to be side-tracked by the young painter's onslaughts. "If we loved the
things we kill for food as Monsieur Brierley loves his dog Peter, there
would never be another Chateaubriand cooked in the world. What would you
say if I offered you one of that dear fellow's ribs for breakfast? It
would be quite easy--the butcher is only around the corner and Pierre
would broil it to a turn. But that would not do for you gourmets. You
must have liver or sweetbreads cut from an animal you never saw and of
which, of course, you know nothing. If the poor animal had been a
playmate of Mignon's--and she once had a pet lamb--you could no sooner
cut its throat than you could Peter's."
Before Louis could again explode, Brierley, who, at mention of Peter's
name had leaned over to stroke the dog's ears, now broke in, a dry smile
on his face.
"There's another side of this question which you fellows don't seem to
see, and which interests me a lot. You talk about cruelty to animals,
but I tell you that most of the cruelty to-day is served out to the man
with the gun. The odds are really against him. The birds down my way
have got so almighty cunning that they club together and laugh at us. I
hear them many a time when Peter and I are dragging ourselves home
empty-handed. They know too when I start out and when I give up and
make for cover."
"Go slow, Brierley; go slow!"
"Of course they know, Louis!" retorted Brierley in mock dejection.
"Doesn't a crow keep a watch out for the flock? Can you get near one of
them with a gun unless you are lucky enough to shoot the sentry first?
You can call it instinct if you choose--I call it reason--the same kind
of mental process that compels you to look out for an automobile before
you cross the street, with your eyes both ways at once. When you talk of
their helplessness and want of common sense, and inability to look out
for themselves, you had better lie under a hedge as I have done, the
briars scraping your neck, or scrunched down in a duckblind, with your
feet in ice water, and study these simple-minded creatures. Explain this
if you can. Some years ago, in America, I spent the autumn on the
Housatonic River. The ducks come in from Long Island Sound to feed on
the shore stuff, and I could sometimes get five--once I got
eleven--between dawn and sunrise. The constant banging away soon made
them so shy that if I got five in a week I was lucky. On the first of
the month and for the first time in the State a new law came into force
making it cost a month's wages for any pot-hunter to kill a duck or even
have one in his possession. The law, as is customary, was duly
advertised. Not only was it published in the papers but stuck up in
bar-rooms and county post-offices, and at last became common gossip
around the feeding-ground of the ducks. At first they didn't believe it,
for they still kept out of sight, flying high--and few at that. But when
they found the law was obeyed and that all firing had ceased, not a gun
being heard on the river, they tumbled to the game as quick as did the
pot-hunters. When the shooting season opened the following year, hardly
a duck showed up. Those that came were evidently stragglers who rested
for a day on their long flight south; but the Long Island Sound
ducks--the well-posted ducks--stayed away altogether until, with the
first of the month, the law for their protection came into force again.
Then, so the old farmer, a very truthful man with whom I used to put up,
wrote me, they came back by thousands; the shore was black with them."
"And you really believe it, Brierley?" Louis' head was shaking in a
commiserating way.
"Of course I believe it, and I can show the farmer's letter to back
it," he answered, with a wink at me behind his hand; "and so would you
if you had been humbugged by them as many times as I have. Ask
Peter--he'll tell you the same thing. And I'll tell you something else.
On the edge of that same village was a jumble of shanties inhabited by a
lot of Italians who had come up from New York to work a quarry near by.
On Sundays and holidays these fellows went gunning for the small birds,
especially cedar birds and flickers, hiding in the big woods a mile
away. After these birds had stood it for a while they put their dear
little innocent heads together and thought it all out. Women and
children did not shoot, therefore the safest place for nesting and
skylarking was among these very women and children. After that the woods
were empty; the birds just made fools of the pot-hunters and swarmed to
the gardens and yards and village trees. No one had ever seen them
before in such quantities, and--would you believe it?--they never went
back to the woods again until the Italians had left for New York."
