For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever of toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a step forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark races might seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion and disorder and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again with all from which they had been exiled.
“Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets, and sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir, breakfast’s on the table.’ Say, it’s great, and we’re in it!”
David smiled. “Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee is not skin and bone.”
Lacey mopped his forehead. “Well, I’ve put on a layer or two since the relief. It’s being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was intended for the ‘stricken field.’ Poetry and the hearth-stone was my real vocation—and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with,” he added with a chuckle.
David laughed and tapped his arm. “That is an old story now, thy cowardice. Thee should be more original.
“It’s worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me as you used to do. It’s like old times—the oldest, first times. You’ve changed a lot, Saadat.”
“Not in anything that matters, I hope.”
“Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it’s the same as it ever was, only more so. It isn’t that, for you are you. But you’ve had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you could do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto you; and it’s left its mark.”
“Am I grown so different?”
Lacey’s face shone under the look that was turned towards him. “Say, Saadat, you’re the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and thou. I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I’m at home with myself.”