there were a few pounds of rice, +and some brooms of what they believed to be sugar-cane. There was +nothing else. + +"Not even a lemon!" Robin said disconsolately. "Think of living all +one's natural life not only ten, but ten thousand miles from a lemon." + +Adam laughed sympathetically. "It's like a yachting party I remember; +we found that the boat we had engaged had been taken by somebody else, +and our set had to be divided. Later in the evening we discovered that +we had all the sugar and the other crowd all the lemons. ''Twas ever +thus from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay: I never +wanted something sour, but what molasses came my way.' Never mind, +dear. We will go and plant our sugar, and by the time it is ready to +sweeten anything, a whole cargo of lemons may have floated into harbor +right at our door." + +They crossed the ranges to the western coast, where there was lower +ground, better fitted to the supposed requirements of rice and cane, +and had a good deal of amusement out of their ignorance, neither of +them having more than a misty idea about either rice or sugar before +they reach the stage to be served together. + +It was quite late when they were through and camped for supper. +Remembering their trip of a few weeks previous, that now seemed so +long ago, Adam said, "Are you too tired to sing, dear? It is so long +since I have heard you." + +She stood up and thought for a moment, and then putting back her +loosened hair began with Bourdillon's "The night has a thousand eyes," +and sang on and on. At last, turning to Adam with a little fond +gesture, and altering the words slightly, she sang: + + "Like a laverlock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! + All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. + What's the world, my lad, my love? What can it do? + I am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new. + If the world have missed the mark, let it stand by, + For we two have gotten leave, and once more we'll try." + +"'Once more,'" Adam repeated. "Once more, my darling! Oh, life is +sweet and new for us; we can afford to lose the world! When will you +come to me, love, when?" + +She shook her head with a little wilful laugh, and all the glistening +glory of her hair fell about her like a wedding veil. + +"Wait," she said; "wait a little. The flax is not nearly ready for +spinning yet; can a bride forget her attire? Besides, how can we be--" +she paused, and let her silence fill the gap, "when I know we neither +of us know any ceremony more dignified than hopping over a +broomstick?" + +They started homeward, walking slowly through the dimly lighted +mountain gorges, talking the ineffable nonsense that lovers never +weary of. As they came to a brook that rushed noisily down the ravine, +Adam stepped across, and held out his hand to her. + +"Wait a moment," he said, "just where you are, dear, and say this with +me:-- + +"'Over running water: my love I give to you, my life I pledge to you, +my heart I take not back from you while this water runs. + +"'Over running water: every seventh year, at this time of the year, at +this hour of the night, I will meet you here to renew my troth; death +alone to relieve me of this vow.'" + +"Is that all?" she asked wonderingly. "Over running water, while this +water runs, while there is any snow in the mountains, or rivers upon +land, or waters in the seas, or clouds in the skies, when the world is +old, and the sun burned out, and time grows weary, I shall love you +still, always and forever. What is it all about, love?" He clasped her +close, and did not answer at once. "Don't you know that old Irish +troth," he said, "which would have been enough, even in that hard, +unromantic world of ours, to have made you legally my wife, if said +over any Scottish stream? I thought you knew; you are sure I would not +trick you? You know I could not?" He put her head back on his shoulder +and looked into her shining eyes. It seemed to him he could not bear +even a look of reproach. She raised her hands almost as if she were +placing an invisible crown upon his head, and let her arms fall about +his shoulders. + +"Then I am your wife while living water runs?" + +"Forever and forever," he replied. + +"Oh, wait, wait just a little," she answered. + + + + +XVI + + All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be + strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in + trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in + that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of + society. + + BURKE. + + +Adam found a note beside his plate in the morning. "I will be back +before five o'clock," it said; "I must think." He did not sit down to +the table she had spread for him, but called the dogs; Prince was +missing, and this was a relief to him. Nothing could happen to her +when Prince was with her. His first impulse was to follow her, but he +repelled it, and he too sat down to think. Lassie whined uneasily, and +he stroked her head absent-mindedly, and finally went out and tried to +work. The hours dragged away, and by four o'clock he could stand it no +longer. He went to the gateway. As he unfastened it, he saw her coming +toward him, but she stopped and he joined her, and together they +turned back to the boulder. He noticed that she was very white, and +that her eyes looked as if she had not slept, but he only said, "Have +you thought?" + +"Yes," she answered, "I have thought." + +"And decided?" + +"No," she said wearily; "we must decide together. We are not children, +Adam, nor are we in any way the prototypes of those first parents of +ours. I think sometimes that ever since their day their children have +been walking in a blind circle, eating not the fruit of knowledge, but +of the knowledge of good and evil. And what do we know, you and I, +after all these years? Are you sure what we ought to do? It is as if +God had taken us into a conspiracy to renew the old, or create a new, +scheme of existence. Possibly we are being tried, tested, to prove +whether or not we have learned our lesson. We must be brave enough to +think, not what is our will, but what is our duty. Think of the awful +responsibility, whichever way we choose." + +"I can't," said Adam. "I can't think of anything but you." + +"Nor I of aught but you," she said, moving away, "when you hold me so. +But we _must_ think." + +"I have," answered Adam, gravely. "All my life I have thought. I have +wanted the perfect companionship of the one woman in all the world who +could give it; I have always known she would come. I have wanted a +home; I have wanted to see my sons and daughters grow up about me. I +wanted to be a power for good in this world of which we are a part, +and where we live for some good purpose, if there be any purpose in +life. I have so conducted myself that I can look a good woman in the +face, and offer her my life, for whatever it is worth, without damning +recollections to come between us. My children will have a clean +heritage of blood and name. The family tree was scoffed at in America, +but, thank God, mine was an oak that had weathered many a gale. Not +very great folk, but honest, upright, fearless men and women, true to +their king or their country and their faiths; true to their ideals, +too, when their fellows were content with realities only. Any man who +gives his children such a heritage as that can say with more truth +than Napoleon said to his soldiers, 'Fifty centuries look down upon +you.' I wanted to make the world a little better for my life, and I +wanted my children brought up to feel that their lives belonged first +to their country, to live or die for her." + +"I know," said Robin, softly; "I used to think I would drape the flag +over my baby's cradle, and embroider it on his pinning blanket." + +"We are probably a pair of sentimental fools," he went on, "but I +believe in sentiment. A man could not say this out loud because +sentiment was supposed to be essentially womanish. How those old +distinctions weary one, with their scientific data to prove that men +surpass women in the senses of feeling and taste, while women have +better sight and hearing, and so on through every conceivable +maundering of the human brain, forever harping on differences and +accentuating them, forever dwelling on sex distinctions and never on a +common humanity." + +"It was a dreadfully scientific age," she assented, "a generation +fearfully and wonderfully