THE RED SQUIRREL
One brilliant night, Mr. Falkirk pacing up and down the
piazza, Wych Hazel came and joined him; clasping both hands on
his arm.
'Mr. Falkirk,' she said softly, 'when are we going to
Chickaree?'
'I have no information, Miss Hazel.'
'Then I can tell you, sir. We take the "owl" stage day after
to-morrow morning,--and we tell _nobody_ of our intention.' And
Wych Hazel's finger made an impressive little dent in Mr.
Falkirk's arm.
'Why that precaution?' he inquired.
'Pity to break up the party, sir,--they seem to be enjoying
themselves,'--And a soft laugh of mischief and fun rang out
into the moonlight.
'Is this arrangement expected to be carried into effect?'
'Certainly, sir. If my guardian approves,' said Miss Hazel,
submissively.
'What's become of her other guardian?' said an old lady,
possessing herself of Mr. Falkirk's left arm.
'My other guardian!' said the young lady, expressively.
'She has no other,' said Mr. Falkirk, very distinctly.
'Have you broken the will?'
'No madam,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'As it often happens in this
world, something has reached your ears in a mistaken form.'
'What something was it?' said Wych Hazel.
'A false report, my dear,' Mr. Falkirk says. Which did not
quite satisfy the questioner at the time, but was soon
forgotten in the rush of other things.
The next day was devoted to a musical pic-nic at the Falls. It
was musical, in as much as a band had been fetched up to play
on the rocks, while the company filled the house and balcony,
and an occasional song or duet, which ladies asked for 'just
to see how they would sound there,' kept up the delusion. By
what rule it was a pic-nic it might be difficult to discover,
except that it had been so styled. Eatables and drinkables
were, to be sure, a prominent portion of the entertainment,
and they were discussed with more informality and a good deal
less convenience than if in their regular place. But, however,
the rocks and the wildness lent them a charm, perhaps of
novelty, and the whole affair seemed to be voted a success.
Success fell so largely to Miss Hazel's share, that she by
times was a little weary of it, or of its consequences; and
this day finding herself in a most inevitable crowd, do what
she could, she fairly ran away for a breath of air with no
musk in it. Making one or two the honoured confidants of her
intention, that she might secure their staying where they were
and keeping others, and promising to return soon, she slipped
away down the stairs by the Fall. All the party had been there
that morning, as in duty bound, and had gone where it was the
rule to go. Now Wych Hazel sprang along by herself, to take
the wildness and the beauty in silence and at her own
pleasure. At the upper basin of the Fall she turned off, and
coasted the narrow path under the rock, around the basin. At
the other side, where the company had been contented to turn
about, Wych Hazel passed on; till she found herself a seat on
a projecting rock, from which a wild, wooded ravine of the
hills stretched out before her eyes. The sides were so bold,
the sweep of them so extended, the woods so luxuriantly rich,
the scene so desolate in its loneliness and wildness, that she
sat down to dream in a trance of enjoyment. Not a sound now
but the plash of the water, the scream of a wild bird, and the
rustle of leaves. Not a human creature in sight, or the trace
of one. Wych might imagine the times when red Indians roved
among those hillsides--the place looked like them; but rare
were the white hunters that broke their solitudes. It was
delicious. The very air that fanned her face had come straight
from a wilderness, a wilderness where it blew only over sweet
things. It refreshed her, after those people up on the
balcony. She had promised to be back soon: but now a rosy
flower, or spike of flowers, of tempting elegance, caught her
eye. It was down below her, a little way, not far; a very
rough and steep way, but no matter, she must have the flower,
and deftly and daintily she clambered down: the flower looked
lovelier the nearer she got to it, and very rare and exquisite
she found it to be, as soon as she had it in her hands. It was
not till she had examined and rejoiced over it, that
addressing herself to go back, Wych Hazel found her retreat
cut off. Not by any sudden avalanche or obstacle, animate or
inanimate; as peacefully as before the wind waved the ferns on
the great stepping stones of cliff and boulder by which she
had come; but--the agility by which with help of vines and
twigs she had let herself down these declivities, was not the
strength that would mount them again. It was impossible. Wych
Hazel saw that it was impossible, and certainly she would
never have yielded the conviction but to dire necessity. She
stood considering one particular jump down which she had
made,--nothing but desperation could have taken her back again.
