Gilby sat on the low platform of the hand-car. He looked like a bantam cock whose feathers were much ruffled. Zilda worked at the handles of the machine; she was very large and strong, all her attitudes were statuesque. The May day beamed on the flat spring landscape through which they were travelling; the beam found a perfect counterpart in the joy of Zilda's heart.
So she brought Gilby safely to the hotel and installed him in the best room there. The sprain was a very bad one. Gilby was obliged to lie therefor a month. Sometimes his friends came out from the town to see him, but not very often, and they did not stay long. Zilda cooked for him, Zilda waited upon him, Zilda conversed with him in the afternoons when he needed amusement. This month was the period of her happiness.
When he was going home, Gilby felt really very grateful to the girl. He had not the slightest thought of making love to her; he felt too strongly on the subject of his dignity and his principles for that; but although he haggled with Chaplot over the bill, he talked in a bombastic manner about making Zilda a present.
It did not distress Zilda that he should quarrel with her father's bill; she had no higher idea in character than that each should seek his own in all things; but when Gilby talked of giving her a present she shrank instinctively with an air of offence. This air of offence was the one betrayal of her affection which he could observe, and he did not gather very much of the truth from it.
'I will give you a watch, Zilda,' he said, 'a gold watch; you will like that.'
'No, monsieur.' Zilda's face was flushed and her head was high in the air.
'I will give you a ring; you would like that—a golden ring.'
'No, monsieur; I would not like it at all.'
Gilby retired from the discussion that day feeling some offence and a good deal of consternation. He thought the best thing would be to have nothing more to do with Zilda; but the next day, in the bustle of his departure, remembering all she had done for him, he relented entirely, and he gave her a kiss.
Afterwards, when the train was at the station, and Chaplot and Zilda had put his bags and his wraps beside him on a cushioned seat, Gilby turned and with great politeness accosted two fine ladies who were travelling in the same carriage and with whom he had a slight acquaintance. His disposition was at once genial and vain; he had been so long absent from the familiar faces of the town that his heart warmed to the first townsfolk he saw; but he was also ambitious: he wished to appear on good terms with these women, who were his superiors in social position.
They would not have anything to do with him, which offended him very much; they received his greeting coldly and turned away; they said within themselves that he was an intolerably vulgar little person.
But all her life Zilda Chaplot lived a better and happier woman because she had known him.
Some miles above the city of La Motte, the blue Merrian river widens into the Lake of St. Jean. In the Canadian summer the shores of this lake are as pleasant a place for an outing as heart could desire. The inhabitants of the city build wooden villas there, and spend the long warm days in boats upon the water. The families that live in these wooden villas do not take boarders; that was the origin of 'The Syndicate.' It consisted of some two dozen bachelors who were obliged to sit upon office stools all day in the hot city. 'If,' said they, 'we could live upon the lake, we could have our morning swim and our evening sail; and the trains would take us in and out of the city.'
The one or two uncomfortable hotels of this region were already overcrowded, so these bachelors said to each other—'Go to; we will put our pence together,and build us a boat-house with an upper story, and live therein.'
They bought a bit of the beach for a trifle of money. They built a boat-house, of which the upper half was one long dormitory, with a great balcony at the end over the water which served as kitchen and dining-hall. The ground floor was the lake itself, and each man who could buy a boat tethered it there. The property, boats excepted, was in common. By and by they bought a field in which they grew vegetables; later they bought two cows and a pasture. The produce of the herd and the farm helped to furnish forth the table. This accretion of wealth took several years; some of the older men grew richer, and took to themselves wives and villas; the ranks were always filled up by more impecunious bachelors. The bachelors called themselves 'The Syndicate.'
The plan worked well, chiefly because of the fine air and the sunshine, the warm starry nights, and, above all, the witchery of the lake, which is to every man who has spent days and nights upon it like a mystical lady-love, ever changeful and ever charming. Then, too, there was the contrast with the hot city; the sense of need fulfilled makes men good-natured. The one servant of the establishment, an old man who made the beds and the dinners, was not a professional cook; the meals were often indifferent;yet the Syndicate did not quarrel among themselves.
Some outlet for temper perhaps was needful. At any rate they had one outside quarrel with an old Welshman named Johns, a farmer of great importance in the place, who had sold them the land and tried, in their opinion, to cheat them afterwards about the boundaries. Their united rage waxed hot against Johns, and he, on his side, did nothing to propitiate. The quarrel came to no end; it was a feud. 'Esprit de corps,' like the fumes of wine, gives men a wholly unreasonable sense of complacence in themselves and their belongings, whatever the belongings may happen to be. The Syndicate learned to cherish this feud as a valuable possession.
The Syndicate, as has been seen, had one house, one servant, and one enemy. It also had one Baby. The Baby was the youngest member of the community, a pretty boy who by some chance favour had obtained a bed in the dormitory at the hoyden age of nineteen. He had a tendency to chubbiness, and his moustache, when it did come, was merely a silken whisp, hardly visible. He did some fagging in return for the extraordinary favour of adoption. The Baby from the first was entirely accustomed to being 'sat upon.' He had no unnecessary independence of mind. At twenty-one he still continued to be 'Baby.'
All the affairs of the Syndicate flourished, including the feud with the neighbouring landowner. All went well with the men and their boats and the Baby, until, at length, upon one fateful day for the latter, there came a young person to the locality who made an addition to the household of Farmer Johns.
'Old Johns has got a niece,' said the bachelors sitting at dinner, as if the niece had come fresh to the world as babies do, and had not held the same relation to old Johns for twenty-five years. Still, it was true she had never been in the old man's possession before, and now she had arrived at his house, a sudden vision of delight as seen from the road or on the verandah.