given over to statistics; and yet how many +dreamers there were!" + +"Yes, but in the twentieth century a young man dreamed dreams and saw +visions at his own risk. While he dreamed of the brotherhood of man, +his classmate with the corporation practice distanced him in the +pursuit of position. While he led himself through the valley of the +shadow of temptation, and feared no evil because of the Madonna vision +in his soul, even the Madonnas preferred Lancelot and Tristram to +Galahad. It wasn't an easy world for a man who wanted to keep faith +with himself. It was a pinchbeck world, of pretence and pull,--that +world that lies drowned out there. And yet I believe it was infinitely +better than the lost Atlantis, better than the deluged planet of Noah, +nobler and finer than the best civilization of which we have any +trace. I never despaired of it, and yet as I grew older I wondered if +I was not foolish and mistaken in daring to hope and to dream." + +"I know," she said again. "I think I did despair, for it seemed to me +a dreadful, a terrible world. I used to wonder how conscientious men +and women could bring other human beings into it, to be and to suffer +and to faint in the frantic struggle for the unrealities that made us +miserable or happy. Consider how paltry they were. If we built a new +house, we were infinitely more concerned to see that the contractor +used pressed brick than we were to see that the construction of our +own characters was true. When we grew wealthy we moved into houses of +more stories; but how often did we say: 'Build thee more stately +mansions, O my soul'? I had as clean and strong a heritage as you, but +a different one. It is no use to comfort oneself with nice little +aphorisms about the needle's eye, and saws about filthy lucre, and +telling God's estimate of money from the kind of people He gives it +to; I tell you biting poverty is a terrible thing, an unspeakable +thing. It is a misfortune for a child to grow up under a sense of +injustice. I used to have times of revolt against it all, when I hated +with the blind, ferocious hate of a child, and I saw what David never +saw,--the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging, not bread, but a +chance to earn his bread, and begging for it without being able to +make just terms. I saw my home sold under the sheriff's hammer, and my +parents struggle all their lives because of the lack of money, when +they had everything else, nobility, character, truth, and education. +My girlhood was a long series of going-withouts. Finally I married a +man who promised me everything. Ah, well, when has the Apple of Sodom +failed to deceive the eye and undeceive the tongue? At least he did +care for my voice, and through that I learned that all those years I +had carried in my own throat the golden notes to have altered +everything, and I sang a little gladness into my parents' lives before +they ended, thank God." + +"How did you come to sing in opera? Do not tell me if the recollection +is unpleasant. I wondered then." + +"Because after--after things went wrong, I could not take his money. I +knew how to sing, and I loved it; but even there it was the same story +of suspicion and jealousy, till it seemed to me that hate and fear +ruled the world. I went to so many, many cities, but there was no city +beautiful, and in all the country I found no Arcady. I had money then, +it is true; but the jingle of the guinea doesn't help the artist who +sings, or paints, or writes, or plays, because God has put it into his +soul to do this thing; at least not after the very first, when it +stands as a tangible assurance of success. The cities were 'cities of +dreadful night,' and awful days; there were places that were not +hives, but styes of human beings, fighting for what they called life, +to die, never having lived. Sometimes I went into those jungles of +civilization and sang to them. It was the only thing I could give them +all. It was there I got my lesson. I had been singing 'All Tears,' +when an old woman said in her feeble, trembling voice, 'Ye mun loe us, +young leddy, to come to sic a place an' sing o' Him wha sa loed the +warld that He sent His only begotten Son ta it, for it's only great +loe that casts out fear, and this is a fearsome spot.' Since then I +haven't hated anything, except wanton cruelty, and I know love rules +when it is fearless, but that is very seldom. We were afraid to say, I +love you, to anything more sensitive than a stray kitten, though the +world has hungered and thirsted after the love we have feared to give +even to our own children. And yet just the love a man and woman may +bear each other, unconsciously, is enough to transform the earth. We +have not been cross to each other; I do not believe we have spoken +unkindly to anything this year." + +He drew her into his arms. "Is it enough to regenerate the earth?" + +"And keep it regenerated?" she echoed. "Do you know?" + +"Do you remember telling me, long ago, of a story in which the woman +said she had never seen but one man whose mother she would be willing +to be? And you said you felt so about me? I was very proud of it then, +but I am prouder of it now, since, feeling so, you cannot be unwilling +to be the mother of my children. You are not, are you?" + +She nestled a little closer to him, and put her hand about his neck. +He stooped and kissed it, and repeated his question. + +"Unwilling? No; how could I be? I never dreaded maternity except +when--and that lasted such a little while. I do not dread it now. It +seems to me it would be a blessed thing for us. But, Adam, Adam, tell +me, for I have sat here all day asking myself, whether it is a blessed +thing to be born, or a penalty that others pay." + +"I think it would be a blessing to be your son," he said steadily. + +"And I think it would be a benediction to be yours," she answered; +"but he would not be yours nor mine, but ours, plus everything in the +past, verily heir of all the ages, and the ages were full of pain and +sorrow. Oh," she said passionately, "could you and I who love him so, +this son who is only our wish, could you and I who know the weight of +this weary world, bind it upon the shoulders of our baby boy, and send +him staggering down the centuries, the new Atlas of this old earth?" + +They sat in silence for a long time. Then Adam said slowly, "I don't +know, dearest; but I do know that you are tired and hungry, and I am +going to take you home." + +They rose and disappeared through the gateway together. + + + + +XVII + + Love gives us a sort of religion of our own; we respect + another life in ourselves. + + BALZAC. + + +Robin was shelling peas. Adam was reading her the story of their +deluge. He paused, dissatisfied, and said impatiently,-- + +"I have not described it at all. I have said all I had to say in less +than a thousand words; one would think such a scene deserved a hundred +thousand." + +Robin smiled her little inscrutable smile. "I think you have done it +very well. It isn't intended to be scientific. You haven't told all +the strata that were turned skyward for a moment when that crevasse +opened between us and the town. You will find, if you turn to the +first chapter of Genesis, that there is very little detail; but I am +sure that the one line, 'He made the stars also,' is as eloquent as a +treatise on the nebular theory. If you were learned in geology and +astronomy and so on, you would load it down with an avalanche of +scientific hypotheses, about which you would really know nothing, +except by deduction, and over which future scientists would wrangle, +part of them making you a god, and the rest proving you a fool. Be +content to 'climb where Moses stood,' and produce literature." + + "'Why should an author fret about The judgment of posterity? + It is not, and it never was, And it, perhaps, may never + be,'" + +quoted Adam, cynically. "I wonder what they will call us, Robin, and +who will lecture on my mistakes in seven or eight thousand years, and +show how it never could have happened. Do you suppose there is any one +else on earth? Did the Atlantis people leave any literature behind +them?" + +Robin shook her head. "Who really knows? God has not left Himself +without a witness, at any time. In some way the story of creation has +gone on and on. Every nation has its Eden and flood and Saviour. +Esther was the first, I think, to have her wish granted 'even to the +half of my kingdom,' and all the fairy