XV
It wasn't all discouragement. For now and then it seemed as if the swampwas going to have a shore of dry land. At such times Herring wouldexclaim:
"There you see! It had never been done before, and now it's been done,and we've done it."
And then it would seem to Phyllis as if a great weight of fear andanxiety had been lifted from her.
But the shore of the swamp always turned out to be an illusion. OnceHerring, firmly situated as he believed, went suddenly through a crustof sphagnum moss and was immersed to the arm-pits. For some moments hestruggled grimly to extricate himself, and only sank the deeper. Then heturned to Phyllis a face whimsical in spite of its gravity and pallor,and said: "If you have never saved a man's life, now is your chance. I'mafraid I can't get out without help."
It was then that her phenomenally strong little hands and wrists stoodthem both in good stead. The arches of her feet against a submergedroot of white cedar, she so pulled and tugged, and exhorted Herring tostruggle free, that at last he came out of that pocket quagmire and layexhausted in the ooze at her feet.
He was incased from neck to foot in a smooth coating of brown slime.Presently he rolled over on his back and looked up at her.
"There you see!" he said. "You'd never saved a man's life before, andnow you've done it. Please accept my sincere expressions of envy andgratitude-- Why, you're crying!"
She was not only crying, but she was showing symptoms of incipienthysteria. "An old-fashioned girl," thought Herring, "likeGreat-grandmother Saltonstall." He raised himself to a sitting positionjust in time to slide an arm around her waist as, the hysteria now wellunder way, she sat down beside him and began to wave her hands up anddown like a polite baby saying good-by to some one.
"One new thing under the sun after another," thought Herring. "Never hadarm round hysterical girl's waist before. Got it there now. When youneed _her_, she takes a good brace and pulls for all she's worth. Whenshe needs _you_, she seats herself on six inches of water and yells.Just like Great-grandmother Saltonstall." Aloud he kept saying: "That'sright! Greatest relief in the world! Go to it!" And his arm tightenedabout her with extraordinary tenderness.
Her hysterics ended as suddenly as they had begun. And then she wasted avaluable half-hour apologizing for having had them; Herring protestingall the while that he had enjoyed them just as much as she had, and thatthey had done him a world of good. And then they had to stop talkingbecause their teeth began to chatter so hard that they simply couldn'tkeep on. Herring stuttered something about, "Exercise is what a bodyneeds," and they rose to their feet and fought their way through a densegrove of arbor-vitae.
"The stealthy Indian goes through such places without making a sound,"said Herring.
"Or getting his moccasins wet," said Phyllis. "Oh!" And she sank to thewaist.
"Never mind," said Herring, "it will be dark before long. And when wehave no choice of where to step, maybe we'll have better luck."
"It will _have_ to be dark very soon," said Phyllis, "if we have anymore of our clothes taken away from us by the brambles."
"That's a new idea!" exclaimed Herring. "Young couple starve to deathin the woods because modesty forbids them to join their friends in theopen. The head-line might be: 'Stripped by Brambles,' or 'The TwoBares.'"
He was so pleased with his joke that he had to lean against a tree. Thelaughing set him to coughing, and Phyllis beat him methodically betweenthe shoulders.
Herring still refused to be serious. In helping Phyllis over the badplaces, he performed prodigies of misapplied strength and madeprodigious puns. And he said that never in his life had he been in sucha delightful scrape.
Once, while they were resting, Phyllis said:
"All you seem to think of is the fun you're having. Most men would bethinking about the anxiety they were causing others and about themiseries of their companion."
"But," he protested, "you are enjoying yourself too. You don't think youare, but you are. It's your philosophy that is wrong. You like to livetoo much in the present. I like to lay by stores of delightful memoriesagainst rainy days. The worse you feel now, the more you'll enjoyremembering how you felt--some evening, soon--your back against softcushions and the soles of your feet toward the fire."
"Ugh!" shuddered Phyllis. "Don't talk about fires. Oh, dear!"
"What's wrong _now_!"
"I'm so stiff I don't think I can take another step. We oughtn't to haverested so long."
But she did take another step, and would have fallen heavily if Herringhad not caught her. A moment later she lost a shoe in the ooze, andwasted much precious daylight in vain efforts to locate and recover it.
