Nort sat down with his back to a tree trunk. He was sick and dizzy. It seemed to him that the thing he wanted most in all the world was to be left alone.

"I'm going away, Fergus. Leave me here. I shall not go back to Hempfield."

Fergus offered no excuses, suggested no change in plan. It was working out exactly as he intended: he was sorry for Nort, but this was his duty. He made Nort as comfortable as he could, and then set off toward town. As he proceeded, he stepped faster and faster. He began to feel a curious exaltation of spirit. It was the greatest moment of his whole life. If you had seen him at that moment, with his head lifted high, you would scarcely have known him. As the town came into view, with the eastern sun upon it, Fergus burst out in a voice as wild and harsh as a bagpipe:

"Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha will fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!"

For that which followed I make no excuse, nor think I need to, but I must tell it, for it is a part of the history of Hempfield and of the life of Fergus MacGregor. Ours is a temperance town, and Fergus MacGregor a temperate man; but that morning Fergus was seen going over the hill beyond the town, unsteady in the legs, and still singing. He did not appear at the office of the _Star_ all that day.

As for Nort, he lay for a long time there at the foot of the beech tree, miserably sick in body and soul--dozing off from time to time, and trying to think, dumbly, what was left to him in the world. He was as deep in the depths that morning as he had been high in the heavens the evening before.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIV

TWO LETTERS

I can imagine just how Nort looked, sitting in the bare room of the Bedlow Hotel of Hewlett, biting the end of his pen and struggling furiously with his letter to Anthy. In one moment he would let himself go the limit: "My dearest Anthy, I shall never see you again, and I can therefore tell you with the more freedom of my undying love----" and at the next moment he would hold himself to the strictest restraint: "My dear Miss Doane" or "Dear Miss Doane." Half the letters he wrote were too long, or too wild, or too pa.s.sionate, and the other half were too short or too cold. Before he got through, the table and floor all about him were drifted white with torn sc.r.a.ps of his correspondence.

His face was pale and his hair was rumpled. For almost the first time in his life he was in such deadly earnest, so altogether miserable, that he could not even stand aside and see himself with any degree of interest or satisfaction. This was the real thing.

He had firmly made up his mind as to his course. He would no longer think and talk about doing something great and heroic for Anthy. He would really do it. And he had settled upon quite the most heroic thing he could think of--this extraordinary young man--and this was to leave Hempfield, and to see no more of Anthy. Fergus was undoubtedly right. He was not worthy of Anthy, and his presence and his love would be a hindrance rather than a help to her. Whatever Nort did in those days he did to the utter extremity. And this was the letter he finally sent:

MY DEAR MISS DOANE:

I am hopelessly unfortunate in everything I do. I do nothing but blunder. I hope you will not think ill of me. Fergus is right. In leaving Hempfield, not to return, I am leaving everything in the world that means anything to me. I hope you will at least set this down to the credit of

NORTON CARR.

I was in the office of the _Star_ when Nort's letter arrived. I saw Anthy pause a moment, standing very still by her desk. I saw her open the letter slowly, and then, after reading it, hold it hard in her hand, which she unconsciously lifted to her breast. I saw her turn and walk out of the office, a curious rapt expression upon her face.

As she entered the familiar hallway of her home, she told me afterward, everything seemed strange to her and terribly lonely. A day's time had changed the aspect of the world. She sat down in the study at the little desk where she had found solace so often in writing letters to Mr.

Lincoln. But she was not thinking now of writing any such letter: indeed, the door had already closed upon this phase of her imaginative life, as it had closed on other and earlier phases. She never wrote another letter to Mr. Lincoln.

She was not outwardly excited, nor did she tear up a single sheet of notepaper, nor give any attention to the form of address. Her letter was exactly like herself--simple, direct, and straight out of her heart.

She had no need of making any changes, for this was all she had to say:

DEAR NORT:

Why have you gone away from Hempfield, and where are you?

Just at the moment I found you, and found myself, you have gone away. Is it anything I have done, or have not done? It seems to me, as I look back, that I have been fast asleep all the years, until last night when you wakened me. I know I am awake, because everything I see to-day is changed from what it was yesterday; everything is more beautiful and n.o.bler--and sadder. When I went down this morning I seemed to see a new Hempfield. I loved it even more than I loved the old Hempfield, and as I met the children on their way to school I had a new feeling for them, too. They seemed very dear to me.

I did not find you at the office, but my heart kept saying to me, "Nort will soon be here.... In a moment Nort will be coming in." Whenever I heard a step on the porch I said, "It is surely Nort," but you did not come. I think the office never seemed so wonderful to me as it did to-day, for the thought that you had been there, and would be there again.

Everything reminded me of you, of the way you looked, and of what you did, and how your voice sounded.

And then your letter came. Why have you gone away from Hempfield? I could not make it any plainer last night, Nort. I did not understand it fully myself, until afterward.

