The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

Frank nodded with an anxious interest.

"Would you like it?" he asked. "I have a basketful besides, and would it be possible – could we, I mean, manage to cook a few of them? I am very hungry, and I am sure my companion, Miss Deane, would like a bite also."

Constance had dropped down on the settle, and was leaning toward the fire – her hands outspread before it.

"I am famished," she confessed, and added, "oh, and will you let me cook the fish? I can do it quite well."

The hermit did not immediately reply to the question.

"Miss Deane," he mused; "that is your name, then?"

"Yes, Constance Deane, and this is Mr. Frank Weatherby. We have been lost on the mountain all day without food. We shall be so thankful if you will let us prepare something, and will then put us on the trail that leads to Spruce Lodge."

The hermit stirred the fire to a brighter blaze and laid on a fresh piece of wood.

"That will I do right gladly," he said, "if you will accept my humble ways. Let me take the basket; I will set about the matter."

Gladly enough Frank unloosed his burden, and surrendered the big trout and the basket to his host. As the latter turned away from the fire a dozen little forms frisked out of the shadows behind and ran over him lightly, climbing to his shoulders, into his pockets, clinging on to his curious dress wherever possible – chattering, and still regarding the strange intruders with bright, inquisitive eyes. They were tiny red squirrels, it seemed, and their home was here in this nondescript dwelling with this eccentric man. Suddenly the hermit spoke to them – an unknown word with queer intonation. In an instant the little bevy of chatterers leaped away from him, scampering back to their retreats. Frank, who stood watching, saw a number of them go racing to a tree of goodly size and disappear into a hole near the floor.

The hermit turned, smiling a little, and the firelight fell on his face. For the first time Frank noticed the refinement and delicacy of the meager features. The hermit said:

"That is their outlet. The tree is hollow, and there is another opening above the roof. In winter the birds use it, too."

He disappeared now into what seemed to be another apartment, shutting a door behind. Frank dropped down on the settle by Constance, thoroughly tired, stretched out his legs, and gave himself up to the comfort of the warm glow.

"Isn't it all wonderful?" murmured Constance. "It is just a dream, of course. We are not really here, and I shall wake up presently. I had just such fancies when I was a child. Perhaps I am still wandering in that awful mist, and this is the delirium. Oh, are you sure we are really here?"

"Quite sure," said Frank. "And it seems just a matter of course to me. I have known all along that this wood was full of mysteries – enchantments, and hermits, and the like. Probably there are many such things if we knew where to look for them."

The girl's voice dropped still lower.

"How quaintly he talks. It is as if he had stepped out of some old book."

Frank nodded toward the stone shelf by the fire.

"He lives chiefly in books, I fancy, having had but one other visitor."

The young man lifted one of the worn volumes and held it to the light. It was a copy of Shakespeare's works – a thick book, being a complete edition of the plays. He laid it back tenderly.

"He dwells with the men and women of the master," he said, softly.

There followed a little period of silence, during which they drank in the cheer and comfort of the blazing hearth. Outside, the thunder rolled heavily now and then, and the rain beat against the door. What did it matter? They were safe and sheltered, and together. Constance asked presently: "What time is it?" And, looking at his watch, Frank replied:

"A little after three. An hour ago we were wandering up there in the mist. It seems a year since then, and a lifetime since I took that big trout."

"It is ages since I started this morning," mused Constance. "Yet we divide each day into the same measurements, and by the clock it is only a little more than six hours."

"It is nine since I left the Lodge," reflected Frank, "after a very light and informal breakfast at the kitchen door. Yes, I am willing to confess that such time should not be measured in the ordinary way."

There was a sharper crash of thunder and a heavier gust of rain. Then a fierce downpour that came to them in a steady, muffled roar.

"When shall we get home?" Constance asked, anxiously.

"We won't worry, now. Likely this is only a shower. It will not take long to get down the mountain, once we're in the trail, and it's light, you know, until seven."