Lemois, having also missed the humor in Brierley's tone, rose from his
place beside the coffee-table, leaned over the young writer, and, with
a characteristic gesture, patted him on the arm, exclaiming:
"How admirably you have put it, my dear Monsieur Brierley; I have to
thank you most sincerely. Ah! you Americans are always clear and to the
point. May I add one more word? That which made these birds so cunning
was the fact that you were out to _kill_ them." Here he straightened up,
his back to the fire, and stood with the light of its blaze tingeing his
gray beard. "It's a foolish fancy, I know, but I would have liked to
have lived, if only for one day, with the man Adam, just to see how he
and Madame Eve and the Noah's ark family got on before they began
quarrelling and Cain made a hole in the head of the other monsieur. I
have an idea that the lion and the lamb ate out of the same trough, with
the birds on their backs for company--all the world at peace. My Coco
rubs his beak against my cheek, not because I feed him, but because he
trusts me; he would, I am sure, bite a piece out of Monsieur Louis'
because he does not trust him--and with reason," and the old man smiled
good-naturedly. "But why don't they all trust us?"
Herbert, who had also for some reason entirely missed Brierley's humor,
fumbled for an instant with the end of a match he had picked from the
cloth, and then, tossing it quickly from him as if he had at last framed
the sentence he was about to utter, said in a thoughtful tone:
"I have often wondered what the world would be like if all fear of every
kind was abolished--of punishment, of bodily hurt, and of pain?
Everything that swims, flies, or walks is afraid of something
else--women of men, men of each other. The first thing an infant does is
to cry out--not from the pain, but from fright--just as a small dog or
the cub of a bear hides under its mother's coat before its eyes are
open. It is the ogre, Fear, that begins with the milk and ends with the
last breath in terror over the unknown, and it is our fault. Half the
children in the world--perhaps three-fourths of them--have been brought
up by fear and not by love."
"How about the lambasting your father gave you, Herbert, when you hooked
it from school? 'Spare the rod and spoil the--' You know the rest of it.
Did you deserve it?"
"Probably I did," laughed Herbert. "But, all the same, Louis, that
foolish line has done more harm in the world than any line ever
written. Many a brute of a father--not mine, for he did what he thought
was right--has found excuse in those half-dozen words for his temper
when he beat his boy."
"Oh, come, let us get back to dry ground, gentlemen," broke in Brierley.
"We commenced on birds and we've brought up on moral suasion with the
help of a birch-rod. Nobody has yet answered my argument: What about the
birds and the way they play it on Peter and me?" and again Brierley
winked at me.
"It's because you tricked them first, Brierley," returned Herbert in all
seriousness and in all sincerity. "They got suspicious and outwitted
you, and they will every time. A beast never forgets treachery. I know
of a dozen instances to prove it."
"Now I think of it, I know of one case, too," remarked Louis gravely, in
the voice of a savant uncovering a matter of great weight; "that is, if
I may be allowed to tell it in the presence of the big Nimrod of the
Congo--he of a hundred pairs of tusks, to say nothing of skins galore."
Herbert nodded assent and with an air of surprise leaned forward to
listen. That the jovial painter had ever met the savage beast in any
part of the world was news to him.
"A most extraordinary and remarkable instance, gentlemen, showing both
the acumen, the mental equipment, and the pure cussedness, if I may be
permitted the expression, of the brute beast of the field. The incident,
as told to me, made a profound impression on my early life, and was
largely instrumental in my abandoning the pursuit and destruction of
game of that class. I refer to the well-known case of the boy who gave
the elephant a quid of tobacco for a cake, and was buried the following
year by his relatives when the circus came again to his town--he
unfortunately having occupied a front seat. Yes, you are right, the
beast forgives anything but treachery. But go on, Professor Herbert;
your treatment of this extremely novel view of animal life is most
exhilarating. I shall, at the next meeting of the Academy of Sciences,
introduce a----"
Brierley's hand set firmly on Louis' mouth, who sputtered out he would
be good, would have ended the discussion had not Lemois moved into an
empty chair beside Herbert, and, resting his hand on the sculptor's
shoulder, exclaimed in so absorbed a tone as to command every one's
attention:
"Please do not stop, Monsieur Herbert, and please do not mind this wild
man, who has two mouths in his face--one with which he eats and the
other with which he interrupts. I am very much interested. You were
speaking of the ogre, Fear. Please go on. One of the things I want to
know is whether it existed in the Garden of Eden. Now if you gentlemen
will all keep still"--here he fixed his eyes on Louis--"we may hear
something worth listening to."
