IN WHICH I DESCEND INTO HELL
I have descended into hell.
I had no idea of the intensity of my own nature until the deeps were stirred. Few of us ever come to a full realization of what we are, or may become. I have always thought with some degree of pride that my acquaintance with myself was perfect. More than that, I was positive that my ego was entirely subservient to my will. So it always has been until now. But the reason for this is that I have lived upon the crust of life, have walked calmly and confidently upon the tops of things. It is indeed a poor sort of fool who does not know himself in his relations to the superficialities of his daily existence. How satisfied I was! How willing to meet emergencies and demands, in the full faith that I could cope with all such. I do not think I am an exception to my fellow creatures in this. All men whose natures are well rounded and adjusted have this same idea. It is essential to their progress. We must perforce believe in our own abilities before we can perform any achievements. So I am not ashamed to write these words. I have never been conceited, nor puffed up. I have had no cause to be, but I don't believe I would have been had I reasons—or what silly people give as reasons, for really there is never any justification for such a mental attitude.
Neither am I ashamed to say that I have descended into hell. At first sight it may seem weakness, but upon investigation it will be found the reverse is true. I did not take the plunge voluntarily, although my perhaps foolish adherence to a Quixotic theory undoubtedly had a deal to do with precipitating me downward. From the fact that my feet have strayed along the gloomy, thorn-set paths of hell for the past week, I have awakened to a newer and truer knowledge of myself. Had my feelings been on the surface only, the past seven days would have found me philosophically plodding through the forest recesses in search of my mystical life-plant, or busily engaged in my garden, or curled up in an easy chair reading one of my favorites. Not one of these natural things have I done, for the simple reason that I have been a dweller in hell instead, and in this grim demesne there is neither life-plant, garden nor books. But there is torture, in exquisite variety. The world-worn and cynical may sniff and declare that a man beyond thirty should have passed this sentimental, simpering age. I don't know how that may be. I cannot answer. I can only set down that which befell me, and I choose to regard as strength, rather than weakness, that quality which has enabled me to suffer like unto a damned soul. Surely if any doubt ever flickered on the horizon of my conscience, that doubt has been swept away and annihilated utterly. I am possessed by a legion of devils which escort me hourly on my way; grinning, fiendish, sleepless devils which leap about my feet with gibe and curse, and dance upon my pillow in a fiery saraband when I fain would forget in sleep. Sleep! When did I sleep? Sunday night? No, God's mercy! Sunday night I wandered bareheaded, coatless, for miles and miles, hour after hour. I did not choose my way. I did not even take the road leading down from the plateau. I think I must have eaten something mechanically, then came out of the Lodge whose walls were shutting off my breath, and made straight for the closest point of descent. It was near the lone pine, between cedar bushes which ruthlessly scratched my unheeding face. Here the declivity was steep and rough. Had I been moving in the world I never would have taken it, but in hell one cannot choose his path. I went down. I fell. I collided roughly with the trunks of trees. I tripped, I stumbled, I cursed, and went on. I came to a cliff. It sank sheer, and below was darkness. I lay down, rolled my body over, hung by my hands, and dropped. I knew not, neither cared, where I might alight. I splashed into a shallow pool not over six feet beneath. Then came leagues after leagues of tireless walking. I noted neither distance nor time. At last I burst out upon a huge, flat rock, overhanging a valley of majestic length and breadth. A gibbous moon brightened the sky and silvered the slopes about me. Then for a few moments I was on earth again, brought back by the magical beauty of the scene. But my respite was indeed brief. The black gulf of perdition closed over me again as the merciless hand of Fate twisted anew the iron in my soul, and I turned away from that glimpse of the earth with my teeth chattering. How far had I strayed? Heaven knows. But it was past midday when I again sighted that sentinel-like peak beneath which I shelter.
The next night I sat face to face with the devil through the long, lonely, hideous hours. Ah! but he is a specious rogue! There never was a tongue on earth like unto his. But I met his arguments with a sort of bulldog, mean combativeness. So we talked back and forth, out there, in front of the Lodge. I occupied one bench, he the other, and our meeting was gruesome. How full he was of guile, sleek insinuation, plausible persuasion. At first his method was violent—but I shall tell first of how the encounter happened.
