Chapter XXXIV: Part II (9)

During the fourth day’s journey, while we were passing through a very extensive forest, several wolves came out into the road and followed us a mile or more, but at quite a respectful distance. Their number was too small to cause me any uneasiness, though my driver did not at all like their presence, and the horses betrayed their alarm by their evident desire to hurry along. One large black fellow tried to get up some excitement, and howled most dismally, so I made my driver stop, while I got out my heavy Smith & Wesson revolver. Taking a rest over my left elbow, I let fly at his shoulder as he stood sideways to me, and had the satisfaction of seeing him stumble forwards, and take to the timber again with his friends at his heels. My driver told me that a sledge had been attacked by wolves on this very road a couple of winters before, and both horses and passengers eaten up, but that the wolves had been rather scarce since.

I had heard much about wolf-hunting as practised by the Russians of the Steppes, viz., driving a sledge through the woods and over the plains with a piece of meat dragging behind to attract the wolves, thus giving the hunters in the sledge an opportunity to kill them. I had promised myself to try this plan and have some sport in spite of the fact that my driver told some blood-curdling tales of the fierceness of the wolves when banded together and made desperate by hunger.

It was nearly night on the fifth day, before I arrived at my destination, and, as may be imagined, I enjoyed a good night’s sleep, as well as a much better supper than I had been having.

The following morning I had to attend to the business that had brought me so far. I soon discovered that only prompt action would save us heavy losses, so I at once discharged the local manager, as well as two collectors, whose honesty I had cause to suspect. This threw much work on my hands, so I had very little time at my own disposal. However, I managed to make the acquaintance of a Captain Komanoff, who owned a small estate in the neighborhood, and who was devoted to sport in all its branches. When I mentioned my desire for a wolf hunt to him, he laughed and said he had been on several, and had generally had good sport. He added that he would arrange to go with me whenever I should be ready.

In the course of ten days I had the rather complicated affairs pretty well in hand, and as there had been a damp fall of snow, followed by a frost, I concluded I could spare time for my hunt. Accordingly, I notified Komanoff, and one clear, calm night we entered an open sledge, that is, one without any top, and with three good horses harnessed abreast, set out.

I carried my shotgun, with a bounteous supply of cartridges loaded with small buckshot, thinking it a better weapon than a rifle to use at night, while Komanoff had an army carbine, carrying a large-sized ball, with which, he told me, he had killed many a bear and wolf. Each of us was also armed with a revolver and heavy hunting-knife. The driver whom we had engaged for the night had a couple of pistols and a knife in his belt, and as he was a plucky fellow and had hunted (or been hunted by) wolves before, we were pretty well prepared for anything. Ivan (the driver) took care that we also had a small basket of lunch and a bottle of brandy, so we were quite in the humor to make a night of it.

The snow was well crusted over, and easily bore our horses, thus making a hard, level surface to travel over, also reducing the chances of a capsize, which, if one were pursued, might give the sport a very different ending from that intended. When well out from the village and near the edge of the timber, the bait (in this case a quarter of a calf, well rubbed with asafœtida and bound with straw) was thrown over and allowed to drag at the end of a stout cord about forty feet behind us.

It was certainly a grand night, the moon being at the full, and the reflection on the snow made objects almost as clearly discernable as in the daytime. Far up on the northern horizon the Aurora Borealis alternately flashed and paled, now throwing up bars and rays of violet and gold, and again diffusing itself over the heavens in a soft but ever-changeful glow.

We had been riding slowly along for a couple of hours, when Komanoff remarked:

“I am afraid we shall have our trip for nothing; the wolves don’t seem to be about to-night, and yet this wood is a famous place to look for them.”

“Don’t be uneasy, Captain,” said Ivan; “I am going to make a circle and cross our track again, and I think you will have some shooting yet.”

The words were hardly spoken before we heard, far off to our right, the long-drawn, sepulchral howl of a wolf. He had evidently struck our trail, and the veal smelled good, so he was yelling for his friends. The team was at once stopped, while we listened and heard several more howls in response. The horses heard them too, and at once showed their fear by an attempt to get away, but Ivan had them well under control, and only permitted them to walk, not wishing to blow them before the beasts began to gather.

“I see a wolf,” said Komanoff; “look away back there on our track, right under the moon. Ah! and there are several more; I think they will come along now.”

Looking back, I saw several black objects coming out of the timber, which we knew to be wolves, and the way they increased in size showed they were following us at full speed. Every now and then several more would dart out of the woods and join our pursuers; but not a sound was heard, for wolves, unlike dogs, run mute. We now prepared to receive them, and we removed our heavy outer coats so as to allow us a better chance to shoot. The horses were allowed to trot, though it was all Ivan could do to hold them, as they were pulling the sledge by their bits, whilst they showed by their rolling eyes and quick backward glances, their extreme terror.

Our friends in the rear now numbered fully twenty, and to my surprise they came rushing boldly on, as though we were no more to be feared than some timid deer which they had cornered.

When they had come within thirty yards I gave the foremost my right barrel and instantly followed it with my left among the pack. I saw the leader’s tail go up as he plunged forward on his head, and Komanoff exclaimed that two more had dropped to my second shot. I fully expected that the rest would scatter in all directions, but they did nothing of the kind; they simply fell upon their defunct companions and tore them to pieces almost before they had done kicking, and then immediately resumed their pursuit of us.