stories since have borrowed the +phrase. Cinderella is almost as old as Job; and the Irish, the +Fenians, claim that Cadmus, the Phoenician, was one of their +forebears. Wide as race distinctions were, there were strange and +almost unaccountable similarities." + +She went indoors to see to her baking, and coming back went on with +her work. Adam watched her silently for awhile, and then said +curiously, "I wonder what you have missed most this year?" + +"Pins and needles, and until Christmas, books and shoes and stockings +and sugar and a cook-stove and a piano," answered Robin, promptly. "I +can live without the opera and a telephone, but if you only knew how I +cherish my stock of pins, and with what dread I look forward to the +day when, like a poor white trash family I used to know, I shall refer +to _the_ needle. I used to think you could do anything with a pair of +pliers and a bit of wire, but I tremble lest you may not be able to +compass a needle." She looked up, and seeing Adam's troubled face said +quickly, "Forgive me for being frivolous; I am so happy, I can't help +it. What were you thinking of, Adam?" + +He got up and walked away a few yards, and cut one of the long thick +yucca leaves, and stripped it down to the central spine, while he went +on speaking to her. "I was thinking," he said, "of what Mill said +about inventions, and how they hadn't helped the laboring man; that +they had neither decreased his number of working hours, nor increased +his comforts, and wondering whether it would be better for a new race +to find an electric light plant alongside their other plants, or +whether they would better work out their own salvation, a little at a +time, by main strength and awkwardness. I was thinking how strange our +books would seem to men and women who knew nothing of the--the late +earth." He held out to her what looked something like a needle +threaded with coarse white linen thread. "Will your Majesty deign to +look at this?" + +She took it, and looked at it wonderingly, and then ran in and brought +back a torn towel, and began mending it. "Why, it sews very well," she +said; "who taught you that?" + +"The mother of inventions generally," he answered. "If you ever had +gone on the round-up, you might have had occasion for a needle and +thread when there wasn't any nearer than a hundred miles. But you +haven't answered my question." + +"About inventions and so on? It seems to me you have to consider the +_raison d'etre_ of a people before you can tell the answer. What is +the use of labor-saving inventions, if the time saved isn't of some +great value? What is to be the chief end of man in a dispensation that +has no catechism as a guide-post?" + +"A very different end from the old one," answered Adam, half sternly. +"Work should not come to him as a curse, nor as his greatest boon; at +least, not hard, manual labor. There should be work enough to insure +ease and comfort, and every one should work freely and gladly. I +should educate the individual; he should be strong of body and keen of +mind, and should feel that his talents were given him for use, not for +concealment; he should use his hands, both of them, and find delight +in their work. It is a beautiful world, it always was, but I don't +know that the steam-engine brought men's souls closer together, or +that the electric light let in any more radiance upon our minds, or +that the great telescopes made heaven any nearer. It should be a +happier and a healthier world, if it was no more." + +"Adam," she said abruptly, "if we had children, in what religious +faith would you bring them up?" + +"I don't know; I never thought about it very much," he answered +honestly. "I have an ideal in my mind, but I can't explain it. I +believe in one source of life, and therefore a common divinity." + +Robin laughed quietly. "That is like the Hindoo proverb, 'That which +exists is one; sages call it variously.' That has been called +pantheism, and for that belief the Jews expelled Baruch Benedict +Spinoza from their synagogue. In our time there was a very learned +magazine published in its behalf, and I heard David Starr Jordan say +no man could tell whether it was a mere jargon of words, meaningless +and empty, or whether monism was the profoundest philosophy the world +has ever known." + +"I don't care what you call it," said Adam, stoutly. "I am not afraid +of names, and I don't know anything about any of those religions, +pantheism, Spinozaism, or monism; but I do know I would rather a child +of mine saw God in everything than that he saw God in nothing save his +own narrow creed. I would rather he was a pantheist than a Calvinist. +Spinoza never burned any one, did he, nor preached that hell was paved +with infants' skulls?" + +Robin clapped her hands and laughed again. "I beg your pardon for +laughing," she said, "but the idea of Spinoza, the 'God-intoxicated +man,' presiding over an auto-da-fe is too absurd. If you only +remembered anything about his gentle, retiring spirit and melancholy +life; I think he was better known in our time than in his own, but his +philosophy does not satisfy me. I am willing to grant the identity of +life, and its divine possibilities, but I cannot worship it as life +itself, a mere manifestation of nature. I know that there is such a +thing as living rock, and that it may be killed by a bolt of lightning +as readily as a tree; but this does not make it any more worthy of +worship than I am, and that is terribly unworthy. The rock and I are +types of life, stages in the development of life, but for my child +there must be something better. For the child I must lay hold on the +everlasting life; I must find the rock that is higher than I. I do not +know of any manifestation of that life so great, so godlike, and so +lovable as His who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'" + +"But surely you do not believe in the Immaculate Conception?" asked +Adam, incredulously. + +"I don't care anything about it, one way or the other. It's the +immaculate life that concerns me. As you said yourself a few minutes +ago, words cannot frighten me. Am I going to stand carping, 'Can any +good come out of Nazareth?' What do I care if it comes out of Sodom +and Gomorrah, if it is good?" + +"But you surely don't believe in the miracles?" he asked. + +"Surely I do, in some of them at least. I have seen a miracle or so +myself. Besides, if you remember the greatest proof He gave was that +the gospel was preached to the poor. Buddha was a prince; he whom the +Jews expected was to reign as a king. What a fall was there! the +gospel of hope and joy was brought to the children of Gibeon, the +hewers of wood and drawers of water. The love of Christ has wrought +greater miracles than He did. Look at the arena in Rome. Look at the +whole countless army of martyrs. When Mrs. Booth died, the eighty +thousand women that nightly walked the streets of London rebelled, and +for once the long aisles of brick and stone were swept clean of that +awful arraignment of civilization. That was more of a miracle than +satisfying three thousand souls with food. At least, it's enough of a +miracle for me." + +The tears came into her eyes, and she gathered up her pans and went +into the house. + + + + +XVIII + + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams? + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life: + + So careful of the type? but no. + From scarped cliff and quarried stone + She cries, "A thousand types are gone: + I care for nothing, all shall go." + + TENNYSON. + + +They were sitting in the doorway together. Robin rested her chin in +her hands and looked down the valley, the lines of perplexity +deepening in her forehead. + +"If only we had an angel with a sword, or without one, to tell us what +to do," she said. "If only we were deeply religious with the +old-fashioned orthodox religion, that would enable us to believe we +were predestined not to be drowned--" + +"Or if we believed in a personal God, without whom not a sparrow +falleth, though the waters cover the face of the earth and blot out +millions of His creatures," answered Adam. "After all, can we do +better than follow the dictates of Nature?" + +"Do you mean to look through Nature up to Nature's God?" answered +Robin. "How can we worship any God as pitiless as Nature? Nature is +strong, but is it our place to help her in her care for the single +type? Perhaps we are the trilobites of a new Silurian