A DIABOLIC CADENCE
Into the choirs of the trees there has come a rasping, strident, and unholy sound. A fiend in green is mocking the transient year with mad threnody from his eyrie among the boughs.
In that suspended half consciousness that hovers along the margin of a dream, there seems to echo, out of some vast and awful chasm, a rumbling roar of rocks—from some abysmal smithy of the gods within the hidden caverns of the earth where huge boulders are being fashioned by giant hands, to be hurled up into space, to descend with frightful crash, and extinguish the life upon the globe.
In the agonized recoil of frenzied fancy from the borders of the dream, the demonic ceaseless sawing, of the arboreal fiend in green, arrests the fleeting phantoms of the brain, and, like a doleful tuneless tolling of a fractured funeral bell—like a barbaric song of sorrow over fallen warriors—the ripping, rasping, resonant notes mingle with the night wind, and drown the harmonious hum of drowsy insects, that kindly nature has sent into the world to lull somnolent fancy into paths of dreams.
After the gentle prelude of the crickets—and the lullabies of forest folk—like a mad discordant piper, he starts a strain of dismal dole, and files away the seconds from the onward hours. Mercilessly across the tender human nerves, that seem to span the taut bridge of a swaying violin, he sweeps a berosined and excruciating bow.
Prolonged wailing for a “lost or stolen” love may have disintegrated his vocal chords. His agonized and shattered heart may have sunk into hopeless depths, and all his articulate forces may have been transmitted to his foliated wings, when his belovéd was lured away by some unknown marauder—mayhap of darker green or lovely pink.
The errant pair may be hidden in a distant glade—or dingly dell—gazing upward through the leaves, wondering “what star should be their home when love becomes immortal,” and listening to him, as he scrapes the melodies out of the night with that infernal, insistent, and slang-infected song:
“She’s beat it—she’s beat it—she’s beat it—
Come back—come back—come back—
You skate—you skate—
You’ve swiped—you’ve swiped
My mate—my mate—my mate!”
Intermittently he seems to muffle the ragged rhyme, and merge into virulent vers libre—imagistic muse and amputated prose—containing sound projectiles, of low trajectory, that winnow the aisles of the forest for an erring spouse who has fled beyond the range of common rhyme.
Perhaps it’s all wrong—about this insect having loved—for love is a holy thing, and it may be that it abides not among the things that have wings and stings. It would seem that he who could trill this nerve-destroying song could know no love, or that it was ever in the world.
It may be that this emerald villain has been outlawed by his kind, and he’s filing, up there in the dark, on some terrible iron thing, that he’s sharpening to annihilate the tribe that banned him. He may be sawing of a branch, and, if so, I hope he’s straddling the part that’ll fall off when he’s through. Maybe he’s got some ex-friend up there, pinioned to the bark, and he’s boring him to death, by telling him the same thing—the same thing—the same thing—o’er and o’er and o’er.
I wish that some gliding fluffy owl, or other rover of the darkened woods, would only pause a moment, and divest the bough of this green-mantled wretch, and then that some mighty ravenous bird would collect the people we know, who come and scrape on something that’s inside of them—lay a sound barrage before us—fret the air with piffle, and with sorrows all their own—and chant a woeful ceaseless cadence, like the green arboreal fiend, whose sonorous and satanic notes assail us from the bough. Miscreated, malignant, and hellish though they and the fiend may be, they all revel in that rare joy that comes only to him who has found his life work.
For our sins must we be scourged, else, why are these people?
And,
Pourquoi—pourquoi—pourquoi—
Is this
Katydid—Katydid—Katydid?
After listening patiently to the reading of the production, my unfeeling prosaic friend Sipes remarked, “Gosh, we gotta git that insect ’fore it gits dark ag’in!”
The Ancient called the third day after our arrival, and spent the afternoon with us. Bascom seemed much interested in helping to entertain him, and got out his maps. On one of them was indicated the names of the owners of the different tracts of land, and we were surprised to learn that the old man was the possessor of the woods we were in, practically all of the land around the marsh, and a long strip of frontage on the lake. Captain Peppers was also a large owner of property along the lake.
The veiled motive of Bascom’s trip with us was now apparent. He wanted options for a year on a large part of these holdings, and was willing to pay what he considered a good price. It seemed that on the day we came, he had had some talk with the Captain on the subject, and they were to take the matter up again.
He wanted options only on the tracts with marsh and lake frontage, and argued that if they were improved the rest of the land would be made much more valuable. He had skilfully arranged his stage setting for the object of his trip, and claimed that the idea had just occurred to him while he was taking this little outing. He said that he accidentally happened to have the maps, and had brought them along to familiarize himself with the country he was in.
