“Hello, Ellis!” I called.
“Hallo, sir!” came back from the spring among the rocks below, and Jimmy Ellis appeared, carrying a chunk of pork.
“Two,” I said, turning the trout out of the landing-net.
“Good fish, sir,” drawled Ellis, “mor’n ‘nuff for dinner, I suspicion.”
“Split them,” said I, “broil both as only you can broil them. Spring all right?”
“Sweet an’ full. Dinner is ready above.” Blylock came down with a blazing pine knot to inspect the fish, and I heard him rigging his rod ten minutes later as I walked into camp and sat down, glowing from a dip in the tin bucket below.
Lynda and Ysonde were nibbling away at broiled trout, hot toast, and potted pheasant.
“Dear me,” said Lynda, “ I really must not eat like this, I have had three cups of bouillon to begin with. Ysonde says you are the cleverest angler in the world.”
“That, of course,” said Ysonde, “may be an exaggeration, for I have seen very few anglers.”
“Oh, you’re not exaggerating one bit,” I assured her. “Is there any toast over there?” Lynda deigned to serve me with hot bouillon and Ysonde tossed a slice of toast to me, scandalizing her aunt.
“You little savage,” said Lynda, reproachfully.
“Any trout left?” I asked, “Where is Mr. Blylock?”
“Here’s the trout,” smiled Ysonde, serving me a bit of the crisp pink fish. “Mr. Blylock said ‘ha!’ several times when he saw your two trout and went down to the rock flourishing his rod very recklessly.”
“Mr. Blylock never flourishes anything,” observed Lynda.
“No, he waved it as Merlin might have waved—”
“Why, Ysonde!” said Lynda, warmly.
I was discreet enough to finish my toast in silence; I was very happy.
“Now, Sir Fisherman,” said Ysonde, “a cup of this white wine with your trout? What! a whole bottle? Oh, Lynda, look at him!”
“I see him,” said Lynda, sleepily, “I wonder what time it is.”
Buck and Jimmy, having finished their dinner, which included a trout between them and a gallon or so of coffee, piled half a dozen logs on the fire, backed them with half a tree trunk, said goodnight very politely, and ambled away with the dishes and a pail of boiling water. Ten minutes later Blylock came in with three fair-sized fish, which Lynda admired and I encored, and then Lynda and Ysonde rose with deep reverences, and mockingly prayed to be allowed to retire. Buck and Jimmy were already sound asleep.
“If they snore,” said I, “there will be murder done on Black Water shore.”
Blylock lighted a cigar and I my pipe.
“I never sleep well in camp the first night,” said I.
“No?” asked Blylock, politely.
“No, you old jay,” said I, for I was becoming very fond of Blylock. That broke the back of Beacon Street for the moment, and Blylock blossomed out as a story-teller without equal. I laughed till it hurt me, softly, of course, and still Blylock, imperturbable, bland, told story after story, until I marvelled, between my spasms of laughter, at the make-up of this Bostonian. At last he went to bed, mildly suggesting that I follow his example, which I did after I finished my pipe, although I knew I should sleep but little.
About ten o’clock Buck Hanson snored. I leaned over Blylock, already fast asleep, and poked the wretched Buck until he stopped. Ten minutes later Ellis began a solo which I have never since heard equalled.
“Great heavens!” I muttered, and jabbed him viciously with my rod-butt, but Jimmy Ellis didn’t wake, and before I knew it, Buck Hanson, taking a mean advantage, chimed in with a snort that would have done credit to a rogue elephant. This was not all. I dread to record it, but I am trying to tell the truth in this story — I pray the lady to pardon me if I suggest that from the other side of the bark partition came a sound, — delicate, discreet, but continuous, in short, a gentle — no! no! I can never bring myself to write it down. I am no brute, Madam — and, after all, only men snore.
A black fly got into my neck and bothered me; later a midge followed the example of his erring colleague. To slay them both was my intention, and in doing so I awoke Blylock, who sleepily protested. This was exasperating, and I told him so, but he was asleep again before I finished. Why on earth I should never be able to sleep more than an hour or so on my first night in camp, — I who have camped in the forest for years, — I never can understand.
