Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

How long I paced the foggy strip of clearing I do not know. The mist had thickened to rain when I heard the door creak; and, turning in my tracks, caught the lantern's sparkle on the threshold, and the dull gleam of her Oneida finery.

I picked up the lantern and held it high above us.

Smiling and bashful she stood there in her clinging skirt and wampum–broidered vest, her slender, rounded limbs moulded into soft knee–moccasins of fawn–skin, and the Virgin's Girdle knotted across her thighs in silver–tasselled seawan.

And, "Lord!" said I, surprised by the lovely revelation. "What a miracle are you in your forest masquerade!"

"Am I truly fine to please you, Euan?"

I said, disturbed, but striving to speak lightly:

"Little Oneida goddess in your bridal dress, the Seven Dancers are laughing at me from your eyes; and the Day–Sun and the Night–Sun hang from your sacred girdle, making it flash like silvery showers of seawan. Salute, O Watcher at the Gates of Dawn! Onwa oyah! Na–i! A–i! Lois!" And I drew my light war–hatchet from its sheath and raised it sparkling, in salute.

She laughed a little, blushed a little, and bent her dainty head to view her finery once more, examining it gravely to the last red quill sewed to the beaded toe–point.

Then, still serious, she lifted her grey eyes to me:

"I seem to find no words to thank you, Euan. But my heart is—very—full―" She hesitated, then stretched forth her hand to me, smiling; and as I touched it ceremoniously with finger–tip and lip:

"Ai–me!" she exclaimed, withdrawing under shelter. "It is raining, Euan! Your rifle–shirt is wet already, and you are like to take a chill! Come under shelter instantly!"

"Fancy a man of Morgan's with a chill!" I said, but nevertheless obeyed her, set the lantern on the puncheon floor, brushed the fine drops from thrums and hatchet–sheath, rubbed the bright–edged little axe with buck–skinned elbow, and wiped my heavy knife from hilt to blade.

As I looked up, busy with my side–arms, I caught her eye. We smiled at each other; then, as though a common instinct stirred us to caution, we turned and looked silently toward the settle in the corner, where the widow sat brooding alone.

"May we speak freely here, Lois?" I whispered.

She cast a cautious glance at the shadowy figure, then, lowering her voice and leaning nearer:

"I scarcely know whether she truly heeds and hears. She may not—yet—she may. And I do not care to share my confidences with anyone—save you. I promised to tell you something about myself…. I mean to, some day."

"Then you will not tell me now?"

"How can I, Euan?"

We stood silent, thinking. Presently my eyes fell on the rough ladder leading to the loft above. She followed my gaze, hesitated, shot a keen and almost hostile glance at me, softened and coloured, then stole across the room to the ladder's foot.

I lifted the lantern, followed her, and mounted, lighting the way for her along low–hanging eaves among the rustling husks. She dropped the trap–door silently, above the ladder, took the lantern from my hand, set it on the floor, and seated herself beside it on the husks, her cheeks still brightly flushed.

"Is this then your intimate abode?" I asked, half–smiling.

"Could I desire a snugger one?" she answered gaily. "Here is both warmth and shelter; and a clean bed of husks; and if I am lonely, there be friendly little mice to bear me company o' nights. And here my mice and I lie close and listen to the owls."

"And you were reared in comfort!" I said with sudden bitterness.

She looked up quickly, then, shrugging her shoulders:

"There is still some comfort for those who can remember their brief day of ease—none for those who never knew it. I have had days of comfort."

"What age are you, Lois?"

"Twenty, I think."

"Scarce that!" I insisted.

"Do I not seem so?" she asked, smiling.

"Eighteen at most—save for the—sadness—in your eyes that now and then surprises me—if it be sadness that I read there."

"Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned—a knowledge that means sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so plainly?"

"Sometimes," I said, A faint sound from below arrested our attention.

Lois whispered:

"It is Mrs. Rannock weeping. She often weeps like that at night. And so would I, Euan, had I beheld the horrors which this poor thing was born to look upon—God comfort her! Have you never heard how the destructives slew her husband, her baby, and her little sister eight years old? The baby lay in its cradle smiling up at its murderers. Even the cruel Senecas turned aside, forbearing to harm it. But one of Walter Butler's painted Tories spies it and bawls out: 'This also will grow to be a rebel!' And with that he speared the little smiling creature on his bayonet, tossed it, and caught it—Oh, Euan—Euan!" Shuddering, she flung her arm across her face as though to shut out the vision.

"That villainy," said I, "was done by Newberry or Chrysler, if I remember. And Newberry we caught and hung before we went to Westchester. I saw him hang with that wretched Lieutenant Hare. God! how we cheered by regiments marching back to camp!"

Through the intense stillness I could still hear the woman sobbing in the dark below.

"Lois—little Lois," I whispered, touching her trembling arm with a hand quite as unsteady.

She dropped her arm from her face, looking up at me with eyes widened still in horror.

I said: "Do you then wonder that the thought of you, roaming these woods alone, is become a living dread to me, so that I think of nothing else?"

She smiled wanly, and sat thinking for a while, her pale face pressed between her hands. Presently she looked up.

"Are we so truly friends then, Euan? At the Spring Waiontha it almost seemed as though it could come true."

"You know it has come true."

"Do I?"

"Do you not know it, little Lois?"

"I seem to know it, somehow…. Tell me, Euan, does a true and deathless friendship with a man—with you—mean that I am to strip my heart of every secret, hiding nothing from you?"

"Dare you do it, Lois?" I said laughingly, yet thrilled with the candour of her words.

"I could not let you think me better than I am. That would be stealing friendship from you. But if you give it when you really know me—that will be dear and wonderful―" She drew a swift breath and smiled.

Surprised, then touched, I met the winning honesty of her gaze in silence.

"Unless you truly know me—unless you know to whom you give your friendship—you can not give it rightly. Can you, Euan? You must learn all that I am and have been, Is not this necessary?"

"I—I ask you nothing," I stammered. "All that I know of you is wonderful enough―" Suddenly the danger of the moment opened out before me, checking my very thoughts.

She laid both hands against her temple, pressing them there till her cheeks cooled. So she pondered for a while, her gaze remote. Then, looking fearlessly at me:

"Euan, I am of that sad company of children born without name. I have lately dared to guess who was my father. Presently I will tell you who he was." Her grey and troubled eyes gazed into space now, dreamily. "He died long since. But my mother is living. And I believe she lives near Catharines–town to–day!"

"What! Why do you think so?" I exclaimed, astounded.

"Is not the Vale Yndaia there, near Catharines–town?"

"Yes. But why―"

"Then listen, Euan. Every year upon a certain day—the twelfth of May—no matter where I chance to be, always outside my door I find two little beaded moccasins. I have had them thirteen times in thirteen years. And every year—save the last two—the moccasins have been made a little larger, as though to fit my growing years. Now, for the last two years, they have remained the same in size, fitting me perfectly. And—I never yet have worn them more than to fit them on and take them off."