Chapter 7

"If you know all about it, what do you want me to tell?"

"Tell about the worst quarrel of all."

"That must have been the last one."

"Well, tell me about that."

Pats took a long breath, then began: "The old gentleman was a hot Catholic. There was no harm in that, you will think. And I am not such a fool as to spoil a night like this by a religious discussion."

"Go on."

"Well, he insisted upon my becoming a Catholic priest. Now, for a young man just out of college--and Harvard College at that--it was a good deal to ask. Wasn't it?"

"Continue."

"One day in that summer-house he sailed away into one of his tempers--did you ever happen to see him in that condition?"

"No, but I have heard of them."

"Well, my mother was a Unitarian. So was I. And the gulf between a Unitarian and a Catholic priest is about as wide as from here to that moon. It was like asking me to become a beautiful young lady--or a green elephant--I simply couldn't. Perhaps you agree with me?"

"Go on. Don't ask so many questions."

"I told him, respectfully, it was impossible. Then as he made a rush for me I saw, from his eyes and his white face, that murder and sudden death were in the air. Being younger I could dodge him and get away, and that so increased his fury that he fell down on the gravel walk in a sort of convulsion--or fit. I ran into the house for assistance, and while Sally and Martha tried to bring him to I went for the doctor."

A silence followed this story. At last Elinor inquired if his father persisted.

"Persisted! That question, oh, Angel Cook, shows how little you knew my father! As soon as he recovered he lost no time in telling me to leave the house and never see him again."

"And what happened?"

"I vanished."

"Oh!" A sympathetic pressure of his hand and the girl beside him leaned closer still. "Horrible! So you wandered out into the world and this is your home-coming. Well, Patsy, I shall never treat you in that way. When you are very obstinate I shall just put my arms around your neck and treat you very differently."

"Well," said Pats, "I think it safer for you to be doing that most of the time, anyway. It might stave off any inclination to obstinacy."

Here followed a snug, celestial silence, broken at last by Pats. "Would you mind telling me, O Light of the North, where you heard I was the attacking party at that interview?"

"No, I must not tell."

"Did Father Burke make you promise?"

"Why do you mention _him_?"

"For lots of reasons. One is that he is the only person on earth who could possibly have told you. But it was clever of him to warn you against me. I knew from his expression when he said good-by, on the boat, that he thought he had settled my prospects, and to his perfect satisfaction. However, I don't ask you to betray him. And I bear no malice. He did his best to undo me, but Love and all the angels were on my side."

She laughed gently. "And you all made a strong combination, Patsy."

Then another long silence, and soon he felt the lady leaning more heavily against him. The head drooped and he knew she slumbered. Having no wish to disturb her, he sat for a while without moving, and watched the moon and thought delectable thoughts of the creature by his side. And as his thoughts, involuntarily, and in an amiable spirit, travelled back to Father Burke, he smiled as he pictured quite a different expression on the face of the priest when he should learn what had happened. And the smile seemed reflected in the radiant countenance of the big, round moon mounting slowly in the heavens. She appeared to beam approval upon him and upon the precious burden he supported. But with the drowsiness which soon came stealing over him he saw--or dreamed he saw--out in the glistening path of light between the moon and him, not far from where he sat, an object like a human face, upturned, moving gently with the waves. And mingling among the quivering moonbeams around the head was a silvery halo that might be the hair of Father Burke; for the face resembled his.

Pats was startled and became wide awake. Even then, he thought he had a glimpse of the face with its silver hair, as it drifted out of the bar of light into the darkness, slowly, toward the sea.

XI

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

There came, with August, a perceptible shortening of the days. Cooler nights gave warning that the brief Canadian summer was nearing its end.

Pats labored on the raft, but the work was long. A float that would bear in safety two people down the river's current--and possibly out to sea--demanded size and strength and weight. Felling trees, trimming logs, and steering them down the river to the "ship-yard," proved a slower undertaking than had been foreseen. But nobody complained. The air they breathed and the life they led were in themselves annihilators of despair. It was an exhilarating, out-of-door life,--a life of love and labor and of ecstatic repose.

