COME-BACK STUMPER'S SIGN
VI
The steep bank was easily managed. They were up it in a twinkling, aline of dancing figures, all holding hands.
First went the Tramp, shining and glowing like a mirror in thesunshine--fire surely in him; next Judy, almost flying with the joy andlightness in her--as of air; Tim barely able to keep tight hold of herhand, so busily did his feet love the roots and rabbit-holes of--earth;and finally, Uncle Felix, rolling to and fro, now sideways, nowtoppling headlong, roaring as he followed like a heavy wave. Fire, air,earth, and water--they summarised existence; owned and possessed theendless day; lived it, were one with it. Their leader, who apparentlyhad swallowed the sun, fused and unified them in this amazing waywith--fire.
And hardly had they passed the line of shy forget-me-nots on the top ofthe bank, than they ran against a curious looking object that at firstappeared to be an animated bundle of some kind, but on closerinspection proved to be a human figure stooping. It was somebody verybusy about the edges of a great clump of bramble bushes. At the soundof their impetuous approach it straightened up. It had the face of aman--yellowish, patched with red, breathless and very hot. It wasCome-back Stumper.
He glared at them, furious at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air,half comical, half ashamed, as of being--caught. He took on atruculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have toexplain himself and did not want to do so. He turned and faced them.
"Mornin'," he grunted fiercely. "It's a lovely day."
But they all agreed so promptly with him that he dropped the offensiveat once. His face was _very_ hot. It dripped.
"Energetic as usual," observed Uncle Felix, while Tim poked among thebushes to see what he had been after, and Judy offered him a very dirtyhandkerchief to mop his forehead with. His bald head shone andglistened. Wisps of dark hair lay here and there upon it like thefeathers of a crow's torn wing.
"Thanks, dear," he said stiffly, using the few inches of ragged cambricand then tucking the article absent-mindedly into a pocket of hisshooting coat. "I've been up very early--since dawn. Since dawn," herepeated in a much louder voice, "got up, in fact, with the sun." Hemeant to justify his extreme and violent activity. He glanced at theTramp with a curious air of respect. Tim thought he saluted him, butJudy declared afterwards he was only wiping "the hot stuff off the sideof his dear old head."
"Wonderful moment,--dawn, ain't it, General?" said the Tramp. "Best inthe whole day when you come to think of it."
"It is, sir," replied Stumper, as proud as though a Field-Marshal hadaddressed him, "and the first." He looked more closely at the Tramp; herubbed his eyes, and then produced the scrap of cambric and rubbed themagain more carefully than before. Perhaps he, too, had been hoping fora leader! Something very proud and happy stole upon his perspiring faceof ochre. He moved a step nearer. "Did you notice it this morning?" heasked in a whisper, "the dawn, I mean? Never saw anything like it in melife before. Thought I was in the Himalayas or the Caucasus again.Astonishin', upon me word--the beauty of it! And the birds! Did youhear 'em? Expect you usually do, though," he added with a touch ofunmistakable envy and admiration in his tone.
"Uncommon," agreed the Tramp, "and no mistake about it. _They_ knew,you see." They no longer called each other "Sir" and "General"; theyhad come to an understanding apparently.
"Umph!" said Stumper, and looked round shyly at the others.
Stumper was evidently under the stress of some divine emotion he washalf ashamed of. An unwonted passion stirred him. He seemed a prey toan unusual and irrepressible curiosity. Only the obvious fact that hislisteners shared the same feelings with him loosened his sticky tongueand stole self-consciousness away. He had expected to be laughed at.Instead the group admired him. The Tramp--his manner proved it--thoughtof him very highly indeed.
"Never knew such a day in all me life before," Stumper admittedfrankly. "Couldn't--simply couldn't stay indoors."
He still retained a trace of challenge in his tone. But no onechallenged. Judy took his arm. "So you came out?" she said softly.
"Like us," said Uncle Felix.
"Of course," Tim added. But it was the Tramp who supplied thesignificant words they had all been waiting for, Stumper himself moreeagerly than any one else. "To look," he remarked quite naturally.
