Part 15

“When the feller I’ve been tellin’ you about looked at the little packet, he saw there was writing on it. It said—Harvey spoke as if reading from memory—it said, ‘_White Columbine. Hardy perennial. Sow in autumn in carefully prepared soil._’ D’you see anything queer about the flowers in my garden, friend?”

Again the answer came, slowly, from the other side of the fence:

“There are many of one kind.”

The old man stretched a hand through the bars and lightly touched one blossom of a thousand white columbines.

“That’s right. And when the feller had read the writing he gave a kind thought to the pedlar, and put the packet of seeds in his pocket, and forgot it.

“He’d enough to make him forget more things than a packet of flower-seeds an old pedlar had given him. _If_ you knew those hills, you’d know that there was storms on ’em that leap on a man like wolves. He was caught in one, and all night he was lost on the mountains.

“Level rain that drove in his face like a wall: wind that bruised the livin’ flesh on his bones: sleet to glass the rocks, and a moon no more than a blot in the scud—he knew no more of the night. He kep’ going some way, thinkin’ of the woman that waited for him. If he hadn’t fixed his mind on her he’d have just given up and laid down and died, for the weather used him cruel, and he’d no heart to fight it, only because of her. Then he found he’d missed the trail, and he didn’t greatly care—only for her.

“He went on in the dark and the storm, tryin’ to strike back to the trail lower down. He couldn’t make it. Seemed as if he was in hills he’d never been in before, so strange and wild they were with the dark. At last the rain beat him down, and the wind dazed him, and he fell.

“He thought he fell into death. He did fall a long way, but not that far. He came to, very weak, sprawled on a slope of loose stones. If he moved, they moved too. He’d no wish to move for awhile. He was badly knocked about, and his clothes were half-tore off his back, but after a bit he thought of his wife, and got to his hands and knees, groaning. Then the moon came out clear, and he looked at what the slipping stones had uncovered.”

Harvey’s voice shook a little. Presently he steadied it, and went on briskly:

“Silver was not so cheap then as it is now. Even in the dim moonlight he knew what he was lookin’ at. He was lookin’ at a vein of almost pure silver them sliding stones had uncovered.

“He laid quite a long time, just lookin’ at it. Then the situation come home to him.

“He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know where the silver was. He couldn’t get his bearings. He didn’t dare mark the place too plain, for fear someone else’d find it. After a while, he made shift to build some little heaps of stones. Then he went on as well as he could. You see, if he’d stayed by the place till daylight he’d have been dead in that weather. He had to risk it.

“He found his way back to his wife, somehow. He never remembered anything of what happened after he left that place.

“He was near dead, and they thought he was ravin’. Maybe he was. He was ill a long spell. They were helped. When he was sick folks was kind, and they took kindness where they’d been too proud to take it before. Even when he was ill he fought to keep a tight hold on his tongue. When he could crawl he went out to find his claim.

“He couldn’t find it.

“Sweatin’ and tremblin’, the ghost of a man, day after day he wandered in the hills, lookin’ for it. He quartered the ground like a hunting dog, but he couldn’t find the place. There was a hundred spots like his memory of it; a thousand slopes of loose stones. The rain and the wind had swept his little rock-piles away. He had nothin’ to go by. Wealth beyond all he’d thought of, all he struggled for, all he prayed for—for her—was there, somewhere in them hills under his feet, and he couldn’t find it.

“Men thought he was mad. He let them think so. Maybe, as the time went on, he _was_ pretty near mad.

“For the winter went, and the spring, and still he was trampin’ the hills, seekin’ the claim he couldn’t find.”

Harvey glanced down at himself, thoughtfully.

“He began, then, to _look_ as if he was mad. A gaunt thing in rags. I dunno how he and the woman lived at all in them days. He didn’t do any work. He was all the time lookin’ for his claim.”

Harvey glanced up at a star limned in a sky as clear as water. “I hope,” he said, under his breath, “all he said and thought and did in them days is forgiven him. If his soul was black in him can you wonder? If he was ready to curse God and die, can you blame him? After all, ’twasn’t for himself he wanted it so bad.

