SPLENDOUR.
In one short day the hand of fate had divided the little band of
venturers, destroying the physical life of Flower, leading Woodfield
into the trackless forest and losing him there, and driving Viner into
the unknown country of the south. Viner's course, during its early
stages, may first be followed, beside the lakes and across the thickly
wooded plains of the land which was later to be known as the northern
part of the State of Maine.
No event marked his journey during the first day. On the second he saw
in the distance a party of Dutchmen, who also sighted him and gave
chase; but the swift young athlete shook off these slow men with ease.
Later he perceived the smoke of an Indian encampment, and bent off his
course, fearing lest the tribe might be hostile to all of his
complexion. By doing so he lost his bearings, and while attempting to
regain them wandered at evening into a glorious valley, bright with
flowers, and green with high grass undulating gently in soundless
waves. Perceiving a line of trees beyond, Geoffrey determined to gain
their shelter, and wait for the stars to guide him back to his
southerly route.
He came to a shallow stream, a mere brook winding through the valley
amid red willow and wild rice and fragrant beds of brown-topped reeds.
A flight of swans passed overhead, their necks outstretched, their
bodies casting gaunt shadows across the grass. On the near side
patches of bush variegated the plain; beyond, the descending sun cast a
dazzling haze. The wind was murmuring in the reeds, and the whistlings
of aquatic fowl made a plaintive music. The lonely boy relieved his
solitude as he walked, by reciting to the tune of the breeze one of the
poetic fables he had learnt at school:
"And when he was unable to restrain his secret, he crept among the
reeds, and murmured, 'King Midas has the ears of an ass.' But the
reeds betrayed him. When the wind passed they bent together and
whispered, 'Midas has the ears of an ass--the ears of an ass.'"
Stepping among the sedges, where single stalks shuddered in the cold
water, Geoffrey looked for the ripple which would indicate a place of
crossing. The reeds inclined their feathery heads towards him, and the
malicious whisper seemed to follow, "Geoffrey has the ears of an
ass--the ears of an ass." Laughing at the idle fancy, he ran on at the
sight of a line of foam some little way down the stream. Drawing off
his shoes, he passed across the yellow gravel, the keen water nipping
his ankles, the reeds brushing his head. Old Thames had often been as
cold, when as a schoolboy he had waded through its weeds hunting the
dive-dapper's nest.
Viner hesitated where the Indian trail split. That to the left ran
into the sun. He could scarcely see it, so dazzling was the glory.
That to the right was bare and cold, but leading, had he known it,
direct to the south. At the foot of a long bank the brook poured away
its water, and above in the fruit-bushes the wild canaries sang away
the hours. The youth took the bow from his shoulder, held it on end,
and let it fall. The bow pointed as he wished, as perhaps his fingers
had guided it at the moment of release. It fell into the sun.
A breath of fire was in the splendour ahead, an acrid smoke crept down,
he heard the crackling of twigs. It seemed to the traveller that the
sun was consuming the grove before him. A voice began to sing.
Geoffrey tried to persuade himself that some little yellow bird was
sitting in the sun-grove warbling its soul out to him. Then an envious
night cloud swooped upon the lord of day and rolled him up in its dewy
blanket, and immediately a palisade, a grass roof, and a thicket
started out like black upon white. But the song went on.
A log-cabin stood right in the centre of the setting sun, a snaky
palisade winding around, enclosing also a garden planted with corn and
potatoes, where already blade and crinkled leaf pushed from the dark
alluvial soil. Trees surrounded the house.
Amid the smoke the side of an iron pot showed at intervals. The singer
held her head back, the slightest frown creasing her forehead. She was
waiting for the fire to burn clearly, and to encourage it she sang.
Her hair, which hung all about her body, was golden-brown, no one tress
the same shade as another, the whole a bewildering mantle of beauty.
Its wealth became reckless when one crafty ray of sunlight eluded the
cloud and shot across her head.
"Oh, oh!" she sighed, breaking off her bird-like song. "The sun will
not let my fire burn, and--this wicked wind!"
The breeze, delighting to flirt with so glorious a creature, veered
slyly, and fanned the bitter smoke around her. She danced away
coughing, her cheeks scarlet, her red mouth gasping for pure air, her
tresses gleaming in their mesh of sunlight. Her movements were as
supple as the swaying dance of the pine-branch over her. She tried to
laugh while she caught at her breath, and, failing, fell back panting,
showing her tiny teeth.
Then the violet eyes moved along the path, and all the pretty laughter
went out. A white hand drifted like falling snow, stole a tress of
hair, and shining pearls began cruelly to bite the silk.
No maid could have desired a fairer vision.
Geoffrey, tall, slender, and flushed, stood between the trees, his bow
in his hands, his Saxon blue eyes meeting the violet glances of
timidity with free admiration. The maid of the fire-side beheld his
clear complexion, his fair hair tied loosely at the nape of his neck,
his strong figure; and as she watched for a few moments, which were not
measured by time, her bosom began to rise and fall. Had she not prayed
for such a vision? She had surely wasted her sweetness long enough
upon the unsatisfying things of her daily life in that lone, hard land.
There was that in her young blood which rebelled against her
convent-like environment, where she had indeed her freedom, but where
the tree of knowledge had not been trained to grow.
Viner stepped out and doffed his feathered cap.
"Fair mistress," he said, bending before this beauty of the grove,
"give me your pardon for coming on you so suddenly. I am a traveller
on my way to the south."
Madeleine Labroquerie answered him only with her eyes.
"Can you tell me how many English miles I am from Plymouth?"
He looked up, and learnt that the sun had not yet left the grove. He
saw the cloud of hair waving iridescent. His gaze wandered over the
beautiful head, until two eyes like purple iris flowers met his.
"But I am not English."
"Yet you speak in English," he protested.
"Why, yes. In England I was brought up. I love England; but I am
French, and a Protestant."
Geoffrey looked into the grove as he spoke on softly, mindful of his
duty:
"Tell me, lady, how many days must I travel before I come to the
province of Massachusetts?"
Madeleine Labroquerie had not a word to say. This handsome stranger
had hardly arrived, and already he suggested departure.
"I must not delay," he faltered.
"My fire!" cried Madeleine, stretching out her hands. "It will not
burn. Stranger"--she turned to him with a winsome glance--"will you
_make_ my fire burn?"
She hurried to the smoking pile. He was beside her instantly.
"You shall not soil those hands."
"They are already smoked and soiled. And see--a burn!"
Because Geoffrey dared not look Madeleine pouted at his back. Then she
kicked the smouldering wood, and exclaimed spitefully, "There!"
"Your fire is too closely packed."
"It is not," she snapped, daring him with her eyes.
"You say it is not," he agreed; but loosening the heap.
"I fear that it was," she sighed. "And the wood is damp."
Geoffrey rebuilt the fire, placing the hot embers to face the wind, and
fanned the sticks until they burst into flame.
The daylight went out like a failing lamp, and a red glow flung about
them as the fire increased.
"I know that you are weary, sir," said the girl winningly. "Let me
lead you into the house and present you to my mother."
Seeing wonder upon the young man's face, she pointed her shapely hand
through the smoke.
"Down there my father lies," she explained in a hushed voice. "Deep in
the hollow where the beavers bite the bark at night. There the Indians
made his grave. French though we are, the Iroquois have been friendly,
because my father, who was a skilled physician, used them well. Here
my father hid from the world. He found a rest here, and yonder he
rests still hidden. I am with my mother and one native servant, who
loves us because my father saved his life. And I--I have never known a
friend."
"Lady," said Geoffrey suddenly, "I would serve you if I might."
"Rest you here a few days," she said quickly, "and tell my mother what
is doing in the world."
"I must down to the coast."