Stumper might have just won a great world-victory, judging by theexpression that danced upon his face. He dropped all pretence atfurther concealment. He put his other arm round Tim's shoulder, partlyto balance himself better against Judy's pushing, and partly because herealised the companionship of both children as very dear just then. Hehad a great deal to say, and wanted to say it all at once, but wordsnever came to him too easily; he had missed many an opportunity in lifefor the want of fluent and spontaneous address. He stammered and haltedsomewhat in his delivery. A new language with but a single word in itwould have suited him admirably.
"Yes," he growled, "I came out--to look. But when I got out--I cleanforgot what it was--who, I mean--no, _what_," he corrected himselfagain, "I'd come out to look for. Can't make it out at all." He brokeoff in a troubled way.
"No?" agreed Judy sympathetically, as though _she_ knew.
"But you want to find it awfully," Tim stated as a fact.
"Awfully," admitted Stumper with a kind of fierceness.
"Only you can't remember what it looks like quite?" put in Uncle Felix.
Stumper hesitated a moment. "Too wonderful to remember properly," hesaid more quietly; something like that. "But the odd thing is," he wenton in a lower tone, "I've seen it. I _know_ I've seen it. Saw it thismornin'--very early--when the pigeon woke me up--at dawn."
"Pigeon!" exclaimed Tim and Judy simultaneously. "Dawn!"
"Carrier-pigeon--flew in at my open window--woke me," continued thesoldier in his gruff old voice. "I've used 'em--carrier-pigeons, youknow. Sent messages--years ago. I understand the birds a bit.Extraordinary thing, I thought. Got up and looked at it." He blockedagain.
"Ah!" said some one, by way of encouragement.
"And it looked back at me." By the way he said it, it was clear hehardly expected to be believed.
"Of course," said Uncle Felix.
"Naturally," added Tim.
"And what d'you think?" Stumper went on, a note of yearning and evenpassion in his voice. "What d'you think?" he whispered: "I felt it hada message for me--brought _me_ a message--something to tell me--"
"Round its neck or foot?" asked Tim.
Stumper drew the boy closer and looked down into his face. "Eyes," hemumbled, "in its small bright eyes. There was a flash, I saw itplainly--something strange and marvellous, something I've been lookingfor all my life."
No one said a single word, but the old soldier felt the understandingsympathy rising like steam from all of them.
"Then, suddenly, it was gone--out into the open sky--bang into thesunrise. And I saw the dawn all over everything. I dressed--rushedout--and--"
"Had it laid an egg?" Tim asked, remembering another kind of huntingsomewhere, long ago.
"How could it?" Judy corrected him quickly. "There was--no time--" thenstopped abruptly. She turned towards Come-Back Stumper; she gave him ahurried and affectionate hug. "And then," she asked, "what happenednext?"
Stumper returned the hug, including Tim in it too. "I found_this_--fluttering in my hand," he said, and held up a small greyfeather for them to admire. "It's the only clue I've got. The pigeonleft it."
While they admired the feather and exhibited their own, Tim crying,"We've got five now, nearly a whole wing!" Stumper was heard to murmurabove their heads, "And since I--came out to look--I've felt--quitedifferent."
"Your secret's in the wind and open sky!" cried Judy, dancing round himwith excitement. Her voice came flying from the air.
"You're awfully warm--you're hot--you're burning!" shouted Tim,clapping his hands. His voice seemed to rise out of the earth.
"We've all seen it, all had a glimpse," roared Uncle Felix with a s
oundof falling water, rolling up nearer as he spoke. "It's too wonderful tosee for long, too wonderful to remember quite. But we shall find it inthe end. We're all looking!" He began a sort of dancing step. "And whenwe find it--" he went on.
"We'll change the world," shouted Stumper, as though he uttered a finalword of command.
"It's a he, remember," interrupted Tim. "Come along!"
And then the Tramp, who had been standing quietly by, smiling tohimself but saying nothing, came nearer, opened his great arms and drewthe four of them together. His voice, his shining presence, the warmbrilliance that glowed about him, seemed to envelop them like a flameof fire and a fire of--love.
"We're thinking and arguing too much," he drawled in his leisurely, bigvoice, "we lose the trail that way, we lose the rhythm. Just love andlook and wonder--then we'll find him. There is no hurry, life has justbegun. But keep on looking all the time." He turned to Stumper with achuckle. "You said you had a flash," he reminded him. "What's become ofit? You can't have lost it--with that pigeon's feather in your hand!"
