George would be back by noon, and
before his return he must seek quiet and the chances of reflection. He
was happy with a miserable fluctuating happiness. Of a sudden his
horizon was enlarged, but as he gazed it seemed to narrow again. His
mind was still unplumbed; somewhere in its depths might lie the
shrinking and unwillingness which would bind him to the dreary present.
He went out to the autumn hills and sought the ridge which runs for
miles on the lip of the glen. It was a grey day, with snow waiting in
cloud-banks in the north sky and a thin wind whistling through the
pines. The scene matched his humour. He was in love for the moment
with the stony and stormy in life. He hungered morbidly for
ill-fortune, something to stamp out the ease in his soul, and weld him
into the form of a man.
He had got his chance and the rest lay with himself. It was a chance of
high adventure, a great mission, a limitless future. At the thought the
old fever began to rise in his blood. The hot, clear smell of rock and
sand, the brown depths of the waters, the far white peaks running up
among the stars, all spoke to him with the long-remembered call. Once
more he should taste life, and, alert in mind and body, hold up his chin
among his fellows. It would be a contest of wits, and for all his
cowardice this was not the contest he shrank from.
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