When Komanoff saw this he looked rather grave, and told Ivan it would be well to head for home. “For,” said he, “when they eat each other in that manner, it’s a sign that they are starving, and should a large pack gather, we would have a poor chance of escape.”

Accordingly, Ivan let his team go along at an easy gallop. The wolves were again coming along in hot pursuit, and were almost in range, when Ivan uttered a shout, and the horses made a sudden swerve, so that the sledge was nearly upset. Komanoff and I were thrown in a heap in the bottom, his gun being discharged by his fall, fortunately without doing any damage. Quickly recovering ourselves, we saw that a fresh and large pack of wolves had come out of the woods, and had nearly run into us, causing the team to bolt at full speed. I fired right and left into the thick of them (they were only a few yards away), while Komanoff began to empty his revolver.

This fusillade checked them for a few moments, till our original pack had come up and joined them. Then, having devoured the slain, they came for us again with redoubled vigor, their appetites having evidently been sharpened by the taste of blood. As they closed upon us we fired as rapidly as we could load, but without alarming them at all, only a few stopping to bury the dead (in their stomachs), while the main body tried to come up with our horses and sledge.

Komanoff now cut our bait loose, for we had had all the fun we wanted. As the wave of wolves, as one might say, rolled up over it, we fired into the thick of it, and, as they were in a dense mass, must have done considerable execution. But they were only delayed a moment, and on they came again, their long, tireless gallop soon bringing them up with us.

It was indeed a fearful sight, and enough to shake the stoutest nerves. There was that vast pursuing horde, crazy with hunger and wild with lust of blood, dashing after us relentless as death. Their long black bodies swept over the snow, the hindmost constantly leaping over the foremost in their eagerness to press on, their eyes a-shine, with great flecks of foam on breasts and sides, while the glimpses we caught of their long white teeth showed us just what our fate would be should there be an accident to team or vehicle. Komanoff turned to me and said: “If they ever pass us and leap on the horses we are dead men. Keep cool and shoot only those that try to pass on your side and I will do the same on mine.”

So we dashed on for a mile or so, keeping up a rapid fire, and shooting a number of our dusky friends. They were thoroughly in earnest, and made repeated attempts to get at our horses, but so far we had been able to foil them, when suddenly a big gray fellow dashed past on Komanoff’s side (who missed him), and flung himself on the outside horse. Ivan shot at him as he did so, but the horse swerved and stumbled, breaking both traces before he could recover himself. The wolf fell as the ball struck him, but our team was now almost unmanageable, and we were liable to be upset at any moment. Fortunately Ivan kept his head, and succeeded in turning his horses towards a deserted charcoal-burner’s hut, which he knew, and applied his whip lustily, so we dashed forward with renewed speed.

“I know where he is going,” said Komanoff, “but our chance is poor unless the door be open; but it’s our only hope now, therefore be ready to jump the instant I do. Take you the arms, while I help Ivan with the horses.”

A short distance farther and we sighted the cabin. The door was ajar, and as we pulled up I tumbled out the guns, robes and lunch-basket, and with a revolver in each hand faced our pursuers.

Our sudden stop and the rapid crack of my pistols seemed to confuse the pack, and checked them long enough to enable my companions to cut the horses loose. They instantly dashed off through the forest, a portion of our hungry assailants after them in hot pursuit, whilst we ran into the house and barred the door in the faces of those that remained. In a few seconds there was a perfect cloud of wolves round us, some of them frantically digging at the walls, and others trying the door with their teeth. Fortunately it was a stout one, or this story would never have been written.

After resting a little, we found a chink or two in the walls through which we could shoot, and again opened fire. After we had knocked over some twenty-five or thirty of them, the survivors drew off, though they still continued to prowl round and fight over the bones of the dead, for all we shot were instantly devoured by their companions. Meanwhile we had contrived to start a fire, and having eaten our lunch we lit our pipes and waited for day to break, thinking then our savage foes would raise the siege. In this hope we were not disappointed, for as the morning light became clear the wolves sneaked off one by one, casting, however, many wistful glances in our direction. We gave them a few parting shots by way of farewell, and as soon as the sun was fairly up we came out of our house of refuge and started on our five-mile tramp for home.

We had not proceeded far, however, before we met a well-armed company of men coming to look for us, as one of the horses had reached home, and they judged from his condition, as well as the cut harness, that we were in a scrape of some kind. We arrived home safely, and after a good sleep were none the worse for our adventure. The other two horses, however, never turned up, but their bones were found in the forest the following spring not far from the hut, just where the poor animals had been pulled down.

This experience cured me of all desire for wolf hunting, and though I spent several months at the post, and had plenty of sport, I never cared to see a wolf again.

HERNE THE HUNTER.

BY WILLIAM PERRY BROWN.

~Herne the Hunter~ was tall, brown and grizzled. The extreme roundness of his shoulders indicated strength rather than infirmity, while the severing of his great neck at a blow would have made a feudal executioner famous in his craft. An imaginative man might have divined something comely beneath the complex conjunction of lines and ridges that made up his features, but it would have been more by suggestion, however, than by any actual resemblance to beauty traceable thereon. The imprint of strength, severity and endurance was intensified by an open contempt of appearance; only to a subtle second-sight was revealed aught nobler, sweeter and sadder, like faint stars twinkling behind filmy clouds.