period; well, +trilobites were painfully common, but we need not be. Nature's laws +are immutable, so we have been told with wearying insistence, but +suppose you and I have wills as strong as Nature herself? Suppose we +ask what she has done for the humanity of which we are a part, that +she should demand fresh victims from us? Oh, I know; you will tell +me,-- + + "'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite +in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action +how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!' + +"And I should answer,-- + + "'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of + man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little + lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and + honor.' + +"David or Hamlet, it comes to the same thing. Where are the crowns +now, and how can we say Solomon was not right when he said the end of +it all was vanity? What is Nature, and on what compulsion must we obey +her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts +are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the +blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the +indomitable soul of the mocking-birds that feed their young in +captivity until they see they are prisoners for life, and then bring +them poisonous spiders that they may die rather than live under such +conditions? Shall we give hostages to Nature when she has given +nothing to us?" + +She was standing now and speaking with more vehemence than was her +wont. Adam caught her hands, as she flung them out with a gesture full +of scorn. + +"Do you really think we have nothing? How many million lovers have +envied Adam and Eve their paradise? This Nature against which you +bring so railing an accusation,--has she taken away more than she has +given us? We had ambitions, you and I, but the way of ambition is full +of weariness and disappointment and bitterness of spirit. We did not +expect peace and comfort and joy, but work and turmoil. Our slates +were set with a sum--" + +"Yes, a sum in vulgar fractions," answered Robin. + +"Perhaps; it was a sum in which the unknown and unknowable quantity +determined the result. We had seen a good deal of what is called +life,--it is a good name to distinguish it from the death it so much +resembles,--and I am half inclined to think Nature has been merciful." + +"But if she was merciful to them," said Robin, quickly, "why were we +omitted?" + +"She gave them oblivion, the hereafter, whatever comes hereafter. She +gave us each other. We were going to miss one another in the careers +we had mapped out. We might have lost each other forever, or for aeons +of years. Nothing but a general breaking up of everything would ever +have flung us into each other's arms. We were too much interested in +my career, my vast influence on the political situation, to consider +any existence apart from the setting we had chosen for the play. And, +after all, what was it, that career from which we hoped so much? I +stood waiting my cue, ready to act my part in the farce or tragedy, +whichever it turned out to be." + +"I think it was more like a circus," said Robin. + +"Very like a circus," he admitted with grim appreciation. "A circus in +which no one knew whether he was to be a ringmaster or a clown. There +were the financial tight-rope walkers, and the social lion-tamers, and +snake-charmers, and the political acrobats whose falls were unsoftened +by any kind of network. There were heat and dust and discomfort, and +weary, wretched animals looking out of cages at other weary, tortured +animals, that were sometimes scarcely less pachydermatous than +themselves. I know the program we had mapped out, the triumphal entry, +the daring leaps, the cheers,--but was it worth while? After all, does +one care to be the champion bareback rider in life's hippodrome? +Nature swept away my sawdust ring, but she gave me heaven for a +canopy, earth for an arena, you for a queen. At times I am disposed to +take a fatalist view of the case, and think that God, or Nature, knew +there was no more to be done with the earth, not so much because of +its wickedness, as on account of its stupidity and cruelty. All my +plans had centered in a political career, and yet how could a man +touch politics and remain undefiled? Yes, I know there were honorable +men in politics, but they were lonely, and they hated with an +unspeakable hatred all the means that were used to keep them there. +And there were any number of men who had been honorable once. When a +man becomes possessed by the desire of place, his backbone becomes +elastic, and he stoops to things of which he had believed himself +incapable. I don't know what it is, but it weakens a man's moral +fibre, and breaks down the tissues of his will, and gives him mental +astigmatism. How dare I say I should have been any better than the +rest?" + +"Do you remember your address, a year ago Flag Day, and the old man +with the little bronze button of the Civil War veteran, who stood in +front, and shook hands with you afterwards, with tears running down +his face? And the applause? Can you honestly say that you find 'to +utter love more sweet than praise'? You have told me of your dream of +a home, but Emerson said, 'not even a home in the heart of one we love +can satisfy the awful soul that dwells in clay.' Can it satisfy you, +who hoped and expected so much?" + +He hesitated and did not reply at once. + +"Are you sure you are not making a virtue of necessity?" she asked a +little bitterly. + +"I think as much as anything," he said slowly, "I was excusing myself +for not having known all along that the real life, and the most useful +one, is the one we could have made together. Principalities and powers +and empires and republics have fallen. When God wants to regenerate +the world, He begins with the family. Now _I_," with unspeakable +scorn,--"_I_ intended to begin with a different primary law. I could +have made a good home, but I was intent on making an indifferent, +honest congressman, or senator, or perhaps president. In a way your +home always meant a good deal of what I am trying to say. You always +had some one on hand you were trying to make capable of great things +by believing in them. You made us welcome, and were ready to listen to +our troubles, our literary curiosities, our musical gems and our +aspirations. Suppose I had had sense enough to refuse the husks and +choose--" + +"Don't say it," she answered. "Don't say it, even if you mean it, for +I should have sent you away, and have felt like reviling you for +putting your hand to the plow and turning back. Your ambitions were +the most attractive thing about you then. I hadn't pinned my faith on +a primary law; I think it was government ownership that I regarded as +the great regenerator. I am glad if my home seemed homelike to any +one; it never reached my ideal; and when a woman's home isn't the hub +of her universe,--well, she takes to china painting, or gossip, or +philanthropy; a man takes to poker or politics. I took to politics, +second-hand. Personally and concretely I abhorred the whole miserable +farce, but abstractly, and as a means to an end which I greatly +desired, I found it interesting. I admired you infinitely more than I +liked you in those days, but I wouldn't have married you under any +circumstances." + +"Why?" + +"First, because I didn't want to marry any one; I didn't want to care +that much. And, secondly, because I wanted you to devote yourself to +your country, and had you possessed a family your devotion would have +been divided. I don't see," she went on reflectively, "how you, who +know so well how empty it all was, and how hopeless the endeavor to +lift it an inch,--I don't see how you can think anything would justify +us in making it go on." + +"But, on the other hand," he said, "are we justified in snuffing it +all out? There was so much that was beautiful, and the possibilities +were so glorious! Sweetheart, I shall not believe you love me if you +think the world all cold and dark. I believe now the one law it needs, +or has ever needed, is love, the fulfilling of the law." + +Robin shook her head, and there was a pathetic quiver about her +sensitive mouth. "Is it so? We have sung, ''Tis love, it makes the +world turn round,' but is it so? Would you give your world that one +great principle as the whole of its code of laws?" + +"Yes, I would," he answered sturdily. "I should not revive a single +law, not even the Ten Commandments, nor any of their variations. You +have to read the statutes provided for unnamable crimes to understand +just how bad mankind could be. I should not bother my world with +Draco, or Solon, or Justinian, or Coke, or Blackstone. I should give +it the code of Christ, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto +you, do ye even so unto them.' To love one's neighbor as +oneself,--isn't that code enough for any world? And I should make the +neighbor include every dumb creature." + +She turned to him, her face radiant with love and trust. + +"There is no difference between us in reality," she said: "you would +found your political economy on the teachings of Christ, and I my +religion. If we realize the unity of life, we must make our religion +our law, and our law our religion. Sometimes I think the hand of the +Lord is in it, for surely, surely, there never was a nobler man on +earth than you." + + + + +XIX + + For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two. + + KIPLING. + + +"Do you remember the name of that man we knew," said Adam one day, +"who wrote a book to prove the immortality of the body? He did prove +that various people had lived well on to two hundred years. If we were +sure of that, we might get the earth very fairly started." + +Robin laughed. "We are not apparently growing any older," she said; +"but we can hardly count on more than a hundred years each." + +"There is one thing you haven't taken into consideration," said Adam. +"Our children would be several thousand years ahead of the original +children of the Garden; they would be further along than you and I in +a good many ways." + +"No," she said, "I haven't forgotten, but I do not know how much of a +load they would bring with them into the world. We called it heredity, +the Hindoos called it karma, and, though that is different, educators +called it the recapitulation theory." + +Adam shook his head. "I understand heredity," he said, "but karma and +recapitulation are too much for me." + +"Karma is our heritage from former existences," she answered, "that +may have been lived here or elsewhere. It is the sum of our past, good +and bad. It is based on a belief in reincarnation, and it is the law +that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. It is justice +untempered by mercy, and it is at variance with the doctrine of +vicarious atonement, though one may believe it and worship Christ as +the highest type of love the world has ever known. Naturally, it does +not appeal to the people who are willing to let some one bear the +cross for them, and yet I have wondered whether, if we were sure we +should not gather figs from thistles, we should sow the thistles so +freely. The recapitulation theory makes the child pass through the +evolutionary stages of the nation or nations he represents. It has a +kind of seven ages of man of its own, and brings him down through all +phases,--the savage, the hunter, the explorer, the conqueror, the +builder. I don't pretend fully to understand it. I heard one of its +ablest exponents say once, 'The soul of the German nation is in the +German boy.' Heredity curses or blesses, sometimes both. Before any of +these theories prospective parents might well hesitate." + +"Which do you believe?" asked Adam, curiously. + +She reflected a moment. "A little of all three; not all of any of +them; one would have to be a profound student to understand fully what +their adherents claim for them. Heredity plays strange freaks now and +then. It is easier to account for Abraham Lincoln by the second theory +than by either of the others. His shiftless, untidy mother and +commonplace father do not explain such a soul as his; nor was there +any reversion in his childhood to the original savage instincts that +make children dismember grasshoppers--rather the reverse. I like +better to think that, like that other Deliverer, who was a man of +sorrows and acquainted with grief, he came to do the will of his and +our Father which art in heaven,--came gladly, freely, knowing the end +from the beginning." + +Adam sat up suddenly and looked at her with startled eyes. "Then you +think--you mean--you don't believe--surely you don't believe we have +anything to do with our coming here?" + +She smiled. "Surely I do. Our coming is sad enough when we do it +voluntarily. It would be quite intolerable to have existence thrust +upon us. Besides, it seems blasphemous to me to believe that God has +given to every human being the power to bestow an eternal existence. +The responsibility is great enough when it is simply a matter of so +living that noble souls may seek to be born of us, and undertaking to +give them sound minds and bodies." + +Adam looked unconvinced and troubled. "Where on earth did you get all +that?" he asked. + +"Well, it is to my mind only an elaboration of Descartes' 'I think, +therefore I am.' I am, presupposes that I have been, and will be. If +you can't destroy one drop of water, you can't destroy me. If you drop +the water on red-hot iron, it instantly becomes an imperceptible mist, +the mere ghost of itself, but it will ultimately become fluid again. +It seems to me that the scientific fact gives a sound basis for the +psychologic probability." + +"But think of all the miserable human beings born daily. Do you think +any one would choose such surroundings?" + +"You and I never wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd ourselves +under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were those who +did. We didn't want to see the parade badly enough to stand on the +street corner for hours; but you worked your way through college, and +we have both sat in the top gallery to hear 'Tannhaeuser.' We were +willing to put up with the whips and scorns, which is another way of +saying the garlic and tobacco, for the sake of the music. In any event +the experiment was of brief duration. No one gets more than a fragment +in an ordinary lifetime." + +"If you think that," said Adam, "I can't see that there is any +responsibility about it. We should not thrust life on any one." + +"True," she assented. "Your position is unassailable, but still it +seems to me the responsibility remains. In the first place, granting +that my hypothesis is true, how can we tell whether to live is gain? +How do we know that the next generation would be better and stronger +than we are? Moreover, I only give this to you as my idea. I do not +say it is true; I believe it to be so, but I do not know anything +whatsoever about it. I can't prove it, and it may be transcendental +rubbish. I rather imagine you think it is." + +"Not exactly that," he said, coloring and laughing, "but certainly it +is rather amazing when one hears it for the first time. I daresay I +shall come to believe it too. So far as I can see, you are about as +unorthodox as I am." + +"I have times of relapse," she said. "Then I think we are being +tempted like the first Adam and Eve. They were commanded to multiply +and reign. You and I wouldn't ask anything better, but as a rule one's +duty is not attractive. It seems to me just as likely that we are to +prove that the lesson is learned, and a man and woman may love each +other unselfishly and nobly, foregoing their own desires to save +others. Under the old dispensation it was said, 'Greater love hath no +man than this;' is it not possible now that the greatest love is that +which lays down its life untransmitted? If Christ could pray that the +cup of suffering and death might pass from Him, dare we press the +bitter draught of being to other lips?" + +"Dare we dash the full goblet of joy and opportunity from them?" asked +Adam, gravely. + +"I wish I knew," she said. "I wish I knew!" + +"Have you ever thought what it will mean," he said, "if we adopt the +other alternative? Have you thought of the desolation and loneliness +of growing old and helpless and finally--" He stopped, and she threw +out her hands as if to ward off the thoughts he called before her. + +"Oh, yes, yes, I have thought, and it is terrible. I keep remembering +a picture I saw in the French Exhibit. It was of a man and a woman; +the woman was dead, and he had dug her grave, his broken sword lay at +his side, and he had wrapped her in his coat, and begun to cover her +over. He could not go on, and knelt, looking at her with a despair on +his face that has haunted me ever since. The name, Manon Lescaut, +meant nothing to me then, but the story of the