MAKING THE BEST OF IT
After his return in the dinghy Robert decided that he would have some
fresh beef and also a little sport. Although the island contained no
indigenous wild animals of any size, there were the wild cattle, and he
had seen they were both long of horn and fierce. If he courted peril he
might find it in hunting them, and in truth he rather wanted a little
risk. There was such an absence of variety in his life, owing to the
lack of human companionship, that an attack by a maddened bull, for
instance, would add spice to it. The rifle would protect him from any
extreme danger.
He knew he was likely to find cattle near the larger lake, and, as he
had expected, he saw a herd of almost fifty grazing there on a flat at
the eastern edge. Two fierce old bulls with very long, sharp horns were
on the outskirts, as if they were mounting guard, while the cows and
calves were on the inside near the lake.
Robert felt sure that the animals, although unharried by man, would
prove wary. For the sake of sport he hoped that it would be so, and,
using all the skill that he had learned in his long association with
Willet and Tayoga, he crept down through the woods. The bulls would be
too tough, and as he wanted a fat young cow it would be necessary for
him to go to the very edge of the thickets that hemmed in the little
savanna on which they were grazing.
The wind was blowing from him toward the herd and the bulls very soon
took alarm, holding up their heads, sniffing and occasionally shaking
their formidable horns. Robert picked a fat young cow in the grass
almost at the water's edge as his target, but stopped a little while in
order to disarm the suspicion of the wary old guards. When the two went
back to their pleasant task of grazing he resumed his cautious advance,
keeping the fat young cow always in view.
Now that he had decided to secure fresh beef, he wanted it very badly,
and it seemed to him that the cow would fulfill all his wants. A long
experience in the wilderness would show him how to prepare juicy and
tender steaks. Eager to replenish his larder in so welcome a way, he
rose and crept forward once more in the thicket.
The two bulls became suspicious again, the one on the right, which was
the larger, refusing to have his apprehension quieted, and advancing
part of the way toward the bushes, where he stood, thrusting forward
angry horns. His attitude served as a warning for the whole herd, which,
becoming alarmed, began to move.
Robert was in fear lest they rush away in a panic, and so he took a long
shot at the cow, bringing her down, but failing to kill her, as she rose
after falling and began to make off. Eager now to secure his game he
drew the heavy pistol that he carried at his belt, and, dropping his
rifle, rushed forward from the thicket for a second shot.
The cow was not running fast. Evidently the wound was serious, but
Robert had no mind for her to escape him in the thickets, and he pursued
her until he could secure good aim with the pistol. Then he fired and
had the satisfaction of seeing the cow fall again, apparently to stay
down this time.
But his satisfaction was short. He heard a heavy tread and an angry
snort beside him. He caught the gleam of a long horn, and as he whirled
the big bull was upon him. He leaped aside instinctively and escaped the
thrust of the horn, but the bull whirled also, and the animal's heavy
shoulder struck him with such force that he was knocked senseless.
When Robert came to himself he was conscious of an aching body and an
aching head, but he recalled little else at first. Then he remembered
the fierce thrusts of the angry old bull, and he was glad that he was
alive. He felt of himself to see if one of those sharp horns had entered
him anywhere, and he was intensely relieved to find that he had suffered
no wound. Evidently it had been a collision in which he had been the
sufferer, and that he had fallen flat had been a lucky thing for him, as
the fierce bull had charged past him and had then gone on.
Robert was compelled to smile sourly at himself. He had wanted the
element of danger as a spice for his hunting, and he had most certainly
found it. He had been near death often, but never nearer than when the
old bull plunged against him. He rose slowly and painfully, shook
himself several times to throw off as well as he could the effect of his
heavy jolt, then picked up his rifle at one point and his pistol at
another.
The herd was gone, but the cow that he had chosen lay dead, and, as her
condition showed him that he had been unconscious not more than five
minutes, there was his fresh beef after all. As his strength was fast
returning, he cut up and dressed the cow, an achievement in which a long
experience in hunting had made him an expert. He hung the quarters in a
dense thicket of tall bushes where vultures or buzzards could not get at
them, and took some of the tenderest steaks home with him.