I endured the concerted snores of the whole camp as long as I could, then I crawled to the fire outside, hauled two fresh logs into the blaze, swathed myself in my blankets, lighted a fresh pipe, and sat down with my feet to the heat and my back against a sapling.
Outside the wavering ring of firelight the blackness was so profound, so hopelessly impenetrable that I wondered whether a storm was rolling up behind the Scaur. Trees, brush, rocks, and ledges — the whole huge forest, root and branch, seemed woven together into curtains of utter darkness which wavered, advanced, and receded with the ever dying, ever leaping flames. There was no storm, for I saw stars on the strip of darkness above — little pale stars, timidly glimmering in the depths of a vast vault. The moon had long ago passed behind the Scaur — that sullen mass of menacing ledges, blackening the fathomless stretch of the Black Water. There were noises in the forest, stealthy steps and timid scratchings — now faint, as if across the rocking lake, now nearer, now so sudden and sharp that I involuntarily leaned forward, striving to pierce the outer circle of gloom beyond the fire ring. Once something brushed and rustled among the leaves behind me, and I saw a grey snake glide into the warm glow by my feet.
“Get out,” I whispered, with a gesture of annoyance.
The serpent slowly raised its head, flashed a forked tongue at me, swayed a moment, then noiselessly moved on into the night.
“Salut! O mon Roi!” said a low voice behind me, and Ysonde crept out of her fragrant bed of balsam, and curled up in her blanket at my feet.
“Oh, dear,” she sighed, “I am so sleepy, but I can’t sleep. Why is it, Bobby? — I haven’t closed my eyes once.”
“Then,” said I, under my breath, “it was not you who—”
“Sh-h! Lynda might hear you.”
“Not probable, judging from symptoms.”
“You’re impertinent, Bobby — hark! do you hear? What was it?”
“Anything from a toad to a porcupine; the forest is always full of sounds. Are you warm, Ysonde?”
“Yes, — and so sleepy that — ah! what was that?”
“Anything from a wood-mouse to a weasel.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“A fawn, perhaps — I heard deer among the pitcher-plants at the head of the Black Water a few minutes ago.”
“Gentle things,” murmured Ysonde, “I wish they would come close to me; I love them — I love everything.”
“And everything on earth and sea loves you, Ysonde.”
Her lids were drooping, and she smiled, half asleep.
“Bobby,” she murmured, “I believe I could sleep here by you — you make me sleepy.”
Her head drooped and rested on my blanket. After a moment — it may have been an hour — I whispered, bending above her: “Do you sleep, Ysonde?” and again, “do you sleep?”
The stars flickered and died in the heavens, the flames sank lower, lower, and the great black night crept into the camp, smothering the fading fire with pale shadows, vague and strange, moving, swaying, until my eyes closed and I slept.
Was it a second — was it an hour? I sat bolt upright staring at the dying embers before me. A bit of charred log fell in with a soft crash sending a jet of sparks into the air, where they faded and went out. Went out? There were two — two big green sparks that had not faded with the others, and I, half asleep, watched them, vaguely curious. Ah! they are moving now — no, they are still again, close together.
The hair stirred on my head, my heart ceased, thumped once, stopped — it seemed hours, — and
leaped into my throat, almost stifling me with its throbbing. I was not dreaming, for I felt the sweat trickling in my eyebrows, and the roots of my hair were cold and damp.
Ysonde moved in her slumber, frowned and raised her hand.
A low snarl came from the shadows. Slowly the power of thinking returned to me, but my eye never left those two green sparks, now blazing like lamps there in the darkness.
When would the thing spring? Would I have time to fling Ysonde behind me? Would it spring if I called to Blylock? Blylock had a rifle. Would it spring if I moved, or if Ysonde moved again? Gently, scarcely stirring, I tried to free my knees, and the creature snarled twice.
“It’s against all precedent in these woods,” I thought, “for any of the cat tribe to dare attack a camp.” A sudden anger took possession of me, a fury of impatience, and quick as the thought, I sprang among the embers and hurled a glowing branch straight into the creature’s eyes. What happened after that I can scarcely tell; I know a heavy soft mass struck me senseless, but my ears at moments ring yet with that horrid scream which seemed to split and tear the night asunder, wavering, quavering, long after I was hurled on my back, and my eyes seemed stark open in oceans of blood.
