XVIII. IN THE FOREST.
[figure description] Page 214.[end figure description]
A FEW days later, Guy received the subjoined
note: —
“You promised to grant me a favor. This is
what I am directed to require of you. Find yourself at Dr.
Biddikin's to-morrow at three, P.M. There you will meet a
disagreeable little old woman, with yellow hair and a sour
temper, named
Christina.”
It bore date the previous evening. The appointed time
was at hand.
Now, it so happened that Lucy was expecting him to
accompany her that afternoon on a ramble in the woods.
Guy was in a dilemma.
His hunger for spiritual excitement decided him. He despatched
Ann Maria with a note informing Lucy that he
would be unable to fulfil his engagement with her, and hastened
to meet Christina.
On the grass before Doctor Biddikin's house sat little Job,
-- 215 --
[figure description] Page 215.[end figure description]
amusing his appetite by nibbling raw corn, and diverting his
mind by letting Jack pick his pockets. At the approach of
Guy he jumped up, and looked as if afraid of being whipped
for something.
“He ain't to hum! — gone up on the mountain!” he answered
before he was asked.
“Is there nobody in the house?”
“Nobody but me and Jack;” and he smiled a sickly
smile.
“Is that a joke?” said Guy.
“Y-a-a-s!” drawled poor little scared Job, pleading guilty
without so much as knowing what a joke was.
The crow then flew to Guy, hooked himself to his waistcoat,
and began to pick his pockets, crying, “Corn, corn!”
“Go away, you rascal!” said Guy.
“Go 'way, you rascal!” echoed Jack.
And he searched with his beak one pocket after another,
gossiping in an unintelligible jargon.
“Wants something to eat!” said Job.
“Don't he have enough?”
“N-o-o-o!”
“Don't you?”
“Y-a-a-s! I'm a 'normous eater!” grinned the little
wretch.
“Did Doctor Biddikin tell you to say so?”
“Y-a-a-s!”
“And do you know what a 'normous eater is?”
-- 216 --
[figure description] Page 216.[end figure description]
“Y-a-a-s! he nors things!”
“Hello!” laughed Guy: “we have etymologists among
us!”
“Et a what amongst us?” said Job, whose mind was on
victuals.
“Corn, corn!” said the crow, hanging by Guy's pockets.
“Did you have any of the bear?”
“He had some!” — meaning the doctor.
“Didn't he give you any?”
“N-o-o-o!” drawled Job. “He got me out of the poor-'us.
Said 'twas too good for poor-'us' boys.”
The simplicity with which he attested this miserable truth
would have moved a harder heart than Guy's.
“Come here, my lad!” He placed his hand kindly on
the boy's shoulder. “I'll see about that bear-meat: you
shall have some. Does Biddikin whip you pretty often?”
“Y-a-a-s!” and Job nestled to his side like one who for
the first time in his life had found a protector.
“What for?”
“'Cause I'm a bad boy. I tells lies!”
“Poor little Job!” said Guy. “Does he whip you
hard?”
“Y-a-a-s! But he said, `Tell 'em no, if folks ask.'”
“Whips you for lying, and then teaches you to lie! It's
too bad, Job! Where are your parents?”
“What's parents?”
“Merciful Heaven! don't you know what parents are?”
-- 217 --
[figure description] Page 217.[end figure description]
“Y-a-a-s!” with a gleam of intelligence, — “Adam and
Eve!” He remembered his catechism.
“I don't mean your first, but your last parents, Job;
your father.”
“Never had no father.”
“Nor mother, either?”
“She died,” said simple little Job, “in the poor-'us'.
Then he come and took me.”
“What do you do here?”
“Git sticks in the woods, and wash dishes.”
“What does he do?”
“Eats the victuals, and licks me.”
Too much interested in Job to look out for Jack, Guy did
not perceive that the thief was tugging at his watch-chain.
He had unhooked it at one end, and was now bent on detaching
it at the other. Suddenly out came the watch. Guy
made a snatch to recover it, but too late: the pick-pocket
was off with his booty.
