Barbara Ladd Part 4

As he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation, Barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill. When the raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his place in the bow and knelt so as to face her.

"You must turn the other way," laughed Barbara.

"No, I was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask you to let me paddle," he answered. "Won't you let me? You really look a little bit tired, and I want you to talk to me, if you will be so condescending. How can I turn my back to you?"

"I am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested Barbara, a little doubtfully. "But I don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll paddle hard and go the way I want you to." And with that she seated herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that rather contradicted her protestation.

The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.

"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me.

Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"

This pleased Barbara. She loved slaves. She accepted his servitude at once and fully.

"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.

At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and pleased. Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled Barbara with admiration.

"Oh, _how_ strong you are and _how_ well you paddle!" she cried, her eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls blowing about her face. Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown, slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves. He was proud of her praise. He was partly engrossed in displaying his skill and strength to the very best advantage. But above all he was thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that affected his action like a summons or an appeal.

In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current. Barbara clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and relief that the boy's curiosity was excited. He began to feel that there was some mystery in the affair. Slackening his pace ever so slightly, he remarked:

"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this neighbourhood. How fortunate I am--that is, if you will graciously permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."

But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too occupied to notice. His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.

"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood. I don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."

"Then--you've come right from Second Westings!" he exclaimed.

"Right from Second Westings."

"All that distance since this morning?" he persisted.

She nodded impatiently.

"Through those woods--through the rapids--all alone?"

"Yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply. She was annoyed.

In his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward, scanning her face.

"But--" said he, embarra.s.sed, "forgive me! I know it is none of my business,--but what does it mean?"

"Go on paddling," commanded Barbara. "Did you not promise you would obey me? _I_ know what it means!" And she laughed, half maliciously.

The boy looked worried,--and it was great fun to bring that worried look to his face.

He resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips. The current was swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of Gault House far behind. A tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy, and again he stopped paddling.

"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly. "Give me the paddle, and I'll set you ash.o.r.e right here."

"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely, appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my business! I ought to ask!"

He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held it steady.

"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily. "Give me the paddle at once!"

Still he made no motion to obey.

"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,--that it will take till dark to work back against the current to where I met you,--that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the night--"

"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night. I'm going to the sea--to my uncle at Stratford! I just don't want you to interfere. Let me put you ash.o.r.e at once!"

Robert was struck dumb with amazement. To the sea! This small girl, all alone! And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the river. It was superb pluck,--but it was wild, impossible folly. He did not know what to do. He turned the canoe toward sh.o.r.e, and presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.

Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark. She had not considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark. She made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise her as to where she could stay for the night.

"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.

"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.

"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said the boy. "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough work going through in broad daylight. At night you would just be dashed to pieces in a minute."

"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just beginning to touch her imagination.

"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded. "And we will paddle back to Second Westings to-morrow."

Barbara burst into a storm of tears.

"Never! never! never!" she sobbed. "I'll die in the rapids before I'll ever go back to Aunt Hitty! Oh, why did I like you? Why did I trust you? Oh, I don't know what to do!"

The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her trouble. He longed desperately to help her. He had a wild impulse to swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to go, however impossible her undertaking. Instead of that, however, he kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes, while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs. At last he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the unruffled water. Then he laid down his paddle.

"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he pet.i.tioned. "I do want so much to help you. And perhaps I can. And you _shall not_ be sorry for trusting me!"

How very comforting his voice was! So tender, and kind, and with a faithful ring in its tenderness. Barbara suffered it to comfort her.

Surely he would understand, if old Debby could! In a few moments she lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears, and said:

"How good and kind you are! Forgive me if I was bad to you. Yes, I'll tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why I had to come away."

Barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing. Her emotion, her utter sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling phrase. What wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes. Her faults were invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative. She was right to run away. The venture, of course, was a mad one, but with his help it might well be carried through to success. As she talked on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood and rose to his brain. Difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid to overcome. In the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool, judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but Barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the time, was overwhelmed. When Barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he said, solemnly:

"I will help you! To the utmost of my power I will help you!"

The words had the weight and significance of a consecration.