"Go easy for the first two or three miles, Parson; forty-five miles is a pretty good walk for any fellow who ain't an old-timer. You're making a mistake not waiting, for the dogs will be back here with the doctor, even if he has to stay a day or two with your partner; but if you're stuck on going, I guess I ain't got any string on you."
"Good-bye," said John, and clambered down the river-bank to the ice.
The day had been more than usually warm, the air unusually clear; the evening frost had come early.
As Berwick left White Horse it was seven, and already the crust had formed. He had food in his pockets, and the air brought him stimulation. Anxiety steeled his muscles. Away he strode.
He passed from the curving river, and came again to the frozen stretch of Lake Le Berge. The light of day was gone; the stars gleamed and danced, and shed their glamour over the hills. And what dignity they held! Greece had risen and gone to decay: Cæsar had striven after his great ambition: Pharaoh had succeeded Pharaoh: while those hills had slept as they now were sleeping.
The influence of his environment closed upon John Berwick. The psychic force of the weird Northland was upon him. Through his mind passed the orthodox story of creation; and, again and again, as he walked, he weighed the various arguments of the agnostic. He looked upon the limestone masses to the east, and mused upon the ways of Nature, which caused the destruction of myriads of shell-fish to upbuild the marble of the palace. He pictured the diamond in the atomic theory of matter—a mass of pulsating atoms oscillating within magnetic bonds—even as the stars swing through space, guided by the influence which is called gravitation. Was not this known movement of the heavenly bodies similar to the theoretic movement of the atom?
A feeling of apprehension grew in John Berwick; faster and faster he walked. Life's greatest problems had for years occupied his mind. He looked about him and into the heavens. Before his fevered eyes the stars shimmered and grew in shape: the earth beneath him dwindled and melted, till it was but a star and he felt its rush through space. He realized the centrifugal force that would throw the world out of its orbit; he felt the counteracting restraint; system joined to system, swinging, circling, driving; the universe grew about him; suns and stars were but atoms in a component whole; the whole formed into Presence—Love! God!
It came to him as a mighty magnificent discovery.
He must hurry to tell Frank Corte!