Lords of the North Part 15

"Let her go, boy!" roared the priest with a hammering blow across my forearm that brought me to my senses and convinced me she was no wraith.

Mastiff! That epithet stung to the quick. I flung her wrist from me as if it had been hot coals. Now, a woman may tread upon a man--also stamp upon him if she has a mind to--but she must trip it daintily. Otherwise even a worm may turn against its tormentor. To have idolized that marble creature by day and night, to have laid our votive offerings on its shrine, to have hungered for the sound of a woman's lips for weeks, and to hear those lips cuttingly call me a dog--were more than I could stand.

"Ten thousand pardons, Mistress Sutherland!" I said with a pompous stiffness which I intended should be mighty crushing. "But when ladies deck themselves out as squaws and climb in and out of windows,"--that was brutal of me; she had done it for Miriam and me--"and announce themselves in unexpected ways, they need not hope to be recognized."

And did she flare back at me? Not at all.

"You waste time with your long speeches," she said, turning from me to Father Holland.

Thereupon I strode off angrily to the river bank.

"Oh, Father Holland," I heard her say as I walked away, "I must go to Pembina! I'm in such trouble! There's a Frenchman----"

Trouble, thought I; she is in trouble and I have been thinking only of my own dignity. And I stood above the river, torn between desire to rush back and wounded pride, that bade me stick it out. Over the plains came the shout of returning plunderers. I could hear the throb, throb of galloping hoofs beating nearer and nearer over the turf, and reflected that I might make the danger from returning _Bois-Brules_ the occasion of a reconciliation.

"Come here, lad!" called Father Holland. I needed no urging. "Ye must rig up in tam-o'-shanter and tartan, like a Highland settler, and take Mistress Sutherland back to Fort Douglas. She's going to Pembina to meet her father, lad, when I go south to the Missouri. And, lad," the priest hesitated, glancing doubtfully from Miss Sutherland to me, "I'm thinking there's a service ye might do her."

The Little Statue was looking straight at me now, and there were tear-marks about the heavy lashes. Now, I do not pretend to explain the power, or witchery, a gentle slip of a girl can wield with a pair of gray eyes; but when I met the furtive glance and saw the white, veined forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful ma.s.s of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day.

What a ruffian I had been! I was ashamed, and my eyes fell before hers.

If a libation of blushes could appease an offended G.o.ddess, I was livid evidence of repentance. I felt myself flooded in a sudden heat of shame.

She must have read my confusion, for she turned away her head to hide mantling forgiveness.

"There's a crafty Frenchman in the fort has been troubling the la.s.sie.

I'm thinking, if ye worked off some o' your anger on him, it moight be for the young man's edification. Be quick! I hear the breeds returning!"

"But I have a message," she said in choking tones.

"From whom?" I asked aimlessly enough.

"Eric Hamilton!" she answered.

"Eric Hamilton!" both the priest and I shouted.

"Yes--why? What--what--is it? He's wounded, and he wants a Rufus Gillespie, who's with the Nor'-Westers. The _Bois-Brules_ fired on the fort. Where _is_ Rufus Gillespie?"

"Bless you, la.s.sie! Here--here--here he is!" The holy father thumped my back at every word. "Here he is, crazy as a March hare for news of Hamilton!"

"You--Rufus--Gillespie!" So she did not even know my name. Evidently, if she troubled my thoughts, I did not trouble hers.

"He's told me so much about you," she went on, with a little pant of astonishment. "How brave and good----"

"Pshaw!" I interrupted roughly. "What's the message?"

"Mr. Hamilton wishes to see you at once," she answered coldly.

"Then kill two birds with one stone! Take her home and see Hamilton--and hurry!" urged the priest.

The half-breeds were now very near.

"Put it over your head!" and Father Holland clapped the shawl about Frances Sutherland after the fashion of the half-breed women.

She stood demurely behind him while I ran up-stairs in the warehouse to disguise myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the _Bois-Brules_, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify any man.

"What's this ye have, Father?" bawled one impudent fellow, and he pointed sneeringly at the figure in the folds of the shawl.

"Let the wench be!" was the priest's reply, and the half-breed lounged past with a laugh.

I was about to offer Frances Sutherland my arm to escort her from the mob, when I felt Father Holland's hard knuckles dig viciously into my ribs.

"Ye fool ye! Ye blundering idiot!" he whispered, "she's a half-breed.

Och! But's time y'r eastern greenness was tannin' a good western russet!

Let her follow with bowed head, or you'll have the whole pack on y'r heels!"

With that admonition I strode boldly out, she behind, humble, with downcast eyes like a half-breed girl.

We ran down the river path through the willows and jumping into a canoe swiftly rounded the forks of the a.s.siniboine and Red. There we left the canoe and fled along a trail beneath the cliff till the shouting of the half-breeds could be no longer heard. At once I turned to offer her my arm. She must have bruised her feet through the thin moccasins, for the way was very rough. I saw that she was trembling from fatigue.

"Permit me," I said, offering my arm as formally as if she had been some grand lady in an eastern drawing-room.

"Thank you--I'm afraid I must," and she reluctantly placed a light hand on my sleeve.

I did not like that condescending compulsion, and now out of danger, I became strangely embarra.s.sed and angry in her presence. The "mastiff"

epithet stuck like a barb in my boyish chivalry. Was it the wind, or a low sigh, or a silent weeping, that I heard? I longed to know, but would not turn my head, and my companion was lagging just a step behind. I slackened speed, so did she. Then a voice so low and soft and golden it might have melted a heart of stone--but what is a heart of stone compared to the wounded pride of a young man?--said, "Do you know, I think I rather like mastiffs?"

"Indeed," said I icily, in no mood for raillery.

"Like _them_ for friends, not enemies, to be protected by _them_, not--not bitten," the voice continued with a provoking emphasis of the plural "_them_."

"Yes," said I, with equal emphasis of the obnoxious plural. "Ladies find _them_ useful at times."

That fling silenced her and I felt a shiver run down the arm on my sleeve.

"Why, you're shivering," I blundered out. "You must let me put this round you," and I pulled off the plaid and would have placed it on her shoulders, but she resisted.

"I am not in the least cold," she answered frigidly--which is the only untruth I ever heard her tell--"and you shall not say '_must_' to me,"

and she took her hand from my arm. She spoke with a tremor that warned me not to insist. Then I knew why she had shivered.

"Please forgive, Miss Sutherland," I begged. "I'm such a maladroit animal."

"I quite agree with you, a maladroit mastiff with teeth!"

Mastiff! That insult again! I did not reproffer my arm. We strode forward once more, she with her face turned sideways remote from me, I with my face sideways remote from her, and the plaid trailing from my hand by way of showing her she could have it if she wished. We must have paced along in this amiable, post-matrimonial fashion for quite a quarter of the mile we had to go, and I was awkwardly conscious of suppressed laughing from her side. It was the rippling voice, that always seemed to me like fountain splash in the sunshine, which broke silence again.

"Really," said the low, thrilling, musical witchery by my side, "really, it's the most wonderful story I have ever heard!"

"Story?" I queried, stopping stock still and gaping at her.

"Perfectly wonderful! So intensely interesting and delightful."