The door behind was pushed open and the hermit re-entered. He bore a flat stone and a wooden bowl, and knelt down with them before the fire. The glowing embers he heaped together and with the aid of a large pebble set the flat stone at an angle before them. Then from the wooden bowl he emptied a thick paste of coarse meal upon the baking stone, and smoothed it with a wooden paddle.

Rising he said:

"I fear my rude ways will not appetize you, but I can only offer you what cheer I have."

The aroma of the cooking meal began to fill the room.

"Please don't apologize," pleaded Constance. "My only hope is that I can restrain myself until the food is ready."

"I'll ask you to watch the bread for a moment," the hermit said, turning the stone a little.

"And if I let it burn you may punish me as the goodwife did King Alfred," answered Constance. Then a glow came into her cheeks that was not all of the fire, for the man's eyes – they were deep, burning eyes – were fixed upon her, and he seemed to hang on her every word. Yet he smiled without replying, and again disappeared.

"Conny," admonished Frank, "if you let anything happen to that cake I'll eat the stone."

So they watched the pone carefully, turning it now and then, though the embers glowed very hot and a certain skill was necessary.

The hermit returned presently with a number of the trout dressed, and these were in a frying-pan that had a long wooden handle, which Constance and Frank held between them, while their host installed two large potatoes in the hot ashes. Then he went away for a little and placed some things on the table in the middle of the room, returning now and then to superintend matters. And presently the fish and the cakes and the potatoes were ready, and the ravenous wanderers did not wait to be invited twice to partake of them. The thunder still rolled at intervals and the rain still beat at the door, but they did not heed. Within, the cheer, if not luxurious, was plenteous and grateful. The table furnishings were rude and chiefly of home make. But the guests were young, strong of health and appetite, and no king's table could have supplied goodlier food. Oh, never were there such trout as those, never such baked potatoes, nor never such hot, delicious hoecake. And beside each plate stood a bowl of fruit – berries – delicious fresh raspberries of the hills.

Presently their host poured a steaming liquid into each of the empty cups by their plates.

"Perhaps you will not relish my tea," he said, "but it is soothing and not harmful. It is drawn from certain roots and herbs I have gathered, and it is not ill-tasting. Here is sweet, also; made from the maple tree."

An aromatic odor arose from the cups, and, when Constance tasted the beverage and added a lump of the sugar, she declared the result delicious – a decision in which Frank willingly concurred.

The host himself did not join the feast, and presently fell to cooking another pan of trout. It was a marvel how they disappeared. Even the squirrels came out of their hiding places to witness this wonderful feasting, a few bolder ones leaping upon the table, as was their wont, to help themselves from a large bowl of cracked nuts. And all this delighted the visitors. Everything was so extraordinary, so simple and near to nature, so savoring of the romance of the old days. This wide, rambling room with its recesses lost in the shadows; the low, dim roof supported by its living columns; the glowing fireplace and the blazing knot; the wild pelts scattered here and there, and the curious skin-clad figure in the firelight – certainly these were things to stir delightfully the heart of youth, to set curious fancies flitting through the brain.

"Oh," murmured Constance, "I wish we might stay in a place like this forever!" Then, reddening, added hastily, "I mean – I mean – "

"Yes," agreed Frank, "I mean that, too – and I wish just the same. We could have fish every day, and such hoecake, and this nice tea, and I would pick berries like these, and you could gather mushrooms. And we would have squirrels to amuse us, and you would read to me, and perhaps I should write poems of the hills and the storms and the haunted woods, and we could live so close to nature and drink so deeply of its ever renewing youth that old age could not find us, and we should live on and on and be always happy – happy ever after."

The girl's hand lay upon the table, and when his heavier palm closed over it she did not draw it away.

"I can almost love you when you are like this," she whispered.

"And if I am always like this – ?"

They spoke very low, and the hermit sat in the high-back chair, bowed and staring into the blaze. Yet perhaps something of what they said drifted to his ear – perhaps it was only old and troubling memories stirring within him that caused him to rise and walk back and forth before the fire.

