After that the two men were very crafty in their preparations.
The boat ready, Waring went the rounds for the last time. He brought down wood for several days and stacked it, he looked again at all the provisions and reckoned them over; then he rowed to the north shore, visited his traps, called out the dogs from the little house he had made for them, and bade them good by. 'I shall leave you for old Fog,' he said; 'be good dogs, and bring in all you can for the castle.'
The dogs wagged their tails, and waited politely on the beach until he was out of sight; but they did not seem to believe his story, and went back to their house tranquilly without a howl. The day passed as usual. Once the two men happened to meet in the passage-way. 'Silver seems restless, we must wait till darkness,' said Fog in a low tone.
'Very well,' replied Waring.
At midnight they were off, rowing over the black water in the sail-boat, hoping for a fair wind at dawn, as the boat was heavy. They journeyed but slowly through the winding channel, leaving the sedge-gate open; no danger now from intruders; the great giant, Winter, had swallowed all lesser foes. It was cold, very cold, and they stopped awhile at dawn on the edge of the marsh, the last shore, to make a fire and heat some food before setting sail for the islands.
'Good God!' cried Waring.
A boat was coming after them, a little skiff they both knew, and in it paddling, in her white dress, sat Silver, her fur mantle at her feet where it had fallen unnoticed. They sprang to meet her knee-deep in the icy water; but Waring was first, and lifted her slight form in his seems.
'I have found you, Jarvis,' she murmured, laying her head down upon his shoulder; then the eyes closed, and the hand she had tried to clasp around his neck fell lifeless. Close to the fire, wrapped in furs, Waring held her in his arms, while the old man bent over her, chafing her hands and little icy feet, and calling her name in an agony.
'Let her but come back to life, and I will say not one word, more,' he cried with tears. 'Who am I that I should torture her? You shall go back with us, and I will trust it all to God,—all to God.'
'But what if I will not go back, what if I will not accept your trust? said Waring, turning his head away from the face pillowed on his breast.
'I do not trust you, I trust God; he will guard her.'
'I believe he will,' said the young man, half to himself. And then they bore her home, not knowing whether her spirit was still with them, or already gone to that better home awaiting it in the next country.
That night the thick ice came, and the last vessels fled southward. But in the lonely little castle there was joy; for the girl was saved, barely, with fever, with delirium, with long prostration, but saved!
When weeks had passed, and she was in her low chair again, propped with cushions, pallid as a snow-drop, weak and languid, but still there, she told her story, simply and without comprehension of its meaning.
'I could not rest that night,' she said, 'I know not why; so I dressed softly and slipped past Orange asleep on her mattress by my door, and found you both gone,—your father, and you, Jarvis. You never go out at night, and it was very cold; and Jarvis had taken his bag and knapsack, and all the little things I know so well. His gun was gone from the wall, his clothes from his empty room, and that picture of the girl holding up the fruit was not on his table. From that I knew that something had happened; for it is dear to Jarvis, that picture of the girl,' said Silver with a little quiver in her voice. With a quick gesture Waring drew the picture from his pocket and threw it into the fire; it blazed, and was gone in a moment. 'Then I went after you,' said Silver with a little look of gratitude. 'I know the passage through the south channels, and something told me you had gone that way. It was very cold.'
That was all, no reasoning, no excuse, no embarrassment; the flight of the little sea-bird straight to its mate.
Life flowed on again in the old channel, Fog quiet, Silver happy, and Waring in a sort of dream. Winter was full upon them, and the castle beleaguered with his white armies both below and above, on the water and in the air. The two men went ashore on the ice now, and trapped and hunted daily, the dogs following. Fagots were cut and rough roads made through the forest. One would have supposed they were planning for a lifelong residence, the young man and the old, as they came and went together, now on the snow-crust, now plunging through breast-deep into the light dry mass. One day Waring said, 'Let me see your reckoning. Do you know that to-morrow will be Christmas?'
'Silver knows nothing of Christmas,' said Fog, roughly.
'Then she shall know,' replied Waring.
Away he went to the woods and brought back evergreen. In the night he checked the cabin-like room, and with infinite pains constructed a little Christmas-tree and hung it with everything he could collect or contrive.
'It is but a poor thing, after all,' he said, gloomily, as he stood alone surveying his work. It was indeed a shabby little tree, only redeemed from ugliness by a white cross poised on the green summit; this cross glittered and shone in the firelight,—it was cut from solid ice.
'Perhaps I can help, you,' said old Fog's voice behind. 'I did not show you this, for fear it would anger you, but—but there must have been a child on board after all.' He held a little box of toys, carefully packed as if by a mother's hand,—common toys, for she was only the captain's wife, and the schooner a small one; the little waif had floated ashore by itself, and Fog had seen and hidden it.
Waring said nothing, and the two men began to tie on the toys in silence. But after a while they warmed to their work and grew eager to make it beautiful; the old red ribbon that Orange had given was considered a precious treasure-trove, and, cut into fragments, it gayly held the little wooden toys in place on the green boughs.
Fog, grown emulous, rifled the cupboards and found small cakes baked by the practised hand of the old cook; these he hung exultingly on the higher boughs. And now the little tree was full, and stood bravely in its place at the far end of the long room, while the white cross looked down on the toys of the drowned child and the ribbon of the slave, and seemed to sanctify them for their new use.
Great was the surprise of Silver the next morning, and many the questions she asked. Out in the world, they told her, it was so; trees like that were decked for children.
'Am I a child?' said Silver, thoughtfully; 'what do you think, papa?'
'What do you think?' said Waring, turning the question.
'I hardly know; sometimes I think I am, and sometimes not; but it is of no consequence what I am as long as I have you,—you and papa. Tell me more about the little tree, Jarvis. What does it mean? What is that white shining toy on the top? Is there a story about it?'
'Yes, there is a story; but—but it is not I who should tell it to you,' replied the young man, after a moment's hesitation.
'Why not! Whom have I in all the world to tell me, save you?' said fondly the sweet child-voice.
They did not take away the little Christmas-tree, but left it on its pedestal at the far end of the long room through the winter; and as the cross melted slowly, a new one took its place, and shone aloft in the firelight. But its story was not told.
February came, and with it a February thaw; the ice stirred a little, and the breeze coming over the floes was singularly mild. The arctic winds and the airs from the Gulf Stream had met and mingled, and the gray fog appeared again, waving to and fro. 'Spring has come,' said Silver; 'there is the dear fog.' And she opened the window of the flower room, and let out a little bird.
'It will find no resting-place for the sole of its foot, for the snow is over the face of the whole earth,' said Waring. 'Our ark has kept us cosily through bitter weather, has it not, little one?' (He had adopted a way of calling her so.)
'Ark,' said Silver; 'what is that?'
