Bred of the Desert by Charles Marcus Horton (read along books .TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Marcus Horton
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It was the beginning of the end. Winter passed, with horses abandoned for the delights, swift-following, of dinner and dance and house party. These affairs made deep inroads upon Helenâs time, and so Pat was left pretty much to his own reflections.
Yet he managed to fill the days to his satisfaction. Standing in the stable, he loved to watch the snow-capped mountains, and the tiny white clouds scudding around them, and the mellow radiance of golden sunlight streaming over them. Also, gazing out of the little square window, he spent long periods in viewing the hard brown of the nearer mesalandâthe dips and dunes and thread-like arroyos, with an occasional horseman crawling between. Or else, when he found himself yearning for his mistress, he would turn eyes upon the house, and with lazy speculation regard its sun-flecked windows, tightly shut doors, and smoking chimneys, in the hope that she might step forth. Then came more mild weather when he would spend long hours outside the stable, in his corner in the corral, there to renew his silent vigil over nature and the house from this vantage. Thus he filled his days, and found them not so long as formerly in his babyhood, when each hour was fraught with so many little things that demanded his closest interest and attention.
Nights found him early at rest. But not all nights. Nights there were when the house would be lighted from cellar to garret, when spectral forms would move in and out of doors, and when shadows would flicker across drawn shades. Such nights were always his nights, for he would hear sounds of merriment, and voices lifted in song, and above the voices, tinkling toward him on the crisp air, the music of a piano. Such nights were his nights, for he knew that his mistress was happy, and he would force open the stable door, step out under the cold stars, and take up his stand in his corner, there to rest his head upon the topmost board and turn steady eyes upon the scene of merriment until the last guest had departed.
Always on these nights, with wintry chills coursing down his legs or rollicking along his spine, he found himself wanting to be a part of this gaiety, wanting to enter the house, where he instinctively knew it was warm and comfortable, where he might nuzzle the whole gathering for sugar and apples. But this he could not do. He could only turn longing eyes upon the cottage and stand there until, all too soon, sounds of doors opening and closing, together with voices in cheery farewell, told him that the party was at an end. Then he would see mysterious forms flitting across to the trail, and lights in the house whisking out one by one, until the cottage gradually became engulfed in darkness. Then, but not till then, would he turn away from his corner, walk back slowly into the stable, and, because of the open door, which he could open but never close, suffer intensely from the cold throughout the long night.
One such occasion, when the round moon hung poised in the blue-black dome of heaven, and he was standing as usual in his corner, with eyes upon the brilliantly lighted house, he became suddenly aware of two people descending the rear porch and making slowly toward him. At first he did not recognize his own mistress and the young man who had been her almost constant companion since that memorable fright on the mesa eight months before. But as they drew closer, and he came to know the slender form in white, he sounded a soft whinny of greeting and pressed eagerly close to the fence. The pair came near, very near; but neither of them paid the least attention to himâa fact which troubled him deeply. And directly his mistress spoke, but, as she was addressing herself to the young man, this troubled him even more. But he could listen, and listen he did.
âStephen,â she was saying, âyou must accept my answer as final. For you must know, Stephen,â she went on, quietly, âthat I have not changed toward you. My answer to-night, and my answer to-morrow night, and my answer for ever, in so far as I can see, will be what it was last autumn. I am more than sorry that this is so. But it is so, nevertheless.â She was firm, though Pat, knowing her well, knew that it required all the force of her trembling soul to give firmness to her words.
Stephen felt something of this as he stood beside her in grim meekness. With his hungry eyes upon her, he felt the despair of one sunk to utter depths, of a man mentally and physically broken. For he loved this girl. And it was this love, God-given, that made him persist. In the spell of this love he realized that he was but a weak agent, uttering demands given him to utter, and unable, through a force as mighty as Nature herself, to do otherwise. Yet though he was utterly torn apart, he was able, despite this mighty demand within him, to understand her viewpoint. He had understood it from the first. But the craving within would not let him accept it.
