August First Read online

Hecould not marry the girl if she did not love him. His cousin was heirto his property; he decided to disappear and let them think he wasdead, and so leave the two people whom he loved to be happy andprosperous without him. He did that. Two or three people had to knowto arrange things, and Sir Archibald Graye, of Toronto, was one, butotherwise he simply dropped out of life and buried himself in Canadianforests, and then, just as he was growing hungry for some things hecould not get in the forest, my uncle came along and offered him whathe wanted.

  "But how could you?" I asked him. "You're a gentleman; how could youmake yourself a servant, and build a wall between yourself and nicepeople?"

  Robin smiled at me in a shadowy, gentle way he has. "Those walls are asmall matter of dust, lassie," he said. "A real man blows on them andthey're tumbling. And service is what we're here for. And all peopleare nice people, you'll find." And when, still unresigned, I saidmore, he went on, very kindly, a little amused it seemed. "Why shouldit be more important for me to be happy than for those two? I hopethey're happy," he spoke wistfully. "The lad was a genius, but a wildlad too," and he looked thoughtful. "Anyhow, it was for me to decide,you see, and a man couldn't decide ungenerously. That would be to tieone's self to a gnawing beast, which is what is like the memory of yourown evil deed. Take my word for it, lassie, there was no other way."

  "It seems all exaggerated," I threw at him; "there was no sense in yourgiving up your home and traditions and associations--it wasunreasonable, fantastic! And to those two who had taken away yourhappiness anyhow."

  I wish you could have heard how quietly and naturally RobertHalarkenden answered me. He considered a moment first, in his Scotchway, and then he said: "Do not you see, lassie, that's where it wassimple, verra simple. Houses and lands and a place in the world aresmall affairs after love, and mine was come to shipwreck. So it seemedto me I'd try living free of the care of possessions. I'd try the oldrule, that a man to find his life must lay it down. It was verrasimple, as I'm telling you, once I'd got the fancy for it. Laying downa life is not such a hard business; it's only to make up your mind.And I did indeed find life in doing it, I was care-free as few are inthose forest years."

  I think you would have agreed with me, Mr. McBirney, that themiddle-aged, lined face of my uncle's gardener was beautiful as he saidthose things. "Why did you leave the forest?" I asked him then; youmay believe I'd forgotten about my bones by now.

  "Ah, you'll find it grows irksome to be coddling one's own soulindefinitely," he confided to me with the pretty gentleness whichbreaks through his Scotch manner once in a while. "One gets tired ofone's self, the spoiled body. I hungered to do something for somebodybesides Robert Halarkenden. I'd taken charge of a lad withtuberculosis one summer up there, and I'd cured him, and I had athought I could do the same for other lads. I wanted to get near acity to have that chance. I've been doing it here," and then he drewback into his Scotchness and was suddenly cold and reserved. But Iknew that was shyness, and because he had spoken of his secret gooddeeds and was uncomfortable.

  So I was not frozen. "You have!" I pounced on him. And I made himtell me how, besides his unending gardening, besides his limitlessreading, he has been, all these years, working in the city in his fewspare hours, spending himself and his wages--wages!--and helping,healing, giving all the time--like you----