Louis threw up both hands in submission, begging Lemois not to shoot,
and Herbert, having made him swear by all that was holy not to open
either of his mouths until his story was told to the end, emptied his
glass of Burgundy and faced the expectant group.
"We don't need to go back to the Garden of Eden to decide the question,
Lemois. As to who is responsible for the existence of this ogre, Fear, I
can answer best by telling you what happened only four years ago on a
German expedition to the South Pole. It was told me by the commander
himself, who had been specially selected by Emperor William as the best
man to take charge. When I met him he was captain of one of the great
North Atlantic liners--a calm, self-contained man of fifty, with a smile
that always gave way to a laugh, and a sincerity, courage, and capacity
that made you turn over in your berth for another nap no matter how hard
it blew.
"We were in his cabin near the bridge at the time, the walls of which
were covered with photographs of the Antarctic, most of which he had
taken himself, showing huge icebergs, vast stretches of hummock ice,
black, clear-etched shore lines, and wastes of snow that swept up to
high mountains, their tops lost in the fog. He was the first human
being, so he told me, to land on that coast. He had left the ship in the
outside pack and with his first mate and one of the scientists had
forced a way through the floating floes, their object being to make the
ascent of a range of low rolling mountains seen in one of the
photographs. This was pure white from base to summit except for a dark
shadow one-third the slope, which he knew must be caused by an
overhanging ledge with possibly a cave beneath. If any explorers had
ever reached this part of the Antarctic, this cave, he knew, would be
the place of all others in which to search for records and remains.
"He had hardly gone a dozen yards toward it when his first mate touched
his arm and pointed straight ahead. Advancing over the crest of the snow
came the strangest procession he had ever seen. Thirty or more penguins
of enormous size, half as high as a man, were marching straight toward
them in single file, the leader ahead. When within a few feet of them
the penguins stopped, bunched themselves together, looked the invaders
over, bending their heads in a curious way--walking round and round as
if to get a better view--and then waddled back to a ridge a few rods
off, where they evidently discussed their strange guests.
"The captain and the first mate, leaving the scientist, walked up among
them, patted their heads, caressed their necks--the captain at last
slipping his hand under one flipper of the largest penguin, the mate
taking the other--the two conducting the bird slowly and with great
solemnity and dignity back to the boat, its companions following as a
matter of course. None of them exhibited the slightest fear; did not
start or crane their heads in suspicion, but were just as friendly as so
many tame birds waiting to be fed. The boat seemed to interest them as
much as the men had done. One by one, or by twos and threes, they came
waddling gravely down to where it lay, examined it all over and as
gravely waddled back, looking up into the explorers' faces as if for
some explanation of the meaning and purpose of the strange craft. They
had, too, a queer way of extending their necks, rubbing their cheeks
softly against the men's furs, as if it felt good to them. The only
thing they seemed disappointed in were the ship's rations--these they
would not touch.
"Leaving the whole flock grouped about the boat, the party pushed on to
the dark shadow up the white slope. It was, as he had supposed, an
overhanging cliff, its abrupt edge and slant forming a shallow cave
protected from the glaciers and endless snows. As he approached nearer
he could make out the whirling flight of birds, and when he reached the
edge he found it inhabited by thousands upon thousands of sea fowl--a
gray and white species common to these latitudes. But there was no
commotion nor excitement of any kind--no screams of alarm or running to
cover. On the contrary, when the party came to a halt and looked up at
the strange sight, two birds stopped in their flight to perch on the
mate's shoulder, and one hopped toward the captain with a movement as
if politely asking his business. He even lifted the young birds from
under their mother's wings without protest of any kind--not even a peck
of their beaks--one of the older birds really stepped into his hand and
settled herself as unconcerned as if his warm palm was exactly the kind
of nest she had been waiting for. He could, he told me, have carried the
whole family away without protest of any kind so long as he kept them
together.
