s when it started.
And then fetch it down to now; his leaving home forever--and his exile
in the woods--considerably different from a camping trip--the silent
days, worse--the nights. And all the time his mind going back and back
to what he'd left behind--his home, seeing every little corner of
it--you know the tortures of imagination--his friends--the girl--always
the girl--wondering why, and why, and why. Think of the days and
months without seeing one of your own kind. He had to have books; his
wild garden had to blossom. That man wasn't "coddling" his soul--he
was ripping and tearing it into shreds and then pounding it together
again with a hammer and with nails. All alone. That's the hardest, I
suppose. And then, when it was all done and the worst of the pain and
the torment passed, away up there in the forests, Robert
Halarkenden--it _is_ true, isn't it?--he rose from the dead, and being
risen, he took a hand in the big business of the world. And his latest
job is you. Has that occurred to you? I don't mean to say that he
went through all that just to be a help to you. But I do say that if
he hadn't gone through it he wouldn't have been a help to anybody. He
did it. You needed to find out about it. He told you. It got
through. Things sometimes do.

Suppose he hadn't come down from the mountains that day--that they'd
found him there--that he hadn't had the nerve to face it? Who would
have cured the tuberculosis lad--who would have sent the children
south--who would have brushed through your uncle's garden hedge in
Forest Gate, Illinois, and told you what you needed to be told? If
_you_ should turn out not to have the nerve--if, some day you--? Then
what about _your_ job? Nobody can ever do another person's real work,
and, if it isn't done, I think it's likely we'll have to keep company
with our undone, unattempted jobs forever. Mostly rather little jobs
they are, too--so much the more shame for having dodged them. You say
that you haven't got one. Maybe not, just now. But how do you know it
isn't right around the corner? Did Halarkenden have you in mind those
years he fought with beasts? No--not you--it was the girl back in
Scotland. But here you are, getting the benefit of it. It's a small
place, the world, and we're tied and tangled together--it won't do to
cut loose. That spoils things, and it's all to come right at the last,
if we'll only let it.

Possibly you'll think it's silly