“And I’ll be going now,” Douglas added. “I’m keeping her waiting. She’s down the road, Steve—wouldn’t walk with me. Take care of yourself—and of her. So long.”
Before Steve or Uncle Eb could reply he was out of the house. Across the road he went, pausing a moment to beckon to the stubborn little red-haired figure which now, walking very slowly, was approaching from the curve. She made no answering signal, gave no sign that she saw him. Climbing over the stone wall beyond, he marched away across-lots, face set stiffly toward the frowning wall of Dickie Barre and the invisible Clove Road.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MOVING FINGER WRITES
One by one the October days and nights stole in from the nebulous realm of To-morrow and, like pearls magically taking form on an enchanted thread of gold, added themselves to the memory-gems of Yesterday. Each morning found a new jewel vaguely appearing out of the wan dawn-light; every passing hour imperceptibly shaped the growing form; each rising moon looked down on the completely rounded treasure, nestling beside its mates which had come before. No two were quite alike, for each was tinted with its own delicate hues—the flush of a rosy sunrise, the blue of the sky and the gray of the clouds, the leaden tinge of rain, the sombre shadows of dusk, the brilliant gleams of the stars. Yet no one of them was all-sufficient; it was the blending, the intermingling, of all of them that produced, or would produce, the perfect circle.
And as the unseen hand of their Maker placed on each its own peculiar tints, so the gentle fingers of Mother Nature also worked unceasingly on the mantle she had worn since the springtime, weaving into its monotone new and ever-changing touches of color. This was her play-day, this season between the summer and the snow; and with scarlet and crimson, with yellow and cream, with the palest of green and the rustiest brown, she transformed her emerald cloak into a gay robe on which the dusky evergreens, hitherto merged into the sweeping expanse of verdure, now stood out bold and clear. Too, by night she painted dingy house-roofs and rickety wagons and all the other ugly man-made things—painted them gray-white with frost, which the new sun quickly blackened and sent creeping down the shingles to drip gently from the eaves of a morning. And as that sun mounted the Wall and rolled its warmth over into the Traps below, she coyly loosed white clouds of mist to go drifting along over the new colors she had made in the dark hours, presently to draw them aside and reveal to human eyes the glory of her handiwork.
Yet it was love’s labor lost, this wondrous wizardry of hers—or almost lost. Of all the eyes which daily opened in the Traps, few gave more than a casual glance to all the enchantment wrought around them. Most of those eyes turned inward upon the stomachs of their owners, seeing only the “pannicakes” and gravy, the “buttermilk pop” and other components of breakfast; or they looked at pigs and hens and cows. Few indeed were those who lifted up their thoughts to the gorgeous hills surrounding them, and fewer still those who, glimpsing what lay before them, were moved to admire for even a passing minute. In the flaming woods they visioned only animals and birds to be killed, millstones to be rifted, hardwood to be “mined” into charcoal, hoops to be shaved, and secret coverts where nameless industry might be carried on in stealth.
But there were two in the Traps who saw. At their doorways in the morning they looked long at the limited sections of the panorama which were visible from their respective abodes, noting the added touches of color laid on during the silent hours of sleep. Through the day, as they traversed the byways on self-imposed missions, they paused often to gaze at some striking bit of natural beauty near at hand or to dwell upon the vistas opening out around them at some higher point. In the twilight they sat somewhere in silent solitude, watching the deepening of the dusk and the shy appearance of the first night stars in the darkening blue. These two were a blond-haired man and a red-haired girl, who lived in little houses on the road leading to the Clove.
Yet, though they looked on the same things, though their souls were lifted up in the same way, though they dwelt not far apart and their minds turned toward each other many a time as the tinted days glided away, they saw nothing of each other. The little bare feet and the sturdy booted feet never turned into the same path. They came and went, they paused and passed on, they traveled open road and faint trail—but never together. Between them stood a wall: a cold, stony, stubborn wall which had suddenly thrust itself up out of the ground as if conjured by the wand of an old-time magician. And on that side of the wall facing the man were graven words spoken by the girl:
“I don’t want to walk with you.”
On the other side—the side which the girl saw—the wall bore other words: malicious words, evil words, which yet had the ring of truth: words spoken not by the man, but about the man, by others. And beside those words burned a picture which made her writhe and set her teeth into a red lip—a picture of herself held unresisting in that man’s arms, beside the plashing Coxing Kill. And atop that wall, leering down at both of them alike, squatted the ugly little demon who has wrecked many a life and will wreck many more: Pride.