“There was a day at last, a day in summer. He kind of woke up from a nightmare that day. And he knew it was the end.

“He knew he was finished. He knew he couldn’t go on no more. It’s so, you know. A man gets his soul used up same as his body, when things is too much against him. He knew he just _couldn’t_ go on. He went out in the hills that day, just the same. But he was through with it. The dirty tricks of Life had downed him. He was flat on his back, laid out on the mat, in the great Ring that’s seen the finish of better men than he.

“He kissed his wife. He didn’t take a pick or a shovel that day to dig rocks with. He took his old gun. And he told her—God forgive him!—that he was goin’ to shoot birds.

“He went away, miles about the hills. Everything looked new and strange to him—like things do when you’re looking your last on ’em. He didn’t regard where he was goin’. It was all one. At last he came to a valley under great rocks, where the spruce clung with roots like snakes. He’d no memory of it. He sat down and set the gun between his knees, and slipped off his boot.”

Harvey’s voice checked, faltered. For the first time he moved. He leaned across the fence, and laid a big hand—which shook a little—on the shoulder of the old man squatting in the dew.

“Only for that old pedlar-man that gave him the little packet of flower-seeds,” he said, solemnly—“only for him, that feller’s bones’d be layin’ among the rocks to this day, where the foxes had left ’em.

“For he had his toe on the trigger, friend, when he saw white flowers in bloom a few yards off. At the foot of a slope of loose stones—white columbines.

“There’s plenty of columbines wild in the hills, ain’t there? But these were the dovey kind, the garden ones. His eyes, that were so near shutting on the world for ever, saw ’em for a minute without understanding. And then . . .”

Harvey paused again. His hand quivered on the old man’s shoulder. “And then his memory gave him back some words: ‘_White Columbine_,’ he was reading off of the paper. ‘_Hardy perennial. Sow in autumn in carefully prepared soil._’ He remembered putting it in his pocket; and then no more of it from then till now. He guessed how it had spilt out of his pocket when he fell in the storm. And the seed had filtered into the cracks, and the sun had warmed it, and the rain had fed it; while he was ranging the hills like a lost soul it was safe, and growing, and waiting for that moment, as if the Lord had laid His hand over it till the right time came. And now the time had come. That feller had come into the valley to die; and the little white flowers, like nests of doves, they bade him live. He scraped with his gun-butt in the stones—and there was the lode.”

Harvey was silent. Silent as he; the old man took his pipe from his mouth, and shook out the ashes. A drift of tiny red sparks sank and settled and died in the dew. The reek of the kinnikinnick died. The half-tropic breath of locust and tobacco came into its own.

“That,” said Harvey, “was the beginning of the White Columbine Mine. And ever since”—his hand gripped the lean shoulder, his voice rang loud—“and ever since then that feller’s been looking for the old man that gave him the flower-seeds, and, in so doing, gave him life and fortune and happiness.

“And he thinks he’s found him,” finished Harvey, huskily, leaning low over the fence—“he thinks he’s found him at last.”

After a time the pedlar glanced up at him. He said, very gently: “W’at that feller—that good feller—want with the ole man when he finds him?”

“To give him anything he wants,” said Harvey, quietly.

“What?”

“If he wants a house, it’s his,” said Harvey. “If he wants a farm, it’s his. Money, it’s his. Anything he wants.”

He was smiling, but his keen eyes were dim. The shoulder under his strong hand was so frail, the coat so ragged, the face turned to his so impenetrably old.

“And if that ole pedlar-man want nothing, my frien’?”

“He must want a thousand things!”

“Not one,” said the old man, softly.

“But—”

“Listen. It is my turn.”

“I’m listening.”

“That pedlar, he is ole. Will he grow young if you put him in a fine brick house?”

“No.”

“He is ver’ poor. But the poor man who wants nothing, he is as well off as the rich man?”

“Maybe.”

“You would lay him in a fine, soft bed. But if he did not sleep there for want of the branches and the wind moving in them?”

Harvey was silent.

“You would give him rich food and drinks. Good! But men may starve to death with full bellies, my frien’; and if he starved so for the dawn in summer and the shantymen’s fires in the winter, and the trails of all the hills?”

