A Daughter of the Forest Read online

  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 upand rubbed her limbs, stiff with long kneeling. The fire had gone out.Meroude was asleep on the blankets spread for Margot, who had notreturned, nor the master. As for that matter the house-mistress hadnot expected that they ever would.

  "There is nothin' left. I am alone. It was the glass. Ah! that thepalsy 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 ringsthrough 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 withfamiliar sounds, she unbarred the heavy door and stepped out.

  "Ah! is it possible! Can the sun be settin' that way? as if there hadbeen nothin' happenin'."

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

  "Ah! my beast, my beast. The best in all this northern Maine. That themaster bought and brought in the big canoe for an Easter gift to hisso faithful Angelique. And yet the sun sets as red and calm as if allwas 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 bythe setting sun and widely reflected on the once more placid lake. Butneither the beauty, nor the sweet, rain-washed air, appealed to thedistracted islander who faced the west and shook her hand in impotentrage toward it.

  "Shine, will you? With the harm all done and nothin' left but me, oldAngelique! Pouf! I turn my back on you!"

  Then she ran shoreward with all speed, dreading what she might findyet eager to know the worst, if there it might be learned. With herapron over her head she saw only what lay straight before her and sopassed the point of rocks without observing her master lying behindit. But a few steps further she paused, arrested by a sight whichturned her numb with superstitious terror. What was that coming overthe 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 whichone could catch the very rhythm and dip of oar or paddle. Still, itwas as well to wait and see if this were flesh or apparition beforepronouncing judgment.

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

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

  "Ah! Angelique! Watching for me? How kind of you. Hush, Tom. Let heralone, good Angelique, poor Angelique!"

  The eagle flapped his wings with a melancholy disdain and plunged hisbeak 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 brokenwing--but the girl was worth everything, even his obedience.

  She laughed at his sulkiness, plying her paddle the faster, and soonreached the pebbly beach, where she sprang out, and drawing her canoeout 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 thehoorican', with ever'thin' ruined, ever'thin'! The master---- Where'she, I know not. The great pine broken like a match; the coops, thecow-house, and Snowfoot---- Ah, me! Yet the little one talks ofsupper!"

  Margot looked about her in astonishment, scarcely noticing the other'swords. The devastation of her beloved home was evident, even down onthe open beach, and she dared not think what it might be furtherinland.

  "Why, it must have been a cyclone! We were reading about them onlyyesterday 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 willcome alive, as you have. If the good Lord wills," she addedreverently.

  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 abeacon for you. So I guess. But you--tell how you come alive out ofall that?" Sweeping her arm over the outlook.

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

  "Angelique! Angelique! He's here. Quick--quick---- He's---- Oh! is hedead, is he dead?"

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

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

  "'Tis only a faint, maybe shock. In all the world was only Margot, andMargot 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 stirredthe features into which she peered so earnestly, and she raised hermaster's head a bit higher. Then his eyes slowly opened and the dazedlook 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 behindthe rocks and Angelique says--but I wasn't hurt at all. I wasn't outin 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 shewas singin' fit to burst her throat while you were--well, maybe, notdead, yourself."

  At this juncture, Tom, the inquisitive, thrust his white head forwardinto 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 ofthe 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 ofdespair that Margot said no more, and her face sobered again,remembering that, even though they were all still alive, there mightbe 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 seeit! See! Look, uncle, look! You can trace its very path, just as weread. 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 islandin its track. Oh! I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

  The man rested his hand upon her shoulder and turned her gentlyhomeward. His weakness had left him as it had come upon him, with asuddenness like that of the recent tempest. It was not the firstseizure of the kind, which he had had, though neither of these othersknew it; and the fact added a deeper gravity to his always thoughtfulmanner.

  "I am most tha
nkful that you were not here; but where could you havebeen to escape it?"

  "All day in the long cave. To the very end of it I believe, and see! Ifound 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 theglass enough? but you must tempt worse luck by goin' there!" criedAngelique, who had preceded the others on the path, but now facedabout, trembling indignantly. What foolish creature was this whowould pass a whole day in that haunted spot, in spite of the dreadfultales 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. Andyet----"

  "You would do well to use some of your charms on Tom, yonder. He'sfound 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, wherepresently the king of birds was treated to the indignity of a soundboxing, which he resented with squawks and screeches, but not withtalons, 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! andAngelique's so determined to have somebody die--I hope it won't beTom. 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!"