"I"ll try to find one!" said Mr. Linden, answering the proposal just as it was meant. "If the lady is scared she shall turn her face the other way."
"She"ll turn it which way you say?--" ventured the fisher insinuatingly.
Faith did not seem afraid of the fish, by the way she leaned over the stern of the boat and eyed the up-coming nets which the men were drawing in. She had listened to the foregoing talk, to the full as intently as those for whom it was meant, and with a mult.i.tude of interests at work in her mind and heart of which they had never dreamed. And now her eye was bent on the net; but her thoughts were on that other kind of fishing of which she had just seen an example--the first she had ever seen of Mr. Linden"s!--and her full heart was longingly thinking, among other thoughts, of the few there were to draw those nets, and the mult.i.tude to be drawn! What Faith saw in the meshes the man"s hands were slowly pulling up!--
But the fisherman only saw--what pleased him greatly, some very fine fish; shad they were for the greater part; from which he selected a n.o.ble specimen and cast it over into Mr. Linden"s boat. Then standing up in his own he wiped his hands on the sleeves of his coat.
"Hope you"ll come along again some day," said he. "And" (waggishly) "don"t come without the lady!"--
The rope was drawn in and the little skiff shot ahead smoothly and silently from the great brown fishing boat and her equally brown owners. Gliding on--watched for a little by the fishers, then their attention was claimed by the flapping shad in the net, and the sail boat set her canvas towards Kildeer river. Mr. Linden went forward and bestowed his prisoner a little more out of sight and sound in some place of safety, and then sitting down in the prow dipped his hands in the blue water and took a survey of Faith, as she sat in the stern--the tiller in her hand, the shadow of the sail falling partly across; the spring zephyrs playing all about her.
"Little bird," he said, "why don"t you sing?"
A smile of much and deep meaning went back from the stern to the prow; but she presently made the somewhat obvious remark that "birds do not always sing."
"A melancholy fact in natural history! the truth of which I am just now experiencing. What shall be done with them at these times--are they to be coaxed--or chidden or fed with sponge cake? Have you got any in your basket?"
"Are you hungry?" said Faith.
"Only for words--or songs--or some other commodity of like origin," Mr.
Linden said, coming back to his old place. "What shall I have?--if I cannot get the two first?"
"You might have a little patience?--"
""Patience", my dear, "is a good root"--but nothing akin to sugar canes."
"There"s no need of it, either," said Faith laughing,--"for _you_ can sing if I can"t."
"No, there is no need of it, and therefore--Now, little bird, will you please not to fly past the outlet of Kildeer river?"
Laughing, colouring, Faith nevertheless bent a very earnest attention upon this difficult piece of navigation. For the opening of Kildeer river was as yet but slightly to be discerned;--a little break in the smooth sh.o.r.e line,--a very little atmospheric change in the soft leafy hues of the nearer and further point. Faith watched, as only a young steersman does, for the time and place where her rudder should begin to take cognizance of the approaching change of course. A little wider the break in the sh.o.r.e line grew,--more plain the mark of a break in the trees,--and almost suddenly the little stream unfolded its pretty reach of water and woodland, stretching in alluringly with picturesque turns of its mimic channel. Faith needed a little help now, for the river was not everywhere navigable; but after a few minutes of pretty sailing among care-requiring rocks and sand-banks, where the loss of wind made their progress slow, the little skiff was safely brought to land at a nice piece of gravelly sh.o.r.e. It was wonderful pretty! The trees with their various young verdure came down to the water"s edge, with many a dainty tint; here one covered with soft catkins of flower,--there one ruddy with not yet opened buds. The winding banks of the stream on one hand; and on the other the little piece of it they had pa.s.sed over, with the breadth of the Mong beyond. Through all, May"s air and Spring"s perfume, and the stillness of noonday.
"Inverted in the tide Stand the grey rocks, and trembling shadows throw.
And the fair trees look over, side by side, And see themselves below."
So Mr. Linden told Faith, as he was putting his sail in trim repose, and then--telling her that the guiding power was still in her hands, requested to know what they should do next.
"Why," said Faith merrily, "I thought you had business to attend to?"
"I had--" said Mr. Linden,--"but I reflected that you would probably give me full occupation, and so got rid of the business first."
"Then you have nothing to do here?"
"A great deal, I suppose; but I know not what."
Faith fairly sat down to laugh at him.
"What do you think of having lunch, and then going after flowers?"
"I consider that to be a prudent, bird-like suggestion. Do you expect me to cook this fish for you? or will you be content to take it home to your mother, and let us feast upon--
""Herbs, and such like country messes, Which neat-handed Phyllis dresses"?"
"_Have_ you all the books in the world in your head?"--said Faith, laughing her own little laugh roundly. "How plain it is Mr. Linden has nothing to do to-day!--Would you like to help me to gather some sticks for a fire, sir? I think you had better have something on your hands."
"Do you?" he said lifting her out of the boat in his curiously quick, strong, light way,--"that was something on my hands--not much. What next?--do you say we are to play Ferdinand and Miranda?"
Faith"s eye for an instant looked its old look, of grave, intelligent, doubtful questioning: but then she came back to Kildeer river.
"I haven"t played that play yet," she said gaily; "but if you"ll help me find some dry sticks--your reward shall be that you shall not have what you don"t like! I can make a fire nicely here, Endecott; on this rock."
"Then it was not about them you were reading in that focus of sunbeams?"
"What?--" she said, looking.
"Once upon a time--" Mr. Linden said smiling,--"when you and Shakspeare got lost in the sunlight, and wandered about without in the least knowing where you were."
"When, Endecott?"
"Leave that point," he said,--"I want to tell you about the story.
Ferdinand, whom I represent, was a prince cast away upon a desert sh.o.r.e--which sh.o.r.e was inhabited by the princess Miranda, whom you represent. Naturally enough, in the course of time, they came to think of each other much as we do--perhaps "a little more so" on the part of Miranda. But then Miranda"s father set Ferdinand to carrying wood,--as you--acting conscientiously for Mrs. Derrick--do me."
"I wonder if I ever shall understand you!" exclaimed Faith desperately, as her laugh again broke upon the sweet air that floated in from the Mong. "What has my conscience, or Mrs. Derrick, to do with our lunch fire? Why was the other prince set to carrying wood?"
"For the same reason that I am!" said Mr. Linden raising his eyebrows.
"To prove his affection for Miranda."
How Faith laughed.
"You are mistaken--O how mistaken you are!" she exclaimed. "It shews that though you know books, you don"t know everything."
And running away with her own armful of sticks and leaves, back to the rock spoken of near where the vessel lay, Faith was stopped and relieved of her load, with such an earnest--
""No, precious creature, I"d rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonour undergo"--"
that she could do nothing but laugh, till the sticks were fairly on the rock. Then Faith went to laying them daintily together.
"I hope you"ve no objection to my making the fire," she said; "because I like it. Only, Endecott! the matches are in the basket. Could you get them for me? Indeed I shall want the basket too out of the boat."
Whereupon Mr. Linden--
""The very instant I saw you, did My heart fly to your service: there reside, To make me slave to it; and for your sake, Am I this patient log man"!--"
But anything less like those two last words than the way in which he sprang into the boat, and brought the basket, and got out what she called for, could hardly be.
"How many matches do you want?" he said, looking demurely at her as he gave her one.