THE WOLF IN THE FOREST
I
The Bird Room at Judge Bannister's was back of the library. It was a
big room lined with glass cases. There hung about it always the faint
odor of preservatives. The Trumpeter Swan had a case to himself over
the mantel. He had been rather stiffly posed on a bed of artificial
moss, but nothing could spoil the beauty of him--the white of his
plumage, the elegance of his lines. He was one of a dying race--the
descendants of the men who had once killed for food had killed later to
gratify the vanity of women who must have swansdown to set off their
beauty, puffs to powder their noses. No more did great flocks wing an
exalted flight, high in the heavens, or rest like a blanket of snow on
river banks. The old kings were dead--the glassy eyes of the Trumpeter
looked out upon a world which knew his kind no more.
In the other cases were the little birds and big ones--ducks, swimming
on crystal pools, canvas-backs and redheads, mallards and teal;
Bob-whites, single and in coveys; sandpipers, tip-ups and peeps, those
little ghosts of the seashore, shadows on the sand; there were sora and
other rails, robins and blackbirds, larks and sparrows, wild turkeys
and wild geese, all the toll which the hunter takes from field and
stream and forest.
It was in a sense a tragic room, but it had never seemed that to Becky.
She came of a race of men who had hunted from instinct but with a sense
of honor. The Judge and those of his kind hated wanton killing. Their
guns would never have swept away the feathered tribes of tree and sky.
It was the trappers and the pot-hunters who had done that. There had
motored once to the Judge's mansion a man and his wife who had raged at
the brutes who hunted for sport. They had worn fur coats and there had
been a bird's breast on the woman's hat.
The Judge, holding on to his temper, had exploded finally. "If you
were consistent," he had flung at them, "you would not be decked in the
bodies of birds and beasts."
Becky loved the birds in the glass cases, the peeps and the tip-ups,
the old owl who did not belong among the game birds, but who, with the
great eagle with the outstretched wings, had been admitted because they
had been shot within the environs of the estate. She loved the little
nests of tinted eggs, the ducks on the crystal pools.
But most of all she loved the Trumpeter. Years ago the Judge had told
her of the wild swans who flew so high that no eye could see them. Yet
the sound of their trumpets might be heard. It was like the fairy tale
of "The Seven Brothers," who were princes, and who were turned into
swans and wore gold crowns on their heads. She was prepared to believe
anything of the Trumpeter. She had often tiptoed down in the night,
expecting to see his case empty, and to hear his trumpet sounding high
up near the moon.
There was a moon to-night. Dinner was always late at Huntersfield. In
the old days three o'clock had been the fashionable hour for dining in
the county, with a hot supper at eight. Aunt Claudia, keeping up with
the times, had decided that instead of dining and supping, they must
lunch and dine. The Judge had agreed, stipulating that there should be
no change in the evening hour. "Serve it in courses, if you like, and
call it dinner. But don't have it before candle-light."
So the moon was up when Becky came down in her blue dress. She had not
expected to wear the blue. In spite of the fact that Randy and his
mother and Major Prime had come back with them for dinner, she had
planned to wear her old white, which had been washed and laid out on
the bed by Mandy. But the blue was more becoming, and the man with the
Apollo head had eyes to see.
She came into the Bird Room with a candle in her hand. There was a
lamp high up, but she could not reach it, so she always carried a
candle. She set it down on the case where the Bob-whites were cuddled
in brown groups. She whistled a note, and listened to catch the
answer. It had been a trick of hers as a child, and she had heard them
whistle in response. She had been so sure that she heard them--a
far-off silvery call----
Well, why not? Might not their little souls be fluttering close? "You
darlings," she said aloud.
Randy, arriving at that moment on the threshold, heard her. "You are
playing the old game," he said.
"Oh, yes,", she caught her breath, "Do you remember?"
He came into the room. "I remembered a thousand times when I was in
France. I thought of this room and of the Trumpeter Swan, and of how
you and I used to listen on still nights and think we heard him.
