The Forge in the Forest

"And I can shoot, I can shoot very skilfully," she went on, with strong emphasis. "I can handle both pistol and musket."

"Indeed, Madame!" said I, considerably astonished.

"Ask Marc if I am not a cunning shot," she persisted, while her eyes seemed to burn through me in their eager intentness.

"Yes, Father," came Marc's whispered response out of the shadow, where I saw only the bended head of the maid Prudence. "Yes, Father, she is a more cunning marksman than I."

I turned again to her, and saw that she expected, that she thirsted for, an answer. But what answer?

"Madame," said I, bowing profoundly, and hoping to cover my bewilderment with a courtly speech, "may I hope that you will fire a good shot for me some day; I should account it an honour above all others if I might be indebted to such a hand for such succour."

She clasped her hands in a great gladness, crying, "Then I may go with you?"

"Go with me!" I cried, looking at her in huge amazement.

"She wants to help you find the child," whispered Marc.

The thought of this white girl among the perils which I saw before me pierced my heart with a strange pang, and in my haste I cried rudely: —

"Nonsense! Impossible! Why, it would be mere madness!"

So bitter was the pain of disappointment which wrung her face that I put out both hands towards her in passionate deprecation.

"Forgive me; oh, forgive me, Madame!" I pleaded. "But how could I bring you into such perils?"

But she caught my hands and would have gone on her knees to me if I had not stayed her roughly.

"Take me with you," she implored. "I can paddle, I can serve you as well as any man whom you can get. And I am brave, believe me. And how can I wait here when my boy, my darling, my Philip, is alone among those beasts? I would die every hour."

How could I refuse her? Yet refuse her I would, I must. To take her would be to lessen my own powers, I thought, and to add tenfold to the peril of the venture. Nevertheless my heart did now so leap at the thought of this strange, close fellowship which she demanded, that I came near to silencing my better judgment, and saying she might go. But I shut my teeth obstinately on the words.

At this moment, while she waited trembling, Marc once more intervened.

"You might do far worse than take her, Father. No one else will serve you more bravely or more skilfully, I think."

So Marc actually approved of this incredible proposal? Then was it, after all, so preposterous? My wavering must have shown itself in my face, for her own began to lighten rarely.

"But – those clothes!" said I.

At this she flushed to her ears. But she answered bravely.

"I will wear others; did you think I would so hamper you with this guise? No," she added with a little nervous laugh, "I will play the man; be sure."

And so, though I could scarce believe it, it was settled that Mizpah Hanford should go with me.

That night I found little sleep. My thoughts were a chaos of astonishment and apprehension. Marc, moreover, kept tossing, for his wound fretted him sorely, and I was continually at his side to give him drink. At about two in the morning there came a horseman to the garden gate, riding swiftly. Hurrying out I met him in the path. It was Father Fafard, come straight upon my word. He turned his horse into Giraud's pasture, put saddle and bridle in the porchway, and then followed me in to Marc's bedside.

When he had dressed the wound anew, and administered a soothing draught, Marc fell into a quiet sleep.

"He will do well, but it is a matter for long patience," said the Curé.

Then we went out of the house and down to the garden corner by the thicket of beans, where we might talk freely and jar no slumberers. Father Fafard fell in with my plans most heartily, and accepted my charges. To hold the Black Abbé in check at any point, would, he felt, be counted unto him for righteousness.

My mind being thus set at ease, I resolved to start as soon as might be after daybreak.

Before it was yet full day, I was again astir, and goodwife Giraud was getting ready, in bags, our provision of bacon and black bread. I had many small things to do, – gathering ammunition for two muskets and four pistols, selecting my paddles with care from Giraud's stock, and loading the canoe to the utmost advantage for ease of running and economy of space. Then, as I went in to the goodwife's breakfast, I was met at the door by a slim youth in leathern coat and leggins, with two pistols and Marc's whinger. I recognized the carven hilt stuck bravely in his belt, and Marc's knitted cap of gray wool on his head, well pulled down. The boy blushed, but met my eye with a sweet firmness, and I bowed with great courtesy. Even in this attire I thought she could not look aught but womanly – for it was Mistress Mizpah. Yet I could not but confess that to the stranger she would appear but as a singularly handsome stripling. The glory of her hair was hidden within her cap.

"These are the times," said I, seriously, "that breed brave women."

Breakfast done, messages and orders repeated, and farewells all spoken, the sun was perhaps an hour high when we paddled away from the little landing under Giraud's garden fence. I waved my cap backwards to Prudence and the Curé, where they stood side by side at the landing. My comrade in the bow waved her hand once, then fell to paddling diligently. I was still in a maze of wonderment, ready at any time to wake and find it a dream. But the little seas that slapped us as we cleared the river mouth, these were plainly real. I headed for the eastern point of the island, intending to land at the mouth of the Piziquid and make some inquiries. The morning air was like wine in my veins. There was a gay dancing of ripples over toward Blomidon, and the sky was a clear blue. A dash of cool drops wet me. It was no dream.

