CHAPTER XXXV
THE AFTERGLOW
Evening!
Far in the west, beyond the canyon of the New Hope River--now abeautifully terraced park and pleasure-ground--the rolling hills,fertile and farm-covered, lay resting as the sun died in a glory ofcrimson, gold and green.
The reflections of the passing day spread a purple haze through thepalm and fern-tree aisles of the woodland. Only a slight breeze swayedthe branches. Infinite in its serenity brooded a vast peace from theglowing sky.
A few questing swallows shot here and there like arrows, blacklyoutlined with swift and crooked wing against the vermilion of thewest.
Over the countryside, the distant farms and hills, a thin and rosyvapor hovered, fading slowly as the sun sank lower still.
Scarcely moved by the summer breeze, a few slow clouds driftedaway--away to westward--gently and calmly as the first promises ofnight stole up the world.
An arbor, bowered with wistarias and the waxen spikes of the newfleur de vie, stood near the woodbine-covered wall edging the cliff.Among its leaves the soft air rustled very lovingly. A scent of manyblossoms hung over the perfumed evening.
Upon the lawn one last, belated robin still lingered. Its mate calledfrom a sycamore beyond the hedge, and with an answering note it roseand winged away; it vanished from the sight.
Allan and Beatrice, watching it from the arbor, smiled; and throughthe smile it seemed there might be still a trace of deeper thought.
"How quickly it obeyed the call of love!" said Allan musingly. "When_that_ comes what matters else?"
She nodded.
"Yes," she answered presently. "That call is still supreme. OurFrances--"
She paused, but her eyes sought the half-glimpsed outlines of anothercottage there beyond the hedge.
"We never realized, did we?" said Allan, voicing her thought. "It cameso suddenly. But we haven't lost her, after all. And there are stillthe others, too. And when grandchildren come--"
"That means a kind of youth all over again, doesn't it? Well--"
Her hand stole into his, and for a while they sat in silence, thinkingthe thoughts that "do sometime lie too deep for tears."
The flaming red in the west had faded now to orange and dull umber.Higher in the sky yellows and greens gave place to blue as deep asthat in the Aegean grottos. The zenith, a dark purple, began to show asilver twinkle here and there of stars.
A whirring, roaring sound grew audible to eastward. It strengthenedquickly. And all at once, far above the river, a long, swift train,its windows already lighted, sped with a smooth, rapid flight.
Allan watched the monorail vanish beyond the huge north tower of thecable bridge, sink through the trees, and finally fade into thegathering gloom.
"The Great Lakes Express," said he. "In the old days we thoughtseventy miles an hour something stupendous. Now two hundred is mereordinary schedule-time. Yes--something has been accomplished even now.The greater time still to be--we can't hope to see it.
"But we can catch a glimpse of what it shall be, here and there. Wemust be content to have built foundations. On them those who shallcome in the future shall raise a fairer and a mightier world than anywe have ever dreamed."
Again he relapsed into silence; but his arm drew round Beatrice, andtogether they sat watching the age-old yet ever-new drama of the birthof night.
Half heard, mingled with the eternal turmoil of the rapids, rose thefar purring of the giant dynamos in the power-houses below the cliff.Here, there, lights began to gleam in the city; and on the rollingfarmlands to northward, too, little winking eyes of light opened oneby one, each one a home.
Suddenly the man spoke again.
"More than a hundred thousand of us already!" he exulted. "Over atenth of a million--and every year the growth is faster, ever faster,in swift progressions. A hundred thousand English-speaking people,Beta; a civilization already, even in a material sense, superior tothe old one that was swept away; in a spiritual, moral sense, howvastly far ahead!
"A hundred thousand! Some time, before long, it will be a million;then two, five, twenty, a hundred, with no racial discords, no mutualantipathies, no barriers of name or blood; but for the first time auniversal race, all sound and pure, starting right, living right,striving toward a goal which even we cannot foresee!