He broiled the steaks over a fine bed of coals in front of the house and
ate them with bread that he baked himself from the ship's flour. He
enjoyed his dinner and he was devoutly grateful for his escape. But how
much pleasanter it would have been if Willet and Tayoga, those faithful
comrades of many perils, were there with him to share it! He wondered
what they were doing. Doubtless they had hunted for him long, and they
had suspected and sought to trace Garay, but the cunning spy doubtless
had fled from Albany immediately after his capture. Willet and Tayoga,
failing to find him, would join in the great campaign which the British
and Americans would certainly organize anew against Canada.
It was this thought of the campaign that was most bitter to Robert. He
was heart and soul in the war, in which he believed mighty issues to be
involved, and he had seen so much of it already that he wanted to be in
it to the finish. When these feelings were strong upon him it was almost
intolerable to be there upon the island, alone and helpless. All the
world's great events were passing him by as if he did not exist. But the
periods of gloom would not last long. Despite his new gravity, his
cheerful, optimistic spirit remained, and it always pulled him away from
the edge of despair.
Although he had an abundance of fresh meat, he went on a second hunt of
the wild cattle in order to keep mind and body occupied. He wanted
particularly to find the big bull that had knocked him down, and he knew
that he would recognize him when he found him. He saw a herd grazing on
the same little savanna by the lake, but when he had stalked it with
great care he found that it was not the one he wanted.
A search deeper into the hills revealed another herd, but still the
wrong one. A second day's search disclosed the right group grazing in a
snug little valley, and there was the big bull who had hurt so sorely
his body and his pride. A half hour of creeping in the marsh grass and
thickets and he was within easy range. Then he carefully picked out that
spot on the bull's body beneath which his heart lay, cocked his rifle,
took sure aim, and put his finger to the trigger.
But Robert did not pull that trigger. He merely wished to show to
himself and to any invisible powers that might be looking on that he
could lay the bull in the dust if he wished. If he wanted revenge for
grievous personal injury it was his for the taking. But he did not want
it. The bull was not to blame. He had merely been defending his own from
a dangerous intruder and so was wholly within his rights.
"Now that I've held you under my muzzle you're safe from me, old
fellow," were Robert's unspoken words.
He felt that his dignity was restored and that, at the same time, his
sense of right had been maintained. Elated, he went back to the house
and busied himself, arranging his possessions. They were so numerous
that he was rather crowded, but he was not willing to give up anything.
One becomes very jealous over his treasures when he knows the source of
supplies may have been cut off forever. So he rearranged them, trying to
secure for himself better method and more room, and he also gave them a
more minute examination.
In a small chest which he had not opened before he found, to his great
delight, a number of books, all the plays of Shakespeare, several by
Beaumont and Fletcher, others by Congreve and Marlowe, Monsieur Rollin's
Ancient History, a copy of Telemachus, translations of the Iliad and
Odyssey, Ovid, Horace, Virgil and other classics. Most of the books
looked as if they had been read and he thought they might have belonged
to the captain, but there was no inscription in any of them, and, on the
other hand, they might have been taken from a captured ship.
With plenty of leisure and a mind driven in upon itself, Robert now read
a great deal, and, as little choice was left to him, he read books that
he might have ignored otherwise. Moreover, he thought well upon what he
read. It seemed to him as he went over his Homer again and again that
the gods were cruel. Men were made weak and fallible, and then they were
punished because they failed or erred. The gods themselves were not at
all exempt from the sins, or, rather, mistakes for which they punished
men. He felt this with a special force when he read his Ovid. He
thought, looking at it in a direct and straight manner, that Niobe had a
right to be proud of her children, and for Apollo to slay them because
of that pride was monstrous.
His mind also rebelled at his Virgil. He did not care much for the
elderly lover, Æneas, who fled from Carthage and Dido, and when Æneas
and his band came to Italy his sympathies were largely with Turnus, who
tried to keep his country and the girl that really belonged to him. He
was quite sure that something had been wrong in the mind of Virgil and
that he ought to have chosen another kind of hero.
Shakespeare, whom he had been compelled to read at school, he now read
of his own accord, and he felt his romance and poetry. But he lingered
longer over the somewhat prosy ancient history of Monsieur Rollin. His
imaginative mind did not need much of a hint to attempt the
reconstruction of old empires. But he felt that always in them too much
depended upon one man. When an emperor fell an empire fell, when a king
was killed a kingdom went down.