Don't you see? I have nothing to give that is not yours for the asking. Come back, for I love you, Nort.

ANTHY.

This letter, which I did not know about until long afterward, was never sent, for Anthy had no way of addressing it.

That evening, rereading Nort's letter, she said aloud:

"What does he mean by saying Fergus is right? What has Fergus to do with it? Where _is_ Fergus?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXV

THE FLYING-MACHINE

If it had not been for a surprising and amusing event which somewhat relieved the depression in the office of the _Star_ of Hempfield, the following weeks would certainly have been among the most dismal of my life.

All the elasticity and interest and illusion seemed to have departed from us when Nort disappeared. Every one, except the old Captain, who was like a raging lion, was constrained and mysterious. It would have been amusing if it had not been so serious. Each of us was nursing a mystery, each was speculating, suspicious.

The only one of us who seemed to get any satisfaction out of the situation was Ed Smith. I think he was unaffectedly glad that Nort was gone. It left the field clear for him, and on the Sat.u.r.day night after Nort left, Ed put on his hat just as Anthy was leaving the office and quite casually walked home with her. He ran on exactly as he had always done--chat about the business, and town gossip, which always gravitated toward the personal and intimate, and, finally, if there was half an opportunity, descended to the little soft jokes and purrings of sentimentality. He followed Anthy up the steps of her home, and stood, hat in hand, still talking, and half expecting to be invited in to supper. He did observe that she was silent--but then she was never very talkative. He saw nothing in her face, nothing in her eye, that he had not seen before.

But to Anthy, Ed Smith appeared in a wholly new light. Through all the experiences and turmoil in the office of the _Star_ Ed had not changed in the least, and never would change. He was the sort of person, and the world is full of them, who is made all of a piece and once for all, who is not changed by contact with life, and who, if he possesses any marks of personality at all, takes on in time a somewhat comical aspect. One comes to grin when he sees him wandering among immortal events with such perfect aplomb, such unchangeable satisfaction. As Anthy looked now at Ed Smith, it seemed to her that she had travelled an immeasurable distance since she had left college, since she took hold of the _Star_, since she first knew Ed Smith and had even been mildly interested in having him call upon her. She saw everything about her life, the career of the old Captain, the recent events in the history of the _Star_, with incredible clearness. Everything before had been hazy, unreal, dreamlike.

Fergus was by turns depressed and exultant, extremely silent or extremely loquacious (for him). Anthy felt certain that he had some knowledge concerning Nort that he was concealing, but she shrank curiously from asking him.

It was in this moment of strain and depression that Hempfield pa.s.sed through one of its most notable experiences, and the old Captain established himself still more firmly upon the pinnacle of his faith in what he loved to call "immutable laws."

Imagine what it must have meant to a tranquil old village, settled in its habits, with a due sense of its own dignity and of the proprieties of life, unaccustomed to surprises of any kind, to behold, upon looking up into the sky on a pleasant spring afternoon, a sight which not even the oldest inhabitant, not even the oldest hills, had ever beheld, to wit, a flying-machine soaring through the air. With the sunlight flashing upon its wings it was as beautiful and light as some great bird, and it purred as it flew like a live thing.

All Hempfield ran into the streets and opened its mouth to the heavens.

Even old Mrs. Dana, who could not leave her chair, threw open the window and craned her head outward to catch a glimpse of the miracle. Marvel of marvels, the flyer circled gracefully in two great spirals above the town, and then disappeared across the hills toward Hewlett. We held our breath until we could not even see the black speck in the sky, and then we all began to talk at once. We told one another in detail about our impressions and emotions. We described our feeling when we first saw the wonder, we told exactly what we were doing and thinking about, we explained what we said to George Andrews, and how comical Ned Boston looked.

It was Joe Crane, the liveryman, who rushed into the office of the _Star_ with the great news. In the simplicity and credulity of our faith we all turned out instantly to see the wonder in the sky, all except the old Captain. The old Captain was deep in the preparation of an editorial demolishing the Democratic party, and expressing his undying allegiance to the high protective tariff. When Joe Crane stuck his head in at the door, he merely glanced around with an aspect of large compa.s.sion.

Had he not, again and again in the columns of the _Star_, proved the utter absurdity of attempting to fly? Had he not shown that human flight was contrary, not only to immutable natural laws, but to the moral law as well? For over five thousand years men had lived upon this planet, and if the Creator had intended his children to fly, would he not have provided wings for them?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Toys!" "Mere circus tricks to take in fools!"]

It did not shake the old Captain in the least when accounts of flying-machines--with pictures--began to appear in the newspapers and magazines. He pa.s.sed grandly over them with a snort. "Toys!" "Mere circus tricks to take in fools!" And if pressed a little too hard, and there were those who delighted in slyly prodding the Captain with innocent remarks about flying-machines, until it had become not a little of a town joke, he would clear the air with an explosive "Fudge!" and go calmly about his business.