Produced by Al Haines
DAVID MALCOLM
BY
NELSON LLOYD
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published August, 1913
TO
THE RARE, SWEET MEMORY OF
SUSANNE LIVINGSTON GREEN LLOYD
MY WIFE AND THE DEAR COMPANION
WHO WORKED
WITH ME OVER THESE PAGES
DAVID MALCOLM
CHAPTER I
"Take care not to tumble into the water, David," said my mother.
She was standing by the gate, and from my perch on the back of the
off-wheeler, I smiled down on her with boyish self-assurance. The idea
of my tumbling into the water! The idea of my drowning even did I meet
with so ludicrous a mishap! But I was accustomed to my mother's
anxious care, for as an only child there had fallen to me a double
portion of maternal solicitude. In moments of stress and pain it came
as a grateful balm; yet more often, as now, it was irritating to my
growing sense of self-reliance. To show how little I heeded her
admonition, how well able I was to take care of myself, as I smiled
loftily from my dangerous perch, with my legs hardly straddling the
horse's back, I disdained to secure myself by holding to the harness,
but folded my arms with the nonchalance of a circus rider.
"And, David, be careful about rattlesnakes," said my mother.
Had I not seen in her anxious eyes a menace against all my plans for
that day I should have laughed outright in scorn, but knowing it never
wise to pit my own daring against a mother's prudence, I returned
meekly, "Yessem." Then I gave the horse a surreptitious kick, trying
thus to set all the ponderous four in motion. The unsympathetic animal
would not move in obedience to my command. Instead, he shook himself
vigorously, so that I had to seize the harness to save myself from an
ignominious tumble into the road.
"You won't let David wander out of your sight, now, will you, James?"
my mother said.
James was climbing into the saddle. Being a deliberate man in all his
actions, he made no sign that he had heard until he had both feet
securely in the stirrups, until he had struck a match on his boot-leg
and had lighted his pipe, until he had unhooked the single rein by
which he guided the leaders and was ready to give his horses the word
to move. Then he spoke in a voice of gentle protest:
"You hadn't otter worry about Davy, ma'am, not when he's with me." His
long whip was swinging in the air, but he checked it, that he might
turn to me and ask: "Now, Davy, you're sure you have your hook and
line?"
I nodded.
"And your can o' worms for bait?"
Again I nodded. The whip cracked. And I was off on the greatest
adventure of my life! My charger was a shaggy farm-horse, hitched
ignominiously to the pole of a noisy wood-wagon; my squire, the lanky,
loose-limbed James; my goal, the mountains to which were set my young
eyes, impatiently measuring the miles of rolling valley which I must
cross before I reached the land that until now I had seen only in the
wizard lights of distance.
Every one lives a story--every man and every woman. A million miles of
book-shelves could not hold the romances which are being lived around
you and will be unwritten. I am sure that when your own story has been
lived, when it is stored in your heart and memory, you will follow the
binding thread of it, and find it leading you back, as mine leads me to
one day like that day in May when I went fishing. There will be your
Chapter I. Before that, you will see, you were but a slip of humanity
taking root on earth. My own life began ten years before that May
morning, but on that May morning began my story. Then I rode all
unconscious of it. I was simply going fishing for trout. Yet, as I
clung to my heavy-footed horse and kept my eyes fixed on the distant
mountains, my heart beat quick with the spirit of adventure, for to
fish for trout in mysterious forests meant a great deal to one who had
known only the sluggish waters in the meadow and the martyrlike
resignation of the chub and sunny. I might begin my story on that
winter morning when I came into the world and bleated my protest
against living at all, but I pass by those years when I was only a slip
of humanity taking root on earth and come to that May day which is the
first to rise distinctly on my inward vision when I turn to retrospect.
Even now I mark it as a day of great adventure. Since then I have
battled with salmon in northern waters, I have felt my line strain
under the tarpon's despair, I have heard my reel sing with the rushes
of the bass, yet I do not believe that a whale with my harpoon in his
side, as he thrashes the sea, would give me the same exulting thrill
that came with a tiny trout's first tug at my hook. Filled with so
exciting a prospect, I did not look back as we swung down the hill from
the farmhouse. I dared not, lest I should see my too solicitous mother
beckoning me home to the protection of her eyes. Though I clutched the
harness and bounced about on my uncomfortable seat, the horse's rough
gait had no terrors for me when every clumsy stride was carrying me
nearer to the woods. As we rattled into the long street of the
village, it seemed to me that all the people must have come out just to
see us pass. The fresh beauty of the spring morning might have called
them forth, but from the proud height where I sat looking down on them
they had all the appearance of having heard in some mysterious way that
David Malcolm was going fishing. They hailed me from every side. Even
the Reverend Mr. Pound added to the glory of my progress, leaving his
desk and his profound studies of Ahasuerus to stand at the open window
as we passed.
