Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “I don’t want it enough to inconvenience you or hurt Solomon’s feelings,” said Ferris, laughing.

  After a long interval of silent smoking Ferris rose and yawned at the moon.

  “Do you know what a Spirit-bird is, Ferris?” I asked, rapping my pipe on the arm of my chair.

  “Spirit-bird — the French one — the Oiseau Saint-Esprit? Yes, I’ve seen one — in the Vosges.”

  “Grey — with slim wings and big dark eyes?”

  “That’s the bird,” said Ferris; “why?”

  “Well, I thought I saw one to-day. Of course that’s impossible.”

  “Of course,” said Ferris, yawning again! “I’m going to turn in; good-night, old chap.”

  “Good-night,” said I, tapping nervously on the veranda with my pipe.

  Howlett came out a few moments later with my wading-shoes which he had been oiling.

  “Well,” said I, “are the hob-nails all right?”

  “Seving ‘ob nails is h’out, sir,” replied Howlett, holding up the shoes for my inspection.

  “Put them in as soon as they’re dry. Did you oil the bamboo? Good. Is my lamp lighted? Put it out — and you need not sit up, Howlett; I’m going for a stroll.”

  “Thank you sir,” said Howlett,—” and Solomon, sir?”

  Now it was one of my delights to see Howlett house Solomon. The wily Ibis loved to snoop about in the moonlight, and he was always ready for Howlett when that dignified servant came to round him up.

  I looked at Solomon, who stood gloomily brooding among the water-lilies.

  “He ought to be in bed,” said I.

  Howlett descended the veranda steps with arms extended, but Solomon sidled out into the pond. Howlett pleaded earnestly. He flattered and cajoled, but Solomon was obdurate.

  “Nothink I say do move ‘im, sir!” said Howlett, stiffly; “he is vicious to-night, sir.”

  “Then take the boat,” I said.

  Howlett in a boat chasing a sulky Ibis was one of those rare spectacles that few are permitted to witness. Once a week Solomon turned “vicious” and then, at Ferris’s and my suggestion, Howlett took to the boat. A terrestrial Howlett was solemnly ludicrous, but an aquatic Howlett was impossible. Of course Ferris and I never laughed — that is, aloud, but we usually felt rather weak after it was over.

  In the course of half an hour Solomon, mad, wet, and rumpled was cornered by Howlett and clasped to his stiff shirt front, muddy, bedraggled, and kicking.

  “Are you not mortified, you bad bird?” said I, as Howlett passed toward the kitchen where Kitty the cook was airing his straw-thatched house.

  “A vicious bird, sir, good-night, sir,” murmured Howlett.

  “Good-night, Howlett; breakfast at seven tomorrow,” said I, and sauntered out into the moonlit valley.

  I had been walking almost half an hour when it occurred to me that I should be in bed.

  “What the deuce am I sprinting about the valley at this hour for?” I thought, looking around.

  Over the shadowy meadows the night mist hung, silvered by the moonlight, and I heard the meadow-brook rippling through the sedge. Slender birches glimmered among the alders, and all the little poplar leaves were quivering, but I felt no breath of air.

  Where the dark forest fringed the meadow I saw the moonbeams sparkling on lonely pools, but the depths of the woodland were black and impenetrable, and the forest itself was vague as the mist that shrouded it.

  For a long time I stood, looking at the stars and the mist, and little by little I came to understand why I was there alone.

  I knew I should go on, I wished to, but I lingered in the moonlight staring at earth and sky until something moved in the thicket beside me, and I followed it, knowing it was the Spirit-bird.

  When I entered the forest I could scarcely see my hand, but I felt a trodden path beneath my feet, and I heard before me the whisper of soft wings, and presently I heard the river, rushing through rocks of the western forest, and when I came to the wooded bank the moonlight fell all around me.

  There was a narrow strip in the forest, overgrown with silver birch and poplar and lighted by the moon, but I searched it in vain, up and down, up and down, always with the whisper of soft wings in my ears.

  At last I called, “Diane,” and before I called again, her hands lay close in mine.

