The last flame of sunset had gone out on a horizon of ashy paleness, as the light bark of the Indian girl swept up the beach, and its occupant, after making it secure, loitered idly home. Here, undismayed by observation, she was as gracefully at ease as a fawn in its leafy covert, and as quickly startled into flight at the tread of a stranger.
So lightly did her moccasined feet press the underbrush that no sound preceded her coming, until she reached the blanketed opening of a wigwam where sat an aged Algonquin chief, very grave, very dignified, very far from being immaculately clean. The young girl was not intimidated by this picturesque combination of dignity and dirt. Perhaps it was the absence of these qualities in the young cadet that caused her sudden flight from him. Seating herself on a bearskin, not far from her foster-father, she interchanged with him mellow syllables of greeting. The chief placed a finger upon her moist brow, and inquired the cause of her haste.
"It was the young kinsman of the Wild Rose who followed me. His head is beautiful as the sun, but he moves, alas, yes, he moves more slowly."
"Then, why this haste?" queried the Indian, who, though he could boast all the keen and subtle instincts of his race, was apparently in some matters as obtuse as a white man.
The girl bowed her face upon her slim brown hands.
"I do not like the glances of his eye," she said. "They are strong and dazzling as sunbeams on the water."
The chief smoked in meditative silence. "You go too often to the dwelling of the Wild Rose, my daughter."
"Ah, yes; but to-night her pink face is dewy wet, I know, and she is alone. The Moon-in-a-black-cloud has gone to the home of her people."
"Then let her seek consolation in the slow moving sun. The pale-faced nation are not fit associates for an Algonquin maiden. Mother Earth has no love for them; they are quick to wash away her lightest finger-touch upon them. They are pale and lifeless as a rock over which the stream washes continually. Their men are afraid of the rain; their women of the sunshine."
"It is even so. The Wild Rose covers her head, and even her hands, when she leaves the house."
At this mournful assent the chief warmed to his task of depreciation.
"They are degraded, these pale faces, they are poor-spirited, mean, contemptible; unable to cope with the wild beasts of the forest, they settle down in weak resignation to grow vegetables; nothing stirs them from their state of ignoble content except the call to battle, and that is responded to not in defence of the lives of their fathers, their wives and children, but merely to settle some petty quarrel between the chiefs of their nations.
"Ah, they are a strange, servile race! They work with their hands." The Indian paused and looked down at the wrinkled yet shapely members that lay before him. "They look upon the grand forest as their natural enemy, burning, cutting, mutilating, until they have made that odious thing 'a clearing,' when a house is built with the dead bodies of the beautiful trees that have fallen by their hand."
"But surely they are not wholly bad," pleaded the girl, her kind heart refusing to accept the belief that even the lowest of humanity could be utterly worthless.
The chief was not to be turned from the swift current of his thoughts by idle interruptions.
"Their religion is dead, buried in a book, and they put it from them as easily as they put the book on the shelf. Our religion is alive, broad as the earth, deep as the sky. They go into ahouseto worship;ourtemple is fashioned by the great Spirit, and our prayers ascend continually like the white smoke from our wigwams. Ah, but they should be pitied not blamed. They are far from the heart of nature—they have ceased to be her children."
"It is money they worship, and the soul of a man becomes like that which he adores. They mourn bitterly for their dead, because they feel how great is the distance between them and the land of spirits. I have heard that there are white men who do not believe that this land exists, but that cannot be true."
There were some depths of degradation that even his far-reaching imagination failed to compass. Wanda listened wearily, though she manifested no signs of impatience.
"The pale-faced women are sometimes very beautiful," she said.
"Yes; but they are strange, unnatural creatures. In times of anger they attack their helpless little ones, talking in a harsh voice, pinching, beating, slapping them, doing everything but bite them."
His listener did not shudder. The Indian, no matter how much his feelings may be stirred, is unaccustomed to evince emotion.
"With us," continued the old man, "an angry woman frequently pulls her husband's hair; for is he not her husband to do with what she likes? but to fall upon her own flesh and blood—that is unnatural and horrible. It is as if she should wilfully injure her own person, bruise it with stones or sear it with hot irons. Perhaps it is because the pale-faced tribes suffer so much in childhood that they are weak and cowardly in manhood. They shrink and cry like a wounded panther at the touch of pain."
The girl who had not dwelt upon it except in her thoughts was nevertheless filled with a gently uplifting sense of race superiority. Her admiration of Rose was tinged with pity. Poor garden flower, confined for life to the dull walks and prim parterres of a fixed enclosure, when she might roam the wild paths of the forest; condemned to sleep in a close room, on stifling feathers, and bathe in an elongated tub, when she might feel the elasticity of hemlock boughs beneath her, inhale the perfumed breath of myriad trees, and plunge at sunrise into the gleaming waters of the lake. It was indeed a pitiable life.
They entered the wigwam, and seated themselves on the rush mats that lay upon the ground. About them were carelessly disposed some dressed skins of the beaver and otter, a brace of wild duck, fishing tackle, and the accoutrements of the chase, a rifle, powder-horn and shot pouch. The chief himself, in his buckskin garment, tightened by a wampum belt, his deer-skin moccasins, scarlet cloth leggings and blanket, was not the least picturesque object of the interior. Usually reticent, he found great difficulty to-night in withdrawing his mind from the subject that had taken such violent possession of it.
"The influence of the white race is spreading," he said. "Like the poison vines of the forest it touches all who come near it with fatal effect. The tribe of the Hurons is infected with it, and they are becoming mere tillers of the soil—miserable earth-worms! Men were made to be free as the bounding deer or the flowing stream, but they have paled and weakened, they have become wretched grovellers on the ground."
Wanda's large eyes held a smouldering fire of repressed indignation.Her mother had been a Huron.
The story of that dark time, far back in the annals of Canada, when the Huron hunting-grounds in this region were laid waste by the destroyer, had been told her so often that her childish imagination had been filled with horror, and a passionate sense of outraged justice and impossible revenge stirred within her at the bare mention of her mother's martyred tribe. She did not vent her feelings in bitter or retaliatory speech—that is the weakness of fairer-faced women—but through her brain rushed like a swift stream a vivid recollection of the tragic tale as it fell from the lips of her Huron mother upon her young horror-stricken heart.
Less than two hundred years before, the poetry of Indian life among the peaceful shades of this virgin wilderness was turned into a tale too ghastly for human imagination, too terrible for human endurance. At that time the Huron settlements on the borders of Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, and between Nottawasaga and Matchedash bays, numbered from twenty to thirty thousand souls. The picturesque country, thickly dotted with Indian towns, was for many years the scene of Champlain's zealous efforts to erect in these western wilds the standard of the Cross. While he won, among the Hurons, converts to his faith and a colony to his country, they found in him a leader in a fateful attack upon their ancient and most obdurate enemies, the Iroquois. The result of the expedition was failure and discomfiture, but years afterwards, when Champlain was dead, and the "great-souled and giant-statured Jean de Brebeuf" became known as the apostle of the tribe, this foray brought most disastrous consequences upon the unsuspecting Hurons.
