THE COMMODORE SURRENDERS.
A few weeks later there was another excursion to the emerald glooms of
the forest, but this was limited in number to the Macleods and
DeBerczys, with a few of their intimate friends. Wanda was absent on
one of her indefinite expeditions--indefinite in length as well as in
object, though the wigwam of her foster-feather was one of the points
of interest visited by the party. Conspicuous among the numerous
Indians in the settlement in the neighbourhood of Orillia was the last
of the Algonquins, partly because of the pathos which attaches to the
sole survivor in any region of a nearly extinct race, partly because
of the mantle of traditional glory that had fallen upon him from the
shoulders of valorous ancestors. He declined to join the revellers at
their midday feasting under the trees, but his unexpected appearance
afterwards suggested a pleasant substitute for the noon-day siesta.
"Talk about the storied memories of the past, in the old world," said
Edward, leaning back on the mossy sward, and gazing up through green
branches to the blue heaven, "this country has had its share of them,
and here is the man," clapping a friendly hand on the Indian's
shoulder, "who can tell us about them."
"Ah, do!" implored Herbert and Eva.
"Ah, don't!" entreated their father. "If there's anything that spoils
the sylvan shades for me, it is to learn that they were once the scene
of battle axes and blood spilling, and such like gruesomeness."
"But we _ought_ to know about it," said Helene. "It's history."
"That makes it all the worse. If it were fiction I wouldn't care."
"Now, Papa," said Rose, "that evinces a depraved taste. People will
blame your home-training. Consider my feelings."
"That is what I supposed I was doing, my dear, in praying to be
delivered from a tale that would make your blood run cold."
"What a delightful way for one's blood to run in this weather," lazily
remarked one of the Boulton girls, and the other said she was pining
for a story of particular horror.
"Oh, a story, by all means," said the Commodore, "but let it be a
tradition or something of that sort." Then turning to the Chief: "Does
not our brother know the legend of the unfortunate wretch of a man who
was set upon and abused by a lot of unmerciful women, because he
barbarously forbade them to learn all the history they wanted?
Something of that sort would be appropriate."
"Our brother" shook his head. "That is beyond my skill, but I can
relate a story of the times before ever women were brought into the
world."
"Rather dull times for the men, weren't they?" inquired one of the
party.
"It is the belief of some of our race that they were very good times,"
replied the Chief, tranquilly. "The men of that period, free from the
influence of the other sex, have been spoken of as a much better race
of beings than they are to-day. At that time you never heard of such a
thing as a man being cross to his wife, or too attentive to his
neighbour's wife, and when the husband came back from the chase
without meat there was no one to scold him. Every man had his own way,
and dwelt in peace in his own wigwam. As fast as they died out the
Manito created more, and as they had no families they had nothing to
fight for, nothing to defend, and, consequently, there were few wars
among them. There were, I am sorry to say, some disadvantages. The men
were obliged to weed corn, dry fish, mend nets, fell trees, carry
logs, and do other women's work, which, as we know, is a great
degradation. Also, when they were sick or in trouble, some of the
weaker ones were heard to declare that they wished women were
invented, but as a rule they were blithe and gay as warriors in the
dance that follows a great victory. There were many ennobling
influences in this world before women entered it. Vanity did not
exist. Simplicity was the rule, especially in attire, which ordinarily
consisted of hunting coats and leggings, deerskin moccasins and
coloured blankets, enriched with beads. It was only once in a while
that they appeared in black eagle plumes, and gorgeous feathers,
garters gay with beads, moccasins worked with stained porcupine
quills, leggings of scarlet cloth, embroidered and decorated with
tufts of moosehair, dyed blue and red, robes curiously plaited of the
bark of the mulberry, and adorned with bear claws, hawks' bills and
turtle shells. Besides being plain and quiet in their dress they were
very upright in their lives. No man ever was known to lie to his
neighbour; but now when you see a man and woman too frequently
together you may be sure he is telling her things that come true about
as often as larks fall from the skies. Neither were men in those days
ever deceived; but now they are tangled in women's wiles as easily as
a partridge is caught in a net. There were no cowards, for men at all
times are staunch and bold, whereas a woman has nothing but the heart
of a little bird in her breast. All nature shared in man's prosperity.
The corn grew to the height of a young forest tree, and in the
hunting-grounds the deer and bears were as thick as stars.
"But the chief glory of man in those days was his long, superb and
glossy tail; for at that time it could not be said that the horses
were more highly gifted than he. You must often have noticed the pride
with which horses switch their tails about, apparently to drive off
flies, but really to show their superiority to the race they serve.
The reproach of having no tail is one that is hard to bear; but at the
time of which I speak all men were endowed with luxuriant tails, some
of them black as the shell of a butternut when it is fully ripe,
others the colour of the setting sun, but all trimmed with shells, gay
coloured beads and flowers, and strings of alligators' teeth. Those
who say that there is nothing on earth so beautiful as a woman did not
live in the time when tails were invented. Nothing could surpass the
pride their owners took in them, nor the scorn that was heaped upon
the hapless creature whose tail was short or scanty.
"But, as often happens to people who have all and more than they need,
so it was with our ancestors. From being simply proud of their tails
they began to grow vain and useless, caring for nothing but their own
ease and adornment, neglecting to harvest the maize, feeble in the
chase, sleeping sometimes for the space of nearly a moon, and unable
to take more than a woman's journey of six suns at a time. Then the
Manito reflected and said to himself: 'This will never do. Man was not
made to be a mere groundling. His greatest luxury must be taken from
him, and in its place there must be given him something to tax his
patience and strengthen his powers.' So one fine morning every man in
the world woke up to find his tail missing. Great was the surprise and
lamentation, and this was not lessened by the sudden appearance of the
women, who came in number like that of the flight of pigeons in the
moon before the snow moon. No prayers could avail to stay their
coming, and from that time all the troubles in the world began. No man
was allowed to have his own way thenceforward, nor was he permitted to
plod along in his old, slow, comfortable fashion, but each one in
terror went to work as swift as a loon flying before a high wind."
The laugh that arose at the end of this not strictly authentic
narrative was prolonged by a strange voice, and Allan Dunlop, who,
unobserved, had made his appearance among them, now came forward to
exchange greetings with his friends. Herbert and Eva Macleod hung
enraptured about him, while he went to congratulate the old Indian
upon his gifts as a story-teller. Then Edward's warm hand clasped his.
"Come over and see my father," he said. "Oh, no, he is asleep. He
generally sleeps in the afternoon of the day."
"A very good plan when one comes to the afternoon of one's days,"
observed Allan, and then he went over to speak to Rose.
Her little soft hand fluttered up to his as a bird flutters to its
nest. They had not met since that stormy March night. Since then he
had confessed, in correspondence between them, that life was a
perpetual struggle between him and love, and she had asked--though not
in so many words--if it would make it any easier for him to know that
she was engaged in the same struggle with the same great enemy. Ah,
with what a fine pen had she written that, and with what pale ink, and
nervous, nearly illegible strokes, and how she had crowded it down to
the very edge of the paper. But he had read it, and it was fixed on
his mind as clearly as though it had been written in lightning on the
dark horizon of his future. And now, though his brown eyes were
warming into black, and her cheeks were the colour of the flower after
which she was named, they talked of conventional things in an
indifferent way, as is the customary and proper thing to do. They saw
little of each other through the remainder of the afternoon, but when
they were making ready for the sail home, Eva, at Allan's invitation,
sprang into his little light boat.
"Come with me, Rose," she cried, "Mr. Dunlop is going to row me home,
and it will be better worth while if there are two of us."
The excuses which Rose instantly invented were not so strong as the
vehement tones in which her sister uttered her invitation, and to
avoid attracting attention or remark she gently seated herself in the
boat, which Allan exultantly pushed away from the shore. The delight
of being for a little while almost alone with his love was
intoxicating. The younger girl, who had counted so ardently upon the
pleasure of Allan's society, found herself in a short time too sleepy
to enjoy it. Her pale, pretty head nodded drowsily, and at last found
a resting-place in the lap of her sister. The other two did not
exchange many words. It would have been a shame to disturb the
play-worn little maid. The night was very beautiful; the stars seemed
softly remote. Beneath their light the woods gleamed mysteriously, and
the waves were hushed into a dream of peace. The bay that at sunset
had seemed a sea of melted gold, now held the young moon trembling in
its liquid embrace. About them played the ineffable caresses of the
light evening breeze.
