Many of the birds had left. Great numbers of crows appeared, but there were no robins, no thrushes and no nuthatches.
The magpie told of the long, long journeys of these birds. Her story sounded confused, for the magpie had never seen strange lands or seas. Perri and Porro listened without paying much attention.
In the midst of their whisking about, Perri was startled again. There was that short, deep groaning.
She looked at Porro. Like her, he was leaning against the trunk, surprised and scared. Both had raised their tails in a high arch behind them. They pressed their forepaws to their breasts as if to quiet their pounding hearts.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Perri.
“What was it?” asked Porro helplessly.
They listened; all was still.
After a while Perri whispered, “It woke me up last night.”
The two had never been still so long. Porro could not stand it; he had to move. “Come on,” he urged Perri. “It was somewhere below.”
Perri hesitated, although she did not like sitting still either. “Do you think it might be able to get up here?”
“No!” Porro had already started to run and jump. “No! It can’t get at us.” He charged in the direction from which the sound had come.
“But supposing—” said Perri, hurtling after him.
“We’ll take good care to be out of the way in time,” Porro replied. “There aren’t many as quick as we.”
They raced and scrambled. “I’ve got to know what it is,” cried Porro.
“So have I!” replied Perri. “After all, you have to find out—”
Just then the groaning suddenly broke out again. But it came from another direction. It was far away, but even so its power was unmistakable. The squirrels had never heard such a noise.
They jumped, but did not stop. When silence fell, they began to dance, to play, and to forget.
The magpie joined them, chattered emptily, and then flew away; as usual Perri and Porro were too restless for her.
Perri looked after her as she fluttered away. “We should have asked her.”
“Oh, what for?” said Porro; he whizzed up the oak to its very crown. Now that everything was quiet, he was no longer interested in the noise.
Everything was quiet for a few days more. The groaning was heard only occasionally, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in broad daylight. Now it sounded like a sigh, now petulant; sometimes longing, sometimes impatient.
Perri and Porro slept so soundly that they heard nothing. They got used to the puzzle quickly, and did not bother much about its solution. They accepted it like many other occurrences.
It was almost dawn one morning when a wild yell shook the air. Perri jumped in horror. She sat up in her narrow nest to listen. It was still perfectly dark.
But the yell burst forth again. It began with the familiar groan, once or twice repeated; then it broke out with the force of thunder, deep-toned, the primitive cry of some troubled giant.
Perri did not understand it, but she felt the imperious, irresistible, menacing quality of this rumbling. Her chest tightened like a vise; she was stunned.
From far away came another cry, and still further away a third.
Perri determined not to leave her nest until broad daylight. She dozed for a long time halfway between fear and sleep; she kept her eyes closed because she was tired and afraid.
There were short pauses, and then the roar would begin again. All the other early morning voices were frightened away. Only the woodpecker drummed in the trees; but he did not laugh as usual. A magpie began to gossip, but stopped suddenly, alarmed at her own boldness. The jay rasped once, not so loud and impudently as usual.
“Come on out, Perri!” Porro was clinging to the bark in front of the nest. He was in good spirits. “Come on out! Don’t be afraid! Nothing like this was ever seen before!”
Perri slipped out at once.
“You don’t need to hide,” Porro greeted her reassuringly. “The kings aren’t dangerous. Not to us, anyway.”
“The kings?” asked Perri, cheering up.
“Yes, the kings,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them. They’re rebellious; they’re wild. You ought to see them!”
“I’m frightfully hungry,” confessed Perri.
“All right, let’s eat first,” said Porro. “That’s certainly important.”
Perri fell hastily upon the acorns and beechnuts. Porro nibbled too.
All the time the roaring went on; as it came near it grew so violent that Perri dropped an acorn.
There was a crackling and rustling in the brush, and the stamp of heavy feet. A soft knock on the tree made a clear ringing sound.
Porro leaned over, and whispered, “There—there he comes.”
Through the dogwoods came a red deer, a stag. His wide, spreading antlers bumped the trees. Perri was speechless with awe. Porro whispered to her, “One of the kings—a great king.”
The stag approached slowly. He was trembling and solemn; it was hard to say whether he was pushed on by annoyance, anger or plain determination. Perri and Porro could see only the tremendous passion which drove him forward, all the stronger to them because they did not understand the causes of this fever.
The stag came out into plain sight. His massive body was all strength. He stretched his thickly matted neck, and his antlers lay heavily on his back as he raised his head to give his resonant cry.
His voice was so tremendous that Perri almost tumbled from the tree. It began with a groan, turned to a roar, and trailed off in a sigh full of pain.
The stag went on, step by step. He walked as though chained, as though choked by an inward tumult. He seemed to be seeking some release when he let out his voice.
The two squirrels followed. They could not leave him; they listened with rising awe.
Three or four females and a young one were standing about in the woods; soon two more females joined them. They all listened admiringly to their lord and master.
The stag began to round them up. He was for order and obedience. He was severe, tolerating no opposition, no scattered standing about, and no teasing. Things were in earnest now.
Porro could not fix his attention long; he lost patience. His envy stirred a little; he was rather humbled by the sight of such grandeur; most of all he wanted to play and look for food. “Come on,” he urged, “we’ve seen enough!”
Perri hated to leave. She enjoyed whizzing through the treetops, but she did not intend to leave the proud king too far behind.
She went in a circle around the spot occupied by the royal company. She could catch a glimpse every now and then, and the echoing voice kept her pleasantly upset, half in alarm, half in delight.
She saw another king and then another, hidden in the bushes a little way from the imposing group. These two wore smaller crowns than the ruler. One of them had only a small six-pointed crown, while the other one had ten points. They both stood to one side, so that they neither saw each other nor were noticed by the ruler. They did not make a sound; they paced cautiously up and down, as if lying in wait.
Perri was surprised. She pointed them out to Porro.
“They’re waiting for him to call them,” explained Porro. But this time he was wrong.
One of the two stags accidentally gave his presence away. Suddenly the mighty one charged at him, crackling and crashing through the underbrush. His angry panting was plainly to be heard. The stag who had been discovered fled without pausing, thumping noisily through the middle of the thicket.
The ruler, satisfied at having chased the intruder away, soon returned to his herd, which he kept encircling.
But the one who had been chased off turned back after a while. Cautiously he slunk up again.
“First the princes,” said Porro, meaning the roe deer, “and now the kings. They don’t bother anybody, they don’t eat live food, and still they have to fight among themselves. I don’t understand it at all.”
Perri said nothing; she had different ideas about what they had seen.
A disturbance occurred below. The more experienced females had quietly gone a few steps in various directions. It was hardly noticeable, and the stag did not seem to pay any attention. The females were keeping watch. They listened with raised heads, sniffing the air.
Suddenly one of them gave a short leap. Alarm! Instantly the whole herd broke into a trot. Surrounding the stag, they scurried off.
The lord of the herd amid his female guard did not know just what was pushing him along. Blindly confident in his train, he was completely dominated by the hind, although he seemed to be an absolute monarch.
This was a frantic retreat. Twigs crackled, and bent branches snapped into place.
Perri and Porro looked after the vanishing herd in amazement. They had not heard the slightest warning sound; they had been in the treetops above the wind. They knew what had happened even less than did the stag.
They were curious about this flight. They looked cautiously around, and then shrewdly went in the direction from which the royal party had fled. They leaped carefully from tree to tree.
The magpie came toward them, the blackbird, the jay, and the whispering titmice. One and all announced: “He! It’s He!”
By now He was in sight. The hunter stalked noiselessly through the bush, holding his gun in both hands. He would stand still for a few seconds, and then go on, noiseless, uncanny, a walking menace.
Perri shuddered at the sight. The dark glint of the gun horrified her. “That’s the fire-hand!” she whispered.
Porro whispered excitedly: “How can He stand straight up on two little feet? It’s frightful!”
Later Perri and Porro were to be terrified again by the hunter.
Next day they were once more watching the stag keep his followers together by full-chested roars.
Porro soon had enough, and wanted to move to a quieter spot. But Perri was quite overcome by the stupendous voice. “It has a magnificent sound!” she said.
Porro whisked higher, his tail waving: “I think it’s merely loud.”
Perri bounded after him: “How can you? Don’t you hear the marvel in his call?”
“What do you mean, marvel?”
Perri said very gravely, “Porro, that’s love.”
He said nothing for a time; then thoughtfully, “Perhaps so.”
“Absolutely,” declared Perri. “Absolutely. It couldn’t be anything else.”
“Maybe.” Porro was concentrating intently. “Maybe—but—but—”
“What do you mean, but?” Perri interrupted.
He finished: “But then we ought to be glad not to know what love is; it’s much too big for anyone like us.”
A second yell suddenly rent the air. Perri and Porro jumped. What was that? Who dared to raise his voice so near to the leader of the herd? How would the great king take such insolence?
The cry sounded again and again; it was a little clearer and weaker, but insolent in its challenge.
With raised head the lead stag listened, stamping. The call kept ringing in his ears.
The magpie yelled loud warnings. Perri instantly hurtled toward the magpie and toward the other yell. Behind her resounded the roar of the maddened stag.
A jay screeched, “Look out!” The magpie warned, “He!”
And there He was, leaning against a poplar a few paces from the clearing which the leader would have to cross to accept the challenge.
He held to his mouth a strange object which Perri did not recognize, a triton shell. With this He imitated a stag, mocking him and luring him on.
“So He can even do that,” whispered Perri to Porro.
They waited in suspense to see whether the leader would be deceived. But the stag stayed in the sheltering thicket. His troop crowded closer about him; the warning had made them suspicious, and they tried to soothe the leader instead of letting him go.
His thundering rolled through the air once or twice more.
Several magpies chattered advice against a sally. Some jays screeched urgently: “He!”
Perri and Porro raced back to the spot where the party was gathered. They scrambled lower to look, and were astonished to find nothing. “They’re gone!” rejoiced Perri.
Sure enough, the stag and his followers had stolen quietly away.
The false cry still kept ringing out.
High up on a tree trunk the woodpecker laughed mockingly, and gave vent to a joyous drumming.
Chapter Twenty
AT EARLY DAYBREAK THE FOREST was still; neither magpie nor blackbird, jay nor woodpecker, made a sound, and the pheasants fluttered dumbly from their trees to the ground. A heavy fog covered everything. It soaked and chilled every leaf and grass-blade, and quite shut off the view.
Miserably the squirrels clambered about, driven solely by hunger. Perri had been lured from her nest by the calling of the stag, which always drove her wild. She tried in vain to catch sight of him. Finally, when the fog thinned, she saw him.
He was crossing a meadow, with dragging step, his neck outstretched, his head eagerly pointed upward, so that his antlers touched his back. How enormous he seemed in the veil of milky fog! His breath whirled ahead of him like smoke to mingle with the cold fog.
The stag drew near his herd, who were cropping grass in the meadow with a soft crunching noise.
Just then there was another battle cry. It was just as powerful, just as deep-pitched, as the thundering of the king whom Perri saw.
“That’s not He!” said Porro.
Perri agreed, shuddering: “No, that’s not He!”
There were no warning signals. Man was not meddling in this affair. This was a matter for the free creatures of the forest alone.
Perri and Porro watched in suspense as the leader turned to bellow a reply.
Once more the new pretender yelled. Once more the leader thundered an angry reply. Then the other came out of the brush.
He was broad and massive, his head lifted defiantly; the many points of his antlers shone threateningly through the mist.
The leader, too, was broad and massive, with defiantly lifted head; his crown was just as splendid as his rival’s.
They measured each other. Their sparkling eyes were all blood and fire.
Only for a second did they exchange looks. Then the leader charged to drive off the enemy. But the enemy also charged. Each tried to strike the other’s flank; each spun quickly, keeping his antlers toward his opponent.
They collided heavily, brow to brow. They crouched as they struggled with all their might to get each other down; they spread and braced their hind legs, which they jammed into the earth to support their bodies. There was a loud crash as their antlers met.
The lead stag dodged back, and tried to stab the flank of the other, who rushed forward. The second stag just as quickly turned head on again. Antlers crashed against antlers.
“They’re both equally strong,” Porro decided. “The first one to get tired will have to run.”
“Run?” asked Perri. “Are they fighting in earnest?”
The heavy panting of the stags turned to gasps.
“Can’t you see for yourself that this is no joke?” said Porro.
Perri grew still more agitated: “What are they fighting about, anyway?”
“I don’t know. You say it’s love.”
“Does one have to fight in love?”
“So it seems.”
The antlers had tangled, and would not come loose. The stags tugged madly to get free. The lead stag almost hurled the intruder to the ground. He was wild; there was foam on his lips, and his rage rose to the point of madness.
Just then one of the interloper’s surantlers splintered and flew off, and the stags were released. But the accident had spoiled the challenger’s confidence; he lost heart and, in his confusion, not taking flight quickly enough, he bared his flank for a second to his adversary.
Instantly the lead stag stabbed. His head was
aslant, and he struck with but one prong. It did not go very deep, for the blow glanced off the shoulder-blade, and there was not much force behind it because the loser was already trying to escape.
He jumped suddenly when he felt the wound, and a few bounds brought him to cover, where he went crashing off. Perri and Porro caught a glimpse of blood running down his shoulder.
The lead stag took a few feeble leaps in pursuit; but his rage disappeared with his enemy. Besides, he was tired, and did not want to leave his herd alone. He was filled with pride at having defended his position. He raised his head, and loudly announced his victory. Then he returned slowly to his troop.
Porro was terrified at the thundering, primitive voice: “If that’s love. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Perri did not agree with him; she said nothing.
The last faint breath of mist was blown away by the breeze and drunk up by the sun. A pale gold morning broke on the forest. White hoarfrost lay over the meadow, sparkling like precious stones.
Chapter Twenty-One
PERRI HAD NOT SEEN HER mother for a long time.
“Why worry?” said Porro. “If she wants to find you, she will.”
“And if I want to find her, I’ll have to look,” retorted Perri, “and I do want to see my mother again.”
“All right, let’s look.”
They started off; now and again, what with playing and occasional meals, they forgot what they were looking for. But Perri kept remembering her mother, and pushing forward. They tried all the treetops, and reached the oak where Perri lived. Her mother’s home was not far away.
“We’ll probably find she’s sick,” Perri reflected.
They raced to the nest. It was empty.
“After all, she’d never be at home this time of day,” said Porro. “You might have known.”