Castle Nowhere | Page 4

treat now and then on a wet night.
'Did you buy that sugar at the Sault?' said the old man, eagerly.
'O no; I brought it up from below. For literature I have this small edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, the cream of the whole world's poetry; and when I am tired of looking at the trees and the sky, I look at this, Titian's lovely daughter with her upheld salver of fruit. Is she not beautiful as a dream?'
'I don't know much about dreams,' replied old Fog, scanning the small picture with curious eyes 'but isn't she a trifle heavy in build? They dress like that nowadays, I suppose,--flowered gowns and gold chains around the waist?'
'Why, man, that picture was painted more than three centuries ago.'
'Was it now? Women don't alter much, do they?' said old Fog, simply. 'Then they don't dress like that nowadays?'
'I don't know how they dress, and don't care,' said the younger man, repacking his treasures.
Old Fog concluded to camp with his new friend that night and be off at dawn. 'You see it is late,' he said, 'and your fire's all made and everything comfortable. I've a long row before me to-morrow: I'm on my way to the Beavers.'
'Ah! very intelligent animals, I am told. Friends of yours?'
'Why, they're islands, boy; Big and Little Beaver! What do you know, if you don't know the Beavers?'
'Man,' replied Waring. 'I flatter myself I know the human animal well; he is a miserable beast.'
'Is he?' said old Fog, wonderingly; 'who'd have thought it!' Then, giving up the problem as something beyond his reach,--'Don't trouble yourself if you hear me stirring in the night,' he said; 'I am often mighty restless.' And rolling himself in his blanket, he soon became, at least as regards the camp-fire and sociability, a nonentity.
'Simple-minded old fellow,' thought Waring, lighting a fresh pipe; 'has lived around here all his life apparently. Think of that,--to have lived around here all one's life! I, to be sure, am here now; but then, have I not been--' And here followed a revery of remembrances, that glittering network of gayety and folly which only young hearts can weave, the network around whose border is written in a thousand hues, 'Rejoice, young man, in thy youth, for it cometh not again.'
'Alas, what sighs from our boding hearts The infinite skies have borne away!'
sings a poet of our time; and the same thought lies in many hearts unexpressed, and sighed itself away in this heart of our Jarvis Waring that still foggy evening on the beach.
The middle of the night, the long watch before dawn; ten chances to one against his awakening! A shape is moving towards the bags hanging on the distant tree. How the sand crunches,--but he sleeps on. It reaches the bags, this shape, and hastily, rifles them; then it steals back and crosses the sand again, its moccasined feet making no sound. But, as it happened, that one chance (which so few of us ever see!) appeared on the scene at this moment and guided these feet directly towards a large, thin, old shell masked with newly blown sand; it broke with a crack; Waring woke and gave chase. The old man was unarmed, he had noticed that; and then such a simple-minded, harmless old fellow! But simple-minded, harmless old fellows do not run like mad if one happens to wake; so the younger pursued. He was strong, he was fleet; but the shape was fleeter, and the space between them grew wider. Suddenly the shape turned and darted into the water, running out until only its head was visible above the surface, a dark spot in the foggy moonlight. Waring pursued, and saw meanwhile another dark spot beyond, an empty skiff which came rapidly inshore-ward, until it met the head, which forthwith took to itself a body, clambered in, lifted the oars, and was gone in an instant.
'Well,' said Waring, still pursuing down the gradual slope of the beach, 'will a phantom bark come at my call, I wonder? At any rate I will go out as far as he did and see.' But no; the perfidious beach at this instant shelved off suddenly and left him afloat in deep water. Fortunately he was a skilled swimmer, and soon regained the shore wet and angry. His dogs were whimpering at a distance, both securely fastened to trees, and the light of the fire had died down: evidently the old Fog was not, after all, so simple as some other people!
'I might as well see what the old rogue has taken,' thought Waring; 'all the tobacco and whiskey, I'll be bound.' But nothing had been touched save the lump-sugar, the little book, and the picture of Titian's daughter! Upon this what do you suppose Waring did? He built