The Cassowary Part 15

The Lady Floretta could not speak. Her embarra.s.sment and confusion were such that she could scarcely stand even when supported by her maidens.

She looked around for a chair.

Sir Gladys took from his shoulders his cloak of purple velvet, and spread it at the lady's feet. "Rest," he said, "rest, and recover your strength, fair and honored Lady! I will await your pleasure, meanwhile examining the unusual specimen of the animal kingdom which I see following your gracious footsteps."

He took a step or two toward the Enchanted Cow--for it was she--but she shook her golden horns, and he remained standing near the Lady Floretta, who sat down, affably and quite comfortably, upon the cloak of purple.

"Hark to the thunder!" said the Lady Floretta. "It is going to rain!"

and she began to chide the maids for not bringing umbrellas. Each it is true had a small parasol to ward off moon-stroke, but there was not one umbrella worthy of the name among them all.

"It is not thunder that you hear, sweet lady," said Sir Gladys. "'Tis but the stertorous and unseemly breathing of the foul Witch in the den."

"Oh, is she asleep? And no one dares awaken her!" sighed the Lady Floretta. "I have walked a weary distance to consult her," she explained, as she became convinced that the sounds she had heard indeed came from the Witch's hut.

Sir Gladys came nearer, the seven maidens drew nearer, the Enchanted Cow herself walked closer to Lady Floretta, as she sat upon the cloak spread upon the heather, and there in the summer night the Lady Floretta and Sir Gladys exchanged confidences and condolences about their sore strait, and often made the dread gesture as they talked, for neither thought best to name the Prince Rugbauer and both were too well-bred to whisper in company.

The seven maidens sitting there on the heather, fell asleep, each nodding over her horn lantern. The Enchanted Cow, however was wide awake, and, from her expression, appeared to sympathize deeply with the two distressed mortals whose troubles were so freely poured forth in her presence. They spoke of the disastrous happening of the winter, and of the probable hopelessness of an attempt to retrieve their fortunes at this time of the year.

"The outlook is black indeed," remarked Sir Gladys, and the Lady Floretta agreed with him dejectedly.

"It is the Split Hoof that you need," said a soft deep voice; and the two turning their heads saw the Enchanted Cow looking upon them earnestly. It was she who had spoken.

Sir Gladys and Lady Floretta were dumb with astonishment. After a brief silence, the Enchanted Cow continued: "Last winter when you rode furiously upon the frozen stream the thunder of your horses' hoofs scared no fish into your nets, and when spring came the water was as low as it had been the summer before and is still shallow. But I know where the fish are hidden and that they have not sp.a.w.ned. I stand, during the heat of these summer days, knee deep in the water in the shallows of the Black Tarn, and I see what I see."

"Dear Enchanted Cow," said the Lady Floretta, "please tell us what you see!"

"This one night in the year," resumed the Enchanted Cow, without appearing to notice what the Lady Floretta has said, "this one night in the year, and the only one night in the year, yonder crafty Witch must sleep. She cannot awaken until midnight and this is the one night in the year that the Witch's spell is lifted from me, and I am given the power of speech until the clock strikes twelve."

"Oh! however can you stand it to be dumb so much of the time?" exclaimed the pitying Lady Floretta.

The Enchanted Cow looked at the Lady in surprise, for it is a great and beneficent thing to a cow to be allowed to speak at all.

"It is getting late," said Sir Gladys, looking at his watch by the light of one of the lanterns, and then, addressing the White Cow: "You were making an interesting observation concerning fish in the Black Tarn, if I mistake not."

"The Black Tarn is full of the great fish," the Enchanted Cow declared.

"They have taken refuge there, Ken Water being so low. You have but to stretch your nets, draw them, and reap your harvest."

"But, my dear madam," urged Sir Gladys, "the Black Tarn is surrounded by fens and marshes. Our horses were mired in trying to take out boats and nets this spring, when the ice first broke and we thought to fish in the Black Tarn, at a venture."

"As I remarked at the beginning of this conversation," said the White Cow, somewhat testily, "it is the split hoof that you need--"

Just then the distant Church clocks of the Saag could be heard, all striking the hour of twelve.

The White Cow turned at once and walked in the direction of the Black Tarn, and Sir Gladys, the Lady Floretta and the seven maidens, now fully awake, followed, the more speedily because of a screech from the Witch, as she burst from the door, her inevitable yearly nap at an end.

