The forest was dim and moist and silent. Where the sunshine fell among the ferns a few flies buzzed in the gilded warmth; but except for this and a strange grey bird which flitted before me silently as I walked, there was no sign of life, nothing stirring, not a rustle among the leaves, not a movement, not a bird-note.
Over moss and dead leaves aglisten in the pale forest light I passed, — over crumbling logs, damp and lichen-covered, half submerged in little pools; and the musty fragrance of the forest mould set me dreaming of dryads, and fauns, and lost altars, whose marbles, stained with tender green, glimmer in ancient forests.
This belt of woods was always silent; I often wondered why. There were no birds — none except this strange grey creature which kept flitting ahead of me, uttering no note. It was the first bird I had ever seen in the western forest belt — the first bird except Solomon, who occasionally accompanied me on my trips to the long pool in the river which borders the wooded belt on the west.
It was an unknown bird to me, — I could catch fleeting glimpses of it, — and its long slender wings and dark eyes brought no recollections to my mind.
To the north, south, and east the woods were full of thrushes and wood-peckers; full of game, too — grouse, deer, foxes, and an occasional mink and otter, but the shy wood creatures left the western forest belt alone, and even the trout seemed to shun the dark pools where the river swept the edges of the wood until it curved out again by Lynx Peak. I say the trout shunned it, but there was one, a monstrous fish, wily and subtle, that lived in the long amber pool below. Early in the season Ferris had raised him with a Silver Doctor, and Ferris’s madness on the Silver Doctor dated from that moment. His mania for this fly lead him to use it in season and out, and no amount of persuasion or of ridicule moved him.
“Because,” said I, “you had a Silver Doctor snapped off by a big fish, do you imagine it’s the only fly in the world?”
“It’s good enough for me,” he said.
There were two things which Ferris used to say that maddened me. One was, “The Silver Doctor’s good enough for me;” the other was, “New York’s good enough for me.”
We never discussed the latter question after Ferris had alluded to me as a “Latin Quarter Nondescript,” but the battle still raged over the merits of the Silver Doctor and the Red Ibis.
When I came to the wooded slope which overhung the river I buttoned my shooting coat and began a cautious descent, trailing my rod carefully. I headed for the foot of the pool, for one of my theories, which ruffled Ferris, was that certain pools should be fished up stream. This was one of those pools, according to my theory; and when I had reached the rocks and had waded into the rushing water, I faced up stream and cast straight out into the rapids which curled among the boulders at the foot of the pool.
At the second cast I hooked a snag and waded out to disengage it. Fumbling about under the foaming water I found my fly imbedded in something which refused to give way. I tugged cautiously and gently; it was useless. Then I rolled up my sleeve and plunged my arm into the water up to the shoulder. This time it did give way; I drew out my arm and held up something glistening and dripping, in which my hook was firmly imbedded. It was a shoe, small, pointed, high-heeled, and buckled with a silver buckle.
“This,” said I, “is most extraordinary,” and I sat down on a flat rock, holding the shoe close to my eyes.
“Besnard — Paris,” I read stamped on the lining over the heel. And the buckle was of sterling silver. I sat for a moment, thinking.
Our cottage, Ferris’s and mine, was the only house in the whole region that I knew of, except the old house in the glade by the White Moss Spring. That was unoccupied and had been for years — a crumbling, abandoned farm, tottering among the young growth of an advancing forest. But as I sat thinking I remembered early in the season having seen smoke above the trees once when we were in the neighbourhood of the White Moss Spring, and I recollected that Ferris had spoken of poachers. We had been too lazy to investigate, too lazy even to remember it until, as I sat there holding the small shoe, the incident came back to me, and I wondered whether anybody had taken up an abode in the abandoned farm.
I didn’t like it. The forests and streams belonged to Ferris and me, and although up to the present moment it had not been necessary to employ many keepers, I began to fear that our woods were being invaded and that we should soon be obliged to find protection.