Now Helen Johns was a beauty; no one unbiassed by the party spirit of a time-honoured feud would have denied that. She was not, it is true, of the ordinary type of beauty, whose chief ornament is an effort at captivation. She did not curl her hair; she did not lift her eyes and smile when she was talking to men; she did not trouble herself to put on her prettiest gown when the evening train came in, bringing the bachelors from the city. She was tall—five foot eight in her stockings; all her muscles were well developed; there was nothing sylph-like about her waist, but all her motions had a strong, gentle grace of their own that bespoke health and dignity. She had a profession, too, which was much beneath most of the be-crimped and smile-wreathedmaidens who basked in the favour of the bachelors. She had been to New York and had learned to teach gymnastics, the very newest sort; 'Delsart' or 'Emerson,' or some such name, attached to the rhythmic motions she performed. The Syndicate had no opportunity to criticise the gymnastic performance, for they had not the honour of her acquaintance; they criticised everything else, the smooth hair, the high brow, the well-proportioned waist, the profession; they decided that she was not beautiful.
There were, roughly speaking, two classes of girls in this summer settlement, each held in favour by the Syndicate men according as personal taste might dispose. There were the girls who in a cheerful manner were ever to be found walking or boating in such hours and places as would assuredly bring them into contact with the happy bachelors, and there were those who would not 'for the world' have done such a thing, who sedulously shunned such paths, and had to be much sought after before they were found. Now it chanced that Helen Johns was seen to row alone in her uncle's boat right across the very front of the Syndicate boat-house, at the very hour when the assembled members were eating roast beef upon the verandah above and arriving at their decisions concerning her, and she did not look as if she cared in the least whether twenty-four pair ofeyes were bent upon her or not. To be sure, it was her nearest way home from the post-office across the bay, and the post came in at this evening hour. No one could find any fault, not even any of the bachelors, but none the less did the affront sink deep into their hearts. It added a new zest to the old feud. 'We do not see that she is beautiful,' they cried over their dinner. 'We should not care for Helen of Troy if she looked like that.'
The Baby dissented; the Baby actually had the 'cheek' to say, right there aloud at the banquet, that he might not be a man of taste, but, for his part, he thought she looked 'the jolliest girl' he had ever seen. In his heart he meant that he thought she looked like a goddess or an angel (for the Baby was a reverent youth), but he veiled his real feeling under this reticent phrase.
One and all they spoke to him, spoke loudly, spoke severely. 'Baby,' they said, 'if you have any dealings with the niece of Farmer Johns we'll kick you out of this.'
It was a romantic situation; love has proverbially thriven in the atmosphere of a family feud. The Baby felt this, but he felt also that he could not run the risk of being kicked out of the Syndicate. The Baby did sums in a big hot bank all day; he had no dollars to spare, there was no other place upon the lake where he could afford to live, and he had acanoe of his own which his uncle had given him. Hiawatha did not love the darling of his creation more than the Baby loved his cedar-wood canoe. All this made him conceal carefully that mysterious sensation of unrestful delight which he experienced every time he saw Miss Helen Johns. This, at least, in the first stage of his love-sickness.
Fate was hard; she led the Baby, all cheerful and unsuspecting, to spend an evening at a picnic tea in a wood a mile or more from the shore. Mischievous Fate! She led him to flirt frivolously until long after dark with a girl that he cared nothing at all about, and then whispered in his ear that he would get home the quicker if in the obscurity he ran across the Johns' farm. Fate, laughing in her sleeve, led him to pass with noiseless footsteps quite near the house itself; then she was content to leave him to his own devices, for through the open window he caught sight of Helen Johns doing her gymnastics. Her figure was all aglow with the yellow lamplight; she was happy in the poetry of her motions and in the delight that the family circle took in watching them. The Baby was in the dark and the falling dew; he was uncomfortable, for he had to stand on tiptoe, but nothing would have induced him to ease his strained attitude. The pangs of a fierce discontent took possession of his breast.
Art was consulted in the gymnasium in whichMiss Johns had studied; the theory was that only that which is beautiful is healthful. Sometimes she poised herself on tiptoe with one arm waved toward heaven, an angel all ready, save the wings, for aerial flight. Sometimes she seemed to hover above the ground like a running Mercury. Sometimes she stood, a hand behind her ear, listening as a maid might who was flying from danger in some enchanted land. Often she waved her hands slowly as if weaving a spell.
A spell was cast over the soul of the Baby; he held himself against the extreme edge of a verandah; his mouth remained open as if he were drinking in the beams from the bright interior and all the beautiful pictures that they brought with them. It was only when the show was over that he noiselessly relaxed his strained muscles, and crept away over the dew-drenched grass, hiding under the shadow of maple boughs, guilty trespasser that he was.
After that, one evening, Farmer Johns and his niece had an errand to run; at a house about two miles away on the other side of the bay there was a parcel which it was their duty to fetch. They had started out in the calm white light of summer twilight; a slight wind blew, just enough to take their sail creeping over the rippled water, no more. The lake within a mile of the shore was thickly strewnwith small yachts, boats, and canoes. Upon the green shore the colours of the gaily painted villas could still be seen among the trees, and most conspicuous of all the great barn-like boat-house of the Syndicate, which was painted red. By and by the light grew dimmer and stars came out in the sky; then one could no longer distinguish the outline of the shore, but in every window a light twinkled, like a fallen star.
Helen sat in the side of the tiny ship as near the prow as might be; her uncle sat at the tiller and managed the sails. They were a silent pair, the one in a suit of tweeds with a slouch hat, the other in a muslin gown with a veil of black lace wrapped about her head.
The sailing of the boat was an art which Helen had not exerted herself to understand; she only knew that every now and then there was a minute of bluster and excitement when her uncle shouted to her, and she was obliged to cower while the beam and the sail swung over her head with a sound of fluttering wind. When she was allowed to take her seat after this little hurly-burly the two lighthouses upon the lake and all the lights upon the shore had performed a mysterious dance; they all lay in different places and in different relation to one another. She had not learned to know the different lights. When dusk came she was lost to her ownknowledge. She only knew that the sweet air blew upon her face and that she trusted her uncle.
The moonless night closed in. Now and then, as they passed a friendly craft, evening greetings were spoken across the dark space. By the time they got to the place for which they were bound they were floating almost alone upon the black water.
Johns descended into a small boat and secured the sailing-boat to the buoy which belonged to the house whither he was going, or rather, he thought that he secured it.
Helen heard the plash of his oars until he landed. The shore was but twenty yards away, but she could hardly see it. The sail hung limp, wrinkled, and motionless. She began to sing, and there alone in the darkness she fell in love with her own voice, and sang on and on, thinking only of the music.
Her uncle was long in coming; she became conscious of movement in the water, like the swell of waves outside rolling into the cove. She heard the sound of swaying among all the trees on the shore. She looked up and saw that the stars of one half the sky were obscured, that the darkness was rolling onward toward those that were still shining.
She stopped her own singing, and the song of the waters beneath her prow was curiously like the familiar sound when the boat was in motion. She strained her eyes, but could not see how far she wasfrom the near shore. She looked on the other side and it seemed to her that the lights on the home-ward side of the bay were moving. That meant that she was moving, at what speed and in what direction she had no means of knowing.
She stood up, lifted her arms in the air and shouted for help; again and again her shouts rang out, and she did not wait to hear an answer. She thought that the masters of other boats had seen the storm coming and gone into shore.
She was out now full in the whistling wind and the boat was leaping. Her throat was hoarse with calling, her eyes dazzled by straining.
When she turned in despair from scanning the shore she saw a sight that was very strange. At the tiller where her uncle ought to have been, and just in the attitude in which he always stood, was a slight white figure. A new sort of fear took possession of Helen; at first she could not speak or move, but kept her eyes wide open lest the ghostly thing should come near her unawares.
This illusion might be a forerunner of the death to which she was hastening, the Angel of Death himself steering her to destruction!
Then in a strange voice came the familiar shout, the warning to hold down her head. The sail swung over in the customary way; every movement of the figure at the helm was so familiar and natural thatcomfort began to steal into her heart. Plainly, whoever had taken command of the drifting craft knew his business; might it not be an angel of life, and not of death?
Now in plain sober reality, as her pulses ceased to dance so wildly, Helen could not believe that her companion was angel or spirit. One does not believe in such companionship readily.
She scrambled to her knees and steadied herself by the seat. 'Who are you?' she asked.
The figure made a gesture that seemed like a signal of peace, but no answer was given.
The lights upon her own part of the shore were now not far distant. She looked above and saw breaks in the darkness that had hidden the stars; the clouds were passing over.
The squall that was taking them upon their journey was still whistling and blowing, but she feared its force less as she realised that she was nearing home.
She desired greatly to work herself along the boat and touch the sailor curiously with her hand, but she was afraid to do it, and that for two reasons: if he was a spirit she had reason for shrinking from such contact, and if he was a man—well, in that case she also saw objections.
The man at the helm dropped the sail; for a minute or two he stood not far from Helen as he busied himself with it.
'Who are you?' she asked again, but she still had not courage to put out her hand and touch him.
There was a little wooden wharf upon the shore, and to this the sailor held the boat while Helen sprung out. Her feet were no sooner safe upon it than the boat was allowed to move away. She saw the black mast and the white figure recede together and disappear in the darkness.
Johns had to walk home by the shore, and in no small anxiety. When he saw that his niece was safe he chuckled over her in burly fashion.
'Then I suppose,' he said, 'that some fellow got aboard her between the puffs of wind. I hope it was none of those Syndicate men; they're a fast lot. What was his name? What had he to say for himself?'
'She was flying far too fast for any one to get aboard,' asserted Helen. 'I don't know what his name was; he didn't say anything; I don't know where he went to.'
Then the uncle suggested toddy in an undertone to his wife. The aunt looked over her spectacles with solicitude, and then arose and put her niece to bed.
When Helen was left alone she lay looking out at the stars that again were shining; she wondered and wondered; perhaps the reason that she came to no definite conclusion was that she liked the state ofwonder better. Helen was a modern girl; she had friends who were spiritualists, friends who were theosophists, friends who were 'high church' and believed in visions of angels.
In the morning Johns' boat was found tethered as usual to the buoy in front of his house.
Long before this the Syndicate had suspected the Baby's attachment. The strength of that attachment they did not suspect in the least; never having seen depths in the Baby, they supposed there were none. They had fallen into the habit of taking the Baby by the throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine parley and keep his secret.
Had the Baby taken the matter less to heart he would have been more rash in asserting his independence, but he meditated some great step and 'lay low.' What or when the irrevocable move was to be he had no definite idea, the thought of it was only as yet an exalted swelling of mind and heart.
There was a period, after the affair of the boat, when he spent a good deal of time haunting the sacred precincts of the house where Helen lived. The precincts consisted of a dusty lane, a flat, uglyfenced field where a cow and a horse grazed, and a place immediately about the house covered with thick grass and shaded by maple trees. There were some shrubs too, behind which one could hide if necessary, but they were prickly, uncomfortable to nestle against, and the unmown grass absorbed an immense quantity of dew. In imagination, however, the Baby wandered on pastoral slopes and in classic shades. At first he paid his visits at night when the family were asleep, and he slipped about so quietly that no one but the horse and the cow need know where he went or what he did. At length, however, he grew more bold, and took his way across the maple grove going and coming from other evening errands. Trespassing is not much of a fault at the lake of St. Jean. The Baby became expert in dodging hastily by, with his eyes upon the windows; the dream of his life was to see the gymnastics performed again; at length it was realised.
The thing we desire most is often the thing that brings us woe.
The Baby caught sight of Helen practising her beautiful attitudes. He hung on to a rail of the verandah, and gazed and gazed. Then he took his life in his hand, as it were, and swung himself up on the verandah; he moved like a cat, for he supposed that the stalwart Johns was within. From this better point of view, peeping about, he now surveyed the whole interior of the small drawing-room. What washis joy to find that there was no family circle of spectators; Helen was exercising herself alone! He hugged to himself the idea that the gracious little spectacle was all his own.
