It is a fact infinitely to be regretted, but the doctor swore!
"Well, did you _ever!_" exclaimed Esther. She was a little tired and
more than a little excited, a condition which conduces to hysteria, and
collapsing upon the end of the float she began to laugh.
"I wish," said the doctor judicially, "that I knew exactly what you find
to laugh at."
"Oh, nothing! Your face--I think you looked so very murderous. And you
did swear--didn't you?"
"Beg your pardon, I'm sure," stiffly.
For an instant they gazed resentfully at each other. The doctor was
seriously worried. Esther felt extremely frivolous. But if he wanted to
be stiff and horrid,--let him be stiff and horrid.
"I declare you act as if it were my fault the old boat is gone!" she
remarked aggrievedly.
"Don't be silly!"
An uncomfortable silence followed. Esther began to realise how tired she
was. Callandar stared out gloomily over the darkening lake.
"Anyway it's bad enough without your being cross," said Esther in a
small voice.
"Cross--my dear child! Did I seem cross? What a brute you must think me.
But to get you into this infernal tangle!--If this old woman is out in
the boat she'll have to come back some time. She can't stay out on the
lake all night."
Esther, who thought privately that this was exactly what the old woman
might do, made no reply. She rather liked the tone of his apology and
was feeling better.
"Then there is the dog. If she is anywhere near, she will be sure to
hear the dog. From the noise he is making she will deduce burglars and
return to protect her property. As a man-hater she will have no fear of
a mere burglar. Luckily for us, that dog has a carrying voice!"
Scarcely had he spoken than the dog ceased to bark.
"Shall I go and throw sticks at it?" asked Esther helpfully.
"Hush! The dog must have heard something. Let's listen!"
In the silence they listened intently. Certainly there was something, a
faint indeterminate sound, a sound not in the bush but in the lake, a
sound of disturbed water.
"The dip of a paddle," whispered Callandar. "Some one is coming in a
canoe. The dog heard it before we did--recognised it, too, probably. It
must be the witch!"
The dipping sound came nearer and presently there slipped from the
shadow of the trees a darker shadow, moving. A canoe with one paddle was
coming toward them.
Esther with undignified haste scrambled up from the float, abandoning
her position in the line of battle in favour of the doctor. The dog
broke into a chorus of ear-splitting yelps of warning and welcome. The
moving shadow loomed larger and a calm though harsh voice demanded, "Be
quiet, General! Who is there?"
"We are!" answered Callandar, stepping as far from the tree shadow as
possible. "Picnickers from Coombe, in an unfortunate predicament. Our
motor has broken down, and we want the loan of a boat to get over to
Pine Lake station."
As he spoke he was vividly conscious of Esther close behind. So near was
she that he felt her warm breath on his neck. She was breathing quickly.
Was the child really frightened? Instinctively he put out his hand,
backward, and thrilled through every nerve when something cool and small
and tremulous slipped into it.
The canoe shot up to the float.
"You can't get any boat here."
There was no surprise or resentment in the harsh level voice. Only
determination, final and unshakable.
Esther felt the doctor's hand close around her own. Its clasp meant
everything, reassurance, protection, strength. In the darkness she
exulted and even ventured to frown belligerently in the direction of the
disagreeable canoeist. They could see her plainly now. A tall woman in a
man's coat with the sleeves rolled up displaying muscular arms. Her
face, even in the half-light, looked harsh and gaunt. With a skill,
which spoke of long practice, she sprang from the canoe, scarcely
rocking it, and proceeded to tie the painter securely to a heavy ring in
the float. Then she straightened herself and turned.
"I'll loose the dog!" she announced calmly.
Just that and no more! No arguments, no revilings, no display of any
human quality. There was something uncanny in her ruthlessness.
"If you do, it will be bad for the dog," said Callandar coldly. "Who
are you who threaten decent people?"
It was the tone of authority and for an instant she answered to it. Her
harsh voice held a faint Scotch accent.
"There'll be no decent people here at this hour o' the nicht. Be off.
You'll get no boat. Nor the hussy either. The dog's well used to
guarding it."
"How dare you!" Esther was so angry at being called a hussy that she
forgot how frightened she was and faced the woman boldly. But the old
hard eyes stared straight into her young indignant ones and showed no
softening. Next moment old Prue had pushed the girl aside and
disappeared in the darkness of the wooded path.
"Quick!" The doctor's tone was crisp and steady. "The canoe is our
chance. Jump in, while I hold it--in the bow, anywhere!"
"But the paddle! She has taken the paddle!" Even as she objected she
obeyed. The frail craft rocked as she slid into it, careful only not to
overbalance; next moment it rocked more dangerously and then settled
evenly into the water under the doctor's added weight.
"Sit tight!" Carefully he leaned over her, steadying the canoe with one
hand on the float. In the other she saw the glint of a knife, felt the
confining rope sever, felt the strong push which separated them from the
float and then, just as a great dog, fiercely silent now, bounded from
the path above, a paddle rose and dipped and they shot out into
the lake.
