A Daughter of the Forest

Raymond Evelyn

A Daughter of the Forest

CHAPTER I

THE STORM

“Margot! Margot!”

Mother Angelique’s anxious call rang out over the water, once, twice, many times. But, though she shaded her brows with her hands and strained her keen ears to listen, there was no one visible and no response came back to her. So she climbed the hill again and, reëntering the cabin, began to stir with almost vicious energy the contents of a pot swinging in the wide fireplace. As she toiled she muttered and wagged her gray head with sage misgivings.

“For my soul! There is the ver’ bad hoorican’ a-comin’, and the child so heedless. But the signs, the omens! This same day I did fall asleep at the knitting and waked a-smother. True, ’twas Meroude, the cat, crouched on my breast; yet what sent her save for a warning?”

Though even in her scolding the woman smiled, recalling how Margot had jeered at her superstition; and that when she had dropped her bit of looking-glass the girl had merrily congratulated her on the fact; since by so doing she had secured “two mirrors in which to behold such loveliness!”

“No, no, not so. Death lurks in a broken glass; or, at the best, must follow seven full years of bad luck and sorrow.”

On which had come the instant reproof:

“Silly Angelique! When there is no such thing as luck but all is of the will of God.”

The old nurse had frowned. The maid was too wise for her years. She talked too much with the master. It was not good for womenkind to listen to grave speech or plague their heads with graver books. Books, indeed, were for priests and doctors; and, maybe, now and then, for men who could not live without them, like Master Hugh. She, Angelique, had never read a book in all her life. She never meant to do so. She had not even learned a single letter printed in their foolish pages. Not she. Yet was not she a most excellent cook and seamstress? Was there any cabin in all that northland as tidy as that she ruled? Would matters have been the better had she bothered her poor brain with books? She knew her duty and she did it. What more could mortal?

This argument had been early in the day. A day on which the master had gone away to the mainland and the house-mistress had improved by giving the house an extra cleaning. To escape the soapsuds and the loneliness, Margot had, also, gone, alone and unquestioned; taking with her a luncheon of brown bread and cold fowl, her book and microscope. Angelique had watched the little canoe push off from shore, without regret, since now she could work unhindered at clearing the room of the “rubbishy specimen” which the others had brought in to mess the place.

Now, at supper time, perfect order reigned, and perfect quiet, as well; save for the purring of Meroude upon the hearth and the simmering of the kettle. Angelique wiped her face with her apron.

“The great heat! and May but young yet. It means trouble. I wish – ”

Suddenly, the cat waked from her sleep and with a sharp meouw leaped to her mistress’ shoulder; who screamed, dropped the ladle, splashed the stew, and boxed the animal’s ears – all within a few seconds. Her nerves were already tingling from the electricity in the air, and her anxiety returned with such force that, again swinging the crane around away from the fire, she hurried to the beach.

To one so weatherwise the unusual heat, the leaden sky, and the intense hush were ominous. There was not a breath of wind stirring, apparently, yet the surface of the lake was already dotted by tiny white-caps, racing and chasing shoreward, like live creatures at play. Not many times, even in her long life in that solitude, had Angelique Ricord seen just that curious coloring of cloud and water, and she recalled these with a shudder. The child she loved was strong and skilful, but what would that avail? Her thin face darkened, its features sharpened, and making a trumpet of her hands, she put all her force into a long, terrified halloo.

“Ah-ho-a-ah! Margot – Mar-g-o-t – Margot!”

Something clutched her shoulder and with another frightened scream the woman turned to confront her master.

“Is the child away?”

“Yes, yes. I know not where.”

“Since when?”

“It seems but an hour, maybe two, three, and she was here, laughing, singing, all as ever. Though it was before the midday, and she went in her canoe, still singing.”

“Which way?”

She pointed due east, but now into a gloom that was impenetrable. On the instant, the lapping wavelets became breakers, the wind rose to a deafening shriek, throwing Angelique to the ground and causing even the strong man to reel before it. As soon as he could right himself he lifted her in his arms and staggered up the slope. Rather, he was almost blown up it and through the open door into the cabin, about which its furnishings were flying wildly. Here the woman recovered herself and lent her aid in closing the door against the tempest, a task that, for a time, seemed impossible. Her next thought was for her dinner-pot, now swaying in the fireplace, up which the draught was roaring furiously. Once the precious stew was in a sheltered corner, her courage failed again and she sank down beside it, moaning and wringing her hands.