Some town-bred Nimrod, with a misty Shakespearean memory, had added to his former patronymic of “Old Herne” that of Windsor’s ghostly visitor. The mountaineers saw the fitness of the title, and “Herne the Hunter” became widely current.

His place of abode was as ambiguous as his history, being somewhere beyond the “Dismal,” amid the upper caves and gorges of the Nantahalah. The Dismal was a weird, wild region of brake and laurel, walled in by lonely mountains, with a gruesome outlet between two great cliffs, that nearly met in mid-air hundreds of feet over a sepulchral cañon, boulder-strewn, and thrashed by a sullen torrent, that led from a dolorous labyrinth, gloomy at midday, and at night resonant with fierce voices and sad sighings.

Far down in Whippoorwill Cove, the mountaineers told savage tales of adventure about the outskirts of the Dismal, yet, beyond trapping round the edges or driving for deer, it was to a great extent a _terra incognita_ to all, unless Herne the Hunter was excepted.

“The devil air in the man, ’nd hopes him out’n places no hones’ soul keers to pester hisse’f long of.”

This was common opinion, though a few averred that “Old Herne ’nd the devil wern’t so master thick atter all.” Said one: “Why, the dinged old fool totes his Bible eroun’ ez riglar ez he do his huntin’-shirt. Onct when the parson wuz holdin’ the big August meetin’ down ter Ebeneezer Meetin’-house, he stepped in. The meetin’ was a gittin’ ez cold ez hen’s feet, ’nd everybody a lookin’ at Herne the Hunter, when down he draps onto his knees, ’nd holdin’ on by his rifle he ’gun ter pray like a house afire. Wal, he prayed ’nd he prayed, ’twel the people, arter thur skeer wuz over, ’gun ter pray ’nd shout too, ’nd fust they all knowed, the front bench wuz plum full of mou’ners. Wal, they hed a hog-killin’ time fur a while, ’nd all sot on by Herne the Hunter, but when they quieted down ’nd begun ter luk fer him--by jing!--he wern’t thar. Nobody hed seed him get erway, ’nd that set ’em ter thinkin’, ’nd the yupshot wuz they hed the bes’ meetin’ old Ebeneezer hed seed in many a year.”

Once a belated hunter discovered, when the fog came down, that he was lost amid the upper gorges of the Nantahalahs. While searching for some cranny wherein to pass the night, he heard a voice seemingly in mid-air before him, far out over an abyss of seething vapor which he feared concealed a portion of the dreaded Dismal. Memories of Herne the Hunter crowded upon him, and he strove to retrace his steps, but fell into a trail that led him to a cave which seemed to bar his further way. The voice came nearer; his blood chilled as he distinguished imprecations, prayers and entreaties chaotically mingled, and all the while approaching him. He fled into the cave, and peering thence, beheld a shadowy form loom through the mist, gesticulating as it came.

A whiff blew aside shreds of the fog, and he saw Herne the Hunter on the verge of a dizzy cliff, shaking his long rifle, his hair disheveled, his eyes dry and fiery, and his huge frame convulsed by the emotions that dominated him. The very fury and pathos of his passion were terrifying, and the watcher shrank back as old Herne, suddenly dropping his rifle, clutched at the empty air, then paused dejectedly.

“Always thus!” he said, in a tone of deep melancholy. “Divine in form--transfigured--beautiful--oh, so beautiful!--yet ever with the same accursed face. I have prayed over these visitations. I have sought in God’s word that confirmation of my hope which should yet save me from despair; but, when rising from my supplications, the blest vision confronts me--the curse is ever there--thwarting its loveliness--reminding me of what was, but will never be again.”

He drew a tattered Bible from his bosom and searched it intently. He was a sight at once forbidding and piteous, as he stood with wind-fluttered garments, his foot upon the edge of a frightful precipice, his head bent over the book as though devouring with his eyes some sacred antidote against the potency of his sorrow. Then he looked up, and the Bible fell from his hands. His eyes became fixed; he again clutched at the air, then fell back with a despairing gesture, averting his face the while.

“Out of my sight!” he cried. “Your eyes are lightning, and your smile is death. I will have no more of you--no more! And yet--O God! O God!--what dare I--what can I do without you?”

He staggered back and made directly for the cavern. The watcher shrank back, while Herne the Hunter brushed blindly by, leaving Bible and rifle on the rock without. Then the wanderer, slipping out, fled down the narrow trail as though there were less peril from the dizzy cliffs around than in the society of the strange man whose fancies peopled these solitudes with such soul-harrowing phantoms.

Thus for years Herne the Hunter had been a mystery, a fear, and a fascination to the mountaineers; recoiling from men, abhorring women, rebuffing curiosity, yet at times strangely tender, sad, and ever morbidly religious. He clung to his Bible as his last earthly refuge from his darker self, and to the aspirations it engendered as a bane to the fatalistic stirrings within him.

He was a mighty hunter and lived upon the proceeds of his skill. Once or twice a year he would appear at some mountain store, fling down a package of skins, and demand its worth in powder and lead. The jean-clad loungers would regard him askance, few venturing to idly speak with him, and none repeating the experiment. His mien daunted the boldest. If women were there he would stand aloof until they left; on meeting them in the road he would sternly avert his eyes as though from a distasteful presence. One day the wife of a storekeeper, waiting on him in her husband’s absence, ventured to say, while wrapping up his purchases:

“I’ve all’ays wonnered, Mr. Herne, what makes ye wanter git outen the wimmen folks’ way? Mos’ men likes ter have ’em eroun’.”

