The Red Fox's Son: A Romance of Bharbazonia

We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd together, And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable. --_Shakespeare: As You Like It_.

As I write in my quiet library the history of those stirring events which began and ended while the bells of 19-- were ringing in the New Year in the Kingdom of Bharbazonia, I am interrupted on my literary journey by the sound of a sweet voice singing, in the room below, the robust melody of "The King and the Pope," my favourite song.

The sweet music sets me dreaming of the day I first met Solonika in her quaint little Dhalmatian summerhouse; of the time when she would have killed me in the Red Fox's Castle; of the night of suffering when I was lost in the Forest of Zin; of the race for life with Marbosa's men; of the sacrilege in the Cathedral of Nischon; of that last awful scene at the Turk's Head Inn, when friendship was put to the test--and I marvel, not so much that a man may be placed in danger of death in this, the Twentieth Century, from the religious superstitions of a mediaeval race; but that I should owe my life to that fortunate occurrence, years before, when Dame Fortune's handmaiden, "Chance," made Nicholas Fremsted my friend.

I often wonder at that friendship which came to mean so much to me. It began when Nick and I were seventeen years old, and, although we are past thirty now, it has but grown stronger with advancing years. We were first attracted to each other as a result of a college prank. Like most youngsters whose parents make great sacrifices that their children may be permitted in a class-room, my whole ambition in life was to absent myself from lectures as much as possible. Nor was I alone in my folly, for most of my fellow students joined with me, knowing that the dread day of reckoning, examination day, was far distant. It is difficult to be a faithful student when the football season is gathering momentum!

Our professor was old and almost blind; and we young rascals unfeelingly took advantage of his infirmities. Before we were Freshmen a week, grown wise under the evil counsel of our elders, the Sophomores and Juniors, we had become adepts in dodging all his lectures. Because he could not see, it was easy for us to answer to our names at roll call and slip out the rear door, leaving the kind old man to talk to empty chairs. Sometimes, when it was not convenient for us to leave the athletic field, growing bolder with success, we commissioned one "man" to answer "Here" for all of us. He was careful to use different tonal qualities for each name. When his mission was safely concluded he, too, would rejoin us, leaving a few of that despised set of boys known as "grinds" in the front seats to sustain the appearance of a full class. They, fearful of the wrath to come, diligently minded their own business.

It was on one of the occasions when I had been sent up to answer for the class, and was standing just inside the doorway impatient to be off, that I first heard Nick's name. The professor, his nose close to the sheet, lead pencil in hand, called it out and waited for the answer which did not come. I glanced hastily down the list I held, but Nick's name did not appear there. Again the professor called:

"Nicholas Fremsted."

"Here," I cried on the spur of the moment, and the roll call proceeded, keeping me in continual hot water running the scale of "Here, Here," until it was over. To this day I cannot tell why I befriended him then. He might have been a "grind" with a bona fide excuse for his absence which when presented later might lead to discovery. I hoped he would be one of the "good fellows" who were, I suppose, very bad fellows indeed.

The roll call over, I did not wait to see if he came late to lecture; but that same evening he visited me in my rooms. He was a tall, well made lad about my own height and build, with sleepy brown eyes and waving black hair. His skin was as dark as an Italian's, but when he spoke it was with a marked French accent mingled with something that smacked of a Russian or Slavonic flavour. There was the pride of ancestry in his easy bearing, and he spoke with the decision of one whom the habit of taking care of himself had rendered self-reliant.

"I am come to make my thanks to you, sir," he said, "for your kind offices this afternoon in replying to my name for the roll call."

"Do not mention it," I replied, bidding him be seated; "you came to class then after all?"

"Yes. Soon after the rest they are gone, I advance to the fine old professor to explain my lateness. He informs me I am not tardy."

"You didn't give the snap away?" I cried, realizing more fully the chances I had taken, for, if this foreigner were of the stripe of human beings who would rather be right than President, I should be made to suffer for my kindness. My classmates would never forgive me for breaking up the little deception which other classes had practised undetected for years.

"Snap?" he repeated, puzzled by the colloquialism.

"I mean you did not tell him some one answered to your name?"

"Oh, no, I did not; although it is peculiar to be told by inference that one lies. When the instructor he says you are here since the beginning of the hour, and shows me the mark on the roll beside my name I only thank him and say 'Ah.'"

