"Isn"t George Mansion _splendid_!" said the child.
"You must call him Mr. Mansion; be very careful about the _Mister_, Liddy dear," said her sister, rising and drying her eyes bravely.
"I have always heard that the Indians treat one just as they are treated by one. Respect Mr. Mansion, treat him as you would treat a city gentleman. Be sure he will gauge his deportment by ours. Yes, dear, he _is_ splendid. I like him already."
"Yes, "Liza, so do I, and he _is_ a gentleman. He looks it and acts it. I believe he _thinks_ gentlemanly things."
Elizabeth laughed. "You dear little soul!" she said. "I know what you mean, and I agree with you."
That laugh was all that Lydia wanted to hear in this world, and presently the two sisters, with arms entwined, descended the stairway and joined in the conversation between Mr. Evans and young George Mansion.
"Mrs. Evans," said the boy, addressing her directly for the first time, "I hoped you were fond of game. Yesterday I hunted; it was partridge I got, and one fine deer. Will you offer me the compliment of having some for dinner to-night?"
His voice was low and very distinct, his accent and expressions very marked as a foreigner to the tongue, but his English was perfect.
"Indeed I shall, Mr. Mansion," smiled the girl-bride, "but I"m afraid that I don"t know how to cook it."
"We have an excellent cook," said Mr. Evans. "She has been with George and me ever since I came here. George is a splendid shot, and keeps her busy getting us game suppers."
Meanwhile Lydia had been observing the boy. She had never seen an Indian, consequently was trying to reform her ideas regarding them. She had not expected to see anything like this self-poised, scrupulously-dressed, fine-featured, dark stripling. She thought all Indians wore savage-looking clothes, had fierce eyes and stern, set mouths. This boy"s eyes were narrow and shrewd, but warm and kindly, his lips were like Cupid"s bow, his hands were narrower, smaller, than her own, but the firmness of those slim fingers, the power in those small palms, as he had helped her from the carriage, remained with her through all the years to come.
That evening at supper she noted his table deportment; it was correct in every detail. He ate leisurely, silently, gracefully; his knife and fork never clattered, his elbows never were in evidence, he made use of the right plates, spoons, forks, knives; he bore an ease, an unconsciousness of manner that amazed her. The missionary himself was a stiff man, and his very shyness made him angular. Against such a setting young Mansion gleamed like a brown gem.
For seven years life rolled slowly by. At times Lydia went to visit her two other married sisters, sometimes she remained for weeks with a married brother, and at rare intervals made brief trips to her father"s house; but she never received a penny from her strange parent, and knew of but one home which was worthy the name. That was in the Canadian wilderness where the Indian Mission held out its arms to her, and the beloved sister made her more welcome than words could imply. Four pretty children had come to grace this forest household, where young George Mansion, still the veriest right hand of the missionary, had grown into a magnificent type of Mohawk manhood. These years had brought him much, and he had accomplished far more than idle chance could ever throw in his way. He had saved his salary that he earned as interpreter in the church, and had purchased some desirable property, a beautiful estate of two hundred acres, upon which he some day hoped to build a home. He had mastered six Indian languages, which, with his knowledge of English and his wonderful fluency in his own tribal Mohawk, gave him command of eight tongues, an advantage which soon brought him the position of Government interpreter in the Council of the great "Six Nations," composing the Iroquois race. Added to this, through the death of an uncle he came into the younger t.i.tle of his family, which boasted blood of two n.o.ble lines. His father, speaker of the Council, held the elder t.i.tle, but that did not lessen the importance of young George"s t.i.tle of chief.