He applied many of the lessons from those old, old wars to the great war
that was now raging, and he was confirmed in his belief that England and
her colonies would surely triumph. The French monarchy, to judge from
all that he had heard, was now in the state of one of those old oriental
monarchies, decayed and rotten, spreading corruption from a poisoned
center to all parts of the body. However brave and tenacious the French
people might be, and he knew that none were more so, he was sure they
could not prevail over the strength of free peoples like those who
fought under the British flag, free to grow, whatever their faults might
be. So, old Monsieur Rollin, who had brought tedium to many, brought
refreshment and courage to Robert.
But he did not bury himself in books. He had been a creature of action
too long for that. He hunted the wild cattle over the hills, and, now
and then, taking the dinghy he hunted the sharks also. Whenever he found
one he did not spare the bullets. His finger did not stop at the
trigger, but pulled hard, and he rarely missed.
But in spite of reading and action, time dragged heavily. The old
loneliness and desolation would return and they were hard to dispel. He
could not keep from crying aloud at the cruelty of fate. He was young,
so vital, so intensely alive, so anxious to be in the middle of things,
that it was torture to be held there. Yet he was absolutely helpless. It
would be folly to attempt escape in the little dinghy, and he must wait
until a ship came. He would spend hours every day on the highest hill,
watching the horizon through his glasses for a ship, and then, bitter
with disappointment, he would refuse to look again for a long time.
Whether his mind was up or down its essential healthiness and sanity
held true. He always came back to the normal. Had he sought purposely to
divest himself of hope he could not have done it. The ship was coming.
Its coming was as certain as the rolling in of the tide, only one had to
wait longer for it.
Yet time passed, and there was no sign of a sail on the horizon. His
island was as lonely as if it were in the South Seas instead of the
Atlantic. He began to suspect that it was not really a member of any
group, but was a far flung outpost visited but rarely. Perhaps the war
and its doubling the usual dangers of the sea would keep a ship of any
kind whatever from visiting it. He refused to let the thought remain
with him, suppressing it resolutely, and insisting to himself that such
a pleasant little island was bound to have callers some time or other,
some day.
But the weeks dragged by, and he was absolutely alone in his world. He
had acquired so many stores from the schooner that life was comfortable.
It even had a touch of luxury, and the struggle for existence was far
from consuming all his hours. He found himself as time went on driven
more and more upon his books, and he read them, as few have ever read
anything, trying to penetrate everything and to draw from them the best
lessons.
As a student, in a very real sense of the term, Robert became more
reconciled to his isolation. His mind was broadening and deepening, and
he felt that it was so. Many things that had before seemed a puzzle to
him now became plain. He was compelled, despite his youth, to meditate
upon life, and he resolved that when he took up its thread again among
his kind he would put his new knowledge to the best of uses.
He noted a growth of the body as well as of the mind. An abundant and
varied diet and plenty of rest gave him a great physical stimulus. It
seemed to him that he was taller, and he was certainly heavier. Wishing
to profit to the utmost, and, having a natural neatness, he looked after
himself with great care, bathing inside the reefs once every day, and,
whether there was work to be done or not, taking plenty of exercise.
He lost count of the days, but he knew that he was far into the autumn,
that in truth winter must have come in his own and distant north. That
thought at times was almost maddening. Doubtless the snow was already
falling on the peaks that had seen so many gallant exploits by his
comrades and himself, and on George and Champlain, the lakes so
beautiful and majestic under any aspect. Those were the regions he
loved. When would he see them again? But such thoughts, too, he crushed
and saw only the ship that was to take him back to his own.
Some change in the weather came, and he was aware that the winter of the
south was at hand. Yet it was not cold. There was merely a fresh sparkle
in the air, a new touch of crispness. Low, gray skies were a relief,
after so much blazing sunshine, and the cool winds whipped his blood to
new life. The house had a fireplace and chimney and often he built a low
fire, not so much for the sake of warmth as for the cheer that the
sparkling blaze gave. Then he could imagine that he was back in his
beloved province of New York. Now the snow was certainly pouring down
there. The lofty peaks were hidden in clouds of white, and the ice was
forming around the edges of Andiatarocte and Oneadatote. Perhaps Willet
and Tayoga were scouting in the snowy forests, but they must often hang
over the blazing fires, too.
