Awakes to Find that He Is Lost.
Again the poor, vain boy was speeding him on his lone and perilous way.
His flight was as swift as the wind, yet so smooth and lightsome that he
could gaze upon his moccasins and delight his eyes with their glitter
and gleam, as completely at his ease as were he perched on his
three-legged stool at home. Of course, then, rambling on thus, with
neither eye nor thought but for the red allurements on his feet, he
must, ere long, lose sight of the road he set out to follow. This will
surprise you the less when told that from the time he had put them on at
the spring, it had seemed to the poor boy's fancy that the moccasins
knew, as well as himself, whither they were bound, and that they would
take him there by the shortest and easiest route, did he but yield
himself to their guidance. The road to be followed, thus lost sight
of--what wonder, then, if the place to be reached should at last be lost
sight of also!
In this strange plight, the young wanderer was pursuing his way, when he
was aroused from his walking dream by a broad, red glare, which struck
full upon his downcast eyes, and for the moment left him blind as night.
Soon, however, his vision returned to him strong and clear, when he
found himself on the top of a lofty hill, just where a gap in the forest
let in the flood of sunlight; and this it was which had dazzled him into
transient blindness, as, too suddenly, he had entered it from out the
sombre shadows, in which he for long hours had been wandering.
Now had you seen that hill, how lofty and steep it was, and marked with
what ease and swiftness our hero scaled it, you would have said at once
that the red moccasins had more to do with the feat than Sprigg's own
legs. The gap in the forest proved to be a long, lane-like opening
through the trees, which covered only the sides of a round-backed ridge.
Through this opening Sprigg had an unobstructed view toward some distant
hills in the West, and could see that the sun had well nigh run his
daily course. The ridge ascended gradually till it reached it greatest
elevation where the boy was standing, and here ended abruptly in a
promontory-like hill, which overlooked a wide sea of waving verdure far
below. The brow of the hill and the crest of the ridge were not so bare
of trees but that, here and there, a lofty oak tree might be seen; but
the face toward the East was much too steep and smooth to offer a
foothold for trees, being covered instead with a dense growth of low
bushes, whose twisted twigs and crisped leaves had, from a distance,
more the appearance of moss than of verdure.
Upon waking from his reverie, and turning to look behind him, Sprigg
had found himself on the very brink of the declivity. Could it be
possible that he had climbed it without conscious effort? Or, indeed,
without any effort at all of his own! A bear climbing, paw over paw,
might have been equal to the feat; but even a bear, were he minded to
scale the hill, would have chosen a more circuitous and less laborious
route. There was not the sign of a path made by man or beast anywhere to
be seen, either up the steep or along the ridge. Even of his own
footsteps, Sprigg could not discern a single trace, whether in crushed
leaf, or bruised weed, or print of his moccasins left in the soft soil.
The spot was utterly strange to him; it could not have been more so, had
he been taken and set down on a hill in the land of Nod. He looked
around. There were hills far, far beneath the one on which he stood. And
beneath these valleys and plains, while one unbroken forest spread dark
and sombre over all, not a token of man or savage could he discover,
whether in house, or field, or road, or column of smoke curling up from
among the trees. Nothing but woods, woods. Woods! Then, like a sudden
awakening from a wild dream, it flashed upon his consciousness that he
was lost.
"Where am I?" cried the poor boy. "How came I here?"
"He-he-he!"
Sprigg jumped. This time, the sound that seemed so like a laugh was too
completely outside of himself; too little in harmony with his present
thoughts for him to fancy it was himself that laughed. First on this
side, then on that. Quite near at hand he looked--not a thing of life
could he see. He looked far forth; a herd of deer was grazing in a
blue-grass glade, a great way off to the right; and a great way off to
the left, a herd of buffalo, browsing on the tender shoots of a
cane-brake, which skirted the banks of a beautiful river. Behind him,
toward the setting sun, a few birds of prey were wheeling and screaming
aloft in the crimson evening sky. Saving these, not a thing of life or
sound was there to be seen in all the wilds. Lost! Lost! Lost! To find
himself lost is the only discovery your waking dreamer is apt to make.
Then Sprigg looked down and scanned the red moccasins. They showed not a
grain of dust, not a speck of mire, not a stain of grass, or weed, or
water, although he had walked in them--or, if you please, they had
walked with him--through many a mile of grassy wood and reedy swamp,
where path was none, that had ever been trodden by foot of man. As clean
and bright and red were they as when he had drawn them on in the shade
of the spring trees there at home. A rather singular circumstance,
certainly; and only to be explained upon the ground that, as the boy had
submitted himself entirely to their guidance, the moccasins had
daintily picked out the road which suited them best, and such roads, I
warrant you, as common shoes were not at all in the habit of traveling.
Yes, the red charms had beguiled the young runaway, and, without any
motive or knowledge of his own, had brought him to that remote and
solitary spot--how, or to what end, he could not imagine. Of one thing
he was certain, they had not brought him to grandpap's house, as
they--for so it had seemed to him--had promised they would, and he had
been so foolish as to believe they could. At last, but when it was too
late, the scales were beginning to fall from his eyes. In other words,
the red fog, in which he had so long been chased by the shadow he
sought, was beginning to grow a little transparent, so that he could
view his case in a somewhat clearer and more natural light. Apparent
enough was it now that the red moccasins had deceived him, mocked him,
laughed at him--in short, made a fool of Sprigg completely. This
discovery brought a twinge to his self-love, far more severe than any
pain of conscience he felt at the thought of the foul lie he had told,
or of his shabby flight from home; even while he could not help but be
aware of the grief and shame and distressing apprehensions he must
thereby be causing his dear father and mother. In a pet of wrath, plump
down he sat, this poor, vain boy; and, jerking the moccasins from off
his feet, flung them, one after the other, over the brink of the steep,
as far as his sturdy, young arms could send them.
"Curse the red moccasins!" cried the boy, as now in his bare feet he
stood, the hot tears jumping suddenly out of his eyes. "You mocked me,
fooled me, lost me! Curse you! and may I never----"
What more he might have said was cut short by a noise, which, while he
was yet speaking, had caught his ear. A noise as of answering voices,
mingled with peals of wild and mocking laughter, heard from several
directions at once, and ringing out clear and shrill upon the still
evening air. These sounds abruptly ceased--the more abruptly from
leaving no echoes behind them, where echoes were wont to be left. But
straight were they succeeded by another sound, caused, apparently, by a
pair of light feet, which, with a hop, step and jump, by way of a start,
were now coming in through the leaves and grass with a slow and measured
tread; and so near at hand that he who walked would have been in plain
view just there. At first Sprigg looked too high to see what was to be
seen, but soon lowering his gaze he saw----
But close the book for a minute and guess. Can not? Try it again! Not
yet? No--nor could you, were you to try from New Year's morn to New
Year's eve. Wonderful, as you may think it, Sprigg saw there on the
ground, not a dozen paces from him, his cast-off moccasins, coming
slowly toward him--first the right foot, then the left--without so much
as a pair of knee buckles to show for legs, till they had set their toes
within easy speaking distance, squarely confronting him. The boy stood
stock still, staring before him, with no more power to move from the
spot than the bushes around him. So great was his astonishment, not to
say terror, he felt at the sight of this fantastic apparition.