DAFFODILS

Do you know any of the stars or the constellations mentioned? Some of them are seen in our latitude, but the southern sky Maury describes is south of the equator. The “Southern Cross” is seen only below the equator. The “Magellan Clouds” are not far from the South Pole.

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host of golden daffodils,—Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of the bay.Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced, but theyOutdid the sparkling waves in glee,—A poet could not but be gayIn such avjocund company.I gazed, and gazed, but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought.For oft, when on my couch I lie,In vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.William Wordsworth.

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of the bay.Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but theyOutdid the sparkling waves in glee,—A poet could not but be gayIn such avjocund company.I gazed, and gazed, but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,In vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.William Wordsworth.

I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston; and for this purpose I rose at two o’clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in silence. It was a mild, serene, midsummer night,—the sky was without a cloud,—the winds werevwhist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a luster but little affected by her presence.

Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; thevPleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near thevzenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn.

The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state.

I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancientvMagians, who, in the morning of the world, went up to the hilltops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of His hand. But I am filled with amazement, when I am told that, in this enlightened age and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, “There is no God.”

Edward Everett.

HELPS TO STUDY

What experience did Everett describe? What impresses the mood of the early morning? In what latitude did Everett live? What stars and constellations did he mention? Trace the steps by which he pictured the sunrise. Why did he not wonder at the belief of the “ancient Magians”? What thought does cause amazement?

Spring, with that namelessvpathos in the airWhich dwells with all things fair—Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,Is with us once again.Out in the lonely woods, the jasmine burnsIts fragrant lamps, and turnsInto a royal court, with green festoons,The banks of darkvlagoons.In the deep heart of every forest tree,The blood is all aglee;And there’s a look about the leafless bowers,As if they dreamed of flowers.Yet still, on every side we trace the handOf Winter in the land,Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,Flushed by the season’s dawn;Or where, like those strangevsemblances we findThat age to childhood bind,The elm puts on, as if in Nature’s scorn,The brown of Autumn corn.The Woods in SpringThe Woods in SpringAs yet the turf is dark, although you knowThat, not a span below,A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,And soon will burst their tomb.In gardens, you may note, amid the dearth,The crocus breaking earth;And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,The violet in its screen.But many gleams and showers need must passAlong the budding grass,And weeks go by, before the enamored SouthShall kiss the rose’s mouth.Still there’s a sense of blossoms yet unborn,In the sweet airs of morn;One almost looks to see the very streetGrow purple at his feet.At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,And brings, you know not why,A feeling as when eager crowds awaitBefore a palace gateSome wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,If from a beech’s heart,A blue-eyedvDryad, stepping forth, should say,“Behold me! I am May!”Henry Timrod.

Spring, with that namelessvpathos in the airWhich dwells with all things fair—Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,Is with us once again.

Out in the lonely woods, the jasmine burnsIts fragrant lamps, and turnsInto a royal court, with green festoons,The banks of darkvlagoons.

In the deep heart of every forest tree,The blood is all aglee;And there’s a look about the leafless bowers,As if they dreamed of flowers.

Yet still, on every side we trace the handOf Winter in the land,Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,Flushed by the season’s dawn;

Or where, like those strangevsemblances we findThat age to childhood bind,The elm puts on, as if in Nature’s scorn,The brown of Autumn corn.

The Woods in SpringThe Woods in Spring

As yet the turf is dark, although you knowThat, not a span below,A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,And soon will burst their tomb.

In gardens, you may note, amid the dearth,The crocus breaking earth;And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,The violet in its screen.

But many gleams and showers need must passAlong the budding grass,And weeks go by, before the enamored SouthShall kiss the rose’s mouth.

Still there’s a sense of blossoms yet unborn,In the sweet airs of morn;One almost looks to see the very streetGrow purple at his feet.

At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,And brings, you know not why,A feeling as when eager crowds awaitBefore a palace gate

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,If from a beech’s heart,A blue-eyedvDryad, stepping forth, should say,“Behold me! I am May!”Henry Timrod.

It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.

The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still for an instant. The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the mountain air tasted of the freshvsylvan fragrance that pervaded the forest, the foliage blamed with the red and gold of autumn, the distantvChilhowee heights were delicately blue.

That instant’s doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The flock took suddenly to wing,—a flash from among the leaves, the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and down toward the valley.

The young mountaineer’s exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the depths where his game had disappeared.

“Waal, sir,” he broke forth pathetically, “this beats my time! If my luck ain’t enough ter make a horse laugh!”

