From the words the elder boatman rapidly addressed to the younger, it
was evident to Mr. Trenton that the half-breed was anxious to pass the
rapids before it became very much darker.
The landing is at the edge of comparatively still water. At the bottom
of the falls the river turns an acute angle and flows to the west. At
the landing it turns with equal abruptness, and flows south.
The short westward section of the river from the falls to the point
where they landed is a wild, turbulent rapid, in which no boat can live
for a moment. From the Point downwards, although the water is covered
with foam, only one dangerous place has to be passed. Toward that spot
the stalwart half-breeds bent all their energy in forcing the canoe down
with the current. The canoe shot over the darkening rapid with the speed
of an arrow. If but one or two persons had been in it, the chances are
the passage would have been made in safety. As it was one wrong turn of
the paddle by the younger half-breed did the mischief. The bottom barely
touched a sharp-pointed hidden rock, and in an instant the canoe was
slit open as with a knife.
As he sat there Trenton felt the cold water rise around him with a
quickness that prevented his doing anything, even if he had known what
to do.
“Sit still!” cried the elder boatman; and then to the younger he shouted
sharply, “The shore!”
They were almost under the hanging trees when the four found themselves
in the water. Trenton grasped an overhanging branch with one hand, and
with the other caught Miss Sommerton by the arm. For a moment it was
doubtful whether the branch would hold. The current was very swift, and
it threw each of them against the rock bank, and bent the branch down
into the water.
“Catch hold of me!” cried Trenton. “Catch hold of my coat; I need both
hands.”
Miss Sommerton, who had acted with commendable bravery throughout, did
as she was directed. Trenton, with his released hand, worked himself
slowly up the branch, hand over hand, and finally catching a sapling
that grew close to the water’s edge, with a firm hold, reached down and
helped Miss Sommerton on the bank. Then he slowly drew himself up to a
safe position and looked around for any signs of the boatmen. He shouted
loudly, but there was no answer.
“Are they drowned, do you think?” asked Miss Sommerton, anxiously.
“No, I don’t suppose they are; I don’t think you _could_ drown a
half-breed. They have done their best to drown us, and as we have
escaped I see no reason why they should drown.”
“Oh, it’s all my fault! all my fault!” wailed Miss Sommerton.
“It is, indeed,” answered Trenton, briefly.
She tried to straighten herself up, but, too wet and chilled and limp to
be heroic, she sank on a rock and began to cry.
“Please don’t do that,” said the artist, softly. “Of course I shouldn’t
have agreed with you. I beg pardon for having done so, but now that we
are here, you are not to shirk your share of the duties. I want you to
search around and get materials for a fire.”
“Search around?” cried Miss Sommerton dolefully.
“Yes, search around. Hunt, as you Americans say. You have got us into
this scrape, so I don’t propose you shall sit calmly by and not take any
of the consequences.”
“Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Trenton, now that I am helpless?”
“If it is an insult to ask you to get up and gather some wood and bring
it here, then I do mean to insult you most emphatically. I shall gather
some, too, for we shall need a quantity of it.”
Miss Sommerton rose indignantly, and was on the point of threatening to
leave the place, when a moment’s reflection showed her that she didn’t
know where to go, and remembering she was not as brave in the darkness
and in the woods as in Boston, she meekly set about the search for dry
twigs and sticks. Flinging down the bundle near the heap Trenton had
already collected, the young woman burst into a laugh.
“Do you see anything particularly funny in the situation?” asked
Trenton, with chattering teeth. “I confess I do not.”
“The funniness of the situation is that we should gather wood, when, if
there is a match in your pocket, it must be so wet as to be useless.”
“Oh, not at all. You must remember I come from a very damp climate, and
we take care of our matches there. I have been in the water before now
on a tramp, and my matches are in a silver case warranted to keep out
the wet.” As he said this Trenton struck a light, and applied it to the
small twigs and dry autumn leaves. The flames flashed up through the
larger sticks, and in a very few moments a cheering fire was blazing,
over which Trenton threw armful after armful of the wood he had
collected.
