Chapter I: Meet Him (6)

"Let's be off," said he, moving forwards.

"I'm coming," said Hopeful.

And forcing their way through the scrub, they went silently along the gully in the midst of the night darkness, which filled it to the very brim.

The horse, too, came after them.

Presently behind them they heard the splashing of water, which drowned the melody of the stream.

"Ah, thou fool! thou hast fallen into the water," said Hopeful.

Jig-Leg snorted angrily, but remained silent.

In the dark, amidst the gloomy silence of the ravine, resounded the gentle crackling of twigs; the sound came floating along from the place where the red cluster of the embers of the fire sparkled on the ground like some monstrous and maliciously-mirthful eye.

The moon arose.

Her transparent radiance filled the ravine with a mist-like gloom; the shadows fell on every side, making the forest all the denser, and the silence therein more complete and more austere The white stems of the birches, silvered over by the moon, stood out like wax-candles against the darker ground of the oaks, elms, and brushwood.

The chums walked along the bottom of the ravine in silence. It was hard going; sometimes their feet stumbled, sometimes they sank deep in the mire. Hopeful frequently panted, and a whistling, wheezing, rattling sound came from his breast, just as if a lot of large clocks that had not been cleaned for a long time were stowed away there. Jig-Leg went in front, the shadow of his lofty and erect figure fell upon Hopeful.

"Look now!" said he, petulantly and sulkily; "where are we going? What are we after? Eh?"

Hopeful groaned, and was silent.

"The night is now shorter than a sparrow's beak, by daylight we shall come to the village, and how shall we do? It is just as if we were gentlemen at large taking a stroll."

"I feel very bad, brother," said Hopeful quietly.

"Very bad!" exclaimed Jig-Leg ironically; "there you are, of course! How so?"

"I have great difficulty in breathing," replied the sick thief.

"In breathing? Why have you a great difficulty in breathing?"

"Because I am ill, I suppose."

"You lie! It is because you are stupid."

Jig-Leg stopped short, turned towards his comrade, and shaking his fingers beneath his nose, added:

"Yes--you cannot breathe because of your stupidity. Do you understand?"

Hopeful bowed his head low, and answered guiltily:

"Certainly!"

He would have said something more, but began to cough instead, leaning on to the trunk of a tree with trembling hands; and he coughed for a long time, trampling the ground without moving from the spot, shaking his head, and opening his mouth wide.

Jig-Leg continued looking at his face, which stood out haggard, earthy and greenish in the light of the moon.

"You'll awaken all the wood-sprites in the forest," he said at last, surlily.

And when Hopeful had coughed himself out, and throwing back his head, groaned freely, he made a proposition to him in a dictatorial tone.

"Rest a bit. Sit down."

And they sat down on the damp earth in the shadow of the bushes. Jig-Leg made a cigarette, began smoking it, looked at its glow, and began to speak very deliberately.

"If only we had a home somewhere or other to go to, we might possibly return home...."

"That's true," said Hopeful, wagging his head.

Jig-Leg looked askance at him, and continued: "But as we haven't got a home--we must go on."

"Yes--we must," groaned Hopeful.

"We've no place to go to, so there's no sense talking about it. And the chief cause of it is--we are fools! And what fools we are too!"

The dry voice of Jig-Leg cut through the air, and must have greatly disquieted Hopeful--for he flung himself prone on the ground, sighed, and gurgled oddly.

"And I want something to eat--I've a frightful longing that way," Jig-Leg concluded his drawling, reproachfully resonant speech.

Then Hopeful rose to his feet with an air of decision.

"What's the matter?" asked Jig-Leg.

"Let's be off!"

"Why so lively all at once?"

"Let's go!"

"Come along, then," and Jig-Leg also stood up, "only there's no sense in this...."

"I don't care what happens!" and Hopeful waved his hand.

"Plucked up your courage again, eh?"

"What? Here you've been tormenting me and tormenting me, and blackguarding me and blackguarding me ... Oh Lord!"

"Then why do you mess about so?"

"Mess about?"

"Yes."

"Well, look you, I felt so sorry."

"For whom? For what?"

"For whom? For that man, I suppose."

"For that--man?" drawled Jig-Leg. "Come now, take a pinch of snuff, and have done with it. Ah! you're a good soul, but you've no sense. What's the man to you? Can I make you understand that? Why, he'd collar you, and smash you like a flea beneath his nail! At the very time that you are pitying him I Then you'll go and declare your stupidity to him, and in return for your compassion, he'll plague you with all the seven plagues. Why, you carry your very guts in your hand for people to look at, and drag your very vitals out into the light of day. Pity indeed!--Ugh! I've no patience with you. For Heaven's sake, why don't you have pity on yourself, instead of knocking yourself to bits? A pretty fellow you are! Pity indeed!--pooh!"

Jig-Leg was quite outraged.

His voice, cutting and full of irony and contempt for his comrade, resounded through the wood, and the branches of the shrubs shook with a gentle rustle, as if agreeing with the rough truth of his words.

Hopeful, overwhelmed by these reproaches, paced along slowly on his trembling legs, drawing up his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, and drooping his head upon his breast.

"Wait!" said he at last. "What matters it? I'll put it all right. When we come to the village, I will go into it--all alone. I'll go--you need not come with me.... I'll prig the very first thing that falls within my reach--and so home! Come along, and I'll show you something! It will be hard for me--but don't say a word."

