Foes | Page 9

the gods that we are their helpers?' But those robbers and
murderers might not be found. And the body of Ibycus was consumed
upon a funeral pyre.
"The festival hours went by in Corinth. And now began to fill the
amphitheater where might find room a host for number like the acorns
of Dodona. The throng was huge, the sound that it made like the shock
of ocean. Around, tier above tier, swept the rows, and for roof there
was the blue and sunny air. Then the voice of the sea hushed, for now
entered the many-numbered chorus. Slow-circling, it sang of mighty
Fate: 'For every word shall have its echo, and every deed shall see its
face. The word shall say, "Is it my echo?" and the deed shall say, "Is it
my face?"'--
"The chorus passes, singing. The voices die, there falls a silence, sent
as it were from inner space. The open sky is above the amphitheater.
And now there comes, from north to south, sailing that sea above, high,
but not so high that their shape is indistinguishable, a long flight of
cranes. Heads move, eyes are raised, but none know why that interest is
so keen, so still. Then from out the throng rises, struck with
forgetfulness of gathered Corinth 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