“Neither the angels in Heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.”
Late in the still morning he awoke, grieving and hurt, for he did not see how he should ever face Mrs. Brackett, or his brother, or Margaret, or himself, or anybody ever again.
There was in town at this time what passed for a comic-opera troupe, and Margaret and her father, by way of doing honor to their guest, invited all the young people to go to the performance and attend a supper afterward. The party occupied the three foremost rows in the music-hall, and Aladdin sat next to Margaret, and Manners sat upon the other side.
The hero of the piece was a jovial big rascal with a spirited voice, and much byplay which kept his good-natured audience in titters—from the young gentlemen and little shrieks—from the young ladies. Mr. Blythoe, the hero, when the curtain had fallen upon what the management was pleased to call the second act, consented, in response to continued applause, due to a double back somersault and two appropriate remarks fired off in midair (this was his great psychic moment), to make a little speech and sing a song. His speech, though syntactically erratic, was delivered in a loud, frank way that won everybody’s heart, and in closing he said:
“Three nights ago I met with a young feller in this tow—city [applause], and when we had taken one together for luck [titters from the young gentlemen, who wanted one another to know that they knew what he meant], he made me the loan of the song I’m a-going to sing. He made up the words and the tune of this song hisself, and he’s right here in this audience.” This gave an opportunity for some buffoonery among the young gentlemen. Mr. Blythoe looked for one instant straight at Aladdin, and Aladdin went into a cold sweat, for he began to recollect that somewhere on a certain awful night he had taken drinks with Mr. Blythoe and had sung him songs. Mr. Blythoe went on:
“This young gentleman said I specially wasn’t to mention his name, and I won’t, but I want all you ladies and gentlemen to know that this here beautiful ballad was composed right here in this tow—city [applause] by a citizen of this city. And here goes.”
Then Mr. Blythoe did a wonderful thing. Much was owing to the words and air, but a little something to the way in which Mr. Blythoe sang. He took his audience with the first bar, and had some of them crying when he was through. And the song should have been silly. It was about a gay, gay young dog of a crow, that left the flock and went to a sunny land and lived a mad, mad life; and finally, penitent and old, came home to the north country and saw his old playmates in the distance circling about the old pine-tree, but was too weak to reach them, or to call loud enough for them to hear, and so lay down and died, died, died. The tune was the sweetest little plaintive wail, and at the end of each stanza it died, died, till you had to cry.
Mr. Blythoe received tremendous applause, but refused to encore. He winked to Aladdin and bowed himself off. Then Aladdin executed an unparalleled blush. He could feel it start in the small of his back and spread all over him—up under the roots of his hair to the top of his head. He should have felt proud, instead of which he was suffused with shame. Margaret caught sight of his face.
“What is it, Aladdin?” she said in a whisper.
“Nothing.”
“Won’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing.” He got redder and redder.
“Please.”
With downcast eyes he shook his head. She looked at him dubiously and a little pathetically for a moment. Then she said, “Silly goose,” and turned to Manners.
“Poor old crow!” said Manners. “I had one, Margaret, when I was little; he had his wings clipped and used to follow me like a dog, and one day he saw some of his old friends out on the salt-marsh, and he hopped out to talk it over with them, and they set upon him and killed him. And I couldn’t get there quick enough to help him—I beg your pardon.” He picked up a fan and handed it to the girl on his left, and she, having dropped it on purpose, blushed, thanked him, and giggled. Manners turned to Margaret again. “Ever since then,” he said, “when I have a gun in my hand and see a crow, I want to kill him for the sake of the crows that killed mine, and to let him go for the sake of mine, who was such a nice old fellow. So it’s an awful problem.”
Aladdin sat and looked straight before him. “Is real fame as awful as this?” he thought.
Somebody clapped him on the shoulder, and a hearty voice, something the worse for wear, said loudly in his ear, “Bully, Aladdin, bully!”