Again Harvey was silent. The old man rose slowly, and lifted his basket. Harvey started. He said, passionately, “But look at what he—at what you did for me!”

Very gently the old pedlar smiled in a creasing of dim wrinkles. “He only carry the basket,” he said, softly. “It is the good God that settles what shall come out of it. For you, the fine house and the garden full of white flowers for madam to walk in. For me . . . .”

He slung the strap over his shoulder, pulled out his paper of kinnikinnick, filled and lighted the little pipe. “Good man, you,” he said, between puffs; “but there’s one thing you cannot do. You cannot give to the one that wants nothing.”

“I shan’t give up. There’s a thousand of the best waiting for you whenever you want it, anyway. When you’re older or ill my turn’ll come.”

“Per’aps.” The old figure was withdrawing from him into the shadows—infinitely alien, infinitely remote.

“Will you take _nothing_ now?” called Harvey, as if to someone a very long way off.

The old man hesitated. Then, from the columbines nodding through the fence, he picked a single blossom. “This,” he said, “to remember.” His voice, too, was withdrawing, fading away.

The savour of kinnikinnick passed along Magnetwan Avenue, and past the Public Library. Harvey was left, motionless, in the dusk among the white columbines. He held in his hands a red handkerchief. He lifted it, and breathed the rank smell that opened to him the gates of all his past. Shamefacedly, he brushed it with his lips.

THE BOG-WOOD BOX

“This is not a story,” Great-Aunt Hawthorne used to say, “it is just something that happened.”

Mr. Denis Duchesne first saw the box one evening in the shop window, behind a bowl of Japanese silver fish and a windflower blossoming in a blue china jug. It was a little box, quite plain, and by the look of it had lain long a-soaking in the black bog-water. He bought it for a shilling and threepence three farthings, and took it home to keep fiddle-strings in. And no sooner had he taken the lid off than out shone a little green light and a spark.

“’Tis glow worms in the box,” cried Denis, clapping it down. The little light went out quick as a blown candle at the word, and something skittered over his fingers like a flittermouse.

And that was the last leprechaun ever came out of Ireland.

Denis himself had come out of France as a bit of a boy. He taught music and dancing, and was little enough thought of, for all he was grown a fine young man with a wild brown eye and a way of wearing his clothes that set the Mayor’s sons by the ears. He had the lower floor of an old narrow house on the river, and at high tide the bowsprits of the barges used to knock the sandy cat off his window-sill. It was a queer cat, and it always swam ashore with no more fuss than a duck. There was more than one queer thing about that house, what with the Widow Macmurchison on the first floor and old Berry under the roof. And now there it was with a leprechaun loose in it and they not knowing.

Denis hunted for the jumping glow-worm all over the room on his hands and knees, and the sandy cat sat and smiled at him under its whiskers. Trust a sandy cat for knowing the ups and downs of things.

“The devil’s in the box,” cried young Denis, for he had hit his head against the table, “or maybe one of those luminous flies the mayor saw in the Indies.” And with that he coiled up all his spare fiddle-strings as neat as you please and put them in the box. Then he blew out his candle and sat in the window, with the tide fingering on the wet gray stone under him and the stars coming out above. He would sit there for an hour singing songs that he hoped Dorothy Macmurchison on the first floor might give an ear to. He had no more thought of leprechauns in his brown head than he had of sorrow; that was little enough.

And all the time there was the leprechaun hopping upstairs, and he not knowing.

While young Denis was at “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,” with French flourishes, and little Mistress Dorothy was sighing in the room above, the leprechaun went hopping upstairs. By this and that he came to old Berry’s door and opened it and went in, like a little green flame along the dusty floor.

Old Berry was wanting. He always lived in his little room under the roof, and went with the house when it changed hands. He spent most of his time making verse he could never finish, and sometimes he went out and gathered ferns and the red sheep-sorrel that grows among buttercups. He was too old to be surprised at anything, and when he saw the leprechaun he just said “Good evening to you, and my thanks for shutting the door behind you, for the draught’s cruel.”