"Sit down on that root," commanded Herring. And she obeyed. He kneltbefore her, lifted her wet, muddy little stockinged foot and set it onhis knee.
"What size, please, miss?" he asked, giving an excellent imitation of asomewhat officious salesman.
"I don't know; I have them made," said Phyllis wearily, but trying herbest to smile.
"Something in this style?" suggested Herring. He had secretly removedone of his own shoes, and handling it with a kind of comic reverence, asif the soggy, muddy thing was a precious work of art, he presented it toher attention.
And then Phyllis smiled without even trying and then laughed.
"I said a _shoe_," she said, "not a travelling bath-tub."
But he slipped that great shoe over her little foot, and so bound it toher ankle with his handkerchief and necktie that it promised to stay on.
"But you?" she said.
"Luck is with me to-day," said Herring. "Anybody can walk through animpassable swamp, but few are given the opportunity to hop. GeneralSherman should have thought of that. It would have showed theConfederates just what he thought of them if instead of marching throughGeorgia he had hopped."
And he pursued this new train of thought for some time. He improvisedwords to old tunes, and sang them at the top of his lungs: "As we werehopping through Georgia." And last and worst he sang: "There'll be a hoptime in the old town to-night." And when he had occasion to addressPhyllis directly, he no longer called her Miss Darling, but "Goody TwoShoes." He said that his own name was not Mr. Herring but Mr. Hopper,and that he was a famous cotillon leader.
But even he became a little quiet when the light began to fail, and alittle serious.
"Whatever happens," he said, "it will be a great comfort to you torealize that it's entirely my fault. On the other hand, if we hadgotten back into that boat, we might have been drowned long beforethis."
A little later Phyllis said: "I'm about all in. It's too dark to see.I----"
"Couldn't have chosen a better camping site myself," said Herringhumbly. "First thing to think of is the water-supply--and fuel. Now,here the fuel grows right out of the water----"
"We haven't any matches."
"Yes, we have; but they are wet and won't light."
"We'll die of cold before morning," said Phyllis; "there's no usepretending we won't."
"On the contrary. Now is the time to pretend all sorts of things. Didyou ever try to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together?"
"Never."
"Well, try it. It will make you warmer than the fire would. Afterward wewill play 'Paddy cake, Paddy cake,' and 'Bean Porridge hot.'"
"Do men in danger always carry on the way you do?" asked Phyllis.
"Always," he answered.
"I can understand trying to be funny during a cavalry charge, or whilefalling off a cliff," said Phyllis, "but not while slowly and miserablycongealing."
"You are not a Bostonian," said Herring. "Half the inhabitants of thatmunicipality freeze to death and the others burn."
"I've stayed in Boston," said Phyllis, "and the only difference that Icould see between it and other places was that the people were moreagreeable and things were done in better taste. And what gardens!"
"Ever seen the Arboretum?"
"Have I?"
"In lilac time?"
"Mm!"
She was on her favorite topic. She forgot that she was cold, wet,miserable, and a frightful anxiety to her family.
"But why be an innkeeper?" asked Herring. "Why not set up as alandscape-gardener?"
"I don't know enough. But I've often thought----"
"I've got five hundred acres outside of Boston that I'd like to turn youloose on."
"You speak as if I were a goat."
"The first thing to do is to drain the swamps. Now, I'll make you aproposition. I can't put it in writing, because it's too dark to see andI have no writing materials, but there is nothing fishy about usHerrings. You to landscape my place for me, cause a suitable house tobe built, and so forth; I to pay you a thousand dollars a month, and afive per cent commission on the total expenditure."
"And what might _that_ amount to?"
"What you please," said Herring politely.
"Who says Bostonians are cold?" exclaimed Phyllis. And there began tofloat through her head lovely visions of landscapes of her own making.
"You're still joking, aren't you?" she said after a while.
"I don't know landscapes well enough to joke about them," he said.
"But I can't design a house!"
"Oh, you will have architects to do that part. You just pick the generaltype."
"What kind of a house do you want?"
"It depends on what kind of a house _you_ want."
"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "what fun it would be!"
"Will you do it?"
She was tempted beyond her strength.
"Yes," she said, and began to talk with irresponsible delight andenthusiasm.
"Ah," thought Herring to himself, "find out what really interests a girland she'll forget all her troubles."