"It's waggling," announced Tim, holding up his own, while the othersfollowed suit. The little feathers all bent one way--towards thebramble clump. Their tiny, singing music was just audible in the pause.
"Yes," replied Come-Back Stumper at length. "I've had a flash--flashes,in fact! What's more," he added proudly, "I was after a couple ofthem--just when you arrived."
Everybody talked at once then. Uncle Felix and the children fell toexplaining the signs and traces they had already discovered, eachaffirming vehemently that their own particular sign was theloveliest--the dragon-fly, the flowers, the wind, the bending reeds,even the lizard and the bumble-bee. The chorus of sound was like thechattering of rooks among the tree-tops; in fact, though the quality oftone of course was different, the resemblance to a concert of birds,all singing together in a summer garden, was quite striking. Out of thehubbub single words emerged occasionally--a "robin," "swallows," an"up-and-under bird"--yet, strange to say, so far as Stumper wasconcerned, only one thing was said; all said the same one thing; heheard this one thing only--as though the words and sentences they usedwere but different ways of pronouncing it, of spelling it, of utteringit. Moreover, the wind in the feather said it too, for the sound andintonation were similar. It was the thing that wind and running watersaid, that flame roared in the fireplace, that rain-drops pattered onthe leaves, even house-flies, buzzing across thewindow-panes--everything everywhere, the whole earth, said it.
He stood still, listening in amazement. His face had dried by now; hepassed his hand across it; he tugged at his fierce military moustache.
"Hiding--near us--in the open--everywhere," he muttered, though no oneheard him; "I've had my flashes too."
"Different people get different signs, of course," the Tramp madehimself heard at length, "but they're all the same. All lie along thetrail. The earth's a globe and circle, so everything leads to the sameplace--in the end."
"Yes," said Stumper; "thank you"--as though he knew it already, butfelt that it was neatly put.
"Follow up your flash," added the Tramp. "Smell--then follow. Thatis--keep on looking."
Stumper turned, pirouetting on what the children called his "livingleg." "I will," he cried, with an air of self-abandonment, and promptlydiving by a clever manoeuvre out of their hands, he fell heavily uponall fours, and disappeared beneath the dense bramble bushes just behindthem. Panting, and certainly perspiring afresh, he forced his way inamong the network of thick leaves and prickly branches. They heard himpuffing; it seemed they heard him singing too, as he reached forwardwith both arms into the dark interior. Caught by his whole-heartedenergy, they tried to help; they pushed behind; they did their best toopen a way for his head between the entwining brambles.
"Don't!" he roared inside. "You'll scratch my eyes out. I shan'tsee--anything!" His mouth apparently was full of earth. They watchedthe retreating soles of his heavy shooting-boots. Slowly the feet weredragged in after him. They disappeared from sight. Stumper was gone.
"He'll come back, though," mentioned Judy. The performance had been sointeresting that she almost forgot its object, however. Tim remindedher. "But he won't find anything in a smelly place like that," hedeclared. "I mean," he added, "it can't be a beetle or a grub thatwe're--looking for." Yet there was doubt and wonder in his voice.Stumper, a "man like that," and a soldier, a hunter too, who had donescouting in an Indian jungle, and met tigers face to face--a chap likethat could hardly disappear on all fours into a clump of bramble busheswithout an excellent reason!
An interval of comparative silence followed, broken only by the faintmurmur of the wind that stirred their humming feathers. They stood in arow and listened intently. Hardly a sound came from the interior of thebramble bushes. The soldier had justified his title. He had retiredpletely. To Judy it occurred that he might be suffocated, to Tim thathe might have been eaten by some animal, to Uncle Felix that he mighthave slipped out at the other side and made his escape. But no oneexpressed these idle thoughts in words. They believed in Stumperreally. He invariably came back. This time would be no exception to therule.
And, presently, as usual, Stumper did come back. They heard himgrunting and panting long before a sign of him was visible. They heardhis voice, "Got him! Knew I was right! Bah! Ugh!" as he splutteredearth and leaves from his mouth apparently. He emerged by degrees andbackwards; backed out, indeed, like an enormous rabbit. His boots, hislegs, his hands planted on the ground, his neck and then his face,looking out over his shoulder, appeared successively. "Just the kind ofplace he _would_ choose!" he exclaimed triumphantly, collapsing backupon his haunches and taking a long, deep breath. Beside the triumph inhis voice there was a touch of indescribable, gruff sweetness thechildren knew was always in his heart--no amount of curried-livertrouble could smother _that_. Just now it was more marked than usual.