Herne the Hunter frowned heavily, but made no reply.

“I’m shore, if ye had a good wife long with ye way up thar whur ye live, she’d make ye a leetle more like a man ’nd less like a--a--” she hesitated over a term which might censure yet not give offense.

“Like a beast you would say.” He exclaimed then with vehemence: “Were the necks of all women in one, and had I my hands on it, I’d strangle them all, though hell were their portion thereafter.”

He made a gesture as of throttling a giant, snatched his bundle from the woman’s hand and took himself off up the road with long strides.

* * * * *

That night was a stormy one. Herne the Hunter was covering the last ten miles between him and the Dismal in a pelting rain. The incident at the store, trivial as it was, had set his blood aflame. He prayed and fought against himself, oblivious of the elements and the darkness, sheltering his powder beneath his shirt of skins where his Bible lay secure. In his ears was the roar of wind and the groans of the tortured forest. Dark ravines yawned beside him, out of which the wolf howled and the mountain owl laughed; and once came a scream like a child, yet stronger and more prolonged. He knew the panther’s voice, yet he heeded nothing.

At last another cry, unmistakably human, rose nearer by. Then he paused, like a hound over a fresher scent, until it was repeated. He made his way around a shoulder of the mountain, and aided by the gray light of a cloud-hidden moon, approached the figures of a woman, a boy and a horse, all three dripping and motionless.

“Thank God! we will not die here, after all,” exclaimed the female, as Herne the Hunter grimly regarded them. “Oh, sir, we have missed the way. This boy was guiding me to the survey camp of Captain Renfro, my husband, on the upper Swananoa. He has sprained his foot, and we have been lost for hours. Can you take us to a place of shelter? I will pay you well--”

“I hear a voice from the pit,” said Herne, fiercely. “It is the way with your sex. You think, though you sink the world, that with money you can scale Heaven. Stay here--rot--starve--perish--what care I!”

After this amazing outburst he turned away, but her terror of the night overbore her fear of this strange repulse, and she grasped his arm. He shook himself free, though the thrill accompanying her clasp staggered him. For years no woman’s hand had touched him; but at this rebuff she sank down, crying brokenly:

“What shall I do? I should not have started. They warned me below, but I thought the boy knew the way. Oh, sir! if you have a heart, do not leave us here.”

“A heart!” he cried. “What’s that? A piece of flesh that breeds endless woes in bosoms such as yours. All men’s should be of stone--as mine is now!” He paused, then said abruptly; “Up with you and follow me. I neither pity nor sympathize; but for the sake of her who bore me, I will give you such shelter as I have.”

He picked up the boy, who, knowing him, had sat stupefied with fear, and bade the woman follow him.

“But the horse?” she said, hesitating.

“Leave it,” he replied. “The brute is the best among you, but whither we go no horse may follow.”

He turned, taking up the boy in his arms, and she dumbly followed him, trembling, faint, yet nerved by her fears to unusual exertion. So rapid was his gait, encumbered though he was, that she kept him in view with difficulty. Through the gloom she could divine the perils that environed their ever upward way. The grinding of stricken trees, the brawl of swollen waters harrowed her nerves not less than the partial gleams of unmeasured heights and depths revealed by the lightning. A sense of helplessness exaggerated these terrors among the unknown possibilities surrounding her.

It seemed as though they would never stop again. Her limbs trembled, her heart thumped suffocatingly, yet their guide gave no heed, but pressed on as though no shivering woman pantingly dogged his steps. They traveled thus for several miles. She felt herself giving way totally when, on looking up once more, she saw that the hunter had vanished.

“Where am I?” she cried, and a voice, issuing seemingly out of the mountain-side, bade her come on. Her hands struck a wall of rock; on her right a precipice yawned; so, groping toward the left, she felt as she advanced that she was leaving the outer air; the wind and rain no longer beat upon her, yet the darkness was intense.

She heard the voice of the boy calling upon her to keep near. Into the bowels of the mountains she felt her way until a gleam of light shone ahead. She hastened forward round a shoulder of rock into a roomy aperture branching from the main cavern. The boy lay upon a pallet of skins, while Herne the Hunter fixed the flaring pine-knot he had lighted into a crevice of the rock. Then he started a fire, drew out of another crevice some cold cooked meat and filled a gourd with water from a spring that trickled out at one end of the cave.

“Eat,” he said, waving his hand. “Eat--that ye may not die. The more unfit to live, the less prepared for death. Eat!”

With that he turned away and busied himself in bathing and bandaging the boy’s foot, which, though not severely sprained, was for the time quite painful. Mrs. Renfro now threw back the hood of her waterproof and laid the cloak aside. Even old Herne--women hater that he was--could not have found fault with the matronly beauty of her face, unless with its expression of self-satisfied worldliness, as of one who judged others and herself solely by conventional standards, shaped largely by flattery and conceit.

