“And there she comes!” cries he.
’Twas Judith on the Whisper Cove road.
“You’ll wish me luck, Dannie?” says he, rising. “I’ll catch her on the way. I’ll tell her that I love her. I can wait no longer. Wish me luck!” says he. “Wish me luck!”
I took his hand.
“Wish me luck!” he repeated.
“I wish you luck,” says I.
“Thanks,” says he: and was off.
I lied in this way because I would not have Judith know that I grieved for her, lest she suffer, in days to come, for my disappointment....
I was faint and very thirsty, I recall: I wished that I 280 might drink from a brook of snow-water. ’Twas Calling Brook I visualized, which flows from the melting ice of cold, dark crevices, musically falling, beneath a canopy of springing leaves, to the waters of Sister Bight. I wished to drink from Calling Brook, and to lie down, here alone and high above the sea, and to sleep, without dreaming, for a long, long time. I lay me down on the gray moss. I did not think of Judith and John Cather. I had forgotten them: I was numb to the passion and affairs of life. I suffered no agony of any sort; ’twas as though I had newly emerged from unconsciousness––the survivor of some natural catastrophe, fallen by act of God, conveying no blame to me––a survivor upon whom there still lingered a beneficent stupor of body. Presently I discovered myself in a new world, with which, thinks I, brisking up, I must become familiar, having no unmanly regret, but a courageous heart to fare through the maze of it; and like a curious child I peered about upon this strange habitation. Near by there was a gray, weathered stone in the moss: I reached to possess it––and was amazed to find that my hand neither overshot nor fell short, but accurately performed its service. I cast the stone towards heaven: ’twas a surprise to see it fall earthward in obedience to some law I could not in my daze define––some law I had with impatient labor, long, long ago, made sure I understood and would remember. I looked away to sea, stared into the sky, surveyed the hills: ’twas the self-same world I had known, constituted of the same materials, cohering in the self-same way, obedient to the self-same laws, 281 fashioned and adorned the same as it had been. ’Twas the self-same world of sea and sky and rock, wherein I had so long dwelt––a world familiar to my feet and eyes and heart’s experience: a world of tree-clad, greening hills, of known paths, of children’s shouting and the chirp and song of spring-time. But there had come a change upon its spirit: nay! thinks I, quite proud of the conceit, its spirit had departed––the thing had died to me, and was become without meaning, an inimical mystery. Then I felt the nerves of my soul tingle with awakening: then I suffered very much.