After a pretense at supper I clutched my cold pipe for company and crept out to the seat. I did not light up. Burning tobacco makes for solace at most times, but I knew my erstwhile cherished weed would be an affront to my taste and a stench in my nostrils that night. And as I sat, humped over and almost a-shiver because of the powerful emotions which had been racking me for forty-eight hours, and more, thinking of all I had lost, the Prince of Demons leaped full armed upon me, all unexpectedly, and his assault was fierce. At first I crouched under it sinisterly, as a man will when an evil takes him unawares. But another moment my heart and mind and soul had arisen simultaneously to my rescue, and together we fought a good fight. I doubt me if many unwritten battles were harder contested. Thus, beneath the stubborn resistance of my staunch and faithful allies, the Enemy's violence abated. But presently I knew that he had changed his tactics only, and had not withdrawn. For there he crouched on the bench just across from me, apparently unhurt, while I realized with much sadness and shame that each of my champions bore marks of the conflict. I remained silent, hoping my unwelcome visitor would depart, but instead he began now to leer and smirk at me ingratiatingly.
"What do you want?" I asked, surlily enough, for my spirit was sore within me, and this presence was most distasteful.
Said the Devil: "What do you want?"
Thereat he grinned ghastily, and wagged his head, while I felt my heart turn sick, and my bowels tremble. But I answered:
"I want that which is as far removed from you and your accursed power as God and his angels—a real woman's love!"
Now he laughed in raucous glee.
"And that's what you have lost—by playing the fool! Is it not so?"
"That's what I have lost—perhaps by playing the fool," I replied.
Said the Devil to me:
"And that very day you went back about sunset, driven by the barbs of your passion, to tell the old woman the truth. You could not gain admittance to the house. You saw no one. You have been back twice. You have laid in wait. But you have failed to get speech with any in the house. Is it not so?"
I nodded assent.
"Then what?" continued the Devil.
"Hell—and you!" I retorted, in desperation.
Then the Devil edged closer to me along the plank; he seemed to writhe across it like something with a hurt back. It made my flesh creep to see him. He leaned toward me through the intervening space, and stretching out his ugly, snake-like neck, hissed:
"Honor and virtue are lies! Pleasure is truth. Take her—"
Up I sprang, fist at shoulder, and lunged at that fiendish visage with all the power of my body. I hit nothing, the impetus of the stroke wheeled me entirely around, and there stood mine Enemy, hands on hips, shaking with silent laughter.
I stood and glared at him in angry helplessness.
"Easy—easy!" he chuckled. "You are not the first to shrink at giving up a cherished chimera. You see I am much older than you, and know all of humanity's foibles and make-believes. I am your friend. In your mind you have created an angel out of a piece of ignoble clay. Listen, while I prove to you that I am your friend, and show you a way to success."
Thereupon his vileness became so bold and horrible that I will not soil this white paper with a transscript of it, and I sank upon a bench, elbows on knees and face in hands, listening to the damnable rigmarole because I could not help it. My visitor was beyond personal violence—witness my recent fruitless attempt to strike him—or time and again I would have closed with him and slain him, or been slain. Shudders of shame and rage swept me from head to foot, and my cheeks grew so hot they burned my palms. Hours passed. At times the Devil relaxed, and a sort of armistice prevailed, then he would renew his merciless planning for my destruction, and how smooth and easy the road appeared under the magic of his voice! Throughout the entire night I remained humped over, shaking at intervals as some especially diabolical sentence fell upon my unwilling but helpless ears; holding my tongue, because I knew that no words of mine would avail to move the monster at my elbow.
Hast ever sat up o' night with the Devil, my brothers? It comes to me that every one who lives, or has lived must have had this experience. 'Tis a blood chilling one, forsooth; at least when resistance is offered. Only when daylight stole ghost-wise through the still aisles of the immemorial wood did mine Enemy depart, and I got to my feet, trembling as one risen from a bed of grievous sickness, groped my way within, and fell with a groan across my cot.