VI.
WHEN I came to my senses it was still dark — or so it seemed to me. After a while I felt a hand shifting the bandage which pressed heavily over both eyes, and in a moment or two somebody raised me by the shoulders, somebody else by the knees, and I heard Blylock cock his rifle, and say: “Give me that torch, Buck, and walk faster.”
“Blylock,” I gasped, “they ‘re lugging me in as I lugged in Sutherland — mauled by a panther, “and I laughed miserably.
“Hello!” said Blylock, in a low voice, “I thought you’d brace up; are you bleeding much?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered; “what, in hell’s the matter?”
“Matter!” repeated Blylock, “the forest has gone mad — it’s preposterous, but the woods are full of bob-cats, troops of ‘em, and the skulking brutes have actually got the nerve to follow us.”
“Can’t I walk?” I groaned. “Where is Ysonde?” — for I was beginning to remember.
“Walk? — yes, if you want to bleed to death — the ladies are here between me and the guides who are toting you.”
“Ysonde,” I murmured, “pardon me for my profanity — I am dazed — where are you?”
“Here, Bobby,” whispered Ysonde— “close beside you; don’t talk, dear, you are very much hurt.”
“Are you speaking to me, Ysonde?” I said, doubting my senses.
“To you, Bobby,” she whispered close to my ear, “didn’t you know that I loved you? Ah, try to live and you will know!”
My strength was ebbing fast, but I think I muttered something that she understood, for the light touch of her hand was on my cheek, and I felt it tremble. Somebody gave me water, — I was choking, — and my burning lips shrank and cracked beneath the cool draught. I could hear Jimmy Kllis muttering to Buck Hanson, and Hanson’s replies.
“Look out, Buck, here’s a rut, — Mr. Blylock, can you dip your pine knot this side? — so fashion, — steady, Buck.”
“Steady, it is, — hold up his legs, — Mr. Blylock, throw a stun by that windfall, — there’s a lucivee sneakin’ araound in behind—”
Crack! spoke Blylock’s rifle, and then I heard Buck’s nasal drawl: “A stun is jest’s good, Mr. Blylock, they’re scairt haf tu deth — I suspicion it’s the pork they’re after!”
“Throw that pork into the woods, Jimmy,” said Blylock, “we’ll be in before long. Good heavens! how dark it is — lay him down and throw that pork away — there may be a panther among them.”
“There be,” drawled Buck, “I seen him.”
“You did? Why didn’t you say so! I can’t waste cartridges on those infernal lynxes.”
“I sez to you, Mr. Blylock, sez I, throw stuns, it’s jest as good,” replied Buck, placidly; and I was lifted again, fore and aft.
“It’s incredible,” grumbled Blylock; “what’s got into all these moth-eaten lynxes and mangy panthers; I’ve been twenty years in these woods, and I never before saw even a tom-cat.”
“I ain’t seed nothing like this, — there’s three ‘r four bob-cats raound us now, and I ha’n’t never seed but one so close before, — Jimmy was there that night. I jest disremember if it was abaout gummin’ time—”
Crack! went Blylock’s rifle, and I heard a whine from the thickets on the left.
“Thet’s the panther — let him hev it again,” said Ellis.
Again the rifle cracked.
“The darned cuss!” drawled Buck; “shoot again, Mr. Blylock!”
“No need,” said Ellis— “listen! There he goes lopin’ off. Hear him snarl!”
“Hit, I guess,” said Buck, and we moved on. Once I heard Buck complain that a particularly bold lynx kept trotting along the trail behind, “smellin’ and sniffin’ almighty close to my shins,” he asserted, and there certainly was an awful yell when Blylock wheeled in his tracks and fired. I heard Ellis laughing, and Buck said, “haow them lucivees du screech!”
“Worse ‘n a screech-owl,” added Ellis.
That is the last thing I remembered until I woke in my bed in the Rosebud Inn.
The bandage was still on my eyes, — I felt too weak to raise a finger, — and the rest of my body seemed stiff and hard as wood. I heard somebody rocking in a rocking-chair and I spoke.
“I am here,” said Ysonde, — but her voice seemed choked and unsteady.