Aladdin looked up and recognized that bad companion, Beau Larch.
“That’s all right,” Aladdin tried to say, but Mr. Larch would not be downed.
“Wasn’t it bully, Margaret?” he said.
“Oh—hallo—hallo, Beau!” said she, starting and turning round and collecting her wits. “What? Wasn’t what bully?”
Aladdin frowned at Larch with all the forbiddingness that he could muster, but Larch was imperturbable.
“Why, Aladdin’s song!” he said. “You know, the one about the old crow—the one the man just sang.”
Here a young lady, over whom Beau Larch was leaning, confided to her escort in an audible, nervous voice that she knew Beau Larch had been drinking, but she wouldn’t say why she knew—anybody could see he had; and then she sniffed with her nose by way of indicating that seeing was not the only or best method of telling.
“You don’t mean to say—” said Margaret to Aladdin, and looked him in the eyes. “Why, Aladdin!” she said. And then: “Peter—Peter—‘Laddin wrote it, he did. Isn’t it gr-reat!”
And Peter, rising to the occasion, said, “Bully,” and “I thought it was great,” with such absolute frankness and sincerity that Aladdin’s heart almost warmed toward him. It was presently known all over the house that Aladdin had written the song. And some of the more clownish of the young people called for Author, Author. Aladdin hung his head.
At supper at the St. Johns’ later was a crisp, brisk gentleman with grayish hair, who talked in a pleasant, dry way. Aladdin learned that it was Mr. Blankinship, editor and proprietor of the Portland “Spy.” Almost immediately on learning this important item, he saw Mr. Blankinship exchange a word with Margaret and come toward him.
“Mr. O’Brien?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The same that sent us three poems a while ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you wrote that song we heard to-night?”
“Yes, sir.” Aladdin was now fiery red.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’ve just finished school,” said Aladdin. “And I don’t know what to do.”
“Newspaper work appeal to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Timid as a coot,” thought Mr. Blankinship.
“Write easily?” he said. “Fast—short words?”
Aladdin thought a moment. “Yes, sir,” he said coolly.
“Less timid than a coot,” thought Mr. Blankinship.
“Willing to live in Portland?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll give you five dollars a week and give you a trial.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Can you get moved and start work Monday?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Blankinship smiled cheerfully.
“Pretty entertainment, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, O’Brien, see you Monday; hope we get on.” Mr. Blankinship nodded pleasantly and passed up the room to the punch, muttering as he went, “Writes better than talks—dash of genius—more or less timid than a coot.”
Aladdin went quickly to find Margaret. He traced her to the pantry, where she was hurrying the servant who had charge of the ice-cream. Aladdin waited until the servant had gone out with a heaping tray.
“Margaret,” he said, “I’m going away to live.”
He spoke in the flat, colorless voice with which a little child announces that it has hurt itself.
“What do you mean, Aladdin?” She changed color slightly.
“Only that I’ve got to make a living, Margaret, and it’s on a paper, so I ought to be glad.”
“Aren’t you glad, Aladdin?”
“A little.”
“Aladdin—”
“Margaret—O Margaret—”
She read in his eyes what was coming.
“Not now, Aladdin,” she said.
“Not now—dear Aladdin.”
“Then you know?”
“I’ve always known, Aladdin, and been grateful and that proud.”
“Will there never be any chance for me, Margaret?”
“Aladdin, I think I like you better than anybody else in the world—”
“Darling—” he had never supposed that it could be said so easily; he leaned toward her.
“No,” she said suddenly; “I’ve got to go and see after all those foolish people.”
“Just for the sake of old times, and now, and new times—”
She hesitated, reddened a little, and then, as sweetly and innocently as a child, put up her lips for him to kiss.