With boyish exultation I called to him: "I'm goin' a-fishin', Mr.
Pound--fishin' for trout."
In Mr. Pound's personal catechism his own chief end was to utter
trenchant and useful warnings to all who came within reach of his
voice. Even to a lad riding forth under careful guidance to fish in a
little mountain stream he had to sound his alarm. The soft fragrance
of the May-day air, and the restful green and white of the May-day
coloring had brought to the minister's face a smile of contentment in
spite of his melancholy ponderings over the weaknesses of Ahasuerus; he
looked on me benignly from his window until I spoke, and then his face
clouded with concern.
"David, David," he cried, stretching out his hand with fingers
wide-spread, "don't fall into the water."
There was a mysterious note in his reverberating tones, which expressed
a profound conviction that not only should I fall into the water, but
that I should be drowned, and looking at his solemn face I could feel
the cold pool closing over my head. I tried to laugh away the fear
which seized me, but chill, damp currents seemed to sweep the shaded
street. Not till we reached the open sunlit square did my sluggish
blood start again. There I came under the genial influence of Squire
Crumple's radiating smile, and Mr. Pound and his lugubrious warning
were forgotten. The squire was trimming his lilac-bush, and from the
green shrubbery his round face lifted slowly, as the sun rises from its
night's rest in the eastward ridges and spreads its welcome light over
the valley.
"Well, Davy, where are you bound?" he shouted, so pleasantly that I
could well believe my small wanderings of interest to so great a man.
"Fishin'," I answered, drawing myself up to a dignity far above the
chub and sunny--"fishin' for trout."
"Fishin', eh? Well, look out for rattlers." His voice was so cheery
that one might have thought these snakes well worth meeting for their
companionship. "This is the season for 'em, Davy--real rattler season,
and you're sure to see some." To make his warning more impressive, the
squire gave a leap backward which could not have been more sudden or
violent had he heard the dreaded serpent stirring in the heart of his
lilac. "Watch out, Davy; watch sharp, and when you meet 'em be sure to
go backward and sideways like that."
He gave a second extraordinary leap, which was altogether too realistic
to be pleasant for the boy who saw the mountains, sombre and black,
beyond the long street's end, yet very near him. I forced a laugh at
his antics, but I rode on more thoughtfully, my hands clutching the
harness, my eyes fixed on my horse's bobbing mane. I feared to look up
lest I should meet more of these disturbing warnings, and yet enough of
pride still held in me to lift my head at the store. I had always
looked toward the store instinctively when I passed that important
centre of the village life, and now, as always, I saw Stacy Shunk on
the bench.
He was alone, but alone or in the company of half a score, in silence
or in the heat of debate, Stacy had a single attitude, and this was one
of distortion in repose. Now, as always, he was sitting with legs
crossed, his hands hugging a knee, his eyes contemplating his left
foot. In the first warm days of spring, Stacy's feet burst out with
the buds, casting off their husks of leather. So this morning his foot
had a new interest for him, and he was absorbed in the study of it, as
though it were something he had just discovered, a classic fragment
recently unearthed, at the beauty of whose lines he marvelled. He did
not even look up when he heard the rumble of our wagon. Stacy Shunk
never troubled to look up if he could avoid it. He seemed to have a
third eye which peered through the ragged hole in the top of his hat,
and swept the street, and bored through walls, a tiny search-light, but
one of peculiarly penetrating power. I saw his head move a little as
we drew near, and his body shifted nervously as would a mollusk at the
approach of some hostile substance. Yet sitting thus, eying me only
through the top of his hat, he saw right into my mind, he saw right
into my pockets, he saw the mustard can full of worms, he saw the line,
and the fish-hooks which my mother had thoughtfully wrapped in a
pill-box. How else could he have divined all that he did?
