The Mettle of the Pasture

but on the horizon the great change had begun. Not with colors of rose or pearl but as the mysterious foreknowledge of the morning, when

gh a distant wood sounded loud in the stillness. Under the forest trees around the home of the Merediths only drops of dew might have been heard splashing downward from leaf to leaf. In the house all slept. The mind, wakefullest of ha

e world without-his songs with its sunrises, toil with noontide, prayer with nightfall, slumber

in the thick of action. Between then and now lies the night, stretching like a bar of verdure across wearying sands. In that verdure he has rested; he has drunk forgetfulness and self-renewal from those deep wells of sleep. Soon the play will be ordered on again and he must take his place for parts that are new and confusing to all. The servitors of the morning have entered and hung wa

m troubled sleep. He lay for a few moments without moving, then he sat up on the edge of the bed. His hands

gedy of men sat there within him: the tragedy that has wandered long and that wanders ever, showing its face in all lands, re

dry places, stretched themselves and awoke the echoes of the wide rolling land with peaceful lowing. A brood mare in a grazing lot sent forth her quick nostril call to the foal capering too wildly about her, and nozz

ecome br

his younger brother. How quiet Dent's sleep was; how clear the current of his life h

in sight. His setters lay waiting on the porch and as he stepped out they hurried up with glistening eyes and soft barkings and followed him as he passed around to the barn. Work was in progress there: the play

vement; she held flowers freshly plucked for the breakfast table: a wom

y for his breakfast?" she aske

plied without smiling, touc

eps. At the top she drew him gently around until

ouse and some one sitting here where we stand, watching them at their play and watching you in the distance at your work. But I have been waiting a long time for her to take my place-and to take her own," and sh

oached through the hall and turning

t?" he asked, frowning with pretended impatien

ant professorship, then a full professorship-these were successive stations already marked by him on the clear track of life; and he was now moving toward them with straight and steady aim. Sometimes we encounter personalities which seem to m

d given him at first he had soon outgrown; and what might have been a tragedy to another nature melted away in the steady sunlight of his en

was not herself aware that she still leaned upon the arm o

to the small nobilities of silence. (It is questionable whether talkative familie

and came out into the hall. Dent

y, "come into the parl

hould like to

ith surprise and al

n. And to tell you also, Rowan. You know that I finish college this year; she does also. We came to an understanding yesterday afternoon and I wish you both to know it at once. We expect to be married in

mile for each he walked quietly out of the room. He knew that he could not expect their congratulations at that moment and tha

believe it, Ro

egun to think about girls. He never said so. He has never cared for society. He has seemed absorbed in his studies. And now-Dent in love. Dent engaged, Dent to be married in the autumn-why, Rowan, am I dreaming, am I in my senses? And to this girl! She has entrapped him-poor

urprised. But then Dent

t perhaps it was this that has been troubling

eyes quickly an

pose he is in e

er jest on su

think he knows

lways

marry agains

ted that you will be

n her except when we have passed them on the turnpike. I never spoke to her father but once and that

ow can he treat me with so little consideration? It is just as if he had said: 'Good morning, mother

does not think he wi

would be p

of this, there will not be much left to be as

you int

st: you are

mn. Dent has arranged this perfectly, mo

t he will tie a millstone around his neck, ruin his whole life. I am willing to leave myself out and to forget what is due

onsolingly, "and I have so much confidence in Dent that I bel

nt! And this girl I-the public school has tried to make her uncommon, and the Girl's College has attempted, to make her more uncommon; and now I suppose she actually thinks she is uncommon: otherwise she would never have imagined that she could marry a son of mine. Smile on, I know I amuse you! You think I am not abreast of the times. I am glad I am not. I prefer my own. Dent should have studied for the church-with his love of books, and

lease himself-and the woman. His choice is

etters. You know how you do it. What right has Dent to injure his children in the race for life by giving the

themselves alive and at the summit by intermarriage with good, cl

nd it is certainly not dying out. I cannot discuss the subject with

ent's wish and it is

to see me; but I think I should rather go to see her. Whenever I wi

uld you l

ime! Do you suppose they have a parlor? I am afraid I sh

en her brow cleared an

shall call on the girl with you and then I shall talk quietly with Dent. Until then I must try to forget it.

