YES, this property would suit him; it would suit Amy. It was near town; it
was not far from Major Falconer's. He could build his house on the hill-top
where he was lying. At the foot of it, out of its limestone caverns, swelled
a bountiful spring. As he listened he could hear the water of the branch
that ran winding away from it toward the Elkhorn. That would be a pleasant
sound when he sat with her in their doorway of summer evenings. On that
southern slope he would plant his peach orchard, and he would have a
vineyard. On this side Amy could have her garden, have her flowers. Sloping
down from the front of the house to the branch would be their lawn, after he
had cleared away everything but a few of the noblest old trees: under one of
them, covered with a vine that fell in long green cascades from its summit
to the ground, he would arrange a wild-grape swing for her, to make good the
loss of the one she now had a" Major Falconer's.
Thus, out of one detail after another, he constructed the whole vision of
the future, with the swiftness of desire, the unerring thoughtfulness of
love; and, having transformed the wilderness into his home, he feasted on
his banquet of ideas, his rich red wine of hopes and plans.
One of the subtlest, most saddening effects of the entire absence of
possessions is the inevitable shrinkage of nature that must be undergone by
those who have nothing to own. When a man, by some misfortune, has suddenly
suffered the loss of his hands, much of the bewilderment and consternation
that quickly follow have their origin in the thought that he never again
shall be able to grasp. To his astonishment, he finds that no small part of
his range of mental activity and sense of power was involved in that
exercise alone. He has not lost merely his hands; much of his inner being
has been stricken into disuse.
But the hand itself is only the rudest type of the universal necessity that
pervades us to take hold. The body is furnished with two; the mind, the
heart, the spirit--who shall number the invisible, the countless hands of
these? All growth, all strength, all uplift, all power to rise in the world
and to remain arisen, comes from the myriad hold we have taken upon higher
surrounding realities.
Some time, wandering in a thinned wood, you may have happened upon an old
vine, the seed of which had long ago been dropped and had sprouted in an
open spot where there was no timber. Every May, in response to Nature's
joyful bidding that it yet shall rise, the vine has loosed the thousand
tendrils of its hope, those long, green, delicate fingers searching the
empty air. Every December you may see these turned stiff and brown, and
wound about themselves like spirals or knotted like the claw of a frozen
bird. Year after year the vine has grown only at the head, remaining
empty-handed; and the head itself, not being lifted always higher by
anything the hands have seized, has but moved hither and thither, back and
forth, like the head of a wounded snake in a path. Thus every summer you may
see the vine, fallen back and coiled upon itself, and piled up before you
like a low green mound, its own tomb; in winter a black heap, its own ruins.
So, it often is with the poorest, who live on at the head, remaining
empty-handed; fallen in and coiled back upon themselves, their own
inescapable tombs, their own unavertible ruins.
The prospect of having what to him was wealth had instantly bestowed upon
John Gray the liberation of his strength. It had untied the hands of his
idle powers; and the first thing he had reached fiercely out to grasp was
Amy--his share in the possession of women; the second thing was land--his
share in the possession of the earth. With these at the start, the one
unshakable under his foot, the other inseparable from his side, he had no
doubt that he should rise in the world and lay hold by steady degrees upon
all that he should care to have. Naturally now these two blent far on and
inseparably in the thoughts of one whose temperament doomed him always to be
planning and striving for the future.
The last rays of the sun touched the summit of the knoll where he was lying.
Its setting was with great majesty and repose, depth after depth of cloud
opening inward as toward the presence of the infinite peace. The boughs of
the trees overhead were in blossom; there were blue and white wild-flowers
at his feet. As he looked about him, he said to himself in his solemn way
that the long hard winter of his youth had ended; the springtime of his
manhood was turning green like the woods.
With this night came his betrothal. For years he had looked forward to that
as the highest white mountain peak of his life. As he drew near it now, his
thoughts made a pathway for his feet, covering it as with a fresh fall of
snow. Complete tenderness overcame him as he beheld Amy in this new sacred
relation; a look of religious reverence for her filled his eyes. He asked
himself what he had ever done to deserve all this.Perhaps it is the
instinctive trait of most of us to seek an explanation for any great
happiness as we are always prone to discuss the causes of our adversity.
Accordingly, and in accord with our differing points of view of the
universe, we declare of our joy that it is the gift of God to us despite our
shortcomings and our transgressions; or that it is our blind share of things
tossed out impersonally to us by the blind operation of the chances of life;
or that it is the clearest strictest logic of our own being and doing--the
natural vintage of our own grapes.
Of all these, the one that most deeply touches the heart is the faith, that
a God above who alone knows and judges aright, still loves and has sent a
blessing. To such a believer the heavens seem to have opened above his head,
the Divine to have descended and returned; and left alone in the possession
of his joy, he lifts his softened eyes to the Light, the Life, the Love,
that has always guided him, always filled him, never forgotten him.
This stark audacity of faith was the schoolmaster's. It belonged to him
through the Covenanter blood of his English forefathers and through his
Scotch mother; but it had surrounded him also in the burning spiritual
heroism of the time, when men wandered through the Western wilderness, girt
as with camel's hair and fed as on locusts, but carrying from cabin to
cabin, from post to post, through darkness and snow and storm the lonely
banner of the Christ and preaching the gospel of everlasting peace to those
who had never known any peace on earth. So that all his thoughts were linked
with the eternal; he had threaded the labyrinth of life, evermore awestruck
with its immensities and its mysteries; in his ear, he could plainly hear
immortality sounding like a muffled bell across a sea, now near, now farther
away, according as he was in danger or in safety. Therefore, his sudden
prosperity--Amy--marriage--happiness--all these meant to him that Providence
was blessing him.
In the depth of the wood it had grown dark. With all his thoughts of her
sounding like the low notes of a cathedral organ, he rose and walked slowly
back to town. He did not care for his supper; he did not wish to speak with
any other person; the rude, coarse banter of the taverns and the streets
would in some way throw a stain on her. Luckily he reached his room
unaccosted; and then with care but without vanity having dressed himself in
his best, he took his way to the house of Father Poythress.