Both Elinor and Pats were up with the sun, and the days were never too long. To them it mattered little whether the evenings were long or short or cold or warm, for by the time the dishes were washed and the chores were done, they became too sleepy to be of interest to each other. And when the lady retired to her own chamber behind the tapestries, Pats, at his end of the cottage, always whistled gently or broke the silence in one way or another as a guarantee of distance, that she might feel a greater security.

As for lovers' quarrels none occurred that were seriously respected by either party. In fact there was but little to break the monotony of that solid, absolute content with which all days began and ended.

"'Tis love that makes the world go round."

There is no doubt of that, but two lovers, with unfailing appetites, however exalted their devotion, are sure, in time, to produce conspicuous results with any ordinary store of provisions. In the present instance the discovery--or realization--of this truth was accidental. It came one morning as Elinor, in a blue and white apron, with sleeves rolled up, was preparing corn-bread at the kitchen table--so they called the table near the fireplace at the end of the room. Pats came up from the cellar with a face of unusual seriousness.

"I have been an awful fool!"

She looked up with her sweetest smile:

"And that troubles you, darling?"

Without replying, he laid three potatoes on the table.

"I told you to get four."

"These are the last."

"Isn't there a second barrel?"

"No."

"Why, Patsy! We both saw it!"

"That's where I was a fool. I took it for granted the other barrel held potatoes because it looked like the first one."

"But it was full of something."

"Yes, but not potatoes. It is crockery, glassware, a magnificent table-set. Old Sèvres, I should say."

"What a shame!" And with the back of a hand whose fingers were covered with corn-meal, she brushed a stray lock from her face.

"Yes," he went on, "it's a calamity, for we cannot afford it. I took an account of stock while I was down there, and all we have now in the way of vegetables is the dried apples. Of course, there's the garden truck,--the peas, beans, and the corn,--if it ever ripens."

After further conversation on that subject, Elinor said, with a sigh: "Well, we did enjoy those baked potatoes! We shall have to eat more eggs, that's all."

"Eggs!" and his face became distorted. "I am so chock full of eggs now that everything looks yellow. I dream of them. I cackle in my sleep. My whole interior is egg. I breathe and think egg. I gag when I hear a hen."

"But you are going to eat them all the same. We have a dozen a day, and you must do your share."

"I won't."

"Yes, you will."

As Pats's eyes fell on Solomon, he brightened up. "There's that dog eats only the very things we are unable to spare. Why shouldn't _he_ eat eggs?"

"You might try and teach him."

"Tell me," said Pats, "why hens should lay nothing but eggs, always eggs? Why shouldn't they lay pears, lemons, tomatoes,--things we really need?"

In silence the lady continued her work.

"Angel Cook?"

"Well?"

"What do you think?"

"I think, considering your years, that your conversation is surprising. Eggs are very nourishing, and we are lucky to have them. Didn't I make you a nice omelette only a few days ago?"

"You did, and I never knew a better for its purpose. I still use it for cleaning the windows."

"Really! Well, you had better make it last, for you won't get another."

"Oh, don't be angry! I thought you meant it as a keepsake."

He approached with repentant air, but when threatened with her doughy hands, he retreated, and sat on the big chest by the window. This chest had served for his bed since his convalescence.

Elinor frowned, and pointed to the fire. Pats arose and laid on a fresh stick, then knelt upon the hearth and, with a seventeenth-century bellows, inlaid with silver, that would have graced the drawing-room of a palace, he coaxed the fire into a more active life.

"Now go out and bring in some wood. More small sticks. Not the big ones."

XII

THE WOLF AT THE DOOR

During dinner, which occurred at noon, there were fewer words that day, and with somewhat more reflection than was usual. The store of provisions now rapidly disappearing, together with no prospect of immediate escape, furnished rich material for thought. Both knew the raft might prove a treacherous reliance. Instead of landing them on the opposite bank of the river there were excellent chances of its carrying them out to sea. And the prevailing westerly wind was almost sure to drive them backward to the east again. Pats had been all over this so many times in his own mind, and with Elinor, that the subject was pretty well exhausted. But still, from habit, he speculated.