âI suppose,â he rejoined, âthat the one decent course for me would be to drop all this. But somehow I canât. I love you that way, Helen! Donât you understand? I cannot let go! I seem to be forced repeatedly to makeâmake a boor of myself!â There was a momentâs silence. âYet I have resisted it,â he went on. âI have fought itâfought it with all the power I have! But IâI somehowâcannot let go!â
Helen said nothing. She herself was coming to realize fully the depths of this manâs passion. She knewâknew as few women have knownâthat here was a man who wanted her; but she knew also, and she was sorry to know it, that she could not conscientiously give herself to him. She regretted it not alone for his sake, but for her own as well. She liked him, liked him better than any other man she had ever known. But she knew that she could not marry him, and believed in her heart that her reasons for refusing him were just reasons. But she remained silent, true to her decision.
When Stephen spoke again it was not to plead with her; he seemed at last to have accepted her refusal for all time. But he asked her reason for absolutely refusing himânot that it mattered much now, since he faced the inevitable, but thought the knowledge might in future guide and strengthen him. He talked rapidly, hinting at beliefs and idolatries, comparing West with East, and East with West, while he stood motionless, one hand upon the fenceâearnest, sincere, strong in his request. When he had uttered his last sad word, Helen found herself, as she searched his drawn profile pityingly, no more able to deny him an answer than at the time of their first chance meeting she could have controlled the fate which had brought it about.
âStephen,â she burst out, âI will tell youâthough I donât want to tell youâremember! And if in the telling,â she hurried on, âI prove rather too candidâplease stop me! You will, wonât you?â
He nodded listlessly.
âTo begin with,â she began, quietly, dreading her task, âwe as a people are selfish. We are isolated hereâare far from the center of thingsâbut only certain things. We are quite our own center in certain other ways. But we are selfish as regards advancement, and being selfish in this wayâbeing what we are and where we areâwe live solely for that advancementâfor the privilege of doing what we will, and of knowing! It is the first law of the country down hereâof my people! We have aims and aspirations and courage all peculiar to ourselves. And when we meet your type, as I met you, we comeâ(Now, stop me when I get too severe!)âwe come to know our own values a little betterâto respect ourselves, perhapsâthough perhaps, too, I shouldnât say itâa little more. Not that you lack virtues, you Easterners, but they differ from oursâand probably only in kind. And exactly what your type is you yourself have made plain to me during our many little trips together in the saddle. Andâand now I fear I must become even more personal,â she broke off. âAnd I am very sorry that I must. Though I know you will forgive me. You will, wonât you?â And she looked up at him wistfully. âYou thought it might benefit you to know. This is only my opinion. Others may not see it this way. But I am giving it for what it is, and I am giving it only because you asked it and have asked it repeatedly.â
He roused himself. âGo on,â he said, with evident forced lightness. âI see your viewpoint perfectly.â
âWell,â she resumed, hurriedly, âyou lack ambitionâa real ambition. You have ridden horses, played tennis, idled about clubs. You were a coddled and petted child, a pampered and spoiled youth. You attended a dozen schools, and, to use your own language, were âcannedâ out of all of them. Which about sums up your activities. You have idled your time away, and you give every promise of continuing. I regret that I must say that, but I regret more deeply that it is true. You have many admirable qualities. You have the greatest of all qualitiesâpower for sincere love. But in the qualities which make one acceptable down hereâWait! Iâll change that. In the qualities which would make one acceptable to me you are lacking to a very considerable degree. And it is just there that you fill me with the greatest doubtâdoubt so grave, indeed, that I cannotâand I use the verb advisedlyâcannot permit myself to like you in the way you want me to like you.â
Again he bestirred himself. âWhat is that, please? What is that quality?â
âI have tried to tell you,â she rejoined, patiently. âIt is a really worth-while ambition. You lack the desire to do something, the desire to be somethingâa desire that ought to have been yours, should have been yours, years agoâthe thing part and parcel of our blood down here. It may take shape in any one of a hundred different thingsâbusiness ventures; personal prospectings; pursuit of art, science; raising cattleâanything, Stephen! But something, something which will develop a real value, both to yourself and to your fellow-man. We have it. We have inherited it. We got it from our grandfathersâour great-grandfathers, in a few casesâmen who wanted to knowâto learnâto learn by doing. It is a powerful force. It must be a powerful force, it must have been strong within them, for it dragged them out of the comforts of civilization and led them into the desert. But they found what they sought; and in finding what they sought they found themselves also. And what they foundââ
âWas something which, having drawn them forward to the frontier, filled them with dislike for those who remained behind?â
âIf you wish to put it
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