"Easy--easy!" he chuckled. "You are not the first to shrink at giving up
a cherished chimera. You see I am much older than you, and know all of
humanity's foibles and make-believes. I am your friend. In your mind you
have created an angel out of a piece of ignoble clay. Listen, while I
prove to you that I am your friend, and show you a way to success."
Thereupon his vileness became so bold and horrible that I will not soil
this white paper with a transscript of it, and I sank upon a bench,
elbows on knees and face in hands, listening to the damnable rigmarole
because I could not help it. My visitor was beyond personal
violence--witness my recent fruitless attempt to strike him--or time and
again I would have closed with him and slain him, or been slain.
Shudders of shame and rage swept me from head to foot, and my cheeks
grew so hot they burned my palms. Hours passed. At times the Devil
relaxed, and a sort of armistice prevailed, then he would renew his
merciless planning for my destruction, and how smooth and easy the road
appeared under the magic of his voice! Throughout the entire night I
remained humped over, shaking at intervals as some especially diabolical
sentence fell upon my unwilling but helpless ears; holding my tongue,
because I knew that no words of mine would avail to move the monster at
my elbow.
Hast ever sat up o' night with the Devil, my brothers? It comes to me
that every one who lives, or has lived must have had this experience.
'Tis a blood chilling one, forsooth; at least when resistance is
offered. Only when daylight stole ghost-wise through the still aisles of
the immemorial wood did mine Enemy depart, and I got to my feet,
trembling as one risen from a bed of grievous sickness, groped my way
within, and fell with a groan across my cot.
Throughout that day I slept, and arose in the late afternoon feeling
refreshed. My trouble was mental, and this long rest for my brain was
most beneficial. I put as firm a check upon my thoughts as I could bring
to bear, and methodically set about preparing my supper. Looking back as
I write to-night, I know that my movements were erratic and strained. I
built my fire in the kitchen stove calmly, but soon thereafter memory
made a breach in the flimsy wall of reserve which I had upreared, and
havoc began afresh. I burned my food. I broke two dishes. I blistered my
fingers on the hot oven. Then I ate voraciously, almost viciously, and
leaving the things unwashed, tore out to the companionship of my vast
host of faithful trees. Read? I could no more have held my eyes to
printed lines that night than I could measure the sun's diameter. The
Book says there is a time for everything. This week has been my time to
visit the nether world, while yet alive; to become almost insane, while
retaining a degree of sense. It may be I shall omit this chapter entire
when the end of my story is reached. I am writing it to-night, because
in doing so I open a safety valve. I have been fearfully surcharged with
the intensest sort of feelings, and I find that it gives me some relief
to pour them out upon the pages of my journal. When I grow again to be
the reasoning man I was last Sunday--if I ever do--I shall read these
lines again. If they seem perfervid, unnatural, overdrawn, I shall wipe
them out, in deference to the gentle critic who never saw a red-haired
Dryad, and consequently cannot have the least understanding of what I
have been driving at in this night's record. I know I have already
penned thoughts and emotions which will cause the phlegmatic cynic to
damn my story as unreal and banal. In like manner I know there are
others--scarcely will they be found in the critic class, I fear--whose
hearts will warm to me in kindest sympathy. These, mayhap, will be those
of like excessive temperaments, who have looked on Beauty to their cost.
Yea, like Priam, and Menelaus, and that old war-dog, Ulysses himself,
and the hosts of others whose eyes beheld the ruinous loveliness of
Argive Helen. On her pylon tower she sang, and men died, demented and
hopeless, struggling for a single smile! Why were all famous beauties in
history and mythology red-haired? Who can answer? From echoless time it
seems to have stood as a type of perfection. I know what it has meant to
me--dear Christ!--since that spring day when I saw it intertwined with
dogwood blossoms. To-night--I am writing in desperation, that I may
perchance get some sleep when I have worn myself out at the table by
which I sit--I say to-night that I would rather live here on Baldy's lap
forever with Celeste for my wife; here, in the Lodge, alone with her,
than to be the consort of the mightiest queen of earth!