Now, as it happened, the Baby in his secret hauntings of this house had not been so entirely unseen as he supposed. Certainly Johns had never caught sight of him or he would have been made aware of it, but Helen, since the night of the boating mystery, had more than once caught sight of a white figure passing among the maple shadows. These glimpses had added point and colour to all the mystical fancies that clustered round the helmsman of the yacht. She hardly believed that some guardian spirit was protecting her in visible semblance, or that some human Prince Charming, more kingly and wise than any man that she had yet seen, had chosen this peculiar mode of courting her; but her wish was the father of thoughts that fluttered between these two explanations, and hope was fed by the conviction that no man who could see her every day if he chose would behave in this romantic manner.
So upon this evening it happened that when Helen, poised upon her toes and beating the time of imaginary music with her waving hand, caught sight of the Baby's white flannels through the dark window pane, she recognised the figure of her dreams and, havinglong ago made up her mind what to do when she had the chance, she ran to the French window without an instant's delay, and let herself out of it with graceful speed.
The Baby, panic-stricken, felt but one desire, that she might never know who had played the spy. He threw himself over the verandah rail with an acrobat's skill, and with head in front and nimble feet he darted off under the maple trees: but he had to reckon with an agile maiden. Helen had grown tired of a fruitless dream. A crescent moon gave her enough light to pursue; lights of friendly houses on all sides assured her of safety.
Over the log fence into the pasture vaulted the Baby, convinced now that he had escaped. Vain thought! He had not considered the new education. Over the fence vaulted Helen as lightly: in a minute the Baby heard her on his track.
The cow and the horse had never before seen so pretty a chase. There was excitement in the air and they sniffed it; they were both young and they began to run too. The sound of heavy galloping filled the place.
Of the two sides of the field which lay farthest from the house, one looked straight over to the glaring Syndicate windows, and one to the rugged bank that rose from the shore. The Baby's one mad desire was to conceal his identity. He made for the darkshore. Another fence, he thought, or the rocks of the bank, would surely deter her flying feet.
They both vaulted the second fence. The Baby still kept his distance ahead, but when he heard that she too sprang over, a fear for her safety darted across his excited brain. Would those cantering animals jump after and crush her beneath their feet, or would she fall on the rocks of the shore which he was going to leap over? The Baby intended to leap the shore and lose his identity by a swim in the black water.
It was this darting thought of anxiety for Helen that made him hesitate in his leap. Too late to stop, the hesitation was fatal to fair performance. The Baby came down on the shore with a groan, his leg under him and his head on the earth.
He saw Helen pause beside him, deliberately staring through the dim light.
'I'm not hurt,' said the Baby, because he knew that he was.
'You are only the Syndicate Baby!' she exclaimed with interrogatory indignation.
'I'm going to cut the Syndicate; I'll never have anything more to do with them, Miss Johns.'
Helen did not understand the significance of this eager assurance.
The Baby's brain became clear; he tried to rise, but could not.
'Are you not hurt?' she asked.
'Oh! no, not at all, Miss Johns' (he spoke with eager, youthful politeness); 'it's only—it's only that I've doubled my leg and can't quite get up.'
The Baby was pretty tough; a few bumps and breaks were matters of small importance to him; his employers had already bargained with him not to play football as he gained so many holidays in bandages thereby. Just now he was quick enough to take in the situation: Helen despised him, it was neck or nothing, he must do all his pleading once for all, and the compensation for a broken leg was this, that she could not have the inhumanity to leave him till he declared himself fit to be left. He pulled himself round, and straightened the leg before him as he sat.
Helen was not accustomed to falls and injuries; she was shocked and pitiful, but she was stern too; she felt that she had the right.
'I'm very sorry; I will go and get some one to help you, but you know it's entirely your own fault. What have you been behaving in this way for?'
'If you'd only believe me,' pleaded the Baby, 'I—I—you really can have no idea, Miss Johns——'
If she could have seen how white and earnest his young face was she might have listened to him, but the light was too dim.
'I want to know this' (severely), 'Was it you who got on to our sailing boat that other night?'
'I thought you were alarmed, Miss Johns, and in a rather—rather dangerous situation.' The Baby was using his prettiest tones, such as he used when he went out to a dance.
If she could have known how heroic it was to utter these mincing accents over a broken leg she might have been touched; but she did not even know that the leg was broken. She went on rigidly, 'How could you get aboard when she was sailing so fast? Where did you come from?'
'Oh! it wasn't difficult at all, I assure you, Miss Johns; I only got on between the gusts of the wind. I swam from the Syndicate boat. You know, of course, one of us must have gone when we heard you singing out for help, and I was only too happy, frightfully happy, I am sure—and it was nothing at all to do. If you were much here, and saw us swimming and boating, you'd see fellows do that sort of thing every day.'
It was a delicate instinct that made him underrate the feat he had performed, for he would have been so glad to have her feel under the slightest obligation to him; but as far as her perceptions were concerned, the beauty of his sentiment was lost, for when he said that the thing that he had done was easy, she believed him.
She still interrogated. 'Why did you not speak and tell me who you were?'
There had been an ostensible and a real reason for this conduct on the Baby's part. The first was the order which his friends in the Syndicate boat had called after him as he jumped into the water, the second he spoke out now for the first time to Helen.
'I didn't speak, Miss Johns, because I—Icouldn't. Oh! you have no idea—really, you know, if you'd only believe me—I love you so much, Miss Johns, I couldn't say anything or I'd have said more than I ought, the sort of thing I'm saying now, you know.'
'Tut!' said Helen sharply, 'what rubbish!'
