“Twelve of them. Ten pounds each. All yours. We collected sixty pounds in the office and the firm doubled it. And now you’re going to eternal sunshine, to blue skies, to a land where people are merry and sing the whole day long. You’ve escaped the slimy clutch of commerce. Gad! I envy you!”
“Do you really, sir?”
“Yes. I wanted to live in Italy, Greece, Spain; to roam, to be a vagabond, to be free. But I married, had children, became a slave chained to the oar. One thing though,—my boys will never be square pegs in round holes. They’ll have the chance I never had.”
“Perhaps it’s not too late.”
“No, perhaps not. Perhaps some day I’ll join you down there. Perhaps when I get things settled, I’ll live under those careless skies where living is rapture. I’ll get back by own soul. I’ll write that book, I’ve tried all my life to write. Perhaps ... it’s my dream, my dream....”
Mr. Ainger turned abruptly and went out, leaving Hugh staring incredulously at the counterpane of notes that covered his bed.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
1.
PINES packed the vast valley, climbing raggedly to the pale grey peaks. Sometimes the mountains swooped down in gulch and butte of fantastic beauty. The pines were pale green in the sunshine, the soil strangely red. There was a curious dryness, a hard brilliance about it all.
As Hugh looked from the train window he had a feeling of home-coming. It was as if his ancestors had lived in this land; as if in no other could he thrive so well.