"A penny for your thoughts."

He raised his eyes, and as they met her own his habitual cheerfulness returned. "My thoughts are worth more than that, for I was thinking of you."

"Something bad?"

"I was wondering how many days you could foot it through the wilderness before giving out."

"For ever, little Patsy, if you were with me."

"Then we have nothing to fear. We can both march on for ever. You are not only food and drink to me,--that is, the equivalent of corncake, potatoes, marmalade, and claret,--but your presence is life and strength and a spiritual tonic."

"That is a good sentiment," and she reached forth a hand, which he took.

"Merely to look at you," he continued, "will be exhilarating on a long march. And to hear your voice, and touch you--why, my soul becomes drunk in thinking of it."

"Then you expect to be in a state of intoxication during the whole journey?"

"That is my hope."

It happened, a few minutes later, that she herself became preoccupied, her eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the little portrait on the opposite chair.

"A dollar for your thoughts."

"Why so much?"

"Because any thought of yours," said Pats, "is worth at least a dollar."

"Thanks."

"You are thinking, as usual, of that woman. The woman who has my place."

"It is _her_ place; she had it before we came."

"But you ought to be looking at _me_ all this time. I am the person for you to think about. I shall end by hating the woman."

"Oh, you mustn't be jealous. You _can't_ hate her. Such a gentle face! And then all the mystery that goes with her! I would give anything to know who she was."

Pats scowled: "You would give Solomon and me, among other things."

"No, never!" And again she extended the hand, but he frowned upon it and drew back into the farther corner of his chair. She laughed. "And is Fatsy really jealous?"

"No, not jealous; but hurt, disgusted, outraged, and upset."

"Because I insist upon treating our hostess with respect and recognizing her rights?"

"Our hostess! More likely some female devil who beguiled the old man. Probably he was so ashamed of her he never dared go home again."

"Oh, Pats! I blush for you."

"It's a silly face."

"It is a face full of character."

"Oh, come now, Elinor! It would pass for a portrait of the full moon."

"Well, the full moon has character. And I love those big merry eyes with the funny little melancholy kind of droop at the outer corners. Poor thing! She must have had a sad life out here in the wilderness."

"Thank you."

As their eyes met he frowned again, and she, for the third time, extended the hand. "A sad life, because she had no Pats."

But he refused the hand. "That is very clever, but too late. The stab had already reached home."

She smiled and began to fold her napkin.

"To return to business, Miss Marshall, of Boston, the provisions are so low that we really must decide on something."

"How long will they last?"

"Perhaps a month or six weeks. Could you pull through the winter on eggs and dried apples--and candles?"

"If necessary."

He laughed. "I believe you could! You are an angel, a Spartan, and a sport. Your nature is simply an extravagant profusion of the highest human attributes. And the worst of it is, you look it. You are too beautiful--in a superior, overtopping way. You scare me."

She pushed back her chair. "You have said all that before."

"You remember the frog who was in love with the moon?"

She regarded him from the corners of her eyes, but made no reply.

"He used to sit in his puddle and adore her. One pleasant evening she came down out of the sky and kissed him."

"That was very good of her. And then what happened?"

"It killed him."

Elinor pushed back her chair, arose from the table and stood beside him. "Do you think it was a happy death?"

"Of course it was! Lucky devil!"

"Well, close your eyes and dream that I am the moon looking down at you."

With face upturned, just enough to make it easier for the moon, Pats closed his eyes. In serene anticipation he awaited the delectable contact that never failed to send a thrill of pleasure through all his being. But the tranquil, beatific smile changed swiftly to a very different expression as he felt against his lips--a slice of dried apple. And the cold moon stepped back beyond his reach, and laughed.

* * * * *

When the table had been cleared and the dishes washed Pats, Elinor, and Solomon went out behind the house and stood near the edge of the cliff. Eastward, across the bay, Pats pointed to a distant headland running out into the Gulf, the highest land in sight.

