The Survivor | Page 3

set-up for all his unusual height and
seventy years, with a face as hard as the ancient rocks which jutted
from the Cumberland hillside, eyes as keen and grey and merciless as
though every scrap of humanity which might ever have lain behind
them had long since died out. Just he reckoned himself and just he may
have been, but neither man nor woman nor child had ever heard a
kindly word fall from his lips. Children ran indoors as he passed,
women ceased their gossiping, men slunk away from a friendly talk as
though ashamed. If ever at harvest or Christmas time the spirit of good
fellowship warmed the hearts of these country folk and loosened their
tongues the grim presence of Gideon Strong was sufficient to check
their merriment and send them silently apart. He had been known to
pray that sinners might meet with the punishment they deserved, both
in this world and hereafter. Such was Gideon Strong.
He cleared his throat and spoke, addressing the young man who sat on
the corner of the horse-hair sofa, where the shadows of the room were
darkest.
"Nephew Douglas," he said, "to-day you ha' come to man's estate, and I
ha' summoned those here who will have to do wi' your future to hear
these few words. The charge of you left on my shoulders by your

shiftless parents has been a heavy one, but to-day I am quit of it. The
deacons of Feldwick chapel have agreed to appoint you their pastor,
provided only that they be satisfied wi' your discourse on the coming
Sabbath. See to it, lad, that 'ee preach the word as these good men and
mysen have ever heard it. Let there be no new-fangled ideas in thy
teachings, and be not vain of thy learning, for therein is vanity and
trouble. Dost understand?" "I understand," the young man answered
slowly, and without enthusiasm.
"Learning and godliness are little akin," said John Magee, in his thin
treble. "See to it, lad, that thou choosest the one which is of most
account."
"Ay, ay," echoed the shepherd thickly. "Ay, ay!" Douglas Guest
answered nothing. A sudden light had flashed in his dark eyes, and his
lips had parted. But almost at the same moment Gideon Strong
stretched out his hand.
"Nephew Douglas," he said. "I am becoming an old man, and to-day I
will release myself from the burden of your affairs once and for all.
This is the woman, my daughter Joan, whom I have chosen to wife for
thee. Take her hand and let thy word be pledged to her."
If silence still reigned in that gloomy apartment, it was because there
were those present whom surprise had deprived of speech. The very
image of her father, Joan looked steadily into her cousin's face without
tremor or nervousness. Her features were shapely enough, but too large
and severe for a woman, her wealth of black hair was brushed fiat back
from her forehead in uncompromising ugliness. Her figure was as
straight as a dart, but without lines or curves, her gown, of homely stuff
and ill-made, completed her unattractiveness. There was neither blush
nor tremor, nor any sign of softening in her cold eyes. Then Douglas, in
whom were already sown the seeds of a passionate discontent with the
narrowing lines of his unlovely life, who on the hillside and in the
sweet night solitudes had taken Shelley to his heart, had lived with
Keats and had felt his pulses beat thickly to the passionate love music
of Tennyson, stood silent and unresponsive. Child of charity he might
be, but the burden of his servitude was fast growing too heavy for him.

So he stood there whilst the old man's eyes flashed like steel, and Joan's
face, in her silent anger, seemed to grow into the likeness of her
father's.
"Dost hear, nephew Douglas? Take her hands in thine and thank thy
God who has sent thee, a pauper and a youth of ill-parentage, a
daughter of mine for wife."
Then the young man found words, though they sounded to him and to
the others faint and unimpressive.
"Uncle," he said, "there has been no word of this nor any thought of it
between Joan and myself. I am not old enough to marry nor have I the
inclination."
Terrible was the look flashed down upon him from those relentless
eyes-fierce, too, the words of his reply, measured and slow although
they were.
"There is no need for words between thee and Joan. Choose between
my bidding and the outside o' my doors this night and for ever."
Even then he might have won his freedom like a man. But the old dread
was too deeply engrafted. The chains of servitude which he and the