"Certainly," said the physician, seeing his distress and anticipating
his wish. "I will set you down at your door if you like."
"Thank you," the boy said, struggling to his feet. "This room suffocates
me."
"The fresh air will put you quite all right," said the doctor, walking
beside him but not offering him physical help. "Quite all right."
And they went out and Hal was alone.
"Poor boy," he said. "Poor boy!"
He put his two hands to his head, and pressed the temples. Was it real
or was it a dream? He drifted into the chair at the writing-table, and
put his elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands, looking
into space, trying to understand. Some one had left a current magazine
open on the table. His vacant gaze wandered across a dull level of
meaningless words to a hill which stood up alone and seemed to call to
him, to have a message for him:
"These are my people, and this my land,
I hear the pulse of her secret soul;
This is the life that I understand,
Savage and simple, and sane and whole."[1]
[1] Lawrence Hope.
Yes, that was a long time ago. And they were a long way off--his people
and his land. Why had he allowed John McCloud to drive him away from
his people and his land? Could he have foreseen this never would he
have come, never would he have had the courage to put aside that which
was within his grasp. It was a dark, desperate moment. He regretted
his lost happiness; he regretted that he had not sinned. What were
these abstract things which people called "good" and "right"? Where did
they lead one? Malicious shadows! What was his reward? For the rest
of his life he was to be the custodian of a rancorous mad woman. His
only release was death, his death or hers, and these neurasthenics live
forever. His own? The only thing to his credit at this moment was that
he pushed aside the thought of self-destruction. He was down in the
ring, only semi-conscious, and he heard the referee counting the fatal
seconds, but he had the instinct of the fighter and he knew that before
ten was called he would try to get up. His land and his people! They
were calling to him, in many voices, many ways. Never had they called
to him as now. And it was too late. All that was past. Wah-na-gi
called to him. Oh, she called to him. Again he saw her as he looked
back to get a last glimpse of the Red Butte Ranch, standing outlined
against the eternal sky, standing on the eternal rock that marked the
lonely grave. How simple and elemental she seemed to him sitting in the
roar and smash of this huge factory where they were turning out lives by
machinery! She called to him, to all that was best in him. Her soul,
how clear and clean it was, like a mountain stream. Yes, he was glad he
had not soiled it. Yes, he must live up to her faith in him. Perhaps
there was another life, another world, where all these crooked things
were made straight. He took paper and pen and wrote briefly and simply: