The weather changed. On the heel of soft sunshine and quietude came autumn storm, wind and rain, lashed trees, leaden and heavily sagging cloud. In the late afternoon Zinia appeared at the parlor door. "Miss Marget, there are two men on horseback. They've come over Rock Mountain and missed their way. They say it's getting late, and they say, could we take them in for the night?"

"I'll go see," said Linden, and left the room.

"Of course you will?"

"Yes, of course," answered Marget. "I had better go see about the room." Curtin and Miss Darcy, left alone, watched the flame. At last Curtin said, abruptly, "Had you ever thought of humanity moving on into superhumanity?"

"I think that I have been blind and deaf to a great many things! I suppose I thought that there would be slow, general improvement. But I did not think of marked betterment here. I thought of the soul at death springing alive into heaven."

"Or hell?"

"Yes, we were taught that."

"And it was going to reach heaven or hell at one stride! No degree here, no degree there!"

"It was irrational!"

"Naturally, being yet in Time, there are those ahead. Some cross the line earlier than others."

Marget returned. "They are two young men, foresters, I think, from the government purchase on Rock Mountain. They are wet through. Mancy has built them a fire and Richard is looking after them." She stood by the window. "The gray rain is chanting up and down the mountains! Queen Rain and King Wind!"

Curtin put a chair for her as she came to the hearth. She sat down, and bending herself, looked into the fire. She held her hands to the flame and appeared to gather it into them. "The fire!" said Marget, "the spirit that is fire, that is will—that are living, endless powers, the Host of the Lord!"

There fell a silence that was voice. Then said Anna Darcy: "I have always said, 'I remember—I remember.' But since I came to Sweet Rocket I have learned far and away more of how to remember."

Marget turned toward her with a great sweetness. "When we have found a good thing we so naturally wish to share it! Now you must learn the Universal Man's present sharing—and his future sharing. You who have always said, 'I remember,' and who have been unselfish, will have little trouble."

Her look included Curtin, who sat staring into the fire. He drew a long breath. "Two weeks ago I should have said that adventure and youth had passed from my life."

"You are just beginning to find them! Henceforth you will find rest and romance, salt in life and the true wine and the uncloying honey and the bread of right wheat. You will find water of Moses's spring, and the Burning Bush."

The rain and the wind sang against the pane. The fire made shape upon shape. The high, inward vibration lowered, but it left a memory of itself. There was the Jericho rose in the sandal box to say, "When there comes moisture again to my root, then shall I bloom again!"

Linden entered the parlor with the two guests, now with dried clothing, rested and refreshed. It was growing dusk. The room looked warm and bright to them, a happy haven after a battering day. They were young men; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, forestry graduates, resuming forestry after an interlude of war. Linden presented them. "Mr. Randall—Mr. Drew."

The evening closed in stormy. They had supper, a small bright feast, with talk and laughter. Randall proved lively, good company. Drew was much the quieter of the two. Supper over, they returned to the big parlor and the generous fire. The boy Jim had brought in a great armful of wood. It was a night to heap logs, as the rain drummed against the pane. Randall was talkative. He flowed like a mountain stream, trilled like a care-free bird.

Forests and forestry came into the room. It appeared that both had had from childhood a taste, not to say a passion, for woodland life. Randall had lived in the country, so it came natural. But Drew had lived in a city. But forests were a passion with him; he had to get into them, and did so at every chance, and at last left for good a clerkship in a stockbroker's office, and scraped together enough for that course in a forestry school. This gave him surface learning, but he exhibited a deeper knowingness, gained somewhere. "Drew's like an Indian in the woods!"

"No. Not like an Indian," said Drew.

Linden asked, "Like whom, then?"

He sat in a corner of the great fireplace, Tam, who came indoors upon nights like these, lying at his feet. "Drew," said Randall, "tell them about that night in France! He's got a curious story. He won't tell it to everybody. But I don't know—somehow we're all at home here." His quick song went on. "You see, my folk and Drew's are English. We're just a generation from fields and things that we've heard about all our lives. So when England went in, we thought we'd better go over, and we did. We were in the same company, and this was before Verdun. Go on, now, Drew!"

Drew began at once, without prelude, his eyes upon the blind man. "It was something that happened to me. Sometimes I think that it was a dream, and then I know that it wasn't. I'm more and more certain as time goes on that it wasn't. I've got a kind of feeling about Reality, that we are like swallows skimming it. I suppose that now and then a swallow tumbles into it. Well, it was a big, dark wood, fairly early in the war. A detachment, sent we did not know by whom nor for what, moved through it from one station to another. I was second lieutenant. Well, there came news of a trap, and most of us turned off in a hurry, out of that wood. But—I don't to this day know how it was—as many as twenty were away from the rest, sent to find out something, somewhere. It was night, and there was no path. We got the warning, too, and we swung round and tried to get back to the main body. There came a spattering of shot. There were men besides ourselves in that wood. They rose like partridges and struck like hawks. We struck back. There was fighting. Something came down on my head like a falling tree. I remember that I thought it was a falling tree. Then everything went black, and it seemed both a long time and a short time till dawn.

"It came at last, dawn. I sat up, and it had been a falling tree. My forehead had an aching lump and a gash, but luckily just a branch had struck me and I had rolled clear. It was a very old oak, brought down by the high wind. Upon the branch beside me was growing mistletoe. I wouldn't touch it, for I thought, 'It is not for me to touch it, but surely it saved my life!' There was gray light, and one red streak far down the forest where, after a time, would be the sun. And then I remembered that it was Lutwyn who had saved my life, crying out, and pushing me away, where I had thrown myself down for one moment's rest. I looked beyond the mistletoe and I saw that the tree had caught and pinned down a man. I crept on hands and knees, for I was dizzy yet, and I found Lutwyn. He lay pale and twitching, his leg and part of his body under the trunk of the oak. It was very still and lonely in the forest, and the first cold light made me shiver, and I was afraid of the mistletoe, so near. I got Lutwyn from under the tree, and it took all my strength to do it. The spring that we called Red Deer was hardly a spear throw away. I had on a cap of otter skin, and I filled this with water and brought it back to Lutwyn. When I had dashed it over his face and put it between his lips, he sighed, and came to himself, opening his eyes and trying to sit up. He said, 'I thought it would catch you, and I tried to thrust you out of its way—'

"I said: 'Are you badly hurt? Can you walk?'

"He tried, but he could only drag himself a little way, holding by a branch of the tree. The light had grown stronger, the red line down the forest was a red splash. We were both thinking of Guthlac and his men, who were after us because, being outlaws, we had set upon and stopped a bullock wagon and helped ourselves. We had strong belief that when they found us they would hang us. We had no great start of them.

"Lutwyn said: 'You go on, Oswy! I'll make myself at home here, by the mistletoe.'

"That couldn't be. I couldn't carry him. He was, if anything, a little taller and larger than I. He tried again to move, but it was not his leg alone; his body had been hurt, terribly hurt, I now saw. He could not make a step. It was I who drew him back to the tree. He settled down into the hollow made by the trunk and a bough, and I looked at his hurts, but could do little for them. I saw that they were filled with danger. The mistletoe grew so near him. I looked at it, and I wished it would heal. Lutwyn said: 'Now you go on, Oswy! I don't want you to be hanged.' I said, 'Save your breath!' and sat down beside him. We rested side by side against the tree, and he said that he was not in pain, but only now and then drowsy. He was very clear in his mind and wanted to talk. I listened for Guthlac and his men, and looked at the mistletoe. The sun was up now and it was growing gold—the mistletoe—a great bunch of it. I did not hear Guthlac. It was likely to be some time before they found us, having to wait till day to see our track. Now and then I felt Guthlac's rope around my neck. And then I looked at the mistletoe, and it seemed to be growing by Woden's chair. Then Lutwyn came awake again and we talked. We were twin brothers. We talked of when we were boys, and of our mother, and Lutwyn the Strong, our father, and of places we had seen and the earth we had trod. The Earth that was us, we thought, springing up in us all toward Father Sun. And all the wrong that we had done went away, and the mistletoe grew more golden. He drowsed away for longer and longer times.

"Far away I heard Guthlac's horn. It blew, and another answered. They had found our track and were drawing together. Lutwyn waked, and heard it, too. 'But there's another horn for me,' he said. 'Don't you hear that one?' He had slipped from the hollow of the oak and his head was on my knee. The horn blew louder and nearer. The mistletoe was all golden. I could feel Guthlac's rope around my neck. But I was glad they would not hang Lutwyn. He was dead.

"The horn blew louder in the wood. I heard them shouting. The mistletoe was burning gold. I said, 'Woden, Woden! we be brothers, Lutwyn and me!' They broke upon us, shouting, and all went black—"

Drew stopped speaking. He sat bent over, looking at the fire. Putting down a hand he stroked Tam. Straightening himself, he looked at Linden and Marget. "All that was actual," he said. "Just as actual, just as real, just as day and night and earthly and conscious as this room and the fire and we six and the dog!"

He made a movement toward Randall. "You tell the rest."

Randall's voice came in. "The detachment drove the Germans out of the wood and chased them a good long way. It was dawn when we stopped and went back to gather up our hurt and dead. There were a dozen dead, Germans and us, and a good many hurt, all scattered through that wood that was full of big trees. We found Drew propped against a very great, old, fallen tree. He had been struck over the head in the hand-to-hand fighting and had a cut or two besides. Nothing odd in that, but what was odd was that he was cherishing a dead German—had his head lying on his knee! Of course, enemies lying as close as lovers wasn't any novelty! But Drew had crept some little way to this man, and had tried to stop his bleeding, all there in the dark, and had given him water, and then had gathered him into his arms. He said: 'Yes, he was Drew, but he was one Oswy, too. Yes, that was a German, but it was Lutwyn, too.' He said they were twin brothers. We were used to men out of their heads, so we gathered him up and took him on. He wanted us to stop and bury the German, but there wasn't time for that. The funny thing is that he certainly isn't out of his head now! Yet he still believes that story, though he won't tell it to every one...."

The rain beat, the fire burned. "I've tried to get back," said Drew, "back to Guthlac and the bullock wagon and why we were outlaws. If I could find even now what we did—if I could get farther back still, to the point where we decided to do it, and redecide, decide more wisely, having long light upon it, I think that even now I could change in some way the whole world! Changing it to Lutwyn and me would mean changing the whole texture."

"You are right," said Linden. "And seeing it that way you have begun to put your change into operation."

The fire shined, the rain beat upon the panes, the wind came with the impact of sea in storm. Pictures shifted before the inner eye. Lands and times held the earth. Now they seemed foreign pictures, now there was a faintly conscious participation. "We are Earth, to-night," said Linden. "All these are in our memory. Earth is growing conscious. A conscious Spirit. That is what we mean to-day when we say, 'There is a new world just beneath the horizon.'"