A Cry in the Wilderness Part 49

I was sure Cale noticed this at once. It dawned upon Jamie slowly but surely, and a more bewildered youth I have never seen. I knew he was trying to rhyme ever present facts with my sentiment about leaving Lamoral as expressed to him so recently. Mrs. Macleod, if she perceived the change in Mr. Ewart's manner towards me, gave no sign that she did--and I was grateful to her. She and I were much together, for we were busy getting ready for the camp outing. We were to start within ten days. The Doctor wrote me that he envied me the extra four weeks; he promised his friend to be with him the first of August.

When all was in readiness, Mr. Ewart, with the load of camp belongings, left three days in advance of us. We were to meet him at Roberval.

XXVII

In the wilds of the Upper Saguenay! By the lake that, in this narration at least, shall have no name. It is long, narrow, winding at its southern extremity; at its northern, it is expanded pool-like among forest-covered heights the reflection of which darkens and apparently deepens it where its waters touch the marginal wilderness! In camp by the margin of the lake, beneath some ancient pines, rare in that region, and surrounded by the spicy fragrance of balsam, spruce and cedar, that came to us warm from the depths of the seemingly illimitable forest behind us!

What a day, that one of our arrival! We journeyed by steamer across Lake St. John. We came by canoe on the river, by portage; and again by canoe on river or lake, as it happened. We camped for one night in the open. On the second day there were several portages; many of our camp belongings were borne on the backs of st.u.r.dy Montagnais, friends of old Andre, and led by Andre the Second, a strapping youth of sixty. There followed a journey of nine miles up the lake, our lake; and, then, at last, in the glow of sunset, we had sight of old Andre coming to welcome us in his canoe that floated, a "brown leaf", on the golden waters! I heard the soft grating of the seven keels on the clear shining yellow sands of a tiny cove--and Mr. Ewart was first ash.o.r.e, helping each of us out, welcoming each to this special bit of his beloved Canadian earth.

"Our home for ten weeks, Miss Farrell," he exclaimed, giving me both hands. "Steady with your foot--you must learn to know the caprices of your own canoe--"

"My own?"

"Yes, this is yours for the season; we don't poach much on one another's canoe preserves here in Canada. This is our fleet."

"The whole seven?"

"Yes; Andre the First and Andre the Second have three between them, big ones; you, Jamie and I have one each, and there is one for Mrs. Macleod if she will do me the honor of allowing me to teach her to paddle."

"This is great, mother!" said Jamie who had not ceased to wring old Andre's hand since the two found firm footing. "But first I must teach her to swim, Ewart."

Poor Mrs. Macleod! I doubt if her idea of camping out was wholly rose-colored at that moment, for she was tired with the excitement, and constant travel in canoe and on foot of the last two days.

"The camp will be the safest place for me at present," she said, trying to appear cheerful, but glancing ruefully at the three rough board huts, gray and weather beaten.

"You 've done n.o.bly, Mrs. Macleod, I appreciate your effort; and if you 'll take immediate possession of the right hand camp--it's yours and Miss Farrell's--I hope you will find a little comfort even in this wilderness. I 'll just settle with these Montagnais comrades, for after supper they will be on their way back to Roberval." Jamie interrupted him to say:

"Mother, here 's Andre, Andre, mon vieux camarade. This is my mother, Andre; I told you about her last year."

Old Andre's hand, apparently as steady as her own, was extended to meet Mrs. Macleod's. I saw how expressive was that handclasp. The only words she spoke were in her rather halting French:

"My son's comrade--he is mine, I hope, Andre."

What a smile illumined that parchment face! It was good to see in the wilderness; it was humanly comprehensive of the entire situation.

"This is Miss Farrell," said Jamie; "she lives with us, Andre, in Lamoral."

Never shall I forget the look, the voice, the words with which he made me welcome.

"I have waited many years for you to come. I am content, _moi_."

He heaved a long sigh of satisfaction. I think only Mrs. Macleod heard the words, for Jamie had run up to the camp. Andre took our special suit cases and carried them to the hut.

We took possession and found everything needed for our comfort. Tired as we were, we could not rest until we had unpacked and settled ourselves with something like regularity for the night. And, oh, that first supper in the open! The sun was setting behind the forest; the lake waters, touched with faint color on the farther sh.o.r.e, were without a ripple; the ancient pines above us quiet. And, oh, that first deep sleep on my bed of balsam spruce! Oh, that first awakening in the early morning, the glory of sunrise, the sparkle and dance of the lake waters in my eyes!

