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Ethan observed the warning meditatively. In view of his later course of
action let us credit him with that hesitation. At length, with a faint
smile on his face, he turned the nose of the canoe toward the smaller
stream and his back to the sign.
To have observed him one would scarcely have believed him capable of
deliberately committing the dire crime of trespass. There was something
about his good-looking face which bespoke honesty. At least, it would
have been difficult to credit him with underhand methods; it seemed
easier to believe that if he ever did commit a crime it would be in
such a superbly open and above-board fashion as to rob it of half its
iniquity. Not that there was anything of classical beauty about his
face. His eyes were a shade of brown, his nose was perhaps a trifle too
short to reach the standard of the Grecians, his mouth, unhidden by any
mustache, did not to any great extent suggest a Cupid’s bow. His chin
was aggressive. For the rest, he had the usual allowance of hair of a
not uncommon shade of brown, and showed, when he laughed which was by
no means infrequently――a set of very white and very capable looking
teeth. And yet I reiterate my former adjective; good-looking he was;
good-looking in a healthy, frank, happy and rather boyish way that was
eminently satisfying.
If the sign on the old willow was right, and he really was trespassing,
I have no excuse to offer, or at least none that my conscience will
allow me to suggest. I can’t plead ignorance for him, for the simple
reason that he had seen the sign and read it and that he knew all about
trespass――or as much as was taught in the three-year course at the
Harvard Law School, which he had finished barely a fortnight ago.
Meanwhile he has been sending the canoe quietly along the winding water
path, dipping the paddle with easy, rhythmic swings of his shoulders,
pushing the blade astern through the clear water and swinging it,
flashing and dripping, back for the next stroke. He had tossed his
light cloth cap into the bottom of the canoe and had laid his coat
over a thwart. The summer morning sunlight, slanting through the
branches, wove quickly vanishing patterns in gold upon his brown hair.
The tiny breeze, just a mere breath from the southwest, fragrant with
the odor of damp, sun-warmed soil and greenery, stirred the sheer white
shirt he wore and laid it in folds under the raised arm.
The brook was rather shallow; everywhere the pebbled bottom was
visible. It was a whimsical brook, full of sudden turns and twistings;
rounding tiny promontories of alder and sheepberry, dipping into quiet
bays where bush honeysuckles were dripping sweetness from their pale
yellow funnels, skirting curving beaches of white sand where standing
armies of purple flags held themselves stiffly at attention and
restrained the invasion of the eager, swaying fern-rabble.
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He had gone several hundred yards by this time against the slow
current, and now there was evident a change in the foliage lining
the banks, even in the banks themselves. Artifice had aided nature.
Pink and white and yellow lilies dotted the stream, while at a little
distance a slender, graceful stone bridge arched from shore to shore.
Woodbine clustered about it and threw cool, trembling leaf-shadows
against the sunlit stones. The arch framed a charming vista of the
brook beyond. The canoe slipped noiselessly under the bridge and the
strip of shadow rested gratefully for an instant on Ethan’s face. On
the left there was a momentary break in the foliage and a brief glimpse
of a wide expanse of velvety turf. Then another turn, the canoe
brushing aside the broad lily-pads, and the end of the journey had
come, and, sitting with motionless paddle, he gazed spellbound.
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