Hannibal St. John’s campaign for reelection to the senatorship was, owing to a grievous error in tact, of doubtful issue. A hue and cry arose against him among his constituents, and things in general fell out so unhappily that it looked toward the close of the contest as if he would be obliged to sit idle and dangle his heels, while the two halves of the country, pushing against each other, were rising in the middle like the hinge of a toggle-joint into the most momentous crisis in the nation’s history. It looked as if the strong man, with his almost blasphemous intolerance of disunion, his columnlike power of supporting, and his incomparable intellect, was to stand in the background and watch the nightmare play from afar. He fought for his place in the forefront of the battle with a great fervor of bitterness, and the possibility of defeat weighed upon his glowering soul like a premature day of judgment. He knew himself to be the one man for the opportunity, and could his true feelings have found utterance, they would have said, “Damn us everlastingly in hell, but don’t shelve us now!”
Opposed to St. John was a Mr. Bispham, of about quarter his height intellectually and integrally—a politician, simple, who went to war for loot. But he was blessed with a tremendous voice and an inexhaustible store of elemental, fundamental humor, upon the waves of which the ship bearing his banner floated high. It seemed that because of one glaring exhibition of tactlessness, and a lack of humor, a really important, valuable, and honest man was to lose the chance of serving his country to a designing whipper-snapper, who was without even the saving grace of violent and virulent prejudices. And so the world goes. It seemed at one time that St. John’s chance was a ghost of a chance, and his friends, sons, and relatives, toiling headstrong by night and day, were brought up at the verge of despair. To make the situation even more difficult, St. John himself was prostrated with the gout, so that his telling oratory and commanding personality could not be brought to bear. Margaret was never far from her father’s side, and she worked like a dog for him, writing to dictation till her hands became almost useless, and when the spasms of pain were great, leaving her work to kiss his old brow.
It was at this time that people all over the State began to take up a song with an inimitably catching tune. The words of this song held up Mr. Bispham in so shrewdly true and farcically humorous a light that even his own star began to titter and threatened to slip from its high place in the heavens. The song fell so absolutely on the head of the nail that Mr. Bispham, when he heard it for the first time, was convulsed with anger and talked of horse-whips. The second time he heard it, he drew himself up with dignity and pretended not to notice, and the third time he broke into a cold sweat, for he began to be afraid of those words and that tune. At a mass-meeting, while in the midst of a voluble harangue, somebody in the back of the hall punctuated—an absurd statement, which otherwise might have passed unnoticed, by whistling the first bar of the song. Mr. Bispham faced the tittering like a man, and endeavored to rehabilitate himself. But his hands had slipped on the handle of the audience, and the forensic rosin of Demosthenes would not have enabled him to regain his grip. He was cruelly assured of the fact by the hostile and ready-witted whistler. Again Mr. Bispham absurded. This time the tune broke out in all parts of the hall and was itself punctuated by catcalls and sotto-voce insults delivered with terrific shouts. Mr. Bispham’s speech was hurriedly finished, and the peroration came down as flat as a skater who tries a grape-vine for the first time. He left the hall hurriedly, pale and nervous. The tune followed him down the street and haunted him to his room. The alarming takingness of it had gotten in at his ear, and as he was savagely undressing he caught himself in the traitorous act of humming it to himself.
Among others to leave the hall was a tall, slim young man with freckles across the bridge of his nose and very bright blue eyes. A party of young men accompanied him, and all were a little noisy, and, as they made the street, broke lustily into the campaign song. People said, “That’s him,” “That’s O’Brien,” “That’s Aladdin O’Brien,” “That’s the man wrote it,” and the like. The young men disappeared down the street singing at the tops of their voices, with interlardations of turbulent, mocking laughter.
Aladdin’s song went all over the North, and his name became known in the land.
Hannibal St. John was not musical. There were only four tunes, and three of them were variations of “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,” that he recognized when he heard them. As he lay on his bed of pain, he heard the shrill whistle of his gardener piping in the garden below. Unconsciously the senator’s well hand marked the time. All day, as he came and went about his business, the gardener kept whistling that tune, and the senator heard and reheard ever with increasing pleasure. And this was an extraordinary thing, for it was as difficult or nearly so to move Hannibal St. John with music as it must have been for Orpheus to get himself approached by rocks and stones and trees, and far more difficult than it ever was for the Pied Piper to achieve a following of brats and rats.
