Adventures in Silence

by Herbert W. Collingwood

I have been left in dark, lonely places where I groped about without touching a human being, but it was far more terrifying to stand in that closely packed crowd and to realize what would happen in case of a panic. I reached out my hand and could touch a dozen people, but I could hear no sound. Suppose these silly girls were to scream; suppose this man at my elbow were to yell “Fire!” as fools have often done in such crowds. Suppose that man at the booth reached in, strangled the girl and swept the money out. At any of these possible alarms that orderly crowd in the dark might change to a wild mob, smashing and trampling its way back to the entrance, as uncontrollable as the crazy herds of cattle I had seen in Western stampedes. The deaf man thinks quickly at such times, and in the black silence dangers are magnified. The deaf are usually peculiar in their mental make-up; most of them have developed the faculty of intuition into a sense, and they can quickly grasp many situations which the average man would hardly imagine.

But there was no scream or call of alarm. After what seemed to me half an hour of intense living, the lights flashed back and the big clock at the end of the cave, solemnly ticking the time away, showed us that we had been less than 50 seconds in darkness. With a good-natured laugh the crowd moved on. Those girls had had no thought of screaming. They were more interested in the group of young men behind them. That nervous man, whom I had thought trembling with fright, had been laughing at the joke. The rough-looking man, whom my fancy had painted as a possible murderer and thief, had been standing before that money like a faithful dog on guard. There had been danger of a panic, and I had sensed it, but most of my companions had thought of nothing except the joke of being held up for a moment. They were happier for their lack of imagination.

At home I started to tell our people about it. The baby sat on my knee. She had my knife in her hand, paring an apple. Mother sat by the table sewing, and the children were scattered about the room. Suddenly the lights snapped out. I put up my hand just in time to catch the knife as the baby swung her arm at my face. And there we sat, waiting for the lights to return. There was no fear, for we knew each other. There was faith in that darkness; there could be no panic. I could hear no sound, yet the baby curled up close to me and all was well. Darkness is the worst handicap for the deaf. Give them light and they can generally manage; but, in the dark, without sound, they are helpless, and unless they are blessed with strong faith and philosophy, imagination comes and prints a series of terror pictures for them which you with your dependable hearing can hardly realize.

These incidents gave me my start by bringing to my mind the story of John Harlow, curiously typical of the imaginary terrors of the deaf and the folly of giving way to them. John Harlow was a New England man. He had all the imagination and all the narrow prejudice of his class; he had never traveled west of his own corner of the nation, and he was deaf. The man who carries this combination of qualities about with him is booked for trouble whenever he gets out among new types of people. Part of the Harlow property was invested in land lying in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and it became necessary for John to go there, to look up titles and investigate agents.

About all the average New Englander of that day knew of that mountain country was that it seemed to be the stage on which bloody family feuds were fought out. The Atlantic Monthly had printed stories by Charles Egbert Craddock, and they were accepted as true pictures of mountain life. John Harlow should have known that the New Englanders and the mountaineers are alike the purest in real American blood, and that they must have many traits in common; but he went South with the firm conviction that life in the mountains must be one long tragedy of ambuscades and murders.

When a deaf man gets such ideas in mind, imagination prints them in red ink, because the deaf must brood over their fears and troubles. They cannot lighten the mind with music or aimless conversation. So when Harlow left the train at a little mountain hamlet he was not surprised to find his agent a tall, solemn-eyed man, with a long gray beard; a typical leader in the family feud, as the Boston man had pictured it. Harlow mounted the buckboard beside this silent mountaineer, and they drove off into the mountains just as the dusky shadows were beginning to creep down into the little nooks and valleys. As soon as this man found that John was deaf he drove on in silence, glancing at his companion now and then with that kindly awe with which simple people generally regard the deaf.

It was quite dark when they reached a small “cove” or opening in which stood a large house, with the usual farm buildings around it; the forest crept close to the barn at one point. It struck John that the buildings were arranged in the form of a fort, but what a chance had been left for the enemy to creep up through the woods and suddenly fall upon them! After supper John stood at the window watching the moon lift itself over the mountain and go climbing up the sky. There came to his mind the description of just such a moonrise, from one of Craddock’s stories, where a group of mountaineers came creeping over the hill to fall upon the home of their enemy. As he stood there he became aware that the whole family was making preparations for what seemed to him like defense. The women came and pulled down the curtains, and one of the boys went out and closed the heavy shutters. His host came and tried to explain, but Harlow was nervous, and it is hard to make the deaf hear at such times. All that he could catch were scattered words or parts of sentences. “We are waiting for them.” “They will be here by nine o’clock.” “There is a pistol for you.” “They have done us great damage.” “We must kill them tonight.”

Then the lights were put out, and even the great fire in the fireplace was dimmed; a rug was thrown over the crack under the door, and they all sat there—waiting. John Harlow, the deaf man, will never forget that scene. The little splinter of light from the fire revealed the stern old man and his three sons waiting, gun in hand, and the women sitting by the table, knitting mechanically in the dimness—all listening for the coming of the enemy. By the door lay two large dogs, alert and watchful. And Harlow, pulled from a comfortable place in Boston and suddenly made a part of this desperate family quarrel, did not even know what it was all about. He started twice to demand an explanation in the loud, harsh tones of the deaf, but the older man quickly waved him to silence.

How long they sat in that dim light Harlow cannot tell. He never thought to look at his watch. Suddenly the dogs lying by the door started up with low growls and bristling hair.

“Here they are,” said the old man; “now get ready.”