The Jungle Fugitives, Edward Sylvester Ellis [fantasy novels to read .txt] 📗

my company, and thus that which followed never could have occurred. I did not tell his mother what had taken place, for I knew she would insist on a strict prohibition of his aimless swimming efforts.

To tell the truth, there were two reasons why I did not forbid Bob to enter the mill-pond. I knew it would be the most cruel kind of punishment, and, I may as well confess it, I didn't believe the boy would obey me if he gave the pledge. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. Alas! how often our affection closes our eyes to the plainest duty!

And now I have reached a point which prompts me to ask the question at the head of this sketch, "Who Shall Explain It?" I have my own theory, which I shall submit, with no little diffidence, later on.

It was on Saturday afternoon, the ninth of last August, that I became a victim to a greater depression of spirits than I had known for years. I felt nothing of it during the forenoon, but it began shortly after the midday meal and became more oppressive with each passing minute. I sat down at my desk and wrote for a short time. I continually sighed and drew deep inspirations, which gave me no relief. It was as if a great and increasing weight were resting on my chest. Had I been superstitious, I would have declared that I was on the eve of some dreadful calamity.

Writing became so difficult and distasteful that I threw down my pen, sprang from my chair, and began rapidly pacing up and down the room. My wife had gone to the city that morning to visit her relatives, and was not to return until the following day; so I was alone, with only two servants in the house.

I couldn't keep the thoughts of Bob out of my mind. Saturday being a holiday, I had allowed him to go off to spend the afternoon as he chose; and, as it was unusually warm, there was little doubt where and how he was spending it. He would strike a bee-line for that shady mill-pond, and they would spend hours plashing in its cool and delicious depths.

I looked at the clock; it was a few minutes past five, and Bob ought to have been home long ago. What made him so late?

My fear was growing more intense every minute. The boy was in my mind continually to the exclusion of everything else. Despite all my philosophy and rigid common-sense, the conviction was fastening on me that something dreadful had befallen him.

And what was that something? He had been drowned in the mill-pond. I glanced out of the window, half expecting to see a party bearing the lifeless body homeward. Thank Heaven, I was spared that woful sight, but I discerned something else that sent a misgiving pang through me.

It was Mrs. Clarkson, our nearest neighbor, rapidly approaching, as if the bearer of momentous tidings.

"She has come to tell me that Bob is drowned," I gasped, as my heart almost ceased its beating.

I met her on the threshold, with a calmness of manner which belied the tumult within. Greeting her courteously, I invited her inside, stating that my wife was absent.

"I thank you," she said, "but it is not worth while. I thought I ought to come over and tell you."

"Tell me what?" I inquired, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"Why, about the awful dream I had last night."

I was able to smile faintly, and was partly prepared for what was coming.

"I am ready to hear it, Mrs. Clarkson."

"Why, you know it was Friday night, and I never had a dream on a Friday night that didn't come true--never! Where's Bob?" she abruptly asked, peering around me, as if to learn whether he was in the hall.

"He's off somewhere at play."

"Oh, Mr. Havens, you'll never see him alive again!"

Although startled in spite of myself, I was indignant.

"Have you any positive knowledge, Mrs. Clarkson, on the matter?"

"Certainly I have; didn't I just tell you about my dream?"

"A fudge for your dream!" I exclaimed, impatiently; "I don't believe in any such nonsense."

"I pity you," she said, though why I should be pitied on that account is hard to understand.

"But what was your dream?"

"I saw your Bob brought home drowned. Oh, I can see him now," she added, speaking rapidly, and making a movement as if to wring her hands; "his white face--his dripping hair and clothes--his half-closed eyes--it was dreadful; it will break his mother's heart--"

"Mrs. Clarkson, did you come here to tell me _that_?"

"Why, of course I did; I felt it was my duty to prepare you--"

"Good day," I answered, sharply, closing the door and hastily entering my study.

She had given me a terrible shock. My feelings were in a tumult difficult to describe. My philosophy, my self-command, my hard sense and scepticism were scattered to the winds, I had fought against the awful fear, and was still fighting when my neighbor called; but her visit had knocked every prop from beneath me.

She had hardly disappeared when I was hurrying through the woods by the shortest route to the mill-pond. I knew Bob had been there, and all that I expected to find was his white, ghastly body in the cold, cruel depths.

