Quill's Window Part 1

Quill's Window.

by George Barr McCutcheon.

CHAPTER I

THE FORBIDDEN ROCK

A young man and an old one sat in the shade of the willows beside the wide, still river. The glare of a hot August sun failed to penetrate the shelter in which they idled; out upon the slow-gliding river it beat relentlessly, creating a pale, thin vapour that clung close to the shimmering surface and dazzled the eye with an ever-shifting glaze. The air was lifeless, sultry, stifling; not a leaf, not a twig in the tall, drooping willows moved unless stirred by the pa.s.sage of some vagrant bird.

The older man sat on the ground, his back against the trunk of a tree that grew so near to the edge that it seemed on the point of toppling over to shatter the smooth, green mirror below. Some of its st.u.r.dy exposed roots reached down from the bank into the water, where they caught and held the drift from upstream,--reeds and twigs and matted gra.s.s,--a dirty, sickly ma.s.s that swished lazily on the flank of the slow-moving current.

The water here in the shade was deep and clear and limpid, contrasting sharply with the steel-white surface out beyond.

The young man occupied a decrepit camp stool, placed conveniently against the trunk of another tree hard by. A discarded bamboo rod lay beside him on the bank, the hook and line hopelessly tangled in the drift below. He smoked cigarettes.

His companion held a well-chewed black cigar in the vise-like corner of his mouth. His hook and line were far out in the placid water, an ordinary cork serving as a "bob" from which his dreary, unwavering gaze seldom shifted.

"I guess they're through bitin' for today," he remarked, after a long unbroken silence.

"How many have we got?" inquired the other languidly.

"Between us we've got twenty-four. That's a fair-sized mess. Sunfish don't make much of a showing unless you get a barrel of 'em."

"Good eating though," mused the young man.

"Fried in b.u.t.ter," supplemented the other. "What time is it?"

"Half-past nine."

"Well, that's just about what I'd figured. I've been fishin' in this 'hole' for something like forty years, off and on, and I've found out that these here sunfish get through breakfast at exactly eighteen minutes past nine. I always allow about ten minutes' leeway in case one or two of 'em might have been out late the night before or something,--but as a general thing they're pretty dog-goned prompt for breakfast. Specially in August. Even a fish is lazy in August. Look at that fish-worm. By gosh, it's BOILED! That shows you how hot the water is."

He removed the worm from the hook and slowly began to twist the pole in the more or less perfunctory process of "winding up" the line. The young man looked on disinterestedly.

"Ain't you going to untangle that line?" inquired the old man, jerking his thumb.

"What's the use? The worm is dead by this time, and G.o.d knows I prefer to let him rest in peace. The quickest way to untangle a line is to do it like this."

He severed it with his pocket-knife.

"A line like that costs twenty-five cents," said the old man, a trace of dismay in his voice.

"That's what it cost when it was new," drawled the other. "You forget it's been a second-hand article since eight o'clock this morning,--and what's a second-hand fish-line worth?--tell me that.

How much would you give, in the open market, or at an auction sale, for a second-hand fish-line?"

"I guess we'd better be gittin' back to the house," said the other, ignoring the question. "Got to clean these fish if we're expectin'

to have 'em for dinner,--or lunch, as you fellers call it. I'll bet your grandfather never called it lunch. And as for him callin'

supper DINNER,--why, by crickey, he NEVER got drunk enough for that."

"More than that," said the young man calmly, "he never saw a cigarette, or a telephone, or a Ford, or a safety-razor,--or a lot of other things that have sprung up since he cashed in his checks. To be sure, he did see a few things I've never seen,--such as clay-pipes, ca.n.a.l boats, horse-hair sofas, top-boots and rag-carpets,--and he probably saw Abraham Lincoln,--but, for all that, I'd rather be where I am today than where he is,--and I'm not saying he isn't in heaven, either."

The older man's eyes twinkled. "I don't think he's any nearer heaven than he was forty years ago,--and he's been dead just about that long. He wasn't what you'd call a far-seeing man,--and you've got to look a long ways ahead if you want to see heaven. Your grandma's in heaven all right,--and I'll bet she was the most surprised mortal that ever got inside the pearly gates if she found him there ahead of her. Like as not she would have backed out, thinking she'd got into the wrong place by mistake. And if he IS up there, I bet he's making the place an everlastin' h.e.l.l for her. Yep, your grandpa was about as mean as they make 'em. As you say, he didn't know anything about cigarettes, but he made up for it by runnin' after women and fast horses,--or maybe it was hosses and, fast women,--and cheatin'

the eye teeth out of everybody he had any dealings with."

"I don't understand how he happened to die young, If all these things were true about him," said the other, lighting a fresh cigarette and drawing in a deep, full breath of the pungent smoke. The old man waited a few seconds for the smoke to be expelled, and then, as it came out in a far-reaching volume, carrying far on the still air, his face betrayed not only relief but wonder.