The coldness without, the blaze on the hearth, and the warmth within
increased his taste for reading and his comprehension seemed to grow
also. He found new meanings in the classics and he became saturated also
with style. His were the gifts of an orator, and it was often said in
after years, when he became truly great, that his speech, in words, in
metaphor and in illustration followed, or at least were influenced, by
the best models. Some people found in him traces of Shakespeare, the
lofty imagery and poetry and the deep and wide knowledge of human
emotions, of life itself. Others detected the mighty surge of Homer, or
the flow of Virgil, and a few discerning minds found the wit shown in
the comedies of the Restoration, from which he had unconsciously plucked
the good, leaving the bad.
It is but a truth to say that every day he lived in these days he lived
a week or maybe a month. The stillness, the utter absence of his kind,
drove his mind inward with extraordinary force. He gained a breadth of
vision and a power of penetration of which he had not dreamed. He
acquired toleration, too. Looking over the recent events in his perilous
life, he failed to find hate for anybody. Perhaps untoward events had
turned the slaver into his evil career, and at the last he had shown
some good. The French were surely fighting for what they thought was
their own, and they struck in order that they might not be struck.
Tandakora himself was the creature of his circumstances. He hated the
people of the English colonies, because they were spreading over the
land and driving away the game. He was cruel because it was the Ojibway
nature to be cruel. He would have to fight Tandakora, but it was because
conditions had made it necessary.
His absorption as a student now made him forget often that he was alone,
and there were long periods when he was not unhappy, especially when he
was trying to solve some abstruse mental problem. He regretted sometimes
that he did not have any book on mathematics, but perhaps it was as well
for him that he did not. His mind turned more to the other side of life,
to style, to poetry, to the imagination, and, now, as he was moving
along the line of least resistance, under singularly favorable
circumstances, he made extraordinary progress.
Heavy winds came and Robert liked them. He had plenty of warm clothing
and it pleased him to walk on the beach, his face whipped by the gale,
and to watch the great waves come in. It made him stronger to fight the
storm. The response to its challenge rose in his blood. It was curious,
but at such times his hope was highest. He stood up, defying the lash of
wind and rain, and felt his courage rise with the contest. Often, he ran
up and down the beach until he was soaked through, letting the fierce
waves sweep almost to his feet, then he would go back to the house,
change to dry clothing, and sleep without dreams.
There was no snow, although he longed for it, as do those who are born
in northern regions. Once, when he stood on the crest of the tallest
hill on the island, he thought he saw a few tiny flakes floating in the
air over his head, but they were swept away by the wind, as if they were
down, and he never knew whether it was an illusion or reality. But he
was glad that it had happened. It gave him a fleeting touch of home, and
he could imagine once more, and, for a few seconds, that he was not
alone on the island, but back in his province of New York, with his
friends not far away.
Then came several days of fierce and continuous cold rain, but he put on
an oilskin coat that he found among the stores and spent much of the
time out of doors, hunting ducks along the edges of the larger lake,
walking now and then for the sake of walking, and, on rare occasions,
seeking the wild cattle for fresh meat. The herds were in the timber
most of the time for shelter, but he was invariably able to secure a
tender cow or a yearling for his larder. He saw the big bull often, and,
although he was charged by him once again, he refused to pull trigger on
the old fellow. He preferred to look upon him as a friend whom he had
met once in worthy combat, but with whom he was now at peace. When the
bull charged him he dodged him easily among the bushes and called out
whimsically:
"Let it be the last time! I don't mean you any harm!"
The fierce leader went peacefully back to his grazing, and it seemed to
Robert that he had been taken at his word. The old bull apparently
realized at last that he was in no danger from the human being who came
to look at him at times, and he also was willing to call a truce. Robert
saw him often after that, and invariably hailed him with words of
friendship, though at a respectful distance. The old fellow would look
up, shake his big head once or twice in a manner not at all hostile, and
then go on peacefully with his grazing. It pleased Robert to think that
in the absence of his own kind he had a friend here, and--still at a
respectful distance--he confided to him some of his opinions upon
matters of importance. He laughed at himself for doing so, but he was
aware that he found in it a certain relief, and he continued the
practice.
The dinghy became one of his most precious possessions. A little farther
to the north he had found a creek that flowed down from the center of
the island, rising among the hills. It was narrow and shallow, except
near the mouth, but there it had sufficient depth for the boat, and he
made of it a safe anchorage and port during the winter storms. He slept
more easily now, as he knew that however hard the wind might blow there
was no danger of its being carried out to sea. He thought several times
of rigging a mast and sails for it and trying to make some other island,
but he gave up the idea, owing to the smallness of the boat, and his own
inexperience as a sailor. He was at least safe and comfortable where he
was, and a voyage of discovery or escape meant almost certain death.
But he used the dinghy in calm weather for bringing back some of the
stores that he had left on the other side of the island. The lighter
articles he brought by land. There was not room for all of them in the
house, but he built a shed under which he placed those not of a
perishable nature, and covered them over with the tarpaulin and sails.
He still had the feeling that he must not lose or waste anything,
because he knew that in the back of his head lay an apprehension lest
his time on the island should be long, very long.
He kept in iron health. His life in the wilderness had taught him how to
take care of himself, and, with an abundant and varied diet and plenty
of exercise, he never knew a touch of illness. He did not forget to be
grateful for it. A long association with Tayoga had taught him to
remember these things. It might be true that he was being guarded by
good spirits. The white man's religion and the red man's differed only
in name. His God and Tayoga's Manitou were the same, and the spirits of
the Onondaga were the same as his angels of divine power and mercy.
Often in the moonlight he looked up at the great star upon which Tayoga
said that Tododaho dwelled, that wise Onondaga chieftain who had gone
away to the skies four hundred years before. Once or twice he thought he
could see the face of Tododaho with the wise snakes, coil on coil in his
hair, but, without his full faith, it was not given to him to have the
full vision of Tayoga. He found comfort, however, in the effort. It gave
new strength to the spirit, and, situated as he was, it was his soul,
not his body, that needed fortifying.
He decided that Christmas was near at hand, and he decided to celebrate
it. With the count of time lost it was impossible for him to know the
exact day, but he fixed upon one in his mind, and resolved to use it
whether right or wrong in date. The mere fact that he celebrated it
would make it right in spirit. It might be the 20th or the 30th of
December, but if he chose to call it the 25th, the 25th it would be.
Endowed so liberally with fancy and with such a power of projecting the
mind, it was easy for him to make believe, to turn imagination into
reality. And this power was heightened by his loneliness and isolation,
and by the turning in of his mind so tremendously upon itself.
After the thought of a Christmas dinner was struck out by his fancy it
grew fast, and he made elaborate preparations. Ducks were shot, a
yearling from the wild cattle was killed, the stores from the ship were
drawn upon liberally, and he even found among them a pudding which could
yet be made savory. Long experience had made him an excellent cook and
he attended to every detail in the most thorough manner.
The dinner set, he arrayed himself in the finest clothes to be found in
his stock, and then, when all was ready, he sat down to his improvised
board. But there was not one plate alone, there were four, one for
Willet opposite him, one for Tayoga at his right hand and one for
Grosvenor at his left. And for every thing he ate he placed at least a
small portion on every plate, while with unspoken words he talked with
these three friends of his.
It was a dark day, very cold and raw for the island, and while there was
no Christmas snow there was a cold rain lashing the windows that could
very well take its place. A larger fire than usual, crackling and
cheerful, was blazing on the hearth, throwing the red light of its
flames over the table, and the three places where his invisible friends
sat.
His power of evocation was so vivid and intense that he could very well
say that he saw his comrades around the table. There was Willet big,
grave and wise, but with the lurking humor in the corner of his eye,
there was Tayoga, lean, calm, inscrutable, the young philosopher of the
woods and the greatest trailer in the world, and there was Grosvenor,
ruddy, frank, tenacious, eager to learn all the lore of the woods. Yes,
he could see them and he was glad that he was serving Christmas food to
them as well as to himself. Willet loved wild duck and so he gave him an
extra portion. Tayoga was very partial to cakes of flour and so he gave
him a double number, and Grosvenor, being an Englishman, must love beef,
so he helped him often to steak.
It was fancy, but fancy breeds other and stronger fancies, and the
feeling that it was all reality grew upon him. Dreams are of thin and
fragile texture, but they are very vivid while they last. Of course
Willet, Tayoga and Grosvenor were there, and when the food was all
served, course by course, he filled four glasses, one at each plate,
from a bottle of the old cordial that he had saved from the ship, lifted
his own to his lips, tasted it and said aloud:
"To the victory of our cause under the walls of Quebec!"
Then he shut his eyes and when he shut them he saw the three tasting
their own glasses, and he heard them say with him:
"To the victory of our cause under the walls of Quebec!"