'Well,' answered Waring, looking down into her blue eyes as they stood together at the little window, 'it was a watery residence like this, and if Japheth,—he was always my favorite of the three—had had you there, my opinion is that he would never have come down at all, but would have resided permanently on Ararat.'
Silver looked up into his face with a smile, not understanding what he said, nor asking to understand; it was enough for her that he was there. And as she gazed her violet eyes grew so deep, so soft, that the man for once (give him credit, it was the first time) took her into his arms. 'Silver,' he whispered, bending over her, 'do you love me?'
'Yes,' she answered in her simple, unconscious way, 'you know I do,Jarvis.'
No color deepened in her fair face under his ardent gaze; and, after a moment, he released her, almost roughly. The next day he told old Fog that he was going.
'Where.'
'Somewhere, this time. I've had enough of Nowhere.'
'Why do you go?'
'Do you want the plain truth, old man? Here it is, then; I am growing too fond of that girl,—a little more and I shall not be able to leave her.'
'Then stay; she loves you.'
'A child's love.'
'She will develop—'
'Not into my wife if I know myself,' said Waring, curtly.
Old Fog sat silent a moment. 'Is she not lovely and good?' he said in a low voice.
'She is; but she is your daughter as well.'
'She is not.'
'She is not! What then?'.
'I—I do not know; I found her, a baby, by the wayside.'
'A foundling! So much the better, that is even a step lower,' said the younger man, laughing roughly. And the other crept away as though he had been struck.
Waring set about his preparations. This time Silver did not suspect his purpose. She had passed out of the quick, intuitive watchfulness of childhood. During these days she had taken up the habit of sitting by herself in the flower-room, ostensibly with her book or sewing; but when they glanced in through the open door, her hands were lying idle on her lap and her eyes fixed dreamily on some opening blossom. Hours she sat thus, without stirring.
Waring's plan was a wild one; no boat could sail through the ice, no foot could cross the wide rifts made by the thaw, and weeks of the bitterest weather still lay between them and the spring. 'Along-shore,' he said.
'And die of cold and hunger,' answered Fog.
'Old man, why are you not afraid of me?' said Waring, pausing in his work with a lowering glance. 'Am I not stronger than you, and the master, if I so choose, of your castle of logs?'
'But you will not so choose.'
'Do not trust me too far.'
'Do not trust you,—but God.'
'For a wrecker and murderer, you have, I must say, a remarkably serene conscience,' sneered Waring.
Again the old man shrank, and crept silently away.
But when in the early dawn a dark figure stood on the ice adjusting its knapsack, a second figure stole down the ladder. 'Will you go, then,' it said, 'and leave the child?'
'She is no child,' answered the younger man, sternly; 'and you know it.'
'To me she is.'
'I care not what she is to you; but she shall not be more to me.'
'More to you?'
'No more than any other pretty piece of wax-work,' replied Waring, striding away into the gray mist.
Silver came to breakfast radiant, her small head covered from forehead to throat with the winding braids of gold, her eyes bright, her cheeks faintly tinged with the icy water of her bath. 'Where is Jarvis?' she asked.
'Gone hunting,' replied old Fog.
'For all day?'
'Yes; and perhaps for all night. The weather is quite mild, you know.'
'Yes, papa. But I hope it will soon be cold again; he cannot stay out long then,' said the girl, gazing out over the ice with wistful eyes.
The danger was over for that day; but the next morning there it was again, and with it the bitter cold.
'He must come home soon now,' said Silver, confidently, melting the frost on one of the little windows so that she could see out and watch for his coming. But he came not. As night fell the cold grew intense; deadly, clear, and still, with the stars shining brilliantly in the steel-blue of the sky. Silver wandered from window to window, wrapped in her fur mantle; a hundred times, a thousand times she had scanned the ice-fields and the snow, the lake and the shore. When the night closed down, she crept close to the old man who sat by the fire in silence, pretending to mend his nets, but furtively watching her every movement. 'Papa,' she whispered, 'where is he, where is he?' And her tears fell on his hands.
'Silver,' he said, bending over her tenderly, 'do I not love you? Am I not enough for you? Think, dear, how long we have lived here and how happy we have been. He was only a stranger. Come, let us forget him, and go back to the old days.'
'What! Has he gone, then? Has Jarvis gone?'
Springing to her feet she confronted him with clinched hands and dilated eyes. Of all the words she had heard but one; he had gone! The poor old man tried to draw her down again into the shelter of his arms, but she seemed turned to stone, her slender form was rigid. 'Where is he? Where is Jarvis? What have you done with him,—you, you!'
The quick unconscious accusation struck to his heart. 'Child,' he said in a broken voice, 'I tried to keep him. I would have given him my place in your love, in your life, but he would not. He has gone, he cares not for you; he is a hard, evil man.'
'He is not! But even if he were, I love him,' said the girl, defiantly.
Then she threw up her arms towards heaven (alas! it was no heaven to her, poor child) as if in appeal. 'Is there no one to help me?' she cried aloud.
'What can we do, dear?' said the old man, standing beside her and smoothing her hair gently. 'He would not stay,—I could not keep him!'
'I could have kept him.'
'You would not ask him to stay, if he wished to go?'
'Yes, I would; he must stay, for my sake.'
'But if he had loved you, dear, he would not have gone.'
'Did he say he did not love me?' demanded Silver, with gleaming eyes.
Old Fog hesitated.
'Did he say he did not love me? Did Jarvis say that?' she repeated, seizing his arm with grasp of fire.
'Yes; he said that.'
But the lie meant to rouse her pride, killed it; as if struck by a visible hand, she swayed and fell to the floor.
The miserable old man watched her all the night. She was delirious, and raved of Waring through the long hours. At daylight he left her with Orange, who, not understanding these white men's riddles, and sorely perplexed by Waring's desertion, yet cherished her darling with dumb untiring devotion, and watched her every breath.
Following the solitary trail over the snow-covered ice and thence along-shore towards the east journeyed old Fog all day in the teeth of the wind, dragging a sledge loaded with furs, provisions, and dry wood; the sharp blast cut him like a knife, and the dry snow-pellets stung as they touched his face, and clung to his thin beard coated with ice. It was the worst day of the winter, an evil, desolate, piercing day; no human creature should dare such weather. Yet the old man journeyed patiently on until nightfall, and would have gone farther had not darkness concealed the track; his fear was that new snow might fall deeply enough to hide it, and then there was no more hope of following. But nothing could be done at night, so he made his camp, a lodge under a drift with the snow for walls and roof, and a hot fire that barely melted the edges of its icy hearth. As the blaze flared out into the darkness, he heard a cry, and followed; it was faint, but apparently not distant, and after some search he found the spot; there lay Jarvis Waring, helpless and nearly frozen. 'I thought you farther on,' he said, as he lifted the heavy, inert body.
'I fell and injured my knee yesterday; since then I have been freezing slowly,' replied Waring in a muffled voice. 'I have been crawling backwards and forwards all day to keep myself alive, but had just given it up when I saw your light.'