"Well, Davy," he said in a wiry voice, which cut through the din of
rattling harness and creaking wagon, "I see you're goin' a-fishin' for
trout?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Shunk," I returned, with a politeness that told my
respect for his occult powers.
"Well, mind," he said, intently studying his foot as though he were
reading some mystic signals wigwagged from the gods, "mind, Davy, that
you don't fall into the hands of the Professor. If the Professor
catches you, Davy--" The foot stopped wiggling. The oracle was
silent. Did it fear to reveal to me so dreadful a fate as mine if I
fell into the Professor's clutches? I waved a hand defiantly to the
seer and I rode on. Rode on? I was dragged on by four stout horses
through the village to the mountains, for in my heart I was calling to
my mother, wishing that her gentle warnings had turned me back before I
heard the voice of doom sounding from the depths of Mr. Pound; before I
had seen the comic tragedy enacted by Squire Crumple; above all, before
the man who saw through the top of his hat had uttered his enigmas
about the Professor.
There is something innately repugnant to man in the word "professor."
It makes the flesh creep almost as does the thought of the toad or
snake. Though when a boy of ten I had never seen a "professor," the
word alone was so full of portent that the prospect of seeing one, even
without being caught by him, would have frightened me. I suppose that
the chill which reverberated through my spine and legs echoed the
horror of many generations of my ancestors who had known professors of
all kinds, from those who trimmed their hair and dosed them with
nostrums to those who sat over them with textbook and rod. Being
myself thus perturbed, it was astonishing that James should show no
sign of fear, but should keep his horses in their collars, pulling
straight for the mountains where the dreaded creature lived. He smoked
his pipe nonchalantly, as though a hundred professors could not daunt
him. I was sure that there was something of bravado in his conduct
until he began to sing, and his voice rang out without a tremor, so
full and strong that it fanned a spark of courage into my cowering
heart. James had a wonderfully inspiring way of singing. He tuned his
voice to the day and to the time of the day. This morning the sky was
clear blue above us, and about us the orchards blossomed pink and
white, and the fresh green fields were all awave under the breeze, not
the grim wind of winter, but the soft yet buoyant wind of spring. So
his song was cheery. The words of it were doleful, like the words of
all his songs, but under the touch of his magic baton, his swinging
whip, a requiem could become a hymn of rejoicing. Now the birds in the
meadows seemed to accompany him, and our heavy-footed four to step with
a livelier gait in time to his rattling air, all unconscious that he
sang of "the old gray horse that died in the wilderness." It was a
boast of his that he could sing "any tune there was," and I believed
him, for I had a profound admiration of his musical ability. Indeed, I
hold it to this day, and often as I sit in the dark corner of an
opera-box and listen to the swelling harmonies of a great orchestra, I
close my eyes and fancy myself squatting on the grassy barn-bridge at
James's side when the shadows are creeping over the valley and he weeps
for Nellie Grey and Annie Laurie in a voice so mighty that the very
hills echo his sorrow.
This May morning, as James sang, my spirits rose with his soaring
melody from the depths into which they had been cast in the passage of
the village, and when the last note had died away and he was debating
whether to light his pipe or sing another song, I asked him with quite
a show of courage:
"Is it very dangerous in the mountains?"
James looked down at me. A smile flickered around the corners of his
mouth, but he suppressed it quickly.
"Yes--and no," he drawled.
Inured as I was to his cautious ways, I was not taken aback by this
non-committal reply, but pursued my inquiry, hoping that in spite of
his vigilance I might elicit some encouraging opinion.
"Am I likely to tumble into the water while I'm fishing, James?"
"That depends, Davy." James looked profoundly at the sky.
"And what's the chance of my being bit by a rattlesnake, James?"
"I wouldn't say they was absolutely none, nor yet would I say they was
any chance at all." At every word of this sage opinion James wagged
his head.
We rode some distance in silence, and then I came to the real point of
my examination. "James, what kind of a man is a professor?"
James looked down at me gravely. "I s'pose, Davy, you have in mind
what Stacy Shunk said about him catchin' you."
"Oh, dear, no," I protested. "I was just wondering what kind of a man
he was."
