The Maid-At-Arms Part 33

My name fell so sweetly, so confidently, from her lips that I looked up in warm pleasure and found her grave eyes searching mine.

"Make it easier for me," she said, in a low voice. "How can I talk to you if you do not answer me?"

"I--I mean to answer, Dorothy," I stammered; "I am very thankful for your kindness to me."

"Do you think it is hard to be kind to you?" she murmured. "What happiness if I only might be kind!" She hid her face in her hands and bowed her head. "Pay no heed to me," she said; "I--I thought I could see you and control this rebel tongue of mine. And here am I with heart insurgent beating the long roll and every nerve a-quiver with sedition!"

"What are you saying?" I protested, miserably.

She dropped her hands from her face and gazed at me quite calmly.

"Saying? I was saying that these rocks are wet, and that I was silly to come down here in my Pompadour shoes and stockings, and I'm silly to stay here, and I'm going!"

And go she did, up over the moss and rock like a fawn, and I after her to the top of the bank, where she seemed vastly surprised to see me.

"Now I pray you choose which way you mean to stroll," she said, impatiently. "Here lie two paths, and I will take this straight and narrow one."

She turned sharply and I with her, and for a long time we walked swiftly, side by side, exchanging neither word nor glance until at last she stopped short, seated herself on a mossy log, and touched her hot face with a crumpled bit of lace and cambric.

"I tell you what, Mr. Longshanks!" she said. "I shall go no farther with you unless you talk to me. Mercy on the lad with his seven-league boots!

He has me breathless and both hat-strings flying and my shoe-points dragging to trip my heels! Sit down, sir, till I knot my ribbons under my ear; and I'll thank you to tie my shoe-points! Not doubled in a sailor's-knot, silly!... And, oh, cousin, I would I had a sun-mask!...

Now you are laughing! Oh, I know you think me a country hoyden, careless of sunburn and dust! But I'm not. I love a smooth, white skin as well as any London beau who praises it in verses. And I shall have one for myself, too. You may see, to-night, if the Misses Carmichael come with Lady Schuyler, for we'll have a dance, perhaps, and I mean to paint and patch and powder till you'd swear me a French marquise!... Cousin, this narrow forest pathway leads across the water back to the house. Shall we take it?... You will have to carry me over the stream, for I'll not wet my s.h.i.+ns for love of any man, mark that!"

She tied her pink hat-ribbons under her chin and stood up while I made ready; then I lifted her from the ground. Very gravely she dropped her arms around my neck as I stepped into the rus.h.i.+ng current and waded out, the water curling almost to my knee-buckles. So we crossed the grist-mill stream in silence, eyes averted from each other's faces; and in silence, too, we resumed the straight and narrow path, now deep with last year's leaves, until we came to a hot, sandy bank covered with wild strawberries, overlooking the stream.

In a moment she was on her knees, filling her handkerchief with strawberries, and I sat down in the yellow sand, eyes following the stream where it sparkled deep under its leafy screen below.

"Cousin," she said, timidly, "are you displeased?"

"Why?"

"At my tyranny to make you bear me across the stream--with all your heavier burdens, and my own--"

"I ask no sweeter burdens," I replied.

She seated herself in the sand and placed a scarlet berry between lips that matched it.

"I have tried very hard to talk to you," she said.

"I don't know what to say, Dorothy," I muttered. "Truly I do desire to amuse you and make you laugh--as once I did. But the heart of everything seems dead. There! I did not mean that! Don't hide your face, Dorothy!

Don't look like that! I--I cannot bear it. And listen, cousin; we are to be quite happy. I have thought it all out, and I mean to be gay and amuse you.... Won't you look at me, Dorothy?" "Wh--why?" she asked, unsteadily.

"Just to see how happy I am--just to see that I pull no long faces--idiot that I was!... Dorothy, will you smile just once?"

"Yes," she whispered, lifting her head and raising her wet lashes.

Presently her lips parted in one of her adorable smiles. "Now that you have made me weep till my nose is red you may pick me every strawberry in sight," she said, winking away the bright tears. "You have heard of the penance of the Algonquin witch?"

I knew nothing of Northern Indian lore, and I said so.

"What? You never heard of the Stonish Giants? You never heard of the Flying Head? Mercy on the boy! Sit here and we'll eat strawberries and I shall tell you tales of the Long House.... Sit nearer, for I shall speak in a low voice lest old Atotarho awake from his long sleep and the dead pines ring hollow, like witch-drums under the yellow-hammer's double blows.... Are you afraid?"

"All a-s.h.i.+ver," I whispered, gayly.

"Then listen," she breathed, raising one pink-tipped finger. "This is the tale of the Eight Thunders, told in the oldest tongue of the confederacy and to all ensigns of the three clans ere the Erians sued for peace. Therefore it is true.

"Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter, and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake. And the Holder of Heaven came to the eastern door of the Long House and knocked, saying: 'Where is the very poisonous blue otter that I made, O Keepers of the Eastern Door?'

"'Who calls?' asked the Mohawks, peeping out to see.

"Then the Holder of the Heavens named himself, and the Mohawks were afraid and hid in the Long House, listening.

"'Be afraid! O you wise men and sachems! The wisdom of a child alone can save you!' said the Holder of the Heavens. Saying this he wrapped himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun."

My cousin's voice had fallen into a low, melodious sing-song; her rapt eyes were fixed on me.

"A youth of the Mohawks loved a maid, and they sat by the lake at night, counting the Dancers in the sky--which we call stars of the Pleiades.

"'One has fallen into the lake,' said the youth.

"'It is the eye of the very poisonous blue otter,' replied the maid, beginning to cry.

"'I see the lost Dancer s.h.i.+ning down under the water,' said the youth again. Then he bade the maid go back and wait for him; and she went back and built a fire and sat sadly beside it. Then she heard some one coming and turned around. A young man stood there dressed in white, and with white feathers on his head. 'You are sad,' he said to the maid, 'but we will help you.' Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he spoke the truth.

"'Follow,' he said; and she followed to a place in the forest where smoke rose. There she saw a fire, and, around it, eight chiefs sitting, with white feathers on their heads.

"'These chiefs are the Eight Thunders,' she thought; 'now they will help me.' And she said: 'A Dancer has fallen out of the sky and a Mohawk youth has plunged for it.'

"'The blue otter has turned into a serpent, and the Mohawk youth beheld her eye under the waters,' they said, one after the other. The maid wept and laid the wampum at her feet. Then she rubbed ashes on her lips and on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and in the palms of her hands.

"'The Mohawk youth has wedded the Lake Serpent,' they said, one after the other. The maid wept; and she rubbed ashes on her thighs and on her feet.

"'Listen,' they said, one after another; 'take strawberries and go to the lake. You will know what to do. When that is done we will come in the form of a cloud on the lake, not in the sky.'

"So she found strawberries in the starlight and went to the lake, calling, 'Friend! Friend! I am going away and wish to see you!'

"Out on the lake the water began to boil, and coming out of it she saw her friend. He had a spot on his forehead and looked like a serpent, and yet like a man. Then she spread the berries on the sh.o.r.e and he came to the land and ate. Then he went back to the sh.o.r.e and placed his lips to the water, drinking. And the maid saw him going down through the water like a snake. So she cried, 'Friends! Friends! I am going away and wish to see you!'

"The lake boiled and her friend came out of it. The lake boiled once more; not in one spot alone, but all over, like a high sea spouting on a reef.

"Out of the water came her friend's wife, beautiful to behold and s.h.i.+ning with silver scales. Her long hair fell all around her, and seemed like silver and gold. When she came ash.o.r.e she stretched out on the sand and took a strawberry between her lips. The young maid watched the lake until she saw something moving on the waters a great way off, which seemed like a cloud.

"In a moment the stars went out and it grew dark, and it thundered till the skies fell down, torn into rain by the terrible lightning. All was still at last, and it grew lighter. The maid opened her eyes to find herself in the arms of her friend. But at their feet lay the dying sparks of a shattered star.

"Then as they went back through the woods the eight chiefs pa.s.sed them in Indian file, and they saw them rising higher and higher, till they went up to the sky like mists at sunrise."

Dorothy's voice died away; she stretched out one arm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THIS IS THE END, O YOU WISE MEN AND SACHEMS!".]