Destiny

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Destiny

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Title: Destiny
Author: Charles Neville Buck

Release Date: November 23, 2005 [eBook #17141]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
DESTINY***
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DESTINY
by
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
Author of The Call of the Cumberlands, Etc.

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright, 1916, by W.J. Watt
& Company

OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY THE LIGHTED MATCH THE
PORTAL OF DREAMS THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS THE
BATTLE CRY THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

DESTINY


Part I
THE LAND OF PROMISE

CHAPTER I
Outside the subtle clarion of autumn's dying glory flamed in the torches
of the maples and smoldered in the burgundy of the oaks. It trailed a
veil of rose-ash and mystery along the slopes of the White Mountains,
and inside the crumbling school-house the children droned sleepily
over their books like prisoners in a lethargic mutiny.
Frost had brought the chestnuts rattling down in the open woods, and
foraging squirrels were scampering among the fallen leaves.
Brooding at one of the front desks, sat a boy, slender and undersized for
his thirteen years. The ill-fitting crudity of his neatly patched clothes
gave him a certain uniformity with his fellows, yet left him as unlike
them as all things else could conspire to make him. The long hair that
hung untrimmed over his face seemed a black emphasis for the cameo
delicacy of his features, lending them a wan note of pathos. On his thin
temples, bluish veins traced the hall-mark of an over-sensitive nature,
and eyes that were deep pools of somberness gazed out with the
dreamer's unrest.
Occasionally, he shot a furtively terrified glance across the aisle where
another boy with a mop of red hair, a freckled face and a mouth that
seemed overcrowded with teeth, made faces at him and conveyed in
eloquent gestures threats of future violence. At these menacing
pantomimes, the slighter lad trembled under his bulging coat, and he
sat as one under sentence.
Had any means of escape offered itself, Paul Burton would have
embraced it without thought of the honors of war. He had no wish to
stand upon the order of his going. He earnestly desired to go at once.
But under what semblance of excuse could he cover his retreat?
Suddenly his necessity fathered a crafty subterfuge. The bucket of
drinking water stood near his desk--and it was well-nigh empty.
Becoming violently thirsty, he sought permission to carry it to the
spring for refilling, and his heart leaped hopefully when the tired-eyed

teacher indifferently nodded her assent. He meant to carry the pail to
the spring. He even meant to fill it for the sake of technical obedience.
Later, some one else could go out and fetch it back.
Paul's object would be served when once he was safe from the
stored-up wrath of the Marquess kid. As he carried the empty bucket
down the aisle, he felt upon him the derisive gaze of a pair of blue eyes
entirely surrounded by freckles, and his own eyes drooped before their
challenge and contempt. They drooped also as he met the questioning
gaze of his elder brother, Ham, whose seat was just at the door. Ham
had a disquieting capacity for reading Paul's thoughts, and an equally
disquieting scorn of cowardice. But Paul closed the door behind him,
and, in the freedom of the outer air, set his lips to whistling a casual
tune. He could never be for a moment alone without breaking into
some form of music. It was his nature's language and his soul's
soliloquy.
Of course tomorrow would bring a reckoning for truancy and a
probable renewal of his danger, but tomorrow is after all another day
and for this afternoon at least he felt safe.
But Ham Burton's uncanny powers of divination were at work, and out
of his seat he slipped unobserved. Through the door he flitted
shadow-like and strolled along in the wake of his younger brother.
Down where the spring crooned softly over its mossy rocks and where
young brook