Earth\'s Enigmas

C >> Charles G. D. Roberts >> Earth\'s Enigmas

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Just then the clouds thickened over the face of the moon, and the light
faded rapidly. To get down inside the fence with that thing was, for a
moment, simply sickening, and my eyes dilated with the intensity of my
stare. Then common-sense came to the rescue, with a revulsion of
feeling, and I laughed--though not very mirthfully--at the thoroughness
of my scare.

With an assumption of coolness and defiance I walked right up to the
open doors; and when so close that I could have touched it with my
walking-stick, the thing swayed gently and faced me in the light of the
re-appearing moon.

Could my eyes deceive me? It certainly was our neighbor.

Scarcely knowing what I did, I thrust out my stick and touched it,
shrinking back as I did so. What I touched, plain instantly to my sight,
was a piece of wood and iron,--some portion of a mowing-machine or
reaper, which had been, apparently, repainted and hung up across the
door-pole to dry.

It swayed in the wind. The straying fingers of the moonbeams through the
chinks pencilled it strangely, and the shadows were huddled black behind
it. But now it hung revealed, with no more likeness to a human body than
any average well-meaning farm-implement might be expected to have.

With a huge sigh of relief I turned away. As I climbed the fence once
more I gave a parting glance toward the yawning doorway of the barn on
the marsh. There, as plain as before I had pierced the bubble, swung the
body of my neighbor. And all the way home, though I would not turn my
head, I felt it at my heels.

Captain Joe and Jamie.

How the wind roared in from the sea over the Tantramar dike!

It was about sunset, and a fierce orange-red gleam, thrusting itself
through a rift in the clouds that blackened the sky, cast a strange glow
over the wide, desolate marshes. A mile back rose the dark line of the
uplands, with small, white farmhouses already hidden in shadow.

Captain Joe Boultbee had just left his wagon standing in the dike road,
with his four-year-old boy on the seat. He was on the point of crossing
the dike, to visit the little landing-place where he kept his boat, when
above the rush and whistle of the gale he heard Jamie's voice. He
hurried back a few paces before he could make out what the little fellow
was saying.

"Pap," cried the child, "I want to get out of the wagon. 'Fraid Bill
goin' to run away!"

"Oh, nonsense!" answered Captain Joe. "Bill won't run away. He doesn't
know how. You stay there, and don't be frightened, and I'll be right
back."

"But, pap, the wind blows me too hard," piped the small voice,
pleadingly.

"Oh, all right," said the father, and returning to the wagon he lifted
the child gently down and set him on his feet. "Now," he continued,
"it's too windy for you out on the other side of the dike. You run over
and sit on that big stick, where the wind can't get at you; and wait for
me. And be sure you don't let Bill run away."

As he spoke the Captain noticed that the horse, ordinarily one of the
most stolid of creatures, seemed to-night peculiarly uneasy; with his
head up in the air he was sniffing nervously, and glancing from side to
side. As Jamie was trudging through the long grass to the seat which his
father had shown him, the Captain said, "Why, Bill _does_ seem scary,
after all; who'd have thought this wind would scare _him_?"

"Bill don't like it," replied Jamie; "it blows him too hard." And, glad
to be out of the gale, which took his breath away, the little fellow
seated himself contentedly in the shelter of the dike. Just then there
was a clatter of wheels and a crash. Bill had whirled sharply about in
the narrow road, upsetting and smashing the light wagon.

Now, utterly heedless of his master's angry shouts, he was galloping in
mad haste back toward the uplands, with the fragments of the wagon at
his heels. The Captain and Jamie watched him flying before the wind, a
red spectre in the lurid light. Then, turning away once more to see to
his boat, the Captain remarked, "Well, laddie, I guess we'll have to
foot it back when we get through here. But Bill's going to have a
licking for this!"

Left to himself, Jamie crouched down behind the dike, a strange,
solitary little figure in the wide waste of the marshes. Though the full
force of the gale could not reach him, his long fair curls were blown
across his face, and he clung determinedly to his small, round hat. For
a while he watched the beam of red light, till the jagged fringe of
clouds closed over it, and it was gone. Then, in the dusk, he began to
feel a little frightened; but he knew his father would soon be back, and
he didn't like to call him again. He listened to the waves washing,
surging, beating, roaring, on the shoals beyond the dike. Presently he
heard them, every now and then, thunder in against the very dike itself.
Upon this he grew more frightened, and called to his father several
times. But of course the small voice was drowned in the tumult of wind
and wave, and the father, working eagerly on the other side of the dike,
heard no sound of it.