His guests had finished now, and they came back presently to the big, deep settle, happy in the comfort of plenteous food, the warmth and the cosy seat, and the wild unconvention of it all. The beat of the rain did not trouble them. Secretly they were glad of any excuse for remaining by the hermit's hearth.

Their host did not appear to notice them at first, but paced a turn up and down, then seated himself in the high-backed chair and gazed into the embers. A bevy of the little squirrels crept up and scaled his knees and shoulders, but with that curious note of warning he sent them scampering. The pine knot sputtered low and he tossed it among the coals, where it renewed its blaze. For a time there was silence, with only the rain sobbing at the door. Then by and by – very, very softly, as one who muses aloud – he spoke: "I, too, have had my dreams – dreams which were ever of happiness for me – and for another; happiness that would not end, yet which was to have no more than its rare beginning.

"That was a long time ago – as many as thirty years, maybe. I have kept but a poor account of time, for what did it matter here?"

He turned a little to Constance.

"Your face and voice, young lady, bring it all back now, and stir me to speak of it again – the things of which I have spoken to no one before – not even to Robin."

"To Robin!" The words came involuntarily from Constance.

"Yes, Robin Farnham, now of the Lodge. He found his way here once, just as you did. It was in his early days on the mountains, and he came to me out of a white mist, just as you came, and I knew him for her son."

Constance started, but the words on her lips were not uttered.

"I knew him for her son," the hermit continued, "even before he told me his name, for he was her very picture, and his voice – the voice of a boy – was her voice. He brought her back to me – he made her live again – here, in this isolated spot, even as she had lived in my dreams – even as a look in your face and a tone in your voice have made her live for me again to-day."

There was something in the intensity of the man's low speech, almost more than in what he said, to make the listener hang upon his words. Frank, who had drawn near Constance, felt that she was trembling, and he laid his hand firmly over hers, where it rested on the seat beside him.

"Yet I never told him," the voice went on, "I never told Robin that I knew him – I never spoke his mother's name. For I had a fear that it might sadden him – that the story might send him away from me. And I could have told nothing unless I told it all, and there was no need. So I spoke to him no word of her, and I pledged him to speak to no one of me. For if men knew, the curious would come and I would never have my life the same again. So I made him promise, and after that first time he came as he chose. And when he is here she who was a part of my happy dream lives again in him. And to you I may speak of her, for to you it does not matter, and it is in my heart now, when my days are not many, to recall old dreams."

CHAPTER X

THE HERMIT'S STORY

The hermit paused and gazed into the bed of coals on the hearth. His listeners waited without speaking. Constance did not move – scarcely did she breathe.

"As I said, it may have been thirty years ago," the gentle voice continued. "It may have been more than that – I do not know. It was on the Sound shore, in one of the pretty villages there – it does not matter which.

"I lived with my uncle in the adjoining village. Both my parents were dead – he was my guardian. In the winter, when the snow fell, there was merry-making between these villages. We drove back and forth in sleighs, and there were nights along the Sound when the moon path followed on the water and the snow, and all the hills were white, and the bells jingled, and hearts were gay and young.

"It was on such a night that I met her who was to become Robin's mother. The gathering was in our village that night, and, being very young, she had come as one of a merry sleighful. Half way to our village their sleigh had broken down, and the merry makers had gayly walked the remainder, trusting to our hospitality to return them to their homes. I was one of those to welcome them and to promise conveyance, and so it was that I met her, and from that moment there was nothing in all the world for me but her."

The hermit lifted his eyes from the fire and looked at Constance.

"My girl," he said, "there are turns of your face and tones of your voice that carry me back to that night. But Robin, when he first came here to my door, a stripling, he was her very self.

