A GLEAM AFAR
As warm weather approached, the children grew restless under so much
schooling, and Robert made Saturday a holiday. In order to help his
uncle more efficiently, he was trying to learn the Indian tongue,
but found it far more difficult than Greek and Latin, and made many
ludicrous mistakes. Mackenzie was very patient with him, and Black
Partridge made occasional comments and suggestions, being deeply
flattered by the college man's desire to learn from him.
The trader had told him of the great school in the East, where
Forsyth had learned everything that was written down in books, and
yet could not talk with the Indians, or make a fire by rubbing sticks
together; and the implied superiority of the chief had its own subtle
gratification.
The women at the Fort were very fond of Beatrice, and she made daily
visits there, but time began to hang heavily upon her hands. Without
knowing why, she was restless and unhappy, and, after the manner of
her sex, attributed it to some hidden illness of the body rather than
the mind.
"I feel as if I simply must go somewhere or do something," she said to
Doctor Norton, in a vain effort to explain her unrest.
He examined her pulse and tongue, then laughed at her. "You're all
right," he said; "there's nothing on earth the matter with you."
"There is, too," she contradicted. "I don't feel right and I need
medicine."
"Quinine?"
She made a wry face. "No, I don't need that."
"Sulphur and molasses?"
Beatrice turned up her nose in high disdain. "Is that all you can
think of?"
"No," replied the Doctor, "I have other remedies, but I want to
give you something that would please you. If you feel that you need
medicine, my entire stock is at your service. I ask only for the right
to supervise your selection, as we don't want you poisoned."
They were sitting on the piazza, and the girl's laugh reached the
schoolroom and set the teacher's heart to throbbing. He could steel
himself against her smiles and her playful pouting, but when she
laughed, he was lost.
"I don't think you'd care much," observed Beatrice, "whether I was
poisoned or not, just so you didn't have to give up any of your
precious medicines. You're selfish--that's all."
"What more can I do, Miss Manning? I've offered you all my worldly
goods. Which bottle do you want?"
"Thank you, I've decided not to rob you. I'll die, if I have to,
without medical aid."
"Some people prefer it," murmured Norton.
"How did you happen to come here?" she asked abruptly.
He started slightly, remembering the face that led him, like a star,
from one frontier post to another, but he merely said: "An army
surgeon has no choice. We go where we are sent by the powers that be."
"I'd hate to be sent anywhere."
"I believe you," replied the Doctor, smiling; "and if you were
told you couldn't go anywhere that place would immediately become
desirable."
"Wonderful insight," commented Beatrice. "Or perhaps some one has told
you?"
"No, I don't always have to be told. I can see some things, you know."
"That's what Katherine told me. She said you could see through
anything or anybody, especially a woman. Your glance goes right
through us and ties in a bow-knot behind. I can feel the strings
dangling from my shoulders now."
Robert came to the door, followed by the children, who were eager to
get outdoors for the short recess they had every day. Beatrice had
a little insight of her own, and had noted the change in Norton's
face when Katherine was mentioned, and the quick, inquiring look in
Robert's eyes as he greeted them both.
"Forsyth," said the Doctor, "I'm going now, and I turn this refractory
patient over to you. She needs to get outdoors and walk till she
drops--it's the only cure for impudence. Will you see that she does
it?"
"Certainly, if she will go with me."
"I'll go," put in Beatrice, "if I have to take medicine."
They watched the Doctor until he started across the river. "Perhaps,"
said Robert, "you'd rather some one else would go with you. If so, it
can be easily arranged."
"Now, Cousin Rob," said the girl, coaxingly, "don't be horrid to me.
You're the only cousin I have, except Katherine and the infants; and
as long as I'm here you'd better make the best of me."
His heart suddenly contracted. "Are you going away?"
"I can't," she laughed. "I have nowhere to go."
Robert smiled curiously. "When do you want to go, and where?"
"Saturday morning," she replied; "to the woods, after flowers."
"Very well," he said, quietly, turning away.
To one of them the days passed slowly, but on Saturday, when Beatrice
expressed surprise at the rapid flight of time, Forsyth unhesitatingly
chimed in. She looked at him narrowly when she thought he did not know
it, and put him down as a self-absorbed prig.
She was at odds with herself when they started, but it was one of
those rare mornings which May sets like a jewel upon the rosary of
the year. They walked north along the lake shore, and, since silence
seemed to suit her, he wisely said nothing.
Gradually peace crept into her heart, and as they approached the woods
they turned to the west, where white blossoms were set on thorny
boughs and budded maples were crimson with new leaves.
"You were good to bring me here," she said gratefully; "it seems like
an enchanted way."
"I am glad to give you pleasure," he replied conventionally.