"If he follows and tries to overturn us I'll have to shoot him," said
the doctor cheerfully. "But he won't. Hark to him!"
The long bay of the baffled dog rose to the stars.
"There was an extra paddle in the boat-house," he explained. "I
took it out when we first came down--in case of accident. Old
She-who-must-be-obeyed must have forgotten it. It is a spliced paddle
but we shall manage excellently. Luckily I know how to use it. All I
need now is direction. Lady, 'where lies the land to which this ship
must go?'"
"'Far, far away is all the seamen know,'" capped Esther, laughing. "But
if you will keep on around that next point and then straight across I
think we ought to get there--Oh, look! there is the moon! We had
forgotten about the moon!"
They had indeed forgotten the moon. And the moon had been part of their
programme too. Both remembered at the same moment that, according to
schedule, they were now supposed to be almost home, running down Coombe
hill by moonlight.
"This is much nicer," said Esther, comfortably.
"But--" he did not finish his sentence. Why disturb her? Besides it
certainly was much nicer! The forgotten moon bore them no malice. A soft
radiance grew and spread around them, the whole sky and lake were
faintly shining though the goddess herself had not yet topped the trees.
The shadows were becoming blacker and more sharply defined. In front of
them the point loomed, inky black. Like a bird of the night the little
canoe shot towards it, skimmed its darkness and then slipped,
effortless, into shining silver space. The smile of the moon! Pleasing
old hypocrite! Always she smiles the same upon two in a canoe!
They were paddling toward her so that her light fell full on the
doctor's face--a clean cut, virile face, manly, stern, yet with a
whimsical sweetness hidden somewhere.
"How handsome he is!" thought Esther, exactly as the moon intended.
"Strong, too," her thought added as the light picked out his well-set
shoulders and the sweep of the arm which sped the paddle so lightly yet
so strongly up and down. Clear, yet soft, the moon showed no touch of
grey in the hair (although the grey was there) nor did she point out the
markings which were the legacy of strenuous years. Seen so, he appeared
no older than she who watched shyly from girlish eyes.
With a little shiver of utmost content Esther settled herself against
the thwart of the canoe.
Manlike he did not know the meaning of that shiver.
"Fool that I am!" he exclaimed. "You are cold, and behold we have left
behind the shawl of Mrs. Sykes' grandmother!"
"Indeed we have not! The dog would have torn it to bits. I assure you
the shawl of the venerated ancestress was in the canoe before I was."
"Then wrap yourself up. It is wonderful how cool the nights are."
Esther was not cold. But it is sometimes pleasant to be commanded. This
is what enables man to persist in a certain pleasing delusion regarding
woman's natural attitude. When she occasionally pleases herself by a
simulation of subjection he immediately thrills with pride, crying,
"Aha! I have her mastered!" Of course he finds out his mistake later.
It pleased Esther, though not cold, to wrap herself in the shawl and it
pleased Callandar to see her do it. I assure you it left the whole
question of the subjection of women quite untouched.
The moon knew all about it but, feminine herself, she favoured the
deception. Around the girl's dark head she drew a circle of light. The
branching tendrils of her hair, all alive and fanlike now in the
coolness of the night, made a nimbus of black and silver from which her
shadowed face shone like a faint pure pearl. As he seemed younger, so
did she seem older; under the moon she was no longer a child, but a
woman with mysterious eyes.
An impulse came to him--the rare impulse of confidence! Suddenly it
seemed that what he had mistaken for self-sufficiency had been in
reality loneliness. He had learned to live to himself not because he was
of himself sufficient but because no one else, save the Button Moulder,
had ever come within speaking distance. Lorna Sinnet, for all his
admiration of her, had established no claim upon his confidence, yet
now, with this young girl, whom he had known but a few weeks, a new need
developed--a need to talk of himself! A primitive need indeed, but, like
all primitive needs, compelling.
We need not follow the history. Perhaps, reported, it would not seem
very lucid. There were blanks, unsaid things, twists of phrase, eloquent
nothings which, wonderfully understandable in themselves, do not report
well. Somehow he must have made it plain, for Esther understood it and
understood him, too, in a way which we, who have never sailed with him
under the moon, cannot hope to do. Faults of expression are no hindrance
to this kind of understanding. He did not talk well, was clumsy, not at
all eloquent, but magically she reconstructed the hopes and dreams of
his ambitious youth. From a few bald phrases she fashioned the
thunderbolt which shattered them, saw him stunned, then alive again,
struggling. With every ready imagination she leaped full upon the fires
of an ambition which accepted no check but fed upon difficulty and
overleapt obstacles. Between stories of his early college life, her
sympathy sensed the deadly strain which his narrative missed and, long
before he mentioned it, her foresight had descried the coming of hard
won success.