justice would never have healed. In all that she could do for both there had never been maternal discrimination; but the heart of a woman cannot he

not you that come to tell me of your engagement? Why have you not set Dent an examp

is hat on his crossed knees, gloves and whip in hand. Her heart yearned over him

e it has not been necessary. I have known your choice, and long before it became yours, it became mine. She is my ideal among them all. I know women, Rowan, and I know she is worthy of you and I could not say more. She is-high-minded and th

and she continued

her, see her brought here as mistress of this house, and live to hear the laughter

llections of her own early life

hese, no matter what happens afterward, we have not lived for nothing. It becomes easier for us to be

pran

oken: "You have had one disappointment this morning: it is enough. But do not think of my marrying-of my ever marrying. Dent must take my place at the head of the house. It

re at having touched some trouble which she felt that he had long bee

motion. "Ah, mother, mother!"-and he g

n she returned and sat in the chair which he

e length of our arms or as far as our voices can penetrate space; but without us and within us moves one universe that saves us or ruins us only for its own purposes; and we are no more free amid its

the meaning of what Rowan had just said to her; but she did not doubt there was meaning behind it, grave meaning. Her next most serious concern would have been that in time Dent likewise should c

it. He had always needed her so little, had always needed every one so little, unfolding his life from the first and drawing from the impersonal universe whatever it required with the quietude and efficiency of a prospering plant.

him was the perpetuation under a new form of

out justice, human or heavenly; most of all, gratified when in theological seminaries, when they could assert themselves as inerrant interpreters of the Most High. The portraits of two of them hung in the dining room now, placed there as if to

t loved to read were likewise there: "Pollock's Course of Time"; the slow outpourings of Young, sad sectary; Milton, with the passages on Hell approvingly underscored-not as great poetry, but as great doc

o the opposite extreme from her first choice by one of life's familiar reactions; and in her wounded flight she had thrown herself into the arms of a man whom people called irreproachable. He was a grave lawyer, one of the best of h

and navy; hale country gentlemen who took the lead in the country's hardy sports and pleasures; all sowing their wild oats early in life with hands that no power could stay; not always living to reap, but always leaving enough reaping to b

fore her she had, during the years, slowly

ted itself by drawing him away from the tyrannical interpretation of God to the neutral investigation of the earth, from black

in effect inquire: "Whence does he derive these?" On both accounts she began to look with apprehension toward this son's maturing years. And always, as the years passed, evidence was forced more plainly upon her that in him the two natures he inherited were antagonistic still; each alternately uppermost; both in unceasing war

he had left her so strangely, all at once

first fires lighted within; the carriage already waiting at the door; the breakfast hurriedly choked down-in silence; the mournful noise of his trunk being brought downstairs-his first tr

d his hand protectingly after him, crying out: "He is a good boy." And she, having some wide vision of other mothers of the land who during these same autumn days were bidding God-speed to their idols-picked youth of the republic-she with som

plained how they were changed, could not have held the pages up to the inspection of any one else and have said, "See! it is here." But she knew it was the

ready than her own. The second session passed and with the second vacation the request was renewed. "Why does he not come home? Why does he not wish to come home?" she said, wandering restlessly over the house with his lette

he came quickly enough, summoned b

ting to a father who has become a memory. Gradually there began to emerge his new care of her, and tenderness, a boy's no more. And he stepped forward easily into his place as the head of affairs, as his brother's guardian. But as time wor

hat whatsoever the cause, it was nothing by which he felt dishonored. At such moments her love broke over him with intolerable longings. She remembered things that her mother had told he

that reserve. She may have had the feeling that

e liked rather to have his friends come out to stay with him: sometimes he was off with them for days during the fishing and hunting seasons. Care of the farm and its stock occupied

no sign of her own purposes, she began the second year of his home-coming to accept invitations for herself and formally reentered her social world; reassumed her own leadership there; demanded him as her escort; often filled the house with young gues

been before the college days-more nearly developing tha

at this point she gradually withdrew from soc