“It is the end of the world!”

“Angelique!”

Her wails ceased. That was a tone of voice she had never disobeyed in all her fifteen years of service.

“Yes, Master Hugh.”

“Spread some blankets. Brew some herb tea. Get out a change of dry clothing. Make everything ready against I bring Margot in.”

She watched him hurrying about securing all the windows, piling wood on the coals, straightening the disordered furniture, fastening a bundle of kindlings to his own shoulders, putting matches in the pocket of his closely buttoned coat, and caught something of his spirit. After all, it was a relief to be doing something, even though the roar of the tempest and the incessant flashes of lightning turned her sick with fear. But it was all too short a task; and when, at last, her master climbed outward through a sheltered rear window, closing it behind him, her temporary courage sank again and finally.

“The broken glass! the broken glass! Yet who would dream it is my darling’s bright young life must pay for that and not mine, the old and careworn? Ouch! the blast! That bolt struck – and near! Ah! me! Ah! me!”

Meroude rubbed pleadingly against her arm and, glad of any living companionship, she put out her hand to touch him; but drew it back in dread, for his surcharged fur sparkled and set her flesh a-tingle, while the whole room grew luminous with an uncanny radiance. Feeling that her own last hour had come, poor Angelique crouched still lower in her corner and began to say her prayers with so much earnestness that she became almost oblivious to the tornado without.

Meanwhile, by stooping and clinging to whatever support offered, Hugh Dutton made his slow way beachward. But the bushes uprooted in his clasp and the bowlders slipped by him on this new torrent rushing to the lake. Then he flung himself face downward and cautiously crawled toward the point of rocks whereon he meant to make his beacon fire.

“She will see it and steer by it,” he reflected; for he would not acknowledge how hopeless would be any human steering under such a stress.

Alas! the beacon would not light. The wind had turned icy cold and the rain changed to hail which hurled itself upon the tiny blaze and stifled its first breath. A sort of desperate patience fell on the man and he began again, with utmost care, to build and shelter his little stock of fire-wood. Match after match he struck and with unvarying failure, till all were gone; and realizing at last how chilled and rigid he was growing he struggled to his feet and set them into motion.

Then there came a momentary lull in the storm and he shouted aloud, as Angelique had done:

“Margot! Little Margot! Margot!”

Another gust swept over lake and island. He could hear the great trees falling in the forest, the bang, bang, bang, of the deafening thunder, as, blinded by lightning and overcome by exhaustion, he sank down behind the pile of rocks and knew no more.

CHAPTER II

SPIRIT OR MORTAL

The end of that great storm was almost as sudden as its beginning. Aroused by the silence that succeeded the uproar, Angelique stood up and rubbed her limbs, stiff with long kneeling. The fire had gone out. Meroude was asleep on the blankets spread for Margot, who had not returned, nor the master. As for that matter the house-mistress had not expected that they ever would.

“There is nothin’ left. I am alone. It was the glass. Ah! that the palsy had but seized my unlucky hand before I took it from its shelf! How still it is. How clear, too, is my darling’s laugh – it rings through the room – it is a ghost. It will haunt me al-ways, al-ways.”

Unable longer to bear the indoor silence, which her fancy filled with familiar sounds, she unbarred the heavy door and stepped out.

“Ah! is it possible! Can the sun be settin’ that way? as if there had been nothin’ happenin’.”

Wrecks strewed the open ground about the cabin, poultry coops were washed away, the cow shed was a heap of ruins, into which the trembling observer dared not peer. That Snowfoot should be dead was a calamity but second only to the loss of master and nursling.

“Ah! my beast, my beast. The best in all this northern Maine. That the master bought and brought in the big canoe for an Easter gift to his so faithful Angelique. And yet the sun sets as red and calm as if all was the same as ever.”

It was, indeed, a scene of grandeur. The storm, in passing northward, had left scattered banks of clouds, now colored most brilliantly by the setting sun and widely reflected on the once more placid lake. But neither the beauty, nor the sweet, rain-washed air, appealed to the distracted islander who faced the west and shook her hand in impotent rage toward it.