She was hungry--her fears were somewhat allayed, and though rather disgusted at such coarse diet, ate and drank with some relish. Meanwhile, Herne the Hunter turned from the boy for something, and beheld her face for the first time. A water-gourd fell from his hands, his eyes dilated, and he crouched as he gazed like a panther before its unsuspecting prey. Every fibre of his frame quivered, and drops of cold sweat stood out upon his forehead. The boy saw with renewed fear this new phase of old Herne’s dreaded idiosyncrasies. Mrs. Renfro at length raised her eyes and beheld him thus. Instantly he placed his hands before his face, and abruptly left the cavern. Alarmed at his appearance, she ran toward the boy, exclaiming:

“What _can_ be the matter with him? Do you know him?”

“I knows more of him ’n I wants ter,” replied the lad. “Oh, marm, that’s old Herne, ’nd we uns air the fust ones ez hev be’n in hyar whar he stays. I ganny! I thort shore he’d hev yeaten ye up.”

“Well, but who is he?”

“Well, they do say ez the devil yowns him, not but what he air powerful ’ligyus. No one knows much ’bouten him, ’cep’n’ he’s all’ays a projeckin’ eround the Dismal whar no one yelse wants ter be.”

“Has he been here long?”

“Yurs ’nd yurs, they say.” Tommy shook his head as though unable to measure the years during which Herne the Hunter had been acquiring his present unsavory reputation, but solved the riddle by exclaiming: “I reckon he hev all’ays be’n that-a-way.”

An hour or more passed. Tommy fell asleep, while the lady sat musing by his side. She did not feel like sleeping, though much fatigued. Finally she heard a deep sigh behind her, and turning saw the object of her fears regarding her sombrely. The sight of her face appeared to shock him, for he turned half away as he said:

“You have eaten the food that is the curse of life, in that it sustains it. Yet such we are. Sleep, therefore, for you have weary miles to go, ere you can reach the Swananoa.”

There was an indescribable sadness in his tone that touched her, and she regarded him curiously.

“Who are you,” she asked, “and why do you choose to live in such a place as this?”

“Ask naught of me,” he said, with an energy he seemed unable to repress. “Ask rather of yourself who am I and how came I--thus.”

He struck himself upon the breast, and without awaiting an answer again abruptly left the cave. She sat there wondering, trying to weave into definite shape certain vague impressions suggested by his presence, until weariness overcame her and she slept.

Hours after, Herne the Hunter reentered the cave, bearing a torch. His garments were wet, the rain-drops clung to his hair, and his face was more haggard than ever. He advanced towards the slumbering woman softly, and stood over her, gazing mournfully upon her, while large tears rolled down his cheeks. Then his expression changed to one that was stern and vindictive. His hand nervously toyed with the knife in his belt. Milder thoughts again seemed to sway him, and his features worked twitchingly.

“I cannot, I cannot,” he whispered to himself. “The tears I thought forever banished from these eyes return at this sight. There has never been another who could so move me. Though thou hast been my curse, and art yet my hell--I cannot do it. Come! protector of my soul; stand thou between me and all murderous thoughts!”

He drew his Bible from his bosom, kissed it convulsively, then held it as though to guard her from himself, and drawing backward slowly, he again fled into the storm and darkness without.

* * * * *

The gray light of morning rose over the Dismal, though within the cave the gloom still reigned supreme, when Herne the Hunter again stood at the entrance holding a flaring light. Then he said aloud:

“Wake, you that sleep under the shadow of death! Wake, eat, and--pass on!”

Mrs. Renfro aroused herself. The boy, however, slept on. Herne fixed his torch in the wall, and replenished the fire. Then he withdrew, apparently to give the lady privacy in making her toilet.

She was stiff in limb and depressed in mind. After washing at the spring, she wandered listlessly about the cave, surveying old Herne’s scanty store of comforts. Suddenly she paused before a faded picture, framed in long, withered moss, that clung to an abutment of the rock. It was that of a girl, fair, slender and ethereal. There was a wealth of hair, large eyes, and features so faultless that the witching sense of self-satisfaction permeating them, added to rather than marred their loveliness.

The lady--glancing indifferently--suddenly felt a thrill and a pain. A deadly sense of recognition nearly overcame her, as this memento--confronting her like a resurrected chapter of the past--made clear the hitherto inexplicable behavior of their host. She recovered, and looked upon it tenderly, then shook her head gently and sighed.

“You cannot recognize it!” said a deep voice behind her. “You dare not! For the sake of your conscience--your hope in heaven--your fear of hell--you dare not recognize and look upon me!”

She did not look round, though she knew that Herne the Hunter stood frowning behind, but trembled in silence as he went on with increasing energy:

“What does that face remind you of? See you aught beneath that beauty but treachery without pity, duplicity without shame? Lo! the pity and the shame you should have felt have recoiled upon me--me, who alone have suffered.” He broke off abruptly, as though choked by emotion. She dared not face him; she felt incapable of a reply. After a pause, he resumed, passionately: “Oh! Alice, Alice! The dead rest, yet the living dead can only endure. Amid these crags, and throughout the solitude of years, I have fought and refought the same old battle; but with each victory it returns upon me, strengthened by defeat, while with me all grows weaker but the remorselessness of memory and the capacity for pain.”

She still stood, with bowed head, shivering as though his words were blows.

“Have you nothing to say?” he asked. “Does that picture of your own youth recall no vanished tenderness for one who--self-outcast of men--fell to that pass through you?”

