Barbara rounded the next turn. There before her, widely gleaming,
spread the waters of the great river itself. She cried out in her joy,
and paddled madly--then paused, abashed, perceiving that she was the
object of a critical but frankly admiring scrutiny. Her attention was
diverted from the great river. Here was a tall boy--of her own caste
unmistakably--poling himself out on a precarious little raft to meet
her. Her flush of confusion passed as quickly as it had come, and
laying her paddle across the gunwale, she waited with interest to
discover what he might have to say.
Barbara had met but few boys of her own class, and those few had
seemed, under her merciless analysis, uniformly uninteresting. Their
salient characteristics, to her mind, were freckles, rudeness,
ignorance, and a disposition to tease cats. But this youth was
obviously different. Apparently about seventeen years of age, he was
tall and graceful, and the way the clumsy log-raft on which he stood
surged forward under the thrusts of his pole revealed his strength.
Barbara loved strength, so long as delicacy saved it from coarseness.
The boy was in his shirt sleeves, which were of spotless cambric, and
Barbara noted, with approbation, the ample ruffles turned back, for
convenience, from his sinewy brown hands. She observed that his brown,
long-fronted, flowered vest was of silk, and his lighter brown
small-clothes of a fine cloth worn only by the gentry; that his
stockings were of black silk, and his shoes, drenched most of the time
in the water that lapped over the raft, were adorned with large buckles
of silver. She admired the formal fashion in which his black hair was
tied back in a small and very precise queue. But most of all she liked
his face, which was even darker than her own--lean, somewhat square in
the jaw, with a broad forehead, and gray-blue, thoughtful eyes, set
wide apart.
Now, Barbara's fearless scorn of conventions was equalled only by her
ignorance of them. This boy pleased her, so why should she hesitate to
show it? When the raft ranged up alongside the canoe, she laid hold
upon it for anchorage and the greater convenience in conversation, and
flashed upon the stranger the full dazzle of her scarlet lips, white
teeth, and bewildering radiance of green eyes. The boy straightened
himself from the pole in order to bow with the more ceremony--which he
accomplished to Barbara's complete satisfaction in spite of the
unsteadiness of the raft.
"What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said, frankly condescending.
"What is your name?"
[Illustration: "_What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said._]
"Robert Gault, your very humble servant!" he replied, bowing again, and
smiling. The smile was altogether to Barbara's fancy, and showed even,
strong, white teeth, another most uncommon merit in a boy. "And I am
sure," he went on, "that this is Mistress Barbara Ladd whom I have the
honour to address."
"Why, how do you know me?" exclaimed Barbara, highly pleased. Then,
quickly apprehensive, she added, "What makes you think I am Barbara
Ladd?"
The boy noted the change in her countenance, and wondered at it. But
he replied at once:
"Of course the name of Mistress Barbara Ladd, and her daring, and her
canoe-craft, and her beauty" (this he added out of his own instant
conviction), "have spread far down the river. When I came up here the
other day to visit my grandmother" (he indicated slightly the distant
roofs of Gault House), "I came with a great hope of being permitted to
meet you!"
Evidently he knew nothing of her flight. Her uneasiness vanished. But
she had never had a compliment before--a personal compliment, such as
is dear to every wise feminine heart--and that word "beauty" was most
melodious to her ears. As a matter of fact, she did not herself admire
her own appearance at all, and even had an aversion to the mirror--but
it occurred to her now, for the first time, that this was a point upon
which it was not needful that every one should agree with her. It was
practically her first real lesson in tolerance toward an opinion that
differed from her own.
"I'll warrant you heard no good of that same Barbara Ladd, more's the
pity!" she answered, coquettishly tossing her dark little head and
shooting at him a distracting sidelong glance from narrowed lids.
"Anyhow, if you are Lady Gault's grandson, I am most happy to meet you."
She stretched out to him her brown little hand, just now none too
immaculate, indeed, but with breeding stamped on every slim line of it,
and eloquent from the polished, well-trimmed, long, oval nails.
Instantly, careless of the water and his fine cloth breeches, Robert
went down upon one knee and gallantly kissed the proffered hand.
Barbara was just at an age when, for girls with Southern blood in their
veins, womanhood and childhood lie so close entwined in their
personalities that it is impossible to disentangle the golden and the
silver threads. Never before had any one kissed her hand. She was
surprised at the pleasant thrill it gave her; and she was surprised,
too, at her sudden, inexplicable impulse to draw the hand away. It was
a silly impulse, she told herself; so she controlled it, and accepted
the kiss with the composure of a damsel well used to such ceremonious
homage. But she did not like such a nice boy to be kneeling in the
water.
"Why did you come out on that rickety thing?" she asked. "Why haven't
you a boat or a canoe?"
"This was the only thing within reach," he explained, respectfully
relinquishing her hand. "I saw you coming; and I knew it must be you,
because no other girl could handle a canoe so beautifully; and I was
afraid of losing you if I waited."
"That was civil of you. But aren't you getting very wet there? Won't
you come into the canoe?"
"Really?" he exclaimed, lifting his chin with a quick gesture of
eagerness. "Are you going to be so good to me? Then I must push this
old raft ashore first and secure it. I don't know whom it belongs to."