I looked at the shoe, turning it over carefully in my hands. It was new — had scarcely been worn at all.
“Pooh,” I thought, “the owner of this could scarcely do much damage among the game, but of course there may be bigger shoes in company with this, and those bigger shoes had better look out!”
My first impulse was to throw the shoe into the underbrush. I started to do this, and then carefully laid it down on a sun-warmed rock.
“Let it dry,” I muttered; “it’s evidence for Ferris.” But as it happened, Ferris was not destined to see the shoe.
II
I FISHED the pool twice, once up and once down, and heaven knows I fished it conscientiously; but no trout rose to the flies, although I changed the cast half a dozen times and even violated my feelings by tying a Silver Doctor. It was true I glanced up and down the river to see whether Ferris was in sight before I did so.
“The wily old devil won’t come up,” said I to myself, meaning the trout; “I’ll give him a rest for a while.” And I sat down on the rock where the pointed shoe was drying in the sun, laying my rod beside me.
“What’s the use of speculating about this shoe,” I thought, and straightway began to speculate.
The strange grey bird with the slender wings and dark eyes slipped through the undergrowth along the opposite side of the pool, but it uttered no call, and I caught only fleeting glimpses of it at intervals. Once, for a moment, it flitted quite near, and a sudden sense of having seen it before came over me, but after a little thinking I found myself associating it with a rare bird I had once noticed in Northern France, and of course it was impossible that this could be a French bird.
“It was an association of ideas,” said I to myself, looking at the mark in the slim shoe. “Besnard — Paris.” And I began speculating upon the owner of the shoe.
“Young? Probably. Slender? Probably. Pretty? The deuce take the shoe,” I muttered, picking up my rod. Presently I laid it down again, softly.
“Now, perhaps,” said I to myself, “this little shoe has tapped the gravel of the Luxembourg, patted the asphalt of the Boulevard des Italiens, brushed the lawns of the Bois — ah me! ah me! — the devil take the shoe!”
The sun beat down upon the rock; the little shoe in my hand was nearly dry.
“No,” said I to myself, “I’ll not show it to Ferris. And I’ll not shove it into my pocket — no — for if Ferris finds it he’ll rag me to death. I’ll throw it away.” I stood up.
“I’ll just throw it away,” I repeated aloud to encourage myself, for I didn’t want to throw it away.
“One, two, three,” said I, with an attempt at carelessness which changed to astonishment as I raised my eyes to the bank above whither I had intended to hurl the shoe.
For an instant I stood rigid, my right hand clutching the shoe, arrested in mid air. Then I placed the shoe very carefully upon the rock beside me and took off my shooting-cap.
“I beg your pardon,” said I, “I did not see you.”
I stood silent, politely holding my shooting-cap against my stomach. But I was confused, for she had answered me in French, pure Parisian French, and my ideas were considerably unbalanced.
I am afraid I stared a little. I tried not to. She was slender and very young. Her dark eyes, half shadowed under black lashes, made me think of the strange, dark-eyed bird that had followed me. She sat on the crooked trunk of a tree overhanging the bank, her feet negligently crossed, her hands in the pockets of a leather shooting-jacket. I’m afraid to say how short her skirts were, — but of course this is th
e age of bicycles and shooting-kilts.
“Madame,” I said, trying to keep my eyes from one small stockinged foot, “I have found a shoe—”
“My shoe, Monsieur,” she said, serenely.
“Permit me, madame,” said I —
“Mademoiselle—” said she —
“Permit me, — a thousand pardons, Mademoiselle, — to return to you your shoe.”
“It was very stupid of me to lose it,” said she. “It is nearly dry,” said I; “will Mademoiselle pardon the uncommitted stupidity of which I was nearly guilty.”
“You were going to throw it away,” said she. “I almost perpetrated that unpardonable crime—”
“Give it to me,” she said, with a gracious gesture.
Now when she smiled I smiled too, and picking up the shoe waded across the pool to the bank under her.