Close by the shelter in which Jamie was crouching there were several
great tubs, made by sawing molasses-hogsheads into halves. These tubs,
in fishing season, were carried by the fishermen in their boats, to hold
the shad as they were taken from the net. Now they stood empty and dry,
but highly flavored with memories of their office. Into the nearest tub
Jamie crawled, after having shouted in vain to his father.

To the child's loneliness and fear the tub looked "cosey," as he called
it. He curled up in the bottom, and felt a little comforted.

Jamie was the only child of Captain Joe Boultbee. When Jamie was about
two years old, the Captain had taken the child and his mother on a
voyage to Brazil. While calling at Barbadoes the young mother had caught
the yellow fever. There she had died, and was buried. After that voyage
Captain Joe had given up his ship, and retired to his father's farm at
Tantramar. There he devoted himself to Jamie and the farm, but to Jamie
especially; and in the summer, partly for amusement, partly for profit,
he was accustomed to spend a few weeks in drifting for shad on the wild
tides of Chignecto Bay. Wherever he went, Jamie went. If the weather was
too rough for Jamie, Captain Joe stayed at home. As for the child,
petted without being spoiled, he was growing a tough and manly little
soul, and daily more and more the delight of his father's heart.

Why should he leave him curled up in his tub on the edge of the marshes,
on a night so wild? In truth, though the wind was tremendous, and now
growing to a veritable hurricane, there was no apparent danger or great
hardship on the marshes. It was not cold, and there was no rain.

Captain Joe, foreseeing a heavy gale, together with a tide higher than
usual, had driven over to the dike to make his little craft more secure.

He found the boat already in confusion; and the wind, when once he had
crossed out of the dike's shelter, was so much more violent than he had
expected, that it took him some time to get things "snugged up." He felt
that Jamie was all right, as long as he was out of the wind. He was only
a stone's throw distant, though hidden by the great rampart of the dike.
But the Captain began to wish that he had left the little fellow at
home, as he knew the long walk over the rough road, in the dark and the
furious gale, would sorely tire the sturdy little legs. Every now and
then, as vigorously and cheerfully he worked in the pitching smack, the
Captain sent a shout of greeting over the dike to keep the little lad
from getting lonely. But the storm blew his voice far up into the
clouds, and Jamie, in his tub, never heard it.

By the time Captain Joe had put everything shipshape, he noticed that
his plunging boat had drifted close to the dike. He had never before
seen the tide reach such a height. The waves that were rocking the
little craft so violently, were a mere back-wash from the great seas
which, as he now observed with a pang, were thundering in a little
further up the coast. Just at this spot the dike was protected from the
full force of the storm by Snowdons' Point. "What if the dike should
break up yonder, and this fearful tide get in on the marshes?" thought
the Captain, in a sudden anguish of apprehension. Leaving the boat to
dash itself to pieces if it liked, he clambered in breathless haste out
on to the top of the dike, shouting to Jamie as he did so. There was no
answer. Where he had left the little one but a half-hour back, the tide
was seething three or four feet deep over the grasses.

Dark as the night had grown, it grew blacker before the father's eyes.
For an instant his heart stood still with horror, then he sprang down
into the flood. The water boiled up nearly to his arm-pits. With his
feet he felt the great timber, fastened in the dike, on which his boy
had been sitting. He peered through the dark, with straining eyes grown
preternaturally keen. He could see nothing on the wide, swirling surface
save two or three dark objects, far out in the marsh. These he
recognized at once as his fish-tubs gone afloat. Then he ran up the dike
toward the Point. "Surely," he groaned in his heart, "Jamie has climbed
up the dike when he saw the water coming, and I'll find him along the
top here, somewhere, looking and crying for me!"

Then, running like a madman along the narrow summit, with a band of iron
tightening about his heart, the Captain reached the Point, where the
dike took its beginning.

No sign of the little one; but he saw the marshes everywhere laid waste.
Then he turned round and sped back, thinking perhaps Jamie had wandered
in the other direction. Passing the now buried landing-place, he saw
with a curious distinctness, as if in a picture, that the boat was
turned bottom up, and glued to the side of the dike.

