The words, she knew now, were
familiar. It was the personality of the speaker which charged them with
freshness, with inspiration. What was it but the old plea for social
regeneration through political purity--an appeal to put the dream of the
idealist into the actual working of the State, since it is only through
the brain of the dreamer that a fact may be born into the world.
"He can speak all right," observed Gay carelessly, "there's no doubt
about that."
"I'd like to go, if you don't mind," answered Molly, and turning she
rode softly away from the picnic grounds through the scattered hamlet,
too small to be called a village. An old man, killing slugs in a potato
field, stared after them with his long stemmed corn-cob pipe hanging
loosely between his lips. Then when they had disappeared, he shook his
head twice very solemnly, spat on the ground, and went on patiently
murdering slugs.
"'Tis that fly-up-the-creek miller as they've come arter," he muttered.
"Things warn't so in my day, so they oughtn't to be so now. I ain't got
no use for anything that ain't never been befo'."
And in different language, the same thought was stirring in Gay's mind.
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