I rushed out to the sheltering arms of my faithful trees, and stood
among them. I had nothing on my head. The moon was larger, and in its
light I seemed in some enchanted place. Then the craze to move--to walk,
drove me down to the ravine. Unthinkingly I turned toward the Dryad's
Glade. After a while I halted, overcome all at once by the supernatural
radiance which permeated every cranny of that spreading wilderness. Just
where I stood the trees were not so dense. Twenty and thirty feet apart
some of them grew, and though many lateral branches thrust far out to
intermingle, the myriad moon rays found numerous paths and peepholes to
the earth below. It also chanced that I had stopped in a spot where the
spiring trunks rose naked of boughs to a considerable height. This
peculiarity was a great aid to the diffusion of the blue-white, misty
atmosphere which was all about me. I seemed to stand in a ghost land;
everything was shadowy; even the rough boles appeared tenuous, ready to
dissolve and disappear at a breath of wind. But there was no wind. I
stared all about me, marveling at this common mystery of moonshine which
was yet so unfathomable; feeling it sink into my soul in peace giving
waves, comforting my tired breast. So I folded my arms and leaned
against a near-by oak, determining to stay just there. It was the first
moment of waking calm I had known since--How blissful it was! How
peaceful! How past all poor words of mine to describe! Picture primeval
creation. No hewn-down trees, no unsightly stumps, no chips from the
relentless ax. Merely a mighty forest which had been such always.
Solitude, silence. An all-enveloping, blue-white night, and one lone man
striving for ease of mind and soul in the midst of these eternal
realities. How good it was to feel my tight breast loosen; to feel that
awful clamp dropping away from my temples, where it had been pressing
and fretting me almost to madness. I breathed deep of that clear, sweet
air; huge, delightful respirations which made me feel light-headed. And
even as a smile of appreciation crept to my lips, and my eyes half
closed under the weird spell of the place, I knew that I was not alone.
Down a winding vista, far off, something was moving. The distance was
too great and the light too poor for me to tell what it was. A gray
shape was disturbing the nebulous perspective; a shape which at moments
almost assumed proportions, to become at once as something almost of the
imagination. I did not change my attitude, for as yet only a mild
curiosity was present. It might be anything from a stray cow to a
moonshiner on his way to work. Be it what it might, I hoped it would not
disturb me, but wend its way. It was coming toward me; I could not doubt
it directly. It would pass me at a right angle, perhaps thirty feet off.
I did not care to be seen if it was human; I was in no mood to sacrifice
a portion of this wonder-night to rustic inanities. I slipped quietly
around into the shadow of my oak. There came a sound, like a silvery
laugh wedded to a harsh cackle, and this was followed by the swift
patter of running feet, tapping in a muffled tread the moss- and
leaf-strewn ground. I thrust out my head to see what these strange
sounds meant. God above! The Dryad and the Satyr, hand in hand, dashed
by my hiding-place like a hurricane. She was next to me. What she wore I
cannot say. It was something all white, girded at the waist with a vine,
for I saw leaves and tendrils hanging from it. She had shaken her hair
down. The Satyr was without his hat, and his ragged coat streamed out as
he tore along. I glimpsed his face, and it reflected honest merriment
only. Just opposite me they laughed again, without apparent reason, as
children do in a frolic, and how incongruous it sounded; Celeste's
musical bell tones, and Jeff Angel's cracked and jarring voice. So, hand
in hand, in perfect understanding and good-fellowship, these two
Children of Nature romped through the moonlit lanes of their beloved
woods, happy in their very wildness and unrestraint.
Before I could recover from my profound astonishment they had
disappeared down a misty aisle hung with trembling, diaphanous, luminous
shadows; had merged with the pearl-gray gloom of the middle distance,
and a wild, eerie strain of something which might well have been
borrowed from a barbaric chant drifted back to my stunned sensibilities.
I caught the notes only, but they drove through to my brain like
fire-barbed arrows, and stung it into action. She had passed almost
within reach of my arm! She! The one because of whom this awful abyss
had opened up for me. She had passed, and I had stood like a dolt and
let her go! "Lessie! Lessie!" I sprang forward, goaded by love and
despair, and ran after them with all the swiftness I could command.
"Dryad! Dryad!" I called, at the top of my voice, but no answer came. I
stopped, and with hand against a tree held my breath to listen. Not a
sound but my own blood hammering in my ears. Then as a full realization
came to me of the opportunity which had been offered, and which I had
stupidly missed, a feeling of mad recklessness seized me, and I bounded
forward again, blindly, knowing only that somewhere ahead of me was
Celeste. Once I saw something white, and rushed toward it with outheld
arms and a strangled cry of gladness. It was a portion of a projecting
earth-bank, covered with a growth bearing tiny white blossoms. The moon
struck it full, and had worked the cruel deception. I fell upon the pure
little flowers and tore them savagely; flung them down and ground my
feet upon them, then took up my search once more. Rage filled my breast.