'Oh! but Miss Johns—yes, I knew you would think it was all rot and that sort of thing; that was the reason I didn't say it in the boat, and that is the reason I've never dared to ask to be introduced to you, Miss Johns. It wasn't that I cared for the Syndicate. You see, the worst of it is, I'm so confoundedly poor; they give me no sort of a screw at all at the bank, I do assure you. But, Miss Johns, my uncle is one of the directors; he's sure to give me a leg up before very long, and if you only knew—oh! really if you only knew——,' words failed him quite when he tried to describe the strength of his devotion. He only sat before her, supporting himself with both hands on the ground and looking up with a face that had no rounded outline now, but was white, passionate and pathetic; he could only murmur, 'really, really—if you only knew——'
The darkness barred her vision and the extravagant words in the boyish voice sounded ridiculous to her.
'I will believe you,' she said, 'if you want me to, but it doesn't make any difference; I am sorry you are hurt, and sorry you have taken this fancy for me. I think you will find some other girl very soon whom you will like better; I hope you will. There isn't' (she was becoming vehement), 'there isn't the slightest atom of use in your caring for me.'
'Isn't there?' asked the Baby despairingly. 'I wish you would say that you will think over it, Miss Johns; I wish you would say that I might know you and come and see you sometimes. I'd cut the Syndicate and make it up with your uncle.'
'It wouldn't be the slightest use,' she repeated excitedly.
'Of course if you go on saying that, I sha'n't bore you any more, but do, Miss Johns, do, do just think a minute before you say it again.'
A note in his voice touched her at last; she paused for the required minute and then answered gently; her gentleness carried conviction. 'I could never care for you. You are not at all the sort ofman I could ever care for, and I am going back to New York in a few days, so you won't be troubled by seeing me any more.'
When Helen rushed breathless to the door of the Syndicate boat-house and told of the accident, the bachelors went out in a body and bore the Baby home.
They petted him until he was on his feet again. They gained some vague knowledge of his interview with Helen, and he kept a very distinct remembrance of it. Both he and they believed that his first attempt at love had come to nothing, but that was a mistake.
The Baby had loved with some genuine fervour, and his grief made a man of him.
A young minister was walking through the streets of a small town in the island of Cape Breton. The minister was only a theological student who had been sent to preach in this remote place during his summer holiday. The town was at once very primitive and very modern. Many log-houses still remained in it; almost all the other houses were built of wood. The little churches, which represented as many sects, looked like the churches in a child's Dutch village. The town hall had only a brick facing. On the hillsides that surrounded the town far and wide were many fields, in which the first stumps were still standing, charred by the fires that had been kindled to kill them. There were also patches of forest still to be seen among these fields, where the land had not yet been cleared. In spite of all this, the town was very advanced, every improvement being of the newest kind because sorecently achieved. Upon huge ungainly tree-trunks roughly erected along the streets, electric lamps hung, and telephone wires crossed and recrossed one another from roof to roof. There was even an electric tram that ran straight through the town and some distance into the country on either side. The general store had a gaily dressed lay figure in its window,—a female figure,—and its gown was labelled 'The Latest Parisian Novelty.'
The theological student was going out to take tea. He was a tall, active fellow, and his long strides soon brought him to a house a little way out of the town, which was evidently the abode of some degree of taste and luxury. The house was of wood, painted in dull colours of red and brown; it had large comfortable verandahs under shingled roofs. Its garden was not old-fashioned in the least; but though it aspired to trimness the grass had not grown there long enough to make a good lawn, so the ribbon flower-beds and plaster vases of flowers lacked the green-velvet setting that would have made them appear better. The student was the less likely to criticise the lawn because a very pretty, fresh-looking girl met him at the gate.
She was really a fine girl. Her dress showed rather more effort at fashion than was quite in keeping with her very rural surroundings, and her speech and accent betrayed a childhood spent amonguneducated folk and only overlaid by more recent schooling. Her face had the best parts of beauty: health and good sense were written there, also flashes of humour and an habitual sweet seriousness. She had chanced to be at the gate gathering flowers. Her reception of the student was frank, and yet there was just a touch of blushing dignity about it which suggested that she took a special interest in him. The student also, it would appear, took an interest in her, for, on their way to the house, he made a variety of remarks upon the weather which proved that he was a little excited and unable to observe that he was talking nonsense.
In a little while the family were gathered round the tea-table. The girl, Miss Torrance by name, sat at the head of the table. Her father was a banker and insurance agent. He sat opposite his eldest daughter and did the honours of the meal with the utmost hospitality, yet with reserve of manner caused by his evident consciousness that his grammar and manners were not equal to those of his children and their guest. There were several daughters and two sons younger than Miss Torrance. They talked with vivacity.
The conversation soon turned upon the fact that the abundant supply of cream to which the family were accustomed was not forthcoming. Strawberries were being served with the tea; some sort of cold pudding was also on the table; and all this to beeaten without cream,—these young people might have been asked to go without their supper, so indignant they were.
Now, Mr. Torrance had been decorously trying to talk of the young minister's last sermon and of the affairs of the small Scotch church of which he was an elder, and Miss Torrance was ably seconding his effort by comparing the sentiments of the sermon to a recent magazine article, but against her will she was forced to attend to the young people's clamour about the cream.
It seemed that Trilium, the cow, had recently refused to give her milk. Mary Torrance was about eighteen; she suddenly gave it as her opinion that Trilium was bewitched; there was no other explanation, she said, no other possible explanation of Trilium's extraordinary conduct.
A flush mounted Miss Torrance's face; she frowned at her sister when the student was not looking.
'It's wonderful, the amount of witchcraft we have about here, Mr. Howitt,' said the master of the house tentatively to the minister.
Howitt had taken Mary's words in jest. He gave his smooth-shaven face the twist that with him always expressed ideas wonderful or grotesque. It was a strong, thin face, full of intelligence.
'I never could have conceived anything like it,' said he. 'I come across witch tales here, there,everywhere; and the marvellous thing is, some of the people really seem to believe them.'
The younger members of the Torrance family fixed their eyes upon him with apprehensive stare.
'You can't imagine anything more degrading,' continued the student, who came from afar.
'Degrading, of course.' Mr. Torrance sipped his tea hastily. 'The Cape Breton people are superstitious, I believe.'
An expression that might have betokened a new resolution appeared upon the fine face of the eldest daughter.
'Weare Cape Breton people, father,' she said, with dignified reproach. 'I hope'—here a timid glance, as if imploring support—'I hope we know better than to place any real faith in these degrading superstitions.'
Howitt observed nothing but the fine face and the words that appeared to him natural.
Torrance looked at them both with the air of an honest man who was still made somewhat cowardly by new-fashioned propriety.
'I never put much o' my faith in these things myself,' he said at last in broad accents, 'still,'—an honest shake of the head—'there's queer things happens.'
'It is like going back to the Middle Ages'—Howitt was still impervious—'to hear some of these poorcreatures talk. I never thought it would be my lot to come across anything so delightfully absurd.'
'Perhaps for the sake of the ministry ye'd better be careful how ye say your mind about it,' suggested Mr. Torrance; 'in the hearing of the poor and uneducated, of course, I mean. But if ye like to make a study o' that sort of thing, I'd advise ye to go and have a talk with Mistress Betty M'Leod. She's got a great repertory of tales, has Mistress Betty.'
Mary spoke again. Mary was a young woman who had the courage of her opinions. 'And if you go to Mistress M'Leod, Mr. Howitt, will you just be kind enough to ask her how to cure poor Trilium? and don't forget anything of what she says.'
Miss Torrance gave her sister a word of reproof. There was still upon her face the fine glow born of a new resolution never again to listen to a word of witchcraft.
As for Howitt, there came across his clever face the whimsical look which denoted that he understood Mary's fun perfectly. 'I will go to-morrow,' he cried. 'When the wise woman has told me who has bewitched Trilium, we will make a waxen figure and stick pins in it.'
The next day Howitt walked over the hills in search of Mistress Betty M'Leod. The lake of the Bras d'Or held the sheen of the western sun in its breast. The student walked upon green slopes farabove the water, and watched the outline of the hills on the other side of the inlet, and thought upon many things. He thought upon religion and philosophy, for he was religious and studious; he thought upon practical details of his present work, for he was anxious for the welfare of the souls under his charge; but on whatever subject his thoughts dwelt, they came back at easy intervals to the fair, dignified face of his new friend, Miss Torrance.
'There's a fine girl for you,' he said to himself repeatedly, with boyish enthusiasm. He thought, too, how nobly her life would be spent if she chose to be the helpmeet of a Christian minister. He wondered whether Mary could take her sister's place in the home circle. Yet with all this he made no decision as to his own course. He was discreet, and in minds like his decisions upon important matters are fruits of slow growth.
He came at last to a farm, a very goodly farm for so hilly a district. It lay, a fertile flat, in a notch of the green hillside. When he reached the house yard he asked for Mistress Betty M'Leod, and was led to her presence. The old dame sat at her spinning-wheel in a farm kitchen. Her white hair was drawn closely, like a thin veil, down the sides of her head and pinned at the back. Her features were small, her eyes bright; she was not unlike a squirrel in her sharp little movements and quick glances.She wore a small shawl pinned around her spare shoulders. Her skirts fell upon the treadle of the spinning-wheel. The kitchen in which she sat was unused; there was no fire in the stove. The brick floor, the utensils hanging on the walls, had the appearance of undisturbed rest. Doors and windows were open to the view of the green slopes and the golden sea beneath them.
'You come from Canada,' said the old dame. She left her spinning with a certain interested formality of manner.
'From Montreal,' said he.
'That's the same. Canada is a terrible way off.'
'And now,' he said, 'I hear there are witches in this part of the land.' Whereupon he smiled in an incredulous cultured way.
She nodded her head as if she had gauged his thought. 'Ay, there's many a minister believes in them if they don't let on they do. I mind——'
'Yes,' said he.
'I mind how my sister went out early one morning, and saw a witch milking one of our cows.'
'How did you know she was a witch?'
'Och, she was a neighbour we knew to be a witch real well. My sister didn't anger her. It's terrible unlucky to vex them. But would you believe it? as long as we had that cow her cream gave no butter. We had to sell her and get another.And one time—it was years ago, when Donald and me was young—the first sacrament came round——'
'Yes,' said he, looking sober.
'And all the milk of our cows would give hardly any butter for a whole year! And at house-cleaning time, there, above the milk shelves, what did they find but a bit of hair rope! Cows' and horses' hair it was. Oh, it was terrible knotted, and knotted just like anything! So then of course we knew.'
'Knew what?'
'Why, that the milk was bewitched. We took the rope away. Well, that very day more butter came at the churning, and from that time on, more, but still not so much as ought by rights to have come. Then, one day, I thought to unknot the rope, and I undid, and undid, and undid. Well, when I had got it undone, that day the butter came as it should!'
'But what about the sacrament?' asked he.
'That was the time of the year it was. Oh, but I could tell you a sad, sad story of the wickedness of witches. When Donald and me was young, and had a farm up over on the other hill, well, there was a poor widow with seven daughters. It was hard times then for us all, but for her, she only had a bit of flat land with some bushes, and four cows and some sheep, and, you see, she sold butter to put meat in the children's mouths. Butter was all she could sell.
'Well, there came to live near her on the hill an awful wicked old man and woman. I'll tell you who their daughter is: she's married to Mr. M'Curdy, who keeps the store. The old man and his wife were awful wicked to the widow and the fatherless. I'll tell you what they did. Well, the widow's butter failed. Not one bit more could she get. The milk was just the same, but not one bit of butter. "Oh," said she, "it's a hard world, and me a widow!" But she was a brave woman, bound to get along some way. So, now that she had nothing to sell to buy meal, she made curds of the milk, and fed the children on that.
'Well, one day the old man came in to see her in a neighbouring way, and she, being a good woman,—oh, but she was a good woman!—set a dish of curds before him. "Oh," said he, "these are very fine curds!" So he went away, and next day she put the rennet in the milk as usual, but not a bit would the curd come. "Oh," said she, "but I must put something in the children's mouths!" She was a fine woman, she was. So she kept the lambs from the sheep all night, and next morning she milked the sheep. Sheep's milk is rich, and she put rennet in that, and fed the children on the curd.
'So one day the old man came in again. He was a wicked one; he was dreadful selfish; and as he was there, she, being a hospitable woman, gave himsome of the curd. "That's good curd," said he. Next day, when she put the rennet in the sheep's milk, not a bit would the curd come. She felt it bitterly, poor woman; but she had a fine spirit, and she fed the children on a few bits of potato she had growing.
'Well, one day, the eldest daughter got up very early to spin—in the twilight of the dawn it was—and she looked out, and there was the old woman coming from her house on the hill, with a shawl over her head and a tub in her arms. Oh, but she was a really wicked one! for I'll tell you what she did. Well, the girl watched and wondered, and in the twilight of the dawn she saw the old woman crouch down by one of the alder bushes, and put her tub under it, and go milking with her hands; and after a bit she lifted her tub, that seemed to have something in it, and set it over against another alder bush, and went milking with her hands again. So the girl said, "Mother, mother, wake up, and see what the neighbour woman is doing!" So the mother looked out, and there, in the twilight of the dawn, she saw her four cows in the bit of land, among the alder bushes, and the old neighbour woman milking away at a bush. And then the old woman moved her tub likewise to another bush, and likewise, and likewise, until she had milked four bushes, and she took up her tub, and it seemed awful heavy, and she had her shawl over it, and was going up the hill.
'So the mother said to the girl, "Run, run, and see what she has got in it." For they weren't up to the ways of witches, and they were astonished like. But the girl, she said, "Oh, mother, I don't like." Well, she was timid, anyway, the eldest girl. But the second girl was a romping thing, not afraid of anything, so they sent her. By this time the wicked old woman was high on the hill; so she ran and ran, but she could not catch her before she was in at her own door; but that second girl, she was not afraid of anything, so she runs in at the door, too. Now, in those days they used to have sailing-chests that lock up; they had iron bars over them, so you could keep anything in that was a secret. They got them from the ships, and this old woman kept her milk in hers. So when the girl bounced in at the door, there she saw that wicked old woman pouring milk out of the tub into her chest, and the chest half full of milk, and the old man looking on! So then, of course they knew where the good of their milk had gone.'
The story was finished. The old dame looked at the student and nodded her head with eyes that awaited some expression of formal disapproval.
'What did they know?' asked he.
'Know! Oh, why, that the old woman was an awful wicked witch, and she'd taken the good of their milk.'
'Oh, indeed!' said the student; and then,'But what became of the widow and the seven daughters?'
'Well, of course she had to sell her cows and get others, and then it was all right. But that old man and his wife were that selfish they'd not have cared if she'd starved. And I tell you, it's one of the things witches can do, to take the good out of food, if they've an eye to it; they can take every bit of nouriture out of it that's in it. There were two young men that went from here to the States—that's Boston, ye know. Well, pretty soon one, that was named M'Pherson, came back, looking so white-like and ill that nothing would do him any good. He drooped and he died. Well, years after, the other, whose name was McVey, came back. He was of the same wicked stock as the old folks I've been telling ye of. Well, one day, he was in low spirits like, and he chanced to be talking to my father, and says he, "It's one of the sins I'll have to 'count for at the Judgment that I took the good out of M'Pherson's food till he died. I sat opposite to him at the table when we were at Boston together, and I took the good out of his food, and it's the blackest sin I done," said he.
'Oh, they're awful wicked people, these witches! One of them offered to teach my sister how to take the good out of food, but my sister was too honest; she said, "I'll learn to keep the good of my own, if ye like."However, the witch wouldn't teach her that because she wouldn't learn the other. Oh, but I cheated a witch once. Donald, he brought me a pound of tea. 'Twasn't always we got tea in those days, so I put it in the tin box; and there was just a little over, so I was forced to leave that in the paper bag. Well, that day a neighbour came in from over the hill. I knew fine she was a witch; so we sat and gossiped a bit; she was a real pleasant woman, and she sat and sat, and the time of day went by. So I made her a cup of tea, her and me; but I used the drawing that was in the paper bag. Said she, "I just dropped in to borrow a bit of tea going home, but if that's all ye have"—Oh, but I could see her eyeing round; so I was too sharp for her, and I says, "Well, I've no more in the paper just now, but if ye'll wait till Donald comes, maybe he'll bring some." So she saw I was too sharp for her, and away she went. If I'd as much as opened the tin, she'd have had every grain of good out of it with her eyes.'
At first the student had had the grave and righteous intention of denouncing the superstition, but gradually he had perceived that to do so would be futile. The artistic soul of him was caught by the curious recital. He remembered now the bidding of Mary Torrance, and thought with pleasure that he would go back and repeat these strange stories to Miss Torrance, and smile at them in her company.
'Now, for instance,' he said aloud, 'if a good cow, that is a great pet in the family, should suddenly cease to give her milk, how would you set about curing her?'
The dame's small bright eyes grew keener. She moved to her spinning-wheel and gave it a turn. 'Ay,' she said, 'and whose is the cow?'
He was not without a genuine curiosity. 'What would you do foranycow in that case?'
'And is it Torrance's cow?' asked Mistress Betty. 'Och, but I know it's Torrance's cow that ye're speiring for.'
The young minister was recalled to a sense of his duty. He rose up with brisk dignity. 'I only asked you to see what you would say. I do not believe the stories you have been telling me.'
She nodded her head, taking his assertion as a matter of course. 'But I'll tell you exactly what they must do,' she said. 'Ye can tell Miss Torrance she must get a pound of pins.'
'A pound of pins!' said he.
