silence of the group, she went on: "We started from the fort over
three hours ago,--three hours ago, wasn't it, Barker?" (the erect
Barker touched his cap)--"to go to Captain Emmons's quarters on
Indian Island,--I think you call it Indian Island, don't you?" (she
was appealing to the awe-stricken Princess),--"and we got into the
fog and lost our way; that is, Barker lost his way" (Barker touched
his cap deprecatingly), "and goodness knows where we didn't wander to
until we mistook your light for the lighthouse and pulled up here.
No, no, pray keep your seat, do! Really I must insist."
Nothing could exceed the languid grace of the latter part of this
speech,--nothing except the easy unconsciousness with which she
glided by the offered chair of her stammering, embarrassed host and
stood beside the open hearth.
"Barker will tell you," she continued, warming her feet by the fire,
"that I am Miss Portfire, daughter of Major Portfire, commanding the
post. Ah, excuse me, child!" (She had accidentally trodden upon the
bare yellow toes of the Princess.) "Really, I did not know you were
there. I am very near-sighted." (In confirmation of her statement,
she put to her eyes a dainty double eyeglass that dangled from her
neck.) "It's a shocking thing to be near-sighted, isn't it?"
If the shamefaced uneasy man to whom this remark was addressed could
have found words to utter the thought that even in his confusion
struggled uppermost in his mind, he would, looking at the bold, dark
eyes that questioned, have denied the fact. But he only stammered,
"Yes." The next moment, however, Miss Portfire had apparently
forgotten him and was examining the Princess through her glass.
"And what is your name, child?"
The Princess, beatified by the eyes and eyeglass, showed all her
white teeth at once, and softly scratched her leg.
"Bob."
"Bob? What a singular name!"
Miss Portfire's host here hastened to explain the origin of the
Princess's title.
"Then you are Bob." (Eyeglass.)
"No, my name is Grey,--John Grey." And he actually achieved a bow
where awkwardness was rather the air of imperfectly recalling a
forgotten habit.
"Grey?--ah, let me see. Yes, certainly. You are Mr. Grey the
recluse, the hermit, the philosopher, and all that sort of thing.
Why, certainly; Dr. Jones, our surgeon, has told me all about you.
Dear me, how interesting a rencontre! Lived all alone here for
seven--was it seven years?--yes, I remember now. Existed quite _au
naturel_, one might say. How odd! Not that I know anything about
that sort of thing, you know. I've lived always among people, and am
really quite a stranger, I assure you. But honestly, Mr.--I beg your
pardon--Mr. Grey, how do you like it?"
She had quietly taken his chair and thrown her cloak and hood over
its back, and was now thoughtfully removing her gloves. Whatever
were the arguments,--and they were doubtless many and
profound,--whatever the experience,--and it was doubtless hard and
satisfying enough,--by which this unfortunate man had justified his
life for the last seven years, somehow they suddenly became trivial
and terribly ridiculous before this simple but practical question.
"Well, you shall tell me all about it after you have given me
something to eat. We will have time enough; Barker cannot find his
way back in this fog to-night. Now don't put yourselves to any
trouble on my account. Barker will assist."
Barker came forward. Glad to escape the scrutiny of his guest, the
hermit gave a few rapid directions to the Princess in her native
tongue, and disappeared in the shed. Left a moment alone, Miss
Portfire took a quick, half-audible, feminine inventory of the cabin.
"Books, guns, skins, _one_ chair, _one_ bed, no pictures, and no
looking-glass!" She took a book from the swinging shelf and resumed
her seat by the fire as the Princess re-entered with fresh fuel. But
while kneeling on the hearth the Princess chanced to look up and met
Miss Portfire's dark eyes over the edge of her book.
"Bob!"
The Princess showed her teeth.
"Listen. Would you like to have fine clothes, rings, and beads like
these, to have your hair nicely combed and put up so? Would you?"
The Princess nodded violently.
"Would you like to live with me and have them? Answer quickly.
Don't look round for him. Speak for yourself. Would you? Hush;
never mind now."
The hermit re-entered, and the Princess, blinking, retreated into the
shadow of the whaleboat shed, from which she did not emerge even when
the homely repast of cold venison, ship biscuit, and tea was served.
Miss Portfire noticed her absence: "You really must not let me
interfere with your usual simple ways. Do you know this is
exceedingly interesting to me, so pastoral and patriarchal and all
that sort of thing. I must insist upon the Princess coming back;
really, I must."
But the Princess was not to be found in the shed, and Miss Portfire,
who the next minute seemed to have forgotten all about her, took her
place in the single chair before an extemporized table. Barker stood
behind her, and the hermit leaned against the fireplace. Miss
Portfire's appetite did not come up to her protestations. For the
first time in seven years it occurred to the hermit that his ordinary
victual might be improved. He stammered out something to that effect.
"I have eaten better, and worse," said Miss Portfire, quietly.
"But I thought you--that is, you said----"
"I spent a year in the hospitals, when father was on the Potomac,"
returned Miss Portfire, composedly. After a pause she continued:
"You remember after the second Bull Run-- But, dear me! I beg your
pardon; of course, you know nothing about the war and all that sort
of thing, and don't care." (She put up her eyeglass and quietly
surveyed his broad muscular figure against the chimney.) "Or,
perhaps, your prejudices-- But then, as a hermit you know you have
no politics, of course. Please don't let me bore you."
To have been strictly consistent, the hermit should have exhibited no
interest in this topic. Perhaps it was owing to some quality in the
narrator, but he was constrained to beg her to continue in such
phrases as his unfamiliar lips could command. So that little by
little Miss Portfire yielded up incident and personal observation of
contest then raging; with the same half-abstracted, half-unconcerned
air that seemed habitual to her, she told the stories of privation,
of suffering, of endurance, and of sacrifice. With the same
assumption of timid deference that concealed her great self-control,
she talked of principles and rights. Apparently without enthusiasm
and without effort, of which his morbid nature would have been
suspicious, she sang the great American Iliad in a way that stirred
the depths of her solitary auditor to its massive foundations. Then
she stopped and asked quietly, "Where is Bob?"
The hermit started. He would look for her. But Bob, for some
reason, was not forthcoming. Search was made within and without the
hut, but in vain. For the first time that evening Miss Portfire
showed some anxiety. "Go," she said to Barker, "and find her. She
_must_ be found; stay, give me your overcoat, I'll go myself." She
threw the overcoat over her shoulders and stepped out into the night.
In the thick veil of fog that seemed suddenly to inwrap her, she
stood for a moment irresolute, and then walked toward the beach,
guided by the low wash of waters on the sand. She had not taken many
steps before she stumbled over some dark crouching object. Reaching
down her hand she felt the coarse wiry mane of the Princess.
"Bob!"
There was no reply.
"Bob. I've been looking for you, come."
"Go 'way."
"Nonsense, Bob. I want you to stay with me to-night, come."
"Injin squaw no good for waugee woman. Go 'way."
"Listen, Bob. You are daughter of a chief: so am I. Your father had
many warriors: so has mine. It is good that you stay with me. Come."
The Princess chuckled and suffered herself to be lifted up. A few
moments later they re-entered the hut hand in hand.
With the first red streaks of dawn the next day the erect Barker
touched his cap at the door of the hut. Beside him stood the hermit,
also just risen from his blanketed nest in the sand. Forth from the
hut, fresh as the morning air, stepped Miss Portfire, leading the
Princess by the hand. Hand in hand also they walked to the shore,
and when the Princess had been safely bestowed in the stern sheets,
Miss Portfire turned and held out her own to her late host.
"I shall take the best of care of her, of course. You will come and
see her often. I should ask you to come and see me, but you are a
hermit, you know, and all that sort of thing. But if it's the
correct anchorite thing, and can be done, my father will be glad to
requite you for this night's hospitality. But don't do anything on
my account that interferes with your simple habits. Good-bye."
She handed him a card, which he took mechanically.
"Good-bye."
The sail was hoisted, and the boat shoved off. As the fresh morning
breeze caught the white canvas it seemed to bow a parting salutation.
There was a rosy flush of promise on the water, and as the light
craft darted forward toward the ascending sun, it seemed for a moment
uplifted in its glory.
Miss Portfire kept her word. If thoughtful care and intelligent
kindness could regenerate the Princess, her future was secure. And
it really seemed as if she were for the first time inclined to heed
the lessons of civilization and profit by her new condition. An
agreeable change was first noticed in her appearance. Her lawless
hair was caught in a net, and no longer strayed over her low
forehead. Her unstable bust was stayed and upheld by French corsets;
her plantigrade shuffle was limited by heeled boots. Her dresses
were neat and clean, and she wore a double necklace of glass beads.
With this physical improvement there also seemed some moral
awakening. She no longer stole nor lied. With the possession of
personal property came a respect for that of others. With increased
dependence on the word of those about her came a thoughtful
consideration of her own. Intellectually she was still feeble,
although she grappled sturdily with the simple lessons which Miss
Portfire set before her. But her zeal and simple vanity outran her
discretion, and she would often sit for hours with an open book
before her, which she could not read. She was a favourite with the
officers at the fort, from the Major, who shared his daughter's
prejudices and often yielded to her powerful self-will, to the
subalterns, who liked her none the less that their natural enemies,
the frontier volunteers, had declared war against her helpless
sisterhood. The only restraint put upon her was the limitation of
her liberty to the enclosure of the fort and parade; and only once
did she break this parole, and was stopped by the sentry as she
stepped into a boat at the landing.
The recluse did not avail himself of Miss Portfire's invitation. But
after the departure of the Princess he spent less of his time in the
hut, and was more frequently seen in the distant marshes of Eel River
and on the upland hills. A feverish restlessness, quite opposed to
his usual phlegm, led him into singular freaks strangely inconsistent
with his usual habits and reputation. The purser of the occasional
steamer which stopped at Logport with the mails reported to have been
boarded, just inside the bar, by a strange bearded man, who asked for
a newspaper containing the last war telegrams. He tore his red shirt
into narrow strips, and spent two days with his needle over the
pieces and the tattered remnant of his only white garment; and a few
days afterward the fishermen on the bay were surprised to see what,
on nearer approach, proved to be a rude imitation of the national
flag floating from a spar above the hut.
One evening, as the fog began to drift over the sand-hills, the
recluse sat alone in his hut. The fire was dying unheeded on the
hearth, for he had been sitting there for a long time, completely
absorbed in the blurred pages of an old newspaper. Presently he
arose, and, refolding it,--an operation of great care and delicacy in
its tattered condition,--placed it under the blankets of his bed. He
resumed his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with his
fingers on the arm of his chair. Eventually this assumed the time
and accent of some air. Then he began to whistle softly and
hesitatingly, as if trying to recall a forgotten tune. Finally this
took shape in a rude resemblance, not unlike that which his flag bore
to the national standard, to Yankee Doodle. Suddenly he stopped.
There was an unmistakable rapping at the door. The blood which had
at first rushed to his face now forsook it and settled slowly around
his heart. He tried to rise, but could not. Then the door was flung
open, and a figure with a scarlet-lined hood and fur mantle stood on
the threshold. With a mighty effort he took one stride to the door.
The next moment he saw the wide mouth and white teeth of the
Princess, and was greeted by a kiss that felt like a baptism.
To tear the hood and mantle from her figure in the sudden fury that
seized him, and to fiercely demand the reason of this masquerade, was
his only return to her greeting. "Why are you here? Did you steal
these garments?" he again demanded in her guttural language, as he
shook her roughly by the arm. The Princess hung her head. "Did
you?" he screamed, as he reached wildly for his rifle.
"I did."
His hold relaxed, and he staggered back against the wall. The
Princess began to whimper. Between her sobs, she was trying to
explain that the Major and his daughter were going away, and that
they wanted to send her to the Reservation; but he cut her short.
"Take off those things!" The Princess tremblingly obeyed. He rolled
them up, placed them in the canoe she had just left, and then leaped
into the frail craft. She would have followed, but with a great oath
he threw her from him, and with one stroke of his paddle swept out
into the fog, and was gone.
"Jessamy," said the Major, a few days after, as he sat at dinner with
his daughter, "I think I can tell you something to match the
mysterious disappearance and return of your wardrobe. Your crazy
friend, the recluse, has enlisted this morning in the Fourth
Artillery. He's a splendid-looking animal, and there's the right
stuff for a soldier in him, if I'm not mistaken. He's in earnest
too, for he enlists in the regiment ordered back to Washington.
Bless me, child, another goblet broken; you'll ruin the mess in
glassware, at this rate!"
"Have you heard anything more of the Princess, papa?"
"Nothing, but perhaps it's as well that she has gone. These cursed
settlers are at their old complaints again about what they call
'Indian depredations,' and I have just received orders from
headquarters to keep the settlement clear of all vagabond aborigines.
I am afraid, my dear, that a strict construction of the term would
include your _protégée_."
The time for the departure of the Fourth Artillery had come. The
night before was thick and foggy. At one o'clock, a shot on the
ramparts called out the guard and roused the sleeping garrison. The
new sentry, Private Grey, had challenged a dusky figure creeping on
the glacis, and, receiving no answer, had fired. The guard sent out
presently returned, bearing a lifeless figure in their arms. The new
sentry's zeal, joined with an ex-frontiersman's aim, was fatal.
They laid the helpless, ragged form before the guard-house door, and
then saw for the first time that it was the Princess. Presently she
opened her eyes. They fell upon the agonized face of her innocent
slayer, but haply without intelligence or reproach.
"Georgy!" she whispered.
"Bob!"
"All's same now. Me get plenty well soon. Me make no more fuss. Me
go to Reservation."
Then she stopped, a tremor ran through her limbs, and she lay still.
She had gone to the Reservation. Not that devised by the wisdom of
man, but that one set apart from the foundations of the world for the
wisest as well as the meanest of His creatures.
V
THE THREE STRANGERS*
THOMAS HARDY
*Reprinted from "Wessex Tales" by permission of Harper and Brothers.
Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an
appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be
reckoned the high, grassy, and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as
they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain
counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human
occupation is met with hereon it usually takes the form of the
solitary cottage of some shepherd.
Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may
possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however,
the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a
county town. Yet, what of that? Five miles of irregular upland,
during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains,
and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a
Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less
repellant tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who
"conceive and meditate of pleasant things."
Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some
starved fragment of ancient hedge, is usually taken advantage of in
the erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case,
such a kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as
the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only
reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two
footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and
thus for a good five hundred years. The house was thus exposed to
the elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew
unmistakably when it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it
fell, the various weathers of the winter season were not quite so
formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to be by dwellers on
low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the hollows,
and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and his
family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from
the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less
inconvenienced by "wuzzes and flames" (hoarses and phlegms) than when
they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley.
The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that
were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The
level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard
shafts of Senlac and Crécy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no
shelter stood with their buttocks to the wind; while the tails of
little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside
out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with
wet, and the eaves-droppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was
commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful
rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of the
christening of his second girl.
The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were
all now assembled in the chief or living-room of the dwelling. A
glance into the apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening
would have resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and
comfortable a nook as could be wished for in boisterous weather. The
calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of
highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung
ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook
varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures
of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local
sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having
wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in
candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and
family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them
standing on the chimneypiece. This position of candles was in itself
significant. Candles on the chimneypiece always meant a party.
On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a
fire of thorns, that crackled "like the laughter of the fool."
Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing
gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy
and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake
the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a
neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the
settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative
_pourparlers_ on a life-companionship, sat beneath the
corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved
restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot
where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more
prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute
confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the
finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity,
was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait
denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their
minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever--which nowadays so
generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes
of the social scale.
Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's
daughter from the valley below, who brought fifty guineas in her
pocket--and kept them there, till they should be required for
ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had
been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to
the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an
undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on
the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would
sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-party was the
alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the
score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the
matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the
exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel
fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with
short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable
rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own
gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most
reckless phases of hospitality.
The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who
had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were
so small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high
notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds
not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of
this youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from
Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him
his favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was
instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no
account to let the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour.
But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite
forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen,
one of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of
thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece
to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle
and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the
countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's
elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no
notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if
she were to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down
helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the
performers moving in their planet-like courses, direct and
retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked
clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference
of an hour.