The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1936-10-09
CHAPTER XIV

cattle or the sun. were tney 1OOiS,
do you Think?
"What were the Cattle of the SunT
Agnes asked. "Days?"
days. They devoured the days
the Cattle of the Herder Of the Heav-
ens-without counting them"
"Must we count them?"
"You don't want to, either"
II can't bear to-! / can't bear to
know when this must come to an
end"
ut will never come to an end, Ag-
mes, what's between u.s."
"No; but you must go back to the
people that need you. So many peo-
pie that so desperately need you!
And you're so young-so young!" She
caught his hand and kissed it; so he
caught her to him; and for several
moments both Of them forgot about
the Cattle of the Sun. Then he said,
defiantly: 1--WE won't count them,
either. Wen throw away the cal
endar and never mark the days."
But" she weakened, "can we?"
'See that great gray crag down
there" Cathal gazed into the valley
1t was MONDAY, and they rested side
by side, far up on the flank of their
mountain, at the very edge Of the
snow-line. Above them rose rock and
snow; beside them a single stout little
dwarf pine chung in a cleft, a brave
outpost Of the forest below.
The Sun, herding his cattle through
the pastures of Time, had climbed to
his highest slope in the sky; and his
radiance caught the gray crag so that
it shone above the mountains shadow.
Agnes gazed at the great rock. and
she followed Cathal's feeling: Until
that falls into the shadow at noon,
let us stay! Then we need never
count the days. Only, some day that
rock will tell us that we must CO."
And so they agreed on it.
They were far in the west and the
north, amid the mighty, majestic
mountains; and for five days they had
been married. (And Bob Gleneith had
stood by his Light One in the service
at the house of the minister.)
To be married, to take your place
in the procession of life, to realize
at last how you had received your life
and how, If you willed, you would pass
life on-that was a solemn and also
an ecstatically happy situation. And
there were the mountains.
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling
place in all generations. Before the
mountains were brought forth. {.
Before these mountains were brought
forth!
For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
and as a watch in the night.
A thousand years ago, no one had
ever dreamed Of Chicago, and the
forefathers of the millions in the
teeming city were to beget sons and
daughters and die, and they would
bear children that would die through
six hundred years, before a genera
ton grew that would hear Of this
America. And the stock-market that
now "made" or ruined so many men
what was it? A center of scheming
through a moment Of time. Your
stocks maintained their prices, in this
center of mems schemes, and you
remained powerful and great like In
sull, and clever and comfortable like
Jeb. They declined, and you were
disgraced like Philip Linsdale and
John Ormstead; or you must destroy
yourself, as Arthur Linsdale had done.
and Davis had tried to do, in order
to leave a few dollars to Bee and the
boys. Thou earliest them away AZ
with a flood; they are as a sleep.
But the mountain would remain;
the world continue to spin under the
sun, each year in the spring exposing
to the sunshine for a few days that
great gray crag in the valley, and i'm
mersing 1t again in the shadow until
another twelvemonth was turned. One
new, reckoned year to add to the un-
countable ages Of eternal Time.
Agnes shivered little.
"Cold?" He clasped her closer.
slave we been mad, Cathal2 Are
we all insane in the cities?"
"Here," he said, ut seems 30. But
you and are going back"
"Not before we mustl oh, why do
we ever leave here"
He looked down at her. "All my
life, I'll remember how you said thati
And a thousand. thousand other
What magic you've made Of my
daysi"
you think have2 1t seems to me
you've done it all. I've merely moved,
Cathal, into your kingdom"
Miner" he said. Miner"
"With your words. that night, you
made its vyallsI I"