“Shine, will you? With the harm all done and nothin’ left but me, old Angelique! Pouf! I turn my back on you!”

Then she ran shoreward with all speed, dreading what she might find yet eager to know the worst, if there it might be learned. With her apron over her head she saw only what lay straight before her and so passed the point of rocks without observing her master lying behind it. But a few steps further she paused, arrested by a sight which turned her numb with superstitious terror. What was that coming over the water? A ghost! a spirit!

Did spirits paddle canoes and sing as this one was singing?

“The boatman’s song is borne along far over the water so blue,And loud and clear, the voice we hear of the boatman so honest and true;He’s rowing, rowing, rowing along,He’s rowing, rowing, rowing along —He’s rowing and singing his song.”

Ghosts should sing hymns, not jolly little ballads like this, in which one could catch the very rhythm and dip of oar or paddle. Still, it was as well to wait and see if this were flesh or apparition before pronouncing judgment.

It was certainly a canoe, snowy white and most familiar – so familiar that the watcher began to lose her first terror. A girl knelt in it, Indian fashion, gracefully and evenly dipping her paddle to the melody of her lips. Her bare head was thrown back and her fair hair floated loose. Her face was lighted by the western glow, on which she fixed her eyes with such intentness that she did not perceive the woman who awaited her with now such mixed emotions.

But Tom saw. Tom, the eagle, perched in the bow, keen of vision and of prejudice. Between him and old Angelique was a grudge of long standing. Whenever they met, even after a brief separation, he expressed his feelings by his hoarsest screech. He did so now and, by so doing, recalled Margot from sky-gazing and his enemy from doubt.

“Ah! Angelique! Watching for me? How kind of you. Hush, Tom. Let her alone, good Angelique, poor Angelique!”

The eagle flapped his wings with a melancholy disdain and plunged his beak in his breast. The old woman on the beach was not worth minding, after all, by a monarch of the sky – as he would be but for his broken wing – but the girl was worth everything, even his obedience.

She laughed at his sulkiness, plying her paddle the faster, and soon reached the pebbly beach, where she sprang out, and drawing her canoe out of the water, swept her old nurse a curtsey.

“Home again, mother, and hungry for my supper.”

“Supper, indeed! Breakin’ my heart with your run-about ways! and the hoorican’, with ever’thin’ ruined, ever’thin’! The master – Where’s he, I know not. The great pine broken like a match; the coops, the cow-house, and Snowfoot – Ah, me! Yet the little one talks of supper!”

Margot looked about her in astonishment, scarcely noticing the other’s words. The devastation of her beloved home was evident, even down on the open beach, and she dared not think what it might be further inland.

“Why, it must have been a cyclone! We were reading about them only yesterday and Uncle Hugh – did you say that you knew – where is he?”

Angelique shook her head.

“Can I tell anythin’, me? Into the storm he went and out of it he will come alive, as you have. If the good Lord wills,” she added reverently.

The girl sprang to the woman’s side, and caught her arm impatiently.

“Tell me, quick. Where is he? where did you last see him?”

“Goin’ into the hoorican’, with wood upon his shoulder. To make a beacon for you. So I guess. But you – tell how you come alive out of all that?” Sweeping her arm over the outlook.

Margot did not stop to answer but darted toward the point of rocks where, if anywhere, she knew her guardian would have tried his signal fire. In a moment she found him.

“Angelique! Angelique! He’s here. Quick – quick – He’s – Oh! is he dead, is he dead?”

There was both French and Indian blood in mother Ricord’s veins, a passionate loyalty in her heart, and the suppleness of youth still in her spare frame. With a dash she was at the girl’s side and had thrust her away, to kneel herself and lift her master’s head from its hard pillow of rock.

With swift nervous motions she unfastened his coat and bent her ear to his breast.

“’Tis only a faint, maybe shock. In all the world was only Margot, and Margot was lost. Ugh! the hail. See, it is still here – look! water, and – yes, the tea! It was for you – Ah!”

Her words ended with a sigh of satisfaction as a slight motion stirred the features into which she peered so earnestly, and she raised her master’s head a bit higher. Then his eyes slowly opened and the dazed look gradually gave place to a normal expression.