"The following week he again visited the shore. This time he found not
only the friendly penguins, who met him with even more than their former
welcome, but a huge seal which had sprawled itself out on the rock and
whose only acknowledgment of their presence was a lazy lift of the head
followed by a sleepy stare. So perfectly undisturbed was he by their
coming, that both the captain and the first mate sat down on his back,
the mate remaining long enough to light his pipe. Even then the seal
moved only far enough to stretch himself, as if saying, 'Try that and
you will find it more comfortable.'
"On this visit, however, something occurred which, he told me, he
should never cease to regret as long as he lives. That morning as they
pushed off from the ship, one of the dogs had made a clear spring from
the deck and had landed in the boat. It was rather difficult to send him
back without loss of time, and so he put him in charge of the mate, with
orders not to take his eyes off him and, as a further precaution, to
chain him to the seat when he went ashore. So fascinated were the
penguins by the dog that for some minutes they kept walking round and
round him, taking in his every movement. In some way, when the mate was
not looking, the dog slipped his chain and disappeared. Whether he had
gone back to the vessel or was doing some exploring on his own account
nobody knew; anyhow, he must be found.
"It then transpired that one of the penguins had also taken a notion to
go on a still hunt of its own, and alone. Whether the dog followed the
penguin, or the penguin the dog, he said he never knew; but as soon as
both were out of sight the dog pounced upon the bird and strangled it.
They found it flat on its back, the black-webbed feet, palms up, as in
dumb protest, the plump white body glistening in the snow. From its
throat trickled a stream of blood: they had come just in time to save
any further mutilation. To hide all traces of the outrage, the captain
and his men not only carried the dead penguin and the live dog to the
boat, but carefully scraped up every particle of the stained snow, which
was also carried to the boat and finally to the ship. What he wanted, he
told me, was to save his face with the birds. He knew that not one of
them had seen the tragedy, and he was determined that none of them
should find it out. So careful was he that no smell of blood would be
wafted toward them, that he had the boat brought to windward before he
embarked the load; in this way, too, he could avoid bidding both them
and the seal good-by.
"The following spring he again landed on the shore. He had completed the
survey, and the coast lay on their homeward track. There were doubters
in the crew, who had heard the captain's story of the penguins walking
arm and arm with him, so he landed some of the ship's company to
convince them by ocular demonstration of its truth. But no penguins were
in sight, nor did any other living thing put in an appearance. One of
his men--there were six this time--caught a glimpse of a row of heads
peering at them over a ridge of snow a long way off, but that was all.
When he reached the cave the birds flew out in alarm, screaming and
circling as if to protect their young."
Herbert paused, moved his cup nearer the arm of his chair, and for a
moment stirred it gently.
Lemois, whose grave eyes had never wandered from Herbert, broke the
silence.
"I should have learned their language and have stayed on until they did
understand," he murmured softly. "It wouldn't have taken very long."
"The captain did try, Lemois," returned Herbert, "first by signs and
gentle approaches, and then by keeping perfectly still, to pacify them;
but it was of no use. They had lost all confidence in human kind. The
peace of the everlasting ages had come to an end. Fear had entered into
their world!"
IV
THE ARRIVAL OF A LADY OF QUALITY
One of the delights of dressing by our open windows at this season is to
catch the aroma of Mignon's roasting coffee. This morning it is
particularly delicious. The dry smell of the soil that gave it birth is
fast merging into that marvellous perfume which makes it immortal. The
psychological moment is arriving; in common parlance it is just on the
"burn"--another turn and the fire will have its revenge. But Mignon's
vigil has never ceased--into the air it goes, the soft breeze catching
and cooling it, and then there pours out, flooding the garden, the
flowers, and the roofs, its new aroma and with it its new life.
And the memories it calls up--this pungent, fragrant, spicy perfume:
memories of the cup I drank in that old posada outside the gate of
Valencia and the girl who served it, and the matador who stood by the
window and scowled; memories of my own toy copper coffee-pot, with its
tiny blue cup and saucer which Luigi, my gondolier, brings and pours
himself; memories of the thimblefuls in shallow china cups hardly bigger
than an acorn shell, that Yusef, my dragoman, laid beside my easel in
the patio of the Pigeon Mosque in Stamboul, when the priests forbade me
to paint.