He flew to the eaves, where he laughed and chattered, trying
to pull the chain to pieces, and calling out, “Corn, corn!”
“When he steals any thing, you can't git it agin,” was
Job's comforting observation. “He'll hide it somewheres.”
“Is there a gun?” said Guy, in whose countenance
Jack's doom was written.
“N-o-o-o; but there's a ladder.”
It lay on the ground by the fence. Guy placed it against
-- 218 --
[figure description] Page 218.[end figure description]
the house, and mounted, cane in hand. Jack scolded; Guy
flattered.
“Go 'way!” said Jack.
“Why, Jack!” said Guy, holding the cane behind him.
“Jack mustn't steal! pretty Jack! pious Jack!”
“Let Jack alone!” screamed Jack; and, catching up his
booty, he flew with it over the roof.
Before Guy could get down and run round the house, he
was out of sight.
“Time flies — in a rather too literal sense!” said Guy.
“Where is he, Job?”
“Guess he went to the woods,” said Job.
Beyond an intervening ridge or two rose the woody mountain-side,
whose vast and tangled wildernesses foreboded the
hopelessness of a search in that direction. However, Guy
saw nothing else to be done; and, as Christina had not arrived,
he set off in the pursuit.
Over hill and through hollow he ran, till he came to a
brook, which he was crossing, when a voice called him.
Looking down the stream, he saw, a few rods below, Christina.
“Am I late?” she said. “I got away from the company
as soon as I could. They are all upon the mountain. What
time is it?”
“Time!” echoed Guy. “Everybody will ask me the
time! If you had kept your appointment, you would have
saved me very valuable time which I lost waiting for you.”
And he related his adventure.
-- 219 --
[figure description] Page 219.[end figure description]
“It was to teach you,” said she, “how riches take to themselves
wings.” She was radiant: she laughed bewitchingly.
“The crow shall be called procrastination; for he is the thief
of time. Give up the chase, and follow me: I am of more
value than many watches.”
“A watch reminds us of the time; you cause us to forget
it,” said Guy.
“All the better!” she replied with charming sweetness.
“Let my face be your dial, and I will tick to you golden
moments! Come!”
“What is the enterprise?”
“A tramp in the woods. We shall want a shovel. Go
to that old cellar yonder, and you will find one.”
He brought a spade, and they entered the woods.
“Sit here,” said she, “till I have recovered my breath;”
and they rested on a rock by the brook-side. “Do you know
what I want of you?”
“To dig sassafras-roots, or to help you bury a dead lover.”
And he added, looking at her fixedly, —
“`Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies!
A great enchantress you may be:
But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see!'”
She started.
“Why do you look at me so? What do you mean?”
“I was only quoting Tennyson: —
-- 220 --
[figure description] Page 220.[end figure description]
“`Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall;
The guilt of blood is at your door;
You changed a noble heart to gall!'”
With a look of pain she sprang from the rock, walked
swiftly a dozen paces, then, turning, stood before him.
“What do you mean?” she repeated imperiously. “Tell
me quick! Tell me, I say!” stamping her foot.
“Why, my lady,” said Guy, surprised and curious, “I
was only reciting poetry.”
“But what put it in your head?”
“I don't know.”
“You do! You have heard — Am I a Lady Clara?”
“By my soul, I am beginning to think so!”
She put up her hand, turning from him with an expression
of misery; then, bending over the brook, she washed her hands
and bathed her brow.
“I'll tell you all about it some time,” — drying her face
with her handkerchief. “It's a strange story; but I am not
a De Vere. Come, bring your shovel.”
“Is there really a corpse?”
“Yes.”
“What an enigma you are! You almost make me think
you are in earnest.”
“I am altogether in earnest. But 'tis not my dead, thank
Heaven!”
“To be buried?”
-- 221 --
[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
“No: to be unburied.”
“Explain yourself, or I won't stir an inch.” And Guy
threw down the spade, folding his arms, and sitting on the
rock.
“Listen, then.” She came and sat by his side. “The
first time I was in Biddikin's house — you remember?”