  I felt the most torturing envy of my life as I listened to that. _I_wanted to be generous and wonderful and self-forgetting, and have agreat, free heart "of spirit, fire, and dew." _I_ wanted the somethingin me that made that still radiance of Robert Halarkenden's eyes. Yousee? "I"--always "I." That's the way I'm made. Utterly selfish. Ican't even see heavenliness but I want to snatch it for myself. Robinnever thought once that he was getting heavenliness--he only thoughtthat he was giving help. Different from me. And all these years thatI have been prancing around his garden of delight in two hundred dollarfrocks--oh lots of them, for I'm rich and extravagant and I buy thingsbecause they're pretty and not because I need them--all these years hehas been saving most of his seventy-five dollars a month, and gettingsick children sent south, and never mentioning it. Why, I own a placesouth. I'm not such a beast but that--well, very likely I am abeast--I don't know. Anyhow, I've consistently lived the life of aselfish butterfly. And I cling to it. Despise me if you will. I do.I like my pretty clothes and my car, and how I do love my twosaddle-horses! And I like dancing, too--I turn into a bird in thetree-tops when I dance, with not a care, not a responsibility. I don'twant to give all that up. Have I got to? Have I _got_ to "lay down mylife" to find it? For, somehow, cling as I will to all these things,something is pushing, pushing back of them, stronger than them. Youstarted it. I want the big things now--I want to be worth while. Butyet clothes and gayety and horses and automobiles--I'm glued tight inthat round. I don't believe I can tear loose. I don't believe I wantto. Do you see--I'm in torment. And--silly idiot that I am--it's notfor me to decide anything. I'm turning into a ton of stone--I'll be ahorrible unhuman monster and have to give it all up and have nothing inreturn. Soon I'll lay down my life and _not_ find it. I won't. I'llpull the trigger. Will I? Do you see how I vacillate and shiver andboil? This is my soul I'm pouring out to you. I hope you don't mindhot liquids. What you wrote about the actor made me sit still a wholehalf-hour without stirring a finger, with your letter in my hands. Itwas glorious--there's no question. You meant it to inspire me. But hehad a job. I haven't. Back to me again, you see--unending me. Do youknow about the man who used to say "Now let's go into the garden andtalk about me"?

  In any case, thank you for telling me that story. I'm glad to knowthat there are people like that--several of them. I know you and Robinanyhow, but the actor makes the world seem fuller of courage andworth-whileness. I wish a little of it would leak into--oh, _me_again. _Me_ is getting "irksome," as Robin said. Remember to tell methe boy's name.

  Yours gratefully if unsatisfactorily, AUGUST FIRST.

  P. S.--Robert Halarkenden isn't his real name. It's his grandmother'sfather's name, and Welsh. I don't know the real one.

  P. S. No. 2. If it isn't inconsistent, and if you think I'm worthwhile, you might pray just a scrap too. That I may get to be like youand Robin.

  P. S. No. 3. But you know it's the truth that I'm balky at giving upeverything in sight. I'd hate myself in bad clothes. _Can't_ I havegood ones and yet be worth while? Oh, I see. It doesn't matter ifthey're good or bad so long as I don't care too much. But I do care.Then they hamper me--eh? Is that the idea? This is the lastpostscript to this letter. Write a quick one--I'm needing it.

  WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House, Sept. 23d.

  I don't think it matters what his real name is. I'd been thinking allalong, that he was just a convenient fiction, useful for an address,and now he turns out about the realest person going. Sometimes Iimagine perhaps it will be like that when we get through with thisworld and wake up into what's after--that the things we've passed overpretty much here and been vague about will blaze out as the eternalverities. A miracle happened that day in your September garden.You've surely read "_Sur la Branche_"--that book written around awoman's belief in the Providence of God? Well, that's what I mean.Why did Halarkenden come down out of the woods into your uncle'sgarden? Why did you tell him, of all people? Why was it you who gotthrough to the truth about him? Why did it all happen just the minuteyou most needed it? Of course I believe it--every word, exactly as youwrote it. It's impossible things like that which do happen and help usto bear the flatly ordinary. It's the incredible things that shoutwith reality. Miracles ought to be ordinary affairs--we don't believein them because we're always straining every nerve to keep them fromhappening. We get so confused in the continual muddle of our ownmistakes that when something does come straight through, as it wasintended to do, we're like those men who heard the voice of God thatday and told one another anxiously that it thundered.

  Just think what went to make
up those five minutes which gave you thelift you had to have--that young Scotchman, beating back his devils upin the lonely mountains all those years ago--that's when it started.And then fetch it down to now; his leaving home forever--and his exilein the woods--considerably different from a camping trip--the silentdays, worse--the nights. And all the time his mind going back and backto what he'd left behind--his home, seeing every little corner ofit--you know the tortures of