He did not laugh, however; perhaps his luck was calculated to stir onlyvequine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley far below.

As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.

The sight sharpened Ethan’s regrets. He had made a good shot, and he hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the cliff?

It was risky, Ethan knew, terribly risky. But then,—if only the vines were strong!

He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off the crag.

He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his downward journey.

Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and strong to thelast. Almost before he knew it, he stood upon the ledge, and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.

“Waal, that warn’t sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been Peter Birt ’stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!”

He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These preparations complete, he began to think of going back.

He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.

He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their strength by pulling with all his force.

Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge instead of midway in hisvprecarious ascent.

“Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin’ up, I’d hev been flung down ter the bottom o’ the valley, ’kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev cotched me.”

He glanced down at the somber depths beneath. “Thar wouldn’t hev been enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!” he exclaimed, with a tardy realization of his foolish recklessness.

The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.

He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he again glanced downward to the unmeasuredvabyss beneath. He softly let himself sink into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths, and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible danger in which he was placed.

Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge. There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some hunter’s step. It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human presence.

His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from home,—but such boundless stretchesof forest! They might search for weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would starve,—no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall—fall—fall!

He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes upon those who stand on great heights,—an overwhelming impulse to plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to the sky.

And what were these words he was beginning to remember faintly? Had not thevcircuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope. He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst should come,—was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance the sparrow’s fall of Scripture.

He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and more distinct,—a shambling step that curiously stopped at intervals and kicked the fallen leaves.

He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came nearer. Itwould presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth a wild, hoarse cry.

The rocksvreverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering off very fast indeed.

The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden cry.

“Stop, bubby!” he shouted; “stop a minute! It’s Ethan Tynes that’s callin’ of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!”

The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy demanded, “Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?”

“I’m down hyar on the ledge o’ the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?”

“George Birt,” promptly replied the little boy. “What air ye doin’ down thar? I thought it was Satan a-callin’ of me. I never seen nobody.”

“I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an’ I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother’s house, an’ tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb up by.”

Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with avcelerity in keeping with the importanceof the errand. On the contrary, the step was approaching the crag.

A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.

“Did ye git it?” he asked, with bated breath.

“Git what?” demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.

“The tur-r-key—what ye hev done been talkin’ ’bout,” said George Birt.

Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey.

“Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off’n this hyar place,—I’m gittin’ stiff sittin’ still so long,—or the wind mought blow me off. The wind is blowing toler’ble brisk.”

“Gobbler or hen?” asked George Birt eagerly.

“It air a hen,” said Ethan. “But look-a-hyar, George, I’m a-waitin’ on ye an’ if I’d fall off’n this hyar place, I’d be ez dead ez a door-nail in a minute.”

“Waal, I’m goin’ now,” said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He raised himself from hisvrecumbent position, and Ethan heard him shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he went.

Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,—for the mountain children are very careful of precipices,—snaked along dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head cautiously, began tovparley once more, trading on Ethan’s necessities.

“Ef I go on this errand fur ye,” he said, looking very sharp indeed, “will ye gimme one o’ the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?”

He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The “whing” of the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birtvaped the customs of his elders, regardless of sex,—a characteristic of very small boys.

“Oh, go ’long, bubby!” exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at thevdilatoriness and indifference of hisvunique deliverer. “I’ll give ye both o’ the whings.” He would have offered the turkey willingly, if “bubby” had seemed to crave it.

“Waal, I’m goin’ now.” George Birt rose from the ground and started off briskly,vexhilarated by the promise of both the “whings.”

Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back. Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan’sgratitude would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.

“I kem back hyar ter tell ye,” thevdoughty deliverer began, with an air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme relish, “that I can’t go an’ tell Pete ’bout’n the rope till I hev done kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece, with a bag o’ corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill. My mother air a-settin’ at home now a-waitin’ fur that thar corn-meal ter bake dodgers with. An’ I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war lent ter my dad las’ week. An’ I’m afeard ter walk about much with this hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An’ I can’t go home ’thout the meal; I’ll ketch it ef I do. But I’ll tell Pete arter I git back from the mill.”

“The mill!” echoed Ethan, aghast. “What air ye doin’ on this side o’ the mounting, ef ye air a-goin’ ter the mill? This ain’t the way ter the mill.”

“I kem over hyar,” said the little boy, still with much importance of manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his freckled face, “ter see ’bout’n a trap that I hev sot fur squir’ls. I’ll see ’bout my trap, an’ then I hev ter go ter the mill, ’kase my mother air a-settin’ in our house now a-waitin’ fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers. Then I’ll tell Pete wharye air, an’ what ye said ’bout’n the rope. Ye must jes’ wait fur me hyar.”

