Front matter (continued 3)

"Oh, Cale, more!"

He nodded, and, with a significant upward motion of his thumb, made his exit at the kitchen end. I slipped into the dining-room to see that all was in readiness for the extra supper. I actually did not know what to do with myself, what was my place, or where I belonged in the household, now that the owner of Lamoral and his friend were here. I looked about: the flames from the pine cones were leaping in the fireplace, the curtains were drawn close, the room was filled with a resinous forest fragrance, for I had placed large branches of white pine in some antiquated milk jugs of glazed red clay, which I found in one of the unused dairy rooms, and set them on each end of the mantel.

When I heard Jamie and the Doctor on the stairs, I left by way of the kitchen and, passing through that and the bare offices between it and the living-room, slipped into the latter to inspect it. Here also the fire was blazing, the wax candles in the sconces were lighted. The yellow sofa was drawn in front of the fireplace, but good eight feet from it. At either end were the easy chairs, and at the right of the chimney, nearest the door into the kitchen offices, was a low ample tea table covered with a white linen cloth, set with plain white china, a nickel-plated tea-kettle and lamp. Behind the sofa, along the length of its straight long back, stood the library table furnished with writing pad and inkstand, a wooden bookrack filled with Jamie's favorites and mine, and a bowl of red geranium blossoms. I was satisfied with my work.

Around the room, even between the windows, the more than two thousand books in their cases formed a rich dado of finely blended colors—the deep royal blue and dark reds in morocco, the yellow-white imitation of parchment,—parchment itself in several instances,—the light faun and reddish brown of half calf; even shagreen was there, and the limp bronze-gilt leather of Chinese bindings. Jamie told me that many of the editions were rare.

It seemed to me in my ignorance, that there could be no more beautiful room than this simple, book-lined, wood-panelled parlor in the old manor of Lamoral. I felt an ownership in it, for I had helped in part to create the intimate atmosphere that I knew must be like home,—something I had dreamed of, but never expected to make real. The owner, whose voice I heard for the first time talking to the dogs as he came down stairs, presented himself to me at that moment as an outsider, an intruder. I waited until I heard him close the dining-room door; then I went up stairs again to my own room.

VIII

I did not light the candles. The firelight showed through the mica in the stove grate. I sat down by the window and looked out. A full moon shone high and clear above the dark irregular outline of the massed treetops in the woods across the creek, now covered with ice and blanketed with white. The great hemlock branches, crowding close to the house, were drooping, snow-laden. The moonlight, reflected in them, flashed diamond dust from the upper branches; beneath the lower ones it cast violet shadows on the snow.

"What next?" I was thinking, and might have spared myself the trouble of that thought, for just then Mrs. Macleod knocked at the door and came in.

"In the dark? Marcia, my dear, we need you down stairs."

"Of course I 'll come, Mrs. Macleod, if you wish me to, but I don't quite see how, as your companion and assistant, I am needed now down stairs. I shall feel as if I were not earning my salt, just playing lady."

Now, can any one tell me why the spirit of revolt at the change in my position in this house, through the coming of the owner and his friend, should have materialized in just this ungracious speech? I was ashamed of myself the moment I had given it utterance. Such a mean sentiment! Not worthy of a woman of twenty-six. I was thankful she could not see my face.

She hesitated before replying. When she spoke I heard a note of displeasure in her voice.

"I need you now, perhaps, more than before. With these guests in the house, there is more responsibility than during the last three weeks."

"If only they were guests!" The perverse spirit was still at work within me. "But we are the guests now, and I don't quite see what my work is to be; my position seems to be an anomalous one."

"It may seem so to you," she replied quietly. I knew by the tone of her voice she was exercising great self control, and that had the candles been lighted I should have seen her cheeks flush a deep pink; "but evidently it is perfectly clear to Doctor Rugvie. The position is his creation. I think you can trust him.— Are you coming?"

The rebuke was well deserved, and, in accepting it, my respect for her was doubled.

"Just let me get my work," I said, fumbling in my basket for some petty crochet. She said nothing, and in silence we went down stairs together, she little realizing that, in referring to Doctor Rugvie as the one to whom I was indebted for being here, she twisted some fibre in my mental make-up and caused it to vibrate painfully. Had I but known it, I had been keyed to this moment ever since hearing Delia Beaseley's account of my mother's death—keyed too long and at too high a pitch. Something had to give way; hence my mood of apparent revolt, because I could not live in unchanged circumstances in this manor of Lamoral.

As we entered the living-room the three pipes were in full blast.

"Permitted?" said the Doctor, waving his towards us as he rose. Mr. Ewart, also, rose and came towards us. In the manner of his action I saw that, already, he had taken his rightful place as host. He held out his hand in greeting, and I took it.

"Sit here, Miss Farrell, by me," he motioned to the corner of the sofa next his easy chair, "and tell me how you have managed to accomplish a home—in three weeks. Mrs. Macleod and Jamie have been giving you all the credit for this transformation. How did you do it?"

He put me at ease at once, for what he said sounded both cordial and sincere. The tone of voice challenged me instantly to be as sincere with him.

"Perhaps it's because I never have had the chance to make what you call a 'home' before, and besides," I looked up from my sofa corner and dared to say the truth, "it was such a pleasure to spend some money that I did n't have to earn by hard work; this was play for me. But, truly, Mrs. Macleod and Jamie are not fair to themselves; they not only helped, but inspired me."

"Oh, woman, woman!" said the Doctor, laughing; "shopping is the characteristic symptom of the sex!"

"Talk about inspiration," said Jamie; "Marcia put mother and me through our best paces. I can tell you we conjugated: I must hustle, Thou must hustle, He must hustle, We must hustle, You must hustle, They must hustle, for three weeks," he said emphatically.

"You seem to have thriven on it," said the Doctor.

"Your work was in the New York Library, Miss Farrell?" It was Mr. Ewart who spoke.

"Yes, in a branch; I was there for five years."

"Who told you that, Gordon?" Jamie demanded.

"Who?—Who but Cale?"

Mrs. Macleod laughed outright at that, and Jamie and I joined her; we could not help it. The mere inflection of Mr. Ewart's voice, told us he had succumbed on the way over to our omniscient One. I saw that, quiet as he was, he had a keen sense of humor.

"Yes," he continued, "Cale made my acquaintance on the platform, and half way on the road he took occasion to give me some information concerning my household."

"Oh, I know that too," I said, "for Cale confided to me immediately on his arrival that, to use his own expression, he could n't get in a 'word edgewise', on account of the rapidity with which you and Peter were carrying on a conversation in French. I think he is jealous of every tongue but his own."

"We had better compare notes, Miss Farrell. I concluded that Cale was a firm friend of yours from his remarks."

"What did he say? Do tell me."

"I will—if you 'll agree to tell me his comments on my talk with Pierre. I believe Pierre's words fell over themselves, he had so much to tell me."

"Hear—hear!" This from Jamie.

"I agree; tell me, please."

"I think it was just before we entered the river road—"

"I know it was, for he told me so," I said, enjoying the fun.

"Oh, he did! Well, perhaps you will be so good as to tell me, if he told you what he told me you told him?"

"You would n't ask that if you knew Cale," said Jamie, shaking his head dubiously.

"No, he did n't," I said. "Cale is a genuine Yankee. What did he say?"

"You hear that, Ewart? What did I tell you?"

"Oh, you've been telling, too, have you, Jamie Macleod? He gave me to understand that it was he who brought you from the steamboat to the house; that you were born in New York; that you had been in the Public Library of that city; that in consequence what you did n't know about books was, in his estimation, not worth knowing; that you were just as handy with hammer and tacks as you were with books, and that you had been 'fixin' up' the old manor till it shone. I gathered further, that he expected me to be properly appreciative of the benefits conferred upon me in this matter. As, up to that time, I had heard nothing of your arrival in Richelieu-en-Bas, and as my friend here, Doctor Rugvie, was likewise in the dark in regard to your personality, you may imagine our curiosity; in fact, he wanted to rouse it, and took the best way to do it."

"He can do that," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at this description of Cale's powers; "but he rarely satisfies us in regard to himself. Of course, Jamie and I respect his reticence, but I should like to know if he has been married. He is such a character! I should like to know more of his life."

"I must take a good look at him to-morrow," said the Doctor, filling his pipe.

"I should n't know him if I met him on the road," said Mr. Ewart; "for his cap was drawn over his forehead, and his beard and side whiskers were a mask. Won't he come in with us for a few minutes, Jamie?— By the way, you say that he is always with you at porridge, a custom I hope you will not depart from, now I am here, Mrs. Macleod."

"I shall want some too," said the Doctor, whimsically; "it will be like those never-to-be-forgotten days in Crieff fifteen years ago."

Mrs. Macleod said nothing; but she turned to him with such an indulgent smile, that I knew she would give the great man anything in reason or unreason for what he had been, and was, to her son and to herself.

Jamie jumped up impulsively.

"Tell me what he said, Marcia, about Gordon's talk with Pierre, and then I 'll go and have him in—without the porridge, though, for it's too late to-night."

"He said that if the old manor barns had been 'afire', and Mr. Ewart and Pierre had been trying to get the horses out, they could n't have talked faster."

"That's one on you, Ewart," said Jamie, gleefully. Mr. Ewart laughed. "I hope to make a friend of Cale; I like him."