“Good-evening to ye,” said the leprechaun, all at home and friendly, “good-evening to ye, and a pleasant star to sleep under. And what may ye be doing with your time now?”

“Making songs,” said old Berry, “but they won’t come out right nor end on the good word.”

“Won’t they, now?” answered the leprechaun. “There’s nothing I like better than songs, and I know a many. What might that song be about that’s under the heel of your hand this living moment?”

“Tears and dew,” said old Berry, rubbing his head, “two things that look much alike but someway taste different.”

“I know nought of the first, but of the last, what could be sweeter? And what’s the chune of your song?”

“It was a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten why, but this is the tune of it:

“‘When I left the green hills and fared my feet away, All my heart went down to earth on every falling leaf, And in among the faded fern, the little dew was gray As the gray tears of grief—’

tears and dew, sir, you see.”

“Go on with your chune,” says the leprechaun.

“‘Maybe when I’m older and it’s short from sun to sun, Days I’ll dream of lying there with all the stars above, While in among the sorrel bloom . . .”

“And it ends there,” said the old man, helpless, “which it shouldn’t, and it is in my mind that there is a fine bright word for it to end on, a word I’ve forgotten, and I can’t finish it.”

“I’m not here for long, but I’ll come back before I go and finish your chune for you,” and the leprechaun nodded very friendly and went out. What he did in the night Great-Aunt Hawthorne didn’t know. But while Denis was finishing breakfast in the morning, he came into the room with the sandy cat.

“Holy Saints!” said Denis, and sat with a spoon full of strawberry jam held half way to his mouth, and his mouth open.

“Whist with your staring,” cried the leprechaun, and he took Denis by the wrist very testy, and sent the spoon into his mouth with a clap. “I’ve but looked in for a minute to give you a hint with your affairs, and all you can do is to stare like a heifer in a fairy-ring.”

“Comment,” said Denis Duchesne, as well as he could for the spoon, “and what may you know of me and my affairs, for example?”

The leprechaun smiled, and the sandy cat smiled. “I saw your dreams go past me in the night,” said the leprechaun. “There were the silver dreams of youth, and the golden dreams that are dreams for ever, and there were dreams as red as the briar rose that grows under the green hill. And they were all of them beating and fluttering about the bright head of a girl. And a good girl she is, with a light foot on her and a skin like the new milk that creams at the lip of the pail on a frosty morning. But the Widow . . .” and the leprechaun winked.

“O, the Widow,” groaned Denis.

“Whist with your groaning.” The leprechaun began to waver and flicker like a little green flame before it goes out. “Take what’s given you and good may come of it. Denis, boy, take my word for it, you’ll find all your fiddle strings broken.”

And with that there was Denis, and nothing in front of him, but the sandy cat sitting with its tail round its paws, and the pot of strawberry jam.

Denis was in a great taking. The hair of his head stood up like gorse on a common, the way he tore at it, and he went all round and about the room hunting for the leprechaun. He thought he was mad, with the leprechaun and the talk of Dorothy and all. But by this and by that, and the sight of the sandy cat sleeping under the table, he quieted down and went to look at his fiddle. And there was every string, even the silver G, broken at the bridge.

Young Denis said, “The devil’s in everything,” and took out the broken strings and put in new ones from the bog-wood box. He had no more than tuned the fiddle than there was a knocking at the door. That was the quality come for the dancing lessons. And they knowing nothing about the leprechaun.

The first to come in was the mayor’s wife, a tall woman with a hard eye and a mouth so thin it puzzled Denis how his worship ever had the heart to kiss her. She had her three daughters, and they dropped three great round haughty curtseys to poor Denis bowing in the doorway with his fiddle under his arm and the jam spoon sticking out of his tail-coat pocket, where, in his hurry, he had thrust it. Then old Captain Vandeleur came in with his two nieces that he never let from under his eye, and they but plain girls, and they would have nothing to do with the Mayor’s daughters, but went past them in a rustle of lilac chintz and their noses in the air. Then there was the young man from the apothecary’s who was allowed in to open the door and practise his steps in the corner. And last there was the Widow Macmurchison, with a black front and an India shawl, watching young Denis with an eye like a fish’s, and Dorothy coming in behind her like the breath of the morning, and Denis’s heart kept time to the tune of her little feet on the floor.

