MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. "It is the heat," he
said. "Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and I left
it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the sky, and I
wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep the land out
to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a fierce death. It is
best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life
in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle
with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet,
armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the
torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the
black reef and the charging breakers,--it is well to dash one's force
against the force of these, and to die after fighting. But in this cursed
land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain
winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced
again at Haward. "I did not know that you were here," he said. "Saunderson
told me that you were going to Westover."
"I was,--I am," answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself from
the brown study into which he had fallen.
"'Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing that
your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is not a
breath; the river is like glass." He raised the wine to his lips, and
drank deeply. "Come," he said, laughing. "What did you at the store
to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to thee
and thou, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill the
place I have vacated? I trust he's no scurvy foe."
"I will take your questions in order," answered the other sententiously.
"This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel of fine ladies who
came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily concerned to know whether
your worship was gone to Westover, or had instead (as 't was reported)
shut yourself up in Fair View house. And this afternoon came over in a
periagua, from the other side, a very young gentleman with money in hand
to buy a silver-fringed glove. 'They are sold in pairs,' said I. 'Fellow,
I require but one,' said he. 'If Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to
Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to appear at the merrymaking at Colonel
Harrison's to-night, his cheek and this glove shall come together!'