Throughout that day I slept, and arose in the late afternoon feeling refreshed. My trouble was mental, and this long rest for my brain was most beneficial. I put as firm a check upon my thoughts as I could bring to bear, and methodically set about preparing my supper. Looking back as I write to-night, I know that my movements were erratic and strained. I built my fire in the kitchen stove calmly, but soon thereafter memory made a breach in the flimsy wall of reserve which I had upreared, and havoc began afresh. I burned my food. I broke two dishes. I blistered my fingers on the hot oven. Then I ate voraciously, almost viciously, and leaving the things unwashed, tore out to the companionship of my vast host of faithful trees. Read? I could no more have held my eyes to printed lines that night than I could measure the sun's diameter. The Book says there is a time for everything. This week has been my time to visit the nether world, while yet alive; to become almost insane, while retaining a degree of sense. It may be I shall omit this chapter entire when the end of my story is reached. I am writing it to-night, because in doing so I open a safety valve. I have been fearfully surcharged with the intensest sort of feelings, and I find that it gives me some relief to pour them out upon the pages of my journal. When I grow again to be the reasoning man I was last Sunday—if I ever do—I shall read these lines again. If they seem perfervid, unnatural, overdrawn, I shall wipe them out, in deference to the gentle critic who never saw a red-haired Dryad, and consequently cannot have the least understanding of what I have been driving at in this night's record. I know I have already penned thoughts and emotions which will cause the phlegmatic cynic to damn my story as unreal and banal. In like manner I know there are others—scarcely will they be found in the critic class, I fear—whose hearts will warm to me in kindest sympathy. These, mayhap, will be those of like excessive temperaments, who have looked on Beauty to their cost. Yea, like Priam, and Menelaus, and that old war-dog, Ulysses himself, and the hosts of others whose eyes beheld the ruinous loveliness of Argive Helen. On her pylon tower she sang, and men died, demented and hopeless, struggling for a single smile! Why were all famous beauties in history and mythology red-haired? Who can answer? From echoless time it seems to have stood as a type of perfection. I know what it has meant to me—dear Christ!—since that spring day when I saw it intertwined with dogwood blossoms. To-night—I am writing in desperation, that I may perchance get some sleep when I have worn myself out at the table by which I sit—I say to-night that I would rather live here on Baldy's lap forever with Celeste for my wife; here, in the Lodge, alone with her, than to be the consort of the mightiest queen of earth!
I rushed out to the sheltering arms of my faithful trees, and stood among them. I had nothing on my head. The moon was larger, and in its light I seemed in some enchanted place. Then the craze to move—to walk, drove me down to the ravine. Unthinkingly I turned toward the Dryad's Glade. After a while I halted, overcome all at once by the supernatural radiance which permeated every cranny of that spreading wilderness. Just where I stood the trees were not so dense. Twenty and thirty feet apart some of them grew, and though many lateral branches thrust far out to intermingle, the myriad moon rays found numerous paths and peepholes to the earth below. It also chanced that I had stopped in a spot where the spiring trunks rose naked of boughs to a considerable height. This peculiarity was a great aid to the diffusion of the blue-white, misty atmosphere which was all about me. I seemed to stand in a ghost land; everything was shadowy; even the rough boles appeared tenuous, ready to dissolve and disappear at a breath of wind. But there was no wind. I stared all about me, marveling at this common mystery of moonshine which was yet so unfathomable; feeling it sink into my soul in peace giving waves, comforting my tired breast. So I folded my arms and leaned against a near-by oak, determining to stay just there. It was the first moment of waking calm I had known since—How blissful it was! How peaceful! How past all poor words of mine to describe! Picture primeval creation. No hewn-down trees, no unsightly stumps, no chips from the relentless ax. Merely a mighty forest which had been such always. Solitude, silence. An all-enveloping, blue-white night, and one lone man striving for ease of mind and soul in the midst of these eternal realities. How good it was to feel my tight breast loosen; to feel that awful clamp dropping away from my temples, where it had been pressing and fretting me almost to madness. I breathed deep of that clear, sweet air; huge, delightful respirations which made me feel light-headed. And even as a smile of appreciation crept to my lips, and my eyes half closed under the weird spell of the place, I knew that I was not alone. Down a winding vista, far off, something was moving. The distance was too great and the light too poor for me to tell what it was. A gray shape was disturbing the nebulous perspective; a shape which at moments almost assumed proportions, to become at once as something almost of the imagination. I did not change my attitude, for as yet only a mild curiosity was present. It might be anything from a stray cow to a moonshiner on his way to work. Be it what it might, I hoped it would not disturb me, but wend its way. It was coming toward me; I could not doubt it directly. It would pass me at a right angle, perhaps thirty feet off. I did not care to be seen if it was human; I was in no mood to sacrifice a portion of this wonder-night to rustic inanities. I slipped quietly around into the shadow of my oak. There came a sound, like a silvery laugh wedded to a harsh cackle, and this was followed by the swift patter of running feet, tapping in a muffled tread the moss- and leaf-strewn ground. I thrust out my head to see what these strange sounds meant. God above! The Dryad and the Satyr, hand in hand, dashed by my hiding-place like a hurricane. She was next to me. What she wore I cannot say. It was something all white, girded at the waist with a vine, for I saw leaves and tendrils hanging from it. She had shaken her hair down. The Satyr was without his hat, and his ragged coat streamed out as he tore along. I glimpsed his face, and it reflected honest merriment only. Just opposite me they laughed again, without apparent reason, as children do in a frolic, and how incongruous it sounded; Celeste's musical bell tones, and Jeff Angel's cracked and jarring voice. So, hand in hand, in perfect understanding and good-fellowship, these two Children of Nature romped through the moonlit lanes of their beloved woods, happy in their very wildness and unrestraint.
