the night of summer comes late in this north land. although it was nearly nine o’clock, the shadows, long gathering in the valleys and the woods, had but just now overflowed onto the broad levels of the river. above was hurry of low-lying clouds, through which swift star-gleams seemed to flit, like the momentary beacons of the rare fireflies along the shore. far away the shriek of a departing train broke the general stillness and rang fainter and more faint in wild variety of tones among the farther hills.
on the bank of this wide canadian river, a little above the margin, stood under the yet dripping trees a group of diverse people, but all of one household. travel-weary and silent, for a time they looked down on the dimly lit stream, and heard, as they waited, the murmur and hum of its waters, or, with eyes as yet unused to the gloom, strove to see the group of men about the boats on the beach below them.
“this way, margaret,” said a man’s cheerful voice; 2“take care; there is my arm, dear. how delightful to see the old river!”
the night was so dark that lyndsay hesitated as he stood on the verge.
“what is it?” said his wife.
“i do not quite like to go up to-night in this depth of darkness. do you think it quite safe, polycarp? can you see?”
“not very well,” said the guide, “but soon break and have heap moon.”
“i think we must risk it, my dear. you will go with me.” then he said a word of caution to the guides, and called to the boys, “come, dicky, and you, jackums.” they ran down the slope in haste and stood a little, made quiet for once in their noisy lives, but interested, alert, and peering through the darkness.
“is that you, tom and ambrose? how are you all? and pierre—have you kept me a big salmon?”
he shook hands with each of the guides, having a gay word of kindly remembrance for all in turn. meanwhile the sister of the boys came down to the canoes, made silent, like the children, by the night, the pervasive stillness, and the novelty of the situation.
“baggage gone up, pierre?”
“yes, mr. lyndsay; everything is right,—and the salmon thick as pine-needles. the small traps are all in. we might be getting away.”
“shall the women need their waterproofs, tom?”—this to a huge form which loomed large as it moved among the other men, who were busy adjusting the small freight of hand baggage. the voice, when it 3broke out in reply, was, even for a fellow of six feet two, of unproportioned loudness.
“they won’t want none; it ’s a-goin’ to bust out clear.”
miss anne lyndsay, the maiden aunt of the children, came down the bank as thunder tom replied. her steps, too feeble for health, were thoughtfully aided by edward, the youngest boy. to her turned rose, the niece, a woman of twenty years.
“did you ever hear the like?”
she felt the queer impropriety of this terrible voice in the solemn stillness which, somehow, adequately suggested the tribute of the bated breath.
“won’t need no wraps, miss lyndsay. rain’s done. there fell a power of water.”
“what a voice, aunt anne!” said rose. “it ’s like the boom of the sea.”
“he explodes,—he doesn’t speak; a conversational cannonade.”
“hush,” said mrs. lyndsay, the mother; “he is quite sensitive about it. he was with us last year, and a very good man, too, as i know.”
“canoe is ready, sir.”
“it is like a parting salute,” said rose.
“well, my dear,” whispered miss anne, “it will be a fine reminder for a certain person; all things have their uses.”
“thanks, aunt anne. a certain person has a not uncertain consciousness that she doesn’t need it. folks complain that we women speak too loud. i am sure our men have lost their voices. as for the english women you admire so much, i could hardly understand 4them at all, with their timid, thin voices, and fat a’s.”
“stuff!” said miss anne. “that is english.”
“i prefer shakspere’s english,” said rose. “i advise them to read ‘love’s labor’s lost.’”
“that is our old battle-field, rose. but you would have to be consistent, and i do assure you, if you talked as shakspere talked, you would make a sensation.”
“come, adjourn that skirmish,” said archibald lyndsay, who had been rearranging the canoeloads.
then the voice, to which others were as whispers, roared:
“who’s for where, mr. lyndsay?”
“all right. tom, your voice is really getting broken. come, margaret,--this way dear.”
“it’s so,” said tom. “i kin speak bigger if i try,”—this to miss lyndsay, apologetically, as he aided her into the boat. “fact is, miss, i was twins, like them boys, and bill he died. he hadn’t no voice to count on. it’s main useful when you’re drivin’ logs.”
“what a baby he must have been in a quiet family!” whispered anne to rose and ned. “imagine it!”
“i didn’t understand what he said, aunt anne,” remarked the boy.
“i do not think he quite understood himself. perhaps he had a vague notion that he had to talk so as to represent the dead brother, ‘who hadn’t no voice to count on.’”
“i like it,” remarked rose. “yes, papa.”
5“this way,” said lyndsay; “here, margaret, in my canoe.”
“could i have ned with me, brother?” asked miss anne.
“certainly. here, in this canoe, not the birch. this one,—now, so, with your face up the river, and you, ned,—yes, on the cushion on the bottom.”
“how comfortable!” said anne, as she leaned back on a board set at a slope against the seat.
“and now, margaret,—you and i, together with pierre and—halloa there, gemini! oh, you are in the birch already. no nonsense, now! no larking! these birches turn over like tumbler-pigeons.”
