_Lucy Visits the Archipelago._
As the best laid plans of man fail often to succeed against the
inevitable, so, too, it is often that the intervention of time makes
possible what before Fate had willed otherwise.
Lucy Maynard still resided with her parents in the village of
Darrington. Her married existence had been punctuated by the fatal
illness of her husband, leaving her widowed while yet in the first year
of her wedded life. Seeking no new acquaintances, she sweetened the
atmosphere of her home, while her presence spread an angelic glow among
the circle of her friends. Hers was now a sad, sweet face, illumined
by a smile which ever quickly sprang to her lips and as fitfully died
away. In those large, hopeful eyes, so frankly turned upon you, was a
look of sadness, as of a love unrequited.
Early Summer had come again, the schools were closing, and with the
returning of friends who had been at colleges in distant cities a flood
of sweet recollections of years not so long past came to Lucy.
“It was down the winding Salmon,” she mused to herself. “Oh, how well I
remember, Edmond at the oars and I in the stern of the boat, trailing
my fingers in the water and thinking of the future—yes, that same
future which has brought me so much unhappiness already. But it was
of my own bringing. Pique and disappointment, they, too, played their
share in my short drama. That love which was the cause of urging me on
into the bonds that restrained me from turning back again to the object
of my only true affection is the same love which now is fanned into a
new life as often as the incidents arise which bring back the memories
of the past. On the morrow I will indulge my longing. It will be the
anniversary of that day when cruel fate changed love into foolish
resentment, so that we drifted apart, Edmond from me. With Caleb, our
old family servant, my confidant, my trusted friend, I will follow the
winding Salmon to the same point of land, and there, resting within the
basswood grove, as we did on that day, I will look to find again the
tree upon which we carved our initials as we sat beneath its shade.”
The sun shone bright upon this day in June, and as Caleb rounded the
point of land which lay in the shoals by the marshes he looked backward
over the shoulder nearest shore, carefully selecting a landing. Lucy
the while watched intently a boat pushing out from a bay farther up
the shore. A swiftly gliding boat it was, long and set low in the
water. Graceful lines swept from the bow, and, touching the waves at
the oar-locks, rose again to gently curve into the rudder posts at the
stern. Two men were occupants of the boat, which Caleb assured Lucy
was new in those waters. The man at the oars bent to his work, and in
response to his long, swinging strokes the boat quickly disappeared
from sight, passing through a line of thin rushes and making for an
island across the Schneil Channel.
Lucy appeared strangely affected. Caleb had now beached his skiff in a
sheltered cove, and was waiting, after having called to his mistress
the second time to step ashore. The man lounging in the boat of the
strangers, and guiding at the stem the craft as it stole swiftly away
from shore, Lucy followed, held by a strange fascination, till he was
lost to view.
Upon Tyno’s Point there was a small tavern run for the accommodation
of people fishing and hunting thereabouts, and a few cottages were set
back from the shore fronting out upon the expanse of water looking
toward the north bank of the Archipelago. Caleb went to exchange gossip
with the fishermen standing about the shore, while Lucy strolled alone
toward the basswood grove.
Still and quiet was everything in Nature. The bright beams of the
noonday sun fell in quivering rays across the sight. Out upon the river
not a ripple disturbed its glassy surface. From up the Schneil Channel
came the chattering noises of a water hen, and the piping of snipes,
who called from the rush beds farther up the river. Overhead in the
trees a pair of golden robins sang as they builded their nest far out
on an overhanging limb. The bumblebees hurried past on their way to the
blossoming clover patch, and the distant call of a loon came from over
the waters. Lucy stood beneath the high branching trees, and in the
distance, toward the village of Darrington, she saw the weather-vane of
the church steeple glistening in the sun.
“It must be near here,” she thought. “Yes, it was at a tree-trunk like
the one in yonder clump,” and thither she went, trailing her leghorn
hat by the ribbon strings through the tall grasses. Sweet was the
picture of grace and beauty left alone with her thoughts of love. “Yes,
it was here. Yes, yes, this is the tree, for there are the marks, the
initials we cut.”
Suddenly she paused in her delight, for she had made another discovery.
Some one had been before her. Around the foot of the very tree, and
leading away from it toward the river bank, the grass had been recently
trampled. Still in her surprise, curiosity led her to follow the path
through the grass to the shore. There she saw the fresh imprints upon
the sand. Immediately she recognized the small bay, whose extending
bank had partially concealed the strangers as they rowed away earlier
in the day.
A wistful, excited look had come over the childlike face of Lucy. One
hand pressed her heaving bosom, while with the other she clung for
support to a bending alder tree. Thoughts were in her mind that she
dared not entertain—an apprehension that she had but just missed seeing
the lover of her childhood, who possibly had returned like a spirit
from heaven to renew the anniversary of a time long past, but ever
fresh in memory. It was then as she stood, her frail figure swayed to
and fro by the flood of passionate recollections, that coming from
behind her sounded the voice of Caleb, her protector.
“We will row away by the Schneil Channel, Lucy,” he said, “and, going
by the rush banks, touch at the Caristitee Island. The old chief of the
tribe of the St. Regis will be glad at our coming, and once more he
will say to us that he is the friend of the palefaces.”
Caleb True lived quietly on in his way, which called for no criticism,
aroused no comment, enjoying the while the respect of those who knew
him. He might have been the miller, the town gardener or an unassuming
deacon in one of the churches, but, as it was, he had lived very long
in the family of Lucy’s father, tended the garden and cared for the
household during the week, and upon the Sunday he proudly officiated
as sexton in one of the village churches. To Lucy he had been a second
father, and to him in childhood she went for sympathy as she grieved
over some fancied injustice done her. Caleb had known the romance of
her school days, and he was now in full possession of the innermost
thoughts of her soul, although she had not confided to him that the
longing of the returned love of her girlhood was driving her forward in
a mad desire to discover his whereabouts.
While Caleb chatted with the fishing guides and river men at Tyno’s
Point he gained the information that for several days past the same
quickly speeding boat observed by Lucy had passed and re-passed
among the islands, going from place to place with a restlessness and
uncertainty of route altogether unusual among the frequenters of the
perch banks or the haunts of the wily pike. Once they had touched at
the Point, but only to inquire of the landlord for a lodging should
they wish to return. “Handsome and strong,” they said that he was, “and
with the air of a city stranger; but again swiftly they glided away,
and into the nearest rushes, where soon was hid from them the beautiful
skiff of the boatmen, but they saw over the tops of the swaying reeds
the heads of the wandering oarsmen as they crossed to the Caristitee,
and from there later, as the darkness came upon them, the light of
their camp fire shone on the point of the island.”
At once Caleb confided to Lucy the hopes which had risen within him,
and together they hurried to pursue them. Soon they had crossed the
Schneil Channel. Onward they sped, in their haste going through the
narrow passes cut by a current of swift running waters feeding the
expanse of a broad lagoon. Meanwhile Caleb, a poor match for the
fleet-winged oarsmen who unconsciously fled away in the distance, was
fast exhausting his strength.
[Illustration]