Jamie left the room, and the talk drifted to other things.

"Have you seen Mère Guillardeau lately?" Mr. Ewart asked of Mrs. Macleod.

"Not since the last of October; but Marcia has seen her recently."

He looked at me inquiringly.

"I bought the rag carpet strips of her daughter."

"Is the old woman well?"

"Yes, she is wonderful for her age."

"Ninety-nine next year," said Mr. Ewart. "What a century she has lived!"

"André père must be ninety, then," said Doctor Rugvie. "How well I remember him! He is Mère Guillardeau's brother, as perhaps you know," he said turning to me. "Jamie must have told you of André."

"Yes, of André father and André son; you know them both?"

It was the first time I had spoken directly with the Doctor, although he was the one in the room upon whom all my thoughts centered.

"For many years; I saw him first in Tadoussac, just after the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Afterwards, for six consecutive summers I was in camp with him and his son on the Upper Saguenay. There 's none like him. By the way, Miss Farrell, has Jamie ever told you how the old guide André went to the World's Fair at Chicago?"

"No."

"We 'll get him to tell you—and us; I can never hear it too many times. It's unique, and it takes Jamie to tell it well. André told me years ago, and last summer he told Jamie and Mr. Ewart. Jamie wrote me about it."

"I shall never forget that night," said Mr. Ewart.

He laid his pipe on the mantel and stood back to the fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. He was not so tall as Jamie or Doctor Rugvie; not so thin as the former, nor stout like the latter. He had kept his body in good training for, as he stood there, despite the few gray hairs on the temples, he looked like a man of thirty, rather than one who might be father to Jamie.

Jamie came in at this moment, looking thoroughly cross as well as crestfallen.

"He won't come," he announced bluntly, taking his seat and leaning forward to the fire, his long arms resting on his knees, his hands clasped and hanging between them. He glared at the andirons.

"What's the matter, Jamie?" I asked; I knew something had gone wrong.

"He says he does n't belong here, and all that rot. Confound it all! When you come up against Cale's crotchets you might as well go hang yourself for all you can move him."

I looked at Mr. Ewart. I saw the gray eyes flash suddenly.

"We must change all that, Jamie. Just give him leeway till I 've looked about a bit and struck root into my—home." I noticed the slight hesitation before the word "home". "By the way, it's early yet."

"Early!" Jamie was rousing himself from his private sulk. "You might like to know that generally we have porridge at nine and are in bed by half-past."

"We 'll change all that too, Mrs. Macleod—with the Doctor's permission, of course," he said, sitting down beside her. "We 're not going to lose the pleasure of these long winter evenings. After porridge, we 'll have grand bouts of chess, Jamie, and a little music—I see that Miss Farrell has not included a piano in her furnishings—"

"Not for eighty-seven dollars," I said, hoping he would appreciate the financial fact; but he only looked a little mystified, and went on:

"—And hours with the books, and some snowshoeing on fine moonlight nights; you 'll see that the winter is none too long in Canada—O pays de mon amour!" he said smiling. Clasping his hands behind his head, he looked steadily at the leaping flames.

The tone in which he said all this would have heartened a confirmed pessimist; upon Jamie Macleod it acted like new wine. His face grew radiant, and the look he gave his friend held something of worship in it.

Doctor Rugvie groaned audibly as he laid aside his pipe.

"What is it, mon vieux?" said Mr. Ewart.

"You make me envious," he said, rising and putting on another log; "but if I can be with you only one week, I 'm going to make the most of it. No turning in before eleven-thirty while I 'm here."

"I 'll make it one with you any time you say, John." Underneath the banter we heard the undercurrent of deep affection. "You 'll be up here two or three times during the winter, and next summer you 've promised to camp with Jamie and the Andrés, father and son, and me, for two months on the Upper Saguenay. Speaking of André, père, Jamie, have you redeemed the promise you gave me last summer?"

Jamie twisted his long length in his chair before answering. "Yes, in a way."

"What does 'in a way' mean? What promise?" asked the Doctor eagerly. Mr. Ewart answered for him.

"It was about André—old André's story of his voyage to the Columbian Exposition in 'ninety-three. Have you written it up?"

"In a way I have, yes."

"Well, Jamie Macleod," I exclaimed, half impatiently, "for lack of originality, commend me to you to-night!"

I was afraid I should not hear the story. I exulted in the thought that my intuition concerning a second R. L. Stevenson in Jamie Macleod, was to prove correct. Jamie looked over at me and smiled provokingly.

"Come on, Boy, out with it!" said the Doctor encouragingly. "I 'm willing to be bored with your literary style for the sake of hearing dear old André's story rehashed by a young aspirant for honors."

"Have you seen anything of this?" Mr. Ewart turned to Mrs. Macleod.

"I 've neither seen nor heard anything of this kind," she replied with an amazed look at her son. Jamie smiled again, this time quizzically.

"What's this you 've been keeping from your mother, Boy?"

"Oh, Jamie, do read it to us!" I begged.

Jamie laughed aloud then, much to the two men's delight, as I could see, and said—tease that he is:

"I 've been waiting for Marcia to ask me; she is n't apt to ask favors of any one; but I say,—" he looked half shamefacedly at his friends,—"it's rough on me to read anything of mine before such critics as you and Gordon, Doctor Rugvie."

"Do you good," growled the Doctor; "get you used to publicity. If we have a genius in the family, it's best he should sprout his pin feathers in our presence before he becomes a full-fledged Pegasus. We could n't hold you down then, you know."

"You 've had a lot of faith in me, Doctor—you and Ewart; after all, Oxford mightn't have done what that has for me. I 'll read it—but I shall feel like a fool, I know."

"It won't hurt you to feel that way once in a while at twenty-three; it's educative," said the Doctor dryly.

In the general laughter that followed, Jamie left the room. He was gone but a minute. When he came in, I saw he was nervous. He cleared his throat once or twice, after taking his seat at the left of the fireplace, and glanced anxiously at the candles; but they were fresh at nine, and good for two hours longer. Doctor Rugvie looked at his watch.

"Half-past ten; I 'll keep time, Jamie."

"What do you call it, Jamie?" Mr. Ewart asked, to ease the evident embarrassment in which the young Scotsman found himself.

"'André's Odyssey'."

"Good! I like that," said the Doctor; "that's just what it was. Nothing like a good title to work up to."

"Of course, I embellished a little here and there, but I stuck to the facts and in many places to André's words; and I tried to make the whole in André's spirit."

"Intentions all right, Boy—let us judge of the result," said the Doctor. He settled comfortably in his chair, leaned his head on the back and gazed steadily at the wooden ceiling; but I think he managed to keep an eye on Jamie.

And, oh, that bright eager face, the firelight enhancing its brightness! The hand that trembled despite his effort at control, the slight flush on the high cheek bones from which the summer's tan had not yet house-worn! The expressive unsteady voice that gradually steadied itself as, in the interest of reading, self-consciousness was forgotten!

I bent low over my crochet; I did not want to look again at him, for I was glad, so glad for him, for his mother, for his two friends, who had had such faith in him, for myself that I could count him as a friend. This was, indeed, the beginning of fulfilment.

IX

For five and twenty years no man had seen in Tadoussac old André's face nor heard his voice upon the river's lower course. Both long and late within their icy caves the winters dwelt. The spring-tides, messaging the wild emancipated water's glee, rushed down to meet the short-lived summer joy, and autumn after autumn fled with torch of flaming leaf, reversed, death-heralding, far up the Saguenay's dark winding gorge—yet André came no more in all that time.

And now, behold them both, in Tadoussac! old André and his dog, Pierre, le brave, or was it Pierre's son?—lean-ribbed, thin-haunched and tragic-eyed, with fell of wolf, Pierre! How well they all remembered him, le brave! The frosts were in his bones, oh, long ere this; so Pierre's offspring, then?—as large as life! And André, too, old guide and voyageur!

Of notches six times ten had André cut within the shaft of one great pine that sings above that wonderful caprice of pool, and quiet river reach, and torrent wild, men long have called the Upper Saguenay. That very day when his boy's heart beat wild to suffocation, as upon the bank he landed his first salmon—nom de Dieu, no sunset glow e'er equalled in his eyes that palpitant and silver-scalèd mass of vibrant rose!—the sap from that first notch had oozed; and now they said in Tadoussac that André never knew his age!

Oh, fools! What matter of a few years more or less? He counted all his years by his heart's youth, as here he was in Tadoussac to prove.

"And whither away?"—"To see Mère Guillardeau?"—"To visit once again in Richelieu-en-Bas?"—"Or else Trois Rivières where long ago the maskinonge leaped for him?" "To see the Seigniory of Lamoral where lived his grandpère's seignior, lived and died?"—"A pilgrimage? Sainte Anne de Beaupré, then?"—"Or Indian Lorette just by Quebec?" The questions multiplied. "Come, tell us all." And André told them all.

"'Tis true," he said, "that there upon the Upper Saguenay strange tales are rife. From o'er the distant sea the English came to camp within the wilds, and I was guide. I listened to their tales whene'er the camp-fire crackled and the snow, the feather-snow that melted from the pines, fell hissing on the glowing arch of logs."

How André loved that sound! How dear to him was that one time in all the year's full round, when freeze the nights, the sap grows chill and numb; when warms the rising sun at early dawn and that sweet ichor runs! It kept him young; within him stirred his youthful forest hopes and joys with that first mounting life. And loud he laughed, nor gave the secret of his youth, his woodsman's lasting joys.