"Show us!" they cried, gathering round him. Judy helped him to hisfeet; he seemed a little unsteady. Purple with the exertion of thesearch, both cheeks smeared with earth, neck-tie crooked, and old greyshooting-coat half-way up his back, Come-Back Stumper stood upright,and looked at them with shining eyes. He was the picture of a happy andsuccessful man.
"There!" he growled, and held out a hand, palm upwards, still tremblingwith his recent exertions. "Didn't I tell you?"
They crowded round to examine a small object that lay between twosmears of earth in the centre of the upturned palm. It was round andhad a neat little opening on its under side. It was pretty, certainly.Their heads pressed forward in a bunch, like cabbages heaped formarket. But no one spoke.
"See it?" said Stumper impatiently; "see what it is?" He bent forwardtill his head mixed with theirs, his big aquiline nose in everybody'sway.
"We see it--yes," said Uncle Felix without enthusiasm. "It's a snailshell--er--I believe?" The shade of disappointment in his voice wasreflected in the children's faces too, as they all straightened up andgazed expectantly at the panting soldier. "Is that all?" was thesentence no one liked to utter.
But Stumper roared at them. "A snail shell!" he boomed; "of course it'sa snail shell! But did you ever see such a snail shell in your livesbefore? Look at the colour! Look at the shape! Put it against your earsand hear it singing!" He was furious with their lack of appreciation.
"It's the common sort," said Uncle Felix, braver than the others,"something or other vulgaris--"
"Hundreds of them everywhere," mentioned Tim beneath his breath to Judy.
But Stumper overheard them.
"Common sort! Hundreds everywhere!" he shouted, his voice almostchoking in his throat; "look at the colour! Look at the shape, I tellyou! Listen to it!" He said the last words with a sudden softness.
They lowered their heads again for a new examination.
"What more d'you want, I'd like to know? There's colour for you!There's wonder! There's a sheer bit of living beauty!" and he loweredhis head again so eagerly that it knocked audibly against Tim's skull.
"P
lease move your nose away," said Tim, "I can't see."
"Common indeed!" growled the soldier, making room willingly enough,while they obeyed his booming orders. They felt a little ashamed ofthemselves for being so obtuse, for now that they looked closer theysaw that the shell was certainly very beautiful. "Common indeed!" hemuttered again. "Why, you don't know a sign when it's straight beforeyour noses!"
Judy pulled the fingers apart to make it roll towards her; she felt itall over, stroking the smooth beauty of its delicate curves. It wasexquisitely tinted. It shone and glistened in the morning sunlight. Sheput it against her ear and listened. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "It _is_singing," as the murmur of the wind explored its hollow windings.
"That's the Ganges," explained Stumper in a softer voice. "The waves ofthe Ganges breaking on the yellow sands of India. Wind in the jungletoo." His face looked happy as he watched her; his explosions neverlasted long.
She passed it over to her brother, who crammed it against his ear andlistened with incredible grimaces as though it hurt him. "I can hearthe tigers' footsteps," he declared, screwing up his eyes, "and birdsof paradise and all sorts of things." He handed it on reluctantly tohis uncle, who listened so deeply in his turn that he had to shut botheyes. "I hear calling voices," he murmured to himself, "voices calling,calling everywhere....it's wonderful... like a sea of voices from theother side of the world... the whole world's singing...!"
"And look at the colour, will you?" urged Stumper, snatching it awayfrom the listener, who, seemed in danger of becoming entranced. "Why,he's not only passed this way--he's actually touched it. That's histouch, I tell you!"
"That's right," mumbled the Tramp, watching the whole performance withapproval. "Folks without something are always sharper than the others."But this reference to a wooden leg was also too low for any one to hearit.
Besides Stumper was saying something wonderful just then; he loweredhis voice to say it; there was suppressed excitement in him; he frownedand looked half savagely at them all:
"I found other signs as well," he whispered darkly. "Two other signs.In the darkness of those bushes I saw--another flash--two of 'em!" Andhe slowly extended his other hand which till now he had kept behind hisback. It was tightly clenched. He unloosed the fingers gradually."Look!" he whispered mysteriously. And the hand lay open before theireyes. "He's been hiding in those very bushes, I tell you. A momentsooner and we might have caught him."
