Part 4 (1/2)
”He-he-he!”
And a low, wild laugh went out on the air. All three jumped--the boy, the man, the dog--and, with startled eyes, all glanced behind them. The dog slunk cowering back to the side of his master, who, with a glance of his keen hunter's eye, which comprehended every object around them, said, addressing his dumb companion:
”What! frightened, my brave old fellow? Frightened for the first time in your life! What could it have been? for not a thing do I see.” Yet his eyes, as also those of the dog, were turned directly toward the spot where, as though he were a bush and his feet roots, the boy still stood, the sunlight s.h.i.+ning full upon him. Sprigg felt a strange thrill come creeping through his veins, to find that, though he was looked at, it was with a look as if he were not perceived. A discovery, which caused his heart to quake with a terror he could not have felt, had his father actually seen him and called to him in a loud, stern voice, to know what he did there, and to command him to go back home.
”No, Pow-wow,” again said the hunter to his cowering dog, and still glancing keenly about him, ”not a thing do I see that could either laugh or cry; and yet, just there on the ground, in that spot of sunlight, I do see something which looks for all the world like a boy's shadow.” And lifting his eyes to the branches of the trees above him, Jervis scanned them narrowly to discover the particular bough to which the freak might be ascribed. Then lowering his eyes against to the shadow on the ground, with a look of no small wonderment, he added:
”It seems, Pow-wow, that our ears and eyes have a plot among them to play us a trick. But, come! Let's push on home. The day grows late, and we still have ten long miles to trudge; and Sprigg, you know, must have a good, broad edge of daylight for looking at and playing with the young black fox we found in our trap this morning. How our boy will kick up his heels when he comes out to meet us, finding we have brought him so rare a pet! But won't he, though? So up with your tail, my brave old fellow! Up with your tail and lead on!”
But Pow-wow did not up with his tail; nor, till now, when they were turning to go, had he ceased to glare at the spot where his young master was standing, and whence had come that low, wild laugh. Sprigg watched them till he could see them no longer. Then he laughed, as he had done at home, to pluck up the spirit he had lost; laughed in such a way as to make him imagine that, after all, it could only have been himself, who but now had laughed. But that his father and Pow-wow could have pa.s.sed right by him without seeing him, or discovering his presence in any way, was a circ.u.mstance certainly far from pleasant to think of; even while the young runaway felt quite a.s.sured that had he been found there, so far from home, he should, for that one time, at least, have been severely punished. But there it was coming again! That sound, so like a voice shaping in words the thoughts of his own heart.
”Pluck up, Sprigg! Pluck up! Ten long miles from home, and the old hen and her chickens still with their bills in the dough, which Elster threw out to them as we were climbing the fence. And now, Sprigg, don't you see that with these red moccasins on your feet you are as swift as a young wild goose, if not swifter? Better still, you are no more to be seen in them, even when met by your own father, face to face--no more to be seen than the thin air you stand in! Then, what can catch you? What can hurt you? Sprigg, this is fine! It is splendid! Only see how high the sun is, and we already here at the old hunting camp, exactly half way between your house and grandpap's. You heard pap say to Pow-wow that you must have a good, broad edge of daylight for the young black fox, but you shall have that for better things than black foxes. You shall, in the first place, go by young Ben Logan's house, only a mile or so out of your way, and letting him have just one broad stare at your brave moccasins--set him to dying of envy at once. This done, you will have time enough, and to spare, for going by pretty little Bertha Bryant's house; although, to do this, you will be obliged to pa.s.s by grandpap's first. But I would do it; and I would walk directly through the yard, and allowing Bertha just one flitting glimpse of your beautiful moccasins, set her, there on the spot, to losing her senses for very admiration and love of them. Then, pluck up your heart, my boy!
Pluck up heart! Oh, what a brave boy is Sprigg! Who said our Sprigg was not a brave boy? He-he-he!”
Poor Sprigg! Why did you not cast off the terrible moccasins then and there? And, all in your naked feet, unmindful of tearing stones and piercing thorns, speed you after your father, and confessing all, implore him to beat you, ere he had forgiven you? He might have done so; rebuked you sternly, punished you sorely, but far easier and better for you had been all that than the fearful delight which was now charming you out of your better nature. For, had he done so, would he not have taken you, with your feet all torn and bleeding as they were, your body all bruised with the stripes of his chastising rod--taken you up in his strong, loving arms and borne you home? Home, the one place under the pitiful heavens where the young and the aged, the weak and the helpless, the untried and the overtried, should look for happiness, peace and safety!
CHAPTER VIII.
Awakes to Find that He Is Lost.
Again the poor, vain boy was speeding him on his lone and perilous way.
His flight was as swift as the wind, yet so smooth and lightsome that he could gaze upon his moccasins and delight his eyes with their glitter and gleam, as completely at his ease as were he perched on his three-legged stool at home. Of course, then, rambling on thus, with neither eye nor thought but for the red allurements on his feet, he must, ere long, lose sight of the road he set out to follow. This will surprise you the less when told that from the time he had put them on at the spring, it had seemed to the poor boy's fancy that the moccasins knew, as well as himself, whither they were bound, and that they would take him there by the shortest and easiest route, did he but yield himself to their guidance. The road to be followed, thus lost sight of--what wonder, then, if the place to be reached should at last be lost sight of also!
In this strange plight, the young wanderer was pursuing his way, when he was aroused from his walking dream by a broad, red glare, which struck full upon his downcast eyes, and for the moment left him blind as night.
