Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  * * * *

  There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard has edited this story carefully. His own scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by Professor Holroyd’s sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and mounted Thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile.

  When my arm came out of splints, Daisy and I —— But really that has nothing to do with a detailed scientific description of the Thermosaurus, which, I think, I shall add as an appendix to the book. If you do not find it there it will be because Daisy and I have very little time to write about Thermosaurians.

  But what I really want to tell you about is the extraordinary adventures of Captain McPeek and Frisby — how they produced a specimen of Samia Cynthia that dwarfed a hundred of Attacus Atlas, and how the American line steamer St. Louis fouled the thing with her screw.

  The more I think of it the more determined I am to tell it to you. It will be difficult to prevent me. And that is not fiction either.

  ENVOI.

  I.

  When shadows pass across the grass

  And April breezes stir the sedge,

  Along the brimming river’s edge

  I trail my line for silver trout,

  And smoke, and dream of you, my lass,

  And wonder why we two fell out,

  And how the deuce it came about.

  II.

  When swallows sheer the meadow-mere

  And thickets thrill with thrushes’ hymns,

  Along the mill-pond’s reedy rims

  I trail my line for shining dace;

  But how can finny fishes cheer

  A fellow, if he find no grace

  In your sweet eyes and your dear face?

  III.

  Let thrushes wing their way and sing

  Where cresses freshen pebbled nooks;

  By silent rills and singing brooks

  I pass my way alone, alas!

  With your dear name the woodlands ring —

  Your name is murmured by the grass,

  By earth, by air, all-where I pass.

  IV.

  The painted bream may swim the stream —

  I’ll cast no line to-day, pardi!

  In vain the river-ripples gleam,

  In vain the thrushes’ minstrelsy.

  Vain is the wind that whispers, “Lo!

  Thy fish are waiting — Angler, go!”

  V.

  Will you forgive if I forgive?

  Life is too sad, I think, to live

  Alone, and dream and smoke and fish;

  I’ll say “Forgive” first — if you wish?

  VI.

  For at that word, the Sorcery

  Of Love shall change the earth and sky

  To Paradise, with cherubim

  Instead of birds on every limb.

  VII.

  Rivers shall sing our rhapsody;

  The vaulted forest, tree by tree,

  High hung with tapestry, shall glow

  With golden pillars all a-row.

  VIII.

  And down the gilded forest aisle

  Shy throngs of violets shall smile

  And kiss your feet from tree to tree

  While blue-bells droop in courtesy.

  IX.

  And if the sun incarnadine

  The clouds — green leaves shall be your screen;

  And if the clouds with jealousy

  Should weep — we’ll beg of some kind tree

  A moment’s hospitality.

  X.

  Good cheer is here, if you incline;

  Moss-hidden springs shall bubble wine

  While squirrels chuckle, rank on rank,

  And strawberries from every bank

  Shall blush to see how deep we drank.

  XI.

  Winds of the West shall cool our eyes

  While every woodland creature tries

  His voice a little, so that he

  May know his notes more perfectly

  When crickets start the symphony.

  XII.

  Through hazel glade and scented dell

  Where brooklets ring a tinkling bell,

  The forest orchestra shall swell,

  Until the sun-soaked grasses ring

  With crickets strumming string on string.

  XIII.

  Then, with your white hand daintily

  Scarce touching mine, we’ll leave our tree

  And ramble slowly toward the West

  Where our high castle’s flaming crest,

  Towering behind the setting sun,

  Flings out its banners, one by one,

  Signals of fire, that day is done.

  XIV.

  Deep in that palace we shall find

  How blind we are, how blind! how blind!

  And how he’ll laugh, who holds the key

  To the great portal’s mystery!

  And how his joyous laugh will ring

  When you and I shall bid him fling

  The gates ajar for you and me!

  XV.

  Let shadows flee athwart the lea

  When dark December strips the hedge

  Along the icy river’s edge;

  Yet, if you will forgive me, lass,

  The world shall bloom like spring to me,

  Snow turn to dew upon the grass

  And fagots blossom where you pass.

  XVI.

  Swallows shall sheer the frozen mere,

  Dead reeds along the mill-pond’s rims

  Shall thrill with summer-thrushes’ hymns,

  While summer breezes blow apace,

  If you will but forgive me, dear,

  And let me find a moment’s grace,

  In your sweet eyes and your dear face.

  R. W. C.

  THE END

  THE HAUNTS OF MEN

  First published in 1898, the first four stories of this collection are set during the American Civil War, making full use of Chambers’ talent for describing the natural landscape. In addition, three of the stories are set in France, with the last two tales seeing a reappearance of characters that first featured in Chambers’ first novel, In the Quarter. The stories had originally appeared in various journals between 1895-98.

  Cover of the first edition

  CONTENTS

  THE GOD OF BATTLES

  PICKETS.

  AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR

  SMITH’S BATTERY

  AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.

