I
They were destined to dislike each other on sight, those two whose
appointed rounds, unexpectedly interlacing, had brought them together
under the ancient pines keeping watch over the grave of a Revolutionary
soldier. The man disliked the boy, because he himself had at that moment
a loathing and a horror of himself and his probable fate, and the lad’s
pliant figure vividly recalled to him what his own had been, in days long
past. The boy’s reason for disliking the man was far more obscure, but no
less potent.
That little pine-clad hill with the graves was pleasantly sheltered by
hills higher than itself. The pines were very tall and shapely. They
soared skyward like clustering brown masts, decked out at their far
tops with tossing banners of holiday green. The summer sunlight paid
long visits at their feet. If you should lay down your head under those
trees, and then lift your eyes, you would be startled to discover the
unbelievable purple pomp of those woven branches, and the intense
blueness beyond. The shadows on the ground were more golden there than
elsewhere, the sunbeams more serious-minded. They had all played together
there for so many years, seeing the same sights and thinking the same
thoughts, that they had at last come to look somewhat like each other.
L’Allegro and Il Penseroso had mingled their identities. A scarlet
tanager flared down from a far purple bough, to sing the peace that
brooded over the place. Both the man and the boy had their reasons for
seeking peace. Though unknown to each other, they knew that peace might
be found under those pines, but they had no mind for sharing it with each
other.