Not far from the present site of Barrie was the frontier town of St. Joseph, where the Jesuit Fathers, in view of the perils surrounding them, had concentrated their forces in a central stronghold, with a further inland defence at Ste. Marie, near the site of the present town of Penetanguishene. Here, at St. Joseph, after years of incessant labour, of discomforts and discouragements without parallel in the annals of our country, the ardent souls whose enthusiasm for faith and duty had become the dominant principle of their life, were swept away in the red tide of blood that was opened by the Iroquois. One still fair morning in the summer of 1648, while most of the warriors were absent at the chase, and a company of devout worshippers were celebrating Mass in the Mission Chapel, their brutish enemies descended upon their peaceful domains, and by means of every torture conceivable to the savage imagination practically exterminated the tribe. Before the century had half-ended the mission post of St. Ignace was similarly invaded by the Iroquois, who, after they wearied of the pastime of hacking the flesh off their prisoners with tomahawks and hatchets, and scorching them with red-hot irons, bound them at last to the stake and mercifully allowed the swift-mounting flames to end their sufferings. Whole families were bound in their houses before the town was set on fire, and their wild cries mingled with the wilder laughter of their inhuman captors. The few who escaped were so wounded and mutilated that before they could reach a place of safety numbers of them died frozen in the woods.
The remembrance of this dark tale never failed to stir the young girl to a sort of slow self-contained fury, but the blood of the peace-loving Hurons was in her veins, and could not long be dominated by the vengeful propensities of her haughty Algonquin father. Invariably with the mixture of blood comes the warring of diverse emotions, the dissatisfaction with the present life, the secret yearning for something better, the impulse towards something worse. She sighed furtively, and half-impatiently went outside to tend the evening camp-fire. The blazing branches illuminated the starless summer night, and cast a superb glow over the beautiful half-clothed figure crouching not far from them. Beyond, the dark blue bay ebbed and flowed languidly.
Some days elapsed before Wanda again made her appearance in the neighbourhood of the Commodore's mansion. This was caused partly by shyness, partly by fear of meeting the bold-eyed youth, whose interest in her had been so painfully apparent. At length Rose, who had noted with wonder and a little anxiety this unusual absence, suggested to her brother that they call upon one of her Indian friends. To this Edward demurred, on the ground that the work in which he happened to be engaged at the time could not possibly wait. But when he learned that the beautiful Wanda was the friend alluded to he agreed to go with her at once, saying that the work he was doing could wait as well as not. Such was the manner in which brotherly affection was manifested sixty years ago.
It was a still, almost breathless evening in June. From the meadows, thickly starred with dew, rose the thin high chorus of the crickets, while above, the commingling of gray cloud and crimson sunset had subsided into dusk and golden twilight, which were giving place to the white radiance of the moon slowly climbing the warm heights of heaven. It was so quiet that the sound of waves and insects seemed like the softest whispers of nature. Rose and Edward had rowed down the bay for Helene, who usually accompanied them on their impromptu excursions by lake and wood. Seen in the pale brilliance of sky and water her loveliness had an almost unearthly quality, perfectly akin to the night, but giving her a strange effect of soft remoteness from her friends. The light from a brazier, fitted into a stanchion in the prow of the boat, in which some pieces of birch-bark were kindled, brought the deep dark shadow of the woods into sharp relief, and gave a more vivid brilliance to the immediate surroundings; but along the dimly-lit path in the forest all the magical influences of the night held sway. Beneath the tangled underbrush they caught glimpses of the rich and fantastic vegetation with which the earth was clothed, while above them, intermingled with the shadows cast by the vaulted boughs, played the vivid brightness of the moon. Some of the trees were deeply girdled—a slow method of killing them. These lingering deaths affected the trio with melancholy. A wounded inmate of the grove, standing in mute and pathetic resignation to its fate, loses first the feeling of the sap that, blood-like, circulates through every limb, then all its leafy honours fade, and its death is slow and inevitable as the death of a forsaken woman who carries a deep hurt at the heart.
Near where a group of lofty elms lifted their beautiful heads up to the moonlight they found the old chief busily engaged in mending his seine. He greeted them with entire self-possession, rising and giving his hand to each, after which he resumed his occupation in tranquil content, as though the duties of hospitality were now over. The young ladies, however, without waiting for any further exhibition of courtesy, seated themselves on a mossy log, and bestowed upon their host and his employment the flattering attention, which, if it failed to make an impression upon him, would certainly prove him more—or less—than mortal man. Edward, meantime, finding a convenient bough a few feet above his head, amused himself in swinging by his hands, with a view to muscular development. The contrast between the sad dignity of the aged Indian, the lone survivor of a despised race, and the light-heartedness of the fair boy, upon whom all the hopes of his family centred, struck both girls forcibly. After a few sympathetic inquiries regarding the health of the chief, Rose asked after the whereabouts of Wanda.
"She is not here," he replied. "She flies from our home as a bird flies from its cage, returning only when she is weary, or when the shades of night are upon the land."
"Do you know where she is?" inquired Edward, dropping to his feet, and seating himself on a log facing the others.
"Somewhere in the forest," replied the Indian, indicating the direction by a broad sweep of the hand, which might include a thousand acres.
This was sufficiently indefinite. "It appears to be characteristic of this young lady that she is either a vanished joy, or just on the point of becoming one. Have you any idea how far away she is?" he asked.
"Something more than twice the flight of an arrow," tranquilly answered the Indian—"yes, much more. It used to be that she went short distances, but she now goes a papoose's journey of half a sun—sometimes further." He viewed his impatient guest a moment with gravity, and added, "yes, much further."
"And you trust her all alone?"
"She is an Algonquin maiden. She fears nothing."
"And why is an Algonquin superior to a Huron, for instance?" The young man, leaning idly back, and caressing the Indian dog of the chief, pursued his questions without any definite purpose, but merely to draw out his reserved-looking host.
"Why is the fleet deer that spurns the soil better than the dull ox that tills it? Or why is the eagle better than the hen that picks up corn in your doorway? But there was a time when in all the land no Indian could be found who was tame and stupid—what you call civilized."
"Tell us a legend of that time, will you not?" pleaded Rose, who had been watching in silence for a fitting opportunity to make her favourite request.
"Ah, please do," said Edward, and the three settled themselves comfortably to listen.
"It was a great many moons ago," began the chief, "long before the time of my grandfather. All the Indian races were then as one people, living in peace, and speaking one tongue. Not one of them worked with his hands. The deer, the beaver, the otter, the antelope, and the bear flourished and fattened for all, and were caught with scarcely any skill or effort. The men were never wearied in the chase, nor the women with pounding corn. None of the white races had as yet come upon the earth to molest and insult the guardian spirits of hill and stream and stately wood, and the red men, then as now, were in the habit of propitiating these deities by offerings of maize, bright coloured flowers, or belts of wampum laid upon the mountains, or dropped into caves or streams. Yes, every one lived without fear of his neighbour, and the red ochre with which our tribes paint their faces in war was used only to decorate the pipe of peace.
