and of its own reasons for being dumb as is the stone, a man's voice, and the fear that Pan gives ran yet around in that voice. 'See, brother, see! The cranes of Ibycus!'
"'Ibycus!' The crowd about those men pressed in upon them. 'What do you know of Ibycus?' And great Pan drove them to show in their faces what they knew. So Corinth took—"
Alexander Jardine shut the book and, leaving the window, dropped it upon the table. His hand shook, his face was convulsed. "I've read as far as needs be. Those things strike me like hammers!" With suddenness he turned and was gone.
Strickland was aware that he might not return that day to the school-room, perhaps not to the house. He went out of the west door and across the grassy space to the gap in the wall, through which he disappeared. Beyond was the rough descent to wood and stream.
Jamie spoke: "He's a queer body! He says he thinks that he lived a long time ago, and then a shorter time ago, and then now. He says that some days he sees it all come up in a kind of dark desert."
Alice put in her word, "Mother says he's many in one, and that the many and one don't yet recognize each other."
"Your mother is a wise woman," said the tutor. "Let me see how the work goes."
The pine-tree, outside the wall, overhung a rude natural stairway of stony ledge and outcropping root with patches of moss and heath. Down this went Alexander into a cool dimness of fir and oak and birch, watered by a little stream. He kneeled by this, he cooled face and hands in the water, then flung himself beneath a tree and, burying his head in his arms, lay still. The waves within subsided, sank to a long, deep swell, then from that to quiet. The door that wind and tide had beaten open shut again. Alexander lay without thinking, without overmuch feeling. At last, turning, he opened his eyes upon the tree-tops and the August sky. The door was shut upon tales of injury and revenge. Between boy and man, he lay in a yearning stillness, colors and sounds and dim poetic strains his ministers of grace. This lasted for a time, then he rose, first to a sitting posture, then to his feet. Crows flew through the wood; he had a glimpse of yellow fields and purple heath. He set forth upon one of the long rambles which were a prized part of life.
An hour or so later he stopped at a cotter's, some miles from home. An old man and a woman gave him an oat cake and a drink of home-brewed. He was fond of folk like these—at home with them and they with him. There was no need to make talk, but he sat and looked at the marigolds while the woman moved about and the old man wove rushes into mats. From here he took to the hills and walked awhile with a shepherd numbering his sheep. Finally, in mid-afternoon, he found himself upon a heath, bare of trees, lifted and purple.
He sat down amid the warm bloom; he lay down. Within was youth's blind tumult and longing, a passioning for he knew not what. "I wish that there were great things in my life. I wish that I were a discoverer, sailing like Columbus. I wish that I had a friend—"
He fell into a day-dream, lapped there in warm purple waves, hearing the bees' interminable murmur. He faced, across a narrow vale, an abrupt, curiously shaped hill, dark with outstanding granite and with fir-trees. Where at the eastern end it broke away, where at its base the vale widened, shone among the lively green of elms turrets and chimneys of a large house. "Black Hill—Black Hill—Black Hill. … "
A youth of about his own age came up the path from the vale. Alexander, lying amid the heath, caught at some distance the whole figure, but as he approached lost him. Then, near at hand, the head rose above the brow of the ridge. It was a handsome head, with a cap and feather, with gold-brown hair lightly clustering, and a countenance of spirit and daring with something subtle rubbed in. Head, shoulders, a supple figure, not so tall nor so largely made as was Glenfernie's heir, all came upon the purple hilltop.
CHAPTER IV
Alexander raised himself from his couch in the heather.
"Good day!" said the new-comer.
"Good day!"
The youth stood beside him. "I am Ian Rullock."
"I am Alexander Jardine."
"Of Glenfernie?"
"Aye, you've got it."
"Then we're the neighbors that are to be friends."
"If we are to be we are to be. … I want a friend. … I don't know if you're the one that is to answer."
The other dropped beside him upon the heath. "I saw you walking along the hilltop. So when you did not come on I thought I'd climb and meet you. This is a lonely, miserable country!"
Alexander was moved to defend. "There are more miserable! It's got its points."
"I don't see them. I want London!"
"That's Babylon.—It's your own country. You're evening it with England!"
"No, I'm not. But you can't deny that it's poor."
"There's one of its sons, named Touris, that is not poor!"
Rullock rose upon one knee. "The wise man gets rich and the fool stays poor. Do you want to be friends or do you want to fight?"
Alexander clasped his hands behind his head and lay back upon the earth. "No, I do not want to fight—not now! I wouldn't fight you, anyhow, for standing up for one to whom you're beholden."
Silence fell between them, each having eyes upon the other. Something drew each to each, something repelled each from each. It was a question, between those forces, which would gain. Alexander did not feel strange with Ian, nor Ian with Alexander. It was as though they had met before. But how they had met and why, and where and when, and what that meeting had entailed and meant, was hidden from their gaze. The attractive increased over the repellent. Ian spoke.
"There's none down there but my uncle and his sister, my aunt. Come on down and let me show you the place."
"I do not care if I do." He rose, and the two went along the hilltop and down the path.
Ian was the readier in talk. "I am going soon to Edinburgh—to college."
"I'm going, too. The first of the year. I am going to try if I can stand the law."
"I want to be a soldier."
"I don't know what I want. … I want to journey—and journey—and journey … with a book along."
"Do you like books?"
"Aye, fine!"
"I like them right well. Are there any pretty girls around here?"
"I don't know. I don't like girls."
"I like them at times, in their places. You must wrestle bravely, you're so strong in the shoulder and long in the arm!"
"You're not so big, but you look strong yourself."
Each measured the other with his eyes. Friendship was already here. It was as though hand had fitted into glove.
"What is your dog named?"
"Hector."
"Mine's Bran. You come to Glenfernie to-morrow and I'll show you a place that's all mine. It's the room in the old keep. I've books there and apples and nuts and curiosities. There's a big fireplace, and my father's let me build a furnace besides, and I've kettles and crucibles and pans and vials—"
"What for?"
Alexander paused and gazed at Ian, then gave into his keeping the great secret. "Alchemy. I'm trying to change lead into gold."
Ian thrilled. "I'll come! I'll ride over. I've a beautiful mare."
"It's not eight miles—"
"I'll come. We're just in at Black Hill, you see, and I've had no time to make a place like that!