The Trespasser, Volume 1.

, to the general as the sympathy between the United States and Russia. The highest civilisation can be independent. The English aristocrat is at home in the lodge of a Sioux

a twinge of honest emotion; but his mind was on the dinner and his her

'em pay, shot and wadd

wherever you are, I

A seat had been placed for Gaston beside him. The situation was singular and trying. It would have been easier if he had merely come into the drawing-room after dinner. This was in Sir William's mind when he asked him to dine; but it was as it was. Gaston's alert glance found the empty seat. He was about to make towards it, bu

her, and said: "I a

r civilisation was at work in him. He might have been a polite casual guest, and not a grandson, bringing the remembrance, the cul

only heralds of her feelings were the restless wells of her dark eyes: the physical and mental misery she had endured lay hid under the pale composure of her face. She was now brought suddenly before the composite image of her past. Yet she merely lifted a sle

there had been no preparation save Sir William's remark that a grandson had arrived from the North Pole or thereabouts; and to continue conversation and appear casual put their resources to some test.

ce of red ribbon which she had drawn from her sleeve on the t

ar it till we meet again?

without it, prett

le her for disappointments, and she prizes to her last hour the swift moments when wonderful things seemed possible

xactly as she had tied it, a weird feeling came to her, and she felt choking. But he

er that kind of thing." The warning was sufficient. Lady Dargan could ma

w and

ituation in his hands. Everything had gone well, and he knew that his part had been played with some aplomb-natural, instinctive. Unlike most large men, he had a mind always alert, not requiring the inspiration of unusual moments. What struck him most forcibly now was the tasteful courtesy which had made his entrance easy. He instinctively compared it to the courtesy in the lodge of an Indian chief, or of a Hudson's Bay factor who has not seen the outer world for half a cent

ir William

new Robert well; his

anner as much as possible, for now his mind ran back to ho

y Hunt-something 'away up,' as they say in th

one of the few things from his father's talks upon his past life. He rememb

eclared that she had a head "as long as the maintop bow-line." She loved admiration, though she had no foolish sentiment; she called men silly creatures, and yet would go on her knees

always tell a goo

you: what about tel

t speech; the more so because it was his natural w

at her sister, and sm

He was a startling fellow, and went far somet

ntree, wondering whether a kn

ould he go

sly, with meanness like a snail, and when his blood w

eads! Gaston picked on

told

e from

re i

miles from the

think it was

arrive. You are always

ounds A

a sinner one w

er-cleverer than y

ope

hy

re. I've com

you will stay

s, and died. If I am in it for th

teadily. "You won't be," she replied, thi

? W

of it all-though you'

stion of Captain Maudsl

st

it?" he inquired. She sip

than all this; with the he

him searchingl

like and yet unlike

g his clothe

. She shrank a little: it seemed uncanny. Now

e greater mischief here." Then, aloud to him: "You

nswered. "I am not a good man, and

ther, who had heard a sentence here and there, and felt that the young man carried off the situation well enough. He then began to talk in

To-night he surpassed himself in suggestive talk, until, all at once, seeing Lady Dargan's eyes fixed on Gaston, he went silent, sitting back in his chair abstracted

t Gaston hear

of the picture, if it weren't

Dargan. He was talkin

c strain, and something more! In the remote parts of his being there was the capacity for the phenomenal, the strange. Once again, as in the church, he saw the field of Naseby, King Charles, Ireton's men, Cromwell and his Ironsides, Prince Rupert and the swarming rush of cavalry, and the end of it all! Had it been a tale of his father's at camp-fire?

asured himself a few times with English gentlemen as he travelled, and he knew wh

he had the gift of reducing things, as it were, to their original elements. He cut away to the core of a matter, and having simple, fixed ideas, he was able to focus the talk, w

ette not to cross swords, thought it indecent. Archdeacon Varcoe would not

andfather's mind, and he drov

aid something abou

dangers, but also full of romance. What is the result? Why, a people off there whom you pity, and who don't need pity. Romance? See: you only get square justice out of a wise autocrat, not out of your 'twelve true men'; and duelling is the last decent relic of autocracy. Suppose the wrong

in the drawing-room with his grandfather and grandmother. As yet Lady Belward

red to join us

as paint, sir,

thout a word, and slow

he crippled figure, whic

e. He stepped to her a

simpl

ed; let me carry

id a quick warm hand on hers that held the cane.

