He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu, to his dismay, observed also that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed to change his mind, for he turned his horse"s head, and rode home so fast that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, they found his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into the castle.
But he had, in truth, set out again by the back of it. Crossing the river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they had left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.
The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood.
But even as he entered, he turned and looked to the west. The rim of the red sun was touching the horizon, all jagged with broken hills. "Now,"
said Photogen, "we shall see;" but he said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart, a fear inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming cimeter-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night no moon--the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own; he had only had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could scarcely stand--certainly not stand straight, for not one of his joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.
The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse courage enough, not to fight--that he did not even desire--but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run--gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the gra.s.s he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt of himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the gra.s.s: he made a wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.
As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its edge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime, when he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to him--so ghostly! so ghastly! so grewsome!--so knowing as she looked over the top of her garden wall upon the world outside! That was the night itself!
the darkness alive--and after him! the horror of horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain to a cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ran between the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in, struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the gra.s.s.
XII.--THE GARDEN.
Although Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and used every precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery so long, had it not been that the strange attacks to which Watho was subject had been more frequent of late, and had at last settled into an illness which kept her to her bed. But whether from an access of caution, or from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much with her mistress both day and night, took it at length into her head to fasten the door as often as she went out by her usual place of exit; so that one night, when Nycteris pushed, she found, to her surprise and dismay, that the wall pushed her again, and would not let her through; nor with all her searching could she discover wherein lay the cause of the change. Then first she felt the pressure of her prison walls, and turning, half in despair, groped her way to the picture where she had once seen Falca disappear. There she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the wall yielded. It let her through into a sort of cellar, where was a glimmer of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From the cellar she got into a long pa.s.sage, into which the moon was shining, and came to a door. She managed to open it, and, to her great joy, found herself in _the other place_, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the trees, running now here, now there, like a child that had got its will. She went dancing over the gra.s.s, looking behind her at her shadow as she went. At first she had taken it for a little black creature that made game of her, but when she perceived that it was only where she kept the moon away, and that every tree, however great and grand a creature, had also one of these strange attendants, she soon learned not to mind it, and by-and-by it became the source of as much amus.e.m.e.nt to her as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she was quite at home with the trees, however. At one time they seemed to disapprove of her; at another, not even to know she was there, and to be altogether taken up with their own business. Suddenly, as she went from one to another of them, looking up with awe at the murmuring mystery of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little way off which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and dark, and sparkling, and spread like a palm--a small slender palm, without much head; and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew. But it never grew any bigger, for just as fast as she could see it growing, it kept falling to pieces. When she got close to it, she discovered it was a water tree--made of just such water as she washed with, only it was alive, of course, like the river--a different sort of water from that, doubtless, seeing the one crept swiftly along the floor, and the other shot straight up, and fell, and swallowed itself, and rose again. She put her feet into the marble basin, which was the flower-pot in which it grew.
It was full of real water, living and cool--so nice, for the night was hot.
But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the very first. What wonderful creatures they were!--and so kind and beautiful--always sending out such colors and such scents--red scent, and white scent, and yellow scent--for the other creatures! The one that was invisible and everywhere took such a quant.i.ty of their scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to mind. It was their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted like those on the walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.
She wandered along down the garden until she reached the river. Unable then to get any further--for she was a little afraid, and justly, of the swift watery serpent--she dropped on the gra.s.sy bank, dipped her feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing against them. For a long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at the river, and watched the broken picture of the great lamp overhead, moving up one side of the roof to go down the other.
XIII.--SOMETHING QUITE NEW.
A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She sprang to her feet to follow it, not in the spirit of the hunter, but of the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a strange-looking girl!--so curiously dressed, too!--and not able to move! Was she dead?
Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen"s head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear--half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and a.s.suage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half-whisper, he said, "Who are you?"
"I am Nycteris," she answered.
"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, his fear beginning to move again.
"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly know what you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with all my heart; and I sleep all the night long."
"How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping his head on her lap again the moment he saw the moon--"how can it be," he repeated, "when I see your eyes there wide-awake?"
She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him, and thought he did not know what he was saying.
"Was it a dream, then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with that his memory came clear, and he shuddered, and cried, "Oh, horrible!
horrible! to be turned all at once into a coward!--a shameful, contemptible, disgraceful coward! I am ashamed--ashamed--and _so_ frightened! It is all so frightful!"
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
IN LUCK.
BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.
Lily De Koven was in luck. Luck, you know, is a word which stands for that which comes to you without your having done anything to get it for yourself; and as she had never done anything to bring about such results, I call it the good luck of little Lily De Koven that she had been born in a lovely home, to kind parents, and was growing up with all the most pleasant things of life around her. She had a little maid to braid her pretty yellow hair, lace her dainty boots, go up stairs and down stairs, or stay in her little lady"s chamber dressing and making over the dresses of Lily"s family of dolls.
One day, when Lily was not very well, and was lying in bed propped up by the pillows, her maid came in with a new doll, larger and handsomer than all the others.
Lily received the new doll calmly, for if it did not suit her she knew she could have another, so she had no cause for excitement. She looked it over carefully, touched the spring which made its eyes roll, drew off one of its tiny silk shoes and stockings, pa.s.sed her hand over the lace train.
"I"ll keep it," said Lily; "and now you bring me the whole family."
When all her dolls, little and big--all of them had been handsome in their day, but some of them were a little the worse for wear--were laid on the bed, she put the new one, with curling yellow hair almost exactly like her own, on the pillow beside her, and took up the others one by one.
