SIDE LIGHTS
Roderick was not thinking of that Gleam upon which his father's mind
was set, as he glided silently out upon the golden mirror of Lake
Algonquin. The still wonder of the glowing lake and sky and the
mystery of the darkening shore and islands carried his thoughts somehow
to a new wonder and dream; the light that had shone in the girl's brave
eyes, the colour that had flooded her face at his awkward words. They
were beautiful eyes but sad, and there were tints in her hair like the
gold on the water. Roderick had known scarcely any young women. His
life had been too busy for that--when he was away, books had claimed
all his attention, when he was home, the farm. But in the background
of his consciousness, shadowy and unformed, but none the less present,
dwelt a vague picture of his ideal woman; the woman that was to be his
one day. She was really the picture of his mother, as painted by his
father's hand, and as memory furnished a light here or a detail there.
Roderick had not had time to think of his ideal; his heart was a boy's
heart still--untried and unspoiled, but this evening her shadowy form
seemed to have become more definite, and it wore golden brown hair and
had sad blue-grey eyes.
He swept silently around the end of Wanda Island, and his dreams were
suddenly interrupted by a startling sight; for directly in front of
him, just between the little bay and the lake beyond, bobbed an
upturned canoe and two heads!
To the youthful native of Algonquin an upset into the lake was not a
serious matter; and to the young lady and gentleman swimming about
their capsized craft, the affair, up to a few moments previous, had
been rather a good joke. How it had happened that two such expert
canoeists as Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton could fall out of anything
that sailed the water, was a question those who knew them could not
have solved. They had been over to Mondamin Island to gather
golden-rod and asters for a party the young lady was to give the next
evening. They had been paddling merrily homeward, the space between
them piled with their purple and golden treasure, and as they paddled
they talked, or rather the young lady did, for where Miss Leslie Graham
was, no one else had much chance to say anything.
"There's the _Inverness_ at the dock," she said, when they came within
view of the town. "Aunt Elinor's boarder must have come on it, the
girl that's going to teach in Miss Hasting's room."
"I thought your aunt said you weren't to call her a boarder."
The girl put her paddle across the canoe and leaned back with a burst
of laughter. She was handsome at any time, but particularly so when
she laughed, showing a row of perfect teeth and a merry gleam in her
black eyes.
"Poor old Auntie! Isn't she a joke? She's scared the family
escutcheon of the Armstrongs will be sullied forever with the blot of a
boarder on it. Auntie Bell is nearly as bad too. My! I hope they
won't expect us to trot her around in our set."
"Why?" asked young Mr. Hamilton. He was always interested in new girls.
"Too many girls in it already. You know that, Fred Hamilton."
"Well, I say, I believe you're right, Les," he ventured, but with some
hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea
that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no
denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair
share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was
sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts
spoken out incisively as was her way.
"There does seem to be an awful swarm of them," he admitted
reluctantly, "especially since the Harrisons and the Wests came to
town. I danced twenty-five times without drawing breath at Polly's
last spree, and never twice with the same girl. Where did she pick 'em
all up, anyway?"
That was the last remark they could remember having made. And the girl
was wont to explain that the thing which happened next was a just
judgment upon the young man for uttering such sentiments, and a fearful
warning for his future. But the most elaborate explanations could
never quite solve the mystery, for they never knew how it chanced that
the next moment the canoe was over and they were in the water. To a
girl of Algonquin, a canoe upset was inexcusable; to a boy, a disgrace
never to be lived down. So when Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton, who
had been born and brought up on the shores of the lake and had learned
to swim and walk simultaneously, found themselves in the water, the
first expression in their eyes, after an instant's startled surprise,
was one of indignation.
"What on earth did you do?" gasped the girl, and "What on earth did you
do?" sputtered the boy.
And then, being the girl she was, Leslie Graham burst out laughing,
"'What on the water,' would be more appropriate. Well, Fred Hamilton,
I never thought you'd upset!"
"I didn't!" he cried indignantly. "You jumped, I saw you."
"Jumped! I never did! And even if I did, I don't see why you should
have turned a somersault. I could dance the Highland Fling in a canoe
and not upset. Oh dear! all my flowers are gone!" They put their
hands on the upturned craft and floated easily.
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked. "We're a long way from
shore, and the walking's damp."
He glanced about. They were a good distance from land, but the only
danger he anticipated was the danger of a rescue. He would be
disgraced forever if some fellow paddled out from home and picked them
up. But a little island lay between them and the town, screening them
from immediate exposure.
