father having given him up as worthless, hopeless. She had whipped him
many a time, but not for two years; and he had felt no pain, no shame,
no outrage, no resentment. The case of the teacher was different. Ray
had solemnly sworn, renewing the oath every day, that when he came to
manhood he would beat his teacher to death for whipping him so often and
severely because of his dulness, his apathy, or his rebellion; the
whippings from his mother had only increased his tenderness for her,
and, in some way that he could not understand, his pity also. Perhaps it
was because he vaguely felt that she was impairing something in herself
that was precious to him. Never had she conquered him; never had he
cried out in pain, never pleaded for mercy, never confessed penitence
nor promised reform.
Mrs. Gilbert shut her teeth hard, and, deathly white in the moonlight,
raised the switch. It was poised a moment, and then her arm fell limp to
her side; but the look that her son had seen in his father's eyes held
her and steeled her with a sort of desperate madness, and her arm again
rose.
A long cry, an anguished wail, almost superhuman in its power to shatter
the silence of the night, and more startling than any human cry could
be, struck disorganizingly through the drama. It may have hastened the
catastrophe. Mr. Gilbert was unnerved for a moment, and in exasperation
picked up a clod and threw it at the offending dog trembling on the
terrace. When he turned again, his son was kneeling beside his
unconscious mother, peering anxiously into her pallid face, and calling
her softly.
In a stride Mr. Gilbert was upon him. A hand armed with strength and
fury caught up the shirt on the lad's shoulder, raised him, and flung
him away with so great violence that the slender body struck the ground
as a log. Mr. Gilbert tenderly picked up his wife and bore her into the
house.
The fall had half stunned the boy. As he slowly struggled to a sitting
posture the moon danced fantastically, and some black trees crowning a
near hill bowed and rose, and walked sidewise to and fro. A whine, low,
cautious, packed with sympathy and solicitude, pleaded at the pickets,
but the boy gave it no attention. He sat for a time, rose giddily,
swayed as he dressed himself, and with deliberation walked to the gate.
The dog, whining, trembling, crawled to meet him; but the boy, instead
of caressing him, ordered him quietly but firmly to the kennel.
Obedience was slow, and the animal looked up incredulous, wondering. The
order had to be repeated. Finally the dog obeyed, frequently pausing to
look back, but his master stood inflexible.
Passing round the house, and without thinking or caring about hat and
overcoat, he noiselessly passed out the front gate, for a moment studied
the big house that had cradled him, bred much of his anguish, and held
all of his love, and firmly stepped out into the road. There was a
gnawing ache somewhere. Assuredly that one blow,--and from _her_,--could
not have caused it. After finding it in his throat, he was much
relieved, and struck out on secure legs.
It did not occur to him that he was an outlaw and outcast. He did not
think at all. Hence there was no plan in his going. He did not even
understand that something deeper within him than had ever operated
before had assumed, in the disqualification of his ordinary ruling
powers, an imperious regency, and that it was infinitely greater or
infinitely less than his usual intelligence. He simply went on, thinking
nothing, remembering nothing. The beautiful highway, arched by great
trees, above which rode the moon in keeping pace with him, was a tunnel
under a luminous sea; he half walked, half floated, in the crystal
water, and had no wonder that he breathed it. The houses along the way
were the palaces of lordly gnomes that inhabited the deep.
Whatever was leading him turned him out of the avenue at last and
drifted him along a winding road that was as beautiful in its less
conventional way. He did not reflect that all of this was familiar,
shamefully familiar. It was the road to his grandmother's but he had not
visited her for a year.
Her great wisdom and tact had gone to a study of the strange, unhappy
child; she had been kind to him in every cautious, delicate fashion that
she could devise; but he had ceased coming, and avoided her when she
visited his home, and she had never known why. She was a patient woman
and good; she knew prayer, and in her peaceful twilight she walked with
God; yet no revelation had come at her appeals, for the times were not
ready; and the boy went his way alone and silent, forever alone and
silent, and unhappy, unhappy!
