Algernon Blackwood

THE CAMP OF THE DOG

Algernon Blackwood

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I

Islands of all shapes and sizes troop northward from

Stockholm by the hundred, and the little steamer that threads their

intricate mazes in summer leaves the traveller in a somewhat bewildered

state as regards the points of the compass when it reaches the end of

its journey at Waxholm. But it is only after Waxholm that the true

islands begin, so to speak, to run wild, and start up the coast on

their tangled course of a hundred miles of deserted loveliness, and it

was in the very heart of this delightful confusion that we pitched our

tents for a summer holiday. A veritable wilderness of islands lay about

us: from the mere round button of a rock that bore a single fir, to the

mountainous stretch of a square mile, densely wooded, and bounded by

precipitous cliffs; so close together often that a strip of water ran

between no wider than a country lane, or, again, so far that an expanse

stretched like the open sea for miles.

Although the larger islands boasted farms and

fishing stations, the majority were uninhabited. Carpeted with moss and

heather, their coast-lines showed a series of ravines and clefts and

little sandy bays, with a growth of splendid pinewoods that came down

to the water’s edge and led the eye through unknown depths of shadow

and mystery into the very heart of primitive forest.

The particular islands to which we had camping

rights by virtue of paying a nominal sum to a Stockholm merchant lay

together in a picturesque group far beyond the reach of the steamer,

one being a mere reef with a fringe of fairy-like birches, and two

others, cliff-bound monsters rising with wooded heads out of the sea.

The fourth, which we selected because it enclosed a little lagoon

suitable for anchorage, bathing, night-lines, and what-not, shall have

what description is necessary as the story proceeds; but, so far as

paying rent was concerned, we might equally well have pitched our tents

on any one of a hundred others that clustered about us as thickly as a

swarm of bees.

It was in the blaze of an evening in July, the air

clear as crystal, the sea a cobalt blue, when we left the steamer on

the borders of civilisation and sailed away with maps, compasses, and

provisions for the little group of dots in the Skagird that were to be

our home for the next two months. The dinghy and my Canadian canoe

trailed behind us, with tents and dunnage carefully piled aboard, and

when the point of cliff intervened to hide the steamer and the Waxholm

hotel we realised for the first time that the horror of trains and

houses was far behind us, the fever of men and cities, the weariness of

streets and confined spaces. The wilderness opened up on all sides into

endless blue reaches, and the map and compasses were so frequently

called into requisition that we went astray more often than not and

progress was enchantingly slow. It took us, for instance, two whole

days to find our crescent-shaped home, and the camps we made on the way

were so fascinating that we left them with difficulty and regret, for

each island seemed more desirable than the one before it, and over all

lay the spell of haunting peace, remoteness from the turmoil of the

world, and the freedom of open and desolate spaces.

And so many of these spots of world-beauty have I

sought out and dwelt in, that in my mind remains only a composite

memory of their faces, a true map of heaven, as it were, from which

this particular one stands forth with unusual sharpness because of the

strange things that happened there, and also, I think, because anything

in which John Silence played a part has a habit of fixing itself in the

mind with a living and lasting quality of vividness.

For the moment, however, Dr. Silence was not of the

party. Some private case in the interior of Hungary claimed his

attention, and it was not till later—the 15th of August, to be

exact—that I had arranged to meet him in Berlin and then return to

London together for our harvest of winter work. All the members of our

party, however, were known to him more or less well, and on this third

day as we sailed through the narrow opening into the lagoon and saw the

circular ridge of trees in a gold and crimson sunset before us, his

last words to me when we parted in London for some unaccountable reason

came back very sharply to my memory, and recalled the curious

impression of prophecy with which I had first heard them:

“Enjoy your holiday and store up all the force you

can,” he had said as the train slipped out of Victoria; “and we will

meet in Berlin on the 15th—unless you should send for me sooner.”

And now suddenly the words returned to me so clearly

that it seemed I almost heard his voice in my ear: “Unless you should

send for me sooner”; and returned, moreover, with a significance I was

wholly at a loss to understand that touched somewhere in the depths of

my mind a vague sense of apprehension that they had all along been

intended in the nature of a prophecy.

In the lagoon, then, the wind failed us this July

evening, as was only natural behind the shelter of the belt of woods,

and we took to the oars, all breathless with the beauty of this first

sight of our island home, yet all talking in somewhat hushed voices of

the best place to land, the depth of water, the safest place to anchor,

to put up the tents in, the most sheltered spot for the camp-fires, and

a dozen things of importance that crop up when a home in the wilderness

has actually to be made.

And during this busy sunset hour of unloading before

the dark, the souls of my companions adopted the trick of presenting

themselves very vividly anew before my mind, and introducing themselves

afresh.

In reality, I suppose, our party was in no sense

singular. In the conventional life at home they certainly seemed

ordinary enough, but suddenly, as we passed through these gates of the

wilderness, I saw them more sharply than before, with characters

stripped of the atmosphere of men and cities. A complete change of

setting often furnishes a startlingly new view of people hitherto held

for well-known; they present another facet of their personalities. I

seemed to see my own party almost as new people—people I had not known

properly hitherto, people who would drop all disguises and henceforth

reveal themselves as they really were. And each one seemed to say: “Now

you will see me as I am. You will see me here in this primitive life of

the wilderness without clothes. All my masks and veils I have left

behind in the abodes of men. So, look out for surprises!”

The Reverend Timothy Maloney helped me to put up the

tents, long practice making the process easy, and while he drove in

pegs and tightened ropes, his coat off, his flannel collar flying open

without a tie, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was

cut out for the life of a pioneer rather than the church. He was fifty

years of age, muscular, blue-eyed and hearty, and he took his share of

the work, and more, without shirking. The way he handled the axe in

cutting down saplings for the tent-poles was a delight to see, and his

eye in judging the level was unfailing.

Bullied as a young man into a lucrative family

living, he had in turn bullied his mind into some semblance of orthodox

beliefs, doing the honours of the little country church with an energy

that made one think of a coal-heaver tending china; and it was only in

the past few years that he had resigned the living and taken instead to

cramming young men for their examinations. This suited him better. It

enabled him, too, to indulge his passion for spells of “wild life,” and

to spend the summer months of most years under canvas in one part of

the world or another where he could take his young men with him and

combine “reading” with open air.

His wife usually accompanied him, and there was no

doubt she enjoyed the trips, for she possessed, though in less degree,

the same joy of the wilderness that was his own distinguishing

characteristic. The only difference was that while he regarded it as

the real life, she regarded it as an interlude. While he camped out

with his heart and mind, she played at camping out with her clothes and

body. None the less, she made a splendid companion, and to watch her

busy cooking dinner over the fire we had built among the stones was to

understand that her heart was in the business for the moment and that

she was happy even with the detail.

Mrs. Maloney at home, knitting in the sun and

believing that the world was made in six days, was one woman; but Mrs.

Maloney, standing with bare arms over the smoke of a wood fire under

the pine trees, was another; and Peter Sangree, the Canadian pupil,

with his pale skin, and his loose, though not ungainly figure, stood

beside her in very unfavourable contrast as he scraped potatoes and

sliced bacon with slender white fingers that seemed better suited to

hold a pen than a knife. She ordered him about like a slave, and he

obeyed, too, with willing pleasure, for in spite of his general

appearance of debility he was as happy to be in camp as any of them.

But more than any other member of the party, Joan

Maloney, the daughter, was the one who seemed a natural and genuine

part of the landscape, who belonged to it all just in the same way that

the trees and the moss and the grey rocks running out into the water

belonged to it. For she was obviously in her right and natural setting,

a creature of the wilds, a gipsy in her own home.

To any one with a discerning eye this would have

been more or less apparent, but to me, who had known her during all the

twenty-two years of her life and was familiar with the ins and outs of

her primitive, utterly un-modern type, it was strikingly clear. To see

her there made it impossible to imagine her again in civilisation.