"Do? Why, just hop in again. Here, help me heave her over!"
Many a time in younger days, just for fun, they had pitched themselves
out of their canoe, righted it again, "scooped" and "rocked" the water
out, and scrambled back over bow and stern. But that was always when
they wore bathing suits and there were no paddles and cushions floating
about to be collected. But they were ready for even this difficult
feat. They tumbled the canoe over to its proper position, and the
young man, by balancing himself upon one end and swimming rapidly, sent
the stern up into the air and "scooped" most of the water out. Then
they rocked it violently from side to side, to empty the remainder,
while the girl sang gaily "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," her
dancing eyes no less bright than the water drops glistening on her
black curly hair.
But the emptying process was longer than they had anticipated, and the
evening air was growing cool. By the time the canoe was ready to
enter, the girl had stopped singing.
"Hustle up, Freddie!" she called, giving a little shiver, as he shot
away through the water for a paddle. "This water's getting wetter
every minute." When he returned, he placed himself at the stern and
the girl at the bow.
"Now," he cried, "when I say go, you climb like a cat, Les. Don't
hurry, just crawl in easy. Ready? Go!"
She placed her hands on the gunwale and drew herself up, while her
companion, with an eye on her progress, slowly crawled over the stern.
But the heavy drag of her soaked cloth skirt was too much for the
girl's strength. She paused, failed at the critical moment, slipped to
one side, and they were once more in the water, the canoe bottom up.
"Oh, hang!" exclaimed the young man. Then apologetically, "Never mind,
heave her over, and we'll do it again."
But the girl's teeth had begun to chatter, and the work of emptying the
canoe the second time was not such a joke. And the second attempt to
get in and the third also proved a failure.
"What's the matter, anyhow?" grumbled the boy impatiently. "You've
done that three times, Leslie!"
He was amazed and dismayed to see her lip quiver. "I can't do it,
Fred. I'm all tired out. I--I believe I'm going to yell for help."
"Oh, Great Scott, Leslie!" groaned the young man. Then encouragingly,
"You're all right. Cheer up! I'll get you into this thing in no time."
He set to work again briskly, but though the girl helped, it was
without enthusiasm. She was going through an entirely new experience.
In all her happy life, untouched by sorrow or privation of any kind,
she had never felt the need of help. Fred and she had been chums since
they were babies, and were going to be married some day, perhaps. Fred
was a good, jolly fellow, he was well off, well-dressed, and quite the
leader of all the young men of the town. But now, for the first time,
her dauntless gay spirit was forsaking her, and a vision of how
inadequate Fred might be in time of stress was coming dimly to her
awakening woman's heart. She would almost rather have drowned than
play the coward. But she wanted Fred to be afraid for her. She was
more of a woman than she knew.
And then, just as a wave of fear was coming over her, Roderick McRae,
in his canoe, came out around the point and paddled straight towards
them.
She gave a cry of joyful relief. "A canoe! Oh, look, Fred!
Somebody's coming this way from McRae's cove!"
The young man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He
would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank
where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was
just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time
in the water. But he would not admit that.
"Pshaw!" he grumbled. "I wish they'd waited a minute longer."
"Well, I don't!" cried his companion tremulously.
The boy looked across the canoe at her. Never, in the twenty years he
had known Leslie Graham intimately, had he before seen her daunted.
"What's up?" he demanded. "You're not losing your nerve, Leslie?"
"No, I'm not!" she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected
quaver in her voice. "But--"
"You're not chilled, are you?"
"No. Not much."
"Nor cramped?"
"No."
"Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours
longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all
right. What's the matter, anyhow?"
But she did not answer, for she hardly knew herself. She had no real
fear of being drowned, that seemed impossible. But strange new
feelings had begun to stir in the heart, that so far had been only the
care-free heart of a girl, almost the heart of a daring boy. She did
not realise that what she really wanted was that Fred should be
solicitous about her. If he had shown the slightest anxiety over her
she would have become recklessly daring. But young Fred would as soon
have shown tender care for a frisky young porpoise in the water, as
Leslie, even had it been his nature to care unduly for any one but Fred
Hamilton.
The canoe was approaching swiftly, and the man in it was near enough to
be recognised. "I say," cried Fred, "it's Rod McRae. I didn't know he
was home. Ship ahoy, there!" he shouted gaily. "Hurrah, and give us a
lift; it's too damp for the lady to walk home!"
