 | V.
LOVE, FISH, AND PHILOSOPHY. Lucy Arlyn |  |
5. V.
LOVE, FISH, AND PHILOSOPHY.
MY wood-nymph, my Undine!” exclaimed Guy.
“Ranger has no such romantic fancies,” said
Lucy, caressing the dog's sleek brown ears: “he
knows it is only poor me, — no cold water-sprite, but oh! so
human! How did you find me?” with a resolute smile concealing
traces of sadness.
“Ranger brought me: there was never such a hunt. Did
he frighten you?” And, kicking away the hound, Guy took
his place at her side.
“He gave me a start; but I knew you were near.”
“Were you glad?”
“Guy!” The look she gave him was enough, — full of
melting love, and also full of suffering. He clasped her with
impetuous fervor.
“My child, my darling, you shall suffer no more! I
swear it!”
She cried sobbingly for a few moments, the pent-up anguish
of her heart breaking forth.
“It is so comforting to have any one kind to me, after
this is the last time we shall meet!”
“Yes, Lucy; for we shall not part again!”
She nestled close to him, and there was a long silence, —
only the brook filling the woods with its voices.
“Let me be happy in that thought a little while.”
“Be happy in it forever!”
“Guy, I saw your father last night, if it was not a dream:
I wish it was a dream! What possessed me to go that way,
I can't tell: I am always doing such foolish things. I suppose
it was a desire to see the old place for the last time.”
“I know all about it,” said Guy. “Don't you care: it is
all for the best. It has decided me. The whole world
seemed so wild and joyous as I was coming up here, it reproached
me for my mean concessions. Lucy, we will be as
free as the birds and brooks!”
She started from him, fearing his dangerous arguments,
and knowing his power.
“Don't talk to me now: I am too weak. I have eaten
nothing since yesterday!”
“What, Lucy! you have had no breakfast?”
“I was too miserable to think of it. I heard California
news had arrived; and I went to Mr. Pelt's office, in hopes
to get a letter from father. It is strange he doesn't write: but
I know he has written, if he is alive; and sometimes I am
wicked enough to suspect Mr. Pelt of keeping back the
letters.”
“If he had any motive for keeping them back, he would
do it!” exclaimed Guy. “A man that was first your father's
lawyer against my father, and is now my father's lawyer
too” —
“He has eyes that can see two opposite interests at the
same time,” said Lucy; “but he couldn't be so cruel as to
keep back my letters, I know.”
“You have never received any money from your father
yet?”
“No; and that's one thing my aunt torments me about.
She does every thing she can to make me feel dependent on
her charity. I so dreaded to go home and tell her no money
had come, and I felt so wretched and lonesome, that I wandered
off up here.”
“I was in that viper's nest this morning. How did you
ever live there, my poor dove?” And Guy related his adventure,
at which Lucy could not help laughing.
“Didn't she want to pray with you? It's a wonder!
Usually, when she quarrels with folks, she goes and prays
with them, and tells God, in their presence, what awful sinners
they are. She is waiting for a chance now to hold me
up in that way.”
“If, like Luther, she can pray best when she is angry, she
would have been fervent over me!” said Guy. “How I
hate to come in contact with such people! But forget them,
to-day at least. You must be hungry: let me provide you a
luncheon, — show you how we will do when we live in that
This allusion to what might be, if she would permit him to
sacrifice his future for her sake, gave her less pleasure than
pain, as when we have glimpses of a heaven we cannot enter.
She sat pondering what he had said, and nursing her resolution
in her bosom, — too tender for a thing so harsh, —
while love was pleading to be folded there alone. Guy left
her, to cut from a clump of young maples a slender and flexible
rod. He trimmed off the twigs, and proceeded to attach
to it a line which he unrolled from his pocket; then opened a
paper of many-colored artificial insects, from which he selected
one for his purpose.
“Here is something,” he said, “that will look more like
a fly in the water than a fly itself. Are you fond of trout?”
“Yes; but I don't really think I could manage to eat one
raw.”
“We'll catch one first, then see about the eating.”
He stood where the stream fell into a bright basin of rock
and gravel. Here he flung his fly, skipped it in the foam,
trailed it over the eddies, let it toss and swim on the ripples,
drew it up, and let it fall again as lightly and naturally as possible
on the shimmering surface; then sent it like a drowned
insect down the falls: but to no purpose.
