Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/108

IN PURSUIT OF A PARSON.

113 beyond all praise; and it somewhat astonished me in Damon, fur he was about as uncertain and gusty a young gentleman as you could meet in a day’s march, and not at all inclined to sub- mit unmurmuringly to anything that bored him, or interfered with his own pleasure.

We met a party of Boston men, acquaintances of Alf, and we united forces. I said nothing, being a quiet man, but I was perfectly convinced that ill-luck of sotae sort would speedily over- take us. Mother Cary’s chickens are not more certain forerunners of evil to sailors than.my prophetic soul felt that those modern Athenians would be to us.

Of course, the few words of expostulation that I attempted made Alf and Damon more deter- mined to have them. You know enough of human nature not to be surprised at that; so I smoked my pipe, and took refuge in silence, for fear Damon should go off into one of his “moods,” which would be rather more unen- durable than Alf’s love-sickness.

And the catastrophe came. Alf and one of the Boston men were in a boat together, and Boston would carry his gun cocked, like a fool, though I shouted to him a dozen times from my boat that he would meet with an accident, for he kept shifting the gun about, and making feints of firing at ducks, but was never ready.

“Let him alone,” said Damon, who happened, at the moment, to be savage about something; “he'll only kill himself, and that will be a blessing!”

“But he may shoot Alf,” I ventured to say.

“I hope to the Lord he will,” growled Damon; “I’m disgusted with everything and everybody! Nothing goes right; we ought to have met them before this.”

“Met whom?”

“Oh! mind your business!” quoth Damon, and I did, and was silent. Then he was vexed at that, and muttered that if he was me he wouldn’t make a dumb beast of himself, and I thought I wouldn’t; so I hazarded a remark about Ruskin and the clouds, and Damon said irreverently.

“The deuce take Ruskin! I don’t want any of his stilled trash at second-hand.”

Altogether, the morning was an uncomfort- able one; and just as we reached the piace where the guides, who bad gone on in advance, had arranged we should stop for dinner, that Boston man got into a new frenzy about some ducks. He stumbled over an oar; bang went the gun, and down went Alf like a hit pigeon.

There was dreadful confusion, of course. We  got ashore and ran—the guides ran; the Boston man, having done all the mischief he could, stood howling like a bull of Bashan, declaring that he had murdered his friend, and begging somebody to put an end to him, which 1 would have dont with the greatest pleasure in life, if I had had leisure to spare from Alf to attend to the blundering, ill-regulated animal.

We thought at first the poor boy was dead, but he opened his eyes after a little, and we got his coat off, and discovered that he was wounded in the arm, but badly; and what with its being about an artery, and our not knowing how to manage the confounded thing, he nearly bled to death before we could row him out to the hotel near the lower Saranac Lake.

The Boston man kept on making a whole menagerie of himself till Damon lost patience; and what between anxiety for Alf, and rage at the man, I never heard any poor fellow take ten minutes of such abuse as that child of the Hub from my excitable friend.

“Talk about Cain,” howled Damon, when he got fairly under way, “why Cain was a gentle- man and a Christian compared to you! I swear by all that’s good, I'll have you- lynched the moment we reach Baker’s! I wonder we don’t drown you now! Shut up, you scarecrow! Can't you evén let the poor fellow you’ve murdered die in peace, you concentration of a whole troop of ravens, you?”

The best of it was, he was so mad he had no idea how funny it sounded. I laughed, so did the guides, and poor Alf, too, until he started the bleeding worse than ever, and by the time we landed him at the hotel he was a very bad case, indeed.

Luckily there was a young surgeon there with a party, and he found what I suppose he would not if he had staid at home, an opportunity to exercise his skill; and after the wound was dressed, he assured us there was no danger if fever could be kept down.

Then, while Damon and I were alone in the parlor discussing the matter, the door opened, and we became a scene in a theatre at once, for who should rush in but pretty Marian Lacy, calling out,

“Is he dead? Is he dead?”

I was so overwhelmed with astonishment tat I did the attitudinizing; but Damon, who could have talked if he had been dead a week, soothed her, and performed hero’s friend for her benefit in fine style. I can’t make a pretty story outs of it to please you; but the plain facts were that Marian had come up to the Woods with some friends, and Damon knew it, and that was why he whewed us off there, meaning to