He told them how with mien impassive he had listened well, reflected long on what the English said, till May clouds, mirrored in the darkling pools, foreshadowed substance for those haunting dreams of glories human eyes had never seen; for far away upon the Lake there stood a city marvellous, the English said,—and they to André never yet had lied,—and who beheld it saw with naked eye the glories of the New Jerusalem.

And André, marking how the little runs were earlier loosened from their icy chains, how soft beneath the black and sodden leaves the water trickled free with here and there a bubble rising, proving spring had come—old André, listening so, the echo caught of that far song of storm-tossed Michigan as its wild waters, mingling with the rest, pursued their steady seaward course and swept with undertones enticing past the gorge of Saguenay and sang in André's ear:

What wonder that his simple woodsman's heart was moved to quick response! That ere one moon had waxed and waned his dugout was prepared for its long journey inland, west by south, along the waterway of two great Lands! He showed it now in Tadoussac with pride: this fruit of two Canadian winters' toil. Its ample hull was shiny black with age. Its prow sharp-nosed and long to cleave, pike-like, the rapids' wave, capricious, treacherous. Its stern was truncated like tail of duck, the waters never closed but on it pressed, and sped it on the river's lower course.

For twenty years he watched the sturdy growth of one great tree that towered above its mates; and when the noble bole, both straight and strong, was grown to such proportions that he deemed it fit to brave the rapids, such its curve, he laid the monarch low, and hewed, and shaped, and burned, and thickly overlaid with pitch, and launched it on the Lower Saguenay—a fine, well-balanced craft, his floating camp; and this was thirty years or more agone.

His destination now made known, upon the river bank a crowd eyed him agape. With pride he showed to wondering Tadoussac how he had made provision for his voyage.

Along one side was lashed a sapling pine with seamless sail, three-cornered and close furled; 'twas fashioned from the stout flap of a tent. Along the other stretched two pockets strong of moose skin, hair side out to shed the rain. The topmost one he filled with ample store of salmon smoked on his own spit of ash, and good supply of that brown wrinkled leaf whose qualmy fragrance, issuing from the bowl of his loved pipe, had ever proved in camp and wild the solace of his lonely life.

Within the other pocket he had placed his comrade-breadwinner, his trusted gun. Its shining barrel glistened cunningly from out the soft black depths, and knowingly, for many a wingèd voyager of the air would it bring low to beat the lucent wave to crimson froth before the voyage were done. Both oars and paddles of well-seasoned ash he laid within the dugout's ample hulk.

Then he was ready to set out, and seek that shining wonder-city by the Lake—a "New Jerusalem", the English said, and they to André never yet had lied. His old-time friends were gathered at the pier to bid him on his quest "God Speed". They cast the painter loose.

"Adieu—adieu," a hand clasp here and there, and then again: "Adieu!"

Pierre, with forepaws stemmed against the prow, bayed musical farewell. Old André turned and murmuring, "Adieu," broke forth exultantly in joyous song:

So aged André, guide and voyageur, his parchment face alight with inward joy, fared forth to seek that City in the West.

For you who love the sunlight on the wave, who hail with joy the sunrise ever new; for you to whom the starlight brings a thought of that high peace that guides the wanderer; for you who watch the coming of the day with eyes that see the miracle of life; for you who share in all the fair delights of sunlight, moonlight, starlight, twilight, dawn, and feel their charm in every mood and tense of nature's perfecting—for you alone I sing this voyage over inland seas.

By sunlight, moonlight, starlight, André fared along the river called "the Queen's Highway"; and soon there frowned upon him, dark, superb, the crested towering headland of Tourmente that signals to the Plains of Abraham. And ever westwards, west by south, he fared until he saw the shipping of Quebec like some huge cobweb outlined intricate in black against the golden gleaming west.

The sunset gun resounded in mid-air as André anchor dropped below the town. The man-of-war's huge bulk belched answering flame, and ere the cannon's echoing roar had ceased, a sharp report was heard, a pigmy sound that woke its pigmy echo from the Rock. So André fired salute and quickly ran aloft his tiny Union Jack. 'Twas seen along the quays; the sailors cheered and cheered, until Pierre bayed musical response.

Then André, when the moon had fully risen, stretched out along the stern and smoked his pipe, Pierre at his feet, and watched the Rock that, like a jewel many facetted, now held, now flashed at every point the lights along the Terrace in the Upper Town. He heard a merry song, a peal of bells, a strain of distant music, plash of oars—then silence. One by one the lights went out; the moon was riding high and full above the scarp and ramparts of the Citadel; beneath, the river rolled its silvered flood.

Then onwards, ever onwards toward the West fared steadily this old French voyageur, and as he passed the dreaded Raven Cape he trolled a catch, "Un noir corbeau", to ward all ill and evil from his sturdy craft. So sped unharmed, swift-paddling toward the broad and sunlit shallows of Saint Peter's lake, and ever westwards to the Royal Isle where Montreal's green height looks down upon its shadowy reflex in Saint Lawrence's wave.

On, on he sped and ever to the West, land-locked at times in prairie-bound canals; then pulling vigorously, the rapids past, along the River's narrowing polished curve, with oar stroke, swift and sweeping, keeping time to hit of merry raftsmen on the Sault.

Fresh-hearted André! All the wholesome joys to which his simple life was consecrate were his as on he voyaged; his eventide brought joy and calm and light-of-evening peace. But once he would have tarried—as alights a wearied sea-mew on some lonely isle—when, paddling slow and noiselessly he steered his craft among the leafy waterways of that Arcadian Venice of our North: the Thousand Isles. His woodsman's heart beat high when, gliding silently past sunny glades and darkling glens, he heard the wavelets lap the crinkling sands and saw the water glint against the slopes fringed deep with June's lush green.

At times he paused, the paddle braced, and leaned thereon his weight; the while, his lungs inflate, he drew deep breaths of fragrance balsamic that flowed in counter currents, sensate, warm, from out the depths of cedar thickets gray, and red, and white. And then away, away he sped past gardens gay with summer blooms, past emerald lawns set round by sapphire waves. And here and there an islet laughed at him—a tiny patch of verdure overhung by one white birch that glistered in the sun.

And every night a strange enchantment wrought upon his spirit when, beneath the stars, on some long reach that narrowed suddenly, embraced by banks converging, forest clad, the dugout drifted 'twixt two firmaments. Then André dreamed of pool and river reach and ancient pine o'er-hanging torrents wild, far distant on the Upper Saguenay; and summer dwellers on those Fortunate Isles were ware at midnight of a singing voice and fragment of a song, like some last chord drawn lingeringly across responsive strings:

Ontario, Ontario, all hail thou lovely Lake that in thy breast doth hide the many secrets of Niagara! Upon thy waves, soft thrilling joyously with rush of thunderous waters from afar, see, like a gull, the white three-cornered sail dip lightly to the fair breeze from the North!

"Là bas, là bas," sang André o'er and o'er, and e'en Pierre bayed long into the West, awoke shrill echoes from the border farms at early dawn, and told his nightly tale to waning summer moons till cliff and shore gave back the sound in echoes manifold.

And what of nights within some sheltered cove when storm and darkness claimed both sea and sky? And what of days when furious cross-winds rose, and smote the lake that hissed and writhed and roared beneath the scourge that welted its white breast? Then André crossed himself and told his beads; Pierre crouched low adown within the hull; the dugout rocked safe moored within the cove or, drawn up on a strip of pebbly beach, with softly-grating keel in rhythmic beats told off the lapsing surges till the West translucent 'neath the lifting cloud mass gleamed, and in the sedges near the shore he heard the reed birds whistle plaintively and low.

Three moons had waxed and waned since, far away upon the Upper Saguenay, the pools foreshadowed substance of those haunting dreams of glories human eye had never seen—thrice thirty days ere André neared his goal. At last, emerging from the narrow strait of savage Mackinac, he set his sail and voyaged ever southwards day by day with many a tack cajoling every breeze. The white fish leaped within the dugout's wake; the gulls' harsh cry was heard above the mast; at times a passing steamer's paddles throbbed an hour and broke the dead monotony of sea and sky on lonely Michigan.

On silent sea, neath silent skies he voyaged, till lo! one silent morn ere rise of sun, the light mists, veiling yet disclosing, crept slow-curling o'er the surface of the Lake to meet the brightening east, and there dissolved in sudden glory, leaving André rapt, with dripping oars suspended and with eyes intent upon a vision marvellous!—The softened radiance of breaking day shone clear, subdued, on dome and tower and arch, on rich facade and many-columned gate of that ethereal Wonder-City white, the fundaments of which in amethyst and chrysopras were seen deep down beneath the surface of the Lake that, motionless, reflected heaven on earth and earth in heaven!

And André, gazing so, bared his gray head, the slow tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks, and, folding on his breast his calloused hands, prayed low and fingered o'er his wellworn beads.

Old André moored his dugout to the pier, and leaving tragic-eyed Pierre within as sentinel, slow-blinking towards the east, he turned his steps to that high-columned gate, the prototype of heaven on this our earth, and passed beneath the portal as the sun rose o'er the Lake in gorgeous crimson state.

X

I can still hear in memory the sudden hiss from a bursting air-pocket in the forelog; it broke the silence which followed Jamie's reading. At the sound, it seemed as if we drew a freer breath.