"One day it happened that a few chosen ones of all these tribes were met together upon a plain, about the distance of four bow-shots across. Very green and shining it looked to the eye, for it was in the Flower-moon, and the great star of day was bright in the heaven. By its clear light they saw, far in the distance, two strange, enormous things moving towards them. But whether these things were writhing wreaths of thunder clouds descended to earth, or gigantic trees denuded of their foliage and suddenly gifted with the power of motion, or whether they were wild beasts of a size never seen before, they could not tell. But presently they found them to be immense creatures in the form of rattlesnakes, poisoning the air with their vile effluvia, and destroying every green tree and living thing in their path. Every delicate plant and creeping thing was poisoned by their breath, and the larger animals were devoured in the flap of a bird's wing. With them came terrific lightnings that rent the trees and cleft the solid rock, and thunders which caused the earth to reel like a man who had drank many times of fire-water. Nearer and nearer they approached, and now the chosen residents of this fair plain were filled with alarm for their lives, and at once began to build fortifications against the terrible intruders. The snakes, who appeared to prefer the flesh of man to that of the other animals, crawled up close to the defence of their enemies, and flung their long horrible bodies against it, but in vain. It was useless to attack them with bows and arrows, on account of the scales which enveloped them like an armour. Those who ventured without the walls were instantly swallowed, while those within, who had fasted many suns, were growing weak from want of food.
"Now there was among them a chief, called the Big Bear, who was very brave and cunning. He had been a hunter of the deer and wolf ever since he had been pronounced a man. No danger was so great that he could not find a trail out of it. So when he began to speak all the people who remained gathered round him.
"'Brothers and chiefs,' he said, 'I perceive that one of our enemies is a woman, because she is less sluggish in her movements than the other, and her eyes are bright and deceitful. Besides she cares not to eat all the time, but she will sometimes go to view herself in the river, or when she thinks no one is looking will slyly turn her head to see the graceful movements of her tail. Brothers, my plan is this: Let me contrive to win the heart of this vain squaw-snake, and then with her aid I shall be able to destroy her husband; afterwards we may compass the destruction of the faithless wife. If I perish it is in a good cause, I am a willing martyr.'
"This good man proceeded that very night to carry out his noble purpose. The sky was full of shining lights as he mounted the fortification, and bent toward her, murmuring: 'Ah, beautiful creature, thy form is graceful as a winding stream, and thine eyes are two stars reflected in it. That stupid man-snake, lying in heavy sleep, how can he appreciate you? He is withered and worthless as a last year's leaf. As for me I flee to you from the dull women of my tribe, who are like so many dead trees, that stand even after life has left them. You are alive and beautiful in every movement, like the long curving wave that breaks upon the beach.'
"Oh, there is no doubt that Big Bear knew all about the best way to make love, for very soon the squaw-snake began to show great discontent with her husband, to scold him in a high voice, and to wish that he were dead; whereas she greeted Big Bear with much affection, warming her glittering head in his breast, and embracing him several times by coiling round and round him. But she was careful to turn her head away, so as not to poison him by her breath. As for Big Bear, though he was glad to win her love, he wished her not to love him too well as she had a wonderful dexterity in snapping off the heads of those whom she admired. Her consent to the death of her husband was easily gained, and she bade him dip the points of two arrows in the poison of her sting. This he did and after retiring within the fortification he levelled one arrow at the head of the husband, while he deposited the other in that of the wicked wife. The horrid monsters rolled over in agony, and rent the air with their death-shrieks, while all the people gathering about Big Bear, called him their brother, because by his wonderful knowledge of the arts of flirtation he had delivered them from great peril. But the most grievous result of the danger through which they had passed was this, that the poison ejected by the snakes in their death-agonies affected all the tribes of the earth to such an extent that each began to use a different language which could not be comprehended by the others. Since that time a young man of one race very seldom weds with the daughter of another, because she does not understand the lies he tells."
"Is it necessary for him to tell her what is not true, in order to marry her?" asked Edward.
"It is customary," replied the chief, gravely returning to his task, without the suspicion of a smile.
"Oh, strange peculiarity of the red men," softly exclaimed Helene. She begged for another legend, but the Indian had relapsed into his normal state of imperious dignity; so, after thanking him for the extravaganza, to which they had listened with admirable self-possession, they returned to the beach, the dog plunging joyfully into the green depths of the forest before them. The great woods were warm, odorous, breathless. Rose pushed back the damp blonde locks from her brow. "I wish you could have seen Wanda," she said. "The girl is quite a beauty. Half wild, of course, but with a sort of barbaric splendour about her that dazzles and bewilders one. You will understand when you see her, why the Indians speak the word 'pale-face' with a contemptuous inflection."
"I suppose," mused Edward, "that paleness to them means weakness, lack of blood, vitality, courage, and all that most becomes a man. Yet as a matter of taste I prefer white to copper colour." His blue eyes were bent upon the lily-like face of Helene.
"Wait till you see her," was his sister's laughing response.
"And that will be many moons hence, to use the language of our story-teller, if she continues as elusive as the wind. I have had glimpses of her, or rather of the flutter of her vanishing raiment. A being with a wonderfully perfect face, clothed in heterogeneous and many-coloured garments, and educated on the amazing fictions with which her foster-father's memory seems to be stored, would be worth waiting to see."
But he had not long to wait. As he stood on the beach in the absence of his companions, who were carefully retracing their steps to the wigwam in search of a glove, presumably dropped by the way, he caught sight of the Indian girl, her back turned towards him, lazily rocking herself in his boat. For a moment he thrilled with the excitement of a hunter in the presence of that desirable object, "a splendid shot." Then he crept stealthily forward, sprang into the boat, and before the startled girl could recover from her amazement, he was rowing her far out on the moonlit bay. "There!" he cried, exultantly, bending an ardent yet laughing gaze upon her, "now you may run away as fast as you like."
The girl neither spoke nor moved. A great fire of resentment was burning in her heart, and its flames mounted to her cheeks. "My soul!" he murmured, "how beautiful you are!" She faced him fully and fairly, with the magnificent disdain of an empress in exile. In some way she gave him the impression that this brilliant little escapade was rather a poor joke after all. "Do me the favour of moving a muscle," he pleaded mockingly, and his request was lavishly granted. Before he could guess her intention she was in the water, knocking an oar from his hand in her rapid exit, and swimming at an incredible rate of speed for the nearest point of land, from which she sped like a hunted thing to the woods.
Left alone in this unceremonious fashion the young man paddled ruefully after his missing oar, and then struck out boldly after the escaped captive, with the intention of apologizing for what now seemed to him rather a cowardly performance; but the footsteps of the flying maiden left no trace upon the beach. His discomfited gaze rested on no living thing save the approaching figures of his sister and her friend, whose humane inquiries and frequent jests concerning the half wild, wholly dripping, vision that had crossed their path, contributed in no way to the young man's enjoyment of their homeward row.
Early on one of those matchless summer mornings, for he loved to adopt the hours kept by the birds, Edward set forth alone on a voyage of discovery. The wilds of his native land had a great and enduring fascination for him. He never ceased to enjoy the charm of a forest so dense that one might stay in it for days without the danger of discovery. Wandering as he listed, hurrying or loitering as it pleased him, and resting when weary beneath the outstretched arms of the over-shadowing wood, he drank deeply of the simple joys of a free and careless savage life. His whole nature became sensitive and receptive, like that of a poet, an absorbent of the beauty and music of earth and air.
The long bright hours of this particular day were spent in exploring bayous and marshes, and in paddling among the ledges and around the lovely islands of Lake Couchiching. The dazzling blue expanse—mirror of a sky as blue—was broadly edged with reeds and rushes, flags and water-lilies, and framed by the thickly wooded shore and the green still cliffs that overhung the quiet waves. The air was laden with the sweet faint odours of early summer, and a soft breeze was lightly blowing under skies as soft. The youthful voyager went ashore, and for a long time lay stretched on the sand with his gun watching for wild-fowl.
The woods were brilliant with flowers, blue larkspur, scarlet lichens, the white and yellow and purple cyprepedium, or lady's slipper, called by the Indians 'moccasin flower,' the purple and scarlet iris, the bright pink blossom of the columbine, and all the other wind-blown and world-forgotten flowerets of the forest.
As the day grew warmer he betook himself for coolness to a quiet leaf-screened nook, beneath a rudely sculptured cliff, mantled in foliage. Here he reclined after his midday lunch, gazing out upon a sky so blue that it seemed a sea washing the invisible shores of heaven, and dreaming of as many things as usually occupy the fancy of a young man on an idle June day. But one event of which he did not dream was rapidly approaching. A wild bird more brilliant and beautiful than any he had so patiently waited for with his gun was preparing to fall at his feet. Just above his head the Algonquin maiden, Wanda, who like himself had strayed far from home, was reposing warm and wearied in utter unconsciousness of the proximity of any human being. The shining waters of the lake beneath her gave her a sudden charming inspiration. Springing up with the alertness of one upon whom fatigue lies as lightly as dew upon the sward, she swiftly disrobed, and remained a moment graceful as a young maple in autumn, standing in beautiful undress, its delicate limbs bare of leaves, and all its light raiment fallen in a many coloured heap to the ground.
In the naturalabandonof the situation, Wanda neared the edge of the overhanging cliff, and sprang far out into the water. Edward, who was still lounging under the rock, was startled by the flashing outline—like a meteor from the heavens—of a human figure, which, in the twinkling of an eye, had cleaved the smooth surface of the lake, sank far into its depths, and reappeared some distance off. The glistening waters seemed to set in diamonds the beautifully shaped head and neck of the Indian maiden as she disported herself in the cool lake, and made for a point of land where a winding pathway, covered to the water's edge by a profuse growth of young trees, led up to the cliff above.
Recalling the classical story, familiar to his youth, and the judgment of the gods—"Henceforth be blind for thine eyes have seen too much!"—the young man concealed himself from view from the lake and waited for some time before venturing to regain the cliff overhead.
The fear of not being able to overtake the Indian beauty prevented Edward from remaining a prisoner quite as long as his sense of propriety dictated. But his fear was justified. She had almost reached the vanishing point of his vision when he finally emerged from his involuntary hiding-place. When at last he came up with her she confronted him with the wide innocent gaze of a child suddenly startled in its play. Then the swift instinct of the savage, the uncontrollable desire to fly, took possession of her. But the young man laid a light detaining hand upon her slim brown wrist. "Don't leave me," he entreated, "I want to ask you the way home."
It was the only pretext he could invent on the spur of the moment, and it answered his purpose admirably. She stopped to view with undisguised amazement, tempered with faint scorn, a human being who was so ignorant of the commonest affairs of life as to lose himself in the woods. She never dreamed of doubting his word. "I will be your guide," she said, with grave friendliness.
"You are very kind. I am afraid," said the youth with well-feigned discouragement, "that we are a long way from home."
"This is my home," said Wanda, as they stepped into the shadow of the limitless forest. "It is only white men who are content to live on a little patch of ground and shut the sky away from them. The Indian is at home everywhere."
"That is certainly an advantage, for when a person's home is spread all over the continent he can never be lost. What should I have done if I had not met you?"
She made no reply. Flitting before him like some gorgeous bird, he was obliged to follow her at a pace that was anything but agreeable on this hot afternoon. Presently she turned and came back. He was leaning against a tree, breathing heavily, and exhibiting every symptom of extreme fatigue.
"You are forcing me to lead a terribly fast life," he declared. "You have no idea of how tired I am."
She laid a smooth brown hand upon his heart. If it beat faster at the touch it was not sufficiently rapid to cause alarm. "You are not tired at all," she declared with the air of a wise physician who is not to be imposed upon, "besides there is need for haste. It is going to rain."
And indeed the intense heat of the summer afternoon threatened to find relief in a thunder shower. The atmosphere suddenly cooled and darkened. The strange, shrill, foreboding chirp of a bird was the only sound heard in the forest, except the rushing of a new-risen hurrying wind in the tree-tops. Then came the loud patter of rain on the leaves overhead, accompanied by a heavy crash of thunder.
"The Great Spirit is angry," murmured the young girl, her eyes dilating, and her breast heaving.
"Well, experience teaches me that the best course to pursue when people are angry is to keep perfectly still until the storm blows over. It's no use talking back. Ah! don't do that," he implored as she stooped and kissed the ground.
"But I must. It will propitiate the angry spirit and preserve us from danger."
"Oh, how can you waste your sweetness on the desert earth, in that fashion? Itmaypreserve us from danger, but it is likely to have a contrary effect on me."
The temporary shelter afforded by the interlacing branches overhead was now beaten down by the strength of the storm, which descended in torrents. "Ah! you are afraid," he observed softly, drawing nearer to her.
"It is for you," she responded, "The rain is no more to me than it is to a red squirrel, but you, poor canary bird, your yellow head should be safe in its own cage."
This anxious, motherly tone brought a smile to the lips of the young man. A sudden thought struck his guide. Grasping his hand she drew him swiftly along until they reached the hollow trunk of an immense oak, into which she hastily thrust him. "There is not room for both," she declared, looking like a dripping naiad, as the rain-drops thickened about her. "Then there is not room for me," responded Edward, whose sense of chivalry rebelled at the idea of looking from a place of security upon an unprotected woman, exposed to the fury of the storm. He drew her reluctant form beside him, but she was impatient and ill at ease in her enforced shelter, as though she had been one of the untamed things of the wood, caught and prisoned against its will. Outside the rain fell fast, while within crouched this beautiful creature as remotely as possible from her human companion, and gazing longingly forth upon the wild elements of whose life her own life seemed to form a vital part. Her pulse beat fast in sympathy with the fast beating rain. Her large liquid eyes were dark as woodland pools. She did not pay her companion the compliment of being embarrassed in the slightest degree by his presence. Her only feeling was one of physical discomfort in her cramped position, and impatience with the man who could imagine that for her such protection was necessary. It crossed his mind that here was a veritable child of nature, untamed, untamable, not only in her habits and surroundings, her modes of life and thought, but in her very nature, in every fibre of her being, every emotion of her mind. Her superb unconsciousness chagrined and then irritated him. A beautiful woman might as well be a beautiful statue as to persist in behaving like one. A sudden rash desire took possession of the youth to test the quality of this superhuman indifference. The opportunity was tempting, the moment auspicious; he might never be so near her again. He laid one hand upon her arm, and bent his fair head till it reached her shoulder. Then he bestowed a lingering kiss upon the lovely curve of her cheek where it melted into her neck. She turned her proud head slowly, and looked at him through eyes that deepened and glowed.
"Wanda!" he breathed softly.
For answer he received a stinging blow on the face. Nor was he consoled by the spectacle of a wild girl darting from under the shelter of the tree, and vanishing from his sight.
A June Sunday in the country, radiant, cloudless, odorous with the breath of countless blossoms, thrilled with the melody of unnumbered voices, was just beginning. The first blush of morning lay warm upon sky and lake—the splendour above perfectly matched by the splendour below,—as Rose Macleod opened her casement window fronting the east, and looked out upon the myriad tender tints, the new yet ever familiar harmonies of light and colour with which the world was clothed. The gray walls of the Commodore's home on this side were hung with climbing plants, and as his pretty daughter leaned out of her chamber window a dewy branch of roses, loosened from its fastening, struck her softly on the cheek. The touch gave her a thrill, delicately keen—a pleasure, sharp as pain. No life was abroad yet except the birds, but the morning-glories were all awake. She could see their wealth of tender bloom outspread upon the rugged heap of rocks, warm with sunshine, that separated between a corner of the flower-smothered turf and the dark shadow of the almost impenetrable woods.
With her golden head drooped in drowsy meditation upon her folded arms she would have made a picture for a painter, a picture rose-tinted and rose-framed. But no painter was there to look upon her except the sun, and his ardent attentions becoming altogether too warm to be agreeable he was incontinently shut outside. She turned away with that slight sense of intoxication that comes from gazing too long upon the inexpressible beauty of a world that is dimmed only by the complaints and forebodings of querulous humanity. In the cool dimness of the pretty many-windowed room she stood a moment irresolutely, and then went in search of inspiration to a row of well-used books, over which she ran a pink reflective finger-tip. But nothing there responded to her need. It is a rare book that is worthy to hold the attention of maidenhood on a June morning.
So, as further slumber was impossible, she presently slipped down stairs, and stepped out upon the broad veranda. Afterwards came the younger children, Herbert and Eva, whose usually bright faces were shadowed now with the consciousness that it was Sunday, a fact that was aggravated rather than palliated by the radiant perfection of the weather. The Commodore, who was the most sympathetic soul alive, would, if he could have followed his own unperverted instincts, have had his children as happy on Sunday as on any other day, but it was necessary to make concessions to the Puritan spirit of the time, which ruled that a certain degree of discomfort and restraint should mark the first day of the week. But every dull look vanished as the father's step was heard, for his was one of those genial, warm-hearted, caressing natures, which are calculated to dispel the chill of even an old-fashioned Sunday. There was also a hearty brusqueness in the tone of his voice, something of the sea in the swing of his gait, and even in the movement of his full kindly gray eye, which could not fail to inspire confidence. His children flew to him at once, laying violent hands upon him, and clinging to his arms with decorously subdued shrieks of merriment, as he walked briskly to and fro.
"Where's Edward?" he demanded of his eldest daughter, as they approached that young lady, who was pensively reclining in a rustic chair.
"Not up yet, papa," she dreamily responded, uplifting her face for his morning salutation.
"Notawakeyet," corrected Herbert, with a boy's unmistakable contempt for the luxurious habits of his elders.
"Lazy dog!" commented the Commodore, in a voice whose irateness was wholly assumed. "If I had come down late to breakfast when I was young I would have been sent back to bed again."
"That is what Ed. would like," declared Herbert. "He said it was no use calling Sunday a day of rest unless one could get all the rest one wanted, and it was hardly worth while for him to get up at all on a day when he couldn't fish or shoot or go out in his boat."
"The young barbarian! After all the care and pains expended on his bringing up. What shall we do about it, Rosy?"
"Call him again!" said Herbert, who, with the ever-fertile mind of tender youth, was never destitute of practical suggestions.
"Bright boy! run at once and ring the bell just outside his door." As the child departed to make the clangour, so much more delightful to his own ears than to those for whom it was intended, Eva observed:
"But he came in so late last night, papa, and looked very tired."
The Commodore patted the head of his little girl, but he continued to direct towards her elder sister a glance of half-humorous inquiry. Poor Rose knitted her pretty brows in troubled perplexity. She had been informed in the "Advice to Young Women," "Duties of Womanhood," and other ethical works of the day, that a sister's influence is illimitable, and she felt besides an added weight of responsibility towards her motherless sister and brothers. "I don't know, papa," she said at last, "unless we all take to the backwoods, live in a wigwam, and feast on the fruits of the chase. Edward chafes a good deal under the restraints of civilized life."
"Ah, here comes the prodigal son!" joyously exclaimed Eva, who ran to meet her favourite brother, oblivious of the smiles produced by her unflatteringly inapt remark.
"Don't kill any calf for me," entreated Edward, thrusting his younger sister's straight yellow locks over her face, until it was hard to say where her features ended and the back of her head began. "I deserve it, but I don't like it. Veal is my detestation."
"Upon my word," said the old gentleman, looking very hard at a discoloured spot just above the left eye of his eldest born, "it looks as though I had been trying to kill the prodigal instead of the calf. That's a bad bruise, my boy."
"'Tis, sir," responded Edward, in a tone which implied that meek assent was all that could be expected from him to a proposition so very self-evident. He felt uncomfortably conscious that the eyes of the assembled family were upon him, and glanced half enviously at Eva, as though the ability to shake a sunny mane over one's face at will was something to be thankful for. The breakfast bell roused them from a momentary silence, but the shadow of this mysterious bruise seemed to follow them even to the table. Herbert and Eva, aged respectively ten and twelve, had that superabundant love of information so characteristic of their tender years. They sat in round-eyed silence, bringing the battery of their glances to bear upon their unfortunate brother, who at last could endure it no longer.
"Upon my life!" he exclaimed, "one would think I was the governor-general, or some wild animal in a menagerie, to become the object of so much concentrated and distinguished attention."
"Which would you say he was, Eva?" asked Herbert.
"Which what?" inquired that young lady.
"Sir Peregrine Maitland, or a wild animal?"
"Oh, Sir Peregrine, of course. See what a lofty, scornful way he has of looking at us. And yet he is not really proud; he is willing to sit down with us at our humble board, just as though he was a common person."
"Children!" said Rose with soft reproach, but her voice trembled, and the imps were subjugated only outwardly.
"Anything particular going on in Barrie?" queried the Commodore, turning to his eldest son.
"Really, I can't say. I haven't been over in several days."
"Oh, I imagined you were there last night."
"I never go there at night," protested the young man, with unnecessary vehemence. It was clear to him now that his father and sister held a very low opinion of him indeed. Probably they thought he had been hurt in some vulgar tavern brawl, or drunken street fight. The idea was loathsome to him. He had not a single low taste or trait of character.
"I'm afraid," said Herbert, shaking his head with mock regret, "that you are a very wild fellow."
"He means that you are very fond of the wilds," interpreted Rose, hurriedly endeavouring to avert the threatened domestic storm. "Eva," she continued, taking up that irrepressible damsel before she could give utterance to the uncalled-for remark, which was but too evidently burning upon her lips, "do you know your catechism?"
"Yes," replied her sister, in rather an aggrieved tone, for she did not relish this change in the conversation, "I know it—to a certain extent."
"Eva looks as though she would prefer to catechise Edward," slyly interpolated her father; and under this shameless encouragement the young lady boldly observed:
"Indeed, I should. I should like to begin right at the beginning with, 'Can you tell me, dear child, who made you'—have that big black bruise on your brow?"
"I can," responded Edward, imperturbably. "It was a beautiful little beast, not much bigger than you are, but a great deal prettier."
"Was it, really?" Any offence that might have been taken at the uncomplimentary nature of the reply was swallowed up in eager curiosity. "What was it?"
"Well, that I can't tell you. I never saw anything like it before."
"That's queer," said Herbert. "What colour was it?"
"Oh, black and brown and all the loveliest shades of scarlet—with cruel, little, white teeth, sharp and strong as a squirrel's teeth."
"But it didn't bite you," said Rose, with a puzzled glance at the white brow, whose delicate fairness made the discolouration more conspicuous.
"No, but it looked fully capable of biting—enchanting little brute!"
"Why on earth didn't you shoot it?" questioned the Commodore, rousing himself to the exploration of this new mystery.
The young man laughed a little guiltily. "To tell the truth the idea never once entered my head. You have no idea what beautiful eyes it had."
"Oh—sentimentalist!"
"Yes, I was sentimental enough yesterday, but it will be long before I am troubled that way again."
"At any rate," said Herbert, as they drifted back to the shadowing veranda, whose flowery screen the sun had not yet penetrated, "you can't go to church."
"I wish I could take you all over in my sail-boat," said his elder brother, wistfully surveying the blue waters of Kempenfeldt Bay.
"Ed., you are a heathen," declared Miss Eva, whose usual adoring advocacy of her brother's opinions was paralized by this assault upon the proprieties; "it's wicked to ride in a boat on Sunday."
"But it's perfectly right to ride in a carriage," added Herbert, with a view to giving information, and not with any satirical intention.
There was no reply. If it is a crime to possess a too great susceptibility to the ever-deepening charm of woods and waters then Edward Macleod was the chief of sinners. In his father he had a secret sympathizer, for the old gentleman himself was not without strong leanings toward a free and careless, if not semi-savage, life. But no hint of this escaped him in the presence of the younger children, whose air of severe morality, born of renewed attacks and final triumph over the difficulties of the Sunday School lesson, he considered it unwise to disturb.
Church service was not a painfully long or tedious affair. The little wooden structure, erected for that purpose in Barrie, had the air of trying to be in sweet accord with the outlying wilderness, from the dark green drapery of ivy which charitably strove to hide its raw newness. The town itself (for in a new country everything in excess of a post-office is called a town) was wrapped in Sabbath stillness. The little church was well filled, for a bright Sunday in a country village draws the inhabitants from their homes as infallibly as bees from their hives. Workers and drones they were all there, bowed together under the sense of a common need, and of faith in a common Helper, which alone makes men free and equal.
Like a light in a dark place gleamed the bright head of Rose Macleod in the farthest corner of the family pew. A vagrant sunbeam, like a golden arrow, pierced the gloom about her, but to the disappointment ofoneinterested observer, it failed to reach the rich coils, so nearly resembling it in colour. This observer presently reminded himself that he had come there to worship the divine, as revealed in holy writ, not in human beauty; nevertheless he could not forbear sending another stealthy glance, which, more accurately aimed than the sunbeam, rested fully and lingeringly upon the shadowy recess, where a glowing amber-golden head bloomed richly forth against the frigid back-ground of a bare wooden wall. The dainty little lady, enveloped in the antique richness of a stiff brocade, should have been made aware by some mysteriously occult means of a strange thrill at the heart, caused by the protracted gaze of a handsome fellow-worshipper, but to tell the truth her thoughts were piously intent upon the enormity of her own sins, and the necessity of reclaiming her brother from the very literal wildness of his ways.
Service was over; the still air seemed vibrant with the notes of the last hymn, and tender with the just-uttered words of the benediction, as this stately little damsel, with the peculiar air of distinction which set so charmingly upon her doll-like personality, passed down the aisle and out into the sunshine. She had looked on him—she had been conscious of his existence; but it was seemingly in the same way that she had noticed the wooden pews against which her rich little robe was trailing, and the floor which felt the pressure of her dainty feet. Allan Dunlop standing among the outcoming worshippers, whose greetings he mechanically responded to, silently anathematized the soulless edict of society, which forbids a man to stand and gaze after a vanishing vision in feminine form. The receding figure was not wholly unconscious, however, of the mute homage of which she had been the recipient.
A few hours later this lovely possessor of all the graces and virtues, according to the newly-awakened imagination of her unknown admirer, reclined in her shell-pink apartment, in which the breezes blowing through the lattice sounded like theandanteof the sea, and sighed for the forbidden fruit of a half-finished novel. But the sigh perished with the breath that gave it birth. The next moment she sternly doubled a very diminutive fist, and demanded of herself whether that was the best use that could be made of her time and opportunities. Then she looked about for some missionary work. It was not far to seek, for the children, weary of purposeless drifting on the still monotonous tide of Sunday afternoon, came battering at her door with united hands and voices, demanding a story. In the midst of her recital she suddenly bethought herself of Edward and inquired after his whereabouts.
"Roaming up and down the strawberry patch," said Eva.
"Seeking what he may devour," added her brother, unconsciously giving a scriptural turn to his information.
"For shame, Herbert!"
"Shame enough! He never offered me one."
The subject of this discussion passed the open door shortly after and looked rather forlornly in upon the interested trio. On his way upstairs a casement window that stood ajar swung softly open as he passed it, touched by the invisible fingers of the breeze; and the young man was not comforted by the picture suddenly revealed to him—the picture of a slim shape in a light canoe darting bird-like over the water. Rose felt a vague pang of pity, but had no opportunity to go to him. Her ministrations were in active demand by the younger pair from whom she was unable to free herself until twilight fell, when they voluntarily resigned her to a need greater than their own. On many a summer night in years past they had seen their father and mother pace the winding length of the avenue together. Now, when the tender gloom of evening was beginning, and the solitary figure of the Commodore was seen going with drooped head toward his favourite walk, it was Rose who ran with eager step to take the vacant place at his side. If his heart was saddened by that shadowy presence, which walks at eventide by the side of him who is bereaved, it could not be wholly cast down so long as warm clinging hands were about his arm, a bright face looking up into his, and a clear voice, from which every note of sadness was excluded, murmuring a thousand entertaining nothings in his ear.
If Rose was a never-failing fountain of alluring fiction to Herbert and Eva, and the comfort of life to her father, she was the sympathizingconfidanteof her elder brother, who unburdened his heart to her in a private interview just before retiring.
"But what under the sun made you kiss her?" inquired this practical young lady.
"Oh, murder, Rose, what a question! What under the sun makes one taste a peach or pluck a flower?"
"But if the peach or the flower does not belong to you? Well, I'll not lecture you, Edward; you have sufficiently expiated your offence."