"I recall nothing of that first meeting but her. I saw nothing but her. I think we danced – we may have played games – it did not matter. There was nothing for me but her face. When it was over, I took her in my cutter and we drove together across the snow – along the moonlit shore. I do not remember what we said, but I think it was very little. There was no need. When I parted from her that night the heritage of eternity was ours – the law that binds the universe was our law, and the morning stars sang together as I drove homeward across the hills.

"That winter and no more holds my happiness. Yet if all eternity holds no more for me than that, still have I been blest as few have been blest, and if I have paid the price and still must pay, then will I pay with gladness, feeling only that the price of heaven is still too small, and eternity not too long for my gratitude."

The hermit's voice had fallen quite to a whisper, and he was as one who muses aloud upon a scene rehearsed times innumerable. Yet in the stillness of that dim room every syllable was distinct, and his listeners waited, breathless, at each pause for him to continue. Into Frank's eyes had come the far-away look of one who follows in fancy an old tale, but the eyes of Constance shone with an eager light and her face was tense and white against the darkness.

"It was only that winter. When the spring came and the wild apple was in bloom, and my veins were all a-tingle with new joy, I went one day to tell her father of our love. Oh, I was not afraid. I have read of trembling lovers and halting words. For me the moments wore laggingly until he came, and then I overflowed like any other brook that breaks its dam in spring.

"And he – he listened, saying not a single word; but as I talked his eyes fell, and I saw tears gather under his lids. Then at last they rolled down his cheeks and he bowed his head and wept. And then I did not speak further, but waited, while a dread that was cold like death grew slow upon me. When he lifted his head he came and sat by me and took my hand. 'My boy,' he said, 'your father was my friend. I held his hand when he died, and a year later I followed your mother to her grave. You were then a little blue-eyed fellow, and my heart was wrung for you. It was not that you lacked friends, or means, for there were enough of both. But, oh, my boy, there was another heritage! Have they not told you? Have you never learned that both your parents were stricken in their youth by that scourge of this coast – that fever which sets a foolish glow upon the cheek while it lays waste the life below and fills the land with early graves? Oh, my lad! you do not want my little girl.'"

The hermit's voice died, and he seemed almost to forget his listeners. But all at once he fixed his eyes on Constance as if he would burn her through.

"Child," he said, "as you look now, so she looked in the moment of our parting. Her eyes were like yours, and her face, God help me! as I saw it through the dark that last night, was as your face is now. Then I went away. I do not remember all the places, but they were in many lands, and were such places as men seek who carry my curse. I never wrote – I never saw her, face to face, again.

"When I returned her father was dead, and she was married – to a good man, they told me – and there was a child that bore my name, Robin, for I had been called Robin Gray. And then there came a time when a stress was upon the land – when fortunes tottered and men walked the streets with unseeing eyes – when his wealth and then hers vanished like smoke in the wind – when my own patrimony became but worthless paper – a mockery of scrolled engravings and gaudy seals. To me it did not matter – nothing matters to one doomed. To them it was shipwreck. John Farnham, a high-strung, impetuous man, was struck down. The tension of those weeks, and the final blow, broke his spirit and undermined his strength. They had only a pittance and a little cottage in these mountains, which they had used as a camp for summer time. It stood then where it stands to-day, on the North Elba road, in view of this mountain top. There they came in the hope that Robin's father might regain health to renew the fight. There they remained, for the father had lost courage and only found a little health by tilling the few acres of ground about the cottage. There, that year, a second child – a little girl – was born."

It had grown very still in the hermitage. There was only a drip of the rain outside – the thunder had rolled away. The voice, too, ceased for a little, as if from weariness. The others made no sign, but it seemed to Frank that the hand locked closely in his had become quite cold.

"The word of those things drifted to me," so the tale went on, "and it made me sad that with my own depleted fortune and failing health I could do nothing for their comfort or relief. But one day my physician said to me that the air and the altitude of these mountains had been found beneficial for those stricken like me. He could not know how his words made my heart beat. Now, indeed, there was a reason for my coming – an excuse for being near her – with a chance of seeing her, it might be, though without her knowledge. For I decided that she must not know. Already she had enough burden without the thought that I was near – without the sight of my doleful, wasting features.