Margaret had been for a drive with a girl friend. She came home and to her father’s side in great spirits.
“Oh, papa,” she cried, “will you do me a favor?”
She read consent.
“Claire has got the wonderfulest song, and I want you to let her come in and sing it for you.”
“A song?” said the senator, doubtfully.
“Papa de-e-ear, please.”
He smiled grimly.
“If Claire will not be shocked by my appearance,” he said against hope.
“Rubbish,” cried Margaret, and flew out of the room.
There were a few preliminary gasps and giggles in the hall, and the two maidens, as sedate and demure as mice, entered. Claire was a little party, with vivacious manners and a comical little upturned face.
“How do you do, senator?” she said. “I’m so sorry you’re laid up. Isn’t it lovely out?” She advanced and shook his well hand.
“Won’t you take a chair?” said the senator.
“I just ran in for a moment. Margaret and I thought maybe you’d like to hear the new campaign song that everybody’s singing. My brother brought it up from Portland—” she paused, out of breath.
“It would afford me great pleasure,” said the senator.
And forthwith Claire sang in a rollicking voice. The tune was the same as that which the gardener had been whistling. St. John recognized it in spite of the difference in the mediums and smiled. Then he smiled because of the words, and presently he laughed. It was the first real pleasure he had had in many a day.
“Everybody is wild about it,” said Claire, when she had finished.
The senator was shaking with laughter.
“That’s good,” he said, “that’s good.”
“Papa,” said Margaret, when Claire had gone, “who do you think wrote that song?”
“I don’t know,” said the senator. “But it’s good.”
“Aladdin wrote it,” said Margaret.
“Upon my word!” said the senator.
Margaret knelt and threw her arms about her father’s neck and blushed a lovely blush.
“Isn’t it splendid?”
There was a ring at the front door, and a telegram was brought in.
“Read it, Peggy,” said the senator. He used that name only when moved about something. The despatch was from the senator’s youngest son, Hannibal, and read:
Do not worry; we are singing Bispham up a tree.
“And Aladdin wrote the song!” cried Margaret. “Aladdin wrote it!”
The senator’s face clouded for a moment. He forced the cloud to pass.
“We must thank him,” he said. “We must thank him.”
Senator St. John was reelected by a small majority. Everybody admitted that it was due to Aladdin O’Brien’s song. It was impossible to disguise the engaging childishness of the vote.
As he went to his desk in the back room of the Portland “Spy” offices the morning after the election, Aladdin had an evil headache, and a subconscious hope that nobody would speak to him suddenly. He felt that his arms and legs might drop off if anybody did, and he could have sworn that he saw a gray sparrow with blue eyes run into a dark corner, and turn into a mouse. But he was quite free from penitence, as the occasion of this last offense had been joy and triumph, whereas that of his first had been sorrow. He lighted a bad cigar, put off his editorial till later, and covered a whole sheet of paper with pictures like these:
(Transcriber’s note: These are simple sketches of birds and animals.)
He looked back with a certain smug satisfaction upon a hilarious evening beginning with a dinner at the club, which some of the older adherents of St. John had given him in gratitude for the part he had taken in the campaign. He remembered that he had not given a bad exhibition, and that noble prophecies had been made of his future by gentlemen in their cups, and that he himself, when just far enough gone to be courageous without being silly, had made a snappy little speech of thanks which had been received with great applause, and that later he had sung his campaign song and others, and that finally, in company with an ex-judge, whose hat was also decorated with a wreath of smilax, he had rolled amiably about the town in a hack, going from one place where drinks could be gotten to another, and singing with great fervor and patriotism:
Zhohn Brownzh bozhy liezh a mole-ring in zhe grave.