A white picket fence was presently marching with him alongside the
shining road. He did not consciously recognize it, and it brought no
rekindling of an old terror, an old shame; but soon, on the other side
of it, a distance away, there broke on the stillness a challenge that he
remembered, and its tone was contempt. He understood it, and woke with
a start because of a sudden fluff of flame and a whiff of smoke from the
grass fire of ten years ago, and the ache in his throat gave him a
strangling wrench. His head rolled; the moon swung through an arc of
alarming length. That call beyond the fence struck the dominant note of
his life, and it was Fear. Yet it came from a mere animal,--his
grandmother's old buckskin horse, the most docile of creatures.
Ray had never feared the wild things of the woods. The cry of the
panther in the dead of night is dreadful but it had no terrors for the
boy in the forest solitude. Other fierce pad-footed members of the cat
tribe had come and sniffed him as he lay under the stars, and experience
had taught him to feign sleep, for a suspicion of his wakefulness would
send them bounding away, and he was lonely, always lonely. One night,
roused from slumber, he sleepily put his hand on the shaggy head of a
bear that was curiously rummaging him, and he was sorry that the beast
took alarm and trotted away,--he would have been comfortable to hug.
That was before the dog had come into his life. He could never
understand why he was not afraid of anything whatever--not even of the
terrific lightning and thunder that sometimes flamed and crashed and
bellowed all about him,--except human beings and the forces that they
controlled; and at times he wondered why Cap loved him and the buckskin
horse would kill him from hate if he could.
Here, then, beyond the picket fence, was the proclamation of his
shame,--coming from a gentle, superannuated horse with no more spirit
than a snail's. By some means, perhaps instinctive,--for all the world,
when it finds out, will hunt down and destroy whatsoever fears it
(although the boy had not reasoned it out thus),--the beast had learned
that the boy was afraid, and had then found an interest in life. Let him
but have a glimpse of Ray, and, ears back, lips drawn from hideous
yellow teeth, and head thrust horribly forward, he would snort,
charge,--and the boy would run abjectly. The horse had never thus
treated another living thing. So the boy had stayed away from his
grandmother's, and she had never suspected, and her love and prayers had
brought no revelation.
As the fence intervened, the horse knew that a charge would be useless;
but when, with a neat leap the boy nimbly caught his feet on the ground
within the pasture, the buckskin advanced in his minatory way. Ray did
not know why he had leaped the fence, unless the wrench in his throat
had hurled him over or the flame and smoke of the grass fire had driven
him; nor did he know why he went steadily to meet the horse, nor why his
nostrils stretched and his arms strained and his hands clenched, nor why
there was a fierce eagerness in him; a rasping thirst for something
dried his tongue. The horse came on, and the boy, perfectly calm, as
fatally went to meet him. There was no calculation of results, yet the
lad knew that a horse's teeth and hoofs may be deadly. He knew only that
he was not going forward to end all his wretchedness, as, last year, the
shoemaker who drank had done with a shotgun, and young Corson, the
thieving clerk, with poison. It occurred to the boy that he cared
nothing about the teeth and hoofs of any horse, and nothing about what
they might do.
So ridiculous was the _fiasco_ that he would have laughed had he not
been sorry for the beast; for to see any rampant thing so suddenly
stricken with fear, when there was not the least danger nor any intent
of harm, was pitiful to see. He wished to assure the buckskin that he
was only a boy, a frail boy at that, and not what the animal had
apparently taken him to be,--a spawn of Darkness and Terror. He followed
up the trembling beast, trying to reassure him and to get near and pet
him; but the creature fled wildly at every advance, and when not pursued
stood with head aloft, ears cocked, and nostrils vibrant, quivering in
fear.
Seeing the uselessness of further pacific effort, the boy sprang over
the fence, went back to the main highway, and by the unseen Hand was led
into the short cut past Mr. Elderby's house, where the greatest terror
of his life--human excepted--had months ago driven him to use the long
way round. He did not know, nor for a moment consider, why he chose the
short cut tonight. He turned into it, walking free and strong.
Girls had meant nothing in the boy's life. That was because they did not
seem members of his species, but something fragile, mysterious, and
ranking somewhere between flowers and angels. Thus his feeling for them
was composed of a little awe, more reverence, and a sense of great
remoteness. Never had he observed them thoughtfully without reflecting
that they were, in a general way, much like his mother, or at least of
her species; therefore they must be sweet and dainty and gentle and
kind. His only large swellings of the heart had come from his thinking
about them, particularly Grace Elderby, now twelve years old. Nothing
could have been so grand, for instance, as an opportunity to rescue her
single-handed, from wild savages that had her tied to a tree and were
piling fagots about her; then to dance in fiendish glee about her as the
flames rose. He would dash up on a splendid charger, his sword flashing
in the sun; savage heads would roll in the dust, or fall open, cleaved
in twain; there would be wild yells of fright and a wilder flight for
life; he would leap from his horse, speak reassuring words while he
severed her bonds, mount with her in his arms, and fly away, away, away.