"I never dreamed," returned the delinquent, "that a kiss for a blow, which is the Christian's rule of morals, could be translated by the poor savage into a blow for a kiss."
"Probably you terrified her. That old chief has brought her up in the belief that the white man is a compound of all the vices."
"Well, she behaved as though I might be that. She never paused to consider the ruin she had wrought, but darted off like a flash of lightning."
Rose laughed; but after she departed the smile upon her brother's face quickly vanished. Not that the bruise on his brow was so severe, but he found it impossible to forgive the blow to his vanity.
"Beautiful little brute!" he muttered under his breath, "I haven't done with her yet. She'll live to give me something prettier than this in return for my caresses."
Some days later, Edward, mounted on his favourite Black Bess, waiting for Rose to accompany him in a morning gallop, was amazed to see that venturesome young lady prepare to seat herself on Flip, a crazy little animal scarcely more than a colt, whose character for unsteadiness was notorious.
"I have set my heart on him," was all Rose could say in answer to her brother's protestations.
"Set your heart on him as much as you please," returned Edward, "so long as you do not set your person on him."
"In England," ventured, the respectful Tredway, "young ladies generally prefer a more trustworthy animal."
"Well, when we go to England," responded Rose, casting her arms around the neck of her slandered steed, "we'll do as the English do—won't we Flip, dear? In this country we'll have just a little of our own wild way."
From this decision there was no appeal. The words were scarcely spoken when there was a swift scamper of heels, a smothered sound, half shriek, half laughter, from Rose's lips, a cloud of dust, and that was all. Edward's alarm was changed to amusement as the pony, after its first wild flight, settled down into a sort of dancing step, ambling, pirouetting, curvetting, sidling, arching its wilful neck at one moment, and rushing off at a rate that bade fair to break its rider's at the next.
By fits and starts—a great many of them—they managed to make their way to "Bellevue," where the lovely Helene, arrayed in the alluring coolness of a whiteneglige, and with her braided locks drooping to her waist, came down the walk to meet them.
"Rose Macleod!" she exclaimed, for Black Bess was still far in the rear, and she imagined her friend unaccompanied, "and on that desperately dangerous little Flip!"
"The very same," responded Rose saucily, "but I don't know how long I may remain on him. We want you to join us in a glorious old gallop."
"Good morning, Mademoiselle," exclaimed Edward, reining in his black steed. "I hope Madame DeBerczy is better than usual, as I have some thoughts of leaving my wild sister with her. She's every bit as unmanageable as Flip."
"Leave me, indeed," retorted Rose, "as though I could trust you alone in the woods—with a pretty girl."
The last words were inaudible, save to Helene, between whom and Rose there passed a subtle glance which gave Edward a vague alarm. Could it be that Helene had received intelligence of his encounter with Wanda? No, it was clearly impossible. There was nothing of mocking in her look—nothing but the pretty consciousness of a girl who could not forget that her shoulders and arms were gleaming beneath the mist of a muslin altogether too thin, and a weight of loosened braids altogether too thick, to be proper subjects for a young man's contemplation.
She presently vanished within, and reappeared before they had time to be impatient. In her close-clinging habit, with her black braids securely pinned, a handful of lilies drooping at her waist, and the whole of her fair young figure invested with a sort of stately maidenliness, she formed a sufficient contrast to Rose, who, perched defiantly upon her wicked little steed, looked every inch a rogue. Mademoiselle DeBerczy's white horse was slim and graceful as became its owner, who glanced with lady-like apprehension at the dashings and plungings and other dog-like vagaries of Flip. "Dear me, Rose," she at last remarked rather nervously, "I can't bear to look at you."
"Then don't look at me!" exclaimed the wild girl, "go on with Edward;Flip and I are going to make a morning of it."
The young man nothing loth drew in Black Bess beside the milk-white palfrey, and began to comment upon the beauty of the morning, of the woods through which they were passing, and, lastly, of an Indian child, who, straying away from a settlement of wigwams, perched itself upon a stump, and surveyed the cavalcade with round-eyed interest.
"The loveliest Indian girl I ever saw," remarked Helene, "is Wanda, the Algonquin chief's adopted daughter. But this is no news to you, as I hear that you were quite forcibly struck by her."
Oh, the ambiguities of the English language! There was not a quiver of an eye-lash, not the slightest curl of the scarlet lips, and the wide dark eyes were seemingly free from guile; but, nevertheless, Edward suffered again that vague alarm which had sprung into being at the gate of "Bellevue."
"I think her very pretty, certainly," he returned, "but I can't say that I admire her."
"I am surprised at that. Rose told me that she made quite an impression upon you."
Ought this to be taken literally? The lily-white face was no tell-tale.Could one so fair be so deceitful? This matter must be further probed.
"The impression was not altogether a pleasant one," he confessed with a rising flush.
"Not pleasant? You are very hard to please. She is not only remarkably handsome but she has a vigorous personality—a sort of native force that is sure to make its mark."
"I fear I am not an admirer of force—that is in a woman."
"I am sure you have no reason to be. It is possible that even the beautiful Wanda might not be above browbeating a man."
"Oh, she might do worse than that," said Edward, with the coolness born of desperation. "She might sink so low as to basely persecute him with her knowledge of a secret extracted from his sister. Don't you think that would be treating him very contemptibly."
"It would depend altogether upon what sort of treatment he deserved."
"It occurs to me that the unfortunate creature we have in mind has suffered enough."
It was evident that Helene thought so too. She said nothing, but the sweet eyes that had refrained from mocking at him could not hide a tinge of remorse. This pledge of peace was quickly noted by the much-enduring youth, whose gratitude might have found vocal expression had not his attention that moment been called off by an approaching pedestrian, who suddenly appeared at a curve in the Penetanguishene road, which, after partly retracing their steps, they had now reached.
"What, Dunlop, as I live!" he exclaimed, eagerly reining in his steed, and extending a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, how long have you been at home, and why have I been left in ignorance of your coming?"
The young man who had paid Helene the doubtful tribute of a disappointed glance, returned the greeting warmly, but in more measured terms. "I was at church on Sunday," he said, "for the first time since my return home. Why weren't you there?"
"Ugh!" said Edward, as though the recollection had been an icicle suddenly thrust down his back. "Why, to tell the truth, I performed an act of worship on the day before, and the consequence was so frightful that I was discouraged from further attempts at prayer and praise. I hadn't the heart to go."
"You hadn't thefaceto go!" softly corrected Helene.
"Exactly. Your knowledge of the facts is copious and profound. Excuse me! Miss DeBerczy, let me present to you Mr. Allan Dunlop, Provincial land-surveyor, member for the Home District, future leader in parliament, and a man after my own heart!"
The stranger looked as though a less elaborate introduction might have pleased him better. "Edward you are as extravagant as ever," he exclaimed, and then, turning to the lady, with a sort of shy sincerity, "Don't believe him, Miss DeBerczy. I am studying politics and practicing surveying, but that is all."
"And you mean to say that you are not a man after my own heart," demanded Edward, threatening him with his riding-whip; "then, perhaps, you will be good enough to tell me whose heart youareafter."