Soon, however, his vision returned to him strong and clear, when he found himself on the top of a lofty hill, just where a gap in the forest let in the flood of sunlight; and this it was which had dazzled him into transient blindness, as, too suddenly, he had entered it from out the sombre shadows, in which he for long hours had been wandering.
Now had you seen that hill, how lofty and steep it was, and marked with what ease and swiftness our hero scaled it, you would have said at once that the red moccasins had more to do with the feat than Sprigg's own legs. The gap in the forest proved to be a long, lane-like opening through the trees, which covered only the sides of a round-backed ridge.
Through this opening Sprigg had an un.o.bstructed view toward some distant hills in the West, and could see that the sun had well nigh run his daily course. The ridge ascended gradually till it reached it greatest elevation where the boy was standing, and here ended abruptly in a promontory-like hill, which overlooked a wide sea of waving verdure far below. The brow of the hill and the crest of the ridge were not so bare of trees but that, here and there, a lofty oak tree might be seen; but the face toward the East was much too steep and smooth to offer a foothold for trees, being covered instead with a dense growth of low bushes, whose twisted twigs and crisped leaves had, from a distance, more the appearance of moss than of verdure.
Upon waking from his reverie, and turning to look behind him, Sprigg had found himself on the very brink of the declivity. Could it be possible that he had climbed it without conscious effort? Or, indeed, without any effort at all of his own! A bear climbing, paw over paw, might have been equal to the feat; but even a bear, were he minded to scale the hill, would have chosen a more circuitous and less laborious route. There was not the sign of a path made by man or beast anywhere to be seen, either up the steep or along the ridge. Even of his own footsteps, Sprigg could not discern a single trace, whether in crushed leaf, or bruised weed, or print of his moccasins left in the soft soil.
The spot was utterly strange to him; it could not have been more so, had he been taken and set down on a hill in the land of Nod. He looked around. There were hills far, far beneath the one on which he stood. And beneath these valleys and plains, while one unbroken forest spread dark and sombre over all, not a token of man or savage could he discover, whether in house, or field, or road, or column of smoke curling up from among the trees. Nothing but woods, woods. Woods! Then, like a sudden awakening from a wild dream, it flashed upon his consciousness that he was lost.
”Where am I?” cried the poor boy. ”How came I here?”
”He-he-he!”
Sprigg jumped. This time, the sound that seemed so like a laugh was too completely outside of himself; too little in harmony with his present thoughts for him to fancy it was himself that laughed. First on this side, then on that. Quite near at hand he looked--not a thing of life could he see. He looked far forth; a herd of deer was grazing in a blue-gra.s.s glade, a great way off to the right; and a great way off to the left, a herd of buffalo, browsing on the tender shoots of a cane-brake, which skirted the banks of a beautiful river. Behind him, toward the setting sun, a few birds of prey were wheeling and screaming aloft in the crimson evening sky. Saving these, not a thing of life or sound was there to be seen in all the wilds. Lost! Lost! Lost! To find himself lost is the only discovery your waking dreamer is apt to make.
Then Sprigg looked down and scanned the red moccasins. They showed not a grain of dust, not a speck of mire, not a stain of gra.s.s, or weed, or water, although he had walked in them--or, if you please, they had walked with him--through many a mile of gra.s.sy wood and reedy swamp, where path was none, that had ever been trodden by foot of man. As clean and bright and red were they as when he had drawn them on in the shade of the spring trees there at home. A rather singular circ.u.mstance, certainly; and only to be explained upon the ground that, as the boy had submitted himself entirely to their guidance, the moccasins had daintily picked out the road which suited them best, and such roads, I warrant you, as common shoes were not at all in the habit of traveling.
Yes, the red charms had beguiled the young runaway, and, without any motive or knowledge of his own, had brought him to that remote and solitary spot--how, or to what end, he could not imagine. Of one thing he was certain, they had not brought him to grandpap's house, as they--for so it had seemed to him--had promised they would, and he had been so foolish as to believe they could. At last, but when it was too late, the scales were beginning to fall from his eyes. In other words, the red fog, in which he had so long been chased by the shadow he sought, was beginning to grow a little transparent, so that he could view his case in a somewhat clearer and more natural light. Apparent enough was it now that the red moccasins had deceived him, mocked him, laughed at him--in short, made a fool of Sprigg completely. This discovery brought a twinge to his self-love, far more severe than any pain of conscience he felt at the thought of the foul lie he had told, or of his shabby flight from home; even while he could not help but be aware of the grief and shame and distressing apprehensions he must thereby be causing his dear father and mother. In a pet of wrath, plump down he sat, this poor, vain boy; and, jerking the moccasins from off his feet, flung them, one after the other, over the brink of the steep, as far as his st.u.r.dy, young arms could send them.
”Curse the red moccasins!” cried the boy, as now in his bare feet he stood, the hot tears jumping suddenly out of his eyes. ”You mocked me, fooled me, lost me! Curse you! and may I never----”
What more he might have said was cut short by a noise, which, while he was yet speaking, had caught his ear. A noise as of answering voices, mingled with peals of wild and mocking laughter, heard from several directions at once, and ringing out clear and shrill upon the still evening air. These sounds abruptly ceased--the more abruptly from leaving no echoes behind them, where echoes were wont to be left. But straight were they succeeded by another sound, caused, apparently, by a pair of light feet, which, with a hop, step and jump, by way of a start, were now coming in through the leaves and gra.s.s with a slow and measured tread; and so near at hand that he who walked would have been in plain view just there. At first Sprigg looked too high to see what was to be seen, but soon lowering his gaze he saw----