  * * * * * *

  “I came,” said the little maid, “because you were coming.”

  “Who told you I was coming?”

  “Told me? No one told me. Rose is asleep. Why did you come?”

  “Why did you, Diane?”

  “I? Because you came. How did you find my bower?”

  “Your bower, Diane?”

  “It is yours I know; I call it mine; I call it the Silent Land.”

  “It is very silent,” I said.

  “It is always silent — no birds, not even the noise of the water. Do you think it is sad? There are times when sounds, — the song of living creatures and the countless movements of things that live, trouble me. Then I come here. There are flowers.”

  “The air is very sweet, too sweet. What is the perfume? The trees are heavy with fragrance. Ah! — are you tired, Diane?”

  “No — it is the odour of blossoms; I sleep here sometimes.”

  “Your hair is loose — how long it is! Is it the perfume from your hair — is it your breath—”

  “The blossoms are very sweet; the moon has gone.”

  “There is a star, — how soft your breath is.”

  “I do not see the star; where, Louis?”

  “It is there; — clouds are veiling it; — there is a mist over all—”

  “It is my hair — over your eyes.”

  IV.

  “HOWLETT,” said I, one warm afternoon, “Solomon is unendurable: he follows me everywhere, and I wish you to see that he minds his own business.”

  “A hobstinate bird, sir,” said Howlett, “and vicious when crossed, — which I scorn ‘is h’anger, — beg pardon sir, — for ‘e’s took to biting wen ‘is vittles disagrees.”

  “Has he bitten you?”

  “Twice, sir, — which ‘appily my h’eyes is huninjured, though h’aimed at by ‘is beak.”

  “This is intolerable,” said I; “you must punish him, Howlett.”

  “‘Ow, sir?”

  “Tie him up when he bites. Have those flies come from Conroy’s?”

  “Nothink ‘as came, sir.”

  “Where is Mr. Ferris?”

  “Mr. Ferris is a whipping of the h’Amber Pool sir, with three sea-trout to the good and a brace of square tails. Solomon followed ‘im, sir, and is h’observing the sport.”

  “Then I can get away without that red feathered Paul Pry tiptoeing after me,” I thought, and sent Howlett for my rod-case.

  “Tell Mr. Ferris, when he returns, that I may not be back until dinner,” I said, when Howlett brought the case.

  I selected a four-ounce split bamboo, pocketed my fly-book and a tin box of floating flies for dry fishing, picked up a landing-net, and walked away toward the western woodland, whistling. I had not fished for three weeks, although every day I went away into the western woods with rod and creel. Ferris laughed at my infatuation for the long pool where the great fish lay and jeered at me when I returned evening after evening with no trout, although the river, except the western stretch, was full of trout. He had never come to the pool, — I should have seen him from the Silent Land if he had, — but Solomon sneaked after me on several occasions. Once I caught him craning his neck and peering into the bower, — our bower — and as I did not care to have him pilot Ferris thither, I hustled him off.

  The woods were fragrant and warm, stained by the afternoon sun; the quiet murmur of the brook came to me from leafy thickets as I walked, and I heard the river rushing in the distance and the summer wind among the pines. White clouds shimmered in the blue above, sailing, sailing God knows where, but they passed across the azure, one by one, drifting to
the south, and I watched them with the vague longing that comes to men who watch white sails at sea.

  I had turned my steps toward the long pool, for I had decided to fish that afternoon, wishing to redeem my words to Ferris — at least in part; but as I stepped across the trail I heard the sound of wings, and a shadow glided in front of me toward the forest. It was always so from the first, and now, as always, I turned away, following unquestioningly the Spirit-bird. The noise of the river ceased as I entered the Silent Land. For an instant the grey bird hovered high in the sunshine, then left me alone.

  I threw myself full length upon the blossoming bank and waited, chin on hand. And as I waited, she came noiselessly across the moss, so quietly, so silently that I saw her only when her fingers touched mine.