Poor Ethan could do nothing else.

As the echo of the boy’s shambling step died in the distance, a redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored tovsolace himself with the reflection that the important mission to the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.

This ideavbuoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change hisvconstrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into those dread depths beneath.

His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The messenger had been even morevdilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson clouds and anvopaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines on the ledge.

And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and there were frowning masses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming night hadfallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.

And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head.

The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious brightness within,—too bright for human eyes.

He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was full of that wildvsymphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete’s voice, sometimes in George’s shrill tones.

Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail.

George Birt had indeed forgotten him,—forgotteneven the promised “whings.” Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt’s attention.

Tovsophisticated people, the boy might have seemed asvgrotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.

As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top of a large pincushion.

At home, he found the elders unreasonable,—as elders usually are considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal for dodgers. He “caught it” considerably, but not sufficiently to impair his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for bed when a small boy’s bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the fire, he hearda word that roused him to a new excitement and stimulated his memory.

“These hyar chips air so wet they won’t burn,” said his mother. “I’ll take my tur-r-key whing an’ fan the fire.”

“Law!” he exclaimed. “Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild tur-r-key’s whings like he promised.”

“Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?” asked Pete, interested in his friend.

“Seen him in the woods, an’ he promised me the tur-r-key whings.”

“What fur?” inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for generosity.

“Waal,”—there was an expression of embarrassment on the important freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory manner,—“he fell off’n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings—I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an’ he couldn’t git up no more. An’ he tole me that ef I’d tell ye ter fotch him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened a—leetle—while—arter dinner-time.”

“Who got him a rope ter pull up by?” demanded Pete.

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarrassment. “Waal,”—the youngster balanced this word judicially,—“I forgot’bout’n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he’s thar yit.”

“Mebbe this hyar wind an’ rain hev beat him off’n the ledge!” exclaimed Pete, appalled and rising hastily. “I tell ye now,” he added, turning to his mother, “the best use ye kin make o’ that boy is ter put him on the fire fur a back-log.”

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the well, asked thevcrestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.

By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were sovintermittent that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.

“I ain’t goin’ ter fall off’n the bluff ’thout knowin’ it,” he said to himself, in one of theseveclipses, “ef I hev ter stand hyar all night.”

The moonlight was brilliant and steady when hereached the verge of the crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more positively by Ethan’s rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He called, but received no response.

“Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?” he asked himself, in great dismay and alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked.

“Pretty nigh beat out, I’m a-thinkin’!” commented Pete. He tied one end of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and flung it over the bluff.

At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to his feet.

He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath. Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the crag.

And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. “I’m a-thinkin’,” said Pete severely, “ez thar ain’t a critter on this hyar mounting, from a b’ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a fix, ’ceptin’ ye, Ethan Tynes.”

And Ethan was silent.

“What’s this hyar thing at the end o’ the rope?” asked Pete, as he began to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.

“It air the tur-r-key,” said Ethan meekly, “I tied her ter the e-end o’ the rope afore I kem up.”

“Waal, sir!” exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.

And George, for duty performed, wasvremunerated with the two “whings,” although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or not he deserved them.

Charles Egbert Craddock.

HELPS TO STUDY

Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial? Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:On a lone winter evening, when the frostHas wrought a silence, from the stove there shrillsThe cricket’s song, in the warmth increasing ever,And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,The grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.John Keats.

When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If I’ve no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home atvBallindrochater and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and what a fool I’ve made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not over-popular already on theGleaneron account of some prophecies I had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.

At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.

“Show me you can use those, McTodd,” says he, “and I’ll give you more.”

I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but before that I’m an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you’d see in a gun-maker’s shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil against the Arcticweather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out over the rail on to thevfloe.

TheGleanerlay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink. There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all over, and even where it’s about level, the underfoot is as hard going as a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.

The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though thevmercury was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn’t as cold as you might think, for just then there was no wind. It’s a breeze up in the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course; there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were burning blue and clear, and every now and then a bigvcatherine wheel ofvaurora would show off, for all the world like a firework exhibition.

My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There was just the scrunching of your feet on the frostvrime, and not another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak. And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in histime, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.

It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don’t mind admitting that my scalp tickled.

However, when I’d hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into position with a good, wholesomecluck, my nervousness very soon filtered out. There’s a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a Henry—which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers—that you can’t get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn’t going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I was tramping again.