And so in a strange fellowship I set out to find the child.

Chapter XIII

My Comrade

I could not sufficiently commend the ease and aptness with which my beautiful comrade wielded her paddle. But in a while the day grew hot, and I bade her lie back in her place and rest. At first she would not, till I was compelled to remind her in a tone of railing that I was the captain in this enterprise, and that good soldiers must obey. Whereupon, though her back was toward me, I saw a flush creep around to her little ears, and she laid the paddle down something abruptly. I feared that I had vexed her, and I made haste to attempt an explanation, although it seemed to me that she should have understood a matter so obvious.

"I beg you to pardon me, Madame, if I seem to insist too much," said I, with hesitation. "But you must know that, if you exhaust yourself at the beginning of the journey, before you are hardened to the long continuance of such work, you will be unable to do anything to-morrow, and our quest will be much hindered."

"Forgive me!" she cried; "you are right, of course. Oh, I fear I have done wrong in hampering you! But I am strong, truly, and enduring as most men, Monsieur."

"Yes," I answered, "but to do one thing strenuously all day long, and for days thereafter, that is hard. I believe you can do it, or I should have been mad indeed to bring you. But you must let me advise you at the beginning. For this first day, rest often and save yourself as much as possible. By this means you will be able to do better to-morrow, and better still the day after. By the other means, you will be able to do little to-morrow most likely, and perhaps nothing the day after."

"Well," she said, turning her head partly around, so that I could see the gracious profile, "tell me, Monsieur, when to work and when to rest. I will obey. It is a lucky soldier, I know, who has the Seigneur de Briart to command him."

"But I fear, Madame," said I, "that discipline would sadly suffer if he had often such soldiers to command."

To this she made no reply. I saw that she leaned back in her place and changed her posture, so as to fulfil my wish and rest herself to the best advantage. I thought my words over. To me they seemed to have that savour of compliment which I would now avoid. I felt that here, under these strange circumstances, in an intimacy which might by and by be remembered by her with some little confusion, but which now, while she had no thought but for the rescue of the little one, contained no shadow of awkwardness for her clear and earnest soul, – I felt that here I must hold myself under bonds. The play of graceful compliment, such as I would have practised in her drawing-room to show her the courtliness of my breeding, must be forsworn. The admiration, the devotion, the worship, that burned in my eyes whensoever they dwelt upon her, must be strictly veiled. I must seem to forget that I am a man and my companion the fairest of women. Yes, I kept telling myself, I must regard her as a comrade only, and a follower, and a boy. I must be frank and careless in my manner toward her; kind, but blunt and positive. She will think nothing of it now, and will blush the less for it by and by, when the child is in her arms again, and she can once more give her mind to little matters.

And so I schooled myself; and as I watched her I began to realize more and more, with a delicious warming of my heart, what instant need I had of such schooling if I would not have her see how I was not at all her captain, but her bondsman.

At the mouth of the Piziquid stream there clustered a few cottages, not enough to call a village; and here we stopped about noon. A meal of milk and eggs and freshly baked rye cakes refreshed us, and eager as was our haste, I judged it wise to rest an hour stretched out in the shade of an apple tree. To this halt, Mizpah, after one glance of eager question at my face, made no demur, and I replied to the glance by whispering: —

"That is a good soldier! We will gain by this pause, now. We will travel late to-night."

The cottagers of whom we had our meal were folk unknown to me; and being informed that the Black Abbé had some followers in the neighbourhood, I durst give no hint of our purpose. By and by I asked carelessly if two canoes, with Indians of the Shubenacadie, had gone by this way. I thought that the man looked at me with some suspicion. He hesitated. But before he could reply his goodwife answered for him, with the freedom of a clear conscience.

"Yes, M'sieu," she chattered, "two canoes, and four Indians. They went by yesterday, toward sundown, stopping here for water from our well, – the finest water hereabouts, if I do say it!"

"They went up the river, I suppose," said I.

"Oh, but no, M'sieu," clattered on the worthy dame. "They went straight up the bay. Yes, goodman," she continued, changing her tone sharply, "whenever I open my mouth you glare at me as if I was talking nonsense. What have I said wrong now, I'd like to know. Yes, I'd like very much to know that, goodman. Why should not the gentleman know that they had – "

But here the man interrupted her roughly. "Will you never be done your prating?" he cried. "Can't you see that you worry the gentlemen? How should they care to know that the red rascals made a good catch of shad off the island? Now, do go and get some of your fresh buttermilk for the gentlemen to drink before they go. Don't you see they are starting?"

And, indeed, Mizpah's impatience to be gone was plainly evident, and we had rested long enough. I durst not look at her face, lest our host should perceive that I had heard what I wanted to hear. I spoke casually of the weather, and inquired how his apples and his flax were faring, and so filled the minutes safely until the goodwife came with the butter-milk. Having both drunk gratefully of the cool, delicately acid, nourishing liquor, we gave the man a piece of silver, and set out in good heart.