Complete weird tales of.., p.229
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 229
“There’s something else,” he said, running, a pine-sliver through his pipe-stem— “something that interests us all here more than auks, big or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it, as you are bound to hear about it sooner or later.”
He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for the exact words to convey his meaning.
“If,” said I, “you have anything in this region more important to science than the great auk, I should be very glad to know about it.”
Perhaps there was the faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment, however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the brake with both hands, vaulted to his perch aloft, and glanced down at me.
“Did you ever hear of the harbor-master?” he asked, maliciously.
“Which harbor-master?” I inquired.
“You’ll know before long,” he observed, with a satisfied glance into perspective.
This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. I waited for him to resume, and, as he did not, I asked him what he meant.
“If I knew,” he said, “I’d tell you. But, come to think of it, I’d be a fool to go into details with a scientific man. You’ll hear about the harbor-master — perhaps you will see the harbor-master. In that event I should be glad to converse with you on the subject.”
I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and, after a moment, he also laughed, saying:
“It hurts a man’s vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else knows he doesn’t know. I’m damned if I say another word about the harbor-master until you’ve been to Halyard’s!”
“A harbor-master,” I persisted, “is an official who superintends the mooring of ships — isn’t he?”
But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive and a rush of stinging salt-wind brought us to our feet. Through the trees I could see the bluish-black ocean, stretching out beyond black headlands to meet the clouds; a great wind was roaring among the trees as the train slowly came to a stand-still on the edge of the primeval forest.
Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then the train began to back away along a curved side-track which, Lee said, led to the mica-pit and company stores.
“Now what will you do?” he asked, pleasantly. “I can give you a good dinner and a decent bed to-night if you like — and I’m sure Mrs. Lee would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose.”
I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach Halyard’s before dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the path.
“This man Halyard,” he said, “is an invalid. He lives at a cove called Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company’s road. We receive it here, and send a pack-mule through once a month. I’ve met him; he’s a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart, and a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great auk, you may be satisfied he has.”
My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect; I looked out across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow, trying to realize what it might mean to me, to Professor Farrago, to the world, if I should lead back to New York a live auk.
“He’s a crank,” said Lee; “frankly, I don’t like him. If you find it unpleasant there, come back to us.”
“Does Halyard live alone?” I asked.
“Yes — except for a professional trained nurse — poor thing!”
“A man?”
“No,” said Lee, disgustedly.
Presently he gave me a peculiar glance; hesitated, and finally said: “Ask Halyard to tell you about his nurse and — the harbor-master. Good-bye — I’m due at the quarry. Come and stay with us whenever you care to; you will find a welcome at Port-of-Waves.”
We shook hands and parted on the cliff, he turning back into the forest along the railway, I starting northward, pack slung, rifle over my shoulder. Once I met a group of quarrymen, faces burned brick-red, scarred hands swinging as they walked. And, as I passed them with a nod, turning, I saw that they also had turned to look after me, and I caught a word or two of their conversation, whirled back to me on the sea-wind.
They were speaking of the harbor-master.
* * *
III
TOWARDS SUNSET I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birds were whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling in double-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands below the rock.
Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this, I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came from Halyard’s chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from seeing the house itself.
I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and cautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-way towards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, when something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention — a man darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf — or, at least, it seemed to — but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all.
However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and make my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Of course, there was nothing there — not a trace of a human being, I mean. Something had been there — a sea-otter, possibly — for the remains of a freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone and tail.
The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim, flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with the splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in the noble, gray monotony of headland and sea.
The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that led to the front porch of the house.
There were two people on the porch — I heard their voices before I saw them — and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them, a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me.
“Come back!” cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply lined face, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped back quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination.
The man, who was reclining in an invalid’s rolling-chair, clapped both large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the porch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat on his head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled.
“I know who you are,” he said, in his acid voice; “you’re one of the Zoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway.”
“It is easy to recognize you from your reputation,” I replied, irritated at his discourtesy.
“Really,” he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, “I’m obliged for your frankness. You’re after my great auks, are you not?”
“Nothing else would have tempted me into this place,” I replied, sincerely.
“Thank Heaven for that,” he said. “Sit down a moment; you’ve interrupted us.” Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neat gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she had been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which made the old man sneer again.
“It happened so suddenly,” she said, in her low voice, “that I had no chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in the stern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be sea-weed — and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float.”
Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in grim displeasure.
“Didn’t you know enough to be frightened?” he demanded.
“No — not then,” she said, coloring faintly; “but when, after a few moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the beach, I was horribly frightened.”
“Really?” said Halyard, sarcastically; “it was about time.” Then, turning to me, he rasped out: “And that young lady was obliged to row all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee’s quarrymen to take her boat in.”
Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the least comprehending what all this meant.
“That will do,” said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.
She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping noiselessly into the house.
“I want beef-tea!” bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an unamiable glance.
“I was a well-bred man,” he sneered; “I’m a Harvard graduate, too, but I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like.”
“You certainly are not reticent,” I said, disgusted.