Aladdin thought over these things with pleasure, for he had fallen under the dangerous flattery of older men, and with less pleasure of the editorial which it was his immediate business to write. His brisk, crisp chief, Mr. Blankinship, came in for a moment, walking testily and looking like the deuce.
“So you’ve showed up, Aladdin, have you?” he said. “That’s young blood. If any question of politics—I mean policy—arises, I leave it absolutely to you. I’m going back to bed. Can’t you stop smoking that rotten cigar?”
Aladdin laughed aloud, and Mr. Blankinship endeavored to smile.
“Somewhere,” he said, “in this transcendentally beautiful continent, Aladdin, there may be some one that feels worse than I do, but I doubt it.” He turned to go.
“Won’t Mr. Orde be here either?” said Aladdin.
“No; he’s home in bed. You’re editor-in-chief and everything else for the day, see? And I wish I was dead.” Mr. Blankinship nodded, very slightly, for it hurt, and went out.
The misery of others is a great cure: with the first sight of Mr. Blankinship, Aladdin’s headache had gone, and he now pounced upon fresh paper, got a notion out of the God-knows-where, wrote his editorial at full speed, and finished it without once removing the cigar from his mouth.
He had just done when the shrewd, inky little boy, who did everything about the “Spy” offices which nobody else would do, entered and said that a gentleman wanted to speak with Mr. O’Brien. Aladdin had the gentleman shown up, and recognized the oldest of Hannibal St. John’s sons; he knew them well by sight, but it so happened that he had never met them. They were the three biggest and most clean-cut young men in Maine, measuring between six feet three and four; erect, massive, utterly composed, and, if anything, a little stronger than so many dray-horses. They were notable shots, great fishermen, and the whole State was beginning to speculate with excitement about their respective futures and the present almost glittering success of the law firm which they composed. The oldest was the tallest and the strongest. He had been known to break horseshoes and to tear a silver dollar in two. Iron was as sealing-wax in his huge hands. His habits were Spartan. The second son was almost a replica of the first—a little darker and a little less vivid. The third was like the others; but his face was handsomer, and not so strong. He was of a more gentle and winning disposition, for his life was not ignorant of the frailties. The girl to whom he had been engaged had died, and that had left a kind of sweetness, almost beseechingness, in his manner, very engaging in so tall and strong a man.
“Mr. O’Brien?” said John St. John.
Aladdin arose and held out his long, slender hand.
Aladdin had a way of moving which was very individual to himself, a slight, ever so slight, exaggeration of stride and gesture, a kind of captivating awkwardness and diffidence that was on the borderland of grace and assurance. Like all slender people who work much with their heads, he had a strong grip, but he felt that his hand was as inconsistent as an eel when St. John’s closed over it.
“I came in for a moment,” said St. John, “to say that we are all exceedingly grateful to you. Your song was a great factor in my father’s reelection to the Senate. But we do not hold so much by the song as by the good will which you showed us in writing it. I want you to understand and believe that if I can ever be of the slightest service to you, I will go very far to render it.”
“I’m as obliged as I can be,” said Aladdin. “It’s mighty good of you to come and talk to me like this, and except for the good will I have toward all your family, I don’t deserve it a bit.”
When John St. John had gone, the inky boy came to announce that another gentleman wished to speak with Mr. O’Brien.
The second gentleman proved to be the second brother, Hamilton St. John.
“Mr. O’Brien?” said he.
Aladdin shook hands with him.
“I came in for a moment,” said Hamilton St. John, “for the pleasure of telling you how tremendously grateful we all are to you for your song, which was such a big factor in my father’s redirection to the Senate. But I want to say, too, that we’re more grateful for your good will than for the song, and if I can ever do you a service, I want you to feel perfectly free to come and ask it of me, whatever it is.”
Aladdin could have laughed for joy. Margaret did not seem so far away as sometimes.