Leslie Graham looked at the approaching canoeist. She and Fred
Hamilton had both attended the same school, Sunday-school and church as
Roderick McRae. But she could remember him but dimly as an awkward
country boy, in her brief High School days, before she "finished" with
a year at a city boarding-school. Her life at school had been all fun
and mischief, and rushing away from irksome lessons to more fun at
home; his had been all serious hard work, and rushing away from the
fascination of his lessons to harder work on the farm. Fred Hamilton
had never worked at school, but he knew him better; the free-masonry of
boyhood had made that possible.
"Why, what's happened?" cried Roderick as he swept alongside the wreck.
"Fred Hamilton! Surely you're not upset?"
"Doesn't look like it, does it?" enquired the young man in the water
rather sarcastically. "Here, give this thing a hoist, will you, Rod?
I can't understand how such an idiotic thing happened? Miss Graham and
I were paddling along as steadily as you are now, and--"
But Roderick was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the
girl hanging to the upturned canoe, her eyes grieved and frightened.
With a quick stroke he placed himself at her side.
"Why, you're all tired out," he cried. "You must get in here."
She looked up at him gratefully. She had never realised how welcome a
sympathetic voice could sound. She answered, not the least like the
dauntless Leslie, "I just can't! I can't climb over the bow. It's no
use trying."
Roderick was at his best where any one was in distress. His knightly
young heart prompted him to do the right thing.
"You don't need to," he said gently. "I can take you in over the side.
Here, Fred, come round and help."
Fred came to her, and Roderick slipped down into the bottom of the
canoe. He leaned heavily to the side opposite the girl, and extended
his hand. "Now, you can do it quite easily," he said encouragingly.
"Catch the thwart; there--no, sideways--that's it! Steady, Fred, don't
hurry her. There you are. Now!" She had rolled in somehow over the
side, and sat soaked and heavy, half-laughing and half-tearful, right
at his feet.
"Oh," she said, "I'm making you all wet."
"Well, that's the neatest ever," cried Fred Hamilton in involuntary
admiration.
The work of emptying the other canoe, with the help of such an expert,
was an easy matter. When it was ready Roderick held it while Fred
tumbled in. Stray cushions and paddles, and even an armful of soaking
golden-rod were rescued, and then the two young men looked
involuntarily at the girl.
"Hop over the fence, Leslie!" cried Fred. He was in high good humour
now, for Rod McRae would never tell on a fellow, or chaff him in public
about an upset.
But Leslie Graham shook her head. Something strange had happened, she
had grown very quiet and grave.
"No," she said in a low voice, "I don't want any more adventures
to-night. You'll take me home, won't you--Roderick?" She hesitated
just a moment over the name, but remembering she had called him that at
school, she ventured.
"It would give me the greatest pleasure," he cried cordially. His
diffidence had all vanished, he was master of the situation.
He glanced half-enquiringly at the other young man, to see relief
expressed quite frankly on his face.
"All right, Leslie! Thanks ever so, Rod. I can scoot over to the
boathouse and get some dry togs, before I go home. And say--you won't
say anything about this now, Les, will you?"
The girl's spirits were returning. "Why not?" she asked teasingly.
"It wouldn't be fair to keep such a gallant rescue a secret."
"Oh, please don't!" cried Roderick in dismay.
"But it would make such a nice column for The _Chronicle_," said the
girl demurely. "I really can't promise, Fred. Tom Allen would give me
ten dollars for it, I am sure."
"If you dare!" cried the young man wrathfully. "I'd never hear the end
of it. And your mother would never let you out on the water again, you
know that, Les," he added threateningly.
"That's so," she admitted. "Well, I'll see, Freddy. Cheer up. If I
do tell I promise to make you the hero of the adventure."
She waved her hand to him laughingly, as Roderick's long strokes sent
them skimming away over the darkening water. When they were beyond
earshot, she turned to her rescuer.
"It's all right to joke about it now," she said, her tone tremulous,
"but it was beginning to be anything but a joke. I--I do believe--
Why, I just know that you saved my life, Roderick McRae. And there is
one person I am going to tell, I don't care who objects, and that's my
father. And you'll hear from him; for he thinks, the poor mistaken
man, that his little Leslie is the whole thing!"
And even though Roderick protested vigorously, he could not help
feeling that it would be a great stroke of good fortune to have
Algonquin's richest and most powerful man feel he was in his debt.