SHE UNROLLED THE STARS AND STRIPESSHE UNROLLED THE STARS AND STRIPES
Adrian was so startled that he dropped into a chair, the better to sustain himself against further Arabian-nights-like discoveries.
It was a flagstaff! Somebody was climbing it—Margot! Up, up, like a squirrel, her blond head appearing first on one side then the other, a glowing budget strapped to her back.
Adrian gasped. No sailor could have been more fleet or sure-footed. It seemed but a moment before that slender figure had scaled the topmost branch and was unrolling the brilliant burden it had borne. The stars and stripes, of course. Adrian would have been bitterly disappointed if it had been anything else this agile maiden hoisted from that dizzy height.
In wild excitement and admiration thewatcher leaned out of his window and shouted hoarsely:
“Hurrah! H-u-r-rah!H-u-r——!”
The cheer died in his throat. Something had happened. Something too awful to contemplate. Adrian’s eyes closed that he might not see. Had her foot slipped? Had his own cry reached and startled her?
For she was falling—falling! and the end could be but one.
Adrianwas not a gymnast though he had seen and admired many wonderful feats performed by his own classmates. But he had never beheld a miracle, and such he believed had been accomplished when, upon reaching the foot of that terrible tree, he found Margot sitting beneath it, pale and shaken, but, apparently, unhurt.
She had heard his breathless crashing up the slope and greeted him with a smile, and the tremulous question:
“How did you know where I was?”
“You aren’t—dead?”
“Certainly not. I might have been, though, but God took care.”
“Was it my cheers frightened you?”
“Was it you, then? I heard something,different from the wood sounds, and I looked quick to see. Then my foot slipped and I went down—a way. I caught a branch just in time and, please, don’t tell uncle. I’d rather do that myself.”
“You should never do such a thing. The idea of a girl climbing trees at all, least of any, such a tree as that!”
He threw his head back and looked upward, through the green spiral to the brilliant sky. The enormous height revived the horror he had felt as he leaped through the window and rushed to the mountain.
“Who planned such a death-trap as that, anyway?”
“I did.”
“You! A girl!”
“Yes. Why not. It’s great fun, usually.”
“You’d better have been learning to sew.”
“I can sew, but I don’t like it. Angelique does that. I do like climbing and canoeing and botanizing, and geologizing, and astronomizing,and——”
Adrian threw up his hands in protest.
“What sort of creature are you, anyway?”
“Just plain girl.”
“Anything but that!”
“Well, girl, without the adjective. Suits me rather better;” and she laughed in a way that proved she was not suffering from her mishap.
“This is the strangest place I ever saw. You are the strangest family. We are certainly in the backwoods of Maine, yet you might be a Holyoke senior, or a circus star, or—a fairy.”
Margot stretched her long arms and looked at them quizzically.
“Fairies don’t grow so big. Why don’t you sit down? Or, if you will, climb up and look toward the narrows on the north. See if Pierre’s birch is coming yet.”
Again Adrian glanced upward, to the flag floating there, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Excuse me, please. That is, I suppose Icould do it, only seeing you slip—I prefer to wait awhile.”
“Are you afraid?”
There was no sarcasm in the question. She asked it in all sincerity. Adrian was different from Pierre, the only other boy she knew, and she simply wondered if tree-climbing were among his unknown accomplishments.
It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and his brief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad of spirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestion of cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed aside his rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the pine.
“Why, it’s easy! It’s grand!” he called back and went up swiftly enough.
Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance. Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected by great spikes driven into the trunk and he had but to clasp these in turn to make a safeascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shaded his eyes and peered northward.
“He’s coming! Somebody’s coming!” he shouted. “There’s a little boat pushing off from that other shore.”
Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself and called a bit of praise from Margot.
“I’m so glad you can climb. One can see so much more from the tree-tops; and, oh! there is so much, so much to find out all the time! Isn’t there?”
“Yes. Decidedly. One of the things I’d like to find out first is who you are and how you came here. If you’re willing.”
Then he added, rather hastily: “Of course, I don’t want to be impertinently curious. It only seems so strange to find such educated people buried here in the north woods. I don’t see how you live here. I—I——”
But the more he tried to explain the more confused he grew, and Margot merrily simplified matters by declaring:
“You are curious, all the same, and so am I. Let’s tell each other all about everything and then we’ll start straight without the bother of stopping as we go along. Do sit down and I’ll begin.”
“Ready.”
“There’s so little, I shan’t be long. My dear mother was Cecily Dutton, my Uncle Hugh’s twin. My father was Philip Romeyn, uncle’s closest friend. They were almost more than brothers to each other, always; though uncle was a student and, young as he was, a professor at Columbia. Papa was a business man, a banker, or a cashier in a bank. He wasn’t rich, but mamma and uncle had money. From the time they were boys uncle and papa were fond of the woods. They were great hunters, then, and spent all the time they could get up here in northern Maine. After the marriage mamma begged to come with them, and it was her money bought this island, and the land along the shore of this lake as far as we can see from here. Muchfarther, too, of course, because the trees hide things. They built this log cabin and it cost a great, great deal to do it. They had to bring the workmen so far, but it was finished at last, and everything was brought up here to make it—just as you see.”
“What an ideal existence!”
“Was it? I don’t know much about ideals, though uncle talks of them sometimes. It was real, that’s all. They were very, very happy. They loved each other so dearly. Angelique came from Canada to keep the house and she says my mother was the sweetest woman she ever saw. Oh! I wish—I wish I could have seen her! Or that I might remember her. I’ll show you her portrait. It hangs in my own room.”
“Did she die?”
“Yes. When I was a year old. My father had passed away before that, and my mother was broken-hearted. Even for uncle and me she could not bear to live. It was my father’s wish that we should come up here to stay, andUncle Hugh left everything and came. I was to be reared ‘in the wilderness, where nothing evil comes,’ was what both my parents said. So I have been, and—that’s all.”