“Why, Margot! Angelique? What’s happened?”

“Oh! Uncle Hugh! are you hurt? are you ill? I found you here behind the rocks and Angelique says – but I wasn’t hurt at all. I wasn’t out in any storm, didn’t know there had been one, that is, worth minding, till I came home – ”

“Like a ghost out of the lake. She was not even dead, not she. And she was singin’ fit to burst her throat while you were – well, maybe, not dead, yourself.”

At this juncture, Tom, the inquisitive, thrust his white head forward into the midst of the group and, in her relief from her first fear, Margot laughed aloud.

“Don’t, Tom! You’re one of the family, of course, and since none of the rest of us will die to please that broken mirror, you may have to! Especially, if there’s a new brood out – ”

But here Angelique threw up her free hand with such a gesture of despair that Margot said no more, and her face sobered again, remembering that, even though they were all still alive, there might be suffering untold among her humbler woodland friends. Then, as Mr. Dutton rose, almost unaided, a fresh regret came:

“That there should be a cyclone, right here at home, and I not to see it! See! Look, uncle, look! You can trace its very path, just as we read. Away to the south there is no sign of it, nor on the northeast. It must have swept up to us out of the southeast and taken our island in its track. Oh! I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

The man rested his hand upon her shoulder and turned her gently homeward. His weakness had left him as it had come upon him, with a suddenness like that of the recent tempest. It was not the first seizure of the kind, which he had had, though neither of these others knew it; and the fact added a deeper gravity to his always thoughtful manner.

“I am most thankful that you were not here; but where could you have been to escape it?”

“All day in the long cave. To the very end of it I believe, and see! I found these. They are like the specimens you brought the other day. They must be some rich metal.”

“In the long cave, you? Alone? All day? Margot, Margot, is not the glass enough? but you must tempt worse luck by goin’ there!” cried Angelique, who had preceded the others on the path, but now faced about, trembling indignantly. What foolish creature was this who would pass a whole day in that haunted spot, in spite of the dreadful tales that had been told of it. “Pouf! But I wear out my poor brain, everlastin’ to study the charms will save you from evil, me. And yet – ”

“You would do well to use some of your charms on Tom, yonder. He’s found an overturned coop and looks too happy to be out of mischief.”

The woman wheeled again and was off up the slope like a flash, where presently the king of birds was treated to the indignity of a sound boxing, which he resented with squawks and screeches, but not with talons, since under each foot he held the plump body of a fat chicken.

“Tom thinks a bird in the hand is worth a score of cuffs! and Angelique’s so determined to have somebody die – I hope it won’t be Tom. A pity, though, that harm should have happened to her own pets. Hark! What is that?”

“Some poor woodland creature in distress. The storm – ”

“That’s no sound belonging to the forest. But it is – distress!”

CHAPTER III

AN ESTRAY FROM CIVILIZATION

They paused by the cabin door, left open by Angelique, and listened intently. She, too, had caught the alien sound, the faint, appealing halloo of a human voice – the rarest of all cries in that wilderness. Even the eagle’s screeches could not drown it, but she had had enough of anxieties for one day. Let other people look out for themselves; her precious ones should not stir afield again, no, not for anything. Let the evil bird devour the dead chickens, if he must, her place was in the cabin, and she rushed back down the slope, fairly forcing the others inward from the threshold where they hesitated.

“’Tis a loon. You should know that, I think, and that they’re always cryin’ fit to scare the dead. Come. The supper’s waited this long time.”

With a smile that disarmed offense Margot caught the woman’s shoulder and lightly swung her aside out of the way.

“Eat then, hungry one! I, too, am hungry, but – Hark!”

The cry came again, prolonged, entreating, not to be confounded with that of any forest wilding.

“It’s from the north end of our own island!”

The master’s ear was not less keen than the girl’s, and both had the acuteness of an Indian’s, but his judgment was better.

“From the mainland, across the narrows.”

Neither delayed, as a mutual impulse sent them toward the shore, but again Angelique interposed.

“Thoughtless child, have you no sense? With the master just out of a faint that was nigh death itself! With nothin’ in his poor stomach since the mornin’ and your own as empty. Wait. Eat. Then chase loons, if you will.”

