I Walked in Arden

by Jack Randall Crawford

I HAVE THE FIRST GREAT ADVENTURE

October turned into November and angry hints of oncoming winter almost daily shrilled across the lake, scattering the heaps of yellow leaves on Myrtle Boulevard or playing the dickens with signs and hats on State Street. The nights were raw and cold; the night-shift at the factory ate their midnight lunches in the boiler room, a place which in July had seemed one of the lowest circles of the Inferno. Business was at a most critical stage, and Knowlton drove away at it day and night. We were, as he expressed it, just at the turn of the tide; it was a toss-up whether we should be swept on to the rocks or out into the sea of reasonable prosperity. I saw comparatively little of him, for he had not yet released me from night duty. I was getting quite accustomed to this nocturnal existence; I had actually grown to like it, because it left my afternoons free to go riding with Helen. I went to bed about half past seven in the morning, got up around three, and three-thirty would find Helen and me trotting sedately up Myrtle Boulevard—a sight to which the latter had become so hardened that not a verandah fluttered as we passed by. Indeed, the cool weather had driven even the most hardened gossip-scouts within. Helen's girl friends had tacitly accepted the situation, and at dinners or card parties Helen and I were always paired off together by tactful hostesses. None of the first riding party went with us now. Miss Hershey was chaperoning at White Sulphur, although there were rumours she would return for Christmas. "Mother" was querulous and fretful, particularly when we rode on stormy days; otherwise she had practically ceased active opposition. Her attitude now was resigned, if hurt, patience, varied with occasional Cassandra-like utterances of dire foreboding.

Saturdays were now thrice blessed, for the factory shut down from six o'clock Saturday evening until midnight Sunday, leaving the whole of Saturday free for me, if I kept Sunday for sleeping. We therefore reserved Saturdays for our longer expeditions into the rolling hill country behind us. (In the geography of Deep Harbor "the front" was the lake.) Soon hard frosts would come to make the roads impassable; we strove to do all the exploring possible before that should happen. I had found another horse which a modest weekly payment reserved for my exclusive use. He was a small Western pony, young and hard as nails. On frosty days he often tried to climb into the upper air, but he was to be preferred to the misanthropic Satan, who had fallen to the sad fate of hauling a grocer's wagon. Nevertheless Helen and I retained a warm spot in our hearts for old Satan and often carried him apples and sugar. In a large measure we owed him our friendship. It was an undeserved misfortune that it had come too late in life for Satan to keep up with. Helen named the new pony Starbright, because of the white star in the centre of his dark chestnut forehead. We both agreed that the name revealed no great powers of originality.

On the second Saturday in November we planned one of our longest quests. We both regretfully admitted it would probably be the last until spring; either snow or frozen ground was due at any time. The day was gusty and overcast; "Mother" tried every whine in her repertoire to dissuade us from going. Helen's obstinacy refused to yield, and off we went, taking our luncheons with us. On a hillside, by the edge of the wood, several miles away, we dismounted and built a camp fire against a large boulder. Helen endeavoured to instruct me in the art of camp cooking, a skill which she maintained she had learned one summer in the woods. It consisted principally of trying to balance a flimsy piece of bacon on a forked stick. The instant the heat reached the meat it would curl up and fall into the redhot coals. It then became my duty to burn my fingers in an attempt at rescue before the bacon turned to a cinder. In this way we spoiled a fair amount by the time we had each eaten two or three scorched slices. I commented on the fact that camp cooking seemed uneconomical, to say nothing of its lack of finesse. Helen laughingly guessed she was "out of practice," so we toasted marshmallows instead, a form of cooking in which we were more proficient. The warmth of the fire was pleasant, and we lingered on, careless of our original purpose to penetrate far into the hills. It was Helen's turn to tell me of herself, which she did, half shyly, half whimsically.