“I have a husband,” she murmured, almost in a whisper.

“Aye, and because of that husband I have no wife--no wife--no wife!” His wailing repetition seemed absolutely heartbroken; but sternly he continued: “You have told me where he is. I say to you--hide him--hide him from me! Even this”--he struck his bosom with his Bible feverishly--“may not save him. I have prayed and wrought, but it is as nothing--nothing--when I think--when I remember. Therefore, hide him from me--lest I slay him--”

“You would not--you dare not harm him!” She faced him now, a splendid picture of an aroused wife and mother. “He is not to blame--he knew you not--he has been good to me--and--and--I love him.”

He shrank from the last words as though from a blow, and stood cowering. Then he hissed out:

“Let me not find him. Hide him--hide him!”

Tommy here awoke with a yawn, and announced that his foot was about well. Herne, closing his lips, busied himself about preparing breakfast, which cheerless meal was eaten in silence. When they finally emerged from the cave the sun was peeping into the Dismal below them; bright gleams chased the dark shadows down the cliffs, and the morning mists were melting. The storm was over; there was a twitter of birds, the tinkle of an overflowing burn, and a squirrel’s bark emphasizing the freshness of the morn. The pure air entered the lips like wine, and Mrs. Renfro felt her depression roll off as they retraced the devious trail of the night before.

They found the lady’s horse standing dejectedly near where he had been left. The fog, in vast rolls, was climbing out of the Dismal, disclosing dark masses of forest below. The flavor of pine and balsam slept beneath the trees, every grass blade was diamond-strewn, and every sound vivified by the sense of mighty walls and unsounded depths.

After Mrs. Renfro had mounted, Herne the Hunter swept an arm around. The scene was savage and sombre, despite the sunlight. The intensity of the solitude about them dragged upon the mind like a weight.

“Behold,” he said sadly, “this is my world. I can tolerate no other.”

She inwardly shuddered; then a wave of old associations swept over her mind. Beneath the austerity of the man, beyond his selfish nurture of affliction, she--for the moment--remembered him as he once was, homely, kindly, enthusiastic and true. Had _she_ indeed changed him to this? Or was it not rather the imperativeness of a passion, unable to endure or forget her preference of another? Whatever the cause, her heart now ached for him, though she feared him.

“Come with us,” she said. “You were not made to live thus.”

“I cannot--I dare not. It will take months to undo the misery of this meeting.”

“My husband--”

“Do not name him!” he cried fiercely; then abruptly lowering his tone, he said, with infinite sadness: “Ask me no more. Yonder, by that white cliff, lies the Swananoa trail you missed yesterday. The kindest thing you can do is to forget that you have seen me. Farewell!”

He turned away and swung himself down the mountain-side into the Dismal. She saw the rolling mists close over him, and remained motionless in a reverie so deep that the boy spoke twice to her before she turned her horse’s head and followed him.

* * * * *

Above the surveyor’s camp lay the Swananoa Gap, a gloomy, precipitous gorge through which the river lashed itself into milder reaches below. Mrs. Renfro found her husband absent. With a single assistant he had started for the upper defiles, intending to be gone several days. They told her that he would endeavor to secure the services of Herne the Hunter as a guide, as one knowing more of that wilderness than any one else.

Here was fresh food for wifely alarm. Herne had never met her husband, yet the latter’s name would make known his relationship to herself. She shuddered over the possibilities that might result from their sojourn together--far from aid--in those wild mountains, and made herself wretched for a week in consequence.

Meanwhile the transient fine weather passed; the rains once more descended, and the peaks of Nantahalah were invisible for days amid a whirl of vapor. The boom of the river, the grinding of forest limbs, the shriek of the wind, made life unusually dreary at the camp. She lay awake one night when the elements were apparently doing their worst. Her husband was still absent--perhaps alone with a possible maniac, raving over the memory of fancied wrongs.

Finally another sound mingled with and at last overmastered all others--something between a crash and a roar, interblended with sullen jars and grindings. Near and nearer it came. She sprang to the tent-floor and found her feet in the water. The darkness was intense. What could be the matter? Fear overcame her resolution and she shrieked aloud.

A man bearing a lantern burst into the tent with a hoarse cry. Its gleams showed her Herne the Hunter, drenched, draggled, a ghastly cut across his face, with the blood streaming down, his long hair flying, and in his eyes a fierce flame.

“I feared I would not find you,” he shouted, for the roar without was now appalling. “It is a cloud-burst above. In five minutes this hollow will be fathoms deep. The tents lower down are already gone. Come!”

He had seized and was bearing her out.

“Save--alarm the others!” she cried.

“You first--Alice.”

In that dread moment she detected the hopelessness with which he called her thus, as though such recognition was wrung from his lips by the pain he hugged, even while it rended him.

“My husband?” she gasped, growing faint over the thought of his possible peril--or death.

“Safe,” he hissed through his clenched teeth, for his exertions were tremendous. With a fierce flap the tent was swept away as they left it. About his knees the waters swirled, while limbs and other floating débris swept furiously by.

What seemed to her minutes--though really seconds--passed amid a terrific jumble of sounds, while the rain fell in sheets. It seemed as though the invisible mountains were dissolving. They were, however, slowly rising above the floods. She heard Herne’s hard breathing, and felt his wild heart-throbs as he held her close. Something heavy struck them, or rather him, for he shielded her. One of his arms fell limp, and he groaned heavily. Then she swooned away, with a fleeting sensation of being grasped by some one else.