Was it Jamie Macleod who was sitting there with flushed cheeks, bright eyes, dilated pupils, and eager inquiring look which asked of his friends their approval or criticism? Or was it some changeling spirit of genius that for the time being had taken up its abode in the frail tenement of his body?

His mother leaned to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"My dear boy," was all she said, for they were rarely demonstrative with each other; but, oh, the pride and affection in her voice! I saw Jamie's mouth twitch before he smiled into her eyes.

"You 've made us live it, Boy," said the Doctor quietly and with deep feeling; "but I never thought you could do it—not so, for all the faith I 've had in you."

Jamie drew a long breath of relief; he spoke eagerly:

"It was the trial trip, Doctor, and I did hope it would stand the test with you and Ewart."

Mr. Ewart rose and crossed the hearth to him. He held out his strong shapely hand. Jamie's thin one closed upon it with a tense nervous pressure, as I could see.

"I congratulate you, Macleod." The tone of his voice, the address as man to man, expressed his pride, his love, his admiration.

Jamie smiled with as much satisfaction as if for the first time there had been conferred upon him manhood suffrage, the freedom of the city of London, and a batch of Oxford honors. Then, satisfied, he turned to me. I spoke lightly to ease the emotional tension that was evident in all the rest of us:

"You 've imposed upon me, Jamie Macleod. You 're classed henceforth with frauds and fakirs! How could I know when you were scrapping with me the last three weeks over such prosaic things as rag carpets, toilet sets and skins, that you were harboring all this poetry!"

"Then you think it's poetry? You 've found me out!" Jamie said, showing his delight. "Honestly, Marcia, you like it? I want you to, though I say it as should n't."

"Yes, I do," I answered earnestly; "I can understand the song the better for it."

"What song?" the Doctor asked, before Jamie could speak.

"'O Canada, pays de mon amour'," I quoted.

"You know that?" Mr. Ewart spoke quickly.

"Only as I have heard it through the graphophone, in the cabaret below the steamboat landing."

"I say, Marcia, that's rough on the song!—Gordon," he exclaimed, "do you sing it for us, do; then she 'll know how it ought to sound."

"It's the only possible epilogue for the 'Odyssey'—what a capital title, Boy! Sing it, Ewart."

"Wait till I have a piano."

"You don't need it. You used to sing it in camp."

"But I had André's violin."

"I have it! Pierre will fiddle for you." Jamie jumped to his feet. "Hark!"

We listened. Sure enough, from some room behind the kitchen offices, probably in the summer kitchen, we could hear the faint but merry sounds of a violin.

"They 're celebrating your home-coming, Ewart! I knew they were up to snuff when Angélique gave me an order for a half a dozen bottles of the 'vin du pays', you remember, Marcia? They 're at it now. I might have known it, for they have n't come in to say good night."

"Let's have them all in then," said Mr. Ewart. "They 'll stay up as long as we do."

"Will you sing for them?" Mrs. Macleod put the question directly to her host.

"For you and them, if you wish it," was the cordial reply. "Jamie, you 're master of ceremonies and have had something up your sleeve all this evening; I know by your looks. Bring them in."

Jamie laughed mischievously. "Oh, I 'll bring them in," he said. I knew then that, unknown to his mother and me, he had planned a surprise.

"Get Cale in, if you can," Mr. Ewart called after him.

"Oh, Cale 's abed before this; he does n't acknowledge you as his lord of the manor, not yet."

"That was remarkable, Gordon," said the Doctor, as soon as the door closed on Jamie.

"Yes, he has given me a surprise. Of course you realized that whole description was in metre?"

"I was sure of it after the first page or two, but I could scarcely trust my ears. What the boy has done is to make of it a true Canadian idyl. I wish Drummond might have heard it."

"I believe Jamie knows 'The Habitant' book of poems by heart. Have you ever read it, Miss Farrell?"

"Yes, in New York; and Jamie has promised to give me a copy for a Christmas remembrance."

"I 'll add one to it," said the Doctor, "'The Voyageur,' then you will probe a little deeper into Ewart's love and mine for Canada."

"Oh, thank you; these two will be the beginning of my private library."

"I 'll give you an autograph copy of 'Johnnie Courteau,' if you like; I knew Drummond," said Mr. Ewart.

To say I was pleased, would not express the pleasure those two men gave me in just thinking of me in this way. I thanked them both, a little stiffly, I fear, for I am not used to gifts; but my face must have shown them how genuine was my feeling for the favors. They both saw my slight confusion and interpreted it, for Mr. Ewart said, smiling:

"If you don't mind I will add to the unborn library Drummond's other volume; I 'm going to try to live up to Cale's expectation of me concerning your connection with books. They will help you to remember this evening."

"As if I needed anything to remember it!" I exclaimed, at ease again. "It's like—-it's like—"

"Like what, Marcia?" Mrs. Macleod put this question.

"Tell us, do," the Doctor added; "don't keep me in suspense; my temperament can't bear it." He looked at me a little puzzled and wholly curious. I was glad to answer both Mrs. Macleod and him truthfully:

"Like a new lease of life for me." My smile answered the Doctor's, and I was interested to see that the same wireless message I was transmitting again across the abyss of time, failed again of interpretation. I turned to Mrs. Macleod.

"I think I may be needed in the kitchen." I rose to leave the room.

"Are you in the secret too?" Mr. Ewart asked.

"No, but I 've been recalling certain commissions Angélique gave me—extra citron, pink coloring for cakes, and powdered sugar for which, as yet, we have had no use in the house. But I want to be in the secret, for Jamie—"

The sentence remained unfinished, for Jamie flung open the door with a flourish, and stout Angélique, flushed with responsibility and the "vin du pays", entered carrying a huge round platter, whereon was a cake of noble proportions ornamented with white frosting in all sorts of curlycues and central "Félicitations" in pink. Behind her came Marie with a tin tray, laid with an immaculate napkin—one of our new ones—filled with pressed wine-glasses and decanters of antiquated shape. Following her was little Pete, carrying on each arm an enormous wreath of ground pine and bittersweet. Big Pete brought up the rear, his face glowing, his black eyes sparkling, his earrings twinkling. He was tuning his violin.

All rose to greet them; but ignoring us, with intense seriousness, they ranged themselves in a row near the door. They still held their offerings. Pierre, drawing his bow across the strings, nodded his head. Thereupon they began to sing, and sang with all their hearts and vocal powers to the accompaniment of the violin:

"O Canada, pays de mon amour!"

With the first words, Mr. Ewart's voice, full, strong, vibrant with patriotism, joined them; his fine baritone seemed to carry the melody for all the others. The room rang to the sound of the united voices. I saw Cale at the door, listening with bent head. Jamie stood beside him, triumphant and happy at the success of his surprise party.

How Angélique sang! Her stout person fairly quivered with the resonance of her alto. Marie's shrill treble rose and fell with regular staccato emphasis. Pierre, father, roared his bass in harmony with Pierre, son's falsetto, and beat time heavily with his right foot.

At the finish, the Doctor started the applause in which Jamie and Cale joined. With a sigh of absolute satisfaction, Angélique presented her cake to Mr. Ewart who, taking it from her with thanks, placed it on the library table and paid her the compliment of asking her to cut it. Marie passed around the tray and decanted the "vin du pays". Little Peter, following instructions given him in the kitchen, hung a wreath from each corner of the mantel. Compliments and congratulations on the cake, the wine, the wreaths, the song, the master's home-coming, the refurbished manor house, were exchanged freely, and we all talked together in French and English. My broken French was understood because they were kind enough to guess at my meaning—the most of it.

Then the healths were drunk, to Mr. Ewart, to the Doctor, to Jamie, Mrs. Macleod and me; and we drank theirs. Finally, Mr. Ewart went to Cale, whom Jamie had persuaded to step over the threshold, and gave his health, touching glasses with him:

"To my fellow laborer in the forest." He repeated it in French for the benefit of the French contingent.

Cale, touching glasses, swallowed his wine at one gulp and abruptly left the room. He half stumbled over little Pierre who was sitting in the corner by the door, supremely happy in the remains of his huge piece of cake, which at his special request was cut that he might have the pink letters "Félici", and in the two lumps of white sugar which Mr. Ewart dropped into a glass of wine highly diluted with water.

Oh, it was good to see them! It was good to hear their merry chat; to be glad in their rejoicing over the return and final settlement of Mr. Ewart among them, their "lord of the manor", as they persisted in calling him to his evident disgust and amusement. But their joy was genuine, a pleasant thing to bear witness to in these our times.

And if Father Pierre in his exuberance of congratulation repeated himself many times; if Angélique asked Mr. Ewart more than once if the cake was exactly to his taste; if Marie grew doubly voluble with her "Dormez-biens", and little Pierre was discovered helping himself uninvited to another piece of cake—an act that roused Angélique to seeming frenzy—Mr. Ewart closed an eye to it all, for, as they trooped, still voluble, out of the room, he knew as well as we that their measure of happiness was full, pressed down and running over. Oh, their bonhomie! It was a revelation to me.

The embers were still bright in the fireplace but the candles were burning low in the sconces; it was high time at half-past eleven for the whole household to say good night.

"A home-coming to remember, Gordon," I heard Doctor Rugvie say, as I left the room.

