LITMIR.BIZ

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water’s rim.

      Doubt struggled with a victor’s thrill in him.

      As, hand to buckle of the rifle-sheath,

      He thought of dampened powder; but beneath

      The rawhide flap the gun lay snug and dry.

      Then as the horse wheeled and the mark went by—

      A patch of shadow dancing upon gray—

      He fired. A sluggish thunder trailed away;

      The spreading smoke-rack lifted slow, and there,

      Floundering in a seethe of foam, the bear

      Hugged yielding water for the foe that slew!

      Triumphant, Jamie wondered what old Hugh

      Would think of such a “trick of getting game”!

      “Young eyes” indeed!—And then that memory came,

      Like a dull blade thrust back into a wound.

      One moment ’twas as though the lad had swooned

      Into a dream-adventure, waking there

      To sicken at the ghastly land, a-stare

      Like some familiar face gone strange at last.

      But as the hot tears came, the moment passed.

      Song snatches, broken tales—a troop forlorn,

      Like merry friends of eld come back to mourn—

      O’erwhelmed him there. And when the black bulk churned

      The star-flecked stream no longer, Jamie turned,

      Recrossed the river and rode back to Hugh.

      A burning twist of valley grasses threw

      Blear light about the region of the spring.

      Then Jamie, torch aloft and shuddering,

      Knelt there beside his friend, and moaned: “O Hugh,

      If I had been with you—just been with you!

      We might be laughing now—and you are dead.”

      With gentle hand he turned the hoary head

      That he might see the good gray face again.

      The torch burned out, the dark swooped back, and then

      His grief was frozen with an icy plunge

      In horror. ’Twas as though a bloody sponge

      Had wiped the pictured features from a slate!

      So, pillaged by an army drunk with hate,

      Home stares upon the homing refugee.

      A red gout clung where either brow should be;

      The haughty nose lay crushed amid the beard,

      Thick with slow ooze, whence like a devil leered

      The battered mouth convulsed into a grin.

      Nor did the darkness cover, for therein

      Some torch, unsnuffed, with blear funereal flare,

      Still painted upon black that alien stare

      To make the lad more terribly alone.

      Then in the gloom there rose a broken moan,

      Quick stifled; and it seemed that something stirred

      About the body. Doubting that he heard,

      The lad felt, with a panic catch of breath,

      Pale vagrants from the legendry of death

      Potential in the shadows there. But when

      The motion and the moaning came again,

      Hope, like a shower at daybreak, cleansed the dark,

      And in the lad’s heart something like a lark

      Sang morning. Bending low, he crooned: “Hugh, Hugh,

      It’s Jamie—don’t you know?—I’m here with you.”

      As one who in a nightmare strives to tell—

      Shouting across the gap of some dim hell—

      What things assail him; so it seemed Hugh heard,

      And flung some unintelligible word

      Athwart the muffling distance of his swoon.

      Now kindled by the yet unrisen moon,

      The East went pale; and like a naked thing

      A little wind ran vexed and shivering

      Along the dusk, till Jamie shivered too

      And worried lest ’twere bitter cold where Hugh

      Hung clutching at the bleak, raw edge of life.

      So Jamie rose, and with his hunting-knife

      Split wood and built a fire. Nor did he fear

      The staring face now, for he found it dear

      With the warm presence of a friend returned.

      The fire made cozy chatter as it burned,

      And reared a tent of light in that lone place.

      Then Jamie set about to bathe the face

      With water from the spring, oft crooning low,

      “It’s Jamie here beside you—don’t you know?”

      Yet came no answer save the labored breath

      Of one who wrestled mightily with Death

      Where watched no referee to call the foul.

      The moon now cleared the world’s end, and the owl

      Gave voice unto the wizardry of light;

      While in some dim-lit chancel of the night,

      Snouts to the goddess, wolfish corybants

      Intoned their wild antiphonary chants—

      The oldest, saddest worship in the world.

      And Jamie watched until the firelight swirled

      Softly about him. Sound and glimmer merged

      To make an eerie void, through which he urged

      With frantic spur some whirlwind of a steed

      That made the way as glass beneath his speed,

      Yet scarce kept pace with something dear that fled

      On, ever on—just half a dream ahead:

      Until it seemed, by some vague shape dismayed,

      He cried aloud for Hugh, and the steed neighed—

      A neigh that was a burst of light, not sound.

      And Jamie, sprawling on the dewy ground,

      Knew that his horse was sniffing at his hair,

      While, mumbling through the early morning air,

      There came a roll of many hoofs—and then

      He saw the swinging troop of Henry’s men

      A-canter up the valley with the sun.

      Of all Hugh’s comrades crowding round, not one

      But would have given heavy odds on Death;

      For, though the graybeard fought with sobbing breath,

      No man, it seemed, might break upon the hip

      So stern a wrestler with the strangling grip

      That made the neck veins like a purple

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