Mr. Dutton laughed, though he also frowned and cast a swift, anxious glance toward Margot. But she was intent upon nothing save answering that far-off cry.

“Which canoe, uncle?”

“Mine.”

The devoted servant made a last protest, and caught the girl’s arm as it pushed the light craft downward into the water.

“My child, he is not fit. Believe me. Best leave others to their fate than he should over-tax himself again, so soon.”

Margot was astonished. In all her life she had never before associated thought of physical weakness with her stalwart guardian, and a sharp fear of some unknown trouble shot through her heart.

“What do you mean?”

The master had reached them and now laid his own hand upon Angelique’s detaining one.

“There, woman, that’s enough. The storm has shaken your nerves. If you’re afraid to stay alone, Margot shall stop with you. But let’s have no more nonsense.”

Mother Ricord stepped back, away. She had done her best. Let come what might, her conscience was clear.

A few seconds later the canoe pushed off over the now darkening water and its inmates made all speed toward that point from which the cry had been heard, but was heard no more. However, the steersman followed a perfectly direct course and, if he were still weak from his seizure, his movement showed no signs of it, so that Margot’s fear for him was lost in the interest of their present adventure. She rhymed her own stroke to her uncle’s and when he rested her paddle instantly stopped.

“Halloo! Hal-l-oo!” he shouted, but as no answer came, said: “Now – both together!”

The girl’s shriller treble may have had further carrying power than the man’s voice, for there was promptly returned to them an echoing halloo, coming apparently from a great distance. But it was repeated at close intervals and each time with more distinctness.

“We’ll beach the boat just yonder, under that tamarack. Whoever it is has heard and is coming back.”

Margot’s impatience broke bounds and she darted forward among the trees, shouting: “This way! this way! here we are – here!” Her peculiar life and training had made her absolutely fearless, and she would have been surprised by her guardian’s command to “Wait!” had she heard it, which she did not. Also, she knew the forest as other girls know their city streets, and the dimness was no hindrance to her nimble feet. In a brief time she caught the crashing of boughs as some person, less familiar than she, blundered through the underbrush and finally came into view where a break in the timber gave a faint light.

“Here! Here! This way!”

He staggered and held out his hands, as if for aid, and Margot clasped them firmly. They were cold and tremulous. They were, also, slender and smooth, not at all like the hands of any men whom she was used to seeing. At the relief of her touch, his strength left him, but she caught his murmured:

“Thank God. I – had – given up – ”

His voice, too, was different from any she knew, save her own uncle’s. This was somebody, then, from that outside world of which she dreamed so much and knew so little. It was like a fairy tale come true.

“Are you ill? There. Lean on me. Don’t fear. Oh! I’m strong, very strong, and uncle is just yonder, coming this way. Uncle – uncle!”

The stranger was almost past speech. Mr. Dutton recognized that at once and added his support to Margot’s. Between them they half-led, half-carried the wanderer to the canoe and lifted him into it, where he sank exhausted. Then they dipped their paddles and the boat shot homeward, racing with death. Angelique was still on the beach and still complaining of their foolhardiness, but one word from her master silenced that. “Lend a hand, woman! Here’s something real to worry about. Margot, go ahead and get the lights.”

As the girl sprang from it, the housekeeper pulled the boat to a spot above the water and, stooping, lifted a generous share of the burden it contained.

It had not been a loon, then. No. Well, she had known that from the beginnin’, just as she had known that her beloved master was in no fit condition to go man-huntin’. This one he had found was, probably, dead anyway. Of course. Somebody had to die – beyond chickens and such – had not the broken glass so said?

Even in the twilight Mr. Dutton could detect the grim satisfaction of her face and smiled, foreseeing her change of expression when this seemingly lifeless guest should revive.

They laid him on the lounge that had been spread with blankets for Margot, and she was already beside it, waiting to administer the herb tea which had, also, been prepared for herself, and which she had marveled to find so opportunely brewed.

Mr. Dutton smiled again. In her simplicity the girl did not dream that the now bitter decoction was not a common restorative outside their primitive life, and in all good faith forced a spoonful of it between the closed lips.