Terebinth

“ Well then, you must know that we run our own little rescue circle, and that at five o’clock to-day we have our weekly sitting. Mr. Terbane is our medium. We don’t usually have anyone else except Mr. Charles Mason, the clergyman. But if you both care to have the experience, we shall be very happy if you will stay. Terbane should be here immediately after tea. He is a railway-porter, you know, so his time is not his own. ”

“ From earliest puppyhood, both Lad and Lady had been brought up within the Law. As far back as they could remember, they had known and obeyed The Place’s simple code.
For example: All animals of the woods might lawfully be chased; but the Mistress’ prize chickens and the other little folk of The Place must be ignored no matter how hungry or how playful a collie might chance to be. A human, walking openly or riding down the drive into The Place by daylight, must not be barked at except by way of friendly announcement. ”

“ At the back of Trebizond, as indeed along the whole of this singularly bold and beautiful coast, the mountains rise in lofty peaks, and are wooded with trees of enormous growth and admirable quality, furnishing an unlimited supply of timber for commerce or war. Innumerable streams force their way to the sea through deep and rocky ravines. The more sheltered spots are occupied by villages and hamlets, chiefly inhabited by a hardy and industrious race of Greeks. In spring the choicest flowers perfume the air, and luxuriant creepers clothe the limbs of gigantic trees. ”

“ As he turned to leave, the canvas curtains slowly parted and a gold-red collie stepped into the tent. He glanced about him with the air of one quite at home, and proceeded, with majestic friendliness, to walk across to where Conover stood.
“What’s the measly dog doin’ in here?” demanded Caleb, somewhat taken aback at the visit.
“Why, it’s Rex,” answered Jack, as though that statement explained everything. “He goes wherever he wants to. Desirée thinks the world of him.” ”

“ Lad crossed to the front door, and scratched imperiously at it. The locked door did not yield to his push. Too sensible to keep on at a portal he could not open, he ran upstairs, to the closed door of the Master's room. There, again he scratched; this time harder and more loudly. Twice and thrice he scratched; whining under his breath.
At last the deep-slumbering Master heard him. Rousing himself, and still three-quarters asleep, he heard not only the scratching and the whimper but, in the distance, Lady's wail of fear. ”

“ Thus, the venturesome leader of the wethers found his detour had been in vain. There was no space between the cliff and the roaring river; no path whereby he and his forty-seven followers might continue their aimless climb.
Bridging the stream, just in front of them, was an uprooted tree; undermined, years earlier, by some freshet which had cut the dirt from its roots. Athwart the river, at this narrow point, lay the huge tree. ”

“ Mousely, can at least be honestly proud of our ancestors. Now, I suppose our genial landlord here—”
“Luella!” boomed Joshua Q. Mosely, in sudden comprehension. “This—this person is pokin’ fun at you. I’ll thank you, young man—”
“Speaking of family,” deftly intervened Miss Gregg, while Mosely and Vail, from opposite sides of the table, looked homicide at the unruffled Chase, “speaking of family, Clive, you remember the Bacons, who used to live just beyond Canobie, don’t you? Your father asked pompous old Standish Bacon if he happened to be descended from Sir Francis Bacon. ”

“ In almost no time the inert body of men was buzzing with orderly activity. The front ranks—at the double, and their heavier accouterments consigned to the baggage train—were on the march, hastening eagerly toward the hill summit, the successive regiments pressing close after.{160}
“You see, sir,” Dad was explaining to the general, “it is easier to advance fifty yards toward a foe over level ground, or a hundred yards down a slope, than ten yards up a hill. If we can seize and hold the crest before they reach it, it is so much net gain. ”

“ Behind the wall, his nose taught him, lay miles of meadow and wood and lake—Central Park. But the smell of the Park brought him no scent of the Mistress nor of the Master. And it was they—infinitely more than his beloved countryside—that he craved. He ran up the street, on the sidewalk, for a few rods, hesitant, alert, watching in every direction. Then, perhaps seeing a figure, in the other direction, that looked familiar, he dashed at top speed, eastward, for half a block. ”