"You don't actually swaller it, do you?" he inquired.

"Certainly not. I inhale, that's all. Any one can do it."

"I'd choke to death," said the old man, shifting his cigar hastily from one side of his mouth to the other, and taking a fresh grip on it with his teeth,--as if fearing the consequences of a momentary lapse of control.

"You've been chewing that cigar for nearly two hours," observed the young man. "I call that a filthy habit."

"I guess you're right," agreed the other, amiably. "The best you can say for it is that it's a man's job, and not a woman's," he added, with all the scorn that the cigar smoker has for the man who affects nothing but cigarettes.

"You can't make me sore by talking like that," said his companion, stretching himself lazily. "Approximately ten million men smoked cigarettes over in France for four years and more, and I submit that they had what you might call a man's job on their hands."

"How many of them things do you smoke in a day?"

"It depends entirely on how early I get up in the morning,--and how late I stay up at night. Good Lord, it's getting hotter every minute. For two cents, I'd strip and jump in there for a game of hide and seek with the fish. By the way, I don't suppose there are any mermaids in these parts, are there?"

"You stay out of that water," commanded the old man. "You ain't strong enough yet to be takin' any such chances. You're here to get well, and you got to be mighty all-fired careful. The bed of that river is full of cold springs,--and it's pretty deep along this stretch. Weak as you are,--and as hot as you are,--you'd get cramps in less'n a minute."

"I happen to be a good swimmer."

"So was Bart Edgecomb,--best swimmer I ever saw. He could swim back an' forth across this river half a dozen times,--and do you know what happened to him last September? He drowned in three foot of water up above the bend, that's what he did. Come on. Let's be movin'. It'll be hotter'n blazes by eleven o'clock, and you oughtn't to be walkin' in the sun."

The young man settled himself a little more comfortably against the tree.

"I think I'll stay here in the shade for a while longer. Don't be uneasy. I shan't go popping into the water the minute your back's turned. What was it you said early this morning about sniffing rain in the air?"

"Thunderstorms today, sure as my name's Brown. Been threatening rain for nearly a week. Got to come some time, and I figure today's--"

"Threats are all we get," growled the young man peevishly. "Lord, I never dreamed I could get so sick of white skies and what you call fresh air. You farmers go to bed every night praying for rain, and you get up in the morning still praying, and what's the result?

Nothing except a whiter sky than the day before, and a greater shortage of fresh air. Don't talk to me about country air and country sunshine and country quiet. My G.o.d, it never was so hot and stifling as this in New York, and as for peace and quiet,--why, those rotten birds in the trees around the house make more noise than the elevated trains at the rush hour, and the rotten roosters begin crowing just about the time I'm going to sleep, and the dogs bark, and the cows,--the cows do whatever cows do to make a noise,--and then the crows begin to yawp. And all night long the katydids keep up their beastly racket, and the frogs in the pond back of the barns,--my G.o.d, man, the city is as silent as the grave compared to what you get in the country."

"I manage to sleep through it all," said the old man drily. "The frogs and katydids don't keep me awake."

"Yes, and that reminds me of another noise that makes the night hideous. It's the way you people sleep. At nine o'clock sharp, every night, the whole house begins to snore, and--Say, I've seen service in France, I've slept in barracks with scores of tired soldiers, I've walked through camps where thousands of able-bodied men were snoring their heads off,--but never have I heard anything so terrifying as the racket that lasts from nine to five in the land of my forefathers. Gad, it sometimes seems to me you're all trying to make my forefathers turn over in their graves up there on the hill."

"You're kind of peevish today, ain't you?" inquired the other, grinning. "You'll get used to the way we snore before long, and you'll kind of enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in the night and didn't hear everybody in the house snoring. It's kind of restful to know that everybody's asleep,--and not dead. If they wasn't snoring, I'd certainly think they was dead."

The young man smiled. "I'll say this much for you farmers,--you're a good-natured bunch. I ought to be ashamed of myself for grousing.

I suppose it's because I've been sick. You're all so kind and thoughtful,--and so darned GENUINE,--even when you're asleep,--that I feel like a dog for finding fault. By the way, you said something awhile ago about that big black cliff over yonder having a history.

I've been looking at that cliff or hill or rock, or whatever it is, and it doesn't look real. It doesn't look as though G.o.d had made it. It's more like the work of man. So far as I can see, there isn't another hill on either bank of the river, and yet that thing over there must be three or four hundred feet high, sticking up like a gigantic wart on the face of the earth. What is it? Solid rock?"

"Sort like slate rock, I guess. There's a stretch of about a mile on both sides of the river along here that's solid rock. This bank we're standin' on is rock, covered with six or eight foot of earth.