He made the Ancient a substantial offer for an option on most of his holdings, at a price that the old man did not seem inclined to consider, but he was open to negotiation.
“I been livin’ ’ere most all my life, an’ I’ve ranged ’round this ol’ marsh an’ them sand-hills so much that I wouldn’t know how to act if they wasn’t mine, but if you’ll git yer figgers up whar I c’n see ’em, mebbe we’ll talk about it some more.”
“You see,” said Bascom to Saunders, after the old settler had left, “this land idea is a sort of a side issue with me. I think that perhaps a little money might be made here, but I would have to take some big chances. You and Sipes talk with those fellows a little, and see if you can’t bring them around to business, and I’ll pay you something for it if they sign up. You might have some influence with them. Tell them that I mentioned to you that it was just a gamble with me, and probably there isn’t a chance in a hundred that I will exercise the options at all, and they will be ahead whatever they get out of me now.”
The old shipmates agreed to do what they could and the subject was dropped for the time being.
The accidental exposure of the contents of a long fat wallet that Bascom carried inside his vest revealed the fact that he had a large amount of money with him, much larger than could possibly be required for ordinary use. Evidently he was prepared to close the business with the owners of the land the moment their minds met.
“Holy Mike! Did ye see that wad?” whispered Sipes, who was awed by the magic of the gold certificates. “I’d like to know some way to git that wad,” he remarked later. “I’d play some seven-up with ’im fer some of it, but they’s sump’n ’bout ’im that makes me think it wouldn’t do.”
I realized that the despoiler was at the gates of the Dune Country. The foot of the Philistine was on holy ground. This man with a withered soul was an invader of sanctuary. He would tear the dream temples down that the centuries had builded. With steam shovels and freight cars he would level the undulating hills, and haul away their shining sands to a world of greed, where man does not discriminate. The wild life would flee from steam whistles that shrieked through the forests, and from smoke that defiled the quiet places. Belching chimneys and unsightly signs would befoul and deface the fair domain. With the beauty of the dunes he would feed a Moloch in the sordid town.
The peaceful marsh, and the river with its channel of silver light, would be invaded with dredges. Abbatoirs, tanneries, factories, and blast furnaces might come. The Winding River, with its halo of memories, would flow away with receding years, and a foul stream would carry the stain of desecration and filth out to pollute the crystal depths of the lake.
“Improvements” were contemplated in Duneland, and the spectre of hopeless ugliness hovered along its borders. The altar of Mammon awaited a sacrifice, for “money might be made here” if certain manufacturing interests, to which Bascom vaguely alluded, “could be induced to utilize these now practically worthless wastes of sand.”
In years to come the wild geese may look down from their paths through the soiled skies, to the earth carpet below them, and wonder at the creatures that have changed it from a fabric of beauty to a source of evil odors and terrifying sounds.
The clam-fishing was unsatisfactory. The mollusks seemed to be about exhausted. Sipes and Saunders worked faithfully for several days, but only found a dozen or so, and none of them contained pearls.
“We gotta wait fer a new crop,” declared Saunders, who was disgusted with the whole trip and wanted to go home.
Bascom persuaded the old sailors to remain a few days, to give the Ancient a chance to come back, and to impress the Captain at the village with the idea that he was in no hurry to see him. They had no love for that red-nosed worthy and acquiesced.
The flatboat was restored to its berth on the bank, and in the early morning Sipes and Saunders made a trip to the village in the Crawfish. On their return at lunch time they reported that they had seen nothing of the Captain.
The Troopers of the Sky (From the Author’s Etching)
I spent the afternoon up the river and heard a great many shots echoing through the woods. When I returned to camp I found that Bascom had been out shooting robins. There were thirty-seven of the innocent little redbreasts in his bloody bag, and the game warden was with him when he returned from his shameful expedition.
It seemed that Sipes, when he arrived from the village, had pictured to Bascom the glories of a certain robin pie, “with little dumplins,” that he said Narcissus had once compounded, and the fascinated onion-skinner, although knowing that it was illegal to kill songsters, had taken the risk of going out with his gun to obtain material for another one. He was mad all the way through, but was a much subdued man.
“Them robins is song birds, an’ it’s ag’in the law to kill ’em at any time,” said the warden. “They’re wuth ten dollars apiece an’ costs to the state, an’ you’ve got to go to the county seat with me. Mebbe you’ll be jugged too, fer they’re pretty severe with fellers that shoot little birds.”
Bascom offered to fix up the matter privately, on a liberal financial basis, but the minion of the law was inexorable. The culprit must have regarded that part of the country as most peculiar and inhospitable.