  “It has been a long time,” we said; and; “Did you sleep?” and; “When did you awake?” Then we asked each other a thousand little questions which are asked when lovers meet, and we answered as lovers answer. We spoke of the Spirit-bird as we always did, wondering, and she told me how that morning it had tapped upon her window as the day broke.

  “Rose did not hear it,” she said, “but I was already awake and thinking.”

  “I awoke at sunrise too,” I said; “for a moment I thought it was a swallow in the chimney that fluttered so—”

  “The Spirit-bird flies swiftly when Love is dreaming,” — that is a very old proverb of Normandy. What shall we do, Louis — there is so much to do and so little time in life! — I brought my lute — ah! you are laughing!”

  “The lute is such an old-fashioned toy; I didn’t know you played. Will you sing too, Diane? Something very old, older than the lute.”

  “I learned a song this morning because I thought you would care for it. That is why I dared to bring my lute into the Silent Land. The song is called, “Tristesse.”

  Then the little maid sat up among the blossoms and touched the soft strings, singing:

  “J’ai perdu ma force et ma vie,

  Et mes amis et ma gaité;

  J’ai perdu jusqu’ à la fierté

  Qui faisait croire à mon génie.

  Quand j’ai connu la Vérité

  J’ai cru que c’était une amie;

  Quand je l’ai comprise et sentie,

  J’en étais déjà dégoûté.

  Et pourtant elle est éternelle

  Et ceux qui se sont passés d’elle

  Ici-bas ont tout ignoré.

  Dieu parle, il faut qu’on lui réponde;

  Le seul bien qui me reste au monde

  Est d’avoir quelquefois pleuré.

  “That is all,” said the little maid.

  “Sing, Diane,” I said, but I scarcely heard my own voice.

  She laughed and bent above me with a graceful gesture. “Not that,” she said, “for you at least are not sad. There is a chansonnette, — shall I sing again? — then be very still, here at my feet. Do you not think my lute is sweet?”

  “Je voudrais pour moi qu’il fut toujours fête

  Et tourner la tête Aux plus orgueilleux;

  Etre en même temps de glace et de flamme,

  La haine dans l’âme,

  L’amour dans les yeux.”

  * * * *

  “You, Diane?” I whispered; but she smiled, and the mystery of love veiled her dark eyes; and she sang:

  Je ne voudrais pas à la contredanse,

  Sans quelque prudence

  Livrer mon bras nu

  Puis, au cotillion, laisser ma main blanche

  Trainer sur la manche

  Du premier venu.”

  * * * *

  “Si mon fin corset, si souple et si juste,

  D’un bras trop robuste Se sentait serré,

  J’aurais, je l’avoue, une peur mortelle

  Qu’un bout de dentelle

  N’en fut déchiré.”

  She looked at me with soft, unfathomable eyes and touched the lute. When I moved she started from her reverie with a gay little nod to me:

  “Quand on est coquette, il faut être sage,

  L’oiseau de passage

  Qui vole à plein cœur

  Ne dort pas en l’air comme une hirondelle,

  Et peut, d’un coup d’aile

  Briser une fleur!”

  “Sing,” I said in a changed voice.

  “I have sung,” she said, and laid her lute in my hands. But I knew nothing of minstrelsy and lay silent, idly touching the strings.

  She had fashioned for her fair head a wreath of sweet-fern twined with clustered buds, white as snow and faintly perfumed.

  “So I am crowned,” she said, “a princess in the Silent Land. Where I step, all things green shall flourish; where I turn my eyes, blossoms shall open in the summer wind; — am I not queen?”

  “Will you not sing again, Diane?”

  “No, it pleases me to hear a legend now. You may begin, Louis.”

  “Which — the Were-wolf or the Man in Purple Tatters or the—”

  “No, no — something new.”

  “The Seventh Seal?”

  “Begin it.”

  “And when he opened the Seventh Seal there was silence in Heaven—”

  “Dear Saints, have we not silence enough in the Silent Land? Tell me about battles.”

  ‘“And the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.’ I could tell you about battles, Diane.”

  “Tell me, — don’t move your arm, — tell me of battles, Louis.”

  “There was once a King in Carcosa,” I began. But the little maid was already asleep.