“I’m as obliged as I can be,” he said. “It’s mighty good of you to come and talk to me like this, and except for the good will I have toward all your family, I don’t deserve it a bit, but I appreciate it just the same.”
Presently Hamilton St. John departed.
Again the inky boy, and this time grinning.
“There’s a gentleman would like to speak with you, sir,” he said.
“Show him in,” said Aladdin.
Hannibal St. John, Jr., entered.
“O’Brien,” he said, “I’ve often heard my sister Margaret speak about you, and I’ve been meaning for ever so long to look you up. And I wish I’d done it before I had such an awfully good excuse as that song of yours, because I don’t know how to thank you, quite. But I want you to understand that if at any time—rubbish, you know what I mean. Come up to the club, and we’ll make a drink and talk things over.”
He drew Aladdin’s arm into his, and they went out.
Aladdin had never before felt so near Margaret.
He returned to the office in half an hour, happy and a slave. Hannibal St. John, Jr., had won the heart right out of him in ten minutes. He sat musing and dreaming. Was he to be one of those chosen?
“Gentleman to see you, sir.”
“Show him in.”
The inky snickered and hurried out. He could be heard saying with importance, “This way, sir. Look out for that press, sir. It’s very dark in here, sir.” And then, like a smart flunky in a house of condition, he appeared again at the door and announced
“Senator Hannibal St. John.”
Aladdin sprang up.
The senator, still suffering from the gout, and leaning heavily on his whalebone cane, limped majestically in. There was an amiability on his face, which Aladdin had never seen there before. He placed a chair for his distinguished guest. The senator removed his high hat and stood it upon the edge of Aladdin’s desk.
“My boy,” he said,—the word tingled from Aladdin’s ears to his heart, for it was a word of great approachment and unbending,—“I am very grateful for your efforts in my behalf. I will place honor where honor is due, and say that I owe my recent reflection to the United States Senate not so much to my more experienced political friends as to you. The present crisis in the affairs of the nation calls for men of feeling and honor, and not for politicians. I hope that you will not misconstrue me into a braggart if I say from the bottom of my heart I believe that, in returning a man of integrity and tradition to his seat in the Congress of the nation, you have rendered a service to the nation.”
The senator paused, and Aladdin, still standing, waited for him to finish.
“After a week,” said the senator, “I shall return to my duties in Washington. In the meanwhile, Margaret” (he had hitherto always referred to her before Aladdin as “my daughter”) “and I are keeping open house, and if it will give you pleasure we shall be charmed” (the word fell from the senator’s lips like a complete poem) “to have you make us a visit. Two of my sons will be at home, and other young people.”
“Indeed, and it will give me pleasure!” cried Aladdin, falling into the least suspicion of a brogue.
“I will write a line to your chief,” continued the senator, “and I have reason to believe that he will see you excused. We shall expect you to-morrow by the fourthirty.”
“I’m ever so much obliged, sir,” said Aladdin.
“My boy,” said the senator, gravely, after a full minute’s pause, “we are all concerned in your future, which promises to be a brilliant one. It rests with you. But, if an old man may be permitted a word of caution, it would be this: Let your chief recreation lie in your work; leave the other things. Do I make myself clear enough?” (Aladdin nodded guiltily.) “Leave the frailties to the dullards of this world.”
He rose to go.
“My young friend,” said the senator, “you have my best wishes.”
Grimacing with the pain in his foot, limping badly, but always stately and impressive,—almost superimpending,—Hannibal St. John moved slowly out of the office.
The weather turned suddenly gusty and cold, and that afternoon it began to snow, and it kept on snowing. All night fine dry flakes fell in unexampled profusion, and by morning the face of the land was many inches deep. Nor did the snow then cease. All the morning it continued to fall with vigor. The train by which Aladdin was to go to the St. Johns’ left at two-thirty, arriving there two hours later; and it was with numb feet and stinging ears that he entered the car reserved for smokers, and, bundling in a somewhat threadbare over coat, endeavored to make himself comfortable for the journey. As the train creaked and jerked out of the protecting station, the storm smote upon the windows with a noise like thrown sand, and a back draft down the chimney of the iron stove in one end of the car sent out puffs of smutty smoke at whatever points the various castings of the stove came together with insufficient snugness. There were but half a dozen people in the whole train.