"Not only shall this land be filled, but Europe, Asia, Africa and allthe islands of the Seven Seas shall know the hand of man again, andown his sovereignty, from pole to pole!"
His clasp about Beatrice tightened; she felt his heart beat strongwith deep emotion as he spoke again:
"Already the cities are beginning to arise from their ashes of athousand oblivious years. Already a score of thriving colonies havescattered from the capital, all yet bound to it with monorail cables,with electric wires and with the ether-borne magic of the wireless.
"Already our boy, our son--can you imagine him really a man of thirty,darling?--elected President on our last Council Day, guides a freepeople--a people self-reliant and strong, energetic, capable,dominant.
"Already the inconceivable fertility of the earth is yielding itsbounties a hundred fold; and trade-routes circle the ends of the greatAbyss; and all the vast territory once the United States has begun toopen again before the magic touch of man!
"Of man--now free at last! No more slavery! No more the lash of hungerdriving men to their tasks. No more greed and grasping; no lust ofgold, no bitter cry of crushed and hopeless serfdom! No buying andselling for the lure of profit; no speculating in the people's meansof life; no squeezing of their blood for wealth! But free, stronglabor, gladly done. The making of useful and beautiful things,Beatrice, and their exchange for human need and service--this, and theold dream of joy in righteous toil, this is the blessing of our worldto-day!"
He paused. A little, swift-moving light upon the far horizon drew hiseye. It seemed a star, traveling among its sister stars that nowalready had begun to twinkle palely in the darkening sky. But Allanknew its meaning.
"Look!" cried he and pointed. "Look, Beatrice! The West CoastMail--the plane from southern California. The wireless told us it hadstarted only three hours ago--and here it is already!"
"And but for you," she murmured, "none of all this could ever possiblyhave been. Oh, Allan, remember that song--our song? In the days of ourfirst love, there on the Hudson, remember how I sang to you:
"Stark wie der Fels, Tief wie das Meer, Muss deine Liebe, Muss deine Liebe sein?"
"I remember! And it has been so?"
Her answer was to draw his hand up to her lips and print a kiss there,and as she laid her cheek upon it he felt it wet with tears.
And night came; and now the wind lay dead; and upon the broodingearth, spangled with home-lights over hill and vale, the stars gazedcalmly down.
The steady, powerful droning of the power-plant rose, blent with thesoothing murmur of the rapids and the river.
"Seems like a lullaby--doesn't it, dearest?" murmured Allan. "Youknow--it won't be long now before it's good-by and--good night."
"I know," she answered. "We've _lived_, haven't we? Oh, Allan, no oneever lived, ever in all this world--lived as much as you and I havelived! Think of it all from the beginning till now. No one ever somuch, so richly, so happily, so well!"
"No one, darling!"
"But, after toil, rest--rest is sweet, too. I shall be ready for itwhen it summons me. I shall go to it, content and brave and smiling.Only--"
"Yes?"
"Only this I pray, just this and nothing more--that I mayn't have tostay awake, alone, after--after _you're_ sleeping, Allan!"
A long time they sat together, silent, in the sweet-scented gloomwithin the flower-girt arbor.
At last he spoke.
"The wonder and the glory of it all!" he whispered. "Oh, the wonder ofa dream, a vision come to pass, before our eyes!
"For, see! Has not the prophecy come true? What was then only ayearning and a hope, is it not now reality? Is it not now all eve
n aswe dreamed so very, very long ago, there in our little bungalow besidethe broad, slow-moving Hudson?
"Is _this_ not true?"
I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust.The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forceshave by science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave,frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and airare the tireless toilers for the human race.
I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music'smyriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love andtruth--a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world onwhich the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps itsfull reward--where work and worth go hand in hand!
I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser'sheartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips oflies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, themarried harmony of form and function; and, as I look, life lengthens,joy deepens, love canopies the earth--and over all, in the great dome,shines the eternal star of human hope!
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