"You can throw this one away," she said at last, holding out one which had a broken arm, and was leaking sawdust at the elbow; "I don"t want but twelve children, anyway."
When her maid went out, Lily looked at her new doll, touched its hair and rich costume, but there was not any wonder in it for her; there had never been a time when she had not had as pretty dolls as money could buy; so Lily sighed and fell asleep almost immediately. Now Lily"s maid left the disgraced doll on a chair in the kitchen, and there Mary the cook found it. It had on a pretty muslin dress and sash, and nice embroidered underwear, just like any fashionable young lady. It was Christmas week, and Mary had bought a doll to give to her little niece on Christmas-day, and seeing at once what a treasure this costume would be, she took it off, did it up as fresh as new, and made the doll she had bought look quite like a princess in it. So the old broken-armed doll had not a rag left of its former glory. But luck sometimes comes even to dolls.
Three days later, early in the cold morning, a little girl stood ankle-deep in the new-fallen snow in front of the grand house where Lily De Koven with her twelve waxen children lived.
This little girl was Biddy O"Dolan, and Biddy O"Dolan was in luck on this cold morning.
She had on nothing that you would call clothes; she had on _duds_. She had no parents and no home. She had some straw in a cellar, where other children who wore duds slept at night on other bunches of straw. She was a rag-picker and an ash girl, and sometimes was very hungry, and sometimes was beaten by other poor hungry wretches, who, because they were miserable, wanted to hurt somebody--not knowing any better--and so beat Biddy O"Dolan because there was no one to interfere. In spite of all these things, Biddy was sometimes merry, which I think is wonderful.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "BIDDY HELD IT OUT IN A KIND OF STUPEFIED DELIGHT."]
On this cold morning, in front of the wide stone steps of Lily De Koven"s home, Biddy had found an ash can, and, poking over the ashes, had found and pulled out the very broken-armed doll which Lily had ordered to be thrown away, which Mary the cook had stripped of its fine robes, and which had last of all been swept up and put in the ash barrel, and so had come to the lowest possible condition of a once rich doll. Biddy held it out, and looked straight before her for a moment, at nothing in particular, in a kind of stupefied delight; for a doll, even such a doll as this, had never been in her little cramped, purple hands before. Then suddenly she tucked it in her breast, drew her dingy sacque around it tight, caught up her rag bag, and with a scared glance at the windows of Lily"s fine home, she ran down the street.
Her heart beat so that it was like a little hammer striking quick blows against the breast of the doll. Biddy had never had anything to love, and from the moment she had got this doll hidden in her bosom she loved it, and I think she was in good luck to have found something which could bring her this dear feeling. And as for the doll, in its proudest days it had never been loved, and now, when forlorn and cast out, it had found a warm heart, and had come, if it could only have known it, into the best luck of its whole life.
I should like to tell you the whole story of Biddy O"Dolan--of what she did for the doll, and what the doll did for her; but to-day I want to call your attention to something else, and if you will heed my wish, I will heed yours, and soon tell you the rest of Biddy"s story.
The good things that come to us have a way--which you will notice if you are observant--of seeming to connect themselves together in a circle of sweet thoughts and hopes, just as our friends might join hands and make a ring around us.
It was so with Biddy that day. As she ran on with her doll she was constantly thinking of something which she had hardly thought of since it had happened two years before. It was this: Biddy had been run over by a horse and cart, and carried, much hurt, to one of the New York hospitals for children. There she had been tenderly cared for, which was a great mystery to Biddy, and on Christmas morning she had waked up to find beautiful fresh Christmas greens on the wall at the foot of her little cot and around the window, and a lady standing in this window, while a little girl held out to Biddy a bunch of flowers that smelled as sweet as a whole summer garden.
Biddy had not understood the meaning of these things; she had only wearily noticed that the little girl was pretty, and not at all like her, and that the flowers and greens were "jolly." That day, when she fled with her doll, she thought of the hospital; and though she did not understand any better than before why there should be such great difference in the lives of little children, she for the first time felt that the lady and her little girl had been kind, had been sorry for her.
So you _see_ that even after so long a time as a whole year, a little seed of kindness may sprout in the heart; and don"t you think, dear children of New York, you who have every day the good luck of health, happy homes, and pleasant things, that it would be delightful to bring just one taste of such luck to the little ones in the New York hospitals? Would you not like to blessedly surprise them on next Christmas morning? You know the best hospital in the world can not be like home with father and mother in it. But if you want to make the hospitals seem almost like home to the little children for a whole happy day, you can not begin too soon to look over all your little treasures, and choose all you can part with. You all have cast-off toys, story-books that have been read through, and boxes full of odds and ends, and it takes very little to brighten the face of a poor sick child lying alone in a hospital cot. A single pretty picture-card will do it.
Then, too, you can save your pennies and dimes, so that before Christmas comes you can go into the stores and buy some of the books and playthings that children like best; and all of you who can must tie on your warm hoods and scamper away into the woods after the lovely prince"s-pine and scarlet berries. All the pretty things you can gather to make bright the place where these other children stay will make your own Christmas one of the merriest you ever knew, for when you are pulling out the "goodies" from your plump bunchy stockings at home, you will like to think of so many other little eyes and hands and hearts brimful of the Christmas happiness which you have made.
[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR POST-OFFICE BOX.]
Our young correspondents ask us for so many things that it would be impossible to gratify them all at once. Their requests are carefully filed, however, and will not be forgotten.
Hattie V., Cincinnati, writes: