An Algonquin Maiden Part 6

"That is what Ed. would like," declared Herbert. "He said it was no use calling Sunday a day of rest unless one could get all the rest one wanted, and it was hardly worth while for him to get up at all on a day when he couldn't fish or shoot or go out in his boat."

"The young barbarian! After all the care and pains expended on his bringing up. What shall we do about it, Rosy?"

"Call him again!" said Herbert, who, with the ever-fertile mind of tender youth, was never dest.i.tute of practical suggestions.

"Bright boy! run at once and ring the bell just outside his door." As the child departed to make the clangour, so much more delightful to his own ears than to those for whom it was intended, Eva observed:

"But he came in so late last night, papa, and looked very tired."

The Commodore patted the head of his little girl, but he continued to direct towards her elder sister a glance of half-humorous inquiry.

Poor Rose knitted her pretty brows in troubled perplexity. She had been informed in the "Advice to Young Women," "Duties of Womanhood,"

and other ethical works of the day, that a sister's influence is illimitable, and she felt besides an added weight of responsibility towards her motherless sister and brothers. "I don't know, papa," she said at last, "unless we all take to the backwoods, live in a wigwam, and feast on the fruits of the chase. Edward chafes a good deal under the restraints of civilized life."

"Ah, here comes the prodigal son!" joyously exclaimed Eva, who ran to meet her favourite brother, oblivious of the smiles produced by her unflatteringly inapt remark.

"Don't kill any calf for me," entreated Edward, thrusting his younger sister's straight yellow locks over her face, until it was hard to say where her features ended and the back of her head began. "I deserve it, but I don't like it. Veal is my detestation."

"Upon my word," said the old gentleman, looking very hard at a discoloured spot just above the left eye of his eldest born, "it looks as though I had been trying to kill the prodigal instead of the calf.

That's a bad bruise, my boy."

"'Tis, sir," responded Edward, in a tone which implied that meek a.s.sent was all that could be expected from him to a proposition so very self-evident. He felt uncomfortably conscious that the eyes of the a.s.sembled family were upon him, and glanced half enviously at Eva, as though the ability to shake a sunny mane over one's face at will was something to be thankful for. The breakfast bell roused them from a momentary silence, but the shadow of this mysterious bruise seemed to follow them even to the table. Herbert and Eva, aged respectively ten and twelve, had that superabundant love of information so characteristic of their tender years. They sat in round-eyed silence, bringing the battery of their glances to bear upon their unfortunate brother, who at last could endure it no longer.

"Upon my life!" he exclaimed, "one would think I was the governor-general, or some wild animal in a menagerie, to become the object of so much concentrated and distinguished attention."

"Which would you say he was, Eva?" asked Herbert.

"Which what?" inquired that young lady.

"Sir Peregrine Maitland, or a wild animal?"

"Oh, Sir Peregrine, of course. See what a lofty, scornful way he has of looking at us. And yet he is not really proud; he is willing to sit down with us at our humble board, just as though he was a common person."

"Children!" said Rose with soft reproach, but her voice trembled, and the imps were subjugated only outwardly.

"Anything particular going on in Barrie?" queried the Commodore, turning to his eldest son.

"Really, I can't say. I haven't been over in several days."

"Oh, I imagined you were there last night."

"I never go there at night," protested the young man, with unnecessary vehemence. It was clear to him now that his father and sister held a very low opinion of him indeed. Probably they thought he had been hurt in some vulgar tavern brawl, or drunken street fight. The idea was loathsome to him. He had not a single low taste or trait of character.

"I'm afraid," said Herbert, shaking his head with mock regret, "that you are a very wild fellow."

"He means that you are very fond of the wilds," interpreted Rose, hurriedly endeavouring to avert the threatened domestic storm. "Eva,"

she continued, taking up that irrepressible damsel before she could give utterance to the uncalled-for remark, which was but too evidently burning upon her lips, "do you know your catechism?"

"Yes," replied her sister, in rather an aggrieved tone, for she did not relish this change in the conversation, "I know it--to a certain extent."

"Eva looks as though she would prefer to catechise Edward," slyly interpolated her father; and under this shameless encouragement the young lady boldly observed:

"Indeed, I should. I should like to begin right at the beginning with, 'Can you tell me, dear child, who made you'--have that big black bruise on your brow?"

"I can," responded Edward, imperturbably. "It was a beautiful little beast, not much bigger than you are, but a great deal prettier."

"Was it, really?" Any offence that might have been taken at the uncomplimentary nature of the reply was swallowed up in eager curiosity. "What was it?"

"Well, that I can't tell you. I never saw anything like it before."

"That's queer," said Herbert. "What colour was it?"

"Oh, black and brown and all the loveliest shades of scarlet--with cruel, little, white teeth, sharp and strong as a squirrel's teeth."

"But it didn't bite you," said Rose, with a puzzled glance at the white brow, whose delicate fairness made the discolouration more conspicuous.

"No, but it looked fully capable of biting--enchanting little brute!"

"Why on earth didn't you shoot it?" questioned the Commodore, rousing himself to the exploration of this new mystery.

The young man laughed a little guiltily. "To tell the truth the idea never once entered my head. You have no idea what beautiful eyes it had."

"Oh--sentimentalist!"

"Yes, I was sentimental enough yesterday, but it will be long before I am troubled that way again."

"At any rate," said Herbert, as they drifted back to the shadowing veranda, whose flowery screen the sun had not yet penetrated, "you can't go to church."

"I wish I could take you all over in my sail-boat," said his elder brother, wistfully surveying the blue waters of Kempenfeldt Bay.

"Ed., you are a heathen," declared Miss Eva, whose usual adoring advocacy of her brother's opinions was paralized by this a.s.sault upon the proprieties; "it's wicked to ride in a boat on Sunday."

"But it's perfectly right to ride in a carriage," added Herbert, with a view to giving information, and not with any satirical intention.

There was no reply. If it is a crime to possess a too great susceptibility to the ever-deepening charm of woods and waters then Edward Macleod was the chief of sinners. In his father he had a secret sympathizer, for the old gentleman himself was not without strong leanings toward a free and careless, if not semi-savage, life. But no hint of this escaped him in the presence of the younger children, whose air of severe morality, born of renewed attacks and final triumph over the difficulties of the Sunday School lesson, he considered it unwise to disturb.

Church service was not a painfully long or tedious affair. The little wooden structure, erected for that purpose in Barrie, had the air of trying to be in sweet accord with the outlying wilderness, from the dark green drapery of ivy which charitably strove to hide its raw newness. The town itself (for in a new country everything in excess of a post-office is called a town) was wrapped in Sabbath stillness. The little church was well filled, for a bright Sunday in a country village draws the inhabitants from their homes as infallibly as bees from their hives. Workers and drones they were all there, bowed together under the sense of a common need, and of faith in a common Helper, which alone makes men free and equal.

Like a light in a dark place gleamed the bright head of Rose Macleod in the farthest corner of the family pew. A vagrant sunbeam, like a golden arrow, pierced the gloom about her, but to the disappointment of _one_ interested observer, it failed to reach the rich coils, so nearly resembling it in colour. This observer presently reminded himself that he had come there to worship the divine, as revealed in holy writ, not in human beauty; nevertheless he could not forbear sending another stealthy glance, which, more accurately aimed than the sunbeam, rested fully and lingeringly upon the shadowy recess, where a glowing amber-golden head bloomed richly forth against the frigid back-ground of a bare wooden wall. The dainty little lady, enveloped in the antique richness of a stiff brocade, should have been made aware by some mysteriously occult means of a strange thrill at the heart, caused by the protracted gaze of a handsome fellow-worshipper, but to tell the truth her thoughts were piously intent upon the enormity of her own sins, and the necessity of reclaiming her brother from the very literal wildness of his ways.

Service was over; the still air seemed vibrant with the notes of the last hymn, and tender with the just-uttered words of the benediction, as this stately little damsel, with the peculiar air of distinction which set so charmingly upon her doll-like personality, pa.s.sed down the aisle and out into the sunshine. She had looked on him--she had been conscious of his existence; but it was seemingly in the same way that she had noticed the wooden pews against which her rich little robe was trailing, and the floor which felt the pressure of her dainty feet. Allan Dunlop standing among the outcoming worshippers, whose greetings he mechanically responded to, silently anathematized the soulless edict of society, which forbids a man to stand and gaze after a vanishing vision in feminine form. The receding figure was not wholly unconscious, however, of the mute homage of which she had been the recipient.

A few hours later this lovely possessor of all the graces and virtues, according to the newly-awakened imagination of her unknown admirer, reclined in her sh.e.l.l-pink apartment, in which the breezes blowing through the lattice sounded like the _andante_ of the sea, and sighed for the forbidden fruit of a half-finished novel. But the sigh perished with the breath that gave it birth. The next moment she sternly doubled a very diminutive fist, and demanded of herself whether that was the best use that could be made of her time and opportunities. Then she looked about for some missionary work. It was not far to seek, for the children, weary of purposeless drifting on the still monotonous tide of Sunday afternoon, came battering at her door with united hands and voices, demanding a story. In the midst of her recital she suddenly bethought herself of Edward and inquired after his whereabouts.

"Roaming up and down the strawberry patch," said Eva.

"Seeking what he may devour," added her brother, unconsciously giving a scriptural turn to his information.

"For shame, Herbert!"