Adrian was silent for some moments. The girl’s face had grown dreamy and full of a pathetic tenderness as it always did when she discussed her unknown father and mother, even with Angelique. Though, in reality, she had not been allowed to miss what she had never known. Then she looked up with a smile and observed:
“Your turn.”
“Yes—I—suppose so. May as well give the end of my storyfirst——I’m a runaway.”
“Why?”
“No matter why.”
“That isn’t fair.”
He parried the indignation of her look by some further questions of his own. “Have you always lived here?”
“Always.”
“You go to the towns sometimes, I suppose.”
“I’ve never seen a town, except in pictures.”
“Whew! Don’t you have any friends? Any girls come to see you?”
“I never saw a girl, only myself in that poor broken glass of Angelique’s; and, of course, the pictured ones—as of the towns—in the books.”
“You poor child!”
Margot’s brown face flushed. She wanted nobody’s pity and she had not felt that her life was a singular or narrow one, till this outsider came. A wish very like Angelique’s, that he had stayed where he belonged, arose in her heart, but she dismissed it as inhospitable.
“I’m not poor. Not in the least. I have everything any girl could want and I have—uncle! He is the best, the wisest, the noblest man in all the world. I know it, andso Angelique says. She’s been in your towns, if you please. Lived in them and says she never knew what comfort meant until she came to Peace Island and us. You don’t understand.”
Margot was more angry than she had ever been, and anger made her decidedly uncomfortable. She sprang up hastily, saying:
“If you’ve nothing to tell, I must go. I want to get into the forest and look after my friends there. The storm may have hurt them.”
She was off down the mountain, as swift and sure-footed as if it were not a rough pathway that made him blunder along very slowly. For he followed, at once, feeling that he had not been “fair,” as she had accused, in his report of himself; and that only a complete confidence was due these people who had treated him so kindly.
“Margot! Margot! Wait a minute! You’re too swift for me! I wantto——”
Just there he caught his foot in a runningvine, stumbled over a hidden rock, and measured his length, head downward, on the slope. He was not hurt, however, though vexed and mortified. But when he had picked himself up and looked around the girl had vanished.
“Hoo-ah! Yo-ho! H-e-r-e! This—way!”
Adrian followed the voice. It led him aside into the woods on the eastern slope, and it was accompanied by an indescribable babel of noises. Running water, screaming of wild fowl, cooing of pigeons, barking of dogs or some other beasts, cackling, chattering, laughter.
All the sounds of wild life had ceased suddenly in the tree-tops, as Adrian approached, recognizing and fearing his alien presence. But they were reassured by Margot’s familiar summons, and soon the “menagerie” he had suspected was gathered about her.
“Whew! It just rains squirrels—and chipmunks—and birds! Hello! That’s a fawn. That’s a fox! As sure as I’m alive, amagnificent red fox! Why isn’t he eating the whole outfit?And—— Hurra!”
To the amazement of the watcher there came from the depths of the woods a sound that always thrills the pulses of any hunter—the cry of a moose-calf, accompanied by a soft crashing of branches, growing gradually louder.
“So they tame even the moose—these wonderful people! What next!” and as Adrian leaned forward the better to watch the advance of this uncommon “pet,” the “next” concerning which he had speculated also approached. Slowly up the river bank, stalked a pair of blue herons, and for them Margot had her warmest welcome.
“Heigho, Xanthippé, Socrates! What laggards! But here’s your breakfast, or one of them. I suppose you’ve eaten the other long ago. Indeed, you’re always eating, gourmands!”
The red fox eyed the newcomers with a longing eye and crept cautiously to his mistress’side as she coaxed the herons nearer. But she was always prepared for any outbreak of nature among her forest friends, and drew him also close to her with the caressing touch she might have bestowed upon a beloved house-dog.
“Reynard, you beauty! Your head in my lap, sir;” and dropping to a sitting posture, she forced him to obey her. There he lay, winking but alert, while she scattered her store of good things right and left. There were nuts for the squirrels and ’munks, grains and seeds for the winged creatures, and for the herons, as well as Reynard, a few bits of dried meat. But for Browser, the moose-calf, she pulled the tender twigs and foliage with a lavish hand. When she had given some dainty to each of her oddly assorted pets, she sprang up, closed the box, and waved her arms in dismissal. The more timid of the creatures obeyed her, but some held their ground persistently, hoping for greater favors. To these she paid no further attention, andstill keeping hold of Reynard’s neck started back to her human guest.
The fox, however, declined to accompany her. He distrusted strangers and it may be had designs of his own upon some other forest wilding.
“That’s the worst of it. We tame them and they love us. But they are only conquered, not changed. Isn’t Reynard beautiful? Doesn’t he look noble? as noble as a St. Bernard dog? If you’ll believe me, that fellow is thoroughly acquainted with every one of Angelique’s fowls, and knows he must never, never touch them, yet he’d eat one, quick as a flash, if he got a chance. He’s a coward, though; and by his cowardice we manage him. Sometimes;” sighed Margot, who had led the way into a little path toward the lake.
“How odd! You seem actually grieved at this state of things.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I love him and I have a notion that love will do anything withanybody or anything. I do believe it will, but that I haven’t found just the right way of showing it. Uncle laughs at me, a little, but helps me all he can. Indeed, it is he who has tamed most of our pets. He says it is the very best way to study natural history.”
“Hmm. He intends your education shall be complete!”
“Of course. But one thing troubles him. He cannot teach me music. And you seem surprised. Aren’t girls, where you come from, educated? Doesn’t everybody prize knowledge?”
“That depends. Our girls are educated, of course. They go to college and all that, but I think you’d down any of them in exams. For my own part, I ran away just because I did not want this famous ‘education’ you value. That is, I didn’t of a certain sort. I wasn’t fair with you awhile ago, you said. I’d like to tell you my story now.”
“I’d like to hear it, of course. But, lookyonder! Did you ever see anything like that?”
Margot was proud of the surprises she was able to offer this stranger in her woods, and pointed outward over the lake. They had just come to an open place on the shore and the water spread before them sparkling in the sunlight. Something was crossing the smooth surface, heading straight for their island, and of a nature to make Adrian cry out:
“Oh! for a gun!”
“Ifyou had one you should not use it! Are you a dreadful hunter?”
Margot had turned upon her guest with a defiant fear. As near as she had ever come to hating anything she hated the men, of whom she had heard, who used this wonderful northland as a murder ground. That was what she named it, in her uncompromising judgment of those who killed for the sake of killing, for the lust of blood that was in them.
“Yes. I reckon I am a ‘dreadful’ hunter, for I am a mighty poor shot. But I’d like a try at that fellow. What horns! What a head! And how can that fellow in the canoe keep so close to him, yet not finish him!”
Adrian was so excited he could not standstill. His eyes gleamed, his hands clenched, and his whole appearance was changed. Greatly for the worse, the girl thought, regarding him with disgust.
“Finish him? That’s King Madoc, Pierre’s trained bull-moose. You’d be finished yourself, I fear, if you harmed that splendid creature. Pierre’s a lazy fellow, mostly, but he spent a long time teaching Madoc, and with his temper—I’m thankful you lost your gun.”
“Do you never shoot things up here? I saw you giving the fox and herons what looked like meat. You had a stew for supper, and fish for breakfast. I don’t mean to be impertinent, but the sight of that biggame—— Whew!”
“Yes. We do kill things, or have them killed, when it is necessary for food. Never in sport. Man is almost the only animal who does that. It’s all terrible, seems to me. Everything preys upon something else, weaker than itself. Sometimes when I think of it my dinner chokes me. It’s so easy totake life, and only God can create it. But uncle says it is also God’s law to take what is provided, and that there is no mistake, even if it seems such to me.”
But there Margot perceived that Adrian was not listening. Instead, he was watching, with the intensest interest, the closer approach of the canoe, in which sat idle Pierre, holding the reins of a harness attached to his aquatic steed. The moose swam easily, with powerful strokes, and Pierre was singing a gay melody, richer in his unique possession than any king.
When he touched the shore and the great animal stood shaking his wet hide, Adrian’s astonishment found vent in a whirlwind of questions that Pierre answered at his leisure and after his kind. But he walked first toward Margot and offered a great bunch of trailing arbutus flowers, saying:
“I saw these just as I pushed off and went back after them. What’s the matter here, that the flag is up? It was the biggest stormI ever saw. Yes. A deal of beasties are killed back on the mainland. Any dead over here?”
“No, I am glad to say, none that we know of. But Snowfoot’s shed is down and uncle is going to build a new one. I hope you’ve come to work.”
Pierre laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh! yes.”
But his interest in work was far less than in the stranger whom he now answered, and whose presence on Peace Island was a mystery to him. Heretofore, the only visitors there had been laborers or traders, but this young fellow so near his own age, despite his worn clothing, was of another sort. He recognized this, at once, as Margot had done, and his curiosity made him ask:
“Where’d you come from? Hurricane blow you out the sky?”
“About the same. I was lost in the woods and Margot found me and saved my life. What’ll you take for that moose?”
“There isn’t money enough in the state of Maine to buy him!”
“Nonsense. Well, if there was I haven’t it. But you could get a good price for it anywhere.”
Pierre looked Adrian over. From his appearance the lad was not likely to be possessed of much cash, but the moose-trainer was eager for capital, and never missed an opportunity of seeking it.
“I want to go into the show business. What do you say? would you furnish the tents and fixings? And share the profits. I’m no scholar, but maybe you’d know enough to get out the hand-bills and so on. What do you say?”
“I—say——What you mean, Pierre Ricord, keepin’ the master waitin’, your foolishness, and him half sick? What kept you twice as long as you ought? Hurry up, now, and put that moose in the cow-yard and get to work.”
The interruption was caused by Angelique,and it was curious to see the fear with which she inspired the great fellow, her son. He forgot the stranger, the show business, and all his own immediate interests, and with the docility of a little child obeyed. Unhitching his odd steed, he turned the canoe bottom upward on the beach and hastily led the animal toward that part of the island clearing, where Snowfoot stood in a little fenced-in lot behind her ruined shed.
Adrian went with him, and asked:
“Won’t those two animals fight?”
“Won’t get a chance. When one goes in the other goes out. Here, bossy, you can take the range of the island. Get out!”
She was more willing to go than Madoc to enter the cramped place, but the transfer was made and Adrian lingered by the osier paling, to observe at close range this subjugated monarch of the forest.
“Oh! for a palette and brush!” he exclaimed, while Pierre walked away.
“What would you do with them?”
Margot had followed the lads and was beside him, though he had not heard her footsteps. Now he wheeled about, eager, enthusiastic.
“Paint—as I have never painted before!”
“Oh!—are you an—artist?”
“I want to be one. That’s why I’m here.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I told you I was a runaway. I didn’t say ‘why,’ before. It’s truth. My people, my—father—forced me to college. I hated it. He was forcing me to business. I liked art. All my friends were artists. When I should have been at the books I was in their studios. They were a gay crowd, spent money like water when they had it, merrily starved and pinched when they hadn’t. A few were worse than spendthrifts, and with my usual want of sense I made that particular set my intimates. I never had any money, though, after it was suspected what my tastes were. Except a little that my mother gave me.”
Margot was listening breathlessly andwatching intently. At the mention of his mother a shadow crossed Adrian’s face, softening and bettering it, and his whole mood seemed to change.
Their talk drifted from vexing subjects to merry anecdotes of Adrian’s childhood, in the home where he had been the petted only brother of a half-dozen elder sisters. But while they laughed and Margot listened, her fingers were busy weaving a great garland of wild laurel, and when it was finished she rose and said:
“It’s getting late. There’ll be just time to take this to the grave. Will you go with me?”
“Yes.”
But this was another of the puzzling things he found at Peace Island. In its very loveliest nook was the last resting-place of Cecily Romeyn, and the sacred spot was always beautiful with flowers, or in the winter, with brilliant berries. Both the master and the girl spoke of their dead as if she were stillpresent with them; or at least lived as if she were only removed from sight but not from their lives.
When Margot had laid the fresh wreath upon the mound, she carefully removed the faded flowers of the day before, and a thought of his own mother stirred Adrian’s heart.
“I wish I could send a bunch of such blossoms to my mother!”
“How can you live without her, since she is still alive?”
His face hardened again.
“You forget. I told you that she, too, turned against me at the last. It was a case of husband or son, and she made her choice.”
“Oh! no. She was unhappy. One may do strange things, then, I suppose. But I tell you one thing, if I had either father or mother, anywhere in this world, nothing should ever, ever make me leave them. Nothing. I would bear anything, do anything, suffer anything—but I would be trueto them. I could not forget that I was their child, and if I had done wrong to them my whole life would be too short to make atonement.”
She spoke strongly, as she felt. So early orphaned, she had come to think of parents as the most wonderful blessing in the power of God to leave one. She loved her Uncle Hugh like a second father, but her tenderest dreams were over the pictured faces of her dead.
“Where is your father buried?”
It was the simplest, most natural question.
“I—don’t—know.”
They stared at one another. It was proof of her childlike acceptance of her life that she had never asked. Had never thought to do so, even. She had been told that he had “passed out of sight” before they came to Peace Island and the forest, and had asked no further concerning him. Of his character and habits she had heard much. Her uncle was never weary in extolling his virtues; butof his death he had said only what has been written.
“But—I must know right away!”
In her eagerness she ran, and Adrian followed as swiftly. He was sorry for his thoughtless inquiry, but regret came too late. He tried to call Margot back, but she would not wait.
“I must know. I must know right away. Why have I never known before?”
Hugh Dutton was resting after a day of study and mental labor, and his head leaned easily upon his cushioned chair. Yet as his dear child entered his room he held out his arms to draw her to his knee.
“In a minute, uncle. But Adrian has asked me something and it is the strangest thing that I cannot answer him. Where is my father buried?”
If she had dealt him a mortal blow he could not have turned more white. With a groan that pierced her very heart, he stared at Margot with wide, unseeing eyes; thensprang to his feet and fixed upon poor Adrian a look that scorched.
“You! You?” he gasped, and sinking back covered his face with his hands.
Whathad he done?
Ignorant why his simple question should have had such strange results, that piercing look made Adrian feel the veriest culprit, and he hastened to leave the room and the cabin. Hurrying to the beach he appropriated Margot’s little canvas canoe and pushed out upon the lake. From her and Pierre he had learned to handle the light craft with considerable skill and he now worked off his excitement by swift paddling, so that there was soon a wide distance between him and the island.
Then he paused and looked around him, upon as fair a scene as could be found in any land. Unbroken forests bounded this hidden Lake Profundis, out of whose placid watersrose that mountain-crowned, verdure-clad Island of Peace, with its picturesque home, and its cultured owner, who had brought into this best of the wilderness the best of civilization.
“What is this mystery? How am I concerned in it? For I am, and mystery there is. It is like that mist over the island, which I can see and feel but cannot touch. Pshaw! I’m getting sentimental, when I ought to be turning detective. Yet I couldn’t do that—pry into the private affairs of a man who’s treated me so generously. What shall I do? How can I go back there? But where else can I go?”
At thought that he might never return to the roof he had quitted, a curious homesickness seized him.
“Who’ll hunt what game they need? Who’ll catch their fish? Who’ll keep the garden growing? Where can I study the forest and its furry people, at first hand, as in the Hollow? And I was doing well. Not as I hope to do, but getting on. Margot was amerciless critic, but even she admitted that my last picture had the look, the spirit of the woods. That’s what I want to do, what Mr. Dutton, also, approved; to bring glimpses of these solitudes back to the cities and the thousands who can never see them in any other way. Well—let it go. I can’t stay and be a torment to anybody, and some time, in some other place,maybe——Ah!”
What he had mistaken for the laughter of a loon was Pierre’s halloo. He was coming back, then, from the mainland where he had been absent these past days. Adrian was thankful. There was nothing mysterious or perplexing about Pierre, whose rule of life was extremely simple.
“Pierre first, second, and forever. After Pierre, if there was anything left, then—anybody, the nearest at hand;” would have expressed the situation; but his honest, unblushing selfishness was sometimes a relief.
“One always knows just where to find Pierre,” Margot had said.
So Adrian’s answering halloo was prompt, and turning about he watched the birch leaving the shadow of the forest and heading for himself. It was soon alongside and Ricord’s excited voice was shouting his good news:
“Run him up to seven hundred and fifty!”
“But I thought there wasn’t money enough anywhere to buy him!”
Pierre cocked his dark head on one side and winked.
“Madoc sick and Madoc well are different.”
“Oh! you wretch. Would you sell a sick moose and cheat the buyer?”
“Would I lose such a pile of money for foolishness? I guess not.”
“But suppose, after you parted with him, he got well?”
Again the woodlander grinned and winked.
“Could you drive the king?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s all right. I buy him back,what you call trade. One do that many times, good enough.If——”
Pierre was silent for some moments, during which Adrian had steadily paddled backward to the island, keeping time with the other boat, and without thinking what he was doing. But when he did remember, he turned to Pierre and asked:
“Will you take me across the lake again?”
“What for?”
“No matter. I’ll just leave Margot’s canoe and you do it. There’s time enough.”
“What’ll you give me?”
“Pshaw! What can I give you? Nothing.”
“That’s all right. My mother, she wants the salt,” and he kicked the sack of that valuable article, lying at his feet. “There. She’s on the bank now and it’s not she will let me out of sight again, this long time.”
“You’d go fast enough, for money.”
“Maybe not. When one has Angelique Ricord formére—— Umm.”
But it was less for Pierre than for Adrian that Angelique was waiting, and her expression was kinder than common.
“Carry that salt to my kitchen cupboard, son, and get to bed. No. You’ve no call to tarry. What the master’s word is for his guest is nothin’ to you.”
Pierre’s curiosity was roused. Why had Adrian wanted to leave the island at nightfall, since there was neither hunting nor fishing to be done? Sport for sport’s sake, that was forbidden. And what could be the message he was not to hear? He meant to learn, and lingered, busying himself uselessly in beaching the canoes afresh, after he had once carefully turned them bottom side upward; in brushing out imaginary dirt, readjusting his own clothing—a task he did not often bother with—and in general making himself a nuisance to his impatient parent.
But, so long as he remained, she kept silence, till unable to hold back her rising anger she stole up behind him, unperceived,and administered a sounding box upon his sizable ears.
“Would you? To the cupboard, miserable!” and Adrian could not repress a smile at the meekness with which the great woodlander submitted to the little woman’s authority.
“Xanthippé and Socrates!” he murmured, and Pierre heard him. So, grimacing at him from under the heavy sack, called back: “Fifty dollar. Tell her fifty dollar.”
“What he mean by fifty dollar?” demanded Angelique.
“I suppose something about that ‘show’ business of his. It is his ambition, you know, and I must admit I believe he’d be a success at it.”
“Pouf! There is more better business than the ‘showin’’ one, of takin’ God’s beasties into the towns and lettin’ the foolish people stare. The money comes that way is not good money.”
“Oh! yes. It’s all right, fair Angelique. But what is the word for me?”
“It is: that you come with me, at once, to the master. He will speak with you before he sleeps. Yes. And Adrian, lad!”
“Well, Angelique?”
“This is the truth. Remember. When the heart is sore tried the tongue is often sharp. There is death. That is a sorrow. God sends it. There are sorrows God does not send but the evil one. Death is but joy to them. What the master says, answer; and luck light upon your lips.”
The lad had never seen the old housekeeper so impressive nor so gentle. At the moment it seemed as if she almost liked him, though, despite the faithfulness with which she had obeyed her master’s wishes and served him, he had never before suspected it.
“Thank you, Angelique. I am troubled, too, and I will take care that I neither say nor resent anything harsh. More than that, I will go away. I have stayed too long, already, though I had hoped I was making myself useful. Is he in his own study?”
“Yes, and the little maid is with him. No. There she comes, but she is not laughin’, no. Oh! the broken glass. Scat, Meroude! Why leap upon one to scare the breath out, that way? Pst! ’Tis here that tame creatures grow wild and wild ones tame. Scat! I say.”
Margot was coming through the rooms, holding Reynard by the collar she made him wear whenever he was in the neighborhood of the hen-house, and Tom limped listlessly along upon her other side. There was trouble and perplexity in the girl’s face, and Angelique made a great pretense of being angry with the cat, to hide that in her own.
But Margot noticed neither her nor Adrian, and sitting down upon the threshold dropped her chin in her hands and fixed her eyes upon the darkening lake.
“Why, mistress! The beast here at the cabin, and it nightfall? My poor fowls!”
“He’s leashed, you see, Angelique. And I’ll lock the poultry up, if you like,” observedAdrian. Anything to delay a little an interview from which he shrank with something very like that cowardice of which the girl had once accused him.
HER PETS ON EITHER SIDE OF HERHER PETS ON EITHER SIDE OF HER
The housekeeper’s ready temper flamed, and she laid an ungentle touch upon the stranger’s shoulder.
“Go, boy. When Master Hugh commands, ’tis not for such as we to disobey.”
“All right. I’m going. And I’ll remember.”
At the inner doorway he turned and looked back. Margot was still sitting, thoughtful and motionless, the firelight from the great hearth making a Rembrandt-like silhouette of her slight figure against the outer darkness and touching her wonderful hair to a flood of silver. Reynard and the eagle, the wild foresters her love had tamed, stood guard on either side. It was a picture that appealed to Adrian’s artistic sense and he lingered a little, regarding its “effects,” even considering what pigments would best convey them.
“Adrian!”
“Yes, Angelique. Yes.”
When the door shut behind him Angelique touched her darling’s shining head, and the toil-stiffened fingers had for it almost a mother’s tenderness.
“Sweetheart, the bedtime.”
“I know. I’m going. Angelique, my uncle sent me from him to-night. It was the first time in all my life that I remember.”
“Maybe, little stupid, because you’ve never waited for that, before, but were quick enough to see whenever you were not wanted.”
“He—— There’s something wrong and Adrian is the cause of it. I—Angelique, you tell me. Uncle did not hear, or reply, anyway. Where is my father buried?”
Angelique was prepared and had her answer ready.
“’Tis not for a servant to reveal what her master hides. No. All will come to you in good time. Tarry the master’s will. But, that silly Pierre! What think you? Is itfifty dollar would be the price of the tame blue herons? Hey?”
“No. Nor fifty times fifty. Pierre knows that. Love is more than money.”
“Sometimes, to some folks. Well, what would you? That son will be havin’ even me, his old mother, in his ‘show,’ why not? As a cur’osity—the only livin’ human bein’ can make that ingrate mind. Yes. To bed, my child.”
Margot rose and housed her pets. This threat of Pierre’s, that he would eventually carry off the “foresters” and exhibit their helplessness to staring crowds, always roused her fiercest indignation; and this result was just what Angelique wanted, at present, and she murmured her satisfaction:
“Good. That bee will buzz in her ear till she sleeps, and so sound she’ll hear no dip of the paddle, by and by. Here, Pierre, my son, you’re wanted.”
“What for now? Do leave me be. I’m going to bed. I’m just wore out, trot-trottin’from Pontius to Pilate, lugging salt,and——”he finished by yawning most prodigiously.
“Firs’-rate sign, that gapin’. Yes. Sign you’re healthy and able to do all’s needed. There’s no bed for you this night. Come. Here. Take this basket to the beach. If your canoe needs pitchin’, pitch it. There’s the lantern. If one goes into the show business he learns right now to work and travel o’ nights. Yes. Start. I’ll follow and explain.”
ButAdrian need not have dreaded the interview to which his host had summoned him. Mr. Dutton’s face was a little graver than usual but his manner was even more kind. He was a man to whom justice seemed the highest good, who had himself suffered most bitterly from injustice. He was forcing himself to be perfectly fair with the lad and it was even with a smile that he motioned toward an easy-chair opposite himself. The chair stood in the direct light of the lamp, but Adrian did not notice that.
“Do not fear me, Adrian, though for a moment I forgot myself. For you personally—personally—I have only great good will.But——Will you answer my questions, believing that it is a painful necessity which compels them?”
“Certainly.”
“One word more. Beyond the fact, which you confided to Margot, that you were a runaway I know no details of your past life. I have wished not to know and have refrained from any inquiries. I must now break that silence. What—is your father’s name?”
As he spoke the man’s hands gripped the arms of his chair more tightly, like one prepared for an unpleasant answer.
“Malachi Wadislaw.”
The questioner waited a moment, during which he seemed to be thinking profoundly. Then he rallied his own judgment. It was an uncommon name, but there might be two men bearing it. That was not impossible.
“Where does he live?”
“Number —, Madison Avenue, New York.”
A longer silence than before, broken by a long drawn: “A-ah!” There might, indeed, be two men of one name, but not two residing at that once familiar locality.
“Adrian, when you asked my niece thatquestion about her father, did you—hadyou——Tell me what was in your mind.”
The lad’s face showed nothing but frank astonishment.
“Why, nothing, sir, beyond an idle curiosity. And I’m no end sorry for my thoughtlessness. I’ve seen how tenderly you both watch her mother’s grave and I wondered where her father’s was. That was all. I had no business to have doneit——”
“It was natural. It was nothing wrong, in itself. But—unfortunately, it suggested to Margot what I have studiously kept from her. For reasons which I think best to keep to myself, it is impossible to run the risk of other questions which may rouse other speculations in her mind. I have been truly glad that she could for a time, at least, have the companionship of one nearer her own age than Angelique or me, butnow——”
He paused significantly, and Adrian hastened to complete the unfinished sentence.
“Now it is time for her to return to her ordinaryway of life. I understand you, of course. And I am going away at once. Indeed, I did start, not meaning to come back, but—I will—how can I do so, sir? If I couldswim——”
Mr. Dutton’s drawn face softened into something like a smile; and again, most gently, he motioned the excited boy to resume his seat. As he did so, he opened a drawer of the table and produced a purse that seemed to be well filled.
“Wait. There is no such haste, nor are you in such dire need as you seem to think. You have worked well and faithfully and relieved me of much hard labor that I have not, somehow, felt just equal to. I have kept an account for you and, if you will be good enough to see if it is right, I will hand you the amount due you.”
He pushed a paper toward Adrian who would not, at first, touch it.
“You owe me nothing, sir, nor can I take anything. I thank you for your hospitalityand sometime——”he stopped, choked, and made a telling gesture. It said plainly enough that his pride was just then deeply humiliated but that he would have his revenge at some future day.
“Sit down, lad. I do not wonder at your feeling, nor would you at mine if you knew all. Under other circumstances we should have been the best of friends. It is impossible for me to be more explicit, and it hurts my pride as much to bid you go as yours to be sent. Some time—but no matter. What we have in hand is to arrange for your departure as speedily and comfortably as possible. I wouldsuggest——”but his words had the force of a command—“that Pierre convey you to the nearest town from which, by stage or railway, you can reach any further place you choose. If I were to offer advice, it would be to go home. Make your peace there; and then, if you desire a life in the woods, seek such with the consent and approval of those to whom your duty is due.”
Adrian said nothing at first; then remarked:
“Pierre need not go so far. Across the lake, to the mainland is enough. I can travel on foot afterward, and I know more about the forest now than when I lost myself and you, or Margot, found me. I owe my life to you. I am sorry I have given you pain. Sorry for many things.”
“There are few who have not something to regret; for anything that has happened here no apology is necessary. As for saving life, that was by God’s will. Now—to business. You will see that I have reckoned your wages the same as Pierre’s: thirty dollars a month and ‘found,’ as the farmers say, though it has been much more difficult to find him than you. You have been here nearly three months and eighty dollars is yours.”
“Eighty dollars! Whew! I mean, impossible. In the first place I haven’t earned it; in the second, I couldn’t take it from—fromyou—if I had. How could a man take money from one who had saved his life?”
“Easily, I hope, if he has common sense. You exaggerate the service we were able to do you, which we would have rendered to anybody. Your earnings will start you straight again. Take them, and oblige me by making no further objections.”
Despite his protests, which were honest, Adrian could not but be delighted at the thought of possessing so goodly a sum. It was the first money he had ever earned, therefore better than any other ever could be, and as he put it, in his own thoughts: “it changed him from a beggar to a prince.” Yet he made a final protest, asking:
“Have I really, really, and justly earned all this? Do you surely mean it?”
“I am not in the habit of saying anything I do not mean. It is getting late, and if you are to go to-night, it would be better to start soon,” answered Mr. Dutton, with a frown.
“Beg pardon. But I’m always sayingwhat I should not, or putting the right things backward. There are some affairs ‘not mentioned in the bond’: my artist’s outfit, these clothes, boots, and other matters. I want to pay the cost of them. Indeed, I must. You must allow me, as you would any other man.”
The woodlander hesitated a moment as if he were considering. He would have preferred no return for anything, but again that effort to be wholly just influenced him.
“For the clothing, if you so desire, certainly. Here, in this account book, is a price list of all such articles as I buy. We will deduct that much. But I hope, in consideration of the pleasure that your talent has given me, that you will accept the painting stuff I so gladly provided. If you choose, also, you may leave a small gift for Angelique. Come. Pride is commendable, but not always.”
“Very well. Thank you, then, for your gift. Now, the price list.”
It had been a gratification to Mr. Dutton that Adrian had never worn the suits of clothingwhich he had laid out ready for use, on that morning after his arrival at the island. The lad had preferred the rougher costume suited to the woods and still wore it.
