from the hold that Herbert had on him, whirled himself out to the
centre of the floor and, with his face aflame with excitement and his
white hair flying abroad, led the jig men off with a lightness of foot
and quickness of stroke that forced the music by half a beat. The effect
was electric. The room burst into applause, and the Lad fetched a stroke
that seemed to rip the violin asunder. It was now a race between the
violin and the dancers. One after another fell out of the circle as the
moments passed, until the Trapper was left alone and was cutting it down
in a fashion that both astonished and convulsed the company. More than
one of the spectators went on to the floor in paroxysms of laughter.
Herbert, bent over with his hands on his knees, was watching the Trapper
with mouth stretched to its utmost and streaming eyes.
It is impossible to say which would have triumphed, had not an accident
decided the contest and brought the jig to an abrupt termination. For
even while the Lad was in the midst of the swiftest execution, the hind
legs of the chair in which he was sitting were whipped from their
fastenings, his heels went into the air, he turned half a somersault
backward and the music stopped with a snap.
It was minutes before a word could be heard. Roars and shrieks and
screams of irrepressible and uncontrollable merriment shook the house
from foundation to garret. The Lad picked himself up and for the first
time since they met Herbert saw his placid countenance wrinkled and
seamed with the contortions of uproarious mirth. The sluggishness of his
temperament for once was thoroughly agitated and the manhood which never
before had come to the surface found in hilarity a visible and adequate
expression. The Trapper had spun to his side and the two had joined
their hands and, looking into each other's faces, were laughing with a
boisterousness that fairly shook their frames and exploded in resounding
peals.
Gradually the uproar subsided and the company settled by easy transition
to a quieter mood. The hours of the night were passing and the moment
drawing nigh when those who had mingled their merriment must part. The
old Trapper had regained his gravity and his countenance had settled to
its customary repose. It seemed the general wish that the Lad would
favor them with a farewell piece, and in compliance with the request of
many, the old man turned to him and said:
"The hours be drawing on, Lad, and it's reasonable that we should break
up; but afore we go the folks wish to hear ye play a quiet sort of a
piece that may be cheerful and pleasant like for them to remember ye by
when we be gone. So, Lad, if ye have got anything in yer head that's
soft and teching, somethin' that will sort o' stay in the heart as the
seasons come and go, I sartinly hope ye will play it for them. And as ye
say ye was born by the sea, and as ye say the instrument ye hold in yer
hand was gin ye by yer mother, it may be ye can play us something out of
yer memory that shall tell us of her goodness to ye. Something I mean,
that shall tell us of the shore where ye was born and the love that ye
had afore ye laid her to rest and came to the woods seekin' me. Can ye
play us somethin' like that, Lad?"
"I can play you anything that has mother in it," said he, and a wistful,
yearning, hungry look came into his eyes and the edges of his lips
quivered.
The company seated themselves and the boy drew his bow across the
instrument. The brush of a painter could not have made the picture more
perfect than the vision the Lad brought forth as the bow played on the
strings. The picture of a sea, sunlighted and level, stretching far out;
the picture of a curved shore: the shore of a quiet bay, rimmed with its
beach of shining sand and noisy with the gurgle and splash of lapsing
waves; the picture of a home quiet and orderly and filled with the
tenderness of a gentle spirit; and then a heavier chord told of the
coming of a darker hour when the mother lay dying. The violin fairly
sobbed and groaned and wailed, as if the spirit of unconsolable grief
were tugging heavily at the strings. Anon, a bell tolled solemnly out of
it and its heavy knell clanged through the room. And then the music
rested for a minute; and in the silence it seemed as if the grave came
into sight as plainly as if the eyes of all were actually looking at its
open mouth. Again the music sounded, and the sods, one after another,
fell on the coffin, dull and heavy, changing to a gravelly, smothered
sound as the grave filled. Once more it paused, and then a clear, sweet
strain arose, sad, but pure and fine and hopeful, as voice of angels
could have sung it, trustful and resigned. The bow stopped again; for a
moment the violin was silent. And then the Lad lifted his face and,
laying the bow softly upon the strings, began to play what all
instinctively felt was a hymn to the spirit of his mother. Slowly,
softly, sweetly, as the strains which the dying sometimes hear, the
pure, clear, smooth notes stole out into the hushed air. It was playing,
not such as mortal plays to mortal, but such as spirit plays to spirit
and soul to soul, to-night, across the street of heaven. The Lad still
used an earthly instrument and touched its strings with mortal fingers;
but never, while they live, will those who heard that hymn believe that
anything less than the spirit of the boy drew from the instrument the
notes that filled the room with their divine sweetness. Indeed, the Lad
did not act as if he were conscious of his body or of bodily presences
around him. His face was lifted and his eyes, from which the tears were
streaming, were gazing upward, not as if into vacancy, but as if they
saw the bright being that had passed within the veil, standing in all
the beauty of her transfiguration before them. For a smile was on the
boy's lips, even while the tears were rolling down his cheeks. And when,
at last, the arm suspended its motion; when the sweet notes ceased to
sound and the last chord had died away, the Lad still kept his uplifted
posture and his features held the same rapt expression.