"I can't yet realize it; but I 've dreamed—"

I caught no more, for the door closed upon them.

The two men must have talked together into the morning hours, for I heard them come upstairs long after I was in bed. Not until the house was wholly quiet could I get to sleep.

XI

I was up betimes the next morning, but Cale had been before me and taken up the offending rag carpet from the passageway. When I went into the kitchen, Angélique told me that the seignior—she persisted in calling him that—and the Doctor had had their coffee and early doughnuts and were off in the pung, the seignior driving; that they said they would be at home for dinner. I found Cale and Pierre, acting under orders in the early morning, taking the trunks up to the bedrooms, placing the guns in the racks, removing the various sporting implements to a room behind the kitchen, and the chests to a storeroom. At breakfast we three were alone together as usual. The four dogs were absent.

Mrs. Macleod and I spent the entire forenoon bringing order again into the various rooms. In the meantime, Jamie was dreaming and reading in the living-room. I had been there just a month and a day, and could not help wondering who would pay me! I needed the money for some heavier clothing.

The two friends appeared promptly for dinner and brought with them appetites sharpened by the increasing cold. They had been in Richelieu-en-Bas and arranged for a telephone for the manor, called on some English friends visiting at the new manor house in the village, and stopped at some of the seigniory farmhouses on the way home. I found Mère Guillardeau had been remembered at this early date.

"Are you busy this afternoon, Miss Farrell?" said the Doctor, as we rose from our first meal together and went into the living-room.

"Not unless Mrs. Macleod needs me?" I looked at her inquiringly.

"No, there is nothing more, Marcia; you did a good day's work in a few hours this morning," she replied in answer to my look.

"Can I be helpful to you in any way?" I said, turning again to the Doctor.

"Yes—I think you can." He smiled quizzically, looking down upon me from his substantial height. "You may not know—of course you don't, how could you know, never having heard much of an old fellow like me—"

"Oh, have n't I?"

"Have you? Then the Boy here has been giving me away. Has he ever told you I am something of a whip?"

"No, not that."

"Well, then, I am going to prove it to you. I propose to show the two French coach horses how to draw a pung,—Ewart does n't yet own a sleigh, you know in Canada,—and I wish you would lend me your company for an hour or so."

If the Doctor expected an enthusiastic response he must have been disappointed. Not that I did n't want the ride in the pung, but it occurred to me that here was my opportunity, offered without my seeking it, to ask of him all that I had been planning to ask during many weeks. As this door of opportunity was so suddenly opened to me, I felt the chill of the unknown creeping towards me over its threshold. I answered almost with hesitation:

"Certainly, I will go, unless Mrs. Macleod—"

"Mrs. Macleod says she does n't need you." He spoke quickly, his keen eyes holding mine for a moment.

"I say, that's a jolly cool way you have at times, Marcia!" Jamie exploded in his usual fashion when he is ruffled. "But you 'll get used to it, Doctor—I have."

"A martyr, eh, Boy?" The Doctor looked amused.

"Well, rather—at times."

"Don't mind Jamie's martyrdoms, Doctor Rugvie; tell me when you want me to be ready."

"In half an hour. I don't want to start too late; be sure to take enough wraps."

I left them to go upstairs, wondering on the way what wraps I should take—I, who possessed only sufficient clothing to help out a New York winter, but no furs, no fur coat, no warm moccasins, no mittens, only an unlined gray tweed ulster that with a grey sweater had done duty for four years.

"I want my pay more than I want a pung ride," I growled, as I was trying to make the one thick veil I owned do double duty for head and ears protector. I folded a square of newspaper and laid it over my chest under my sweater; I put on two pairs of stockings. Thus fortified against the Canadian cold, I went downstairs promptly on time.

Mr. Ewart came out into the passageway; the Doctor was talking with Mrs. Macleod in the living-room.

"Why, Miss Farrell," he exclaimed, "I see you don't realize our climate; you can't go without more wraps—"

He hesitated, grew visibly embarrassed. I knew by his manner he had unwittingly probed my poverty to the quick, and I crimsoned with shame; yes, I was ashamed that my lack should thus be made known to him—ashamed as when Delia Beaseley's keen eyes read my need of money.

"Oh, I don't need to bundle up—I have been accustomed to go without such heavy clothing," I said, with ready lie to cover my confusion.

The Doctor came out and took his fur-lined coat from a wooden peg under the staircase. Mr. Ewart turned abruptly and reached for something on an adjoining peg; it was a fur coat of Canadian fox, soft and fine and warm.

"You are to wear this, otherwise the Doctor won't let you go," he said quickly, decidedly, shaking it down and holding it ready for me to slip in my arms.

For a second, a second only, I hesitated, searching for some excuse to give up the drive and so avoid acceptance of this favor; then I slipped into it, much to Jamie's delight who, appearing at the living-room door, cried out:

"My, Marcia, but you 're smart in Ewart's togs! We 'll have some of our own if this is the kind of weather they treat us to in Canada. I 've been hugging the fire all the morning."

He saved the situation for me and I was grateful to him; but Mr. Ewart looked at him, almost anxiously, saying:

"I should have been getting the heater put up this forenoon, instead of rushing off the first thing this morning. A poor host thus far, Jamie, but I 'll make good hereafter."

The Doctor looked me over carefully.

"You 're safeguarded with that; the sleeves are so long and ample they are as good as a modern muff—go back, Boy,"—he spoke brusquely, as he opened the outer door,—"this is no place for you."

Cale vacated the pung, and the Doctor and I filled it. He took the reins; the beautiful creatures rose as one in the exuberance of life; shook their heads, and the bells with them, as they poised a moment on their hind feet; then they planted their hoofs in the crisping snow, and we were off.

"Your ears must have burned more than a little this forenoon, Miss Farrell," he said, after driving in silence for ten minutes during which time he proved conclusively to the French horses that he was a "whip" of the first order, and to be respected henceforth as such. It was a pleasure to see his management of the high-lifed animals.

"Mine? I was n't conscious of anything unusual about them."

"We were speaking of you and your evident executive ability, and we took the time on our drive to try to settle a little business matter that concerns you. ("Ah, wages," I thought with satisfaction.) We tried to agree but we failed; and although we did not come to blows over the question, it was not settled to my satisfaction, at least. You don't mind my speaking very frankly?"

"No, indeed; I wish you would." I looked up at him over the turned-up fur collar of Mr. Ewart's fox skins—"pelts" is our name for them in New England—and smiled merrily. I was right glad to get down, at last, to some business basis and know where I stood. Again I saw the perplexed look in his eyes.

"Why?"

"Because, naturally, you know, I look for pay day to help out."

"Naturally," he repeated gravely; then laughed out, a hearty, good-comrade laugh. "Just how long have you been here?"

"A month yesterday."

"And wages overdue!"

I nodded emphatically. I felt as if I could tell this man beside me, with his wide experience of humankind, about the pitiful sum of twenty-two dollars I had saved from my wreck of life in New York; about my scrimpings; even of the two pair of stockings, and the square of newspaper reposing at that very minute on my chest and crackling audibly when I drew a deeper breath. There was no feeling of soul-shame on account of my poverty with him, any more than I should have felt physical shame at the nakedness of my body if subject to one of his famous surgical operations. Had not this man helped to bring me into the world? Should I have been here but for him? Had he not known me as an entity before I knew anything of the fact of life? This idea of him disarmed my pride.

"H'm," he said at last, thoughtfully, "I must live up to my reputation of owing no man or woman over night. You shall have it so soon as we get back to the house—and well earned too," he added; "I had no idea an advertisement could bring about such a satisfactory result."

"Do you mean me or the refurbished house?"

"I mean you. And now that we 're alone, do you mind telling me something of how it came about? I 'll own to asking you to come with me that we might have a preliminary chat together."

"I thought so."

"Oh, you did! Well, commend me to one of my compatriots to ferret out my intentions. I heard Cale say you were born in New York."

"Yes, twenty-six years ago, but I have lived most of my life in the country, in northern New England."

"Wh—?" he caught himself up in his question, and I ignored it.

"That climate is really just as severe as the Canadian, so I feel quite at home in this."

"May I ask if your parents are living?"

"No, they 're not living; my mother died when I was born. I told Delia Beaseley so when I applied for this place."

("Now is my time; courage!" I exhorted myself in thought.)

"I 'm glad you know Delia Beaseley, she 's a fine woman."

"A noble one," I said, heartily.

"Yes, noble—and good."

"And good," I repeated.

"I think I 'll tell you a little how good."

"I think I know."

"You do?" He looked surprised.

"Yes, she told me something of her life." He turned squarely to me then.

"How came she to?" He asked bluntly.

"Now, courage, Marcia Farrell, out with it," I said to myself, but aloud:

"She said I resembled some one whom she knew years ago—some one who, she said, had 'missed her footing'."

"She said that?"

I nodded. "Then she spoke of her own life and what came of it—how she had tried to save others; and one thing led on to another until I felt I had always known her."

He turned again to look at me, and it was given me to read his very thought:—Have you ever come near missing your footing? Did Delia Beaseley save you from any pitfall?

I answered his unspoken thought:

"Oh, you may take my word for it I am wholly respectable—always have been. I could n't have answered your advertisement if I had n't been."

"The deuce you are! Well, young lady, I 'll ask you not to answer a man's thoughts again before he has given them expression; it's uncanny." He was growling a little.