“you, dear,”—to rose,—“you are to go with polycarp and ambrose. by yourself, my child? yes.”
there was a special note of tenderness in his voice as he spoke.
“how is that, rosy posy?”
“delightful! how well you know! and i did want to be alone,—just to-night,—for a little while.”
“yes.” as he released her hand he kissed her. “now, away with you.” in a few moments the little fleet was off, and the paddles were splashing jets of white out of the deep blackness of the stream. by degrees the canoes fell apart. despite the parental warning, the twins had secured paddles, and were more or less competently aiding their men, so that soon they were far ahead.
lyndsay chatted with his guides of the salmon, and of his luggage and stores, sent up the day before. aunt anne and her favorite ned were silent for a time; but the boy’s glance roamed restlessly from sky 6to stream, and up over the great dim hills. at last he said:
“hark, aunt anne; how loud things sound at night!”
“them’s the rapids,” said tom, in tones that made miss lyndsay start. “them’s a mile away.”
“i suppose, ned, that when all one’s other senses are more or less unused, the ear may hear more distinctly; at all events, what you say is true, i think. if i want to hear very plainly, i am apt to shut my eyes—good music always makes me do that.”
“that’s so,” said john. he considered himself quite free to have his share in the talk. “when i’m callin’ moose, i most allus shuts my eyes to listen to them trumpetin’ back. dory maybrook was a-sayin’ that same thing las’ toosday a week. we was a-settin’ out by her wood-pile. an’ she sat there a-thinkin’. an’ says she, ‘it’s cur’ous how you can hear things at night.’ jus’ like you said. hiram he was a-choppin’.”
“who is dory maybrook?” said ned.
“well, she’s dory maybrook; she’s hiram’s wife. hiram’s her husband,” and he laughed,—laughed as he talked, so that the noise of it boomed across the wide waters.
again for a while they were silent, asking no more questions. the aunt was wondering what could have given big tom his overpowering voice, and how it would affect one to live with such an organ. she turned it over in her mind in all its droller aspects, imagining tom making love, or at his sonorous devotions, for to anne lyndsay there were few things in life remote from the possibility of humorous relation.
7twice the boy asked if she were comfortable, or warm enough, and, reassured, fell back into the possession of the deepening night and the black water, whence, suddenly, here and there, flashed something white through the blackness, like, as the lad thought, the snowy wings of the turning sea-gulls he had seen over the st. lawrence at break of day.
in the other canoe, far behind and out of sight, rose lyndsay lay, propped against the baggage, in delicious contentment of mind and body. it was a vast and satisfying change from the completed civilizations of the world of europe, where for a year she had wandered with anne lyndsay. three weeks before the evening on which begins my tale, she was in london, and now she was greeted with a sudden sense of emancipation from the world of conventionalities. neither father nor mother was exclusively represented in this happily fashioned womanhood. and thus it was that her inherited qualities so modified one another that people missed the resemblances, and said only that she was like none of her people.
nevertheless, she had her father’s taste and capacity for seeing accurately and enjoying the simple uses of observation, with also, in a measure, what he somewhat lacked—the aunt’s unending joy in all humor; sharing with her the privilege of finding a smile or a laugh where others, who lack this magic, can only conjure sadness. she saw with mental directness, and, where her affections were not concerned, acted without the hesitations which perplex the inadequate thinker.
her aunt, to whom she bore some resemblance in face, had learned much in a life of nearly constant 8sickness, but never the power to restrain her fatal incisiveness of speech. she could hurt herself with it as well as annoy others, as she well knew. but in her niece, keenness of perception and large sense of the ridiculous were put to no critical uses. the simple kindliness of her mother was also hers.
at times in life permanent qualities of mind vary in the importance of the use we make of them. rose was now in the day of questions. everything interested her: an immense curiosity sharpened her naturally acute mental vision; an eloquently imaginative nature kept her supplied with endless queries. the hour of recognized limitations had not yet struck for her. now she set the broad sails of a willing mood, and gave herself up to the influences of the time and place. deep darkness was about her. the sky seemed to be low above her. the dusky hills appeared to be close at hand on each side. the water looked, as it rose to left and right, as though the sky, the waves, the hills were crowding in upon her, and she, sped by rhythmic paddles, was flitting through a lane of narrowing gloom.
the impression i describe, of being walled in at night by water, hill, and sky, is familiar to the more sensitive of those who are wise enough to find their holiday by wood and stream. the newness of the sensation charmed the girl. then in turn came to her the noise of the greater rapids, as, after two hours, the river became more swift.
twice she had spoken; but twice the dark guide had made clear to her that he needed all his wits about him, and once he had altogether failed to answer her or, perhaps, to hear at all. but now the 9clouds began to break, and the night became clear, so that all objects were more easily discernible. “is your name polycarp?” she said, at last, turning as she sat to look back at the impassive figure in the stern.
“i’m polycarp,” said the indian.