But no word could be heard from the Enchanted Cow. She looked meaningly at Sir Gladys, though, and that gallant gentleman seemed plunged in thought as the little party of wanderers left the white figure standing on the edge of the swampy ground which surrounded the Black Tarn. Sir Gladys escorted the Lady Floretta home, and what the two said to each other as they hurried over the moor toward the Moated Grange is what no one need consider. They were companions in misfortune, and so drawn closely. Having bowed to the ground at the Great Gate, and having seen it close on the disappearing forms of the lady and her seven maidens, Sir Gladys hied him home, with quickened step. All the while he was thinking deeply. He had been from boyhood a student of natural history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SIR GLADYS ESCORTED THE LADY FLORETTA HOME"]

Away back in the past so dim and distant that only the most learned can talk of it intelligently, away in the time after the earth had risen from the warm waters and when the great reptiles had given place to animals, something like those which exist to-day, the hoofs of all the quadrupeds were split. The land was low and marshy then, and the split hoof best supported its owner on the yielding surface. As the earth protruded more and more, and dry and sometimes rocky land uprose, such beasts as frequented the hills found that their hoofs were changing slowly with the centuries. Hard and round the hoofs became as was best for the hill dwellers, but the beasts of the sh.o.r.es and lowlands retained the split hoof and still can tread the mora.s.s. This the Enchanted Cow knew. This, Sir Gladys Rhinestone, who had studied natural history, knew as well.

It was four in the morning by the great clock of the Castle when Sir Gladys stood in the center of the stone-paved courtyard and wound his horn. At the sound every man in the Castle and its surrounding buildings, and on the farms about, became astir, and soon Sir Gladys had his trusty henchmen a dozen deep about him. His words of command sent them scattering in all directions, and sunrise beheld a st.u.r.dy band, headed by Sir Gladys, leaving the Castle Gate and turned in the direction of the Black Tarn. With the men marched fifty of the great red oxen of Rhinestone, and upon their mighty shoulders they bore the heavy nets and boats of the once lucky fisherman of Ken Water.

Sir Gladys had taken the White Cow's hint, and set the split hoof to do what the whole hoof could not accomplish.

A messenger was sent to the Moated Grange requesting the Lady Floretta to visit the sh.o.r.e of the Black Tarn, and thither the procession moved and soon the Tarn was reached. Then followed a scene of which the story was told for years, for it was something worth the seeing. The great tractable oxen, encouraged doubtless by the Enchanted Cow who stood knee-deep in the oozy margin awaiting them, bore out bravely into the black waters through reeds and sedge and yielding mud and made a mighty splas.h.i.+ng toward the center of the lake where in a semicircle were gathered the fishermen with their boats and nets. The waters near the sh.o.r.e were churned into a foam, and the watchers looking outward could see the long wakes of the frightened sturgeon as they fled to certain capture.

And the nets were filled to the overflowing; so heavy were they that the great oxen could scarcely draw them to firm land. So the great work was accomplished, the Lady Floretta and her maidens coming in time to see it all. There were fish enough to furnish caviare enough it would seem for half the world.

It was well that their two estates joined, for while during the fis.h.i.+ng, the Lady Floretta and Sir Gladys had been sitting on the strand of the Black Tarn--Sir Gladys' cloak around the Lady, for the day grew chill--they had declared each to the other their determination to join their lives and their fortunes together from that hour, and so it came to pa.s.s that, by the time the fish eggs were turned into caviare and sold and the money was in hand to pay Prince Rugbauer's taxes, Sir Gladys Rhinestone had made the Lady Floretta Beamish his bride, and what was good or ill fortune for one was the same for the other.

And this is also told, that, as for the Enchanted Cow, ever afterward she wandered at will on the moors in summer, and was well cared for at the castle or the Moated Grange in winter. And ever on the night of the Witch's sleep, the cow was visited in state by fair Sir Gladys and Lady Floretta, for nothing is more excellent than grat.i.tude.

CHAPTER XVIII

LOVE AND A ZULU

Mrs. Livingstone, who had become accepted, by this time, to the Colonel's great delight, as a sort of lovingly hesitant chaperon and hostess of the accidental House Party, was now, doubtless to her own surprise, the one to take the initiative:

"Did I understand you to say, Mr. Poet, that what you just related was strictly true?"

"Yes, Madam, certainly," was the calm and unabashed reply of the person addressed.

"Thank you," was the gentle answer, "it was beautiful," and then she turned to her husband, "Colonel, won't you please request one of the stern business men here to tell something, something reliable, and of the present time?"

