Lyndsay had just come in when he saw the glow of the fire over the
hilltop. He was curious and a little anxious. Wood-fires are of all
things what men dread the most, when once they have been face to face
with their terrors. He called his men again, and ordered them to take
him up the river. Rose, who had been with him on the pool, asked at once
to go with him.
He said, “I see no objection. Get a wrap and make haste.”
Thus it chanced that in a few moments they were poling up the stream
with more than usual speed.
“Halloa!” cried Lyndsay, as a dugout shot by them in the darkness.
“What’s wrong up above?”
There was no reply.
“Isn’t that queer?” said Rose. “How uncivil!”
“Very.”
At the landing they went ashore, and pushed on to see what was the
source of the blaze.
Presently Lyndsay halted, noticing the sparks about him. “There is no
wind, Michelle.”
“No, sir; and the woods are soaking wet. I’ve a notion it’s Colkett’s.”
“Best to see. I will wait at the boat. I don’t want to run any risk with
Miss Lyndsay.” But at this moment he heard Jack’s challenge, and so all
the threads of my story are spun together.
As they ran down-stream, Lyndsay was a little uneasy concerning what
might be his wife’s judgment as to his course in regard to Carington;
but he had felt very deeply the obligation under which the young man had
placed them, and he was clear enough that there had been really nothing
else to do. Nevertheless, he was shrewd as to the domestic management of
the matter. At the landing he said to Rose:
“Wait a moment, you and Jack,” and then ran up the steps and into the
house.
By this time Rose was in full command of herself, and able, as her
father left them, to speak tranquilly enough to the wounded man.
“Yes, he was in some pain; but, to judge from his own feelings, the
trouble could not be grave.”
Then she asked, quite naturally, if Mr. Ellett had been told, and
learning that he had not, sent Jack to find Polycarp, that he might take
a note to the Island. When Jack came back with the Indian, Rose said:
“I must see papa about the note for Mr. Ellett. Ah, here he comes.” She
did not wait to complete this business, but turned to the canoe where
Carington still lay, and said:
“Good night, and good-by, too, for a few days. Mama will keep you well
caged. You may rest assured of that!”
In the very dim light she saw him put out the hand nearest to her. She
took it, felt the lingering grasp, already fever-hot, that would have
delayed the moment’s soft prisoner, but dared not. She said again:
“Good night. Here is papa,” and moved away, at first slowly, and then
quickly.
When Mr. Lyndsay entered the cabin his wife looked up.
“What is it, Archie?”
“Don’t be alarmed, Margaret. Mr. Carington has been shot—badly wounded.”
“Not by Jack!” cried the mother.
“Oh, no! No. It’s a queer story. I have not heard it fully. He bled a
good deal, and—”
“Do you think him in danger, Archie?”
“It is hard to say, especially so soon.”
“Surely you did not leave him at their camp?” said Margaret.
“No. He is in my canoe on the beach.”
“Good gracious! Is he?”
Anne smiled, as she would have said, inside of her, and reflected upon
the wisdom her brother had displayed, for at once Margaret, easily
captured by appeals to her pity, was afoot, and, for the time, intent
alone upon what was best to be done.
“I would send Tom to Mackenzie for a doctor, and he must stay. I think,
Archie, you will have to give Mr. Carington your room and take to a
tent.” Then she went off to set the room in order, while Lyndsay
returned to the beach, still a little anxious, but also a little amused.
Rose had gone.
By and by the guides carried the wounded man up into the neat chamber,
where Lyndsay helped him to bed, and was easily able to ascertain that
the ball had crossed the chest beneath the skin, passed over the left
shoulder, and out again—a severe flesh-wound.
“It does not bleed,” said Lyndsay, “and I think there is no very serious
hurt. Can you move your arm?”
“Yes,—with pain.”
“Then the joint is safe. I have known fellows brevetted for things no
worse.”
“But my puzzle is, why what is only a flesh-wound should have made me
drop as if I were dead. I cannot understand it.”
“The doctors call it ’shock,’” said his host. “At times it affects the
head, and a man hit in the foot or arm goes crazy for a time, or else it
stops the heart, and he faints.”
“That was it, I suppose.”
As they talked Lyndsay put on a wet compress, and, with the skill
learned long since, where bullets were many and bigger, he made his
patient reasonably comfortable, and left him at last under Mrs.
Lyndsay’s despotic care.
In the mean time, Anne, anxious to know more, had looked for Jack. At
ease concerning Carington, he was off somewhere, busy about the
preservation of his precious bearskin, and Rose, too, had disappeared.
