Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

“ It was then that they suffered, for though the hawks were gone, and the crows asleep, the icy winter night was alive with owls; and foxes, weasels, and minks would come prowling hungrily down from the uplands. The owls were the worst peril by far—marsh-owls, barn-owls, the darting little Acadian owls, swift as the sparrow-hawk; and now and then the terror of the winter wilds, the giant snowy owl of the North, driven down by storm and famine from his bleak Arctic wastes. The revels of the mouse-folk over their dim-lit playgrounds were varied with incessant tragedy. ”

“ Not a tree broke its bleak levels, not even a shrub. But the long, sparse, gritty stalks of the marsh-grass clothed it everywhere above tide-mark, and a tiny rivulet of sweet water, flowing from a spring at its centre, drew a riband of inland herbage and tenderer green across the harsh and sombre yellow-gray of the grass. One would not have chosen the island as an alluring place to set one’s habitation, yet at its seaward end, where the changing tides were never still, stood a spacious, one-storied, wide-verandahed cottage, with a low shed behind it. ”

“ For all the pangs of her hunger, the mother bear never stirred, but remained for long minutes watching them, studying the approaches, while the scent of them came on the light breeze to her nostrils. She saw that the herd itself was inaccessible, being well guarded and close to the water. If she should try to rush them, they would escape at the first alarm; or if she should succeed in catching one of the cubs in the water, she would be overwhelmed in a moment—caught by those mighty tusks, dragged to the bottom, drowned and crushed shapeless. ”

“ Sinuous as a snake and swifter, his cruel eyes glowing like points of live flame, the long yellow form of the weasel darted forward. With a faint squeak of terror the squirrel sprang for the sloping trunk, his own hope being to get high enough to launch himself into the air. But the flying-squirrel is less nimble on his feet than the red or the gray. He was much slower than the weasel. He gained the sloping trunk, indeed, but the foe was almost at his heels. It looked as if the doom of the wild was upon him. ”

“ Everywhere in front of the cliff-face, over the ledges, above the white shuddering of the surf, and far out over the smooth leaden-gray rollers, the air was full of whirling and beating wings. These were the wings of the giant gulls and the skuas. The puffins did no more flying than was necessary—swift and straight from their nests out to the fishing-grounds, and back with their prey to the nests. Above their little domain, therefore, the honeycombed south-sloping field, there were no soaring or whirling wings, save for three or four pirate skuas, on the watch for a chance of robbery. ”

“ After dark, late, the mother stole close up to the cabin. Everything was shut up tight—barn, shed, and house alike. At the door-sill she listened long and intently, like a cat at a mouse-hole. Her fine ear made out the heavy breathings of the man and the woman within. It also at length distinguished some faint little growlings and gruntings, such as the cubs only uttered when they were well fed. She prowled around the house all night, the pale flame of her savage and anxious eyes glowing upon it from every direction. ”

“ In truth, there was a suggestion of something monstrous in all that the eye could see in Black Swamp. The heavy, indeterminate masses of dark mud, or patches of black water, lying deep between and under the contortions of the roots; the thick, gray rags of dead cedar-bark; the rotting stumps, some uprooted and half engulfed in the inert morass; the overpowering windless shadow, which lay thick as if no sound had ever jarred it; above all, the gigantic tangle of trunks and roots, stagnantly motionless, with the strained stillness that is not of peace, but of a nightmare. ”

“ They saw two other skuas sailing down from the cliff-top, as if to demand their business in skua territory. They had no stomach to face that demand; they had no heart for a fight on anything approaching fair terms. Flapping heavily into the air, they flew off in haste to lose themselves in the myriads of their screaming fellows. The female skua, returning, hovered low; but she did not alight. In silence, her head thrust downwards, she circled and circled endlessly on dark wings above the scattered ruins of her nest, the bedraggled and tattered body of her slain mate. ”

“ It was an octopus, which had been so ill-advised as to leave its customary home among the rocks of the bottom and seek new feeding-grounds. Before it had time even to attempt escape, the great jaws of the “killer” engulfed it. For one moment its eight long tentacles writhed desperately, clutching at its captor’s lips. Then they vanished, sucked in and swallowed at a gulp. Thereupon the orca sailed leisurely back to the sunlit surface, met on her way up by her anxious calf, which had not been quite quick enough to follow its mother’s lightning descent. ”

“ Had the light been anything more than the wide glimmer of stars, it would have shown that this lonely, prowling shape of white had a black-tipped muzzle, black edges to the long slit of its jaws, and little, cruel eyes with lids outlined in black. From time to time the prowler raised his head, sniffed with dilating nostrils, and questioned with strained ears the deathly silence. It was a polar bear, an old male, too restless and morose to content himself with sleeping away the terrible polar winter in a snow-blanketed hole. ”

