Part 12 (2/2)

”I am not going to get married, Randy.”

”Well, of course you will, and I shall marry and be a lawyer like my father, and perhaps I'll go to Congress.”

Later he had a leaning towards the ministry. ”If I preached I could make the world better, Becky.”

That was the time when she had come down for Hallowe'en, and it was on Sunday evening that they had talked it over in the Bird Room at Huntersfield. There had been a smouldering fire on the wide hearth, and the Trumpeter Swan had stared down at them with s.h.i.+ning eyes. They had been to church that morning and the text had been, ”The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

”I want to make the world better, Becky,”

Randy had said in the still twilight, and Becky had answered in an awed tone, ”It would be so splendid to see you in the pulpit, Randy, wearing a gown like Dr. Hodge.”

But the pulpit to Randy had meant more than that. And the next day when they walked through the deserted mill town, he had said, ”Everybody is dead who lived here, and once they were alive like us.”

She had s.h.i.+vered, ”I don't like to think of it.”

”It's a thing we've all got to think of. I like to remember that Thomas Jefferson came riding through and stopped at the mill and talked to the miller.”

”How dreadful to know that they are--dead.”

”Mother says that men like Jefferson never die. Their souls go marching on.”

The stream which ground the county's corn was at their feet. ”But what about the miller?” Becky had asked; ”does his soul march, too?”

Randy, with the burden of yesterday's sermon upon him, hoped that the miller was saved.

He smiled now as he thought of the rigidness of his boyish theology.

To him in those days Heaven was Heaven and h.e.l.l was h.e.l.l.

The years at school had brought doubt--apostasy. Then on the fields of France, Randy's G.o.d had come back to him--the Christ who bound up wounds, who gave a cup of cold water, who fought with flaming sword against the battalions of brutality, who led up and up that white company who gave their lives for a glorious Cause. Here, indeed, was a G.o.d of righteousness and of justice, of tenderness and purity. To other men than Randy, Christ had in a very personal and specific sense been born across the sea.

It was in France, too, that the dream had come to him of a future of creative purpose. He had always wanted to write. Looking back over his University days, he was aware of a formative process which had led towards this end. It was there he had communed with the spirit of a tragic muse. There had been all the traditions of Poe and his tempestuous youth--and Randy, pa.s.sing the door which had once opened and closed on that dark figure, had felt the thrill of a living personality--of one who spoke still in lines of ineffable beauty--”_Banners yellow, glorious, golden. On its roof did float and flow----_” and again ”_A dirge for her the doubly dead, in that she died so young----_” with the gayety and gloom and grandeur of those chiming, rhyming, tolling bells--”_Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme----_” and that ”_grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly sh.o.r.e----_”

”Do you think I could write?” Randy had asked one of his teachers, coming verse-saturated to the question.

The man had looked at him with somber eyes. ”You have an ear for it--and an eye---- But genius pays a price.”

”What do you mean?”

”It shows its heart to the world, dissects its sacred thoughts, has no secrets----”

”But think of leaving a thing behind you like--'To Helen----'”

”Do you think the knowledge that he had written a few bits of incomparable verse helped Poe to live? If he had invented a pill or a headache powder, he would have slept on down and have dined from gold dishes.”

”I'd rather write 'Ulalume' than dine from gold dishes.”

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