I cannot wonder that he stepped high, nor can I find it in my heart to begrudge him his day.  Cunningly had he clutched a few golden moments from the hoard that Fate, the niggard, guards from us so jealously.  To myself I acclaimed him as one to be envied.

I have always liked to believe that the splendors of that last walk endured to the end—­that there was no uncertainty, no hesitation, above all, no vulgar stumbling; but that the last high step, which plunged him into the chill waters of the race, was lifted in the same exulting serenity as the first.

I stood in my garden that evening, charmed by the wild, sweet, gusty-gentle music of the spring night.

Northward, in the gathering dusk, came a solitary figure walking rapidly—­a slight, nervous figure, a soft hat drawn well over the face, the skirts of its coat streaming to the breeze.  As it passed me, I recognized Solon Denney.  He was gesticulating with some violence, and I could see his expressive face work as if he uttered words to himself.  I thought it possible that he might be composing a piece for his newspaper.  Instantly there came to my mind that rather coarse paraphrase of Westley Keyts—­“A hand of mush in a glove of the same!”

I did not intrude upon my friend as he passed.

CHAPTER III

THE PERFECT LOVER

To the crime of being Potts the wretched Colonel had now added malversation of a trust fund.  But I crave surcease, while it may be mine, from the immediately troubling waters of Potts.  Let me turn more broadly to our town and its good people for that needed recreation which they never fail to afford me.

“Arcady of the Little Country,” we often say.  On maps it is Little Arcady, county seat of Slocum County, an isle and haven in the dreary land sea that flattens away from it on every side,—­north to the big woods, south to the swamp counties, and east and west, one might almost say, a thousand miles to the mountains.  Our point is one from which to say either “back East” or “out West.”  It is neither, of itself, though it touches both.

We are so ancient that plenty of us remember the stone fireplace in the log-cabin, with its dusters for the hearth of buffalo tail and wild-turkey wing, with iron pot hung by a chain from the chimney hook, with pewter or wooden plates from which to eat with horn-handled knives and iron spoons.  But yet are we so modern that we have fine new houses with bay windows, ornamental cupolas, and porches raving woodenly in that frettish fever which the infamous scroll-saw put upon fifty years of our land’s domestic architecture.  And these houses are furnished with splendid modern furniture, even with black walnut, gold touched and upholstered in blue plush and maroon, fresh from the best factories.  Our fairly old people remember when they hunted deer and were hunted by the red Indian on our town site, while their grandchildren have only the memories of the town-born, of the cottage-organ, the novel railroad, and the two-story brick block with ornamental false front.  In short, we round an epoch within ourselves, historically and socially.