Oh, that joy of living! I experienced it then in its fulness for the first time; and my sleep was more refreshing, my awakening more joyful, because of the near presence of the man I loved with all my heart.

It was a new heaven for me--because it was a new earth!

While dressing that first morning, Andre's welcoming words came back to me: "I have waited many years for you to come." And the look on his face. What did he mean? I recalled that Jamie quoted him, almost in those very words, when he told us of that episode of "forest love"

which bore fruit in the wilderness of the Upper Saguenay.

Why should he welcome me with just those words? How many years had he "waited"? Had there been no woman in camp since then? It was hardly possible. I determined to ask Mr. Ewart, as soon as I should have the opportunity, if there had been women here before us, and to question Andre, also, as to what he meant by his words, but not until I should know him better. He would tell me.

And Andre told me, but it was after long weeks of intimate acquaintance with the forest and with each other; after the fact that I was becoming all in all to the master of Lamoral, was patent to each of my friends in camp. I saw no attempt on Mr. Ewart's part to hide this fact. I believe I should have despised him if he had. Yet never once during those first five weeks did he mention my journal. Rarely was I alone with him; twice only on the trails through the forest; once in the canoe to the lower end of the lake and on the return; that was all.

Never a word of love crossed his lips--but his thought of me, his manner, his care of me, his provision for my enjoyment of each day, his delight in my delight in his "camp", his pleasure in the fact that I was not only regaining what I had lost by the fearful illness of the year before--Doctor Rugvie told him of that--but storing up within my not over powerful body, balm, sunshine, ozone, and health abundant for the future.

And what did I not learn from him! And from Andre with whom I spent hours out of every day! What forest lore; what ways of cunning from the shy forest dwellers; what tricks of line and bait for the capricious trout, the pugnacious _ouananiche_, the lazy pickerel! What haunts of beaver I was shown! How I watched them by the hour, lying p.r.o.ne in my Khaki suit of drilling,--short skirt, high laced-boots,--my feminine "bottes sauvages" as Andre called them,--and bloomers,--from some cedar covert.

Those five weeks were one long dream-reality of forest life, and this was despite flies and mosquitoes which we treated in a scientific manner.

One of the Montagnais brought us the mail once a week from Roberval.

The first of August he brought up a telegram that announced the Doctor would be with us the next day. Mr. Ewart decided to meet him at the last portage. Andre the Second went with him. They would be back just after dark that same day, he said. Andre the First was left to reign supreme in camp during his absence.

"I am only as old as my heart, mademoiselle; you know that is young, and you make it younger while you are here," he said that afternoon, when he and I were tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the camp with forest greens for the Doctor's coming, and Jamie was laying a beacon pile near the sh.o.r.e, just north of the camp where there was no underbrush or trees. Andre told us its light could be seen far down the lake.

After supper I lay down in my hammock-couch, swung beneath the pines at the back of the camp. As I rocked there in the twilight, counting off the minutes of waiting by my heartbeats, I heard Jamie and Andre talking as they smoked together, and rested after the exertions of the day.

"How came you to think of it, Andre?"

"How came le bon Dieu to give me eyes--and sight like a hawk?"

"But why are you so sure?"

"Why? Because what I see, I see. What I hear, I hear. It is the same voice I hear in the forest; the same laugh like the little forest brook; the same face that used to look at itself in the pool and smile at what it saw there; the same eyes--non, they are different. I found those others in the wood violets; these match the young chestnuts just breaking from the burrs after the first frost."

"But, Andre, it was so many years ago."

"To me it is as yesterday, when I see her paddling the canoe and swaying like a reed in the gentle wind."

"And you never knew her name?"

"No. She was his 'little bird', his 'wood-dove' to him; and to her he was 'mon maitre', always that--'my master' you say in English which I have forgotten, so long I am in the woods. They were so happy--it was always so with them."

There was a few minutes of silence, then Jamie spoke.

"Has Mr. Ewart ever spoken to you about what you told us that night in camp, Andre--about that 'forest love'?"

"No, the seignior has never spoken, but,"--he puffed vigorously at his pipe,--"he has no need to speak of it; he thinks it now."

"Why, now?" There was eager curiosity in Jamie's voice, and I knew well in what direction his thoughts were headed. I smiled to myself, and listened as eagerly as he for Andre's answer.

"I have eyes that see; it is again the 'forest love' with him--"

"Again?" Jamie interrupted him; his voice was suddenly a sharp staccato. "What do you mean by that?"