His enthusiasm ran all over them as they pressed forward to examine thesecond grimy hand. There were two things visible in it, and both weremoving. One, indeed, moved so fast that they hardly saw it. There was ashining glimpse--a flash of lovely golden bronze shot through withblue--and it was gone. Like a wee veiled torch it scuttled across thepalm, climbed the thumb, popped down the other side and dropped uponthe ground. Vanished as soon as seen!
"A beetle!" exclaimed Uncle Felix. "A tiny beetle!"
"But dipped in colour," said Stumper with enthusiasm, "the colour ofthe dawn!"
"Another sign! I never!" He was envious of the soldier's triumph.
"He looks in the unlikely places," muttered the Tramp again,approvingly. "You've been pretty warm this time." But, again, he saidit too low to be audible. Besides, Stumper's other "find" engrossedeverybody's attention. All were absorbed in the long, dainty objectthat clung cautiously to his hand and showed no desire to hurry out ofsight after the brilliant beetle. It was familiar enough to all ofthem, yet marvellous. It presented itself in a new, original light.
They watched it spellbound; its tiny legs moved carefully over thewrinkles of the soldier's skin, feeling its way most delicately, andturning its head this way and that to sniff the unaccustomed odour.Sometimes it looked back to admire its own painted back, and to let itsdistant tail know that all was going well. The coloured hairs upon thegraceful body were all a-quiver. It fairly shone. There was obviouslyno fear in it; it had perfect control of all its length and legs. Yet,fully aware that it was exploring a new country, it sometimes raisedits head in a hesitating way and looked questioningly about it and eveninto the great faces so close against its eyes.
"A caterpillar! A common Woolly Bear!" observed Tim, yet with a touchof awe.
"It tickles," observed Stumper.
"I'll get a leaf," Judy whispered. "It doesn't understand your smell,probly." She turned and picked the biggest she could find, and thecaterpillar, after careful observation, moved forward on to it, turningto inform its following tail that all was safe. Gently and cleverlythey restored it to the bush whence Stumper had removed it. It went tojoin the snail-shell and the beetle. They stood a moment in silence andwatched the quiet way it hid itself among the waves of green the windstirred to and fro. It seemed to melt away. It hid itself. It leftthem. It was gone.
And Stumper turned and looked at them with the air of a man who hasjustified himself. He had certainly discovered definite signs.
But there was bewilderment among the group as well as pleasure. Forsigns, they began to realise now, were everywhere indeed. The world wassmothered with them. There was no one clear track that they couldfollow. All Nature seemed organised to hide the thing they looked for.It was a conspiracy. It was, indeed, an "enormous hide," an endlessgame of hide-and-seek. The interest and the wonder increased sensiblyin their hearts. The thing they sought to find, the Stranger, "It," bywhatever name each chose to call the mysterious and evasive "hider,"was so marvellously hidden. The glimpse they once had known seemedlong, long ago, and very far away. It lay like a sweet memory in eachheart, half forgotten, half remembered, but always entirely believedin, very dear and very exquisite. The precious memory urged themforward. They would search and search until they re-discovered it, eventhough their whole lives were spent in the looking. They were quitepositive they would find him in the end.
All this lay somehow in the expression on Stumper's face as he glaredat them and ejaculated a triumphant "There! I told you so!" And at thatmoment, as though to emphasize the thrill of excited bewilderment theyfelt, a gorgeous brimstone butterfly sailed carelessly past beforetheir eyes and vanished among the pools of sunlight by the forest edge.Its presence added somehow to the elusive and difficult nature of theirsearch. Its flamboyant beauty was a kind of challenge.
"That's what the caterpillar gets into," observed Tim dreamily.
"Let's follow it," said Judy. "_I_ believe the flying signs are best."
"Puzzlin' though," put in the Tramp behind them. They had quiteforgotten his existence. "Let's ask the gardener what _he_ thinks."
He pointed to a spot a little further along the edge of the wood wherethe figure of a man was visible. It seemed a good idea. Led by theTramp, Uncle Felix and Stumper following slowly in the rear, they movedforward in a group. Weeden might have seen something. They would askhim.
The Extra Day Page 23