Before I could recover from my profound astonishment they had disappeared down a misty aisle hung with trembling, diaphanous, luminous shadows; had merged with the pearl-gray gloom of the middle distance, and a wild, eerie strain of something which might well have been borrowed from a barbaric chant drifted back to my stunned sensibilities. I caught the notes only, but they drove through to my brain like fire-barbed arrows, and stung it into action. She had passed almost within reach of my arm! She! The one because of whom this awful abyss had opened up for me. She had passed, and I had stood like a dolt and let her go! "Lessie! Lessie!" I sprang forward, goaded by love and despair, and ran after them with all the swiftness I could command. "Dryad! Dryad!" I called, at the top of my voice, but no answer came. I stopped, and with hand against a tree held my breath to listen. Not a sound but my own blood hammering in my ears. Then as a full realization came to me of the opportunity which had been offered, and which I had stupidly missed, a feeling of mad recklessness seized me, and I bounded forward again, blindly, knowing only that somewhere ahead of me was Celeste. Once I saw something white, and rushed toward it with outheld arms and a strangled cry of gladness. It was a portion of a projecting earth-bank, covered with a growth bearing tiny white blossoms. The moon struck it full, and had worked the cruel deception. I fell upon the pure little flowers and tore them savagely; flung them down and ground my feet upon them, then took up my search once more. Rage filled my breast. Rage at myself, at Fate, at Granny, at Beryl Drane, and this animal emotion must have blinded my eyes, for in my headlong, methodless pursuit I at length ran full force into a huge beech, and dropped senseless at its feet.
I don't think it could have been long before I roused, for there was no lessening of the brilliant light, such as happens when the moon declines. It was well for me that I was unconscious but a short time, I suspect, for as my eyes came open I at once became aware of another pair above me. A pair which seemed made of sulphur, marked with alternate red and green rings, glowing wickedly. Then I made out the contour of a dim body perhaps three feet in length stretched upon a low limb just over me. It was a gigantic wild-cat, and he was stalking me. I doubt not he would have dropped within another five minutes, for even as I watched, his back began to arch and the claws of his hind feet to rustle along the bark. With that suggestive motion his head also drooped below the limb, and it came to me he was gauging the distance for his spring. I was no hunter, but 'Crombie was, and from him I had learned that wild-cats will not attack a man unless driven by hunger, or brought to bay in a corner. So I sat up incontinently; threw out my arms and shouted. With the agility of his tribe he turned promptly, and another second was scuttling up the tree.