“What time is it?” I asked, incoherently.
“Half past eleven,” said Ysonde.
“I am hungry,” said I, and that was my last effort until they brought me a bowl of beef broth with an egg in it, and I had managed to swallow it all.
I heard the door close, and for a moment I thought I was alone, but presently the rocking-chair creaked, and I called again: “Ysonde.”
“I am here.”
“What is the matter with me?”
“You have been ill.”
“How long?”
“Two days, Bobby. You will get well — the claws poisoned you. Try to sleep now.”
“What claws?”
“The — the panther’s — don’t you remember?”
“No — yes, a little. Where are the lynxes? Where is Blylock?”
Ysonde laughed softly.
“Mr. Blylock has gone to Boston on important business. I will tell you all about it when you can get up. He’s to be married.”
“And Lynda?”
“Lynda is downstairs. Shall I call her?”
“No.”
The next day I drank more broth, and two days later I sat up, — it took me half an hour and some groans to do so.
“I think,” said I, listening to the rocking-chair, “that it is high time I saw something. Lift my bandage, please, Ysonde.”
“Only one side,” she said, and lowered the cloth that concealed my right eye — the sightless one.
There was a silence, a wretched moment of suspense, and then Ysonde cried: “What — what is it — can’t you see — can’t you see me! — Oh, Bobby!”
When I spoke I hardly knew what I said, but it was something about Keen’s assuring me that nobody but an oculist could tell that I was blind in my right eye. I remember I felt very angry at Keen, and demanded to know how Ysonde could see that my right eye was sightless. I am glad I was spared the agony of her face — I would willingly have been spared the agony of her voice as she cried. “Did I do that?”
I tried to move, but her arms were about me, — I tried to explain, but her warm mouth closed my lips; I only thought that it was very pleasant to be blind.
The eyes of an oculist and the eyes of love see everything. Who says that love is blind?
Her tears fell on my cheeks; when she asked pardon, I answered by asking pardon, and she — but, after all, that is our own affair.
“And my left eye,” said I, “is that gon
e, too?”
“Almost well,” said Ysonde, “it was a sympathetic shock, or something; I was afraid the claws had struck it, but Dr. Keen—”
“Keen!”
“Yes — he’s gone to Holderness now. Don’t you remember his being here with Dr. Conroy, the surgeon?”
“No,” said I, “I was too badly mauled. I have been clawed by a panther, then?”
“A little,” said Ysonde, with gentle sarcasm.
After a moment I inquired about the present health of the panther, and was assured that he was probably flourishing his tail in excellent spirits somewhere among the Scaur crags.
“Then Blylock didn’t hit him?”
“He hit something, for I heard it scream — Oh, my darling, what a horrible night! — and you dying, as I believed, and the tangled brush, and the flare of the torch, and the firing” —
* * * * * *
“Are you thirsty? — your lips are burning,” said Ysonde.
I have a joke on Keen — James Keen, the great oculist, the wise, the infallible, — and I trust he will swallow his medicine like a little man when he reads this. It happened in this way.
I was sitting under the trees by the Tennis Court with Ysonde, watching the snow-birds fluttering in the meadow grass, and listening to the robin who, boldly balanced on the tip of his spruce tree, was doing his best. The blue-birds were teaching their young to navigate the air, twittering and tittering at the efforts of their youngsters, a truly frivolous family. The drab-coloured cow had also done her best, and the result was a miniature copy of herself, also an expert cud-chewer.
Billy — Ridiculous Billy, the white-whiskered and malicious, was spread in the low forks of an apple tree, a splendid representation of a disreputable door-mat.
Lynda sat at the bay-window in the Rosebud Inn, embroidering something in white and gold. She also succeeded in doing her best in her own line, which was to look more beautiful every day. I saw Blylock’s shadow behind her.
“When are they to be married, Ysonde?” I asked for the fiftieth time.
“On the twenty-seventh, — oh, Bobby, it ‘s shocking to keep forgetting — and we’re to be best man and bride’s maid, too!”
The sun dazzled my left eye, and I closed it for a second. Then a miraculous thing happened, an everlasting joke on Keen, for, although I had closed my sound eye, and, by rights, should have been blind as a bat, I was nothing of the kind.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1065