The company sat motionless, their gaze fastened on the Lad. Not an eye
was without its tear. The cheeks of the old Trapper were wet; and
Herbert, touched by some memory or overcome by the pathos of the music,
was actually sobbing. The old man, with a tread as light as a moccasined
foot could make, stepped softly to the side of the Lad and taking him by
the arm--while the company rose as one man--motioned to Henry with his
hand, and then, without a word, the Trapper and Herbert and "The Man Who
Didn't Know Much" passed out of the room, and taking boat, shoved off
and glided from sight in the blue darkness of the overhanging night,
amid whose eastern gloom the great, luminous, mellow-hearted stars of
the morning were already aflame.
[Illustration: Tail piece]
Who Was He?
I
[Illustration: Vignette Initial AT]
At the head of a stretch of swiftly running water the river widened into
a broad and deep pool. From the western bank a huge ledge of rock sloped
downward and outward into the water. On it stood the trapper, John
Norton, with a look of both expectation and anxiety on his face. For a
moment he lifted his troubled eyes and gazed steadily through the
tree-tops; and as his eyes fell to the level of the river, while the
look of anxiety deepened on his countenance, he said:
"Yis, the wind has changed and the fire be comin' this way; and ef it
gits into the balsam thickets this side of the mountain and the wind
holds where it is, a buck in full jump could hardly outrun it. Yis, the
smoke thickens; ef I didn't know that the boy would act with jedgment,
and that he's onusually sarcumspect, I would sartinly feel worried about
him. I hope he won't do anything resky for the sake of the pups. Ef he
can't git 'em, he can't; and I trust he won't resk the life of a man for
a couple of dogs."
With these words the trapper relapsed into silence. But every minute
added to his anxiety, for the smoke thickened in the air and even a few
cinders began to pass him as they were blown onward with the smoke by
the wind.
"The fire is comin' down the river," he said, "and the boy has it behind
him. Lord-a-massy! hear it roar! I know the boy is comin', for I never
knowed him to do a foolish thing in the woods; and it would be downright
madness for him to stay in the shanty, or even go to the shanty, ef the
fire had struck the balsam thicket afore he made the landin'. Lord, ef
an oar-blade should break,--but it won't break. The Lord of marcy won't
let an oar that the boy is handlin' break, when the fire is racin'
behind him, and he's comin' back from an arrand of marcy. I never seed
a man desarted in a time like"--
A report of a rifle rang out quick and sharp through the smoke.
"God be praised!" said the trapper, "it's the boy's own piece, and he
let it off as he shot the rift the fourth bend above. Yis, the boy knows
his danger and he took the vantage of the rift to signal me with his
piece, for oars couldn't help him in the rift and the missin' of a
single stroke wouldn't count. I trust the boy got the pups, arter all,"
added the old trapper, his mind instantly reverting to his loved
companions the moment it was relieved from anxiety touching his comrade.
It couldn't have been over five minutes after the report of a rifle had
sounded, before a boat swept suddenly around the bend above the rock and
shot like an arrow through the haze toward the trapper. Herbert was at
the oars and the two hounds were sitting on their haunches at the stern.
