The Adventures of a Modest Man

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XIV

  A STATE OF MIND

  Up the narrow valley, over the unbroken sweep of treetops, arose tumbledpeaks; and above the Golden Dome, pushing straight upward into theflawless blue of heaven, towered a cloud, its inky convolutions edgedwith silver.

  Jones inspected the thunderhead with disapproval; Ellis offered his rod,and, being refused, began some clever casting, the artistic beauty ofwhich was lost upon Jones.

  One trout only investigated the red-and-white fly; and, that fish safelycreeled, Ellis turned to his companion:

  "Three years ago, when I last came here, this reach was more prolific.But there's a pool above that I'll warrant. Shall we move?"

  As they passed on upstream Jones said: "There's no pool above, only arapid."

  "You're in error," said Ellis, confidently. "I've known every pool onthe Caranay for years."

  "But there is no pool above--unless you mean to trespass."

  "Trespass!" repeated Ellis, aghast. "_Trespass_ in the free Caranayforests! You--you don't mean to say that any preserve has beenestablished on the Caranay! I haven't been here for three years.... _Do_you?"

  "Look there," said Jones, pointing to a high fence of netted wire whichrose above the undergrowth and cut the banks of the stream in two with abarrier eight feet high; "that's what stopped me. There's theirhome-designed trespass notice hanging to the fence. Read it; it's worthperusal."

  Speechless, but still incredulous, Ellis strode to the barrier andlooked up. And this is what he read printed in mincing "Art Nouveau"type upon a swinging zinc sign fashioned to imitate something or otherwhich was no doubt very precious:

  OYEZ!

  Ye simple livers of ye simpler life have raised thys barrier against ye World, ye Flesh and ye Devyl. Turn back in Peace and leave us to our Nunnery.

  YE MAIDS AND DAMES OF VASSAR.

  "What the devil is that nonsense?" demanded Ellis hoarsely.

  "Explained on our next tree," remarked Jones, wiping his eyeglassesindifferently.

  An ordinary trespass notice printed on white linen was nailed to theflank of a great pine; and, below this, a special warning, done in redon a white board:

  NOTICE!

  This property belongs to the Vassar College Summer School. Fishing, shooting, trapping, the felling of trees, the picking of wild flowers, and every form of trespass, being strictly forbidden, all violators of this ordinance under the law will be prosecuted. One hundred dollars reward is offered for evidence leading to the detection and conviction of any trespasser upon this property.

  THE DIRECTORS OF THE VASSAR SUMMER SCHOOL.

  "Well?" inquired Jones, as Ellis stood motionless, staring at the sign.The latter slowly turned an enraged visage toward his companion.

  "What are you going to do?" repeated Jones, curiously.

  "Do? I'm going to fish the Caranay. Come on."

  "Trespass on Vassar?" asked Jones.

  "I'm going to fish the Caranay, my old and favorite and belovedstream," retorted Ellis, doggedly. "Do you suppose a dinky zincsign in this forest can stop me? Come on, Jones. I'll show you atrout worth tossing this Caranay Belle to." And he looped on asilver-and-salmon-tinted fly and waded out into the rapids.

  Jones lighted his pipe and followed him, giving his views of severalmatters in a voice pitched above the whispering rush of the ripples:

  "That's all very well, Ellis, but suppose we are pinched and fined? Anice place, these forests, for a simple liver to lead a simple life in!Simple life! What? And some of these writers define the 'simple life' asmerely a 'state of mind.' That's right, too; I was in a state of minduntil I met you, let me tell you! They're perfectly correct; it is astate of mind."

  He muttered to himself, casting an anxious eye on the thundercloud whichstretched almost to the zenith over the Golden Dome and shadowed LynxPeak like a pall.

  "Rain, too," he commented, wading in Ellis's wake. "There's a mostdevilish look about that cloud. I wish I were a woodchuck--or a shiner,or an earnest young thing from Vassar. What are we to do if pinched withthe goods on us, Ellis?"

  The other laughed a disagreeable laugh and splashed forward.

  "Because," continued Jones, wiping the spray from his glasses, "thewoods yonder may be teeming with these same young things from Vassar.Old 'uns, too--there's a faculty for that Summer School. You can nevertell what a member of a ladies' Summer School faculty would do to you. Idare say they might run after you and frisk you for a kiss--out here inthe backwoods."

  "Do you know anything about this absurd Summer School?" asked Ellis,halting to wait for his companion.