Desperate, however, Wych Hazel did not feel. There was nothing
to do at present but to wait till her friends should find her;
for to go further down would but add to her trouble and lessen
her chance of being soon set free, and indeed, from her
present position even to go down (voluntarily) was no trifle.
So Wych Hazel sat down to wait, amusing herself with thoughts
of the sensation on the cliff, and wondering what sort of
scaling ladders could be improvised in a hurry. They would be
sure to come after her presently. Some one would find her. And
it was a lovely place to wait.
How it happened must remain like other mysteries, unexplained
till the mystery is over, that the person who did find her
again happened to be Mr. Rollo. Yet she had hardly seen him
all day before that. Wych Hazel had half forgotten her
situation in enjoying its beauties and musing in accordance
with them; and then suddenly looking up to the great piece of
rock nearest her, she saw him standing there, looking down at
her with the calm face and handsome gray eyes which she had
noticed before. The girl had been singing half to herself a
wild little Scottish ballad, chiming it in with water and wind
and bird music, taking first one part and then another;
looping together a long chain of pine needles the while,--then
throwing back her sleeve, and laying the frail work across her
arm, above the tiny hair chain, the broad band of gems and the
string of acorns, which banded it; in short, disporting
herself generally. But not the "lullaby, baby, and all," of
the old rhyme, ever had a more sudden and complete downfall.
The first line of
"O wha wad buy a silken goun
Wi' a puir broken heart?"
was left as a mere abstract proposition; and Wych Hazel would
assuredly have 'slipped from her moorings,' but for the
certain fear of tearing her dress, or spraining her ankle, or
doing some other bad thing which should call for immediate
assistance. So she sat still and gazed at the prospect.
Her discoverer presently dropped down by her side and stood
there uncovered, as usual, but this time he did not withdraw
his eyes from her face. And when he spoke it was in a new
tone, very pleasant, though laying aside a certain distance
and form with which he had hitherto addressed her.
'Do you know,' he said, 'I begin to think I have known you in
a former state of existence?'
'What sort of a person were you in a former state, Mr. Rollo?'
'I see the knowledge was not mutual. I am sorry.--This is a
pleasant place!'
'This identical grey rock?'
'Don't you think so?'--in a tone which assumed the proposition.
'Very,' said Wych Hazel with a demure face;--'I do not know
which abound most--the pleasures of Hope, Memory, or
Imagination. But I thought perhaps you meant the mountain.'
'The pleasures of the Present, then, you do not perceive?'
said Mr. Rollo, peering about very busily among the trees and
rocks in his vicinity.
'Poor Hope and Imagination!' said Miss Hazel,--'must they be
banished to the "former state?" Memory does hold a sort of
middle ground.'
'There isn't much of that sort of ground here,' said Mr.
Rollo; 'we are on a pretty steep pitch of the hill. Don't you
like this wilderness? You want a gun though--or a pencil--to
give you the sense that you have something to do in the
wilderness.'
'Yes!' said Miss Hazel--'so Englishmen say: "What a nice day it
is!--let's go out and kill something." '
There was a good deal of amusement and keenness in his sideway
glance, as he demurely asked her 'if she didn't know how to
shoot?' But Wych Hazel, with a slight gesture of her silky
curls, merely remarked that she had pencils in her pocket--if
he wanted one.
'Thank you--have you paper too?'
'Plenty.'
'That I may not seem intolerably rude,' said he, extending his
hand for the paper,--'will you make one sketch while I make
another? We will limit the time, as they did at the London
Sketch Club.'
'O, I shall not think it even tolerably rude. But all my paper
is in this book.'
'To secure the conditions, I must tear a leaf out.--How will
that do?'
'Very well,' she said with a wee flitting of colour,--'if you
will secure my conditions too.'
'What are they?' As he spoke he tore the leaf out and
proceeded to accommodate himself with a pamphlet for a drawing
board.
'You had no right to the leaf till you heard them!' she cried
jumping up. 'I shall take care how I bargain with you again,
Mr. Rollo.'
'Not safe?' said he smiling. 'But you are, this time, for I
accepted the conditions, you know. And besides--you have the
pencils yet.' There was a certain gay simplicity about his
manner that was disarming.
