Douglas Durkin - The Heart of Cherry McBain (Douglas Durkin) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

From the look she gave him he scarcely knew whether she wanted help herself or wished to help him. But the clasp of her hand was so firm, so throbbing with vitality, that he wished he might still hold those fingers closed within his own after they had come to level footing. The thought of it sent the blood coursing through his veins, and an impulse started up within him – an impulse that came out of the very depths of his being and made him forget for the time being everything in the world except this moment on a wild hillside with beauty and grace and youth within his reach.

When they reached the evergreens Cherry bounded ahead and left him to follow. The ground was level and soft underfoot and carpeted with cones and needles. Once she stopped suddenly in a little space open to the sky, and stooping down picked a wildflower and held it up to him.

"Not often you find them growing in a place so sheltered as this," she remarked as she gave him the flower.

He took it and looked from the flower, pure, white and soft, to her face. Unconsciously his gaze shifted to her throat, as pure and white and soft as the flower he held in his hand. Then she turned quickly and hurried off again into the cover of the evergreens.

Once she stopped so suddenly and turned so unexpectedly to meet him that he had almost run into her before he could check himself. Then as he stood in questioning attitude she shook her hair back from her face and with a ripple of a laugh was away again before he could speak.

As King followed her an unpleasant thought came suddenly to him. There was one thing he had always dreaded in women. He had never been quite unconscious of the subtle power they exerted – but he had always been suspicious of their motives. There was something so free, so healthful, so simple in Cherry's manner that he was almost disarmed of suspicion. And yet she was so coy, so wilful, so roguish that instinctively he felt himself assuming the defensive – a defensive, too, against himself and the impulses that arose within him and clamored for expression.

Suddenly she stopped and looked down at a small pool of cool fresh water fed from a little spring that bubbled out of the earth just a few yards away. A half dozen large stones lay touching the edge of the water, and before King realized what she was about, she had dropped her berries and hat and was on her knees with her two hands resting on a small boulder, her lips touching the surface of the water. As he looked at her he could not help thinking what a child she was – and how very much older he was. Nor could he think it any less when in a moment she raised her head and glanced up at him with a rare flush in her cheeks.

"Oh, this is good," she cried. "Look – there's a stone for you!"

He smiled slowly, but her spirit was irresistible. He got down beside her, his hands upon a boulder almost touching the stone upon which she was leaning for support.

When they had both drunk from the pool, instead of getting up immediately, they remained where they were, their hands upon the boulders, their eyes fixed upon the smooth surface of the water beneath them. For a moment only they looked, a moment in which both felt a power like a spell that held them gazing into the far depths that lay mirrored in the quiet pool. They were gazing like two children deep down into the depths of the blue skies reflected far below where the white clouds floated beyond the downward pointing tops of evergreens.

All at once, however, King glanced at the face of the girl where it was smiling up at him from the water – and in a moment he was conscious of a change. Though her face was smiling it was grave too, grave even as his, and he knew that in the look each gave the other there were depths that were more unfathomable than the skies – the depths of life itself in all its mystery and serious meaning.

They got up and walked off down the path towards the cabin, strangely silent, both of them. As they emerged from the cover of the woods and came within sight of the cabin only a few yards ahead of them, Cherry stopped and laid her hand quickly upon King's arm. King glanced at her, and then turned in the direction indicated by her eyes. A man was just leaving the doorway of the cabin where old Keith McBain was still sitting. It was McCartney.

For a moment Cherry stood silently watching him, her hand still upon King's arm. Then she started slowly towards the cabin, her eyes still following the movements of the big foreman as he walked down the path that led from the cabin to the camp.

"You wanted to know why I didn't answer when first you called me to-day," she said, almost in a whisper. "Well – I wasn't sure that it was you – I thought it might be him."

There came into her eyes a look of appeal which changed quickly to the look that King had seen there the night before when she had asked him if he could fight. She seemed on the point of speaking, but with an impatient toss of her head she hurried down the pathway, King following closely behind her.

In another hour King was ready to take the trail again. Beside him stood Cherry, her own black horse waiting only a few yards away.

A dark cloud had risen in the north-east, and King glanced quickly about him at the skies and at the trees rustling noisily in the little breeze that had sprung up.

"It's like rain," he warned her quietly. "Perhaps you'd better not go this time."

The faintest suspicion of a frown passed quickly over her face, but that was all the reply his warning drew from her. Before he could help her she had stepped upon a low-cut stump and had sprung lightly into the saddle.

Keith McBain watched them from his seat near the doorway.

"I'll be looking for you early, my girl," he said.

"I'll be back before it begins to rain," she replied, and turning her horse about started towards the trail.

King got up at once, pausing a moment to bid the old man good-bye before he followed Cherry.

"Look after yourself," the old fellow replied, "and come in next trip. It'll be dull for you now – and we'd be glad to see you."

"I'll come," King replied. "I'd like to come – and I'd like to hear you talk again."

"And send that girl of mine back before she gets too far away," the old fellow called to King who had already started down the pathway.

The clouds that were gathering behind them as they rode westward seemed to hasten the coming of the darkness, although the sun was just setting when they started. Far up the right-of-way, along which the trail ran for a little distance, the western sky was a blaze of glory between the rows of tall trees that stood back from the grade on either side. Once or twice as they rode along King turned in his saddle to look again at the storm clouds gathering in the east. There was little fear of their being overtaken by the storm – it was still a long way off and was coming up very slowly. And yet King wondered that the girl should be so keen upon taking a ride when at any moment the dark bank of heavy thunder clouds might suddenly rush up and force her to ride back through a drenching rain, to say nothing of the thunder and lightning. But such a possibility apparently never entered the mind of Cherry McBain, or if it did she never showed the least concern about it. She urged her horse forward at a steady pace that made King hurry to keep up. Not till they had covered the whole length of the trail lying along the right-of-way and had gone some distance beyond where it turned into the woods and started up the hill did she draw rein. Then she brought her horse slowly to a walk and turned to look behind her. She had not spoken since she left the cabin, and as King drew up with her he ventured to ask if she didn't think she had gone far enough. The look she gave him by way of reply was enough to make him wish he had not spoken.