  I thought I heard a step in the undergrowth and listened.

  The forest was silent.

  V.

  WHEN we awoke it was night. Down from the dark heavens a great star fell, burning like a lamp. Above the low-hanging branches, sombre, drooping, heavy with fragrance, a misty darkness lay like a vast veil spread.

  In the stillness I heard her quiet breathing, but we did not speak.

  Silence is a Prophet, unveiling mysteries.

  Then, through the forest, we heard the sound of wings, and as we moved, stepping together into the shadows, the moon rose above Lynx Peak, gigantic, golden, splendid.

  So we passed out of the forest into the star-lit night.

  VI

  THE skies were leaden, the watery clouds hung low over the valley, and a wet wind blew from the west, ruffling the long pool where Diane stood. Kilted and capped in tweeds, creel swinging with every movement of the rod which swayed and bent with her bending wrist, she moved from ripple to shallow, wading noiselessly while the silken line whistled and the gay flies chased each other across the wind-lashed pool.

  We spoke in a low voice, glancing at each other when the light cast struck the water.

  “Under the alders Diane—” I said; “have you changed the Grey Dun for the Royal?”

  “No, what is your new cast?”

  “Emerald and Orange Miller — I shall tie an Alder-fly in place of the Miller. Do you think the water warrants a cast of three?”

  “It is rough; I don’t know, — Louis, was that an offer?”

  “I think it was the spray from the rapids. Shall we move up a little? Do you feel the chill of the water?”

  “I am cold to my knees,” said the little maid, “the river is rising I think — ah, what was that?”

  “Nothing, — you touched a floating leaf in the swirl.”

  “Splash!” A great fish flopped over in the pool, a trout, lazy, unwieldy, monstrous.

  “Oh! he missed it!” cried Diane, turning a little white.

  “Cast again,” I whispered, tossing my rod onto the sandy beach and unslinging my landing-net.

  Trembling a little with excitement she cast across the swirl, once, twice, twenty times, but the monster was invisible. Somewhere in the dusky depths of that amber well the fierce fish lay watching the lightly dropping flies, unmoved. Then we changed the cast; I emptied my fly-book, but nothing sti
rred except the hurrying water, curling, gurgling, tumbling through the rocks. Finally I broke the silence.

  “Diane, it was the spinner that he rose to. He’s after something redder. Have you a Scarlet Ibis?”

  “No — have you?”

  I almost groaned, for Conroy’s flies had not arrived, and I hadn’t an Ibis in the world.

  After a while she reeled in her silken line, and we waded to the sandy beach and sat down.

  “Oh, the pity of it,” sighed Diane; “never have I seen such a trout before. I suppose it is useless, Louis.”

  I sat moodily poking holes in the sand with the butt of my landing-net.

  We spoke of other things for a time, sinking our voices below the roar of the river. Presently a sunbeam stole through the vapour above, lighting the depths of the dark pool. And all at once we saw the trout, hanging just above the pebbly bottom; we saw the scarlet fins move, the great square tail waving gently in the current, the mottled spotted back, the round staring eyes. The swelling of the gills was scarcely perceptible, the broad mouth hardly moved.

  For a long time we sat silent, fascinated; then something stirred behind us on the beach and we slowly turned. It was Solomon.

  “Ciel!” faltered Diane, “what is that?”

  “My bird — an Egyptian Ibis,” I whispered, laughing silently; “he has followed me, after all.”

  Solomon ruffled his scarlet plumes, blinked at me, scratched his head with his broad foot, pecked at a bit of mica, and took two solemn steps nearer.

  “Diane,” said I, suddenly, “I’ll get a red fly for you; don’t move — the bird will come close to us.”

  But Solomon was in no hurry. Inch by inch he sidled nearer, dallying with bits of moss and shining pebbles, often pausing to reflect, but gradually approaching, for his curiosity concerning Diane was great.

  “He looks as if he had stepped off an obelisk,” murmured Diane; “I have seen hieroglyphics that resembled him. Oh, what a prehistoric head — so old, so old!”