Chapter XXIII: The End

"It is this way," said Thaddeus, "to speak from a--a--personal standpoint. If Morgan Map goes to the cemetery I shall not wait for my mail, but go and--a--accidentally interrupt. If he goes north, the other man may go there, if he chooses. I shall wait for my mail."

"Your standpoint!" said Mr. Paulus, heavily. "Well--speakin' from young Map's, what might he want in the cemetery? Speakin' from mine, I'd rather he'd go there and stay."

"My niece Helen is at present planting flowers in the cemetery--in point of fact, roots."

Mr. Paulus was aroused. "They might do some buttin'--think?"

"Gals! Shucks!" The stage-driver climbed back to his seat and drove away. Mr. Paulus looked after him, musingly.

"Willard Sickles," he said, "never would have nothin' to do with women. He was born drivin' mails!"

"Pun?" asked Thaddeus, delicately, with his eyes on the Four Corners. "Pun, Peter?"

"Hey?" Mr. Paulus was still thoughtful--abstracted. "Lonesome and disgusted. Born so. It's his nature."

The two at the Four Corners separated. Morgan went north, Gard towards the cemetery.

"I thought they might do some buttin'," said Mr. Paulus, as one grown used to disappointment, and went in with his mail-bags.

Sundry villagers appeared, drifting slowly to the focus of the post-office. Thaddeus took off his glasses and put them with precision into their case.

"I wonder if Pete intended a pun? Probably not. Conversation is subject to accidents. It is a pity that conversation is not--not more secure."

* * * * *

Gard entered the cemetery-gate and went along the shrub-bordered path.

"Every man is the dungeon of himself, but there is a key that unlocks mine."

He stepped from the path into the grass, and Helen's apron was full of a mess of brown, earthy roots. She started and cried out, and held up both hands to him, with the trowel in one of them.

"I don't like my life, Nellie. Won't you let me into yours?" And she dropped the trowel and said, "Oh--why, yes," in a tone that sounded like an after-climax, and Gard took apron, yellow head, and all into his arms, and scattered the roots beside Widow Bourn's placid grave and Simon's stone, on which was graven insistently, "Remember Me." A bluebird warbled and cooed to himself on the fence and paid no attention. The bold head of Windless Mountain glimmered in the sun, that swung low and near it. Presently the shadow of Windless would sweep over Hagar with noiseless rush, with silence, or the sleepy twittering of day-birds.

"It was a long way here, Nellie. I went nearly to the other end of everything to find the path."

"Do you really love me? How long?"

"Long before I knew it. Do you mean how long am I going to?"

"No, I don't. Look, Gard! These will be blue violets when they grow. They come from behind the church, and mother liked them. But you belong to me now, and you mustn't stay here. It's cold under the hemlocks. You must come out in the sun."

They went back along the path to the gate. Over the fence in his garden the minister was planting peas, arranging them according to some theory of fitness, perhaps allegorically, and humming a hymn out of tune. Knowing that a tune was a spiritual mystery which Providence did not permit him ever thoroughly to penetrate, he only sang when he thought himself alone, and in a subdued murmur. The weather-vane of the militant church pointed southwest at Windless Mountain, which meant always a benevolent opinion about the weather. The sun slipped behind the mountain, and the shadow of Windless flowed over Hagar; over Rachel standing at the lilac gate, waiting for Helen, and liking the impersonal peace of the hour; over Thaddeus stepping up the hill from the post-office, and formulating certain reflections on the use and abuse of accident in the practice of conversation; over Helen and Gard.

"You must learn all about Hagar, Gard. That's the minister. He always pats his peas on the head when he plants them. And that's Windless."

"Is that Windless? He looks like a gentleman. Let's call the minister and let him pat us on the head, show him it's a world of kisses so he'll know what the trouble is, and tell him to ring the bell to-morrow."

"Nonsense. Besides, if you're going to do that, I'd rather only Windless saw."

"You'll be famous and glorious, won't you? And I'll be proud--"

"Proud in a tower?"

"Oh, anywhere. Properly proud like Windless. But we'll like best to be in Hagar, because that will be home."

"I'll be something, or try to be, if you want it. I'm a tired soldier now, Nellie, on sick leave. I told the adjutant I was in love, too, but he wouldn't put it in the permit. Let's go home."

They went up past the militant church, and Thaddeus and Rachel waited, smiling, at the gate under the lilacs. Simon's epitaph and the fading mountain were left facing each other across the dusk. In any issue between them, the dignity of law and time seemed to be with the mountain as against the personal claim, yet one did not come to Hagar to learn among its twilights that humanity was degenerate nature, or that the instinct of its insistent identity was lawless; it might be an amendment in the process of making.

"They're coming," said Thaddeus. "The older I grow, Mrs. Mavering, the more I perceive a certain dexterity in the--in fact, in event; a shell now, for instance, skilfully exploded."

Rachel only smiled and threw open the gate.

I heard a pilgrim near a temple gate
Crying, "I have no fear if thou art Fate;

Morn, eve, and noon, if I look up to thee,
Wilt thou at night look down, remembering me?

Nay, then, my sins so great, my service small"--
So prayed he at the gate--"forget them all;

Of claims and rights a load the while I keep,
How in thy nights, O God, to smile and sleep?"

"Pilgrim," I said, "hath He, who toils the while,
Bade thee, of burdens free, now sleep and smile?

Who built the hills on high and laid the sea,
Set in thy heart that cry, 'Remember me.'"

From _Persian Moralities_.

THE END

_American Contemporary Novels_

LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER

BY BASIL KING

_This is the tenth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be published during 1901._

"The new volume in the American Novel Series, which will, we doubt not, more than justify that undertaking in the eyes of American readers. Mr. King has a firm grasp of character; ... he handles dialogue with epigrammatic felicity, and he has something to say.... Mr. King's study of his heroine is an admirable performance.... A novel worthy of the notice of all thinking and observing Americans. Its qualities as a story are deepened by its meaning as a study of temperament and changing social conditions."--Richard Henry Stoddard in _New York Mail and Express_.

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_Comments from various reviewers_:

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_This is the second of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be published during 1901._

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MARTIN BROOK

BY MORGAN BATES

_This is the third of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be published during 1901._

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_Comments from various reviewers_:

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"As good as it is charming."
"A story of depth, color, and action."
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A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES

BY GERALDINE ANTHONY

_This is the fourth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be published during 1901._

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DAYS LIKE THESE

BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND

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WESTERFELT

By WILL N. HARBEN

_This is the sixth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be published during 1901._

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* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Maintained original spelling and punctuation of the dialect.
Maintained original hyphenation.
Obvious printer errors have been corrected.