In a few moments the small business transactions were settled, and Adrian rose.
“I would like to bid Margot good-bye. But, I suppose, she has gone to bed.”
“Yes. I will give her your message. There is always a pain in parting and you two have been much together. I would spare her as much as I can. Angelique has packed a basket of food and Pierre is on the beach with his canoe. He may go as far with you as you desire, and you must pay him nothing for his service. He is already paid, though his greed might make him despoil you, if he could. Good-bye. I wish you well.”
Mr. Dutton had also risen, and as he moved forward into the lamplight Adrian noticed how much altered for the worse was his physical bearing. The man seemed to have aged by many years and his fine head was nowsnow-white. He half extended his hand, in response to the lad’s proffered clasp, then dropped it to his side. He hoped that the departing guest had not observed this inhospitable movement—but he had. Possibly, it helped him over an awkward moment, by touching his pride afresh.
“Good-bye, sir, and again—thank you. For the present, that is all I can do. Yet I have heard it was not so big a world, after all, and my chance may come. I’ll get my traps from my room, if you please, and one or two little drawings as souvenirs. I’ll not be long.”
Fifteen minutes later Pierre was paddling vigorously toward the further side of the lake and Adrian was straining his eyes for the last glimpse of the beautiful island which even now, in his banishment from it, seemed his real and beloved home. It became a vague and shadowy outline, as silent as the stars that brooded over it; and again he marveled what the mystery might be which enshrouded it, and why he should be connected with it.
“Now that I am no longer its guest, there is no dishonor in my finding out; and find out—I will!”
“Hey?” asked Pierre, so suddenly, that Adrian jumped and nearly upset the boat. “Oh! I thought you said somethin’. Say, ain’t this a go? What you done that make the master shut the door on you? I never knew him do it before. Hey?”
“Nothing. Keep quiet. I don’t feel like talking.”
“Pr-r-r-rp! Look a here, young fello’. Me and you’s alone on this dead water and I can swim—you can’t. I’ve got all I expect to get out the trip and I’ve no notion o’ makin’ it. Not ’less things go to my thinkin’. Now, I’ll rest a spell. You paddle!”
With that, he began to rock the frail craft violently and Adrian’s attention was recalled to the necessity of saving his own life.
Asthe sun rose, Margot came out of her own room, fresh from her plunge that had washed all drowsiness away, as the good sleep had also banished all perplexities. Happy at all times, she was most so at morning, when, to her nature-loving eyes, the world seemed to have been made anew and doubly beautiful. The gay little melodies she had picked up from Pierre, or Angelique—who had been a sweet singer in her day—and now again from Adrian, were always on her lips at such an hour, and were dear beyond expression to her uncle’s ears.
But this morning she seemed to be singing them to the empty air. There was nobody in the living room, nor in the “study-library,” as the housekeeper called the roomof books, nor even in the kitchen. That was oddest of all! For there, at least, should Angelique have been, frying, or stewing, or broiling, as the case might be. Yet the coffee stood simmering, at one corner of the hearth and a bowl of eggs waited ready for the omelet which Angelique could make to perfection.
“Why, how still it is! As if everybody had gone away and left the island alone.”
She ran to the door and called: “Adrian!”
No answer.
“Pierre! Angelique! Where is everybody?”
Then she saw Angelique coming down the slope and ran to meet her. With one hand the woman carried a brimming pail of milk and with the other dragged by his collar the reluctant form of Reynard, who appeared as guilty and subdued as if he had been born a slave not free. To make matters more difficult, Meroude was surreptitiously helping herself to a breakfast from the pailand thereby ruining its contents for other uses.
“Oh! the plague of a life with such beasts! And him the worst o’ they all. The ver’ next time my Pierre goes cross-lake, that fox goes or I do! There’s no room on the island for the two of us. No. Indeed no. The harm comes of takin’ in folks and beasties and friendin’ them ’at don’t deserve it. What now, think you?”
Margot had run the faster, as soon as she descried poor Reynard’s abject state, and had taken him under her own protection, which immediately restored him to his natural pride and noble bearing.
“I think nothing evil of my pet, believe that! See the beauty now! That’s the difference between harsh words and loving ones. If you’d only treat the ‘beasties’ as well as you do me, Angelique dear, you’d have less cause for scolding. What I think now is—speckled rooster. Right?”
“Aye. Dead as dead; and the feathersstill stickin’ to the villain’s jaws. What’s the life of such brutes to that o’ good fowls? Pst! Meroude! Scat! Well, if it’s milk you will, milk you shall!” and, turning angrily about, Snowfoot’s mistress dashed the entire contents of her pail over the annoying cat.
Margot laughed till the tears came. “Why, Angelique! only the other day, in that quaint old ‘Book of Beauty’ uncle has, I read how a Queen of Naples, and some noted Parisian beauties, used baths of milk for their complexions; but poor Meroude’s a hopeless case, I fear.”
Angelique’s countenance took on a grim expression. “Mistress Meroude’s got a day’s job to clean herself, the greedy. It’s not her nose’ll go in the pail another mornin’. No. No, indeed.”
“And it was so full. Yet that’s the same Snowfoot who was to give us no more, because of the broken glass. Angelique, where’s uncle?”
“How should I tell? Am I set to spy the master’s ins and outs?”
“Funny Angelique! You’re not set to do it, but you can usually tell them. And where’s Adrian? I’ve called and called, but nobody answers. I can’t guess where they all are. Even Pierre is out of sight, and he’s mostly to be found at the kitchen door when meal time comes.”
“There, there, child. You can ask more questions than old Angelique can answer. But the breakfast. That’s a good thought. So be. Whisk in and mix the batter cakes for the master’s eatin’. ’Tis he, foolish man, finds they have better savor from Margot’s fingers than mine. Simple one, with all his wisdom.”
“It’s love gives them savor, sweet Angelique! and the desire to see me a proper housewife. I wonder why he cares about that, since you are here to do such things.”