Twice had Grace seen his shame. She had seen him pale, and run when her
father's big, noisy dog had made a flamboyant show of rage, and she had
seen him stand mute and white when Andy Carmichael, older and larger and
much stronger than Ray, grossly insulted him in her presence. The
Elderby dog was the terror that had closed the short cut,--closed it to
Ray alone.
Thus into the short cut swung Ray, walking strong and free, the ache in
his throat not so painful as before. The dog would be on guard, and the
boy was empty-handed.
The shadows were deep under the trees, or possibly the dog's hate and
rage blinded him to what the buckskin had seen, or perhaps he was of a
different metal. Near the rear of the premises the big brute came in so
great a fury that he broke through the palings. The ensuing
collision,--for the boy stood his ground,--was so violent that Ray went
down underneath, and an ecstasy thrilled him when the flame swished and
the smoke stung, and he felt something sink into his shoulder and a
stifle of hot, foamy breath in his face.
It seemed to have been easily and quickly done. True, when he came erect
he was weak and tired, and swayed dizzily, and wondered why. As, without
the least exultation, or even triumph, or even gratification, he looked
down at his work, and saw with surprise how deeply the ground had been
torn up, two men with sticks came running out,--evidently there had been
some noise, despite all his care for silence. One was Mr. Elderby, the
other his coachman. The gentleman stood in astonishment as the boy,
controlling his heavy breathing, stepped into the moonlight and calmly
faced him.
"Ray Gilbert! What are you doing here, at this time of night?"
"I was walking in the path. Your dog attacked me."
"What did you kill him with?"
"My hands."
Mr. Elderby stood in wonder as he studied the lad.
"I'm thankful to God that you are alive. It's a miracle." He noticed
that Ray's clothing was torn nearly to rags. In compassion he laid a
hand on Ray's shoulder, quickly withdrew it, and examined it in the
moonlight. "You are hurt, my son. Come into the house. I'll put you to
bed and send for the doctor and your parents."
"Thank you, sir; I have something to do."
"But you must have attention.--Jake, hitch up the bay to the light
buggy,--quick,--and drive him home."
"No, sir; but I'm much obliged. I have something to do. Good night." The
shadows enveloped him.
The short cut led him over a sharp hill and into the road again, and
there he sat on the bank till his strength came back. Then he went on
till he arrived at a gate leading into a private avenue. The ache in his
throat was nearly gone. Passing quietly up the driveway and round to the
rear of the house, he came to a window, which was open at the top, and
sharply tapped on the glass.
"Who's that?" came a voice.
"Dress and come out, Andy Carmichael. I'm Ray Gilbert."
The sash was thrown up and the boy glowered in the opening. "Ray
Gilbert!--you cowardly, sneaking puppy! What do you want?"
"I want to see you. Dress and come out. Don't wake anybody."
He spoke quietly, trying to appear his usual self lest this monster,
this overshadowing terror of his life, should see whatever it was that
had frightened the horse and slain the dog. This was the boy who had
beaten him so often and with such merciless, sodden, gluttonous
enjoyment; the boy who, when he did not care to give the beatings
himself--no provocation was ever needed,--would stand threateningly by
and let the smaller boys, even to the little ones with soft, puny fists,
beat the coward as long as they wished, merely for the love of beating
what did not resist; the boy whose lies had brought undeserved whippings
from the teacher; the boy who openly insulted him whenever he pleased,
and, worst of all, had humiliated him before Grace Elderby. It was the
presence of this boy at the party that evening, and the looks that he
gave Ray, and the sly tortures he inflicted, that had sent up the
curtain on the night's drama.