“ The mice ran secure in their hidden runways, where the grass-roots on either side of them gave them easy and abundant provender. The rats, too, were out of sight, digging burrows themselves in the soft snow, in the hope of intercepting some of the tunnels of the mice, and now and then snapping up an unwary passer-by. The ice-fringe, crumbling and heaving under the ruthless tide, put an end to her fishing. She would have tried to capture one of the formidable owls, in her hunger, but the owls no longer came to the island. ”

“ Within the tunnel the brown mouse ran on desperately, as if he felt those fatal talons still reaching after him. The tunnel was not quite in darkness, for here and there a gleam of light came filtering through the roots which formed its roof, and here and there a round opening gave access to the yellow-green world among the big stiff grass-stalks. The floor was smooth from the feet and teeth of countless other marsh-mice, water-voles, and marsh-shrews. ”

“ The shock of the plunge seemed to startle the white bull into new rage. He laid the blame of it upon his foe. As if with all his strength renewed, he recovered himself, and thrust the dark bull backward with such tempestuous force that the latter had all he could do to keep his footing. Presently he felt himself at the edge of the woods, his hind feet in a tangle of bushes instead of on the sand. Then, exhausted and cowed, his legs gave way, and he sank back upon his haunches. ”

“ But in spite of his bulk, the loon followed each turn with the agility of an eel. The loosed silt boiled up in wreaths behind his violent passage, and the weeds swayed in the wake of the thrusting webs. In less than a minute the chase—the turmoil of which drove every other fish, large or small, in terror from the feeding-ground—came suddenly to an end. Rising abruptly with the fish gripped in his great beak, the loon burst out upon the surface, sending shoreward a succession of circling ripples. ”

“ The stillness of death itself lay on the forest. The very air seemed brittle under the intense cold. The glare of the unclouded moon was glassy, hard, implacable. It seemed to devitalize even the strong, stealthy forms of the gliding lynxes, to change them into a pair of drifting [243] ghosts, which turned their heads from side to side as they went, and flashed from their eyes a pale, blasting fire.
But Gray Lynx had a very unghostly hunger—as had also his mate. Suddenly his unerring eyes detected, under a spreading hemlock, a spot where the snow had been disturbed. ”

“ Thrilling to the heat of the long, long days of unobstructed sun, beneath the southward-facing walls of the glaciers, the thin soil, clothing the eternal ice, burst into green and flowering life. In the sunward valleys brooks awoke, with a sudden filming of grass along their borders, a sudden passionate unfolding of star-like blooms, white, yellow, and blue. As if summoned from sleep by the impetuous blossoms, eager to be fertilized, came the small northern butterflies in swarms, with little wasp-like flies and beetles innumerable. ”

“ The lake was deep at this point, the main channel of the stream—upon which the lake was threaded like a great oval bead on a slender string—running between the islet and the mainland. The loon plunged nearly to the bottom, that he might run no risk of being detected by the enemy. More than ever like a torpedo, as he pierced the brown depths, he darted forward to the attack. Two or three great lake trout, seeing the approach of the black rushing shape, made way in terror and hid in the deepest weed-patch they could find. ”

“ A stone’s throw up the channel of the little stream lay a patch of vivid green, the leaves of the arrow-weed, with its delicate, pallid blooms dreaming in the still air above them. The butterfly saw these blossoms, or perhaps smelt them, and fluttered in their direction to see if those pure chalices held honey. But on his way he noted the moveless figure of the heron, conspicuous above the ranks of the sedge. Perhaps he took the curious shape for a post or a stump. ”

“ Stealing up between the grass-stems, a chill douche slipped in upon him. Startled and choking, he darted up the steep slope of his gallery, and out into the wet turmoil. He was an expert swimmer, but he liked to choose his own time for the exercise of his skill. This was not one of the times. For one second he sat up upon his sturdy little haunches, squeaking angrily and surveying the excitement. Then, shaking his fur free of the few drops of water which clung to it in tiny globules, he joined the scurrying migrant throngs which were swarming through the dike. ”

“ There was not a walrus in sight, but the bear’s nostrils could not deceive her. She knew the huge sea-beasts were there, on the other side of the island, and she knew they would be very much at ease on such a day as this, basking in the sun. Walruses were not the quarry she would have chosen. The great bulls, courageous and hot-tempered, the powerful cows, dauntless as herself in defence of their young—she knew them for antagonists to be avoided whenever possible. ”

