The Master-Knot of Human Fate Part 4

She shrank a little, and her eyes looked far away, past the gateway.

"Some of the things you mention; very much that I had not encouraged you more to go on with your work, but mainly--"

"Well, mainly?"

She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and answered evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is that when I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember all those wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so wise. The only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for cooking without sugar, or spice, or fruit."

VI

Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

SCOTT.

It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, was chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room was full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, with an attempt at gayety.

Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If only I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England, didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do, please give me the smaller box; I am sure it has hair-pins and needles and darning-cotton in it."

Adam laughed. "We will give them to each other," he said, "and perhaps you'll find some stockings in your box, if there is no box in your stockings. We can dream of their contents all night, and--who knows?--we may have a merry Christmas, after all."

Robin hardly knew the place next morning. Adam had risen early and decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly glistened. "I wish I knew how to thank him," she said.

"Do you like it?" he said, as he came in. "I was afraid I should waken you putting it up."

"Like it!" she answered, "Why, Adam, it is beautiful. You are just an ideal Santa Claus."

When they had finished their breakfast they went out and looked at the boxes.

"You must open yours first," she said; "it's so big I know it doesn't contain anything nice, so we would better save mine till the last, and then I can divide with you. What do you think it is? You shall have three guesses."

"It might be a piano from its size," he ventured.

"No," she said decidedly. "It's not the right shape."

"Or perhaps it's a feather-bed; I don't know of anything I want less."

"It's too large for that; now guess, really."

"As a matter of fact, I expect it is mining machinery, which will be about as much use as another chimney; but here goes to find out." He brought his hatchet down vigorously between the boards at one end, where a slight crevice promised some leeway.

"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute treasures!"

He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which he removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as if they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were no more on earth to draw. When the top of the box was finally off, and a quant.i.ty of papers removed, they gave a simultaneous cry of delight.

The box was full of books. They took them out, one at a time, with little exclamations of pleasure, as an old friend came to light.

Sitting down on the ground they piled the books about them on the papers, and opening favorites here and there read to each other and themselves till long after noon. It was really a fine library, well chosen, covering a wide range of subjects and including an encyclopaedia and an unusually fine edition of Shakespeare.

"Isn't it the most beautiful Christmas present you can imagine, Adam?"

she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because, in the old slang, you 'want the earth.'"

"But we haven't even opened your box," he said.

"I don't want to," she answered slowly. "Somehow I feel as if we would better stop now and let well enough alone. Let us enjoy this awhile.

Perhaps the other box may spoil this one, or at least the day."

Adam laughed with good-natured tolerance. "How absurd!" he said. "Let us see what there is. You know you said yours would be the nicest; besides, if it contains sawdust and last year's almanacs, I shall have to divide with you, and we may quarrel over the Shakespeare." He opened the box while she stood watching him with a strange unwillingness. It had been labeled, "This Side Up," and on the very top there was a wooden case. He put it in Robin's arms, and she opened it with trembling fingers. She replaced the broken strings, adjusted the bridge, tucked the violin under her chin, tuned it, and straightway escaped from every sorry care of earth.

Adam went on unpacking the box. It contained chiefly materials for writing,--all the paraphernalia that the fastidious student requires.

There were many note-books, and at the bottom a large, handsomely inlaid writing-desk. The name on the cover made him start and call her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed the vibrating wood with sudden feeling.

"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's violins, do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you open the desk?"

He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page written, and read:--

"Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my effects to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena convinces me that I may have been in error, and that the cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within a few months I shall burn this book, and confess that I should be written down an a.s.s, or turn to it to prove myself a prophet. From the eyrie I have chosen I expect to be able to write the story of the coming deluge. It will be of great value to posterity to have a calm, scientific account, quite free from any tinge of superst.i.tion or religion. I have to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies of my calculations, with references to former inundations, and reasons for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest at this time. All geologists agree that--"

Here the journal terminated abruptly.

Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or possibly she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if it were the napkin over the face of the dead.

"It is not to the wise that G.o.d has revealed himself," she said softly. "Where is the hand that wrote this? You must finish it, Adam.

Here are the blank pages waiting for such a chapter as was never written on earth."

But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is all true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked away with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk; he neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything, and while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he had never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a rescue.

Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its liquid notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine, brus.h.i.+ng its fingers across his heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She played for a long time, and when she ceased, in some strange way he felt that he was comforted.

VII

The World is too much with us; late and soon Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.

Great G.o.d! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-- So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

WORDSWORTH.

They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly.

The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of G.o.d in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on earth.

She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and she answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend, that the souls on other planets call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What made it so sorrowful, Adam?"