Part 8 (1/2)
B. ”Will he be the less of a rogue for the frog-pond?”
W. 'Round and 'round.
The questions duly answered, and evidently to his entire satisfaction, the bear wound up the dialogue thus:
”Then, Will, lead on, over mire and clay, And when you come where the dead men lay, Hold your lantern close to the mound, That we may keep on Manitou ground.”
With Will-o'-the-Wisp now at their head, again were they speeding swiftly onward. Of their guide, Sprigg could at first see nothing, saving his big, dim lantern; but, soon chancing to look a little lower, there, directly under the light, he saw, strange to tell, a pair of red moccasins, gliding on over the tops of the rank swamp weeds, and so lightly that the long, lithe sedge, swaying to the slightest breeze, bent not under their tread. The boy glanced quickly down at his heels to rea.s.sure himself that the wispy elf had not stepped into and walked off in his own moccasins. But there they still dangled, just the same, each with a toe at one of his heels. Then flashed it upon his mind that he had not really seen his own moccasins since he had flung them from him up there on the Manitou hill; and so, for aught he or anybody else could tell, red moccasins, if people could only see them, might prove to be as plentiful in the world as Yankee shoes.
How long, how far they traveled Sprigg, of course, had no means of judging; but the moon had well nigh climbed to the top of the sky, when, having left the mora.s.s far behind them, they came to the foot of another lofty mountain, where, under the shadow of a beetling cliff, yawned the rocky jaws of a huge cavern, into which Will-o'-the-Wisp led the way, his big, dim lamp beginning to brighten the moment it entered the subterranean gloom. Hardly had they crossed the threshold when Sprigg could perceive that they were descending as steeply as, but now, they had been rising. Deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain they sank; deeper and deeper into the heart of the earth; the ball of light no longer a phosph.o.r.escent gleam, but a flame of living fire. But it was not long before they had descended again to the level ground, which they traversed for some distance, then, for the first time since quitting the farther side of the swamp, came they to a pause.
Sprigg looked around him. Nothing could he see, saving the bear, the red moccasins behind him, the red moccasins before him; and just over the latter the ball of light, which was now burning with such brilliancy that the luminous hemisphere around it formed a wide and lofty dome in the solid darkness of the cavern. For some moments past he had heard a murmuring sound, as of abundant waters rippling over a rocky bed; and filling all the air was a delectable perfume, as if flowery fields and fruitful groves must be blooming and waving not far off. By this time nothing amazed him. Nothing frightened him. He moved and felt and thought as one in a dream; and so, indeed, had it all appeared to him from the moment he had lost sight of his father, there at the old hunting camp.
CHAPTER XIII.
Meg of the Hills.
”Meg of the Hills! Meg of the Hills!” So called the bear in a loud voice; very loud, indeed, yet in the tone of the voice was something which Sprigg had not before observed there, so deep and mellow and musical was it. In answer to the summons, forth into the luminous circle, from some mysterious depth of the cavern, soon came gliding a bearess, who seemed in every way a match for the bear, excepting that she was of a smoother, gentler type.
”Meg of the Hills, have all come home, From mountain climb and forest roam, From river mist and ocean foam, From moon-rise white and sun-set red, From elk-stag lair and bison bed, From panther ambush still and dread, All, all returned?”
To which the bearess answered:
”Yes all returned to Manitou den, Save those who walk by night with men.
To bring the deeds in darkness done, To the dread light of the tell-tale sun.”
Then suddenly a.s.suming a tone of voice as different from the former as fiddle from violin, and with a particular eye to our hero, where he still kept his seat on his charger's back, or rather was kept there by the unlocked arms of Manitou-Echo, the bearess added:
”And you did find the little runaway, sure enough, Nick?”
”Aye, that did I, and a stiff-necked, strong-backed, hard-muzzled cub of a human thing do I find him, too! Tough! Tough!”
”Then all the accounts we have heard of him are but too true,” sadly observed the bearess, whom the bear called ”Meg.”
”But too true!” echoed the bear, whom the bearess called ”Nick.”
Meg. ”Is it really a fact, then, that his thoughts by day and his dreams by night are so taken up with red moccasins that he is in a fair way to make a monkey of himself?”
Nick. ”Really a fact.”
Meg. ”A fact, too, that he had no thanks in his heart for the beautiful moccasins, which his kindest of fathers gave him one night last week?”
Nick. ”A fact, too!”
Meg. ”A fact, also, that his thoughts are so wrapped up in the moccasins that he has none left for his prayers?”