Suddenly he checked his speed with a violent effort, and threw himself
upon his face, clutching the short grasses of the dike. He had just
saved himself from falling into the sea. Had he had time to think, he
might not have tried to save himself, believing as he did that the child
who was his very life had perished. But the instinct of
self-preservation had asserted itself blindly, and just in time. Before
his feet the dike was washed away, and through the chasm the waves were
breaking furiously.

Meanwhile, what had become of Jamie?

The wind had made him drowsy, and before he had been many minutes curled
up in the tub, he was sound asleep.

When the dike gave way, some distance from Jamie's queer retreat, there
came suddenly a great rush of water among the tubs, and some were
straightway floated off. Then others a little heavier followed, one by
one; and, last of all, the heaviest, that containing Jamie and his
fortunes. The water rose rapidly, but back here there came no waves, and
the child slept as peacefully as if at home in his crib. Little the
Captain thought, when his eyes wandered over the floating tubs, that the
one nearest to him was freighted with his heart's treasure! And well it
was that Jamie did not hear his shouts and wake! Had he done so, he
would have at once sprung to his feet and been tipped out into the
flood.

By this time the great tide had reached its height. Soon it began to
recede, but slowly, for the storm kept the waters gathered, as it were,
into a heap at the head of the bay. All night the wind raged on,
wrecking the smacks and schooners along the coast, breaking down the
dikes in a hundred places, flooding all the marshes, and drowning many
cattle in the salt pastures. All night the Captain, hopeless and mute in
his agony of grief, lay clutching the grasses on the dike-top, not
noticing when at length the waves ceased to drench him with their spray.
All night, too, slept Jamie in his tub.

Right across the marsh the strange craft drifted before the wind, never
getting into the region where the waves were violent. Such motion as
there was--and at times it was somewhat lively--seemed only to lull the
child to a sounder slumber. Toward daybreak the tub grounded at the foot
of the uplands, not far from the edge of the road. The waters gradually
slunk away, as if ashamed of their wild vagaries. And still the child
slept on.

As the light broke over the bay, coldly pink and desolately gleaming,
Captain Joe got up and looked about him. His eyes were tearless, but his
face was gray and hard, and deep lines had stamped themselves across it
during the night.

Seeing that the marshes were again uncovered, save for great shallow
pools left here and there, he set out to find the body of his boy. After
wandering aimlessly for perhaps an hour, the Captain began to study the
direction in which the wind had been blowing. This was almost exactly
with the road which led to his home on the uplands. As he noticed this,
a wave of pity crossed his heart, at thought of the terrible anxiety his
father and mother had all that night been enduring. Then in an instant
there seemed to unroll before him the long, slow years of the desolation
of that home without Jamie.

All this time he was moving along the soaked road, scanning the marsh in
every direction. When he had covered about half the distance, he was
aware of his father, hastening with feeble eagerness to meet him.

The night of watching had made the old man haggard, but his face lit up
at sight of his son. As he drew near, however, and saw no sign of Jamie,
and marked the look upon the Captain's face, the gladness died out as
quickly as it had come. When the two men met, the elder put out his hand
in silence, and the younger clasped it. There was no room for words.
Side by side the two walked slowly homeward. With restless eyes, ever
dreading lest they should find that which they sought, the father and
son looked everywhere,--except in a certain old fish-tub which they
passed. The tub stood a little to one side of the road. Just at this
time a sparrow lit on the tub's edge, and uttered a loud and startled
chirp at sight of the sleeping child. As the bird flew off
precipitately, Jamie opened his eyes, and gazed up in astonishment at
the blue sky over his head. He stretched out his hand and felt the rough
sides of the tub. Then, in complete bewilderment, he clambered to his
feet. Why, there was his father, walking away somewhere without him! And
grandpapa, too! Jamie felt aggrieved.

"Pap!" he cried, in a loud but tearful voice, "where you goin' to?"

A great wave of light seemed to break across the landscape, as the two
men turned and saw the little golden head shining, dishevelled, over the
edge of the tub. The Captain caught his breath with a sort of sob, and
rushed to snatch the little one in his arms; while the grandfather fell
on his knees in the road, and his trembling lips moved silently.

Strayed.

In the Cabineau Camp, of unlucky reputation, there was a young ox of
splendid build, but of a wild and restless nature.