"Well, Davy," James said, in a voice of mockery which silenced as well
as encouraged me, "if you can fall into the creek, be bit by a rattler,
and catched by the Professor all in the one-half hour we will be in the
mountains while I loaden this wagon with wood, I'll give you a medal
for being the liveliest young un I ever heard tell of. Mind, Davy,
I'll give you a medal."
With that he checked further questioning by breaking into a song, and
had he once descended from the heights to which he soared and shown any
sign that he was aware of my presence, pride would have restrained me
from pressing my trembling inquiry.
So, singing as we rode, we crossed the ridge, the mountain's guarding
bulwark; we left the open valley behind us and descended into the
wooded gut. We passed a few scattered houses with little clearings
around them, and then the trees drew in closer to us until the green of
their leafy masonry arched over our heads. At last I was in the
mountains! This was the mysterious topsy-turvy land, the land of
strange light and shadow to which I had so often gazed with wondering
eyes. In the excitement of its unfolding, in the interest with which I
followed the windings of the narrow road, I forgot the dangers which
threatened me in these quiet, friendly woods; and when I cast my line
into the tumbling brook I should have laughed at Mr. Pound, at Squire
Crumple, and Stacy Shunk, had I given them a thought. But even James's
kindly warnings were now uncalled for. That he should admonish me at
all I accepted as merely a formal compliance with his promise to my
mother that he would keep an eye on me. For him to keep an eye on me
was a physical impossibility, as the road plunged deeper into the
woods, bending just beyond the little bridge where he had fixed me for
my fishing. He was soon out of my sight, and his warning to me to stay
in that spot went out of my mind before the rumble of his wagon had
died away. Had he turned at the bend he would have seen me lying flat
on my back on the bridge, unbalanced by the eagerness with which I had
answered the first tug at the hook.
I could have landed a shark with the strength which I put into that
wild jerk, but I saw only the worm bait dangling above my astonished
face. With my second cast I lifted a trout clear of the water; then
caught my line in an overhanging branch and saw my erstwhile prisoner
shoot away up-stream. The tangled line led me from my post of safety.
Had I returned to it; had I remembered the admonition of the cautious
James, and held to the station to which he had assigned me--my life
might have run its course in another channel. Now, as I look back, it
seems as though my story became entangled with my line in that
overhanging branch, as though there I picked up the strong, holding
thread of it, and followed its tortuous windings to this day.
My blood was running quick with excitement. I had no fear. A
wonderful catch, a game fish six inches long filled me with the pride
of achievement, and with pride came self-confidence. The stream lured
me on. The rapids snapped up my hook, and with many a deceitful tug
enticed me farther and farther into the woods. The brush shut the
bridge from my view, but I knew that it was not far away, and that a
voice so mighty as James could raise would easily overtake my slow
course along the bank. So I went from rock to rock with one hand
guiding my precious rod, and the other clutching overhanging limbs and
bushes.
What sport this was for a lad of ten who had known only the placid
brook in the open meadow and the amiable moods of its people! How many
a boyish shout I muffled as I made my cautious way along that
boisterous stream and pitted my wits against its wary dwellers! I
wormed through an abatis of laurel; I scampered over the bared and
tangled roots of a great oak; I reached a shelf of pebbly beach.
Around it the water swept over moss-clad rocks into a deep pool; above
it the arched limbs broke and let in the warm sunlight, making it a
grateful spot to one chilled by the dampness of the thicker woods.
Eager to try my luck in that enticing pool, I leaped from the massed
roots to the little beach without troubling to see what others might
have come here to enjoy with me a bit of open day. My hook touched the
stream; my line ran taut; my rod almost snapped from my hands. I
clutched it with all my strength. Every muscle of arms, legs, and body
was bent to land that gigantic fish. That it was gigantic I was sure,
from the power of its rush. I pitted my weight against his and felt
him give way. Then, shouting in exultation, I fell over backward. I
saw him leave the water, not quite the leviathan I had fancied; I saw
him fly over my head and heard him flopping behind me. Getting to my
feet, I turned to rush at my prize and capture him. I was
checked--first by my ears, for in them rang the sharp whir of a rattle.
Cold blood shot from my heart to the tips of my toes and the top of my
head. I needed nothing more to hold me back, but there before my eyes
was the other visitor to this pleasant sunny spot, his head rising from
his coiled body, his tail erect and lashing in fury.
