Before the Storm
THE L EGEND OF P ETER R UGG
I
Over the hill snakes the dusty road, creeping up, and up, in a smother of sandy gravel, heaving the load of itself up against the horizon; a couple of yards of level, then a leap down between powdered barberry bushes; a narrow white line shot like a bolt between bushes and stone walls. It is appallingly still. Not a rustle of the white barberry-leaves, not a single moving stalk of Queen Anne's lace in the field over the wall. The sunshine lies like a flat, hot weight on the hill, a moment ago there were locusts grating in the branches, but not now. The ground is still, and hot to touch; the trees are still, with a hushing of innumerable leaves; the sky is still; but in the South-west, great thunder-heads push up behind the mountain. A hushing of leaves, and a pushing of big, white clouds, up — up — puffing into wide silver balloons, gathering back into pigeon-grey pleats, up — up — into the hot yellow sky.
There is a shade over the sun, it is fading from yellow to white, from white to grey. Away down the hill is a tight, narrow wedge of wind, it cuts sharply over a field of barley; it is edged, and hard, and single. Another wind-wedge, with looser, vaguer edges. A mist swirls over the shoulder of Black Top, thickens, clouds the mountain.
A barberry-leaf jerks, and settles; two barberry-leaves quirk themselves upright, and fall back; from over the hill there is a quick skirling of crisp leaves — nearer. The trees begin to whisper, and the snaky road hurls its dust into the air and plunges down the hill into the blue-black wind. All the leaves are blowing now, shivering, pulling, throwing themselves frantically hither and thither; they are not green any more, but blue and purple, and they play over the rolling thunder like flutes and mandolins over double basses.
Something races along the road. Sharp whip-cracks staccato upon the double basses and flutes. Who lashes a poor brute up a hill like that? On the two-yard level, something passes in a smear of yellow wheels and bright steel shoes. Who goes there? " Boston! Boston! . . . " But the stones of the down grade are already clattering and rolling as the horse goes over them. A spatter of rain slaps the barberry-leaves; patter — patter — rain, and a grieving, tearing wind. A flare of lightning! There is no one on the road. A long peal of thunder, and then beating rain.
II
" Lucindy-Ann, you run upstairs this minit and shut them guest-room winders, ther's a awful storm a-comin'. "
Lucindy-Ann tears up the narrow stair, but pauses at the guest-room window to see the black water of the bay wrinkle and flow, and all the fishing-boats scud to their moorings. A flicker of lightning quicksilvers the window-panes. A crash of thunder sets them clapping in their frames.
" Somebody's caught, " giggles Lucindy-Ann. " Well, ef that ain't a queer team! "
Along the shore road comes a high carriage with yellow wheels. It comes so fast it reels from side to side, swaying in a dreadful way. Standing up in it, lashing the white horse, is a man, in a long laced coat and cocked hat. " Did you ever see a figure of fun to beat that? " Lucindy-Ann leans from the window, and the lightning spots her out against the black room behind like a painted saint on a dark altar. Lucindy-Ann does not falter. There is a child beside the man, clinging and shaking. The horse is making for the house.
" You come right in, " shouts Lucindy-Ann. " Drive around to the kitchen door, " but before she can say more, the man has pulled his sweating horse up under the window.
" Which is the way to Boston? " he calls. And his voice quavers, and quivers, and falls. A clap of thunder, the child shrieks, the old apple-tree by the window creaks. The man looks up, and his clothes are torn — worn, draggled, caked with mud. His face is white, and his eyes a-stare, the lightning strikes him out to a glare: he, and the child, and the yellow-wheeled chaise, against a background of blue-black haze. The waves slap on the sandy shore, the apple-tree taps on the entry door. " Which way to Boston? " the cracked voice wails. " Boston — Boston . . . " the echo trails away through tossing trees. In the bay, the fishing-boats heel to the breeze.
A roll of thunder jags and cracks over the house roof. Rain-drops — clashing on a row of milk-pans set out to air.
" Boston, Sir, why you must be mad, you're twelve miles from Providence, and headed fair that way. " A sharp whip cut, a snorting horse, a scrape and whir of the yellow wheels, round spins the chaise, and dashes for the gate.