“Troubles, old man,” said Aladdin, for so he was in the habit of addressing himself at moments of self-communication, “this is going to be the slowest kind of a trip, but we’re going to enjoy every minute of it, because it’s taking us to the place where we would be-God bless her!”
Aladdin took a cigar from his breast pocket.
“Troubles,” said he, “may I offer you a smoke? What? Oh, you’re very much obliged and don’t mind if you do. There you are, then.” Aladdin sent out a great puff of white smoke; this turned into a blue wraith, drifted down the aisle, between the seats, gathering momentum as it went, and finally, with the rapidity of a mint julep mounting a sucked straw (that isn’t split) and spun long and fine, it was drawn through a puncture of the isinglass in the stove door and went up the chimney in company with other smoke, and out into the storm. Aladdin, full of anticipation and glee, smoked away with great spirit. Presently, for the car was empty but for himself, Aladdin launched into the rollicking air of “Red Renard”
“Three scarlet huntsmen rode up to White PlainsWith a carol of voices and jangle of chains,For the morning was blue and the morning was fair,And the word ran, “Red Renard” is waiting us there.”
He puffed at his cigar a moment to be sure that its fire should not flag, and sang on:
“The first scarlet huntsman blew into his horn,Lirala, Lovely Morning, I’m glad I was born”;The second red huntsman he whistled an air,And the third sang, “Red Renard” is waiting us there.”
“Just such weather as this, Troubles,” he said, looking out into the swirl of snow. “Just the beautifulest kind of cross-country weather!” He sang on:
Three lovely ladies they met at the meet,With whips in their hands and with boots on their feet;And the gentlemen lifted their hats with a cheer,As the girls said, “Red Renard is waiting you here.”
He quickened into the stanza he liked best:
Three scarlet huntsmen rode off by the sideOf three lovely ladies on horses of pride.Said the first, “Call me Ellen”; the second, “I’m Claire”;Said the third, “I’m Red Renard—so called from my hair.”
The train, which had been running more slowly, drew up with a chug, and some minutes passed before it again gathered itself and lurched on.
“That’s all right,” said Aladdin. He was quite warm now, and thoroughly happy.
Three scarlet huntsmen rode home from White Plains,With its mud on their boots, and its girls on their brains;And the first sang of Ellen, the second of Claire,But the third sang, “Red Renard is waiting back there.”
He made a waggish face to finish with:
Three scarlet huntsmen got into frock-coats,And they pinched their poor feet, and they tortured their throats;And the first married Ellen, the second wed Claire,While the third said, “Re Renar izh waishing back zhere.”
He assumed the expression for a moment of one astutely drunk.
“A bas!” he said, for this much of the French language was his to command, and no more. He turned and attempted to look out. He yawned. Presently he threw away the reeking butt of his cigar, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
The water below the veranda was alive with struggling fishes in high hats and frock-coats. Each fish had a label painted across his back with his name and address neatly printed on it, and each fish was struggling to reach a tiny minnow-hook, naked of bait, which dangled just out of reach above the water. The baitless hook was connected by a fine line (who ever heard of baiting a line at the wrong end?) with Margaret’s hand. She had on a white dress stamped with big pink roses, and there was a pale-green ribbon round the middle of it; her hair was done up for the first time, and she was leaning over the railing, which was made of safety-lamps and stranglers alternately, painted light blue, regarding the struggling fishes with a look at once full of curiosity and pity. Presently one of the fishes’ labels soaked off, and went hurtling out to sea, with the fish weeping bitterly and following at express speed, until in less than one moment both label and fish were hull down below the horizon. Then another label washed off, and then another and another, and fish after fish, in varying states of distraction, followed after and disappeared, until all you could see were two, whereof the one was labeled Manners and the other O’Brien (these continued to fight for the hook), and all you could hear was Neptune, from down, down, down in the sea, saying coquettishly to Cleopatra, “I’m Red Renard—so called from my hair.” And then all of a sudden valiant Captain Kissed-by-Margaret went by on a log writing mottos for the wives of famous men. And then Manners and O’Brien, struggling desperately to drown each other, sank down, down, down, and Cleopatra could be heard saying perfectly logically to Neptune, “You didn’t!” And then there was a tremendous shower of roses, and the dream went out like a candle.