The ground was still hidden under the brown leaves of October, that
rustled gently with a passing breeze or echoed the fairy tread of the
Little People of the Forest, playing hide-and-seek in the wake of
Spring. As Beatrice walked ahead of him, it seemed to Forsyth that she
belonged to the woods, as truly as did the nymphs and dryads of old.
Buttercups scattered garish gold around them, and beyond, among the
trees, the wild geranium rose on its slender stalk, making a phantom
bit of colour against the background of dead leaves. Between the mossy
stumps budded mandrakes were huddled closely together, afraid to bloom
till others had led the way. Beatrice looked around her and drew a
long breath, then gently stroked a satin bud upon a bare stalk of
hickory.
"Why don't you pick something?" asked Robert, with a laugh. "That's
what we came for, isn't it?"
"No, I can't pick things. I feel as if I were hurting them. Suppose
you lived here in this lovely place and a giant came along and broke
you off at the waist to take your head home with him--how do you
suppose you'd feel?"
"I don't think I'd feel anything after the break. Besides, that's not
a fair hypothesis. There is no real analogy."
"Hy-poth-e-sis," repeated Beatrice, looking at him, mischievously;
"did I pronounce it right?"
"Of course--why?"
"Because," she answered, with her eyes dancing, "it's a nice word and
I'd like to learn it. I want to say it to Doctor Norton. Some of his
words are as long at that, but they're not nearly so complicated, and
I yearn to excel in his own specialty."
The girl's mock reverence for his learning irritated him unspeakably,
and he closed his lips in a thin, tight line.
"Cousin Rob," she said, putting her hand on his arm, and with
bewildering kindness in her tone, "can't you take me just as I am?"
The temptation to take her, just as she was, into his arms, made him
draw back a step or two. "I always make a point of that," he said,
clearing his throat.
Then a vista opened before them, which might have been a field of
Paradise. Across the plain, where the dead goldenrod of Autumn still
lingered, there were white blossoms on invisible branches, set
against the turquoise sky, as still as stars of frost. It was as
though a cloud of white butterflies had paused for an instant, with
every dusty wing longing for flight.
Great white triliums bloomed in clusters farther on, with here and
there a red one, lonely as a lost child. Far to the right was a little
hollow filled with wild phlox, shading from white to deepest lavender,
and breathing the haunting fragrance which no one ever forgets.
"Let's go to the lake," she said.
Tall bluffs rose on either side where they turned eastward, with
triliums and dog-tooth violets within easy reach, and a robin's cheery
chirp was answered by another far away. Slanting sunbeams came like
arrows of light into the shadow of the woods, and at the shore line
was an expanse of sand which shone like silver under the white light
of noon.
"Why do you stand there?" asked Beatrice. "Why don't you sit down?"
"I was just looking at something."
"What?"
"Come here--perhaps you can see."
She strained her eyes in the direction he indicated, but
unsuccessfully. "I don't see anything," she said; "what is it like?"
"I don't know. It's something shiny, but it isn't a bird, because it
doesn't move."
"Birds aren't shiny, anyway," objected Beatrice. "Let's eat our lunch."
"I'm willing, for it's getting heavy, and I'd rather carry it inside."
Beatrice laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. "That's the
first time I ever heard you say anything funny," she said, wiping her
eyes. "Mr. Ronald is always saying funny things."
A dubious smile crossed Robert's face, and there was a long silence.
"I wish you'd show me that shiny thing again, Cousin Rob," she said at
length; "I'm interested in it."
"You didn't seem to be."
"That's because I was hungry," she explained. "I feel better now, and
by the time we've finished our lunch I'll be absorbingly interested in
it."
Robert stood on the sand, in the same place as before, and saw the
silvery gleam again. Then she took his place and saw it, too. "Why,"
she said, "isn't it queer? Do you think it's the sun on a birch?"
"No, it's too high, and birches don't often grow on the very edge of
the shore."
"That isn't the edge."
"Well, it's near it. The light just hangs in the air. There doesn't
seem to be anything behind it. I've often seen stray gleams in the
woods and tried to find them, but I never found anything. It's a
daylight will-o'-the-wisp."
"Let's follow this one," suggested Beatrice.
They walked along the hard sand, close to the water, stopping every
few steps to find the gleam. Sometimes it was only a thread of light,
detached and unrelated to anything around it, then in other places it
was a white glare, like the reflection thrown from a mirror.
Often they lost it, but found it again a little farther on. Beatrice
was tired but determined, and kept on for what seemed miles. Then
they stopped several times without finding it. "Let's go up into the
woods," she said; "perhaps we'll see it again from there."
They climbed the steep bluff of sand, with the aid of bushes and
cotton wood saplings, and for an instant caught the light again, then
it vanished. The girl was pale, and Robert feared they had come too
far.
"We'll go back," he said, "as soon as you rest for a little while. Why
didn't you tell me you were tired?"
"Because I'm not," she retorted. "I'm willing to rest a little while,
but I'm going to find it."