The stroke the oarsman was pulling was such as a man pulls when, in
answer to some emergency, he is putting forth his whole strength. But
though the stroke was an earnest one, there was no apparent hurry in it;
for it was long and evenly pulled, from dip to finish, and the recovery
seemed a trifle leisurely done. The face of the trapper fairly shone
with delight as he saw the boat and the occupants. Indeed, his happiness
was too great to be enjoyed silently, and, in accordance with his habit
when greatly interested, he broke into speech.
"Look at that now!" he exclaimed, as if speaking to some one at his
side; "look at that now! There's a stroke that's worth notin', and is a
kind of edication in itself. Ye might almost think that there wasn't
quite enough snap in it; but the boy knows that he's pullin' for his
life and the life of another man somewhere below him--not to speak of
the pups--and he knows it's good seven miles to the rapids, and he's
pullin' every ounce that's in him to pull, and keep his stroke. Now,
he's come five miles, ef he's come a rod, and I warrant he hasn't missed
a stroke, save when in shootin' the rift he let off his piece. And he
knows he's got seven miles more to pull and he's set himself a
twelve-mile stroke; and there aint many men that could do it, with the
roar of the fire a leetle way behind him. Yis, the boy has acted with
jedgment and is sartinly comin' along like a buck in full jump. I guess
I'd better let him know where I be."
"Hillow there, boy! Hi, hi, pups! Here I be on the p'int of the rock, as
fresh as a buck arter a mornin' drink. Ease away a leetle, Herbert, in
yer stroke and move the pups forad a leetle and make room for a man and
a paddle, for the fire is arter ye and the time has come to jine works."
The young man did as the trapper requested. He intermitted a stroke and
the hounds, at a word, moved into the middle of the boat and crouched
obediently in the bottom, but whimpering in their gladness at hearing
their master's voice again. The boat was under good headway when it
passed the point of the ledge on which the trapper was standing, but as
it glanced by, the old man leaped with practised agility to his place in
the stern and had given a full and strong stroke to his paddle before he
had fairly settled to his seat.
"Now, Herbert," he began, "ease yerself a bit, for ye have had a tough
pull and it's good seven miles to the rapids. The fire is sartinly
comin' in arnest, but the river runs nigh onto straight till ye git
within sight of 'em, and I think we will beat it. I didn't feel sartin
that ye had got the pups, Herbert, for I could see by the signs that ye
wouldn't have any time to spare. Was it a tech and a go, boy?"
"The fire was in the pines west of the shanty when I entered it,"
answered the young man, "and the smoke was so thick that I couldn't see
it from the river as I landed."
"I conceited as much," replied the trapper, "I conceited as much. Yis, I
knowed 'twould be a close shave ef ye got 'em, and I feared ye would run
a resk that ye oughtn't to run, in yer love for the dogs."
"I didn't propose to leave the dogs to die," responded the young man; "I
think I should have heard their cries in my ears for a year, had they
been burned to death in the shanty where we left them."
"Ye speak with right feelin', Herbert," replied the trapper. "No, a
hunter has no right to desart his dog when danger be nigh; for the
Creator has made 'em in their loves and their dangers, alike. Did ye
save the powder and the bullits, boy?"
"I did not," responded Herbert; "the sparks were all around me and the
shanty was smoking while I was feeling around for the dogs' leash. I
heard the canister explode before I reached the first bend."
"'Twas a narrer rub, boy," rejoined the trapper. "Yis, I can see 'twas a
narrer rub ye had of it, and the holes in yer shirt show that the sparks
was fallin' pritty thick and pritty hot, too, when ye come out of the
shanty. How does the stroke tell on ye, boy?" continued the old man,
interrogatively. "Ye be pullin' a slashin' stroke, ye see, and there's
five mile more of it, ef there's a rod."
"The stroke begins to tell on my left side," answered Herbert; "but if
you were sitting where you could see what's coming down upon us as I
can, you would see it wasn't any time for us to take things leisurely."
"Lord, boy," rejoined the trapper, "do ye think I haven't any ears? The
fire's at the fourth bend above us and the pines on the ridge we passed
five minutes ago ought to be blazin' by this time. Ah me, boy, this
isn't the fust time I've run a race with a fire of the devil's own
kindlin', alone and in company, both. And my ears have measured the roar
and the cracklin' ontil I can tell to a rod, eenamost, how fur the red
line be behind me."
