Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/266

 VENTS have a way of moving with such sluggishness that their motion is all but imperceptible—of so moving until they seem to gather impetus with starling suddenness for a momentous onrush to some predestined objective. There is a subtility and finesse about it, a patent effort on the part of fate to catch its object unaware and to hurl him forward to its purpose before he realizes he has been caught in the avalanche-rush. It was so now with events in Rainbow. For years they had crawled, had seemed at a standstill; but now the irresistible pressure had begun, and before it Angus Burke, Lydia Canfield, Judge Crane, Dave Wilkins—and others all but forgotten in the monotony of the drama—were being driven headlong to their several climaxes.

Verry, the eccentric, alcoholic, ingenious fisher in the stream of opportunity, was the puppet selected by circumstances to unloose forces of whose potentiality he did not dream, and which, without doubt, he never perceived.