They sat down under the spreading branches of an elm for a few
minutes, then, in spite of his expostulations, Beatrice started north
again. "We can walk till midnight," he pleaded, "without finding it,
and it's foolish, anyway."
"No, it isn't; see there!"
In the air, between the bluff and the lake, hung a shimmering thread
of light which seemed close by, and all at once he became as eager as
she. They walked rapidly for a few moments, then Beatrice stopped.
"Why," she said, in a high key, "it's a house!"
"Be careful," warned Robert, "we'd better go back."
"I'm not going back till I see. I've come too far!"
A little farther on, they came to it. Set far back into the bluff, so
that only the face of it was visible, was a little one-roomed cabin,
built of logs. The door was open, but the place was empty, as Beatrice
discovered. "Come in," she said hospitably.
"We'd better go back," said Forsyth, warningly. "Come!"
"I will, in just a minute."
She took a long look about the room, then came out. From the top of
the cabin, which projected only a foot or so from the bluff, and
suspended from a whittled branch not quite weather-worn, hung a silver
cross, fully eight inches high, with a wondrously moulded figure of
the Christ stretched upon it.
Robert's eyes followed hers, and for a few minutes neither spoke.
"That's what we saw," she murmured, in a low tone; "that's the light
that led us here--the sun upon the cross!"
"Come," said Robert, firmly, taking her by the arm.
Reluctantly she let him lead her away, and they turned south, keeping
close to the lake shore, but out of the sand.
"Who lives there?" she asked.
"Why, I don't know--how should I?"
"It was neat inside, and there was blue clay and chips in the cracks,
just as there is at home. There was a fireplace, too, but I didn't see
any chimney."
"There was a chimney, though, of some dark-coloured stone. It looked
like a stump on the bluff. I noticed it while you were inside."
"There's no dark-coloured stone around here."
"Then it must have been limestone darkened with mud. I didn't get near
enough to see."
"Somebody lives there," said Beatrice. "There was a narrow bed, with
a blue-and-white patchwork quilt upon it, and two chairs made out of
barrels, and a little table and shelves,--do you think Indians live
there?"
"It's possible. Some of them may be more civilised than the rest
and prefer to live in a house--in the Winter, at least," he added,
remembering the panes of glass in the front of the house, either side
of the door.
"It's queer that a cross like that should be there."
"Stolen," he suggested promptly, "from some Catholic church in the
wilderness."
"I'll tell you what," she said, after a long silence; "let's say
nothing about it to any one--just keep it a secret for the present.
What do you say?"
"I'm willing." The idea of a secret with his pretty cousin was far
from unpleasant to Robert.
"Because, if the others knew, some of the soldiers would go there--Mr.
Ronald would be the first one. Besides, I've noticed that if you
really want to find out about anything, you always can, though it
takes time. I'd rather we'd find out by ourselves, wouldn't you?"
Robert thought he would.
"I think," she continued, "that some of the Indians live there, as
you said, and that the cross was stolen and hung over the door for an
ornament. Perhaps Black Partridge lives there--he seems to know more
than the rest."
"Yes; that's possible. Anyhow, we'll find out without asking
anybody,--is that it?"
"That's a bargain. Whoever lives there doesn't want to be bothered,
for you can't see the house at all except from the shore; and in
Summer, when the canoes are passing, it must be pretty well hidden by
the saplings and the undergrowth on the ledge in front of it. There's
just one place there where anybody can get down--a steep little path,
worn smooth."
"You saw a great deal in a few minutes, didn't you?" asked Robert,
admiringly.
"Of course," she answered, with a toss of her head. "A woman can see
more in one minute than a man can see in sixty--didn't you know that?"
"I didn't, but I do now."
Silver-winged gulls glistened in the sun for a moment, then plunged
into the cool softness below. A rabbit track wound a leisurely way
across the sand and disappeared at the bluff. Down a ravine came a
tiny stream, murmuring sleepily all along its way to the lake.
Beatrice sighed and her eyes drooped. "Take me home," she said.
The blue of the water grew deeper, then changed to grey. The white
clouds turned to rose and gold, touched with royal purple, and the
wings of the gulls no longer shone. A bluejay with slow-beating wings
sank to his nest in a lofty maple, and, somewhere, a robin chirped
mournfully, as if he, too, were tired.
At last they came to the edge of the woods and saw the house, with the
four tall poplars at the gate, the shimmering gold of sunset upon the
river, and the Fort beyond. The exquisite peace of the woods had been
like that of another sphere. There was a twittering of little birds in
swaying nests, a sudden chill, a shadow, and a mist. The fairy patter
was hurried and hushed, the rustling leaves were quiet, and she leaned
wearily upon his arm.
"Tired?" he asked tenderly.
"Yes," she answered, smiling back at him, "but happy. Thank you for a
perfect day."