THE HILL SIDE ADVENTURE.
Ralph Harrington and Lina French had been out upon the river, since the
shadow began to fall eastward upon its waters. The day had been so calm,
and everything their eyes fell upon was so luxuriantly lovely, that they
could not force themselves to come in doors, till the twilight overtook
them.
Old Ben--or rather our Ben, for he was not so very old, after all--who
considered himself master of the little craft which he was mooring in
the cove, had aided and abetted this truant disposition in the young
people, after a fashion that Mr. Harrington might not have approved; and
all that day there was a queer sort of smile upon his features, that
meant more than a host of words would have conveyed in another person.
Never, in his whole life, had Ben been so obliging in his management of
the boat. If Lina took a fancy to a branch of golden rod, or a cluster
of fringed gentian upon the shore, Ben would put in at the nearest
convenient point, and sit half an hour together in the boat, with his
arms folded over his oars, and his head bowed, as if fast asleep. Yet
Ben Benson, according to my best knowledge and belief, was never more
thoroughly awake than on that particular day.
They were gliding dreamily along at the foot of the Weehawken hills,
with their boat half full of fall flowers and branches, when Lina saw a
tree so brilliantly red, that she insisted on climbing to the rock where
it was rooted, in search of the leaves that were dropped sleepily from
its boughs.
Ben shot into a little inlet formed by two jutting rocks, and Ralph
sprang ashore, holding out his hand for Lina, who scarcely touched it as
she took her place by his side.
"Now for a scramble!" exclaimed the youth, grasping Lina's hand tightly
in his own; and away, like a pair of wild birds, the two young creatures
darted up the hill.
The rock, behind which the tree stood, was scattered over with leaves of
a deep crimson, brightening to scarlet on the edges, and veined with a
green so deep, that it seemed like black. Among the endless variety of
leaves they had discovered, these were the most singular, and Lina
gathered them up in handfuls only to scatter them abroad again when a
more tempting waif caught her eye.
"Wait a moment--wait, Ralph; oh, here is a whole drift of them; see how
bright they look, quivering over the fleeces of moss that slope down the
rocks. If I could but take the whole home, just as it is, for mamma!"
Lina was stooping eagerly as she spoke. A quick, rattling sound in the
leaves struck her, and she called out, laughing--
"If it were not so late in the fall, Ralph, I should think there was a
locust singing in the leaves."
That moment Ben, who had tied his boat, came scrambling up the hill. He
took his place by Ralph upon a shelf of the rock, and began to sniff the
air with his flat, pug nose, like a watch-dog scenting an enemy. The
noise which interested Lina was over now, and he only heard her
observation about the locust.
"Ain't there a strong smell of honey about here, Mister Ralph?" he
said, looking anxiously around; "something between the scent of an old
bee-hive and a wasp's nest?"
"There is a singular scent I fancy, Ben," answered the young man,
following Lina with his eyes. "Not disagreeable, though!"
"Do you begin to guess what it means?" inquired Ben, anxiously.
"Not at all," answered Ralph, waving his hand and smiling upon Lina, who
held up a branch of richly shaded leaves she had just taken from a maple
bough, laughing gaily as the main branch swept rustling back to its
place. "Not at all, Ben; it may be the frost-bitten fern-leaves--they
sometimes give out a delicious odor. Everything in the woods takes a
pleasant scent at this season of the year, I believe."
Lina, who was restless as a bird, changed her position again, and the
movement was followed by another quick, hissing sound from a neighboring
rock.
"So that is Miss Lina's idea of a locust, is it," muttered Ben, looking
sharply around. "If that's a locust, Mister Ralph, the animal has got a
tremenjus cold, for he's hoarse--yes, hoarse as a rattlesnake--do you
hear, Mister Ralph? Hoarse as a rattlesnake!"
Ben was intensely excited, and looked eagerly around, searching for
danger.
"Look!" he whispered, after a moment; "the sunshine on the red leaves
dazzles the eyesight--but look stiddy on the rock there, where the green
moss is fluttered over with them red leaves--don't you see the moss
kinder a stirrin'?"
Ralph looked, and there, about six feet from Lina, he saw what seemed at
first a mass of gorgeous foliage, quivering upon the green moss, for a
glow of warm sunshine fell athwart it and dazzled his eyes for the
moment. But anxiety cleared his vision, and he saw that the glowing
mass was a serpent drawn from a cleft of the rock by the warm sun.
Disturbed by Lina's approach, he was that instant coiling itself up for
a spring. His head was erect, his tongue quivered like a thread of
flame, and two horrible fangs, crooked and venomous, shot out on each
side his open jaws. In the centre of the coil, and just behind the head
which vibrated to and fro with horrible eagerness, the rattles kept in
languid play, as if tired of warning her.
Ralph, pale as death and trembling all over, stooped down and seized a
fragment of rock; but Lina was too near, he dared not hurl it. The young
girl enticed by the floating leaves which the sun struck so brightly
around the serpent, had her foot poised to spring forward.
"Lina!" cried Ralph, in a low voice, "Lina!"
"In one moment," cried the girl, laughing wilfully; "wait till I get
those leaves drifting across the rock there."
The gipsy hat had fallen on one side; her hands were full of red leaves,
and she was smiling saucily. This unconsciousness of danger was
horrible. The young man shrunk and quivered through all his frame.
"Lina, step aside--to the right--dear Lina, I entreat, I insist!"
His voice was deep and husky, scarcely more than a whisper, and yet full
of command.
Lina looked back, and her smiling lips grew white with astonishment.
Ralph stood above her pale as marble; his hand grasping the rock was
uplifted, his fierce, distended eyes looked beyond her. Wild with
nameless dread the young girl stepped backward, following his glance
with her eyes. Her breath was checked--she could not scream. The
glittering eyes of the rattlesnake, though turned upon another, held her
motionless. A prickly sensation pierced her lips through and through, as
the snake loosened his coils and changed his position so abruptly, that
his back glittered in the sunshine, like a mass of jewels rapidly
disturbed, making her blind and dizzy with the poisonous glow. Still she
moved backward like a statue recoiling from its base.
"Now," whispered Ben, "now give it to him."
A crash--a spring--and like a fiery lance the rattlesnake shot by her,
striking her garments as he went, and, falling short of his enemy,
coiled himself for a new spring.
Ralph's hand was uplifted as the fragment of rock had left it; and
there, within a few feet, lay the rattlesnake making ready for a second
spring, and quivering through all its folds.
She uttered a wild cry, stooped quick as lightning, seized a fragment of
rock,--dashed it with both hands upon the rattlesnake, and, rushing by,
threw herself before Ralph. Her eyes turned with horror upon the work
she had done.
"Oh, have mercy! have mercy! he is alive yet!" she shrieked, as writhing
and convulsed, the rattlesnake drew his glittering folds out from
beneath the stone, and wound himself up, coil after coil, more venomous
than ever.
"Step behind me--behind me, Lina," cried the young man attempting to
force her away.
But she threw her arms around him, and with her eyes turned back upon
the glittering horror, strove with all her frail strength to push him
backward out of danger.
The brave generosity of this attempt might have destroyed them both;
but, just as the rattlesnake was prepared to lance out again, Ben, who
had torn a branch from an ash tree overhead, rushed fearlessly down and
struck at him with the host of light twigs that were yet covered with
delicate maize-colored leaves.
This act increased Lina's terror, for the blows which Ben gave were so
light that a baby would have laughed at them.
"Don't be skeer'd, nor nothing," shouted Ben, gently belaboring his
enemy with the ash bough, "I've got the pizen sarpent under, just look
this way and you'll find him tame as a rabbit. Lord! how the critter
does hate the smell of ash leaves! Now do look, Miss Lina!"
Lina clung trembling to Ralph, but turned her eyes with breathless dread
toward the rattlesnake.
"Come close by--just get a look at him--the stiffening is out of his
back-bone now, I tell you!" cried Ben, triumphantly. "See him a trying
to poke his head under the moss just at the sight of a yaller ash
leaf--ain't he a coward, now ain't he?"
"What is it--what does it mean?" inquired Ralph, reassured now that Lina
was out of danger--"did the stone wound him?"
"The stone!" repeated Ben scornfully,--"a round stone covered over with
moss like a pin cushion! Why, if this ere rattlesnake could laugh as
well as bite, he'd have a good haw-haw over Miss Lina's way of fighting
snakes. It takes something to kill them, I tell you. But I've got
him--he knows me. Look at him now!"
Ralph moved a step forward and looked down upon the rattlesnake, towards
which Ben was pointing with his ash branch, as unconcerned as if it had
been an earth-worm.
The rattlesnake had loosened all his folds, and lay prone upon his back
striving to burrow his head beneath the leaves and moss, evidently
without power to escape or show fight.
"Wonderful, isn't it!" said Ben, eyeing the snake with grim complacency;
"now I should just like to know what there is in the natur of this ere
ash limb that wilts his pizen down so? Why, he's harmless as a
catterpillar. Come down and see for yourself, Mister Ralph."
"No, no!" pleaded Lina, faint and trembling, for the reaction of the
recent terror was upon her, and she grew sick now that the danger was
over. "I am ill--blind--Ralph--Ralph!"
She spoke his name in faint murmurs, her head fell forward and her eyes
closed. Ralph thought she was dying. He remembered that the rattlesnake
had touched her in his first spring, and took the faintness as the
working of his venom in her veins. He called out in the agony of this
thought,--
"Ben! Ben! she is dying--she is dead--he struck her!"
Ben gave the rattlesnake a vigorous lash, which turned him on his back
again, and sprang up the rocks.
"Have you killed him? Is he dead? Oh, Ben, he has struck her on her arm
or hand, perhaps! Look, look--see if you can find the wound!"
Ben gave a hasty glance at the white face lying upon Ralph's shoulder,
uttered a smothered humph, and with this emphatic expression turned to
watch the common enemy. The snake had turned slowly over upon the moss
and was slinking away through a crevice in the rocks. Ben uttered a
mellow chuckling laugh as his rattles disappeared.
"Did you see him, the sneak? Did you see him steal off?" he said,
looking at Ralph.