"What do you think of our chances?" queried his companion; "shall we
get over the carry in time? for I suppose we are making for the big
pool, are we not?"
"Yis, we be makin' for the pool," replied the trapper, "for it's the
only safe spot on the river; and as for the chances, I sartinly doubt ef
we can fetch the carry in time. Ef the fire isn't there ahead of us, it
will be on us afore we could git to the pool at the other eend."
"Why can't we run the rapids?" asked Herbert promptly.
"The rapids can be run, as you and me know," responded the old man, "for
we have both did it, although they be onusually swift, and there be
spots where good jedgment and a quick paddle is needed."
"Why," exclaimed Herbert, "the last time we went down we never took in a
drop of water."
"It's true, as ye say, boy," responded the trapper; "yis, we sartinly
did as ye say, though few be the men that know the waters that would
believe it."
"Why, then," exclaimed the young man, "can't we do it again?"
"The smoke, boy, the smoke," was the answer. "The smoke will be there
ahead of us. And who can run a stretch of water like the one ahead
yender, with his eyes blinded? No, boy, we must git there ahead of the
fire, for we can't run the rapids in the smoke. Here," he added, "ye be
pullin' a murderin' stroke, and it's best that I spell ye. Down with ye,
pups, down with ye, and lie still as a frozen otter while the boy comes
over ye."
With the celerity of long practice in boating, the two men changed
places, and with such quickness was the change in position effected,
that the onrushing shell scarcely lessened its headway. The trapper
seized the oars on the instant, while Herbert supported him with equal
swiftness with the paddle and the light craft raced along like a feather
blown by the gale.
For several moments the trapper, who, by the change in his position was
brought face to face with the pursuing fire, said not a word. His stroke
was long and sweeping and pulled with an energy which only perfect skill
and tremendous strength can put into action. He looked at the rolling
flames with a face undisturbed in its calmness and with eyes that noted
knowingly every sign of its progress.
"The fire is a hot un," he said at length, "and it runs three feet to
our two. We may git there ahead of it, for there isn't more than a mile
furder to go; but--Lord!" exclaimed the trapper, "how it roars! and it
makes its own wind as it comes on. Don't break yer paddle shaft, boy;
but the shaft is a good un and ye may put all the strength into it that
ye think it will stand."
The spectacle on which the trapper was gazing was, indeed, a terrible
one; and the peril of the two men was getting to be extreme. The valley,
through the centre of which the river ran, was perhaps a mile in width,
at which distance a range of lofty hills on either side walled it in.
Down this enclosed stretch the fire was being driven by a wind which
sent the blazing evidences of its approach in advance of its terrible
progress. The spectacle was indescribable. The dreadful line of flame
moved onward like a line of battle, when it moves at a charge against a
flying enemy. The hungry flames ate up the woods as a monster might eat
food when starving. Grasses, shrubs, bushes, thickets of undergrowth and
the great trees, which stood in groves over the level plain on either
side of the stream, disappeared at its touch as if swallowed up. The
evergreens crackled and flamed fiery hot. The smoke eddied up in rushing
volumes. Overhead, and far in advance of the on-rolling line of fire,
the air was darkened with black cinders, amid whose sombre masses fiery
sparks and blazing brands shone and flashed like falling stars.
[Illustration: "_A deer suddenly sprang from the bank._"]
A deer suddenly sprang from the bank into the river ahead of the boat
and, frenzied with fear, swam boldly athwart its course. He was followed
by another and another. Birds flew shrieking through the air. Even the
river animals swam uneasily along the banks, or peered out of their
holes, as if nature had communicated to them, also, the terrible alarm;
while, like the roar of a cataract,--dull, heavy, portentous,--the wrath
of the flames rolled ominously through the air.
Amid the sickening smoke which was already rolling in volumes over the
boat and the terrible uproar and confusion of nature, Herbert and the
trapper kept steadily to their task. But every moment the line of fire
gained on them. The smoke was already at intervals stifling and the heat
of the coming conflagration getting unbearable. Brands began to fall
hissing into the water. Twice had Herbert flung a blazing fragment out
of the boat. And so, in a race literally for life, with the flames
chasing them and their lives in jeopardy, they turned the last bend
above the carry which began at the head of the rapids. But it was too
late; the fiery fragments blown ahead by the high wind had fallen in
front of them, and the landing at the carry itself was actually
enveloped in smoke and flame.
"The fire be ahead of us, boy!" exclaimed the trapper, "and death is
sartinly comin' behind. The odds be agin us to start with, for the smoke
is thick and the fire will be in the bends at least half the way down,
but it's our only chance; we must run the rapids."
"What about the dogs?"
"The pups must shirk for themselves," answered the old man. "I'm sorry,
but the rapids be swift and the waters shaller on the first half of the
stretch. And the pups settle the boat half an inch, ef they settle it a
hair. Yis, overboard with ye, pups! overboard with ye!" commanded the
trapper. "Ye must use the gifts the Lord has gin ye now, or git singed.
I advise ye to keep with the current and come down trailin' the boat;
for man's reason is better than dogs' reason, techin' currents and
eddies, not to speak of falls. But take yer own way; for yer lives be in
jeopardy with yer master's, and ye ought, for sartin, to have the chance
of dyin' as ye like to. But yer best chance is to foller the boat, as I
jedge."
The trapper had continued to talk as if addressing members of the human
and not the canine species; and long before he had finished his remarks,
the hounds had taken to the water and were swimming with all their power
directly in the wake of the boat, as if they had actually understood
their master's injunction, and were, indeed, determined to shoot the
rapids in his wake.
The conflagration was now at its fiercest heat. The smoke whirled upward
in mighty eddies or rolled along in huge convolutions. Through the
fleecy rolls here and there tongues of flame shot fiercely. The river
steamed. The roar of the rushing flames was deafening. The tops of the
huge pines that stood along the banks would wave and toss as the fiery
line reached them, and then burst into blaze, as if they were but the
mighty torches that lighted the path of the passing destruction. In all
his long and eventful life, passed amid peril, it is doubtful if the
trapper had ever been in a wilder scene. The rapids were ahead and the
fire behind and on either side. The great mass of flame had not yet
rolled abreast the boat, but the blazing brands were already falling in
advance. It was not a moment to hesitate; nor was he a man to falter
when action was called for.
By this time the boat had come nigh the upper rift of the rapids, and
the motion of the downward suction was beginning to tell on its
progress. The trapper shipped his oars and, lifting his paddle, placed
himself in a kneeling posture, gazing down stream. The fire was almost
upon them, and the smoke too dense for sight. But pressing as was the
emergency, neither man touched his paddle to the water, but let the boat
go down with the quickening current to the verge of the rapids, where
the sharp dip of the decline would send it flying.
"This be an onsartin ventur', Henry," cried the trapper, shouting to his
comrade from the smoke that now made it impossible for the young man,
even at only the boat's length, to see his person. "This be an onsartin
ventur', and the Lord only knows how it will eend. Ye know the waters as
well as I do; and ye know the p'ints where things must be did right.
We'll beat the smoke arter we make the fust dip and git out of the
thickest of it in the fust half of the distance, onless somethin'
happens. Let her go with the current, boy, ontil yer sight comes to ye,
for the current knows where it's goin', and that's more than a mortal
can tell in this infarnal smoke. Here we go, boy!" shouted the old man,
as the boat balanced in its perilous flight on the sharp edge of the
uppermost rift. "Here we go, boy!" he shouted out of the smoke and the
rush of waters, "it's hotter than Tophet where we be and it matters
mighty leetle what meets us below."
II
To those who have had no experience in running rapids, no adequate
conception can be given touching what can with truth be called one of
the most exciting experiences that man can pass through. The very
velocity with which the flight is made is enough of itself to make the
sensation startling. The skill which is required on the part of the
boatman is of the finest order. Eye and hand and readiest wit must work
in swift connection. Some who read these lines perhaps have--shall we
say--enjoyed the sensation which we have always found impossible to
describe in words? These, at least, will appreciate the difficulty of
our task, and also the peril which surrounded the trapper and his
companion.