"So I sold the few belongings that were still mine – such things as I had gathered in my wanderings – my books, save those I loved most dearly – my furnishings, my ornaments, even to my apparel – and with the money I bought the necessaries of mountain life – implements, rough wear and a store of food. These, with a tent, my gun, the few remaining volumes, and my field glass – the companion of all my travels – I brought to the hills."

He pointed to the glass and the volumes lying on the stone at his hand.

"Those have been my life," he went on. "The books have brought me a world wherein there was ever a goodly company, suited to my mood. For me, in that world, there are no disappointments nor unfulfilled dreams. King, lover, courtier and clown – how often at my bidding have they trooped out of the shadows to gather with me about this hearth! Oh, I should have been poor indeed without the books! Yet the glass has been to me even more, for it brought me her.

"I have already told you that their cottage could be seen from this mountain top. I learned this when I came stealthily to the hills and sought out their home, and some spot amid the overhanging peaks where I might pitch my camp and there unseen look down upon her life. This is the place I found. I had my traps borne up the trail to the foot of the little fall, as if I would camp there. Then when the guides were gone I carried them here, and reared my small establishment, away from the track of hunters, on this high finger of rock which commanded the valley and her home. There is a spring here and a bit of fertile land. It was State land and free, and I pitched my tent here, and that summer I cleared an open space for tillage and built a hut for the winter. The sturdy labor and the air of the hills strengthened my arm and renewed my life. But there was more than that. For often there came a clear day, when the air was like crystal and other peaks drew so near that it seemed one might reach out and stroke them with his hand. On such a day, with my glass, I sought a near-by point where the mountain's elbow jutted out into the sky, and when from that high vantage I gazed down on the roof which covered her, my soul was filled with strength to tarry on. For distance became as nothing to my magic glass. Three miles it may be as the crow flies, but I could bring the tiny cottage and the door-yard, as it stood there at the turn of the road above the little hill, so close to me that it seemed to lie almost at my very feet."

Again the speaker rested for a moment, but presently the tale went on.

"You can never know what I felt when I first saw her. I had watched for her often, and I think she had been ill. I had seen him come and go, and sometimes I had seen a child – Robin it was – playing about the yard. But one day when I had gone to my point of lookout and had directed my glass – there, just before me, she stood. There she lived and moved – she who had been, who was still my life – who had filled my being with a love that made me surrender her to another, yet had lured me at last to this lonely spot, forever away from men, only that I might now and again gaze down across the tree tops, and all unseen, unknown to her, make her the companion of my hermit life.

"She walked slowly and the child walked with her, holding her hand. When presently she looked toward me, I started and shrank, forgetting for the moment that she could not see me. Not that I could distinguish her features at such a range, only her dear outline, but in my mind's eyes her face was there before me just as I had seen it that last time – just as I have seen yours in the firelight."

He turned to Constance, whose features had become blurred in the shadows. Frank felt her tremble and caught the sound of a repressed sob. He knew the tears were streaming down her cheeks, and his own eyes were not dry.

"After that I saw her often, and sometimes the infant, Robin's sister, was in her arms. When the autumn came, and the hills were glorified, and crowned with snow, she stood many times in the door-yard to behold their wonder. When at last the leaves fell, and the trees were bare, I could watch even from the door of my little hut. The winter was long – the winter is always long up here – from November almost till May – but it did not seem long to me, when she was brought there to my door, even though I might not speak to her.

"And so I lived my life with her. The life in that cottage became my life – day by day, week by week, year by year – and she never knew. After that first summer I never but once left the mountain top. All my wants I supplied here. There was much game of every sort, and the fish near by were plentiful. I had a store of meal for the first winter, and during the next summer I cultivated my bit of cleared ground, and produced my full need of grain and vegetables and condiments. One trip I made to a distant village for seeds, and from that day never left the mountain again.