Rage at myself, at Fate, at Granny, at Beryl Drane, and this animal
emotion must have blinded my eyes, for in my headlong, methodless
pursuit I at length ran full force into a huge beech, and dropped
senseless at its feet.
I don't think it could have been long before I roused, for there was no
lessening of the brilliant light, such as happens when the moon
declines. It was well for me that I was unconscious but a short time, I
suspect, for as my eyes came open I at once became aware of another pair
above me. A pair which seemed made of sulphur, marked with alternate red
and green rings, glowing wickedly. Then I made out the contour of a dim
body perhaps three feet in length stretched upon a low limb just over
me. It was a gigantic wild-cat, and he was stalking me. I doubt not he
would have dropped within another five minutes, for even as I watched,
his back began to arch and the claws of his hind feet to rustle along
the bark. With that suggestive motion his head also drooped below the
limb, and it came to me he was gauging the distance for his spring. I
was no hunter, but 'Crombie was, and from him I had learned that
wild-cats will not attack a man unless driven by hunger, or brought to
bay in a corner. So I sat up incontinently; threw out my arms and
shouted. With the agility of his tribe he turned promptly, and another
second was scuttling up the tree.
I found I had a painful welt across the top of my forehead, but no other
injury was apparent. My heart turned sick as recollection came back on
swallow wings. There was nothing left but to go home. I had myself to
thank for my predicament. But where was home? Whither my flight had led
me I possessed no idea. I had tried to follow the elusive wake of two
night-roamers, and they had proven will-o'-the-wisps. Why had not the
Dryad stopped at my call? I wondered, as I moved doggedly away from the
spot. Surely she had heard. Surely she knew who it was, for no one else
called her by that name. Could it be that Granny had perverted her mind?
Or was it that she did not care? That I was only an incident, and had
been cast from her life as quickly and suddenly as I had entered it? I
would not believe this; I could not believe it. The blow which I had so
recently sustained wrought a radical change in my mental condition, and
while my breast still burned with implacable resentment toward the
nameless something which had caused me to miss catching Celeste, I found
that my thoughts were freer, and comparatively lucid. I could not
believe that she had thrust me below her life's horizon, and gone
singing through the woods as though nothing had happened. The idea was
monstrous, appalling, revolting. It was wholly unacceptable. That my two
visits to her home bore no fruit I laid at Granny's door. The old beldam
had managed it in some way. Had kept the girl hidden, and had prevented
anyone within the house from answering my summons. Why had the Dryad
burst out weeping and run indoors when Granny thought she had convicted
me of duplicity, and ordered me from the place? Ah! my soul! there was
comfort in that! Celeste did not cry from fright; she was used to
Granny's tantrums. She cried because for the moment she saw things in
the same light and from the same angle as that old termagant--may her
bones lie unburied! She did care for me--she _did_ care for me--she DID
care for me, and I knew it. I could not solve her frolicking in the
forest with her half crazy cousin. I could not unriddle her laughing and
singing. Such things do not go with a heavy heart in the world I know,
but it may be she sought relief in following her beloved habit of
running, untamed and free, wherever her hoyden steps led her. I will see
her yet, and I will find out. I will make her see the truth, and outwit
that old she-devil who has cast me into torment with her meddling.
Moonset found me laboring up the road to the Lodge. I had stumbled upon
my hill. Sleep came at once, and how doubly sweet was that deep,
soundless, shoreless sea when I slipped out upon it in my Barque o'
Dreams!
Next day was Wednesday. All the bulldog in my nature unleashed--and a
major part of my nature is represented by the hybrid breed of bulldog
and mule--I went to Lizard Point, with the determination to have speech
with some one before I came away. I was no schoolboy, or callow youth,
to be trifled with in this manner. I had certain rights as a gentleman,
and these rights I intended to demand. But alas for human hopes--and
determinations! I could not demand aught of an empty porch, or a closed
and locked door, or blind-drawn, nailed down windows. I suppose they
were nailed down, for my peculiar nature caused me to try and raise two
of them, when repeated calls and much banging on the door did not bring
any results. The sashes did not even tremble under my hands. I saw a
broken rail lying near one corner of the house. I looked at it, and at
the blank window. That would get me in, or get somebody out. Either
would serve. I was so wrought up that I actually started toward that
piece of wood before I realized what I intended doing. It would be
house-breaking; malicious destruction of property--both of which were
jail offenses. I must forego the execution of this project, much as it
appealed to me at the moment. Nothing would suit Granny better. She
would have the law on me in a trice, and be rid of me for good and all.