The stranger lit one cigar from the end of another, and puffed and listened
with half-closed eyes.
"I will remember more to tell you if you like," said the boy.
He spoke with that extreme gravity common to all very young things who feel
deeply. It is not till twenty that we learn to be in deadly earnest and to
laugh. The stranger nodded, while the fellow sought for something more to
relate. He would tell all to this man of his--all that he knew, all that
he had felt, his inmost sorest thought. Suddenly the stranger turned upon
him.
"Boy," he said, "you are happy to be here."
Waldo looked at him. Was his delightful one ridiculing him? Here, with
this brown earth and these low hills, while the rare wonderful world lay
all beyond. Fortunate to be here?
The stranger read his glance.
"Yes," he said; "here with the karoo-bushes and red sand. Do you wonder
what I mean? To all who have been born in the old faith there comes a time
of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet planted our feet
on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still
small voice of reason is not yet heard. We have proved the religion our
mothers fed us on to be a delusion; in our bewilderment we see no rule by
which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day we must step
somewhere.
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