I WAKE A SLEEPER
What enchantment came upon the weather for the next week I do not know.
May is often somewhat sour of visage, but now she smiled from dawn till
starlight. We paddled and hunted and slept, well fed and fire-warmed.
It was more like junketing than business, and we were as amiable as
fat-bellied puppies. Even the Englishman looked content. We left him
in camp when we went to hunt, and on our return he had a boiling pot
and hot coals ready for our venison. I saw that he had won favor with
the men. Yet he kept aloof from all of us, as he had promised.
This had gone on for a week, when one day, after we had placed the
Englishman on guard and were tramping back into the timber to see what
our eyes and muskets could find, Pierre pointed to a bent tree. "It
looks like a cow's back," he ruminated. "Trees are queer. Today,
where we made camp, I saw a tree that looked like a Huron with his
topknot."
I stopped. "Where?"
"I told the master. Near the camp."
"You think it was a tree?"
Pierre shuffled. "There are no Hurons here. This is the Pottawatamie
country. But I have thought about it all day. It was a queer tree.
Shall I go back and see?"
I shook my head. I pointed to a stale bear print, and set the men upon
it. Then I turned and slipped back to camp.
I walked with uneasiness in my throat. Why did a Huron dog us in this
fashion? Was he alone? Did he mean mischief to the Englishman? Was
the Englishman in league with him? Too many questions for a slow man.
I felt entrapped and befogged. I must see for myself. And so I crept
to the camp to spy upon it.
I have never seen sweeter spot for an anchorage than we had found that
day. We had not camped on the open coast as had been our custom, but
in a sun-warmed meadow a few paces inland, where there were birds, and
tasseling grasses, and all kinds of glancing lights and odors to steal
into a man's blood. I parted the trees. The blur of gray ashes from
our fire was undisturbed; our canoes lay, bottom upwards, waiting to
have the seams newly pitched, and the cargo was piled, untouched,
against a tree. All was as we left it. And there, in the shade of a
maple, lay the Englishman, asleep on his scarlet blanket.
I went softly, and looked down at him. I ought to have waked him, and
rated him for sleeping at his post, but I could not. It was balm to
find him here safe. He was twisted like a kitten with his head in his
arm, and I noticed that his dark hair, which he kept roughly cut, was
curly. He must have been wandering in the woods, for he had a bunch of
pink blossoms, very waxy and odorous, shut tight in his hand. I looked
at him till I suddenly wanted him to wake and look at me. I picked a
grass stalk, and, leaning over, brushed it against his lips.
He woke as a child does, not alert at once, but with drowsy stirrings,
and finally with open eyes so sleep-filled that they were as
expressionless as a fawn's. He stared as if trying to remember who I
was.
I sat beside him. "I am the owner of that cargo you are guarding," I
supplied to aid his memory, and then laughed to see the red flood his
face when he came to himself and realized what he had done. But I was
not at ease. He had shivered and drawn back when he first opened his
eyes. Could he be afraid of me? I should not wish that. I tried to
be crafty.
"Who did you think I was when you first woke?" I asked, taking my pipe
and preparing to be comfortable.
He pushed back his hair. "Benjamin," he answered vaguely. He was
still half asleep.
"But you told me your name was Benjamin!" I put down my flint and
tinder.
He met my look. "I have a cousin Benjamin, as well," he rejoined. "I
was dreaming of him. Monsieur, I am humiliated to think that I went to
sleep. I have never done so before."
My pipe drew well, and I did not feel like chiding. "It does not
matter," I said, with a yawn. "You must not take it amiss, monsieur,
if I confess that, as a guard, I have never considered you much more
seriously than I would that brown thrush above you. What is your
posy?" and I leaned over and took the flowers from his hand.
He smiled at me drowsily. "The arbutus," he explained, with a
lingering touch of his finger upon the blossoms. "Smell them,
monsieur. I found them in Connecticut last spring. Are they not well
suited to be the first flowers of this wild land? Repellent
without,--see how rough the leaves are to your finger,--but fragrant
and beautiful under its harsh coating. Life in the Colonies grew to
seem to me much the same."
I turned the flowers over, and considered his philosophy. "You are
less cynical than your wont, monsieur." I reflected. "May I say that I
like it better in you? Cynicism is a court exotic. It should not grow
under these pines."
He put out his hand to brush a twig from my doublet. "Cynicism is
often the flower of bitterness. Monsieur, you have been very good to
me. I cannot keep in mind my constant bitterness against life when I
think of the thoughtfulness and justice you have shown me."
I jerked away. "Sufficient! Sufficient! Let us be comfortable," I
expostulated, and I turned my back, and gave myself to my pipe and
silence.
The birds sang softly as if wearied, and the earth was warm to the
hand. I held the flowers in my fingers, and they smelled, somehow,
like the roses on our terrace at home on moonlight evenings when I had
been young and thought myself in love. I watched a drift of white
butterflies hang over an opening red blossom. Such moments pay for
hours of famine. It disturbed me to have the Englishman rise and go
away.
"Why do you go?" I demanded.
He came back at once. "What can I do for you, monsieur?"
His gentleness shamed my shortness of speech. "It was nothing," I
replied. "The truth is, it was pleasant to have you here beside me."
I laughed at my own folly. "Starling, I will put you in man's dress
to-morrow!" I cried.
He turned away. "As you like, monsieur. I think myself it would be
best. Will you get out the clothes to-night?"
But I stared at him. "Why blush about it, Starling?" I shrugged. I
felt some disdain of his sensitiveness. "I did not mean to twit you.
I understand that you have worn the squaw's dress to help us. But I
think that the necessity for disguise is past. I see the skirts
embarrass you."
He turned to look at me fairly. "I am not blushing, monsieur," he
explained, with a great air of candor. "It is the heat of the
afternoon;" but even as he spoke the red flowed from chin to forehead,
and when I looked at him with another laugh, his eyes fell before mine.
I rose on my elbow. "Starling! Starling!" I cried. He made no sound.
His head drooped, and I saw him clench his hand. I stared. He threw
his head back, but when he tried to meet my look he failed. Yet I
looked again. "My God!" I heard my voice say, and my teeth bit into my
lip. I could smell the flowers in my hand, but they seemed a long
distance away. "My God!" I cried again, and I rose and felt my way
into the woods with the step of a blind man.