Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 6 (1927-12).djvu/47

 be. Pardon me for speaking without introducing myself, sir. I am William Estrich—Dr. William Estrich. Yes, I know you know me now. And you are?"

"Charles Fritwell," I supplied.

"I am certainly pleased to know you, sir," he assured me, and I knew he spoke the truth. "It is a pleasure to meet someone with whom I can talk as to an equal. These people around here," with a shrug, "oh, they mean all right, but one really can't talk to them. I have to do all my thinking myself, and I really miss the exchange of ideas which I should have. Tomorrow I start on my greatest work—but there, I mustn't bore you with that," he finished deprecatingly.

I hastened to assure him that I should be most happy to hear him tell of his work, but for the time he had switched off. Then as suddenly he began on another tack.

"Do you know sir, there is something that I must tell you. I have never told anyone before, for—well, they always laugh at me. I know that if another told me I should laugh at him. But I know that you will not laugh. So I will tell you."

"It is surprizing how little the run of people can understand when it is outside of the little whirl of their search for the pleasure of the moment," I said. "I shall be very interested in listening to you."

"I knew you would." He was quiet a minute—several minutes. I had begun to think he had turned off on still another tangent when suddenly his whole manner changed and he turned toward me almost fiercely.

"You know me! You know me!" he repeated huskily. I nodded, for since he had introduced himself I knew him, if not before.

"Yes. You know me. Every educated person does. I am Dr. William Estrich. It is through my studies that we are able to predict the movement of storms. You were prescient, sir, in grasping as you did without my speaking of it, that I am acquainted with the weather. I should be. For I was born, put into this world, for a purpose, although I was a stupidly long time in learning that fact. And that is what I must tell you.

"I was just a child when it happened the first time. Too young to be expected to realize its meaning; for that matter who would have read the meaning in a single happening?

"I shall never forget that day; never! We lived in the country, and several of us were on our way home after school, across the fields. Crossing the fields was forbidden to me, for a bull of uncertain—perhaps I should say of certain—reputation made that field his stamping ground. But we were going along, singing or talking or playing in the way of children, and altogether forgetful of danger. I think it was I who saw it first, and it was not fifty yards away, displaying all the symptoms of anger. Suddenly terrified, I screamed and began to run, and the others likewise.

"I think I forgot to say I was the smallest of all, and I was soon out-distanced. The fence was still far ahead, and I lost still more ground by looking over my shoulder continually. It was that which almost was my undoing, for while my gaze was behind me I stepped into a gopher-hole and went down with a turned ankle.

"Providence had been with me up till then, as the bull for some reason, although obviously angry and pursuing us, was not doing so with a great deal of speed. But there I lay, unable to do anything but crawl along, screaming, and the sight seemed to stir the animal into swifter motion.

"Then the thing happened. Until that time there had not been a cloud in the sky, not a breath of air that I can recall. But at the instant that