“ But the brown mouse elected to remain in his burrow beside the rose-thicket. His taste had turned to the clover and timothy stalks, and the meadow was alive with brown crickets and toothsome, big, green grasshoppers. Moreover, in the heat of late July, he loved to swim in the bland waters of the stream, keeping close along shore, under the shadow of the long grass and the overhanging roses, and avoiding the dense patches of weed which might give shelter to the darting pickerel. ”

“ If any one stands at the brink of a quiet summer stream, and keeps still enough, and watches intently enough, however deserted the landscape may appear, he will see life in many furtive forms go by. The great blue heron kept still enough. The water at this point went softly over a shoal half sand, half mud, and in the faint movement of the clear amber-brown current the sunlight wove a shimmering network on the bottom. ”

“ Hurtling low over the sedge-tops, and flashing in the sunlight like a lace-pin of rubies, came a small rose-colored dragon-fly, fleeing for its life before a monster of its species which blazed in emerald and amethyst. The chase could have but one ending, for the giant had the speed as well as the voracious hunger. The glistening films of his wings rustled crisply as he overtook the shining fugitive and caught its slender body in his jaws. The silver wings of the victim vibrated wildly. The chase came to a hovering pause just before that immobile shape on the point of the sand-spit. ”

“ The incessant clamor of their voices, harsh and shrill, overrode even the trampling of the surf.
Within the crowded little domain each tribe had its territory. The puffins—or “sea-parrots,” as some of the sailor folk call them, because of their huge hooked beaks—occupied the sandy slope, where they had their nests in deep burrows for protection against the robber skuas and saddle-backs. The auks had a corner of the cliff-face, where along every ledge they sat straight up in prim, close array like so many dwarf penguins, each couple occupied with its precious solitary egg. ”

“ But the cubs were alive. For their sakes she would take no risks with the man.
When he had passed on, she followed at a safe distance. The strange procession crossed the ridge. It neared the clearing and the cabin. At this point the panther heard, some little way back from the trail, the tonk-tonk of a cow-bell. There was no need of following the man so very closely for the moment. She swerved aside, ran straight, like a cat going for milk, through the thickets, and, with a burst of intolerable fury, sprang upon the cow’s neck. ”

“ So it came about that she alone, of all the island dwellers, had no shelter to turn to when the real winter arrived, with snows that smothered the grass-tops out of sight, and frosts that lined the shore with grinding ice-cakes. The rats had their holes under the buried fragments of wreckage; the mice and shrews had their deep warm tunnels; the owls had nests in [186] hollow trees far away in the forests of the mainland. But the cat, shivering and frightened, could do nothing but crouch against the blind walls of the unrelenting house, and let the snow whirl itself and pile itself about her. ”

“ Now, the weakest of these tribes was the tribe of the puffins. But one great strength they had, which fully made up for their deficiency in size and power. They knew how to burrow deep holes for their nests, wherein their eggs and nestlings were safe from the skuas and the saddle-backs. Every available inch of soil on the island was tunnelled with these burrows, like a rabbit-warren. At the bottom of each burrow was either one big, solitary egg, or a strange-looking youngster with enormous head and beak and an insatiable appetite for fish. ”

“ To him those unwinking jewels of eyes had no menace. He hovered an instant about two feet above them. In that instant, like a flash of light, the long, pale neck and straight yellow beak shot out; and the butterfly [71] was caught neatly. Twisting his head shoreward, without shifting his feet, the heron struck the glowing velvet wings of the insect sharply on the sand. Then, having swallowed the morsel leisurely, he drew his head down again between his shoulders, and resumed his moveless waiting. ”

“ His lithe feet, in their flexible moose-hide moccasins, took firm hold of the irregularities of the trail, and he glided over or under the opposing branches with as little rustling as a black snake might have made. Every few moments he stiffened himself to the rigidity of a stump, and listened like a startled doe as he interrogated every rock and tree within reach of his eyes. Ready to match his trained senses [109] against those of any of the wilderness kin, he felt confident of seeing or hearing any creature by which he might be seen or heard. ”

“ The leader of the pack, with two of the more astute of his followers, succeeded in dragging himself forth upon the packed shoulders of his adversaries, ran over the heaving sea of backs, and raced away through the storm, gored and streaming. Soon there was no sign of a wolf anywhere to be seen. But still the packed herd went on with its trampling and churning, sullenly resolute to make an end of the matter, till even the sturdy unwounded calves were in danger of being downed, and the weaker ones perished miserably. At last, in some way, the old bull managed to make his orders understood. ”