A Daughter of the Forest

CHAPTER VI

A ONE-SIDED STORY

Adrian was not a gymnast though he had seen and admired many wonderful feats performed by his own classmates. But he had never beheld a miracle, and such he believed had been accomplished when, upon reaching the foot of that terrible tree, he found Margot sitting beneath it, pale and shaken, but, apparently, unhurt.

She had heard his breathless crashing up the slope and greeted him with a smile, and the tremulous question:

“How did you know where I was?”

“You aren’t – dead?”

“Certainly not. I might have been, though, but God took care.”

“Was it my cheers frightened you?”

“Was it you, then? I heard something, different from the wood sounds, and I looked quick to see. Then my foot slipped and I went down – a way. I caught a branch just in time and, please, don’t tell uncle. I’d rather do that myself.”

“You should never do such a thing. The idea of a girl climbing trees at all, least of any, such a tree as that!”

He threw his head back and looked upward, through the green spiral to the brilliant sky. The enormous height revived the horror he had felt as he leaped through the window and rushed to the mountain.

“Who planned such a death-trap as that, anyway?”

“I did.”

“You! A girl!”

“Yes. Why not. It’s great fun, usually.”

“You’d better have been learning to sew.”

“I can sew, but I don’t like it. Angelique does that. I do like climbing and canoeing and botanizing, and geologizing, and astronomizing, and – ”

Adrian threw up his hands in protest.

“What sort of creature are you, anyway?”

“Just plain girl.”

“Anything but that!”

“Well, girl, without the adjective. Suits me rather better;” and she laughed in a way that proved she was not suffering from her mishap.

“This is the strangest place I ever saw. You are the strangest family. We are certainly in the backwoods of Maine, yet you might be a Holyoke senior, or a circus star, or – a fairy.”

Margot stretched her long arms and looked at them quizzically.

“Fairies don’t grow so big. Why don’t you sit down? Or, if you will, climb up and look toward the narrows on the north. See if Pierre’s birch is coming yet.”

Again Adrian glanced upward, to the flag floating there, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Excuse me, please. That is, I suppose I could do it, only seeing you slip – I prefer to wait awhile.”

“Are you afraid?”

There was no sarcasm in the question. She asked it in all sincerity. Adrian was different from Pierre, the only other boy she knew, and she simply wondered if tree-climbing were among his unknown accomplishments.

It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and his brief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad of spirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestion of cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed aside his rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the pine.

“Why, it’s easy! It’s grand!” he called back and went up swiftly enough.

Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance. Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected by great spikes driven into the trunk and he had but to clasp these in turn to make a safe ascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shaded his eyes and peered northward.

“He’s coming! Somebody’s coming!” he shouted. “There’s a little boat pushing off from that other shore.”

Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself and called a bit of praise from Margot.

“I’m so glad you can climb. One can see so much more from the tree-tops; and, oh! there is so much, so much to find out all the time! Isn’t there?”

“Yes. Decidedly. One of the things I’d like to find out first is who you are and how you came here. If you’re willing.”

Then he added, rather hastily: “Of course, I don’t want to be impertinently curious. It only seems so strange to find such educated people buried here in the north woods. I don’t see how you live here. I – I – ”

But the more he tried to explain the more confused he grew, and Margot merrily simplified matters by declaring:

“You are curious, all the same, and so am I. Let’s tell each other all about everything and then we’ll start straight without the bother of stopping as we go along. Do sit down and I’ll begin.”

“Ready.”

“There’s so little, I shan’t be long. My dear mother was Cecily Dutton, my Uncle Hugh’s twin. My father was Philip Romeyn, uncle’s closest friend. They were almost more than brothers to each other, always; though uncle was a student and, young as he was, a professor at Columbia. Papa was a business man, a banker, or a cashier in a bank. He wasn’t rich, but mamma and uncle had money. From the time they were boys uncle and papa were fond of the woods. They were great hunters, then, and spent all the time they could get up here in northern Maine. After the marriage mamma begged to come with them, and it was her money bought this island, and the land along the shore of this lake as far as we can see from here. Much farther, too, of course, because the trees hide things. They built this log cabin and it cost a great, great deal to do it. They had to bring the workmen so far, but it was finished at last, and everything was brought up here to make it – just as you see.”

“What an ideal existence!”

“Was it? I don’t know much about ideals, though uncle talks of them sometimes. It was real, that’s all. They were very, very happy. They loved each other so dearly. Angelique came from Canada to keep the house and she says my mother was the sweetest woman she ever saw. Oh! I wish – I wish I could have seen her! Or that I might remember her. I’ll show you her portrait. It hangs in my own room.”

“Did she die?”

“Yes. When I was a year old. My father had passed away before that, and my mother was broken-hearted. Even for uncle and me she could not bear to live. It was my father’s wish that we should come up here to stay, and Uncle Hugh left everything and came. I was to be reared ‘in the wilderness, where nothing evil comes,’ was what both my parents said. So I have been, and – that’s all.”

Adrian was silent for some moments. The girl’s face had grown dreamy and full of a pathetic tenderness as it always did when she discussed her unknown father and mother, even with Angelique. Though, in reality, she had not been allowed to miss what she had never known. Then she looked up with a smile and observed:

“Your turn.”

“Yes – I – suppose so. May as well give the end of my story first – I’m a runaway.”

“Why?”

“No matter why.”

“That isn’t fair.”

He parried the indignation of her look by some further questions of his own. “Have you always lived here?”

“Always.”

“You go to the towns sometimes, I suppose.”

“I’ve never seen a town, except in pictures.”

“Whew! Don’t you have any friends? Any girls come to see you?”

“I never saw a girl, only myself in that poor broken glass of Angelique’s; and, of course, the pictured ones – as of the towns – in the books.”

“You poor child!”

Margot’s brown face flushed. She wanted nobody’s pity and she had not felt that her life was a singular or narrow one, till this outsider came. A wish very like Angelique’s, that he had stayed where he belonged, arose in her heart, but she dismissed it as inhospitable.

“I’m not poor. Not in the least. I have everything any girl could want and I have – uncle! He is the best, the wisest, the noblest man in all the world. I know it, and so Angelique says. She’s been in your towns, if you please. Lived in them and says she never knew what comfort meant until she came to Peace Island and us. You don’t understand.”

Margot was more angry than she had ever been, and anger made her decidedly uncomfortable. She sprang up hastily, saying:

“If you’ve nothing to tell, I must go. I want to get into the forest and look after my friends there. The storm may have hurt them.”

She was off down the mountain, as swift and sure-footed as if it were not a rough pathway that made him blunder along very slowly. For he followed, at once, feeling that he had not been “fair,” as she had accused, in his report of himself; and that only a complete confidence was due these people who had treated him so kindly.

“Margot! Margot! Wait a minute! You’re too swift for me! I want to – ”

Just there he caught his foot in a running vine, stumbled over a hidden rock, and measured his length, head downward, on the slope. He was not hurt, however, though vexed and mortified. But when he had picked himself up and looked around the girl had vanished.

CHAPTER VII

A WOODLAND MENAGERIE

“Hoo-ah! Yo-ho! H-e-r-e! This – way!”

Adrian followed the voice. It led him aside into the woods on the eastern slope, and it was accompanied by an indescribable babel of noises. Running water, screaming of wild fowl, cooing of pigeons, barking of dogs or some other beasts, cackling, chattering, laughter.

All the sounds of wild life had ceased suddenly in the tree-tops, as Adrian approached, recognizing and fearing his alien presence. But they were reassured by Margot’s familiar summons, and soon the “menagerie” he had suspected was gathered about her.

“Whew! It just rains squirrels – and chipmunks – and birds! Hello! That’s a fawn. That’s a fox! As sure as I’m alive, a magnificent red fox! Why isn’t he eating the whole outfit? And – Hurra!”

To the amazement of the watcher there came from the depths of the woods a sound that always thrills the pulses of any hunter – the cry of a moose-calf, accompanied by a soft crashing of branches, growing gradually louder.

“So they tame even the moose – these wonderful people! What next!” and as Adrian leaned forward the better to watch the advance of this uncommon “pet,” the “next” concerning which he had speculated also approached. Slowly up the river bank, stalked a pair of blue herons, and for them Margot had her warmest welcome.

“Heigho, Xanthippé, Socrates! What laggards! But here’s your breakfast, or one of them. I suppose you’ve eaten the other long ago. Indeed, you’re always eating, gourmands!”