Anne felt that she must wait, and, as usual, went to her room, to rest a
little before their retarded dinner. She opened the door, and instantly
went in and shut it. Rose was lying on the bed, trying hard to suppress
her sobs, knowing well that she would be but too easily heard.
“Dear child, what is it?” said Anne.
“I don’t know. Oh, do, please, let me alone!”
“But I must know. It is so unlike you. Mr. Carington is in no danger.”
“I know. I don’t care whether he is in danger or not. I do care! It
isn’t he! It’s—it’s me—it’s I. I can’t tell. I am ashamed. Are all women
this way? Oh, I hate to be such a fool!”
Anne sat down. “I don’t quite understand, dear; but, no matter. What is
clear is that you are going to have hysterics.”
“I am not going to have hysterics.”
“Then keep quiet, and don’t talk.”
“You made me talk!”
“I did. I am an ass.”
“No—no! Kiss me, aunty. I am so miserable! Couldn’t I get to bed
quietly?”
“Yes. Your mother is busy. Come.” And thus, when at last dinner was on
the table, and Mrs. Lyndsay asked for her daughter, she was told that
Rose had a headache, and then, when she got up to go to her, that she
was asleep, which may or may not have been true.
At dinner, between what Carington had told Lyndsay and Jack’s very clear
statement, the story came out plainly enough. The boy was praised to his
heart’s content, and when Anne had said that this was courage in the
right place, and Carington refused to sleep until he had thanked him,
Jack felt that, including the bearskin as a part of the day’s blessings,
life had no more to give. As for Dick, he settled the genus and the
species of the bear, and Ned sat in a corner and meditated, seeing the
whole day’s events in pictures, with curious dramatic clearness.
Next morning the doctor arrived, and further reassured them. Mr.
Carington was in for a day or two in bed, and then might be out in the
hammock.
Of course Ellett had been informed the night before, and had come down
at once. When again, next day, he returned, there was a long
consultation, and it was decided that the patient was so well that
Ellett might move down and take care of him, that the doctor would come
back and stay a few days, and that Mr. Lyndsay and his family might go
away on Sunday night. To this plan Mrs. Lyndsay somewhat eagerly
assented, for reasons of which she said nothing, an unusual course for
the little lady.
Thus, on Friday and Saturday, what with fishing and packing, every one
was busy.
“Preliminaries are the bane of existence,” said Anne, “but
postliminaries are worse”; and thereupon she asked Ned if that word was
in “Worcester,” and declared for a dictionary of her own making.
Mrs. Lyndsay had no opinion of Anne’s capacities in any practical
direction, and declined for a day her help in the care of Mr. Carington.
But now she was over-busy, and thus it chanced on the next morning,
being Saturday, that she asked Anne to look after their wounded guest.
They had purposely brought no maids with them, and, even with all of
Rose’s help, Anne had been obliged to assist in packing, for, as
concerned her books, she was as old-maidish and precise as are some
other of her corps about what Anne regarded as quite unimportant
properties. To escape, at last, out of the bustle of packing, and to
find some one to talk to or be talked to, was entirely to her taste.
“Certainly, Margaret,” she said.
“And do not let him talk.”
“No.”
“And do not talk to him, dear.”
“Of course not.”
“There is nothing so fatiguing.”
“No. That is quite the case.”
“And be careful about drafts.”
“Yes. Is that all?”
“I think so,” returned Mrs. Lyndsay, doubtfully, and then went before
Anne into Carington’s room.
“I have brought you a new nurse. My sister-in-law will look after you
this morning. You must not let her talk to you.” And having thus doubly
provided against the deadly malaria of conversation, she went out as
Anne sat down.
Carington liked the maiden lady, with her neat dress and erect carriage,
which no suffering had taught the stoop of the invalid; moreover, her
unusualness pleased him. Her talk, too, was out of the common, and full
of enterprise. What she used of the learning or sentiment of others
seemed also to acquire a new personal flavor. Mrs. Westerly had once
said, “When Miss Anne quotes Shakspere, it loses the quality of mere
quotation. She can’t say anything like the rest of us.”
As she sat down, she said demurely, “I am not to talk to you. Let us
gossip: that is not talk.”
“Oh, no,” he said, joyously. “I am just about in a state for mere chat,
which involves no thinking. Mrs. Lyndsay has been severe.”
“I have to fight her a little myself, dear, good, obstinate creature as
she is. I suppose she did not talk to you at all,—not a word, I
presume?”
“I decline, Miss Anne, to betray the weaknesses of my nurses.”
“That is well. Negations often answer questions quite sufficiently in
the affirmative. I know she did talk to you, and about that miserable
tombstone. She cannot help it, poor mother!”
“Yes. I thought it pitiable. She seemed unable to escape from it.”