In wondering surprise Andy studied the bare-headed, ragged, dirty figure
standing in the moonlight; and as crimson looks a muddy brown in such a
light, he mistook the smears on the other's face and the dark splotches
on his clothing. What could the creature want of him at this time of
night and with that extraordinary appearance? Likely Ray had been set
upon and was seeking any refuge. It would be joyous to complete the work
that the others had begun. Andy soon emerged from the house.
"Come this way," said his mysterious visitant, and perplexed Andy
followed him to the rear of the fowl-house, where the light was clear.
The flame and smoke of the old grass fire were strong in the air.
Ray halted, and faced him.
"Take off your coat," he quietly said, removing his own tattered
garment.
"What for?" with a slight quaver composed of anger--and something else;
for there was a touch of the uncanny here.
"We are going to fight."
"Fight, eh! What put that into your fool head?" Under the initial
impulse from the challenge, Andy was all heat and eagerness, and he
bristled and swelled; but though, in some vital ways, human sense is
less acute than brute sense, Andy did feel something of what the
buckskin had felt, something of what had slain the dog, and his heart
thumped with a strange heaviness. "What do you want to fight for? I'd
beat the life out of you."
It failed of the effect intended, and Andy found his head suddenly
twisted to one side by a slap on the cheek. He stepped back, white with
fury, tossed his coat aside, and hurled himself upon the slender figure
waiting with such unearthly composure.
* * * * *
Dawn was flooding the east, and still the boy lurched and floundered on
and on, keeping to the road that led into the wilderness. Occasionally
he would stop for a minute's rest and to listen for the baying of
Frazier's bloodhound; and he wondered, in a purely detached and
scientific way, whether he had sufficient strength and acuteness left
for another such grapple. It was merely an engaging speculation, and was
complicated with his determination to perform another task before his
work was done. It would nearly break his heart to be stopped now. Likely
the dog would not attack him, but merely hold him at bay until the
pursuers came to his summons; but if the dog would not attack, then the
boy must. Would strength or even life be left for the last and most
important of all the tasks to which the Hand was leading him?--for there
was a good distance yet to be covered, and work to be done at the end of
it. He was thankful that the ache had entirely left his throat and that
a strange warmth had kindled in his breast.
[Illustration: "DAWN WAS FLOODING THE EAST, AND STILL THE BOY LURCHED AND
FLOUNDERED ON AND ON." FROM A PAINTING BY GORDON ROSS]
Perhaps they had not really meant what they said about setting Frazier's
bloodhound to run him down. The remark had come from the yardman, not
Mr.
Carmichael himself, who had appeared too stunned to think of anything
but his son. If they had wished to kill the outlaw, or take him and send
him to jail, why had they not seized and bound him instead of staring at
him so queerly, and then the yardman foolishly saying, as Ray staggered
away and they picked up the limp figure, that they would get Frazier's
bloodhound and set him on the trail? They were two strong men against a
mere boy, who was so exhausted that only with a mighty effort could he
stand. It was Andy's final despairing cry that had waked them.
Without either triumph or regret the boy struggled on. The broadening of
day made him partly aware of the savage presence that he made and of the
likelihood that traffic might open on the road at any time. Some of his
clothing was gone, and he had bound the remaining strips and rags about
him as best he could. He did not know about the aspect of his face and
hair, but he realized that should any one encounter him in the road he
might be forced to do something distasteful, and that the urgent task
ahead might be interrupted.
A horseman and two market wagons passed at intervals, but the boy was
hidden at the roadside. So he reeled on and on, and so he came at last
to the great pine. There he turned out and crawled as much as walked
through the trees and undergrowth to the summit of a low ridge, where he
felt the sunshine fall on his half-naked back. It was so luxurious that
he paused in the full glare of it, and slowly turned, as one very cold
before a warming fire, and reveled in it. With every moment he felt it
pouring into him, tingling softly as it ran. It was odd with what
cheerful industry it hunted out the coldest places in him and kindled
snug little fires under them. Most of all, it gave attention to the warm
place that had already started in the center, and that one woke to a
wonderful glow. Thus refreshed, he descended the slope on the farther
side and came to a morass threaded by a friendly stream. At the edge of
the bog he halted and looked keenly about. It had been two years since
his last visit to this spot, and, though his memory of the woods was
excellent, he now found himself dull and his vision bad. Ordinarily he
would have found at once what he was seeking. Up and down along the
margin he stumbled, straining his dim eyes, crawling sometimes and using
groping hands in the search. Surely no one else could have come upon
this remote spot, found the treasure, and taken it away!
