The Romance of the Woods. Whishaw Frederick
I lie and stare out into the blackness, I can determine nothing of the million animate or inanimate objects around me; I may people the darkness with what beings I please until the light arrives; it is an area in which imagination may disport itself freely and there is none can contradict its tales, for who knows what bantlings may not be concealed here beneath the shelter of Mother Night's extended wings? How do I know that a company of elves are not disporting themselves within a yard or two of my tent—as ignorant of my proximity as I am of theirs? How can I tell that some dreadful wild beast is not, at this instant, feeling his way down to the waters of the lake, in order to allay his thirst after having feasted upon our poor ponies, behind there in the wood? I can imagine an interview between a ferocious bear or two gaunt wolves and our faithful little quadrupeds, whose one idea in life is to do their duty and eat the breakfast, each day, that the gods provide. I can see the wolves arrive and find the ponies, and say:
"Good evening, my friends; we regret to say you are required for our supper."
"That's impossible," the ponies reply; "we are needed to carry our masters home to Dubrofka."
"Oh, that's all right," say those wolves, to whom a lie is an unconsidered trifle; "your masters sent us on to tell you it was all arranged!" Whereupon the ponies believe the tale and are ready to be eaten, because it is part of the day's work as ordained by their master, which is another way of spelling God in their language.
I think I know pretty well, however, what I should see, or some of the things I should see, if an electric light were suddenly switched on and illuminated the ground around my tent. Close at hand, here, on the shingly sand at the edge of the lake, there are seven or eight or more little grey and white sandpipers, fast asleep—perhaps standing on one leg apiece—among the stones, which are so like them in tint that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other, even by daylight. Then, somewhere within eye-shot, though maybe half a mile off, there is a flock of cranes standing, like a body of sentinels met to compare notes, or relieve guard, also probably employing but one leg each to balance themselves upon during the hours of repose. I wonder whether they use a different leg on alternate nights, or whether the same one is told off for night duty each time? If so, it is very hard indeed for the one limb thus employed to receive no share of the repose enjoyed by the rest of the body, but to be obliged to toil on night after night, and day after day, while its lazy fellow-limb gets all the rest and only half the work. But such is life. I am sure there are cranes near, for I heard their outposts give the alarm when we splashed through the marshy approach to this spot on our arrival here. Luckily Ivan knew the password, which was the grunt of an elk, as which animals—in search of a drink—we were permitted to come within the precincts of craneland without alarming the big grey birds to the departure point. In a very short time we shall hear them going through the business of waking up, and complaining of the hardship involved in keeping early hours. Then again, there are ducks, numbers of them, I feel sure of it, though not one of them has yet uttered a sound, because this place is a paradise for ducks, and Mother Night covers many a fond couple of them—paired by this time, and tasting the sweets of love and the lovely anticipations of nest-time and prospective flappers. Perhaps there is a pretty pair of tiny painted teal within a biscuit toss, little lovers nestling in a ridge of the coarse moorland, or amid the yellow grass which waves all around me, though I cannot see a blade. Perhaps they woke up when we came tramping by, and peered with long glossy neck outstretched, and beady eyes straining to pierce the gloom, on the very point of rising and disappearing together into the sanctuary of the darkness, but quieted down when we entered our shalashka, and ceased to approach their nestling place. Or a pair of snipe, or a ruff and a reeve, the former, at this season, a thing of exquisite beauty by reason of the Elizabethan ruff which gives him his name. Each male member of his family is furnished with one of these, and not one is like another in hue, though all are beautiful. They are of every conceivable tint and variety, and certainly metamorphose the bird completely, giving him the handsomest possible appearance so long as they last; but alas! when the courting days are over, and the fair one has capitulated to the beautiful besieging party,—presto!—his principal beauty exists no more, and he becomes without his noble collar, the dullest and least interesting of birds. Hard on the hen bird, I call it, and savouring of unfairness. How would Angelina like it were Edwin—the luxuriance or rakishness of whose moustaches or beard had been instrumental in captivating her affections—were Edwin, I say, to shave off those appendages so soon as her fond heart was fairly his own? If Angelina threw him over, under the circumstances, I am sure no one could blame her. But if the darkness is mysterious and wonderful, and full of subtle, hidden potentialities, what shall we say of the marvellous silence? The repose of it is almost too great. I feel at every instant as though something or somebody must suddenly break out into sound. Either the heavens themselves must—this moment or the next—burst forth into a great, grand chorus of divine music, or a bird must sing, or a beast roar. There is something in the air which must out; any sound would do, but a loud hymn would be the most satisfying at this instant. What a silence it is! The tension is oppressive when you come to listen to it, yet, if you were in the humour, how you could lean your very soul against it, and rest—and rest! But to-night I must have sound soon—my nerves demand it—I cannot bear this hush much longer; if no wolf howls within the next few minutes or no crane gives tongue, if no sandpiper whistles or duck quacks, I must wake Ivan and bid him talk. I am outside the beat of the willow-grouse, else he would have broken the oppressive spell an hour ago. Oh, for a chord of music! Oh, to hear on organ swell out, but for a moment, and then die away again; or to listen, close at hand, to the soul-deep song of the nightingale! Something is going to sound forth in a moment; I feel it—now—now! there!... I knew it must come just then, I had a presentiment of it. It is a snipe high up in the air, tracing his embroidery upon the sky-line overhead, and swooping at intervals with a sound as of a sheep's "baa;" this is the male snipe's curious way of wooing his mate; the "baa" comes dropping upon the ear at intervals of a few seconds. If that snipe had not come to save my reason I believe I should have shouted like a lunatic the next minute, which would assuredly have given Ivan a fit.
There goes a night-hawk, flitting by in the darkness like a ghost. Oh, what a voice! When he gives tongue I wish the silence back again. Go hence, noisy spirit of night, and hunt your moths elsewhere. No wonder you can scream loudly with a mouth like that, for when you open it your head seems to split in two pieces. There will be no more silence now; the night-jar has murdered sleep. Listen to the sentinel crane—or is it the boots or the chambermaid of the community awakening the family? He screams loudly to them, but they answer drowsily. "Have you not made a mistake in the time?" they are saying. "It cannot, surely, be time to get up yet?" It is though, Madame Crane, and you must quickly let down that other leg and see about the breakfast. In a minute or two there will be such a clamour of conversation among the crane community that any person within a radius of five miles will be aware of their presence. I should say that the cry of the crane is a better traveller than any other sound I have heard. These birds require a good voice for communicating with one another during flight, for a large flock will often separate into many little bands of two or three while on the "march," and the straggling units must be picked up by nightfall. They must have strayed far away indeed if they cannot hear when their friends hail them at the full pitch of the crane-voice!
Now comes another sound. Far away at first, but nearing at each repetition. A sad, melancholy note, falling at intervals of a second or two. I have heard it often before, and wondered what it could be. I have heard it as they who produced it—whoever they might be—passed at night far above the sleeping city, and have felt a great pity for the sad wandering spirits flying and wailing through the darkness—whither? Perhaps they were the souls of the unbaptized, I have thought, which must wander, according to a Slavonic tradition, over land and sea for seven years, seeking and entreating to be baptized.
But Ivan does not allow my thoughts to wander into folk-lore this night. The cranes have awakened him, and he has heard this last mysterious sound also. It has excited him. His finger is at his lip, and he is listening. "What is it, Ivan? Speak!"
"Hush!" says Ivan. "This is what we came for!" (There was a raison d'être for our presence here; I forgot to mention this circumstance before.) "It is the geese!"
So this is the wild geese arriving! Then beat, heart, and