The old man’s farewell was characteristically short. He gave each a straight look, a lift of the walrus mustache, a paralyzing handshake. Then——
“Luck to ye! G’yapalong!”
The wagon rolled away.
With a sigh and a smile, Douglas and Marion turned their faces eastward. Steadily they swung along the hummocky track, climbing upward, ever upward, by easy grade or steep slant, toward the Gap a mile away. From time to time they glanced at each other, but they spoke no word. The only sounds were the flapping of frozen leaves still adhering to cold boughs, the crunch of snow under heel, the occasional bay of a far-off hound.
So they came to the Jaws of the Traps, where the road sneaked between towering ledges and then pitched down in swift-dropping zigzags to the low hills of the Beyond. Out before them stretched a snowy panorama through which, black and slow, meandered the serpentine Wallkill. Away to the east, hidden behind intervening hills, flowed the wide Hudson. Far to the south, that river rolled past the vast city of New York, to be swallowed by the waiting ocean. But much nearer—only six miles off—stood out clearly a little town where lived clergymen, and where a wedding ring could be bought; the first town on their outward way: New Paltz.
There between the crags they halted, poising on the brink between the Traps and the World, the hard old life and the nebulous new. Still they said nothing. His gaze dwelt on her, and hers on that town. Something counseled him to keep silence.
Then into the stillness came a sound from the north: a sound new to the man: a yapping confusion of noise suggesting the breathless chorus of a pack of hard-running dogs. It grew in volume until it became like the strident creak and groan of many rickety, unoiled wagons, full of discordant undertones and overnotes. Yet it was not on the ground, but in the air, somewhere beyond the northern cliff which blocked the view.
“Geese!” cried Marion. “I wondered why we hadn’t heard some. They’re late. But they’re goin’ fast now. The lakes up north are froze, and winter’s comin’ close. There they are!”
High up, a long wedge slid across the sky. Its lines wavered, bent, but never broke. Along them winked an unceasing quiver of strong-beating wings; from them fell the clamorous medley of voices old and young, deep and shrill. Straight as their wild instinct could guide them, straight as the man and the maiden below would speed down the river when they should reach the railroad, the birds were flying south.
“Goin’ south—and so are we,” the girl softly echoed his own thought. And they turned their eyes again to the roofs six miles away.