"Did you say Plymouth just now? Learn how ignorant I am. I did not
know there was a town of that name in all the New World. I have been
to the English Plymouth. There I saw the brave ships in her harbour,
and the red and white flags, and the sailors looking over the sea for
what might come sailing by, watching thus and hoping all the day. That
was a happy time."
"There are yet as good men in Plymouth as ever sailed westward from the
Hoe," said the boy with eager pride.
While he spoke the expression on Madeleine's face altered. She drew
away, murmuring as she moved, "Here is Madame, my mother." She added
hurriedly, and as he thought with fear, "I pray you be gracious to her."
Viner turned, and there in the fire glow walked a little old woman in
black, a white cap holding her thin grey hair, her face pale, her eyes
sunken, and her colourless lips a tight line. She smiled coldly, and
showed no amazement when her daughter presented the traveller.
"You are welcome, sir," she said in English. "We are poor and lonely
folk left to perish in the wilderness. My husband was an atheist, a
philosopher, and every man's hand was against him. He brought his wife
and family to the New World that he might study in peace and learn
somewhat of Nature's secrets. Last summer he was taken, babbling of
the work of his misspent life, careless of our farewells, heedless of
the state in which he left us. Philosophy is of a truth the devil's
work, inasmuch as it hardens the heart of man, loses him his God, and
wraps its slave in selfishness."
The old woman signed herself slowly; then suddenly pushed beside the
traveller and snatched at her daughter's arm.
"Cross yourself, girl! Infidel, cross yourself!" she cried.
"Mother!" Madeleine shrank back, appealing with her lovely eyes.
"Lutheran!" screamed the little woman. "Make the holy sign, and so
strive to save your wicked soul from the pit of destruction wherein
your father lies."
"My faith is fixed," murmured the girl. "Ah, ah!" she panted.
Madame Labroquerie struck the girl thrice upon her fair cheek, staining
the white skin red as a roseleaf.
"Madame, forbear!" Viner stood between them, his blood hot with shame.
"This is no sight for a stranger and a man to witness."
The little woman smiled at him and abandoned her daughter, who bent
over the fire to hide her crimson face.
"You are English, sir. Your brave countrymen yield to none in their
respect for a woman, when she be young and fair to see. Let her be
old, they shall call her witch and fling her in the nearest pond.
There be young witches, good sir, better able to seduce the soul of man
than the old, though they keep neither cat nor toad, nor ride at night
across the face of the moon."
Madame Labroquerie made him a low courtesy, and walked noiselessly to
the gate of the palisade.
"That so lovely a daughter should be cursed with such a mother!"
muttered the youth as he watched her go.
He came to the side of Madeleine, and found her crying.
"My mother has a strange temper. She has suffered much," the girl
sighed.
There was a pause, one of those rare intervals when ears are opened to
the music of the spheres, and souls may meet.
"You are not happy here," he said.
Her glorious eyes were two blossoms heavy with dew.
"Friend!" She put out one hand, groping for something to hold. "I am
miserable."
They stood together, hand in hand.
"She struck you."
There was no answer. Divine pity dropped upon his heart, sweet and
dangerous pity out of heaven.
"Stay a little," she whispered. "For the sake of your religion, stay.
If for a day only, stay. Stay, for a woman's sake."
It was dark in the grove outside the circle of the fire. He drew at
her fingers. He bent his head suddenly and breathed upon them. She
placed her other hand--a cold little hand--upon his.
Then the evening breeze flung itself sportingly into the trees, and all
the branches sprang before it, and the foliage danced and shouted in a
laugh, singing noisily the old secret of the river reeds, singing,
"Midas is a king of gold--a king of gold."
So the fire died down into an angry red, and all the birds of the grove
were songless. Madame walked alone from the rude house, her small face
white against dark clouds, and passed into the clearing. The Indian
who worked for the widow and daughter approached with a burden of wood.
"Wind is coming," he said in his own tongue.
"May it blow away heresy and all heretics," muttered the little woman.