It tingled
through and through him, filled him as if he had been a battery
overstored with electricity, shot out at his extremities in lightning
flashes.
In this final position his head had emerged into a leafless space, so
that he could see in all directions; could look down at the house, at
that open window, the kitchen door, and the flagged path; could look
at the barn roofs, the rick-yard, the beehives; could look at his
fields, where the grass lay drying; or could look away at woodland, at
heath, at distant hill. He paused purposely to give himself one last
look round at all he was leaving.
Yes, here was the world--the bitterly sweet world, smiling once more
as it wakes from sleep. Looking down at it he felt an agony of regret.
How intolerably cruel his doom. Why should he of all mortals have been
made to suffer so? But God's law--his own law. Mentally he was
obeying, but physically he was in fierce revolt. Every fiber of him,
every drop of blood, every minute nerve-cell was crying out against
the execution.
The sunlight flowed across the fields in golden waves, the colors of
the flowers sprang out, the soft cool air was like a supremely
magnificent wine that could give old nerveless men the strength of
young giants; and the very marrow of his bones seemed to shrink and
scream for mercy.
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