He was one of a yoke, of part Devon blood, large, dark-red, all muscle
and nerve, and with wide magnificent horns. His yoke-fellow was a docile
steady worker, the pride of his owner's heart; but he himself seemed
never to have been more than half broken in. The woods appeared to draw
him by some spell. He wanted to get back to the pastures where he had
roamed untrammelled of old with his fellow-steers. The remembrance was
in his heart of the dewy mornings when the herd used to feed together on
the sweet grassy hillocks, and of the clover-smelling heats of June when
they would gather hock-deep in the pools under the green willow-shadows.
He hated the yoke, he hated the winter; and he imagined that in the wild
pastures he remembered it would be for ever summer. If only he could get
back to those pastures!

One day there came the longed-for opportunity; and he seized it. He was
standing unyoked beside his mate, and none of the teamsters were near.
His head went up in the air, and with a snort of triumph he dashed away
through the forest.

For a little while there was a vain pursuit. At last the lumbermen gave
it up. "Let him be!" said his owner, "an' I rayther guess he'll turn up
agin when he gits peckish. He kaint browse on spruce buds an'
lung-wort."

Plunging on with long gallop through the snow he was soon miles from
camp. Growing weary he slackened his pace. He came down to a walk. As
the lonely red of the winter sunset began to stream through the openings
of the forest, flushing the snows of the tiny glades and swales, he grew
hungry, and began to swallow unsatisfying mouthfuls of the long moss
which roughened the tree-trunks. Ere the moon got up he had filled
himself with this fodder, and then he lay down in a little thicket for
the night.

But some miles back from his retreat a bear had chanced upon his
foot-prints. A strayed steer! That would be an easy prey. The bear
started straightway in pursuit. The moon was high in heaven when the
crouched ox heard his pursuer's approach. He had no idea what was
coming, but he rose to his feet and waited.

The bear plunged boldly into the thicket, never dreaming of resistance.
With a muffled roar the ox charged upon him and bore him to the ground.
Then he wheeled, and charged again, and the astonished bear was beaten
at once. Gored by those keen horns he had no stomach for further
encounter, and would fain have made his escape; but as he retreated the
ox charged him again, dashing him against a huge trunk. The bear dragged
himself up with difficulty, beyond his opponent's reach; and the ox
turned scornfully back to his lair.

At the first yellow of dawn the restless creature was again upon the
march. He pulled more mosses by the way, but he disliked them the more
intensely now because he thought he must be nearing his ancient pastures
with their tender grass and their streams. The snow was deeper about
him, and his hatred of the winter grew apace. He came out upon a
hillside, partly open, whence the pine had years before been stripped,
and where now grew young birches thick together. Here he browsed on the
aromatic twigs, but for him it was harsh fare.

As his hunger increased he thought a little longingly of the camp he had
deserted, but he dreamed not of turning back. He would keep on till he
reached his pastures, and the glad herd of his comrades licking salt out
of the trough beside the accustomed pool. He had some blind instinct as
to his direction, and kept his course to the south very strictly, the
desire in his heart continually leading him aright.

That afternoon he was attacked by a panther, which dropped out of a tree
and tore his throat. He dashed under a low branch and scraped his
assailant off, then, wheeling about savagely, put the brute to flight
with his first mad charge. The panther sprang back into his tree, and
the ox continued his quest.

Soon his steps grew weaker, for the panther's cruel claws had gone deep
into his neck, and his path was marked with blood. Yet the dream in his
great wild eyes was not dimmed as his strength ebbed away. His weakness
he never noticed or heeded. The desire that was urging him absorbed all
other thoughts,--even, almost, his sense of hunger. This, however, it
was easy for him to assuage, after a fashion, for the long, gray,
unnourishing mosses were abundant.

By and by his path led him into the bed of a stream, whose waters could
be heard faintly tinkling on thin pebbles beneath their coverlet of ice
and snow. His slow steps conducted him far along this open course. Soon
after he had disappeared, around a curve in the distance there came the
panther, following stealthily upon his crimsoned trail. The crafty beast
was waiting till the bleeding and the hunger should do its work, and the
object of its inexorable pursuit should have no more heart left for
resistance.

This was late in the afternoon. The ox was now possessed with his
desire, and would not lie down for any rest. All night long, through the
gleaming silver of the open spaces, through the weird and checkered
gloom of the deep forest, heedless even of his hunger, or perhaps driven
the more by it as he thought of the wild clover bunches and tender
timothy awaiting him, the solitary ox strove on. And all night, lagging
far behind in his unabating caution, the panther followed him.

