And by the time I had crossed the
first range of hills, it was quite dark. As I walked I brooded upon many
things. There were enough to disturb me.
"There was old Joe Cumberland, at death's door and beyond the reach of
my knowledge; and he had been taken away from death by the wild man, Dan
Barry. There was the girl with the bright hair--Kate Cumberland. In
education, nothing; in brain, nothing; in experience, nothing; and yet I
was attracted. But she was not attracted in the least until along came
the wild man again, and then she fell into his arms--actually fought for
him! Why? I could not tell. My name and the things I have done and even
my money, meant nothing to her. But when he came it was only a glance, a
word, a smile, and she was in his arms. I felt like Caligula. I wished
the world had only one neck, and I an axe. But why should I have felt
depressed because of failures in the eyes of these silly yokels? Not one
of them could read the simplest chemical formula!
"All very absurd, you will agree, and you may get some inkling as to my
state of mind while I walked over those same dark hills. I seemed a part
of that darkness. I looked up to the stars. They were merely like the
pages of a book. I named them off hand, one after the other, and thought
of their characteristics, their distances, their composition, and
meditated on the marvels the spectrum has made known to us. But no
sooner did such a train of thoughts start in my brain, than I again
recurred to the girl, Kate Cumberland, and all I was aware of was a pain
at heart--something like homesickness.
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