But she went past him with her eyes hidden, and there was no more than a “Good-morning to you, Monsieur Duchesne,” and a “B’jour, Ma’amselle Dorothee,” and never a touch of her hand to put him in tune for his work. So it was with a long face that Denis tucked his fiddle under his chin. “Take your places for the new figure, mesdames, if you please,” he said, wearily.

When all the pretty feet were pointed and all the pretty eyes fixed on Denis, he counted: “One, two, three,” and began to play on his little fiddle. And at the first note it was as if a happy wind went through the room, and voices went with the wind.

“For the first note,” said Great-Aunt Hawthorne, “was memory, and the next love and the third laughter.” Never was such a tune. Denis played like a man in a dream, with flying fingers, but in truth the music came from the strings that had lain in the bog-wood box, whether he would or no. And presently the Widow Macmurchison clapped her hand to the India shawl, and “O, my heart,” she cried, “my heart and my youth!” Old Vandeleur put his hat under his chair at the word, and they went off footing it down the room like a pair possessed. The apothecary’s young man came out of the corner, his eyes all lost and shining, and he took the mayor’s youngest daughter and they danced too, light as the flame dances in the ling, she laughing low and the pride gone out of her face. The other girls were dancing together like wild-wood things, all a flutter of roses and ribbons, and their feet might have been shod with swallow’s wings. Their faces were bright and strange, and it was as if the music played in their hearts the tune of all happiness that had been, of all laughter that was to be. Never was such a tune.

For there was a more wonderful thing let loose in the room than ever the leprechaun was, and that was youth. The music was in their feet and the music was in their hearts. Little Mistress Dorothy danced up to Denis like a leaf in a warm wind, and her eyes were raised at last, and shone into his like stars in a merry heaven. She said no word, but she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and they danced off together. The measure they danced was different, and the music they heard was different, for there was grief in it and a shadow, as there is in all great things. The sweet wind and the voices seemed to follow them.

“Is there a light shining on dove’s wings?” said Dorothy in a dreaming voice.

“I see nothing but the light in your eyes.”

“Do you hear a beat of tears in the music?”

“I hear nothing but the beat of your heart,” said Denis as he played.

“Do you see a falling of leaves?”

“I see nothing but the flowering of the rose that folds the world,” and they danced on.

“That’s a work well finished,” said the leprechaun, who had been listening at the keyhole. And he hopped upstairs thoughtfully to old Berry’s room.

Old Berry was lying very quietly on his bed in the bright morning sunlight, with sheep-sorrel in his hand, and his age was heavy on him.

“I’ve brought the bright word for the song,” said the leprechaun, sitting like a little green flame on the bed-post, “the song of the tears and the dew.”

“Have you, now?” whispered the old man. “Then I take it very neighbourly of you, for I have never come to finish it. And what’s the bright word that will be the end of it?”

“I’ll finish your chune for you,” said the leprechaun,

“‘Maybe when I’m older and it’s short from sun to sun, Days I’ll dream of lying there with all the stars above, While in among the sorrel bloom the little dew will run Like the white tears of love.’

Love’s the bright word.”

“A good word, a bright word for the end of a song,” said old Berry, and he fingered the sheep-sorrel and slept, with the leprechaun watching him. Soon the leprechaun slipped from the room, for there was that in it he might not abide. He went down the stairs like a little flame and the sandy cat followed him. The pair of them went down the gray street together in the morning, and it’s a hard question which was the wiser. But they went, and no more was seen of them.

And in the room on the ground floor, said Great-Aunt Hawthorne, they were at their dancing all day long.

FRIENDS

“Why did you hit that white-headed kid?”

This was Loch’s first recorded remark in reference to Jimsy Lewis. The answer was not unreasonable.

“A kid like that is made to be hit.”

But there are other lights than that of reason. “Well you are not to hit him. That kid is my friend. When we are grown up, he is coming with me on adventures . . . .”