[Illustration: Flooding the garden, the flowers, and the roofs]
Yes!--a wonderful aroma this which our pretty, joyous Mignon is
scattering broadcast over the court-yard, hastening every man's toilette
that he may get down the earlier where Leà is waiting for him with the
big cups, the crescents, the pats of freshly churned butter, and the
pitcher of milk boiling-hot from Pierre's fire.
Another of the pleasures of the open window is being able to hear what
goes on in the court-yard. To-day the ever-spontaneous and delightful
Louis, as usual, is monopolizing all the talk, with Lemois and Mignon
for audience, he having insisted on the open garden for his early cup,
which the good Leà has brought, her scuffling sabots marking a track
across the well-raked gravel. The conversation is at long range--Louis
sitting immediately under my window and Lemois, within reach of the
kitchen door at the other side of the court, busying himself with his
larder spread out on a table.
"Monsieur Lemois! Oh, Monsieur Lemois!" Louis called; "will you be good
enough to pay attention! What about eggs?--can I have a couple of
soft-boiled?"
"Why, of course you can have eggs! Leà, tell Pierre to----"
"Yes, I know, but will it endanger the life of the chickens inside?
After your sermon last night, and Herbert's penguin yarn, I don't intend
that any living thing shall suffer because of my appetite--not if I can
help it."
Lemois shrugged his shoulders in laughter, and kept on with his work,
painting a still-life picture on his table-top--a string of silver
onions for high lights and a brace of pheasants with a background of
green turnip-tops for darks. To see Lemois spread his marketing thus
deliberately on his canvas of a kitchen table is a lesson in color and
composition. You get, too, some idea as to why he was able to reproduce
in real paint the "Bayeux" tapestry on the walls of the "Gallerie" and
arrange the Marmouset as he has done.
My ear next became aware of a certain silence in the direction of the
coffee-roaster which had ceased its rhythm--the coffee is roasted fresh
every morning. I glanced out and discovered our Mignon standing erect
beside her roaster with flushed cheeks and dancing eyes. Next I caught
sight of young Gaston, his bronze, weather-beaten face turned toward the
girl, his eyes roaming around the court-yard. In his sunburned hand he
clutched a letter. He was evidently inquiring of Mignon as to whom he
should give it.
"Who's it for?" shouted Louis, who, as godfather to Mignon's romance,
had also been watching the little comedy in delight. "All private
correspondence read by the cruel parent! I am the cruel parent--bring it
over here! What!--not for me? Oh!--for the High-Muck-a-Muck." The shout
now came over his left shoulder. "Here's a letter for you, High-Muck,
from Marc, so this piscatorial Romeo announces. Shall I send it up?"
"No--open and read it," I shouted back.
Louis slit the envelope with his thumb-nail and absorbed its contents.
"Well!--I'll be--No, I won't, but Marc ought. What do you think he's
been and gone and done, the idiot!"
"Give it up!"
"Invited a friend of his--a young--the Marquise de la Caux--to dine with
us to-night. Says she's the real thing and the most wonderful woman he
knows. Doesn't that make your hair curl up backward! He's coming down
with her in her motor--be here at seven precisely. A marquise! Well!--if
that doesn't take the cake! I'll bet she's Marc's latest mash!"
Herbert put his head out of an adjoining window. "What's the matter?"
"Matter! Why that lunatic Marc is going to bring a woman down to
dinner--one of those fine things from St. Germain. She's got a château
above Buezval. Marc stayed there last night instead of showing up here."
"Very glad of it, why not?" called Herbert, drawing in his head.
Lemois, who had heard the entire outbreak, nodded to himself as if in
assent, looked at Gaston for a moment, and, without adding a word of any
kind, disappeared in the kitchen. What he thought of it all nobody knew.
There was no doubt as to the seriousness of the impending catastrophe.
Marc, in his enthusiasm, had lost all sense of propriety, and was about
to introduce among us an element we had hitherto avoided. Indeed, one
of the enticing comforts at the Inn was its entire freedom from
petticoat government of any kind. A woman of quality, raised as she had
been, would mean dress-coats and white ties for dinner and the restraint
that comes with the mingling of the sexes, and we disliked both--that
is, when on our outings.