As he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation,
Barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill. When the
raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his
place in the bow and knelt so as to face her.
"You must turn the other way," laughed Barbara.
"No, I was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask
you to let me paddle," he answered. "Won't you let me? You really
look a little bit tired, and I want you to talk to me, if you will be
so condescending. How can I turn my back to you?"
"I am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested Barbara, a little
doubtfully. "But I don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll
paddle hard and go the way I want you to." And with that she seated
herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that
rather contradicted her protestation.
The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.
"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me.
Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"
This pleased Barbara. She loved slaves. She accepted his servitude at
once and fully.
"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.
At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and
pleased. Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping
forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled
Barbara with admiration.
"Oh, _how_ strong you are and _how_ well you paddle!" she cried, her
eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls
blowing about her face. Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture
as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her
little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking
out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown,
slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves. He
was proud of her praise. He was partly engrossed in displaying his
skill and strength to the very best advantage. But above all he was
thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his
memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that
affected his action like a summons or an appeal.
In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main
stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current. Barbara
clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and
relief that the boy's curiosity was excited. He began to feel that
there was some mystery in the affair. Slackening his pace ever so
slightly, he remarked:
"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this
neighbourhood. How fortunate I am--that is, if you will graciously
permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."
But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the
significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too
occupied to notice. His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his
frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.
"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood. I
don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."
"Then--you've come right from Second Westings!" he exclaimed.
"Right from Second Westings."
"All that distance since this morning?" he persisted.
She nodded impatiently.
"Through those woods--through the rapids--all alone?"
"Yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply. She was annoyed.
In his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward,
scanning her face.
"But--" said he, embarrassed, "forgive me! I know it is none of my
business,--but what does it mean?"
"Go on paddling," commanded Barbara. "Did you not promise you would
obey me? _I_ know what it means!" And she laughed, half maliciously.
The boy looked worried,--and it was great fun to bring that worried
look to his face.
He resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded
his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips. The current was
swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of Gault House
far behind. A tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy,
and again he stopped paddling.
"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly. "Give me the
paddle, and I'll set you ashore right here."
"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely,
appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my
business! I ought to ask!"
He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held
it steady.
"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily. "Give me the paddle at
once!"
Still he made no motion to obey.
"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,--that it will
take till dark to work back against the current to where I met
you,--that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the
night--"
"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and
anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night. I'm going to the sea--to my
uncle at Stratford! I just don't want you to interfere. Let me put
you ashore at once!"
Robert was struck dumb with amazement. To the sea! This small girl,
all alone! And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the
river. It was superb pluck,--but it was wild, impossible folly. He
did not know what to do. He turned the canoe toward shore, and
presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.
Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same
time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going
to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark. She had not
considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark. She
made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise
her as to where she could stay for the night.
"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it
were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a
trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.
"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.
"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said
the boy. "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough
work going through in broad daylight. At night you would just be
dashed to pieces in a minute."
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just
beginning to touch her imagination.
"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded. "And we will paddle
back to Second Westings to-morrow."
Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
"Never! never! never!" she sobbed. "I'll die in the rapids before I'll
ever go back to Aunt Hitty! Oh, why did I like you? Why did I trust
you? Oh, I don't know what to do!"
The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her
trouble. He longed desperately to help her. He had a wild impulse to
swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to
go, however impossible her undertaking. Instead of that, however, he
kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes,
while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs. At last
he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the
unruffled water. Then he laid down his paddle.
"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned. "I do want
so much to help you. And perhaps I can. And you _shall not_ be sorry
for trusting me!"
How very comforting his voice was! So tender, and kind, and with a
faithful ring in its tenderness. Barbara suffered it to comfort her.
Surely he would understand, if old Debby could! In a few moments she
lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears,
and said:
"How good and kind you are! Forgive me if I was bad to you. Yes, I'll
tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why I had to
come away."
Barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing. Her emotion, her utter
sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling
phrase. What wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon
whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like
wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes. Her faults were
invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative. She
was right to run away. The venture, of course, was a mad one, but with
his help it might well be carried through to success. As she talked
on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood
and rose to his brain. Difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves
to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid
to overcome. In the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool,
judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but
Barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet
lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the
time, was overwhelmed. When Barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and
she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he
said, solemnly:
"I will help you! To the utmost of my power I will help you!"
The words had the weight and significance of a consecration.
Barbara clapped her hands.
"Oh!" she cried, "How can I ever thank you for being so lovely to me?
But I knew you were nice the moment I looked at you!" And a load
rolled off her mind. With such a helper, already was her enterprise
accomplished.
"I will try hard to be worthy of your favour," said Robert, with deep
gravity, feeling that now indeed was boyhood put away and full manhood
descended upon his shoulders. His brain was racked with the terrific
problem of finding Barbara fit lodging for the night; but meantime he
turned the canoe and paddled swiftly out into the current. Hardly had
he changed his course when he noticed a light rowboat creeping up along
the shore. But boats were no unusual sight on the river, and he paid
no heed to it. As for Barbara, she was so absorbed in watching his
great strokes, and in thinking how delightful it was to have found such
an ally, that the sound of the oars passed her ears unheeded, and she
did not turn her head.