The weather changed. On the heel of soft sunshine and quietude came
autumn storm, wind and rain, lashed trees, leaden and heavily sagging
cloud. In the late afternoon Zinia appeared at the parlor door. "Miss
Marget, there are two men on horseback. They've come over Rock Mountain
and missed their way. They say it's getting late, and they say, could we
take them in for the night?"
"I'll go see," said Linden, and left the room.
"Of course you will?"
"Yes, of course," answered Marget. "I had better go see about the room."
Curtin and Miss Darcy, left alone, watched the flame. At last Curtin
said, abruptly, "Had you ever thought of humanity moving on into
superhumanity?"
"I think that I have been blind and deaf to a great many things! I
suppose I thought that there would be slow, general improvement. But I
did not think of marked betterment here. I thought of the soul at death
springing alive into heaven."
"Or hell?"
"Yes, we were taught that."
"And it was going to reach heaven or hell at one stride! No degree
here, no degree there!"
"It was irrational!"
"Naturally, being yet in Time, there are those ahead. Some cross the
line earlier than others."
Marget returned. "They are two young men, foresters, I think, from the
government purchase on Rock Mountain. They are wet through. Mancy has
built them a fire and Richard is looking after them." She stood by the
window. "The gray rain is chanting up and down the mountains! Queen Rain
and King Wind!"
Curtin put a chair for her as she came to the hearth. She sat down, and
bending herself, looked into the fire. She held her hands to the flame
and appeared to gather it into them. "The fire!" said Marget, "the
spirit that is fire, that is will--that are living, endless powers, the
Host of the Lord!"
There fell a silence that was voice. Then said Anna Darcy: "I have
always said, 'I remember--I remember.' But since I came to Sweet Rocket
I have learned far and away more of how to remember."
Marget turned toward her with a great sweetness. "When we have found a
good thing we so naturally wish to share it! Now you must learn the
Universal Man's present sharing--and his future sharing. You who have
always said, 'I remember,' and who have been unselfish, will have little
trouble."
Her look included Curtin, who sat staring into the fire. He drew a long
breath. "Two weeks ago I should have said that adventure and youth had
passed from my life."
"You are just beginning to find them! Henceforth you will find rest and
romance, salt in life and the true wine and the uncloying honey and the
bread of right wheat. You will find water of Moses's spring, and the
Burning Bush."
The rain and the wind sang against the pane. The fire made shape upon
shape. The high, inward vibration lowered, but it left a memory of
itself. There was the Jericho rose in the sandal box to say, "When there
comes moisture again to my root, then shall I bloom again!"
Linden entered the parlor with the two guests, now with dried clothing,
rested and refreshed. It was growing dusk. The room looked warm and
bright to them, a happy haven after a battering day. They were young
men; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, forestry graduates, resuming forestry
after an interlude of war. Linden presented them. "Mr. Randall--Mr.
Drew."
The evening closed in stormy. They had supper, a small bright feast,
with talk and laughter. Randall proved lively, good company. Drew was
much the quieter of the two. Supper over, they returned to the big
parlor and the generous fire. The boy Jim had brought in a great armful
of wood. It was a night to heap logs, as the rain drummed against the
pane. Randall was talkative. He flowed like a mountain stream, trilled
like a care-free bird.
Forests and forestry came into the room. It appeared that both had had
from childhood a taste, not to say a passion, for woodland life. Randall
had lived in the country, so it came natural. But Drew had lived in a
city. But forests were a passion with him; he had to get into them, and
did so at every chance, and at last left for good a clerkship in a
stockbroker's office, and scraped together enough for that course in a
forestry school. This gave him surface learning, but he exhibited a
deeper knowingness, gained somewhere. "Drew's like an Indian in the
woods!"
"No. Not like an Indian," said Drew.