The thing in the woods
weed, here and there forming deep pools, outside the stress of the
current, where one might catch a glimpse of shadowy forms moving
through the gold-brown sun-shot water.
I made desultory casts, taking more interest in the morning and in my
surroundings than in the actual pursuit upon which I was engaged.
Out here under the trees, with the music of the stream in one's ear,
it was impossible to feel anything but sane and healthy.
The silence of these woods was intense. In pine woods there is
always some stir of movement, however faint, but these trees, giant
hickories and dense-foliaged oaks, grew so tall that sound seemed
lost amid their branches. One had the impression of miles of
far-reaching solitude. To break the spell I began to whistle as I
moved upstream, pausing now and then to try some likely pool, picking
my way over the big rocks that dotted the bed of the stream. The
creek was fairly deep in places; a child, losing its footing, could
be easily drowned in the strong current. It was an ideal stream for
sport, but either the fish were wary this morning or I was giving but
scant attention to my task, for by midday I had only one small
half-pounder and a missing hook to my score. Mrs. Searle's luncheon
packet bulged in my pocket, reminding me presently of hunger. I was
reeling in, preparatory to settling down by some comfortable
tree-trunk, when something rushed at me with a splash and a scurry.
I was standing at the moment on a rounded boulder near midstream, and
the impact threw me off my balance knee-deep into the water. I
turned to see the Lessings' orange setter.
"Oh, you _bad_ dog!" a voice exclaimed from the bushes.
"Whatever---- Oh, Doctor Haverill, I am so sorry!"
Mary Lessing stood on the bank, bareheaded, in a short golf-skirt and
uprolled sleeves. The dog bounded back to her, and she dealt him a
summary and ineffectual cuff on the ear.
"Don't do that!" I cried. "I was just thinking how cool it looked in
here, anyway!"
I waded to the shore and joined her. "I can't shake hands, because
I'm wet," I added. "How are you? I've been trying to fish, but the
trout here are entirely too sophisticated!"
"You've frightened them for good now!" she laughed. "What a shame!
Did you catch anything?"
"One wretched half-pounder. I put him back for luck."
"A poor luck!"
"I'm not so sure," I rejoined, smiling, and she stooped hastily down
to address the setter, who sat regarding us with lolling tongue.
"When are you going to learn manners, you wretched animal? You
haven't even the grace to apologize!"
The setter put up a muddied paw and scraped appealingly at her skirt.
"You deserve to go without biscuit for a month," she continued. "Go
away from me; don't shake yourself here!"
The command came too late, and we both dodged to avoid the jubilant
shower of water drops. Mary Lessing shook her skirt and sat down.
"Do you often explore up this way?" she asked.
"No. It's the first time. I've no idea now how far I've come."
"You're about ten minutes from the dam," she said. "Our cottage is
not very far off. I was just going back to lunch."
"And I was just going to have mine here." I clapped a sudden hand to
my pocket; the paper parcel was still luckily intact. "Suppose we
were to consider it a picnic? I don't know what Mrs. Searle has put
up for me, but I have a recollection that she baked apple-cake
yesterday. It's too entirely gorgeous a day to eat indoors."
"Oh, as for that----" she began.
"As for that, you must admit that lunch indoors doesn't tempt you in
the very least."
"It doesn't," she said. "I came out here this morning because----"
She stopped rather abruptly. I was looking about me for a likely
spot in the shade, and when I had found it, at the base of two
towering hickories, I pulled Mrs. Searle's parcel out from my pocket.
The setter watched my proceedings with a keen interest, intent on the
chance of the moment.
"I'm convinced," she objected, "that you ought to go home and change
your boots."
"It's impertinent," I reminded her, untying the pink grocery string
from the parcel, "to give medical advice to a doctor. Do you like
Uneeda biscuits? Because they seem to have occupied an important
place in my housekeeper's mind this morning."
We sat down on the moss beneath the hickories, and I divided the
single gigantic sandwich with my pocket-knife. Luckily Mrs. Searle
had over-estimated my hunger. We ate healthily, with open-air
appetites, and what was left over the setter finished at one watchful
snap.
"When does Doctor Lennox come home?" Mary asked presently.
"He's due in another six weeks, unless he finds Europe too
fascinating. Then I shall have to go back and grind, I suppose. It
won't be an attractive prospect, after this holiday."
"You have a practice in New York?"
"Not yet. I've been _interne_ up to now. I expect it'll end in the
East Side. A friend of mine has a settlement there, and I'd like to
join him if I can. There's always plenty to do."
"I know," she nodded. "I've seen something of it. Do you know a man
named Herrick, there?"
"Herrick!" I sat upright. "If you mean Jack Herrick, that's the
friend I was speaking of. Then you----"
"Then _you_," she corrected, "are the college chum he was always
talking about. Why, I've known Jack Herrick ever since I used to
play dolls!"
"Three and a half years..." I said pensively. "The world's a small
place."
"You are rude, Doctor Haverill. It's a long enough time, anyway."
