Algernon Blackwood

“ Jack had not introduced us during the momentary pause beside our table, but as I looked up I caught the fellow’s eye on mine⁠—he was glaring at me instead of at Jack, to whom he was talking⁠—with an expression of malignant dislike, as keen evidently as my own. That’s the other aspect I meant. He hated me as violently as I hated him. We were instinctive enemies, just as the rat and ferret are instinctive enemies. Each recognized a mortal foe. It was a case⁠—I swear it⁠—of whoever got first chance. ”

“ But in the club we were always running across one another⁠—in the houses of friends at lunch or dinner; at race meetings; all over the place; in fact, I even had some trouble to avoid being introduced to him. And every time we met our eyes betrayed us. ”

“ There’s first hate, too.”
“Hate’s a strong word,” remarked Lawson.
“So is love,” put in another.
“Hate’s strongest,” said Ericssen grimly. “In the animal kingdom, at least,” he added suggestively, and then kept his lips closed, except to sip his liquor, for the rest of the evening⁠—until the party at length broke up, leaving Lawson and one other man, both old trusted friends of many years’ standing. ”

“ Lawson, man of authority among them, broke the little pause.
“You’re dead right,” he observed, “but how do you know it?”⁠—for John Ericssen never made a positive statement without a good reason for it. That good reason, he felt sure, involved a personal proof, but a story Ericssen would never tell before a general audience. He would tell it later, however, when the others had left. “There’s such a thing as instinctive antipathy, of course,” he added, with a laugh, looking around him. “That’s what you mean probably.”
“I meant exactly what I said,” replied the host bluntly. “There’s first love. ”

“ This deep instinctive feeling of danger, of fear, of anything you like to call it, was simply overwhelming.
“Another curious detail I must also mention. About half an hour before, having given up all hope of seeing wapiti, I had decided to kill a blacktail deer for meat. A good shot offered itself, not thirty yards away. I aimed. But just as I was going to pull the trigger a queer emotion touched me, and I lowered the rifle. ”

“ Outfitting two days later at a small place the steamer stopped at, the guide said we needed another man to help pack our kit over portages, and so forth, but the only fellow available was a Siwash of whom he disapproved. My guide would not have him at any price; he was lazy, a drunkard, a liar, and even worse, for on one occasion he came back without the sportsman he had taken up country on a shooting trip, and his story was not convincing, to say the least. These disappearances are always awkward, of course, as you both know. We preferred, anyhow, to go without the Siwash, and off we started. ”