your arm, i

"mazed." He had looked for a different reception of this uncommon kinsman. How quickly had the new-comer conquered himself! And yet he had a slight strangeness of accent-not American, but something which seemed unusual. He did not reckon w

he get it? Why, he has lived

painted the man," Lo

had put in Delia Gasgoy

Mrs. Gasgoyne had added,

hangs in the

llowed him until he had caught their glance. Without an introduction, he had co

Belward was comfortably

on,

r's ways: I hope tha

each me!" he a

r cheeks, and her hands clasped in her l

f your life now, but it is better that we sh

s eyes caught the stra

d. "But I would be startin

o hear your father's hist

s-that

me?" asked Lady Belw

en he wa

did he

hard. Tell her that I always loved her.'" She shrank in her

y," Sir William said w

uch of your father's

well

o distance. Presently the blue of his eyes went all black, and with strange unwavering concentration he gazed st

s of tents, horses, and many Indians and half-breeds, and a few white men. My father was in command. I can see my mother's face

red a little, but G

. . I can remember a time also when a great Indian battle happened just outside the fort, and, with my mother crying after him, my father went out with a priest to stop it. My father was wounded, and then the priest frightened them, and they gathered their dead together and buried them. We lived in a fort for a long time, and my mother died there. She was a good woman, and s

ted huskily. "Why di

will be a soft pillow for their heads! You can mend a broken life, but the ring of it is gone

ston seemed brooding,

n, pl

ecluse and a Moravian missionary for awhile. I knew some Latin and history, a bit of mathematics, a good deal of astronomy, some French poets, and Shakespere. Shakespere is

p comes to the port, bringing the year's mail and news from the world. When you watch that ship go out again, and you turn round and see the filthy Esquimaux and Indians, and know that you've got t

nted to start to a mission station three hundred miles on. It was a bad look-out for me, but I told him to go. I was left alone. I was only twenty-one, but I was steel to my toes-good for wear and tear. Well, I had one solid month all alone with my madmen. Their jabbering made me sea-sick some times. At last one day I felt I'd go staring mad myself if I didn't do something exciting

course. I had a box of bullets beside me. They never squealed. I sent the bullets round them as pretty as the pattern of a milliner. Then I

liam in

-Jock Lawson

r keeps 'The Wh

ock Lawson went? He

said. 'Steady!' for I saw him move. I levelled for the second bead of the halo. My finger was on the trigger. 'My God

when I was playing that game. It was like a magnifying glass: and my eyes were so clear and strong that I

drawn and pale, but her eyes were on Gaston with

said, "I w

he impressio

re he backslided, and it came back on him now naturally. Now it would be from Revelation, now out of the Psalms, and again a swingeing exhortation for the Spirit to come down and convict me of sin. There was a lot of sanity in it too, for he kept saying at last: 'O shut not up my soul with the sinne

about him comfortably. It seemed to me that Jock was a baby and I was his father. You couldn't see any blood, and I fixed his hair so that it covered the hole in the forehead. I remember I kissed him on the cheek, and then said a prayer-one that I'd got out of my father's prayer-book: 'That it may

off, and ad

t gives you an idea of what kind of things we

all-eve

said Sir Willi

It is once in a lifeti

ook up t

I urged the man that had been crazy to go, for I thought activity would do him good. He agreed, and the two left and got to the Mission Station all right, after wicked trouble. I was alone with the Esquimaux and his daughter. You never know why certain things happen, and I can't tell why that winter was so weird; why the old Esquimaux should take sick one morning, and in the evening should call me and his daughter Lucy-she'd been given a Christian name, of course- and say that he was going to die, and he wanted me to marry her" (Lady Belward exclaimed, Sir William's hands fingered the chair-arm nervously) "there and then, so that he'd know she would be cared for. He was a heathen, but he had been primed by the missionaries about his daughter. She was a fine, clever girl, and well educa

so far as he could, he wanted to start with a clean sheet; not out of love of confidence, for he was self-contained, but he would have enough to do

wen

speak English in a sweet old- fashioned way, and she used to sing to me-such a funny, sorry little voice she had-hymns the Moravians had taught her, and one or two English songs. I taught her one or two besides, 'Where the Hawthorn Tree is Blooming,' and 'Allan Water'-the first my father had taught me, the other an old Scotch trader. It's different with a woman and a man in a place like that. Two men will go mad together, but there's a saving something in the contact of a man's brain with a woman's. I got fond of her, any man would have, f

his feet. "Great H

ed to rise,

ng impossible," adde

othing impossible-i

ing for the stakes from one stand-

onti

it didn't strike me that she would be out of place. So we went. But she was out of place in many ways. It did not suit at all. We were asked to good houses, for I believe I have always had enough of the Belward in me to keep my end up anywhere. The thing went on pretty well, but at last she used to beg me to go without her to excursions and parties. There were always one or two quiet women whom she liked to sit with, and because she seemed happier for me

ing from the bulwarks down on the landing-stage, and rush up the shore into the woods. . . . We were two days finding her. That settled it. I was sick enough at heart, and I determined to go back to Labrador. We did so. Every thing had gone on the rocks. My wife was not, never would be, the same again. She taunted me and worried me, and because I would not quarrel, seemed to have a greater grievance-jealousy is a kind of madness. One night she was most galling, and I sa

ping and unclasping on the top of her cane; but Sir

urried h

the Rockies and over into the plains; found Jacques Brillon, my servant, had a couple of years' work and play, gathered together some money, as good a horse and outfit as the North could give, and started with Brillon and his broncho-having got both sense and experience, I hope-for Ri

ch, and looked at him wistfully. Sir William said: "

at present; and, anyhow, i

your rights, but of t

to him, and laid a h

tragedy, so have we: nei

worthy-of

on the cheek. Soon afterwar