"An" in the name of the seven wonders of creation, what for would you be getting down?" asked the astonished priest.
"Oh! Hurry! Are you getting the bench?" coaxed the voice.
"Faith an" we"re not! And we have no thought of doing such a thing!"
began the good man with severity.
"Then, I"ll jump," threatened the voice.
"And break your pretty neck," answered the ungallant father with indignation.
There was a rustling of skirts being gathered across the window sill and outlines of a white face gave place to the figure of a frail girl preparing for a leap.
"Don"t!" I cried, genuinely alarmed, with a mental vision of shattered statuary on the ground. "Don"t! I"m getting the benches," and I piled them up, with a rickety bucket on top. "Wait!" I implored, stepping up on the bottom bench. "Give me your hand," and as I caught her hands, she leaped from the window to the bucket, and the bucket to the ground, with a daintiness, which I thought savored of experience in such escapades.
"What do you mean, young woman?" demanded Father Holland in anger. "I"ll have none of your frisky nonsense! Do you know, you baggage, that you are delaying this young man in a matter that is of life-and-death importance? Tell me this instant, what do you want?"
"I want to save that woman, Miriam! You"re both so slow and stupid!
Come, quick!" and she caught us by the arms. "There"s a skiff down among the rushes in the flats. I can guide you to it. Cross the river in it!
Oh! Quick! Quick! Some of the Hudson"s Bay brigades have already pa.s.sed!"
"How do you know?" we both demanded as in one breath.
"I"m Frances Sutherland. My father is one of the Selkirk settlers and he had word that they would pa.s.s to-night! Oh! Come! Come!"
This girl, the daughter of a man who was playing double to both companies! And her service to me would compel me to be loyal to him!
Truly, I was becoming involved in a way that complicated simple duty.
But the girl had darted ahead of us, we following by the flutter of the white gown, and she led us out of the courtyard by a sally-port to the rear of a block-house. She paused in the shadow of some shrubbery.
"Get f.a.gots from the Indians to light us across the flats," she whispered to Father Holland. "They"ll think nothing of your coming.
You"re always among them!"
"Mistress Sutherland!" I began, as the priest hurried forward to the Indian camp-fires, "I hate to think of you risking yourself in this way for----"
"Stop thinking, then," she interrupted abruptly in a voice that somehow reminded me of my first vision of statuary.
"I beg your pardon," I blundered on. "Father Holland and I have both forgotten to apologize for our rudeness about helping you down."
"Pray don"t apologize," answered the marble voice. Then the girl laughed. "Really you"re worse than I thought, when I heard you bungling over a boat. I didn"t mind your rudeness. It was funny."
"Oh!" said I, abashed. There are situations in which conversation is impossible.
"I didn"t mind your rudeness," she repeated, "and--and--you mustn"t mind mine. Homesick people aren"t--aren"t--responsible, you know. Ah! Here are the torches! Give me one. I thank you--Father Holland--is it not?
Please smother them down till we reach the river, or we"ll be followed."
She was off in a flash, leading us through a high growth of rushes across the flats. So I was both recognized and remembered from the previous night. The thought was not displeasing. The wind moaned dismally through the reeds. I did not know that I had been glancing nervously behind at every step, with uncomfortable recollections of arrows and spear-heads, till Father Holland exclaimed:
"Why, boy! You"re timid! What are you scared of?"
"The devil!" and I spoke truthfully.
"Faith! There"s more than yourself runs from His Majesty; but resist the devil and he will flee from you."
"Not the kind of devil that"s my enemy," I explained. I told him of the arrow-shot and spear-head, and all mirth left his manner.
"I know him, I know him well. There"s no greater scoundrel between Quebec and Athabasca."
"My devil, or yours?"
"Yours, lad. Let your laughter be turned to mourning! Beware of him!
I"ve known more than one murder of his doing. Eh! But he"s cunning, so cunning! We can"t trip him up with proofs; and his body"s as slippery as an eel or we might----"
But a loon flapped up from the rushes, brushing the priest"s face with its wings.
"Holy Mary save us!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed panting to keep up with our guide.
"Faith! I thought "twas the devil himself!"
"Do you really mean it? Would it be right to get hold of Le Grand Diable?" I asked. Frances Sutherland had slackened her pace and we were all three walking abreast. A dry cane crushed noisily under foot and my head ducked down as if more arrows had hissed past.
"Mane it?" he cried, "mane it? If ye knew all the evil he"s done ye"d know whether I mane it." It was his custom when in banter to drop from English to his native brogue like a merry-andrew.
"But, Father Holland, I had him in my power. I struck him, but I didn"t kill him, more"s the pity!"
"An" who"s talking of killin", ye young cut-throat? I say get howld of his body and when ye"ve got howld of his body, I"d further advise gettin" howld of the b.u.t.t end of a saplin"----"
"But, Father, he was my canoeman. I had him in my power."
Instantly he squared round throwing the torchlight on my face.
"Had him in your power--knew what he"d done--and--and--didn"t?"
"And didn"t," said I. "But you almost make me wish I had. What do you take traders for?"
"You"re young," said he, "and I take traders for what they are----"
"But I"m a trader and I didn"t----" Though a beginner, I wore the airs of a veteran.
"Benedicite!" he cried. "The Lord shall be your avenger! He shall deliver that evil one into the power of the punisher!"
"Benedicite!" he repeated. "May ye keep as clean a conscience in this land as you"ve brought to it."
"Amen, Father!" said I.
"Here we are," exclaimed Frances Sutherland as we emerged from the reeds to the brink of the river, where a skiff was moored. "Go, be quick! I"ll stay here! "Twill be better without me. The Hudson"s Bay are keeping close to the far sh.o.r.e!"
"You can"t stay alone," objected Father Holland.
"I shall stay alone, and I"ve had my way once already to-night."
"But we don"t wish to lose one woman in finding another," I protested.