by John Buchan
This seemed to Bill to be all that could be desired in the way of excitement. But he did not know just how exciting that long-leave was destined to be.
The first shadow of a cloud appeared after luncheon, when he had changed into knickerbockers and Thomas and the dogs were waiting by the gunroom door. Bill could not find his own proper stick. It was a long hazel staff, given him by the second stalker at Glenmore the year before — a staff rather taller than Bill, a glossy hazel, with a shapely polished crook, and without a ferrule, like all good stalking-sticks.
He hunted for it high and low, but it could not be found. Without it in his hand Bill felt that the expedition lacked something vital, and he was not prepared to take instead one of his father’s shooting-sticks, as Groves the butler, recommended. Nor would he accept a knobbly cane proffered by Peter. Feeling a little aggrieved and imperfectly equipped, he rushed out to join Thomas. He would cut himself an ashplant in the first hedge.
In the first half-mile he met two magpies, and this should have told him that something was going to happen. It is right to take off your cap to a single magpie, or to three, or to five, but never to an even number, for an even number means mischief. But Bill, looking out for ashplants, was heedless, and had uncovered his head before he remembered the rule.
Then, as he and Thomas ambled down the lane which led to Alemoor, they came upon an old man sitting under a hornbeam.
This was the second warning, for of course a hornbeam is a mysterious tree. Moreover, though there were hornbeams in Bill’s garden, they did not flourish elsewhere in that countryside. Had Bill been on his guard he would have realised that the hornbeam had no business there, and that he had never seen it before. But there it was, growing in a grassy patch by the side of the lane, and under it sat an old man. He was a funny little wizened old man, in a shabby long green overcoat which had once been black; and he wore on his head the oldest and tallest and greenest bowler hat that ever graced a human head. It was quite as tall as the topper which Bill wore at school. Thomas, who had a sharp eye for poachers and vagabonds, did not stop to question him, but walked on as if he did not see him — which should have warned Bill that something queer was afoot. Also Gyp, the spaniel, and Shawn, the Irish setter, at the sight of him dropped their tails between their legs and remembered an engagement a long way off.
But Bill stopped, for he saw that the old man had a bundle under his arm, a bundle of ancient umbrellas and odd, ragged sticks.
The old man smiled at him, and he had eyes as bright and sharp as a bird’s. He seemed to know what was wanted, for he at once took a stick from his bundle. You would not have said that it was the kind of stick that Bill was looking for. It was short and heavy, and made of some dark foreign wood; and instead of a crook it had a handle shaped like a crescent, cut out of a white substance which was neither bone nor ivory. Yet Bill, as soon as he saw it, felt that it was the one stick in the world for him.
‘‘How much?” he asked.
‘‘One farthing,” said the old man, and his voice squeaked like a winter wind in a chimney.
Now a farthing is not a common coin, but Bill happened to have one — a gift from Peter on his arrival that day, along with a brass cannon, five empty cartridges, a broken microscope, and a badly-printed, brightly-illustrated narrative called Two Villains Foiled. Peter was a famous giver.
A farthing sounded too little, so Bill proffered one of his scanty shillings.
“I said one farthing,” said the old man rather snappishly.
The coin changed hands, and the little old man’s wizened face seemed to light up with an elfin glee.
“‘Tis a fine stick, young sir,” he squeaked; “a noble stick, when you gets used to the ways of it.”
Bill had to run to catch up Thomas, who was plodding along with the dogs, now returned from their engagement.
“That’s a queer chap — the old stick-man, I mean,” he said.
“I ain’t seen no old man, Maaster Bill,” said Thomas. “What be ‘ee talkin’ about?”
“The fellow back there. I bought this stick from him.”
They both looked back, but there was no sign of any old man in the green lane. Indeed, if Bill had not been so absorbed in his purchase, he would have noticed that there was no sign of the hornbeam either. The lane ran bare between stone walls up to the hill pastures.