"As near as I can guess that hill is about twenty miles away. If there is nothing between to hinder I can walk it in a day. Now, from that highest point I can probably get a view for many miles. Who knows what lies beyond? There may be a settlement very near. In that case we are saved."

"And suppose there is none?"

"Then I return, and we are no worse off than we were before."

Elinor stood beside him, regarding the distant promontory with thoughtful eyes. He put his arm around her waist. "You see the sense of it, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so. How long would you be gone?"

"Not over three days."

"That is, three days and two nights."

"Yes."

"And if the ground is very rough, and there are swamps, and divers things, it might be longer still."

"Hardly likely."

"And what am I to do while you are gone?"

"Oh, just wait."

She moved away and stood facing him.

"Yes, that is like a man. Just wait! Just wait and worry. Just watch by day and lie awake at night. Just be sick with anxiety for four or five days. You would find me dead when you returned. Why should not I go with you?"

He seemed surprised. Into the ever-cheerful face came a look of anxiety. "I am afraid it would be a hard tramp for you, Angel Cook. And there would be twice as much luggage to carry, and we should be a longer time away."

"I will carry my own luggage."

"Never!"

"But I shall go with you."

"Is that a final decision?"

She nodded, an emphatic, half-fierce little nod, and frowned.

Pats smiled. "Miss Elinor Marshall, I am, as I have before remarked, your humble and adoring slave. Your will is law. When shall we start?"

"Whenever you say."

"To-morrow?"

She nodded, this time with a smile.

"Early?"

"As early as you please."

"Then at crack o' dawn we go."

And the next morning, at crack o' dawn, they started off, Pats with a knapsack so voluminous that he resembled a pedler.

Elinor thought it too much for him to carry. "You can never walk all day with that on your back. Pedestrians that I have seen never carry such loads."

"Then you have never seen pedestrians who carry their food and lodgings with them. And you forget that we are not in the zone of large hotels."

"I feel very guilty. If I were not along you would have less to carry."

"Have no fears, Light of the North. If one of us three falls by the wayside it will be neither Solomon nor myself."

This knapsack consisted of three blankets,--two of flannel, one of rubber,--some claret bottles filled with water, and food for five days. There was also coffee and a little brandy.

As they started off, along their own little beach, the sun was just appearing over the strip of land ahead. Solomon, in high spirits, galloped madly about on the hard sand, with an occasional plunge among the breakers. But Pats and Elinor, although similarly affected by the morning air, economized their steps, for a long day's tramp was before them.

At the eastern end of the beach, before entering the woods, both stopped and took a final look toward home. A rosy light was on sea and land. Beyond the beach, with its tumbling waves all aglow from the rising sun, stood the Point of Lory, and their eyes lingered about the cottage. Nestling peacefully among the pines, it also caught the morning light.

"Adieu, little house," said Elinor. And then, turning to Pats, "Why, I am really sorry to leave it."

"So am I, for it has given me the happiest days of my life--or of anybody's life."

In and out among the trees they tramped, three hours or more, with intervals for rest, generally through the woods, but always keeping near the coast unless for a shorter cut across the base of some little peninsula. Elinor stood it well and enjoyed with Pats the excitement of discovery. After a long nooning they pushed on until nearly sunset. When they halted for the night both explorers were still in good condition; but the next morning, in starting off, each confessed to a stiffness in the lower muscles. This disappeared, however, after an hour's walking.

Early in the afternoon of this second day's march they stood upon the top of the hill which, from a distance, had promised a commanding view. But they found, as so often happens to every kind of climber, that another hill, still higher and farther on, was the one to be attained. So they pushed ahead. Just before reaching the summit of this final hill Pats halted.

"Now comes a critical moment. What do you think we shall see?"

Elinor shook her head sadly. "I am prepared for the worst; for the wilderness, without a sign of human life."

Pats's ever-cheerful face took on a smile. "I suspect you are right, but I am not admitting it officially. I prophesy that we shall look down upon a large and very fashionable summer hotel."