All night the old hands worked over him, and they hated the body they touched; almost fiercely they fed and nourished it, warmed its blood, and brought back life. In the dawning Waring was himself again; weak, helpless, but in his right mind. He said as much, and added, with a touch of his old humor, 'There is a wrong mind you know, old gentleman.'
The other made no reply; his task done; he sat by the fire waiting. He had gone after this fellow, driven by fate; he had saved him, driven by fate. Now what had fate next in store? He warmed his wrinkled hands mechanically and waited, while the thought came to him with bitterness that his darling's life lay at the mercy of this man who had nothing better to do, on coming back from the very jaws of death, than make jests. But old Fog was mistaken; the man had something better to do, and did it. Perhaps he noted the expression of the face before him; perhaps he did not, but was thinking, young man fashion, only of himself; at any rate this is what he said: 'I was a fool to go. Help me back, old man; it is too strong for me,—I give it up.'
'Back,—back where?' said the other, apathetically.
Waring raised his head from his pillow of furs. 'Why do you ask when you know already! Back to Silver, of course; have you lost your mind?'
His harshness came from within; in reality it was meant for himself; the avowal had cost him something as it passed his lips in the form of words; it had not seemed so when in the suffering, and the cold, and the approach of death, he had seen his own soul face to face and realized the truth.
So the two went back to the castle, the saved lying on the sledge, the savior drawing it; the wind was behind them now, and blew them along. And when the old man, weary and numb with cold, reached the ladder at last, helped Waring, lame and irritable, up to the little snow-covered balcony, and led the way to Silver's room,—when Silver, hearing the step, raised herself in the arms of the old slave and looked eagerly, not at him, no, but at the man behind,—did he shrink? He did not; but led the reluctant, vanquished, defiant, half-angry, half-shamed lover forward, and gave his darling into the arms that seemed again almost unwilling, so strong was the old opposing determination that lay bound by love's bonds.
Silver regained her life as if by magic; not so Waring, who lay suffering and irritable on the lounge in the long room, while the girl tended him with a joy that shone out in every word, every tone, every motion. She saw not his little tyrannies, his exacting demands, his surly tempers; or rather she saw and loved them as women do when men lie ill and helpless in their hands. And old Fog sat apart, or came and went unnoticed; hours of the cold days he wandered through the forests, visiting the traps mechanically, and making tasks for himself to fill up the time; hours of the cold evenings, he paced the snow-covered roof alone. He could not bear to see them, but left the post to Orange, whose black face shone with joy and satisfaction over Waring's return.
But after a time fate swung around (as she generally does if impatient humanity would but give her a chance). Waring's health grew, and so did his love. He had been like a strong man armed, keeping his palace; but a stronger than he was come, and, the combat over, he went as far the other way and adored the very sandals of the conqueror. The gates were open, and all the floods were out.
And Silver? As he advanced, she withdrew. (It is always so in love, up to a certain point; and beyond that point lies, alas! the broad monotonous country of commonplace.)
This impetuous, ardent lover was not the Jarvis she had known, the Jarvis who had been her master, and a despotic one at that. Frightened, shy, bewildered, she fled away from all her dearest joys, and stayed by herself in the flower-room with the bar across the door, only emerging timidly at mealtimes and stealing into the long room like a little wraith; a rosy wraith now, for at last she had learned to blush. Waring was angry at this desertion, but only the more in love; for the violet eyes veiled themselves under his gaze, and the unconscious child-mouth began to try to control and conceal its changing expressions, and only succeeded in betraying them more helplessly than ever. Poor little solitary maiden-heart!
Spring was near now; soft airs came over the ice daily, and stirred the water beneath; then the old man spoke. He knew what was coming, he saw it all, and a sword was piercing his heart; but bravely he played his part. 'The ice will move out soon, in a month or less you can sail safely,' he said, breaking the silence one night when they two sat by the fire, Waring moody and restless, for Silver had openly repulsed him, and fled away early in the evening. 'She is trifling with me,' he thought, 'or else she does not know what love is. By heavens, I will teach her though—' As far as this his mind had journeyed when Fog spoke. 'In a month you can sail safely, and I suppose you will go for good this time?'
'Yes.'
Fog waited. Waring kicked a fallen log into place, lit his pipe then let it go out, moved his chair forward, then pushed it back impatiently, and finally spoke. 'Of course I shall take Silver; I intend to make Silver.'
'At last?'
'At last. No wonder you are glad—'
'Glad,' said Fog,—'glad!' But the words were whispered, and the young man went on unheeding.
'Of course it is a great thing for you to have the child off your hands and placed in a home so high above your expectations. Love is a strange power. I do not deny that I have fought against it, but—but why should I conceal? I love Silver with all my soul, she seems to have grown into my very being.'
It was frankly and strongly uttered; the good side of Jarvis Waring came uppermost for the moment.
Old Fog leaned forward and grasped his hand. 'I know you do,' he said. 'I know something of men, and I have watched you closely, Waring. It is for this love that I forgive—I mean that I am glad and thankful for it, very thankful.'
'And you have reason to be,' said the younger man, withdrawing into his pride again. 'As my wife, Silver will have a home, a circle of friends, which—But you could not understand; let it pass. And now, tell me all you know of her.'
The tone was a command, and the speaker leaned back in his chair with the air of an owner as he relighted his pipe.
But Fog did not shrink. 'Will you have the whole story?' he asked humbly.
'As well now as ever, I suppose, but be as brief as possible,' said the young man in a lordly manner. Had he not just conferred an enormous favor, an alliance which might be called the gift of a prince, on this dull old backwoodsman?
'Forty years ago or thereabouts,' began Fog in a low voice, 'a crime was committed in New York City. I shall not tell you what it was, there is no need; enough that the whole East was stirred, and a heavy reward was offered for the man who did the deed. I am that man.'
Waring pushed back his chair, a horror came over him, his hand sought for his pistol; but the voice went on unmoved. 'Shall I excuse the deed to you, boy? No, I will not. It was done and I did it, that is enough, the damning fact that confronts and silences all talk of motive or cause. This much only will I say; to the passion of the act deliberate intention was not added, and there was no gain for the doer; only loss, the black eternal loss of everything in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters that are under the earth, for hell itself seemed to spew me out. At least so I thought as I fled away, the mark of Cain upon my brow; the horror was so strong upon me that I could not kill myself, I feared to join the dead. I went to and fro on the earth, and walked up and down in it; I fled to the uttermost parts of the sea, and yet came back again, moved by a strange impulse to be near the scene of my crime. After years had passed, and with them the memory of the deed from the minds of others, though not from mine, I crept to the old house where my one sister was living alone, and made myself known to her. She left her home, a forlorn place, but still a home, and followed me with a sort of dumb affection,—poor old woman. She was my senior by fifteen years, and I had been her pride; and so she went with me from the old instinct, which still remained, although the pride was dead, crushed by slow horror. We kept together after that, two poor hunted creatures instead of one; we were always fleeing, always imagining that eyes knew us, that fingers pointed us out. I called her Shadow, and together we took the name of Fog, a common enough name, but to us meaning that we were nothing, creatures of the mist, wandering to and fro by night, but in the morning gone. At last one day the cloud over my mind seemed to lighten a little, and the thought came to me that no punishment can endure forever, without impugning the justice of our great Creator. A crime is committed, perhaps in a moment; the ensuing suffering, the results, linger on earth, it may be for some years; but the end of it surely comes sooner or later, and it is as though it had never been. Then, for that crime, shall a soul suffer forever,—not a thousand years, a thousand ages if you like, but forever? Out upon the monstrous idea! Let a man do evil every moment of his life, and let his life be the full threescore years and ten; shall there not come a period in the endless cycles of eternity when even his punishment shall end? What kind of a God is he whom your theologians have held up to us,—a God who creates us at his pleasure, without asking whether or not we wish to be created, who endows us with certain wild passions and capacities for evil, turns us loose into a world of suffering, and then, for our misdeeds there, our whole lives being less than one instant's time in his sight, punishes us forever! Never-ending tortures throughout the countless ages of eternity for the little crimes of threescore years and ten! Heathendom shows no god so monstrous as this. O great Creator, O Father of our souls, of all the ills done on the face of thy earth, this lie against thy justice and thy goodness, is it not the greatest? The thought came to me, as I said, that no punishment could endure forever, that somewhere is the future I, even I, should meet pardon and rest. That day I found by the wayside a little child, scarcely more than a baby; it had wandered out of the poorhouse, where its mother had died the week before, a stranger passing through the village. No one knew anything about her nor cared to know, for she was almost in rags, fair and delicate once they told me, but wasted with illness and too far gone to talk. Then a second thought came to me,—expiation. I would take this forlorn little creature and bring her up as my own child, tenderly, carefully,—a life for a life. My poor old sister took to it wonderfully, it seemed to brighten her desolation into something that was almost happiness; we wandered awhile longer, and then came westward through the lakes, but it was several years before we were fairly settled here. Shadow took care of the baby and made her little dresses; then, when the time came to teach her to sew and read, she said more help was needed, and went alone to the towns below to find a fit servant, coming back in her silent way with old Orange; another stray lost out of its place in the world, and suffering from want in the cold Northern city. You must not think that Silver is totally ignorant; Shadow had the education of her day, poor thing, for ours was a good old family as old families go in this new country of ours, where three generations of well-to-do people constitute aristocracy. But religion, so called, I have not taught her. Is she any the worse for its want?
'I will teach her,' said Waring, passing over the question (which was a puzzling one), for the new idea, the strange interest he felt in the task before him, the fair pure mind where his hand, and his alone, would be the first to write the story of good and evil.
'That I should become attached to the child was natural,' continued old Fog; 'but God gave it to me to love her with so great a love that my days have flown; for her to sail out over the stormy water, for her to hunt through the icy woods, for her to dare a thousand deaths, to labor, to save, to suffer,—these have been my pleasures through all the years. When I came home, there she was to meet me, her sweet voice calling me father, the only father she could ever know. When my poor old sister died, I took her away in my boat by night and buried her in deep water; and so I did with the boy we had here for a year or two, saved from a wreck. My darling knows nothing of death; I could not tell her.'
'And those wrecks,' said Waring; 'how do you make them balance with your scheme of expiation?'
The old man sat silent a moment; then he brought his hand down violently on the table by his side. 'I will not have them brought up in that way, I tell you I will not! Have I not explained that I was desperate?' he said in an excited voice. 'What are one or two miserable crews to the delicate life of my beautiful child? And the men had their chances, too, in spite of my lure. Does not every storm threaten them with deathly force? Wait until you are tempted, before you judge me, boy. But shall I tell you the whole? Listen, then. Those wrecks were the greatest sacrifices, the most bitter tasks of my hard life, the nearest approach I have yet made to the expiation. Do you suppose I wished to drown the men? Do you suppose I did not know the greatness of the crime? Ah, I knew it only too well, and yet I sailed out and did the deed! It was for her,—to keep her from suffering; so I sacrificed myself unflinchingly. I would murder a thousand men in cold blood, and bear the thousand additional punishments without a murmur throughout a thousand ages of eternity, to keep my darling safe and warm. Do you not see that the whole was a self-immolation, the greatest, the most complete I could make? I vowed to keep my darling tenderly. I have kept my vow; see that you keep yours.'
The voice ceased, the story was told, and the teller gone. The curtain over the past was never lifted again; but often, in after years, Waring thought of this strange life and its stranger philosophy. He could never judge them. Can we?
The next day the talk turned upon Silver. 'I know you love her,' said the old man, 'but how much?'
'Does it need the asking?' answered Waring with a short laugh; 'am I not giving up my name, my life, into her hands?'
'You could not give them into hands more pure.'
'I know it; I am content. And yet, I sacrifice something,' replied the young man, thinking of his home, his family, his friends.
Old Fog looked at him. 'Do you hesitate?' he said, breaking the pause.
'Of course I do not; why do you ask?' replied Waring, irritably. 'But some things may be pardoned, I think, in a case like mine.'
'I pardon them.'
'I can teach her, of course, and a year or so among cultivated people will work wonders; I think I shall take her abroad, first. How soon did you say we could go?'
'The ice is moving. There will be vessels through the straits in two or three weeks,' replied Fog. His voice shook. Waring looked up; the old man was weeping. 'Forgive me,' he said brokenly, 'but the little girl is very dear to me.'
The younger man was touched. 'She shall be as dear to me as she has been to you,' he said; 'do not fear. My love is proved by the very struggle I have made against it. I venture to say no man ever fought harder against himself than I have in this old castle of yours. I kept that Titian picture as a countercharm. It resembles a woman who, at a word, will give me herself and her fortune,—a woman high in the cultivated circles of cities both here and abroad, beautiful, accomplished, a queen in her little sphere. But all was useless. That long night in the snow, when I crawled backwards and forwards to keep myself from freezing, it came to me with power that the whole of earth and all its gifts compared not with this love. Old man, she will be happy with me.'
'I know it.'
'Did you foresee this end?' asked Waring after a while, watching, as he spoke, the expression of the face before him. He could not rid himself of the belief that the old man had laid his plans deftly.
'I could only hope for it: I saw that she loved you.'
'Well, well,' said the younger man magnanimously, 'it was natural, after all. Your expiation has ended better than you hoped; for the little orphan child you have reared has found a home and friends, and you yourself need work no more. Choose your abode here or anywhere else in the West, and I will see that you are comfortable.'
'I will stay on here.'
'As you please. Silver will not forget you; she will write often. I think I will go first up the Rhine and then into Switzerland,' continued Waring, going back to himself and his plans with the matter-of-course egotism of youth and love. And old Fog listened.
What need to picture the love-scene that followed? The next morning a strong hand knocked at the door of the flower-room, and the shy little maiden within had her first lesson in love, or rather in its expression, while all the blossoms listened and the birds looked on approvingly. To do him justice, Waring was an humble suitor when alone with her; she was so fair, so pure, so utterly ignorant of the world and of life, that he felt himself unworthy, and bowed his head. But the mood passed, and Silver liked him better when the old self-assertion and quick tone of command came uppermost again. She knew not good from evil, she could not analyze the feeling in her heart; but she loved this stranger, this master, with the whole of her being. Jarvis Waring knew good from evil (more of the latter knew he than of the former), he comprehended and analyzed fully the feeling that possessed him; but, man of the world as he was, he loved this little water-maiden, this fair pagan, this strange isolated girl, with the whole force of his nature. 'Silver,' he said to her, seriously enough, 'do you know how much I love you? I am afraid to think what life would seem without you.'
'Why think of it, then, since I am here?' replied Silver.
'Do you know, Jarvis, I think if I had not loved you so much, you would not have loved me, and then—it would have been—that is, I mean—it would have been different—' She paused; unused to reasoning or to anything like argument, her own words seemed to bewilder her.
Waring laughed, but soon grew serious again. 'Silver,' he said, taking her into his arms, 'are you sure that you can love me as I crave?' (For he seemed at times tormented by the doubt as to whether she was anything more than a beautiful child.) He held her closely and would not let her go, compelling her to meet his ardent eyes. A change came over the girl, a sudden red flashed up into her temples and down into her white throat. She drew herself impetuously away from her lover's arms and fled from the room. 'I am not sure but that she is a water-sprite, after all,' grumbled Waring, as he followed her. But it was a pleasure now to grumble and pretend to doubt, since from that moment he was sure.
The next morning Fog seemed unusually cheerful.
'No wonder,' thought Waring. But the character of benefactor pleased him, and he appeared in it constantly.
'We must have the old castle more comfortable; I will try to send up some furniture from below,' he remarked, while pacing to and fro in the evening.
'Isn't it comfortable now?' said Silver. 'I am sure I always thought this room beautiful.'
'What, this clumsy imitation of a second-class Western steamer?Child, it is hideous!'
'Is it?' said Silver, looking around in innocent surprise, while Fog listened in silence. Hours of patient labor and risks not a few over the stormy lake were associated with each one of the articles Waring so cavalierly condemned.
Then it was, 'How you do look, old gentleman! I must really send you up some new clothes.—Silver, how have you been able to endure such shabby rags so long?'
'I do not know,—I never noticed; it was always just papa, you know,' replied Silver, her blue eyes resting on the old man's clothes with a new and perplexed attention.
But Fog bore himself cheerily. 'He is right, Silver,' he said, 'I am shabby indeed. But when you go out into the world, you will soon forget it.'
'Yes,' said Silver, tranquilly.
The days flew by and the ice moved out. This is the phrase that is always used along the lakes. The ice 'moves out' of every harbor from Ogdensburg to Duluth. You can see the great white floes drift away into the horizon, and the question comes, Where do they go? Do they meet out there the counter floes from the Canada side, and then do they all join hands and sink at a given signal to the bottom? Certainly, there is nothing melting in the mood of the raw spring winds and clouded skies.
'What are your plans?' asked old Fog, abruptly, one morning when the gulls had flown out to sea, and the fog came stealing up from the south.
'For what?'
'For the marriage.'
'Aha!' thought Waring, with a smile of covert amusement, 'he is in a hurry to secure the prize, is he? The sharp old fellow!' Aloud he said, 'I thought we would all three sail over to Mackinac; and there we could be married, Silver and I, by the fort chaplain, and take the first Buffalo steamer; you could return here at your leisure.'
'Would it not be a better plan to bring a clergyman here, and then you two could sail without me? I am not as strong as I was; I feel that I cannot bear—I mean that you had better go without me.'
'As you please; I thought it would be a change for you, that was all.'
'It would only prolong—No, I think, if you are willing, we will have the marriage here, and then you can sail immediately.'
'Very well; but I did not suppose you would be in such haste to part with Silver,' said Waring, unable to resist showing his comprehension of what he considered the manoeuvres of the old man. Then, waiving further discussion,—'And where shall we find a clergyman?' he asked.
'There is one over on Beaver.'
'He must be a singular sort of a divine to be living there.'
'He is; a strayed spirit, as it were, but a genuine clergyman of the Presbyterian church, none the less. I never knew exactly what he represented there, but I think he came out originally a sort of missionary.'
'To the Mormons,' said Waring, laughing; for he had heard old Fog tell many a story of the Latter-Day Saints, who had on Beaver Island at that time their most Eastern settlement.
'No; to the Indians.—sent out by some of those New England societies, you know. When he reached the islands, he found the Indians mostly gone, and those who remained were all Roman Catholics. But he settled down, farmed a little, hunted a little, fished a little, and held a service all by himself occasionally in an old log-house, just often enough to draw his salary and to write up in his semiannual reports. He isn't a bad sort of a man in his way.'
'And how does he get on with the Mormons?'
'Excellently. He lets them talk, and sells them fish, and shuts his eyes to everything else.'
'What is his name?'
'Well, over here they call him the Preacher, principally because he does not preach, I suppose. It is a way they have over on Beaver to call people names; they call me Believer.'
'Believer?'
'Yes, because I believe nothing; at least so, they think.'
A few days later, out they sailed over the freed water, around the point, through the sedge-gate growing green again, across the channelled marsh, and out towards the Beavers,—Fog and Waring, armed as if for a foray.
'Why,' asked Waring.
'It's safer; the Mormons are a queer lot,' was the reply.
When they came in sight of the islands, the younger man scanned them curiously. Some years later an expedition composed of exasperated crews of lake schooners, exasperated fishermen, exasperated mainland settlers, sailed westward through the straits bound for these islands, armed to the teeth and determined upon vengence and slaughter. False lights, stolen nets, and stolen wives were their grievances; and no aid coming from the general government, then as now sorely perplexed over the Mormon problem, they took justice into their own hands and sailed bravely out, with the stars and stripes floating from the mast of their flag-ship,—an old scow impressed for military service. But this was later; and when Fog and Waring came scudding into the harbor, the wild little village existed in all its pristine outlawry, a city of refuge for the flotsam vagabondage of the lower lakes.
'Perhaps he will not come with us,' suggested Waring.
'I have thought of that, but it need not delay us long,' replied Fog, 'we can kidnap him.'
'Kidnap him?'
'Yes? he is but a small chap,' said the old man, tranquilly.
They fastened their boat to the log-dock, and started ashore. The houses of the settlement straggled irregularly along the beach and inland towards the fields where fine crops were raised by the Saints, who had made here, as is their custom everywhere, a garden in the wilderness; the only defence was simple but strong,—an earthwork on one of the white sand-hills back of the village, over whose rampart peeped two small cannon, commanding the harbor. Once on shore, however, a foe found only a living rampart of flesh and blood, as reckless a set of villains as New World history can produce. But this rampart only came together in times of danger; ordinary visitors, coming by twos and threes, they welcomed or murdered as they saw fit, or according to the probable contents of their pockets, each man for himself and his family. Some of these patriarchal gentlemen glared from their windows at Fog and Waring as they passed along; but the worn clothes not promising much, simply invited them to dinner; they liked to hear the news, when there was nothing else going on. Old Fog excused himself. They had business, he said, with the Preacher; was he at home?
He was; had anything been sent to him from the East,—any clothes, now, for the Indians?
Old Fog had heard something of a box at Mackinac, waiting for a schooner to bring it over. He was glad it was on the way, it would be of so much use to the Indians,—they wore so many clothes.
The patriarchs grinned, and allowed the two to pass on. Waring had gazed within, meanwhile, and discovered the plural wives, more or less good-looking, generally less; they did not seem unhappy, however, not so much as many a single one he had met in more luxurious homes, and he said to himself, 'Women of the lower class are much better and happier when well curbed.' It did not occur to him that possibly the evil tempers of men of the lower class are made more endurable by a system of co-operation; one reed bends, breaks, and dies, but ten reeds together can endure.
The Preacher was at home on the outskirts,—a little man, round and rosy, with black eyes and a cheery voice. He was attired entirely in blanket-cloth, baggy trousers and a long blouse, so that he looked not unlike a Turkish Santa Claus, Oriental as to under, and arctic as to upper rigging. 'Are you a clergyman?' said Waring, inspecting him with curious eyes.
'If you doubt it, look at this,' said the little man; and he brought out a clerical suit of limp black cloth, and a ministerial hat much the worse for wear. These articles he suspended from a nail, so that they looked as if a very poor lean divine had hung himself there. Then he sat down, and took his turn at staring. 'I do not bury the dead,' he remarked after a moment, as if convinced that the two shabby hunters before him could have no other errand.
Waring was about to explain, but old Fog stopped him with a glance. 'You are to come with us, sir,' he said courteously; 'you will be well treated, well paid, and returned in a few days.'
'Come with you! Where?'
'Never mind where; will you come?'
'No,' said the little blanket-man, stoutly.
In an instant Fog had tripped him up, seized a sheet and blanket from the bed, bound his hands and feet with one, and wrapped him in the other. 'Now, then,' he said shouldering the load, 'open the door.'
'But the Mormons,' objected Waring.
'O, they like a joke, they will only laugh! But if, by any chance, they show fight, fire at once,' replied the old man, leading the way. Waring followed, his mind anything but easy; it seemed to him like running the gantlet. He held his pistols ready, and glanced furtively around as they skirted the town and turned down towards the beach. 'If any noise is made,' Fog had remarked, 'I shall know what to do.'
Whereupon the captive swallowed down his wrath and a good deal of woollen fuzz, and kept silence. He was no coward, this little Preacher. He held his own manfully on the Beavers; but no one had ever carried him off in a blanket before, So he silently considered the situation.
When near the boat they came upon more patriarchs. 'Put a bold face on it,' murmured old Fog. 'Whom do you suppose we have here?' he began, as they approached. 'Nothing less than your little Preacher; we want to borrow him for a few days.'
The patriarchs stared.
'Don't you believe it?—Speak up, Preacher; are you being carried off?'
No answer.
'You had better speak,' said Fog, jocosely, at the same time giving his captive a warning touch with his elbow.
The Preacher had revolved the situation rapidly, and perceived that in any contest his round body would inevitably suffer from friend and foe alike. He was not even sure but that he would be used as a missile, a sort of ponderous pillow swung at one end. So he replied briskly, 'Yes, I am being carried as you see, dear brethren; I don't care about walking to-day.'
The patriarchs laughed, and followed on to the boat, laughing still more when Fog gayly tossed in his load of blanket, and they could hear the little man growl as he came down. 'I say, though, when are you going to bring him back, Believer?' said one.
'In a few days,' replied Fog, setting sail.
Away they flew; and, when out of harbor, the captive was released, andWaring told him what was required.
'Why didn't you say so before?' said the little blanket-man; 'nothingI like better than a wedding, and a drop of punch afterwards.'
His task over, Fog relapsed into silence; but Waring, curious, asked many a question about the island and its inhabitants. The Preacher responded freely in all things, save when the talk glided too near himself. The Mormons were not so bad, he thought; they had their faults, of course, but you must take them on the right side.
'Have they a right side?' asked Waring.
'At least they haven't a rasping, mean, cold, starving, bony, freezing, busy-bodying side,' was the reply, delivered energetically; whereat Waring concluded the little man had had his own page of history back somewhere among the decorous New England hills.
Before they came to the marsh they blindfolded their guest; and did not remove the bandage until he was safely within the long room of the castle. Silver met them, radiant in the firelight.
'Heaven grant you its blessing, maiden,' said the Preacher, becoming Biblical at once. He meant it, however, for he sat gazing at her long with moistened eyes, forgetful even of the good cheer on the table; a gleam from his far-back youth came to him, a snow-drop that bloomed and died in bleak New Hampshire long, long before.
The wedding was in the early morning. Old Fog had hurried it, hurried everything; he seemed driven by a spirit of unrest, and wandered from place to place, from room to room, his eyes fixed in a vacant way upon the familiar objects. At the last moment he appeared with a prayer-book, its lettering old, its cover tarnished. 'Have you any objection to using the Episcopal service?' he asked in a low tone. 'I—I have heard the Episcopal service.'
'None in the world,' replied the affable little Preacher.
But he too grew sober and even earnest as Silver appeared, clad in white, her dress and hair wreathed with the trailing arbutus, the first flower of spring, plucked from under the vanishing snows. So beautiful her face, so heavenly its expression, that Waring as he took her hand, felt his eyes grow dim, and he vowed to himself to cherish her with tenderest love forever.
'We are gathered together here in the sight of God,' began the Preacher solemnly; old Fog, standing behind, shrank into the shadow, and bowed his head upon his hands. But when the demand came, 'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?' he stepped forward, and gave away his child without a tear, nay, with even a smile on his brave old face.
'To love, cherish, and to obey,' repeated Silver in her clear sweet voice.
And then Waring placed upon her finger the little ring he himself had carved out of wood. 'It shall never be changed,' he said, 'but coated over with heavy gold, just as it is.'
Old Orange, radiant with happiness, stood near, and served as a foil for the bridal white.
It was over; but they were not to start until noon.
Fog put the Preacher almost forcibly into the boat and sailed away with him, blindfolded and lamenting.