Later, when she revived, there was a great hush in the air. Below, the river gently brawled; there was a misty darkness around, and the gleam of a lantern held before a dear and familiar form.

“Husband--is it you?” she murmured.

“Yes, yes,” said Captain Renfro, “I thought I had lost you. You owe your life to Herne the Hunter. In fact, but for him I would have been overwhelmed myself.”

“Where is he?” she asked feebly.

“The men are searching for him. Just as one of them got hold of you, he fell back--something must have struck him, and the flood swept him off. I tell you, Alice, that man--crazy or not--is a hero. We were on our way down and had camped above the Gap, when the cloud-burst came. We knew you all would be overwhelmed before we could get round here by the trail; so what does Herne do but send us on horseback by land, while he scoots down that cañon in a canoe--little better than an eggshell. Risked his life in that awful place to get here in time. I insisted on going with him at first.”

“Just like you, George,” said the wife fondly, though in her mind’s eye came a vision of Herne the Hunter battling with that Niagara to save and unite the two, through whom his own life had been made a burden. She sighed and clasped her husband’s hand, while he resumed:

“I was a fool, I expect, for the canoe would have swamped under both of us. He knew this, and ordered me off with a look I did not like; there was madness in it. Well, we hurried round by the trail with one lantern; Herne took the other. When we got here, you were apparently dead, Herne and two of the men swept off--the camp gone from below, and so on.”

A cry was now heard. Several men hastened down, and soon lights were seen returning. Four of them bore Herne the Hunter. One arm and a leg were broken, and his skull crushed in; yet the wonderful vitality of the man had kept him alive and sensible.

“We found him clinging to a sapling,” said one. “But he’s about gone--poor fellow!”

Poor fellow, indeed! Mrs. Renfro felt the lumps rise in her throat as she gazed upon that wreck, and thought. Presently Herne opened his eyes--already filling with the death-mist--and his gaze fell upon her face.

“Alice,” he whispered, “my troubles--are over. This”--he tugged at something in his bosom with his uninjured arm, when some one drew forth his Bible, drenched and torn--“ this saved me. I could have killed him--” he glanced at Renfro, who amid his pity now wondered. “I could--but--I saved you. And--now--Jesus--have mercy--”

These were his last words, for in another minute Herne the Hunter was a thing of the past, and a weeping woman bent over him. After that there was silence for a while. Then the wife said to her husband, while the others removed the dead man:

“It was his misfortune, not my fault, that he loved me. Has he not made amends?”

And the husband, with his hands clasped in hers, could find no other heart than to say:

“Aye--most nobly!”

AN OUTING.

Down country lanes,
O’er treeless plains,
And seas of prairie grasses,
I wheel along,
With cheers and song
To every breeze that passes.

I leave the town,
Walls bare and brown,
The bustling, sordid masses--
The business boom
Of counting-room,
The dandies, dudes, and asses.

Awheel, awheel,
The miles I reel,
Afar from heated highways,
And odors greet
Of verdure sweet,
Along the country by-ways.

By fields of grain,
O’er daisy plain,
Adown the pretty valley;
By drowsy kine,
By cot and vine,
So joyfully I sally.

O, healthful steed!
My only creed,
Beyond dissent or doubting,
Is Nature’s way,
In holiday
Upon a summer outing.

_Jay Gee._

MEMORIES OF YACHT CRUISES.

BY THE LATE CAPTAIN R. F. COFFIN.

No. IV.

Despite the charms of the cruise on an individual yacht, much is to be said in favor of the cruise in squadron. The cruise in the solitary craft may be very pleasant at first, but it is apt to become monotonous after a few days, unless the party on board has been most happily selected. While _en route_ from port to port every craft bound in the same direction is at once made a contestant in an improvised race, and unless she, too, is a yacht, she is too easily disposed of. As has been often proven, the slowest of the yachts is more than a match for the fastest coasting vessel. Probably the fastest vessels encountered will be the fishing schooners, and some of these nowadays sport nearly as much fancy canvas as the yachts do. They are finely modeled craft, and generally sail, as the yacht does, in good ballast trim. As a matter of course, they are admirably handled, and occasionally the tedium of the individual cruise is enlivened by a more or less spirited trial of speed with a well-appointed fishing schooner. Always, however, so far as my experience goes, these trials end in favor of the pleasure craft, none of which can properly be considered slow, except by comparison with some other yacht. Nothing proves more conclusively that yachting means racing than the fact that the chief interest and pleasure of the individual cruise arise from these chance contests with vessels encountered _en route_.

Now, in the squadron cruise all this is furnished to hand, and as part of the regular order of things. Each passage between ports is a race, and each yacht selects her class competitors, and cares for the movement of no others in the fleet. Very much more now than formerly, care is taken to have these races fair, and a matter of official record. In some instances the New York Yacht Club has hired a tug to accompany the yachts for the whole cruise, and from her the time is taken accurately at the start and finish of each day’s sail. Commodore Gerry (as noted in the September ~Outing~) has the regatta committee on the _Electra_, and makes a specialty of having a correct record of the daily runs kept, making manifold copies of the result, and sending a copy to each yacht almost as soon as her anchor is down. This increases the interest in the cruise immensely. The New York, however, is the only club, except, of course, the American, which has a steam yacht for its flagship, and certainly there are few commodores who would take the trouble that Mr. Gerry does. I have no hesitation in saying that he is, in this respect, the best commodore that the old club has ever had.