The red fox eyed the newcomers with a longing eye and crept cautiously to his mistress’ side as she coaxed the herons nearer. But she was always prepared for any outbreak of nature among her forest friends, and drew him also close to her with the caressing touch she might have bestowed upon a beloved house-dog.

“Reynard, you beauty! Your head in my lap, sir;” and dropping to a sitting posture, she forced him to obey her. There he lay, winking but alert, while she scattered her store of good things right and left. There were nuts for the squirrels and ’munks, grains and seeds for the winged creatures, and for the herons, as well as Reynard, a few bits of dried meat. But for Browser, the moose-calf, she pulled the tender twigs and foliage with a lavish hand. When she had given some dainty to each of her oddly assorted pets, she sprang up, closed the box, and waved her arms in dismissal. The more timid of the creatures obeyed her, but some held their ground persistently, hoping for greater favors. To these she paid no further attention, and still keeping hold of Reynard’s neck started back to her human guest.

The fox, however, declined to accompany her. He distrusted strangers and it may be had designs of his own upon some other forest wilding.

“That’s the worst of it. We tame them and they love us. But they are only conquered, not changed. Isn’t Reynard beautiful? Doesn’t he look noble? as noble as a St. Bernard dog? If you’ll believe me, that fellow is thoroughly acquainted with every one of Angelique’s fowls, and knows he must never, never touch them, yet he’d eat one, quick as a flash, if he got a chance. He’s a coward, though; and by his cowardice we manage him. Sometimes;” sighed Margot, who had led the way into a little path toward the lake.

“How odd! You seem actually grieved at this state of things.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? I love him and I have a notion that love will do anything with anybody or anything. I do believe it will, but that I haven’t found just the right way of showing it. Uncle laughs at me, a little, but helps me all he can. Indeed, it is he who has tamed most of our pets. He says it is the very best way to study natural history.”

“Hmm. He intends your education shall be complete!”

“Of course. But one thing troubles him. He cannot teach me music. And you seem surprised. Aren’t girls, where you come from, educated? Doesn’t everybody prize knowledge?”

“That depends. Our girls are educated, of course. They go to college and all that, but I think you’d down any of them in exams. For my own part, I ran away just because I did not want this famous ‘education’ you value. That is, I didn’t of a certain sort. I wasn’t fair with you awhile ago, you said. I’d like to tell you my story now.”

“I’d like to hear it, of course. But, look yonder! Did you ever see anything like that?”

Margot was proud of the surprises she was able to offer this stranger in her woods, and pointed outward over the lake. They had just come to an open place on the shore and the water spread before them sparkling in the sunlight. Something was crossing the smooth surface, heading straight for their island, and of a nature to make Adrian cry out:

“Oh! for a gun!”

CHAPTER VIII

KING MADOC

“If you had one you should not use it! Are you a dreadful hunter?”

Margot had turned upon her guest with a defiant fear. As near as she had ever come to hating anything she hated the men, of whom she had heard, who used this wonderful northland as a murder ground. That was what she named it, in her uncompromising judgment of those who killed for the sake of killing, for the lust of blood that was in them.

“Yes. I reckon I am a ‘dreadful’ hunter, for I am a mighty poor shot. But I’d like a try at that fellow. What horns! What a head! And how can that fellow in the canoe keep so close to him, yet not finish him!”

Adrian was so excited he could not stand still. His eyes gleamed, his hands clenched, and his whole appearance was changed. Greatly for the worse, the girl thought, regarding him with disgust.

“Finish him? That’s King Madoc, Pierre’s trained bull-moose. You’d be finished yourself, I fear, if you harmed that splendid creature. Pierre’s a lazy fellow, mostly, but he spent a long time teaching Madoc, and with his temper – I’m thankful you lost your gun.”

“Do you never shoot things up here? I saw you giving the fox and herons what looked like meat. You had a stew for supper, and fish for breakfast. I don’t mean to be impertinent, but the sight of that big game – Whew!”

“Yes. We do kill things, or have them killed, when it is necessary for food. Never in sport. Man is almost the only animal who does that. It’s all terrible, seems to me. Everything preys upon something else, weaker than itself. Sometimes when I think of it my dinner chokes me. It’s so easy to take life, and only God can create it. But uncle says it is also God’s law to take what is provided, and that there is no mistake, even if it seems such to me.”

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