“Now,” said the artist, “if you will take off what outer wraps you have
on, we can spread them here, and dry them. Then if you sit, first facing
the fire and next with your back to it, and maintain a sort of rotatory
motion, it will not be long before you are reasonably dry and warm.”
Miss Sommerton laughed, but there was not much merriment in her
laughter.
“Was there ever anything so supremely ridiculous?” she said. “A
gentleman from England gathering sticks, and a lady from Boston gyrating
before the fire. I am glad you are not a newspaper man, for you might be
tempted to write about the situation for some sensational paper.”
“How do you know I am not a journalist?”
“Well, I hope you are not. I thought you were a photographer.”
“Oh, not a professional photographer, you know.”
“I am sorry; I prefer the professional to the amateur.”
“I like to hear you say that.”
“Why? It is not very complimentary, I am sure.”
“The very reason I like to hear you say it. If you were complimentary
I would be afraid you were going to take a chill and be ill after this
disaster; but now that you are yourself again, I have no such fear.”
“Myself again!” blazed the young woman. “What do you know about me?
How do you know whether I am myself or somebody else? I am sure our
acquaintance has been very short.”
“Counted by time, yes. But an incident like this, in the wilderness,
does more to form a friendship, or the reverse, than years of ordinary
acquaintance in Boston or London. You ask how I know that you are
yourself. Shall I tell you?”
“If you please.”
“Well, I imagine you are a young lady who has been spoilt. I think
probably you are rich, and have had a good deal of your own way in this
world. In fact, I take it for granted that you have never met any one
who frankly told you your faults. Even if such good fortune had been
yours, I doubt if you would have profited by it. A snub would have
been the reward of the courageous person who told Miss Sommerton her
failings.”
“I presume you have courage enough to tell me my faults without the fear
of a snub before your eyes.”
“I have the courage, yes. You see I have already received the snub
three or four times, and it has lost its terrors for me.”
“In that case, will you be kind enough to tell me what you consider my
faults?”
“If you wish me to.”
“I do wish it.”
“Well, then, one of them is inordinate pride.”
“Do you think pride a fault?”
“It is not usually reckoned one of the virtues.”
“In this country, Mr. Trenton, we consider that every person should have
a certain amount of pride.”
“A certain amount may be all right. It depends entirely on how much the
certain amount is.”
“Well, now for fault No. 2.”
“Fault No. 2 is a disregard on your part for the feelings of others.
This arises, I imagine, partly from fault No. 1. You are in the habit of
classing the great mass of the public very much beneath you in intellect
and other qualities, and you forget that persons whom you may perhaps
dislike, have feelings which you have no right to ignore.”
“I presume you refer to this morning,” said Miss Sommerton, seriously.
“I apologised for that two or three times, I think. I have always
understood that a gentleman regards an apology from another gentleman as
blotting out the original offence. Why should he not regard it in the
same light when it comes from a woman?”
“Oh, now you are making a personal matter of it. I am talking in an
entirely impersonal sense. I am merely giving you, with brutal rudeness,
opinions formed on a very short acquaintance. Remember, I have done so
at your own request.”
“I am very much obliged to you, I am sure. I think you are more than
half right. I hope the list is not much longer.”
“No, the list ends there. I suppose you imagine that I am one of the
rudest men you ever met?”
“No, we generally expect rudeness from Englishmen.”
“Oh, do you really? Then I am only keeping up the reputation my
countrymen have already acquired in America. Have you had the
pleasure of meeting a rude Englishman before?”
“No, I can’t say that I have. Most Englishmen I have met have been what
we call very gentlemanly indeed. But the rudest letter I ever received
was from an Englishman; not only rude, but ungrateful, for I had bought
at a very high price one of his landscapes. He was John Trenton, the
artist, of London. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” hesitated Trenton, “I know him. I may say I know him very well.
In fact, he is a namesake of mine.”
“Why, how curious it is I had never thought of that. Is your first name
J----, the same as his?”
“Yes.”
“Not a relative, is he?”
“Well, no. I don’t think I can call him a relative. I don’t know that I
can even go so far as to call him my friend, but he is an acquaintance.”