Erskine Douglas Potts, the game warden, was a lengthy loose-jointed individual. One eye drooped in a peculiar way, and seemed to rove independently of the other. Sipes declared that “Doug’ c’n look up in a tree with one eye, an’ down a hole with the other lamp at the same time.” Odd humor radiated from him and he had a deep sense of his dignity as an upholder of the “revised stat-toots.” Two printed copies of the state game laws protruded from the top of his trousers, where they were secured by a safety pin. “Casey,” his small yellow dog, was his inseparable companion. They were a devoted pair of chums and Potts refused to allow a “pitcher” to be made of him unless the dog was included.
Casey was an animal of rare acumen. He had once taken the prize at a village dog-show, where intelligence and not breeding was considered, and his laurels were regarded as imperishable by his proud master.
“They didn’t put me up, but if they had I’d ’a’ lost out ’side o’ him,” he remarked. “The dogs is the smartest things in that town, an’ they couldn’t be no kind of a brain show thar without ’em. This dog’s a wonder. He knows the time o’ day, an’ all the short cuts through the woods an’ sand-hills. We ain’t neither of us got no pedigrees, but we seem to navigate ’round pretty well without ’em.
“W’en we hear any shoot’n off in the woods we go out on a still-hunt. Casey finds the foot trails an’ follers ’em up. ’Tain’t long ’fore we spot the feller with the gun. Then we foregather with ’im an’ ask fer ’is shoot’n license, an’ inspect wot ’e’s got. If it’s song birds, er game out o’ season, we form in line an’ perceed to whar the scales o’ justice hang, an’ the feller has to loosen up.
“Casey hikes down to the depot w’en they’s anybody that with baggage er packages, an’ sniffs ’em over. If ’e scents any birds ’e alw’ys lets me know. I git half o’ the fines that’s levied, an’ this ’ere bag we’ve jest brought in looks like pretty good pickin’. It’s durn poor shoot’n that don’t shake down sump’n fer somebody. Casey an’ me lives alone, an’ we have lots o’ long talks together. He knows more’n most lawyers. He’s my depity, an’ I couldn’t git along without ’im. A feller that owns a nice new breech loadin’ gun offered to trade me a horse fer ’im last week, but they was nothin’ doin’.
“Me an’ Casey don’t miss much that goes on ’round ’ere. After them robins is took off o’ the bar o’ justice, we’ll fetch ’em back, if the jedge don’t cop ’em, an’ we’ll let yer dark-spot cook ’em, an’ we’ll have a pie that’s all our own. Yer moneyed friend c’n think about it while ’e’s in the county jail countin’ the change ’e’s got left.”
It was arranged that the prisoner and his marble-hearted captor should be taken to the village that night in the Crawfish, and the journey to the county seat made the next day.
The evening meal was far from festive. The boat was poled out into the current and started away down stream in the moonlight, with Saunders at the helm. Sipes and the warden smoked complacently on the roof of the cabin, and the moody Bascom sat between them. Casey was in charge of the evidence near the bow, where he jealously guarded the bag of robins and kept his eye on the evil doer.
Sipes had remarked to me before they left that “things has been pretty dull ’round this ’ere camp, but now they’s sump’n doin’.”
“Ah tole Mr. Bascom that ’e bettah not go shoot’n’ much ’round heah,” said Narcissus, with a quiet chuckle, after the party had left, “but ’e said ’e wanted one o’ them robin pies that Mr. Sipes tole ’im ’bout. Ah don’t remembah ’bout no robin pie, but it might be awful good. The wa’den has ’fiscated all them robins, an’ Ah guess we got to fix up sump’n else fo’ dinnah tomorrow.”
I asked no questions when the old shipmates returned, and they volunteered no information as to any part that they might or might not have played in the little drama of the afternoon, but I suspected that the “third degree” that Sipes had mentioned before we started was now in process of application.
Justice was dealt out to Bascom with unsparing hand when he reached the county seat, and he was compelled to pay the full penalty of his wrongdoing. After liquidating his fines, and incidentally himself, in a moderate way, to drown his troubles, he had spent an hour or so about town, and was just taking the train, when he was again arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. He had neglected to leave his revolver at the camp, and was assessed accordingly.
He came back to us after three days, with a crestfallen air, and said that he was ready to break camp if we were. Nothing had been seen of the Ancient or the Captain, and he regarded it as poor strategy to stay longer, with no particular excuse for doing so. He would devise some other way of getting at the coy landowners.
We packed up our things and departed. The engine stopped just before we reached the village, and we found that our gasoline was exhausted. Unfortunately the oars had been forgotten when we left Shipmates’ Rest, but as the new motor had worked perfectly, there had been no occasion for them. We poled the Crawfish to the old pier, landed, and stowed my little boat and tent where we had found them. We then took the gasoline can and walked up to the village, leaving Bascom in charge of the Crawfish.