“My breakfast seems very shy,” said Lucy. “Who
comes there?”
“It is my drenched philosopher!” Guy answered, looking
up from his fishing.
The stranger came forward slowly into the small opening
by the stream, carrying a forked twig before him above his
head. His water-streaked hat was thrown back like a toppling
ruin, his mouth was open, and his nose — a monstrous
one — was borne high in air; while his eyes were fixed too
intently on the twig to observe that he was observed. He
walked straight up to Guy, as if it had been his intention to
march over him.
“I seem to stand in your way,” said Guy.
The man halted, lowering the twig, and, with no more expression
in his features than if they had been made of putty
(which they somewhat resembled), stood looking at him like
a wet automaton.
“That fact has a significance, brother! You have something
to do with my mission. What are you doing with a rod
and line here?” asked the philosopher, without a trace of resentment
in his stolid features. “That, too, is significant!
The disciples of old were fishermen: greater things than they
saw you shall see!”
“They probably never saw so great a nose as I see,”
Guy whispered to Lucy.
“The nose,” said the stranger, whose sense of hearing
seemed miraculous, — and he coolly hooked the forked twig
into a button-hole of his coat, — “is a feature of great meaning:
it is the magnet of destiny. When you rise above the
plane of mirthfulness, you will be taught these truths.”
“Excuse my levity,” said Guy; and he gravely took a
magnet of destiny.”
“Stop!” The stranger stayed his hand, and regarded
him with solemn, fishy eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“As a friend of humanity, I am going to kill it.”
“Brother!” — with an awful emphasis, — “what right
have you to kill a mosquito? Persons on the plane of selfishness
may begrudge the little drop of blood which makes
an insect happy: I do not.”
“He can afford to be so magnanimous,” whispered Guy;
“for no mosquito can extract any thing moist from the dry mortar
his magnet of destiny is composed of. That one plucks
up its baffled proboscis, and flies away empty.” And, having
changed his fly for one of a different color, he returned to his
fishing.
Lucy was laughing; when the stranger said to her, grimly,
that she ought rather to weep at seeing a brother engaged in
such inhuman sport.
“He who called the fishermen you alluded to,” said Guy,
“rather sanctioned their occupation on one or two occasions;”
and he played his fly.
“He who called the fishermen was a progressive man for
his age; but a higher development is possible now.”
The astounding coolness with which the stranger uttered
this sentiment gave Lucy an unpleasant shiver, and she
turned from him shocked and disgusted. As for Guy, he was
at that moment occupied in landing a fine trout.
“Can you witness the agonies of that fish, without emotion?”
sternly said the man, without, however, exhibiting any
particular evidence of emotion in his own coarse features.
“The emotion I experience is a very pleasing excitement,
only known, I think, to the trout-fisher;” and Guy unhooked
his prize. “What you consider its agonies, are, no doubt,
ecstasies of pleasure, occasioned by the oxygen in an atmosphere
which acts upon it like laughing-gas. Besides, you
must understand that it is out of pure benevolence to the fish
that I catch the big ones, which have the cruel habit of eating
the little ones.”
The putty features softened a little. “What do you do
with those you catch?”
“The destiny of this one is to be cooked and eaten on the
spot.”
“Retribution truly!” and the man stood a long time contemplating
the beautifully tinted prize with the unmistakable
interest of appetite.
Guy gathered dry sticks, and broke them: then, kindling a
fire on the ground, he left Lucy to feed it with fagots, and
went to the brookside with the trout, which he presently
brought to her ready for cooking.
“Wait till there is a fine bed of coals,” he said, spitting it
with a split stick; “then lay it on them. Maybe I can catch
another in the mean time.”
The new fly was successful: the moment it touched the
water, a trout leaped, but did not strike the hook.
“Ah! you lost him!” said the stranger, eagerly watching
the sport.
Guy laughed at the regretful tone with which the hungry
philosopher uttered these words. Again the fly fell, and
whirled in the eddies, — a silver flash, and it disappeared,
the twine running away in the water after it.
“You've got one: why don't you pull him out?” cried
the philosopher anxiously.