An embarrassed laugh broke from Allan's lips, as he thought involuntarily of the queenly little creature, golden crowned and richly robed, whose reign had begun, so far as he knew, on the Sunday previous. Oddly enough, the same personage came at that moment to Helene's mind, and she hurriedly inquired, "Why, where can Rose be?"
"Here she comes," said Edward, after a backward glance, and here indeed she came. With her bright hair flying in the breeze, her riding hat rakishly askew, one glove invisible, and the other tucked for safe keeping under the saddle, her riding-habit gray with dust, and fantastically trimmed with thorns and nettles, her blue eyes at their bluest, her pink cheeks at their rosiest, she produced a very powerful effect upon the minds of her spectators. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that she produced three distinct effects upon their minds.
Helene was the first to recover the faculty of speech. "Why, you are a regular little brier rose!" she exclaimed laughingly, wheeling her horse about so as to remove what appeared to be the larger part of a blackberry bush from her friend's habit, and improving the opportunity to insert a pin in the ragged edges of a dreadful looking rent, which the premature removal of the blackberry bush had revealed.
Edward introduced his friend to Rose with a gravity which was too evidently born of the belief that she had never before presented quite so disreputable an appearance. Allan knew his goddess under this quaint disguise, and his heart beat a loud recognition. The cool graceful black and white propriety of Helene DeBerczy was barren of significance compared with the slightest strand of yellow wilful hair that blew about the pink-shamed face of his friend's sister.
With renewed expressions of good-feeling and the promise, by Allan, of an early visit to Pine Towers, the young men separated, the riding party moving off in the same order as before, Helene and Edward going first, leaving Rose and Flip to follow at their own discretion.
But the latter, who had exhausted every known device for his own amusement, now suddenly discovered and put into instant execution another way to annoy his pretty mistress. This was to stand perfectly still—inexorably, indomitably, immovably still. In vain Rose whipped, begged, prayed, and almost wept. But Flip was thereby only strengthened in his decision. Rose's companions had vanished around the bend in the road. Though lost to sight they were to memory obnoxious. How mean of Edward to go off in that cool, careless way, without a thought of her left behind! How contemptible of Helene to leave her without so much as a hair-pin to repair the ravages made by that horrible little horse. And now, worse and worse, Allan Dunlop, who might have had the gentlemanliness to make himself invisible as soon as possible, came hurrying back to be a further witness of her dishevelled embarrassment.
"I am afraid your horse is a little fractious," he suggested respectfully.
"Oh, no," replied Rose, earnestly, scarcely conscious of what she said. "Only—sometimes—he won't go."
This was a statement which Flip seemed in no wise disposed to contradict.
"Perhaps if you will allow me to pet him a little, we may induce a change in his behaviour." He drew near and laid his head upon the pony's mane, accidentally brushing with his moustache the warm little hand upon the reins. Its owner drew it away, while an expression of absolute pain crossed her face. "I don't know what you can think of me," she said contritely. "I lost one of my gloves in reaching for a branch above my head, and its no use wearing the other and trying to be half respectable." She was miserably conscious that she was not even that, as she tried to fasten up her loosely waving locks, and thought of the awful rent in her habit, through which that saving pin had slipped and been lost sight of forever, like a weary little missionary in a very large field of labour. The skirt beneath was deplorably short, and her feet, though small, were not small enough to be invisible. Her chivalrous attendant seemed quite unconscious of these glaring deficiencies in her appearance, as he looked up with a bright smile, and said: "There, I think he will go now." At the word Flip began a slow undulating movement, something akin to that produced by a rocking-horse, which while it "goes" fast enough makes no perceptible progress. Poor Rose, excited and unstrung by her morning's adventures, dropped the reins in disgust, and then with one hand clutching her skirt, and the other her hair, she resigned herself to a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The next moment the wilful horse made a wild plunge forward, and the wilful girl was flung with terrible force against a heap of stones on the roadside. Colourless, motionless, breathless, she lay at the feet of Allan Dunlop, whose heart turned sick as he discerned among the yellow locks outspread on the gray stones a slender stream of blood.
For a moment the young man stood horror-struck. Fortunately he was not far from home, and there he proceeded at once to take the almost lifeless girl. As he was about to lift her gently in his arms, a low moan escaped her lips, the significance of which he was not slow to catch. Unable to speak, almost unable to move, she made a slight writhing motion of the limbs, accompanied by a convulsive twitch at the torn gown. Allan Dunlop was not dull-witted enough to suppose that her ankle was sprained. His sensibilities and sympathies were exquisitely quick and fine. Catching up an end of the unfortunate riding-habit he twisted it closely about the helplessly exposed little feet—an act of delicacy which received a faint glance of grateful recognition before she lapsed into utter unconsciousness. Gathering her into his arms he carried her as he might have carried a child to the shelter of his own house. But here a fresh dilemma presented itself. Not a soul was in the house. His father had not yet returned from market, his mother and the servant were absent, he knew not where. Placing her on a couch he bathed with awkwardly gentle fingers the wound in her head, and dared even to wipe away a few drops of blood from the little pallid face. Still the white lids lay motionless over the blue eyes, and the girlish form was unmoved by a breath. He stood anxiously looking down at her, wondering what his mother would do in his place, and feeling in every fibre a man's natural helplessness in the presence of a suffering woman. "What can I do for you?" he asked, as she at last opened her eyes, and gazed half-frightened at her strange surroundings.
"Thank you, I believe I am quite comfortable, except—except for the dreadful pain. I feel so terribly shaken." And the poor child broke into uncontrollable sobs.
"Oh, don't cry!" begged Allan, who might with equal truth have claimed that he too felt terribly shaken. "I can't imagine where my mother has gone." He stared miserably out of the window a moment, and then returned to his patient, with the air of a man who is not going to shirk a duty, no matter how difficult it may be.
"If you could dry your eyes," he began with a sort of brotherly gentleness, "and tell"—
"I'm afraid I can't. I don't dare move my right hand from under me, the pain is so acute in my back, and there is something dreadfully wrong with my left arm."
Dreadfully wrong indeed! It hung limp and broken. The young man was spurred by the sight to instant, decisive action.
"Miss Macleod," he said, "I will have to leave you alone, and go at once for a physician and your father. Do you think you can be very brave?"
Her tears flowed afresh at the question. This time he wiped them away himself. "Oh, I'm afraid I couldn't be that," she said. "I never could. But I'll promise not to run away before you come back."
Sheisa brave little soul after all, he thought, as he waved his hand, and hurried off to the stable; but that is a woman's courage—cry one moment and make a joke the next.
Mrs. Dunlop, who was not as far distant from home as her son had supposed, entered the house a few minutes after his departure, followed by the servant, both bearing great baskets of raspberries. The two women were sufficiently astonished at sight of the unexpected and most unfortunate guest; but Allan's mother would scarcely allow Rose to pronounce a word of her penitent confession. It was enough for her to know that here was an opportunity for her to relieve suffering, and she improved it with characteristic tact and delicacy. The open-eyed and open-mouthed maid was sent on various small missions of mercy, which she attacked with zeal, in the hope that thereby in some way her abounding thirst for information might be assuaged.