"Oh, my boy!" I wailed, "I am to blame for your death! I never should have permitted you to run into such danger. I should have gone with you and taught you to swim--I can never forgive myself for this--never, never, never. It will break your mother's heart--mine is already broken--"

"_Pop, just watch me_!"

Surely that was the voice of my boy! I turned my head like a flash, and there he was, with his hands together over his head, and in the act of diving into the mill-pond. Down he went with a splash, his head quickly reappearing, as he flirted the hair and water out of his eyes, and struck out for the middle of the pond.

"What are you doing, Bob?"

"You just wait and see, pop."

And what did that young rascal do but swim straight across that pond and then turn about and swim back again, without pausing for breath? Not only that, but, when in the very deepest portion, he dove, floated on his back, trod water, and kicked up his heels like a frisky colt.

"How's that, pop? You didn't know I could swim, did you?" he asked, as he came smilingly up the bank.

"I had no idea of such a thing," I replied, my whole being fluttering with gratitude and delight; "I think I'll have to reward you for that."

And when he had donned his clothes, and we started homeward, I slipped a twisted bank-bill into his hands. I am really ashamed to tell its denomination, and Bob and I never hinted anything about it to his mother.

And now as to the question, Who shall explain it? I think I can. I have a weakness for boiled beef and cabbage. The meat is healthful enough, but, as every one knows, or ought to know, cabbage, although one of the most digestible kinds of food when raw, is just the opposite in a boiled state. I knew the consequences of eating it, but in the absence of my good wife that day I disposed of so much that I deserved the oppressive indigestion that followed.

That fact, I am convinced, fully explains the dreadful "presentiment" which made me so miserable all the afternoon.

On our way home we passed the house of Mrs. Clarkson. I could not forbear stopping and ringing her bell. She answered it in person.

"Mrs. Clarkson, Bob is on his way home from swimming, and I thought I would let him hear about that wonderful dream--"

But the door was slammed in my face.

I said at the opening of this sketch that I "had" a boy named Bob. God be thanked, I have him yet, and no lustier, brighter, or more manly youth ever lived, and my prayer is that he may be spared to soothe the declining years of his father and mother, whose love for him is beyond the power of words to tell.


A FOOL OR A GENIUS.

CHAPTER I.

Josiah Hunter sat on his porch one summer afternoon, smoking his pipe, feeling dissatisfied, morose and sour on account of his only son Tim, who, he was obliged to confess to himself, gave every indication of proving a disappointment to him.

Mr. Hunter was owner of the famous Brereton Quarry & Stone Works, located about a mile above the thriving village of Brereton, on the eastern bank of the Castaran river, and at a somewhat greater distance below the town of Denville. The quarry was a valuable one and the owner was in comfortable circumstances, with the prospect of acquiring considerable more of a fortune out of the yield of excellent building stone. The quarry had been worked for something like ten years, and the discovery that he had such a fine deposit on his small farm was in the minds of his neighbors equivalent to the finding of a gold mine, for as the excavation proceeded, the quality of the material improved and Mr. Hunter refused an offer from a company which, but for the stone, would have been a very liberal price for the whole farm.

Mr. Hunter had been a widower ever since his boy was three years old, and the youth was now fourteen. His sister Maggie was two years his senior, and they were deeply attached to each other. Maggie was a daughter after her father's own heart,--one of those rare, sensible girls who cannot be spoiled by indulgence, who was equally fond of her parent and who stood unflinchingly by her brother in the little differences between father and son, which, sad to say, were becoming more frequent and serious with the passing weeks and months. It is probable that the affection of the parent for the daughter prevented him from ever thinking of marrying again, for she was a model housekeeper, and he could not bear the thought of seeing anyone come into the family and usurp, even in a small degree, her functions and place.

Mr. Hunter was getting on in years, and nothing was more natural than that he should wish and plan that Tim should become his successor in the development of the valuable quarry that was not likely to give out for many a year to come. But the boy showed no liking for the business. He was among the best scholars in the village school, fond of play and so well advanced in his studies that his parent determined to begin his practical business training in earnest. He looked upon a college education as a waste of so many years, taken from the most precious part of a young man's life, and it must be said that Tim himself showed no wish to attend any higher educational institution.

Tim had assisted about the quarry, more or less for several years. Of course he was too young to do much in the way