“Oh, tell me about him,” cried Miss Sommerton, enthusiastically. “He
is one of the Englishmen I have longed very much to meet.”
“Then you forgave him his rude letter?”
“Oh, I forgave that long ago. I don’t know that it was rude, after all.
It was truthful. I presume the truth offended me.”
“Well,” said Trenton, “truth has to be handled very delicately, or it is
apt to give offence. You bought a landscape of his, did you? Which one,
do you remember?”
“It was a picture of the Thames valley.”
“Ah, I don’t recall it at the moment. A rather hackneyed subject, too.
Probably he sent it to America because he couldn’t sell it in England.”
“Oh, I suppose you think we buy anything here that the English refuse, I
beg to inform you this picture had a place in the Royal Academy, and was
very highly spoken of by the critics. I bought it in England.”
“Oh yes, I remember it now, ‘The Thames at Sonning.’ Still, it was a
hackneyed subject, although reasonably well treated.”
“Reasonably well! I think it one of the finest landscape pictures of the
century.”
“Well, in that at least Trenton would agree with you.”
“He is very conceited, you mean?”
“Even his enemies admit that.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a man of such talent could be so
conceited.”
“Then, Miss Sommerton, allow me to say you have very little knowledge of
human nature. It is only reasonable that a great man should know he is
a great man. Most of our great men are conceited. I would like to see
Trenton’s letter to you. I could then have a good deal of amusement at
his expense when I get back.”
“Well, in that case I can assure you that you will never see the
letter.”
“Ah, you destroyed it, did you?”
“Not for that reason.”
“Then you _did_ destroy it?”
“I tore it up, but on second thoughts I pasted it together again, and
have it still.”
“In that case, why should you object to showing me the letter?”
“Well, because I think it rather unusual for a lady to be asked by a
gentleman show him a letter that has been written to her by another
gentleman.”
“In matters of the heart that is true; but in matters of art it is not.”
“Is that intended for a pun?”
“It is as near to one as I ever allow myself to come, I should like very
much to see Mr. Trenton’s letter. It was probably brutally rude. I know
the man, you see.”
“It was nothing of the sort,” replied Miss Sommerton, hotly. “It was a
truthful, well-meant letter.”
“And yet you tore it up?”
“But that was the first impulse. The pasting it together was the
apology.”
“And you will not show it to me?”
“No, I will not.”
“Did you answer it?”
“I will tell you nothing more about it. I am sorry I spoke of the letter
at all. You don’t appreciate Mr. Trenton’s work.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, I do. He has no greater admirer in England than
I am--except himself, of course.”
“I suppose it makes no difference to you to know that I don’t like a
remark like that.”
“Oh, I thought it would please you. You see, with the exception of
myself, Mr. Trenton is about the rudest man in England. In fact, I begin
to suspect it was Mr. Trenton’s letter that led you to a wholesale
condemning of the English race, for you admit the Englishmen you have
met were not rude.”
“You forget I have met you since then.”
“Well bowled, as we say in cricket.”
“Has Mr. Trenton many friends in London?”
“Not a great number. He is a man who sticks rather closely to his work,
and, as I said before, he prides himself on telling the truth. That
doesn’t do in London any more than it does in Boston.”
“Well, I honour him for it.”
“Oh, certainly; everybody does in the abstract. But it is not a quality
that tends to the making or the keeping of friends, you know.”
“If you see Mr. Trenton when you return, I wish you would tell him there
is a lady in America who is a friend of his; and if he has any pictures
the people over there do not appreciate, ask him to send them to Boston,
and his friend will buy them.”
“Then you must be rich, for his pictures bring very good prices, even in
England.”
“Yes,” said Miss Sommerton, “I am rich.”
“Well, I suppose it’s very jolly to be rich,” replied the artist, with a
sigh.
“You are not rich, then, I imagine?”
“No, I am not. That is, not compared with your American fortunes. I have
enough of money to let me roam around the world if I wish to, and get
half drowned in the St. Maurice River.”