“May I come up?” I asked.
“Pardi, Monsieur, how else am I to get my shoe?”
I clambered up, hanging to limbs and branches. It was a miracle I did not break my neck.
“Why do you not take the path?” she asked. “Do you not know you might fall — and all for a shoe?”
“But such a shoe—”
“True, the buckle is silver—”
“Which I claim the privilege of buckling,” said I, dragging myself up beside her.
She deliberately held out her slim stockinged foot, and I slipped the shoe on it.
The silver buckle was not easily buckled. There were difficulties — for the tongue had become bent and needed straightening.
“You might take the shoe off again to arrange the buckle,” she said.
“I can straighten it without that,” said I.
When at last the buckle was clasped we had been talking so long that I had told her my name, my residence, my profession, and more or less about Ferris. I don’t know why I told her all this. She seemed to be interested. Then I asked her if she lived at the “Brambles.”
“The Brambles?” she repeated, looking at her shoes.
“The deserted Farm by the White Moss Spring—”
“Yes — not alone; I have a housekeeper.”
“Aged?”
“Very — and fierce.’ But I shall do as I please.”
“Did you buy the house?”
“No. It was empty, and I walked in. Next day they sent my twelve trunks from Lynne Centre. The furniture was good.”
“And you have been there for two months?”
“Yes. I have a horse and dog cart too. Rose drives to Lynne Centre twice a week for the marketing. I think I shall keep a cow — I generally do what I please. I choose to amuse myself with you just now.”
“This,” said I, “is a very strange history; did you know that Mr. Ferris and myself — existed?”
“It is not a strange history, — no, I once saw your house as I passed through the forest belt, but there was nobody there on the lawn except an ordinary person with little side whiskers.”
“Howlett!” I exclaimed.
“Comment?” she asked.
“A servant, an Englishman.”
“Probably,” said she, looking dreamily at me. Then I told her all about Ferris and myself; how we came every spring to the Clover Cottage with Howlett, a cook, and three dogs as retinue, how we fished in summer and shot in the autumn, how twice a year men came all the way from Lynne Center to house our hay and repair damages, how the game-keepers lurked at the mouth of the valley, miles to the south, to prevent poachers from entering, but we concluded it was not necessary for keepers to patrol the woods inside the valley.
“Now,” I said, “the poachers are in our very midst — here established — and such dangerous poachers, too! What shall we do with them, Mademoiselle?”
“You mean me,” she said, with wide open eyes.
“No,” said I, “I do not mean you — you are very welcome in our valley.”
“But I am sure you do mean me,” she said, smiling.
Then we talked of other things, of Paris and France; of trout, and flies, and Ferris, of Normandy, and the beauty of the world; but it was nearly five o’clock before we spoke of love.
“I have never loved,” she said, looking at me calmly.
“Oh, how unnecessary!” I thought, for I had believed her clever.
“But,” she continued, gravely, “I think it is time that I did.”
“I think so too,” said I.
“I should like to fall in love,” said she; “I have nothing else to do.”
“I also am very idle,” I said.
“Then,” said she, “the opportunity only is lacking.”
I think I muttered something about poachers — I was not perfectly cool.
“Now,” said she, “I know you mean me!”
“Ah,” said I, “I mean a keener poacher than you or I, a free rover more to be dreaded than an army of riflemen.”
“Then you don’t mean me,” she said.
I shook my head.
“Do you know,” said she, “I should very much like to be the heroine of a romance.”
“I will aid you to be one!” I said, hastily. We had known each other nearly three hours.
“Let us,” said she, “pretend that this is the forest of Versailles in the time of Louis Quinze.”
“Let us indeed!” I cried, enthusiastically.”
“And you are a Count—”
“And you a Marquise—”
“Named Diane it is my real name.”
“Diane.”
“And you—”
“My real name is Louis—”
“It will do; you may kiss my hand.”
I wondered just where she was going to draw the line. Then, the devil prompting, I entered recklessly into this most extraordinary adventure.