But Guy, having with a quick movement hooked the trout
the instant it snatched the fly, drew gently and steadily upon
the yielding rod; till, seeing the fish was not too heavy for
his tackle, he lifted it adroitly from the water.
“Ah! you've saved him!” said the spectator with a long
breath.
The first fish was by this time on the coals; and the odor
of the cooking, wafted to his nostrils, invited him to the fire,
which he approached, watching Lucy's work with longing
looks.
“This is a beautiful primitive method of preparing food,”
he observed, as Guy brought the second trout to be roasted;
“and I am impressed” — snuff, snuff — “that you will invite
me to breakfast.”
“What! a breakfast of fish?” cried Guy.
“Though it is sinful to catch them,” said Lucy, radiant
over the fire, “he doesn't consider them so objectionable
when cooked!”
“When I arrived this morning” (the stranger, unmoved,
going to a hotel for breakfast; but the spirit said, `Breakfast
will be provided.' I now understand that I am directed to
partake of trout.”
“Your philosophy is so accommodating, perhaps it will
allow you to catch your own fish. Here's the rod.”
The stranger looked at Guy, then took up the tackle: he
examined the fine hook on which the fly was fashioned, and
admitted the benevolence of the invention which substituted
for a living insect a dead semblance, but questioned the morality
of thus deceiving the fish. A fragrant breath of incense
from the roasting, however, dissipated his remaining scruples.
“I am impressed,” said he, “to catch a trout;” and, adding
something about the experience being necessary to him,
he went to the brook. At the first fling of the line, he caught
the fly in his coat-sleeve; then he threw it into a tree, where
it became entangled. With much trouble he got it again,
and, after several laughably awkward attempts, succeeded in
casting the fly upon a rock in mid-channel.
The lovers, glad to be alone, sat down on the ground to
breakfast. The fish were placed before them on maple
leaves, which served in lieu of plates. They had no seasoning
of any kind. Fingers were used in the absence of
forks; Guy picking out the bones for Lucy, who, charmed by
the novelty of the repast, and assisted by a good appetite,
found the rich roasted flesh of the trout delicious.
“Ho, ho!” roared the philosopher: “I've got him!” and
of him, he pointed to a wriggling fish, which, by a violent
jerk, he had flung high into a beach bough. The time required
for him again to disentangle the line was so much
gain to the lovers. At last, he came with his trout dressed for
the coals: but it was a small fish for a large appetite; and,
by Guy's advice, he went to catch another. In a little while,
his “Ho, ho!” was heard again.
“The rascal has got another,” said Guy. “Isn't it a
good joke to see a philosopher, who scrupled just now to kill
a mosquito, open his jack-knife, and disembowel a live trout
in that cool, scientific manner? — The fire is down, sir: I'll
put on some sticks, if you want to be catching another. —
Any way to keep him at a distance!”
“I find the exercise necessary after my bath,” observed
the philosopher; who might have added, that he found the
sport fascinating.
He soon brought his third fish, and commenced the process
of cooking. Two were soon done, and placed upon leaves;
and, with a countenance full of hungry anticipation, he gave
his attention to the remaining trout. When it was done, he
took it up, and turned to place it with the others: but the
leaves were empty; the fish were gone. How could they
have disappeared? Neither Guy nor Lucy had moved from
their places, as the philosopher himself could testify; and he
had been careful to put his breakfast out of their reach.
They looked to see him puzzled and chagrined; but he
smiled.
“The ignorant wonder,” — he gave them a mystical squint;
“but these things are not strange: invisible guests are with
me!” and he struck a solemn attitude.
His imperturbable manner, and the ready simplicity with
which he accepted the miracle of the disappearance of his
breakfast, hungry as he was, astonished the spectators, who
suppressed their mirth to see what he would do next.
“Swedenborg,” said he, “is it you?” He brought his
right arm against his breast with a loud thwack. “Yes, that
is Swedenborg! Is Socrates with you?” He struck his
breast with his left hand. “That is Socrates! My two
guardian spirits!”
“A fish apiece,” said Lucy; “but your guests must have
forgotten their manners, or they wouldn't have begun on the
breakfast till you were ready.”
The philosopher made no answer to this, but appeared to
be conversing in whispers with the distinguished guests, who
kept his two fists wagging in a rather vivacious manner.