'Ay, it's a large quantity, but they'll have them at the store, for it's more than sometimes they're wanted—a time here, a time there—against the witches. And she's to boil them in whatever milk the cow gives, and she's to pour them boiling hot into a hole in the ground; and when she's put the earth over them, and the sod over that, she's totether the animal there, and milk it there, and the milk will come right enough.'
While the student was making his way home along the hillside, through field and forest, the long arm of the sea turned to red and gold in the light of the clouds which the sun had left behind when it sank down over the distant region that the Cape Breton folk call Canada.
The minister meditated upon what he had heard, but not for long. He could not bring his mind into such attitude towards the witch-tales as to conceive of belief in them as an actual part of normal human experience. Insanity, or the love of making a good story out of notions which have never been seriously entertained, must compose the warp and woof of the fabric of such strange imaginings. It is thus we account for most experiences we do not understand.
The next evening the Torrance family were walking to meeting. The student joined himself to Miss Torrance. He greeted her with the whimsical look of grave humour. 'You are to take a pound of pins,' he said.
'I do not believe it would do any good,' she interrupted eagerly.
It struck him as very curious that she should assert her unbelief. He was too nonplussed to go on immediately. Then he supposed it was part of the joke, and proceeded to give the other details.
'Mr. Howitt,'—a tremulous pause,—'it is very strange about poor Trilium, she has always been such a good, dear cow; the children are very fond of her, and my mother was very fond of her when she was a heifer. The last summer before she died, Trilium fed out of mother's hand, and now—she's in perfect health as far as we can see, but father says that if she keeps on refusing to give her milk he will be obliged to sell her.'
Miss Torrance, who was usually strong and dignified, spoke now in a very appealing voice.
'Couldn't you get an old farmer to look at her, or a vet?'
'But why do you think she has suddenly stopped giving milk?' persisted the girl.
'I am very sorry, but I really don't know anything about animals,' said he.
'Oh, then if you don't know anything about them——' She paused. There had been such an evident tone of relief in her voice that he wondered much what would be coming next. In a moment she said, 'I quite agreed with you the other night when you said the superstition about witchcraft was degrading.'
'No one could think otherwise.' He was much puzzled at the turn of her thought.
'Still, of course,about animals, old people like Mistress Betty M'Leod may know something.'
As they talked they were walking down the street in the calm of the summer evening to the prayer meeting. The student's mind was intent upon his duties, for, as they neared the little white-washed church, many groups were seen coming from all sides across the grassy space in which it stood. He was an earnest man, and his mind became occupied with the thought of the spiritual needs of these others who were flocking to hear him preach and pray.
Inside the meeting-room, unshaded oil lamps flared upon a congregation most serious and devout. The student felt that their earnestness and devotion laid upon him the greater responsibility; he also felt much hindered in his speech because of their ignorance and remote ways of thought. It was a comfort to him to feel that there was at least one family among his hearers whose education would enable them to understand him clearly. He looked with satisfaction at the bench where Mr. Torrance sat with his children. He looked with more satisfaction to where Miss Torrance sat at the little organ. She presided over it with dignity and sweet seriousness. She drew music even out of its squeaking keys.
A few days after that prayer meeting the student happened to be in the post-office. It was a small, rough place; a wooden partition shut off the publicfrom the postmistress and her helpers. He was waiting for some information for which he had asked; he was forced to stand outside the little window in this partition. He listened to women's voices speaking on the other side, as one listens to that which in no way concerns oneself.
'It's just like her, stuck up as she is since she came from school, setting herself and her family up to be better than other folks.'
'Perhaps they were out of them at the store,' said a gentler voice.
'Oh, don't tell me. It's on the sly she's doing it, and then pretending to be grander than other folks.'
Then the postmistress came to the window with the required information. When she saw who was there, she said something else also.
'There's a parcel come for Miss Torrance,—if you happen to be going up that way,' the postmistress simpered.
The student became aware for the first time that his friendship with Miss Torrance was a matter of public interest. He was not entirely displeased. 'I will take the parcel,' he said.
As he went along the sunny road, he felt so light-hearted that, hardly thinking what he did, he began throwing up the parcel and catching it again in his hands. It was not large; it was very tightly done up in thick paper, and had an ironmonger's labelattached; so that, though he paid small attention, it did not impress him as a thing that could be easily injured. Something, however, did soon make a sharp impression upon him; once as he caught the parcel he felt his hand deeply pricked. Looking closely, he saw that a pin was working its way through the thick paper. After that he walked more soberly, and did not play ball. He remembered what he had heard at the post-office. The parcel was certainly addressed to Miss Torrance. It was very strange. He remembered with displeasure now the assumption of the postmistress that he would be glad to carry this parcel.
He delivered the pound of pins at the door without making a call. His mind had never come to any decision with regard to his feeling for Miss Torrance, and now he was more undecided than ever. He was full of curiosity about the pins. He found it hard to believe that they were to be used for a base purpose, but suspicion had entered his mind. The knowledge that the eyes of the little public were upon him made him realise that he could not continue to frequent the house merely to satisfy his curiosity.
He was destined to know more.
That night, long after dark, he was called to visit a dying man, and the messenger led him somewhat out of the town.
He performed his duty to the dying with wistfuleagerness. The spirit passed from earth while he yet knelt beside the bed. When he was returning home alone in the darkness, he felt his soul open to the power of unseen spirit, and to him the power of the spiritual unseen was the power of God.
Walking on the soft, quiet road, he came near the house where he had lately loved to visit, and his eye was arrested by seeing a lantern twinkling in the paddock where Trilium grazed. He saw the forms of two women moving in its little circle of light; they were digging in the ground.
He felt that he had a right to make sure of the thing he suspected. The women were not far from a fence by which he could pass, and he did pass that way, looking and looking till a beam of the lantern fell full on the bending faces. When he saw that Miss Torrance was actually there, he went on without speaking.
After that two facts became known in the village, each much discussed in its own way; yet they were not connected with each other in the common mind. One was that the young minister had ceased to call frequently upon Miss Torrance; the other, that Trilium, the cow, was giving her milk.