“Oh, is it not strange that we have heard nothing from those boatmen?
You surely don’t imagine they could have been drowned?”
“I hardly think so. Still, it is quite possible.”
“Oh, don’t say that; it makes me feel like a murderer.”
“Well, I think it was a good deal your fault, don’t you know.” Miss
Sommerton looked at him.
“Have I not been punished enough already?” she said.
“For the death of two men--if they are dead? Bless me! no. Do you
imagine for a moment there is any relation between the punishment and
the fault?”
Miss Sommerton buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, I take that back,” said Trenton. “I didn’t mean to say such a
thing.”
“It is the truth--it is the truth!” wailed the young woman. “Do you
honestly think they did not reach the shore?”
“Of course they did. If you want to know what has happened, I’ll tell
you exactly, and back my opinion by a bet if you like. An Englishman is
always ready to back his opinion, you know. Those two men swam with the
current until they came to some landing-place. They evidently think we
are drowned. Nevertheless, they are now making their way through the
woods to the settlement. Then comes the hubbub. Mason will stir up the
neighbourhood, and the men who are back from the woods with the other
canoes will be roused and pressed into service, and some time to-night
we will be rescued.”
“Oh, I hope that is the case,” cried Miss Sommerton, looking brightly at
him.
“It is the case. Will you bet about it?”
“I never bet,” said Miss Sommerton.
“Ah, well, you miss a good deal of fun then. You see I am a bit of a
mind reader. I can tell just about where the men are now.”
“I don’t believe much in mind reading.”
“Don’t you? Shall I give you a specimen of it? Take that letter we have
spoken so much about. If you think it over in your mind I will read you
the letter--not word for word, perhaps, but I shall give you gist of it,
at least.”
“Oh, impossible!”
“Do you remember it?”
“I have it with me.”
“Oh, have you? Then, if you wish to preserve it, you should spread it
out upon the ground to dry before the fire.”
“There is no need of my producing the letter,” replied Miss Sommerton;
“I remember every word it.”
“Very well, just think it over in your mind, and see if I cannot repeat
it. Are you thinking about it?”
“Yes, I am thinking about it.”
“Here goes, then. ‘Miss Edith Sommerton----’”
“Wrong,” said that young lady.
“The Sommerton is right, is it not?”
“Yes, but the first name is not.”
“What is it, then?”
“I shall not tell you.”
“Oh, very well. Miss Sommerton,--‘I have some hesitation in answering
your letter.’ Oh, by the way, I forgot the address. That is the first
sentence of the letter, but the address is some number which I cannot
quite see, ‘Beacon Street, Boston.’ Is there any such street in that
city?”
“There is,” said Miss Sommerton. “What a question to ask.”
“Ah, then Beacon Street is one of the principal streets, is it?”
“One of them? It is _the_ street. It is Boston.”
“Very good. I will now proceed with the letter. ‘I have some hesitation
in answering your letter, because the sketches you send are so bad, that
it seems to me no one could seriously forward them to an artist for
criticism. However, if you really desire criticism, and if the pictures
are sent in good faith, I may say I see in them no merit whatever, not
even good drawing; while the colours are put on in a way that would seem
to indicate you have not yet learned the fundamental principle of mixing
the paints. If you are thinking of earning a livelihood with your
pencil, I strongly advise you to abandon the idea. But if you are a lady
of leisure and wealth, I suppose there is no harm in your continuing as
long as you see fit.--Yours truly, JOHN TRENTON.’”
Miss Sommerton, whose eyes had opened wider and wider as this reading
went on, said sharply--
“He has shown you the letter. You have seen it before it was sent.”
“I admit that,” said the artist.
“Well--I will believe all you like to say about Mr. John Trenton.”
“Now, stop a moment; do not be too sweeping in your denunciation of him.
I know that Mr. Trenton showed the letter to no one.”
“Why, I thought you said a moment ago that he showed it to you.”
“He did. Yet no one but himself saw the letter.”
The young lady sprang to her feet.
“Are you, then, John Trenton, the artist?”
“Miss Sommerton, I have to plead guilty.”