Thomas cast a puzzled glance at the stick. “That be a craafty stick, Maaster Bill—”
But he said no more, for Bill had shaken it playfully at the dogs. As soon as they saw it they went off to keep another urgent engagement — this time apparently with a long-distance hare — and Thomas was yelling and whistling for ten minutes before he brought them to heel.
It was a soft, grey afternoon, and Bill was stationed beside one of the deep dykes on the moor, well in cover of a thorn bush, while Thomas and the dogs departed on a circuit to show themselves beyond the big mere, so that the duck might move in Bill’s direction. It was rather cold, and very wet under foot, for a lot of rain had fallen in the past week, and the mere, which was usually only a sedgy pond, had now grown to a great expanse of shallow flood-water.
Bill began his vigil in high excitement. He drove his new stick into the ground, and used the handle as a seat, while he rested his gun in the orthodox way in the crook of his arm. It was a double-barrelled 16-bore, and Bill knew that he would be lucky if he got a duck with it; but a duck was to him a bird of mystery, true wild game, and he preferred the chance of one to the certainty of many rabbits.
The minutes passed, the grey afternoon sky darkened towards twilight, but no duck came. Bill saw a wedge of geese high up in the air and longed to salute them. Also he heard snipe, but he could not locate them in the dim weather. There seemed to be redshank calling, too, which had no business there, for they should have been on the shore marshes. Far away he thought he detected the purring noise which Thomas made to stir the duck, but no overhead beat of wings followed.
It was so very quiet down there by the dyke that Bill began to feel eerie. The mood of eager anticipation died away, and he grew rather despondent. He would have been bored if he had not been slightly awed. He scrambled up the bank of the dyke and strained his eyes over the mere between the bare boughs of the thorn. He thought he saw duck moving. Yes, he was certain of it — they were coming from the direction of Thomas and the dogs. But they were not coming to him, and he realised what was happening. There was far too much water on the moor, and the birds, instead of flighting across the mere to the boundary slopes, were simply settling on the flood. From the misty waters came the rumour of many wildfowl.
CHAPTER II. THE ADVENTURE OF ALEMOOR.
Bill came back to his wet stand grievously disappointed. He did not dare to leave it in case a flight did appear, but he had lost all hope. Gone now was the expectation of flourishing triumphantly a mallard, or a brace of mallard, before the sceptical eyes of his father and the admiring face of Peter. He tried to warm his feet by moving them up and down on the squelching turf, but his toes were icy and his boots were leaden. His gun was now under his arm, and he was fiddling idly with the handle of the stick, the point of which was embedded in the soil.
He made it revolve, and as it turned he said aloud — Bill had a trick of talking to himself—”I wish I was in the middle of the big flood.”
Then a wonderful thing happened. Bill was not conscious of any movement, but suddenly his surroundings were completely changed. He had still his gun under his left arm and the stick in his right hand, but instead of standing on wet turf he was up to the waist in water.... And all around him were duck — shoveller, pintail, mallard, teal, widgeon, pochard, tufted — and bigger things that might be geese — swimming or diving or just lighting from the air.
Bill in his confusion understood one thing only, that his wish had been granted. He was in the very middle of the flood-water, and his one thought was how to take advantage of it.
He fired right and left at mallard, missing with h
is first barrel. Then the birds rose in alarm and he shoved in fresh cartridges and blazed wildly into the brown. His next two shots were at longer range, but he was certain that he had hit something. And then the duck vanished in the gloom, and he was left alone with the grey waters running out to the shadows.
He lifted up his voice and shouted wildly for Thomas and the dogs. He had got two anyhow — a mallard drake and a young teal, and he collected them. Then he saw something black about six yards off, and wading towards it he picked up a second mallard.
He stopped to listen, but the world had suddenly gone deathly quiet. Not a sound could be heard of Thomas whistling or the splashing of Gyp, the spaniel. He shouted again and again, but no answer came. The night seemed to make a thick curtain which blanketed his voice. Bill’s moment of triumph began to change into acute fear.