“ We humans often grope for the solution to [Pg 268] some baffling mystery which eludes our sharpest intelligence, and whose key, could we but master it, lies within easy reach of us. So with Treve. The key to this disturbing new ranch development lay within six inches of his nose, in the form of a newspaper which had fallen from the porch rocker to the dusty floor.
Had Treve been able to read type—as he could read human nature and weather signs and danger to the Dos Hermanos flocks—a front page news item in that paper might have told him much. ”

“ Caleb filled his lungs and shouted across the sea of mist. Again and again he bellowed forth his long-drawn halloo. To anyone on the nearer hilltop islands his call might readily have been heard. But human voice could as readily have penetrated a mountain of cotton-batting as carry sound through that waste of cloud-reek.
At length the two fugitives realized this. A last shout, a final straining of ears for some answering cry; then Conover turned again to the girl. ”

“ I fancy that this narrow cove prescribes the proper limits of a sonnet; and when I count the lines of ripple within yonder projecting wall, there proves to be room for just fourteen. Nature meets our whims with such little fitnesses. The words which build these delicate structures of Petrarch’s are as soft and fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the monotone of the neighboring ocean. ”

“ Finding no pursuer, he emerged and jogged innocently back toward the veranda.
The Master, entering the house and walking across the living-room toward the stairs, heard Lady’s cry. He looked around for her, recognizing from the sound that she must be in distress. His eye fell on Lad, crouching tense and eager in front of the shut study door. ”

“ As the way was short, and as the Number Three outfit’s only dog was a half mile away herding another and larger bunch of sheep, the man had undertaken to steer the lambs, singlehanded. He was making a ragged job of it.
At sound and scent of the approaching huddle of sheep, Treve leaped to his feet; queer ancestral instincts tugging at the back of his alert young brain. In all his eight months of life he had never seen nor smelt a sheep. But his Scottish ancestors, for a hundred generations, had earned their right to live by tending such creatures as these which came trooping past the shack. ”

“ Cottage at the Crooks.
Young Telford grew up a healthy boy, and he was so full of fun and humour that he became known in the valley by the name of "Laughing Tam." When he was old enough to herd sheep he went to live with a relative, a shepherd like his father, and he spent most of his time with him in summer on the hill-side amidst the silence of nature. In winter he lived with one or other of the neighbouring farmers. ”

“ Not only money, but a wealth of loving care combined with great technical knowledge and experience, has brought it near to absolute perfection—this fine expanse of English turf, framed in a garland of noble English elms and spreading chestnut trees.
2Months ago in the dreary winter, when the tour of the Australian test match team was being arranged, Garlett had invited the visitors to come to Terriford immediately on landing from the boat and “play themselves in” after the long voyage. ”

“ Glure was always dressed for the Occasion.
“Hello, people!” repeated the Wall Street Farmer, alternately pump-handling the totally unresponsive Mistress and Master. “I see you’ve been admiring the Maury Trophy. Magnificent, eh? Oh, Maury’s a prince, I tell you! A prince! A bit eccentric, perhaps—as you’ll have guessed by the conditions he’s put up for the cup. But a prince. A prince! We think everything of him on the Street. Have you seen my new dog? Oh, you must go and take a look at Lochinvar! I’m entering him for the Maury Trophy, you know.” ”

“ And the nobleman did so. He caused white tents to be pitched by the sea-shore, and bought kerchiefs and scarves and spread them out gaily, and made great store of wine and brandy in bottles and flasks. Then Tremsin rode toward the tents, and while he was on the way his horse said to him, “Now when I go to graze, do thou lie down and feign to sleep. Then the thrice-lovely Nastasia will appear and say, ‘What for thy wares?’ but do thou keep silence. But when she begins to taste of the wine and the brandy, then she will go to sleep in the tent, and thou canst catch her easily and hold her fast!” ”