“Why should I be?” he rasped; “I pay that young woman for my irritability; it’s a bargain between us.”
“In your domestic affairs,” I said, “there is nothing that interests me. I came to see those auks.”
“You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks,” he said, contemptuously. “But they’re not; they’re great auks.”
I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied, indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was free to step around the house when I cared to.
I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to a penguin in that pen.
I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge of a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming.
For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realize that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct race — the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years, has been accounted an extinct creature.
I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight.
Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listened to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of the female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast; I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing for slumber.
“If you please,” came a soft voice from the door, “Mr. Halyard awaits your company to dinner.”
* * *
IV
I DINED WELL — or, rather, I might have enjoyed my dinner if Mr. Halyard had been eliminated; and the feast consisted exclusively of a joint of beef, the pretty nurse, and myself. She was exceedingly attractive — with a disturbing fashion of lowering her head and raising her dark eyes when spoken to.
As for Halyard, he was unspeakable, bundled up in his snuffy shawls, and making uncouth noises over his gruel. But it is only just to say that his table was worth sitting down to and his wine was sound as a bell.
“Yah!” he snapped, “I’m sick of this cursed soup — and I’ll trouble you to fill my glass—”
“It is dangerous for you to touch claret,” said the pretty nurse.
“I might as well die at dinner as anywhere,” he observed.
“Certainly,” said I, cheerfully passing the decanter, but he did not appear overpleased with the attention.
“I can’t smoke, either,” he snarled, hitching the shawls around until he looked like Richard the Third.
However, he was good enough to shove a box of cigars at me, and I took one and stood up, as the pretty nurse slipped past and vanished into the little parlor beyond.
We sat there for a while without speaking. He picked irritably at the bread-crumbs on the cloth, never glancing in my direction; and I, tired from my long foot-tour, lay back in my chair, silently appreciating one of the best cigars I ever smoked.
“Well,” he rasped out at length, “what do you think of my auks — and my veracity?”
I told him that both were unimpeachable.
“Didn’t they call me a swindler down there at your museum?” he demanded.
I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted; that my chief, Professor Farrago, had sent me against my will, and that I was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halyard, was a benefactor of the human race.
“Bosh!” he said. “What good does a confounded wobbly, bandy-toed bird do to the human race?”
But he was pleased, nevertheless; and presently he asked me, not unamiably, to punish his claret again.
“I’m done for,” he said; “good things to eat and drink are no good to me. Some day I’ll get mad enough to have a fit, and then—”
He paused to yawn.
“Then,” he continued, “that little nurse of mine will drink up my claret and go back to civilization, where people are polite.”
Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halyard was an old pig, what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for him — as he regarded life.
“I’m going to leave her this house,” he said, arranging his shawls. “She doesn’t know it. I’m going to leave her my money, too. She doesn’t know that. Good Lord! What kind of a woman can she be to stand my bad temper for a few dollars a month!”
“I think,” said I, “that it’s partly because she’s poor, partly because she’s sorry for you.”
He looked up with a ghastly smile.
“You think she really is sorry?”
Before I could answer he went on: “I’m no mawkish sentimentalist, and I won’t allow anybody to be sorry for me — do you hear?”
“Oh, I’m not sorry for you!” I said, hastily, and, for the first time since I had seen him, he laughed heartily, without a sneer.
We both seemed to feel better after that; I drank his wine and smoked his cigars, and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in watching me.
“There’s no fool like a young fool,” he observed, presently.
As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention.
After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked me my age.
“Twenty-four,” I replied.
“Sort of a tadpole, aren’t you?” he said.
As I took no offence, he repeated the remark.
“Oh, come,” said I, “there’s no use in trying to irritate me. I see through you; a row acts like a cocktail on you — but you’ll have to stick to gruel in my company.”
“I call that impudence!” he rasped out, wrathfully.
“I don’t care what you call it,” I replied, undisturbed, “I am not going to be worried by you. Anyway,” I ended, “it is my opinion that you could be very good company if you chose.”
The proposition appeared to take his breath away — at least, he said nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump into a saucer.
“Now,” said I, “what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?”
“Ten thousand dollars,” he snapped, with an evil smile.
“You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered,” I said, quietly.
“You don’t mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain — and I won’t take a cent less, either — Good Lord! — haven’t you any spirit left?” he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.
His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.
Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.
The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.
“If I am not indiscreet—” I began.
“Indiscretion is the better part of valor,” said she, dropping her head but raising her eyes.
So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.
“Doubtless,” said I, “you are hemming a ‘kerchief.”
“Doubtless I am not,” she said; “this is a night-cap for Mr. Halyard.”
A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me laughing again.
“Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed,” I said, flippantly.
“The King of Yvetot might have made that remark,” she observed, re-threading her needle.
It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man’s ears feel.
To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.
“I have so little company — it is a great relief to see somebody from the world,” she said. “If you can be agreeable, I wish you would.”
The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I remained speechless until she said: “Do tell me what people are doing in New York.”
So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that straggled out from the parlor windows.
