When he met Linden on the porch he said: "Richard, if it's so with those folk whom we so promptly insisted hadn't any reality in them, isn't it so all over? When I'm pondering Bob who's in England, or when I'm thinking of nothing in particular and in he walks into mind and affection--"
"Yes. It is part of the same truth. It all rests on the oneness of Being. That is why you must in some wise grasp that Oneness first. A time will come where there will be no saying 'My brother Dick,' or 'Bob in England,' because they and Wilmot Hereward and all others will have advanced beyond all such divisions. But on the road there you will meet many a fair power!"
The old man went the next morning back to Oakwood in his battered car. He went alone and not alone, with a peaceful face.
In the afternoon Anna and Curtin, Drew and the two Danes, walked down the river, in among the partly forested, partly grassy hills that here closed the valley. Indian summer had now stolen over the land. The air hung smoky amethyst, and still as still! No motion was in the fallen leaves, the birds sailed stilly by, the stubble fields dreamed, the river sang low. Wood smoke clung in the nostril. Turning, coming homeward, the brick house and yellowed pillars stood pictured. They passed through the orchard and by a small cider mill. Zinia, on the back porch, poured for each out of an amber pitcher an amber glassful. "_Was-hael!_" said Drew, and lifted the glass. Curtin caught from memory the answering phrase, "_Drink-hael!_" A shaft of wonder, like a gleam of light, touched them all with strange fingers. Something trembled in the air. If it said aught it said, "So Earth begins to _live_ Poetry!" Drew set down the cup with a sharp, clear sound. "Life, everlasting life!" he said. "I see it now! We have always lived!"
Again evening in the old parlor, the fire and music, Tam lying beside Linden, Marget seated by Anna Darcy. Robert Dane spoke. "This finding ourselves in all and all in us, this lifting the all into a mighty I, this is it behind the slowly accelerating movements of the ages, behind all efforts for freedom, for knowledge, for interchange and intercourse, swifter and swifter, subtler and subtler intercourse--this is it?"