"Rose," said Allan, softly.
She looked up with conscious resistance, but it was too late for that
now. The imperious passion of his mood met the sad grace of her
attitude. His speech flowed fast and warm as if it had been blood from
his veins. She felt herself weakening into helpless tears. "Ah, spare
me!" she cried. "It is all so hopeless. My father--"
"I am coming to see your father to-morrow," he said. "It will be a
hard battle, but it must be decided at once."
He helped them to land, and they walked in silence to the house. At
the doorway, in which Eva had disappeared, Rose took Allan's
outstretched hand in both of hers, and drawing it close, laid her
weary, wet little face down upon it. The sound of voices and laughter
came up from the beach, and she hastily released herself and fled to
her room.
The next afternoon Eva Macleod, with an air of considerable
importance, tapped at the door of her father's apartment. "Papa," she
said, with that fondness for a choice diction observable in carefully
reared young ladies at the beginning of their teens, "may I have a
private conversation with you?"
"Why, certainly, my dear! A little talk, I suppose, you mean."
Without heeding this undignified interruption, Miss Eva gave her
parent a very accurate report of the dramatic scene in the boat the
evening before, of which she had been an interested auditor.
"Of course," she added, in conscientious defence, "I didn't want them
to suppose I was sleeping, but if I had opened my eyes it would have
been very embarrassing for us all."
"Humph!" said her father. "Does Rose know that you were awake?"
"No, I have not broached the topic to her," replied Eva, with an
affectation of maturer speech.
"Humph!" said the gentleman again; a quizzical glance at his younger
daughter breaking for a moment through the gloom with which he was
meditating the fate of the elder one. "Well, I am glad you 'broached'
it to me; I shall--"
"Papa," interrupted Eva, with bated breath, glancing down from the
window at which she stood, "there is Allan now."
"_Allan_! You are mightily well acquainted. I see I must prepare to
make an unconditional surrender."
He walked in a nervous and disquieted manner out of the room. At the
head of the stairs he encountered Mademoiselle DeBerczy, on her way
up.
"Helene," he said, with the desperation of one who in the fifty-ninth
minute after the eleventh hour does not entirely despair of a gleam of
hope, "I wish you would tell me in two words if Rose loves Allan
Dunlop. Does she?"
"_Don't_ she!" exclaimed Helene, with explosive earnestness, and the
two words were sufficient. Their effect was not lessened by subsequent
occurrences. On opening the drawing-room door Rose hastened to his
side, turning her back, as she did so, upon a young man of ardent but
entirely self-respectful aspect, standing not far distant.
"Oh, Papa!" she cried in her extremity, "save me from him. He loves
me!"
"Is that the only reason?" asked her father.
"No; there is a greater one. _I love him_!"
"Ah!" murmured Allan softly, "it is to _me_ you should say that."
"She shall have unlimited opportunities for saying it to you,"
observed the elder gentleman, with kindly promptness, but with a sore
heart. "After a while," he added, turning to Allan, with his hand on
the door knob, "I will be glad to see you."
In this sentence, which is an interesting illustration of the power of
manners over mind, the word "will" was purposely substituted for the
customary "shall." It was only by an active effort of will that the
good Commodore could be glad to see his daughter's suitor. But their
interview, if it did not prove a death-blow to his prejudices, at
least inflicted serious injuries upon them, from which they never
afterwards recovered. He was won over by the young fellow's manliness,
which, when contrasted with mere gentlemanliness, apart from it, puts
the latter at a striking disadvantage, even in the mind of the
confirmed aristocrat. There was also a tinge of absurdity in the idea
of being ashamed of a son-in-law of whom his country was beginning to
be proud. Perhaps it was as well that he should arrive unaided at this
opinion, for Allan had won the rest of the household to his side, and
a belief in which one is entirely alone must contain something more
than mere pride of birth in order to support its possessor in comfort.
Even the loyal Tredway would have failed to respond to his imagined
need, for this faithful servitor had long since discovered that the
happiness of his young mistress was more to be desired than the
preservation of any fancied superiority on the part of the family to
which he was devotedly attached.