  YO ESPERO

  COLLECTOR OF THE PORT

  THE WHISPER

  THE LITTLE MISERY

  ENTER THE QUEEN

  ANOTHER GOOD MAN.

  ENVOI.

  Title page of the first edition

  “How shall we seem, each to the other, when,

  On that glad day, immortal, we shall meet —

  Thou who, long since, didst pass with hastening feet —

  I, who still wait here, in the haunts of men?”

  TO ELSA

  As a Black Veil of Lace,

  Parted in sombre grace,

  Shadows a pallid face,

  So shall the Veil of Night,

  Dimly withdrawn,

  Shadow the coming Dawn.

  Changed are the ashen skies, —

  The clearer blue

  Deep mirrored in thine eyes

  Is changing too.

  If the dim Dawn be fair,

  Can its pale flames compare

  In glory to thy hair?

  What, in the jewelled skies,

  Matches the dyes

  In thine uplifted eyes!

  Out from the splendid night

  Bright as a spirit’s flight

  Thou com’st with the Light.

  And in the East the World spins, grey and old,

  And in the West wait Life and Death; behold!


  Bend down with me; behold!

  This is the World, —

  This tattered scroll unrolled, —

  This chart unfurled.

  Here at thy feet,

  The Seven Oceans part and meet.

  Trace with thy finger tips

  The round World round,

  Free as a shadow slips

  Over the ground.

  The World sleeps there

  Steeped in the shadow of thy hair.

  THE GOD OF BATTLES

  Ah, who could couple thoughts of war and crime

  With such a blessed time?

  Who in the West wind’s aromatic breath,

  Could hear the call of Death?

  TIMROD.

  Sovereign of the world.... these sabres hold another language to-day from that they held yesterday. — VATHEK.

  IT happened so unexpectedly, so abruptly, that she forgot to scream. A moment before, she had glanced out of the pantry windows, dusting the flour from her faded pink apron, and she saw the tall oats motionless in the field and the sunlight sifting through the corn. In the heated stillness a wasp, creeping up and down the window pane, filled the dim house with its buzzing. She remembered that, — then she remembered hearing the clock ticking in the darkened dining-room. It was scarcely a moment; she bent again over her flour pan, wistful, saddened by the summer silence, thinking of her brother; then again she raised her eyes to the window.

  It was too sudden; she did not scream. Had they dropped from the sky, these men in blue, — these toiling, tramping, crowding creatures? The corn was full of them, the pasture, the road; they were in the garden, they crushed the cucumbers and the sweet-peas, their muddy trousers tore tender tendrils from the melon vines, their great shoes, plodding across the potato hills, harrowed the bronzed earth and levelled it to a waste of beaten mould and green-stuff. They passed, hundreds, thousands, — she could not tell, — and at first they neither spoke nor turned aside, but she heard a harmony, subtle, vast as winds at sea, — a nameless murmur that sweeps through brains of marching men, — the voiceless prophecy of battle.

  Breathless, spellbound, she moved on tiptoe to the porch, one hand pressed trembling across her lips. The field of oats shimmered a moment before her eyes, then a blue mass swung into it and it melted away, sheered to the earth in glimmering swathes as gilded grain falls at the sickle’s sparkle. And the men in blue covered the earth, the world, her world, which stretched from the orchard to Benson’s Hill.

  There was something on Benson’s Hill that she had never before seen. It looked like a brook in the sunshine; it was a column of infantry, rifles slanting in the sun.

  Somebody had been speaking to her for a minute or two, somebody below her on the porch steps, and now she looked down and saw a boy, slim, sunburnt, wearing gauntlets and spurs. His dusty uniform glittered with gilt and yellow braid; he touched the vizor of his cap and fingered his sword hilt. She looked at him listlessly, her hand still pressed to her lips.

  “Is there a well near the house?” he asked. After a moment he repeated the question.

  Men with red crosses on their sleeves came across the grass, trailing poles and rolls of dirty canvas. She saw horses too, dusty and patient, tied to the front gate. A soldier, with a yellow ornament on his sleeve, stood at their heads, holding a red flag in one hand.

  Something tugged gently at her apron, and, “show me the well, please,” repeated the boy beside her.

  She turned mechanically into the house; he followed, caking the rag-carpet with his boots’ dry mud. In the woodshed she started and turned trembling to him but he gravely motioned her on, and she went, passing more swiftly under the trees of the orchard to the vine-covered well-curb.

  He thanked her; she pointed at the dipper and rope; but already blue-clad, red-faced soldiers were lowering the bucket and the orchard hummed with the buzz of the wheel.

  She went back to the porch, not through the house but around it. Across the little lawn lay crushed stalks and dying flowers; the potato patch was a slough of muddy green.

  Soldiers passed in the sunshine. She began to remember that her brother, too, was a soldier, somewhere out in the world; he had been a soldier for nearly a week, ever since Jim Bemis had taken him to Willow Corners to enlist. She remembered she had cried and gone into the pantry to make bread and cry again. She remembered that first night, how she had been afraid to sleep in the house, how at dusk she had gone into the parlour to be near her mother. Her mother was dead, but her picture hung in the parlour.