The Colonel's quizzical eye had, for some moments rested upon the Broker, to the evident disquietude of that gentleman, though it was clear that he would not seek to avoid the issue when his time for effort came. He had not listened to the tale which had been told as intently as he might and there was a look upon his face as of a man recalling memories. He was mentally preparing himself for the Colonel's onslaught--and it came.

"Mr. Broker," said the genial tyrant, "gentlemen of your type in the business world are about the best fellows going, and, as I know, from listening interestedly a thousand times, are always telling good stories, when not going crazy 'on 'change.' Your turn has come and your fate is sealed beyond all peradventure. Sir, we await you."

The Broker "accepted the situation:" "I've been antic.i.p.ating this emergency and have been preparing for it as much as possible. I don't know that it is what might be called a strictly business story, but it is that of how a friend of mine--an admirable man--made a lot of money and gained one of the prettiest wives in the world. I think we might call it

LOVE AND A ZULU

In every drop of the blue blood of St. Louis there is a bubble of sporting blood. This is a love story of St. Louis, with filaments of fact entwining themselves with the lighter filaments of fancy. The St.

Louis lover--of course, there are exceptions--loves with his whole heart, and in his constant heart, with every pulsation, throbs the idea of chance. So, the great city on the banks of the Father of Waters is a city of honorable betting.

John Driscoll was in trouble. John Driscoll, aged twenty-seven, was a lone scion of one of the best families of St. Louis, a city where they have good families, certainly. Driscoll's trouble was of the sort which tries a man. He was desperately in love with a fair young woman, but consent to the marriage was absolutely refused by the young woman's father until Driscoll should be worth at least twenty thousand dollars; and a very obstinate old gentleman was Mr. Cameron, who owned much real estate and was looked upon as one of the solid men of a solid city. It was not altogether a harsh impulse which had brought this decree from him. He wanted Driscoll to show that he had business ability, for Driscoll had been something of a figure socially and not much of a figure otherwise. Mr. Cameron was very fond of his daughter Jessie. John Driscoll had been left, on the death of his mother, with a fortune of only eighteen thousand dollars; two thousand dollars were already gone and he had earned nothing. In order, therefore, to meet the requirement of his prospective father-in-law, he must, somehow, make four thousand dollars. It may be said to his credit that he lacked neither earnestness nor courage. He devoted himself at once to a vigorous endeavor to gain the required sum. He worked with feverish earnestness. He became solicitor for an insurance company, and, with his wide acquaintance, made a moderate success of the business from the beginning. It was hard to endure--for love is impatient--but the man did not flinch. At the end of a year he had a little over eighteen thousand dollars in bank and admirable prospects. But, as above wisely remarked, love is exceedingly impatient. He was offered a chance in a speculation which promised to gain for him two thousand dollars at once, and yielded to the temptation--though persuaded against it by the girl he loved and who loved him. Instead of gaining two thousand dollars, he lost two thousand, and was back at the sixteen thousand dollar notch again. A year had been wasted.

At the northeast corner of Elm Street and Broadway is a famous place--half restaurant, half summer garden--where theatre parties go, and where the gilded youth of the city eat, drink and are merry.

Nonsensical propositions arise among these young gentlemen with money and, in many instances, with brains as well. One evening at one of the tables there arose a discussion over the old problem of whether or not the ordinary man could eat thirty quail in thirty days. The discussion became warm. "It is absurd," said a young man named Graham--"the whole idea of it. Why, after a hard day's shooting in Texas, I once ate six quail at a single meal. That means that even a man of my size can eat thirty quail in five days, doesn't it?"

"Well, it may or may not," was the response of a youth named Malvern, one of the group; "but eating six quail in one day, or thirty quail in six days, is not the matter under discussion. One of the most exquisite forms of torture known to the Chinese, is to bind a prisoner so that he cannot move his head, and then, from a reservoir above, allow drop after drop of water to fall upon his head. At first it is nothing, but, finally, there comes an uncomfortable sensation, then pain, and, in the end, an exquisite agony. The victim dies or goes insane. A barrel of water poured upon him at once would not have affected him at all. So it is with eating thirty quail in thirty days. It is the monotony for all those days--the thing that cannot be avoided--that tells."

"Bah!" said Graham. "I don't take your view of the case. I've the courage of my convictions, and I'll bet you five hundred dollars that I will eat thirty quail in thirty days, breakfasting here at nine o'clock each morning and eating my quail then."

"Done!" was the prompt reply. "You're not the only fellow who has the courage of his convictions. We'll appoint a committee of observation, and breakfast here together regularly. There'll be fun in the thing, whatever the outcome."