“Ah! The ‘I wonders!’ and the ‘Is its?’ of a maid! They set the head awhirl. Thebatter cakes, my child. I see the master comin’ down the hill this minute.”
Margot paused long enough to caress Tom, the eagle, who met her on the path, then sped indoors, leaving Reynard to his own devices and Angelique’s not too tender mercies. But she put all her energy into the task assigned her and proudly placed a plate of her uncle’s favorite dainty before him when he took his seat at table. Till then she had not noticed its altered arrangement, and even her guardian’s coveted: “Well done, little housekeeper!” could not banish the sudden fear that assailed her.
“Why, what does it mean? Where is Adrian? Where Pierre? Why are only dishes for three?”
“Pst! my child! Hast been askin’ questions in the sleep? Sure, you have ever since your eyes flew open. Say your grace and eat your meat, and let the master rest.”
“Yes, darling. Angelique is wise. Eatyour breakfast as usual, and afterward I will tell you all—that you should know.”
“But, I cannot eat. It chokes me. It seems so awfully still and strange and empty. As I should think it might be, were somebody dead.”
Angelique’s scant patience was exhausted. Not only was her loyal heart tried by her master’s troubles, but she had had added labor to accomplish. During all that summer two strong and, at least one, willing lads had been at hand to do the various chores pertaining to all country homes, however isolated. That morning she had brought in her own supply of fire-wood, filled her buckets from the spring, attended the poultry, fed the oxen, milked Snowfoot, wrestled over the iniquity of Reynard and grieved at the untimely death of the speckled rooster: “When he would have made such a lovely fricasee, yes. Indeed, ’twas a sinful waste!”
Though none of these tasks were new or arduous to her, she had not performed themduring the past weeks, save and except the care of her cow. That she had never entrusted to anybody, not even the master; and it was to spare him that she had done some of the things he meant to attend to later. Now she had reached her limit.
“Angelique wants her breakfast, child. She has been long astir. After that the deluge!” quoted Mr. Dutton, with an attempt at lightness which did not agree with his real depression.
Margot made heroic efforts to act as usual but they ended in failure, and as soon as might be her guardian pushed back his chair and she promptly did the same.
“Now I can ask as many questions as I please, can’t I? First, where are they?”
“They have gone across the lake, southward, I suppose. Toward whatever place or town Adrian selects. He will not come back but Pierre will do so, after he has guided the other to some safe point beyond the woods. How soon I do not know, of course.”
“Gone! Without bidding me good-bye? Gone to stay? Oh! uncle, how could he? I know you didn’t like him but I did. Hewas——”
Margot dropped her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly. Then ashamed of her unaccustomed tears she ran out of the house and as far from it as she could. But even the blue herons could give her no amusement, though they stalked gravely up the river bank and posed beside her, where she lay prone and disconsolate in Harmony Hollow. Her squirrels saw and wondered, for she had no returning chatter for them, even when they chased one another over her prostrate person and playfully pulled at her long hair.
“He was the only friend I ever had that was not old and wise in sorrow. It was true he seemed to bring a shadow with him and while he was here I sometimes wished he would go, or had never come; yet now that he has—oh! it’s so awfully, awfully lonesome. Nobody to talk with about my dreams andfancies, nobody to talk nonsense, nobody to teach me any more songs—nobody but just old folks and animals! And he went, he went without a word or a single good-bye!”
It was, indeed, Margot’s first grief; and the fact that her late comrade could leave her so coolly, without even mentioning his plan, hurt her very deeply. But, after awhile, resentment at Adrian’s seeming neglect almost banished her loneliness; and, sitting up, she stared at Xanthippé, poised on one leg before her, apparently asleep but really waiting for anything which might turn up in the shape of dainties.
“Oh! you sweet vixen! but you needn’t pose. There’s no artist here now to sketch you, and I don’t care, not very much, if there isn’t. After all my trying to do him good, praising and blaming and petting, if he was impolite enough to go as hedid——Well, no matter!”
While this indignation lasted she felt better, but as soon as she came once more in sight ofthe clearing and of her uncle finishing one of Adrian’s uncompleted tasks, her loneliness returned with double force. It had almost the effect of bodily illness and she had no experience to guide her. With a fresh burst of tears she caught her guardian’s hand and hid her face on his shoulder.
“Oh! it’s so desolate. So empty. Everything’s so changed. Even the Hollow is different and the squirrels seem like strangers. If he had to go, why did he ever, ever come!”
“Why, indeed!”
Mr. Dutton was surprised and frightened by the intensity of her grief. If she could sorrow in this way for a brief friendship, what untold misery might not life have in store for her? There must have been some serious blunder in his training if she were no better fitted than this to face trouble; and for the first time it occurred to him that he should not have kept her from all companions of her own age.
“Margot!”
The sternness of his tone made her look up and calm herself.
“Y-es, uncle.”
“This must stop. Adrian went by my invitation. Because I could no longer permit your association. Between his household and ours is a wrong beyond repair. He cannot help that he is his father’s son, but being such he is an impossible friend for your father’s daughter. I should have sent him away, at my very first suspicion of his identity, but—I want to be just. It has been the effort of my life to learn forgiveness. Until the last I would not allow myself even to believe who he was, but gave him the benefit of the chance that his name might be of another family. When I did know—there was no choice. He had to go.”
Margot watched his face, as he spoke, with a curious feeling that this was not the loved and loving uncle she had always known but a stranger. There were wrinkles and scars shehad never noticed, a bitterness that made the voice an unfamiliar one, and a weariness in the droop of the figure leaning upon the hoe which suggested an aged and heart-broken man.
Why, only yesterday, it seemed, Hugh Dutton was the very type of a stalwart woodlander, with the grace of a finished and untiring scholar, making the man unique.Now——If Adrian had done this thing, if his mere presence had so altered her beloved guardian, then let Adrian go! Her arms went around the man’s neck and her kisses showered upon his cheeks, his hands, even his bent white head.