There was one night after an awful day--with a moon like this over the
battlefield, and across the moon came a black, thin streak--and a bugle
sounded--far away. I was half asleep, and I said, 'Becky, there's the
swan,' and the fellow next to me poked his elbow in my ribs, and said,
'You're dreaming.' But I wasn't--quite, for the thin black streak was
a Zeppelin----"
She came up close to him and laid her hand on his arm. He towered
above her. "Randy," she asked, "was the war very dreadful?"
"Yes," he said, "it was. More dreadful than you people at home can
ever grasp. But I want you to know this, Becky, that there isn't one
of us who wouldn't go through it again in the same cause."
There was no swagger in his statement, just simple earnestness. The
room was very still for a moment.
Then Becky said, "Well, it's awfully nice to have you home again," and
Randy, looking down at the little hand on his arm, had to hold on to
himself not to put his own over it.
But she was too dear and precious----! So he just said, gently, "And
I'm glad to be at home, my dear," and they walked to the window
together, and stood looking out at the moon. Behind them the old eagle
watched with outstretched wings, the great free bird which we stamp on
American silver, backed with "In God We Trust." It is not a bad
combination, and things in this country might, perhaps, have been less
chaotic if we had taught new-comers to link love of God with love of
liberty.
"Mr. Dalton is coming to see the birds," said Becky, and in a moment
she had spoiled everything for Randy.
"Is that why you put on your blue dress?"
She was honest. "I am not sure. Perhaps."
"Yet you thought the old white one was good enough for me."
"Well, don't you like me just as well in my old white as in this?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, then," Becky was triumphant, "why should I bother to change for
you, Randy, when you like me just as well in anything?"
The argument was unanswerable, but Randy was not satisfied. "It is a
mistake," he said, "not to be as like to old friends as new ones."
"But I am nice. You said so yourself this afternoon. That I was sugar
and spice and everything--nice----"
Ha laughed. "You are, of course. And I didn't come all the way from
France to quarrel with you----"
"We've always quarreled, Randy."
"I wonder why?"
"Sister Loretto says that people only argue when they like each other.
Otherwise they wouldn't want to convince."
"Do you quarrel with Sister Loretto?"
"Of course not. Nuns don't. But she writes notes when she doesn't
agree with me--little sermons--and pins them on my pillow. She's a
great dear. She hates to have me leave the school. She has the
feeling that the world is a dark forest, and that I am Red Riding Hood,
and that the Wolf will get me."
II
Dalton found them all at dinner when he reached Huntersfield. He was
not in the least prepared for the scene which met his eyes--shining
mahogany, old silver and Sheffield, tall white candles, Calvin in a
snowy jacket, Mrs. Beaufort and Mrs. Paine in low-necked gowns, the
Judge and Randy in dinner-coats somewhat the worse for wear, Becky in
thin, delicate blue, with a string of pearls which seemed to George an
excellent imitation of the real thing.
He had thought that the trail of Mrs. Paine's boarding-house might be
over it all. He had known boarding-houses as a boy, before his father
made his money. There had been basement dining-rooms, catsup bottles,
and people passing everything to everybody else!
"I'm afraid I'm early," he said in his quick voice.
"Not a bit. Calvin, place a chair for Mr. Dalton."
There were fruit and nuts and raisins in a great silver epergne, with
fat cupids making love among garlands. There was coffee in Sevres cups.
Back among the shadows twinkled a priceless mirror; shutting off
Calvin's serving table was a painted screen worth its weight in gold.
It was a far cry from the catsup bottles and squalid service of
George's early days. The Bannisters of Huntersfield wore their poverty
like a plume!
The Judge carried Dalton off presently to the Bird Room. George went
with reluctance. This was not what he had come for. Becky, slim and
small, with her hair peaked up to a topknot, Becky in pale blue, Becky
as fair as her string of imitation pearls, Becky in the golden haze of
the softly illumined room, Becky, Becky Bannister--the name chimed in
his ears.