In the Eastern, the Atlantic, the Seawanhaka, and other clubs which cruise in squadron, this matter of accuracy in timing is receiving more and more attention each year. In the printed orders of the commodore it is expressly provided that the first yacht to arrive at a designated point shall note her own time, and then the times of all that follow, and shall report the same to the commodore. The start is not entirely fair, as it is made by general signal, and some yachts must of necessity, where the squadron is large, be in a better position than others. It is, however, the much-vaunted “one-gun start,” so strenuously advocated--for no reason that I can think of except that it is the style common in Great Britain. The British clubs, however, rarely start a large fleet, and where there are but five or six yachts, comparatively little trouble need be feared from permitting them all to crowd upon the line at once; while if there were thirty, forty, or more, vessels, confusion, and perhaps collision, would certainly result. After all, what can be fairer than the present American method of timing each yacht to a second at start and finish?

It is the continuous series of races, then, which gives the squadron cruise a charm lacking in all other forms of yachting; but it also has other attractions. The interchange of visits between the guests on the different yachts, the jolly dinners, the pleasant shore parties--all these make the cruise exceedingly pleasant, and no club whose fleet is at all respectable should fail to encourage it. None, of course, can present such a fleet of fine vessels as the New York, Atlantic and Eastern clubs; but much enjoyment may be had, even if the fleet is not so imposing. The Knickerbocker Club can in numbers equal any, and its short cruises--generally in the early part of July--have been very enjoyable. The cruise of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Club this year was a great success, although its fleet was not large. The Larchmont Yacht Club has never yet found itself in a position to essay the cruise, but as in all other respects it has placed itself in the front rank, it may well be expected to in the future.

The difficulty where the yacht is small is to accommodate the guests. Roughing it is all very well in theory, but in practice it is unsatisfactory. Men on a pleasure trip do not care to rough it. There is also a difficulty in the small craft to find stowage for water and ice, two prime necessities; but if the runs are made short, so that the supply may be replenished daily, the small craft can manage very well, and I think in the future the annual cruise will become as much a regular feature of the yacht club programme as is the annual regatta.

If I am not mistaken, the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club had its first cruise in July, 1879, and it _was_ a Corinthian one, only a few professionals being allowed on the yachts. Well, it’s all right for the guests on board a yacht to take a pull at sheets or halliards once in a while, but as for doing all the deck duty, turning out and washing down the decks, cleaning the bright work, and making and taking in sail continuously all day long, it is quite absurd. But this has to be done, if the wind be paltry and baffling. But as for calling it amusement, I think that when turning a grindstone becomes a pleasurable occupation, then strict Corinthian yachting will be a pastime, and not until then.

The Corinthian Club, on this its first cruise, assembled at Glen Cove, and sailed thence to Black Rock, with a fleet composed of one schooner and four sloops; among them the _Schemer_, then owned by Mr. C. S. Lee, who was lost last March in the yawl _Cythera_. He was a very intelligent gentleman, and one of the most skillful of the yachting men of the time.

Mr. Lee was one of the earliest converts to the cutter theory, and in 1881 he had the cutter _Oriva_ built from a design by John Harvey, who at that time was in business in London. Her advent not only introduced a new style in design, but also in workmanship, she being by all odds the best constructed yacht ever built in this country. She was not as narrow as the ordinary British cutter of her length at that time, and would have been still better had she been given another foot of beam. At that time, however, there was a mistaken notion on the part of those most violently affected by the “cutter craze,” as it was called, that the British yachts sailed fast because they were narrow. People wholly ignored the fact that each builder made his yacht as broad as possible under the rule, and as soon as it was relaxed the _Thistle_ was produced, by far the most speedy cutter yet turned out from a British yard. I think that, should a 90-foot boat be designed as a challenger for the _America’s_ Cup, the _Thistle’s_ proportion of beam to length will probably be exceeded in her, and that her success will be greater than that of the Scotch challenger.

At the time of this first cruise of the Seawanhaka Club, Mr. Samuel J. Colgate, of the schooner _Idler_, was the commodore, but the fleet on this cruise was under the command of its vice-commodore, Oliver E. Cromwell, and the schooner _Eddie_ was the flagship.

From Black Rock the fleet sailed to New London. At that port it was joined by the _Muriel_, another of the Harvey cutters built in this country, and which antedated the _Oriva_ by some three years. The first spar plan of this cutter was entirely too small, and her performance for her two first seasons only confirmed the centreboard men in their opinions as to the superiority of the broad and shallow model.

The Seawanhaka fleet went on to Newport, and later to New Bedford, where the cruise practically ended, the flagship having carried away her foremast on the passage from Newport.

The cruise of the Seawanhaka Club in 1880 was under the command of Commodore W. A. W. Stewart, who recently owned the yawl _Cythera_, which he had purchased in England, and who was lost in her. His loss, like that of Mr. Lee, who accompanied him as his friend and guest, was most serious to the yachting interests of this city, and one from which the Corinthian Club, of which these two gentlemen were the chief supports, will hardly recover.