The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air there has avdeceptivelight—it enlarges things—and the beast appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.

There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself, and stood with the Henry ready to fire.

There was nothing you might callvdiffidence about that bear. He slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me angry.

I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a bit ofvhummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that. Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the Henry and fired her off.

Cluckwent the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.

My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady and unconcerned as avtractionengine! I clawed out that cartridge and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and pulled trigger again.

Once more she wouldn’t go off!

The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an ox.

I might as well have struck it with a cane.Whackcame a big yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the jar; and there was I left looking, I’ve no doubt you’ll think, very humorous.

The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks. I turned and footed it.

Now, at the best of times, I am novsprinter, and in the great mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky level.

The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked me,—he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out—I could see over my shoulder—like one of those American trotting horses, caring nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer over-all and let it drop behind me.

The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn’t stay to watch him. I got a good fiftyvfathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But presently, when he’d got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn’t a chance of equaling him in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.

But still theGleanerwas a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.

However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark’s upper spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing but my long seal-skin boots!

But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed theGleanerwith what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged floe, leaving blood on every footmark.

Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.

I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor, tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came down to my bunk and said, “Where’s that Henry?”

“Lying quiet on the ice,” said I.

“Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!”

“I did that same. The thing wasn’t strong enough to fire a cartridge. I tried two.”

And then Black used violent and unjustifiablelanguage. I was in no condition to give him a fairexchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I owned up, too, that I’d been free with the oil.

Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.

“And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry’s locks, would you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as hard as cheese, and you’ve made up the lock space of that poor rifle into one solid chunk?”

“I never thought of that.”

“To look at your face, you’ve yet to start thinking at all.”

So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again, and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he became quite polite.

“I’ll make you an offer touching those bears,” he said. “For every skin you bring here aboard, I’ll give you seven shillingsvbonus above your share as a member of the ship’s company. I’ll give you another rifle, two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on the meat you kill.”

“You wish to murder me?”

“I wish to be rid of you, and that’s the truth. Man, I believe you’re Jonah resurrected. We’ve had no luck since first you put your foot on my deck planks. And, what’s more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So, refuse my offer, and I’ll put you in irons and keep you there till I can fling you ashore atvDundee.”

Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for being turned out on the ice—well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn’t intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.

So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an unwholesome ship.

The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of grows on a man; once you’ve started it, you’ve got to go on with it at all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I’m hungry.

The nerves of theGleanerpeople were in strings from the cold and the blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. Theygave me almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No more could be taken.

Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far from shelter.

But for myself I didn’t care. I had method in all this performance. Soon after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on theGleanerto pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine room—vAmatikita, he said his name was—had some English, and came to the point as straight as anything.

“Give me avdlink, Cappie,” says he.

“This is a dry ship,” says I.

“Plenty dlink in that box,” says he, handling an oil-can.

“Oh, if that’s what you want, take it,” I told him, and he clapped the nozzle between his lips, and suckeddown a gill ofvcylinder lubricating oil as though it had been water.

“You seem to like it,” I said; “have some more.”

But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.

Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip out on theGleaner. Indeed, when I was over the bark’s rails, I headed off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.

The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we set.

Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stayasleep with anvInnuit’s dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I’d been tramping in the wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think yourself in avstoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold outside.

It was Amatikita’s house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable. They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were all smoking, happy as you please.

Amatikita spoke up like a man. “Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What you come for? What you want?”

“You’re a man of business,” I said. “You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own share of the game.”

“You want shoot those bears yourself?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a sportsman I’ve had but little experience, and don’t seem drawn toward learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste. I’ll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing among the furniture. I’ve brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I’ll make this turf-house of yours a real cottage.”

The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was rare that they’d come back without one bear, and often they’d bring two or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though it’s rare enough they dare tackle them. Smallblame, too, you’d say, if you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they are armed with.

With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing. The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.

At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The floe was still sound where it joined the shore, buttwo seaward lanes of blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was spouting pale gray mist.

It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a certain Scotch engineer who wasunused to suchvacrobatics clinging on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten, cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic spring morn!

Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of theGleaner. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off work when we drove up.

“Good-day, Captain Black,” I said. “I’ve been troubling myself over bearskins, and I’ll ask you for seven shillings head money on twenty-nine.”

“You’ve shot twenty-nine bears? You’re lying to me.”

“The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself.”

His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And I clambered aboard the ship along with them.

W. Cutcliffe Hyne.

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