The conference ended, he smiled with satisfaction, and looked
for his share of the breakfast. During his discourse with
Messrs. Swedenborg and Socrates, the third fish had also
vanished. Lucy could no longer restrain her merriment, but
pointed, with tears flashing in her eyes, at Ranger, who stood
a little way off, innocently licking his chaps.
“I have watched your three fish,” said Guy, “going miraculously
down that dog's throat. I didn't prevent the process,
thinking it might have some mystical meaning.”
“It has so! Even this: when I prepare spiritual food for
the soul of man, dogs snatch at it! — and lick their chaps!”
added the stranger, with a stern look at the laughers.
“If you would cure us of our incredulity,” said Guy,
“you ought to explain to us these mysteries. I think I understand
about the fishes; but what is the meaning of that
forked switch?”
“This wand,” — the philosopher unhooked it from his button-hole,
and instantly dog and breakfast, and the derision of
the sceptics, appeared to be forgotten, — “this wand I cut by
the direction of the spirits, who have revealed to me that
there is a great treasure concealed somewhere in this region.
I have been led up this stream; and, as near as I can judge,
the treasure lies somewhere in that direction,” — pointing to
a crag of the eastern mountain visible through the opening of
the trees.
“You indicate pretty exactly,” said Guy, “the spot where
the money-diggers have been at work.”
The stranger expressed profound surprise, asserting that he
had never heard of the hidden treasure except through his invisible
guardians, and desiring information respecting it.
“If you will follow the mountain-road,” said Guy, “you
will come to a large, desolate-looking, wood-colored house,
where lives a little old doctor, who has lost his practice, his
property, the best years of his life; and his wits to boot, hunting
for those fabulous coffers. If you believe in them, he
will believe in you, and be infinitely delighted to see you.”
The philosopher did not stop to appease his hunger by
catching more trout, but hurried off at once to find the little
old doctor.
Guy and Lucy sat by the stream, and talked. They had
countless things to say to each other; questions of happiness
and duty to decide. Both were tired of acting Pyramus and
Thisbe, — stealing glimpses of each other through a wall
which the quarrels of their parents had reared between them,
and which her relatives had driven full of the spikes of spite
and jealousy. Guy, fiery and impatient, was for snatching
Lucy at once from the Pinworth purgatory, and marrying her
in open defiance of his father's threats of disinheritance;
a generous resolution, and perhaps the wisest. But Lucy
said no.
“I remember how Colonel Bannington looked at me, —
such hatred! He shall never think of me as his daughter.
Besides,” she added quickly, as Guy was about to urge his
vehement objection, “I know you better than you know
yourself. You have no profession; you don't know any thing
about getting a living; and you might regret, — in the struggles,
the annoyances, which would come, — I know you would
some time regret, the sacrifice. You are used to a life of ease
and pleasure. And do you know, Guy, you are irritable, impulsive,
and too sensitive and headstrong to endure privation
and care?”
“I need the discipline,” said Guy. “I am ashamed of
what I have been. You have cured me of the wildness
deserve. But, if I lose you now, what will become of me?
I tremble to think of it!”
“You will not lose me. We will simply separate for a
time. I will go away, and get my living somewhere; and we
will wait, and be patient.”
“Lucy, I can't! Talk of waiting and patience, when it
is heaven with you, and perdition away from you! Oh, this
hand!” — he covered it with kisses: “I will never let it
go, — never!”
Thrilled as she was by his passion and his rapture, still
something in Lucy's soul would not suffer her to consent to
his wishes. She felt equal to any sacrifice for his sake; but
she could not permit him to make sacrifices for her.
She told him this; and with her words there entered into
his heart a great temptation. No way seemed so easy and
pleasant to decide the question of their happiness as by one
of those compromises of the absolute right which sometimes
ruin both happiness and character. Could he not enjoy the
blessedness of her love, and yet not forfeit his father's good
will? She heard him in silence. She did not attempt to
reason against his proposal, but only begged time for consideration;
dreading her own weakness and his passionate persuasion,
and knowing well that safety lay, not in argument, but
in flight.
| V.
LOVE, FISH, AND PHILOSOPHY. Lucy Arlyn | |