Harry stood, shivering. “I wanted to end it. It would have been so easy, and all over so soon,” he murmured.
“And you would die a coward, and so add one more crime to the first. You’d shirk a duty, and desert those who need you. You’d leave me in the lurch, and those women dependent on me––wake up––”
“I’m awake. Let’s go away.” Harry put his hand to his forehead and wiped away the cold drops that stood out like glistening beads of blood in the red light of the torch.
Larry grieved for him, in spite of the harshness of his words and tone, and taking him by the elbow, he led him kindly back into the passage.
“Don’t trouble about me now,” Harry said at last. “You’ve given me a thought to clutch to––if you really do need me––if I could believe it.”
“Well, you may! Didn’t you say you’d do for me more than sons do for their fathers? I ask you to do just that for me. Live for me. It’s a hard thing to ask of you, for, as you say, the other would be easier, but it’s a coward’s way. Don’t let it tempt you. Stand to your guns like a man, and if the time comes and you can’t see things differently, go back and make your confession and die the death––as a brave man should. Meantime, live to some purpose and do it cheerfully.” Larry paused. His words sank in, as he meant they should. He guided Harry slowly back to the place from which they had diverged, his arm across the younger man’s shoulder.
“Now I’ve more to show you. When I saw what I had 243 done, I set myself to find another vein, and see this large room? I groveled all about here, this way and that. A year of this, see. It took patience, and in the meantime I went out into the world––as far as San Francisco, and wasted a year or more; then back I came.
“I tell you there is a lure in the gold, and the mountains are powers of peace to a man. It seemed there was no other place where I could rest in peace of mind. The longing for my son was on me,––but the war still raged, and I had no mind for that,––yet I was glad my boy was taking his part in the world out of which I had dropped. For one thing it seemed as if he were more my own than if he lived in Leauvite on the banker’s bounty. I would not go back there and meet the contempt of Peter Craigmile, for he never could forget that I had taken his sister out of hand, and she gone––man––it was all too sad. How did I know how my son had been taught to think on me? I could not go back when I would.
“His name was Richard––my boy’s. If he came alive from the army I do not know,––See? Here is where I found another vein, and I have followed it on there to the end of this other branch of the passage, and not exhausted it yet. Here’s maybe another twenty years’ work for some man. Now, wasn’t it a great work for one man alone, to tunnel through that rock to the fall? No one man needs all that wealth. I’ve often thought of Ireland and the poverty we left there. If I had my boy to hearten me, I could do something for them now. We’ll go back and sleep, for it’s the trail for me to-morrow, and to go and come quickly, before the snow falls. Come!”
They returned in silence to the shed. The torch had 244 burned well down into the clay handle, and Larry Kildene extinguished the last sparks before they crept through the fodder to their room in the shed. The fire of logs was almost out, and the place growing cold.