Dalton had had some difficulty in getting away from Hamilton Hill.
"It's my last night," Madge had said; "shall we go out in the garden
and watch the moon rise?"
"Sorry," George had told her, "but I've promised Flora to take a fourth
hand at bridge."
"And after that?" asked Madge softly.
"What do you mean?"
"Who is the new--little girl?"
It was useless to pretend. "She's a beauty, rather, isn't she?"
"Oh, Georgie-Porgie, I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Kiss the girls--and make them--cry----"
"You've never cried----"
She laughed at that. "If I haven't it is because I know that
afterwards you always--run away."
He admitted it. "One can't marry them all."
"I wonder if you are ever serious," she told him, her chin in her hand.
"I am always serious. That's what makes it interesting----"
"But the poor little--hearts?"
"Some one has to teach them," said George, "that it's a pretty game----"
"Will it be always a game--to you--Georgie?"
"Who knows?" he said. "So far I've held trumps----"
"Your conceit is colossal, but somehow you seem to get away with it."
She smiled and stood, up. "I'm going to bed early. I have been losing
my beauty sleep lately, Georgie."
He chose to be gallant. "You are not losing your beauty, if that's
what you mean."
Her dinner gown was of the same shade of mauve that she had worn in the
afternoon. But it was of a material so sheer that the gold of her skin
seemed to shine through.
"Good-night, Golden Girl," said Dalton, and kissed the tips of her
fingers as she stood on the stairs. Then he went off to join the
others.
Madge did not go to bed. She went out alone and watched the moon rise.
Oscar Waterman's house was on a hill which gave a view of the whole
valley. Gradually under the moon the houses of Charlottesville showed
the outlines of the University, and far beyond the shadowy sweep of the
Blue Ridge. What a world it had been in the old days--great men had
ridden over these red roads in swaying carriages, Jefferson, Lafayette,
Washington himself.
If she could only meet men like that. Men to whom life was more than a
game--a carnival. From the stone bench where she sat she had a view
through the long French windows of the three tables of bridge--there
were slender, restless girls, eager, elegant youths. "Perhaps they are
no worse than those who lived here before them," Madge's sense of
justice told her. "But isn't there something better?"
From her window later, she saw Dalton's car flash out into the road.
The light wound down and down, and appeared at last upon the highway.
It was not the first time that George had played the game with another
girl. But he had always come back to her. She had often wondered why
she let him come. "Why do I let him?" she asked the moon.
III
It really was a great moon. It shone through the windows of the Bird
Room at Huntersfield, wooing George out into the fragrant night. He
could hear voices on the lawn--young Paine's laugh--Becky's. Once when
he looked he saw them on the ridge, silhouetted against the golden sky.
They were dancing, and Randy's clear whistle, piping a modern tune,
came up to him, tantalizing him.
But the Judge held him. It took him nearly an hour to get through with
the Bob-whites and the sandpipers, the wild turkeys, the ducks and the
wild geese. And long before that time George was bored to extinction.
He had little imagination. To him the Trumpeter was just a stuffed old
bird. He could not picture him as blowing his trumpet beside the moon,
or wearing a golden crown as in "The Seven Brothers." He had never
heard of "The Seven Brothers," and nobody in the world wore crowns
except kings. As for the old eagle, it is doubtful whether George had
ever felt the symbolism of his presence on a silver coin, or that he
had ever linked him in his heart with God.
Then, suddenly, the whole world changed. Becky appeared on the
threshold.
"Grandfather," she said, "Aunt Claudia says there is lemonade on the
lawn."
"In a moment, my dear."
George rose hastily. "Don't let me keep you, Judge----"
Becky advanced into the room. "Aren't birds wonderful?"
"They are," said George, seeing them wonderful for the first time.
"I always feel," she said, "as if some time they will flap their wings
and fly away--on a night like this--the swans going first, and then the
ducks and geese, and last of all the little birds, trailing across the
moon----" Her hands fluttered to show them trailing. Becky used her
hands a great deal when she talked. Aunt Claudia deplored it as
indicating too little repose. The nuns, she felt, should have
corrected the habit. But the nuns had loved Becky's descriptive hands,
poking, emphasizing, and had let her alone.
