The Gilded Chair: A Novel

by Melville Davisson Post

And then on some morning when the sun dozed against the mountain, when the air was soft, when the world lay silent, as under a benediction, there came down out of this wilderness, this haze, this mystery, a creature streaked with sweat, gaunt, naked, lurching as it walked, carrying a thing doubled together, that dripped blood.

At sunset they came to the bottom of the mountain, and camped there in a little forest of spruce trees, beside a river, wider and deeper than the Teith. Its bed colored dark, like the Scottish rivers, not with peat, but with a stronger pigment, leeched out of roots. The great road continued along this river, but the guide explained that he would ford it here in the morning, cross the shoulder of the abutting mountain on a trail, and thus save half a day of travel. They would stop here at sundown for the night if the Duke were still agreeable to such leisure. The Duke was pleased to stop. He unpacked the mule and washed her shoulders in the river, while his companion lighted a fire and prepared the supper. The mule was fed and turned loose to crop what green things she could find. The mountaineer cooked his strips of bacon on a forked twig, held over the smoldering fire, and laid out the supper on the top of one of the Duke's good leather boxes. To men who had walked all day through the forest, in the clear air, under a sun that crept, like a tonic, subtly into the blood, the odor of this dinner, mingling with the deep pungent smells of the river and the forest, was a thing incomparably delicious.

Night swiftly descended. Pigeons winged into the tree tops. The stars came out. The pirates of the river crept through the yellow bracken, and swam boldly out on their robbing raid, their quaint inky faces lifted above the shimmering water. The Duke of Dorset smoked a pipe with his companion, seated on a packing case upturned by the fire. He smoked in silence, his face relaxed and thoughtful. Long after the pipe had gone out, after the smoke had vanished, after the bowl had cooled, he sat there, unmoving, the firelight flickering on his face. Then he arose slowly, unstrapped a roll of traveling rugs, handed one to his companion, and, wrapping himself in the other, lay down by the fire.

The mountaineer carried in a heavy limb, wrenched off by the wind, thrust the ragged end of it into the fire, and sat down again to his pipe. Presently the Duke of Dorset, wrapped in his rug, seemed to sleep, breathing deeply and slowly. The mountaineer came to the end of his pipe, knocked out the ashes, returned it to his pocket, and regarded the Duke carefully for a moment. Then, he thrust his arm into the sack that lay beside him on the ground, and took out the thing that he had carried all the day with so great a care.

The Duke, awakened by the crackling of the spruce limb on the fire, watched the man through his half-closed eyelids. It was a bulky packet, wrapped in a piece of deerskin. The mountaineer laid it on his knees and unrolled it carefully. Within was a huge leather-bound Bible with a great brass clasp three inches in diameter. The man spread out the deerskin on his knees so the book might not be soiled, unhooked the clasp, and, turning to a page, began to read.

His lips moved, forming the words, and his big finger traveled along the page slowly under the line. But he read silently, stopping now and then, with his face lifted as though in deep contemplation of the passage. The Duke of Dorset, dozing into sleep, wondered vaguely what portion of the Hebrew Scriptures this strange, gentle person read.

The man, as he read, as his attention passed to the subject, began unconsciously to murmur. His lips, forming the words, began unconsciously to speak them, in a voice low, drawling, almost inaudible. The Duke, straining his ear, caught, now and then, a fragment.

I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, said the Lord of hosts.... The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.... And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.... And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

The Duke of Dorset fell asleep with that picture fading into his dreams; the man's massive gentle face banked in shadow; the light, pouring blood red over the brass clasp of the book; the big bronzed finger moving slowly on the page; and the man's voice droning in cadence with the river.

The night deepened. Soft footsteps passed closer in the forest. The pirates of the river returned stained with murder, swimming like shadows, without a sound, as under some gift of silence. The great limb became an ember. The man's voice ceased. He closed the book and returned it to its place in the bottom of the sack, arose, took up the extra rug, shook it out, and spread it carefully over the Duke of Dorset.