“It is like her; but it is not wise. Margaret is persistent always. Her
likes and dislikes are changeless. She is obstinate in her kindness, her
loves, and her charities. As good as gold, we say; but goodness, like
gold, is not an insurance of fertile results in all its relations. I
mean that goodness can be sometimes exasperating. But, as usual, my
tongue is indiscreet. I would like you to understand her. She is worth
the trouble.”
“Thank you. I never can forget her tenderness and her kind carefulness.
Never!”
“Our real battles are over my books. She says my little library is a
wilderness of books, and every autumn, on my return, I find the servants
have had orders to dust my books.”
“How dreadful!”
“Is it not? And the strange things that happen! I like to arrange my
books so that they shall be happy, and when I come home and find
Swinburne in among the volumes of Jeremy Taylor, and Darwin sandwiched
between Addison and the ‘Religio Medici,’ I get frantic and say things.
It is useless.”
“How sad!”
“I shall assure her we—you and I—were only gossiping. She has an abiding
impression that I talk only high science, and I detest science. Talk I
must.”
“I think it will do me no harm. I am now quite easy. I have no fever.”
“None,” said Anne, taking his hand and looking at her watch. “Pulse
good, too. I don’t think a talk will hurt you. Tell me when you are
tired.”
“I promise, but you shall do the talking. I will listen.”
“You had better be careful how you give such large liberty. Did you
ever, by chance, know Miss Pearson?”
“Yes, yes,” and he laughed, “years ago—that statistical lady in
Germantown. I had some engineering work near there. Oh, years ago: I was
a mere lad. I knew all those good people, Mrs. Fox and the Mortons. But
what about Miss Pearson? Good woman, I take it?”
“Yes, entirely; but she kept her religion on ice; a sort of east-wind of
a woman. She had that bloodless propriety which passes muster for
dignity. When you gave me full discretion as to talk, I meant to tell
you her description of my conversation; I don’t think I shall.”
“Well, you are revenged, I think,” and he laughed. “I find I must not
laugh; it hurts. You will have to be grave, if you talk at all.”
“I think I _must_ tell you. She declared that if I wanted to be amusing,
I never hesitated to be either inaccurate or untruthful, and that, while
accidental inaccuracy was deplorable, intended intellectual inaccuracy
was criminal!”
“That is surprisingly like her—or was. She is dead, I think.”
“Yes. How it must bother her! One can’t imagine accuracy in space, and
where time is not. I don’t suppose the angels plume themselves on
punctuality.”
“Really, Miss Anne!”
“Well, I will try to be good. Now, don’t laugh! Let us be serious. Do
you suppose folks take the seriousness of death into that other world?
Not that I personally regard it as so very grim a business. There are
many worse trials in life than dying, because vital calamities may
repeat themselves; but it seems improbable that we shall have more than
one experience of this exit.”
“Who can say?” said Carington. “I have been near it of late; but I can
contribute to no wisdom.”
“I like to think I shall grin at the world from the safe side of the
fence,” she returned. “Miss Pearson would have said that a due sense of
the relative proportion of things would be inconsistent in another
sphere with the minute dimensions of our earthly jests.”
“And you call that serious?”
“I do. Don’t you?”
“No. I shall have to ‘p’int’ the talk, as Mrs. Maybrook says.”
“And what shall we talk about? If I cannot put a smile into my talk, I
shall prefer silence.”
He made no answer for a time, and then spoke gravely enough.
“I have had a very narrow escape, Miss Anne, and, but for that fine
fellow, Jack, I should have been lost to this life, or, if you like,
this life to me.”
“Yes, that is so. I am proud of the boy. He has made a friend, I trust.”
“Yes, and I can help him. I saw that in the talks we had. One can tell,
sometimes, when, of a sudden, one comes into sympathetic touch with
another nature. It is like taking a key out of your pocket at need, and
finding it fit a strange lock and turn easily, and so open a life to
you. The sentence isn’t good, but you know what I mean.”
“I do.” And again he was quiet a little while.
“Miss Anne, may I tell you something?”
“Why not?”
“You may not like it.”
“Perhaps not. That is of no moment. I want to hear. I always want to
hear. My appetite for the unknown is like that of a ghost for
realities.”
“This is real enough.”
“Well?”
“I care—oh, a great deal—for Miss Lyndsay.”
“Do you call that a secret? It was arithmetically revealed to me by five
roses, which should have been six.”
“You are a terrible woman, Miss Anne! The witches were a trifle to you!”
“They had the insight of wickedness. I have the sagacity of love. Rose
is very, very dear to me.”
