A Cry in the Wilderness Part 28

"Thick and--muggy," I replied, searching for the word that should express the mental and spiritual atmospheric condition, the result of Mr. Ewart's att.i.tude 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 Andre's world?"

I nodded.

"Well, one night in camp--last summer, you know, it was just before Ewart left me there--old Andre 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 Andre's, brought him word from old Mere Guillardeau, Andre'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 Andre they were waiting across the portage.

"Andre said he went over to meet them, and they stayed with him not only one month, but four. He told us the girl had a voice as sweet as the nightingale's; that her eyes were like wood violets, her laugh like the forest brook. He said they loved each other madly, so madly that even his old blood was stirred at times. He was alone with them there in that wilderness for all those months, caring for them, fis.h.i.+ng, hunting, picking the mountain berries, till the first snow flew. Then they took their flight.

"Mere Guillardeau had sent in her message: 'Ask no questions. You can confess and be shriven when you come to Richelieu-en-Bas.' He obeyed to the letter.

"He knew, he said, that they were not married, but he caught enough of their English to know they were looking forward to being married when it should be made possible for them. Whence they came, he never knew; whither they went, he never asked. They came, as birds come that mate in the spring; they went, as the late birds go after the mating season is over, with the first snow-fall; but, Marcia--"

"Yes, Jamie."

"You won't mind my speaking out after what was said last evening?"

"I mind nothing from you."

"Andre told us that before they left he knew a nestling was on its way; the slender form, like a willow shoot, as he expressed it, was rounder, and the face of the girl was the face of a tender doe. You should have heard him tell it--there in the setting of forest, lake and mountain!

"'All this happened long, long ago,' he said, 'but still I hear her voice in the forest; still I see her eyes in the first wood violets; see her smile that made suns.h.i.+ne in the darkest woods. Still I hear her light steps about the camp and follow her still in thought across the last portage when we carried her in our arms; still see her waving her hand to me from the canoe that floated like a brown leaf on the blue lake waters. Wherever she may be, may the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of the Snows, guard her--and her child! I have waited all these years for her to come again.'

"Marcia--Andre called their love 'forest love'. Sometimes I think he spoke truly; untaught, he knew the difference."

I listened, caught by the pathos of the tale, the charm of old Andre's words; but in love I was untaught. I wondered how Jamie could know the "difference".

"But now to my point. Of course I listened all eyes and ears to Andre.

When he finished, the camp fire was low. The full moon had risen above the waters of the lake and lighted the tree-fringed sh.o.r.e. I turned to Ewart, and caught the same look on his face that I saw last night when the Doctor was telling his story: the look of a man who is seeing ghosts--more than one. For three days I scarce got a decent word when he was with me, which was seldom; he was off by himself in the forest.

So you see _this_, last night's occurrence, does not wholly surprise me."

We sat for a while without talking. Jamie took his pipe, filled and lighted it with a glowing coal.

"Jamie," I said at last. He nodded encouragingly.

"You know you told me about that queer rumor that crops out at such odd times and places--about Mr. Ewart's having been married and divorced, and the boy he is educating, 'Boy or girl?' you know he said--"

"Yes, I know."

"Might n't it be--I know you did n't believe it, but would n't it be possible that there is some truth in that, distorted, perhaps, but enough to make him suffer when there is any reference to love that has brought with it misery and suffering?"

"It may be you 're right; I had n't thought of it in that light. Of course, I never heard of the rumor till I came back from camp in September; then it seemed to be in the air. I wonder if the Doctor has ever heard anything."

"Probably his coming home so soon and making his home here started the gossip. Jamie--"

"Yes."

"You said he never spoke much to you about his personal affairs--that you don't know so very much of his intimate personal life. Does n't that prove that he has had some trouble, some painful experience?"

"Woman's logic, but I suppose he has. Most men have been through the wilderness, or been lost in it, by the time they are forty. I should think if--mind you, I say 'if'--he was ever married, ever divorced, ever had a child somewhere, he might find his special trail difficult at times; but he has n't lost it! Ewart does not lose a trail so easily! Look at his experience--Oxford, London, Australian sheep-ranchman, forester here in Lamoral! And he 's so tender with everything and everybody. That's what makes him so beloved here in this French settlement."

"Except towards the Doctor last night."

"That's so; but he is tender just the same. I 've seen that trait in him so many times."

"I should think he might be--and like adamant at others," I said, and began to put the room to rights.

XIV

"We shall miss the Doctor no end," said Jamie ruefully.

We caught the last wave of his hand; the pung's broad fur-behung back could no longer be seen; the jingle of the bells grew fainter; soon there was silence.

"He promised to come again in February. And, now, what next?" I turned to Mrs. Macleod who was standing with Jamie at the window.

"There does n't seem to be any 'next'?" she answered with such evident dejection that Jamie and I laughed at her.

"Take heart, mither," her son admonished her, using for the first time in my presence the softer Scotch for mother.

"It's been such a pleasant week for us--and I find Mr. Ewart so different; not that I mean to criticize our host," she added hastily and apologetically. She seemed to take pleasure in refusing to be comforted for the loss of the Doctor's cheering presence.

"Of course he 's different; there can't be two Doctor Rugvies in this needy world; but you wait till you know Ewart better, mother. Talk about 'what next'! You 'll find as soon as Ewart sets things humming here there 'll be plenty of the 'next'; Cale can give you a point or two on that already. By the way, he seems to have sworn allegiance to Ewart; he does n't have time for me now."

"But what are we women to do here?" I exclaimed half impatiently. My busy working life in the city, with the consequent pressure that made itself felt every hour of the day, and burdened me at night with the dreadful "what next if strength and health should fail?", had unfitted me in part for the continued quiet of domesticity. I found myself beginning to chafe under it, now that the house was settled. I wanted more work to fill my time.

"Better ask Ewart," said Jamie to tease me.

"I will." I spoke decidedly and gave Jamie a surprise. "I 'll speak to him the very first time I get the chance. He has n't given me one yet."

"You 're right there, Marcia. I noticed you and the Doctor were great chums from the first, but Ewart has n't said much to you--he is so different, though, as mother says. It takes time to know Ewart, and sometimes--"

"What 'sometimes'?"