picture was enough by +itself. All last year I kept seeing that terrible picture. Sometimes +it was you, sometimes it was I, that dug the grave and went mad +looking into it." + +"I should not bury you," said Adam, grimly. "I should carry you to the +cliff and take you in my arms and jump. The sea is deep and cruel +there." + +"Sometimes," she hesitated a moment, then went on,--"sometimes I think +that would be the best way for us now, I mean if we decide we have no +right to be happy in the old way; for I should be afraid we could not +always be strong." + +"Very well," he answered; "when we decide, it shall be literally life +or death." + + + + +XX + + The ant and the moth have cells for each of their young, + but our little ones lie in festering heaps in homes that + consume them like graves; and night by night, from the + corners of our streets, rises up the cry of the + homeless,--"I was a stranger and ye took me not in." + + RUSKIN. + + +For a time they busied themselves with different things about their +little home, worked in the garden, and held a round-up of their stock +that they might know the extent of their wealth; and because, in a +life quite apart from human beings, animals come to take their place +to a greater extent than might seem possible. + +It was a very pleasant time. Everything seemed so gentle, so willing +to be friends, and so certain of their good-will. + +"You used to be a Kipling fiend," said Adam, one morning, when they +had been salting the cattle, and were resting before going home. +"Didn't he write a Jungle tale about 'How Fear Came'? He ought to be +here now to write another to show how Fear might go." + +"It seems to me he did," Robin answered, running her fingers through +the short, curly forelock of a colt that stood placidly licking her +hand. "I wonder that they don't remember longer, or perhaps they know +that we think they are folks. Really, I think we ought to hold a +reception, a kind of salon, once a week, so as to keep acquainted with +our neighbors." + +"You are an absurd child," he said, laughing; "but does that mean that +you have really decided to go on living?" + +"I don't know," she said. "What did we determine? By the way, which +side of this question are you on?" + +"Both," he said decidedly. + +"Oh! then we can't do like those men Cooper told about, in 'The +Pioneers,' wasn't it? who argued and argued every night until at last +they convinced each other, and then started in to argue it out again." + +"No," he answered, "I rather think that we are answering ourselves +rather than each other, anyhow. Robin, where was 'the land of Nod'?" + +"That is one of the questions that I was sent to bed for asking a +preacher who was visiting at our house, when I was about seven years +old. They hurried me hence before he had a chance to answer, so I +never found out. But I know what you are thinking of, and I have +thought of it too. Perhaps there isn't any land of Nod, or any land at +all. And I have thought, also, how it would be if one of us died and +left the other with little children. You might take my body and jump +off the rock, but you couldn't take them too, and still less could you +leave them." + +"I have thought of the risk to you," he said, "and felt that not even +for the sake of a child would I let you come so near death." + +She laughed a little. "That is really funny," she said. "You must have +been reading Michelet; I never thought of that at all. I am very well +and strong, and my habits and my clothes are not such as to hamper my +life nor endanger that of another. There is next to no risk, so far as +that is concerned, certainly none I would not gladly take. But I have +dreaded afterwards, when the child might fall ill and need help that +we could not give it." + +"Because there are no doctors in the world?" said Adam, with a touch +of cynicism. "I don't know that we are not better off without them. +The greatest of them confessed that it was guess-work. The best +doctors I ever knew were always trying to make their patients live +more simply, take more exercise, and give nature a chance; they never +resorted to medicine until there was nothing else to do. If all the +germs and microbes have gone with them, the earth can stand the loss. +The main thing is to be well born, and when the body is healthy and +leads a natural life, while it may know pain, it need not be a prey to +disease. Very few children had a heritage worth having. It had been +bartered away. No wonder we were taught to say, 'There is no health in +us.'" + +"Do you remember Gannett's 'Not All There'?" she asked soberly. "I am +not sure I can recall it, but it began this way:-- + + "Something short in the making, Something lost on the way, + As the little soul was taking Its path to the break of day. + + "Only his mood or passion, + But it twitched an atom back, + And she for her gods of fashion + Filched from the pilgrim's pack. + + "The father did not mean it, + The mother did not know, + No human eye had seen it, + But the little soul needed it so. + + "Thro' the street there passed a cripple + Maimed from before its birth; + On the strange face gleamed a ripple + Like a half dawn on the earth. + + "It passed, and it awed the city + As one not alive nor dead; + Eyes looked and burned with pity. + 'He is not all there,' they said. + + "Not all! for part is behind it, + Lying dropped on the way; + That part--could two but find it, + How welcome the end of day!" + +For a long while neither spoke, then Robin went on. The colt had +wandered back to its mother, and she sat with her hands clasped, and +her eyes looking far out to sea. + +"I don't blame people for dreading the responsibility, nor even for +shirking it, when I think of all the conditions we had to face. Men +who thought they had hedged their trades about with so much skill that +they had banished competition, found that they had only succeeded in +bringing into the field the machine that banished them. And everywhere +there was such ghastly poverty,--poverty of body and brain and soul. +We had gone back to patrons and patronesses. Men or women did not do +anything of themselves any more,--they did not sing or play, or give a +reading, or exhibit a painting. They starved, or they performed or +exhibited 'under the auspices of.' It has always been the same. Given +a pure democracy, and demos reigns sooner or later. The shiftless go +to the bottom, the thrifty to the top, and then like the upper and +nether millstones, they grind everything between them. That which is +below cries, 'Alms!' and that which is above responds, 'Largesse,' and +the voice that cries, 'Justice,' is stifled between. The stone that +crushed from above and the rock that ground from below were very near, +and men dreaded them, for when the grist is ground, and flint strikes +upon flint, the conflagration is at hand. Do you think I am talking +like a Populist campaign book? I only know what I saw, and what the +poets have said. I wouldn't dare to be as radical as Lowell, nor as +bitter as Tennyson, nor as savage as Carlyle, or Ruskin, or Hugo. We +had overcome the sharpness of death, but whence could we hope for +deliverance from the sharpness of living?" + +"We have been delivered," said Adam, slowly, "but you don't seem +disposed to be the Miriam of this Israel--limited." + +"Well, no," answered Robin. "I should like to believe that you and I +were rewarded for our superhuman excellence by being saved when +Pharaoh and his multitudes went under, but a somewhat wide +acquaintance with other people forbids. On the other hand, we can't +have been left on account of our superlative badness. Truly, Adam, +don't you feel sometimes as if you would rather have died with the +rest?" + +He hesitated. The question was so unexpected, and so fraught with +possibilities. She watched the struggle in his face and honored him +for it. He put back a stray lock of hair and kissed her forehead +before he answered. + +"The streak of cowardice that we all of us have in us," he said +finally, "the distrust of myself, and the doubt of all systems of life +of which I know anything, prompts me to answer yes; for I think even +if we had died, you and I would still be together. I think sometimes +we have been, in the past, but whether we have or not, I know we shall +be in the future. So while the mental part of me,--which it seems to +me is the weakest and most contemptible part of man, because it is +always reasoning him out of what