  Soldiers were passing, clutching their rifle butts with dirty hands, turning toward her countless sun-dazzled eyes. The shimmer of gun-barrels, the dancing light on turning bayonets, the flicker and sparkle on belt and button dazed and wearied her.

  Somebody said, “We’re the boys for the purty girls! Have ye no eyes for us, lass?”

  Another said, “Shut up, Mike, she’s not from the Bowery;” and, “G’wan ye dead rabbit!” retorted the first.

  A flag passed, and on it she read “New York,” and another flag passed, dipped to her in grim salute, while the folds shook out a faded “Maine.” She began to watch the flags; she saw a regiment plunge into the trampled corn, but she knew it was not her brother’s because the trousers of the men were scarlet and the caps hung to the shoulders, tasselled and crimson.

  “Maryland, Maryland, Maryland, 60th Maryland,” she repeated, but she did not know she spoke aloud until somebody said: “It’s yonder,” and a blue sleeve swept towards the west.

  “Yonder,” she repeated, looking at the ridge, cool in the beechwoods’ shadow.

  “Is it the 60th Maryland you want, Miss?” asked another.

  “Silence,” said an officer, wheeling a sweating horse past the porch.

  She shrank back, but turned her head toward the beechwoods. As she looked a belt of flame encircled the forest, once, twice, again and yet again, and through the outrushing smoke, the crash! crash! crash! of rifles echoed and re-echoed across the valley.

  All around her thousands of men burst into cheers; a deeper harmony grew on the idle breeze — the solemn tolling of cannon. The flags, the bright flags spread rainbow wings to the rising breeze; they were breasting the hills everywhere. The din of the rifles, the shouting, the sudden swift human wave, sweeping by on every side, thrilled her little heart until it beat out the long roll with the rolling drums.

  In the orchard the rattle of the bucket, the creak and whirr of the well-wheel, never ceased. A very young officer sat on his horse, eating an unripe apple and watching the men around the well. The horse stretched a glossy neck toward the currant bushes, mumbling twigs and sun-curled leaves. A hen wandered near, peering fearlessly at the soldiers.

  The girl went into the kitchen, reached up for her sun-bonnet, dangling on a peg, tied it under her chin, and walked gravely into the orchard. The men about the well looked up as she passed. They admired respectfully. So did the very young officer, pausing, apple half-eaten; so perhaps did the horse, turning his large, gentle eyes as she came up.

  The officer wheeled in his saddle and leaned toward her deferentially, anticipating perhaps complaint or insult.

  In Maryland “Dixie” was sung as often as “The Red, White, and Blue.”

  Before she spoke she saw that it was the same officer who had asked her about the well; she had not noticed he was so young.

  “I am sorry,” he said, — and, as he spoke, he removed his cap—” I am very sorry that we have trampled your garden. If you are loyal, the Government will indemnify you—”

  The sudden crash of a cannon somewhere among the trees drowned his voice. Stunned, she saw him, undisturbed, gather his bridle with a deprecatory gesture. His voice came back to her through the ringing in her ears: “We do not mean to be careless, but we could not turn aside, and your farm is in the line of advance.”

  Her ears still rang, and she spoke, scarcely hearing her own voice: “It is not that — I am loyal — it is only I wish to ask y
ou where my brother’s regiment — where the 60th Maryland is.”

  “The 60th Maryland — oh — why it’s in King’s Brigade, Wolcott’s Division; I think it’s yonder.” He pointed toward the beechwoods.

  “Yonder? Where they are firing?”

  Again the cannon thundered and the ground shook under her. She saw him nod, smiling faintly. Other mounted officers rode up; some looked at her curiously, others glanced carelessly; the attitudes of all were respectful. She heard them arguing about the water in the well and the length of the road to Willow Corners. They spoke of a turning movement, of driving somebody to Whitehall Station. The musketry on the hill had ceased; the cannon, too, were silent. Across the trampled corn a regiment moved listlessly to the tap, tap of a drum. On the road that circled Benson’s Hill, mounted soldiers were riding fast in the dust; several little flags bobbed among them; metal on shoulder and stirrup flashed through the dust, burnished by the mid-day sun.

  She heard an officer say that there would be no fighting, and she wondered, because the musketry began again, little spattering shots among the beeches on the ridge, and behind the house drums rolled and a sudden flurry of bugle music filled the air. Other officers rode up, some escorted by troopers who bounced in their saddles and grasped long-staffed flags, the butts resting in their stirrups.

  She reached up and bent down an apple bough, studded with clustered green fruit. Through the leaves she looked at the officers.

  The sunshine fell in brilliant spots, dappling flag and cap and the broad backs of horses; there was a jingle of spurs everywhere. The hum of voices and the movement were grateful to her, for her loneliness was not of her own seeking. In the pleasant summer air the distant gunshots grew softer and softer; the twitter of a robin came from the ash-tree by the gate.