That was not true. Then why did he come? There is no answer. He himself probably did not know. The mourners returning saw him sitting there still. He sat there for hours, until evening, utterly oblivious. Then he rose, crossed the town and disappeared up the path to Throne Rock.
Late that night the furnace men at No. 4, deaf as furnace men by habit are to the uproar of the smelting process, looked at one another saying, “What was that?”
It was a sound of ribald laughter off the mountain, home downward by the wind.
An old man spoke, one who stood in an open shirt, grey hair on his chest, stray grey curls below the edge of his skull cap, alight in the furnace glow.
“That’s Enoch,” he said, “crowing over Aaron.”
They listened. The laugh was not repeated. But as they turned away, letting down their breath, another sound much worse came down the wind and caused their skins to creep.
That was Enoch screaming.
XI
John Breakspeare sat on the veranda of Lycoming House thinking of this situation and of what he should do. His father’s old friends had pursued him with offers of hospitality, and as he had to choose, he chose that of Thaddeus, for two reasons. One was that he liked Thaddeus extravagantly; the other was that living at the inn entailed no social amenities. He was by no means a solitary person. Naturally he was gregarious. But for the first time in his life he wished to be let alone, and that great friendly hulk dozing in the hickory chair at the end of the bar was the only person who had no meddling curiosity and tactfully ignored his existence.