Part 23 (1/2)
”I'll always be glad, no matter what comes.”
”I've got to let you go now--it must be almost three.... And I'm not going to kiss you, even now, dearest--dearest--dearest! I'll say it all night to myself; I'll never use another word----”
”Well, hardly ever,” she amended prettily.
”When we can be married, then you'll let me kiss you. And don't put me off too long!”
He fingered the wheel thoughtfully; why let her out at all? No, he must help protect her now.
”Good night, Jane ... dearest mine.”
”Good-night ... my man.”
His car sliced the friendly night that lay heavy on the hill road. He whirled up the great half circle to the crest far to the east of the cottage, and m.u.f.fled the engine at the highest point. To his left, too far away to be distinguished except as an irregular blackness against the softer gray of the valley behind, lay the black peak of Crenshaw Hill, the fatal shattered entries beyond it, the mourning shacks of Hewintown near it. There was no light in them. Behind was the blur of Shadow Valley, and the endless diminis.h.i.+ng rollers of hills sloping slowly to the salt gulf monotonous miles away. Before him lay Adamsville, almost asleep; the symmetrical criss-cross of lights, like a vast checker-board blending into the far distance, caught his imagination. His heart sang aloud with his own happiness--an emotion so overcoming, that he forced himself to think of lesser topics, to regain mental balance before returning to the rapture of Jane again....
The iron city, an iron checker-board of lights.... The will-less men moved here and there by great hands hidden in the opposing darknesses--by capital's sleek and pudgy paw, by labor's grimed and toil-stained fingers: behind these, moved by the greater mastery of the forces of nature; by the mountain, and the iron grip it embodied; by the touch of the golden G.o.d that was to-day its master. A futile game, for the poor p.a.w.ns ... where one in a thousand became king; and kings.h.i.+p brought no joy, but only division and unrest. The blasted, furnace-punished ore was material for the painful alchemy that made it gold: more than this, the miners themselves, the stooped laborers, the slatternly starved wives, the thin children, the corpses lifted from the ruptured bowels of the hill, to a final scattering in some cheap pine house of decay--all these were part of the horrid modern alchemy that made them gold for his father's sake. That he had ever been a part of it! Well, with Jane his, he was through with the old horrors....
Jane ... with an effort he brought his mind again to the scene before him. The sleeping homes of the iron city, black in the darkness before him! Each of those tiny houses held situations, problems, as complex as that storm that must soon break over the cottage beyond the mining section. They were all asleep, gathering strength for fresh outbreaks of hatred and love.
What if they never woke? What if the sleep became a merciful finality, sponging out the aimless unrest men called life? Who could say which would be better?
For him, his problems simplified, glorified now by what Jane had said to-night, life, with all its zest and joyous restlessness, was infinitely preferable.
He must go on; he must make the complete break with his father, and soon. It was a perilous thing, this going alone; but he knew that he was able to do it, just as he had once roamed alone the hidden reaches of the mountain.
He stood out from his car, to be nearer to the mountain. It was an instinctive action he could not have explained. The soft strength of the soil rose through him; he felt refreshed. It was not only battlefield, but the cause of the struggle; it was the prize to be won by the angry puppets its iron strings pulled here and there. There was no other course he could follow; he felt a calm certainty that the mountain, the great dark mother with its bleeding iron heart of red, understood this, and was wholly in accord with it. The mountain understood it--and a dearer, nearer heart, his from henceforth.
He slept at length peacefully.
Paul Judson pushed the next morning's paper over to Mary without words, his stiff forefinger indicating the part he wished her to read. It was an account of the previous night's meeting, featuring a florid write-up of Pelham's emotional outburst.
She finished it without comment.
Her husband looked at her evenly. ”There has never been any insanity in either side of the family, or I would think Pelham came by this naturally.”
”He isn't a fool, Paul.”
”Where does he think this will end? It's bad enough when we are united against the perpetual unrest of the ignorant mob. But to have my son turn against all that his ancestors fought for!”
Mary watched him thoughtfully. ”You two cannot pull together, Paul. Why not help him get somewhere else?”
”You mean----”
”You mentioned that Governor Tennant wanted to do you a favor, and suggested Pell as mining inspector, or something. Wouldn't that straighten out this situation?”
Paul looked at her doubtfully. ”One of us has to make the break. Of course, he'll make trouble wherever he is. But he is my son. A thing like that might make him behave.”
Finis.h.i.+ng his coffee, he pushed his chair back raspingly over the hardwood floor. Over in the boys' wing he called Ned. ”Will you tell Pelham I would like to speak to him?”