“what is that i hear? of course i hear the rapids, but—it is like voices and—and—laughter. is it only the rapids? how strange! could you—just stop paddling a moment?”
the paddles were silent, and she listened. the sounds came and went, mysteriously rising, falling, or changing, despite the absence of wind, as they drifted downward when the paddles no longer moved. mr. lyndsay’s canoe overtook them. “what is it?” he called. “anything wrong?”
“no, no! i wanted to hear the rapids. they seem like voices.”
“ask me about that to-morrow,” said her father, “but push on now. we shall be late enough.”
again the paddles fell, and her canoe slid away into the ever-deepening night. of a sudden her trance of thought was broken, and over the waters from the twins came snatches of song, bits of scotch ballads, familiar in this household. at last she smiled and murmured, “the scamps!” they were caroling the song with which they had been fond of mocking her in her girlhood.
“there are seven fair flowers in yon green wood,
in a bush in the woods o’ lyndsaye;
there are seven braw flowers an’ ae bonny bud,
oh! the bonniest flower in lyndsaye.
an’ weel love i the bonny, bonny rose—
the bonny, bonny rose-a-lyndsaye;
10an’ i’ll big my bower o’ the forest boughs,
an’ i’ll dee in the green woods o’ lyndsaye.
“her face is like the evenin’ lake,
that the birk or the willow fringes,
whose peace the wild wind canna break,
or but its beauty changes.
an’ she is aye my bonny, bonny rose,
she’s the bonny young rose-a-lyndsaye;
an’ ae blink of hor e’e wad be dearer to me
than the wale o’ the lands o’ lyndsaye.”
the voices rang clear a moment, and then were lost, and heard anew, without seeming cause for the break. then came a fresh snatch of song:
“come o’er the stream, charlie,
braw charlie, brave charlie;
come o’er the stream, charlie,
and dine with mcclain.”
as she listened and caught the wilder notes of burnieboozle, they fell into the orchestral oppositions of the rapids, and died to the car amid the cry and crash and hoarse noises of the broken waters.
rose saw the men rise and take their poles, and felt amidst the beautiful dim vision of white wave-crests how the frail canoe quivered as it was driven up the watery way.
then they kept to the shore under the trees, the poles monotonously ringing, with ever around her, coming and going, that delicious odor of the spruce, richest after rain, which to smell in the winter, amid the roar of the city, brings to the wood-farer the homesickness of the distant forest. her dreamy mood once broken was again disturbed by that rare speaker, the silent polycarp.
11“i smell camp.”
“what!” she said.
“yes—very good smell—when bacon fry—smell him long away—two mile.”
“i smell it,” she said. “how strange!”
“smell fry long way—smell baccy not so far. smell mr. lyndsay pipe little while back.”
and now far ahead she saw lights, and started as the indian smote the water with the flat of his paddle, making a loud sound, which came back in altered notes from the hills about them.
“make ’em hear at camp.”
presently she was at the foot of a little cliff, where the twins were already noisily busy.
“halloa, rose! can you see?”
“yes, jack.”
“isn’t it jolly? give me a hand.”
“no, me.”
“this beats columbus,” said the elder lad. “take care, spices”—this to the younger twin, who, by reason of many freckles, was known in the household, to his disgust, as the cinnamon bear, cinnamon, spices, or bruin, as caprice dictated.
“i’ll punch your red head, rufus,” cried the lad. “you just wait, ruby.”
“boys! boys!” said rose. “now each of you give me a hand. don’t begin with a quarrel.”
“it isn’t a quarrel; it’s a row,” said jack.
“a distinction not without a difference,” laughed rose. “oh, here is everybody.” and with jest and laughter they climbed the steps cut in the cliff, and gaily entered the cabin which was to be their home for some weeks.
12there was a large, low-raftered room, covered with birch-bark of many tints. on each side were two chambers, for the elders. the boys, to their joy, were to sleep in tents on the bluff, near to where the tents of the guides were pitched, a little away from the cabin, and back of a roaring camp-fire. behind the house a smaller cabin sufficed for a kitchen, and in the log-house, where also a fire blazed in ruddy welcome, not ungrateful after the coolness of the river, the supper-table was already set. as rose got up from table, after the meal, she missed her mother, and, taking a shawl, went out onto the porch which surrounded the house on all sides.
for a moment, she saw only the upward flare of the northern lights, and then, presently, mrs. lyndsay, standing silent on the bluff, with a hand on ned’s shoulder, looking across the river. rose quietly laid the shawl over her mother’s shoulders, and caught her hand. mrs. lyndsay said, “thank you, dear rose, but i want to be alone a little. i shall come in very soon.” they went without a word, meeting their father just within the door. “mother sent us in,” said rose.
“i understand,” and he also turned back. “it is harry! it is about harry.”
“yes, it is harry,” repeated rose; for the year before mrs. lyndsay had left a little weakly fellow, her youngest, in the rude burial-ground of the small methodist church, some miles away, up the stream. she had been alone with mr. lyndsay and the child, and it had been her first summer on the river. when, the next spring, she had proposed to take thither the whole family, her husband had gladly consented.