“Yes: you spoke of disagreeable influences, and of some
person having died there.”
“I saw the dead body of a child, and the living spirit of
the child standing by, pointing at it. The same picture has
been presented to me several times since. Then have followed
visions of Doctor Biddikin. Now I see him carry the
dead child in his arms; and now he is digging with a shovel
in the woods, where we are going to dig.”
“Christina! And is it for this you have sent for me
here?”
“I did not know what it was for when I wrote to you. I
did not know until to-day how I was to get here. Then a
party was unexpectedly got up. I came with them. We
went up on the mountain. There I was trying to obtain some
impressions with regard to the money, when I saw distinctly
a peculiar bank in the woods; the body of the child buried
by the roots of a tree; on the other side a rock; the brook
running close by; a great ravine below. And the words
came to me, `Go and search.' I stole away from the company,
and met you.”
“I fear there is something in it,” said Guy. “One day,
-- 222 --
[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]
when I was sitting with our little housemaid, Ann Maria, a
spirit came and rapped out the name Martin. He gave his
age, — ten years; and said he died at Doctor Biddikin's.
This was all I could get from him. I had never known of
such a boy by name, and I inquired of Mad about him. `I
know who you mean,' said he. `That was Martin: he ran
away.' I asked the particulars of the running-away. `Once
when I had been off,' he said, `and came home, he was gone,
and we never heard of him afterwards: that's all I know.'”
“But not all his father knows,” said Christina.
“It has an ugly look,” said Guy. “But what's the use
of meddling with the affair? I've no ghoulish appetite to be
scratching up dead bodies.”
“It is necessary the body should be found, or at least
sought,” replied Christina. “Perhaps these things are all
illusions. We can't have too much proof, whether they are
true or false. I have seen the buried child; I have seen the
buried money. If we can find the one, as it has been shown
to me, why not the other?”
“How did you come by the shovel?”
“That's as much a mystery as any thing. I knew nothing
of any shovel till I sent you — or the spirits sent you — to
the old cellar for it.”
“I swear, it takes faith to believe these things! Come,
now, with your magic, find me my watch: then I will believe;
then I will do whatever you require of me.”
“Will you help me dig for the body?”
-- 223 --
[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]
“Yes, and for the money too, provided we find the body.”
“Remember your words. Take the bawble!” and she
drew the lost watch from her bosom.
Lucy had all things prepared for the anticipated ramble,
when Guy's letter came with its shock of disappointment.
She sat down to sew. But her heart was not in her work;
it was not in that narrow room: it had been all day among
the trees, by the watercourse; and it drew her thither now,
though she must go alone.
Out into the woods, therefore, she stole, where the brook
sang its loud gushing song; where the bluish golden sunlight
barred the hazy atmosphere lodged in the forest-tops; where
leafy clusters of scarlet and orange and pale gold were beginning
to variegate the summer foliage; where the ghosts of
happy days and dead loves came out of the gloom to meet
her, wrapping her heart also in soft, sun-barred haze, and
singing to her with voices far off, veiled and mournful.
The cool depths of the forest stretched away before her
with an awful yet sweet aspect of loneliness. Tender
thoughts, tantalizing fancies, something delicious and vague
and evanescent, she knew not what, seemed to lurk in every
nook, and flee at her approach.
“O Happiness!” she said, “it is you I am always playing
hide-and-seek with, — you flitting, fleeting shade!”
She reached the rock where Guy had discovered her
retreat one ever-memorable morning. She sat down again
-- 224 --
[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]
by the torrent, and recalled that time, and the changes since
that time; gazing into the bubbling and beaded water; gazing
into the vast and misty sea of the future, towards which
she was drifting, drifting, on the waves of another stream.
Perturbed, pierced with the keen agony of doubt, she
rose, and threaded the forest. Farther than ever before, she
advanced to meet the brook coming down. Its gladness and
beauty reminded her of scenes, which she had heard Guy describe,
far up in the gorge of the mountain. Pain and desire
urged her on. She came out upon an upland field. Before
her stretched the eastern range, all glimmering in blue and
gold. There, coiling high and white, wound the snake-like
mountain-road. On the right were the columnar crags, with
the pyramidal ruins beneath, just visible above billowy verdure.
