The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-27
CONTINUED from Last Sundays News.)
CHAPTER X.
THE MAJOR AND PEG AT
CROSSES.

THE MAJOR AND PEG Al
CROSSES.
Next morning I went straight into
the midst of my correspondence and
began tossing it on my pen as hus-
bandmen toss hay. There rang no I'M
usual call for this energy of ink, but
the whole truth was that, flying like a
fugitive before pursuing thoughts of
Peg-I may tell you they had a fine
dance about my pillow the night be-
forel-I would make a refuge of my
work
Long ago I had given up the hope
of solving Peg in her vagaries. One
would never know where or when or
how to lay hold on her, for she came
to one new and new each day. Way
ward, erratic, now fierce and now ten
der, now in laughter and now in tears,
one might not count on her moods in
their direction more than on the flight
of birds. The one only thing one might
be sure of concerning Peg was that
one was sure of nothing.
1t was the thought of those tears
for the homecoming of Eaton which
would storm me down and have me
captive for all / might barricade with
pen and ink What should they pro-
claim? That Peg was unhappy, truly.
since folk do not weep for mirth. In
a way l was daunted of my honor
as l went about these thoughts; it
seemed a trustees thing to dwell on
Peg and her welded life. And 1 would
fight against it; and still it pinned
and held me. In the last of it
was claimed by the conclusion that
Peg found existence previously dark,
for what else should be headwaters
for those tears? Also, 1 resolved that
/ would coldly look the question of
her grief in the face; it might turn
the better for both of us to lay hands
upon its cause. l was given the more
courage for this scrutiny since l had
not forgotten how Peg named me to
be her only confidant; that word put
trust upon me and made my ques-
tion-asking a kind of duty.
AS thread by thread I lifted up the
inquiry of Pegs sorrw, the truth would
begin to make itself plain to me. Eaton
was something gross, and mayhap in
his finer senses not unnumbed of the
bowl. He could not value Peg-she.
perfumed spirit thing of music and
color and fire and light And Peg
would feel his lack of appreciation; it
would wiring her heart, stab her like
a dagger. Verify, l came by a great
freshness when now I was on the right
scent of 1t. This, it was, to lie at
the root of her meaning when she
showed me that vine trailing its rich
beauties along the ground, instead of
climbing, and said, II am like that
vine" The prone and earth-held soul
of Eaton offered her no trellis.
And so Peg mourned her lost estate
of love! And why should she not
mourn? She, thus swindled of a right
full destiny! Peg shone a thing Of
beauty to deck a heaven with; and
here was she fated to be the Jewel in
the dulled head of toad! Whv
should her sorrow find rebuke? Born
10 be the reason of admiration and to
feed on 1t as a flower feeds on the
sun, the irony of accident had flung
her into this chill corner of neglect,
And her love was dying-starving
away its life. Peg did not love Eaton:
the yoke CALLED her-yoking her as it
did to one who. while perhaps owning
the affections, the integrity, the low
atty, owned also the low unelevation
of the brute. And for that, Peg would
stay behind when Eaton went away
and weep to see him coming.
While, with some fondness for the
argument-since it would make for
Pegs exoneration-I was moving to
these conclusions, it ran abruptly over
me how, during our first talk in the
parlors of the Indian Queen, Pegs eyes
would seem to swim in love for Eaton.
recalled her cry of pain when she
feared he might be shamed for her
and how she said she would sooner
die than that. Then, surely, Peg must
have loved him! nor had he changed
since then.
These memories We're sent to battle
me; but with a second thought the
fallacy of such deductions was laid
bare. When, in the Indian Queen, Peg
would weep for love of Eaton, she was
but the bride of a month. She stood
yet in the haze of the honeymoon, and
had been given no frank outline of
her mate. Then he seemed what he
should be, not what he was, and Hope,
not Truth, was painter to the picture
Yes. it would walk before me right
enough Eaton had been a lover of
gold to become a husband of brass.
Peg was as much wasted on him as
though one put a love verse from Her