'The wedding feast,' he cried, 'and the punch! You are a fine host, old gentleman.'
'Everything is here, packed in those baskets. I have even given you two fine dogs. And there is your fee. I shall take you in sight of the Beavers, and then put you into the skiff and leave you to row over alone. The weather is fine, you can reach there to-morrow.'
Remonstrance died away before the bag of money; old Fog had given his all for his darling's marriage-fee. 'I shall have no further use for it,' he thought, mechanically.
So the little blanket-man paddled away in his skiff with his share of the wedding-feast beside him; the two dogs went with him, and became Mormons.
Old Fog returned in the sail-boat through the channels, and fastened the sedge-gate open for the out-going craft. Silver, timid and happy, stood on the balcony as he approached the castle.
'It is time to start,' said the impatient bridegroom. 'How long you have been, Fog!'
The old man made no answer, but busied himself arranging the boat; the voyage to Mackinac would last two or three days, and he had provided every possible comfort for their little camps on shore.
'Come,' said Waring, from below.
Then the father went up to say good by. Silver flung her arms around his neck and burst into tears. 'Father, father,' she sobbed, 'must I leave you? O father, father!'
He soothed her gently; but something in the expression of his calm, pallid face touched the deeper feelings of the wakening woman and she clung to him desperately, realizing, perhaps, at this last moment, how great was his love for her, how great his desolation. Waring had joined them on the balcony. He bore with her awhile and tried to calm her grief, but the girl turned from him and clung to the old man; it was as though she saw at last how she had robbed him. 'I cannot leave him thus,' she sobbed; 'O father, father!'
Then Waring struck at the root of the difficulty. (Forgive him; he was hurt to the core.) 'But he is not your father,' he said, 'he has no claim upon you. I am your husband now, Silver, and you must come with me; do you not wish to come with me, darling?' he added, his voice sinking into fondness.
'Not my father!' said the girl. Her arms fell, and she stood as if petrified.
'No, dear; he is right. I am not your father,' said old Fog, gently. A spasm passed over his features, he kissed her hastily, and gave her into her husband's arms. In another moment they were afloat, in two the sail filled and the boat glided away. The old man stood on the castle roof, smiling and waving his hand; below, Orange fluttered her red handkerchief from the balcony, and blessed her darling with African mummeries. The point was soon rounded, the boat gone.
That night, when the soft spring moonlight lay over the water, a sail came gliding back to the castle, and a shape flew up the ladder; it was the bride of the morning.
'O father, father, I could not leave you so, I made him bring me back, if only for a few days! O father, father! for you are my father, the only father I can ever know,—and so kind and good!'
In the gloom she knelt by his bedside, and her arms were around his neck. Waring came in afterwards, silent and annoyed, yet not unkind. He stirred the dying brands into a flame.
'What is this?' he said, starting, as the light fell across the pillow.
'It is nothing,' replied Fog, and his voice sounded far away; 'I am an old man, children, and all is well.'
They watched him through the dawning, through the lovely day, through the sunset. Waring repentant, Silver absorbed in his every breath; she lavished upon him now all the wealth of love her unconscious years had gathered. Orange seemed to agree with her master that all was well. She came and went, but not sadly, and crooned to herself some strange African tune that rose and fell more like a chant of triumph than a dirge. She was doing her part, according to her light, to ease the going of the soul out of this world.
Grayer grew the worn face, fainter the voice, colder the shrivelled old hands in the girl's fond clasp.
'Jarvis, Jarvis, what is this?' she murmured, fearfully.
Waring came to her side and put his strong arm around her. 'My little wife,' he said, 'this is Death. But do not fear.'
And then he told her the story of the Cross; and, as it came to her a revelation, so, in the telling, it became to him, for the first time, a belief.
Old Fog told them to bury him out in deep water, as he had buried the others; and then he lay placid, a great happiness shining in his eyes.
'It is well,' he said, 'and God is very good to me. Life would have been hard without you, darling. Something seemed to give way when you said good by; but now that I am called, it is sweet to know that you are happy, and sweeter still to think that you came back to me at the last. Be kind to her, Waring. I know you love her; but guard her tenderly,—she is but frail. I die content, my child, quite content; do not grieve for me.'
Then, as the light faded from his eyes, he folded his hands. 'Is it expiated, O God? Is it expiated?' he murmured. There was no answer for him on earth.
They buried him as he had directed, and then they sailed away, taking the old black with them. The castle was left alone; the flowers bloomed on through the summer, and the rooms held the old furniture bravely through the long winter. But gradually the walls fell in and the water entered. The fogs still steal across the lake, and wave their gray draperies up into the northern curve; but the sedge-gate is gone, and the castle is indeed Nowhere.
Before the war for the Union, in the times of the old army, there had been peace throughout the country for thirteen years. Regiments existed in their officers, but the ranks were thin,—the more so the better, since the United States possessed few forts and seemed in chronic embarrassment over her military children, owing to the flying foot-ball of public opinion, now 'standing army pro,' now 'standing army con,' with more or less allusion to the much-enduring Caesar and his legions, the ever-present ghost of the political arena.
In those days the few forts were full and much state was kept up; the officers were all graduates of West Point, and their wives graduates of the first families. They prided themselves upon their antecedents; and if there was any aristocracy in the country, it was in the circles of army life.
Those were pleasant days,—pleasant for the old soldiers who were resting after Mexico,—pleasant for young soldiers destined to die on the plains of Gettysburg or the cloudy heights of Lookout Mountain. There was an esprit de corps in the little band, a dignity of bearing, and a ceremonious state, lost in the great struggle which came afterward. That great struggle now lies ten years back; yet, to-day, when the silver-haired veterans meet, they pass it over as a thing of the present, and go back to the times of the 'old army.'
Up in the northern straits, between blue Lake Huron, with its clear air, and gray Lake Michigan, with its silver fogs, lies the bold island of Mackinac. Clustered along the beach, which runs around its half-moon harbor, are the houses of the old French village, nestling at the foot of the cliff rising behind, crowned with the little white fort, the stars and stripes floating above it against the deep blue sky. Beyond, on all sides, the forest stretches away, cliffs finishing it abruptly, save one slope at the far end of the island, three miles distant, where the British landed in 1812. That is the whole of Mackinac.
The island has a strange sufficiency of its own; it satisfies; all who have lived there feel it. The island has a wild beauty of its own; it fascinates; all who have lived there love it. Among its aromatic cedars, along the aisles of its pine trees, in the gay company of its maples, there is companionship. On its bald northern cliffs, bathed in sunshine and swept by the pure breeze, there is exhilaration. Many there are, bearing the burden and heat of the day, who look back to the island with the tears that rise but do not fall, the sudden longing despondency that comes occasionally to all, when the tired heart cries out, 'O, to escape, to flee away, far, far away, and be at rest!'
In 1856 Fort Mackinac held a major, a captain, three lieutenants, a chaplain, and a surgeon, besides those subordinate officers who wear stripes on their sleeves, and whose rank and duties are mysteries to the uninitiated. The force for this array of commanders was small, less than a company; but what it lacked in quantity it made up in quality, owing to the continual drilling it received.
The days were long at Fort Mackinac; happy thought! drill the men. So when the major had finished, the captain began, and each lieutenant was watching his chance. Much state was kept up also. Whenever the major appeared, 'Commanding officer; guard, present arms,' was called down the line of men on duty, and the guard hastened to obey, the major acknowledging the salute with stiff precision. By day and by night sentinels paced the walls. True, the walls were crumbling, and the whole force was constantly engaged in propping them up, but none the less did the sentinels pace with dignity. What was it to the captain if, while he sternly inspected the muskets in the block-house, the lieutenant, with a detail of men, was hard at work strengthening its underpinning? None the less did he inspect. The sally-port, mended but imposing; the flag-staff with its fair-weather and storm flags; the frowning iron grating; the sidling white causeway, constantly falling down and as constantly repaired, which led up to the main entrance; the well-preserved old cannon,—all showed a strict military rule. When the men were not drilling they were propping up the fort and when they were not propping up the fort they were drilling. In the early days, the days of the first American commanders, military roads had been made through the forest,—roads even now smooth and solid, although trees of a second growth meet overhead. But that was when the fort was young and stood firmly on its legs. In 1856 there was no time for road-making, for when military duty was over there was always more or less mending to keep the whole fortification from sliding down hill into the lake.
On Sunday there was service in the little chapel, an upper room overlooking the inside parade-ground. Here the kindly Episcopal chaplain read the chapters about Balaam and Balak, and always made the same impressive pause after 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.' (Dear old man! he has gone. Would that our last end might indeed be like his!) Not that the chaplain confined his reading to the Book of Numbers; but as those chapters are appointed for the August Sundays, and as it was in August that the summer visitors came to Mackinac, the little chapel is in many minds associated with the patient Balak, his seven altars, and his seven rams.
There was state and discipline in the fort even on Sundays; bugle-playing marshalled the congregation in, bugle-playing marshalled them out. If the sermon was not finished, so much the worse for the sermon, but it made no difference to the bugle; at a given moment it sounded, and out marched all the soldiers, drowning the poor chaplain's hurrying voice with their tramp down the stairs. The officers attended service in full uniform, sitting erect and dignified in the front seats. We used to smile at the grand air they had, from the stately gray-haired major down to the youngest lieutenant fresh from the Point. But brave hearts were beating under those fine uniforms; and when the great struggle came, one and all died on the field in the front of the battle. Over the grave of the commanding officer is inscribed, 'Major-General,' over the captain's is 'Brigadier,' and over each young lieutenant is 'Colonel.' They gained their promotion in death.
I spent many months at Fort Mackinac with Archie; Archie was my nephew, a young lieutenant. In the short, bright summer came the visitors from below; all the world outside is 'below' in island vernacular. In the long winter the little white fort looked out over unbroken ice-fields, and watched for the moving black dot of the dog-train bringing the mails from the main land. One January day I had been out walking on the snow-crust, breathing the cold, still air, and, returning within the walls to our quarters, I found my little parlor already occupied. Jeannette was there, petite Jeanneton, the fisherman's daughter. Strange beauty sometimes results from a mixed descent, and this girl had French, English and Indian blood in her veins, the three races mixing and intermixing among her ancestors, according to the custom of the Northwestern border. A bold profile delicately finished, heavy blue-black hair, light blue eyes looking out unexpectedly from under black lashes and brows; a fair white skin, neither the rose-white of the blonde nor the cream-white of the Oriental brunette; a rounded form with small hands and feet, showed the mixed beauties of three nationalities. Yes, there could be no doubt but that Jeannette was singularly lovely, albeit ignorant utterly. Her dress was as much of a melange as her ancestry: a short skirt of military blue, Indian leggings and moccasins, a red jacket and little red cap embroidered with beads. The thick braids of her hair hung down her back, and on the lounge lay a large blanket-mantle lined with fox-skins and ornamented with the plumage of birds. She had come to teach me bead-work; I had already taken several lessons to while away the time, but found myself an awkward scholar.
'Bonjou', madame,' she said, in her patois of broken English and degenerate French. 'Pretty here.'
My little parlor had a square of carpet, a hearth-fire of great logs, Turkey-red curtains, a lounge and arm-chair covered with chintz, several prints on the cracked walls, and a number of books,—the whole well used and worn, worth perhaps twenty dollars in any town below, but ten times twenty in icy Mackinac. I began the bead-work, and Jeannette was laughing at my mistakes, when the door opened, and our surgeon came in, pausing to warm his hands before going up to his room in the attic. A taciturn man was our surgeon, Rodney Prescott, not popular in the merry garrison circle, but a favorite of mine; the Puritan, the New-Englander, the Bostonian, were as plainly written upon his face as the French and Indian were written upon Jeannette.
'Sit down, Doctor,' I said.
He took a seat and watched us carelessly, now and then smiling at Jeannette's chatter as a giant might smile upon a pygmy. I could see that the child was putting on all her little airs to attract his attention; now the long lashes swept the cheeks, now they were raised suddenly, disclosing the unexpected blue eyes: the little moccasined feet must be warmed on the fender, the braids must be swept back with an impatient movement of the hand and shoulder, and now and then there was a coquettish arch of the red lips, less than a pout, what she herself would have called 'une p'tite moue.' Our surgeon watched this pantomime unmoved.
'Isn't she beautiful?' I said, when, at the expiration of the hour,Jeannette disappeared, wrapped in her mantle.
'No; not to my eyes.'
'Why, what more can you require, Doctor? Look at her rich coloring, her hair—'
'There is no mind in her face, Mrs. Corlyne.'
'But she is still a child.'
'She will always be a child; she will never mature,' answered our surgeon, going up the steep stairs to his room above.
Jeannette came regularly, and one morning, tired of the bead-work, I proposed teaching her to read. She consented, although not without an incentive in the form of shillings; but, however gained, my scholar gave to the long winter a new interest. She learned readily; but as there was no foundation, I was obliged to commence with A, B, C.
'Why not teach her to cook?' suggested the major's fair young wife, whose life was spent in hopeless labors with Indian servants, who, sooner or later, ran away in the night with spoons and the family apparel.
'Why not teach her to sew?' said Madame Captain, wearily raising her eyes from the pile of small garments before her.
'Why not have her up for one of our sociables?' hazarded our most dashing lieutenant, twirling his moustache.
'Frederick!' exclaimed his wife, in a tone of horror: she was aristocratic, but sharp in outlines.
'Why not bring her into the church? Those French half-breeds are little better than heathen,' said the chaplain.