his soul tells him is true,--while +the mental part of me might find it easier to be dead than to know +what we ought to do, everything else in me rejoices. I know that in +the great plan we have a part, it seems to me a very happy and +beautiful part. In all our world there is no cause for anger or hatred +or sin. There is friendliness and content and gentleness and love all +around us; look up, dear, and see how near heaven seems." + +But though she looked up, she saw only the light in his eyes. + + + + +XXI + + "We're all for love," the violins said. + + SIDNEY LANIER. + + +Robin's music was a source of great delight to both of them. There was +such a sense of time, infinite and unlimited, that they ceased to be +the hurrying mortals of earth. The joy of life crept into their +hearts, and they grew young with the new world. + +One evening they watched the full moon come up over the mountains. She +had been playing a few desultory airs, and looking up asked,-- + +"Who is it says 'music is love in search of a word'?" + +"If you don't know, I'm sure I don't," answered Adam, laughing. "Do +you know that you quote entirely too much?" + +"Oh, yes," she said lightly. "I always knew that if I ever should +break into print, the critics, supposing they ever deigned to notice +me, would say, as they said of Lubbock's 'Beauties of Life,' that it +wasn't a book, but a compendium of useful quotations. But do you +really dislike quoting? I think it takes as much or nearly as much +originality to quote well as to invent." + +"Oh, no!" he interposed. + +"No? Well, it seems so to me. I think the thing first myself, that is +original so far as I am concerned, though it may be old as the hills, +and then it comes to me afterward, in a dozen ways, perhaps, as other +people have said it. I realize that in the kaleidoscope of life the +pattern before my mind's eye approximates that which others have seen. +We don't say a man knows too many synonyms or antonyms, and I don't +see much difference." + +"I have a misty memory that quotation is said to be a confession of +inferiority," answered Adam. + +"That's Emerson," she said, laughing; "but he also says, 'genius +borrows nobly,' and I am willing to confess inferiority to a great +many people; all that implies is that one should only quote well. If +it wasn't that I'm not sure of the words, and that I can't verify +them, I should confound you with a citation from Disraeli." + +"Go on," said Adam, lazily; "I don't mind being crushed." + +"It is to the effect that people think that where there is no +quotation there must be great originality. Then he says, 'the greater +part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original that no +one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote are seldom +quoted.' That's about it. Now are you answered?" She laughed +gleefully. "It is delicious to disagree with you. I had almost +forgotten that it was possible." + +He echoed her laugh with the carefree heartiness of a boy. "I am going +to make a riddle," he said. "Prepare yourself; this is the first +conundrum of the new world. Why is it better to disagree than to +differ?" + +She made a little grimace. "It's a wonder the Sphinx does not rise +from the other side of the world and eat you," she said with derision. +"Anybody who loved anybody could answer such a poor little excuse for +a riddle as that; besides, it sounds like an extract from somebody's +'First Easy Lessons in Rhetoric.' Don't you see that I can disagree +_with_ you, while I must differ _from_ you? That is too disgracefully +easy. Indeed, Adam, that riddle of yours brings back every doubt, for +they say--scientists and ologists and learned people, you know--that +there is hope for delinquents and defectives, but none for +degenerates, and that is an awfully degenerate joke." + +"Play for me," he said, "and don't call names." + +She lifted the bow and drew it across the strings in a series of +cadences so wildly mournful that he shuddered. She put the bow down, +and laid her hand upon the strings to still them. In the old days she +had been given to sudden changes of mood, but of late she had been +almost serene. + +"What is it?" he asked gently. + +"Oh, nothing,--everything! I was thinking of another thing which those +wise ones said," she answered, with more bitterness than she had shown +for many months. "It was that word 'degenerate' brought it back. You +know birds are a very low order of being, a branch of the reptile +family, in truth, and I have heard people say that musicians are +generally lacking in something. They either have no moral or financial +sense, and cannot be bound by ordinary rules. And I am musical to the +very tips of my fingers. It is as if I could hear the song of the +silence,--I feel its vibrations like those of a great organ." + +She walked up and down, her hands back of her head, and the moonlight +shining on her upturned, troubled face. + +"There is another scientific fact you forget," he said. + +She stopped to listen, and he went on. + +"When a race has run its course, nature cries 'habet,' and nothing can +alter its fate. It was not alone the merciless onslaughts of the white +man that exterminated the buffalo. They died, and none came to take +their places. They vanished, less on account of man's cruelty than by +reason of their own sterility. Degenerates or regenerates, can't we +leave the decision with a power that forever builds or destroys, in +accordance with a law we do not understand, a higher law that comes +from the source of all law, whatever that source may be? Don't think +any more, but play for me. In spite of my lecture, I will quote too; +my mother used to sing a hymn that went like this,-- + + 'I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings, + And vie with Gabriel while he sings,'-- + +Do you know it?" + +She began the old tune, "Ariel," and then wandered on, playing many +airs that brought back forgotten days. Adam threw himself down on the +grass to listen, half jealously, for she seemed to forget everything. +She had seated herself on a great boulder, and, leaning back against +it, her eyes looking into the blue depths above her, she played on and +on. The old tunes were merged in new ones, and the high sustained +notes of the Cavalleria, the subtle minor of Wagner, the exquisite +sweetness of Beethoven and Schubert filled the moonlit canon, and +still she played on, melodies new to Adam, intoxicating, full of a +wild ecstasy, that filled his very soul, and thrilled through him till +he felt all power of resistance swept away. Every other desire in the +world was lost in the supreme and overwhelming longing to gather her +to his heart and hold her there forever. The very air was steeped in +melody. The full majestic chords rose and melted in unison with the +high, exquisitely sweet notes, and throbbed their life away. She held +the bow suspended a moment, then very softly, half unconsciously, +played a dreamy lullaby, and laid the violin down in her lap. + +Adam took her and it into his arms. + +"Be careful, put it down gently," she said faintly; "it is your soul +and mine. Do you not know the secret of Antonio Stradivari, of all the +great makers of violins? Ah, they solved our riddle, Love, ages ago. +Do you not remember the story of Jacob Steiner, and how he spent days +and days in the woods, selecting the trees for his violins, and how +the spirits of the trees revenged themselves by telling him of their +ruined lives till he went mad?" + +"But there was no madness in this music," Adam answered, "except, +except--" + +"The supreme, sublime madness of love? Do you not know, surely you do, +that every perfect violin is as much man and woman as you and I? The +back of the violin is made from the timber of the female tree, the +belly of the male tree. The harmony depends on their vibrations, as +they clasp each other in an embrace as real--" + +"As this," he cried, drawing her closer, and bending his handsome head +until their lips met. "Sweet, must I envy that violin?" + +He felt her heart beating wildly against his own, their arms closed +around each other convulsively. The sweetness of the music-laden, +flower-scented air filled his senses. + +"God! how I love you!" he said. + +A frightened look came into her eyes, and she struggled, for a moment, +futilely. + +"Let me go!" she whispered; "let me go!" + +"Do you want me to?" he answered, studying her face in the moonlight. + +"No," she said. "No, never