Lydia never forgot the first time she saw him robed in the full costume of his office. Hitherto she had regarded him through all her comings and goings as her playmate, friend and boon companion; he had been to her something that had never before entered her life--he had brought warmth, kindness, fellowship and a peculiar confidential humanity that had been entirely lacking in the chill English home of her childhood. But this day, as he stood beside his veteran father, ready to take his place among the chiefs of the Grand Council, she saw revealed another phase of his life and character; she saw that he was destined to be a man among men, and for the first time she realized that her boy companion had gone a little beyond her, perhaps a little above her. They were a strange pair as they stood somewhat apart, unconscious of the picture they made. She, a gentle-born, fair English girl of twenty, her simple blue muslin frock vying with her eyes in color. He, tawny skinned, lithe, straight as an arrow, the royal blood of generations of chiefs and warriors pulsing through his arteries, his clinging buckskin tunic and leggings fringed and embroidered with countless quills, and endless st.i.tches of colored moosehair. From his small, neat moccasins to his jet black hair tipped with an eagle plume he was every inch a man, a gentleman, a warrior.
But he was approaching her with the same ease with which he wore his ordinary "white" clothes--garments, whether buckskin or broadcloth, seemed to make but slight impression on him.
"Miss Bestman," he said, "I should like you to meet my mother and father. They are here, and are old friends of your sister and Mr.
Evans. My mother does not speak English, but she knows you are my friend."
And presently Lydia found herself shaking hands with the elder chief, speaker of the council, who spoke English rather well, and with a little dark woman folded within a "broadcloth" and wearing the leggings, moccasins and short dress of her people. A curious feeling of shyness overcame the girl as her hand met that of George Mansion"s mother, who herself was the most retiring, most thoroughly old-fashioned woman of her tribe. But Lydia felt that she was in the presence of one whom the young chief held far and away as above himself, as above her, as the best and greatest woman of his world; his very manner revealed it, and Lydia honored him within her heart at that moment more than she had ever done before.
But Chief George Mansion"s mother, small and silent through long habit and custom, had acquired a certain masterful dignity of her own, for within her slender brown fingers she held a power that no man of her nation could wrest from her. She was "Chief Matron" of her entire blood relations, and commanded the enviable position of being the one and only person, man or woman, who could appoint a chief to fill the vacancy of one of the great Mohawk law-makers whose seat in Council had been left vacant when the voice of the Great Spirit called him to the happy hunting grounds. Lydia had heard of this national honor which was the right and t.i.tle of this frail little moccasined Indian woman with whom she was shaking hands, and the thought flashed rapidly through her girlish mind: "Suppose some _one_ lady in England had the marvellous power of appointing who the member should be in the British House of Lords or Commons. _Wouldn"t_ Great Britain honor and tremble before her?"
And here was Chief George Mansion"s silent, unpretentious little mother possessing all this power among her people, and she, Lydia Bestman, was shaking hands with her! It seemed very marvellous.
But that night the power of this same slender Indian mother was brought vividly before her when, unintentionally, she overheard young George say to the missionary:
"I almost lost my new t.i.tle to-day, after you and the ladies had left the Council."
"Why, George boy!" exclaimed Mr. Evans. "What have you done?"
"Nothing, it seems, except to be successful. The Council objected to my holding the t.i.tle of chief and having a chief"s vote in the affairs of the people, and at the same time being Government interpreter. They said it would give me too much power to retain both positions. I must give up one--my t.i.tle or my Government position."
"What did you do?" demanded Mr. Evans, eagerly.
"Nothing, again," smiled the young chief. "But my mother did something. She took the floor of the Council, and spoke for forty minutes. She said I must hold the positions of chief which she had made for me, as well as of interpreter which I had made for myself; that if the Council objected, she would forever annul the chief"s t.i.tle in her own family; she would never appoint one in my place, and that we proud, arrogant Mohawks would then have only eight representatives in Council--only be on a level with, as she expressed it, "those dogs of Senecas." Then she clutched her broadcloth about her, turned her back on us all, and left the Council."
"What did the Council do?" gasped Mr. Evans.
"Accepted me as chief and interpreter," replied the young man, smiling. "There was nothing else to do."
"Oh, you royal woman! You loyal, loyal mother!" cried Lydia to herself. "How I love you for it!"
