Caius was not diverted; he
had not the good-nature to be in sympathy with the sort of hilarity
which was exacted from him.
CHAPTER VII.
"A SEA CHANGE."
In the procession of the swift-winged hours there is for every man one
and another which is big with fate, in that they bring him peculiar
opportunity to lose his life, and by that means find it. Such an hour
came now to Caius. The losing and finding of life is accomplished in
many ways: the first proffer of this kind which Time makes to us is
commonly a draught of the wine of joy, and happy is he who loses the
remembrance of self therein.
The hour which was so fateful for Caius came flying with the light winds
of August, which breathed over the sunny harvest fields and under the
deep dark shade of woods of fir and beech, waving the gray moss that
hung from trunk and branch, tossing the emerald ferns that grew in the
moss at the roots, and out again into light to catch the silver down of
thistles that grew by the red roadside and rustle their purple bloom;
then on the cliff, just touching the blue sea with the slightest ripple,
and losing themselves where sky and ocean met in indistinguishable azure
fold.
Through the woods walked Caius, and onward to the shore. Neddy Morrison
was dead. The little child who was lost in the sea was almost forgotten.
Caius, thinking upon these things, thought also upon the transient
nature of all things, but he did not think profoundly or long.
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