  "Only what the newspapers print."

  "And what's that? I've not noticed anything about it."

  "Why, they all tell about the scope of the Vassar Summer School. It'sfounded"--and he grinned maliciously--"on the simple life."

  "How?" snapped Ellis, clambering up out of the water to the flat, sandyshore of an exquisite pool some forty rods in length.

  "Why, this way: The Vassar undergraduates, who formerly, aftercommencement, scattered into all the complexities of a silly,unprofitable, good old summer time, now have a chance to acquiresimplicity and a taste for the rudimentary pleasures and pursuits theyhave overlooked in their twentieth-century gallop after the complex."

  Ellis sullenly freed his line and glanced up at the clouds. It wasalready raining on the Golden Dome.

  "So," continued Jones, "the Summer School took to the woods along withthe rest of the simple-minded. I hear they have a library; doubtless itcontains the _Outlook_ and the Rollo books. They have courses in theearlier and simpler languages--the dead 'uns--Sanskrit, Greek, Latin;English, too, before it grew pin-feathers. They have a grand-stand builtof logs out yonder where the mosquito hummeth; and some trees and a pondwhich they call a theatre devoted to the portrayal of the greatprimitive and simple passions and emotions. They have also dammed up thestream to make a real lake when they give tank-dramas like Lohengrin andthe Rheingold; and the papers say they have a pair of live swans hitchedto a boat--that is, a yellow reporter swears they have, but he wasdiscovered taking snapshots at some Rhine-wine daughters, and hustledout of the woods----"

  He paused to watch Ellis hook and play and presently land a splendidtrout weighing close to two pounds.

  "It's an outrage, an infernal outrage, for such people to dam theCaranay and invade this God-given forest with their unspeakable tinsigns!" said Ellis, casting again.

  "But they're only looking for a simpler life--just like you."

  Ellis said something.

  "That," replied Jones, "is a simple and ancient word expressing terselyone of the simplest and most primitive passions. You know, the simplelife is merely a "state of mind"; you're acquiring it; I recognize thesymptoms."

  Ellis made another observation, more or less mandatory.

  "Yes, that is a locality purely mythical, according to our laterexponents of theology; therefore I cannot accept the suggestion to gothere----"

  "Confound it!" exclaimed Ellis, laughing, as he landed a trout, "let upon your joking. I'm mad all through, and it's beginning to rain. Whenthat thunder comes nearer it will end the fishing, too. Look at LynxPeak! Did you see that play of lightning? There's a corker of a stormbrewing. I hope," he added, savagely, "it will carry away theirconfounded dam and their ridiculous lake. The nerve of women to dam atrout stream like the Caranay.... What was that you said?"

  "I said," hissed Jones in a weird whisper, "that there are two girlsstanding behind us and taking our pictures with a kodak! Don't lookaround, man! They'll snap-shoot us for evidence!"

  But the caution was too late; Ellis had turned. There came a click of akodak shutter; Jones turned in spite of himself; another click sounded.

  "Stang!" breathed Jones as two young girls stepped from the shelter of ajuniper brush and calmly confronted the astonished trespassers.

  "I am very sorry to trouble you," said the taller one sev
erely, "butthis is private property."

  Ellis took off his cap; Jones did the same.

  "I saw your signs," said Ellis, pleasantly. Jones whispered to him: "Thetaller one is a corker!" and Ellis replied under his breath: "The otheris attractive, too."

  "You admit that you deliberately trespassed?" inquired the shorter girlvery gravely.

  "Not upon you--only upon what you call your property," said Ellis,gaily. "You see, we really need the trout in our business--which is tokeep soul and body on friendly terms."

  No answering smile touched the pretty grey eyes fixed on his. She saidgravely: "I am very sorry that this has happened."

  "We're sorry, too," smiled Jones, "although we can scarcely regret thecharming accident which permits us----"

  But it wouldn't do; the taller girl stared at him coldly from a pair ofornamental brown eyes.

  Presently she said: "We students are supposed to report cases like this.If you have deliberately chosen to test the law governing the protectionof private property no doubt our Summer School authorities will bewilling to gratify you before a proper tribunal.... May I ask yournames?" She drew a notebook from the pocket of her kilted skirt,standing gracefully with pencil poised, dark eyes focused upon Jones.And, as she waited, the thunder boomed behind the Golden Dome.