At last! It had seemed to him a very long time; but all else was
submerged in the joy of the first triumph, the first elation, that the
lad had felt in many, many a day. Every shadow that had lain on his
conscience vanished, every shame that had cursed his years was swept
away, all bitterness took flight, and something fine and sweet raced
through him deliciously.
There was no waste of precious time in hunting for something with which
to dig. Then, too, the glorious sun had mounted, and was pouring its
flood of light and warmth on his work and him. Like the tines of a
digging-fork, his fingers sank into the ground.
The precious treasure, hugged gently, reverently, with a fierce sense of
protection, was balm to every hurt. With it thus clasped, the boy
laboriously made the ascent of the ridge on his return, and paused on
the summit. There was something strange in the distance with which the
descending slope to the road stretched so far, so bewilderingly far. He
contemplated it, and wondered if he could compass it in a lifetime. The
impulse to go on--for this last task was only half done--overcame the
check from the illusion, and he started down. His knees developed a
foolish way of suddenly flexing and seating him hard on the ground. At
first it was annoying, but when it happened the second time the
absurdity of it, and the ridiculous suddenness of the surprise that it
caused, made the boy laugh aloud. It astonished him to hear himself
laugh, for that was very unusual, and he wondered. But he rose,
staggered on, and found himself chuckling inside,--a most astonishing
thing! He could not imagine why he was doing it. When he dropped the
third time his voice rang in so loud and merry a laugh that two blue
jays came and scolded him terrifically, and he laughed at them till his
tears ran. He was so absurdly happy that he feared he would hug his
treasure too hard.
If only his mother were with him, that she might see how funny it all
was, and laugh and be happy with him, and then walk with him hand in
hand through the beautiful woods, while he showed her all the wonderful
things that he knew! But no; his sisters and his father must be with
them,--and Grace, and Andy, too, and the teacher and dear old
grandmother. What a glorious time they would have!
The boy started, for a sweet, coaxing smother had suddenly fallen on
him. He fought it away and rose with great difficulty and in some alarm
lest he should not reach the road. On he lurched, clinging to the bushes
as he swayed, trying not to laugh, for he had an idea that he was very
crass and silly. He saw the road, only a rod away, and suddenly
reflected that he was not presentable. Though staying till night would
delay the completion of his task, there was no help for it, and he was
content, and laughed because he was. And he knew that he really needed
rest; for suppose his legs should practise those grotesque
eccentricities in the road, and somebody should see! He sat down,
carefully guarding his treasure, to wait in happy patience. He would not
sleep, and so lose something of his conscious peace, something of
thinking about what was going to happen at the end. No, he _must_ not
sleep.
The frantically joyous barking of a dog standing over him--not at all
like the deep baying of Frazier's bloodhound,--woke the boy, and he
tried to raise his head, but it fell back like lead. He laughed drowsily
in quiet happiness, as he feebly patted the devoted head.
"Dear old Cap," he said. "You came, didn't you?"
Messengers from Elderby's and Carmichael's had brought strange news to
the boy's parents. In alarm they had started out in the surrey, taking
Cap, in the sure faith that he would find their son. They had seen that
Andy was recovering,--he had been much more frightened than hurt. It was
they whose crashing through the bushes the boy heard after Cap had
announced his find. They halted and paled when they saw the torn,
bruised, helpless figure smiling at them from the ground, and so full
of loving gladness merely to see them that there was no room for
surprise at their being there. The mother was quicker than the father;
she ran forward and fell on her knees beside her son.
"My boy!" she cried in a choke.
He took her hand and smiled into her face. In all her life she had never
seen a smile so sweet, so happy. With his free hand he lifted his
treasure.
"Mother," radiantly, "here it is!"
"What, my poor dear?"
"Don't you remember? I told you two years ago that I'd found it, and you
said you'd be very glad if I'd bring it to you when I came this way
again."
She opened the parcel, wrapped with so fond care in leaves and damp
moss.
"Why, it's the rare and beautiful fern, and you were taking it to me!
Bless your dear heart!" and, much to his surprise, she began to cry.
A LOST STORY
BY
FRANK NORRIS
Reprinted from _The Century Magazine_ of July, 1903 by permission