The Way Out (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II A NEW CREED THE young man who had been dismissed from his father's house walked unmindful of the rain still falling in the evening gloom, nor looked back to the door now closed behind him. His face, strong and deeply lined, now had settled into a sternness which belied the half-humorous expression it but now had borne. He was wide of chest, broad of shoulder, straight of limb as he walked now, hands in pockets, straightforward, not slouching down, his back flat . There was little of apathy or weakness about him, one would have said. Well-clad, such a man as he would attract many a backward gaze from men?or women?on any city street. He stepped straight down the little bank beyond the fence marking the delimitations of the scant yard and the little cornfield of Preacher Joslin's cabin, and at once was in the road, or all the road that ever had been known there. It was no better than the rocky bed of the shallow creek which flowed directly in front of the cabin. Here, in the logging days, iron- shod wheels had worn deep grooves into the sandrock. The longer erosion of the years also had cut sharp the faces of some of the clay banks. It might have been seen in a stronger light than this of twilight, that these banks had great seams of black running parallel through them?croppings of the heavy coal seams known throughout the region. From time to time the young man sprang from rock to rock as he made his way down the bed of the little branch now running full from the heavy rain, but he walked on carelessly, for the road was well known to him by day or night. It had been the path of himself, his family, his ancestors, for well nigh a hundred years. As he advanced, David Joslin cast an eye now and again upon the mountain sides. They were beautiful, even in the du...