And what an adventure! Words, thoughts even failed me as I looked at her. This woodland maid with the wonderful eyes! There was no mistaking the challenge in her eyes, the half innocent smile, the utter disregard for every human conventionality.
“How,” thought I—” how can such a woman wear a childlike face!” I had known coquettes, — many, — but the depth of this strange girl’s recklessness I feared to sound — I dreaded almost to understand.
“She is too deep,” said I to myself— “too deep for me,” and I looked her questioningly in the eyes.
I don’t know why or how, — I never shall know probably, but a sudden conviction seized me that she was as innocent as she looked. Imagine a man coming to such a conclusion! I felt inclined to laugh, and yet I was as firmly convinced as though I had known her all my life.
“You may kiss my hand,” she said, and held it out to me.
I did. I wished I hadn’t a moment later, for I tumbled head over heels in love with her and fairly gasped at the idea.
“Lovers in the Court of Louis Quinze resembled us, I think,” she said, after a long silence.
“We will try to make the resemblance perfect,” said I, taking both her hands in mine.
She bent her head a little, — there was just a shadow of resistance, — then I kissed her on the lips.
There are moments in a man’s life when he does not know whether he is a-foot or a-horse-back. I remember that I sat down on the bank and carefully uprooted several ferns. When I had regained control of my voice, — the little maid was very silent, — I asked her to tell me of herself, if it might please her to do so.
“I was born,” said the little maid, resting her small head on one hand, “in Rouen. Do you know Rouen?”
“Yes.”
“Papa was an officer, and he killed his general when I was seven years old. It was something about Mama; I never saw her again. Then we went to Canada very quickly; Papa died there. I had been in a convent school; I ran away, and went to New York. I am nineteen, and very reckless.”
“Yes, Diane.”
“I have a great deal of money in banknotes. It was Papa’s. I have never counted it — it is in a big trunk. I understand En
glish, but do not care to speak it. I do not care what becomes of me; I wish it were over — this life. You are the first man who ever kissed me. Do you believe me?”
“Yes, Diane.
“I wonder you do. Let us go down to the river where the sunlight falls. The descent is easy—”
“Diane — you must not go—”
“With you — will you give me your hand?”
“Come.”
“Did you see that shy grey bird?” said the little maid, hesitating on the slope, her hand in mine.
I could not see it, for we had already begun the descent.
III.
WHERE the mischief have you been all day?” demanded Ferris that evening as we sat on the veranda after dinner.
“Well,” said I lighting a pipe, “when you had your fit of sulks I went off for a brace of trout.”
“Did you see anything worth seeing?”
“I saw no trout,” said I.
“Unfortunate, eh?”
“Oh not very,” I said, looking at Solomon.
“Not very?”
“Look at that ridiculous bird, Ferris.”
“Swallowed a frog the wrong way,” said Ferris, watching the solemn contortions of Solomon; “he looks like a little Jew in a crimson overcoat with a stomach ache. What fly did you use, Louis?”
“Everything; couldn’t raise a fin.”
“Oh, you’ve been trying that old devil down by the west woods! I should think you’d let him alone; it’s useless,” yawned Ferris.
“I’m going to try for him every day till I get him,” said I, trying not to lie more than necessary: “Of course you’ll not infringe?”
“Infringe! Not much! You can have the whole west woods to your own sweet self; but you’re an idiot!”
“Not at all,” said I, thankfully; and in a burst of confidence I confessed that I had used a Silver Doctor.
There was a momentary gleam of triumph in Ferris’s eyes, but he was very decent about it and asked me most politely for the loan of a Red Ibis. Oh men of the busy world, learn courtesy from the angler! There are other things you need not learn from anglers.
“My dear fellow,” said I, more touched than I had been for a long time, “I haven’t a Red Ibis left. I shall write Conroy to-night before I retire. If you really do want an Ibis I will catch Solomon and pluck a plume from his tail feathers.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1059