'Did you?' said Hazel looking down at him. 'Then you are
injudicious to accept them unheard. One of them is very hard.
The first is easy--you are to restore the leaf when the sketch
is done.'
'It is the decree of the strongest! And the other?'
'You are to confess my sketch to be the best. Now what is the
subject to be?'
'Stop a bit!' said he, turning over the book which Wych Hazel
had given him wrong side first--'I should like to see what I am
to swear to, before we begin.' And the bits of her drawing
which were found there received a short but keen
consideration. 'The subject?--is this grey rock where we are--
with what is on and around it.'
'You are lawless. And your subject is--unmanageable!'
'Do you think so?'
'You want what is "around" this grey rock,' she said with a
light twirl on the tips of her toes. 'If your views on most
subjects are as comprehensive!'--
'They can be met, nevertheless,' said he, laughing, 'if you
take one part of the subject and I the other--and if you'll
give me a pencil! We must be done in a quarter of an hour.'
'There it is,' said Wych Hazel,--'then you can take half of the
rock'--and she walked away to a position as far behind Mr.
Rollo as sweetbriars and sumach would permit. That gentleman
turned about and faced her gravely; also withdrew a step,
looked at his match, and throwing on his hat which had lain
till now on the moss, went to work. It was work in earnest,
for minutes were limited.
'Mr. Rollo?' said Wych Hazel, 'I cannot draw a thing if you
sit there watching me. Just take your first position, please.'
'I should lose my point of view--you would not ask me to do
that? Besides, you are safe--I am wholly occupied with myself.'
'No doubt! But if you presume to put _me_ in your sketch I'll
turn you into a red squirrel'--with which fierce threat Miss
Hazel drooped her head till her 'point of view' must have been
at least merged in the brim of her flat hat, and went at her
drawing. That she had merged herself as well in the interest
of the game, was soon plain,--shyness and everything else went
to the winds: only when (according to habit) some scrap of a
song broke from her lips, then did she rebuke herself with an
impatient gesture or exclamation, while the hat drooped lower
than ever. It was pretty to see and to hear her,--those very
outbreaks were so free and girlish and wayward, and at the
same time so sweet. Several minutes of the prescribed time
slipped away.
'How soon do you go to Chickaree?' said the gentleman, in a
pre-engaged tone, very busy with his pencil.
'How soon?' repeated the lady, surveying her own sketch--'why--
not too soon for anybody that wants me away, I suppose. Ask
Mr. Falkirk.'
'Is it long since you have seen the place?'
'I can hardly be said to have "seen" it at all. I think my
landscape eyes were not open at that remote period of which
you speak.'
'I was a red squirrel then, in the "former state" to which I
referred a while ago. So you see your late threat has no
terrors for me. Is it in process of execution?'
'O were you?' said Miss Hazel, absorbed in her drawing. 'Yes--
but the expression is very difficult!--Did you think you knew
me as a field mouse?'
He laughed a little.
'Then, I suppose you have not the pleasure of knowing your
neighbours, the Marylands?--except the specimen lately on
hand?'
'No, I have heard an account of them,' said Miss Kennedy. 'For
shame, Mr. Rollo, Dr. Maryland isn't a "specimen." He's good.
I like him.'
The gentleman made no remark upon this, but confined his
attention to his work for a few minutes; then looked at his
watch.
'Is that sketch ready to show?--Time's up.'
'And the squirrel is down. But not much else.'
Not much!--the squirrel sat contemplatively gazing into Mr.
Rollo's hat, which lay on the rock before him, quite
undisturbed by a remarkable looking witch who rose up at the
other end. The gentleman surveyed them attentively.
'Do you consider these true portraits?'
'I do not think the hat would be a tight fit,' said she,
smothering a laugh.
'Well!' said he comically, 'it is said that no man knows
himself--how it may be with women I can't say!' And he made
over the sketch in his hand and went to his former work; which
had been cutting a stick.
There was more in this second sketch. The handling was
effective as it had been swift. Considering that fifteen
minutes and a lead pencil were all, there had been a great
deal done, in a style that proved use and cultivation as well
as talent. The rocks, upper and lower, were truly given; the
artist had chosen a different state of light from the actual
hour of the day, and had thus thrown a great mass into fine
relief. Round it the ferns and mosses and creepers with a
light hand were beautifully indicated. But in the nook where
Wych Hazel had stationed herself, there was no pretty little
figure with her book on her lap; in its place, sharply and
accurately given, was a scraggy, irregular shaped bush, with a
few large leaves and knobby excrescences which looked like
acorns, but an oak it was not, still less a tree. The topmost
branch was crowned with Miss Kennedy's nodding hat, and upon
another branch lay her open drawing book. Miss Kennedy shook
her head.