  "It's going to rain cats and dogs," said Jones, anxiously "and youhaven't an umbrella----"

  The dark-eyed girl gazed at him scornfully. "Do you refuse your name?"

  "No--oh, not at all!" said Jones hastily; "my name is Jones----"

  The scorn deepened. "And--is this Mr. Smith?" she inquired, looking atEllis.

  "My name _is_ Jones," said Jones so earnestly that his glasses fell off."And what's worse, it's John Jones."

  Something in his eye engaged her attention--perhaps the unwinkinginnocence of it. She wrote "John Jones" on her pad, noted his townaddress, and turned to Ellis, who was looking fixedly, but notoffensively, at the girl with the expressive grey eyes.

  "If you have a pad I'll surrender to you," he said, amiably. "There isglory enough for all here, as our admiral once remarked."

  The grey eyes glimmered; a quiver touched the scarlet mouth. But a crashof nearer thunder whitened the smile on her lips.

  "Helen, I'm going!" she said hastily to her of the brown eyes.

  "That storm," said Ellis calmly, "has a long way to travel before itstrikes the Caranay valley." He pointed with his rod, tracing in the skythe route of the crowding clouds. "Every storm that hatches behind theGolden Dome swings south along the Black Water first, then curves andcomes around by the west and sweeps the Caranay. You have plenty of timeto take my name."

  "But--but the play? I was thinking of the play," she said, lookinganxiously at the brown eyes, which were raised to the sky in silentmisgiving.

  "If you don't mind my saying so," said Ellis, "there is ample time foryour outdoor theatricals--if you mean that. You need not look for thatstorm on the upper Caranay before late this afternoon. Even then it maybreak behind the mountains and you may see no rain--only a flood in theriver."

  "Do you really think so?" she asked.

  "I do; I can almost answer for it. You see, the Caranay has been myhaunt for many years, and I know almost to a certainty what is likely tohappen here."

  "That is jolly!" she exclaimed, greatly relieved. "Helen, I really thinkwe should be starting----"

  But Helen, pencil poised, gazed obdurately at Ellis out of brown eyeswhich were scarcely fashioned for such impartial and inexorable work.

  "If your name is not Smith I should be very glad to note it," she said.

  So he laughed and told her who he was and where he lived; and she wroteit down, somewhat shakily.

  "Of course," she said, "you cannot be the _artist_--James Lowell Ellis,_the_ artist--the great----"

  She hesitated; brown eyes and grey eyes, very wide now, wereconcentrated on him. Jones, too, stared, and Ellis laughed.

  "_Are_ you?" blurted out Jones. "Great Heaven! I never supposed----"

  Ellis joined in a quartet of silence, then laughed again, a short,embarrassed laugh.

  "You _don't_ look like anything famous, you know," said Jonesreproachfully. "Why didn't you tell me who you are? Why, man, I own twoof your pictures!"

  To brown-eyes, known so far as "Helen," Ellis said: "We painters are abad lot, you see--but don't let that prejudice you against Mr. Jones; hereally doesn't know me very well. Besides, I dragged him into thisvillainy; didn't I, Jones? You didn't want to trespass, you know."

  "Oh, come!" said Jones; "I own two of your pictures--the Amourette andthe Corrida. That ought to convict me of almost anything."

  Grey-eyes said: "We--my father--has the Espagnolita, Mr. Ellis." Sheblushed when she finished.

  "Why, then, you must be Miss Sandys!" said Ellis quickly. "Mr. KennethSandys owns that picture."

  The brown eyes, which had widened, then sparkled, then softened asmatters developed, now became uncompromisingly beautiful.

  "I am dreadfully sorry," she said, looking at her notebook. "I trustthat the school authorities may not press matters." Then she raised hereyes to see what Jones's expression might resemble. It resembledabsolutely nothing.

  After a silence Miss Sandys said: "Do you think Helen, that we are--thatwe ought to report this----"

  "Yes, Molly, I do."

  "I'm only an architect; fine me, but spare my friend, Ellis," saidJones far too playfully to placate the brown-eyed Helen. She returnedhis glance with a scrutiny devoid of expression. The thunder boomedalong the flanks of Lynx Peak.

  "We--we are very sorry," whispered Miss Sandys.

  "I am, too," replied Ellis--not meaning anything concerning his legalpredicament.

  Brown-eyes looked at Jones; there was a little inclination of her prettyhead as she passed them. A moment later the two young men stood alone,caps in hand, gazing fixedly into the gathering dimness of Caranayforest.