Between the crags and the road was a thick-wooded
section of the hill, through which a branch of the brook
descended. She felt a wild impulse to visit it. She set out
in haste.
All breathless and trembling, she reached the jungly recesses
of the gorge. There was no path; and she had to make
her way through closely interlocked branches of young hemlocks,
which harassed her with their hedge-like entanglements,
and low, dead, sharply projecting limbs. On these
she tore her clothes and wounded her hands. But she persevered,
until there appeared before her a hushed and dusky
greenwood, rising on the mountain-side with its lofty crested
trunks and dim spaces.
-- 225 --
[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
She advanced with feet that hesitated at their own soft
rustling tread. Above her the spotted sunshine slept like
leopards on the boughs. The plaint of waterfalls was just
audible; towards which she made her way. And now, arrived
at the brink of a steep bank, a snowy wonder met her eyes.
It was a cascade, bright and curved, dividing the hillside
with its flashing cimeter.
She uttered a cry of delight, which fell back heavily upon
her heart at the thought which instantly followed, — that Guy
should be with her there, but was not.
She did not linger. Wonders still beyond awaited her.
An almost unbroken chain of waterfalls led her on by a hundred
links of discovery and surprise. Few had ever penetrated
that secret spot. Female footprints had never before
pressed those mosses and old leaves; eyes of woman had
never before gazed upon that necklace of cascades dropped
from the mountain's breast. Every step was a rapture and a
regret. How beautiful! But why had she come without
Guy?
Sometimes she climbed the stairway of the brook, in the
cool scissure of the rocks. From profound recesses, forever
chill and dim, she looked up at the sunshine on the leaning
trees a hundred feet above her head. She imprinted the
dank gravel and sand of mossy nooks; she flitted like a bird
over the broad sloping ledges; she pulled herself up steep
places by the boughs of trees. At times, by her feet, or
deep in the fissure beneath her, or now high on the rocks
-- 226 --
[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]
above, the Protean water shifted and shone. It gleamed far
off like a white statue in a dark niche. It broke into foam
and spray on jutting crags, and gathered itself together again
in tremulous, surprised pools. Behind screens of foliage it
danced like nymphs in snowy drapery. It dripped in a thousand
slender threads from long moss-fringes, veiling the blind
black front of some Cyclopean rock. It lurked dark and shuddering
among the great bowlders and in slimy clefts. Down
long, slant grooves it slid and crawled like cream. It rippled
a magic ribbon from the lip of the ledge, as if the hill had
“oped its ponderous and marble jaws” to rival the conjuror's
art; and now, through craggy teeth, it gushed like milk.
Weary at length, Lucy laid herself down upon the roots
of a great tree that overleaned the chasm. There she reclined,
listening to the never-ceasing plash and drizzle of the
water, and watching a silver sheet poured over a broad shelf
into a misty cave below; when into the murmurous solitude
came a sound like human voices.
She started, lifted her cheek from her hand, looked all
around, but saw no one. Again, — clear, ringing voices!
And now she perceived, emerging from the wilderness above,
two figures.
They were descending the opposite bank. From root to
root, by saplings and shrubs, they let themselves down into
the cavern. Leaping from the edge of the solid, water-worn
wall, one of them — a man — landed upon the gravelly floor,
and, reaching up, took in his arms the other, — a woman, —
whom he placed by his side.
-- 227 --
[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]
They sat down on a fragment of rock. The mist of the
cascade enveloped them. The agitated waters of the basin
rippled at their feet. All around were upheaved strata and
overhanging trees; on the roots of one of which lay Lucy,
stunned with jealousy and despair.
-- 228 -- p730-233
Trowbridge, J. T. (John Townsend), 1827-1916 [1866], Lucy Arlyn (Ticknor and Fields, Boston) [word count] [eaf730T].