He was anxious for us to run across the Captain accidentally, and if possible get him down to the boat on some pretence. In effect, we were to shoo the wary Captain to the ambush, where the onion-skinner lay in wait with his tempting yellowbacks. We did not look very hard for him, but I happened to see him down the road talking to a man in a buggy. I was not inclined to do any shooing, and did not disturb him.
We spent some time in the village store. When we came out, the sky, which had looked threatening all the morning, was overcast with dark angry clouds. A big storm was brewing, and we decided not to start for Shipmates’ Rest until it was over. There was a high off-shore wind. The waves were rising rapidly out on the lake, but the protected water along the bluffs was still comparatively calm. As the wind increased we went down to the pier, intending to tie the boat up in a more sheltered place, and remain at the village all night. We found to our dismay that the Crawfish was adrift far out on the water. Under the strain of the wind and the river current, the line had parted that had held it to the pier.
Bascom was gesticulating wildly for help, but there was no means of getting to him. There happened to be no boats around the mouth of the river large enough to be of use in the waves that were now breaking over the Crawfish. There was no gasoline on the boat, and if there had been oars Bascom could not have got the boat back with them after he got into the current. Evidently he had not realized his danger until it was too late to jump overboard and swim ashore, or it may not have occurred to him.
“That poor feller ain’t got no more chance ’an a fish worm on a red-hot stove,” shouted Sipes above the roar of the wind, as we watched the helpless craft being tossed and borne away. To do the old man justice, he forgot the boat, and our belongings on it, in the face of Bascom’s peril, as we all did.
There was a faint hope that some steamer on the lake might rescue him, but there was none in sight, and we doubted if the boat would stay afloat more than a few minutes more in such a wind and sea. Rain began to come in torrents, and the distant object, that we had watched so anxiously, was obliterated by the storm.
We made our way back to the village store with difficulty, and telephoned to the lifesaving station about thirty miles away on the coast, but there was no possible hope of help from there. There was much excitement among a few villagers who came out into the storm, but nobody could suggest any means of relief.
We spent a gloomy and sleepless night in the little town, where we were hospitably provided for.
Somewhere far out on the wind-lashed lake the turbulent seas and the storm played with a thing that had become a part of the waste and débris of the wide waters. Bascom’s god was in his leather wallet, but it was powerless, except with men. The winds and the waves knew it not. Greed, that dominates the greater part of mankind, becomes ghastly illusion, as the frail creature it disfigures blends into the elements when finality comes.
Mother Nature, with her invincible forces, sometimes chastens her erring children who do not understand. She had guarded her treasures in Duneland through the countless years, and now, with a breath from the skies, a destroyer had been wafted from its portals.
Poor Bascom had indeed received the “third degree” and had been “exported” in a way that was not contemplated by the sorrowful old sailors.
The storm subsided the next day and we made the journey along the beach on foot to Shipmates’ Rest, where we found everything in good order. We related our doleful experience to John, and there was a cloud over our little party for several days. Like most of the troubles in this world, particularly when they are those of others, the sadness of Bascom’s fate soon lost its poignancy.
“I’m sorry fer Bascom,” remarked Sipes, “an’ I hate to lose the boat an’ all the stuff wot’s on it, but Gosh, I wish I had that wad! He made a lot o’ money in ’is business, an’ money’s all ’e ever wanted to git, an’ ’e’s got plenty of it right with ’im, so he ain’t got no kick comin’. He was a hard citizen. All they was that was good about ’im was ’is cash-money, an’ it’s like that with a lot o’ people. I don’t s’pose ’e’ll ever git anywheres near the New Jerus’lum that Zeke tells about, but if ’e does, I bet ’e’ll want to skin some o’ them pearls wot’s on the gate.”
I arranged to leave for home, and promised to write to Sipes if I ever saw anything in the newspapers relating to the finding of Bascom’s body.
“By the way, Sipes, I never knew your first name. What is it?”
“My fust name? It’s Willie, but don’t you never put that on no letter. Me an’ you an’ Bill’s the only ones wot knows it.”
I departed out of Duneland, and one cold afternoon during the winter I opened the door of my city studio, after a short absence, and under it was a card that had been left during the past hour. On it was engraved,
HORATIUS T. BASCOM
REAL ESTATE
FARM LANDS AND MANUFACTURING
SITES A SPECIALTY
I mailed it to “Mr. W. Sipes” with a trite allusion to bad pennies, and such other comment as seemed befitting.