I laughed aloud, for it delighted me to puzzle him a bit, especially with the revelation of my identity in prospect. I was enjoying the pung ride too. We were on the river road. The black tree trunks, standing out against the white snow-covered expanse of the St. Lawrence, seemed to speed past us. The sharp bits of ice-snow flew from the fleet horses' hoofs, and now and then one stung my cheek.

"Cale informed me that you worked in the New York Library; may I ask how you happened to answer the advertisement?"

"I wanted to get away from the city—far away."

"Tired of it—like the rest of us?"

"Yes—and I was ill." He gave me a look that was suddenly wholly professional.

"Long?"

"Ten weeks."

"What was it?"

"Typhoid pneumonia with pleuri—"

"And you were going to come out with me for a spin in that ulster!"

He roared so at me that the horses, taking fright at the sound of his voice, plunged suddenly and gave him plenty to do to calm them into a trot again. I enjoyed the equine gymnastics so promptly provided for his diversion.

"I was at St. Luke's." I volunteered this information when he was free to receive it.

"St. Luke's, eh? That's where you heard of this old curmudgeon."

"Yes, there; and from Delia Beaseley, and Jamie, and Mrs. Macleod."

"By the way, you and Jamie seem to be great friends."

"I love him," I said emphatically.

"H'm, lucky dog; better not tell him so."

"Why not?" I asked, at once on the defensive.

The Doctor compressed his lips in a fashion that said as plainly as if he had spoken, "Unsophisticated at twenty-six; I don't believe her!"

"I love Cale, too, and he is my own kind."

"Cale 's all right; I 'm going to know him better before the week is out. And how about Mrs. Macleod?"

"Mrs. Macleod is Jamie's mother, and I like her and respect her—but she 's not easy to love."

"That's true—she is not easy to love. About the salary," he said changing the subject; "I intended to pay it myself until you were installed on the farm; it is a favor to me to be allowed to help out Mrs. Macleod. I knew from private sources that she needed someone to cheer her here in this Canadian country; it's a great change from her home in Crieff, and then she carries Jamie on her heart all the time. I insisted this morning on taking charge of the whole business, you included," he smiled ruefully, "but Ewart would n't hear to it. He argues that so long as you are in his house, and your work is—well, we 'll call it home-making, he, being the beneficiary has the sole right to pay for his benefits."

"That's just what I told Mrs. Macleod and Jamie I would try to make of you and him—"

"The dickens you did! A beneficiary of me, eh?"

"Yes, and I shall try to," I said earnestly. The Doctor grew serious at once.

"It will not be a hard task, Miss Farrell; I begin to dream of what the farm will be like with you to help make it a home for me and, in time, many others, as I hope."

"Doctor Rugvie, would you mind calling me by my first name?"

"Yes, I should mind very much, because it's exactly what I have wanted to do, but did not feel at liberty to."

"In my position it is better that all in the house should call me Marcia."

"Your position?" He looked around at me with a queer twist of his upper lip. "What is your position?"

"According to the advertisement it was for service on a farm in Canada."

"And now you find yourself in an anomalous one? Is that the trouble?"

"Yes, just it. I don't know what is to be required of me—I really don't see how I am to earn my salt."

"Don't bother yourself about that." He frowned slightly. "I confess this insistence on Ewart's part to pay you, complicates matters a little. I wanted to be boss this time."

"And I hoped you would be mine, anyway," I said mutinously. "I am far from satisfied to have my business dealings with Mr. Ewart, a stranger and an alien."

"It will be only for a time; I am going to tell you, all of you, about my farm plans this evening. I have n't spoken yet to Ewart very freely about them."

The horses were turned homewards, and I felt that little time was left me to ask any intimate questions of the Doctor concerning myself. I could not find the right word—and I knew I was not trying with any degree of earnestness. "I 'll put it off till the last of the week," I said to myself; then I began to speak of that self, for I knew the Doctor was waiting for this and, wisely, was biding my time. I was grateful to him.

I told him of my hard-worked young years and my longing to get away to independence. I entered into no family details; it was not necessary. I told him something of my struggle in New York and of my place in the Branch Library; of my long illness and how it had left me: tired out, listless, practically homeless and in need of immediate money. I told him how I sought Delia Beaseley on the strength of the advertisement; how she helped me; how I felt I had found release from the city and its burden of livelihood, and how happy I was with my new duties in the old manor house; how the fact that it was an old manor fed the vein of romance in me which neither hard work nor illness had been able to work out; how I enjoyed Jamie and Mrs. Macleod, Angélique, and Pierre and all the household—and how I had dreaded his coming, yet longed for it, because it would unsettle my future which was not to be in the manor house of Lamoral.

I told him all this, freely; but to speak of my mother, of my birth, of the papers, and of what I wanted them for, was beyond me. The secret of the Past, projected on the possible Future, loomed gigantic, threatening. I would let well enough alone.

"You poor child," he said, when I finished. That was all; but I knew that henceforth I should have a friend in Doctor Rugvie. He drove the rest of the way in silence.

XII

When I joined them an hour after supper, they were talking about the heater that had been put up in the living-room while we were away. The warmth from it was delightful, but the blazing fire in the fireplace gave the true cheer to the room, added charm for the eye. The Doctor looked up as I came in.

"Have you ever seen a stove like this—Marcia?" There was a twinkle both in his voice and his eye, as he called me for the first time by my Christian name. He was tease enough to try it in the presence of the rest of the household.

"Oh, yes, my grandfather had two in his farmhouse. There is nothing like them for an even heat; it never burns the face. The top is a lovely place to fry griddlecakes."

"You seem to know this species root and branch, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart. "After that remark may I challenge you to make a few for us some night for supper?"

"You won't have to challenge, for I like them myself; and if you 'll trust me we 'll have a griddlecake party here in this room some evening."

"My first innings, Marcia!" cried Jamie.

"I 'll have to let that go unchallenged, Macleod, seeing I 'm host; but you took unfair advantage of me. I 'll get even with you sometime."

"Where did you get your idea, Gordon?" The Doctor turned to his friend.

"I was born with it, you might say. I don't remember the time when we did n't have two or three in my father's house, and I 've never found anything equal to them for heating. They 're all out of date now; there is no manufactory for them. I had trouble in finding these, but I unearthed three last spring when I was in northern Vermont. I knew we should need them, and they keep all night, you know. I 'm going to have one put up in the bathroom—these oil stoves are an abomination."

"Amen," said the Doctor.

"So say we all of us.— Hark, hear that wind!" said Jamie.

The stove was of soapstone, square, with hinged top that, opening upward, gave room for the insertion of a "chunk"—a huge, unsplittable, knotty piece of maple, birch, or beech. Cale came in with one while we were listening to the roar of the gale; it was a section of a maple butt.

"There, thet 'll last all night an' inter the forenoon," he said, lowering it carefully into the glowing brands in the box. "I 'll shet up the drafts, an' you 'll have a small furnace with no dust nor dirt to bother with; an' the ashes is good fertilizer—can't be beat for clover."

"Let's take a household vote on the subject of modern improvements for the manor," said Mr. Ewart, helping himself to a cigar and then passing the box to Cale who had turned to leave the room.

Cale took one with an "I thank you" this being a habit of speech to emphasize the last word, and was about to go out.

"Stay a while with us, Cale," said Mr. Ewart, speaking as a matter of course; "I want the opinion of every member of my household—my Anglo-Saxon one, I mean."

The two men stood facing each other, and between them I saw a look pass that bespoke mutual confidence. I thought they must have made rapid progress in one short day.

"Wal, I don't mind if I do. It's flatterin' to a man, say what you 've a mind ter, ter have his advice asked on any subject—let alone what interests him."

"That's a fine back-handed compliment for you, Ewart," said Jamie, whose delight in Cale's acquiescence was very evident.

"I took it so," said Mr. Ewart quietly, drawing up a chair beside his and motioning to Cale who, after a slight hesitation, sat down.

How cosy it was around the fire! Since our return from the pung ride, the wind had risen, keen and hard in the northwest and, crossing the Laurentians, was swooping down upon the river lands, swaying the great spruces in the woods all about us till it seemed as if ocean surf were breaking continuously just without the walls of the manor and, now and then, spending its force upon them until the great beams quivered under the impact. Every blast seemed to intensify our comfort within.

"The telephone will be a great convenience," Mrs. Macleod remarked from the corner of the sofa, looking up from her knitting; "it will save so many trips to the village in weather like this."

"Is it a long distance one, Gordon?" said Jamie who was lolling on the other end.

"Yes; I thought we might as well connect with almost anywhere. Our household is rather cosmopolitan. Does this suit you?"

"Suits me to a dot. I can talk with my 'best girl', as they call her in the States, when she is on the wing—as she is now."

"Oh, ho, Boy! Has it come to this so soon?" The Doctor sighed audibly, causing us to laugh.

"Jamie's 'best girl' changes with the season and sometimes the temperature, Doctor," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at some remembrance. "Do you recall a little girl who with her mother had lodgings at Duncairn House, just opposite ours in Crieff?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, and how Jamie Macleod enticed her away one summer afternoon to the meadows and banks of the Earn just below the garden gate, and the hue and cry that was raised when the two failed to make their appearance at supper time? Somebody—I won't say who—went to bed without porridge that night. What was her name, Boy?"