again, but, oh, Adam!" + + + + +XXII + + I'm weary of conjectures--this must end them. + + ADDISON. + + +Adam had to go to the cane-fields across the range, and one of the +calves needed Robin's ministrations, so she could not go with him. He +started before the stars were set, that he might be back before night, +and returned twice to kiss her before he finally got away. + +Left with the long day ahead of her, restless and lonely, she gave the +small house a thorough sweeping and cleaning. She had finished her +dusting, and was rearranging the furniture, when she shoved back the +long chest and struck the framework of the window with some little +violence. It was enough to jar a rusty key from its place above the +casement, and it dropped upon the chest with a kind of ominous clink +as it struck the lock, and fell upon the floor. She took it up and +looked at it curiously, and then, kneeling, fitted it in the lock. + +"I wonder," she mused, "what I shall set free if I open this box; is +it Pandora's? But there was nothing left in hers but hope, and that is +all we need. How happy we could be if we dared to hope!" + +She turned the key with a wrench, and the hasp shot from its place. +The chest was nearly empty, there being but one parcel in it. This was +done up carefully in a square of linen, pinned here and there. On the +bottom of the chest were several folds of white paper. Very slowly she +lifted out the parcel and opened it. The treasure was a gown; it was +of a heavy, satiny weave of linen, very yellow and creased. The bodice +was made without sleeves or neck, and the skirt was a kind of kilt +plaited affair; the whole effect was Greek, and, simple as it was, it +seemed beautiful to Robin after her year of dark, utilitarian +clothing. There was white underwear, and even white stockings, and a +pair of slippers. + +Robin drew a long breath of delight, and laying all her finery upon +the table placed the irons over the tripod that she might smooth the +wrinkles out, and set about making the necessary alterations at once. +She worked rapidly in spite of her excitement, but the hours slipped +away. + +"I must try it on," she said, "before Adam comes; there will be plenty +of time, and then I will put it away until--" + +Shroud or wedding-gown? She did not finish the sentence. She dressed +slowly; but when she had finished she was startled to see that the +image in the glass was so much fairer than she had ever thought +herself. Suddenly she discovered, with something like a pang, that +there was no belt, and hurried back to the chest to look again. + +As she twitched out the remaining layer of paper in her eagerness, a +long white satin ribbon dropped from it, and a little heap of fine +muslin lay on the floor of the chest. She caught up the ribbon with an +exclamation of delight and adjusted it with trembling fingers. Her +flushed cheeks and radiant eyes, the long heavy braid of hair, her +round white arms and shoulders, made her a vision of delight indeed. +When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to +inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin, +her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She had forgotten. Only +the hands of the prospective mother could have fashioned such dainty +garments as these. Everywhere the eternal question. All her +perplexities had fallen from her in the joy of dressing herself as +Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam saw her not, but the great +problem of life confronted her still. + +She put the tiny garments down on the chest, closed now, having given +up its mystery, its hope of the world, and knelt by it, touching them +with loving, reverent fingers till the tears blinded her, and she +gathered up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam, +as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears +ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then +the slumber of a child. + +She did not hear Adam, nor see him, until he passed the window and +stood in the doorway, all the sunset glow back of him. Then she +started to her feet, her arms closing instinctively over the tiny +garments she had gathered to her breast, as she stepped back, her face +flushing and paling all in a moment. + +He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart and +soul looked out of his eyes. + +"Eve," he said, "Eve!" + +She turned, and he sprang toward her with an eager cry of joy. + +"Eve," he repeated, "Eve, my love, my soul! You have decided; you are +going to be my wife. Oh, do not torture yourself or me any longer with +doubts that did not enter the mind of God Almighty when He made us +what we are. You are my world, dearer than life, more necessary than +the air we breathe. We are only one being, separated God knows how +long, but united now forever. Nothing can part us again." + +He stopped and held out his arms to her. He had taken her into their +shelter very often, but now he wanted her to come to him and nestle +against his heart of her own will. She took a single step, stretching +out her arms to him with a gesture of infinite trust and abandon. The +long sheer dress fluttered down to the floor, and lay between them. + +They stood as still as if frozen. + +"Dare you cross it?" she said, and hid her face in her hands. + +He stooped and picked it up, and looked at it as a man might look at +the soul of something of which he had never seen the body. He had a +sense of his own strength, the glory of his manhood, and a vision of +his weakness. She watched him breathlessly. He put the garment down on +the table and smoothed it out gently. There was in his face the +combined look of a man who sees the cradle and the coffin of his +firstborn. + +She went and stood beside him, touching the dress timidly. He covered +her hand with his own. + +"My wife," he said, "we know all there is to say, all there is to +risk. We must do what is right. I am going now to set everything at +liberty. It is nearly sundown; you will meet me at the rock in half an +hour. If we give each other our right hands, we will fear no evil, not +though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for the love +in our hearts is deathless, and though the sun sets, it is to rise +upon another shore. Death is only an incident, but life is eternal." + +"We could not choose differently?" And though she spoke with the +upward inflection it was not a question. + +"No, it would be quite impossible for either of us to desire what the +other did not. And much as we love each other, we will know we have +loved our race and honored God first in our decision. To live, if we +live, not for ourselves alone, but for the good of our kind; to +renounce love, the unspeakable gift, if need be, for the sake of what +seems to us right." + +"And if I give you my left hand--?" + +The sudden flash of light in his eyes half blinded her. He took both +her hands in his and looked deep in her beautiful unfathomable eyes. + +"Then the morning stars will sing together, and all the sons of God +shall shout for joy." + +The sun dropped lower and lower over the high sharp peaks at the west, +covering their white summits with a flood of golden glory. The sullen +roar of the ocean seemed hushed, and across its wide expanse the last +beams of the setting sun made radiant pathways of crimson and gold. A +lark far up in the heavens sang its few clear notes as it hastened +homeward. Far away on the mountain-side the cattle lay placidly, and a +mare whinnied to her colt. The air was soft and warm and drowsy with +the scent of many flowers, the sounds of nestling birds, the drone of +an insect here and there, the cheerful call of the crickets. + +Adam stood by the rock and waited for her. She came toward him, all +the light of the world seeming to fall upon her and circle her in a +halo that transformed her white draperies, and glistened like a +million gems in the sparse grass about her feet. + +They made each other no greeting, but stood and looked into each +other's eyes, grave and sweet with the exaltation of their purpose. +And, standing so, they clasped hands, and the word they spoke was the +same, for they by searching had found out God. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE*** + + +******* This file should be named 20615.txt or 20615.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/6/1/20615 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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