The eighteen years of her life had been passed in Deep Harbor, except for two winters at a large New England boarding-school, or during brief visits to school friends in New York. At school she had had the good fortune to come under the influence of a rare kind of teacher—one with the power of revealing the world. Helen spoke of her with dreamy affection, as of one who had opened a gate and shown the beauty of an unsuspected garden lying beyond. Having shown it, she had left Helen to wander in it at will. Thus it came about that this young girl, native of a provincial town, had found the path leading to citizenship of the world. The maturity of her judgment was astonishing; it implied an experience of life which I knew was impossible. I often found myself deferring to her opinion or leaning upon her advice, for her calm, level decisions brushed aside my cobwebs of sentiment and substituted truth for the meshes of whim or impulse. Day by day I had grown more dependent upon her until I expressed no opinion, even concerning business, without first submitting it for her approval. With all this she was a fun-loving child, full of mischief and humour, or occasionally tempest-swept by sudden child-like anger, when the storm clouds in her eyes would frighten me. After anger would follow such a melting tenderness as made me long to kneel at her feet and beg forgiveness for having caused her displeasure.

Curiously enough we neither of us analyzed what was happening to us. It seemed natural that we preferred to be together—even to be alone—and we were content with the word "friendship" as a complete explanation. Neither of us questioned it or looked beyond our next Saturday together. We must have been very young and inexperienced. Once in a while Knowlton had asked me, with his Harlequin's grin, how I was getting on; old Hemphill at the factory had stumbled his way through a clumsy joke aimed at me: neither followed the subject very far. Helen was not a topic I would allow discussed; there was something so far beyond the comprehension of the world in our attitude toward each other. Helen's own friends, I discovered, had passed from teasing to regard us as a fait accompli, and thereafter held their peace. Here again we looked upon their behaviour as simply caused by their lack of understanding. Poor old world, how we pitied it!

Today we were playing one of our new games—I don't know which of us thought of it first. The game was founded upon the Morte d'Arthur, and we were in search of the questing beast. Helen stretched comfortably before the camp fire and read aloud to me from her Mallory, which I carried in my coat pocket, the description of this mediaeval animal. As she finished we listened for the noise to come from the woodland on the edge of the hillside pasture in which we were. It sounds ridiculous to tell of it now, but it was as real to us as the play of children is to them. Beyond the edge of the wood there lay strange adventures—we had no doubt of it. Deep Harbor faded from us like a conjurer's vision, and the fields, hills and woods became the enchanted reality. We peopled it with all the crew of fairy folk and ourselves assumed rôles appropriate to our fellowship. How could ordinary Deep Harborites understand such a game or dream that this was one of the secrets of our friendship—they who thought only of such mundane things as love and marriage? Would they not laugh at the Lady Grey Eyes on her cream-coloured palfrey, escorted by her trusty knight, Edward of Over-Seas? To be sure the Lady Helen's horse was light chestnut, not cream, but in her magic capacity the mare assumed a new tint.

As we scanned the woodland, wondering what castle it hid or whether a hermit dwelt in its shade, we were aware of a tawny yellow animal approaching us. By his manner it should have been a dog, but the peculiarity of its build and complexion left some doubt. On the other hand, he was not the questing beast, for his coming was silent. Helen clung to me with delight; the creature was unusual enough, seen through our imagination, to look like the bearer of adventure. Carefully he circled us with an upstanding waving yellow signal of friendly purpose. I whistled. It awoke a sympathetic response, for he bounded up to us and laid his head in the Lady Grey Eyes' lap in token of obeisance. Dog there was no denying he was, but one whose ancestors had mingled with strange company. Chief among his forebears had been a bull dog; the others had been of that cadium-hued race to be found sleeping in the dust of village streets. From ear to ear of his square bulldog head there spread an expansive smile, whence depended a most liquid tongue. He kissed my hand, thus completing his homage.

"Ted, I want him. He's mine!" the Lady Grey Eyes declared.

"On my honour as a knight, you shall have him, if no farmer catches us in the theft, or if he does, we'll try what filthy lucre will accomplish," I replied, somewhat diverging from the purity of Mallory's style. I made fast the prize with a piece of string. There seemed no need, for he accepted gratefully whatever command we laid upon him.