I saw, we all saw, just the least hesitation on Jamie's part to answer with his usual assurance. We saw, also, the touch of red on his high cheek bones deepen a little.

"Bess—Bess Stanley."

"There is a Miss Stanley who visited at the new manor last summer—any relation, do you know?" asked Mr. Ewart.

"Same," Jamie answered concisely, meanwhile puffing vigorously at his pipe.

"The plot thickens, Mrs. Macleod," said the Doctor dubiously.

"Is she tall and slender and fair, Jamie?" I put what I considered an opportune question; I knew it would both surprise and irritate him as well as rouse his curiosity of which he has an abundance. I really spoke at a venture because the name recalled to me the two girls in the sleeping-car and their destination: Richelieu-en-Bas.

He turned to me with irony in his look. "She is all you say. May I make so bold as to enquire of you whether you speak from knowledge, or if you simply made a good guess?"

"From knowledge—first hand, of course," I said with assurance.

He sat up then, eyeing me defiantly, much to the others' amusement.

"Perhaps you can give me further information about the young lady—all will be gratefully received."

"No, nothing—except that I believe it was she through whom you obtained Cale, was n't it?" I heard Cale chuckle.

"Look here, Marcia," he began severely enough, then burst into one of his hearty laughs that dissolves his irritation at once; "you 'll be telling me what she wrote me in my last letter if you 're such a mind reader. I say," he said, settling himself into a chair beside me, "let up on a man once in a while in the presence of such a cloud of witnesses, won't you? Take me when I 'm alone. The truth is, Ewart, Marcia gives herself airs because she is three years my senior. She takes the meanest kind of advantage; and I can't hit back because she 's a woman. But about that telephone, Ewart; are they going to run it on the trees."

"It's the only way at this season."

"Could n't it remain so the year round?" I asked.

"Why?" said Mr. Ewart.

"Because the poles will just spoil everything; as it is, it is—"

"Is what, Marcia? Out with it," said Jamie encouragingly.

"Perfect as it is," I said boldly, willing they should know what I thought of this wilderness of neglect that surrounded us in the heart of French Canada.

"Guess we can keep it perfect, as you say, Marcia, 'thout havin' to rub the burrs off'n our coats every time we go round the house," said Cale. "We 're going to do some pretty tall cuttin' inter some of this underbrush and dead timber next week if the snow ain't too deep."

"Oh, Cale, it will spoil it!"

"Wal, thet 's as you look at it; but 't ain't good policy to keep a fire-trap quite so near to a livin'-place; makes insurance rates higher."

"How would you feel then about having a modern hot water heater put into the old manor, Miss Farrell?" Mr. Ewart put the question to me.

"Put it to a vote," I replied.

"All in favor, aye," he continued.

There was silence in the room except for one of the dogs that, asleep under the table, stirred uneasily and whined as if rousing from a dream of an unattainable bone.

"It's a vote against. How about piping in gas?"

"No!" we protested as one.

"Settled," he said smiling. We saw that our decision pleased him.

"Confess, now, Gordon, you did n't want any such innovations yourself," said the Doctor.

"I did n't, for I like my—home, as it is," he said simply.

"I like to hear you use that word 'home', Gordon," said the Doctor, looking intently into the fire; "as long as I 've known you, I think I 've never heard you use it."

"No." The man on the opposite side of the hearth spoke decidedly, but in a tone that did not invite further confidence. "I 've never intended to use it until I could feel the sense of it."

"Another who has felt what it is to be a stranger in this world," I thought to myself. And the fact that there were others, made me, for the moment, feel less a stranger. I was glad to hear him speak so frankly.

The Doctor looked up, nodding understandingly.

"Now I want some advice from all this household," he said earnestly, and I thought to change the subject; "it's about the farm I 've hired and the experiment with it. Give it fully, each of you, and, like every other man, I suppose I shall take what agrees with my own way of looking at it. My plans were so indefinite when I wrote to you to hire it, Gordon, that I went into no detail; and I 'm not at all sure that they are so clear to me now. Here 's where I want help."

"That's not like you, John; what's up?" said his friend.

"I want to start the thing right, and I 'm going to tell you just how I 'm placed; a deuce of a fix it is too."

Cale put on a log and left the room, saying good-night as he passed out. I gathered up my sewing—I was hemming some napkins—and made a motion to follow him.

The Doctor rose. "Marcia,"—he put out a hand as if to detain me; he spoke peremptorily,—"come back. There are no secrets among us, and I want you to advise with."

There seemed nothing to do but to obey, and I was perfectly willing to, because I wanted to hear all and everything about the farm project that threatened to break up my pleasant life in the manor.

I took up my work again.

"Put down your work, Marcia; fold your hands and listen to me. I want your whole attention."

I obeyed promptly. Jamie gleefully rubbed his hands.

"It takes you, Doctor, to make Marcia mind."

"I 'm a man of years, Boy," the Doctor retorted, thereby reducing Jamie to silence.

We sat expectant; but evidently the Doctor was in no hurry to open up his subject. After a few minutes of deep thought, he spoke slowly, almost as if to himself:

"I'm wondering where to begin, what to take hold of first. The ordering of life is beyond all science—we 've found that out, we so-called 'men of science'. The truth is, I believe I have a 'conscience fund' in the bank and on my mind. I know I am speaking blindly, and perhaps reasoning blindly, and it's because I want you to see things for me more clearly than I do, and through a different medium, that I am going to tell you, as concisely as I can—and without mentioning names—of an experience I had more than a quarter of a century ago. I 've had several of the kind since, they are common in our profession—but the result of this special experience is unique." He paused, continuing to look steadfastly into the fire.

In the silence we heard the sweep of the wind through the woods, now and then the scraping swish of a pine branch brushing the roof beneath it.

"I recall that it was in December. I was twenty-nine, and had just got a foothold on the first round of the professional ladder. Near midnight I was called to go down into one of the slum districts—I don't intend to mention names—of New York. There in a basement, I found a woman who had just been rescued from suicide."

He paused, still keeping his gaze fixed intently on the fire. And I?

At the first words a faint sickness came upon me. Was I to hear this again?—here, remote from the environment from which I had so recently fled? Could it be possible that I was to hear again that account of my mother's death? I struggled for control. They must not know, they should not see that struggle. Intent on keeping every feature passive, hoping that in the firelight whatever my face might have shown would pass unnoticed, I waited for the Doctor's next word.

"It seems unprofessional, perhaps, to enter into any detail, but we are far away from that environment now—and in time, too, for it was over a quarter of a century ago. She was very young, nineteen perhaps, and about to become a mother. I remained with her till morning. I knew she would never come through her trial alive. I went again in the evening and stayed with her till her child was born and—to the end which came an hour afterwards. During all those twenty-four hours she spoke but twice. She gave me no name, although I asked her; no name of friends even—God knows if she had any, or why was she there?

"Now, here is my dilemma: in the morning, I signed the death certificate and then went out of the city on a case that kept me forty-eight hours. On my return, the woman, who had rescued this poor girl,—a woman who took in washing and ironing in that basement—told me a man had appeared at the house to claim the body he said was his wife's. She gave me the man's name, but the name of this man was not the name of the husband according to a marriage certificate which I found in an envelope the young woman entrusted to me for her child. At any rate, he had claimed the body and taken it away.

"Now, ordinarily the living waves of existence close very soon over such an episode—all too common; and, so far as I am concerned, in such and other similar cases I forget; it is well that I can. But I 've never been permitted to forget this!"

He made this announcement emphatically, looking up suddenly from the fire, and glancing at each of us in turn.

"And, moreover, I don't believe I am ever going to be permitted to forget. Some one intends I shall remember!

"With me it was merely a charity case—one, it is true, that called forth my deepest sympathy. The circumstances were peculiar. The woman was young, rarely attractive in face, refined, well dressed. Her absolute silence concerning herself during all that weary time; her heroic endurance and, I may say, angelic acceptance of her martyrdom—and all this in such an environment! How could it help making a deep impression? Still, I am convinced I should have forgotten it, had it not been for a constant reminder.

"In the first week of the next February, I received a notification from a national bank in the city that five hundred dollars had been deposited to my credit. The woman who lived in that basement received during the first week of the New Year a draft on that bank—and mailed by the bank—for the same amount. She consulted me about accepting it. When I attempted to investigate at the bank, I found that no information would be given and no questions answered—only the statement made that the money was mine to do with what I might choose. Next December, and a year to a day from the death of that young woman, I received a similar notification, and the woman a draft for one hundred. Since that time, now over twenty-five years ago, no December has ever passed that the regular notification has not been mailed to me and to the woman. I wrote to the man who had claimed the body, and whose name and address the woman, who lived in the basement, remembered. The letter was never answered. I waited a year, and wrote the second time. The letter came back to me from the dead letter office. I invested the increasing amount after two years and let it accumulate at compound interest. As you will see, these donations have amounted now to a tidy sum. I believe it to be 'conscience money'—either from the man who claimed the body as that of his wife, or from the woman's husband according to the marriage certificate. Or are both men one and the same?

"I hired the farm of you, Gordon, merely telling you it was one of my many philanthropic plans that, thus far, I have been unable to carry out. As yet I have not used that money for any benefactions. Would you hold it longer, or would you apply it to my farm project which is to provide a home for the homeless, and for those whose home does not provide sufficient change for them? I have thought sometimes I would limit the philanthropy to those who need up-building in health.— What do you say, Gordon?"