She was looking at the branches overhead, and in her upturned face I
caught fleetingly a likeness that had puzzled me more than once
before. I knew now. On Herrick's mantelshelf, in his shabby
comfortable room at the settlement, there had stood always a
photograph in a silver frame. It was the portrait of a child of
perhaps thirteen, in a gingham overall, and with her hair braided in
two short tails down her back. Herrick had said once: "That's an old
sweetheart of mine."
Singularly enough, the recollection did not at this moment greatly
please me. But I merely said:
"You wore your hair in two pig-tails."
She brought her eyes to earth swiftly. "Who told you?"
"All proper little girls do at that age," I reminded her shamelessly.
"I see. But we were talking of John Herrick."
"Go on."
"Don't you think he's splendid?" she continued, turning to me. "He's
done no end of good. And he works ... I don't believe he ever takes
a real holiday. Doctor Haverill, you ought to get him----"
"To come down here for a while? I will--if it would please you."
She looked at me so frankly that I was at once ashamed.
"Why, of course it would! But I don't know why I said that. I don't
suppose he'd take the time."
I watched a dragon-fly that was wheeling over the stream.. She sat
near me, her hands locked about her knees.
"My brother was at your house last night," she said after a moment.
"Yes."
I could feel her eyes fixed on me, and I knew what was in her mind.
"He told you something?"
"We were talking about chemistry," I said. "It's a subject your
brother is very interested in."
"Chemistry!" She put out her hand with a little gesture. "Doctor
Haverill, do you take me for a child? What is the matter? You can
tell me; he has spoken to you. I want to know."
"What do you want to know?" I said, lamely enough.
"The whole thing--what is happening here. I know something threatens
him, that he is in danger, and neither he nor you will tell me what
it is."
"How can I tell you," I fenced, "what I don't even know myself?"
She was quick. "Then there is something?"
I ignored the unfinished sentence.
"Miss Lessing, why can't you get your brother to go away from here,
for a time?"
"I can't. I've tried. He wouldn't leave, now. You don't know him.
He's the last person in the world to give a thing up until he's
proved it down to the ground, one way or another. Whatever's at the
bottom of this, he won't rest till he's found it out. It's just a
scientific problem to him, and nothing else."
"And you?" I said.
"I?" She moved her shoulders. "What can I think? I had hoped just
now--But I only know what he has told me, what I have seen. If one
began to think----"
"Listen to me," I said. "You must not think! You and I are two sane
people. Look at these wood around! I ask you, is it possible to
feel anything but sane and incredulous in a place like this? I want
you to get into your head, right now, that there is nothing--nothing
at all in this world--that a man has any reason to be afraid of. And
there are very few things in the world, to my belief, that cannot be
explained. Has it ever occurred to you that this whole conviction of
your brother's may be nothing more than hallucination?"
"But the injuries----"
"I have known hysteric patients, before now, inflict as severe
injuries upon themselves without consciousness or recollection. I
don't say it is your brother's case; I'm only trying to form a
possible rational explanation such as any doctor would put forward.
I have had one or two such cases within my own experience. What I
propose to do is this, but I shall do it only with your consent. I
will write to Herrick and ask him down here for a fortnight. It will
be a new brain to bear on the problem, and I shall ask your brother
to let us join these investigations with him."
"You'll do that." She put out her hand to me impulsively.
"I'll do it to-night. Only ... I shall have to give Herrick a
detailed account of everything that has happened, so far as we know
it, and I can't do that without your brother's approval."
"Yes ... I see."
"You will excuse one question. Are they on good terms?"
It struck me that I had never heard Lessing mention his name.
"Yes." She paused doubtfully. "It's funny you should ask that.
They had a disagreement, about two years ago. It was when my brother
first took up this ... this kind of study. Having séances and that.
Doctor Herrick wanted him to give it up."
I moved involuntarily. Here was a new light on Lessing's attitude of
mind, which he himself had been at pains, it seemed to me, to touch
on very lightly. I remembered stray references of his, the signed
article I had noticed on my first evening at the house.
"Your brother used to attend séances often?"
"Didn't he tell you? I don't know that I would have mentioned it,
but I don't see that it matters. It was before I came to live with
them. He and some friends of his were very interested, and Doctor
Herrick used to join them too sometimes. They met at a friend's
studio. Doctor Herrick was rather against it from the first, but I
know he used to be there. Of course I understand very little about
it, but ... things did happen. I don't mean that they banged on
tambourines or rapped out the alphabet or anything like that. It
wasn't spiritualism. And then Doctor Herrick stopped. I think he
knew more than any of them, but he said it was dangerous and it
didn't lead to anything, and he wanted my brother to give it up
altogether. Kate--that's my sister-in-law, you know--was their
medium, and I think it was on her account. Doctor Herrick thought it
was bad for her. And then one night something happened, I don't know
just what, but Kate got some sort of a shock. She's very highly
strung at any time, and I always supposed something frightened her,
but anyway she was quite ill for a long time after that. She used to
get queer sort of nervous spells, and she couldn't be left alone, and
that was why I first came to live with them, on her account. Of
course my brother gave the whole business up then. The physician who
attended her said simply that she was in poor health, and had had a