The three of them, the Judge and Becky and Dalton, went out together.
The little group which sat in the wide moonlighted space in front of
the house was dwarfed by the great trees which hung in masses of black
against the brilliant night. The white dresses of the women seemed
touched with silver.
The lemonade was delicious, and Aunt Claudia forced herself to be
gracious. Caroline Paine was gracious without an effort. She liked
Dalton. Not in the same way, perhaps, that she liked Major Prime, but
he was undoubtedly handsome, and of a world which wore lovely clothes
and did not have to count its pennies.
Major Prime had little to say. He was content to sit there in the
fragrant night and listen to the rest. A year ago he had been jolted
over rough roads in an ambulance. There had been a moon and men
groaning. There had seemed to him something sinister about that white
night with its spectral shadows, and with the trenches of the enemy
wriggling like great serpents underground. The trail of the serpent
was still over the world. He had been caught but not killed. There
was still poison in his fangs!
He spoke sharply, therefore, when Dalton said, "It was a great
adventure for a lot of fellows who went over----"
"Don't," said the Major, and sat up. "Does it matter what took them?
_The thing that matters is how they came back----_"
"What do you mean?"
"A thousand reasons took them over. Some of them went because they had
to, some of them because they wanted to. Some of them dramatized
themselves as heroes and hoped for an opportunity to demonstrate their
courage. Some of them were scared stiff, but went because of their
consciences, some of them wanted to fight and some of them didn't, but
whatever the reason, they went. And now they are back, and it is much
more important to know what they think now about war than what they
thought about it when they were enlisted or drafted. If their baptism
of fire has made them hate cruelty and injustice, if it has opened
their eyes to the dangers of a dreaming idealism which refuses to see
evil until evil has had its way, if it has made them swear to purge
America of the things which has made Germany the slimy crawling enemy
of the universe, if they have come back feeling that God is in His
Heaven but that things can't be right with the world until we come to
think in terms of personal as well as of national righteousness--if
they have come back thus illumined, then we can concede to them their
great adventure. But if they have come back to forget that democracy
is on trial, that we have talked of it to other nations and do not know
it ourselves, if they have come back to let injustice or ignorance
rule--then they had better have died on the fields of France----"
He stopped suddenly amid a startled silence. Not a sound from any of
them.
"I beg your pardon," he laughed a bit awkwardly, "I didn't mean to
preach a sermon."
"Don't spoil it, _please_," Aunt Claudia begged brokenly; "I wish more
men would speak out."
"May I say this, then, before I stop? The future of our country is in
the hands of the men who fought in France. On them must descend the
mantles of our great men, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt--we must walk
with these spirits if we love America----"
"Do you wonder," Randy said, under his breath to Becky, "that his men
fought, and that they died for him?"
She found her little handkerchief and wiped her eyes. "He's
a--perfect--darling," she whispered, and could say no more.
Dalton was for the time eclipsed. He knew it and was not at ease. He
was glad when Mrs. Paine stood up. "I am sorry to tear myself away.
But I must. I can't be sure that Susie has made up the morning rolls.
There's a camp-meeting at Keswick, and she's lost the little mind that
she usually puts on her cooking."
Randy and the Major went with her in the low carriage, with Rosalind
making good time towards the home stable, and with Nellie Custis
following with flapping ears.
Dalton stayed on. The Judge urged him. "It's too lovely to go in," he
said; "what's your hurry?"
Aunt Claudia, who was inexpressibly weary, felt that her father was
exceeding the bounds of necessary hospitality. She felt, too, that the
length of Dalton's first call was inexcusable. But she did not go to
bed. As long as Becky was there, she should stay to chaperon her.
With a sense of martyrdom upon her, Mrs. Beaufort sat stiffly in her
chair.