Since that day I have learned that the rattler when disturbed by man
will seek refuge in flight, and fights only when cornered. This
particular snake, I think, must have been told that a boy will glide
away into the bushes if a chance is given him, for he seemed determined
to stand his ground and let me flee. But where was I to escape when he
held the narrow way to the bank, and behind me roared the stream, grown
suddenly to mighty width and depth? How was I to move at all when
every nerve was numbed by the icy currents which swept through my
veins? Could I escape? Was it not foreordained that I should meet my
end in these woods? Had I not spurned the chance of life given me
through the prophecies of good Mr. Pound and the warning of the squire?
The snake before me grew to the size of a boa-constrictor. The brook
behind me roared in my ears like Niagara. The snake began to drive his
head toward me, showing his fangs as though he were making a
reconnoissance of the air before his spring. He was so terrible that I
knew that when he did hurl himself at me I must go backward and fulfil
the prophecy of Mr. Pound. I had forgotten the man who saw through the
top of his hat. I awaited helplessly the triumph of Mr. Pound.
From out of the bush, from out of the air, as though impelled by a
spirit hand, a long stick swung. It fell upon my enemy's head and
drove it to the ground. He lifted his head and turned from me,
striking madly, but the rod fell again upon his back. He uncoiled and
tried to run; he twisted and turned in his dying agony and lashed the
air in futile fury. The merciless rod broke him and stretched him to
his full length. But even though dead he was terrible to me, for had I
not heard that a snake never dies until sunset; could I not see the
body still quivering; might not the bruised head dart at me in dying
madness!
I took a step backward, and hurtled into the water. For a long time I
groped in the depths of the pool. To me it seemed that I struggled
there for hours in the blackness; that serpents drew their slimy
lengths across my face; that fishes poked their noses with bold
inquisitiveness about me and dared to nibble at my hands; that Mr.
Pound looked up at me from the abyss, benignly in his triumph, and that
his solemn voice joined with the roaring of the torrent. Knowing well
that my end had come and that the prophecy was being fulfilled, I
struggled without hope, but my fingers clutching at the water at last
met some solid substance and closed on it. I felt myself turn, and
suddenly opening my eyes saw the sunlight pouring through the green
window in the tree-tops. My legs straightened; my feet touched the
stony bottom; my shoulders lifted from the stream, and I looked into a
small girl's face, while my hand was tightly clasped in hers.
Since that day the sun's soft brown has faded from her cheeks,
uncovering their radiance; since then she has grown to fairest
womanhood, and I have seen her adorning the art of Paris and Vienna;
but to me she has given no fairer picture than on that May morning
when, shamefaced, I climbed from the mountain stream and looked down
from my ten years of height on the little girl in a patched blue frock.
Nature had coiffed her hair that day and tumbled it over her shoulders
in wanton brightness, but she had caught the crowning wisp of it in a
faded blue ribbon which bobbed majestically with every movement of her
head. Had some woodland Mr. Pound told her that I was coming? Since
then I have seen her more daintily shod than when her bare brown legs
hurried from view into broken shoes of twice her size. Since then the
hard little hand has turned white and thin and tapering, to such a hand
as women are wont to let dawdle over the arms of chairs. Then I was a
boy, with a boy's haughty way of regarding girlish softness. I was
haughtier that day because I sought in my pride to cover up my debt to
her. Now I am a man, but the boy's picture of Penelope Blight, the
little girl in the patched blue frock and broken shoes, standing by the
mountain stream, holds in the memory with clear and softening colors.
She leaned, a tiny Amazon, on the stick which towered to twice her
height, and she said to me: "Boy, you hadn't otter be afraid of snakes."
In my shame I answered nothing and my teeth chattered, for I was very
cold from fright and the ducking.
Then she said to me: "Boy, you had otter come over to our house and get
warm."
I remembered my dignity, and, in a tone of patronage assumed by right
of the one year of difference in our ages, I asked: "Where is your
house, young un?"
She pointed over her shoulder, over the quivering body of the snake,
across the bushes, and through the green light of the woods. There I
saw a bit of blue sky, cut by a thin spire of smoke.
"Yonder's our patch," she said, "and father will give you something to
warm you up."
I asked: "Who is your father, little un?"
She drew herself up very straight, and even the blue ribbon in her hair
rose in majesty as she answered. Then I almost tumbled into the pool
again, for she said: "Some call him the Professor."