Morning and the glory of it, the grey wash of Eternity; sea-grey and world-grey and sky-grey, all in one great wash with a little whiteness standing for daylight. Beyond the illimitable wash where the sea breaks against the sky is the sun; source of all, strength of all. And there is no sleep to wash out of our eyes before we catch up strength from it, and encouragement. Lately we might have raised the Ajax cry, "In the light, in the light, destroy us," but now we see the little sea-plant of grey-green grow in the east, and we are strong. There is light, or a blight, a greyness out ahead and the deck whitens all awash, and the "old man" shivers in his oilskin coat as he hangs on to a pin in the rail to watch us. The poop is wet and gleaming, wet with the spray of following seas, and as our ship rolls the swash of shipped seas hisses, and her cleanness is as the cleanness of something newly varnished. Once and again as she rolls (the wind now quartering) the scuppers spout geyser-like and gurgle. As she ran like a beaten thing she wallowed a little, dived, scooped up seas and shook them off. And yet the topsail was not conquered.
And now and once again the squalls howled, and we held on, gaining nothing, yet losing nothing. We were blind but obstinate; to have gained something when everything might be lost beneath us gave us grip and courage. Ah, and then, then the great chance came, and as the last great fold of white canvas rose up like a breaking wave we shouted, flung ourselves upon it, and as our bellies (lean by now) held the rest, smothered it and beat its last life out. The thing had been alive; the gods too had blown, and we had been all but dissipated, but now we were conquerors, and the gaskets bound our dead prey to the yard. And the morning was up, a wild and evil-minded waste it flowered in; the music of the storm shrieked like the Valkyries scurrying through grey space. But what cared we, since now she would carry or drag what sail remained, creaseless, resonant, wide-arched and wonderful. The light leapt from crest to crest, and a little pale yellow blossom of blown dawn peeped out of the grey. Like a touch of fire it reanimated our washed and reeling world; we laughed as we dropped down after our three hours' battle with the demons of the air. It was morning; there was coffee and tobacco; our souls were satisfied and satiated with rewarding toil; if Fate was kind there would be neither making nor shortening of sail till the next day. We touched the deck and ran for'ard laughing. We saluted the cook, blinking at the door of his galley. "Good-morning, doctor!" and it was "good-morning!" for we were mostly young.
* * * * *
On the lofty sloping plains of Texas and Kansas the air is often keen at night, even in the summer time. And what it is in winter let train hands on the Texas Pacific declare. But in the warmer season, when northers have ceased to blow, it has an intoxicating, thrilling quality only comparable to the breath of the higher South African veldt. It is good to be alive then, and the glory of the morning is an excellent and moving glory since it wakes one to swift activity and the very joy of being. For long months I had worked upon a ranch in the Southern Panhandle, and now felt healthy energies stirring within me. In Western America the very blood of life is unrest; to remain is difficult; the difficulties of motion are its joys, though hardship and privation be the migrant's life for ever. For me the ever-present prairie grew a little dull; for sheep were sheep always, and there were mountains afar off and strange, bright rivers and the dark, odorous forests of the north. Though my boss was of the order that remains and accumulates wealth he understood when I declared that I must go or die. On the third day hereafter he and an old confederate "Colonel" (discharged as "Full Private" doubtless) and I and a Mexican sheep-herder moved southward towards the railroad. We travelled on horseback and in a two-mule buggy, and with the movement discontent dropped away from me and all was well with the world, even though I knew not what weeks or even days should bring me. That night we camped thirty miles from the ranch and thirty from the little town we called a city, which had grown up in the sand-dunes by the banks of the Texan Colorado. We lighted our scanty fire at sundown. It was a typical camp of the later days upon the high prairie, and a not untypical set of men. Our talk was of horses and steers and sheep and of Virginia, whence our grizzled colonel came, and the Mexican sat and smoked and said nothing, save with his beady, brilliant eyes, as he made his yellow papers into flat cigaritas. And at nine o'clock silence and sleep fell upon us while the mules and horses champed their dry fare beside the buggy. For me the sleep of the just was my due, for I had worked hard that day. Yet I woke suddenly before the dawn, and woke all at once, refreshed and alive. It was still dark and yet I knew it was not properly night, for the time sense in me, measured healthily by refreshment, told me of the passage of time, and I arose from my blankets. As I walked out among the shadows softly my companions made no motion, and the horses whinnied coaxingly, as though I were still the guardian of their provender. The wind was cool, even cold, as it blew from the north, and on every side the vast prairie stretched like a mysterious dark green sea, with here and there a shadow heaving itself out of the infinite level. I walked lightly with a happy sense of detachment and well-being, almost with the feeling of a quiet resurrection.
Elsewhere and in cities one awakes reluctantly; the trumpet of the Angel of the Day is heard with deaf ears; but here in the keen coolness, the vast greenness, the infinite interspace of prairie betwixt city and city, I was awake and keen and cool as dewy grass, and as peaceful as the stars even before the Day blew her horn upon the verge of a far horizon. This was summer, but it was not dawn yet; the year was young even in August because this was night; and I was part of the hour and the year. It was well with the world and well with me as I left the camp and marched snuffing the air like an antelope and with as keen a joy. And as I walked I was aware again that it was not night, for there was a Day-spring in the East, a pale glow like a whitish mirage, and star by star the night departed, till I stayed and looked back to the west and saw the silent waggon under which my sleeping comrade still lay unconscious of the hour. And slowly, very slowly the Glory of the Morning broke out of bondage and covered the glory of the night until the pallor of the new-born day was fine pale gold, and the gold was under-edged with rose, and the rose grew insistently and shot upward like a great corona upon the eclipsing earth. And as I stood, balancing lightly upon my light feet, bathed with dew, I moved my lips and greeted Day without conscious words, being even as my own ancestor, who perhaps had no words of greeting. And so upon that solitude the day was born like a new miracle with only one visible worshipper, and the sun rose up like a star and was then a convexed line of fire, and presently it ate a little into the prairie; and the world was light and rose and green and very near me, so that I sighed a little and then walked back briskly to the camp and raised a loud shout, not to the sun, but to my fellow-men. For the Glory had departed and there was the work of the day to be done.
THE END
Colston & Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh.