Tells of my visit with the Gray Meteor and of how I entertained him and of his call upon me. You will believe that I lost no time in quizzing my host about this mysterious “gray meteor.”
“Ach,” said he, “some deserter. Geneva and Locle are full uff them.”
“Geneva and Locle are near the border,” I said, “and all they have to do is to take a hop, skip and a jump to get there. There are some from over the Rhine, too,” I added, for I did not relish his implication that all deserters were from France.
“Well, diss one is American, anyway,” he said.
“And how about his German coat?” I asked; “how do you know he is American?”
“He iss crazy, dat is why,” he laughed. “He must be alwavss camping out. Don’t you worry about him.”
“He is not crazy,” I retorted, a bit nettled, “but I will tell you what is the matter with him——”
“Sure, he iss lazy.”
“He is suffering from shell shock or something of that sort,” I said, ignoring his remark. “And what I should like to know is, how did he find his way up here in such a state. Besides,” I added, “he should have care and companionship. He is in no condition to be living in that hole of a cave. Do you know anything about him?”
“He come apout a mont’ ago—nobody knows how. I ask him een, put he will haff nudding. The childrens, dey call him de gray meteor. Maybe he come from Mars—what?”
I soon found that if this poor, strayed soul had ever been a sensation he had long since ceased to be one. The children still found him a source of entertainment, made fun of him, and I am afraid, annoyed him. Otherwise he lived in his cave, shunned the village and all other haunts of men. I understood that he lived chiefly on fish which he caught, but sometimes the children left food near his solitary retreat.
As to his being a deserter, that may very well have been the case, I thought, but deserter or not, he was suffering from shell shock if I knew anything about the manifestations of that dreadful thing.
How he had penetrated so far to this obscure retreat I could not conjecture, for though not far distant in miles from the border, the spot was unfrequented and almost inaccessible. Nor was such remoteness necessary. In Basel, or any of the places along the western frontier, he would have been as safe from molestation as at the North Pole. First and last, his presence there puzzled and interested me, and his condition aroused my sympathy.
All the next day my thoughts dwelt upon his gaunt appearance and frightened look and on that vacillating timidity and uncertainty of action which bespoke a crippled power of will. There was no mistaking those signs; I had seen them before.
The morning following I dug into my grip and picking out several of the bully old pals which I had brought with me, sallied forth to the retreat of the “gray meteor.” From what Herr Twann had said I surmised that he spoke English and finding him kneeling by the ashes of his fire, in about the same position as when I had left him the day before, I said cheerily:
“Good morning—fine Alpine weather.”
The look he gave me pierced me to the heart. I felt that he would either run away or crawl to me like a guilty dog in grovelling shame. He breathed heavily and his eyes were lit with an anguish of terror. He started to rise but apparently had not the strength of will to lift himself and as he crouched there a twig broke under his feet and he started as if a cannon had been shot off close by.
“I think you’ve been trying to get a fire,” said I pleasantly, “by rubbing those two sticks together. Am I right?”
He only looked at me and smiled uncertainly. “T............