'I cannot deny the relationship!--Your style of handling is
perhaps a trifle dry. That is not what you call an "ideal
woman," is it, Mr. Rollo?'
'I might fairly retort upon that. What do you say to our
moving from this ground, before the band up there gets into
Minor?'
Retaking of a sudden her demureness, slipping away to her
first position on the rock, with hands busy about the pink
flowers, Wych Hazel answered, as once before--
'Do not let me detain you--do not wait for me, Mr. Rollo.'
'Shall I consider myself dismissed? and send some more
fortunate friend to help you out of your difficulty?'
'I am not in any difficulty, thank you.'
'Only you don't know your way,' he said, with perhaps a little
amusement, though it hardly appeared. 'Is it true that you
will not give me the honour of guiding you?'
'In the first place,' said Miss Hazel, wreathing her pink
flowers with quick fingers, 'I know the way by which I came,
perfectly. In the second place, I never submit voluntarily to
anybody's guidance.'
'Will you excuse me for correcting myself. I meant, in "not
knowing your way," merely the way in which you are to _go_.'
'Do you know it?'
'If you suffer my guidance--undoubtedly.'
'Ah!--if. In that case so do I. But I "suffered" so much on the
last occasion--and Dr. Maryland has left the Mountain.'
'I would not for the world be importunate! Perhaps you will
direct me if I shall inform any one of your hiding place--or do
you desire to have it remain such?'
'Thank you,' said Miss Hazel, framing the landscape in her
pink wreath and gazing at it intently, 'I suppose there is not
much danger. But if you see Mr. Falkirk you may reveal to him
my distressed condition. He needs stimulus occasionally.'
Rollo lifted his hat with his usual Spanish courtesy; then
disappeared, but not indeed by the way he had come. He threw
himself upon an outstanding oak branch, from which, lightly
and lithely, as if he had been the red squirrel himself, he
dropped to some place out of sight. One or two bounds,
rustling amid leaves and branches, and he had gone from
hearing as well as from view.
Wych Hazel had time to meditate. Doubtless she once more
scanned the rocks by which inexplicably she had let herself
down to her present position; but in vain, no strength or
agility of hers, unaided, could avail to get up them again.
Indeed it was not easy to see how aid could mend the matter.
Miss Hazel left considering the question. It was a wild place
she was in, and wild things suited it; the very birds,
unaccustomed to disturbance, hopped near her and eyed her out
of their bright eyes. If they could have given somewhat of
their practical sageness to the human creature they were
watching! Wych Hazel had very little of it, and just then, in
truth, would have chosen their wings instead. She did not,
even now, in their innocent, busy manners, read how much else
they had that she lacked; though she looked at them and at all
the other wild things. The tree branches that stretched as
they listed, no axe coming ever upon their freedom; the moss
and lichens that flourished in luxuriant beds and pastures,
not breathed on by even a naturalist's breath; the rocks that
they had clothed for ages, no one disturbing. The very cloud
shadows that now and then swept over the ravine and the
hillside, meeting nothing less free than themselves, scarce
anything less noiseless, seemed to assert the whole scene as
Nature's own. Since the days of the red men nothing but cloud
shadows had travelled there; the nineteenth century had made
no entrance, no wood-cutter had lifted his axe in the forest;
the mountain streams, that you might hear soft rushing in the
distance, did not work but their own in their citadel of the
hills. Wych Hazel had time to consider it all, and to watch
more than one shadow walk slowly from end to end of the long
stretch of the mountain valley, before she heard anything else
than the wild noise of leaf and water and bird. At last there
came something more definite, in the sounds of leaves and
branches over her head; and then with certainly a little
difficulty, Mr. Falkirk let himself down to her standing
place. To say that Mr. Falkirk looked in a gratified state of
mind would be to strain the truth; though his thick eyebrows
were unruffled.
'How did you get here, Wych?' was his undoubtedly serious
inquiry.