"Good boy," I cried, knowing that our secret was safe in his hands; and I took him to my heart then and there.

In five minutes we were smoking our pipes in the easy chairs, engaged in the pleasant occupation of getting acquainted. I told him all about myself and learned that he was not a Frenchman nor yet a Russian. That much he told me, and a great deal more, but he did not volunteer any information as to his nationality. There was that about him, too, which discouraged familiarity and he remained a man of mystery, even to me with whom he came to dwell at the end of that week, and with whom he continued to live for eight years. After we passed through college, I persuaded him to study medicine, and we both graduated from the medical school at the age of twenty-five.

He was one of the most remarkable linguists I have ever met, and with good cause. From his own account, he was sent away from home by his father for political reasons, the import of which he himself did not know, when he was eleven years old. He spent two years in St. Petersburg at school, two in Berlin and one in Paris before he came to Philadelphia, and, as far as I could learn, had never been home in all that time. His ample quarterly remittances came through a Paris broker's office.

When first we knew him we called him "Francois Fremsted" because we believed him French. But, after he joined the football squad and finally won his place on the team, having developed into a great strong fellow, we nicknamed him "Lassie." because that was the most absurd name we could think of for a man who was as intensely masculine as he. Nicknames, like dreams, you know, usually go by contraries. Of course the appellation was derived from the last syllable of his first name. To unsympathetic ears it may at first have been misunderstood, but "Lassie" himself liked it best of all the names we gave him.

His knowledge of languages did not extend alone to Russian, German, French and English. I remember, on one occasion, when we were celebrating a football victory with the usual foolish college abandon and found ourselves among the docks on the Delaware River front, Nick spoke in a peculiar dialect to a Slav stevedore, who was much surprised to find an American so addressing him. For some reason Nick became angry, and hurled the jargon at him imperiously; whereupon the labouring man removed his cap and knelt on the Belgian blocks of the street. So great was his humility that he would have kissed Fremsted's hand had not Nick brushed him aside and walked away.

Again, I frequently accompanied him to the Italian and Russian quarter of the town, when he wished to transact some mysterious business with certain residents there, and found that he got on equally well with them. It was also true that the Bulgarian consul was, next to me, Nick's most intimate friend and adviser.

What Nick's business might be I could never determine, owing to the fact that his negotiations were always conducted in different dialects, while French was the only language I found time to learn--thanks to Nick's assistance. Whatever he was doing, he did not permit it to interfere with his college work, except on two occasions; once he was absent for a week in New York and once he made a flying trip to San Francisco.

Beyond leaving a note for me saying he would not be home for a week or so, he never volunteered any information about these journeys and I never questioned him. Had it not been that he was such a handsome fellow, not averse to the society of the ladies, I might yet be in ignorance as to his destinations; but on both occasions letters with illuminating post marks followed his return and told me that Nick had found time to make social calls after business hours. There was never anything serious about this sporadic feminine correspondence, and it soon fell away, possibly because he presently forgot to answer--a most reprehensible, though not unusual, fault in young men.

So the years went by and we became inseparable. The boys on the campus, whom nothing ever escapes, remarked the friendship and dubbed us "David and Jonathan." They eagerly watched for the advent of the woman, for they desired to know what would happen if the eternal feminine should come between David and Jonathan. But she never materialized and our lives went peacefully on.

After graduation Nick and I hung out our shingles together in Philadelphia. I persuaded my widowed mother to take a larger residence on West Spruce Street where there was ample room for all. Some of his clothing is still hanging on the hooks in his room and I suppose the key to the front door is still on his key-chain. We were scarcely comfortably fixed in our new quarters when Nick went away on one of his sudden and mysterious journeys. At first I thought he would soon be back, but he did not return for four years.

During that time I received an occasional letter from him, each one mailed from a different part of the globe. In one of his missives he told me his father had died, necessitating a change in his attitude toward life. In a letter from Paris he said he had been home for a season, but the country life of a gentleman did not appeal to him. He assured me he would soon return, and one morning, when I awoke, I found him in his bed-room next to mine. He had crept in quietly, while the house slept, and retired as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for him to be home.

My joy at seeing him, as you can well believe, was great; but at the end of one short month he was suddenly away again, and his letters began arriving. This time he had a commission in the Russian army of the Far East, and was in Vladivostok when the war with Japan was declared. It was his misfortune to be transferred to Port Arthur, where he was captured when the stronghold was surrendered.