"No, that is not true. Those are not the words. I
cannot find them. I fail to say what I feel. Let me try again.
Underneath all you do carry the stamp of the breed. I knew I risked
the loss of that when I sent you away, but I had faith in the
persistence of the blood and I took the chance; doubted and feared when
you were gone; waited and prayed dumbly, and hoped oftentimes
hopelessly; and then the day dawned, the day of days! When they said
your boat was coming, death rose and walked on the one hand of me, and
on the other life everlasting. _Made or marred; made or marred_,--the
words rang through my brain till they maddened me. Would the Welse
remain the Welse? Would the blood persist? Would the young shoot rise
straight and tall and strong, green with sap and fresh and vigorous?
Or would it droop limp and lifeless, withered by the heats of the world
other than the little simple, natural Dyea world?
"It was the day of days, and yet it was a lingering, watching, waiting
tragedy. You know I had lived the years lonely, fought the lone fight,
and you, away, the only kin. If it had failed . . . But your boat
shot from the bluffs into the open, and I was half-afraid to look. Men
have never called me coward, but I was nearer the coward then than ever
and all before. Ay, that moment I had faced death easier. And it was
foolish, absurd.
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