'Oh!' she said, jumping up, and checking her own wild murmurs
of song,--'My dear Mr. Falkirk, how did you? What is the last
news from civilization?' She looked wild wood enough, with the
pink wreath round her hat and her curls twisted round the
wind's fingers.
'But what did you come here for?'
'It's a pleasant place, sir--Mr. Rollo says. I was going to
propose that you and I should have a joint summer house here,
with strawberries and cream. Mr. Falkirk, haven't you a bun in
your pocket?'
At this moment, and in the most matter-of-fact manner,
presented himself her red squirrel friend, arriving from
nobody knew where; and bringing not only himself but a little
basket in which appeared--precisely--biscuits and strawberries.
Silently all this presented itself. Wych Hazel's cheeks
rivalled the strawberries for about a minute, but whether from
stirred vanity or vexation it was hard to tell.
'Mr. Falkirk!' she cried, 'are all the rest of the staff
coming? Here is the Commissary--is the Quarter-master behind,
in the bushes?'
'I have no doubt we shall find him,' said Mr. Falkirk, dryly.
'How did you get into this bird's nest, child?'
'She was drawn here, sir,--by a red squirrel.'
'I was not drawn!--Mr. Falkirk, what are they about up there,
besides lamenting my absence.'
Mr. Falkirk seemed uneasy. He only looked at the little
speaker, busy with her strawberries, and spoke not, but Rollo
answered instead.
'They are looking over the rocks and endeavouring to compute
the depth to the bottom, with a reference to your probable
safety.' There was a shimmer of light in the speaker's eye.
'If they are taking mathematical views of the subject, they
are in a dangerous way! Mr. Falkirk, it is imperatively
necessary that I should at once rejoin the rest of society,--
will you let yourself be torn from this rock, like a sea
anemone?'
Mr. Falkirk had been for a few minutes taking a minute and
business-like survey of the place.
'I see no way of getting you out, Wych,' he said despondingly,
'without a rope. I must go back for one, I believe, and you
and society must wait.'
'How will _you_ get out, sir?'
'I don't know. If I cannot, I'll send Rollo.'
'Pray send him, sir,--by all means.'
'I can get you out without a rope,' said that gentleman, very
dispassionately.
'Pray do, then,' said the other.
'There is a step or two here of roughness, but it is
practicable; and with your help we can reach smooth going in a
very few minutes. A little below there is a path. Let me see
you safe down first, Mr. Falkirk. Can you manage that oak
branch?--stop when you get to the bottom--Stand there, now.'
With the aid of his younger friend's hand and eyes Mr. Falkirk
made an abrupt descent to the place indicated--a ledge not very
far but very sheer below them. From a position which looked
like a squirrel's, mid way on the rock with one foot on the
oak, Rollo then stretched out his hand to Wych Hazel.
'Am I to stop when I get to the bottom?--most people like to do
it before,' she said.
'You must. Come a little lower down, if you please. Take Mr.
Falkirk's hand as soon as you reach footing.'
It was no place for ceremony, neither could she help it. As
she spoke, he took the young lady in both hands as if she had
been a parcel, and swung her lightly and firmly, though it
must have been with the exercise of great strength, down to a
rocky cleft which her feet could reach and from which Mr.
Falkirk's hand could reach her. Only then did Mr. Rollo's hand
release her; and then he bounded down himself like a cat. Once
more, very nearly the same operation had to be gone through;
then a few plunging and scrambling steps placed them in a
clear path, and the sound of the waters of the fall told them
which way to take. With that, Rollo lifted his hat again
gravely and fell back behind the others. Wrapping herself in
her mood as if it had been a veil, Wych Hazel likewise bent
her head--it might have been to both gentlemen; but then she
sped forward at a rate which she knew one could not and the
other would not follow, and disappeared among the leaves like
a frightened partridge.
What was she like when they reached the party on the height?
With no token of her adventures but the pink wreath round her
hat and the pink flush under it, Miss Hazel sat there _à la
reine_; Mr. Kingsland at her feet, a circle of standing
admirers on all sides; her own immediate attention
concentrated on a thorn in one of her wee fingers. Less
speedily Mr. Falkirk had followed her and now stood at the
back of the group, silent and undemonstrative. Rollo had gone
another way and was not any longer of the party.