ree small Trysts dropping armfuls of leaves and pointing
at the flames leaping out of the smoulder. There, too, was Tod's big
figure, motionless, and his dog sitting on its haunches, with head poked
forward, staring at those red tongues of flame. Kirsteen had come with
him to the wicket gate. He held her hand long in his own and pressed
it hard. And while that blue figure, turned to the sunset, was still
visible, he screwed himself back to look.

They had been in painful conclave, as it seemed to Felix, all day,
coming to the decision that those two young things should have their
wish, marry, and go out to New Zealand. The ranch of Cousin Alick Morton
(son of that brother of Frances Freeland, who, absorbed in horses, had
wandered to Australia and died in falling from them) had extended
a welcome to Derek. Those two would have a voyage of happiness--see
together the red sunsets in the Mediterranean, Pompeii, and the dark
ants of men swarming in endless band up and down with their coal-sacks
at Port Said; smell the cinnamon gardens of Colombo; sit up on deck at
night and watch the stars.... Who could grudge it them? Out there youth
and energy would run unchecked. For here youth had been beaten!

On and on the old 'fly' rumbled between the shadowy fields. 'The world
is changing, Felix--changing!' Was that defeat of youth, then, nothing?
Under the crust of authority and wealth, culture and philosophy--was the
world really changing; was liberty truly astir, under that sky in the
west all blood; and man rising at long last from his knees before the
God of force? The silent, empty fields darkened, the air gathered dewy
thickness, and the old 'fly' rumbled and rolled as slow as fate. Cottage
lamps were already lighted for the evening meal. No laborer abroad at
this hour! And Felix thought of Tryst, the tragic fellow--the moving,
lonely figure; emanation of these solitary fields, shade of the
departing land! One might well see him as that boy saw him, silent,
dogged, in a gray light such as this now clinging above the hedgerows
and the grass!

The old 'fly' turned into the Becket drive. It had grown dark now, save
for the half-moon; the last chafer was booming by, and a bat flitting,
a little, blind, eager bat, through the quiet trees. He got out to walk
the last few hundred yards. A lovely night, silent below her stars--cool
and dark, spread above field after field, wood on wood, for hundreds of
miles on every side. Night cov