The Mistress of Bonaventure. Bindloss Harold
He seemed unconscious that he was recklessly betraying himself.
"You must not turn my daughter's head with your reminiscences, Sergeant. She is inclined to be over-romantic already," Haldane said, with a kindly glance at the girl. "Possibly, however, one may excuse her to-night, for you gentlemen live the stories she delights in. By the way, I do not quite understand how you allowed the evildoer to escape, Ormesby."
Being forced to an explanation, I described the scene by the river as best I could, looking at the sergeant a trifle defiantly until, at the conclusion, he said: "I cannot compliment ye, Rancher Ormesby."
I was about to retort, when a clear young voice, with a trace of mischief in its tone, asked: "What would you have done had you been there, and why were you so far behind, Sergeant?"
"We do not ride pedigree horses," said Mackay, a trifle grimly. "I should have shot his beast, an' so made sure of him in the first place."
Then there was a sudden silence, when the girl, who turned upon him with a gesture of indignation, said: "It would have been cruel, and I am glad he got away. I saw his face when he passed us, and it was so drawn and haggard that I can hardly forget it; but it was not that of a bad man. What crime had he committed that he should be hunted so pitilessly?"
Young Cotton colored almost guiltily under his tan as the girl's indignant gaze fell upon him, and for the first time I glanced at her with interest. She was by no means to be compared with her sister, but she had a brave young face, slightly flushed with carmine and relieved by bright eyes that now shone with pity. In contrast to Beatrice's dark tresses the light of the candles called up bronze-gold gleams in her hair, and her eyes were hazel, while the voice had a vibration in it that seemed to awaken an answering thrill. Lucille Haldane reminded me of what her sister had been, but there was a difference. Slighter in physique, she was characterized by a suggestion of nervous energy instead of Beatrice's queenly serenity. The latter moved her shoulders almost imperceptibly, but I fancied the movement expressed subdued impatience, and her face a slightly contemptuous apology, while her father laughed a little.
"You must be careful, Sergeant. My younger daughter is mistress of Bonaventure, and rules us all somewhat autocratically; but, as far as I can gather, your perceptions were tolerably correct in this instance, Lucille," he said. "The man fell into the grip of the usurer, who, as usual, drained his blood; but, while what he did may have been ethical justice, he broke the laws of this country, and perhaps hardly deserves your sympathy."
"No?" said Lucille Haldane, and her eyes glistened. "I wish you had not told us what took place at the river, Mr. Ormesby. Here we sit, warm and sheltered, while that man, who has, perhaps, suffered so much already, wanders, hungry, faint, and bleeding, through this awful cold and snow. Just listen a moment!"
In the brief silence that followed I could hear the windows rattle under the impact of the driving snow and the eerie scream of the blast. I shivered a little, having more than once barely escaped with my life when caught far from shelter under such conditions, and it was borne in upon me that the outlaw might well be summoned before a higher tribunal than an earthly court by morning.
It was Beatrice Haldane, who, with, I noticed, a warning glance at her sister, turned the conversation into a more cheerful channel, and I was well content when some time later she took her place near me beside the hearth, while Lucille opened the piano at her father's request. Possibly neither her voice nor her execution might have pleased a critic; but as a break in our monotonous daily drudgery the music enchanted us, and the grizzled sergeant straightened himself very erect, while a steely glint came into his eyes as, perhaps to atone for her speech at dinner, the girl sang, with fire and pathos, a Jacobite ballad of his own country. Its effect may have been enhanced by the novelty; but there was a power in Lucille Haldane which is held only by the innocent in spirit whose generous enthusiasms are still unblunted, and it seemed to me that the words and chords rang alternately with a deathless devotion and the clank of the clansmen's steel.
"I cannot thank ye. It was just grand," said Mackay, shaken into unusual eloquence, when the girl turned and half-shyly asked if he liked the song, though, as the soft candle light touched it, her face was slightly flushed. "Ye made one see them – the poor lads with the claymores, who came out of the mist with a faith that was not bought with silver to die for their king. Loyal? Oh, ay! starving, ill-led, unpaid, they were loyal to the death! There's a pattern for ye, Trooper Cotton, who, if ye'll mind what he tells ye, will hold Her Majesty's commission some day when Sergeant Mackay's gone. Ye'll excuse me, Miss Haldane, but the music made me speak."
I noticed that Trooper Cotton seemed to flinch a moment at the mention of a commission, as though it recalled unpleasant memories, and that the worthy sergeant appeared slightly ashamed of his outbreak, while Beatrice Haldane showed a quiet amusement at his Caledonian weakness for improving the occasion. Lucille, however, smiled at him again. "I think that is the prettiest compliment I have ever had paid my poor singing," she said naïvely. "But I have done my duty. I wonder if you would sing if we asked you, Mr. Cotton?"
"Lucille is at an impressionable age," Beatrice Haldane said to me. "Later she may find much that she now delights in obsolete and old-fashioned. We have grown very materialistic in these modern days."
"God forbid!" I answered. "And I think the sergeant could tell you true stories of modern loyalty."
"For instance?" and I answered doggedly. "You can find instances for yourself if you try to see beneath the surface. There are some very plain men on this prairie who could furnish them, I think. Did you ever hear of Rancher Dane, who stripped himself of all his possessions to advance the career of a now popular singer? She married another man when fame came to her, and it is said he knew she would never be more than a friend to him from the beginning."
"I have," and the speaker's eyes rested on me with a faint and yet kindly twinkle in them. "He was a very foolish person, although it is refreshing to hear of such men. Even if disappointment follow consummation, aspiration is good for one. It is more blessed to give than to receive, you know."
Here, to the astonishment of his superior officer, Cotton, who played his own accompaniment, broke into song, and he not only sang passably well, but made a special effort to do his best, I think; while I remember reflecting, as I glanced at the lad in uniform and the rich man's daughter, who sat close by, watching him, how strange all this would have seemed to anyone unused to the customs of the prairie. Ours, however, is a new land, wide enough to take in not only the upright and the strong of hand, but the broken in spirit and the outcast whom the older country thrusts outside her gates; and, much more often than one might expect, convert them into sturdy citizens. The past history of any man is no concern of ours. He begins afresh on his merits, and by right of bold enterprise or industry meets as an equal whatever substitute for the older world's dignitaries may be found among us. How it is one cannot tell, but the brand of servitude, with the coarseness or cringing it engenders, fades from sight on the broad prairie.
Beatrice Haldane presently bade me go talk to her sister, and though I did so somewhat reluctantly, the girl interested me. I do not remember all we said, and probably it would not justify the effort to recall it; but she was pleasantly vivacious of speech, and genuinely interested in the answers to her numerous questions. At length, however, she asked, with a half-nervous laugh: "Did you ever feel, Mr. Ormesby, that somebody you could not see was watching you?"
"No," I answered lightly. "In my case it would not be worth while for anybody to do so, you see." And Lucille Haldane first blushed prettily and then shivered, for no apparent reason.
"It must be a fancy, but I – felt – that somebody was crouching outside there in the snow. Perhaps it is because the thought of that hunted man troubles me still," said she.
"He would never venture near the house, but rather try to find shelter in the depths of the ravine – however, to reassure you. I wonder whether it is snowing as hard as ever, Sergeant," I said, turning towards Mackay as I concluded.
The casements were double and sunk in a recess of the thick log walls, over which red curtains were not wholly drawn. I flung one behind my shoulder, and when the heavy folds shut out the light inside I could see for some little distance the ghostly glimmer of the snow. Then, returning to my companion, I said quietly: "There is nobody outside, and I should have