Presently he discovered something which scared him worse. The flood waters were rising. The sluggish river Ale, which fed the mere, would be bringing down the rains from the hills. Bill knew what Alemoor could be when the floods were really out — a lake a mile or two in circumference, with twenty feet of water on what in summer were dry pastures. He realised very plainly that, unless he could get out before the floods deepened, he stood a very good chance of being drowned.
He had often been frightened in his life before, but he had never felt such panic as this. The trouble was that he did not know where the deeper mere lay — he had not a notion which was the quickest road to the dry land. But even in his fright he remembered his trophies. He had some string in his pocket, and he tied the three duck together so that he could hang them round his neck. Then he started plunging wildly in the direction from which he thought he had come.
The water was up to his armpits, and the draggled duck nearly choked him. Every now and then he would sink to his chin. Then suddenly he found himself soused over the head, and all but the last foot of his gun-barrel under water.
Bill, being a wet-bob at school, could swim, but swimming was impossible unless he dropped stick and gun, and even in his panic he would not relinquish his possessions. He trod water, and managed to struggle a yard or two till he found footing again and could get his breath. He was on some kind of mound or tussock of grass, and very warily he tried to feel his way forward. The ground rose beneath him and he found himself clear above the waist.
He halted for a moment to take a grip upon his fluttering nerves. In front of him lay floods, the colour of lead in the near distance and of ink beyond. The night had fallen and it would soon be black darkness.
Worse, the waters were still rising. Where he stood he felt them sucking every second a little higher up on his shivering body.... He lost hope and cried in a wild panic for Thomas. Then the tears came, unwilling tears, for Bill was not given to weeping. He felt horribly feeble, and would have fallen had he not leant on the stick, which was now deep beneath him in the quaking mire.
The stick! The stick had brought him there — could not the stick take him back? What had he done with it before?... He had twirled it and wished. He could not think clearly, but surely that was what had happened.... Bill’s numb fingers with difficulty made the point turn in the mud. “Oh, I wish I were with Thomas,” he sobbed....
He was with Thomas. He found himself sitting in about a foot of water, with Shawn, the Irish setter, licking his face. Thomas himself was as shapeless as a bush in the darkness, but he had taken hold of Bill’s arm and was helping him to rise.
“Where in goodness ha’ ye been, Maaster Bill?” the astounded keeper ejaculated. “Them ducks was tigglin’ out to the deep water, and I was feared ye wouldn’t get a shot. Three on ‘em, no less! My word, ye ‘ave poonished ‘em.”
“I was in the deep water,” said Bill, but he could say no more, for all strength seemed suddenly to go from him. He felt himself being lifted in Thomas’s arms and carried up the bank. After that he was not very clear what happened. Thomas had taken his gun from him and relieved him of the ducks, but nothing would relax his clutch on the stick.
The evening s plan of entertainment was not carried out. There were no Hallowe’en festivities in the nursery, and Bill did not sit up for dinner. How he got home he never knew, but Thomas must have carried or dragged him up to the nearest farm, for he had a dim sense of being driven in a farmer’s gig. He had no chance of exhibiting his bag to the family, even if he had had the strength, for he was promptly seized by an agitated mother and plunged into a hot bath with mustard in it. Then he was given something hot to drink. After that he knew nothing till he awoke late next morning, perfectly well, very hungry, but in every limb stiff as a poker.
He was not allowed to get up until just before luncheon, and, since Peter had been haled to church, he was left to his own thoughts. He was glad of that, for he wanted to be alone to think things out.
It was plain that a miracle had happened, a miracle connected with the stick. He had wished himself in the middle of the flood-water — he remembered that clearly — and at the time he had been doing something to the stick. What was it? It had been stuck in the ground and he had been playing with the handle. Yes, he had it! He had been turning it round when he uttered the wish.
