CHAPTER X. Powers of Darkness

October dragged slowly along, and Christopher followed his work
upon the farm with the gloomy indifference which had become the
settled expression of his attitude toward life. Since the morning
when he had seen Will drive by to the cross-roads he had heard
nothing of him, and gradually, as the weeks went on, that last
reckless night behind the hounds had ceased to represent a cause
either of rejoicing or of regret. He had not meant to goad the
boy into drinking--of this he was quite sure--and yet when the
hunt was over and the two stood just before dawn in Tom Spade's
room he had felt the devil enter into him and take possession.
The old mad humour of his blood ran high, and as the raw whisky
fired his imagination he was dimly conscious that his talk grew
wilder and that the surrounding objects swam before his gaze as
if seen through a fog. Life, for the time at least, lost its
relative values; the moment loomed larger in his vision than the
years, and he beheld the past and the future dwarfed by the
single radiant instant that was his own. It was as if he could
pay back the score of a lifetime in that one minute.

"Is it possible that what was so difficult yesterday should have
grown so easy to-day?" he asked himself, astonished. "Why have I
never seen so clearly before? Why, until this evening, have I
gone puling about my life as if such things as disgrace and
poverty were sufficient to crush the strength out of a man? Let
me put forth all my courage and nothing is impossible--not even
the attainment of success nor the punishment of Fletcher. It is
only necessary to begin at once--to hasten about one's task--and
in a few short years it will be accomplished and done with. All