Then she crept away just as Mr. Evans had sprung forward with both hands extended towards the young chief, his eyes beaming with almost fatherly delight.
Unconsciously to herself, the English girl"s interest in the young chief had grown rapidly year after year. She was also unconscious of his aim at constant companionship with herself. His devotion to her sister, whose delicate health alarmed them all, more and more, as time went on, was only another royal road to Lydia"s heart.
Elizabeth was becoming frail, shadowy, her appet.i.te was fitful, her eyes larger and more wistful, her fingers smaller and weaker. No one seemed to realize the insidious oncreepings of "the white man"s disease," consumption, that was paling Elizabeth"s fine English skin, heightening her glorious English color, sapping her delicate English veins. Only young George would tell himself over and over: "Mrs. Evans is going away from us some day, and Lydia will be left with no one in the world but me--no one but me to understand--or to--care."
So he scoured the forest for dainties, wild fruits, game, flowers, to tempt the appet.i.te and the eye of the fading wife of the man who had taught him all the English and the white man"s etiquette that he had ever mastered. Night after night he would return from day-long hunting trips, his game-bag filled with delicate quail, rare woodc.o.c.k, snowy-breasted partridge, and when the illusive appet.i.te of the sick woman could be coaxed to partake of a morsel, he felt repaid for miles of tramping through forest trails, for hours of search and skill.
PART II.
Perhaps it was this grey shadow stealing on the forest mission, the thought of the day when that beautiful mothering sister would leave his little friend Lydia alone with a bereft man and four small children, or perhaps it was a yet more personal note in his life that brought George Mansion to the realization of what this girl had grown to be to him.
Indian-wise, his parents had arranged a suitable marriage for him, selecting a girl of his own tribe, of the correct clan to mate with his own, so that the line of blood heritage would be intact, and the sons of the next generation would be of the "Blood Royal,"
qualified by rightful lineage to inherit the t.i.tle of chief.
This Mohawk girl was attractive, young, and had a partial English education. Her parents were fairly prosperous, owners of many acres, and much forest and timber country. The arrangement was regarded as an ideal one--the young people as perfectly and diplomatically mated as it was possible to be; but when his parents approached the young chief with the proposition, he met it with instant refusal.
"My father, my mother," he begged, "I ask you to forgive me this one disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fight and struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of my people. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages of my forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot do it! My wife I must choose for myself."
"You will marry--whom, then?" asked the old chief.
"I have given no thought to it--yet," he faltered.
"Yes," said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman, "yes, George, you have thought of it."
"Only this hour," he answered, looking directly into his mother"s eyes. "Only now that I see you want me to give my life to someone else. But my life belongs to the white girl, Mrs. Evans" sister, if she will take it. I shall offer it to her to-morrow--to-day."
His mother"s face took on the shadow of age. "You would marry a _white_ girl?" she exclaimed, incredulously.
"Yes," came the reply, briefly, decidedly.
"But your children, your sons and hers--they could never hold the t.i.tle, never be chief," she said, rising to her feet.
He winced. "I know it. I had not thought of it before--but I know it. Still, I would marry her."
"But there would be no more chiefs of the Grand Mansion name,"
cut in his father. "The t.i.tle would go to your aunt"s sons. She is a Grand Mansion no longer; she, being married, is merely a Straight-Shot, her husband"s name. The Straight-Shots never had n.o.ble blood, never wore a t.i.tle. Shall our family t.i.tle go to a _Straight-Shot_?" and the elder chief mouthed the name contemptuously.
Again the boy winced. The hurt of it all was sinking in--he hated the Straight-Shots, he loved his own blood and bone. With lightning rapidity he weighed it all mentally, then spoke: "Perhaps the white girl will not marry me," he said slowly, and the thought of it drove the dark red from his cheeks, drove his finger-nails into his palms.
"Then, then you will marry Dawendine, our choice?" cried his mother, hopefully.