The Judge was talkative and brilliant, glad of a new and apparently
attentive listener. Becky had little to say. She sat with her small
feet set primly on the ground. Her hands were folded in her lap.
Dalton was used to girls who lounged or who hung fatuously on his
words, as if they had set themselves to please him.
But Becky had no arts. She was frank and unaffected, and apparently
not unconscious of Dalton's charms. The whole thing was, he felt,
going to be rather stimulating.
When at last he left them, he asked the Judge if he might come again.
"I'd like to look at those birds by daylight."
Becky, giving him her hand, hoped that he might come. She had been all
the evening in a sort of waking dream. Even when Dalton had been
silent, she had been intensely aware of his presence, and when he had
talked, he had seemed to speak to her alone, although his words were
for others.
"I saw you dancing," he said, before he dropped her hand.
"Oh, did you?"
"Yes."
Back of the house the dogs barked.
"Will you dance some time with me?"
"Oh, could I?"
"Why not?"
A moment later he was gone. The light of his motor flashed down the
hills like a falling star.
"I wonder what made the dogs bark," the Judge said as they went in.
"They probably thought it was morning," was Mrs. Beaufort's retort, as
she preceded Becky up the stairs.
IV
The dogs had barked because Randy after a quick drive home had walked
back to Huntersfield.
"Look here," he burst out as he and the Major had stood on the steps of
the Schoolhouse, "do you like him?"
"Who? Dalton?"
"Yes."
"He's not a man's man," the Major said, "and he doesn't care in the
least what you and I think of him."
"Doesn't he?"
"No, and he doesn't care for--stuffed birds--and he doesn't care for
the Judge, and he doesn't care for Mrs. Beaufort----"
"Oh, you needn't rub it in. I know what he's after."
"Do you?"
"Yes----"
The Major whistled softly a lilting tune. He had been called "The
Whistling Major" by his men and they had liked his clear piping.
He stopped abruptly. "Well, you can't build fences around lovely
little ladies----"
"I wish I could. I'd like to shut her up in a tower----"
They left it there. It was really not a thing to be talked about.
They both knew it, and stopped in time.
Randy, climbing the outside stairs, presently, to his bedroom, turned
at the upper landing to survey the scene spread out before him. The
hills were steeped in silence. The world was black and gold--the
fragrance of the honeysuckle came up from the hedge below. On such a
night as this one could not sleep. He felt himself restless,
emotionally keyed up. He descended the stairs. Then, suddenly, he
found himself taking the trail back towards Huntersfield.
He walked easily, following the path which led across the hills. The
distance was not great, and he had often walked it. He loved a night
like this. As he came to a stretch of woodland, he went under the
trees with the thrill of one who enters an enchanted forest.
An owl hooted overhead. A whip-poor-will in a distant swamp sounded
his plaintive call.
Randy could not have analyzed the instinct which sent him back to
Becky. It was not in the least to spy upon her, nor upon Dalton. He
only knew that he could not sleep, that something drew him on and on,
as Romeo was drawn perchance to Capulet's orchard.
He came out from under the trees to other hills. He was still on his
own land. These acres had belonged to his father, his grandfather, his
great-grandfather, and back of that to a certain gallant gentleman who
had come to Virginia with grants from the King. There had been, too, a
great chief, whose blood was in his veins, and who had roamed through
this land before Europe knew it. Powhatan was a rare old name to link
with one's own, and Randy had a Virginian's pride in his savage strain.
So, as he went along, he saw canoes upon the shining river. He saw
tall forms with feathers blowing. He saw fires on the heights.
The hill in front of him dipped to a little stream. He and Becky had
once waded in that stream together. How white her feet had been on the
brown stones. His life, as he thought of it, was bound up in memories
of Becky. She had come down from school for blissful week-ends and
holidays, and she and Randy had tramped over the hills and through the
pine woods, finding wild-flowers in the spring, arbutus, flushing to
beauty in its hidden bed, blood-root, hepatica, wind-flowers, violets
in a purple glory; finding in the summer wild roses, dewberries,
blackberries, bees and butterflies, the cool shade of the little
groves, the shine and shimmer of the streams; finding in the fall a
golden stillness and the redness of Virginia Creeper. They had ridden
on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a
pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens,
they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New
Year in, and their souls had been knit in a comradeship which had been
a very fine thing indeed for a boy like Randy and a girl like Becky.