"Awful thought!" And she smiled as she surveyed her own attire and that of Pats. "What a sensation we should create! You with that faded old flannel shirt, your two days' beard, and those extraordinary South African trousers; and I, sunburnt as a gypsy, with my hair half down--"

"No hair like it in the world--"

"And this weather-beaten dress. What would they take us for?"

"For what we are--tramps, happy tramps."

Five minutes later they stood upon the summit. To the eastward, as far as sight could reach, lay the same wild coast. For several miles every detail of the shore stood clearly out beneath a cloudless sky. Of man or his habitation they saw no sign. To the vast sweep of pines--like an ocean of sombre green--there was no visible limit either to the east or north. And southward, over the blue expanse, no sail or craft of any kind disturbed the surface of the sea. Here and there along the coast shone a strip of yellow beach with its fringe of glistening foam. Not far away an opening among the trees, extending inland for several miles, showed the grasses of a salt marsh.

In silence Pats and Elinor gazed upon this scene. Beautiful it was, grand, indescribably impressive; but it brought to both observers the keenest sense of their isolation. The vastness of it, and the stillness, brought a vague despair, and, to the girl, a sort of terror. Tears came to her eyes.

Pats turned and saw them. His own face had taken on a sadder look than was often allowed there, but his eyes met hers with their customary cheerfulness. For the first time since their acquaintance, Elinor wept--very gently, but she wept. All that a sympathetic and unskilful lover could do was done by Pats. He patted her back, kissed her hair, and suggested brandy. Her collapse, however, was of short duration. She drew back and smiled and apologized for her weakness.

"I am ashamed of myself for breaking down. But it's the first time, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is; and I have wondered at your courage. But do it all the time if you feel the least bit better."

She smiled and shook her head. "No, I shall not collapse again. I shall follow your example. You are always in good spirits."

"I? Well, I should think I might be! Here I am alone in the wilderness with the girl that all men desire,--and not a rival in sight! Why, I am in Heaven! I had never dreamed that a fellow could have such an existence."

* * * * *

When they descended the hill and started leisurely on the homeward march two smiling faces were illumined by the western sun.

XIII

THE HORN OF PLENTY

Heavy showers escorted the travellers during the last afternoon of their homeward march. Of the trio Solomon was the wettest, for his two friends were enfolded in a rubber blanket, drawn over their heads and shoulders and held together in front. Thus, by walking arm in arm and keeping close together, they escaped a soaking. But Elinor was tired, with a tendency to sadness. This was excusable, as the failure of the expedition left the choice of a perilous experiment on the raft or of starvation at the cottage. Even the saturated Solomon, as he preceded them with drooping head, seemed to have lost his buoyancy.

But Pats, whatever his inward state, continued an unfailing well-spring of cheerfulness and courage. Not a disheartening word escaped him, nor a sign of weakening. And his efforts to enliven his companion were persistent--and successful. Being of a hopeful and self-reliant nature this task was not so very difficult.

At last, toward the middle of the afternoon, in rain and mist, they came to the eastern end of their own beach. But all view was shut out. Both the cottage and the point of land on which it stood were hidden in the fog. As they tramped along this beach, on the hard wet sand, the wind and rain from the open sea came strong against their faces.

"It will be good to get back," said Elinor.

"Yes, but I like this better," and Pats drew the rubber blanket a little closer still. "Our life at the cottage is too confined; too cut and dried, too conventional and ceremonious."

"Too much company?"

"No, just enough. But too much routine and sameness. Above all, it is too laborious. The charm of this life is having no chores to be done. No shaving; no floors to scrub or windows to clean."

"Poor boy! And you must work doubly hard when we first get back. To begin with, you will have to eat your half of all the eggs that have been laid."

"Not an egg! I swear it!"

"Let's see--four days. That will make about thirty-six eggs. You must eat eighteen this afternoon."

Their heads were of necessity very close together, and as Pats with a frown turned his face to look at her, she continued: "And to-morrow being your birthday, you shall have a double allowance. Just think of being thirty-one years old! Why, Patsy, it take one's breath away."