The Pines of Lory Part 19

"Continue."

"One day in that summer-house he sailed away into one of his tempers--did you ever happen to see him in that condition?"

"No, but I have heard of them."

"Well, my mother was a Unitarian. So was I. And the gulf between a Unitarian and a Catholic priest is about as wide as from here to that moon. It was like asking me to become a beautiful young lady--or a green elephant--I simply couldn't. Perhaps you agree with me?"

"Go on. Don't ask so many questions."

"I told him, respectfully, it was impossible. Then as he made a rush for me I saw, from his eyes and his white face, that murder and sudden death were in the air. Being younger I could dodge him and get away, and that so increased his fury that he fell down on the gravel walk in a sort of convulsion--or fit. I ran into the house for a.s.sistance, and while Sally and Martha tried to bring him to I went for the doctor."

A silence followed this story. At last Elinor inquired if his father persisted.

"Persisted! That question, oh, Angel Cook, shows how little you knew my father! As soon as he recovered he lost no time in telling me to leave the house and never see him again."

"And what happened?"

"I vanished."

"Oh!" A sympathetic pressure of his hand and the girl beside him leaned closer still. "Horrible! So you wandered out into the world and this is your home-coming. Well, Patsy, I shall never treat you in that way. When you are very obstinate I shall just put my arms around your neck and treat you very differently."

"Well," said Pats, "I think it safer for you to be doing that most of the time, anyway. It might stave off any inclination to obstinacy."

Here followed a snug, celestial silence, broken at last by Pats. "Would you mind telling me, O Light of the North, where you heard I was the attacking party at that interview?"

"No, I must not tell."

"Did Father Burke make you promise?"

"Why do you mention _him_?"

"For lots of reasons. One is that he is the only person on earth who could possibly have told you. But it was clever of him to warn you against me. I knew from his expression when he said good-by, on the boat, that he thought he had settled my prospects, and to his perfect satisfaction. However, I don't ask you to betray him. And I bear no malice. He did his best to undo me, but Love and all the angels were on my side."

She laughed gently. "And you all made a strong combination, Patsy."

Then another long silence, and soon he felt the lady leaning more heavily against him. The head drooped and he knew she slumbered. Having no wish to disturb her, he sat for a while without moving, and watched the moon and thought delectable thoughts of the creature by his side.

And as his thoughts, involuntarily, and in an amiable spirit, travelled back to Father Burke, he smiled as he pictured quite a different expression on the face of the priest when he should learn what had happened. And the smile seemed reflected in the radiant countenance of the big, round moon mounting slowly in the heavens. She appeared to beam approval upon him and upon the precious burden he supported. But with the drowsiness which soon came stealing over him he saw--or dreamed he saw--out in the glistening path of light between the moon and him, not far from where he sat, an object like a human face, upturned, moving gently with the waves. And mingling among the quivering moonbeams around the head was a silvery halo that might be the hair of Father Burke; for the face resembled his.

Pats was startled and became wide awake. Even then, he thought he had a glimpse of the face with its silver hair, as it drifted out of the bar of light into the darkness, slowly, toward the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XI

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

There came, with August, a perceptible shortening of the days. Cooler nights gave warning that the brief Canadian summer was nearing its end.

Pats labored on the raft, but the work was long. A float that would bear in safety two people down the river's current--and possibly out to sea--demanded size and strength and weight. Felling trees, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g logs, and steering them down the river to the "s.h.i.+p-yard," proved a slower undertaking than had been foreseen. But n.o.body complained. The air they breathed and the life they led were in themselves annihilators of despair. It was an exhilarating, out-of-door life,--a life of love and labor and of ecstatic repose.

Both Elinor and Pats were up with the sun, and the days were never too long. To them it mattered little whether the evenings were long or short or cold or warm, for by the time the dishes were washed and the ch.o.r.es were done, they became too sleepy to be of interest to each other. And when the lady retired to her own chamber behind the tapestries, Pats, at his end of the cottage, always whistled gently or broke the silence in one way or another as a guarantee of distance, that she might feel a greater security.

As for lovers' quarrels none occurred that were seriously respected by either party. In fact there was but little to break the monotony of that solid, absolute content with which all days began and ended.

"'Tis love that makes the world go round."

There is no doubt of that, but two lovers, with unfailing appet.i.tes, however exalted their devotion, are sure, in time, to produce conspicuous results with any ordinary store of provisions. In the present instance the discovery--or realization--of this truth was accidental. It came one morning as Elinor, in a blue and white ap.r.o.n, with sleeves rolled up, was preparing corn-bread at the kitchen table--so they called the table near the fireplace at the end of the room. Pats came up from the cellar with a face of unusual seriousness.

"I have been an awful fool!"

She looked up with her sweetest smile:

"And that troubles you, darling?"

Without replying, he laid three potatoes on the table.

"I told you to get four."

"These are the last."

"Isn't there a second barrel?"

"No."

"Why, Patsy! We both saw it!"

"That's where I was a fool. I took it for granted the other barrel held potatoes because it looked like the first one."

"But it was full of something."

"Yes, but not potatoes. It is crockery, gla.s.sware, a magnificent table-set. Old Sevres, I should say."

"What a shame!" And with the back of a hand whose fingers were covered with corn-meal, she brushed a stray lock from her face.

"Yes," he went on, "it's a calamity, for we cannot afford it. I took an account of stock while I was down there, and all we have now in the way of vegetables is the dried apples. Of course, there's the garden truck,--the peas, beans, and the corn,--if it ever ripens."

After further conversation on that subject, Elinor said, with a sigh: "Well, we did enjoy those baked potatoes! We shall have to eat more eggs, that's all."

"Eggs!" and his face became distorted. "I am so chock full of eggs now that everything looks yellow. I dream of them. I cackle in my sleep. My whole interior is egg. I breathe and think egg. I gag when I hear a hen."

"But you are going to eat them all the same. We have a dozen a day, and you must do your share."

"I won't."

"Yes, you will."