There had been, too, about their friendship a rather engaging
seriousness. They had talked a great deal of futures. They had
dreamed together very great dreams. Their dreams had, of course,
changed from time to time. There had been that dream of Becky's when
she first went to the convent, that she wanted some day to be a nun
like Sister Loretto. The fact that it would involve a change of faith
was thrashed over flamingly by Randy. "It is all very well for an old
woman, Becky. But you'd hate it."
Becky had been sure that she would not hate it. "You don't know how
lovely she looks in the chapel."
"Well, there are other ways to look lovely."
"But it would be nice to be--good."
"You are good enough."
"I am not really, Randy. Sister Loretto says her prayers all day----"
"How often do you say yours?"
"Oh, at night. And in the mornings--sometimes----"
"That's enough for anybody. If you say them hard enough once, what
more can the Lord ask?"
He had been a rather fierce figure as he had flung his questions, but
he had not swerved her in the least from her thought of herself as a
novice in a white veil, and later as a full-fledged sister, with beads
and a black head-dress.
This dream had, in time, been supplanted by one imposed upon her by the
ambitions of a much-admired classmate.
"Maude and I are going to be doctors," Becky had announced as she and
Randy had walked over the fields with the hounds at their heels. "It's
a great opportunity for women, Randy, and we shall study in
Philadelphia."
"Shall you like cutting people up?" he had demanded brutally.
She had shuddered. "I shan't have to cut them up very much, shall I?"
"You'll have to cut them up a lot. All doctors do, and sometimes they
are dead."
She had argued a bit shakily after that, and that night she had slept
badly. The next morning they had gone over it again. "You fainted
when the kitten's paw was crushed in the door."
"It was dreadful----"
"And you cried when I cut my foot with the hatchet and we were out in
the woods. And if you are going to be a doctor you'll have to look at
people who are crushed and cut----"
"Oh, please, Randy----"
Three days of such intensive argument had settled it. Becky decided
that it was, after all, better to be an authoress. "There was Louisa
Alcott, you know, Randy."
He was scornful. "Women weren't made for that--to sit in an attic and
write. Why do you keep talking about doing things, Becky? You'll get
married when you grow up and that will be the end of it."
"I am not going to get married, Randy."
"Well, of course you will, and I shall marry and be a lawyer like my
father, and perhaps I'll go to Congress."
Later he had a leaning towards the ministry. "If I preached I could
make the world better, Becky."
That was the time when she had come down for Hallowe'en, and it was on
Sunday evening that they had talked it over in the Bird Room at
Huntersfield. There had been a smouldering fire on the wide hearth,
and the Trumpeter Swan had stared down at them with shining eyes. They
had been to church that morning and the text had been, "The harvest is
past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."
"I want to make the world better, Becky,"
Randy had said in the still twilight, and Becky had answered in an awed
tone, "It would be so splendid to see you in the pulpit, Randy, wearing
a gown like Dr. Hodge."
But the pulpit to Randy had meant more than that. And the next day
when they walked through the deserted mill town, he had said,
"Everybody is dead who lived here, and once they were alive like us."
She had shivered, "I don't like to think of it."
"It's a thing we've all got to think of. I like to remember that
Thomas Jefferson came riding through and stopped at the mill and talked
to the miller."
"How dreadful to know that they are--dead."
"Mother says that men like Jefferson never die. Their souls go
marching on."
The stream which ground the county's corn was at their feet. "But what
about the miller?" Becky had asked; "does his soul march, too?"
Randy, with the burden of yesterday's sermon upon him, hoped that the
miller was saved.