At sunrise the worn and stumbling animal came out upon the borders of
the great lake, stretching its leagues of unshadowed snow away to the
south before him. There was his path, and without hesitation he followed
it. The wide and frost-bound water here and there had been swept clear
of its snows by the wind, but for the most part its covering lay
unruffled; and the pale dove-colors, and saffrons, and rose-lilacs of
the dawn were sweetly reflected on its surface.

The doomed ox was now journeying very slowly, and with the greatest
labor. He staggered at every step, and his beautiful head drooped almost
to the snow. When he had got a great way out upon the lake, at the
forest's edge appeared the pursuing panther, emerging cautiously from
the coverts. The round tawny face and malignant green eyes were raised
to peer out across the expanse. The laboring progress of the ox was
promptly marked. Dropping its nose again to the ensanguined snow, the
beast resumed his pursuit, first at a slow trot, and then at a long,
elastic gallop. By this time the ox's quest was nearly done. He plunged
forward upon his knees, rose again with difficulty, stood still, and
looked around him. His eyes were clouding over, but he saw, dimly, the
tawny brute that was now hard upon his steps. Back came a flash of the
old courage, and he turned, horns lowered, to face the attack. With the
last of his strength he charged, and the panther paused irresolutely;
but the wanderer's knees gave way beneath his own impetus, and his horns
ploughed the snow. With a deep bellowing groan he rolled over on his
side, and the longing, and the dream of the pleasant pastures, faded
from his eyes. With a great spring the panther was upon him, and the
eager teeth were at his throat,--but he knew nought of it. No wild
beast, but his own desire, had conquered him.

When the panther had slaked his thirst for blood, he raised his head,
and stood with his fore-paws resting on the dead ox's side, and gazed
all about him.

To one watching from the lake shore, had there been any one to watch in
that solitude, the wild beast and his prey would have seemed but a speck
of black on the gleaming waste. At the same hour, league upon league
back in the depth of the ancient forest, a lonely ox was lowing in his
stanchions, restless, refusing to eat, grieving for the absence of his
yoke-fellow.

The Eye of Gluskap.

I.

It was close upon high tide, and the creek that wound in through the
diked marshes was rapidly filling to the brim with the swirling, cold,
yellow-gray waters of Minas. The sun, but half risen, yet lingered on
the wooded crest of the Gaspereau hills; while above hung a dappled sky
of pink and pale amber and dove-color. A yellow light streamed sharply
down across the frost-whitened meadows, the smouldering ruins of Grand
Pre village, and out upon the glittering expanse of Minas Basin. The
beams tinged brightly the cordage and half-furled sails of two ships
that rode at anchor in the Basin, near the shore. With a pitilessly
revealing whiteness the rays descended on the mournful encampment at the
creek's mouth, where a throng of Acadian peasants were getting ready to
embark for exile.

"Late grew the year, and stormy was the sea."

Already had five ships sailed away with their sorrowful freight,
disappearing around the towering front of Blomidon, from the straining
eyes of friends and kinsfolk left behind. Another ship would sail out
with the next ebb, and all was sad confusion and unwilling haste till
the embarkation should be accomplished. The ship's boats were loaded
down with rude household stuff, and boxes full of homespun linens and
woollens.

Children were crying with the cold, and a few women were weeping
silently; but the partings which had succeeded each other at intervals
throughout the last few weeks had dulled the edge of anguish, and most
of the Acadians wore an air of heavy resignation. The New England
soldiers on guard gave what help they could, but sullenly; for they were
weary of the misery that they had so long been forced to watch.

The people were huddled on a little patch of marsh within a curve of the
dike. Beyond the dike there spread a stretch of reddish brown
salt-flats, covered with water only at the highest spring-tides, and now
meagrely sprinkled with sharp-edged blades and tufts of the gray
salt-grasses. The flats were soft between the bunches of the grass, and
a broad track was trampled into mire by the passing down of many feet
from the dike's edge to the boats.

In a work like this there are always a thousand unlooked-for delays, and
before half the embarkation was effected the tide had reached the full,
and paused and turned to ebb. As the strip of shining red mud began to
widen between the grasses and the water's edge, the bustle and confusion
increased. Sometimes a woman who had already stepped into the boat,
thinking that her people had preceded her, would spring over the side
into the shallow water, and rush, sobbing with anxious fear, back to the
encampment. Sometimes a child would lose sight of its father or mother
in the press, and lift its shrill voice in a wail of desolation which
found piteous echo in every Acadian heart.

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