“Do you think it possible—”
“That Rose should care for you? Yes. It is possible. But, frankly, yours
is a three weeks’ acquaintance, ripened by unusual events. Neither she
nor we know you as we should know a man to whom—”
“Let me interrupt you. I am thinking of the future. One does not win a
woman like Miss Lyndsay in a day.”
“You are right. I think, were I you, I would assist the future to take
care of itself.”
“Thank you. I should like, much as I care for her, to have her get quite
away from any sense of obligation to me. I almost wish she could
entirely forget it. Any man could have done the little I did, and, after
all, you are quite out of my debt.”
“No one can pay another’s debts. The heart has no clearing-house. Rose
must know that. You feel, as I do, that no manly nature should want to
be taken for granted, as altogether what is best for life, just on the
chances of a minute of decisive action. You want her to know you in many
relations, and to know herself also. Isn’t that so?”
“It could not be better stated.”
“If you had saved her life a dozen times, she would still reflect before
she said ‘yes,’ and be the more apt to hesitate because of the
obligation. It is a strong nature.”
“But I don’t want her to let—”
“No. I understand, and don’t misunderstand me. We are quite at one.”
“And you will be my friend?”
“Yes. I like you. If you are good enough for my Rose—I doubt— Come and
see us; and be prudent now. I never could hold my own tongue. Therefore,
much conversational adversity makes me a good adviser. If you see Rose
at all before we leave, be on your guard.”
“Thank you again,” and he took her hand.
“Now I must go. What a pity we were ordered not to talk!”
“Dreadful, was it not? And how good we have been! I assure you, Miss
Anne, I am worlds the better for your visit. Good-by. I am to be up on
the lounge on Sunday afternoon. Indeed, I am to be carried out to the
porch. I could walk well enough. Don’t you think I shall have a chance
to say good-by?”
“To me? Oh, yes.”
“Please, Miss Anne, you know I mean Miss Rose!”
“Why not? And now I must go.”
She did not calculate on Mrs. Margaret, who was now once more uneasy
about this business, and had a maternal mind to put in its way enough
obstacles to make the stream of love run anything but smooth. As I have
said, she was conservative. The unusual distressed her. Rose’s other
love-affairs had been conducted after the conventional manner, and had
caused her no great discomfort. There was too much abrupt romance in
this courtship, and she feared for the effect on Rose of its
singularity, believing it might unsettle her good sense and bring about
a too hasty result. She did not understand her daughter; few mothers do.
It was late in the afternoon of Sunday, almost twilight, when the canoes
were loaded and ready. Rose came down last and stood with the rest on
the beach. Mrs. Lyndsay, her husband, Anne, and the boys had said
good-by to Ellett and Carington, but the mother, on this or that excuse,
kept the men busy, until at last, Ellett, seeing Carington’s impatience,
called one of his own people, and with his help lifted his friend out on
the porch.
The cliff hid from view the little group on the shore below.
“Confound it,” said the sick man, “they are gone! No, I hear them. I
think I shall walk to the steps, Ellett.”
“You will do nothing of the kind!”
“Hang it all!”
“No. Keep still.”
At this moment, as Lyndsay was busy putting his people in the boats, and
Tom was thundering advice and orders to the men, Anne said:
“Really, Archie, Rose ought to say good-by to Mr. Carington.”
“What is that?” exclaimed Margaret from her canoe, which had just been
shoved off from the strand.
“Nothing, dear,” said Anne. “It is really ungracious, Archie.” This in
an aside.
“But Margaret thinks—”
“Margaret will make mischief by wanting not to.”
“Well, perhaps you are right. Run up, Rose,” he said aloud, “and say
good-by to Mr. Carington. He is on the porch now.”
“I will go up with you,” said Anne; “I forgot to say good-by myself,”
and, with this mild prevarication to assist her, Rose followed her aunt.
“I came up to say good-by, Mr. Carington.”
“And I,” said Anne.
“Good-by,” he said, putting out his hand. Whether his eyes were as
prudent as his tongue, may be doubted.
“You will write to me, Miss Anne?”
“I will, and Mr. Ellett will let us hear.”
“No, I shall do that myself.”
“Come, Rose,” called Lyndsay.
She turned and went away with her aunt. In a few moments Carington saw
the little fleet of canoes scattering, as the paddles rose and fell.
Then they entered the swift current, and were lost to view around the
bend in the river,—the boys calling out a loud “good-by,” and then
breaking out into their favorite song:
“Seven braw sons had gude Lord James,
Their worth no Scot will gainsay;
But who shall match the bonny eyes
Of gentle Rose a Lyndsay?”
“Who, indeed!” said Carington, as he shut his field-glass with a snap.