It began suddenly to grow light.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phyllis. "The woods must be on fire! Oh, thepoor trees!"
"It isn't fire," said Herring, "it's the moon--'Queen and huntress,chaste and fair--goddess excellently bright'--was ever such luck! Ihoped we were going to stand here cosily all night talking aboutmarigolds and cowslips and wallpapers, and now it's our duty to move on.Come, Goody Two Shoes, Policeman Moon has told us to move on. I shallnever forget this spot. And I shan't ever be able to find it again."
They toiled forward a little way, and lo! upon a sudden, they came tofirm and rocky land that sloped abruptly upward from the swamp. Theyclimbed for several hundred feet and came out upon a bare hilltop, fromwhich could be seen billows of forest and one great horn of Half MoonLake, silver in the moonlight.
"Why, it isn't a mile to camp," said Phyllis. She swayed a little,tottered, rocked backward and then forward, and fell against Herring'sbreast in a dead faint.
In a few moments she came to and found that she was being carried instrong arms. It was a novel, delicious, and restful sensation--one whichit seemed immensely sensible to prolong. She did not, then, immediatelyopen her eyes.
She heard a voice cheerful, but very much out of breath, murmuring overher:
"New experience. Never carried girl before. Experience worth repeating.Like 'em old-fashioned--like Great-grandmother Saltonstall. Like 'em tofaint."
A few minutes later, "Where am I?" said Phyllis.
"In my arms," said Herring phlegmatically, as if that was one of herhabitual residing places.
"Put me down, please."
"I hear," said he, "and I obey with extreme reluctance. I made a betwith myself that I could carry you all the way. And now I shall neverknow. Feel better?"
"Mm," she said, and "What a nuisance I've been all through! But it waspretty bad, some of it, wasn't it?"
"Already you are beginning to take pleasure in remembering. What did Itell you? Don't be frightened. I am going to shout."
He shouted in a voice of thunder, and before the echo came back to themanother voice, loud and excited, rose in the forest. And they heardsmashings and crashings, as a wild bull tearing through brittle bushes.And presently Sam Langham burst out of the thicket with a shower oftwigs and pine-needles.
His delight was not to be measured in words. He apostrophized himself.
"Good old Sam!" he said. "He knew you weren't drowned in the brook. Heknew it would be just like Herring to want to cross that swamp. As soonas I heard somebody say that it was impassable, I said: 'Where is theother side? That's the place to look for them.' But why didn't you makemore noise?"
"Oh," said Herring, "we were so busy talking and exploring and doingthings that had never been done before that it never occurred to us toshout."
"Herring," said Langham sternly, "you have the makings of a hero, butnot, I am afraid, of a woodsman."
"Well, we're safe enough now," said Herring. "Excuse me a moment----"
"Excuse you! What?"
"It's very silly--been sick you know--over-exertion--think better faintand get it over with."
Langham knelt and lifted Herring's head.
"You lift his feet," he said to Phyllis, "send the blood to his heart;bring him to."
Herring began to come out of his faint.
"This young man," said Langham, "may be something of an ass, but he'sgot sand."
"He carried me a long way," said Phyllis, the tears racing down hercheeks; "and he's only just over typhoid, and he never stopped beingcheerful and gallant, and he _isn't_ an ass!"
Herring came to, but was not able to stand. He had kept up as long as hehad to, and now there was no more strength in him.
Phyllis accepted the loan of Langham's coat.
"I'll stay with him," she said, "while you go for help."
The moment Langham's back was turned she spread the coat over Herring.
"_Please--don't!_" he said.
"You be quiet," said she sharply. "How do you feel?"
"Pretty well used up, thank you. Hope you'll 'scuse me for thiscollapse. Shan't happen again. Lucky thing you and I don't both collapsesame moment."
A faint moan was wrung from him. She touched his cheek with her hand. Itwas hot as fire. She was an old-fashioned girl, and the instinct ofnursing was strong in her.
She was an old-fashioned girl. There had almost always been a young manin her life about whom, for a while, she wove more or less intenselyromantic fancies. They came; they went. But almost always there was one.
She raised her lovely face and looked at the moon, and made an unspokenconfession. There had always been one. Well, now there was another!
The Seven Darlings Page 15