He looked across the hearth to his friend who was leaning back in his chair, his arm resting on the arm, his hand shading his eyes from the firelight.

"I should like to think it over, John; it is a peculiar case. Have you ever thought of the child? Do you know anything about it? Was it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl. No, I never thought of the child—poor little bit of life's flotsam. We don't get much time to think of all those we help to float in on the tide. Now this is what I am getting, by looking at the matter through others' eyes—you mean she should be looked up, and the money go to her?"

"That was my first thought, but, as I said, I must think it over. The two men, at least, the two names of possibly the same man, complicate matters."

"That's what puzzles me," said Jamie. The Doctor turned to him.

"How do you look at it, Boy, you, with your twenty-three years? The world where such things happen is n't much like that world of André's Odyssey, is it?"

Jamie answered brightly, but his voice was slightly unsteady:

"Yes, it's the same old world; it's a wilderness, you know, for all of us, only there are so many paths through it, across it, and up and down it—paths and trails and roads that cross and recross; so many that end in swamp and bog; so many that lead nowhither; so many that are lost on the mountain. And so few guideposts—I wish there were more for us all! You may bet your life that man—whether the girl's husband or lover—has had to tread thorns until his feet bled before he could clear his way through. Those five hundred dollars, in yearly deposits, he intends shall be guideposts, and he trusts you to put them up in the wilderness where they will do the most good.—I 'd hate to be that man! Would you mind telling me, Doctor, how she attempted to make way with herself?"

"Tried to drown herself from one of the North River piers."

"And her child too," said Jamie musingly; "there came near being two graves in his wilderness." He thought a moment in silence. "Make the home on the farm with the money, Doctor Rugvie; use the interest in helping others who have lost their way in the wilderness."

"Good advice, Boy, I 'll remember to act on it." The Doctor spoke gratefully, heartily. His glance rested affectionately upon the long figure on the sofa. Was he wondering, as I was, how Jamie at twenty-three could reach certain depths which his particular plummet could never have sounded? I intended to ask him what he thought of Jamie's outlook on life, sometime when we should be alone together.

"Mrs. Macleod," he said, "do you think with your son?"

She hesitated. It is her peculiarity that a direct question, the answer to which involves a decision, flusters her painfully.

"I shall have to think it over, like Mr. Ewart," she replied.

"And you, Marcia," he turned to me. Out of my knowledge I answered unhesitatingly:

"It's not of the child I 'm thinking; she could n't accept the money knowing for what it is paid. Nor am I thinking about those women who need 'guide-posts', Jamie. I 'm thinking of that other woman who lived in the basement and took in washing and ironing, the one who rescued that other from her misery and cared for her with your help, Doctor Rugvie—should n't she be remembered? She, who is living? If I had that money at my disposal, I would found the farm home and put that woman at the head of it. You may be sure she would know how to put up the guideposts—and in the right places too."

I spoke eagerly, almost impulsively.

The Doctor looked at me comprehendingly—he knew that I knew that it was of Delia Beaseley he had been speaking—and smiled.

"Another idea, Marcia, also worth remembering and acting upon with Jamie's."

I turned suddenly to Mr. Ewart, not knowing why I felt impelled to; perhaps his silence, his noticeable unresponsiveness to his friend's proposition, impressed as well as surprised me; at any rate I looked up very quickly and caught the look he gave me. It half terrified me. What had I said to offend him? The steel gray eyes were almost black, and the look—had it possessed physical force, I felt it would have crushed me. It was severe, indignant, uncompromising. I was mystified. The look was more flashed at me than directed at me for the space of half a second—then he spoke to Jamie.

"You are right, Jamie, about the wilderness; we 'll talk this matter over sometime together before John goes,"—I perceived clearly that Mrs. Macleod and I were shut out of future conferences,—"and I know we can make some plan satisfactory to him and to us all. Count on me, John, to help you in carrying out the best plan whatever it may be. In any case, it will mean that we are to have more of your company, and that's what I want." He spoke lightly.

Doctor Rugvie smiled, then his features grew earnest again.

"Gordon, I want to put a question to you, and after you to Jamie."

"Yes; go ahead."

"I have given you the mere outlines of a bare and ugly episode of New York city. That man, or those two men, or that dual entity, has never ceased to perplex me. How does it look to you, knowing merely the outlines?"

"As if the woman had been dealing with two different men," he replied almost indifferently.

The Doctor looked at him earnestly, and I saw he was puzzled by his friend's attitude. "That may be—one never can tell in such cases," he answered quietly; but I could feel his disappointment.

"That's queer, Ewart," said Jamie, gravely; "to me it looks as if two men had done a girl an irreparable wrong." Perhaps we all felt that the conversation had been carried a little too far in this direction. The Doctor turned it into other channels, but it lagged. I felt uncomfortable, and wished I had insisted upon going up to my room when the subject of the farm was broached. After all, we had come to no decision, and I doubted if the Doctor was much the wiser for all our opinions.

Marie's entrance with the porridge relieved the tension somewhat, and I was glad to say good night as soon as I had finished mine.

XIII

Doctor Rugvie had opened an easy way of approach for me to ask him what I would, but that question put by Mr. Ewart in regard to the child, whether it was a boy or a girl, seemed to block the way, for a time at least, impassably. If I were to make inquiry now of the Doctor concerning my identity and ask the name of my father, naturally he would infer, after Mr. Ewart's remark, that the question of the property was my impelling motive. My reason told me the time was ripe to settle this personal question, but something—was it intuition? I believe in that, if only we would follow its lead and leave reason to lag in chains far behind it—seemed to paralyze my power of will in making any move to ascertain my paternal parentage. And yet I had dared to respond to that demand in Jamie's advertisement "of good parentage"!

"Well, I am myself," I thought, half defiantly, "and after all, it's not what those who are dead and gone stood for that counts. It's what I stand for; and what I am rests with my will to make. They 'll have to accept me for what I am."

I was in the kitchen, concocting an old-fashioned Indian pudding and showing Angélique about the oven, as these thoughts passed through my mind. At that moment Jamie opened the door and looked in.

"I say, Marcia—awfully busy?"

"No, not now; what do you want?"

"You—I 'm lonesome. Come on into the living-room—I 've built up a roaring fire there—and let's talk; nobody 's around."

"Where 's Doctor Rugvie?"

"Gone off with Cale to the farm. He 'll get pneumonia if he does n't look out; the place is like an ice-house at this season."

I slipped the pudding into the oven. "Now look out for it and keep enough milk in it till it wheys, Angélique." I turned to Jamie. "Where's Mr. Ewart?"

"Oh, Ewart's off nosing about in Quebec for some old furniture for his den. Pierre drove him to the train just after breakfast. He told mother he would be back in time for supper."

"That's queer," I said, following him through the bare offices, one of which was to be the den, into the living-room where stale cigar smoke still lingered. "Whew! Let's have in some fresh air."

I opened the hinged panes in the double windows; opened the front door and let in the keen crisp air.

"There, now," I closed them; "we can 'talk' as you say in comfort. I did n't air out early this morning, for when I came in I found Mr. Ewart writing. He looked for all the world as if he were making his last will and testament. I beat a double-quick retreat."

"I 'll bet you did. I 'd make tracks if Ewart looked like that." He drew up two chairs before the fire. "Here, sit here by me; let's be comfy when we can. I say, Marcia—"

He paused, leaning to the fire in his favorite position: arms along his knees, and clasped hands hanging between them. He turned and looked at me ruefully.

"We all got beyond our depth, did n't we, last night?"

"I thought so."

"The Doctor 's a dear, is n't he?"

"He 's the dearest kind of a dear, and I could n't bear to see him snubbed by your lord of the manor."

Jamie nodded. "That was rather rough. I don't understand that side of Ewart—never have seen it but once before, and I would n't mind, you know, Marcia," he lowered his voice, "if I never saw it again. It made no end of an atmosphere, did n't it?"

"Thick and—muggy," I replied, searching for the word that should express the mental and spiritual atmospheric condition, the result of Mr. Ewart's attitude in last evening's talk. "And it has n't wholly cleared up yet."

He nodded. "I believe that's why he took himself out of the way this morning. Look here—I 've a great overpowering longing to confide in you, Marcia." He laughed.

"Confide then; I 'm a regular safe deposit and trust company. Tell me, do; I'm dying to talk."

"Oh, you are!" He turned to me with his own bright face illumined. "Is n't it good that we 're young, Marcia? I feel that forcibly when I am with so many older men."

"I 'm just beginning to feel young, Jamie; to see my way through that wilderness you spoke of."

I knew his sympathy, his understanding, not of my life but of the condition of mind to which that life had brought me. It is this quick understanding of another's "sphere", I may call it, that makes the young Scotsman so wonderfully attractive to all who meet him.

"You know what the Doctor said about the world of which he told us last night and of André's world?"

I nodded.

"Well, one night in camp—last summer, you know, it was just before Ewart left me there—old André told us what happened years ago up there in the wilds of the Saguenay. He said one day two Indian guides, Montagnais, came to his camp. The oldest, Root-of-the-Pine, a friend of André's, brought him word from old Mère Guillardeau, André's sister—you know her—who is living here in Lamoral. She told him to receive two of the English, a man and a woman, as guests for a month. The Indian told André they were waiting across the portage.