Then the awful moments in the middle of the flood came back to him, but now he regarded them without horror. He had done the same thing there. He had turned the stick round and spoken his wish, and in a second had found himself with Thomas.... There was no doubt about it. Here was magic, and he was its master. Bill’s mind was better stored with fairy-tales than with Latin and Greek, and he remembered many precedents.
He had a spasm of anxiety about the stick. The family were still at church, and he must make sure that it was safe, so he slipped on his dressing-gown and tiptoed downstairs to the hall, where he found it in the rack. He carried it up with him and hid it in the bottom of his playbox; so precious a thing could not be left to the dangerous inquisition of Peter.
He was very quiet at luncheon, but he ate so heartily and looked so well that his mother’s fears were dissipated. He was very quiet, too, at tea, and to his family’s astonishment he volunteered to go to evening church, which would give him a chance for reflection. His conduct there was exemplary, for while Peter at his side had his usual Sunday attack of St. Vitus’s dance, Bill sat motionless as a mummy. On the way home his mother commented on it, and observed that Lower Chapel seemed to have taught him how to behave. But his thoughts during the service had not been devotional.
The stick lay beside him on the floor, and for a moment he had had a wild notion of twisting it during the Litany and disappearing for a few minutes to Kamschatka. Then prudence supervened. He must go very cautiously in this business, and court no questions. He would take the stick back to school and hide it in his room. He had a qualm when he thought what a “floater” it would be if a lower boy appeared with it in public. For him no more hours of boredom. School would no longer be a place of exile, but a rapturous holiday. He might slip home now and then and see what was happening — he would go often to Glenmore — he would visit any spot on the globe which took his fancy. His imagination reeled at the prospect, and he cloaked his chortles of delight in a fervent Amen.
CHAPTER III. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
NEXT morning, which was Monday, Bill awoke about an hour before dawn. This was not his usual custom, but he had gone to sleep so full of exciting thoughts that sleep did not altogether break their continuity. He lay for a while thinking. Before he could be quite sure of the powers of the new staff he must make another experiment, an experiment in cold blood, well-considered, premeditated. There was time for it before the family breakfast at nine.
He put on fives-shoes and a dressing-gown, got the stick out of the playbox, and tiptoed downstairs. He heard a housemaid moving in the direction of the dining-room and Groves opening the library shutters, but the hall was deserted. There was a garden door in the hall, of which the upper part was glass and now heavily shuttered. As quietly as he could, Bill undid the fast
enings, wrestled with the key, and emerged into the foggy winter half-light.
It was bitterly cold, but it seemed to Bill essential that the experiment should be made out of doors, for there might be trouble if he appeared suddenly in the night-nursery on his return and confronted the eyes of Peter or Elsie. So he padded down the lawn to a retired half-moon of shrubbery beside the pond. His shoes were soon soaked with hoar-frost, and a passing dawn wind made him shiver and draw his dressing-gown around him. He had decided where to go, for in this kind of weather he yearned for heat. He plunged his stick in the turf.
“I want to be on the beach in the Solomon Islands,” said Bill, and three times twisted the handle....
His eyes seemed to dazzle with an excess of light, and something beat on his body like a blast from an open furnace.... Then he realised that he was standing on an expanse of blinding white sand, which a lazy blue sea was licking. Half a mile out were what looked like reefs, with a creamy crest of spindrift. Behind him, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, was a belt of high green forest out of which stuck a tall feather of palms. A hot wind was blowing and tossing the tree-tops, but it only crisped the farther sea and did not break the mirror of the lagoon.
Bill gasped for joy to find his dream fulfilled. He was in the Far Pacific, where he had always longed to be. In the forest behind him there must be all kinds of wonderful fruits and queer beasts and birds. He calculated that he had nearly an hour to spend, and might at any rate penetrate the fringes of its green mysteries.
But in the meantime he was very hot and could not endure the weight of winter pyjamas and a winter dressing-gown. Also he longed to bathe in those inviting waters. So he shed everything and hopped gaily down to the tide’s edge, leaving the stick still upright in the sand.