" An' ef he ain't took the wrong turn agin! " gasps Lucindy-Ann, as she draws her head in. The milk-cans rattle, as the thunder bursts and tears out of the sky. Away down the road comes the clicking clatter of fast wheels, lessening the distance to Providence.
" I don't s'pose it matters, " says Lucindy-Ann, but she scuttles down the stairway as fast as she can.
III
The sky is lowering and black, a strange blue-blackness, which makes red houses pink, and green leaves purple. Over the blowing purple trees, the sky is an iron-blue, split with forks of straw-yellow. The thunder breaks out of the sky with a crash, and rumbles away in a long, hoarse drag of sound. The river is the blue of Concord grapes, with steel points and oblongs, down the bridge; up stream, it is pale and even, a solid line of unpolished zinc.
Tlop — Tlop — Tlop — Tlop! Beyond the willows, the road bends; someone is coming down it at a tremendous speed. Indeed he is in a hurry, this someone. You can hear him lashing his horse. A flashing up of willows and road on a lightning jab. A high yellow-wheeled gig, or chair, fashion of a century ago. A man in a cocked hat, a child in a snood! What the devil gets into the blood when thunder is rumbling? Have a care, man, that horse is stumbling. Down on his knees, by Gravy! No, up again. Bear him on the rein. Hi! Do you hear? A queer swirling and sighing in the air. The crying of a desolate child. A quivering flare of lightning sparkling in the whirling spokes of turning wheels. Tlop! Tlop! on the wooden planks of the bridge. No thanks to you you're not over the edge. Lord, what a curve! He went round on one wheel. Do you hear anything? No, feel rather. Drifting over the grape-blue river, seeping through the willow-trees' quiver, is a faint, hoarse calling of " Boston — Boston — Will no one show me the way to Boston? " Poor Devil, he can't have left it above an hour. Listen to the bridge drumming to the shower. And the water all peppered with little white rounds, it's funny how a storm plays the mischief with sounds. Sights, too, sometimes. Cocked hat, indeed! I must have been dreaming.
IV
Guinea-gold, the State House dome, standing out against a wall of indigo cloud. Boldly thrust out in high relief, with its white façade, and its wide, terraced esplanade. It spurns the Common at its feet, treading on it as on a mat, cooling itself with the air from its fanning trees. Guinea-gold lightning glitters through the indigo-blue cloud, a loud muffled booming of thunder, then the rain, pin-pointing down on the stretched silk of umbrellas, clipping like hard white beans on glass awnings, double-streaming over the two edges of sidewalk clocks. Electric car gongs knock sharp warnings into the slipping crowd. A policeman humps himself into his rubber coat and springs to catch the head of a careering horse.
" Stop beatin' him, ye Fool. Didn't ye see me raised hand? Whoa! Stand still, ye beast. You advertisin' fellers think the least ye do is to own the city. I've a mind to run ye in. Fool-bumpin' along like that. What you pushin' anyway, breakfast food or automobiles? He was a clever guy rigged ye out, but I guess ye're about due for a new set of glad rags, judgin' by them ye got on. Here, Kiddie, don't cry, ye'll soon be home now, snug and dry. Listen to that thunder. Some storm! No wonder ye're scared; it's fierce. What's that? Mrs. Peter Rugg? Middle Street? See her, I ain't a direct'ry, ye'd better inquire at the post-office. Tell your breakfast food to put its name on ye next time. "
There is a hissing of sparks as the steel shoes strike the wet asphalt. A clattering of iron tires on the metal roadway, drowned by a thunder peal. Wires and wires of linked rain, hatching over the disappearing yellow wheels.
The policeman rubs a wet, red ear. " That's a queer thing, " he mutters, " very queer. I thought he asked me the way to Boston, just as he was drivin' off. "
V
The yellow-wheeled chaise with the cocked-hatted man takes all of New England into its span. Logging-men, drifting down the Kennebec on floating rafts, see a moving speck of sulphur dust along the bank, an old-fashioned gig, drawn by a lank white horse, driving furiously before the storm. A moment later, a thunderbolt gashes across the sky, they can feel the raft jolt. Then the river swirls into lumpy waves and the logging men jump to their poles and staves.
An automobile, struggling up Jacob's Ladder on the way to Lenox in the teeth of a thunder-shower, sees glowering ahead on the down stretch, a wretched one-horse rig, which, in the uncertain light, seems as big as a locomotive. The driver switches on his klaxon and takes the down slope. But he might be a loping broncho, for all the gain he makes on the one-horse team. His klaxon screeches and echoes among the hills. Is it a dream that over its din, a thin voice reaches his ear? " Boston — Boston . . . " he seems to hear. " I left Menotomy a long time ago. Oh, when shall I get to Boston! "
Gloucester fishermen, moored to a wharf, hear a wheezy, coughing voice calling, pleading, in the middle of the night. It is a crazy wight, in a two-wheeled buggy of a pattern long gone by, driving a great white horse with a savage eye. The horse stamps on the thin boards of the wharf and champs his bit. There's a slip of a girl, too, who does nothing but cry. Rigging slaps and spars creak, for a gale is rising and the stars are hidden. The fishermen hear again the wail, " Tell me how to get to Boston. " " Well, not that way, Idiot, you're going straight into the Atlantic Ocean. " There is a terrible commotion on the wharf, the horse almost beats it through with his hoofs. Then, in the white gleam of a lightning spear, the chaise is seen rocking, shaking, making for the road above and turning toward Ipswich.
Through narrow wood-tracks where hermit-thrushes pair, staggers the yellow one-horse chair, just ahead of a lightning flare. Along elm-shaded streets of little towns, the high wheels roll, and leaves blow down on the man's cocked hat and the little girl's snood, and a moment later comes a flood of bright, white rain, and thunder so loud it stops the blood.
From Kittery Point down to Cape Cod, trundle the high, turning wheels; they rattle at the Canadian line; they shine in the last saffron glitter of an extinguishing sun by the ferry over Lake Champlain; they are seen again as the moon dips into an inky cloud passing the Stadium in East Cambridge, the driver bowed over the dasher and plying his whip; they flash beside graveyards, and thunder lashes the graveyard trees. Always the chaise flees before the approaching storm. And always, down the breeze, blowing backwards through the bending trees, comes the despairing wail — " Boston! — For the love of God, put me on the road to Boston! " Then the gale grows louder, lightning spurts and dazzles, and steel-white rain falls heavily out of the sky. A great clap of thunder, and purple-black darkness blinding the earth.
I
Over the hill snakes the dusty road, creeping up, and up, in a smother of sandy gravel, heaving the load of itself up against the horizon; a couple of yards of level, then a leap down between powdered barberry bushes; a narrow white line shot like a bolt between bushes and stone walls. It is appallingly still. Not a rustle of the white barberry-leaves, not a single moving stalk of Queen Anne's lace in the field over the wall. The sunshine lies like a flat, hot weight on the hill, a moment ago there were locusts grating in the branches, but not now. The ground is still, and hot to touch; the trees are still, with a hushing of innumerable leaves; the sky is still; but in the South-west, great thunder-heads push up behind the mountain. A hushing of leaves, and a pushing of big, white clouds, up — up — puffing into wide silver balloons, gathering back into pigeon-grey pleats, up — up — into the hot yellow sky.
There is a shade over the sun, it is fading from yellow to white, from white to grey. Away down the hill is a tight, narrow wedge of wind, it cuts sharply over a field of barley; it is edged, and hard, and single. Another wind-wedge, with looser, vaguer edges. A mist swirls over the shoulder of Black Top, thickens, clouds the mountain.
A barberry-leaf jerks, and settles; two barberry-leaves quirk themselves upright, and fall back; from over the hill there is a quick skirling of crisp leaves — nearer. The trees begin to whisper, and the snaky road hurls its dust into the air and plunges down the hill into the blue-black wind. All the leaves are blowing now, shivering, pulling, throwing themselves frantically hither and thither; they are not green any more, but blue and purple, and they play over the rolling thunder like flutes and mandolins over double basses.
Something races along the road. Sharp whip-cracks staccato upon the double basses and flutes. Who lashes a poor brute up a hill like that? On the two-yard level, something passes in a smear of yellow wheels and bright steel shoes. Who goes there? " Boston! Boston! . . . " But the stones of the down grade are already clattering and rolling as the horse goes over them. A spatter of rain slaps the barberry-leaves; patter — patter — rain, and a grieving, tearing wind. A flare of lightning! There is no one on the road. A long peal of thunder, and then beating rain.
II
" Lucindy-Ann, you run upstairs this minit and shut them guest-room winders, ther's a awful storm a-comin'. "
Lucindy-Ann tears up the narrow stair, but pauses at the guest-room window to see the black water of the bay wrinkle and flow, and all the fishing-boats scud to their moorings. A flicker of lightning quicksilvers the window-panes. A crash of thunder sets them clapping in their frames.
" Somebody's caught, " giggles Lucindy-Ann. " Well, ef that ain't a queer team! "
Along the shore road comes a high carriage with yellow wheels. It comes so fast it reels from side to side, swaying in a dreadful way. Standing up in it, lashing the white horse, is a man, in a long laced coat and cocked hat. " Did you ever see a figure of fun to beat that? " Lucindy-Ann leans from the window, and the lightning spots her out against the black room behind like a painted saint on a dark altar. Lucindy-Ann does not falter. There is a child beside the man, clinging and shaking. The horse is making for the house.
" You come right in, " shouts Lucindy-Ann. " Drive around to the kitchen door, " but before she can say more, the man has pulled his sweating horse up under the window.
" Which is the way to Boston? " he calls. And his voice quavers, and quivers, and falls. A clap of thunder, the child shrieks, the old apple-tree by the window creaks. The man looks up, and his clothes are torn — worn, draggled, caked with mud. His face is white, and his eyes a-stare, the lightning strikes him out to a glare: he, and the child, and the yellow-wheeled chaise, against a background of blue-black haze. The waves slap on the sandy shore, the apple-tree taps on the entry door. " Which way to Boston? " the cracked voice wails. " Boston — Boston . . . " the echo trails away through tossing trees. In the bay, the fishing-boats heel to the breeze.
A roll of thunder jags and cracks over the house roof. Rain-drops — clashing on a row of milk-pans set out to air.
" Boston, Sir, why you must be mad, you're twelve miles from Providence, and headed fair that way. " A sharp whip cut, a snorting horse, a scrape and whir of the yellow wheels, round spins the chaise, and dashes for the gate.
" An' ef he ain't took the wrong turn agin! " gasps Lucindy-Ann, as she draws her head in. The milk-cans rattle, as the thunder bursts and tears out of the sky. Away down the road comes the clicking clatter of fast wheels, lessening the distance to Providence.
" I don't s'pose it matters, " says Lucindy-Ann, but she scuttles down the stairway as fast as she can.
III
The sky is lowering and black, a strange blue-blackness, which makes red houses pink, and green leaves purple. Over the blowing purple trees, the sky is an iron-blue, split with forks of straw-yellow. The thunder breaks out of the sky with a crash, and rumbles away in a long, hoarse drag of sound. The river is the blue of Concord grapes, with steel points and oblongs, down the bridge; up stream, it is pale and even, a solid line of unpolished zinc.
Tlop — Tlop — Tlop — Tlop! Beyond the willows, the road bends; someone is coming down it at a tremendous speed. Indeed he is in a hurry, this someone. You can hear him lashing his horse. A flashing up of willows and road on a lightning jab. A high yellow-wheeled gig, or chair, fashion of a century ago. A man in a cocked hat, a child in a snood! What the devil gets into the blood when thunder is rumbling? Have a care, man, that horse is stumbling. Down on his knees, by Gravy! No, up again. Bear him on the rein. Hi! Do you hear? A queer swirling and sighing in the air. The crying of a desolate child. A quivering flare of lightning sparkling in the whirling spokes of turning wheels. Tlop! Tlop! on the wooden planks of the bridge. No thanks to you you're not over the edge. Lord, what a curve! He went round on one wheel. Do you hear anything? No, feel rather. Drifting over the grape-blue river, seeping through the willow-trees' quiver, is a faint, hoarse calling of " Boston — Boston — Will no one show me the way to Boston? " Poor Devil, he can't have left it above an hour. Listen to the bridge drumming to the shower. And the water all peppered with little white rounds, it's funny how a storm plays the mischief with sounds. Sights, too, sometimes. Cocked hat, indeed! I must have been dreaming.
IV
Guinea-gold, the State House dome, standing out against a wall of indigo cloud. Boldly thrust out in high relief, with its white façade, and its wide, terraced esplanade. It spurns the Common at its feet, treading on it as on a mat, cooling itself with the air from its fanning trees. Guinea-gold lightning glitters through the indigo-blue cloud, a loud muffled booming of thunder, then the rain, pin-pointing down on the stretched silk of umbrellas, clipping like hard white beans on glass awnings, double-streaming over the two edges of sidewalk clocks. Electric car gongs knock sharp warnings into the slipping crowd. A policeman humps himself into his rubber coat and springs to catch the head of a careering horse.
" Stop beatin' him, ye Fool. Didn't ye see me raised hand? Whoa! Stand still, ye beast. You advertisin' fellers think the least ye do is to own the city. I've a mind to run ye in. Fool-bumpin' along like that. What you pushin' anyway, breakfast food or automobiles? He was a clever guy rigged ye out, but I guess ye're about due for a new set of glad rags, judgin' by them ye got on. Here, Kiddie, don't cry, ye'll soon be home now, snug and dry. Listen to that thunder. Some storm! No wonder ye're scared; it's fierce. What's that? Mrs. Peter Rugg? Middle Street? See her, I ain't a direct'ry, ye'd better inquire at the post-office. Tell your breakfast food to put its name on ye next time. "
There is a hissing of sparks as the steel shoes strike the wet asphalt. A clattering of iron tires on the metal roadway, drowned by a thunder peal. Wires and wires of linked rain, hatching over the disappearing yellow wheels.
The policeman rubs a wet, red ear. " That's a queer thing, " he mutters, " very queer. I thought he asked me the way to Boston, just as he was drivin' off. "
V
The yellow-wheeled chaise with the cocked-hatted man takes all of New England into its span. Logging-men, drifting down the Kennebec on floating rafts, see a moving speck of sulphur dust along the bank, an old-fashioned gig, drawn by a lank white horse, driving furiously before the storm. A moment later, a thunderbolt gashes across the sky, they can feel the raft jolt. Then the river swirls into lumpy waves and the logging men jump to their poles and staves.
An automobile, struggling up Jacob's Ladder on the way to Lenox in the teeth of a thunder-shower, sees glowering ahead on the down stretch, a wretched one-horse rig, which, in the uncertain light, seems as big as a locomotive. The driver switches on his klaxon and takes the down slope. But he might be a loping broncho, for all the gain he makes on the one-horse team. His klaxon screeches and echoes among the hills. Is it a dream that over its din, a thin voice reaches his ear? " Boston — Boston . . . " he seems to hear. " I left Menotomy a long time ago. Oh, when shall I get to Boston! "
Gloucester fishermen, moored to a wharf, hear a wheezy, coughing voice calling, pleading, in the middle of the night. It is a crazy wight, in a two-wheeled buggy of a pattern long gone by, driving a great white horse with a savage eye. The horse stamps on the thin boards of the wharf and champs his bit. There's a slip of a girl, too, who does nothing but cry. Rigging slaps and spars creak, for a gale is rising and the stars are hidden. The fishermen hear again the wail, " Tell me how to get to Boston. " " Well, not that way, Idiot, you're going straight into the Atlantic Ocean. " There is a terrible commotion on the wharf, the horse almost beats it through with his hoofs. Then, in the white gleam of a lightning spear, the chaise is seen rocking, shaking, making for the road above and turning toward Ipswich.
Through narrow wood-tracks where hermit-thrushes pair, staggers the yellow one-horse chair, just ahead of a lightning flare. Along elm-shaded streets of little towns, the high wheels roll, and leaves blow down on the man's cocked hat and the little girl's snood, and a moment later comes a flood of bright, white rain, and thunder so loud it stops the blood.
From Kittery Point down to Cape Cod, trundle the high, turning wheels; they rattle at the Canadian line; they shine in the last saffron glitter of an extinguishing sun by the ferry over Lake Champlain; they are seen again as the moon dips into an inky cloud passing the Stadium in East Cambridge, the driver bowed over the dasher and plying his whip; they flash beside graveyards, and thunder lashes the graveyard trees. Always the chaise flees before the approaching storm. And always, down the breeze, blowing backwards through the bending trees, comes the despairing wail — " Boston! — For the love of God, put me on the road to Boston! " Then the gale grows louder, lightning spurts and dazzles, and steel-white rain falls heavily out of the sky. A great clap of thunder, and purple-black darkness blinding the earth.
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