I found I had a painful welt across the top of my forehead, but no other injury was apparent. My heart turned sick as recollection came back on swallow wings. There was nothing left but to go home. I had myself to thank for my predicament. But where was home? Whither my flight had led me I possessed no idea. I had tried to follow the elusive wake of two night-roamers, and they had proven will-o'-the-wisps. Why had not the Dryad stopped at my call? I wondered, as I moved doggedly away from the spot. Surely she had heard. Surely she knew who it was, for no one else called her by that name. Could it be that Granny had perverted her mind? Or was it that she did not care? That I was only an incident, and had been cast from her life as quickly and suddenly as I had entered it? I would not believe this; I could not believe it. The blow which I had so recently sustained wrought a radical change in my mental condition, and while my breast still burned with implacable resentment toward the nameless something which had caused me to miss catching Celeste, I found that my thoughts were freer, and comparatively lucid. I could not believe that she had thrust me below her life's horizon, and gone singing through the woods as though nothing had happened. The idea was monstrous, appalling, revolting. It was wholly unacceptable. That my two visits to her home bore no fruit I laid at Granny's door. The old beldam had managed it in some way. Had kept the girl hidden, and had prevented anyone within the house from answering my summons. Why had the Dryad burst out weeping and run indoors when Granny thought she had convicted me of duplicity, and ordered me from the place? Ah! my soul! there was comfort in that! Celeste did not cry from fright; she was used to Granny's tantrums. She cried because for the moment she saw things in the same light and from the same angle as that old termagant—may her bones lie unburied! She did care for me—she did care for me—she DID care for me, and I knew it. I could not solve her frolicking in the forest with her half crazy cousin. I could not unriddle her laughing and singing. Such things do not go with a heavy heart in the world I know, but it may be she sought relief in following her beloved habit of running, untamed and free, wherever her hoyden steps led her. I will see her yet, and I will find out. I will make her see the truth, and outwit that old she-devil who has cast me into torment with her meddling.
Moonset found me laboring up the road to the Lodge. I had stumbled upon my hill. Sleep came at once, and how doubly sweet was that deep, soundless, shoreless sea when I slipped out upon it in my Barque o' Dreams!
Next day was Wednesday. All the bulldog in my nature unleashed—and a major part of my nature is represented by the hybrid breed of bulldog and mule—I went to Lizard Point, with the determination to have speech with some one before I came away. I was no schoolboy, or callow youth, to be trifled with in this manner. I had certain rights as a gentleman, and these rights I intended to demand. But alas for human hopes—and determinations! I could not demand aught of an empty porch, or a closed and locked door, or blind-drawn, nailed down windows. I suppose they were nailed down, for my peculiar nature caused me to try and raise two of them, when repeated calls and much banging on the door did not bring any results. The sashes did not even tremble under my hands. I saw a broken rail lying near one corner of the house. I looked at it, and at the blank window. That would get me in, or get somebody out. Either would serve. I was so wrought up that I actually started toward that piece of wood before I realized what I intended doing. It would be house-breaking; malicious destruction of property—both of which were jail offenses. I must forego the execution of this project, much as it appealed to me at the moment. Nothing would suit Granny better. She would have the law on me in a trice, and be rid of me for good and all.
I went home.
It is not my purpose to recount in detail my wanderings the remainder of this week. Some of it would prove a repetition, and other of it uninteresting. If my sojourn in the Inferno was not as gruesome as the hero's of Ithaca, nor filled with majestic horrors like the immortal Dante's, yet it was undeniably true. One night I climbed the peak thrice between nightfall and daydawn. The last ascent found me so exhausted that I lay prone upon the table-like top, and watched the miraculous mystery of morning. It was the first time I had ever seen it from a great height, and the impression cannot be put into words. I am tempted to try—oh! the untold glory of the magical metamorphosis!—but no, I will withstand the inclination. The result would be akin to that a three-year-old child would obtain if given the necessary pigments and told to paint a sunset. There are times when even fools will not rush in; this is one of them.
Sunday night again as I pen these words. Seven days! Seven æons! My watch tells me it is twelve o'clock. As I pause for a moment a sound floats through my open window. It is not any night bird's trilling, for I know my singers of the dark, every one. Now it comes plainer. A sort of whistle, I should say, though it is a kind I have not heard for a long time. Its impression is fuzzy, as though done carelessly. I have heard boys whistle so, between their teeth. What is happening without my door, I wonder? No one bent on mischief, for such do not advertise their approach. The whistling has stopped. I declare I hear feet, and they draw nearer. I am not one bit alarmed. I think I prove this by continuing my task as the unknown footsteps steadily come closer. They stop. I look up. Arms crossed on my window-sill, head bobbing in greeting and goat tuft wagging, stands the Satyr. Before I can speak he loosens this tipsy stave:
"Say, Mr. Rabbit, you're look'n' mighty slim!"
"Yes, by gosh! ben a-spit'n' up phlim!"