He smiled now as he thought of the rigidness of his boyish theology.
To him in those days Heaven was Heaven and Hell was Hell.
The years at school had brought doubt--apostasy. Then on the fields of
France, Randy's God had come back to him--the Christ who bound up
wounds, who gave a cup of cold water, who fought with flaming sword
against the battalions of brutality, who led up and up that white
company who gave their lives for a glorious Cause. Here, indeed, was a
God of righteousness and of justice, of tenderness and purity. To
other men than Randy, Christ had in a very personal and specific sense
been born across the sea.
It was in France, too, that the dream had come to him of a future of
creative purpose. He had always wanted to write. Looking back over
his University days, he was aware of a formative process which had led
towards this end. It was there he had communed with the spirit of a
tragic muse. There had been all the traditions of Poe and his
tempestuous youth--and Randy, passing the door which had once opened
and closed on that dark figure, had felt the thrill of a living
personality--of one who spoke still in lines of ineffable
beauty--"_Banners yellow, glorious, golden. On its roof did float and
flow----_" and again "_A dirge for her the doubly dead, in that she
died so young----_" with the gayety and gloom and grandeur of those
chiming, rhyming, tolling bells--"_Keeping time, time, time, In a sort
of Runic rhyme----_" and that "_grim and ancient Raven wandering from
the Nightly shore----_"
"Do you think I could write?" Randy had asked one of his teachers,
coming verse-saturated to the question.
The man had looked at him with somber eyes. "You have an ear for
it--and an eye---- But genius pays a price."
"What do you mean?"
"It shows its heart to the world, dissects its sacred thoughts, has no
secrets----"
"But think of leaving a thing behind you like--'To Helen----'"
"Do you think the knowledge that he had written a few bits of
incomparable verse helped Poe to live? If he had invented a pill or a
headache powder, he would have slept on down and have dined from gold
dishes."
"I'd rather write 'Ulalume' than dine from gold dishes."
"You think that now. But in twenty years you will sigh for a--feather
bed----"
"You don't believe that."
There had come a lighting of the somber eyes. "My dear fellow, if you,
by the grace of God, have it in you to write, what I believe won't have
anything to do with it. You will crucify yourself for the sake of a
line--starve for the love of a rhythm."
Randy had not yet starved for love of a rhythm, but he had lost sleep
during those nights in France, trying to put into words the things that
gripped his soul. There had been beauty as well as horror in those
days. What a world it had been, a world of men--a striving, eager
group, raised for the moment above sordidness, above self----
He had not found verse his medium, although he had drunk eagerly of the
golden cups which others had to offer him. But his prose had gained
because of his belief in beauty of structure and of singing lovely
words. As yet he had nothing to show for his pains, but practice had
given strength to his pen--he felt that some day with the right theme
he might do--wonders----
The trees had again closed in about him. A shadow flitted by--a fox,
unafraid and in search of a belated meal. Randy remembered the days
when he and Becky had thought that there might be wolves in the forest.
He laughed a little, recalling Becky's words. "Sister Loretto has the
feeling that the world is a dark forest, and that I am Red Riding
Hood." Was it that which had brought him back? Was there, indeed, a
Wolf?
When he reached Huntersfield, and the dogs barked, he had feared for
the moment discovery. He was saved, however, by the friendly silence
which followed that first note of alarm. The dogs knew him and
followed him with wagging tails as he skirted the lawn and came at last
to the gate which had closed a few minutes before on Dalton's car. He
saw the Judge go in. Aunt Claudia, Becky--shadowy figures between the
white pillars.
Then, after a moment, a room on the second floor was illumined. The
shade was up and he saw the interior as one sees the scene of a play.
There was the outline of a rose-colored canopy, the gleam of a mirror,
the shine of polished wood, and in the center, Becky in pale blue, with
a candle in her hand.
And as he saw her there, Randolph knew why he had come. To worship at
a shrine. That was where Becky belonged--high above him. The flame of
the candle was a sacred fire.