“ But a well-meaning fellow-exhibitor, across the aisle, saw the bit of paper flutter floorward. This good soul rescued it from the straw and pinned it back in place.
(The world is full of helpful folk. That is perhaps one reason why the Millennium's date is still so indefinite.)
An hour later, a man touched the Master on the arm.
"That dog of yours, on Bench 48," began the stranger, "the big pup with the 'For Sale' sign on his bench. What do you want for him?"
The Mistress was several feet away, talking to the superintendent of the show. ”

“ Along the shore of the North Sea there are found little mounds of earth called terpen, raised by the ancient inhabitants as refuges for themselves and their herds against the rising tides, and on some of these mounds there are villages. Other villages and towns are built upon piles, on land gradually conquered from the sea. ”

“ You have not even a fellow to recall the dish old Terrè served upon that summer night sixty years since. For the lack of a stimulus you too are forgetting, and if your friends give you leave Terrè will soon pass from you as all else is passing; even the fragrance of a dish must leave you at last. One would think that this growing isolation would strike a chill into your bones; but though I watch I do not observe you to tremble. I could vow there is not one of you looks across the border enviously; not one blinks at the open prospect. ”

“ It is no way to treat a woman who has fallen into the lake; trespasser or not. If you and this other young lady care to go up to the kitchen, the maids will see that your clothes are dried; and they'll lend you other clothes to go home in. Lad won't hurt you. And in this hot weather you're in no danger of catching cold. While you're gone, Higham and Rice can get hold of the canoe and right it and bail it out. And, by the way, I want one of you two men to clear that litter of food and greasy paper off my lawn. ”

“ Lad's sense of smell, like his hearing, was far less keen than once it had been. But, it was still strong enough to register the trace of intruders. His hackles bristled. Up went the classically splendid head, to sniff the light breeze, for further information as to the reek of pig and the lighter but more disquieting scent of man.
Turning his head, to reinforce with his near-sighted eyes the failing evidence of his nostrils, he saw the sow emerge from the canna-clump. He saw, too—or he divined—the look in her pale little red-rimmed eyes; as they glared defiantly at the Mistress. ”

“ For in primitive days not only was the earth, for the greater part of her circuit, empty and uninhabited; but if any particular race had seized upon any part, it existed for itself alone. And so, understanding at last that all things worshipped themselves, (the earth) consulted to weed and scrape her copiousness (of inhabitants) , in one place densely packed, in another abandoning their posts; in order that thence (as it were from grafts and settings) peoples from peoples, cities from cities, might be planted throughout every region of her orb. ”

“ By the time he went around to the shed, at [15] the rear of the house, where he had stabled the livery horse, he could scarce see his hand before his face. The gale was hurling the tons of snow from end to end of the Valley, in solid masses. There was no question of holding the road or even of finding it. The horse knew that—and he snorted, and jerked back on the bit when Osmun essayed to lead him from shelter.
Every minute, the blizzard increased.
The corps of indoor laborers and their bosses had gone to their Pittsfield quarters, for Sunday. Osmun had the deserted place to himself. ”

“ CALEB WORKS AT LONG RANGE Clive Standish opened his up-State tour the following night in the small town of Wayne. It was a farming centre, and the hall was tolerably well filled with bearded and tanned men who had an outdoor look. Some of them had brought their wives; sallow, dyspeptic, angular creatures with the patient, dull faces of women who live close to nature and are too busy to profit thereby. ”

“ Now, breathing hard, he got weakly to his feet and lurched through the open French window out onto the moonlit veranda.
He made his exit so unobtrusively that no one but Doris Lane chanced to note it. The girl, at sight of his haggard face and stumbling gait, followed Creede out into the moonlight. She found him leaning against one of the veranda pillars, drawing in great breaths of the cool night air.
“Are you worse?” she asked in quick anxiety. “Why don’t you go to bed? You’re not fit to be up.” ”