He spoke almost inaudibly, panting hard, with a rattling and a gurgling in his breast. Jig-Leg looked at him suspiciously, stopped short as if he were about to say something, waved his hand, and went on again without saying anything.

For a long time they went on slowly and in silence.

The cocks began to crow somewhere near, the dogs barked, presently the melancholy sound of the watch-bell was wafted to them from the distant village church, and was swallowed up in the sombre silence of the forest. A large bird, looking like a big black patch in the faint moonlight, rose into the air, and there was an ominous sound in the ravine of a flurried piping and the rustling of feathers.

"A crow--and a seed crow[5] too, if I'm not mistaken," observed Jig-Leg.

"Look here!" said Hopeful, sinking heavily on the ground, "go you, and I'll remain here ... I can do no more ... I'm choking ... and my head is going round."

"Well, there you are!" said Jig-Leg crossly. "What, can't you do a little more?"

"I can't."

"I congratulate you. Ugh!"

"I've not a bit of strength in me."

"I'm not surprised, we've tramped without a meal since yesterday."

"No, it's not that ... it's all up with me ... look how the blood trickles!"

And Hopeful raised his hand to Jig-Leg's face, all bespattered with something dark. The other looked askance at it, and then, lowering his voice, asked:

"What's to be done?"

"You go on ... I'll remain here ... I may rest a bit."

"Where shall I go? Suppose I go to the village and say there's a man in the forest taken bad?"

"No ... they'd kill me."

"If they get the chance."

Hopeful fell upon his back, coughed a hollow cough, and vomited a whole quantity of blood.

[5] A rook.

"How goes it?" inquired Jig-Leg, standing over him, but looking the other way.

"Very badly," said Hopeful, in an almost inaudible voice, and fell a-coughing again.

Jig-Leg cursed loudly and cynically.

"Suppose I call someone?"

"Whom?" said Hopeful, his voice was like a dismal echo.

"Or perhaps you may now be able to get up and go on for a little while?"

"No, no!"

Jig-Leg sat by the head of his comrade, and embracing his own knees with his arms gazed steadily at Hopeful's face. The breast of Hopeful was moving convulsively with a hollow rattling sound, his eyes were deep-sunken, his lips gaped strangely apart and seemed to cleave to his teeth. From the left corner of his mouth a dark living jet was trickling.

"Is it still flowing?" asked Jig-Leg quietly, and in the tone of his question there was something very near to respect.

The face of Hopeful shuddered.

"It is flowing," came a faint rattle.

Jig-Leg rested his head on his knees and was silent.

Over them hung the wall of the ravine furrowed by the deep cavities of the spring streams. From its summit a shaggy row of trees illuminated by the moon looked down into the abyss. The other side of the ravine, which had a gentler slope, was overgrown with shrubs; here and there the grey stems of the aspens stood out against its darker masses, and on their naked branches the nests of the rooks were visible.... And the ravine itself, lit up by the moon, was like a vision of slumber, like a weary dream, with nothing of the hues of life; and the quiet gurgling of the stream magnified its lifelessness still more and overshadowed its melancholy silence.

"I am dying," whispered Hopeful in a scarce audible voice, and immediately afterwards he repeated in a loud and clear voice, "I am dying, Stephen!"

Jig-Leg trembled all over, wriggled, snorted, and raising his head from his knees said, awkwardly, very gently, and as if fearing to disturb something:

"Oh, you've not come to that ... don't be afraid. Quite impossible! This is such a simple thing ... why it's nothing, my brother, God bless me!"

"Oh, Lord Jesus Christ!" sighed Hopeful heavily.

"It's nothing at all!" whispered Jig-Leg, bending over his comrade's face; "just you keep quiet for a bit ... maybe it will pass over!"

But Hopeful began to cough, and a new sound was audible in his breast, just as if a wet clout was being smacked against his ribs. Jig-Leg looked at him and twirled his moustaches in silence. Having coughed himself out, Hopeful began to pant loudly and uninterruptedly--just as if he were running away somewhere with all his might. For a long time he panted like this, then he said:

"Forgive me, Stephen ... if anything I ... that horse you know ... forgive me, little brother!"

"You forgive me!" interrupted Jig-Leg, and after a pause, he added:

"And I ... whither shall I go? And how will it be with me?"

"It doesn't matter. May the Lord give thee...."

He sighed without finishing his sentence and was silent.

Then he began to make a rattling sound ... then he stretched out his legs--one of them he jerked sideways.

Jig-Leg gazed at him without once removing his eyes. A few moments passed as long as hours.

Suddenly Hopeful raised his head, but immediately it fell helplessly back on to the ground.

"What, my brother?" said Jig-Leg, leaning over him. But he answered no more, but lay there quiet and motionless.

The sour-visaged Jig-Leg remained sitting by his chum a few minutes longer, then he arose, took off his hat, crossed himself, and slowly went on his way along the ravine. His face was peaked, his eyebrows and moustaches were bristling, and he walked as firmly as if he wanted to beat the earth with his feet and do her a mischief.

The day was already breaking. The sky was grey and cheerless; a savage silence prevailed in the ravine; only the stream, disturbing no one, uttered its monotonous melancholy speech.

But hark, there's a rustle--maybe a clump of earth has rolled down the side of the ravine.... The rook awakes, and, croaking uneasily, flies off elsewhere. Presently a titmouse utters her cry. In the damp cold air of the ravine sounds don't live long--they arise and immediately vanish.

THE END.