But the really vital thing, the core of the short history, she followed
slowly word by word, anxiously. It told of wonders which she did not
know--love, passion, despair! Now indeed he seemed to be speaking in a
strange language--yet not strange entirely. She hid each broken phrase
in her heart, knowing them rare, and wondering at the treasure entrusted
to her. Some of her girlhood she left behind her as she listened.
Something new, yet surely old, stirred faintly. What was this love he
spoke of? The breath of bygone passion brushed across her untouched soul
and left it trembling!
Into the long silence which followed the story her voice drifted like a
sigh.
"If she could only have lived until you came!"
It was of the girl wife she thought. Her heart was full of an aching
pity for that other girl whom life had cheated of her sweetest gift.
More than the man who had lived out a bitter expiation, did she pity her
who had missed the fight, slipped out of the struggle. Death seemed to
Esther such a terrible thing. The new life stirring in her shuddered at
the thought of mortality. That breath of the divine which we name Love
began already to proclaim itself immortal.
Yet Molly, that other girl, had loved--and died.
The doctor, too, was lost in self communings. Already, with the words
not cold upon his lips, he was surprised that he had told the story. How
could he? Why had he? That pitiful little story of Molly which had been
too sacred for the touch of a word. Above all, why had the telling been
a relief? It was a relief, he knew that. Somewhere, in the silver waters
of Pine Lake he had buried a burden. He felt lighter, younger. Had his
very love for Molly become a load whose proper name was remorse? Had his
heart harboured regret and fear under the name of sorrow? Or had he
never loved at all, never really sorrowed? Had the thing he called love
been but a boy's hot passion caught in the grip of a man's awakening
will, a mistake made irrevocable by a stubbornness of purpose which
could not face defeat? Whatever it had been, it had come to be a burden.
And the burden had lightened--it pressed no longer. In a word, he was
free! He was his own man again, unafraid, able to look into his heart,
to open all the windows--no dark corners, no haunting ghosts! He could
enter now without the dread of echoing footsteps or wistful, half-heard
whisperings. The shade of pretty, childish Molly would vex no more.
The relief of it--the pain of it! It was like a new birth.
Meanwhile the strong, sure strokes were bringing them swiftly nearer the
opposite shore where yellow dots of light proclaimed the position of the
summer cottages. One dot, larger, detached itself from the others and
indicated the flare on the end of the landing float. Outlines began to
be darkly discernible, the moon's silver mirror was shivered by lances
of gold. Very soon their journey would be ended.
The paddle dipped more slowly. Esther sighed, and sat up straighter.
Considering all the trouble they had taken, neither of them seemed
overjoyed to be so near the desired haven.
"We are nearly there," said Callandar obviously.
Esther looked backward over their shining wake. Something precious
seemed to be slipping away on those fairy ripples. Yet all she could
find to say was--
"We have come very fast. You must be tired."
Strange little commonplaces, how they take their due of all the
wonderful hours of life! Esther wriggled out of the shawl, smoothed her
hair, arranged her ruffled collar. Callandar shipped his paddle and
resumed his coat.
"Where to, now?" he asked practically.
"There is only one landing, we shall be right on it in a moment.
Then--there are several of the cottagers whom I know. But I think Mrs.
Burton will be the best. She has often asked me to visit her and is such
a dear that the present unexpected arrival will not make me
less welcome."
"That's good! As for me, I'll make for the station and send the
telegrams. They won't be seriously anxious yet, do you think?
Then--there is a train I think you said?"
"You have missed that. But there is a very early morning train, a milk
train--O gracious!" Esther broke off with a start of genuine
consternation. "To-morrow is Sunday!"
"Naturally!" in surprise.
"How horribly unfortunate! The milk train doesn't run on Sunday!"
"Does the milk object to Sunday travelling?"
"Don't joke!" forlornly. "It's dreadful that it should be Sunday. People
will talk!"
"Oh, will they?" The doctor was immensely surprised. "Why?"
"Because it's Sunday."
"What has Sunday got to do with it? They can't talk. Here you are safe
and sound with your friend Mrs. Burton by 9 o'clock, an intensely
respectable hour even in Coombe. What can they say?"
"But it's Sunday! You will return home, by rail, on Sunday. Every one
will know. Your breaking of the Sabbath will be put down to careless
pleasuring. It will hurt your practice terribly!"
Callandar laughed heartily. But before he could reply the quick bursting
out of a blaze upon the shore startled them both. "What is it?" he asked
apprehensively.
"Only a bonfire! Some one is giving a bonfire party. It is quite the
fashionable thing. There will be songs and speeches with lemonade and
cake. Oh, hurry! We shall be in time for the programme."
The mysterious woman, born of the moon, was gone. In her place was a
rumple-haired, bright-eyed child. Callandar took up the paddle with a
whimsical smile.
"Sit still or you'll overturn the canoe!" he said warningly. And across
the narrowing stretch of water floated the opening sentiments of the
patriotic cottagers.
"O Cana_dah_, our heritage, our love--"