Aladdin opened his eyes and stroked his chin. He was troubled about the dream. The senator had spoken to him of “others.” Could Peter Manners possibly be there? Was that the especial demolishment that fate held in store for him? He was very wide awake now.
At times, owing to the opaqueness of the storm, it was impossible to see out of the car window. But there were moments when a sudden rush of wind blew a path for the eye, and by such occasional pictures—little long of the instantaneous—one could follow the progress of the blizzard. Aladdin saw a huddle of sheep big with snow; then a man getting into a house by the window; an ancient apple-tree with a huge limb torn off; two telegraph poles that leaned toward each other, like one man fixing another’s cravat; and he caught glimpses of wires broken, loosened, snarled, and fuzzy with snow. Then the train crawled over a remembered trestle, and Aladdin knew that he was within four miles of his station, and within three of the St. Johns’ house by the best of short cuts across country. He looked precisely in its direction, and kissed his fingers to Margaret, and wondered what she was doing. Then there was a rumbling, jumping jar, and the train stopped. Minute after minute went by. Aladdin waited impatiently for the train to start. The conductor passed hurriedly through.
“What’s up?” called Aladdin after him.
“Up!” cried the conductor. “We’re off the track.”
“Can’t we go on to-night?”
“Nup!” The conductor passed out of the car and banged the door.
“Got to sit here all night!” said Aladdin. “Not much! Get up, Troubles! If you don’t think I know the way about here, you can stay by the stove. I’m going to walk.”
Aladdin and Troubles rose, buttoned their coat, left the car, and set out in the direction of the St. Johns’. Aladdin’s watch at starting read five o’clock.
“Our luggage is all checked, Troubles,” he said, “and all we’ve got to face is the idea of walking three miles through very disagreeable weather, over a broad path that we know like the palm of our hand (which we don’t know as well as we might), arriving late, wet to the skin, and without a change of clothes. On the other hand, we shall deserve a long drink and much sympathy. As for you, Troubles, you’re the best company I know, and all is well.”
The first scarlet huntsman blew into his horn,“Lirala, Lovely Morning, I’m glad I was born.”
At first the way, lying through waist-high fir scrub, was pretty bad underfoot, but beyond was a stretch of fine timber, where the trees had done much to arrest the snow, and the going was not so severe. Aladdin calculated that he should make the distance in an hour and a half; and when the wood ended, he looked at his watch and found that the first mile, together with only twenty-five minutes, was behind him.
“That’s the rate of an hour and a quarter, Troubles,” he said. “And that’s good time. Are you listening?”
But following the wood was a great open space of country pitched up from the surrounding levels, and naked to every fury of nature. Across that upland the wind blew a wicked gale, scarifying the tops of knolls to the brown, dead grass, and filling the hollows flush with snow. At times, to keep from being blown over, it was necessary to lean against the gusts. Aladdin was conscious of not making very rapid progress, but there was something exhilarating in the wildness, the bitter cold, and the roar of the wind; it had an effect as of sea thundering upon beach, great views from mountain-tops, black wild nights, the coming of thunder and freshness after intense heat, or any of the thousand and one vaster demonstrations of nature. Now and again Aladdin sang snatches of song: