Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 315
“A raccoon,” he said presently. “Can you see the foxy head peeping so slyly down at us? Look at Sagamore nosing the air in that droll blind mole-like way. He knows there’s something furry up aloft somewhere; and he knows it’s none of his business.”
They watched the motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid bronzing leafy depths.
In the silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig to twig, cheeping inquiringly.
She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to his low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness and forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing the great out-world ‘twixt sky and earth. Sunlight and shadows moving, speech and silence, waxed and waned. A listless contentment lay warm upon her, weighting the heavy white lids. The blue of her eyes was very dark now — almost purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws turn the blue to violet.
“Did you ever hear of the ‘Lesser Children’?” she asked. “Listen then:
“‘Multitudes, multitudes, under the moon they stirred!
The weakerbrothers of our earthly breed;
All came about my head and at my feet
A thousand thousand sweet,
With starry eyes not even raised to plead:
Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute!
And I beheld and saw them one by one
Pass, and become as nothing in the night.’
“Do you know what it means?
“‘Winged mysteries of song that from the sky
Once dashed long music down—’
“Do you understand?” she asked, smiling.
“‘Who has not seen in the high gulf of light
What, lower, was a bird!’”
She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: “Do you know that plea for mercy on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season opens for your pleasure, Mr. Siward?”
“Is it a woodland sermon?” he inquired, too politely.
“The poem? No; it is the case for the prosecution. The prisoner may defend himself if he can.”
“The defence rests,” he said. “The prisoner moves that he be discharged.”
“Motion denied,” she interrupted promptly.
Somewhere in the woodland world the crows were holding a noisy session, and she told him that was the jury debating the degree of his guilt.
“Because you’re guilty of course,” she continued. “I wonder what your sentence is to be?”
“I’ll leave it to you,” he suggested lazily.
“Suppose I sentenced you to slay no more?”
“Oh, I’d appeal—”
“No use; I am the tribunal of last resort.”
“Then I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.”
“You do well, Mr. Siward. This court is very merciful.... How much do you care for bird murder? Very much? Is there anything you care for more? Yes? And could this court grant it to you in compensation?”
He said, deliberately, roused by the level challenge of her gaze: “The court is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any compromise.”
“Why, Mr. Siward?”
“Because the court herself is already compromised in her future engagements.”
“But what has my — engagement to do with—”
“You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could be only one adequate compensation.”
“And that?” she asked, coolly enough.
“Your continual companionship.”
“But you have it, Mr. Siward—”
“I have it for a day. The season lasts three months you know.”
“And you and I are to play a continuous vaudeville for three months? Is that your offer?”
“Partly.”
“Then one day with me is not worth those many days of murder?” she asked in pretended astonishment.
“Ask yourself why those many days would be doubly empty,” he said so seriously that the pointless game began to confuse her.
“Then” — she turned lightly from uncertain ground— “then perhaps we had better be about that matter of the cup you prize so highly. Are you ready, Mr. Siward? There is much to be killed yet — including time, you know.”
But the hinted sweetness of the challenge had aroused him, and he made no motion to rise. Nor did she.
“I am not sure,” he reflected, “just exactly what I should ask of you if you insist on taking away—” he turned and looked about him through the burnt gold foliage, “ — if you took away all this out of my life.”
“I shall not take it; because I have nothing in exchange to offer... you say,” she answered imprudently.
“I did not say so,” he retorted.
“You did — reminding me that the court is already engaged for a continuous performance.”
“Was it necessary to remind you?” he asked with deliberate malice.
She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with beautiful hostile eyes. “What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking our harmless, idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?”
“Have I offended?” he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed.
“How far have we to go?” she asked quietly.
He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question. And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead through a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge, then down, always down along a leafy ravine to the water’s edge — a forest pond set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples.
“I don’t see,” said Sylvia impatiently, “how we are going to obey instructions and go straight ahead. There must be a stupid boat somewhere!”
But the game-laden keeper shook his head, pulled up his hip boots, and pointed out a line of alder poles set in the water to mark a crossing.
“Am I expected to wade?” asked the girl anxiously.
“This here,” observed the keeper, “is one of the most sportin’ courses on the estate. Last season I seen Miss Page go through it like a scared deer — the young lady, sir, that took last season’s cup” — in explanation to Siward, who stood doubtfully at the water’s edge, looking back at Sylvia.
Raising her dismayed eyes she encountered his; there was a little laugh between them. She stepped daintily across the stones to the water’s edge, instinctively gathering her kilts in one hand.
“Miles and I could chair you over,” suggested Siward.
“Is that fair — under the rules?”
“Oh, yes, Miss; as long as you go straight,” said the keeper.
So they laid aside the guns and the guide’s game-sack, and formed a chair with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded out along the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in brown water.
Before them herons rose into heavy flapping flight, broad wings glittering in the sun; a diver, distantly afloat among the lily pads, settled under the water to his eyes as a submarine settles till the conning-tower is awash.
Her arm, lightly resting around his neck, tightened a trifle as the water rose to his thighs; then the faint pressure relaxed as they thrashed shoreward through the shallows, ankle deep once more, and landed among the dry reeds on the farther bank.
Miles, the keeper, went back for the guns. Siward stamped about in the sun, shaking the drops from water-proof breeches and gaiters, only to be half drenched again when Sagamore shook himself vigorously.
“I suppose,” said Sylvia, looking sideways at Siward, “your contempt for my sporting accomplishments has not decreased. I’m sorry; I don’t like to walk in wet shoes... even to gain your approval.”
And, as the keeper came splashing across the shallows: “Miles, you may carry my gun. I shall not need it any longer—”
The upward roar of a bevey of grouse drowned her voice; poor Sagamore, pointing madly in the blackberry thicket all unperceived, cast a dismayed glance aloft where the sunlit air quivered under the winnowing rush of heavy wings. Siward flung up his gun, heading a big quartering bird; steadily the glittering barrels swept in the arc of fire, hesitated, wavered; then the possibility passed; the young fellow lowered the gun, slowly, gravely; stood a moment motionless with bent head until the rising colour in his face had faded.
And that was all, for a while. The astonished and disgusted keeper stared into the thicket; the dog lay quivering, impatient for signal. Sylvia’s heart, which had seemed to stop with her voice, silenced in the gusty thunder of heavy wings, began beating too fast. For the ringing crack of a gun shot could have spoken no louder to her than the glittering silence of the suspended barrels; nor any promise of his voice sound as the startled stillness sounded now about her. For he had made something a trifle more than mere amends for his rudeness. He was overdoing everything — a little.
He stood on the thicket’s edge, absently unloading the weapon, scarcely understanding what he had done and what he had not done.
A moment later a far hail sounded across the uplands, and against the sky figures moved distantly.
“Alderdene and Marion Page,” said Siward. “I believe we lunch yonder, do we not, Miles?”
They climbed the hill in silence, arriving after a few minutes to find others already at luncheon — the Page boys, eager, enthusiastic, recounting adventure by flood and field; Rena Bonnesdel tired and frankly bored and decorated with more than her share of mud; Eileen Shannon, very pretty, very effective, having done more execution with her eyes than with the dainty fowling-piece beside her.
Marion Page nodded to Sylvia and Siward with a crisp, business-like question or two, then went over to inspect their bag, nodding approbation as Miles laid the game on the grass.
“Eight full brace,” she commented. “We have five, and an odd cock-pheasant — from Black Fells, I suppose. The people to our left have been blazing away like Coney Island, but Rena’s guide says the ferns are full of rabbits that way, and Major Belwether can’t hit fur afoot. You,” she added frankly to Siward, “ought to take the cup. The birches ahead of you are full of woodcock. If you don’t, Howard Quarrier will. He’s into a flight of jack-snipe I hear.”
Siward’s eyes had suddenly narrowed; then he laughed, patting Sagamore’s cheeks. “I don’t believe I shall shoot very steadily this afternoon,” he said, turning toward the group at luncheon under the trees. “I wish Quarrier well — with the cup.”
“Nonsense,” said Marion Page curtly; “you are the cleanest shot I ever knew.” And she raised her glass to him, frankly, and emptied it with the precision characteristic of her: “Your cup! With all my heart!”
“I also drink to your success, Mr. Siward,” said Sylvia in a low voice, lifting her champagne glass in the sunlight. “To the Shotover Cup — if you wish it.” And as other glasses sparkled aloft amid a gay tumult of voices wishing him success, Sylvia dropped her voice, attuning it to his ear alone: “Success for the cup, if you wish it — or, whatever you wish — success!” and she meant it very kindly.
His hand resting on his glass he sat, smiling silent acknowledgment to the noisy generous toasts; he turned and looked at Sylvia when her low voice caught his ear — looked at her very steadily, unsmiling.
Then to the others, brightening again, he said a word or two, wittily, with a gay compliment well placed and a phrase to end it in good taste. And, in the little gust of hand-clapping and laughter, he turned again to Sylvia, smilingly, saying under his breath: “As though winning the cup could compensate me now for losing it!”
She leaned involuntarily nearer: “You mean that you will not try for it?”
“Yes.”
“That is not fair — to me!”
“Why not?”
“Because — because I do not ask it of you.”
“You need not, now that I know your wish.”
“Mr. Siward, I — my wish—”
But she had no chance to finish; already Rena Bonnesdel was looking at them, and there was a hint of amused surprise in Eileen Shannon’s mischievous eyes, averted instantly, with malicious ostentation.
Then Marion Page took possession of him so exclusively, so calmly, that something in her cool certainty vaguely irritated Sylvia, who had never liked her. Besides, the girl showed too plainly her indifference to other people; which other people seldom find amusing.
“Stephen,” called out Alderdene, anxiously counting the web loops in his khaki vest, “what do you call fair shooting at these damnable ruffed grouse? You needn’t be civil about it, you know.”
“Five shells to a bird is good shooting,” answered Siward. “Don’t you think so, Miss Page?”
“You have a better score, Mr. Siward,” said Marion Page with a hostile glance at Alderdene, who had not made good.
“That was chance — and this year’s birds. I’ve taken ten shells to an old drummer in hard wood or short pines.” He smiled to himself, adding: “A drove of six in the open got off scot free a little while ago. Miss Landis saw it.”
That he was inclined to turn it all to banter relieved her at once. “It was pitiable,” she nodded gravely to Marion; “his nerve left him when they made such a din in the briers.”
Miss Page glanced at her indifferently.
“What I need is practice like the chasseurs of Tarascon,” admitted Siward.
“I willingly offer my hat, monsieur,” said Sylvia.
Marion Page, impatient to start, had turned her tailor-made back to the company, and was instructing his crestfallen lordship very plainly: “You fire too quickly, Blinky; two seconds is what you must count when a grouse flushes. You must say ‘Mark! Right!’ or ‘Mark! Left! Bang!’”
“I might as well say ‘Bang!’ for all I’ve done to-day,” he muttered, adjusting his shooting-goggles and snapping his eyes like fury. Then exploding into raucous laughter he moved off southward with Marion Page, who had exchanged a swift handshake with Siward; the twins followed, convoying Eileen and Rena, neither maiden excitedly enthusiastic. And so the luncheon party, lord and lady, twins and maidens, guides and dogs, trailed away across the ridge, distant silhouettes presently against the sky, then gone. And after a little while the far, dry, accentless report of smokeless powder announced that the opening of the season had been resumed and the Lesser Children were dying fast in the glory of a perfect day.
“Are you ready, Mr. Siward?” She stood waiting for him at the edge of the thicket; Miles resumed his game sack and her fowling-piece; the dog came up, looking him anxiously in the eyes.
So he walked forward beside her into the dappled light of the thicket.
Within a few minutes the dog stood twice; and twice the whirring twitter of woodcock startled her, echoed by the futile crack of his gun.
“Beg pardon, sir—”
“Yes, Miles,” with a glint of humour.
“Overshot, sir, — excusin’ the liberty, Mr. Siward. Both marked down forty yard to the left if you wish to start ’em again.”
“No,” he said indifferently, “I had my chance at them. They’re exempt.”
Then Sagamore, tail wildly whipping, came smack on the trail of an old stager of a cock-grouse — on, on over rock, log, wet gully, and dry ridge, twisting, doubling, circling, every wile, every trick employed and met, until the dog crawling noiselessly forward, trembled and froze, and Siward, far to left, wheeled at the muffled and almost noiseless rise. For an instant the slanting barrels wavered, grew motionless; but only a stray sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only the feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far away over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky on slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward with bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of purpling woods.
“Vale!” said Siward aloud, “I salute you!”
He came strolling back across the crisp leaves, the dappled sunshine playing over his face like the flicker of a smile.
“Miles,” he said, “my nerve is gone. Such things happen. I’m all in. Come over here, my friend, and look at the sun with me.”
The discomfited keeper obeyed.
“Where ought that refulgent luminary to scintilate when I face Osprey Ledge?”
“Sir?”
“The sun. How do I hold it?”
“On the p’int of your right shoulder, sir. — You ain’t quittin’, Mr. Siward, sir!” anxiously; “that Shotover Cup is easy yours, sir!” eagerly; “Wot’s a miss on a old drummer, Mr. Siward? Wot’s twice over-shootin’ cock, sir, when a blind dropper can see you are the cleanest, fastest, hard-shootin’ shot in the null county!”
But Siward shook his head with an absent glance at the dog, and motioned the astonished keeper forward.
“Line the easiest trail for us,” he said; “I think we are already a trifle tired. Twigs will do in short cover; use a hatchet in the big timber.... And go slow till we join you.”
And when the unwilling and perplexed keeper had started, Siward, unlocking his gun, drew out the smooth yellow cartridges and pocketed them.
Sylvia looked up as the sharp metallic click of the locked breech rang out in the silence.
“Why do you do this, Mr. Siward?”
“I don’t know; really I am honest; I don’t know.”
“It could not be because I—”
“No, of course not,” he said, too seriously to reassure her.
“Mr. Siward,” in quick displeasure.
“Yes?”
“What you do for your amusements cannot concern me.”
“Right as usual,” he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on her lips.
“Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable — if you don’t feel as I do about killing things that are having a good time in the world.”
He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his left arm. “Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?” he suggested listlessly.
