The Maid of the Whispering Hills Part 36

Just below, her own canoe, with Brilliers, Wilson, Frith, McDonald, and Alloybeau in place, waited her presence. She could see, from the elevation of the sh.o.r.e, the stretched form of McElroy in the bottom, a bright blanket beneath him and his fair head pillowed on a roll of leaves. A shelter of boughs hid his face, and for one moment her heart stopped while the river and the woods, the people and the boats whirled together in a senseless blur.

She sprang to her feet.

"Is he--" she faltered thickly, "is he--"

"No, no, dearie! He is like he was, only they have fixed him a bit av a shelther from th' sun. Do ye dhrink this now," she coaxed in her pretty voice; "dhrink it, asth.o.r.e,--ye'll nade it f'r th' thrip."

She held up a bowl of broth, steaming and sweet as the flesh-pots of Egypt, and Maren took it from her.

"But--did M'sieu--Oh, I have slept when I should have tended him!"

"Ye poor girl. Dhrink,--he has been fed like a babe be me own hands.

There!"

There were tears in the little woman's eyes, and Maren took the bowl and drained it clear.

"You are good, Madame," she said, with a long breath. "Merci! How good to those in need! But now am I right as a trivet and shamed that I must fail at the last. Are you ready?"

She picked up the blankets, smiled at the tall man who came for them, and walked with them down to the canoes.

"In th' big boat, la.s.s, wid th' women," said the leader; "'tis more roomy-like."

"I thank you, M'sieu, but I have my place. I cannot leave it." And she stepped in her own canoe.

"Did ye iver behold such a shmile, Terence?" cried the little woman, when the flotilla had strung into shape and the green summer sh.o.r.es were slipping past. "'Tis like the look av th' Virgin in th' little Chapel av St. Joseph beyant Belknap's skirts,--so sad and yet as fair as light!"

And so began with the slipping green sh.o.r.es, the airy summer sky laced with its vanity of fleecy clouds, the backward journey to safety and De Seviere.

The large party travelled at forced time, short camps and long pulls, for, as the little woman told Maren at the next stop, they were hurrying south to Quebec.

"Where th' ships sail out to th' risin' sun, ochone, and Home calls over th' sea,--the little green isle wid its pigs an' its shanties, its fairs an' its frolics, an' the merry face av th' Father to laugh at its weddin's an' cry over its graves. Home that might make a la.s.s forget such a haythen land as this, though G.o.d knew if it would ever get out av th' bad dreams at night!

"An' now will ye be afther tellin' us th' sthory av yer adventures, my dear?"

Maren was cooking a broth of wild hen in the little pail of poor Marc Dupre, across the fire, and the little woman was busy watching a bit of bread baking on a smoothed plank. Her companion, a tall, fair-haired woman with pale eyes, light as the grey-green sheen sometimes seen on the waters before a storm, was reclining in tired idleness beside her.

This woman had not spoken to Maren, but her cold eyes followed her now with an odd persistence.

"Or is it too wild and sad? If it gives ye pain, don't say a word,--though, wurra! 'tis woild I am to hear!"

Maren looked up, and once more the smile that was stranger to her features played over them in its old-time beauty.

"Nay,--why should I not tell so good a heart as yours?" said the girl simply, and she began at the beginning and told the sorry tale through to its end.

"And so he died, this young trapper with the soul of pearl, and I alone go back to De Seviere with--with M'sieu the factor," she concluded heavily.

"Mother av Heavin! An' which,--forgive me la.s.s,--which man av the three did ye love? For 'tis only love could be behind such deeds as these!"

The ready tears were swimming in the Irishwoman's blue eyes, straight from her warm heart, and she was leaning forward in the intensity of her sympathy and excitement.

"Which, Madame? Why, M'sieu the factor, surely."

And Maren looked into the red heart of the fire.

With a sudden impulse this daughter of Erin dropped her plank in the ashes, and coming swiftly forward, fell on her knees with her arms around the girl's neck.

"Saints be praised!" she cried, weeping openly. "Saints be praised, ye have him safe! An' there can nothin' ha'arm ye now, with us goin' yer ways so close! An' there'll be a weddin' av coorse whin th' poor lad comes round! F'r a flip av ale I'd command Terence to turn aside an'

go triumphant entry-in' to this blessid fort av yours and witness th'

ceremonies!"

Maren smiled sadly and laid her hand on the black head tucked into her neck. It was a caress, that touch, tender and infinitely sweet, for with the quick heart of her she knew the little woman to be of the gold of earth, and she was conscious of a longing to keep her near, who was so soon to sail "into the risin' sun" and who had been so short a time her friend.

Friend, a.s.suredly, for friendship was not a thing of time, but hearts alike, and they had turned together with the first look.

So they sat a while, these two from the ends of the earth, and the warm Irish heart cleared itself of tears, like April weather, to come up laughing in another moment.

"An' to think ye niver told us your name, asth.o.r.e!" she said, wiping her eyes; "nor yer home place! Were ye raised in this post av haythins?"

"Maren Le Moyne of Grand Portage. My father--was a smith."

"Of Grand Portage! An' ye are so far inland! I am Sheila O'Halloran, av all Oirland, an' wife to Terence th' same,--yer fri'nd for always, asth.o.r.e, f'r niver will I be forgettin' this time!"

She turned to the fair woman, smiling and alight.

"Did ye iver dhrame av such romance, my dear?" she asked. "An' isn't it just wonderful to find a real live heroine in th' wilderness?"

The woman was toying with a bunch of gra.s.s, winding the slim green blades around her pale fingers, and she looked back with peculiar straightness.

"It is all very wonderful, Sheila, and commands admiration, of course; but, for my part, a strange woman alone on the rivers with a party of men must have something beside her own word to vouch for her before I should take her in with open arms. You are too ready to believe anything. How do you know this venturess is not a--Jezebel?"

For a moment an awful silence fell upon the three, and they could hear the myriad sounds of the evening camp round about.

Then Maren, her eyes wide in amaze, said stupidly:

"Eh,--Madame?"

And the Irishwoman cried: "Frances! For shame!"

But the other was very much composed.

"I am right, all the same,--what woman of modesty would follow a man to the wilderness, confessing brazenly her love? You haven't noticed any hysterics on my part over it,--nor will you. I think it all a very open scandal."

The little woman was flying into a rage of tumbled words and hopeless brogue, but Maren Le Moyne, the blood red to her temples, rose silently, took the pot of broth, and walked away, and never in her life did she hold herself so tall and straight.

As she knelt beside the blanket bed of McElroy, and lifted his helpless head, her eyes were burning sombrely.

"This, too?" she was saying dumbly, within herself. "Is this, too, part of the lesson of life?"

And all through the days that followed, long warm days, with the songs of birds from the gliding sh.o.r.es, the ripple of waters beneath the prow of a canoe, she sat beside the unconscious man and looked at him with dumb yearning.